Today’s peripheral visionaries conference was great. Just the right size group of passionate people dedicated to figuring out the best course for telecommunications. Maybe 150 people? Jeff has posted some pictures, but who’s the funny looking guy on the top left?
Lots of old friends here, it’s fun to see some people I haven’t seen for awhile. The panels really worked well, and there was spirited discussion from all sides.
I got up twice in the audience — once to emphasize that first mile is just as important as last mile. The second time to pose that the US government needs a “Skype Strategy”.
I raised the second point after listening to much debate and discussion about VoIP, Calea, etc., none of it taking into account that a radical disruptive force is at work and spreading virally. Skype has happened so fast, it has outstripped the awareness of the forces in the beltway. It’s peer-to-peer, it’s encrypted. It’s not US based. How do the regulators and large incumbents even begin to deal with that?
Just to show I can write about more than just voice, here’s three new businesses I learned about today:
Quova is an ASP that provides IP to geolocation mapping. Very interesting concept. Maybe we can bring back locality to IP communications? Stuart, Bill, Phil — build this into a Skype skin, what do you think?
SlingMedia showed their TV streaming technology. You buy this box, stick it in your home (or in my case perhaps in a friends home in Italy), hook it to broadband, and then you can switch channels, watch your TiVo, from wherever you can get broadband. Video delivered through the last mile and then personally rebroadcast over your first mile.
And, in the category for me to look into later, Brough spoke about cybertelly is a UK outfit providing free video broadcast technology. Kinda a bit torrent thing, but claims to be faster. “ByteTornado”. (This is a whole set of technology I need to dig into, I’m pretty ignorant about the torrent)