2 ways to get reliable Internet connections in Greece

At the end of 2007 I wrote about the troubles of Greek broadband users. Since then, we have heard a lot of nice statistics about how Greece has the highest broadband growth rate in the EU and how a lot of Greek homes are coming online. But are statistics the true picture? Far from it…

In the last two months a lot has changed in terms of speeds offered, but not much in terms of quality of service. In February, under pressure from competitors and in order to stop defections, OTEnet-the ISP branch of OTE- decided to offer 24Mbps ADSL+, up from the 8Mbps that was the maximum till then. I was one of the first to apply but do not want to get in the details of the mess that ensued to get a barely working line after three whole weeks!

To cut things short, I ended up with a 2Mbps DSL connection that disconnects many times every hour -should it be called a disconnection?- and cannot be used reliably for many tasks I need to undertake. Maybe I will get in the details of the story above in a separate post, but what is important here is that I am not the only one to have these problems.

Qualcomm COO Dr. Sanjay Jha Interview at GigaOM

So far, we have been talking about Intel vs AMD. But maybe it is time to call this battle outmoded as Intel is joining the mobile device arena. And who is it going to meet there? Qualcomm of course!

Unlike other succesful corporations, Qualcomm has kept a lower profile and has since 1985 worked systematically to a dominant position with mobile manufacturers. Now Intel’s Atom will probably force it to come out of its relatively low profile stance.

COO Dr. Sanjay Jha was interviewed by Stacey Higginbotham at GigaOM. Here is the things that I found important and I would like to comment on:

Chrysler to have Internet as standard in all its cars

Chrysler does not only want to rely on car design for its future. As a result, full Internet functionality will be added to existing models this year and later on will be installed from the assembly line throughout the model range.

It is doubtful that this is a response to BMW’s plans for Internet in its new X6 model. By all signs, car gadgetry is taking pivotal role in customer choices and obviously Detroit wants to be in the game.

Is the Internet prone to a large crash?

I’ve been hearing about an Internet crash since the 90s. Of course nothing serious happened, but back then animated gif files were in fashion and “heavy” sites were hardly known. The proliferation of video on the web and plans for IPTV, HD videos and film downloads are now creating a new scare with a new wave of warnings that soon things will halt to a crawl. But how serious can it be?

Proper in-car web access by BMW

It was about time! Modern cars are loaded with super advanced audio-video equipment and sophisticated GPS navigation. But what about simple, humble, good old web surfing?

Now things start to move in this front also, and BMW has presented in the Geneva automotive show its X6 beauty with full web browsing capability integrated from the factory! Imagine that you are traveling somewhere for business and are waiting for that all important email. What do you do? Easy! You park, switch off the engine -web access at front seats is deactivated when the engine is running- and use your BMW’s iDrive feature to browse those all important pages. Presto! No need to slave around in the car with a laptop any more.

The link between technological education, employment and competitiveness – Part 4 – USA

In the fourth and last part of this series I am going to look at a special case in the US. It is related to Internet courses and the degree to which they replace traditional human taught courses.

At the moment there is two course types:

1. Those using the Internet as a supplement to classes where students have to be physically present.
2. Those that are undertaken completely by Internet.

The degree that the Internet can take over from traditional teaching methods depends on state legislation. At the moment, there is a huge debate going on about how these courses will influence school age children in their behaviour and future employment prospects. Courses that involve the Internet as a supplement -even in large doses- generally draw little criticism, as it is widely understood that the skills involved are absolutely essential not only for the workplace, but to students as individuals.

The convergence towards the web

There is loads of opinions on the attempted buyout of Yahoo by Microsoft. Whether there will be a new higher offer is debatable. What matters is that Microsoft needs Yahoo pretty badly in order to enhance its web activities, an area where Redmond’s success has been very limited. Ten years ago we measured success by sales of PCs. Now does anybody consider Dell as a cutting edge company? Its model has remained the same for years and does not attract the attention we were used to in the 90s.

Although hardware sales are still important, IT companies strive to offer those extra services that will keep them competitive and allow them -with customer feedback- to continuously evolve towards more attractive and value added services. Google is the current web master and the medium it uses is much more flexible -and uncertain of course- than PC operating systems. On the other hand, Yahoo has not managed to take advantage of its huge user base, despite the fact that some of its applications are strongly entrenched in the market.

The era when every device will be online is not far, and there is already signs that the future of pure hardware manufacturers is threatened. If Apple can make MP3 players and other hardware that will match its software, I cannot see why the opposite is not possible or necessary. Sony already realises that and tries to get in the game with PS3 services -like Microsoft and its Xbox 360.

Internet access enjoyed by only 33.4% of Greeks

 Source: National Statistical Service of Greece

Since 2002, the National Statistical Service of Greece is announcing its study results on Internet usage in Greece, according to EU standards. The graph above presents computer usage -the blue line- and more importantly Internet usage -the red line. So here is the high points:

• Internet access in the Greek population has more than doubled in five years.
• Internet and computer usage are more or less synonymous.
• The percentage of computer users without Internet access is shrinking -the reason the two lines converge. It was 39% in 2002 and went down to 17% in 2007!
• Both computer and Internet usage have accelerated since 2005.
• The potential for the IT and Internet market is still large due to the untapped part of the population that currently uses non of the two.

Undersea cable damage hammers Internet connectivity in Egypt and India

See what happens when Internet connectivity relies on just one main option? A cut undersea cable in the Mediterranean Sea is estimated to have limited Internet access in Egypt by 70% and India by 60%! Information from Egypt states that it is not known what caused the damage but repairs will need several days. Sounds like a lot of fun…

The Egyptian stock market has continued transactions but it is pointed out that some international transactions have been affected. At the Cairo International Airport ticket sales have been halted but flights continue as scheduled.

How I would like to watch my internet TV

I watch very little conventional TV, not because I dislike some of its programs, but because I have zero control over what I watch and when I watch it. Standard definition channels are not that great either, certainly not good enough to keep me away from streaming video sites and free downloadable programs. So is TV going to die slowly? Impossible I think for the moment. But it is going to change from what we know now, that is for sure.

One reason TV keeps going so strong is the failure of internet video to get to our living room in a convincing and simple fashion. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal addresses these very difficulties and proposes some solutions. At least in the US it is clear that if you want to stream internet TV you can make it mainly via cable with one of a collection of boxes. Unfortunately, cable is not available in all countries and the boxes used are aimed at certain markets with a subset of the total of programs that consumers could possibly access in total.