September 2009 Archives

It may or may not be a non-event as these things go, but October will be the last month you can access Microsoft's Encarta Encyclopedia online.

The writing has been on the wall for a while, and the David that slew the Goliath (and now a Goliath in its own right) is Wikipedia, the Digital Citizens' Encyclopedia, written and edited by thousands of digital volunteers.

The Internet rating service Hitwise reported that in January of 2009 Wikipedia got 97 percent of all US visits to online encyclopedias, while Microsoft Encarta got 1.27%. These numbers speak for themselves.

As a result, Microsoft pulled the plug on all store sales of its Encarta Encyclopedia as of June, and all affiliated sites will be wound down by the end of October, except for those in Japan, which will stay up until the end of the year.

There really was no way that a small (by comparison) editorial staff could keep up with thousands of Wikipedia volunteers, and as a result, the Encarta was sometimes embarrassingly out of date, while any Wikipedia entry could receive hourly updates.

Now, I have had the full Encarta loaded on my PC for the past several years. To be honest, however, this has not been for the encyclopedia itself, which while ample (it was based on the Funk & Wagnalls Encyclopedia) did not meet my research requirements, but for its dictionary, which is the best electronic dictionary around (and believe me, I have looked).

My hope now is that the Encarta Dictionary is not buried alongside the Encyclopedia, for it deserves a much better fate.

A good home for the Encarta Dictionary would be as an integral part of Office 2010--Microsoft, please take note.

The one thing the Encarta Encyclopedia had going for it was the graphics and its very beautiful presentation. As part of the Encarta Encyclopedia launch, Microsoft bought Corbis, and with that had access to an amazing library of images. This is where the Encarta shone. But when it comes to the need for good, up-to-date information, slick presentation will always take a back seat to pertinence and accuracy, and Wikipedia does that job quite admirably.

I thought--almost ten years ago, now--that the digital book reader was an idea who's time had come, and I promptly went out to acquire a couple of RocketReaders, one for me and one for a close friend of mine.

At nearly a pound each, and a battery life of about six pages (on a good day), they were not the last word on eReaders; they were, however, pioneers.

I loved my rocket reader, and used it for quite some time. Then, however, some deeply ingrained love for the feel of paper drove me back to Borders and Amazon.com for more paper books.

Then, about five or so years ago, I read about Sony's digital ink prototypes. One or two had surfaced in Japan--with no plans whatever to bring them to the U.S.; the article went on to inform me. Rats.

I would have loved me one of those.

Leader of the Pack

Fast forward two years, and there it is, the Sony SR-500, digital ink and all. Believe it or not, I still have it. With the 2GB SD Expansion Card the thing can hold 2,000+ books. I have 270 on it right now (including Trollope's entire output at a total of $40 from Sony's eBook store), and that's going to last me for a while.

Sony has brought out upgrades since, the SR-505 and others, but I'm staying put. I love the black, slow (yes, it's slow) reader which allows me comfortably to read in bed without shifting around to turn the page. A light touch on the button (one of two) and the next page magically appears.

The battery life (rechargeable) is 1,000 or so pages per charge. Very workable.

New Leader of the Pack

Then came Amazon's Kindle, and overnight the digital book reader is taken seriously. Thank you, Amazon. Although I have not seen the numbers, Kindle, by all accounts, is a run-away success, and they are now working on new, less expensive models.

And so is the rest of the pack.

Looming, Booming Industry

At this point, there is a host of digital readers on--or just about to enter--the market.

Sony and Kindle still lead the charge, but congregating behind are players like Foxit Software's eSlick Reader which specializes in .pdf renderings (using digital ink technology); IREX e-reader which has partnered with Barnes & Nobel for electronic books; the iRex iLiad; the Hanlin eReader; the Bookeen Cybook; the Cool-er; the list goes on.

A full matrix of 34 different eReaders can be found on wiki.mobilread.com.

Writer's Boon

What I personally see as an amazing advantage to the writer who does not want to devour trees, but who want to be read (and face it, people hate reading anything longer than a tweet on a computer screen), is that all these readers, virtually to a reader, support .pdf, Adobe Acrobats easily created, and nicely controllable, format. This allows you to use services like Scribd to post (and charge for if you want) stories, essays, or novels in .pdf format, which the world at large then can download onto their portable eReader, be that an iPhone or a Kindle.

The Time Has Come

It sounds like, finally--ten years later--the eReader as idea has finally arrived, and not a moment too soon. I believe that it is not only going to save the newspaper industry, but that it will also revive the book reading, now that they are more easily available, and do not take trees to produce.

I can hear the forests around me draw deep sighs of relief.

The last time a project of this importance occurred in East Africa was when the Uganda Railway integrated that part of the world into the British Empire. That project was scorned by its critics and referred to as the Lunatic Express.

According to a recent BBC article, Seacom, a company and project largely funded by African investors, has just landed the first undersea fiber optic cable on the East African coast. This time the project is fondly referred to as the Digital Express, and has far fewer critics.

Seacom is in fact only the first of several providers to bring undersea fiber optics to East Africa; other companies, such as Teams and Essay are expected to make landfall soon.

Digital Villages

This development looks to have a profound impact on East Africa and its economy. Current satellite access of 1 mbps costs $3,000 a month; the new digital access will only cost $300 a month, a price reduction of 90%.

And prices are expected to drop further as ISPs roll service out to those who can afford it, creating more demand, which will lower prices further. Targeted areas include rural villages that look to follow India's example of providing inexpensive offshore outsource businesses such as data entry and call centers.

East Africa, until now, has lagged behind the rest of the world in Internet connectivity, but this is now set to change.

If Africa's runaway adoption of mobile telephony is any indication, now that broadband has reached the East African shores, it may be in for a digital explosion including large-scale servers providing cloud computing to ever-growing hosts of inexpensive net computers.

And now that Africa is approaching equal digital terms to places such as India, a new, digital, economy may well give India and other outsourcing countries a run for their money.

The world is shrinking even as I write this. Amazing.

It is a safe consumption that 20% of the Internet users devour 80% of the bandwidth.

Infrastructure

It is also a given that in order for Internet Service Providers to continue to meet the exponentially growing demand for bandwidth (as in online-gaming, peer-to-peer transfers, online movies, massive music downloads, wireless Internet access, etc.) they must invest further, and rather heavily, in infrastructure.

The $7.2 billion that the economic stimulus plans appropriate to spreading broadband across America is but a drop in the digital bucket when compared to actual cost to meet demand and bridge the digital divide.

According to the recent Shapiro/Hassett report on Flexible Broadband Pricing and the Digital Divide, the long-term investment to keep up with bandwidth demand could cost $300 Billion over the next 20 years.

Deduct the Government $7.2 billion and the remaining $292.8 billion will have to come from private investment and/or increased revenue. Good money rests on the latter.

Pricing Options vs. Growth

The Shapiro/Hassett report considers four pricing scenarios:

• No Pricing Change (used as a baseline)
• Flat Rate Increase
• 20/80 Split Between Heavy Users/Rest of the World
• 50/50 Split Between Heavy Users/Rest of the World

No Pricing Change

Should the expansion and upgrade of infrastructure not be passed on to the users (highly unlikely scenario) the report projects that by the years 2017 virtually every household in America can or will have broadband access.

Flat Rate Increase

Should current laws, or choices made by ISP, result in flat rate increases across the entire customer base, the report projects that only the highest income bracket will approach uniform access (86.4%) by 2017, whereas under $30,000 will reach 79.4% and the $30,000-$74,999 bracket will reach 85.7% by 2017.

20/80 Split Between Heavy Users/Others

The report makes the interesting observation/assumption that the heavy user will not overly care if he has to assume 80% of the cost of infrastructure expansion. For one, he can most likely afford it; and for two, the habits that have driven him or her to high bandwidth usage in the first place, will stay in place and he or she will stick with current--or reach for higher--bandwidth, regardless of cost.

In this scenario, the price increases (20% of cost over 80% of users) will not be such that it will dramatically stifle growth. Therefore, by 2017 98.5% of the under $30,000 will have broadband access, and 98.7% of the $30,000+ bracket.

50/50 Split Between Heavy Users/Others

In a scenario where the infrastructure cost is split 50-50 between heavy users and others, the lower income brackets are unduly affected, which will slow growth.

In this scenario, by 2017 91.3% of the under $30,000 earners will have broadband access, 93.8% of those earning between $30,000-74,999, and 94.1% of those about %75,000.

Policy Implications

The report makes an excellent case for the need of policy makers--both Governmental and Industrial--to adopt a flexible pricing policy (the 20/80 model clearly showing the greatest promise).

Business as usual, i.e., flat pricing, just will not cut it.

ISPs must be given the freedom to set equitable pricing policies that fairly distribute the actual costs proportionately to actual usage. This way the digital divide will be more or less bridged eight years from now.

R.I.P.

In the mid-90s, as I was growing more and more Internet aware--I might even say savvy--the growing realization was that here was a free ride. Just about everything was free (for a small monthly fee): News, email, music downloads (until the recording industry caught on and the free servers began to shut down), even movies.

Along with that realization, however, came another--a little more distant, and one that I did not want to inspect too closely: who's really paying for all this?

At this point, using Netflix online streaming service, I could literally use up gigabits of bandwidth each hour of the day, each day of the week, each week of the month, and all for my relatively low cable internet service.

Power Users

A power user in my book is someone who muscles in on the bandwidth and grabs the lion's share of it. This includes the constant movie watcher, gamers, and others who stream online multi-media.

Compare that to the business user who may only use email and perhaps the occasional online PowerPoint presentation. Toss in a few Acrobat files sent to everyone in the office, and a handful of presentations or proposals back and forth from clients, and you have his total use of the bandwidth. A use that more than likely is between one and ten percent of that of the power user. Checking his monthly cable internet statement, however, we'll see the same figure.

Who's Paying?

So, who's paying? Or, more specifically, who is paying the power users over-use of bandwidth. At this point, the cost is spread out among all users, so, frankly, the business, or personal, user is footing the bandwidth bill for the power user.

Not for so much longer, perhaps.

A recently released report written by Dr. Robert Shapiro (co-authored by Dr. Kevin Hassett) examines the broadband expansion (to include all Americans) called for by President Obama, and what it would take to bridge the digital divide to the point where 98.5% of Americans will be on broadband by 2017. Bottom line: $300 billion. That is a tough pill to swallow for even the most successful and enthusiastic ISP.

Flexible Broadband Pricing

Expanding the broadband network, while also providing higher and higher bandwidth for the power user, is not an inexpensive undertaking; and the question is continually asked: should you not pay as you use?

The analogy of an "all you can eat" restaurant is often called upon to illustrate this dilemma. Good principle as long as most customers stick to main meal, desert, and coffee. However, the power-eaters--who easily downs six entrées, four main courses, and fourteen deserts--are growing in number and seem to also grow increasingly voracious. The "all you can eat" principle just isn't cutting any longer; this restaurant is beginning to run at a loss.

The Shapiro/Hassett report points this out, and highlights an unwanted side effect to the problem: unless you pay as you use bandwidth, the bridging of the digital divide will be significantly delayed.

Digital Divide

Financing the power user on an "all you can eat" basis, will continue to raise (yes, it has begun already) the flat monthly fees for broadband, which, naturally, hits the personal or business user as well. Should this trend continue, the average "eater" would simply refuse to pay, knowing well that he or she is paying for the indulgence of the digitally obese.

The only way, the report concludes, to ensure the digital divide is bridged, is to introduce some form of equitable pay-as-you-use pricing.

And I could not agree more.