Flat Rate vs Pay As You Go Conference Calling

You’ve already discovered that telephone conference calls and Web conferencing can save your company hundreds or even thousands of dollars per meeting. So why quibble about the small costs involved? For one thing, a penny saved is worth more than a penny earned. For another, the better the deal on conference calling, the more you can use the service to improve productivity.

Let’s take a look at how much you can get for what you pay from AccuConference, a leader in the teleconferencing services field. AccuConference offers both flat rate and pay as you go conference calls.

The Flat-Rate option is perfect for anyone who wants to have regular meetings, even on a daily basis. The beauty of flat-rate is that you don’t have to sit looking at the clock, worrying about what this is costing when somebody takes too long to get to the point. Flat rate is what it says. You pay a single monthly fee that determines how many participants you can include in your conference call. Participants call a 404 Atlanta dial-in number and pay the cost of their long distance calls. You can keep the call going as long as necessary, although people will tend to fade after an hour or two. After 10 hours, the system will mercifully cut you off and you’ll have to start another conference.

How much is this flat rate? It starts at $14.95 per month for up to 5 lines on the conference. Of course, people may be using speakerphones at the other end of those line to include an entire conference room group in the conversation. Five lines is plenty for most working groups and project teams. But what if your company wants to host training calls for employees or affiliates? You’ll need more lines. You can get up to 50 lines for $199 a month and have a conference every day if you have that much material to share.

AccuConference pay as you go conference calls are also toll-free conference calls. There are no set up fees, no monthly requirements or contracts of any type. You simply pay for what you use. What you pay is a small per minute charge, typically 7.9 cents per minute for each participant. Participants call a toll free number and you pay for the cost of the calls.

How about international participants? They can call-in toll free like domestic US callers. The cost for each participant depends on where they are calling from. For instance, callers in Canada cost 9.9 cents a minute instead of 7.9 cents a minute for US participants. Calls from Australia are 12.9 cents a minute, UK participants are also 12.9 cents a minute, while calls from Mexico are 32.9 cents a minute. Most of Europe is under 20 cents per minute.

Now, think about how much it costs to travel to wherever you would have a meeting and then decide how often that cost is worth it. In between visits, you’ll be surprised on how well connected you can be with low cost flat rate or pay as you go conference calls.

Clearance: the IPO speaks

The most recent issue of the UK's Intellectual Property Office e-mag Insight carries a short feature entitled "How do I locate a copyright owner if I want to use the work?" Titles like this are always likely to be a hostage to fortune. The article reads:

"If you want to use someone else's material which is still protected by copyright, and if there is no exception to copyright which covers the situation, you need to seek the permission of the right holder.

You may therefore need to consider who owns or controls the rights in the material. This person could be:

* the creator of the material or his heirs, or
* the creator's employer, or
* anyone else to whom the rights in the material have been sold, or otherwise transferred or licensed, or
* a collective licensing society which has been asked to collect fees on behalf of the rights holder. [Pretty good. In this miserable economic climate the person in control may also be a liquidator or trustee in bankruptcy, as this note mentions below. Another possibility is the Treasury Solicitor's Bona Vacantia division, the website of which providentially contains information about the abandoned copyright it sells]

You should remember that as copyright is an automatic right, there are no registers that can be checked to locate the creator or right holder in a work. There are though organisations representing copyright owners who may be able to assist you in tracking them down.

The copyright protection for many works will continue for 70 years after the [end of the year in which the] creator or owner of the rights in a work has died. The rights will have transferred to someone else, perhaps through testamentary deposition (a will) or by inheritance. If there was no will, or if the creator of the work has not specified where the rights in the material should go, then the normal rules of inheritance will apply. (These rules are not specific to copyright, and advice should be sought from a legal adviser.)

When a company goes out of business or ceases trading, any copyright it may own continues for the customary copyright duration. The rights will be part of the assets of the company, and may be sold or otherwise dealt with by the company or its liquidator, etc.

If you wish to trace a right holder, there is no official body that can help you directly, but you could try the following:

* Contact the appropriate collecting society (see the above link)
* Contact the creator's publisher, agent, representative etc.
* Carry out internet searches on various search engines.
* Establish any family connection.
* Use the WATCH file, (Writers, Artists and Their Copyright Holders) - a joint project of the University of Reading, in the UK, and the University of Austin, Texas, USA. They hold a list of some right holder contacts for some authors and artists.

Please note that if you are having difficulty locating a right holder, you should keep good records of your efforts. (This will help to show that you have been trying to act in good faith.) If you are unsuccessful in tracing the right holder, and still wish to proceed with your project, you should do so with caution. You may wish to set aside an appropriate fee for the use of the work in a special bank account [I've personally felt that, for small-scale unauthorised acts, this should come to roughly what a decent meal for two at a good restaurant would cost you], and, when you use the work, apply a statement indicating that you have tried to trace the right holder, but have failed to do so, and then invite any legitimate right holder to contact you [one can imagine some scenarios in which this is impractical, impossible or just plain unaesthetic]. You should bear in mind that should the right owner appear, they may consider suing you for infringement of their rights, and in such a case you would want to show the right holder, and perhaps the courts, that you have acted in good faith and have made reasonable efforts to try to track down the right holder".

The 1709 Blog invites readers to offer the IPO their own tips and suggestions for the first revision of the advice on this web page.

Eircom users to face Dtecnet scrutiny

The Irish Times has reported ("Eircom to cut broadband over illegal downloads") that

"EIRCOM WILL from today [24 May 2010] begin a process that will lead to cutting off the broadband service of customers found to be repeatedly sharing music online illegally.

Ireland is the first country in the world where a system of “graduated response” is being put in place. Under the pilot scheme, Eircom customers who illegally share copyrighted music will get three warnings before having their broadband service cut off for a year.

The Irish Recorded Music Association (Irma), whose members include EMI, Sony, Universal and Warner, reached an out-of-court settlement with Eircom in February 2009 under which the telecoms company agreed to introduce such a system for its 750,000 broadband users.

The mechanism by which it operates was challenged in the courts by the Data Protection Commissioner. Mr Justice Peter Charleton ruled in the High Court [see IPKat note here] that a broadband subscribers internet protocol (IP) address, which Eircom will use to identify infringing customers, did not constitute personal information.

It is understood that, during the pilot phase, Eircom has agreed to process about 50 IP addresses a week. Irma is using a third-party firm, Dtecnet, to identify Eircom customers who are sharing, and not simply downloading, a specific list of its members’ copyrighted works on peer-to-peer networks. The operation of the scheme will be reviewed after three months.

Dick Doyle, director general of Irma, said his organisation could potentially supply Eircom with thousands of IP addresses a week but it was a matter of seeing what the internet service provider (ISP) was able to process.

Infringing customers will be initially telephoned by Eircom to see if they are aware of the activity on their broadband network. If the customer is identified a third time, they will have their service withdrawn for seven days. If they are caught a fourth time their broadband connection will be cut off for a year. Mr Doyle said international research suggested 80 per cent of people will stop illegal file-sharing if they get a letter from their ISP warning them of the consequences [Is this research published? What's its methodology? Is it reliable?]. ...

... Cable operator UPC has resisted requests from Irma to implement a “three strikes” system and the case is in the courts next month. Last night, a spokeswoman for UPC said it does not see any legal basis for monitoring or blocking its subscribers’ activities".

The 1709 Blog, which hasn't yet heard reports of anyone receiving a call from Eircom, is fascinated to see how effective this procedure will be and hopes its readers will keep it informed of developments as they unfold. Other than a migration of illegal file-sharers to other ISPs and/or fresh identities online, this blogger suspects that the net result of this exercise will be reflected in the increased cost of monitoring and enforcing copyright but without a corresponding increase in sales of legitimate product.

Coz we said so ....

Wiggin have published their 2010 Digital Entertainment Survey, a “comprehensive audit of entertainment and digital activity in the UK today , investigating the behaviour, trends, preferences and attitudes across all forms of entertainment activity”. The findings are based on an online survey of 1,592 UK respondents, said to be representative of the national demographic and conducted in May 2010. And here’s what they found:

• One in two are Facebook users – rising to 69% of teenagers
• 22% would add a widget to their own pages to endorse a product in return for a small reward
• The survey found that 44% of those who currently access content via illegal sources would be happy to pay a monthly subscription fee if that meant they could continue to access music via those sources legitimately (ie if file-sharing was licensed), though over half said that only £3 to £3.50 would be a reasonable subscription fee, while a quarter would be willing to go up to £14.50.
• 29% of the file-sharers admitted that if their favourite illegal sources went legit and started charging a subscription fee, they'd move to a different free-to-use illegal site.
• One third of those surveyed thought that the three-strikes system, set up to combat online piracy by the recent Digital Economy Act, wouldn't change their habits regarding accessing illegal content sources even if other file-sharers did start to have their net connections suspended. If the penalty was stepped up to full disconnection though (which will be the ultimate penalty under the French three-strikes system), some of those would start to think twice.
• 20% said that once three-strikes goes live they'll take a more active role in monitoring people using their internet accounts, while 25% said they thought a fairer way to deal with piracy - rather than three-strikes - was to block access to piracy-enabling services.
• In general terms, 90% of the people surveyed said they weren't keen about paying for access to news sites, with 71% saying there was too much free news available to justify paying any one news provider for their content leaving the question - is 10% of the market is enough to build a ‘paywall’ protected content business for newspapers such as The Times? If consumers did pay – and they want unlimited access – a price of £1 a week seems to work, although 48% still think that is unreasonable.
• 32% of people would be prepared to pay small sums (eg 10p-20p) to have TV programmes streamed to them free of adverts – 28% would do the same for music albums. And 21% for music videos.
• 9% are going to buy an iPad in the next twelve months ….

You can see the full report (for free!) here: http://www.wiggin.co.uk/des_2010_final.pdf

Newspapers now have lost half of core sales

The decline in newspaper advertising eased in the first three months of 2010, but the industry exited the quarter with less than half the revenue base it had in the same period in 2005. Print ad sales for the industry skidded 11.4% in the first three months of the year to $5.2 billion, according to data released yesterday by the Newspaper Association of America. This compares with $10.3

Cell Phone Bill Shock Is So Easy To Avoid

The Federal Communications Commission has gotten so many complaints about "cell phone bill shock" that they are considering new regulation. If you’ve been a victim, this probably sounds like something long overdue. But why be a victim in the first place?

Cell phone bill shock, aka “bill shock”, is the horrible feeling you experience when you open your monthly cell phone bill to find humongous overage charges. Your first reaction may be a stunned silence, followed by rubbing your eyes to see if those numbers are really on the paper. Then a gasp of “WHAAAAT??????”

If you haven’t collapsed by this point, you’ll be scouring the bill trying to figure out if it’s for real or a mistake by your carrier. Overages of hundreds or thousands of dollars have to be a mistake, right?

Oh, no they’re not. Sure, any billing system can make a once-in-a-blue-moon error. The vast majority of the time, however, those charges are absolutely accurate. The problem is that the cellular company didn’t make the error... you did.

That’s right. The error you made was not knowing every picky detail of your contract and/or not paying close enough attention to your usage. Often, the problem arises when someone else uses your phone. Teenagers are blissfully ignorant of wireless contract terms. They’ll play games, download music & videos, and yak it up till the battery goes dead. Hey, it’s not a problem on the home computer or telephone line so why would they expect it to be on a cell phone?

As bill shock victims can attest, this IS a problem with wireless services. That package of anytime minutes has a hard limit. Exceed it and the cost per minute goes up to the Moon. The same is true of data plans. How many people truly realize that they have a 2GB or 5GB limit with large per KB overages above that? If you never hit the limit, you might think you have unlimited service. The first time you exceed it, you’ll get a nasty, nasty dose of reality.

The FCC is considering mandating that wireless carriers send users a text message to tell their customers when they get within 80% of their usage limit or are about to incur expensive data-roaming charges. That sounds like a sensible reminder. If you get the warning and exceed the limits anyway, at least you can’t say you weren’t warned.

If you enjoy the benefits of having a particular phone on a traditional cell phone plan, including getting a free phone, then you need to be vigilant about your usage or upgrade to an unlimited plan so you don’t have to worry about it. But if you want more control over your cellular costs, consider a pre-paid service instead. Pre-paid is just what it sounds like. You buy a certain bundle of minutes in advance and then work them down. When you run out, you buy more minutes or simply stop using the phone... at least for awhile.

NET10 is one of the leaders in pre-paid cell phone service. The “10” in NET10 stands for 10 cents per minute. That’s what all calls cost you. There are no roaming charges, no overages, no contracts and no bills. You pay 10 cents per minute for calls. Text messages are 5 cents each. It’s easy to remember and easy to manage.

It’s really easy to manage NET10 prepaid cell phone service because you buy a special phone that displays your exact airtime balance. When you get low, you can buy more time on the Web, in retail stores that sell airtime “cards”, or by calling a toll free number for NET10. Your minutes don’t expire, but you do need to refresh your service to keep it active.

If you are a casual user or just want to keep a cell phone around for emergencies, pre-paid service can be a big money saver. It will cost you $15 a month on an automatic monthly plan for 150 minutes. That’s half the cost of the smallest plans offered by most traditional carriers. Plus you avoid signing a contract or having your credit checked. When you want to discontinue service, you simply stop using it. Pretty easy, right?

If prepaid cellular service sounds like the service for you, take a few minutes and see what NET10 has to offer in the way of phones and plans. It could save you from that awful cell phone bill shock that has horrified so many others.

Micro USB Car Chargers

The Micro Usb Car Charger is a cigarette lighter to USB adapter so that you can use the same cords that charge your devices on your computer in your vehicle!  At a price of under $10 this is a great alternative to buying an adapter for each device you would like to charge in your car.  Usually those will range from any where between $20 to $30 each, ouch!


I think the main reason I really like this product is A it's black (I really like black electronics) and B it's low profile.  Basically it barley sticks out of the lighter socket in your car, which is great.  I already own a similar product for all my automotive charging needs but this one really catches my eye.  The 12V DC adapter that I currently own sticks out over an inch further then this one does.  You wouldn't really think this is a problem but because of the added length my charger tend to hang a pry the adapter out of the socket or at least dislodge it enough to quit charging my devices.

There are my thoughts now.  Go buy this because it's good, handy, and will save you money!

EverWin Micro Sized USB Car Charger (Black)

iLuv IAD215BLK Micro-size USB Car Charger, Black

UPDATE:  Do you like white electronics better?  Well then have your cake and eat it too with this white version that's only $4.99!

2ND UPDATE: If you don't mind a USB charger that sticks out a little bit more then check out this one.  http://goo.gl/u77L

It's almost 75% cheaper then the other even with shipping!

OBD2 Android App

Here is a great project I've found on the interwebs.  I've been looking for a program like this for my Android phone since I picked up my G1 in Oct, 08.  Unfortunately I've never been able to find an app for Android like this one so this guy is really hitting a good market here.  

It looks like it just the next few days we'll have an updated application to play around with and test.  Good thing for me that I've updated to the latest Cayanogen ROM for my Android phone.  The reason being is that unfortunately this application will only work on Android 2.1 and up due to the new Bluetooth protocols this operating system implements.

I've also found the Bluetooth module that you would need to make this work for about $50!  I'll have to post up a link to buy that product later because I can't seem to place my finger on it right now.  You can also check out the developers pages and get the correct model of Bluetooth chip that you will need to make this work with your Android app.

Here's a great example of some older similar product that doesn't have software for the iPhone or any Android.  I tried to contact the President when I originally purchased my Android phone to try to convey to him how cool his product was and that the market for Android would be huge very soon.  Sadly they still only list software for older phone systems like Blackberry, Palm, and Windows Mobile.  

Check out Brad Hein's main page here at GTOSoft and here is a link to his blog for updates GTOSoft Blog. 

Speed tests: How fast is Sprint 4G with the HTC EVO?

Here's a great article give you some idea of how fast 4G will be on the Sprint.

Speed tests: How fast is Sprint 4G with the HTC EVO? – Android and Me

Fixed Wireless Broadband Services For Business

We’ve come to think of business grade telecom services and copper wireline and fiber optic services. That’s why IT managers may cringe when someone says they’ve got to have new high bandwidth Internet access, point to point transmission or VoIP telephone service right this minute. We all know that there is no such thing in WAN networking as right this minute. Or is there?

An option that’s becoming increasingly available is fixed wireless service. Think of getting the same bandwidth services you have now delivered without the wires. This is quite different from cell phone service designed for mobile use or wireless access points that have a range of only a few hundred feet. It’s also not satellite broadband, which has such long latencies and limited bandwidth that you can’t really use it for any but the most limited applications.

This fixed wireless service uses outside antennas that communicate over a range of some miles. Airband, a leader in this field, has installed base stations in 14 major cities. Each base station can communicate with customers up to 5 miles away, forming a service footprint of 78 square miles. Each customer has a subscriber unit (SU) that provides a two-way radio connection with the base station and a simple Ethernet connection to the LAN.

What services can Airband offer? Broadband Internet is a popular choice. You can get speeds from 2 Mbps to Gigabit Ethernet. Yes, you can get replacement service for T1 lines and DS3 connections. But there is also the standard Ethernet speeds of 10 Mbps, 100 Mbps and 1000 Mbps. Plus you can choose any bandwidth in-between to scale your service to exactly what you need. Don’t worry about picking the wrong bandwidth level and needing an upgrade quickly. Upgrades are made by network software changes and can be accomplished in hours. Installation itself can be completed in just days. What’s that quote you got to bring in fiber? Six months? Outrageous!

Being wireless, can’t anyone just stick up an antenna and intercept your datastream? They won’t have much luck. Airband uses 128 bit AES encryption to keep your data safe. They also offer a 100% uptime guarantee, with service level guarantees on jitter, latency and packet loss.

With such tight control on network parameters, this fixed wireless solution can be used with confidence for VoIP as well as point to point data, business Internet and private IP VPN. There are several options available. You can simply replace your existing ISDN PRI trunk lines (or add new ones) using a SIP trunk with PRI interface. The newer IP PBX systems can often connect directly to a SIP trunk. Or let Airband own and manage the hosted PBX system and just have telephone sets at your location. This is all done on a private IP network so that the quality of your voice communication is assured.

Does this sound like the quality of service you need with the speed of installation and avoidance of copper and fiber line construction costs you require? If so, you may be delighted with how little you have to pay to enjoy fixed wireless services from Airband and other providers. Get details on fixed wireless costs and availability now.

Google TV: Why It Will Fail

Analysis of Google TV and Its Projected Consumer Adoption

Having dominated search, revolutionized on-line advertising and entered the mobile phone business, Google announced plans to conquer TV.  While many have already declared the death of television at the hands of the Internet, the people that know data – like Google – know otherwise.  Television is a strong, sophisticated, vibrant business and in the announcement last week, Google executives acknowledged TV’s dominance. 

The average American watches 5 hours of television a day.  They spend 10 times more of their leisure activity in front of the TV than the PC.  And more than 70 billion advertising dollars are spent annually in the US, with 4 billion TV users worldwide. 

People love TV and they love the Internet, but they love them for very different reasons.  This overview outlines what Google TV is and why it will fail in the quest for consumer adoption and television advertising dollars, similar to Microsoft’s Web TV, Apple TV and Yahoo! TV with their combined market share of around zero.

Google TV: The Pieces and Parts

Google TV is a new platform for HDTV subscribers who purchase new equipment in order to surf the web on their TVs and navigate guide listings more easily.  Google TV lives outside TV’s content and advertising ecosystem, and is an add-on to set-top boxes.

• Platform:  Google TV is a new platform that delivers Android to TVs and companion boxes in an effort to shield third-party developers from television device complexities.  Android delivers the platform and toolset to foster the creation of applications across devices.


• For HDTV subscribers:  Google TV relies on HDMI input so the service is either limited to HD video subscribers, or will require an additional adapter to convert SD video sources.


• New equipment: Google TV requires a device that runs Android and applications, whether a new TV or companion box, which serve as an add-on to an existing set-top box.


• To surf the web:  Google TV is about delivering the open web to television via the Google Chrome browser. This is surprising in light of Web TV’s well-documented failure and the continued lack of consumer demand for a full web browser on TV.


• And navigate TV content:  Google TV’s search results include program listings for easy navigation of television programming.


• Outside the TV content and advertising ecosystem:  With the exception of integration with DISH DVR boxes, Google TV sits outside the TV delivery value chain, which separates Google from the $70 billion of television advertising.


• Augmented with Android phones that function as remote controls:  This helps close the ecosystem gap by delivering TV search terms back to Google servers, but access to the holy grail of linear TV advertising remains elusive.  Nonetheless, Android remotes could be powerful.

Google TV: Adoption

CEO Eric Schmidt admitted Google is not the first company to make an attempt at this.  According to Google, many have tried but got limited adoption for three reasons:

1. Dumbed-down the web for TV.  Google believes the entire web should be brought to TV; however, if this were the only objection, Chrome is all they would need.  In fact, market results are overwhelming in support of tailored applications for devices, whether TV Widgets® for television or apps for the iPhone, which is why Android for third-party developers is actually interesting.


2. Closed solutions, and “closed just doesn’t work.”  The most successful app store, Apple iTunes, is a closed system with numerous participants.  If you want to build an app for Apple, you have to do it their way, according to their rules, to run only on their devices, and if you do, you’ll get distribution.  That’s closed – large, successful, and vibrant – but closed.  In defense of open systems Google says, “Once people have had the freedom to go anywhere, they’re not going back.”  But years of interactive television endeavors validate that once people have an easy, one-click experience, they are unwilling to work any harder.


3. Choose between TV and the web.  Google is right about this.  Solutions that require viewers to switch between devices in order to access a feature will lose 90% of the audience.  An enhanced TV experience must come in a coherent package that provides convenience, control, and context: something that everyone is working on in one form or another.

These are the reasons Google gave for previous technologies’ lack of adoption, so let’s put Google TV to the test and project whether it will fare any better.  Using Everett Rogers’[1] five product-based factors that govern the rate a new innovation will be adopted, and comparing Google TV with solutions delivered in conjunction with TV service providers, specifically EBIF, it doesn’t stack up.

Let’s remember how Google succeeded.  They wrote a brilliant algorithm that re-purposed existing content that satisfied user intent while working within the existing browser and delivery ecosystem.  For interactive television to succeed, a similar compatible approach is necessary.  But that’s not what Google TV is. Google TV is an end-around the TV ecosystem with a complicated setup.

Companion boxes, IR blasters, HD converters – it’s enough to drive an average consumer to Google “martini bars in my zipcode.”  Imagine what would have happened if they had forced Internet surfers to purchase a separate appliance to sit next to their computer.  Simply put, they wouldn’t be a verb today.

Beyond the complexity, Google TV is pricey.  To make it work, consumers have to spring for the Logitech box (rumored to be north of $400) or a new Android HD TV, an even more significant purchase.  And this is in addition to what consumers already pay for cable and satellite since Google TV doesn’t deliver television programming.

Google TV also misjudges consumer behavior.  Every shred of consumer research tells us that viewers want much more from their TVs, but not open surfing of the web.  They want features that enhance programming and let people multi-task to engage with content and advertising more immediately and intimately.  They don’t want to read their email.

Lastly, Google covets a slice of the $70 billion advertising pie, but with the exception of the DISH DVR, Google TV sits outside this lucrative flow of dollars. Google can deliver new ads in their overlays - but that’s not enough.  They have no solution to make linear television spots more targeted and interactive.  In fact, Google TV would create even greater audience fragmentation that undermines television content models the way they’ve de-monetized the newspaper and magazine industries.

I’ve spent the last 12 years bringing interactive television and advanced advertising to the living room. I have the scars and bruises that come from understanding what consumers want, and the platforms, tools, and models necessary to deliver Interactive TV to all American homes; so I don’t make this judgment lightly.

Google TV: Competition

By the time Google TV launches, 25 million cable homes will have interactive features at no additional cost or effort thanks to a joint industry initiative to launch EBIF[2] technology and applications across operators. 

EBIF is a common platform for cable set-top boxes that shields developers from the complexities of devices and operators, like Android.  Digital cable subscribers will receive interactive apps automatically as new features in the guide, or applications delivered directly in-stream with TV shows and commercials.  EBIF apps provide new benefits to consumers with no cost or effort on their part making these types of interactive features highly diffusible.  And actual market data supports this with consumers overwhelmingly engaging with cross-platform apps, programming, and advertising generating high repeat usage, and word of mouth referrals.

Consumers will be able to vote for their favorite American Idol singer with one-click on their existing remote.  And in consumer research performed for FourthWall Media, 60 percent of respondents prefer to vote with their remote with the second most popular choice coming in at a distant 15 percent.

All the activity in the TV space highlights the fact that everyone can sense the nearing media inflection point of enabled footprints and converged devices.  Partnerships are sure to form, which is good.  But the winners will be companies delivering solutions that play to the strengths of all available devices.

Google TV: The Winners

Through increased attention and focused effort Google TV will yield some winners, and they are:

DISH Network: Advanced DVR box with an integrated interactive TV experience combined with the awareness that Google drives.

Logitech: Not the companion box, but Harmony remote, iPhone, and Android apps integrated with a new breed of interactive television apps and platforms.

iPad: iPad apps with TV extensions, like the Comcast iPad controller demonstrated by Brian Roberts at the Cable Show.  An iPad app integrated with a video provider could be the best personal search and discovery platform replacing or augmenting existing EPGs.  Only upon finding the desired program, should the command be sent to TV to tune to the content.

Cable: Google’s entry provides further validation of TV’s value; the power of interactivity, set-top box measurement, and analytics; and the use of extended devices for search and discovery.

Google TV: Conclusion

When Silicon Valley speaks, the world listens in hopeful anticipation of the next cool gadget or rocket-ship ride.  I must admit: I do it myself.  But Yahoo! TV, Microsoft TV, and Apple TV have very little business.  They put out press releases, get widespread coverage, and appear to be conquering the world, but the results aren’t there. 

The television industry is big and complicated and quite different from the Internet.  There are $70 billion of annual advertising spend and $35 billion of programming license fees preventing the disruption the Internet seeks.  The Internet likes disintermediation and driving to efficiency.  TV likes margins. 

No doubt the television business has its problems.  Programmers and operators squabble over fees.  The FCC intervenes resulting in platforms designed by committee.  Programming is more fragmented and it’s harder and more expensive than ever to create a hit.  Television advertising needs to add functionality and measurement.  And many of our stars get arrested for drunk driving and spousal abuse.  We are not proud of that.  But television is a great business that is poised for an enormous coming-out party that will rival the best Silicon Valley rocket-ship ride, and that’s why Google wants in.  Unfortunately, Google TV as presented won’t get them there.  And remember, Google has flopped in other areas adjacent to their core capability – Google Buzz, Google Catalog, Google Answers.  The likelihood of them succeeding in a complex hardware and software business is slim.  They may do no evil, but when it comes to TV, the proposed product will certainly do no good.

M. Ellen Dudar

Chief Product Officer

FourthWall Media

twitter.com/fourthwallmedia

twitter.com/ellendudar

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[1] Everett Rogers, Diffusion of Innovations (New York, NY: The Free Press, 1995)

[2] Cablelabs’ Enhanced TV Binary Interchange Format

From LAN to MAN to WAN

We’re in something of a network revolution right now. Computer networking has deployed many different protocols for communication. Some of these have been borrowed from the telephone industry. But there’s a consolidation underway that is moving toward a single IP networking standard. From LAN to MAN to WAN, it’s all headed toward IP.

The standardization really started in the LAN or Local Area Network. Nearly all LANs are now constructed using Ethernet network interfaces? It’s not that other network architectures don’t have merit. It’s simply economy of scale. Perhaps the PC, more than anything else, helped to settle the issue with 10/100 Mbps NICs (Network Interface Cards) being included as standard equipment. Today’s faster machines offer 10/100/1000 interfaces with RJ-45 as the standard connector. If you want anything else, you have to pay extra.

This economy of scale encompasses not only desktop computers, but laptops, network switches, routers, servers, cabling and various appliances. The higher the volume produced, the cheaper each interface circuit becomes. Until something very much better comes along, Ethernet is the low cost solution.

The situation has been quite different beyond the company premises. The telephone industry has about a 100 year lead on the computer industry. If you’ve wanted to connect two business locations together or join the Internet, you had to convert your Ethernet protocol to something the telephone system could understand. Remember dial-up modems? Today’s equivalent is the T1 line. It’s all digital and offers rock solid 1.5 Mbps connectivity, but it’s a telco standard service.

The LAN to MAN or WAN connection is most often made with an interface called a CSU/DSU. This can be a stand alone box or a card that plugs in an edge router. It provides the protocol and signal level conversion between Ethernet on the LAN and T1 line connecting through the central office.

More recently, the T1 connection and faster speed DS3 and OCx services have been challenged by the rise of Metro Ethernet services. With MetroE, you connect directly from your Ethernet LAN to an Ethernet MAN and back again at other locations around town. Since this is a Level 2 switched service, it’s like having a way to expand your LAN over a much larger area to include other offices, a factory, warehouses, and an offsite data center.

Metro Ethernet melds LAN and MAN with one common service protocol. But what about the WAN or wide area needs? WANs often encompass regional areas of the country or even the entire US. Very large WANs include locations around the world. These, too, can now be joined by Ethernet through MPLS networks. While MPLS has an IP core, it uses its own tag switching system instead of IP routing while on the network. But being a multi-protocol system, it can easily transport Ethernet. Some larger providers have national and international service footprints, making it easier than ever to connect from LAN to MAN to WAN.

Are you interested in maximizing the efficiency of your metropolitan and wide area network services while minimizing your costs? You should get a quick quote on MAN & WAN Network Bandwidth to see how much you could be saving.

Newspapers need objective reader research

This column originally was published in Editor & Publisher Magazine and is being reprinted with permission. To subscribe to the magazine so you can see the full array of industry coverage when it first appears in print, click here.“I sell bellybuttons,” said Robert M. McCormick, one of the greatest newspaper ad salesmen who ever lived. That's the best description you'll ever hear of

Fiber Plus Copper Equals High Bandwidth

We’re bandwidth hungry and getting more so by the day. Both businesses and consumers are finding themselves frustrated by their inability to take advantage of all the latest technologies due to bandwidth limited connections. Productivity vendors and content providers are in the same fix. They’re having a hard time delivering everything they can produce simply because the demand for transport and last mile bandwidth has exceeded the supply.

This situation is reminiscent of the early days of the personal computer. For several decades you just couldn’t get enough processor speed, RAM memory or hard disk capacity. Cheap RAM, huge disks and multi-core processors have pretty much eliminated this bottleneck. Well, not completely. You still find yourself having to upgrade your machines every few years to keep up with the demands of applications, especially video. But today’s limitations on progress are more related to the size of the pipe than the size of the machine.

Seems like the solution is pretty obvious. All we need to do is replace our outmoded copper infrastructure with fiber optic bundles and we’ll have all the bandwidth we can use.

In a sense, that’s what’s happening. Nearly all carriers have embraced fiber optic IP networks and are expanding their fiber footprints as fast as they can. But to think that we’re going to completely retrofit a century and a half’s worth of copper build-out with fiber optics on a one to one basis is just fanciful. Even today there’s no standard that mandates fiber optic service for new homes and businesses as a utility. You can bet that every building gets universal phone service delivered over twisted pair copper. But how many have a multi-fiber bundle terminated on the premises?

Someday fiber optics will be the default for voice, data and video. Copper will be for power. But today’s reality is that most bandwidth will be delivered to homes and businesses over standard copper telco wiring. Fortunately, technology has come to the rescue with new modulation techniques to squeeze higher and higher bandwidths from already installed copper wiring.

For businesses, the hottest bandwidth service right now is called Ethernet over Copper. It is becoming the upgrade of choice by companies who have tapped out the capacity of their T1 lines but can’t afford the construction costs to bring in fiber connections. The new terminal equipment combines the capacity of multiple copper pair to create a single wide bandwidth Ethernet service from carrier to user. The bandwidth is anywhere from 1 to 50 Mbps over a distance of a few blocks to a few miles.

That’s a considerable increase for many small businesses, although medium and larger companies still need to pony up for fiber to get the 100 Mbps to Gigabit Ethernet connections they need. But what about the consumer and companies that have a crying need for higher bandwidth but don’t have the budgets yet for fiber?

AT&T is pursuing a solution for residential users called FTTN or Fiber To The Node. This is a hybrid arrangement that uses the high bandwidth of fiber to get close to a neighborhood and then leverages the value of the already-installed telephone wiring to carry the signals into the home. It’s a way to jack up the speed of DSL way beyond what copper can carry all the way from the central office. How fast? AT&T is reportedly going to start trial service at 80 Mbps next year. That’s faster than the speedy 50 Mbps broadband service offered by Cable’s upgrade to DOCSIS 3.0 modems and even Verizon’s FiOS. Of course, both fiber and Cable have room to increase their speeds as competition demands. But perhaps AT&T can also push the envelope to 100 Mbps and beyond.

FTTN advances can benefit business, too. In metropolitan and suburban areas, carriers establish POPs or Points of Presence where they can connect to their fiber networks. From there they can “light” buildings with fiber service or provide EoC or Ethernet over Copper. The more fiber services there are in a particular area, the more options you have for both fiber and copper bandwidth at reasonable prices with minimal or no construction costs. Knowing where the high bandwidth services are already installed can also be a strategic advantage. If you are looking to relocate anyway, it just makes sense to find a location that already has the network services you’ll be needing. Use the Lit Building Finder to see what fiber optic bandwidth services are nearby.

Tech’s Moo Poo Buy Plan

The Internet is fast on its way to become an insatiable user of electricity and producer of heat. No, not the Internet you think of as vast expanses of fiber optic cables spanning the globe. It’s all the equipment that makes those cables glow with infrared light, serves up the information on that Information Superhighway, and provides the glowing screens we all stare at for most of the day. The Internet is like a vampire on the prowl for new power sources to tap. Now it’s after our livestock.

Relax. Your hamburger is not at risk. Nor is your milk. The Internet is only after electrical power. It’s the huge server farms run by Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and now Amazon that are fast running out of places to plug-in and suck gigawatts. Their traditional sources of coal, nuclear and hydro are becoming tapped out. Their eyes now turn to a less conventional source of power generation that’s brown and round. Pi R Squared? No, pie are powerful. That’s cow pie we’re talking about.

This is where server farms meet dairy farms. One is hungry for resources and the other has certain resources that it needs to get rid of. There’s synergy to be had by getting together according to a recent report. The idea is that a farm’s animal waste, and there’s plenty of it, can be converted into power to run a nearby data center. The waste is consumed in the process and good riddance. The bio-energy stored in the animal dung is turned into electrical power to run sophisticated equipment that makes our Internet experience possible. The lowest tech resource imaginable can enable the highest technology available.

Turning waste into electricity has been around awhile, and it’s becoming more in vogue all the time. Many landfills are now being tapped for the methane gas that results from decomposition deep in the pile. That gas is burned in a turbine engine to efficiently generate energy for years, even decades. A similar principle is used to convert animal droppings into biogas. Once the methane has been liberated, it can run a gas turbine engine just like they have at the landfill.

NativeEnergy has sponsored a number of what they call “Remooable Energy” programs to install manure digesters on family dairy farms. These projects typically take the waste of hundreds of cows and turn them into hundreds of kilowatts. It’s independent small scale renewable energy production. But thousands of servers need tens of thousands of cows to produce enough smelly stuff to generate the megawatts required by a modern data center. Who’s got that many cows?

Factory farms do for sure. Groups of family farms can also have the required threshold of animals needed to make this system work on a commercial scale. That argues for regional facilities that would have both the power plant and data center on-site. Colocation means no transmission costs or resistive power loses. The rejected heat from the power plant can be recycled to support the anaerobic digestion process. It’s neat and efficient and very, very green.

You wouldn’t think that cow pies would be worth much, but the day is coming when power plants will pay for poo. Lumber mills used to pay to have their sawdust hauled away. Now they get paid by companies that turn sawdust into pellets for wood burning stoves. Nobody burns tires anymore. They’re too valuable for recycling to recover the rubber and even the oil content. As electrical demand begins to exceed supply, farmers may find competing bioenergy companies fighting to buy their manure. How ironic it will be when dung is powering the mail servers that bring so much dung to your inbox.

Second Life: intellectual property and virtual property are not the same thing

Second Life is website where users can live, well, a second life. It is a role-play game in which users imagine meeting virtual people, doing virtual things and buying virtual property – for real money. Tens of millions of dollars have been spent and some commentators, such as Lawrence Lessig and Chris Anderson, have held the site up as a paradigm of how to make money out of online communities where many are giving their time and energy for free.

Now some of those who bought virtual property are suing in a class action, saying that Second Life has been misleading users about their ownership of virtual property. The plaintiffs’ accounts had been terminated, depriving them of access to their virtual property. And when Second Life went open source, the claimants say property was devalued, as anyone can now create their own land.

Confusion seems to have stemmed from the conflation of two types of ‘ownership’. Firstly Second Life asserts that users retain copyright ownership of content they create. Secondly they have said users can own virtual property. The first type of ownership is real-world ownership. The second is metaphorical ‘ownership’.

Where a user becomes an ‘owner’ of virtual property by buying it from the site or another user, it seems they are paying for a licence. This licence presumably may or may not incorporate an intellectual property licence. For example, the design of property may not be sufficiently original to attract copyright. There must invariably be aspects of what is paid for that has nothing to do with copyright: a house next door to a virtual celebrity’s house might cost more than an identical house in another location. The consideration here is a place in a game, not something that is protected by copyright.

On the other hand, if Second Life terminates an account they do not remove the user’s intellectual property right of owning copyright in content he created. Rather they stop making use of a licence the user has given.

Second Life is a game, so it’s hardly surprising that ‘owning’ something in a role-playing game should be something different from owning the real-life equivalent. The court must decide whether Second Life has been misleading users with statements like: ‘We started selling land free and clear, and we sold the title, and we made it extremely clear that we were not the owner of the virtual property.’

WIPO VIPs forum launched

A WIPO press release ("WIPO Launches On-line Forum on Access to Copyrighted Works by Visually Impaired") caught this literal-minded reader by surprise today -- till he realised that the words "by Visually Impaired" applied to "Access" and not to "Copyrighted Works". Never mind, the story goes as follows:

"An on-line forum to promote an exchange of ideas and to build consensus on international measures to improve access to copyright-protected works in formats suitable for visually impaired persons and others with print disabilities (VIPs) was launched by WIPO this week. The Forum, which will remain open at least until June 20, 2010, is designed to stimulate debate, enhance understanding, and broaden awareness of the question.

While sighted individuals enjoy unprecedented access [as contrasted with precedented access?] to copyright-protected content, in some contexts, social, economic, technological and legal factors, including the operation of copyright protection systems, can combine to seriously impede access to such works by the blind or other reading impaired persons. Widespread use of digital technologies, in particular, has prompted reconsideration of the question of how to maintain a balance between the protection available to copyright owners, and the needs of specific user groups, such as reading impaired persons.

More than 314 million blind or visually impaired people around the world stand to benefit from a more flexible copyright regime adapted to current technological realities. Individuals with reading impairment often need to convert information into Braille, large print, audio, electronic and other formats using assistive technologies. Only a very small percentage of published books around the world are available in formats accessible to the reading impaired. This seriously compromises the educational and employment opportunities of reading impaired individuals in all countries, particularly developing countries.

In May 2009, Brazil, Ecuador and Paraguay submitted to WIPO’s Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR), a draft treaty proposal, prepared by the World Blind Union (WBU), to spearhead international discussions on establishing a multilateral legal framework on limitations and exceptions to international copyright law for the benefit of VIPs to address the needs of VIPs and other people with reading disabilities.

This proposal, together with other possible proposals and contributions from SCCR members will be discussed during the upcoming open-ended consultations from May 26 to 28, 2010. The outcome of those consultations will be submitted for the consideration at the next session of the SCCR in Geneva from June 21 to 24".

This weblog wonders whether the Forum will throw any new light on the problems of visually impaired persons, which have been known to us since before the dawn of literacy and which often appear to be of peripheral significance when contrasted with other, less pervasive, issues. What is wanted now is not so much an increased awareness of the problems as an increased awareness of the need to address those problems in a manner which is both practical and fair.

Cannonballs and footballs – a judicial comparison

What place is there for common-law tort in the context of statutory IP rights? Future Investments SA v FIFA, decided in the High Court last week, takes a look at the interplay between copyright and the common-law tort of causing loss by unlawful means.

Under a licence from FIFA, IMG Media produced FIFA FEVER, a DVD celebrating FIFA’s 2004 centennial. Future Investments protested, saying home video rights in the ’98 World Cup were theirs. Future, however, didn’t sue FIFA for authorizing copyright infringement, for reasons the judgment does not explore. Instead the action is for causing loss by unlawful means. This tort, clarified by Lord Hoffman in Douglas v Hello!, consists of ‘(a) a wrongful interference with the actions of a third party in which the claimant has an economic interest and (b) an intention thereby to cause loss to the claimant’. The claimants argued that IMG’s freedom to enter into contractual relations with Future was unlawfully interfered with when FIFA warranted to IMG that they held the rights. Floyd J said:

‘I think the most that can be said, on the basis of Future’s pleaded case, is that IMG was somehow discouraged from approaching Future for a licence. At one level this might be thought to be analogous to the cases of causing loss by unlawful means based on intimidation of customers, of which Tarleton v McGawley (1794) Peake 270 provides a colourful example. In that case the master of a ship used cannons to prevent a potential customer from approaching a rival ship. IMG was a potential customer of Future for a licence to WC98 footage, but was turned away by FIFA’s authoritative and (so say Future) wrongful assertion of the right to grant a licence itself. It seems to me, however, that there is a fundamental and decisive difference between keeping your rivals away from your competitor’s goods and keeping them away from your competitor’s intellectual property rights. In the former case the customer has, and should have a free choice as to where to purchase goods, and that choice is being interfered with by the activity of the tortfeasor in scaring them away. But in the case of an intellectual property right, there is no question of any choice. One either needs a licence or one does not.’

The tort’s 400-year case law does offer closer matches, however. Unlawful interference does not have to take the form of a threat. It can be deception. There might only be one person that can own an exclusive IP right but there is no limit to the number of people who can say they own it.

The potential economic threat to local TV news

This is the second of two posts adapted from testimony I am scheduled to present at a Media Ownership Workshop being conducted today by the Federal Communications Commission at Stanford University. The first post is here.Once traditional television programming is married with a robust Internet feed to the family entertainment center, there is every reason to believe most modern consumers will

You’re Not Throwing Out That Cell Phone, Are You?

You’re not really going to throw out that cell phone, are you? In THIS economy? That’s just nuts. Yeah, the contract is expired and you can’t make calls any more. But that’s a wad of bills in your hand there. You wouldn’t throw a handful of cash in the garbage would you? Well, then, don’t toss that moola just because it still looks like a cell phone.

Every year, millions of dollars are hauled off by trash trucks just because people don’t realize that their old cell phones and other electronic gadgets have cash value. Those who suspect that their phone might still be worth something are put off by the thought of having to run a classified ad and deal with people coming to the door, or having to take pictures and write up an auction listing. It seems like too much work for too little money, and it often is. But what if you could drop your old mobile into a prepaid mailer and just send it on its way? It that still too much like work?

The other thing you need to know is that some cell phones, especially smartphones, can be worth a pretty penny. How would you like to open your mailbox and find a check for $100 or more? It could happen. Not all cell phones are worth premium prices, but even if you only get $5, $10 or $20, that’s still a nice chunk of change for a few minutes effort.

Interested? I thought so. Here’s what you do for the next 5 minutes. Check the value of your old cell phone by running a quick search at an online recycler. You’ll get an excellent idea of what it’s really worth by finding the exact make and model, selecting the condition and what accessories you still have available, and clicking the “calculate” button. You’ll find out instantly what they’ll pay you. If you like the answer, request a prepaid mailing box. When it comes, you pack up your phone and accessories, seal the box and drop it in the mail. Away it goes. Once the condition of your phone has been verified, you’ll get a check by return mail quicker than you think.

If it got any easier, that phone would turn itself in for the bounty. What? You got your phone free because you bought it online? Keep that to yourself. You can still get cash for your old cell phone even if you never paid any in the first place. Just look it up and send it in.

While you are at it, check and see if you might have other electronic gadgets that still have cash value. These include video games and gaming consoles, GPS devices, MP3 players, digital cameras and camera lenses, camcorders, Blu-ray players, home audio, projectors, streaming media, external disk drives, PDA laptop and desktop computers, satellite radios, calculators and even movies. That’s a lot of categories. I’ll bet you have some of this stuff hiding in drawers or the basement right now. Wouldn’t you rather have the money before the value of these items drains away completely?

I suspect that once you discover the hidden value of your old electronics, you’ll go on a de-junking spree to get the most money you can. As a side benefit, you’ll have lots of extra space available for your next acquisitions.

On your marks, get set ...

Not a moment too soon, yesterday the OFT gave the green light to Project Canvas, the BBC-led joint venture to create internet-connected television (ipTV news reports). It looks like they won't be short of competition after all as today Google announced its own internet TV system. As the battle lines are drawn between these two rather different monopolies, copyright looks on impartially, wondering whether the integration of conventional TV with internet content could work in favour of the legitimate stuff (as Wired suggests here) or against it.

How local TV could go the way of newspapers

This is the first of two posts adapted from testimony I am scheduled to present at a Media Ownership Workshop being conducted Friday by the Federal Communications Commission at Stanford University.The tipping point is not yet at hand, but the economics of local broadcasting may begin to unravel as dramatically – and irretrievably – in the next five years as they did for newspapers in the

Add International Calling To Your Cell Phone

The reality of telephone conversations today is that at least one of the phones is a mobile. Yet, many US cell phone plans limit you to domestic USA calls. Those that let you call out of the country can make you sorry you did when the bill arrives. Doesn’t anyone offer a way to call Mexico, Europe, China or even Canada at a decent rate?

There is such a deal and you’ll love it. What you need is a special add-on plan to the service you have now. There is no need and, frankly, no advantage to switching carriers mid-plan. Instead, you keep your current US calling plan and add an international calling service to it. It’s fast, it’s easy and, best of all, it’s cheap.

The service I’m talking about is TEL3Advantage
. What kind of rates are we talking about? Right now, TEL3Advantage is offering discounted international rates that include calls to China for 1 cent per minute, Berlin Germany for 1.4 cents per minute and calls to Canada for 0.9 cents per minute. You saw that right. You can call numbers in Canada for less than a penny a minute. I’ll bet you can’t do that on your landline!

Actually, now you can. The same TEL3Advantage account that works on your cell phone also works on your home phone or your office phone. You can use it on any private touch-tone phone.

OK, now back to those incredibly low rates. They’re for real as part of a special 30 day discount. After that they go up to the regular rates that aren’t much higher. China, for instance, is 1.32 cents per minute instead of an even 1 cent. Calls to Canada cost 1.6 cents per minute. Calls to Berlin Germany are 2 cents per minute for the regular rate. Bet you still can’t beat these rates on your regular landline service. Calls to other locations worldwide are also available at eye-popping low rates.

So how does this work? You sign up for TEL3Advantage with a valid credit card or PayPal account. You order a package of minutes for $10, $25, $50 or $100. What you are doing is pre-paying for your international calls. There’s an extra bonus involved. You get extra free minutes with all but the $10 package. How about 900 free minutes to China on sign-up with the $100 plan. Astounding, but true.

Now you are ready to place your call. Simply dial the local access number for the TEL3Advantage service on any phone you have registered. When the service answers, you dial the international number you want to call. Your call goes through just like on any other phone and you enjoy a nice long conversation. At these rates, it can really be a long conversation. When you run low on minutes, the system will recharge you so won’t be left hanging without service like happens on those prepaid calling cards.

Do you have a smartphone? Your life gets even easier when you download a TEL3 app. It is smart enough to know all the local access numbers, so you can just place your international call with no fuss whatsoever.

Thousands of satisfied customers love this service, and why wouldn’t they? There are no monthly fees or taxes, no contracts, no expiration and no obligation. Just fast and easy access combined with extraordinarily low calling rates. Does this sound like a service that will work for you? If so, learn more, take advantage of the introductory specials, note the 30 day satisfaction guarantee and order your TEL3Advantage service now.

Qwest Embraces Ethernet over Copper to Reach Rural Business Locations

Qwest Communications is one of the country’s premier telecom services providers, with a fiber optic backbone that spans the nation with data transmission rates of 40 Gbps. Their next step up will be 100 Gbps. When major enterprises need serious bandwidth, they find that Qwest has all they need and then some. But what about those locations that are a bit off the beaten path? Are they pretty much out of luck or what?

Not any more they aren’t. While it’s true that remote offices of even the largest corporations have a hard time justifying the construction costs involved in trenching fiber cable so far away from the carrier POPs (Points of Presence), that doesn’t mean they can’t get significant bandwidth at decent prices.

The magic that makes it possible for even out of the way locations to get Ethernet services at Ethernet speeds is called Ethernet over Copper. The copper we’re talking about is standard twisted pair telephone cable. Not only that, it is the same telco cable that is already in the ground. Nearly every business location gets multiple pair cabling installed by the local telephone company during construction. It’s traditionally used for multi-line telephone service and, more recently, to bring in DSL and T1 broadband Internet access. The new way to employ the same old wires is to install specialized equipment to transport Ethernet signals over copper.

Qwest has just announced new Ethernet services for nationwide availability. These include 3 Mbps, 5 Mbps, 7 Mbps and 10 Mbps, all delivered over bonded copper pair. The bonding process is a software solution that combines what are normally separate signals on independent copper wire pairs so that they act as one much higher speed conduit. That process was originally employed by carriers to bond T1 lines to increase bandwidth beyond the 1.5 Mbps T1 limit. With different terminal equipment, those copper pair can now deliver Ethernet services as well. You need up to 8 pair to get the maximum 10 Mbps speed level.

Most smaller businesses and branch offices of medium and larger size businesses can run just fine with 10 Mbps bandwidth for last mile connectivity to MPLS networks, dedicated Internet connections, or Ethernet Virtual LAN service. Since the copper is already in place, construction costs are minimized and service can be deployed rapidly. They are also scalable. You can start off with 3 Mbps bandwidth, if that is all you need, and then scale up to 5, 7 or 10 Mbps as your business level requires.

Is your office, plant site or warehouse struggling with too limited bandwidth because you think that a speed increase is prohibitively expensive? You may be surprised and delighted by how much bandwidth you can get for the same budget you have now. The way to find out quickly is to check prices and availability for Ethernet over Copper service in your area right now.