Estonia referred to Court of Justice over impartiality of telecoms regulator

I came across this relatively recent EC press release, which comments that the European Commission has refered Estonia to the CJEU, for failing to ensure the independence of the Estonia telecommunications regulator, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications (as required by Article 3(2), directive 2002/21/EC):

The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications in Estonia carries out some regulatory tasks, in particular over the allocation of radio frequencies and procedures for granting frequency authorisations.

At the same time it exercises control of the state-owned company Levira Ltd, the largest TV and radio broadcast network operator in Estonia, which provides telecoms services such as broadcasting and wireless broadband access

Parkinson's law

One of the classic organisational book in the United Kingdom is ‘Parkinson’s Law. It was first published in 1955 and in matters of detail is somewhat dated. Its key precepts rain valid and I would certainly commend the book as an entertaining and educative read. On law states that organisations reach the peak of their physical state at the point when terminal decline has already set in.

This weekend there has been quite a bit of publicity in the United Kingdom about the future (or lack of) for public  telephone call boxes. BT have argued that athird of their call boxes generate less than £1 in revenue each month

How does Parkinson’s Law apply to this? In 1998 around 25% of the UK’s population had a mobile phone. By February 2002, this had risen to 75%. Mobile phones, of course, make call boxes effectively redundant except in areas where there is no mobile phone reception. What else happened in 2002? You’ve guessed it. The number of call boxes reached its highest ever level.

Parkinson strikes again!

"BRCK - your backup generator for the internet"

Those of you studying the Telecoms Policy module will appreciate the emphasis that David places on connectivity and communication in countries traditionally less well served in this area — although perhaps not phrased in these terms, with a focus on getting everyone connected, not just those in Europe and the US.

BRCK is an interesting project on Kickstarter (a social funding platform), designed in Nairobi, to develop an easy-to-use, multi-modal connectivity device, with an 8 hour battery backup.

For what it is — a hotspot — it looks really rather impressive. What limits it, inherently, is that it is a hotspot — it is dependent on there being something to connect to. So, whilst it might help someone connect to the Internet where there is no power, it is reliant on there being an Internet connection, to which the device can connect. It's pretty impressive supporting pentaband cellular, Wi-Fi and ethernet, but the part which seems missing to me is mesh networking functionality — the ability to create a network of BRCK / other Wi-Fi devices, so that, if one of them has access to the Internet, any client connected to the BRCK mesh can make use of it. It's a bit much to call this a "generator," in my view, although clearly a clever access point.

Otherwise, it's perhaps just a more robust version of something like this running openwrt?

Update: I mentioned this to the project team, and there's some positive news:

"We are absolutly looking in to this. Our solution at the moment can create a mesh network as it stands, however we haven't tested the real world reliability of this solution, We currently only have one wireless radio in the device, but it can be configured to bridge and mesh style connections via software."

"More Wi-Fi in the sky: FCC to help keep US flyers tweeting"

A piece on the Register about the US regulator, the FCC, looking to release spectrum to for wireless backhaul (connectivity from the plane to the ground), for in-flight connectivity.

The FCC is looking to auction 500Mhz of bandwidth, starting at 14Ghz — by way of comparison, Vodafone in the UK holds about 160Mhz of spectrum in total, between 800Mhz and 2.6Ghz.

"Google Fiber: Why Traditional ISPs Are Officially On Notice"

Is Google the future of high speed Internet connections (in the US, at least)?

If ISPs were concerned before, they should really start sweating it now. Although Google Fiber looked like it would whip traditional ISPs in every regard--indeed, Time Warner Cable allegedly cut prices and boosted speeds for some users in Kansas City in a desperate attempt to keep them as customers--surely ISPs were hoping the pilot program would flame out. Now that Austin is happening, it’s clear that it’s only a matter of time before Google rolls out its service in many more cities.

This article documents some of Google's efforts to roll out fibre broadband in the US, with speeds in the gigabit range, challenging the incumbent operators substantially.

From an incumbent perspective, could this be a call to action to improve, or the sound of impending doom? Do ISPs need to do more to earn their money, or are they already stretched?

Do you like the idea of the world's biggest data mining company seeing all your Internet traffic, or do you see the potential competition stimulus as worth the potentially short term harm?

The commentary on Slashdot also draws out some interesting points.

What do you think? A good move, or one customers should be concerned about?

"Energy Use From Wireless Networks Will Dwarf Data Center Use By 2015"

There's an interesting piece on Slashdot, talking about energy usage — as part of the "green" aspect of communications evolution, understanding how technologies can be powered, and the impact of power-hungry technology on the environment, is particularly important.

The Electronic Communications Code

The Electronic Communications Code is the documents which specifies the rights and obligations arising from the use by telecommunications operators of private land to instal and maintain equipment. The code is now quite a dated document - it was drawn up in the 1980s - and he Law Commission (the body charged with keeping English law under review) has recommended quite radical changes.

We don't deal with the Code to any extent in the course but you might find the report interesting