starhub and the mystery that is the internet

Week 2 already and it seems the class is still shrinking! Anyway, this week we discussed the case study of StarHub. Being a confluence of the various media services, they have achieved a much stronger presence in our country than what was previously thought possible for an upstart in a playing field ruled by a monopoly.

Previously, SingTel had the edge as its services encompasses fixed lines and mobile services. It had a high exposure rate as there is a telephone line in every household in this nation. This makes their services readily available and accessible to the whole population. However, after the strategic acquisition of Singapore Cable Vision, StarHub gained the upperhand. Besides gaining a direct line (the cable service) with nearly every household in the country, this pipeline they have to each household possess greater capabilities compared to it's archaic copper wire counterpart. Also, them packaging all their services together in a bundle was a very smart move that SingTel has only just picked up. By doing so, they can increase their market share. For example, AhSeng might have been a SingTel mobile user, and got his internet access from Pacific Internet. He decides to get cable TV, and StarHub offers a package which bundles cable TV, cable internet access, and a mobile subscriber line. He signs up as the overall savings is hard to miss. StarHub has now gained an additional consumer, at SingTel and Pacific Internet's expense. Of course, there are exceptions and not everyone is willing to switch due to the 'legacy' effect. I am still a SingTel Mobile subscriber, although I do have cable TV at home.

We also discussed about the internet - its origins and how it works. The architecture of the internet is a surprisingly simple concept that turns out to be very hardy and versatile. It is 'robust'. TCP/IP technology is the basis for the internet. It routes packets around the internet rather smartly, so if any one of these 'pathways' go down, it automatically travels down alternative 'pathways'. This gives us a resilient medium that allows the exchange of information and communication across large distances almost immediately. With the onset of the internet came E-mail and Usenet (news groups). Before E-mail, the main forms of communication are the telegraph, telephone and snail mail. E-mail is a form of communication that is loosely coupled; that is, it does not require the other party to be present to 'receive' one's message. In a telephone call, for example, the other party must be beside a phone if not he will not be able to receive the message one wants to verbally convey to him. If he is not there, he will not receive your call and therefore not hear your message. Whereas in e-mail, his mailbox will always be there, and he can check it anytime he wishes. This is particularly useful when the information in question requires transmission but need not be immediate. I can't comment much on Usenet, as I've never used or subscribed to any of those alt.binaries before, but I guess it was a good way to bring people with common interests together to discuss relevant topics. It's similar to the message forums or bulletin boards present all over the internet these days.

We were also introduced to standards and the IEEE. This is definitely very important as the presence of a standard would clearly illustrate the boundaries and capabilities that a developer has when designing a new product. We also looked into, albeit, briefly the differences between the different standards, such as the 3 standards for wireless technology, and IPv4 and IPv6. IPv4 allows greater flexibility when rerouting, whereas IPv6 offers greater speeds. A tradeoff as usual, but as technology develops, the next version of IP would probably encompass the best of both worlds, such as what 802.11g is doing for wireless local area network now.

Lastly, we touched a little on HTML. I did some freelance web design work for various companies back in '98-'01 during my secondary school days (I charged below the prevailing market rate due to my inherent age back then, but it doesn't mean I provided a below average service =P ) , so this was nothing new to me, but it was definitely a good refresher as I've not touched HTML in years! Looks like it might be useful if I dig out my old portfolio and look through the code again and hopefully all that lost knowledge slowly trickles back into my head. JavaScript, DHTML, CSS, SSI... Flash! Am looking forward to next week's Intro to Flash. It would be another good refresher, if not slightly nostalgic.