In recent months LG Electronics, Panasonic and Samsung have announced television sets that allow people to view online content such as videos and photos through an easy-to-use web interface that’s built into the TV. What this also can enable is two way video communications – though the cameras need to be separately purchased from the television.

Earlier this week GIPS held a webinar on the topic ‘Is the Television the next Two-Way Communication Tool?’ If you didn’t have a chance to listen to the webinar, you can always listen to the recorded version. We took polls from the live audience, as what better way to affirm our own research conclusions on the TV as a future two-way communication tool.

We directed 4 polls to the audience and 400 people provided the following results:

As TV audiences have fragmented and evolved their tastes, the television has become less central to the home/family experience.  The evolution of the TV as an interactive device has the ability to take back ground lost as a focal point in the home – recapturing the living room perhaps. 98 percent of poll respondents view the TV as becoming an interactive consumer electronic device and perhaps competing with the PC.

The live webinar audience was a solid mix of broadcast industry professionals, so it was interesting to see their response to this question: Who will benefit most from two-way communication via the TV? There are opportunities for all slices within the broadcast industry but ultimately who will benefit is the user. While we didn’t include the end user in this poll, our assumption was that the TV watcher will ultimately benefit in the long run.

While this next poll would be better directed towards consumers – it was interesting nonetheless to gauge the industry professionals’ opinion.

Finally, we asked the broadcast audience when they see the rollout of interactive programming and TVs. Well it’s already happening and as we discussed in the webinar. Oprah, CNN and Sports reporting are just a few of the places this is already happening.  The times are a changing for the broadcast industry and as Charles Darwin said: “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”

It’s no secret that GIPS is focused on real-time IP voice and video communications. We are always watching market trends. This morning was no exception. I was going through the latest Cisco Visual Networking Index (CVNI) and noted with interest that, among other things, IP traffic in the Middle East and Africa will reach 1 exabyte per month by 2013.

According to the CVNI, at a CAGR of 51 percent from 2008 to 2013, Africa and the Middle East will exhibit the highest growth of any market in the world. The next highest growth will be in Latin America at 50 percent, Central Eastern Europe at 49 percent, and in fourth place, Asia Pacific at 42%.

I poured a cup of coffee and sat back to consider these market statistics for a moment.

Then it happened. An article on my news feed grabbed my attention. The headline was: “Pigeon transfers data faster than South Africa’s Telkom”.

For those of you who care, Telkom is South Africa’s leading Internet Service Provider (ISP) with annual revenues of almost $1.0 Billion USD and about 1.8 million subscribers. The economy of South Africa is Africa’s largest. Internet speed and connectivity are poor because of a bandwidth shortage. It is also prohibitively expensive.

The test was performed by Unlimited IT, a call center operator that has grown increasingly frustrated with the speed and capacity of the Telkom internet infrastructure.

You’ll be pleased to know that the 11-month-old pigeon, “Winston”, took one hour and eight minutes to fly the 80 km (50 miles) from Unlimited IT’s offices near Pietermaritzburg to the coastal city of Durban. He had a data card strapped to his leg. When he got there, his handlers leisurely downloaded the data and accomplished the entire file transfer in two hours, six minutes, and fifty-seven seconds.

The article goes on to say that Unlimited IT had transferred only four percent (4%) of the data over the Telkom network in the same period of time. Presumably this means that if everything stays linear, “Winston” was 25 times faster than the Telkom network. Let’s give a shout out to “Winston”.

Incidentally, the article also mentions that “Telkom could not immediately be reached for comment.”

I think it’s time for Winston to carry another message. Naturally it will be addressed to Telkom management.

Hot off the tales of the HD summit last week in New York, I was bemused to see a BBC reporter sitting in the very seat I occupied in Central Park last week using the free Wi-Fi connection. While I could still use googletalk there (and overcome the VoIP challenges of a poor Wi-Fi connection) her report from Central Park was interesting because she might have as well been in rural Northern England and got a better connection.

BBC’s Michelle Fleury report was part of a larger article on broadband speeds available in member countries of the OECD. Fleury reported on how the US’s free market leaves it with slower web access than other countries. As well documented Japan, South Korea and the Northern European countries lead the world in broadband access, while the US saunters behind countries such as New Zealand, Czech Republic and Austria.

While the US broadband has been driven by free-market development, it is generally more expensive and slower than most other OECD countries.  Now that $7 billion in US tax-payers funds has been earmarked for broadband development  – the FCC will be responsible for rolling out faster and hopefully cheaper broadband.

Broadband networks are fundamental for economic and social development in every country. These networks serve as communication and transaction platforms, which are as crucial as other infrastructures such as roads, rails and airways.

At the HD summit, the mobile operator and Internet service provider, Orange (France Telecom) pointed out that they provide superior broadband speeds for 30 Euro per month – tax included. An equivalent broadband speed here in the US (50Mbps) costs between $90- $150 per month.

While this BBC report is dismaying, I’m an optimist and believe broadband speeds will increase in the US and with it the push for HD voice.

Cable and telephone companies are preparing for a meeting tomorrow as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) starts work on a US national broadband strategy. Two items on the ticket are: Promoting Diversification of Ownership in the Broadcasting Services and a Notice of Inquiry seeking comment to inform the Commission’s development of a national broadband plan for our country

Less than 1 percent of the stimulus package will go towards improving the US broadband infrastructure. However, that 1 percent does weigh more than $7 billion and it would seem that further federal monies may also flow into this pot.

The FCC’s mandate is to provide a plan by early 2010 that incorporates the guidelines that will guarantee delivery of the Internet and define how fast is next-gen broadband in the US.

Free Press a non-partisan organization promoting decentralization in broadcasting, wrote a letter to the FCC chairman, Michael Copp, last Friday raising concerns that “wireless service providers appear to be engaging in activities that go against the Commission’s Internet Policy Statement by violating consumers’ right to run applications, use services, or attach devices of their choice over their broadband connections.”

Ben Scott, Policy Director at Free Press continued in the letter: “Wireless networks demonstrate numerous anti-consumer practices that may be violations of the Commission’s Internet Policy Statement. In some cases, these appear to be outright restrictions on applications, services or devices imposed by the carrier.”

However, Service Providers are going to want to maintain control of their networks to ensure that bandwidth is not eaten up by larger users, while end users and application developers will want to have services, such as video, that requires more bandwidth.

The debate has been stimulated by a number of companies who offer VoIP services such as Skype (over Wi-Fi) and Zer01 – a truly mobile VoIP carrier here in the US.

As more consumers begin to access the Internet wirelessly, Free Press argues it will be critical for the FCC to clarify both that the Internet Policy Statement applies to wireless and that online consumer protections that prohibit blocking are the same regardless of how we access the Web.

More demand for VoIP or video conferencing will require technology that regardless of network, platform or device ensures high-quality voice or video calls even when bandwidth is restricted – thankfully there is GIPS technology!

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will meet in two weeks to discuss, among other subjects, a National Broadband Plan for the US. The topic discussion is a long time coming considering the US lags behind most developed countries in broadband development. Given the state of the US economy the topic will be discussed as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. This bill is intended to create jobs, restore economic growth, and modernize the nation’s infrastructure. More than $2.8 billion has been allocated for broadband infrastructure improvements.

Part of the grant/subsidies will go towards increasing the speeds of “advanced broadband services,” which are expected to deliver data to consumers at a speed of at least 45 Mb/s downstream and at least 15 Mb/s per second upstream. It also includes ”advanced wireless broadband service” delivering consumers speeds of at least 3Mb/s downstream and at least 1Mb/s. As a result the ability to offer real-time HD-video on the desktop and mobile video calling holds the promise of additional revenue streams for the communications industry.

In regards to HD, Apple made an announcement yesterday about the availability of purchasing HD-movies though iTunes. The demand for HD is growing and will only get stronger as consumers expect and experience better quality voice and video.

Talking of experiencing HD-voice and video, GIPS will be exhibiting at VoiceCON March 30 – April 1. If you are attending the show and want to experience GIPS’ technological advantage please let me know.

Last night, I was fortunate enough to catch the end of a forum hosted by the New America Foundation on suggested technological improvements as part of an economic stimulus package (yes, I watch C-SPAN).  The forum brought up some interesting nuances that are often skimmed over in the current debate about increasing US broadband penetration.

Since President Obama first discussed his economic stimulus plan, many have commented on the fact that the US ranks 15th in the world in terms of broadband penetration. However, as a New America policy paper discusses, a major component of lagging broadband penetration is an increasing digital divide. The paper suggests that any investment in broadband infrastructure needs to take this fact into account. People living in large metropolitan areas tend to have sufficient access to broadband technology, as major carriers have invested in long haul connection between cities, as well as urban last-mile infrastructure. However, low-income and rural populations tend to lack not only this last-mile connectivity, but are also not supported by middle-mile infrastructure. Thus, the only way to close the digital divide is to invest in middle-mile fiber.

The solution New America suggests is to couple broadband infrastructure improvements with federal highway repairs already planned for 2009 and beyond. We can essentially kill two birds with one stone by making sure that we bury fiber in the open trenches that accompany many highway repair projects. The resulting “broadband superhighway” would efficiently and (relatively) cost-effectively connect populations that have traditionally been ignored, while hopefully driving policy that encourages competition among smaller carriers.

I completely agree that increasing access to technology should be a major initiative, as it will improve the quality of life for many Americans, as well as make us more economically competitive. Hopefully policy makers in Washington understand the nuance of the task at hand, and do not invest in projects that would be wasteful or benefit only large entrenched interests. My only concern with such a proposal is the unintended consequences of possibly encouraging more population sprawl. A major consequence of the Federal-Aid Highway Acts of the 1950s was the boom of suburban America. The culture of the US has since shifted to one that relies heavily upon the automobile for transportation, and in many ways fosters a way of life that is more isolated, more stressful, and less healthy than other developed nations. I am not arguing against the merits of living in the suburbs. However, as someone who lives in a major US city, I often times would prefer to see funding for better public transportation and social services in urban areas over policies that encourage more population sprawl.

In the same vein, I think we absolutely need to make sure all Americans have broadband access. However, any policy that is enacted should be carefully thought through to encourage a sensible, sustainable way of life.

Personal computer hard drives have increased dramatically in storage capacity over the years and so has consumers’ appetites to fill their hard-drive space with music, videos and photos. According to PC Pitstop Research storage capacity doubles every two years. This appears to be following Moore’s law. The Median disk capacity today is 100GB.

I don’t know about you but I rarely print photographs now but like many people I cherish those digital photos stored on my hard-drive – I’ve also got those tax files, bank statements and pay-slips too. So when I found this new software from Cucku that lets me back-up my important files to a friend’s computer, I downloaded it and now have all my files backed-up with a friend using Cucku’s 256-bit Advanced Encryption Standard. (The software is aptly named Cucku as the Cuckoo bird lays its eggs in another bird’s nest.)

While transistors and hard-drive capacity has grown rapidly it’s a shame that broadband speeds here in the US have not followed the same pattern. According to a Cisco white paper video now accounts for one-quarter of all Internet traffic and will be close to 90 percent of consumer traffic by 2012.

With the era of video communication approaching, the Internet will finally be tested but this growth in video communication won’t just be one-to-one video calls. There will be growth in video sharing, collaboration, and conferencing, video monitoring, consumer TelePresence, and telemedicine to name a few applications of real-time video.

Additionally, mobile broadband data traffic will be over twenty times what it is today in 2012. According to a report earlier this year from Informa Telecoms & Media, this may help operators offset the threat of declining voice revenues with mobile video traffic expected to grow more than thirty-fold by 2012.

These forecasts bode well for companies offering real-time video applications and services but I’ll leave the last broadband note to the president of the Communications Workers of America, Larry Cohen who said: “This isn’t about how fast someone can download a full-length movie. Speed matters to our economy and our ability to remain competitive in a global marketplace.”

Today I saw an article on the new VON website. (Yes, after years of decline and a major hiccup this Spring with the mysterious disappearance of VON Europe, they seem to be back with solid web presence, plans for a print magazine, and a Fall show in Miami. It will be interesting to see if they can rebuild their momentum.) The article cited President-elect Barack Obama’s comments on his Economic Recovery Plan during his weekly address on the official Change web site. It is interesting to note how different our economy is now than during the Great Depression and the New Deal. Therefore, it is important to include the Internet as part of our critical economic infrastructure. Here is a brief excerpt from his address:

As we renew our schools and highways, we’ll also renew our information superhighway. It
is unacceptable that the United States ranks 15th in the world in broadband adoption. Here,
in the country that invented the internet, every child should have the chance to get online,
and they’ll get that chance when I’m President – because that’s how we’ll strengthen America’s
competitiveness in the world.

Obama’s Address on His Economic Recovery Plan

As purveyors of voice and video over IP, investment into the infrastructure necessary for the successful utilization of our technology is obviously an encourging development. However, it is truly a far reaching opportunity for the US, and by extension the entire global economy, to facilitate productive growth and productivity gains through investment into bandwidth and access to the Internet. Contrary to the comments [pdf] of Rick Wagoner, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of General Motors, to the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee on November 18, products developed with technology are part of today’s real economy and need similar government infrastucture investments as any other industry.