The News – 10/18/02

In this Issue:	Recommended Reading
True 3G Is Here; The Hinterland Rules Shameless Self-Promotion Dept. Foreign Cybersquatting Justice Lost 400 Laptops BlackBerry Gets Better Connected Nanotech Bill Introduced	I realize this is the only newsletter you’ll ever need, but if you want more in-depth detail, check out: Stan Hustad’s The Coaching Connection Management Signature's The Express Read

True 3G Is Here; The Hinterland Rules
The second part of the Why You Need to Get Hip to HIPAA series will appear in a future SNS

Although you’ve heard the hype from the major wireless network vendors about their 3G networks (AT&T Wireless' mlife, Verizon's Express Network, Sprint's PCS Vision), no major network has actually released a true 3G capability, defined as sustained 144Kbps data connectivity. Field trials of all the major solutions have shown real world connectivity barely meeting the 56Kbps throughput of your standard wired modem.

Well now there is a true US 3G network, based on Qualcomm’s CDMA2000 1xEV-DO network technology. But don’t look for it in a major metro area near you. Monet Mobile Networks’ network is limited to six upper Midwest cities: Duluth, MN, Eau Claire, WI, Sioux Falls, SD, Fargo, ND, Moorhead, MN, and Grand Forks, ND.

In what is rapidly becoming a trend, the hinterland is getting way more wired than either coast. In fact, you can be just as wired in Duluth as you can in South Korea, the world’s first 3G country.

The 1xEV-DO technology provides a peak data rate of 2.4 Mbps using a single 1.25 MHz CDMA carrier. This means that, even with many users contending for network resources, the average user is likely to get more than 144Kbps throughput, equivalent to many wired broadband solutions. In fact, experts estimate that users will see data rates between 600Kbps and 1,200Kbps during off-peak hours, and between 150Kbps and 300Kbps during peak hours, with instantaneous data rates as high as 2.4Mbps. That’s fast enough for video, folks.

Proponents of the technology point out that the CDMA migration path offers higher speeds and easier conversion than the GSM/GPRS path being followed by AT&T Wireless, T-Mobile and others.

I saw Monet at the Upper Great Plains Technology Conference & Trade Show this week in Fargo, ND. The event was co-sponsored by North Dakota Senator Byron Dorgan, who also co-sponsored the Rural Broadband Enhancement Act in 2001. This act, combined with local efforts in North Dakota, has produced some astounding broadband penetration in the state. The state has announced plans for a $20 million state-wide broadband network that will connect 552 locations in 194 North Dakota cities. There’s a robust fiber network covering much of the interior of the state, which is so sparsely populated, it only has one representative in the US House.

According to the National Carrier Exchange Association, despite the challenges of long loop lengths and distances from IP backbones, 65 percent of rural lines are now broadband capable, in comparison to 14 percent in 1999.

At this rate, access to high speed wired and wireless broadband will draw people from the populous cities to the countryside, where, arguably, the quality of life is better and the cost of living lower. In fact, a Minneapolis-area software development outsourcing company Cross USA has ROOTS (Rural Office Of Technology Services) located in Sebeka, MN and Watford City, ND. Both facilities are served by high speed broadband. In these centers, a loyal, experienced staff develops software for major clients while enjoying hunting, fishing, traffic-free commutes, and affordable lakeside housing. Customers can enjoy 25 percent to 40 percent savings over development based in a major urban area.

While the giant telecom companies struggle to wire up the urbanites, the wide open spaces have caught up and are surpassing their city cousins in wiredness. How you gonna keep ‘em down in the suburb once they’ve seen Fargo?

Monet

Briefly Noted

• Shameless Self-Promotion Dept.: SNS is two years old! Pop a cork!
  
  I’m featured in Manyworlds’ Thought Leader Showcase, which lists a few of the white papers I’ve done.
  
  Also, check out the article I wrote for the Taylor Harkins newsletter entitled, Do you hate your customers? It continues the theme from my earlier article, analyzing the media industry’s response to file sharing. My next article for them will be on Short Messaging Service (SMS), so watch for it soon.
  
  Finally, the CTOMentor wireless white paper, You Can Take It with You: Business Applications of Personal Wireless Devices, is available at ITPapers.
  
  
• Foreign Cybersquatting: You may be aware that the US Congress passed the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA) which protects trademark owners from folks who register trademark names, or names substantially similar to trademarks, with the intent of confusing Internet users. Many cybersquatters are also typosquatters: people who register misspellings of popular domain names, such as yaho or mircosoft.com. (See the TrendSpot for more information on typosquatting.)
  
  An interesting recent suit was brought by CNN against a Chinese news company that registered the domain name cnnews.com. The Chinese company argued that the ACPA refers only to US commerce and that offering news and information to a Chinese audience did not have any effect on US commerce. Everything available on the Chinese Web site was in the Chinese language, meant only for Chinese residents, and required payment in Chinese currency.
  
  Despite this rather reasonable-sounding argument, the US court found that the company had violated the ACPA and had acted in bad faith. The judge said that the site was used by persons who knew Chinese in the US, and thus American commerce was affected. Also, the judge found that the Chinese had acted in bad faith since they had never used the name Cnnews before registering the domain name and they also had knowledge of CNN’s mark prior to their registration. Finally, the court said the use of .com instead of the country code .cn demonstrated that their target market was not limited to China.
  
  So, even if you’re a foreign company, you need to be careful in creating domain names that are similar to US trademark holders’ domains. This is probably also true of foreign trademark holders’ domains as well, but, since Network Solutions, which maintains the domain name database, is a US company, it’s a bit murky how any disputes involving foreign parties and .com names will get handled.
  Source: Twin Cities Electronic Commerce Forum newsletter article by Linda Hopkins