Hill Associates Telecom Newsletter

The ringtone that created a stir… for those under the age of 30
A report by Melissa Block on National Public Radio caught the attention of the media this month. The initial report was an interview with the inventor of the "Mosquito Teen Repeller" designed to annoy teenagers and stop them hanging around stores. This invention uses high frequencies that are generally audible to people under the age of twenty. Some enterprising teenagers took the concept and created a high frequency ringtone that most people over the age of 30 cannot hear. Can you? Test your ability to hear the tone here. Our quick survey in the office showed that most people over 30 could not hear the tone.

VoIP and CALEA
Security is a thorny dilemma in the age of increasing information availability. An individual or corporation can now be held liable for failing to protect themselves and any resulting negative outcomes to shareholders or others impacted by security violations. Carriers are in an odd position, with two very different responsibilities: one, to their customers, and the other, to state and federal law enforcement agencies. The Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA), enacted in October of 1994, requires carriers to assist law enforcement officials in executing warranted electronic surveillance. This is an increasingly difficult thing to do in the face of new voice technologies like VoIP. See tHAWT Episode 8 for more about these security issues, as well as a discussion of a study by Frost and Sullivan related to collaboration.

When does technology become too much?
New functions and features are being added to the mobile phone everyday: ring tones (including ones us adults are not supposed to hear), photos, videos, calendars, messaging, and PDA functions. A new feature that I have found most valuable is the global positioning functionality. A traveler, I now depend on my mobile device to tell me where I am, give me directions (as I drive) to my hotel and nearest restaurants, and most importantly, get me back to the airport during rush hour.

Now this feature is being used to allow others to track you, via business applications like those from Sprint/Nextel or via personal applications such as one from Verizon, which allows parents to track their children. Does this capability bother anyone? Do we really want others to know where we are all the time? Do they even need to know? Is this the new private investigator tool? The simple solution is to turn off our mobile phones when we do not want to be tracked; however most people rarely turn off their phones now. I only turn mine off when I am on a plane. Let us know what you think.

Maybe WiMAX is the next big thing after all
Australia has deployed a WiMAX network that can cover 70 percent of Australia's population and 75 percent of its business. Despite the fact that the 802.16e standard is not fully in place, more than 50,000 unwired Australia subscribers use the service. Read more in this article.

Cell phones on planes? Let's hope not!
The FCC just closed the auction on two air-to-ground spectrum allocations in the 800 MHz band. This is interesting for two reasons. The first is that this is the spectrum that Verizon uses to provide the Airfone service, the phones you find on most large jet services in the U.S. The spectrum Verizon currently uses has been divided into two bands, a 3 MHz band and a 1 MHz band. Verizon must stop using the 3 MHz band within two years (AirCell won this band) and the 1 MHz band by the year 2010.

The second reason this is interesting is that a company wholly owned by JetBlue won the 1 MHz bid. LiveTV currently supplies the satellite TV to the JetBlue planes and those of several other carriers. The expected use for this frequency is wireless Internet access. The low cost providers will be competing for services again, and we will all be carrying multiple laptop batteries for those long flights. Let us hope, however, that this does not lead to other more rash decisions and that cellular phones will need to remain in their off and locked positions during a flight, if not for safety reasons, for sanity reasons.

For more information check the FCC site or one of several articles. Find information on LiveTV at http://www.livetvifs.com/ or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiveTV.

Craigslist: Another example of an Internet phenomenon
Have you ever wondered how Craigslist makes money, or for that matter, what Craigslist is? It is another one of those interesting, yet valuable Web services that appear to be free. Frequent users eventually wonder how they could ever have lived without it. Check out the fact sheet to learn more about Craigslist, its purpose, and its business model.

VoIP moves closer to becoming mainstream telephony
Vonage's IPO, CALEA wiretapping rules, and the FCC Universal Service Fee tax have been all over the news. The convergence of voice and data on to the same network is not a trivial matter, and it raises several issues. For more on the subject of whether the wiretapping law should include services like Vonage and Skype, check out our blog, podcasts, and this article. The same authors discuss the FCC's decision to charge a Universal Service Fee in this article. We'd like to know what you think about these two issues as well.

New security policies for portable devices
Last Friday, the Federal government's Office of Management and Budget issued a 45-day time frame to implement several new security policies regarding portable devices. The four new guidelines are summarized as follows:

1. Encrypt all data on laptops and handhelds.
2. Require 2-factor authentication for remote access (password + smart card).
3. Require a 30 minute time-out due to inactivity on connections.
4. Log data downloads and verify deletion within 90 days if not still in use.

While all of these guidelines make perfect sense, it will be interesting to see if everyone in government can implement them quickly. Read a pdf of the official memo and an article about the guidelines in the Washington Post.

What is Web 2.0?
If you have spent any time online recently, you have likely encountered references to Web 2.0. Web 2.0 is an industry term for the latest and greatest Internet applications. Web 2.0 applications have several distinct features. They tend to be highly interactive and flexible; they tend to be service oriented, often bringing together multiple Internet applications into a new hybrid service generically known as a "mashup"; and finally, they tend to emphasize the importance of user contribution and user content, giving them a strong social dimension.

One of the originators of the term Web 2.0, Tim O'Reilly, discusses what the originators mean by the term in this article. tHAWT Episode 7 discusses Web 2.0 applications, their importance to the Internet, and emerging Internet trends.