Forget about Web 2.0 (really, forget it, it’s a dumb name).  Bigger stuff is coming over IP (BSCoIP?).  And it’s about time for cable broadband in New York City to get faster, cheaper, or both.  Time Warner Cable has an excellent product and service in RoadRunner, but it’s starting to show its age.  Downstream speeds run at (a theoretical maximum of) 5Mbps, with upstream speeds of only 384Kbps.  RoadRunner Premium, running at 8Mbps down/512Kbps up, costs an extra $20/month.

While these speeds are pretty fast, CableVision trumps them: Optimum Online’s standard service runs at 8Mbps down and its new Optimum “Boost” service, available for a surcharge of between $9.95 and $14.95, claims speeds of up to 30Mbps down / 2Mpbs up.  CableVision doesn't offer service in TWC's franchise areas, so they're not technically a competitor.  But service that fast will generate demand that Time Warner will find unstoppable.

Worse yet, even with bundle discounts, RoadRunner costs $44.95/month.  While I’d never trade it for its archrival Verizon DSL, that service costs only $14.95/month for 768Kbps service.  If Verizon’s FiOS fiber optic service ever gets pulled through New York City’s conduits (which, you should know, are owned by a company called Empire City Subway, itself a division of Verizon), Time Warner Cable had better watch out.  FiOS offers a 15Mbps down / 2Mbps up service for the same $44.95 monthly charge.

Time Warner Cable’s also got to watch out for its traditional cable TV service as well; FiOS itself offers a digital cable service with a nearly identical channel lineup, equivalent video on demand capabilities, HDTV and DVR options.  The “expanded basic” service is only $34.95/month when bundled with its broadband service and $39.95 otherwise.  Compare that to Time Warner’s DTV service at a net cost of $53.95/month when combined with RoadRunner.

Rounding out the so-called “triple play” of broadband Internet, digital video, and VoIP phone service, Time Warner’s Digital Phone service costs $15 more per month more than Vonage's unlimited plan and that’s without voice mail.

While these premiums may be helping TWC today, they're going to create a huge backlash for them later.  It’s time for them to revamp their services and pricing.  They should also consider seriously a build-out of their system to once and for all get rid of the coax and pull the fiber all the way on-premises.  Yes, it will cost them a lot.  But without such a move, Verizon will eventually eclipse them as the internet provider of choice.  And once video programming is fully IP based, it’s only the Internet pipe that will matter.

Registration for Code Camp NYC, which we officially announced only last week, is already full!  Either the Microsoft registration site is buggy (doubtful), or there is incredible pent-up demand for this kind of event in New York City, given that the Code Camp NYC’s Web site was up for only two days before the event filled up.  Granted, we are limited to 150 attendees, but this is still an impressively strong response.  It’s pretty clear that .NET has garnered quite a standing in New York.

Wait list registrations are still being taken.  I encourage all interested in attending to sign up for the waitlist; a certain percentage of registrants for free events never show up, so your chances of getting in are decent.

I guess we’ll have to do another Code Camp in New York City again soon.  It’s been so long since I’ve posted here, that a request for comments may reach very few of you. Be that as it may, I would appreciate hearing your preference for the frequency with which we hold these events. 

And if you’re interested in being part of a perpetual team of Code Camp NYC organizers, please email volunteersnyc@codecamp.us.

Kent Brown, our firm's new Enterprise Integration Practice Manager, is hard at work establishing a new user group in New York City.  The group will focus on business process integration, Microsoft style, involving products and technologies like BizTalk Server, Windows Communication Foundation (f.k.a. Indigo), Windows Workflow Foundation, SQL Server 2005 Integration Services and more.  Kent's working with Microsoft NYNJ and Redmond, and has been consulting with the leaders of the recently established Northwest Connected Systems user group.  More details, including meeting dates and Web URL, as they become available.

I am this week’s guest on “.NET Rocks,” the popular Internet audio talk show covering .NET development.  This week’s show features me chatting about Microsoft BI technologies, with specific attention paid to Analysis Services in SQL Server 2005, including its OLAP and Data Mining feature sets.  I mention Business Scorecard Manager as well, and talk about Microsoft’s (increasingly well played) position in the BI market.

For those who don’t know, the main Web URL for the show is:
http://www.dotnetrocks.com

And Microsoft runs a mirror site here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/dotnetrocks
(although my show’s not up on the mirror site yet)

It’s only a matter of time before I actually start blogging regularly again.  No, really.  The problem is that I’ve been working on a book, albeit with two co-authors, and we’ve been in crunch mode for a while.  It’ll be over soon.  And the book will kick ass…if we ever finish it.

Between the book, a new job (now almost 15 months old) and a new son (now almost 14 months old), being overwhelmed has been a theme in my life for a while now.

The Internet overwhelms me too, and it annoys me.  There’s too much content, and too little editing (and I realize that this blog is complicit in that phenomenon).  One day people are going to remember why the hell they used to read trade and technical magazines.  They’ll remember that editors culled through stuff for them, and packaged it up in relatively small publications, that came out at a reasonable frequency.  You could read them from cover to cover and even wait in anticipation for the next issue.

Call me a Luddite, but that was a useful format.  It was respectful of my time.  And it was respectful of the authors’ work too.  Blogs and RSS aggregators and all the articles posted daily to the Web by the major trade pubs don’t offer that respect.  And that is a drag on productivity in the industry which impacts negatively on the economy.

So my quest has been to find outlets in the new medium that help me approximate the discriminating taste and editorial efficiency of the old magazine format.

I’ve only just begun, but I have found one very useful resource: Slashdot Review.  It’s a ten minute daily evening audio podcast (it comes out once each weekday evening as well as most Sundays) that summarizes the day’s most interesting posts on Slashdot.  It’s an extremely time-efficient way to keep abreast of tech industry current events, and the audio format will give your monitor-sore eyes a rest.

Slashdot Review’s host, Andrew McCaskey, is unaffiliated with Slashdot, though he’s an avid reader.  He adds his own articulate opinions at times, and educates his listeners in podcasting trends and technologies.  He also puts out a show with high production value, and that makes it fun to listen to.  I listen on my PC, my Creative Zen Micro audio player, and in my living room on my Media Center PC.  By the way, the show’s content does exist in blog form, and the podcast RSS feed I supplied in the last paragraph contains text that accompanies each mp3 "enclosure."

I’m going to keep looking for resources like this.  I’m now more hopeful that the Internet’s content pollution can be tamed.