"Dead skunks" was of course an outburst on the Ashcroft
quotation "in the middle of the road there is only
moderates and dead skunks" although the skunks statistically
should be more numerous on the extreme right and left
of the road. Additionally he forgot the yellow lines
keeping left and right from major disastrous collisions,
another task of the center. (but I appreciate the humor
involved in that quote)
China should obviously have its specific problems and
present situation considered in WTO, an economy where
2/3 of the population is working in agriculture and
mostly desert, a lot of mountain sides,etc not suitable
for huge tractors,etc,etc,etc.. (the chinese way of
agricultur is additionally the most efficient in terms of
needing less chemical fertilizing, handling soil erosion,etc
but very labour intensive,etc,etc,etc..)
And after 15 years of WTO "negotiations" I don't think
another year or half is disaster for the chinese, at
least some banns on goods like fertilizers are now
lifted, they also have their own production.
The last thing the global market need is some 400-500
million unemployed chinese agricultural workers and
families, the maybe 150 milion they already have is good
enough (before the overall infrastructure is built out,
eduction and industrialization,etc,etc)
---
Roaming need cooperation and standardization, especially
the international roaming. Both "trust" in terms of
billing as well as actually providing that service
without problems as your text mentioned. Fingerpointing
and playing the blame-game isn't very productive, as the
text also pointed out.
Cost should also be proportional, ref the debate on the
$1-2 cost per minute.
Something I had a "personal" experience of when my niece
spent some time as an exchange teenager in India last
summer, sending text messages from the train to Mumbay,
market in new Delphi,etc.
(as well as "reporting" on different operators SMS
compatibilty, coverage,etc, just for fun, she got a 8210
when she got home for that "job" which I hope opened her
eyes and interest for more than the regular teenage
experiences)
That is, for economies like India I hope roaming
charges from foreign businesspeople, tourists can pay some
for their infrastructure. Those who settle down locally can
use a local provider and enjoy the almost free cost
compared to "our" value of money.
(interestingly the prepayed local SIM card in India did not include SMS messages)
--
Fiber is beeing (has been) layed down with some hundreds of terabps
capacity between Sweden, Finland to Russia, part of the european backbone network (some of it one block away, where
it dives back into the Finnish Gulf)
That is, every person in Scandinavia and St Petersburg
can watch their favorite, specific x-rated 3G movie on that
network, some X Mbps per person (when the switches, routers can handle it).
Last week Sonera announced that they will start cutting
down the telephone poles still used in remote areas (lots
of them in Finland) and provide wireless (stationary?)
services at the cost of earlier wired ones.
Ttelephone pole lines are expensive to service,
need to be inspected, replaced now and then, the snow,
falling trees,etc cause "extra" costs some difficult
winters, but no hurricanes nor earthquakes, luckily.
(one interesting Nokia product long time ago was a
2 channel radiolink for reaching really remote finns,
small islands, etc)
SDSL and ADSL service is beeing deployed very fast after the
switches has been upgraded, local loops are short and good
enough, WLL in some places (with more problems?)
That is, much according to what Nokia has been "saying",
a pragmatic combination of all technologies in places
where they match "realities" (to return to the realpolitics
and the dead skunks in the center)
Ilmarinen.
P.S. This also includes building the digital, terrestrial TV
network as well as the "boxes", and the "home entertaining
center" using bluetooth, WLAN, etc instead of the cable
jungle behind the boxes and on the floor. |
