Fiber to the Home?

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Stanley Miller’s article on SBC’s Oconomowoc fiber to the home project (Paved over Pabst Farms new developments only) provides a useful look at what’s possible, if the monopolistic telco’s ever are motivated to provide reasonable internet speeds (Japan and Korea already have very large scale, inexpensive deployments at these speeds). We in the tech industry refer to these type of projects as demoware.
David Isenberg reviews an interesting recent study (May, 2004) by Telcordia and Sanfor Bernstein (investment houses) called Fiber: Revolutionizing the Bell’s Telecom Networks. The study claims that fiber to the premises (FTTP) would reduce (by 30 to 90%!! the telco’s operating expenses (in other words, pay for itself over time, vs. the high costs of maintaining their aging copper networks. Interesting reading.
This is a critical economic development issue. Unfortunately, our politicians seem to have their head in the sand on this (SBC status quo lobbying helps, no doubt). I mentioned this issue to then candidate Jim Doyle at a pre election debate: “SBC’s telco stranglehold on Wisconsin is a major economic development problem” He replied (paraphrased); “you’re right, but we have other economic problems to address first”. I think he has this wrong. True high speed bi directional connectivity opens up enourmous new business opportunies.

DHS says do NOT use Internet Explorer

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This DHS announcement illustrates the tremendous costs of a computing monoculture.
The Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team touched off a storm this week when it recommended for security reasons using browsers other than Microsoft Corp.’s Internet Explorer. Mozilla and Opera are two excellent browsers. Mac users can choose from those as well as Apple’s excellent Safari browser. There’s also Netscape.
Business Week’s Stephen Wildstrom also says that IE is too risky.

Forsaking Privacy

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If the government had access to the communications between a client and his lawyer, the lawyer would be nothing but a government agent, like Soviet defense attorneys, whose official role was to serve as adjuncts to the prosecution.
Paul Craig Roberts and Lawrence M. Stratton, “The Tyranny of Good Intentions”

Once upon a time, the U.S. Justice Department respected the legal rights that make law a shield of the innocent rather than a weapon of government. No more. What the great English jurist William Blackstone called “the Rights of Englishmen” have been eroded beyond recognition.
The last remaining right ? the attorney-client privilege ? is under full-scale assault by Justice Department prosecutors in the tax shelter case involving the accounting firm KPMG. The Justice Department has demanded, and the accounting firm has agreed to, a waiver of the attorney-client privilege for communications between lawyers and KPMG employees involved in marketing tax shelters the Internal Revenue Service has challenged.
The attorney-client privilege was long championed by jurists because they realized the privilege promoted equality under the law. Convictions can result from lack of access to legal knowledge as well as from actual wrongdoing. To ensure defendants would avail themselves of legal counsel, their communications with attorneys were made confidential, outside the reach of prosecutors.

I’ve written about tax issues before, including this article on our very odd SUV subsidies.

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