Internet

Now This is Broadband

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Not DSL, not 3 Mbps cable. Nope, this is broadband:

Cairns, North Queensland, Australia, July 6, 2004 – ResearchChannel, an industry leader in Internet distribution of quality content, demonstrated the first successful transmission of full bandwidth High Definition (HD) 1080i video between two desktop computers using high speed networking technology at the Asia Pacific Advanced Network (APAN) conference in Cairns, Australia today. Conference attendees were treated to three HD video clips streamed at a sustained data rate of 1.5 gigabits per second. (emphasis added)
And, I think, this is exactly what big media and big cable are afraid of and why we haven’t seen a more agressive roll out of broadband services. Heck, even 100 Mbps full duplex would open the door to massive disintermediation of the media industry.
You might want to check out the huge amount of educational material available to be streamed at the ResearchChannel.

A Real Home Internet Service?

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One may be just around the corner for some of you. Verizon will be offering a new internet service in a few geographic areas beginning later this summer:

A 2mbps to 5mbps Fios connection will cost $35 a month if purchased along with Verizon’s local and long-distance telephone service. The service will cost $40 if purchased alone. A connection of up to 15mbps is available for $45 a month if purchased as part of the same telephone service bundle, or $50 alone. The company did not reveal pricing for the 30mbps plans.
Heck, I pay nearly $50/month now for Comcast 3 Mbps service. It will be great if Verizon is able to agressively roll this out in many markets as it will put price/performance pressure on the cable companies and help drive skinny band DSL to it demise.

Online Banking

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There was a brief mention on Marketplace today of the increasing numbers of folks using various online banking services. I frequently check my account balances and move funds between accounts. It is very handy.
There are some things I do not do. For instance, I do not use the online bill payer service. Sure, it is very easy to use. Certainly much easier then the telephone based bill paying service that I tried out 20 years ago and much easier than a version on online bill paying I tried 10 or so years ago.
The reason I do not use it is simple. It is not as reliable and timely at getting my payment posted to the account of my creditor as putting a check in the mail. That is to say that the banks, at least my bank, are not making use of the technology at hand to provide the service. It should be trivial to mail the check or, best, post to my creditor’s account within one day.
My bank offers approximately 4-5 day service which includes the possibility that they won’t even mail a check for 4-5 days. Until they fix this I’ll keep buying stamps.

More Need for Creative Destruction

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If you thought my concerns about the current major content providors expressed a couple posts back were unwarranted then consider this from Dan Gilmour:

For a few minutes this morning at the D conference, Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg sounded like a new age telecommunications executive, bragging about his expanding data network and plans to extend fiber optics to homes in his service territory. But he reverted to form, pretty much insisting that Verizon would reserve the right to discriminate on what gets delivered, and at what speed, on the lines and networks it controls.
Consolidation is going to create a broadband world where only a couple of companies, at most, control the pipes into our homes. If we allow companies like the Verizons and Comcasts to discriminate in favor of their own “content” products and services, today’s brand of media consolidation will look tame.
Where are the antitrust people on this? Where’s the FCC? Sleeping, or deliberately encouraging a dangerous lockdown of our future in the hands of companies that have a dismal track record when it comes to honest competition. Not a good situation…

These folks do not have our best interests at heart.