Prof. Goto gave me a copy of this book last week at the APAN meeting. It is a book about the history of IDN and the long journey we took to reach “日本語.jp”. :-)

I wish my Japanese is good enough to read it tho. But flipping through the book, I saw names and photos of almost everyone who has helped in one way or another in IDN (including myself :-).

Anyway, if you are interested, the ISBN is 9784844322603.

Remember the Senator Ted Stevens’ speech about the “Internet is a tube“? The joke is going around including a techno tube rap :-)

Even Jon Stewart chipped in :-)

“You don’t know jack *bleep* about computers or the Internet. Hey, that’s OK. You’re just the guy in charge of regulating it.” – Jon Stewart.

How sad and how true :-(

And oh, a wonderful follow up :-)

Three sleepless nights and finally, we are done!

But damn, NDA so not nothing to say right here except it is a very big project! About 34,000 sqkm big involving over 100M USD. Just glad it is over and I am now at the airport heading home! Wohoo!

I am also very sorry that I missed AP*Retreat meeting yesterday. Zita and myself both unable to turn up (what a nice pair of co-chairs haha) but luckily, Prof. Goto step in to help us. Thanks! I also missed the trip to the Waseda High School with Prof. Goto today…sorry.

Incidently, I just read the most amazing story about a man who traded & barter a red paper clip to a house (via VentureBlog)

I havent wrote about VoIP for a while so let me try here. I suppose I could write about the Vonage, about them being sued over E911, sued for patents infrigement, sued by shareholders and the fact their share price dropped by half since IPO. The latter was kind of embarrassing for me as I just gave a glowing outlook on VoIP market sentiments to some investment bankers using Vonage as an example not so long ago. Anyway, all these bad news are already covered by others so let me write about something else, like VoIP players in Malaysia.

VoIP (long distance) players in Malaysia are dying. Actually it is kind of old news but since it is not widely known, so let me share the story here. The first sign of trouble was AIMS (a neutral data center operator) discovered they are losing customers, up to 2-3 VoIP companies per month! There was cries for help from the industry but it took a while for the regulator to figure out whats was the problem.

I dont claim to have a full picture but this is what I know: It related to the VoIP service offered by one of the incumbent.

There is nothing wrong for the incumbent to offer VoIP service. Neither was it a problem that the incumbent offers it cheaper than the other VoIP players. However, it is a problem that they engaged in predatory pricing strategy, offered the VoIP cheaper than the interconnection rate the other VoIP players have the pay them. It is also a problem to engage in price discrimination, offering the the service only and only for customers of their competitors. They literally take the “Don’ts” section of Antitrust laws and offer it as a service plan.

Anyway, the regulator already step in and stop the service. The incumbent reacted by “white labeling” the service with a third party. Things are a bit stable right now but in the long run, all but the largest VoIP players (e.g. Redtone) are in a very precarious position.

¹ not too sure if that is how it is spelled…

It started with a innocently with a usual humor piece by mrbrown titled S’poreans are fed, up with progress! on his weekly Friday column on Today (a free press in Singapore). It isn’t the first time mrbrown (aka Lee Kin Mun), the self-acknowledge humorist who “documents the dysfunctional side of Singapore”, making fun of government policy but it is the first that got a very strong rebutal from the government: Distorting the truth, mr brown?.

What follows after went crazy. Supporters comes to mrbrown’s defense on his blog, upset at the statement from the government. Even Paris-based Reporters without border chipped in criticising the Singapore government. Then when mrbrown informs his readers that his weekly column was suspended, more people comes to mrbrown defense and sending letters to the editors, the CEO of mediacorp (owner of Today) and even to the Minister, the Prime Minister and the President.

Sadly, none of the letters was published. Today rejected all the letters essentially enforcing a news blackout on the topic but the debate goes on the Internet and on other prints, first on UFM100.3 (radio station), then on Straits Times and finally on ChannelNewsAsia.

To be fair to the government, I don’t think MICA “ordered” the suspension of mrbrown or the news blackout. The relationship between the media and Singapore government is fairly complex but could loosely classify as “master-mistress” relationship, ie ‘do whatever you like but never forget you are my mistress’. The fact that this was on the other main stream media is an attestment that there is no ‘secret memo’.

In other words, it is a ‘self-censorship’ enforced by Today management. Sadly, they have miscalculated the response. In most media outfit, the management will be screaming with joy, let the debate go on publishing both side of the arguments and watch their readership shoot through the roof. Unfortunately for them, the self-imposed censorship backfires with a population who no longer tolerates censorship so it becomes a double whammy – first slap by the government then second slap by their readers.
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From Your Own Personal Internet

The Senate Commerce Committee deadlocked 11 to 11 on an amendment inserting some very basic net neutrality provisions into a moving telecommunications bill…

Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) explained why he voted against the amendment and gave an amazing primer on how the internet works: I just the other day got, an internet was sent by my staff at 10 o’clock in the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday. Why? Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the internet commercially.

Politicians are just that, politicians. They are not technologists nor should we expect them to understand the finer details of the technical workings of the Internet.

But I do expect politicians to have technically sound advisers, esp. if you are on the community that is doing the reform of Telecommunicaton Act. So when you get a wrong idea of what you opposing in the first place, it is very worrying.

Yep, these are the folks that decide the future of Internet. Maybe Powell is right to asked neutrologists not to be naive. :-(