One of the problems with wireless communication systems like Wi-Fi is that they are more likely to encounter problems than a wired communication system. There is, in some ways, some “mystery” left on how radio frequency signals works that we still need to figure out if you want to get the perfect connection. Wireless signals are much more likely to suffer interferences and this is especially true for Wi-Fi which operates in an unlicensed frequency range.

In addition to other devices trying to access the Wi-Fi, microwaves, cordless phones, computer accessories and even building structures can disrupt a perfectly well configured Wi-Fi connection.

While the technology is seeing constant improvement, it is still complex to plan or even monitor the behavior of a wireless connection.

One of my lab colleagues did his master’s thesis on the problem of placing the wireless access points. The tool he designed made use of a extremely complex set of equations and high number of calculations to find near optimal solutions to the placement of the access points for a 80×60 meters floor plan, while setting several constraints in his model. So knowing how complex the placement of access points would be for a “simplified” floor plan, I can understand that the same exercise for a citywide coverage is far from trivial.

As I was going through the request for proposal for San Francisco TechConnect, I found the expectations for the San Francisco Wi-Fi network far from what I expected (they are located under the Coverage section (p 9))

• Outdoor coverage shall be provided for Basic and Premium Services for a minimum of 95% of all areas of the City. An area is considered covered under this requirement if a laptop, interface – can access the Network at the provisioned service level with no additional hardware required beyond the device’s standard wireless interface.
• Indoor, Perimeter Room coverage for the ground and second floors of a building shall be provided for Basic and Premium Services for a minimum of 90% of all residential and commercial buildings throughout the City. A building is assumed covered under this Specification if a device located in each Perimeter Room on the ground and second floor of the building can access the Network at the provisioned service level. This coverage requirement may be met by using a Wi-Fi interface built into a user’s device, a signal amplifier, a high-gain antenna and/or a dedicated Wi-Fi bridge or other type of CPE.
• Indoor, Perimeter Room coverage shall be provided for Basic and Premium Services above the second floor for 90% of all residential and commercial buildings throughout the City. A building is assumed covered under this Specification if all Perimeter Rooms on all floors of the building can access the Network at the provisioned service level.

The problem with these requirements, along with others in the San Francisco RFP, is that they are extremely hard if not impossible to guarantee . So, I wasn’t surprised tonight when they announced the results that Earthlink/Google the leading candidate only got a grade of around 65% for their proposal.
Earthlink/Google proposal acknowledge that they don’t fully comply with the above requirements and states in their proposal that

It is difficult in practice to achieve 90 to 100% indoor coverage with any wireless network above the second floor or for interior rooms. Cellular systems are a good example, and users have already become accustomed to moving around to find a good signal for such services. (p 63)

So while we wait for the perfect wireless system to be designed, we should keep moving around to find a good signal and plan for failure accordingly. Maybe Earthlink should start printing signs to post around town!!

Since I am still in the middle of my Wi-Fi survey (you should take it if you haven’t done so already) that focuses on these issues of sharing, usability and legal implications, I won’t comment on the topic now but just provide some pointers and “interesting” quotes. I am also preparing a case study on FON, big municipal Wi-Fi initiatives like San Francisco TechConnect and the likes.
It is amazing what people will say to defend one or the other position of this topic. Especially the analogies!

From the New York Times story titled Hey Neighbor, Stop Piggybacking on My Wireless (Mar 5th 2006)

For a while, the wireless Internet connection Christine and Randy Brodeur installed last year seemed perfect. They were able to sit in their sunny Los Angeles backyard working on their laptop computers.

But they soon began noticing that their high-speed Internet access had become as slow as rush-hour traffic on the 405 freeway.

“I didn’t know whether to blame it on the Santa Ana winds or what,” recalled Mrs. Brodeur, the chief executive of Socket Media, a marketing and public relations agency.

The “what” turned out to be neighbors who had tapped into their system.

(…)

But they soon began noticing that their high-speed Internet access had become as slow as rush-hour traffic on the 405 freeway.

“I didn’t know whether to blame it on the Santa Ana winds or what,” recalled Mrs. Brodeur, the chief executive of Socket Media, a marketing and public relations agency.

The “what” turned out to be neighbors who had tapped into their system.

(…)

Many home network owners admit that they are oblivious to piggybackers.

Some, like Marla Edwards, who think they have locked intruders out of their networks, learn otherwise. Ms. Edwards, a junior at Baruch College in New York, said her husband recently discovered that their home network was not secure after a visiting friend with a laptop easily hopped on.

“There’s no gauge, no measuring device that says 48 people are using your access,” Ms. Edwards said.

(…)

Most people just plug the thing in,” he said of those who buy wireless routers. “Ninety percent of the time it works. You stop at that point and don’t bother to turn on its security.”

(…)

When Ms. Ramirez asked the man what he was doing, he said he was stealing a wireless Internet connection because he did not have one at home. She was amused but later had an unsettling thought: “Oh my God. He could be stealing my signal.”

Yet some six months later, Ms. Ramirez still has not secured her network.

(…)

Beth Freeman, who lives in Chicago, has her own Internet access, but it is not wireless. Mostly for the convenience of using the Internet anywhere in her apartment, Ms. Freeman, 58, said that for the last six months she has been using a wireless network a friend showed her how to tap into.

“I feel sort of bad about it, but I do it anyway,” Ms. Freeman said her of Internet indiscretions. “It just seems harmless.”

And if she ever gets caught?

“I’m a grandmother,” Ms. Freeman said. “They’re not going to yell at an old lady. I’ll just play the dumb card.”

(…)

For the Brodeurs in Los Angeles, a close reading of their network’s manual helped them to finally encrypt their network. The Brodeurs told their neighbors that the network belonged to them and not to the neighborhood. While apologetic, some neighbors still wanted access to it.

“Some of them asked me, ‘Could we pay?’ But we didn’t want to go into the Internet service provider business,” Mrs. Brodeur said. “We gave some weird story about the network imposing some sort of lockdown protocol.”

From the Slashdot comments on the story

I think a lot of people have an open WiFi connection for the rest of the world to use. This however is not only because they want to give some protest but also to simply add a other node to the ever growing number of open “uplinks”.

As more and more people are doing so at the moment it becomes easy for traveling laptop users to get online everywhere they want. Closing you “uplink” will become more and more rude in the global opinion I think. Sharing the connection will become more natural to people as they become more aware of the benefit they have from the open uplinks offered by other users.

WiFi will become eventually something like opensource code, sharing and be shared only here we are not talking about code but about internet access. You give access to users and those users give you access in return.

From a post on TechDirt Are You Liable If Someone Does Something Illegal On Your WiFi? (Mar 20th 2006)

For years, whenever the press has written one of their fear-mongering stories about open WiFi, they almost always include some tidbit about how if someone uses your network to do something illegal, you can be arrested for it. It’s one of the popular open WiFi horror stories — but is it true? Well, of course, you can be arrested, but it’s unlikely that there would be any legal grounds for the arrest.

(…)

While it is true that they can go after you, there are valid legal defenses for this — as has been discussed for years. If you are legally sharing your WiFi, then you are a service provider, and under current laws you are not liable for what others do with the service. That’s what it says in the Communications Decency Act, and it clearly applies here. In fact, we’ve even heard stories of people purposely leaving their WiFi open for this very reason — as it gives them a legal defense should the industry ever come after them.

In the comments of the post on digg.com (Mar 20th 2006)

You are right. If you don’t secure your wireless, you are asking for it. You deserve everything that you could get. If your grandma has wireless, and she doesn’t secure it, she deserves it too.

(…)

This article is false, to be a service provider you have to have contracts and the ability to release contact info of your subscribers to the authoritys should an electronic crime take place, other wise you are fully resposible for all activity of that connection… Having an open wifi connection does not mean no one useing that connection has to take resposibility for it.

(…)

Actually there’s nothing in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that says a service provider must have contracts or the ability to identify it’s users:

Definition: For purposes of section 512(c), a “service provider” is defined as a provider of online services or network access, or the operator of facilities therefor, including an entity offering the transmission, routing, or providing of connections for digital online communications, between or among points specified by a user, of material of the user’s choosing, without modification to the content of the material as sent or received.

Under that definition, any given person with an open access point is a “service provider”.

(…)

The analogy of an unprotected WiFi Network as an ‘open door’ is not very suitable. A comparisson to a porch light is much better. They both emit an EM signal when left running by the owner, and they both ‘shine’ in all directions unless screened.
So if someone sits in my driveway and uses the light from my porch to write a fake check, or to forge a document etc. Is the owner of the porch light responsible, only because he could have put up a screen that stops the light from reaching the driveway?

(…)

If the person enters your property line without permission than its trespass but if the wireless signal bleeds beyond your property boundaries into public areas and other peoples property then they are not committing a crime
.Its like a fruit tree that overhangs a fence if the tree has a piece of fruit that is accessible in a public area like a footpath than the person can take that fruit legally ,is it morally right to to take the fruit is another question.

(…)

Actually, the old way of thinking as far as “signal bleeding beyond the edge of your property line” simply does not work in the modern era, when it comes to technology. If that were the case, people could never be found guilty of trespassing when they hack into a private network. For example, you figure out the modem number to some government server. You dial in from home. Technically, you are at home and *not* at the government facility in question. The “signal” of their modem has crossed their property line and come into your home, by way of the phone line. Using your logic, a person couldn’t be held responsible for their actions, since they were acting upon something that was freely accessible from their own home. We all know that people get busted for this kind of stuff all the time, however.

You can let the radio waves pass over you all day long. As soon as you use those signals to actually become a member of that other person’s network, you put yourself at risk of prosecution.

The moral of the story is don’t take without asking, even if it’s an open wireless network that falls right into your lap.

(…)

I seriously hate analogies when it comes to this subject. Nobody ever seems to get it right. Nobody using your connection is really trespassing like they would be if they just walked into your unlocked house. I like to think of it more as that person is visiting.

If somebody knocks before they come in and another member of the family automatically lets them in, it would be REALLY hard to sue that person for “using your space.” If you can’t control your own family, it really doesn’t make sense to be suing other people for consuming your precious living space either, though. It does however make sense to sue that person if you tell them to get out and they stick around making it hard for you to get things done around the house.

Somebody who is just using their wireless card has a list of available access points and has the ability to simply click “connect.” The wireless card then asks the router for an IP address, and in most cases allows your card inside automatically. If you can’t control your own router, it really doesn’t make much sense to be suing people for using your precious bandwidth. If you can somehow find out who is physically accessing your network and tell that person to stop, and they continue to use your network, it would then be fair to apply the appropriate charges.

Simply making it illegal to enter any body’s property or wireless network without direct permission would be HORRIBLE. There is such thing as implied permission, people. I can cut through some body’s yard if I want to and there’s no fence there, if they want to stop me from ever doing it again all they need to do is tell me to stop. Those people wouldn’t be able to chase me down and sue me for doing it, the judge would just ask why they didn’t use a fence. Just because that person didn’t know what a fence is or how to install one wouldn’t be a valid excuse for the judge that knows better.

It is interesting to see how people try to explain and compare the situation of open Wi-Fi access to familiar activities and how much they disagree on how to see it in terms of both social norms and legal implications. Any opinion or first-hand experience you want to share with me?

Photo Credit: Combination Composition, originally uploaded by B Tal.

As part of the research project for my master, I am conducting an online survey on how people understand and use Wi-Fi technologies.

The goal of the survey is to help improve the design of Wi-Fi by collecting various user experiences.

Whether you have used it only once or use it everyday, every experience you had with Wi-Fi is valuable to this research and I will appreciate if you would take the time to answer my online survey.

The survey is 6-12 min depending on your experience with Wi-Fi and do not require any technical expertise to be answered.

So, following a related post by Julian Bleecker (Mobile Phone Usage Idiom — No. 2) and a Times article, Phone revolution makes Africa upwardly mobile , I felt it would be timely to describe one such hack used for mobile phones in some part of Africa.

As I described earlier, the call to start the process of callback (also know as trigger call) usually cost nothing to the customer. So, in 2001, by owning a mobile phone in some part of Africa could make you in some ways a small phone operator. Some people would sign up to the service as agents (getting a commission on all calls made by the customers they signed up). Their customers would come to them when they wanted to make a call and these agents would prepaid their accounts. Customers would then be able to use the agent’s phone to make calls to their relatives. Each of the customers would have a separate account in regard to the callback operator but they will all use the same “source” number, the mobile phone number of their agents. To prevent fraud, all the accounts are to be protected by a password so that a client cannnot use somebody else account to make calls.

This means that a same phone (usually a mobile one) could be used to make tens or hundreds of calls in one day. The advantage of the mobile phone was that the agent could travel with it and go see his customers rather than having to get them to come to a phone shop, especially in rural areas. In 2001, cell mobile phone penetration was still small and it meant 2 things:

1. People could make a living by working as callback phone agents, owning one or more phones
2. International calls to landline and mobile phones in most African countries would generally be priced the same

So, the callback system, initially designed to help make cheaper calls by increasing competition in countries with a monopolistic incumbent, became a way for hundreds of people to share one single phone (or a couple). Instead of linking accounts to the actual phone, customers’ accounts were linked to the number required to trigger the call.

A recent post by Julian Bleecker on how people will devise complicated systems to find a way to communicate reminded me of the time I worked in a callback company.

In areas where owning a cell phone is not routine — for economic reasons, predominantly — it is not uncommon for a stranger to ask another stranger to borrow their handset to make a call. This happened to Francois on a trip somewhere and he, being a nice guy, agreed and handed over his phone. Only he thought this stranger was going to just go ahead and make a call. Instead the stranger dismantled Francois’ phone — removed the back, spilled the battery out and popped out the SIM card and then popped his own SIM card in there, reassembled the phone and made a bunch of calls in rapid succession, hanging up on each one after the first ring or two. (Mobile Phone Usage Idiom — No. 1)

While I worked there, I experienced a lot of so called hacks both to prevent callback to operate and to fight these restrictions. I had to designed some of these hacks to keep the service operating in some countries. Let’s first explain how callback works.
Callback is based on the following principle: instead on making one call, make 3 calls with the help of a distant machine. On the downside, calling somebody can be seen as a hassle but on the plus side, you can make calls for much more cheaper (depending on where you are located).

How does callback works (the original system)

1. You contact a callback company
2. They create a account for you with the following information
1. the number you need to call, which is uniquely assigned to you
2. the number where you want to make the call from
3. You call the number assigned to you
4. You let it ring (generally once is enough)
5. You hang up before anybody picks up
6. The company (which recognized you based on the number you called) calls you back
7. You answer the call and get a prompt to dial your destination number
8. The company puts you “in relation” with this number
9. Once you hang up, the company will have billed you for 2 calls: once for the call from the company to you and once for the call from the company to your destination number

An example of how it works

Person A lives in Angola and wants to call Person B who lives in France. This kind of call are usually really expensive (more than $1/min). Person A decides to signup with a callback company (like United World Telecom the one I worked for). Person A account main information would look something like that

• Callback Number: +1 305 555 1234
• Source Number : +244 123 456 789

Now Person A wants to call Person B whose number is + 33 9 12 34 56 78. Person A will need to do the following:

1. Person A calls the number +1 305 555 1234, let it rings once and hang up (cost = none)
2. The company receives the call on a group of lines dedicated to receiving these call ( like 10-15 lines dedicated and matched to hundreds or thousands of phone numbers). The phone number +1 305 555 1234 can be thought of as being a “virtual” phone number, there is actually no physical line dedicated to this particular number. Along with the call, the telecom operators along the way are passing along the phone number in a format that can be captured by the callback company.
3. Once the phone number is captured, the callback company will look up in its database for the phone number called (here 305 555 1234)
4. The callback number is associated to the corresponding source number
5. The callback system picks up a line, calls the number +244 123 456 789 and wait for the person to pick up
6. The callback system picks up another line, calls the number +33 9 12 34 56 78 and link the two lines on its system so that Person A and Person B can talk to each other.
7. Once the call is finished, Person A can end the distant part of the call with a key combination and redial another number or hang up
8. On the callback company side, the two calls are added up and charged to Person A

Cost (as of 2002)

Option A: Direct Call from Angola to France: > $1

Option B : Same Call using callback

• Trigger call: Free
• Call from US to Angola: approx. $0.40/ min
• Call from US to France : approx $0.05/min
• Total: $0.45

Next, I will describe some of the features (speed dials,…) and how they can sometimes serve other really important functions that the ones they were originally designed for.

My goal was to find as much information as possible on the case Richard Dinon vs Benjamin Smith III for WiFi trespassing (more info here or here). I believe this case is the first of the kind where somebody get sued for trespassing because he is using somebody else open WiFi connection without permission. The case may be still in progress or has been settled but there has apparently been no update available anywhere since last July.

I was also hoping to find more regulation and legal literature about wireless networking but it looks like I already found most of the ones specifically related to WiFi (there is not that much yet).

Since I was on site, I passed by the Center for Internet and Society to see if I could get some more information. I ended getting an appointment with Professor Lawrence Lessig, who gave me some really good pointers and was especially helpful in sorting through some of the issues and reducing the complexity of my project.

One of the problem I was facing was: how can I design a system where people can retrieve information about whether or not they are allowed to connect to a wireless network while they are offline. The easy way felt like a Catch 22: To know if you were allowed to connect, you would have to connect and get the information from the Internet. Therefore, you could possibly be breaking the law for the sole purpose to know if what you are doing (or planning to do) is legal.

But apparently if the intent and only purpose of the initial connection was to retrieve information on your right to connect then this would not be considered illegal. Professor Lessig recommended me to read Order without Law : How Neighbors Settle Disputes which should give me a better understanding of how this would work.

He also recommended me to look into RDF and the InfoCard research on an identity metasystem to use in my design.

So , even if I didn’t have time to really visit the rest of the Stanford campus, the trip was more than worth it.

Stanford Campus – Flickr Album

Now that Fon has get major financial backing by company like Google or Skype, this changes the situation. Not only are they getting money but also a lot of free marketing with nearly any major publications talking about Fon. Glenn and OM Malik have posted a nice update on the situation.

I believe that we need to come up with a solution to offer an unified and enriched user experience in regard to wireless networking. The question that stands is not if it is going to happen (I believe it will) but how and when it will happen.

Fon has definitely an opportunity to get it right and has partners that can help it . But there are still major obstacles for it to become successful.

NETWORK SIZE IS NOT EQUAL TO VALUE

The number of hotspots is not directly linked to the value of the network. While Metcalfe’s Law

The value of a network equals approximately the square of the number of users of the system (n²) (Wikipedia)

So, yes the more hotspots Fon will get, the more valuable it will become to be part of the network (be a Fonero). But contrary to the telephone (for example), the increased value of participating to the network is not as clear. In the case of Skype, the value increases as more people join since prospective members will have more people they know on the network. But in the case of WiFi, all access points are not equally valuable to the network. In urban (and dense) areas, a hotspot can serve several people and will greatly enhance the value of the network. But in areas where the density is lower, the probability that an access point could cover more than 1 or 2 neighbours.

So, what does this mean?

1. In dense areas, the people may be tempted to set up Fon access and getting revenue out of it.(the Bill model)
2. In rural areas, the opportunity to make money out of one access is little. So, more people that will sign up as Foneros will probably choose the free roaming option (the Linus Model)
3. The people that will be paying for access will be the non-members of the network and the Bills when roaming

So what this creates is a multi-layered network:

• In metropolitan areas, the network could have a high traffic and bring revenue to Fon from visitors mostly. But a lot of users of these network will use it for free (people living in low density areas and part of the Fon network).
• In low density areas where broadband is available, the network will probably not generate a lot of revenue since most of the users could have an incentive to become part of the network as a Linus.
• People who don’t get access to broadband right now (like low-income neighbourhood) are not gaining much from this deal. They will have to pay to use the network in any case and the monthly fee will be higher than getting a connection at home. This does not really go with what FON founder, Martin Varsavsky, say about his dream to bring equal access to everybody.

Fon, as a movement, will probably succeed but it is not sure it can succeed as a commercial entreprise. This will depend of the growth of the interest for outdoor access to WiFi and also some of the rules that Fon sets on their members.

• If the population that is interested in WiFi access grow faster that the people joining the network as Linus, then Fon can generate more revenue.
• If most of the people interested in this kind of access join Fon or their competitors as members, then there will be less and less opportunities for Fon to charge these people.
• As more and more cities deploy wireless networks, the value of Fon in these cities will diminish as well

MEMBERSHIPS INCENTIVES?

Fon also need to make the rules for membership more clear. In his post announcing the support Fon received, Martin Varvasky talked about 120 days of membership. I am not sure what this means.

If you capture FON´s signal and you are not a fonero in 120 days you will have to pay to use the FON signal (Martin Varsavsky)

Unless I missed something, this could mean:

1. that somebody need to be a member of Fon for at least 4 months before being able to benefit from free roaming? OR
2. Does it mean that the people he calls Aliens can get away with not paying if they do register within 4 months of the access.

In both cases, this is something that could bother a lot of people.

• If you are trying to make money out of your acces point, (2) could mean you that you will have to wait 4 months before getting your first check and only then you will know for sure how much you made.
• If you want to get free roaming, (1) would mean that you have to setup and share your access now but you need to pay for roaming until the 4-month period has ended.

If I am right then the system don’t work as most people expects and the incentives to become part of the network become much lower.

And this is not the only problem that Fon is facing. I believe the 120 days rule may have been setup to limit freeriding on the network. Indeed, not only would Fon needs to monitor all these access points, but it may need to set a minimum threshold on hotspot usage to let users roam. I can setup today an access point with the Fon firmware and put it where nobody can access. Doing this, I bring no real value to the network but I can roam on it for free. Same thing with the account management. Since I don’t have to pay Fon to get an account if I am a Linus, what prevents me from sharing it with all my friends.
WI-FI AND THE LAW

Fon also needs to figure out clearly the legal implications for its customers and members. in several countries, operating a network requires the operator to log all connections and even in some case get a telecom operator licence. Laws are also not clear on whether a person sharing his/ her connection can be liable for the activities

No. As long as you have not actively participated in the commission of a crime or do not have knowledge that a particular individual is using your connection to commit a crime or illegal activity, it is our understanding that you are not responsible. Nevertheless, this may vary depending on the laws of each country. Furthermore, FON discourages any inappropriate use of your connection by making sure that each user of the FON Community has registered and is identifiable.No. As long as you have not actively participated in the commission of a crime or do not have knowledge that a particular individual is using your connection to commit a crime or illegal activity, it is our understanding that you are not responsible. Nevertheless, this may vary depending on the laws of each country. Furthermore, FON discourages any inappropriate use of your connection by making sure that each user of the FON Community has registered and is identifiable. (FON F.A.Q)

Fon say that its users are not liable but then says that it depends. This F.A.Q entry is really confusing and they shouldn’t state something in regard to the law if they are not totally sure.

And this does not include authentication, billing and other security issues that are going to come up shortly. Whether Fon succeed or fails, it will at least help advance the design of next generation wireless networks by forcing some of the issues to get figured out.

• How can we move from a device (or connectivity) centered approach (for ex: using a mobile phone, TV or Wi-Fi ) to a activity centered approach (watching a video, accessing securly a bank statement)?
• How can we help turn network connectivity consumers into producers (similarly to what has been done in digital media for example)?
• How can we help users have an optimal unified experience despite technologies like DRM, network neutrality,….
• How do we design networking technologies to better account for information asymmetry or bounded rationality..

Related:

• Network neutrality and the state of broadband
• Spanish company, Fon, wants to let wireless internet users share their connection
• Ubicomp 2005 video: Yellow chairs
• Yahoo! Research Labs–Berkeley and SIMS Garage Cinema

]]> http://www.iyne.org/2006/02/03/ithome-unraveling-complexities-of-networked-devices-in-the-home/feed/ 0 http://www.iyne.org/2006/02/02/chi-workshop-on-public-policy/ http://www.iyne.org/2006/02/02/chi-workshop-on-public-policy/#comments Thu, 02 Feb 2006 19:22:28 +0000 Riad Lemhachheche http://www.iyne.org/2006/02/02/chi-workshop-on-public-policy/ My position paper “Public policy impact on interaction design in networked environments” has been accepted for the workshop organized by the SIGCHI US Public Policy Committee (SIGCHI is the Computer- Human Interaction special interest group (SIGCHI) of the ACM). I need to make some changes to the paper but it basically talks about the possible changes on the Internet infrastructure that could affect the end user experience.

Some of the topics worth discussing:

• Network neutrality (see previous post)
• How network neutrality (or the lack of it) would impact user experience with his activities online
• the opportunity to give more information about the network connection and more control to the user
• Do we need new laws and what should these laws say?
]]> http://www.iyne.org/2006/02/02/chi-workshop-on-public-policy/feed/ 0 http://www.iyne.org/2006/02/02/network-neutrality-and-the-state-of-broadband/ http://www.iyne.org/2006/02/02/network-neutrality-and-the-state-of-broadband/#comments Thu, 02 Feb 2006 18:15:13 +0000 Riad Lemhachheche http://www.iyne.org/2006/02/02/network-neutrality-and-the-state-of-broadband/ There has been a lot of talk about the state and the future of broadband Internet lately. Since I am looking into the design of ubiquitous systems for my research and the legal perspective, I looked at the concept of network neutrality and its possible impact on wireless network infrastructure design. This year, the US Congress will probably enact legislation about network neutrality that could change the way Internet is, and not just in the US. Because of that, there has been a lot of activity and discussion about what network neutrality should be and how it should be protected.
But first, what is network neutrality?

[Network neutrality] suggests that (1) to maximize human welfare, information networks ought be as neutral as possible between various uses or applications, and (2) if necessary, government ought to intervene to promote or preserve the neutrality of the network. (Wikipedia)

Network neutrality basically means that whatever content you want to transmit over the network, this content will be treated in the same way as any other content by the network infrastructure. The Internet was built on a the principle of best effort delivery, which means it can guarantee you that it will deliver your content but it will do its best.

Best-effort delivery describes a network service in which the network does not provide any special features that recover lost or corrupted packets. These services are instead provided by end systems (Linktionary)

The 2 concepts of network neutrality and best efforts are usually associated to a third concept: common carrier.

A common carrier is an organization that transports a product or service using its facilities, or those of other carriers, and offers its services to the general public. (Wikipedia)

The best example of common carrier are post offices. A post office usually pick up and deliver letters and packages regardless of their content (unless the content is deemed dangerous to transport).

When Internet took off, telephone companies were considered common carriers and will transport the traffic from and to their clients to the Internet Service Provider (ISP) that the client has chosen.

When dial-up was still prevalent:

1. The phone companies like BellSouth, Qwest or Verizon would provide the phone line (the “pipes”)
2. ISP like Earthlink or AOL will provide the Internet service on top of the phone line.

But with broadband technologies like DSL, phone companies could better control both the pipes and the service .

And this is where the problem lies.

Since I have arrived in the US in 2001, I have been puzzled on how this country could have one of the most competitive marketplace for phone calls and one of the slowest and most expensive brodband Internet in developed countries.

The explanation came from Lawrence Lessig, in his post the fiction zone that DC has become

So while it is true that we have had both:

(a) common carrier like regulation applied to the Internet, and
(b) basically no effective regulation applied to the Internet

and it is true that we have had both:

(c) fast, fierce competition to provide Internet service and
(d) just about the worst broadband service of the developed world

it is not true that we had (c) when we had (b).

We had (c) when we had (a), and we have (d) now that we have (b). (Lessig)

From there, it all started to make sense.

Lessig then use a comparison between the price of Internet access in France and in the US.

Broadband in the US is “slow and expensive.” Verizon’s entry-level broadband is $14.95 for 786 kbs. That about $20 per megabit. In FRANCE, for $36/m, you get 20 megabits/s — or about $1.80 per megabit.

What he is not mentioning is that for this price, in France, people get also 100+ channels and unlimited national calling (excluding mobile). And since the beginning of this year, calls to some countries (including the US) are included too.

But it does not stop there. US providers (especially AT&T/SBC and Bellsouth) have claimed that they want to start charging content providers for delivering their traffic since it supposedly cost them so much to carry video and other kind of big files.

In Nov 2005, the CEO of the newly merged SBC/AT&T said in an interview

How concerned are you about Internet upstarts like Google (GOOG ), MSN, Vonage, and others?

How do you think they’re going to get to customers? Through a broadband pipe. Cable companies have them. We have them. Now what they would like to do is use my pipes free, but I ain’t going to let them do that because we have spent this capital and we have to have a return on it. So there’s going to have to be some mechanism for these people who use these pipes to pay for the portion they’re using. Why should they be allowed to use my pipes?

The Internet can’t be free in that sense, because we and the cable companies have made an investment and for a Google or Yahoo! (YHOO ) or Vonage or anybody to expect to use these pipes [for] free is nuts! (Business Week)

Bill Smith, the CTO of Bellsouth said something similar 2 weeks ago

Higher usage for broadband services drives more costs that we have to recover (via OM Malik)

And just 2 days ago, the CEO of AT&T talked again about it

“We have to figure out who pays for this bigger and bigger IP network,” said Mr Whitacre, who was in New York ahead of AT&T’s annual presentation to investors and analysts on Tuesday. “We have to show a return on our investments.”

“I think the content providers should be paying for the use of the network – obviously not the piece from the customer to the network, which has already been paid for by the customer in Internet access fees – but for accessing the so-called Internet cloud.” (Financial Times)

What bothers me is that they are trying to propagate wrong facts. Saying that content providers should pay for Internet is totally inaccurate. Content providers are already paying to get access to the Internet cloud. They even probably spend millions of dollars on their connection. And SBC,AT&T and Bellsouth gets a cut of this money, whether it is directly or not. For each customer request from Bellsouth for example, the data is transmitted on Bellsouth network until it got passed to the network where the servers of the content providers. And the more traffic get exchanged, the more money the telecom carriers will make even though it is not proportional to the amount of the data transmitted.

So, the following statement in the Washington Post article The Coming Tug of War Over the Internet is incorrect:

Companies like Google and Yahoo pay some fees to connect to their servers to the Internet, but AT&T will collect little if any additional revenue when Yahoo starts offering new features that take up lots of bandwidth on the Internet. When Yahoo’s millions of customers download huge blocks of video or play complex video games, AT&T ends up carrying that increased digital traffic without additional financial compensation. (Washington Post)

Of course, content providers payment to the carrier will not change immediatly if traffic increases since on the Internet cloud, traffic is paid on a link capacity in data per second instead of total data transmitted. In other words, content providers pay for a certain “pipe” size to transmit their traffic rather than paying for the exact amount of traffic that goes through. So if Yahoo! customers decide to download one more song or one more picture , it will have no immediate impact on the business of the carrier except to have more traffic going through their infrastructure. But if all customers of Yahoo! decide to download one movie instead on one song, it is highly likely that Yahoo! would have to buy more capacity to the Internet backbone to keep the level of service to an acceptable level, which will benefit probably all the carriers on the path from Yahoo! to the final customers via peering agreement.

And in case we forgot, these same carriers used the ability to download music (yes, I saw it in one of their commercials) and big files to sell broadband to their customers. So, now that they can’t find any new customer for their overpriced service, they turn to the contect providers to try to collect some more money!

The issue is much more complex that it looks and I am preparing a presentation for the SIGCHI Public Policy workshop at CHI 2006 in Montreal in April so I will have more on this topic soon.

In the meantime, some interesting readings:

• Just Say No(thing) – Om Malik
• Saving the Net: How to Keep the Carriers from Flushing the Net Down the Tubes
• Conversation – Susan Crawford
• The self-owned internet
• The self-owned internet (II)

]]> http://www.iyne.org/2006/02/02/network-neutrality-and-the-state-of-broadband/feed/ 1 http://www.iyne.org/2006/02/01/blog-pioneer-wants-to-foster-local-voices/ http://www.iyne.org/2006/02/01/blog-pioneer-wants-to-foster-local-voices/#comments Thu, 02 Feb 2006 00:28:01 +0000 Riad Lemhachheche http://www.iyne.org/2006/02/01/blog-pioneer-wants-to-foster-local-voices/ Co-creator of Blogger, author and software developer still finds time for Oregon blog directory

Blogger, MySpace, Facebook and Livejournal are words that have become popular on campuses around the country. Corvallis resident Paul Bausch contributed to the development of the technology that made blogs and social community a reality.

Bausch studied journalism at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. But he quickly got disillusioned by the broadcasting industry. He felt that local news was dictated by national agencies like The Associated Press and that only national events mattered. The role of local or campus news outlets was basically to republish whatever story was provided to them.

“Find a local angle and rewrite it … ,” said Bausch of his college journalism experience. “This was extremely discouraging to me.”

While working on his degree, Bausch also did programming on the side. After graduation, he moved to San Francisco to work for an e-commerce company. Not long after, two of his classmates asked him to become the first employee of Pyra Labs, the company they had just created. The company’s goal was to develop new project management tools. While the tool itself never found a sizeable audience, one of its components generated a lot of interest. The component was an application that will list notes in reverse chronological order. Pyra Labs decided to shift its focus to develop the component. Bausch, along with Pyra Labs co-founders Meg Hourihan and Evan Williams, ended up writing most of the code for the new application, a Weblog tool named Blogger.

Weblog was not a novelty by then and Bausch was already maintaining one to find connections with other people through the Internet. But Blogger would participate in the blog revolution by easing the process of creating and maintaining a blog. The Blogger service took off on its own and the usage exploded once the company started Blogspot, a hosting service for blogs.

The year 2004 was a time of recognition for blogs. Merriam-Webster named blog the number one word of the year and PC Magazine named blog pioneer Bausch and his colleagues People of the Year.

With more than 10 posts made per second and 26 millions blog sites referenced, blogging has become one of the most popular phenomenons on the Internet.

Bausch feels the development of blogs also benefits freedom of speech by altering and distributing the power that a few news organization concentrated in the past.

“They circumvent the normal channel of communication. It takes some power away from the gatekeeper,” said Bausch.

While Bausch is still highly involved in what is now known as social software, he moved to Corvallis in 2002 to become a software consultant and an author. He founded ORblogs, a directory of blogs written by Oregonians.

“My voice can reach other countries,” he said. “It can now reach people around the corner.”

NOTE: this is a reprint of a story published in the OSU Daily Barometer. The original is Blog pioneer wants to foster local voices

]]> http://www.iyne.org/2006/02/01/blog-pioneer-wants-to-foster-local-voices/feed/ 0 http://www.iyne.org/2006/01/12/instant-messaging-at-the-library/ http://www.iyne.org/2006/01/12/instant-messaging-at-the-library/#comments Fri, 13 Jan 2006 00:20:42 +0000 Riad Lemhachheche http://www.iyne.org/2006/01/12/instant-messaging-at-the-library/ Messaging service offers live help from library staff

Initiative is part of larger project to bring more library services online, accessible to students

By Riad Lemhachheche

Doing research for your next class paper while sitting on your couch at home? This has become easier as the OSU libraries are offering more and more resources online.The latest research publications can be accessed though the hundreds of electronic journals the library has subscribed to. Electronic versions of dissertations, graduate and honors theses from recent OSU graduates will soon be integrated in the catalog as well.With this wealth of information available at library patrons’ fingertips, a computer with Internet access pointing to OASIS, the OSU Library electronic catalog, has become the starting point for most library material searches.This has made it possible for OSU students, faculty and staff to access most of these resources from anywhere in the world, on and off campus. But until recently, there was still one thing you couldn’t get without coming to the library: help from a professional librarian.In 2004, OSU libraries, along with other public libraries in Oregon, set up a system to support its online patrons. The new service, named live reference service or L-Net, is staffed by OSU librarians and accessible online to any library patrons regardless of location.

“The primary target is the OSU community. We want to be able to provide real-time help wherever someone needs it,” said Ruth Vondracek, head of Reference and Instruction at OSU Valley Library.

The live reference service enables patrons to exchange text messages with librarians. The system also enables the user and the librarian to share a common browser window. Librarians can use the window to point to a location from where the resource researched can be accessed. Librarians can also display particular pages on the patron’s computer.

While the service has not been widely publicized yet, this option has proven popular to help patrons navigate through menus to locate the article or resource they are looking for.

“Librarians can help users navigate through OSU Library electronic resources they need,” Vondracek said.

The system is staffed by OSU libraries during business hours. But the system is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. OSU, along with all the others libraries participating in the system, provides staff to make the service run non-stop statewide.

This initiative is part of a larger project to provide more services online.

“As libraries have expanded into an online environment, librarians want to provide help within that same environment,” Vondracek said.

Patrons, especially younger ones, are getting more comfortable with online services. They expect to get help online not only from their library but for any service they use.

The library tried to keep up with the pace of its patrons’ online adoption by setting more workstations, going from 75 in 1999 to more than 110 today. The number of laptops available for checkout has also gone up from 10 to 50 in 5 years. And according to the library staff, the information commons would still run at capacity regardless of how many machines they would add to the existing pool.

The online catalog has seen the same trend with the traffic to its main page growing tenfold from 6 million hits in 2001 to 56 million by 2004.

NOTE: this is a reprint of a story published in the OSU Daily Barometer. The original is Messaging service offers live help from library staff

]]> http://www.iyne.org/2006/01/12/instant-messaging-at-the-library/feed/ 0 http://www.iyne.org/2005/12/20/workshop-at-chi-ithome-unraveling-complexities-of-networked-devices-in-the-home/ http://www.iyne.org/2005/12/20/workshop-at-chi-ithome-unraveling-complexities-of-networked-devices-in-the-home/#comments Tue, 20 Dec 2005 20:29:47 +0000 Riad Lemhachheche http://www.iyne.org/?p=90 A workshop at CHI 2006 in Montreal that matches my research topics. Submission deadline of position papers has been extended to Jan 16th.

IT@Home: Unraveling Complexities of Networked Devices in the Home
CHI 2006 Workshop

Call for Participation

The home is becoming a complex and hard to manage collection of
computers and digital lifestyle devices. The work to setup and
maintain a network of digital living devices in the home is similar
to the work of IT professionals. Indeed the growing complexity of
interconnected digital devices results in more and more time spent
solving problems with those devices and their configurations, an
important part of computer use that we call “IT@Home”. The workshop
will be structured to consider four areas of focus:

• Perspectives – How should we consider IT@Home? What theories
  apply to IT@Home?
• Problem Framing – What are critical problems in IT@Home?
• Empirical Study – Case studies and examples of effectively
  studying home IT.
• Design – What are some critical design issues for IT@Home?

Contributions to these conceptual areas that are illustrated through
data and case studies will be valued by researchers, designers,
product teams and market analysts through the coming years.

Individuals interested in participating in this full-day workshop
should submit a position paper on IT@Home that addresses one of the
four areas listed above. Position papers should be limited to 4
pages. Submissions in PDF or Word should be sent to David McDonald
dwmc at u.washington.edu by Monday, January 16, 2006. Notifications of
acceptance to the workshop will be made in early February 2006.

For more information on the workshop please visit:
IT@Home: Unraveling Complexities of Networked Devices in the Home
CHI 2006 Workshop

]]> http://www.iyne.org/2005/12/20/workshop-at-chi-ithome-unraveling-complexities-of-networked-devices-in-the-home/feed/ 0 http://www.iyne.org/2005/12/19/after-typepad-delicious-service-was-down-this-weekend/ http://www.iyne.org/2005/12/19/after-typepad-delicious-service-was-down-this-weekend/#comments Mon, 19 Dec 2005 22:38:49 +0000 Riad Lemhachheche http://www.iyne.org/?p=89 This is a difficult week for social software systems!

Typepad, one of the blogging tool from Six Apart , was down for several hours on Friday (approx 15-20 hrs)
Now, it is the turn of Del.icio.us, the social bookmarking manager, that just got bought by Yahoo!
Del.icio.us has been down since 8pm PST yesterday and was back online early today.

More info on the Del.icio.us blog

]]> http://www.iyne.org/2005/12/19/after-typepad-delicious-service-was-down-this-weekend/feed/ 0 http://www.iyne.org/2005/12/07/information-access-in-the-library/ http://www.iyne.org/2005/12/07/information-access-in-the-library/#comments Wed, 07 Dec 2005 21:36:51 +0000 Riad Lemhachheche http://www.iyne.org/?p=87 What you need not flying off the shelf? Try the library’s catalogs

OSU’s Valley Library has many ways to get the books you need

By Riad Lemhachheche

The OSU Valley Library owns about 1.9 million monographic volumes (books, videos, maps and government documents). Yet, OSU patrons may not find all the items they need for their research or classes in the shelves of the Valley Library.

Indeed, while the OSU collection is substantial, it is nowhere near the Library of Congress with its 130 million items spread over 530 miles of bookshelves. Additionally, OCLC WorldCat, a worldwide library cooperative, reached one billion holdings this August.

The Valley clearly pales in comparison with it’s 1.9 mil. But, as the saying goes, it’s not the size that matters, it’s how you use it.

So, what are the options left to OSU patrons if items they’re looking for isn’t on the shelves here in fair Corvallis?

In the case of articles, the library subscribes to several online publications accessible through the online catalog.

Another resource is the Summit Alliance Web catalog. Summit is the catalog of all the holdings of the 33 partnering academic libraries in the Pacific Northwest and was created by the merger of Orbis, the Oregon Academic Library Association, and Cascade, its Washington Counterpart. The catalog contains more than 20 million items of which 8 million are unique titles.

Any search done on the OSU catalog, OASIS, can be repeated on the Summit catalog and OSU patrons can borrow items available from any of the Summit Alliance member institutions.

Turnaround time is around three to five days for Summit borrowing.

“The interesting thing is that of this database, 65 percent of the books in the database are owned by only one of the Alliance members. That heterogeneity really increases the value of belonging to the Alliance,” said John Pollitz, the associate university librarian for public services and innovative technology.


Other benefits to the OSU community come from OSU belonging to Summit.

“If you live in Salem or Portland, you can pick up items at another member university,” said Sara Thompson, the library employee in charge of Summit.

Extended campus students living more than 30 miles from campus may even be eligible to receive items at home.

While Summit can prove to be a good resource to look for books, patrons looking for scientific articles and more specialized books may need to go to the next level and place a request for an interlibrary loan (ILL). The request will then be processed by the library ILL office. Using the WorldCat database system that connect libraries from around the world, library staff search for other libraries holding the item based on location and cost and sends electronic requests on behalf of patrons. Using ILL, it can take from three days to one month or more to receive the item. Books come from around the state, but may originate from South Africa, the United Kingdom or even China

ILL can be used by all the library patrons indifferently of class status or major, free of charge. But not all requests may be accepted.

“It is primarily a curriculum resource. Interlibrary loan should fulfill your curriculum,” said Susan Wood who works with ILL.

So while Summit requests are not mediated by library staff, interlibrary loans may be cancelled if they don’t have an academic goal.

“We usually don’t cancel interlibrary loan requests,” Wood said. But unless a student is doing a research on “Harry Potter” or other popular books, the request for the latest volume may not get through. The Library will then redirect patrons toward the Corvallis Public Library and that interlibrary loan service if necessary.

Ordering items from other libraries can reserve some surprises though.

“Once, we received a CPR dummy in a big box with a video and a book,” said Thompson.

Some other surprises included patrons receiving 16 mm film when they expected to receive a movie on DVD.

NOTE: this is a reprint of a story published in the OSU Daily Barometer. The original is What you need not flying off the shelf? Try the library’s catalogs



]]> http://www.iyne.org/2005/12/07/information-access-in-the-library/feed/ 0 http://www.iyne.org/2005/11/16/oregon-state-gis-group-gets-ready-to-map-your-world/ http://www.iyne.org/2005/11/16/oregon-state-gis-group-gets-ready-to-map-your-world/#comments Wed, 16 Nov 2005 08:26:18 +0000 Riad Lemhachheche http://www.iyne.org/?p=85 by Riad Lemhachheche, staff writer



Global Positioning System technology has become famous for letting hikers and travelers find their location wherever they are.

GPS devices are used in cars to provide driving directions and in airplanes to display the distance to one’s final destination. But GPS is only the tip of a growing industry and academic field known as Geographic Information Systems or GIS.

“GPS is no good unless GIS is doing analysis with that data”, said Dawn Wright, professor in the Department of Geosciences at Oregon State University.

GIS technologies are used for research in forest science or oceanography, as well as being incorporated in products and services used by millions of people every day.

Mapping services like Mapquest, Yahoo Maps or Google Earth rely heavily on GIS to associate topographic data, street and highway layout and traffic information to enable their users to plan their travels.

GIS experts were on the forefront of the emergency response team during the Katrina relief effort. They were able to generate up-to-date maps of transportation systems and locate areas where flooding had the most impact.

OSU is an academic leader in the GIS field, as it is one of the 16 founders of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, the major academic consortium in the field, that now counts over 70 members.

Last fall, OSU launched a new program for students and community to provide increased learning opportunities in the field of GIS.

The certificate program in Geographic Information Science is available to students from any major. It is a collaborative effort among at least six programs at OSU: geosciences, oceanography, forestry, computer science, horticulture, and crop and soil science.

The Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI, the major corporation in the field of GIS, supports OSU’s initiative with $500,000 worth of software.

To support their coursework, students have access to the resources of different research programs on campus through the extensive collection managed by the Valley Library. An example of these resources is the Oregon Coastal Atlas built jointly by the geosciences department, the state of Oregon and Ecotrust, a group interested in sustainability.

The certificate program includes a course on ethics principles, making OSU one of the few schools in the nation to educate its students on the ethical issues associated with geographic data.

These issues are becoming ever more important as mobile phones make it possible to log every move people make. For example, Internet users have already cross-referenced public databases, such as sexual offenders listings, with Google Maps. Dots on such maps represent the location of the sexual offenders.

Today is an opportunity for the OSU community to see for themselves what GIS is all about. As part of Geographic Awareness Week, OSU is having a campus-wide GIS day where activities will present the different aspects of the technology.

Among the general public, 400 sixth graders and their teachers will invade the OSU campus for a GPS hike. The City of Corvallis Mobile GIS truck will be parked in the MU Quad from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. to showcase the new wireless networking technology in use in its Public Works department.

“We look forward to seeing what our colleagues and students are doing with the technology, some of which is also receiving national attention, to interacting with the kids who will be visiting, as well as with locals from the Willamette Valley who will come to campus to see our events,” said Wright.

The OSU GIS Day activities schedule is available on the Internet at http://www .geo.oregonstate.edu/gisday.

NOTE: this is a reprint of a story published in the OSU Daily Barometer. The original is Oregon State GIS group gets ready to map your world

]]> http://www.iyne.org/2005/11/16/oregon-state-gis-group-gets-ready-to-map-your-world/feed/ 0 http://www.iyne.org/2005/11/03/world-usability-day/ http://www.iyne.org/2005/11/03/world-usability-day/#comments Thu, 03 Nov 2005 19:04:48 +0000 Riad Lemhachheche http://www.iyne.org/2005/10/19/world-usability-day/

Today is World Usability Day. So we should think harder today (and every other day too) on how we can make things, systems, services … more useful and enjoyable to use.
For my part, I am:

• researching on how to make wireless networking more easy and natural to use
• searching and accessing information more efficient (especially multimedia)

What are you doing?

]]> http://www.iyne.org/2005/11/03/world-usability-day/feed/ 1 http://www.iyne.org/2005/10/28/wi-fi-thank-you/ http://www.iyne.org/2005/10/28/wi-fi-thank-you/#comments Fri, 28 Oct 2005 21:27:44 +0000 Riad Lemhachheche http://www.iyne.org/?p=84 From Dana Spiegel, Executive Director of NYCwireless, a New York City based non-profit organization that advocates for and enables the growth of public wireless networks.

Wi-Fi Thank You

Wi-Fi Thank You is a place where you can send a thank you message to anyone who provides a free Wi-Fi hotspot.
We believe in free wireless and appreciate the people who provide it!

This is a great idea on how to augment wireless network to provide more user interaction.

Dana also wrote an interesting post Free American Broadband about the state of broadband connections in the US compared to other countries.

Related Posts:

Ubicomp 2005 video: Yellow chairs (video of public interaction with an open WiFi hotspot)
Spanish company, Fon, wants to let wireless internet users share their connection

]]> http://www.iyne.org/2005/10/28/wi-fi-thank-you/feed/ 0 http://www.iyne.org/2005/10/26/san-francisco-jell-o-style/ http://www.iyne.org/2005/10/26/san-francisco-jell-o-style/#comments Wed, 26 Oct 2005 17:25:34 +0000 Riad Lemhachheche http://www.iyne.org/?p=83 San Francisco in Jell-O is a project from Liz Hickok, a artist and designer from the Bay Area


San Francisco – Alamo Square

See also San Francisco City hall, Bay Bridge, Telegraph Hill, The City.

There is also a 1-min amazing video of San Francisco in Jell-O earthquake

(via metamanda)

]]> http://www.iyne.org/2005/10/26/san-francisco-jell-o-style/feed/ 1 http://www.iyne.org/2005/10/21/spanish-company-fon-wants-to-free-wireless-internet/ http://www.iyne.org/2005/10/21/spanish-company-fon-wants-to-free-wireless-internet/#comments Fri, 21 Oct 2005 21:44:48 +0000 Riad Lemhachheche http://www.iyne.org/?p=82 (Update)

Fon, wireless community service

As I was looking at how network providers regulate the sharing of the Internet access they provide to their subscribers, I came across the initiative from Fon.
Fon is planning on being first a Spanish Internet Service Provider (ISP) that will make it possible for subscribers to share ADSL service through wireless connection (WiFi).

Principle

Basically, suscribers could choose between 2 models:

Resellers: in this case, subscribers could resell up to 50% of their connection capacity. Fon will manage the access to other suscribers and give the user a cut of the fees it gets from that particular wireless access point. (Identified in the business model as Bill for Bill Gates I guess!) Community members: subscribers will then give up up to 50% of their connection capacity for free to others members of the service. In exchange, they will be able to roam on any of the other access points made accessible by other Fon members. (Identified in the business model as Linus for Linus Torvalds I guess!)

Requirements and availablilty

As of now, the service will require suscribers to own a compatible router, the Linksys WRT54G Wireless-G Router
The service is not operational yet. It is supposed to open around Nov 15th of this year but the Fon community sign-up page is already available.

More details are available on the Martin Varsavsky’s blog

See also this other way of sharing your connection:
Ubicomp 2005 video: Yellow chairs

]]> http://www.iyne.org/2005/10/21/spanish-company-fon-wants-to-free-wireless-internet/feed/ 8 http://www.iyne.org/2005/10/16/interruption-and-multitask-oriented-life/ http://www.iyne.org/2005/10/16/interruption-and-multitask-oriented-life/#comments Sun, 16 Oct 2005 22:43:42 +0000 Riad Lemhachheche http://www.iyne.org/?p=78 Sunday’s story in the New York Times Meet the Life Hackers talks about interruption in the workplace and how information technology tools are now fighting for our attention.

Information is no longer a scarce resource – attention is. David Rose, a Cambridge, Mass.-based expert on computer interfaces, likes to point out that 20 years ago, an office worker had only two types of communication technology: a phone, which required an instant answer, and postal mail, which took days. “Now we have dozens of possibilities between those poles,” Rose says. How fast are you supposed to reply to an e-mail message? Or an instant message? Computer-based interruptions fall into a sort of Heisenbergian uncertainty trap: it is difficult to know whether an e-mail message is worth interrupting your work for unless you open and read it – at which point you have, of course, interrupted yourself. Our software tools were essentially designed to compete with one another for our attention, like needy toddlers.

It talks particularly of the issues surroundings notification systems and ambient displays, that I have planned to include in my design.
It features research from Victor M. Gonzalez and Gloria Mark who presented their work at ECSCW in Paris. Mary Czerwinski, a Microsoft researcher, also worked on the subject to help the NASA with managing interruptions on astronauts conducting experiment.

She also collaborated with the HIP group at Microsoft Research that presented on Thursday at Oregon State Univ for a colloquim I had to attend for my Human Computer Interaction class. While their presentation was aimed at helping programmers with learning how to deal with large amounts of code and come to speed quickly on office practice, it could as well been re-used in other environments like general information workers.

]]> http://www.iyne.org/2005/10/16/interruption-and-multitask-oriented-life/feed/ 0 http://www.iyne.org/2005/10/14/the-music-you-may-like-recommended-by-you/ http://www.iyne.org/2005/10/14/the-music-you-may-like-recommended-by-you/#comments Fri, 14 Oct 2005 07:22:41 +0000 Riad Lemhachheche http://www.iyne.org/?p=76 The music you may like, recommended by ….YOU

Local start up is also a multi-national enterprise

By Riad Lemhachheche

OSU alumni Matthew McLoughlin, left, Rick Hangartner and Jim Shur show off the MyStrands program they have helped develop into an international franchise with more than 40 employees.


MusicStrands, a local company, is planning to change the way people discover and share music.

Music enthusiasts may search numerous venues for novelty: specialized magazines, MTV, the radio, concerts or even friends. There isn’t an easy way to discover new cool songs without some effort.

MusicStrands is trying to change that. MusicStrands’ free software, MyStrands, recommends songs based on what you are currently listening to.

Connected to Apple’s iTunes (and soon other players), the application looks at your listening behavior and searches in its 5-million-song database for recommendations.

“When you listen to radio, watch TV, or read a magazine, you are discovering the music others are telling you to discover. What MusicStrands wants is for people to have greater control of the music they discover,” said Gabriel Aldamiz-echevarria, vice president of marketing and communications at MusicStrands.

Several other companies are trying to provide innovative music recommendation services. Amazon.com, for example, provides its customers with recommendations based on their previous purchases. LastFm collects your playlists and provides you with recommendations based on your profile.

What sets MusicStrands apart from the competition is the fact that “MyStrands is the only system that recommends based on what you play, that provides with instant recommendations,” Aldamiz-echevarria said.

“The songs you are playing now represents your context,” said Matthew McLaughlin, a 2005 OSU graduate and vice president of product innovation for the company. In fact, MusicStrands offers two types of recommendations. MyStrands offers instant recommendations based on your current mood and the latest songs you played, while the Web site gives you recommendations on your complete profile.

What if your tastes do not fit mainstream standards? MusicStrands places a lot of emphasis on independent music. The MusicStrands Indy program enables artists to get profiled for free in the system by including information on their music and letting them add links to hear their songs.

“It is not based on advertising, it is based on how they play,” McLaughlin said.


Another service offered is MusicStrands’ music charts, which enable users to share music charts that update daily and automatically on their Web site or blog.

And according to the company, this is just the beginning. MusicStrands, which was created in the summer of 2004, is growing fast. It employs 40 people in offices in both the United States and Spain.

The company, headquartered in Corvallis, is on a highly dynamic market and enjoys agreements with companies such as Amazon, Apple and Wal-Mart.

The company’s relationship to OSU is special since it employs several OSU alumni and counts Jon Herlocker and Thomas Dietterich, two computer science professors, among its founders.

“MusicStrands is rooted in Corvallis. Corvallis is a great place to hire talent and to attract talent. We heavily want to hire more talent from the university,” Aldamiz-echevarria said.

That’s why the company, which is always on the lookout for new ideas, invites OSU students to submit theirs to ideas@musicstrands.com.

“If we like the idea, it is possible that the student comes to our offices to make it happen,” Aldamiz-echevarria said.

More information on MusicStrands is available at www.musicstrands.com

Riad Lemhachheche, staff writer
city@dailybarometer.com, 737-6376

NOTE: this is a reprint of a story for the Oct 14th OSU Daily Barometer. Original version The music you may like, recommended by ….YOU – The Daily Barometer

UPDATE: see the excellent review from Nicolas who call it a social itunes

]]> http://www.iyne.org/2005/10/14/the-music-you-may-like-recommended-by-you/feed/ 0 http://www.iyne.org/2005/10/10/ubicomp-2005-video-yellow-chairs/ http://www.iyne.org/2005/10/10/ubicomp-2005-video-yellow-chairs/#comments Mon, 10 Oct 2005 23:58:22 +0000 Riad Lemhachheche http://www.iyne.org/?p=77 The Yellow chair stories presented at Ubicomp related the interaction between people passing by and a wireless network connectivity materialized by a yellow chair placed in front of a house in london, UK.



For more details, see the Yellow Chair Stories – a live service design intervention and watch the Yellow Chair Stories video

See also:
Ubicomp 2005 demo: u-texture
Ubicomp 2005, Tokyo

]]> http://www.iyne.org/2005/10/10/ubicomp-2005-video-yellow-chairs/feed/ 1 http://www.iyne.org/2005/10/03/ubicomp-2005-demo-u-texture/ http://www.iyne.org/2005/10/03/ubicomp-2005-demo-u-texture/#comments Tue, 04 Oct 2005 02:09:06 +0000 Riad Lemhachheche http://www.iyne.org/?p=72 I had the opportunity to test the u-texture system that was on demo at Ubicomp 2005 conference in Tokyo.

Basically, u-texture is a home computing / entertainment system developed at Keio University, Japan. It is based on the concept of active furniture where the components are “blocks”. Each block has its own touch screen display and connectivity. Based on its relative and absolute position in regard to the rest of the system. It can perform different tasks, run different applications.

u-texture blocks can be setup in 2 modes: standalone and system. Blocks can be connected together through u-joints to provide interactions. Here is a description of a block:



More info is available at u-texture project page at Keio University

Here is a picture I took of the interaction between a music CD and a music player/ computer (a Sharp Zaurus I believe)




Ubicomp’05 – U-texture demo, originally uploaded by Riad Lemhachheche.

See also: Ubicomp 2005, Tokyo

]]> http://www.iyne.org/2005/10/03/ubicomp-2005-demo-u-texture/feed/ 0 http://www.iyne.org/2005/09/07/ubicomp-2005-tokyo/ http://www.iyne.org/2005/09/07/ubicomp-2005-tokyo/#comments Wed, 07 Sep 2005 09:07:58 +0000 Riad Lemhachheche http://www.iyne.org/?p=70 I will be attending Ubicomp 2005 in Tokyo, Japan from Sept 11 to 14 ( as a student volunteer).

Here are some of the presentations from the paper program I will be attending:

• From Interaction to Participation: Configuring Space Through Embodied Interaction
  Amanda Williams (University of California, Irvine), Eric Kabisch (University of California, Irvine), Paul Dourish (University of California, Irvine) — Sept 14th 10:45 am

• Scanning Objects in the Wild: Assessing an Object Triggered Information System
  A.J. Bernheim Brush (Microsoft Research), Tammara Combs Turner (Microsoft Research), Marc A. Smith (Microsoft Research), Neeti Gupta (Microsoft Research) — Sept 14th 11:10 am
• Control, Deception, and Communication: Evaluating the Deployment of a Location-Enhanced Messaging Service
  Giovanni Iachello (Georgia Institute of Technology), Ian Smith (Intel Research Seattle), Sunny Consolvo (Intel Research Seattle), Gregory D. Abowd (Georgia Institute of Technology), Jeff Hughes (University of Washington), James Howard (University of Washington), Fred Potter (University of Washington), James Scott (Intel Research Cambridge), Timothy Sohn (University of California, San Diego), Jeffrey Hightower (Intel Research Seattle), Anthony LaMarca (Intel Research Seattle) — Sept 13th 16:00
• Self-Mapping in 802.11 Location Systems
  Anthony LaMarca (Intel Research Seattle), Jeffry Hightower (Intel Research Seattle), Ian Smith (Intel Research Seattle), Sunny Consolvo (Intel Research Seattle) — Sept 13th 09:00 am

See also: Ubicomp 2005 demo: u-texture