Cisco CTO challenges WiMax

Cisco Systems CTO Charles Giancarlo has announced that his company will not be backing WiMax (IEEE 802.16) technology. The announcement came during his brief keynote address at the Next Generation Networks conference in Boston, where Giancarlo asserted that Cisco will only be “providing the backbone infrastructure that may be behind any WiMax deployment. Cisco has not invested in WiMax. DSL and cable are already there, and they are much more deterministic.”

WiMAX is a third-generation wireless technology that provides high-throughput broadband connections over long distances. Wi-Fi and WiMAX are actually complementary technologies, according to Intel, as WiMAX is a ‘last mile’ technology – it connects businesses and homes to the high-speed Internet. Wi-Fi provides the wireless LAN connectivity within a building or a home. The two technologies have been built as close cousins, and should work together to provide the best connection for the users needs. The technology may well find its way into airport hotspots, for instance, but it’s unlikely service providers will invest in building two parallel wireless broadband networks.

An implementation of the IEEE 802.16 standard, WiMAX provides shared network connectivity at speeds of up to 75MB/s and as far as 30 miles, which should be enough bandwidth to simultaneously support more than 60 businesses with T1-type connectivity and hundreds of homes at DSL-type connectivity. However, on the average a WiMAX base-station installation will likely cover between three to five miles, so home networking is not the compelling application for WiMax. Today, last mile connections are typically made through cable, DSL (digital subscriber line), fibre optic connections and even standard phone lines. The ability to provide these connections wirelessly, without laying wire or cable in the ground, promises to greatly lower the cost to provide these services.

A further benefit of the WiMAX standard is that it relies mainly on 2GHz to 11GHz bands as opposed to the ‘overcrowded’ 2.4GHz band used by WiFi. The specifications of WiMAX avoided many of the mistakes that went into the WiFi standard, allowing longer reach, Non Line Of Sight (NLOS), greater bandwith, and better encryption. However, the 30 mile radius should be taken with a grain of salt, as it would most probably only apply to a true line of sight point-to-point connection under ideal atmospheric circumstances.

Giancarlo reminded listeners at his speech that many wireless technologies have come and gone over the years without finding success. “This is what went wrong with MMDS (multichannel multipoint distribution system) and LMDS (local multipoint distribution system). The economics became very bad very quickly.”

However, this hasn’t stopped Telabria, who has already announced plans to build the first WiMAX network in the United Kingdom. The network, which is now under construction, will deliver high-speed wireless broadband services to residential, business and enterprise customers in the South East of England, and provide backhaul for Telabria’s growing installed base of WiFi hotspots in the region. The service will commence trials in January, with a commercial launch by mid 2005. “We’re extremely excited about the network we’re building,” said Jim Baker, Telabria founder and Chief Executive Officer, speaking at the WiMAX World Conference in Boston. “WiMAX is a revolutionary standard which, over the next few years, will fundamentally change the structure of broadband networks”.

Movie Studios to Sue File Sharers

The major Hollywood studios have vowed to sue people who illegally download movies from the Internet. In a similar move, to the way the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is using lawsuits to fight online piracy (they have filed more than 6,000 lawsuits against file sharers since September 2003), the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) announced that the major Hollywood motion picture studios would be filing hundreds of lawsuits against individuals using peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing software to share films online.

Rather than embracing P2P technology by looking for new ways to generate revenue, such a lowering the cost of movie rentals and DVDs, Hollywood is intent on further imposing its iron fist on movie fans. However, help is at hand. In connection with the music industry lawsuits, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has intervened in court to defend the privacy and due process rights of the individuals being sued, although it’s not yet clear whether the MPAA lawsuits will make similar actions necessary. Hollywood is pinning its hopes on federal legislation that would target file-sharing technology. If passed, the so-called Induce Act would close the legitimate-copying loophole and empower the MPAA to sue P2P file-sharing services such as Kazaa, Grokster and Morpheus.

The MPAA announcement comes on the heels of a recent study by the University of California, Riverside, and San Diego Supercomputer Center that shows that the music industry lawsuits have had no effect on the popularity of file sharing among US users, estimated at over 20 million. Movie studios can’t exactly argue that file sharing is about to put them out of business, as DVD sales grew 33 per cent last year and box-office receipts have never been stronger.

“These lawsuits are misguided,” said Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) Staff Attorney Wendy Seltzer, who has been involved in the music industry suits. “The music industry experience shows that the lawsuits don’t reduce the amount of file sharing. And it’s certainly not good PR to sue movie fans for non-commercial sharing when the studios are rolling in record profits.”

“In the end, what protects the studios from piracy is the what attracts people to buy or rent movies in the first place – a good product at a good price point,” said EFF Legal Director Cindy Cohn. “As long as you can rent a movie on DVD for $2, movie file sharing is not likely to take a major bite out of studio revenues.” www.mpaa.org

Yahoo Hires Former ABC TV Exec

What better person to appoint to head your media and entertainment division than a Hollywood executive with shows like ‘The Sopranos’, ‘Lost’, ‘Desperate Housewives’, ‘Wife Swap’ and ‘Boston Legal’ under his belt? Prior to this, he served as co-chairman of the division with responsibility for all creative, programming and business areas of the division, which encompassed Touchstone Television and ABC Entertainment.

The man in question is former ABC Entertainment Television chairman Lloyd Braum, and he will oversee Yahoo’s movies, TV, entertainment, music, games, finance, news and weather, sports, health and kids businesses. He will also do the negotiating with Hollywood to release exclusive content on Yahoo, as well as developing original new content within the company. It has been reported that he was fired from his ABC post in April following disagreements over the direction and management of the network, which had fallen to fourth place in the ratings.

His main task will be to convince movie, TV and music companies to distribute more content exclusively on Yahoo. His impressive pre-ABC resume reads like he is tailor-made to do some convincing – chairman of Disney’s Buena Vista Television Productions, president of Brillstein-Grey Entertainment, and partner at the law firm of Silverberg, Katz, Thompson & Braun.

Yahoo already took the Hollywood route a few years ago when it appointed former Warner Bros. chairman Terry Semel as its CEO in 2001. In recent months, the company has signed several deals to provide related Web content for popular television shows such as NBC’s “The Apprentice” and CBS’ “Survivor”.

It’s all about getting exclusive content. In September, Yahoo announced that it would produce, host and sell advertising for the official Web site of reality TV show, “The Apprentice,” in which contestants battle to win a job working for real-estate mogul Donald Trump.

Qualcomm to Spend $800m on Video to Mobile Network

As if the cell phone was not already overburdened with cameras, music and video players and handheld computers, Qualcomm now want to add TV programs to the mix.

Qualcomm, the San Diego developer of wireless technology and maker of computer chips for cell phones have spotted a gap in the market that might increase sales of their chips. They have just announced plans for a subsidiary, MediaFLO USA Inc to deploy and operate a nationwide “mediacast” network, delivering high-quality video and audio programming to third-generation mobile phones at mass market prices in co-operation with US cellular operators.

QUALCOMM intends to offer the network as a shared resource for US CDMA2000 and WCDMA (UMTS) cellular operators, enabling them to deliver mobile interactive multimedia to their wireless subscribers without the cost of network deployment and operation. Content will be delivered to mobile devices in the 700 MHz spectrum that will enable the network to serve the whole country. It will be based on QUALCOMM’s FLO (Forward Link Only) technology, and will use the MediaFLO media distribution system for content aggregation, delivery and viewing.

The chain of events happens like this – MediaFLO will deliver news, sports or entertainment programs over the new ‘mediacast’, high-speed cell phone network to US wireless companies, who will in turn pay for the service beginning in 2006.

Supporting 50-100 national and local content channels, including up to 15 live streaming channels, this system will give TV stations and networks, cable TV and satellite operators and networks a major new distribution channel, enabling them to reach their audiences when they are away from home and on the go. Content will be delivered in an easy-to-use and familiar format at quality levels that dramatically surpass current mobile multimedia offerings through the use of QVGA video at up to 30 frames per second and high-quality stereo audio.

Dr Paul E. Jacobs, president of QUALCOMM Wireless and Internet Group sees this move as “the logical next step in the evolution of the wireless industry.” The network will cost US$800 million over the next four to five years.

It may not take on in Europe though. Only yesterday we learned from Jupiter Research that Europeans are less taken with the multi-functional gadgets.

Qualcomm

RIAA Files 750 New File-trading Lawsuits in the US & CD sales up 10%

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), on behalf of the major record companies, has just issued a new round of copyright infringement lawsuits against 750 illegal file sharers using peer-to-peer (P2P) software. Including 25 users on 13 different university campuses, who used their university servers to perform the dreaded deed. This brings the total number of lawsuits filed by the RIAA against alleged file sharers since September 2003 to over 6,200.

The file sharers that were sued were using (P2P) services such as eDonkey, Kazaa, LimeWire and Grokster, although maybe Grokster miscreants will receive universal absolution if the deal between Grokster and Sony BMG to make file sharing respectable goes ahead. In keeping with practice used in previous cases, the RIAA suits have been filed against ‘John Doe’ defendants – a method used to sue defendants whose names are not known. They will instead be identified by their numeric Internet Protocol (IP) address. Names can only be obtained by music company lawyers’ issuing subpoenas to Internet access providers.

In addition to the 750 ‘John Doe’ litigations, 213 separate lawsuits were filed against named defendants who were already identified through the litigation process but then declined or ignored an RIAA offer to settle the case before it proceeded any further.

This is despite the fact, that legitimate downloading services seem to be doing rather nicely, with the RIAA’s recently released mid-year figures showing that 58 million single tracks were downloaded or burned from a licensed service for the first half of 2004.

Furthermore, the figures also show that full-length CD shipments to retail outlets increased by 10.2 percent this year, compared to the amount of shipments over the same time period in 2003 – the first time in five years that the first half of the year has experienced such an increase.

People are still flocking to the record store to buy their music, as overall, CDs and all other audio and video music products shipped to retailers increased by 8.5 percent in the first six months of 2004 compared to the same period in 2003.

It’s a funny thing that while all this litigation is going on, that the RIAA has just given out the first-ever Gold and Platinum awards for digital downloads, albeit for legally sold ones.

RIAA
Subpoena Defense site

DVDs rentals outstrip VHS tapes in the US

It’s not a great surprise that DVD rental has now exceeded VHS rental in the US, six years after DVD was introduced.

The US Video Software Dealers Association has reported consumers rented 28.2 million DVDs compared to 27.3 million VHS cassettes during the week ended June 15.

While there has been advantages for the consumer, the benefits for the trade have been significant. The distribution and storage of DVD’s is significantly cheaper, as are the production costs. DVD are also more robust, being less prone to damage while playing.