CRT will be hosting a WiFi Hotspot at NAR's annual meeting in New Orleans. It will be located in the entry foyer of the New Orleans Hilton Riverside.
CRT staff will be on hand to answer technical questions.
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*Unfortunately, Hank, our in-house Mai Tai enthusiast, will not be able to attend
After a successful run at our Mid-year conference in D.C. we're again hosting the Bloggers' Lounge during NAR's Conference & Expo in New Orleans. The Lounge will be located at the Hilton New Orleans Riverside in the Newberry Room, on the third floor. The Lounge will be open from 9AM to 8PM.
What is the Bloggers' Lounge?
It's a room for bloggers where they can update their blogs in a quiet and relaxing atmosphere.
Amenities:
- WiFI
- Snacks
- Beverages
- Soothing Music
- Comfortable Seating
In an effort to simplfiy the installation and administration of the Messenger service, CRT has rebuilt it from the ground up. First let’s review how Messenger works. The service translates text into a speech message, makes a phone call, and then plays the message. We refer to this process as event based phone messaging. The text can come from different sources. In it’s current version Messenger is able to grab text from an email or a web form.
The earlier version of Messenger functioned in a similar fashion but had additional capabilities which added complexity to the installation and administation processes. Since these additional capabilites had little to do with the core function (event based phone messaging) of the Messenger service they were removed from the current version.
The Messenger Project page has been updated with additional information about the new version. Look for the the official Messenger release this week.
[8/4/06 Messenger released. Messenger 1.0 is now available for download at the new Messenger Project page.]
The House of Representatives just voted down the net neutrality amendment to the Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement(Cope) Act- they voted in the Cope Act (more on that later). What is this net neutrality and why was there a vote about it?
Basically net neutrality is the idea that all data should be treated neutrally on the internet. Data from my server shouldn’t have priority over data from your server.
Sounds straight forward right? Well there are some issues turning the ideal into reality, namely QoS (Quality of Service). QoS is regulated by the routers that control the "net" in internet. Currently these routers determine which packets get higher priority based on what the information being transmitted requires- webpage content is happy with a best effort priority(read low priority), it will wait patiently for it’s turn even if other data cuts in line, high bandwidth video or voice communication information can’t allow others to cut, watching a video that cuts out for a second or two randomly is not a lot of fun, it requires a high priority. So if your server is hosting video content it’s data transmissions will have a higher priority then my server hosting basic web pages. This works great right now but as more servers start transmitting data requiring high priority, bandwidth becomes an issue.
Now why would anyone be against this? The ISPs don’t like it, they would like to charge users that transmit high priority data more. They say the bandwidth and QoS requirements are a heavy burden on their networks. Case in point; video streaming now comprises approximately 20% of internet traffic in the US and is growing. They say that net neutrality will cause problems for their engineers who design QoS architechtures and involve expensive upgrades to their networks. Because of this they would like to implement a tiered internet- fast transmission speeds for those who pay extra and slower speeds for those who don’t- this certainly isn’t neutral but it’s a valid argument
Advocates of the net neutrality ammendment say that enabling the ISPs to create a tiered internet would allow them to charge for a service that’s already been paid for. Example; you paid for your internet connection, Google pays for theirs. Once both parties are connected they should be able to communicate but under a tiered plan there would be more fees for transmitting specific types of data. The ISPs could disallow transmission of certain types of data that competed with services of their own unless a fee was paid; this is where the Cope Act comes in.
The Cope Act gets rid of the hassle cable companies had to go through implementing their networks. Before the Cope Act cable companies had to negotiate with thousands of local governments for franchise agreements to offer video services now they only need to get approval from the FCC.
There are many issues with this but the reason I mention it is that the ISPs and Telcos pushed for this . Why? Because they want to get into the video business and they say it would take decades for them to go through the negotiations to catch up to the cable companies. Once the ISP’s are in the video business they’ll be able to control access to their competitors services, not very neutral.
Much of the ISPs networks were built with public money in tax breaks, direct subsidies in money and land(for cable or fiber runs) with the understanding that they would upgrade their networks to give the public high speed connections, exactly what they are now complaining the high priority transmissions require.
Since this is the Center for REALTOR® Technology Blog, the obvious question is: "How will this affect our members and the real estate industry as a whole?" The simple answer is that it will effect our industry as much as others that use the internet to provide services. If the internet is no longer neutral there will be a higher cost to do business over the internet. How high will the cost be? That remains to be seen but it will certainly cost more to provide video content. With the passage of the COPE Act the ISPs can set any price they think the market will support. Unfortunately the price could be high because the internet is an integral component of most business interactions today. In other words high demand, high prices. Many network neutrality advocates say this will stifle innovation and keep the smaller players out of the game. For REALTORS® this might mean only the large brokerages will be able to provide newly expensive services to their clients.
[update 6/16/06 CRT doesn't make policy decisions concerning NAR's stance on technology issues so our blog posts are purposefully educational. That being said, NAR is currently looking into this issue.]
CRT runs WiFi Hotspots at all of NAR’s yearly conferences. At the latest conference (The Leadership Summit in Chicago) we had a great setup. Excellent location- adjacent the ballroom, a great view of the Chicago river and tasteful decor. Because the area looked so nice I made an extra effort to keep our already small form factor technology hidden.
Our display table had our brochures, full page hand-outs, 22″ LCD display, Mac Mini with Bluetooth mouse/keyboard and a white tablecloth to complete a clean functional look. I was feeling very satisfied.
Next, I had to place the most important technology used at our Hotspot; the WiFi access point. Unfortunately the network drop was right near the elevator. This meant the access point was going to be in full view. All of my careful design work was for naught! Thankfully Humphrey, a tech manager at the hotel had an idea. They would run a cable from the drop to a large potted plant. I could hide the access point under the fluffy mulch! Design faux paus averted. Now all I had to do was settle in and provide support for the Hotspot (which requires very little as our members are becoming quite adept with the latest computer technologies).
The first two days went well. We had many users and there were few problems. I showed up the third day expecting the same. But it wasn’t the same, our access point was off the air! I quickly changed gears and donned my super tech sleuth hat. I don’t actually have a super tech sleuth hat, for some reason I can’t get Mark to approve the purchase. Anyway, I first checked my laptop for problems because it had been acting up.
Everything seemed fine. Then I walked over to someone in the Hotspot seating area pecking away at his laptop and asked if he was able to connect; he wasn’t. Hm, I thought, I really need that hat. Ah ha! I’ll see if NetStumbler (a software tool that detects wireless networks) can detect it, It can detect anything. No luck.
Finally I trudged over to the plant to see if the access point was plugged in. it was. I visually inspected it and low and behold no lights! I picked it up and water poured out. It had been watered. Apparently the gardener failed to notice the multiple cables and flashing LED’s and poured a large amount of H2O on our Access point and its companion plant. Thankfully I had a backup access point and the Hotspot was back up in no time, plus I learned a valuable lesson. All of my technical knowledge and preparation are useless against a gardener on a mission.
