MY SUBJECTIVE BREAKFAST-MEETING REPORT (an Anonymous Report) ----------------- ----------------- Welcome to the Rick and Bob show. Contrary to expectations, Bob Hagen is not a fat-cat good ol' boy Southern-fried-chicken small-toothed salesman, and Ric Roland is not a slippery-eel waif of a mealy-mouthed Tucson Computer Society "We can't figure out PCs" dork. No, they are reversed. Bob is small and slimy, and Ric is big and lumbering. We were here today to hear about High Speed Internet in Tucson. It's 7:15. You may think of that as "Wakeup time minus 2" if you like. Some may think of it as late Tuesday night. Dark glasses a must, coffee a must, donuts looked fat. Someone bring bagels next time. Appoint somebody... have a vote, hey Ric... The speakers. Yeah. Charlie Rockman represented AZStarNet, careful not to tread on Brooks Fiber's toes. He's mindful of the fact that if Brooks stock plummets, StarNet will be on the receiving side of a tort lawsuit. In his technical-backup court, Matthew Grossman stared everybody down, never evincing a smile or a hint of faint amusement. He looked annoyed, bored, and perturbed that anyone like Bob or Ric could breathe and talk at the same time. He also stared down John Ahrar (The Big Red Ball from Dakota, but more on that later). His plans for Tucson include affordable xDSL, as well as partnering with a CAP and perhaps forming a CLEC if that's what it takes -- the goal is to provide Tucson citizenry with cheap high speed access. Matthew was not allowed to speak, nor did he show an interest in slowing his brain down to the discussed speeds (26.4Kbps). Misappropriately named for his adoring fans, John Love, general manager of Brooks Fiber - Tucson, sauntered up to speak. He had to lean over fairly far, so his mouth could obtain unobstructed access to the mike. ("Chin"). He's mindful that Brooks fucked up big time with AZStarNet, and would like to pretend they still have a cat's chance in Szechuan Omei of doing the DSL deal with StarNet. Truth be told he knows they don't, but he also knows StarNet folks won't contradict him (see "tort lawsuit" above.) That's how he can say extremely clever things like "We met with StarNet as early as, basically, yesterday." He's interested in having lots of businesses on his fiber ring. There are no plans to do residential programs. (See "StarNet deal falls through".) He doesn't really understand Internet speak, but he does sell circuits. Someone might use him to get high speed Internet access to Tucson -- but it won't be StarNet. Well, not as early as yesterday. Joe Kamper feels that Primenet is the "first ISP to come to Tucson from outside of Tucson and stay." That's like saying "Well, there were a bunch of Tucson providers, and we weren't there. Then Internet Direct came, and we didn't. Then we did. Now Internet Direct was bought out by GoodNet, and GoodNet was in Tucson after Primenet, and still is, but since Internet Direct isn't, and we are, then there you go!" Confused? Joe is implying that since Internet Direct is no more, Primenet wins by default. It means that GoodNet can't claim to be the first Phoenix ISP in Tucson, even though they bought out the company that was -- Internet Direct. This is in contradiction to Joe's implication that Primenet/Globalcenter has been handing the Netscape site for three years. No, ISI has. The merger postdates this, and by Joe's own rules of logic (see "First ISP to come here and stay after...." above.) he can't take credit for that. While we are on Joe-contradictions, he thinks Primenet's been an Internet provider since 1992. Unfortunately, Primenet was formed in 1994 (whois shows a creation of May '94.) Lastly, Joe feels Primenet is a tier-1 ISP, because they show up to only two of the interconnects (MAE-East and MAE-West.) Unfortunately for Joe, to be a Tier-1 NSP you need default-free service and peering, not transit. Primenet used to purchase transit from CAIS, and now gets it via ISI peering. Other than those things, Joe never talked about High Speed Internet Access in Tucson or Phoenix or anywhere else other than to say that Primenet would "Go the extra mile" and support all three "stanards" of 56Kbps analog. Since none of them are standard, we interpreted Joe's comments as "Primenet can't pick a technology, so we're going to increase our customer frustration 3 fold." Steve from Gain Technologies (GCI) joined the frey but was clear on the concept that NOTHING was ready to be used except 56K modems, so that was what they would do. His last-minute entry and lack of preparation, coupled with a lack of understanding of the industry, earned him the points for Man Most Likely to Go Work for Brooks. (See "John Love.") His vision for High Speed Internet Access in Tucson is ... USR 56K modems. Golf Clap. Joel Snyder from Opus 1 startled the group by saying he only wants to serve businesses. What kind of a crook is this Snyder fella anyway? The talk was supposed to be about High Speed Internet Access in Tucson, NOT High Speed Internet Access in Tucson for Businesses. (See "John Love.") Joel had slides, and the innovative idea of not just comparing technologies, but defining a standard for comparison first, then applying it equally to all discussed technologies. This method, while confusing to the Dakotanots (who were trying not to snore) worked well, and left following speakers with little to say except "YEAH, what JOEL said." Joel punctuated the real-life figures and real data with punctuated jabs at John Howard from US West, "The Man." John was amused, but much less so as time went on, in inverse proportion to audience rise of enjoyment. Joel does NOT want to hook up $20/month people. Ergo, he is evil. On the other hand, ISDN is his viable solution to High Speed Internet Access in Tucson. Marcus Needham from the river joined the stage with a pre-worded presentation that gave thought to brevity and clarity, and was delivered in a British accent worthy of making women drool. He summarized his comments by agreeing with Joel (always a good bet when Joel is right) and disagreeing with "The Gain Fella" (always a good bet not to remember the names of people who don't know jack.) Marcus' vision includes 56K today, ISDN via brooks tomorrow, and whatever may come down the pipe the next day. High Speed Internet Access in Tucson yippe. John Howard, US West. "The Man" Needs to learn to select a new color set in PowerPoint that will show up. Pink background, purple text, you know, The-Artist-Formerly-Known-As-Prince might like it, but it's impossible to read. John talked about MegaBits. New services from !Nterprise, the data networking arm of US West. (During billing times, the data networking armpit of US West.) The new services are HDSL based to start, xDSL to end, 200-700Mbps ethernet- terminated circuits at a proposed tariff of < $200/month. Availability in Phoenix September/October. Availability in Utah Q4. Availability elsewhere n/a. (that means "ZERO" for Tucson High Speed Internet access.) General impression: The coffee was good. Other more subjective numbers. All mine. Scales of ten (except for Matthew, who looked especially comfortable staring with a mean expression at people.) =============================================================================== Charlie Matthew John Steve Joe Joel Marcus John Speakers Rockman Grossman Love Kamper Snyder Neeham Howard StarNet Starnet Brooks Gain PrimeNet Opus1 River US West =============================================================================== Preparation: Slides 0 0 0 0 0 10 0 3 Handout 0 0 0 0 0 9 0 0 Swag 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Knowledge: Industry 8 8 5 1 10 10 10 9 Currency 8 8 7 3 10 10 10 10 Future 8 7 5 3 7 8 8 9 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Speaking: Voice 10 0 5 4 8 10 10 9 Humor 10 0 1 0 7 8 6 1 Comfort 6 50 3 4 7 10 7 9 =============================================================================== Overall Score 50 73 26 15 49 75 51 50 Overall Rank 1: Joel Snyder, Opus 1 2: Matthew Grossman, AZ StarNet 3: Marcus Needham, The River honorable mention: 4: John Howard, US West 5: Joe Kamper, Primenet/GlobalCenter/ISI People who should never be invited to speak or allowed to touch a microphone, a podium, and who would never try to project in an auditorium: 1: Steve, Gain 2: John Love, Brooks Fiber 3: Bob Hagen