A machine gun pointed at my head, a smug look of contempt from a guard, walls designed to keep me isolated from the outside and under control. I am in prison.
From the outside, life is pretty normal. Citizens laughing in a sidewalk café, driving to the shopping mall, lining up to view a first-run movie. On the trip from the city my driver talks of the outside. He talks of people with hopes, futures, and fulfilling their dreams. At the prison checkpoint the mood changes, and we get a quick briefing on the rules of conduct while transferring to the “inside.”
I am now entering Ramallah. The line going into Ramallah is short – takes about 5 minutes. The line waiting to go out is long, and the driver reveals you can expect to wait about 3 hours to re-enter Israel. Cars with a Palestinian number plate are not allowed outside of the West Bank of Palestine, only Israeli tagged cars are allowed on the outside.
As we pass the border checkpoint our driver slowly turns, and says “welcome to our prison.”
I am an American, What do I know?
All I know of Ramallah is what I hear on the news, or read in the papers. I assume every street corner will have a group of terrorists ready to pull me out of the car and hold me for ransom, or execute me on a tape forwarded to YouTube for global distribution. The media has pumped me up to the point I cower behind slightly shaded windows, fearing what may happen to me if pedestrians see a foreigner in the car, and call ahead to those finding amusement harming me.
But what the heck? The streets of Ramallah are fairly wide, in somewhat good shape (at least compared to Tel Aviv), and everything is under construction. Lots of new buildings, all made with a wonderful stone façade, with designs that rival my own community in Long Beach. Even though we are in the middle of Ramadan, people are working hard at the construction sites, and moving about with purpose.
No visible weapons on the street. No groups of young men spoiling for a fight.
At the hotel I am greeted by security, a guard shakes my hand and says “Welcome to Ramallah.” The desk clerk gives me a warm welcome, and gives a quick overview of the area, and quickly fills in a couple of high-level suggestions on the tradition and culture of Ramadan, which is an important period of the year for Muslims.
Nothing harsh or threatening, just giving me a couple tips of what is happening, and how I can avoid causing myself any personal anxiety over making a social gaff. He was worried about my feelings, not those of Muslims who probably expect me to do something culturally silly.
My first Ramadan Celebration Meal
The hotel prepares a buffet. Muslims have fasted all day, and according to the practice wait until the official sunset to feast. The hotel restaurant area has a large screen display guiding evening prayers, and at the official moment of sunset announces to those present it is time to celebrate.
Lamb, a large variety of food, drinks, a true celebration. Everybody is friendly with everybody else, and even show foreigners like myself much accommodation and warmth.
A Ramallah Sunrise
On the first morning in Ramallah I take a sunrise walk along the hills and moguls of the city. Most of the buildings new. Many vacant lots with the foundations of past homes, lives, families, and a culture disrupted over the past 40 years of “troubles.” Most appear destroyed by human hand. Everybody greets me as I walk along the street, somewhat amused by my interest in the buildings and community, but no cold shoulder or indication I am unwelcome.
A new day, and the beginning of a new challenge. The challenge of making sure my visit to Palestine and Ramallah will bring value. I don’t want to be a burden, a tourist, or an ugly American. I feel the history, the spirit, and depth of a region that does not have a single centimeter of land untouched by humans. I look inside for the strength to bring my experience and knowledge to really smart people, who just need reinforcement of their visions.
We are but a snapshot, a sound bite in time. How do we bring value to an area which has ground every effort throughout history into yet another chronicle of struggle?
We will try
John Savageau, from Ramallah, Palestine
Gregg Nobel loves wireless Internet. He talks about technologies such as MIMO (Multiple-In, Multiple Out) that will help him deliver high speed, broadband Internet services through the northeast with refreshing enthusiasm. Gregg shows feverish dedication to ensuring fellow residents and children of the state have an equal chance to compete with the Koreans, Scandinavians, and Virginians who may currently hold an advantage due to ubiquitous access to high speed broadband Internet.
Is it WiMax that will hold the answer? LTE? 802.11n?
Not important. The important thing is to lay the pipe needed to accomplish his objective of leaving no Massachusettsan, Vermonter, Connecticuter, or New Hampshirite behind in the race for achieving the American dream.
Gregg is the Business Development Manager for GAW (Great Auk Wireless) High-Speed Internet, a wireless infrastructure provider based in Vermont. They not only aggressively deliver high-speed broadband to towns offering a good opportunity for revenues, they also work with local communities and municipalities to bring easy access to high speed Internet to rural communities and areas not easily served by cable or telephone utilities.
US Internet Wireless in Minneapolis has a similar approach. Working with the city, USI Wireless is deploying high speed Internet services from a central location atop the IDS Tower in downtown Minneapolis. As USI Wireless has good line of sight from the tower, it deployed 55x 80 Megabits per second “DragonWave” antenna systems in an omni-directional pattern. Network traffic is backhauled to the 511 Building in downtown Minneapolis, which is a small carrier hotel with around 30 networks present for interconnection.
The city of Minneapolis supports USI Wireless with an arrangement allowing them to access city-owned conduits and access points throughout the city to allow further expansion of their wireless infrastructure. Additional wireless access point
Discussions with the USI Wireless representative at IT Expo West in Los Angeles this week revealed some additional interesting points. While we might believe that wireless access is most attractive to yuppies and higher income demographics, the reality is most of their subscribers are inner-city and under-privileged children from the urban centers in north Minneapolis.
This demographic was reinforced by Rudy Garza, a education and community services advocate from South Gate (an urban center in S.E. Los Angeles). Mr. Garza agreed that having wireless broadband access within an under privileged community can only help give kids one more tool that may push them over the fence post on the side of a more productive life than otherwise probable without Internet access.
How it is done
There are several competing standards for wireless network access. The most common, 802.11n (WiFi), is most well known as being the type wireless access point most people are now putting into their homes and offices. 802.11n wireless access points incorporate internal MOSI (Multiple out, Single In) antennas, allowing the wireless device to transmit several different wireless signals, and the end user devices will be able to choose the most optimal signal from those transmitted from the access point.
802.11n does support MIMO (Multiple In, Multiple Out) signaling, however today most end user devices are not set up with multiple antennas. Today 802.11n access points can easily transmit at bandwidths up to 70Mbps up to around 300ft. From that point the signal begins to degrade, and access speeds will drop.
With full MIMO deployment 802.11n will support single capacity streams of up to 600Mbps per access device.
In a city deployment using 802.11n you can easily expect to support around 150 users with reasonable internet access speeds, although not at bandwidth adequate to handle applications like television and high speed video. The answer is with correct city funding, or subscriber fees, more antennas and access point can be deployed to increase the amount of bandwidth available for each end device, as well as extend coverage to more locations. However the bottom line with 802.11n is you still have some level of limitation on distance and the number of supportable subscribers.
WiMAX
WiMAX is an alternative to WiFi, although in general much more expensive. Many networks are considering deployment of WiMAX, which also can take advantage of MIMO. The most well known networks in the US using WiMAX are those deployed by Sprint and Clearwire (now merged). Both have extensive networks, and in the case of Sprint the deployment is supported through use of their existing cellular towers, and high capacity fiber optic lines for backhaul of wireless internet traffic to Sprint’s central offices.
LTEa and 4G
Other than Sprint, in the US most carriers are considering a phased deployment of LTEa (Long Term Evolution – advanced) and 4G (4th Generation Wireless) throughout their existing cellular networks. Most of these companies are currently using the cellular EV-DO (Evolution – Data Optimized), which will be supplemented and then replaced by more powerful LTEa and 4G wireless systems.
LTEa will allow for 100Mbps in individual devices which are moving or mobile, and up to 1Gbps for stationary devices. When the LTEa/4G networks are fully deployed, nearly any device which can access a wireless network may be able to use the new wireless standard. LTEa/4G can take full advantage of MIMO, and further allow end user devices to aggregate bandwidth being transmitted from multiple antennas, and antenna sources. Devices will also become available with multiple antennas embedded in the device, such as telephone handsets built with multiple antennas within the handset.
Perhaps the most exicting thing about further development of MIMO, LTEa/4G, more powerful WiFi, and even WiMAX, is that the bandwidth and access speeds will soon be high enough to support everything from HD-TV to high performance Internet access, regardless if in a city or rural environment.
In the Meantime…
It will take until 2015 for companies such as Verizon to fully deploy their next generation wireless networks. In the meantime we will still look to companies like GAW and USI Wireless to continue bringing broadband Internet access to both the countryside, as well as inner-city areas. We need to support their efforts, and efforts of those like GAW and USI Wireless who are working to deliver network access in the towns of Iowa, New Mexico, the south side of Chicago, or any other place our fellow citizens need network access.
John Savageau, Long Beach
The National Energy Technology Lab (NETL) estimates the US loses anywhere between $119 and $188 billion each year due to power losses and power interruptions and quality issues (such as brown outs). In 2000 the cost of a one hour power outage in Chicago cost the Board of Trade nearly $20 trillion (NETL) in trades. And the stories of financial loss due to power outages go on and on.
Clearly, the value and cost of power is critical to our existence as a nation. Nearly everything we do is dependent on some level of electricity for support – whether it be for cooking, lighting, entertainment, work – we cannot live without electricity.
Only problem is we are still working on an electrical distribution system in the US designed in the 1940s and 50s. We, as a nation, need to invest in a next generation of electrical distribution systems. And those systems will need a lot of intelligence. The electrical GRID must become really smart.
What is a Smarter GRID?
Getting to the Smart GRID will take time. It is possible the US electrical does not have much time, as power requirements continue to grow, the GRID continues to age, and fossil fuel electrical plants continue to contribute to pollution and potentially greenhouse gases and global warming.
As the next generations Smart GRID requires several years of development before it is ready for deployment, we need to take some interim measures to bridge the time gap between the existing electrical GRID and delivery of a Smart GRID.
The Smarter GRID acknowledges the existing US electrical distribution system. Dozens of utility providers around the country providing energy from a variety of sources, including oil, coal, hydro, solar, nuclear, and wind.
The Smarter GRID uses the existing electrical GRID, and existing technologies to reinforce the GRID’s ability to operate effectively with the following characteristics provided by the Department of Energy:
- Ensuring its (the electrical GRID) reliability to degrees never before possible
- Maintaining its affordability
- Reinforcing our global competitiveness
- Fully accommodating renewable and traditional energy sources
- Potentially reducing our carbon footprint
- Introducing advancements and efficiencies yet to be envisioned
An analogy might be the development of web services. In the 1990s the “web” supported simple hypertext protocol with utilities such as “LINX,” a text-based browser, and “Gopher,” a rudimentary search engine. Both did technically the same job as modern web applications, and did bridge the gap between pure command lines and the graphical interfaces common today.
The Smart GRID of the Future
The Internet analogy is not bad, as it is the basis of the next generation of smart grids. With the IP address capacity of Internet Protocol ver. 6 (IPv6) Internet address space will be large enough to accommodate nearly anything produced that uses electricity. At some point in the future, the electrical GRID will be a communications media, and every device connected to the electrical GRID will have an IPv6 identifier such as 2001:db8:85a3::8a2e:370:7334.
Refrigerators, televisions, air conditioners – anything that consumes electricity will be part of a system designed to make the most efficient use of our devices. We will also add external and alternative energy sources to both the national GRID and individual communities and houses to further reinforce the electrical service we all need to ensure our way of life, security, and national economic and defense interests.
Try to imagine an electrical system that is able to:
- Automatically turn devices on and off as needed to eliminate wasted energy consumption
- Automatically load balances electrical distribution to accommodate peaks
- Have visual management systems down to the house level to show users how much energy they are consuming at any point in time, as well as give recommendations for electrical devices within the house which can be shuit off (an example might be a battery charger on a mobile phone – if the “smart” manager identifies the battery as being fully charged, the system may automatically shut off the outlet until an actual draw is required)
- Add energy “storage” devices to local areas and the GRID to save energy which may be lost due to loss of sunlight, damage to distribution systems, or other reasons. This stored energy is made available on demand during peak hours to supplement the main GRID
- During periods of power outage, stored and renewable energy sources within the house or community can provide temporary and essential power to emergency services, and basic energy requirements, even if the community is isolated from the main electrical GRID
- Save you money on your bill by using intelligence to eliminate wasted energy and energy leaks
- Inherently “green,” as it strives to supplement fossil fuel and nuclear power generation with renewable energy sources such as wind, hydro, and solar energy –as well as reducing individual energy consumption
Role of the Internet in the Smart GRID
Using a combination of wireless systems, fiber optic backbones, Ethernet over Power, and satellite, all segments of the electrical system can be managed with software applications that are Internet-friendly (yes, the Dept of Energy does understand the need for security).
The DOE uses an example of the ATM to explain the interoperability of private systems using a common architecture. CitiBank, the Bank of America, Wells Fargo, HSBC, Barclays – all are independent banking systems, but all are able to share information and even distribute money to holders of cards from any association member, such as Star network.
The Smart GRID will use similar applications running over the Internet Protocol to share management, distribution, fault, and also billing settlements between electrical systems and private renewable energy sources.
The five main technologies used within the Smart GRID include:
- Integrated communications, connecting components to open architecture for real-time information and control, allowing every part of the grid to both ‘talk’ and ‘listen’
- Sensing and measurement technologies, to support faster and more accurate response such as remote monitoring, time-of-use pricing and demand-side management
- Advanced components, to apply the latest research in superconductivity, storage, power electronics and diagnostics
- Advanced control methods, to monitor essential components, enabling rapid diagnosis and precise solutions appropriate to any event
- Improved interfaces and decision support, to amplify human decision-making, transforming grid operators and managers quite literally into visionaries when it come to seeing into their systems
(the SMART GRID: an introduction <U.S. Department of Energy>)
While this is understandably a 1000 word superficial introduction to Smart GRIDs, the idea of an energy efficient, self-healing, interconnected, flexible, and intelligent manager of electricity is exciting. We all want to reduce our carbon footprint, we all want to save money, and we all want to ensure we have power when we want it. In the short term we can aggressively support developing structure and efficiency within the existing “Smarter GRID.”
In the longer term we have an obligation to both ourselves and future generations to develop a really, really Smart GRID that will reduce our carbon production, and ensure future generations do not lose billions of dollars from the economy every time our aging power system sneezes.
John Savageau, Long Beach
