T1 and MPLS.com

When talking about a cloud computing system, it’s helpful to divide it into two sections: the front end and the back end. They connect to each other through a network, usually the Internet. The front end is the side the computer user, or client, sees. The back end is the “cloud” section of the system.

The front end includes the client’s computer (or computer network) and the application required to access the cloud computing system. Not all cloud computing systems have the same user interface. Services like Web-based e-mail programs leverage existing Web browsers like Internet Explorer or Firefox. Other systems have unique applications that provide network access to clients.

On the back end of the system are the various computers, servers and data storage systems that create the “cloud” of computing services. In theory, a cloud computing system could include practically any computer program you can imagine, from data processing to video games. Usually, each application will have its own dedicated server.

A central server administers the system, monitoring traffic and client demands to ensure everything runs smoothly. It follows a set of rules called protocols and uses a special kind of software called middleware. Middleware allows networked computers to communicate with each other.

If a cloud computing company has a lot of clients, there’s likely to be a high demand for a lot of storage space. Some companies require hundreds of digital storage devices. Cloud computing systems need at least twice the number of storage devices it requires to keep all its clients’ information stored. That’s because these devices, like all computers, occasionally break down. A cloud computing system must make a copy of all its clients’ information and store it on other devices. The copies enable the central server to access backup machines to retrieve data that otherwise would be unreachable. Making copies of data as a backup is called redundancy.

­Let’s say you’re an executive at a large corporation. Your particular responsibilities include making sure that all of your employees have the right hardware and software they need to do their jobs. Buying computers for everyone isn’t enough — you also have to purchase software or software licenses to give employees the tools they require. Whenever you have a new hire, you have to buy more software or make sure your current software license allows another user. It’s so stressful that you find it difficult to go to sleep on your huge pile of money every night.

Soon, there may be an alternative for executives like you. Instead of installing a suite of software for each computer, you’d only have to load one application. That application would allow workers to log into a Web-based service which hosts all the programs the user would need for his or her job. Remote machines owned by another company would run everything from e-mail to word processing to complex data analysis programs. It’s called cloud computing, and it could change the entire computer industry.

In a cloud computing system, there’s a significant workload shift. Local computers no longer have to do all the heavy lifting when it comes to running applications. The network of computers that make up the cloud handles them instead. Hardware and software demands on the user’s side decrease. The only thing the user’s computer needs to be able to run is the cloud computing system’s interface software, which can be as simple as a Web browser, and the cloud’s network takes care of the rest.

There’s a good chance you’ve already used some form of cloud computing. If you have an e-mail account with a Web-based e-mail service like Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail or Gmail, then you’ve had some experience with cloud computing. Instead of running an e-mail program on your computer, you log in to a Web e-mail account remotely. The software and storage for your account doesn’t exist on your computer — it’s on the service’s computer cloud.

VoxIP now available at higher speeds

NuVox, a leading communications provider, announced today the launch of its VoxIP Big Bandwidth product to customers across the Southeast and Midwest. VoxIP, the company’s flagship product, is now available in 10, 20, 50 and 100MB increments on the NuVox MPLS state-of-the-art network.

“We understand the need for fast, high bandwidth applications is growing at a tremendous rate, and with the use of multiple access technologies, we can now deliver very high speed data to our customers” commented Jim Jones, Director of Product Management for NuVox. “Customers today realize that businesses rely on more than just voice and email. With the emergence of applications like WebEx, IP video conferencing, and other Software as a Service (SaaS) applications from companies like Google, the investment in a high-speed pipe dramatically outweighs the sometimes unnecessary expense associated with today’s high cost of business travel.”

VoxIP Big Bandwidth (BBw) comes with the same service, features, and reliability customers have come to know and expect from NuVox.

NuVox VoxIP BBw services are immediately available on a limited basis to business customers in its markets in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Tennessee.

 Convergence: Offers your business a combination of voice, Internet, and networking services.

Dynamic Bandwidth Allocation: Channels on the T1 alternate “on demand” between voice and Internet.

Voice Prioritization: Calls coming into and going out of your business always receive priority.

Quality of Service. NuVox leverages its state-of-the-art, fully-redundant IP network and on-premise integrated access devices to ensure the highest quality of service.

Cisco Powered Network (CPN Certified): The NuVox IP network is built using flexible and reliable Cisco-Powered Technology.

Centralized Access: SIP Trunking allows for main and branch offices to share hardware and access at the main site when partnered with VoxNet Gold MPLS WAN solution. Local call and 911 routing can be supported in areas within Nuvox footprint.

Cost Efficient: Dynamic Bandwidth Allocation, Silence Suppression and the SIP Trunk Compression feature work together to provide the most efficient use of customer’s bandwidth. Free Calling Between locations saves customers’ money on Long Distance.

Robust Features: Features such as Compression (G.711, G.729, G.726 and G.723) which allows for improved utilization of bandwidth and T.38 which provide enhanced faxing capability are available and optional.

SIP Trunking Now available in all VoxIP Markets for the following IPPBX’s

Avaya IPOffice

Cisco UC500

 Cisco Call Manager

Ingate

 Digium

 SwitchVox

 Asterisk

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) – Alabama officials have selected a Cincinnati company for a $1.7 million, two-year contract to make Internet broadband service available in all areas of the southern state.

Currently, dial-up Internet access is available using telephone lines in most parts of the state, but the service is slow and sometimes unreliable.

Gov. Bob Riley said Monday his broadband project will make high-speed Internet access with cables or wireless connections available even in rural areas. He said customers will still have to buy Internet access from providers like cable television or phone companies.

Riley said Monday the project would be funded mostly with federal grants.

The contract with CostQuest Associates will go before the Legislature’s Contract Review Committee for approval Thursday, but the committee can only delay contracts for up to 45 days, not stop them.

The governor last year created a 34-member bipartisan committee to oversee the expansion of broadband coverage in Alabama. Riley said the committee chose CostQuest after being contacted by more than 2,000 potential vendors.

Riley said in his home county, Clay, high-speed Internet connections are mostly unavailable in rural areas.

“It’s depressing to see children go to school and have broadband available and then go home and not have it,” Riley said.

At a news conference, Riley demonstrated the capabilities of high-speed Internet by talking with people at locations across the state.

One of those interactions was with Lamar County dairy farmer Will Gilmer, who was on a high-speed connection. He said he mostly has to depend on a slow dial-up connection to order equipment or market his products at Gilmer Dairy Farms.

“I type in a request on my computer. Then I go fix a cup of coffee and I come back and my request is about halfway complete,” Gilmer said.

Brewton pediatrician Marsha Raulerson said high-speed Internet connections are making it possible for some of her young patients to see a psychiatrist at Children’s Hospital in Birmingham by video hookup rather than making the 200-mile trip.

“This helps children to be able to stay in their own communities,” Raulerson said.

Kathy Johnson, director of the Alabama Broadband Initiative, said Alabama officials have been talking with President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team and hope to receive some financial assistance from an economic incentive plan. Obama has made improving broadband access part of his objective for boosting the economy by improving the nation’s infrastructure.

Riley said improving Internet access will bring jobs and opportunities to rural areas.

“Broadband availability breaks down barriers to jobs and careers in high-paying fields, it brings health care to isolated areas, it offers new education opportunities for our citizens,” Riley said.

Palm Beach Post-Cox News Service

Sunday, January 04, 2009

At the heart of much of the change is the Federal Communications Commission, which soon faces its own shake-up as at least one commissioner departs and Democrats take charge.

That could mean policy changes at an agency that oversees everything from cable providers and radio airwaves to public safety communications and broadcast indecency rules.

Overall, experts say, President-elect Barack Obama’s tech-savvy team will be more involved in telecommunications issues than the Bush administration.

“Obama looks at these issues as part of the solution to unemployment challenges and as an economic stimulant,” said Andy Lipman, who leads the telecom-media practice at the Bingham McCutchen law firm in Washington.

The FCC

The new FCC will begin taking shape in early January as the term of Republican Commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate ends. The president appoints commissioners for limited terms, with the party in power getting three of five spots, including the chairmanship.

Republican Chairman Kevin Martin may finish out his term as a commissioner, but outgoing chairmen traditionally leave the agency when a new party occupies the White House.

Obama is expected to appoint one of the commission’s two Democrats – Michael Copps or Jonathan Adelstein – as interim chairman. One of them could get the long-term job, but many names have circulated as potential candidates.

One person often mentioned for either the top FCC job or the new position of America’s chief technology officer is Julius Genachowski, an Obama law school friend and transition team adviser who worked at the FCC.

While Senate confirmation could take months, Obama’s FCC chairman will arrive with a well-defined agenda, said Ben Scott, policy director for the advocacy group Free Press.

“The president-elect has been so clear and detailed about what he wants to do in telecom and media policy, whoever becomes chairman is going to inherit that set of expectations,” he said.

Broadband

Perhaps the biggest expectation involves improving the availability of high-speed Internet access. That goal is likely to be a part of the massive stimulus package that Obama and his Democratic allies in Congress ambitiously want to enact soon after he takes office on Jan. 20.

“It is unacceptable that the United States ranks 15th in the world in broadband adoption,” Obama said this month. “Here, in the country that invented the Internet, every child should have the chance to get online … that’s how we’ll strengthen America’s competitiveness in the world.”

Figuring out how to make that happen has prompted considerable debate, with lawmakers, consumer groups and tech companies chiming in.

“They need to create some kind of mechanism that encourages industry to quickly start deploying faster and farther,” said David Kaut, an analyst with the Stifel, Nicolaus & Co. investment firm. “There’s going to be a lot of scrutiny that it produces jobs in the near term and not just jobs already scheduled.”

The Telecommunications Industry Association and other players favor tax breaks and grants to encourage network building.

Responsibility for overseeing parts of the plan may fall to the FCC, which has a variety of efforts underway to improve Internet access.

Increasing funding to existing programs may be more effective than creating new ones, Kaut said.

One floated proposal involves supporting a broadband rollout through a $7 billion fund that draws on monthly phone bill fees to subsidize calling service in rural and poor communities.

Digital TV

As wrangling over broadband plays out, another mammoth change takes center stage on Feb. 17 as the nation’s TV broadcasters cut off analog signals. The goal is to offer new digital channels with improved picture and sound quality while freeing up radio airwaves for uses such as wireless broadband.

The switch mainly affects about 20 million homes that only receive over-the-air TV programming. Many others have some sets unconnected to pay-TV service.

To watch digital programming on older analog sets, consumers need converter boxes. The government is offering coupons to help pay for the them.

But when the digital deadline comes, “inevitably you’re going to have lots of people with problems,” Scott said. Recent surveys indicate many consumers remain confused or misinformed about how it will work.

Key lawmakers told the FCC’s Martin this month that his agency should make smoothing the digital transition the No. 1 priority in the weeks before the inauguration. Martin canceled a meeting on other issues.

The digital changeover has “sucked the oxygen” out of every other telecom topic before the FCC and will dwarf everything else in the first few months of 2009, Lipman said.

Net Neutrality

One issue facing a priority shift is net neutrality, or the idea of an open Internet where network providers don’t interfere with Web content and treat all traffic the same.

In August, a precedent-setting FCC decision found that cable giant Comcast Corp. violated federal policies when it blocked customers from sharing online videos and other large files.

Obama has made net neutrality a top communications priority and some lawmakers would like it to be part of a national broadband strategy.

However, the urgency behind government action has faded in recent months as the online content and network sides have come closer together, Lipman said.

He said the issue could flare up if Comcast wins a legal challenge to the FCC ruling, prompting Congress to defend the agency’s authority.

But that decision is a year or two away, Kaut said, and with the FCC handling the issue case by case, the heat is off a legislative push.

Mergers

The Obama FCC also is expected to apply more scrutiny to mergers while resisting telecom deregulation and weaker media ownership rules.

The new commission may swing back toward President Bill Clinton’s FCC, which exerted tighter control over industry, said Jeff Kagan, an independent analyst based in Atlanta. He said companies complained then that regulations could not keep pace with changing technology.

“When the Bush administration took over, the pendulum swung all the way to other side,” resulting in enormous consolidation, Kagan said. He said the challenge for the Obama administration is finding a middle ground.

Robert Crandall, senior fellow at The Brookings Institution, said that despite Democratic concerns about consolidation, the new FCC may resist being too strict “at a time when the economy is in the tank.”

Cable

One industry looking forward to change at the FCC’s cable, which has battled with Chairman Martin over a variety of issues including ownership limits and his push for “a la carte” programming, where cable subscribers buy only the individual channels they want.

Some in the industry worry about new net neutrality restrictions, but many FCC watchers expect pressure on cable to ease and the a la carte issue to fade as broadband becomes the top priority.

Lipman said cable companies typically do better with Republicans in power, but without Martin “paradoxically cable will probably end up doing better in the Obama administration.”