The Pakistani Junknet

This story about how networks built by an ecosystem of small-scale local entrepreneurs can span a city is an interesting example of what can happen in an unregulated environment. It reminds me of a recent video of Eric Schmidt of Google. We should certainly consider whether our system of regulation is really helping develop broadband, or whether it is slowing it down.

No free wi-fi in Dublin

No free wi-fi in Dublin. No surprise there really – using state money to undercut commercial operators is just not a great way to spend money, even if you have it, which Dublin City Council simply does not.

There is still no reason why Dublin City Council could not help with deploying FON. Plenty of other local authorities have in important European cities, and there are others in progress.

Video conferencing

This is a good article about why video conference does and doesn’t work.

Comreg has to make the right choice for the future of broadband

According to this story, Irish incumbent telco eircom will obliged by the telecomms regulator Comreg to continue LLU network rollout, in spite of the fact that next-generation networks, where every cabinet will be individually enabled with faster 25 or 50 Mbit broadband. Now this is ridiculous.

LLU, the arrangement whereby competitors are allowed put equipment into eircom exchanges and connect directly to the customer’s line, is dead. There is no point in anybody investing any more money in unbundling local exchanges if a fiber-to-the-cabinet network is to be built. It will simply be impossible for an LLU operator which can offer maximum speeds of 10Mbps to compete with eircom or bitstream competitors who can offer speeds of up to 50 Mbps on the same piece of copper, for the same price. (Unbundling every individual cabinet is possible in principle, but in practice, it would be too expensive for a small operator to do.)
Comreg has to make up its mind now whether it wants to devote its energies to protecting the interests of consumers, who need NGN and need it rolled out economically and fairly, or whether it is going to spend its time protecting the interests of the various unconsolidated bit players in the telecomms marketplace, by tying the whole country into dead technology, slow speeds and an unworkable business model.

Nobody’s business but your own.

Damien Mulley writes about what you should ask when politicians call.

You should ask your candidate (particularly PD or FF TD’s) where they stand on personal privacy. Ask them whether you think the government has any business recording details of the people you telphone, the web pages you look at or the places you go carry your mobile telephone.

Read the rest of this entry »

wi-fi free lunch indigestion

Eoin O’Dell writes about the legal risks of sharing wi-fi and about my presentation about FON at Barcamp. I was amazed to hear that a couple of people have been prosecuted for wi-fi sharing in the UK. This might not seem to make much sense, but it makes FON an even better idea.

Bonus link: my presentation from barcamp

Why are our police buying into Tetra?

The government is about to spend an awful lot of money deploying a Tetra system for Irish emergency services. Why are they doing this when they could use the existing 2G and 3G mobile phone networks? This is a question being asked in Sweden where they started implementing Tetra 10 years ago (and it still doesn’t really work).
Is Tetra/Rakel good enough? | stupid.domain.name

Data Retention – US style

Eoin O’Dell writes about data retention, US style

Irish police fail to act on child porn tip-off

The Irish Independent and other newspapers report that the Gardaí didn’t bother to investigate leads passed on to them by their Austrian counterparts. The leads are said to have included IP addresses of the people allegedly involved.

What is the point in data retention, if you don’t bother following up leads?

Read the rest of this entry »

FON in Carrigaline

The Texaco station in Carrigaline, Co. Cork now has a FON hotspot of its own. Very useful if you’re travelling on business.

If you run a petrol station and would like to offer your customers another reason to stop at your place with a fon wi-fi hotspot, send me an email or leave me a comment and I’ll get you a free fonera