Microsoft’s answer to Adobe Flash hit the streets today. Silverlight 3 has a ton of new features including:
Hit the link above with the browser of your choice to download and install a copy. Mac and PC are fully supported.
So let’s assume that you want to solve the problem of ISPs who employ Bandwidth Management. You’ve got two options according to those who testified in front of the CRTC hearings yesterday. If you’re the Canadian Association Of Internet Providers, competition is the answer:
“When you increase competition in the market, the whole [internet traffic management], net neutrality debate will go away,” said Christian Tacit, counsel for the Canadian Association of Internet Providers. “I really do think this will take care of itself, as will the congestion issues.”
But if you’re University of Ottawa’s Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Research Centre (CIPPIC) or the Campaign for Democratic Media, that may not be enough. Strict rules are the answer. Here’s what CIPPIC had to say:
Competition is necessary, said David Fewer, acting director of CIPPIC, “but it’s not sufficient to address the problem.”
The Campaign for Democratic Media went further:
Steve Anderson, co-founder of the Campaign for Democratic Media and the Save our Net Coalition, said more competition will certainly help, but is something that could take years to happen.
“We need rules now,” he added.
I must admit that I have to agree with Anderson and Fewer. The way things are right now, the smaller ISPs like Teksavvy and Execulink buy their services from Bell. So unless another large telco sets up shop in Canada and has the ability to run “last mile” connections to customers, or these ISPs find a way to bypass Bell, there will be no true competition and these ISPs will be screwed by Bell. So the CRTC needs to lay down the law and make this sort of behavior verboten. That’s the only way this problem will be solved in the long term.
Day 5 of the hearings should be underway now. You can listen in live via this audio feed.
UPDATE: Recordings from the previous days in MP3 format can be found here.
Frequent readers of my blog will know that I think that the Internet speeds available in Canada are absolutely craptastic when compared with what’s available elsewhere on planet Earth. Rogers is trying to change that with the announcement of a 50 Mbps DOCSIS 3.0 Internet service which would put them on par with ISP’s like Comcast in the US. Now as is typical for Canada, this will be rolled out in the center of the universe by Canadian standards Toronto first. Then it will be rolled out elsewhere from there.
The service is being rolled out along with a DOCSIS 3.0 compliant 802.11n wireless gateway that is apparently worth $200 CDN. But if you want to score one for free, Rogers is apparently offering the gateway as part of a contest that you can read more about here. You’ll need to sign up for the “Ultimate” service which is $150 a month though.
The only thing missing from their press release is if there are bandwidth caps on this service and if it is throttled or not. Seeing as every other Rogers Internet offering is currently capped and throttled, I imagine that the answer is yes to both. Perhaps my “new best friends from Rogers” would clear up those points for me.
UPDATE: Digital Home Canada is reporting that there will be a 25 Mbps tier as well and the details are as follows:
Extreme Plus:
Download: 25 Mbps
Upload: 1 Mbps
Data Transfer: 125 GB per month
Ultimate:
Download: 50 Mbps
Upload: 2 Mbps
Data Transfer: 175 GB per month
So it looks like there are caps. Pretty low ones at that. FAIL! No word on throttling though (although one suspects that’s going to be present).
A frequent poster to their forums called rRep has posted roll out details sorted by postal code as well.
I’ve just come across a thread over at precentral.net that seems to indicate that the early adopters of the Pre are not impressed with the build quality of the device. Here’s some more notable quotes:
I am EXTREMELY disappointed with the build quality of the hardware and even mroe disappointed that Palm has not acknowledged it or starting fixing the issues. My first pre had a bunch of hotspots at the bottom of the screen, my second pre was sent to me by Palm and it turned out to be refurbished with the slider tracks all over the place, and finally I went into a sprint store to get a new one, but found a dead pixel when I got home.
And:
Well, the problems are real. I’m on my 5th Pre, all had problems that were unacceptable. My current one has a stuck pixel, but I’m okay with that.
And finally this:
My current phone (#5) has at least 2 bad pixels and I’ll live with that. But Pre #2 had at least 11 stuck pixels and and Pre #3 had at least 9 stuck pixels. I don’t think it’s unreasonable for me to say that that is too many.
That by itself wouldn’t make me post something like this. But when people start posting pictures on the Interwebs, you have to start taking it a bit more seriously.
Now I’ll be the first to admit that when you launch a brand new product, bad stuff will happen and complaints will surface. Just look at the launch of the iPhone as an example of how things can go pear shaped. When that happens, a decent product will often get killed because of all the negative press. So if I were Palm, I’d get in front of this issue quickly. It doesn’t matter if it’s ten people who have this issue or a thousand. The negative press stands to kill any hope the Pre has of rescuing Palm.
I stumbled upon this trailer for Microsoft’s upcoming release of Office 2010. That’s right, it’s a trailer for a suite of Office apps. It was created for Microsoft by a guy named Dennis Liu for what it’s worth. It’s cheeky and enjoyable. Take a look and see for yourself.
The CRTC hearings into Bandwidth Management entered day 3, and opponents lined up to tell the CRTC that they need to make Bandwidth Management verboten in Canada.
Film makers were the first to say how craptastic Bandwidth Management is:
“If allowed to take root, such practices may choke off the only distribution method that currently allows independent producers to directly reach their audience” without having to through gatekeepers such as broadcasting companies, said John Barrack, national executive vice-president and counsel for the Canadian Film and Television Production Association (CFTPA).
You’ll also note that the ISPs who are best known for employing Bandwidth Management techniques (that would be Bell and Rogers) also have TV and Pay Per View services that would be bypassed by film makers who go direct viewer(which means no money for them). The more cynical among us would argue that that’s a factor in their decision to employ Bandwidth Management.
But I digress.
People with disabilities also showed up at the hearings to express their displeasure at ISPs who throttle:
P2P file transfers are also an important resource for people with disabilities, argued representatives of the Council for Canadians with Disabilities and the ARCH Disability Law Centre Wednesday.
For example, many deaf people rely on closed captions and scene descriptions for educational and other films.
The Adaptive Technology Resource Centre at the University of Toronto encourages the public to create those and then distribute them via P2P networks, where people who are disabled can access them, said director Jutta Trevarinus, one of the experts who spoke on behalf of the advocacy groups.
But Trevarinus said she has noticed problems when using P2P distribution through Rogers and Bell internet services even at times of the day when traffic is low and the companies say they don’t use traffic shaping.
Advocates for the disabled also testified they are worried about proposals that certain programs should be given priority as part of internet traffic management, as a lot of people with disabilities rely on non-standard programs and devices.
Some of those already don’t seem to work well with the Bell and Rogers networks. Trevarinus said she isn’t sure why the speeds on the networks seem slow when using those applications.
That’s something that I wasn’t aware of. I’ll have to remember that the next time somebody tries to tell me that Bandwidth Management is good for customers.
A quick reminder. If you want to hear what’s going on at these hearings, there’s a live audio feed available.
Google’s Jacob Glick (Canada policy counsel for Google) made an appearance in front of the CRTC Bandwidth Management hearings yesterday. Glick who works for the company that preaches that its core value is to “do no evil” made it clear that it thinks that bandwidth management by ISPs is “evil”:
“Giving carriers the power to slow down applications at their own discretion will change user behaviours, distort innovation and undermine the competitive market in applications,” said Jacob Glick, Canada policy counsel for Google, at the second day of Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission hearings in Gatineau, Que.
Exactly! That’s why this sort of nonsense by ISPs has to be prohibited.
The other thing that came out of Tuesday’s session is this:
Toronto-based technology consultant Jason Roks said new applications that consume more bandwidth are constantly being developed, and that’s a long-term problem that throttling certain applications won’t solve.
He said the real issue is ISPs are overselling their networks. If they can’t afford to upgrade their networks to support that many customers at advertised speeds, they should let customers go, he argued.
No kidding. Here’s an example of the above. I was once a Rogers High Speed Internet customer. But over the years my connection speed got slower and slower. I called their tech support line and they tried to blame my computers for the issue. Sorry, no dice dudes. So when I called them on it, they finally admitted that there were too many people on my network loop and that they would have to segment the loop to get my speed back to where it should be. That was going to take six to nine months. When I told them that was completely unacceptable as I wasn’t getting the speed that they advertised, they gave me a 50% credit for “degraded service.” I took that credit and switched to a DSL provider within a week. They gave me exactly the speed that they promised which is why I went with that DSL provider.
The fact is, there are tons of consumers out there that aren’t getting the Internet service that they’ve paying for as I get calls from them for assistance all the time. They call me because they suspect that something is wrong and their ISP lies to them tells them that speed related issues are the fault of their computer or router. Thus they need to get someone to prove that their ISP is lying to them incorrect.
If you want more on this subject, CBC Marketplace did a story on this about a year ago that is worth looking at. Plus I’ve written about how you can see if you’re getting what you’re paying for in the past as well.
Remember if you want to hear what’s going on at these hearings, there’s a live audio feed available.
You read that title right. According to the Official Google Blog, Google is getting into the OS business. Called Chrome, this OS will be an open source, lightweight operating system with the following goals in mind:
Speed, simplicity and security are the key aspects of Google Chrome OS. We’re designing the OS to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the web in a few seconds. The user interface is minimal to stay out of your way, and most of the user experience takes place on the web. And as we did for the Google Chrome browser, we are going back to the basics and completely redesigning the underlying security architecture of the OS so that users don’t have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates. It should just work.
Interesting. While that should be enough to get Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer throwing some chairs across his office, you’re probably wondering why I’m mentioning Apple in this story. If you look at the above paragraph, the way they describe how the OS works sounds a lot like OS X from Apple. I bet that this has the full attention of “The Steve.” Both companies should be paying attention to this announcement if they’re smart.
So what will this OS run on? What type of computers will I see this OS on? Google is working on support for ARM and X86 processors and you’ll see this on netbooks sometime in the next year.
I for one can’t wait. Only because this announcement will shake up the OS landscape.
If you’ve read my blog over the last few months, I’ve been kind of critical of the Palm Pre. One of the reasons that I haven’t shown it any love is the fact that it wasn’t a GSM phone:
The Pre uses EVDO and not HSDPA. Palm must have missed the memo that HSDPA is what most of the planet uses for wireless data and they would have been better served to use that standard on the Pre. But I suspect Palm’s desire to get a carrier that would bend over and take it like a prison bitch play ball with them supersedes the need to make a smartphone that not only could be used outside North America, but would be available to a wide variety of carriers world wide. At least it has WiFi so Pre users who buy it from Sprint can go to Europe and still get their e-mail.
Is that harsh? Yes. But it’s true. That changed slightly today. Palm has announced a GSM version of the Pre. The problem is, it’s been announced for Europe:
Palm, Inc. (Nasdaq:PALM) today announced that the Palm(R) Pre(TM) phone is scheduled to be available initially in the UK, Ireland and Germany exclusively on the O2 network, and in Spain exclusively on the Movistar network, in time for the holidays. Palm Pre, the first phone based on the new Palm webOS(TM) mobile platform, brings your information from the many places it resides – on your phone, at work or on the web – into one simple, integrated view.(1)
Well, that’s craptasitc. I guess as far as Palm is concerned, North Americans on GSM carriers like Rogers/Fido, AT&T Wireless, and T-Mobile don’t need a GSM version of this phone. They’d be wrong of course. Just look at their competitors who either put phones out on both GSM and non-GSM versions, or stick with GSM only. Sadly, I think that they’ll figure this out the hard way when their North American sales don’t meet with their expectations.
Rogers Introduces Netbook With Embedded 3G Wireless
Posted in Commentary with tags Rogers on July 10, 2009 by itnerdWow. Two major announcements in two days. Rogers is on some sort of roll. A day after announcing a 50 Mbps tier for their high speed Internet service, Rogers has announced that they’ll start selling HP Netbooks with embedded 3G wireless:
The HP Mini 110 netbooks now available include embedded mobile broadband technology to connect to the Web over Rogers 3.5G wireless network across Canada – three times faster than any other – offering customers the freedom to choose when and where they enjoy a true broadband Internet experience. With download speeds up to 7.2 Mbps, Rogers mobile Internet ready netbooks deliver the ultimate convenience and productivity for work or play online with just a few clicks – no need to search for WiFi or wired access.
This Netbook features a 10″ screen, an Intel Atom processor, up to 1GB of RAM, a 160GB hard drive and a keyboard that is 92 percent the size of a standard laptop keyboard. It’s going to be $299 at Future Shop and Best Buy stores across Canada with a two year data plan. Points to Rogers for finally getting a clue making it a two year commitment rather than three years. One can hope that Rogers makes this standard across their entire product lineup. If they’re smart they would. But this is Rogers we’re talking about, so who knows? Data plans start at $25 a month for 500MB, but you’ll really need to get more than that as you will burn through 500MB quickly and then Rogers gets to nail you with extra fees.
Leave A Comment »