Catching up

A veritable cornucopia of topics this week:

A major passing of the guard this week: The company that built out the original telephone network and ruled it as a monopoly, AT&T, is asking the FCC to phase out the circuit-switched legacy network and transition to broadband and IP-based communications.

"With each passing day, more and more communications services migrate to broadband and IP-based services, leaving the public switched telephone network ("PSTN") and plain-old telephone service ("POTS") as relics of a by-gone era," the company wrote in comments filed with the FCC.

Congress has charged the FCC with creating a National Broadband Plan and AT&T was commenting on that plan. The commission must martial its resources to ensure the "necessary deployment of the enormous amount of infrastructure necessary" for service to be available to 100 percent of the population, according to AT&T.

No kidding! (And want to hear something weird? Blogspot would not allow me to use an ampersand in a post label for this article! Odd.)

Second topic: lots of chatter lately about how to measure Internet ad effectiveness, or just how to measure things like audio streaming sources. HERE is a link to a recent podcast on the subject that makes some good points. And raises a bunch of questions, not just on that topic. (Thanks to John WA5MFL for forwarding.) When I was with Arbitron, we were seriously trying to enter the Internet streaming measuring business, but never seemed to get traction. We were still diary-based, of course, but looked at accessing server logs and all that kind of stuff. But that still left much to know about who was clicking on those links and listening to all that audio and watching all that video. You know, little stuff like age, sex, race, household income, home zip code, etc. Work in progress, and it will be for some time, even as billions of dollars chase those ears and eyeballs.

And finally, an email landed in the inbox this week that reached me on two different levels. First, it was a notice about the upcoming and massive (though not quite as massive, maybe, as in the past) show in Las Vegas in April, and a request that I pass along an invite to my blog readers, including a code to get free admission to the exhibit floor. Cool! But I also was interested in how Jason Rouse and Tuvel Communications, who are working with NAB to market the show, are using this simple means to contact bloggers and get the word out. Ads in the broadcast trades? Direct mail? Exhibitors giving out passes? All still viable. But why not get guys like me to also help push attendance? Well, for all half dozen of my regular readers, here, in its entirety, is Jason's suggested blog post:

There have been some rapid changes over the last few years that we as a digital broadcasting community face. The 2010 NAB Show is the place to discover new opportunities for all of us in the broadcaster world.

The NAB Show is coming up faster than you think – April 10-15 in Las Vegas! For a taste of what the 2010 NAB Show has to offer, check out what the Broadcast Management Conference and discover how to further monetize and manage your digital products in today’s dynamic marketplace: http://ow.ly/15xv1

Oh, and just because you are reading my blog, I’m giving out a code for FREE ACCESS to the Exhibit Hall at the show. This free Exhibits-Only pass includes (but is not limited to):

- Access to the Opening Keynote and State of the Industry Address
- Info Sessions
- Content Theater and Destination Broadband Theater

Visit http://ow.ly/13T8Q today to redeem or register at http://nabshow.com/register with the code A913 (and feel free to pass this along).

Don't forget to check out the official show website at http://www.nabshow.com for more information, news, and to register!

And yes, I DO get a listing for my blog in return! Now I just wish I could go. For a gear goober like me, there is nothing else like it...miles and miles of electronic stuff! And a great ham radio get-together with lots of door prizes, too.

Whew! Glad I got all that in. Now I'm going to go lie down for a while.

Don Keith N4KC

http://www.donkeith.com/

www.facebook.com/donkeith (friend requests welcomed)