Jabbering on

I am head down working on dayjob projects, as I should be, so a brief summary post of a handful of things which caught my eye this morning:

Asterisk new release: For all the Asterisk enthusiasts out there I'm sure there are a lot of features here which will please and excite, but what interests me is the new compatibility with GTalk/Jingle/Jabber. The Asterisk ecosystem just got a lot bigger.

Low-fat pipes?: Apparently, at the IBC show in Amsterdam, UPC has presented the results of a study it commissioned from Arthur D. Little, which finds that even by 2011, 50Mbps down and 6Mbps up will be sufficient, even for "heavy users". I guess all these fiber projects, especially the municipal ones, are misguided then? Glad we cleared that up.

Yorkshiremen on the march: Despite having heard some vague rumors over the past year about independent fiber in the UK, I always assumed it would be a cold day in hell before we saw a concerted effort at municipal level - perhaps 11 years in London has left me skeptical of public infrastructure projects in the UK. However, the other day, while speaking to a client, I entertained the idea that an independent-minded city bent on economic reinvention might take the plunge - I used Sheffield as an example. Thanks to a Palladium Class mega-uber value reader, I now know just how close that was, but the truth is much bigger - try all of South Yorkshire (I love the banner line "The 4th Utility?") - and it appears to be more advanced than I could have imagined (preferred bidder expected by the end of this month). There is also something afoot in North Yorkshire, and a bit of Googling uncovers that the county of Somerset is formulating its strategy.

Mobile RFID payments: Anyone interested in this space may find useful a survey from Japan (summarized free of charge in English by yours truly) looking at consumer awareness and usage scenarios. In contrast to much of its peer group, I continue to be intrigued by DoCoMo's transformation into a transaction platform, and its willingness to invest in various parts of the whole mobile value chain.