BCE Buyout bid - Group led by Ontario Teachers PP for $48.5B

Here are links to CBC and WSJ versions of the buyout bid the BCE board is supporting.

It will be a very interesting to see how this plays out after the buyout. Will it be broken up? Who will buy the pieces? Who knows?

All I know for certain is that this story is far from over and it is gonna be a wild ride

Unwanted Milestone: 10,000 Spam Comments

Wow. The pace is really picking up

• 0 Oct 2006
• 1,000 Mar 22, 2007
• 7,000 May 22, 2007
• 10,000 Jun 30, 2007

Eragon Is Great

Eragon was a highly entertaining listen. It’s not Lord of the Rings, but it is definitely worth a read.

Lily Allen’s Not for Me

My good friend Shats, a man with impeccable musical taste, highly recommended Lilly Allen’s Alright, Still to me as what I’ll call “trashy summer fun”. Coming from such a respected source I tried really hard to give it a chance. I really liked the sounds and I rarely pay attention to lyrics so it was feeling like a winner, but this albums lyrics can’t be ignored. In short the lyrics really really bug me. In a nutshell, Lilly Allen is the kind of girl that Of Montreal’s Hissing Fauna is all about. She is the rejecter. I don’t need more rejection

I vowed to myself that I’d post music that I like and silently discard the rest. Things change. And yes … my daughters really like this album

Just Got the Shaw Phone & Home Network up

We had the Shaw phone installed this weekend. So far it has worked just fine. We went with “digital phone lite” plan. The Shaw Phone modem is an Arris Touchstone TM502G.

I found it really cool that we were able to keep our old Telus number. It was fairly painless. Order the phone, wait 3 weeks for number transfer process, and then have Shaw install the phone. All the installer had to do was call the “transfer” number and we were in business. Worked first time.

Shaw also installed what the “installer” called the high-end cable from the street to my house. I didn’t think much about it then. But I’m liking it now with downloads from audible and eMusic now unbelievably fast. I’ve seen sustained 1,000+ MB ( ie > 8 Mbits/second) a few times. Wow!

Here is a picture of the rest of my home network’s “data center” Every room in the house is connected via Cat 5e to a Dell PowerConnect 2716 GigE Switch. The Broadband Stuff is Linksys WRT54G BB router (the blue box … I don’t use the WiFi) and Motorola Cable Modem ( black vertical box).

GigE might seem like overkill. But my Macs have GigE ports and the performance with GigE is pretty good. I’ve also found that network back ups run at ~112Mbits/second over a full backup of 40GB. There is no way that would happen with 10/100Base-T. It would probably be half that.

For TV — I just got the Shaw HD PVR a week before the Masters I also have had an IO Data networked HD-DVD player AVel LinkPlayer2 for about 2 years (it is still great). The Avel Linkplayer connects into the GigE switch and can play “Audio/Video/Still” files from any computer in the house. Pretty much the capability of iTV 2 years ago. This has a Sigma Designs chip in it. The only thing missing from LinkPlayer is support for Apple AAC files As such, I buy from eMusic and CD.

Weekly Blog Chat - iPhone | Telecom | Iliad BRCM | GOOG Voip Net Neutrality | pmarca blog

This week continues the iPhone overload theme, I really like Mossbergs’s coverage of his 2 weeks the device, Telecom gets coverage in Business Week, VZ hits 1Mth FiOS customer mark, Google posts “net neutrality” position, Broadcom finds way into Iliad Service mix, Google gets into VOIP, MetroEthernet, and FTTH/PON.

In Careers and Mgmt land Marc Andreesen just keeps the gems flowing. The depth and quality is fantastic. Highly recommended.

Enjoy, Iain

NB. All of these are in my delicious widget on the right and @ http://del.icio.us/hNorth/blog.

Technology

• Testing out the iPhone - Mossberg SolutionMossberg team tests for 2 weeks - best detail I’ve seen on iPhone
• Telecom: Back From The Dead - Business Week - Good Article on Telecom. Includes notes on competition from Internet playeres ( ie Google Infrastructure )
• Verizon has a million FiOS customers — GigaOM
• Google Public Policy Blog: What Do We Mean By “Net Neutrality”? - Good to see Google’s view on the topic.
• Iliad and Differentiation (brcm software) — TeleBusillis Chip Vendors finding ways to get more margin from their hardware. I wrote about this challenge a few weeks ago. Take a page out of the system vendors playbook - software gets more margin out of the hardware. It’s a brave new world for CommSemi’s.
• Telecom, Meet Web 2.0 at Nyquist Capital (Grand Central google) Andrew has good post on Google and its VOIP acquistion.
• METRO ETHERNET: FINALLY THE HEADLINER - Telephony Online Hmmm … it’s been a while … these changes work on glacial timeframes.
• Fabless companies’ rankings stable in falling Q1 market — EETimes.com
• NXTcomm: GPON Wrap-Up — Light Reading
• FTTH in Europe Report — FTTH Blog
• Netgear Ubiquisys : necessary but not sufficient for femtocells - Dean Bubley - Home Routers integrating Femto Cell support.

Careers & Mgmt

Marc Andreesen’s blog is an fantastic source of posts on this topic. Here are ones I like this week ( ie all of them )

• blog.pmarca.com: The Pmarca Guide to Startups, part 5: The Moby Dick theory of big companies
• blog.pmarca.com: The Pmarca Guide to Startups, part 3: “But I don’t know any VCs!”
• blog.pmarca.com: The Pmarca Guide to Startups, part 4: The only thing that matters
• blog.pmarca.com: The Pmarca Guide to Startups, part 2: When the VCs say “no”
• The Pmarca Guide to Big Companies, part 1: Turnaround!
  

MarComm

• Out: Trade Publishers. In: Gigaom and TechCrunch - IP Democracy - agree with this. I really like Om Malik’s Blog. I used to read TechCrunch, but it has become overwhelming to follow ( just too many posts per day) and it is very Web 2.0 focussed. I had to choose one and went with Om’s ’cause he follows broadband very closely.

General Interest ( Fun )

• fun reading/listening - Christopher Moore’s “Dirty Job”

Andreesen Keeps the Gems Flowing - Turnaround - “Stop Talking and Execute”

Marc Andreesen’s posts continue to be “best on the net”. His latest is “9 steps to Turn Around a sinking software/semiconduct/media company”

I was LOLing for a while over Step 1 “Go Dark and Execute” Here is a snippet

The Pmarca Guide to Big Companies, part 1: Turnaround!( excerpt from Step 1 )

“Money talks, hype walks — when you’re hitting your numbers, everyone thinks you’re a genius and believes everything you say, no matter how silly.

When you’re not hitting your numbers, everyone thinks you’re a moron and won’t believe anything you say, no matter how true.

So go dark, focus on the business, and don’t talk publicly for at least six months.

Mark ‘Who?’ Hurd sets the gold standard here.”

It is too true I wrote about this in part 7 Connect. I completely agree that there is no way anyone can talk their way out of “the pit of despair”. No one listens to our words at this point, only actions. Stop talking. It’s a waste of time. Also note that actions take a long time to play out. It’s just the way it is.

fun reading/listening - Christopher Moore’s “Dirty Job”

I’m really liking Christopher Moore these days. Almost effortless entertainment. So much fun - If you enjoy “satirical” and “silly” works by PG Wodehouse & Carl Hiassen then you’ll like Moore too.

So far I’ve read Lamb a month ago and have just finished “Dirty Job”

The “narrator” Fisher Steven’s has been a perfect fit for Lamb & Dirty Job.

Bring Out Yer Dead ( Telecom )

Telecom: Back From The Dead - Business Week is interesting. I particularly like the noted Capex of Google for 2006.

Last year, Google, YouTube’s parent company, spent $1.9 billion, or 18% of its sales, on technology systems and other capital expenditures to serve videos speedily and process search-engine queries.

I believe that the networking vendors that focus on equipment for Google and it’s brethren will fair well in this go around. Those that focus on traditional telco’s will not do so well.

Om Malik has good follow-up to B-Week article and NXT Comm. Telecom Back from the Dead, but Check the Pulse — GigaOm

Google’s Stance on Network Neutrality

“Network neutrality” is an overused term whose meaning is very difficult to nail down. There is the telco side and the Internet side. This week the Google Policy Blog posted their postion. ( tip to Doc Searl’s blog )

Google Public Policy Blog: What Do We Mean By “Net Neutrality”?