Comments on: Open Data more than Open Source Debates is What Matters Now

By: Mark Kuznicki

Mark Kuznicki — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 18:36:59 +0000

Another great post Tom. Patrick's TO Hydro fibre concept and St. Arnaud's customer-owned last mile proposal (thanks Rohan!) are interesting. The current path is troubling, as is the lack of imagination demonstrated in mainstream conversations. This post and others like it open the conversation further. I would encourage anybody interested in pursuing these issues and possible solutions to come to Open Cities on June 23/24 in Toronto. Propose a session to discuss open and/or local innovations to counter telco lockdown and re-intermediation attempts. I'm sure it will gather a lot of interest!

By: Mark Kuznicki

Mark Kuznicki — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 18:36:00 +0000

By: Rohan Jayasekera

Rohan Jayasekera — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 02:39:53 +0000

On the subject of last-mile I recommend reading A Business Strategy to avoid the two tier Internet by Bill St. Arnaud, Senior Director Advanced Networks, CANARIE. He covers an alternative where the last mile is owned by the customer and ends at a “neighbourhood colo” where it’s connected to a carrier of the customer’s choosing (there will be more choice because such carriers are not faced with building the last mile).

That document is a PowerPoint presentation, but if you Google “bill st. arnaud” “avoid the two tier” the first match will be the document and you can choose “View as HTML”.

By: Rohan Jayasekera

Rohan Jayasekera — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 02:39:00 +0000

That document is a PowerPoint presentation, but if you Google “bill st. arnaud” “avoid the two tier” the first match will be the document and you can choose “View as HTML”.

By: Patrick Dinnen

Patrick Dinnen — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 14:31:35 +0000

I think there’s huge potential for innovation in Canada, if only we could get fat, cheap, two-way pipes to more homes/businesses/mobile devices. I don’t see Bell/Rogers offering that anytime soon though. At last year’s iSummit (aka ICE) I heard reps from both companies using describing Walled Gardens as the way of the future, that would have been bad in 1997 but in 2006 it seemed criminal.

As you point out, there’s a huge reason for RogersBellCo not to give us these pipes, because they really enjoy the profit margins on selling us video and voice using last century’s technology. RogersBellCo don’t want to give TimbuktuTVCorp or BangaloreVoiceCo the opportunity to compete against them that would come with providing Canadians access to ubiquitous, cheap data.

Seems like competition, real competition, for Bell and Rogers in the last mile connectivity market is needed. I’m not a free-market-fixes-all believer, but it seems obvious that in this case a competitor who isn’t profiting hugely from the status quo is what’s needed. Where that competitor comes from I don’t know. A spectrum policy question, perhaps?

Perhaps Toronto Hydro could get into fibre to the home business as a local kick start. They don’t seem to be doing so great at WiFi, but I believe they know fibre and that I would pay for.

By: Patrick Dinnen

Patrick Dinnen — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 14:31:00 +0000

Perhaps Toronto Hydro could get into fibre to the home business as a local kick start. They don’t seem to be doing so great at WiFi, but I believe they know fibre and that I would pay for.

By: Rohan Jayasekera

Rohan Jayasekera — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 04:10:03 +0000

I intend to profit from the situation by selling head-mounted satellite dishes. They won’t work inside, but that’s when you use WiFi. And outside they keep you dry when it’s raining.

By: Rohan Jayasekera

Rohan Jayasekera — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 04:10:00 +0000

I intend to profit from the situation by selling head-mounted satellite dishes. They won’t work inside, but that’s when you use WiFi. And outside they keep you dry when it’s raining.

By: content source » Open Data more than Open Source Debates is What Matters Now

Mon, 16 Apr 2007 19:23:57 +0000

[...] Jonas wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptOn the open internet, better just use that data connection for *very* small WAP pages. For rich media, there’s no way you can use this connection for anything but Rogers Rich Media content. Warning the product and rate descriptions on … [...]