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Viodi View – 04/27/2011

When your head (and the rest of your body) is in the clouds 8 miles high, it is difficult to access the cloud. Sure, in-flight wireless does make it possible to use the Internet from a plane, but the slow-speed points to the time not so long ago when 56k dial-up was high-speed. So, while short updates are possible, any sort of complex, real-time work is virtually impossible when the software exists on some other machine and the connection to the Internet is almost non-existent.


Amazon’s EC2 Outage Proves Cloud Failure Recovery is a Myth! by Alan Weissberger

Of course, this is a similar feeling to the one that millions of people felt last week when web sites relying on Amazon Cloud services were rendered impotent. For months now on these virtual pages, Alan Weissberger has been writing articles in the Viodi View warning of potential flaws in the Cloud Computing concept in terms of reliability. Last week’s outage serves as a bit of proof-point to his argument that there needs to be some sort of standardization with regards to things like Service Level Agreements.  Click here to read his insight on last week’s outage and the implications it will have on cloud computing.


Will the NBP Force Bankruptcies for Rural Last Mile Providers?

ViodiTV At IP Possibilities

Although that sounds like an alarmist title, several people who work for rural operators expressed the concern that if the National Broadband Plan continues in its current direction, we may see bankruptcies of some rural telcos as early as 2012. These people also indicated that there will be significant lay-offs and continued consolidation among smaller carriers based on the current direction. Lay-offs could have a huge impact for the rural communities served by these rural last mile providers. The irony is that it if this scenario comes to pass the roll out of broadband may slow, at least in some rural areas, which is counter to the aim of the NBP.

We captured video interviews with many folks at the IP Possibilities Conference and heard their opinions on the NBP, which Roger put together in this excellent summary video. This video also includes a some highlights from this all IP conference.  Click here to view.


NSN in Talks to Sell Majority Stake after Motorola & Huawei Settle Dispute by Alan Weissberger

NSN’s failure to turn a profit since it’s creation in 2007 illustrates (yet again) that many telecom & Internet company mergers turn out to not live up to their lofty expectations. Other failures include Alcatel-Lucent and Time Warner-AOL.  Click here to read the rest of Weissberger’s overview and analysis.


Paul Allen on Microsoft Then and Now – Interview at CHM in Mt. View, CA by Alan Weissberger

On April 25th, “idea man” Paul Allen discussed his life and work at the Computer History Museum (CHM) in Mt View, CA. In 1975, Mr. Allen co-founded Microsoft with Bill Gates.  The interview was more a life story of a renaissance man than a look back at the early days of Microsoft. Nonetheless, Mr. Allen offered a few talking points about that time.  Click here to read this look at a critical slice of technology history.


From Broadband Properties to Broadband Communities

ViodiTV is on channel 2 of the Broadband Properties Summit in Dallas, Texas this week.   Community is a common theme at this event, as various folks are talking about using things such as micro-social sites to bring communities together via broadband networks.  Broadband as a tool to facilitate economic development of both urban and rural communities is a closely related theme.  As such, the National Broadband Plan is a topic of discussion among the panelists.

We have captured well over 30 video interviews with the likes of National Broadband Plan architect Blair Levin, former FCC Chairman Kevin Martin and Graham Richard, former mayor of Fort Wayne, who successfully convinced Verizon to build FiOS in his medium-sized burg.  Subscribe to our ViodiTV, Viodi View RSS or Twitter Feeds, as we will be releasing these videos and may not have enough room in the Viodi View newsletter for all of this great content.


Some Tweets and Short Thoughts

  • Got to love it – American Airlines orders pizzas for us passengers stuck in Abeliene, waiting for DFW to open. Hmmm, good.  One of many adventures of people trying to make their way to Dallas this week.
  • This report from our friends at Parks Associates is important to any operator trying to maximize the value of their pipe.
  • Congrats to Doug Mielke for the launch of his new company, Transmedia Group, and the launch of his digital file delivery system, Airship.  This video provides an overview of his system, which is designed to make it simple to securely move large files from one location to another.
  • Thanks to Madeleine Forrer of NRTC for finding this video – Interesting look at how different types react to OTT video -aired on our panel at the second day of the IP Possibilities Panel conference.
  • Higher prices for fiber; one effect of the Japan earthquake. So says friend who is purchasing lots of fiber; not good for stimulus winners, but according to one expert, probably not too significant in the overall cost of a FTTH deployment.

The Korner – WordPress – Helping Build Community – From MLL to Japan

Japan Fundraiser
Japan Fundraiser Flea Market

The Japan Fundraiser at Moreland Little League complex, referenced in the previous issue of the Viodi View, was a success thanks to the hard work and dedication of the families and businesses associated with the Moreland MLL community. The boundaries of community, in this case, are not restricted by the lines of geography or even baseball, as individuals, Church groups and businesses from across town and across the country pitched in to pull off something that would have been much more time and labor intensive, even just 5 years ago.

Our cloud-based, open source solution, WordPress.org, was an essential tool for organizing and communicating information to a virtual team that grew and morphed in a very short time.

And at the end of the day, the cloud computing technology and the broadband we relied on were more about facilitating relationships in the real world. One lesson learned was that this sort of real-world event can bring people closer and relate in ways that they would otherwise miss. And hopefully, we let our friends in Japan know, through our electronic communication, that they are part of our greater community and that they in our prayers.  Click here to read the complete post and the considerations that went into our decision to use WordPress.

Author Ken Pyle, Managing Editor

By Ken Pyle, Managing Editor

Ken Pyle is Marketing Director for the Broadband Forum. The mission of this 25+-year-old non-profit “is to unlock the potential for new markets and profitable revenue growth by leveraging new technologies and standards in the home, intelligent small business, and multi-user infrastructure of the broadband network.”

He is also co-founder of Viodi, LLC and Managing Editor of the Viodi View, a publication focused on the rural broadband ecosystem, autonomous vehicles, and electric aviation. He has edited and produced numerous multimedia projects for NTCA, US Telecom and Viodi. Pyle is the producer of Viodi’s Local Content Workshop, the Video Production Crash Course at NAB, as well as ViodiTV. He has been intimately involved in Viodi’s consulting projects and has created processes for clients to use for their PPV and VOD operations, as well authored reports on the independent telco market.

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