Open Mesh and Telcos Sans Frontieres

Tweet

Read more! It is impossible not to reference Peter Cochrane's keynote at the ABC conference with all that is going on right now....

This blog post can be read at 5tth.blogspot.com



I could be wrong; I think it was in London (2002 or 2003), but it might have been in Aviemore (2004). Peter Cochrane, as one of our 'to die for' keynote speakers at the ABC national conference, stood on the stage, and tried to convince the delegates that personal connectivity would be built into hoodies, jumpers, pushbikes etc.....Your music, photos, data etc would be accessible - anytime, anyplace, anyhow - by something that had no name at the time, but now appears to be entirely encapsulated in a single phrase - "THE CLOUD".

It was a radical suggestion back then...but that's why Peter Cochrane was the keynote at every major conference we held......(along with Malcolm Matson and others - oh, you newbies, please Google our events - you have no idea how frustratingly old hat your so-called 'visions' are to some, nearly a decade later!)

I remember the "Not in our lifetime" incredulity from the audience.

But then, I spent an happy hour on the LAN gaming bus with him (Must have been Aviemore) and we shared so many ideas; PC moved as much our way as we had during the speech. By the end of that conference, anyone who was monitoring the activity at the edge could have taken the world on from those conversations! (Obviously, they didn't, or UK wouldn't be in such a dire telecomms state now......)

Now, this week, whilst democratic rights are being challenged on the ground (Egypt, Tunisia, Libya etc) and in cyberspace (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn etc), OpenMesh launches, and to some of us, it seems like such an old idea....

So, it must be good!

What we are talking about here is a system to allow you, me, everybody locally, to connect to our neighbours, friends, family. And then, to reach outside the walled garden, without telco involvement. Obviously, for BT, Orange, Verizon et al, this is not an option that curries favour. However, for consumers, it does.

£50 piece of kit, sown into your cuff, that makes you 'part of the network'......

If, by November, the Kindle could be free, to encourage you to buy e-books, (just as the mobile operators function - free phone, you use the network) then imagine all the vested interests who in the same time period might want you to be connected to the Net and your neighbours........

Personally, I would say, watch this space.

If each of us could become part of the Smartgrid required to reduce electricity consumption (be that in a pointlessly greedy, energy-hungry data centre, or to feed back the water leak telemetry required to stop one of our nationalised water companies spewing water into the ground), or make wind turbines more useful, or put PVs on village halls in Eden that work all year round, or....or...or.....

I'll be happy to provide backhaul, as will others within my neighbourhood, to the world outside the Garden of Eden for nothing, if my neighbours are willing to OpenMesh and save me from trying to resolve the issue of putting that antenna back on the Chamley Arms after the bad weather.

OpenMesh is just one break point in the telco world right now - there are many more. Every community, council, LEP, LSP, public sector org etc should seriously think before giving a SINGLE PENNY to the olde worlde telcos from now on. Because, potentially, what you want to achieve can be done for a few squidlets of private investment from your constituents and using people power.....

Ye olde telco world of switchboards, exchanges, cabinets, and long distance calls is long gone, my friend.
Read more!

USC - the too low bar

Tweet

Read more! Peter Cochrane comes up trumps again. If you haven't read his latest post about the need for high bandwidth, make it the one thing you do today. This blog post can be read at http://5tth.blogspot.com

Whilst the majority of the post could be read as relating to business benefits, you can also substitute personal and individual benefits to every point. You could spend hours imagining what the world would be like with more bandwidth....here's a few f'r instances.

1. Outputs can be as simple as kids developing their own video series (probably not for mass consumption, but you never know!) during the school holidays when one is in Spain and the other in the UK. "I've got this video I made to start us off.I should be able to upload it over the next few hours whilst you go to the water park, get distracted and forget the original idea entirely...."

2. Whether this is travel to a family event, a hospital appointment from your armchair, or a simple video conference showing your daughter how to make Yorkshire puddings now she has left home...."No, not like that!"

3. Team working happens in every family and community, and between communities - look at how successful town twinning has been in developing relationships, both personal and commercial. The limitations are always the geography and communication tools e.g. the need to visit somewhere and see for yourself what they might mean when describing a particular opportunity.

4. "What do you mean you couldn't find the answers for your homework?" "I've uploaded all the Parish videos, photos and cine film for the last 40 years this morning." "Your X-Rays are in your inbox - now, if you look here you can see..."

5. Thin clients instead of complex computers that people can't use, software expenses dramatically reduced, walled gardens for non-competent user protection, etc. Tornado/flood approaching? Pick up your laptop, move to somewhere safer and all is still there in the cloud. Green data centres for localised content storage not requiring expensive Internet transit.

6. As Peter says, we can't even begin to guess what this will bring, and it will all become as second nature to us in the next few years - virtual naturality.

7. Communities will have access to data to mash up for their locality to better understand what impact certain decisions will have, based on modelling, best practice and lessons leaned elsewhere.

8. Rapid prototyping and manufacture - "I've made this out of plasticine, 2 margarine tubs and a stick of rock, but I need the gearing out of metal and then it will make rope for my Action Man's climbing expedition." "The village clock needs mending, but the quote was so expensive, we'd never afford it. But John designed the required part in the pub last night with Jimmy and it should be ready tomorrow."

9. Add in all the user, rather than just the Hollywood/Murdoch created content, and this becomes oh so exciting. Citizentube Live, oh wow!

10. See previous post about FiWi!

What Peter has done has taken everyone beyond 'broadband' into the world of what is easily achieveable when you remove the scarcity model. All the USC is doing is attempting to restrict us entrance into that world for much longer.
Read more!

Cochrane & Felten say it how it is

Tweet

Read more! Today's homework: Read this from Peter Cochrane about the telcos helping themselves instead of moaning, and this from Benoit about, um, telcos helping themselves. There will be a short test at the end of the week. Read more!

How soon we forget...

Tweet

Read more! So many people are entering the broadband and FTTH arena suddenly, I thought I would look up some historical items that might be of interest to the newbies. Oh, and some of those who have been around a while who forget what has already been said and done....so here's #1...

When I put Peter Cochrane, ex CTO of BT, up for sale on Ebay in the run-up to The Endgame Conference in 2005, and why....you may realise on reading Tim's article (or Peter's book) why some of us have a feeling of deja vu, and utter frustration, right now!

Read more!