gnieveld's blog

Google Earth Network Route Imaging

Fri, 13 Jul 2007 13:01:41 +0000

Global Crossing's Pan-European duct and fibre network was constructed during 1999 and 2000. It may be hard to believe, but at that time, the Google search engine just came out of the dorm room for beta testing, and digital camera's were using floppy disks (Whatever these were: Ask your grandparents) for storage.

Even though our fibre and wavelength-based IP network will continue to be state-of-the art for many years -- avoiding the horror scenarios related to IP/VOIP conversion and convergence problems that legacy networks have -- this does not mean that there are no improvements to be made to stay aligned with new technology.

One of our Operations Europe "hobby" projects is to display our network using web-based tools such as Google Earth. Both our Carrier and Enterprise customers demand precise geographic information to avoid single-point-of-failures. They further need to have detailed map information for their support staff and suppliers to reach GC network locations for repairs and transport systems upgrades.

Mapping 25,000 km of underground duct and cable systems is not an easy thing to do: The diversity of the European continent (our home-built fibre network runs through twelve countries) has resulted in multiple non-aligned country or even regional grid coordinate systems. Some used a key city as reference point, others used a meridian, or any other arbitrarily selected location. As long as there were no border-crossing network activities, this perspective was not an issue, and it would not have been an issue at all, if GPS and Google hadn't taken over the world.

Merging all vector-based (AutoCAD) network design data into a single view thus required the mapping of dozens of disparate regional grids into one, earth-centered, GPS coordinate system: A cumbersome process requiring many (non-) linear translations [Kudos to our wiz-kid Nivaldo!].
At that point, the network data is ready for use in systems like Google Earth or Yahoo Maps.

The result is remarkable: This image was created as overlay of our duct route near one of our Northern France amplifier sites on Google Earth.
It was shot after zooming in to an approximate altitude of 600 m (2000 ft). Next to the blue line displaying our duct route as converted from AutoCAD, the original trench dig is still visible from on this satellite image, even though the route was completed seven years ago. The image further shows that, after conversion, an accuracy of a few meters is quite feasible. The amplifier station is the white building on the top-right hand side, next to an old chimney (station access lines are not shown here).

Our fibre customers are pleased: Not only can they trace the exact location of their network, but their families can also see where daddy or mommy will be for their provisioning or system commissioning activities, and they can check out nearby tourist sites using tools like Panoramio (acquired by Google last month).

Bringing historic data in line with today's technology effectively means: Staying behind. Our task is to stay ahead, so we're now working to link the web-enabled network data into an image and connection database repository, allowing both ourselves and our customers a detailed virtual and real-life perspective of routes, sites and buildings, space, footprints, equipment, and most important for a carrier: All fiber allocations and (meet-me) interconnections at distribution frames.
I expect to get a first version ready for beta testing out of the dorm room in the next few months. Once complete, this solution will hopefully last for at least another few years (or until the next Google Earth software upgrade...).

So what's the next advancement, you may ask? My best bet: Operate our virtual network on Second Life.

Gert Nieveld July 4, 2007

Fiber Fairy Tales

Fri, 13 Jul 2007 13:00:32 +0000

Besides for its beautiful palaces, parks, and the Documenta international contemporary art exhibition (starting June 16!), the German town of Kassel is renowned for the Brothers Grimm who lived and worked there in the early 19th century.

Both brothers were professors of language. To preserve historic data, they took the task upon themselves to write down traditional German folk stories. I’m sure you’re familiar with tales such as Snow White, Hansel and Gretel, the Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella.

A 600 km long Fairy Tale Road runs from the town of Bremen (the Hanseatic city in northwestern Germany) to Hanau (near Frankfurt), passing many sites and gingerbread towns that have contributed stories to the brothers Grimm archives. It is a popular route with both young and old children.

Based on tales in the public domain, these folk stories often also include the less positive side of human nature: Only the Disnificated versions have happy endings.

One of the darker stories is that of the Pied Piper of Hamelin (German: Hameln): A tale about a piper that uses his magic flute to rid the town of Hamelin from the burden of a rat plague. The town magistrates, however, refuse to recognise his effort and deny him his fee. In response, the piper uses his magic to lead all the children away from the town, never to return.

Although related to an actual event from the 13th century, the moral lessons of the Pied Piper story are still applicable in today’s world. The same appears to be true for the rat plague part.

Some weeks ago, our operations organization received fault reports about fiber outages in Germany. Several rats apparently managed to dig or chew their way through the concrete and metal isolated walls of an optical amplifier station.
Once on the inside, they developed an appetite for dark fiber connections, with a special preference for Italian fibers. It’s unclear if these fibers offered the rat family a higher nutritional value than other fibers.

It will not come as surprise to you, that the site of this event happens to be along the German Fairy Tale route, only a short distance away from the town of Hamelin. Luckily, our field support organization has several modern pipers standby on a 24x7 basis, so the damaged fibers have been replaced and repeat will be avoided by installing new overhead duct trays for these tasty fibers.

The only thing that still needs to be done is to get rid of the rats. We will probably outsource their animal-friendly evacuation to a specialised company.
As long as we don't forget to pay the bill we won’t have to worry about our kids.

Gert Nieveld, 07/05/22

HDTV and IPTV (part two)

Tue, 22 May 2007 21:37:01 +0000

In my previous blog on this subject I indicated that HDTV primarily revolves around flat screens and motion picture studio efficiency. In fact, flat screen TV systems are not purchased for their claimed HDTV capabilities but for esthetic reasons: Flat is Cool. Few of the flat screens are compatible with the true HDTV (1920 x 1080) format. The current quality improvements are based on the use of “DVD-quality” signals in digital format via the air, via satellite, or via cable networks. Given the low replacement ratio (in the range of ten years) for the 1.5 billion TV’s on earth, not much will likely happen with “HDTV” for the consumers in the coming years.

Now compare the quantity of TV’s with the 800 million PC’s and 1.5 billion mobile phones that are out there. We’re used to replace these items every three years, so this is the area where fast changes can happen. The 2006 UK regulator Ofcom report shows, that young adults now watch less TV than their parents. Computer games, chatting, and other internet activities are successfully competing with traditional television, and TV programs are watched selectively rather than passively. The end of the couch potato era is in sight! Taking the TV to the PC and the mobile phone is a logical step, and potentially a killer application. The format to do this is IPTV.

The Focus Group of the International Telecommunication Union (October 2006, Korea) defines IPTV as “Multimedia services such as television/video /audio /text / graphics delivered over IP-based networks managed to provide the required level of QoS/QoExperience, security, interactivity and reliability”

Each line of business positions to get a piece of the potentially very rich IPTV cake: Equipment manufacturers advertise the IPTV capabilities of their routers; Local telecom providers focus on the quality aspects to compete with the cable companies and fill the gap of the ever reducing voice revenue; Cable companies see in IPTV a new way to move towards two-way services and offer video on-demand (VoD) via set-top boxes; Coffee companies advertise that their beans enrich IPTV viewing, and so on. They all plan to incorporate IPTV in their service offering as a new ‘triple”, or “quadruple” play subscription package. They all hurry to state that IPTV is not to be mistaken for free open Web TV.

Of course, Web TV is exactly what we’re heading for on our PC’s and mobile phones. The plans to offer IPTV as subscription service with set-top boxes are, at best, interim solutions that will fail to generate profitable revenue. Today’s PC users (connected either via DSL, Cable, WiFi/WiMax) are rapidly getting used to high-speed internet connections in range of 3 Mbps to 30 Mbps. These internet users are the early adopters of Web TV. The other internet users will join them as soon as their internet access connection allows for the speed, which is a matter of time. Compression technology improvements have resulted in the ability to view TV at data speeds of 500kbps – 750kbps. Modern internet connections support watching different TV channels on multiple PC’s.

But what about the Quality of Service, you may ask?
Since 2000, various proprietary and open source codecs have been created that allow an acceptable display of TV programs, both for linear TV as well as for canned motion pictures.
Besides the H.264 standards that were agreed upon by the ITU members in the past decade, multiple open-source MPEG-4 codecs evolved to fulfill the market need. Codecs such a DivX, 3viX, and XviD were created, with additional services, such as subtitles, included in new container structures like OGM and Matroska. Simplified versions have been made for the mobile phone, such as 3GP. Check out the Doom9 site for guides and version details. No need to worry about all these new codecs: The PC or SmartPhone media player will detect the required codec and automatically fetch it from the internet in a matter of seconds (except when you’re tied to a proprietary set-top box, of course).

Today, computer and mobile phone users are enjoying mp3 audio on their phones and iPods. This highly compressed music format has effectively taken over from the high quality audio CD. The same is happening with video. Consumers have embraced free “low-Q” video sites such as YouTube and Google. In the past year, free linear IPTV / Web TV services have seen explosive growth. Dozens of generic TV-portals are now offering free access to thousands of TV channels. Examples are Channelchooser and wwiTV. This number of portals will likely grow two orders of magnitude in the coming year.

Also for the mobile phone side there are TV standards, such as T-DMB. The free air to TV model, introduced in South-Korea late 2005, allows buyers of a T-DMB (Terrestrial Digital Multimedia Broadband) handset to watch TV without requiring a subscription. This is the way to boost the solution! In Germany, the mobile provider Debitel initially charged a fee for the TV service, which resulted in minimal growth. To boost sales, they are now offering a 6-month free introduction. T-DMB is not restricted to mobile phones. Also PDA, portable TV devices, and car navigation systems can make use of this service.

We’re slowly moving away from the Napster days. Consumers are getting used to pay for mp3 downloads via iTunes and its competitors. The same is bound to happen with TV (and games). Viewers will become used to pay a fee for on-demand motion pictures. VoD is the reason that all providers are rushing towards IPTV. New anti-piracy tools, such as the video watermark system introduced by Philips this week, will help to protect (at least for a while) VoD material and revenue.

What will be the effect of IPTV on the ISP’s, Cable companies and other transport providers?
A recent Gartner report predicts that almost 50 million households will subscribe to IPTV service by 2010.
My perspective: Why subscribe to IPTV if you can get it for free via your regular internet connection?
In Europe, France leads the way: Companies such as FREE are including linear (terrestrial) TV channels in their package at no extra charge, focusing on new revenue via VoD services. According to a recent WorldBusiness article, PCCW in Hong Kong has highest local IPTV market penetration number, but a fast ROI seems unlikely, especially if consumers can also watch TV via free web portals.

Similar to the music industry, where music producers and artists are bypassing the record companies by posting their music directly on the internet for a moderate fee, we will see traditional TV transport providers being bypassed by the content producers.
Most linear TV stations already serve their audiences with program replay and extended broadcast services over the internet. Best-in-class example is probably the BBC, offering a wealth of on-line information around their programs in over thirty languages, not only for their TV audience but also for mobile phone users.
Motion picture distribution will be done directly by the studios in cooperation with dedicated storage and on-line servers hosted by internet content providers such as Google, and/or via P2P download options.

In the coming years, I expect to see many local "legacy-based" TV distribution / metropolitan cable companies losing their business to the content and internet providers. A shake-out in this area is unavoidable.
For global IP-based network owners and service providers such as Global Crossing, I see only positive effects: Global IP traffic and capacity will increase even faster that it is doing today.

So what's next in the HDTV/IPTV theater? More about that in my third (and last) blog on this subject.
Gert Nieveld

Europe's iPhone perspective

Thu, 11 Jan 2007 21:58:40 +0000

From Europe, it’s fascinating to see the media hype around the iPhone introduction and the associated blogs mentioning the technological features.

The response here is basically “not impressed” from a feature perspective: Several carriers (even wireline) offer voice e-mails. A 2 Mpix camera is meager in a market where 3 Mpix camera’s have been out for over a year, and you won’t even be able to buy a phone without audio/mp3 player. Most existing smartphones (starting at less than half of the iPhone price) have a dedicated OS/MS Windows version that offers the user multiple browser and office-type applications as well as the capability to run navigation software such as Tom Tom.
In fact, integration of navigation software into the mobile is one the hottest items in EU phone sales, now that everyone’s familiar with phone camera’s, audio, and video. Touch screens are not unique either in this area, but even the smartphones maintain their keypads in support of the 850 million phone users (i.e. everyone except the US) that use it for creating SMS messages (on both wireless and wireline phones). Hopefully, the iPhone also has a solution for visually impaired people?

The European press is impressed, however, by Apple’s iPhone marketing campaign. The market penetration of the iPod in the US will greatly boost sales potential for the iPhone. The press sketches a bleak future for other US centric products such as Blackberry and Palm. Equipment providers, such as Nokia, were quick to state that Apple is now following the path they’ve already been taking for years while pointing at some basic flaws of the iPhone for the EU market, such as lack of a 3G capability.

To me, the key strategy behind Apple’s iPhone introduction is mainly based on a defensive replacement scenario. Just think about it: When all mobile phones play mp3 audio and have no built-in connectivity to iTunes, what will this do to the market for the iPod and associated music downloads?

With kids getting their mobile phone at the age of ten or less, the interest in iPod’s and other mp3 and/or video players will disappear over time, so Apple needed something quickly to defend their iPod franchise. Most kids do not have the budget to buy the iPhone, however, so Apple should better get an inexpensive version of the iPhone released soon. I’m sure that AT&T/Cingular will see the huge market potential and be eager to sponsor the price (as far as allowed in the US).

Apple’s initiative to enter the mobile phone market is following Sony’ decision, several years ago, to enter this market (cleverly done with partner Ericsson). Sony added its audio/video know-how to Ericsson’s phone, which are now outrank most other phones such as Nokia’s. The latter phones offer better computer capabilities, however, and as long-term mobile phone manufacturer, Nokia’s market penetration is still significantly higher. Now that the audio/video industry and the computer/software/gaming industry are all moving into the mobile phone arena (Microsoft also announced they will release a Zune mobile phone), I’m sure we’ll see some great new introductions in the coming years.

With the differences in features becoming smaller, sales of mobile phones will be entirely determined by marketing budget and strategy. In that respect, the Apple iPhones will be a fierce competitor. Marketing power and creating a hype is key, and that's exacly what happened at Macworld 2007. Technology is not involved. As Om Malik writes in his blog: “... hopefully we will all be rational soon”.

Closing the Digital Divide

Tue, 22 May 2007 19:31:10 +0000

Just before Christmas, I was honored to present an overview of Global Crossing’s experience in the planning, deployment, and operations of submarine cable systems to the Development Fund Commission of the European Union in Brussels.

In its efforts to reduce poverty in Africa, the European Council defined a strategy to speed up and provide continued support for the African infrastructure. The EU-Africa Partnership was established in 2006. This Infrastructure Partnership encompasses many elements that are considered standard by most of us: Some 42% of the 900 million Africans do not have access to safe water; 20% of Africans have no access to electricity; Less than 6% have access to internet.

In a five year period from 2008 onwards, the European Development Fund will invest €5.6B (US$7.3B) in the African infrastructure. A significant percentage of this amount will be for the expansion of African communications networks and international connectivity. This will greatly assist in closing the Digital Divide, as mentioned by former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan in his opening speech of the World Summit of the Information Society (WSIS) in Tunis in November 2005.

Despite the lack of access to electricty, Africa is the world’s fastest growing market for mobile telephone services. In remote areas, smart entrepreneurs have even started battery-loading services for people with mobile phones that do not have electricity at home. Mobile phones have taken over from wireline services, for which an infrastructure is basically absent outside the main cities. The mobile penetration rate, which I estimate to be around 16% at present, is still massively behind Western-European countries, where penetration in some cases exceeds 100%. Fixed phone penetration is less than 5%. You can find details on the African market at the African Regional Office web site of the ITU.

The growth of the mobile market offers great potential to boost business, but Africa still lacks the international bandwidth to support this growth. To stimulate new business as well as to handle international traffic, key improvements need to be made in the interconnection between African countries and between Africa and the rest of the world. The two main options are: Expansion of satellite links and/or submarine fibre cables. Due to high latency problems with satellite connections (up to 600 ms), submarine connections are the preferred choice for voice and internet services, while satellite connections are selected for broadcast-type services.

Some of you may remember the Africa ONE project, which involved the installation of 39,000 km of submarine fibre cable around Africa. The project implementation, for which Global Crossing was selected for project management and undersea construction, was planned to start in 1999 and be completed in 2002. The project eventually was abandoned late 2001 when international funding evaporated. At the time, a main reason for Global Crossing not to participate as either investor or owner in this project was based on the absence of deregulation in African countries as well as on difficulties reaching the many landlocked nations. Experience from GC’s other submarine projects in Europe, US, South-America, and Asia is that the full growth potential only emerges once deregulation comes into effect.

Mid-2002, the SAT-3/West African Submarine Cable (WASC) with a capacity of max 120 Gbps was taken into service between South Africa and Portugal. The SAT-3 cable is a club cable owned by a consortium of over two dozen incumbents. Besides in South-Africa, the SAT-3 cable lands in eight other West-African countries. Unfortunately, like many other consortium cables, the SAT-3 cable system suffers from cooperation issues between the club cable owners. At present, few countries have benefited from its existence.

In 2003, an East-Africa Submarine Cable System project (EASSy) was initiated for linking eight East-African countries to the rest of the world. The completion of this new club cable system is targeted for 2Q07: Less than six months to go. According to the EASSy website, some 23 carriers have signed the project MOU. According to other sources, however, the protocol approving the construction of the EASSy cable has only been signed by twelve carriers up to now. Completion of the project before 2009 is unlikely. We can further expect that this club cable will face similar problems as exist with the SAT-3 system today.
EASSy will not provide a direct connection of these eight East African countries to the rest of the world, but will only connect them to the SAFE and SeaMeWe-4 consortium systems. A significant reduction of capacity costs for the consumer is therefore not to be expected. A total investment of around US$300M has been indicated at present for EASSy. In July 2006, the European Investment Bank approved its participation in this investment.

When trying to gather data from the EASSy website in preparation for my presentation to the EC, I immediately perceived the problems that burden so many of these projects: Both content and data access are poor. Many web pages and images do not exist or cannot be loaded due to hosting problems. This phenomenon already shows the desperate need for many African countries to get better internet connectivity. For a future investor, however, it will be difficult to understand why a US$300M project does not offer a professional looking website. Most high school students on this side of the digital divide will be able to create such sites in a few days and have them hosted by an ISP for under US$50 per annum.

My advice to the Development Fund Commission of the EU, and to any other investor in projects like EASSy, is to add the learnings from SAT-3 high on their 2007 Resolutions List: Especially the aspects related to open access to these scarce resources deserve detailed study. The unique situation that exists in Africa (e.g. the virtual absence of a fixed in-country telecom infrastructure) requires maintaining a careful balancing act between telecom regulation, deregulation and incumbent privatization. A direct connection of EASSy either to countries with a deregulated telecom enviroment and/or to privately owned submarine cable systems is a must. The funding should further be governed by tight control structures to ensure that aid actually ends up where it is needed most: With the African enterprises and consumers. From my perspective, this is the only way that Africa will be able to cross part of the digital divide in the next five years.

Any other suggestions for bridging the digital divide? Don't hesitate to post your comments below.

HDTV and IPTV (part one)

Tue, 21 Nov 2006 16:09:53 +0000

Earlier this year, I visited the annual International Broadcasting Convention (IBC) in Amsterdam. IBC is the one of the world’s largest events in broadcasting, focused on everyone who has anything to do in creation, production, management, and delivery of content for the entertainment industry.
Main topics at the conference were the technical, commercial, and business components of two items that I consider to be at opposite sides of the spectrum: HDTV and IPTV. Are these the killer app’s that will generate massive new internet traffic? I’ll dive into TV trends and technology in this two-part blog, starting with HDTV.

Obvious advantages exist for motion picture production systems using HDTV: The change from traditional photographic film to digital quality production systems allows studios a hundred-fold reduction of film processing and maintenance costs. Digital projectors at theaters offer a 4 Mpix projection quality that is comparable to 35 mm film projectors.
For consumer HDTV, the situation is different: Both end-users and broadcasters will need to invest in new technology, without significant benefits other than the higher quality.

Digital TV has been introduced some years ago in NTSC countries such as the US, Canada, South-Korea, and Japan. Key reasons for this early adoption of digital TV have been the home theater market and the poor quality of the existing NTSC (“Never The Same Color”) television system. The PAL and SECAM systems used in other parts of the world have a better inherent quality, hence the reluctance of these markets to move to digital TV.

Digital TV is not the same as HDTV. Most broadcasters focus on providing a digital version that, under good conditions, offers only slight advantages over the current analog TV, with HD enhancements planned in the future. Digital broadcasting over the air takes less spectrum. Broadcasting regulators have been eager to push the transition from analog to digital TV to free up spectrum that can be auctioned to mobile phone providers. In most countries, the transition from analog to digtal aerial broadcasts will be completed in the next ten years.
Cable operators are also eliminating analog TV. The digitization of the TV channels, however, is less important in this move than the benefits of having consumers connected to set-top boxes that offer triple-play scenarios.

A key item in HDTV is the aspect of interlaced versus progressive signals. Interlaced means that only half of the lines of an image frame are presented in one update. The other half is presented in the next update. Progressive means that all lines are written at the same time. An NTSC 480p frame indication therefore offers a more stable video signal with twice the transmission speed of a 480i frame structure.
Two main standards for HDTV are around: 720p (meaning 1280x720 pixels in progressive mode at 16:9 screen aspect ratio) and 1080i (meaning 1920x1080 pixels in interlaced mode at same screen aspect ration). The former has lesser resolution but higher quality in action scenes. The latter offers better quality for slow-moving frames and requires a smaller bandwidth. The interlaced standard has been designed for compatibility with regular TV screens. The 720p version offers better compatibility with LCD or plasma screens.
There’s also one True-HDTV version: 1080p. This standard has been adopted by film studios for content production. It requires twice the transmission rate of the 1080i format. At IBC, the European Broadcasting Institute presented comparisons between 720p, 1080i, and 1080p TV standards, with remarkable differences.

Photographers amongst us will not be impressed: True-HDTV format is only 2 Mpix. Several “Ultra” HDTV definitions are in the works: NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) demonstrated its 7680x4329 system, while the California Institute of Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2) recently demonstrated a first streaming version of 3840x2160 motion pictures. Needless to say that the transmission demands for such data streams are huge, and the chance of end-user Ultra HDTV taking off in the next five years is zero.

Multiple other issues are associated with HDTV introduction. Content distribution is one of them. HDTV motion pictures do not fit regular DVD media. HD-DVD and Blue-Ray technology is in place to boost the layer capacity of a DVD to 15 GB and 25 GB, respectively. The competition between the two standards has a negative impact on their market introduction and will reduce the overall payback interval of this product. New holographic discs with a storage capacity of several TB have already been announced.

The current TV replacement ratio is in the range of ten years. To speed up HDTV sales, especially in PAL/SECAM countries, a significant increase of content (HD motion pictures, TV channels, major sport events) will be needed. Current global sales rate, although rapidly growing, is in the range of 10 million HD sets per annum (on a total of 1.5 billion TV sets). For Europe, the next significant replacement wave will probably happen in 2008, when the European Cup will take place.

In summary: Although great for motion picture studios, HDTV is not the killer application that we consumers and internet providers have all been waiting for. The higher quality aspect falls in the “nice to have” category. A parallel exists in the music industry, where the Super Audio CD (SACD) is promoted in a world where low-quality mp3 audio is now standard. HDTV is primarily used by the providers as a marketing vehicle to position other digital services that do offer additional revenue options.

In part two of this blog I’ll give my perspective on the key items that differentiate IPTV from HDTV: Choice of content and applications, and data compression.
Stay tuned for more.

The Art of Perspective

Mon, 20 Nov 2006 16:48:17 +0000

I’m honored to join the illustrious blog team of Global Crossing in this forum. For my inaugural "Perspective" blog I have put in a little extra effort by giving examples of perspective in art and in telecom.

“Perspective is the bridle and rudder of painting”
Leonardo da Vinci

The medieval town of Siena is built on three hills in heart of beautiful Tuscany, Italy. With its central Piazza del Campo and gothic churches, it’s a must-see for anyone interested in culture and architecture. Siena is also the home of world-famous annual bare-back horse races (“Palio”), in which seventeen city boroughs (“contrades”) contest each other every summer.
Much less known is the revolution in the world of art caused by one small bronze panel in this city. The panel is named “Feast of Herod” and is located in the Baptistry Font of the Siena cathedral. It was made by one of the world’s most important sculptors: Donatello (1386 - 1466). Created in the early 1420’s, it is ground-breaking by its first proper use of linear perspective. The bold technique of Donatello’s bronze panel opened a new era: The wave of perspective rushed through the world of art and within few years, all artists adhered to its principles.

For the next five hundred years, nothing changed. Where, prior to Donatello’s panel, no one questioned the incorrect perspective in paintings (a combination of absence of world-view and technical knowledge), the rules of perspective remained unchallenged up to the early twentieth century.

It was only one century ago when a young artist stepped off the trodden path and challenged the traditional use of perspective. His name: Pablo Picasso (1881 - 1973).
In his 1907 painting “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon” he confronted the world with a new vision on the display of art by depicting his subjects from several viewpoints at the same time. With his struggle to present contradicting viewpoints (he’d been working on “Les Demoiselles” for over a year without being able to complete it to his satisfaction), Picasso caused another wave in the world of art. This time, it freed the artists from the chains of perspective, leading the way into Cubism and, what is now considered, Modern Art. Les Demoiselles d' Avignon can be found at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

How does this relate to telecommunications, one may ask? Well, in physics, perspective is described as an optical projection of light rays: an optical transform.

The first ever transatlantic subsea telegraph cable was laid in1858 by a private enterprise. It was perceived as the wild project of a “Yankee-lunatic”. The impact on the world was immense. By the early 1900’s, regulatory structures had been established by most nations to safeguard international telegraph revenue streams. The resulting bandwith colonialism by consortiums of incumbents building international cables stayed in place for almost one hundred years.

Ten years ago, another “Yankee-lunatic” stepped off the trodden path and challenged the high rates of club cables by privately building an optical transatlantic cable and cable stations (after struggling with lawyers on understanding monopolistic regulations for almost a year). Global Crossing’s new vision, with its (too) many followers, permanently changed the global telecommunication and internet business.
The Global Crossing perspective can be found in over 600 cities in 60 countries.

Blog state of the art

Fri, 03 Nov 2006 22:11:13 +0000

Telecom industry blogs are a new thing, so I expected the posting to be a state-of-the-art activity. Interestingly enough, even creating a blog with some links and images still requires a basic understanding of stone-age html text. That’s why I'm writing this test blog: Although this blog appears to be quite organized on my screen right now, we all know that there's a good chance it will end up as a total mess once it is displayed via the web on your screen. Incorrect font, wrong line breaks, and so on. I never could figure out why hitting the Enter button on a web design page creates a new paragraph with a useless extra line space, while doing the same in a text editor simply inserts a line-break. It frustrates me even more that I cannot program my web editor to treat the Enter button as a rather than as a . I'm perfectly able to do if I want to have a , thank you.

Html reminds me of the vi/troff text input and formatting that was common practice in the 1980's, before wysiwyg was invented. Even today, experienced web creators often prefer straightforward html coding as it offers them "better control". The same argument is used by people who prefer stick shifts over automatic transmission and by people who prefer ATM over IP. This proves that dead-end streets can still be very lengthy.

Isn't it fascinating that, in this internet era, 99% of business executives rely on PowerPoint or equivalent programs for their presentations rather than building web presentations? Ever tried to create a web page that combines text with moving images, spreadsheet capabilities and inter-document links in a few minutes? We've increased the speed of computers and the internet with a factor of one thousand in the past ten years, but are still struggling to get the human interface in shape. This html legacy is one of the main reasons why many people over forty have difficulty getting themselves organized on the web: The web-gap.

Computer application software developers of the world: Please make sure that html coding soon joins programs like MSDOS and give us wysiwyg everywhere in internet-land!

Now that this warming-up blog looks OK it's time to move forward with my inaugural article on the art of perspective.