Progress 09/01/05 to 08/31/07
Outputs
OUTPUTS: The aim of the project was to develop a technology that will promote increased penetration of broadband Internet access in rural areas. The technology aims to increase the ISPs' profit per subscriber, which would make the business case for deploying broadband in sparsely populated areas more feasible. The technology empowers an ISP to be an enabler of ecommerce between local users and local businesses, and generating revenues from playing that role. Although the feasibility of the technology was established as a result of the Phase II efforts, the team continues to work on the technology, as there are some use cases for which the technology does not execute correctly. Despite the fact that the team does not feel the technology is ready for prime-time, the team has been active about disseminating knowledge about the technology to concerned stakeholders. In particular, the principal investigator has attended several ISPCON conferences, which tend to attract ISPs from rural communities, and has discussed the concept with many ISP owners/managers (both at the conferences themselves and subsequently in one-on-one phone conversations. The response from them has been positive, indicating a strong demand for such a technology, once it is ready for commercialization. Furthermore through these discussions, a derivative application of the same technology became apparent, namely that of public safety. (The core engine for the new application would be similar, but the technology as a whole needs to researched and developed as a new and separate activity by the team.) The details of the technology have been disseminated via two patent applications, one of which has been published by the USPTO, and the second pending publication. The Principal Investigators has also given presentations/demonstrations to personnel at the NTIA at the Department of Commerce, an Information Technology class at the University of Maryland, the Business and Technology Manager at National Telecommunications Cooperative Association, the Broadband Division director at USDA's Rural Utilities Programs, the CIO of Montgomery County of Maryland, and Senator Mikulski's aid for technology issues. The team plans to continue disseminating the outcomes of the project via three avenues. The first is to give formal talks at industry conferences such as ISPCON. The second is to publish in industry journals such as ISP-Planet, Broadband Weekly, and DSL Report. The third is via technology reporters at the Washington Post, who have shown interest in writing about the technology, given its potential for improving quality of life in rural areas. PARTICIPANTS: Not relevant to this project. TARGET AUDIENCES: Not relevant to this project. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Not relevant to this project.
Impacts
The technology consists of three core components. The first is the Screen-Estate component, which introduces an area within the web-browser of the ISP subscriber, whereby this area is dedicated to the ISP. The ISP can use that area to promote local businesses, provide easy access to the business' website, and allow commerce between the subscriber and the local business. The project focused on a developing a Screen-Estate in the form of a toolbar, similar to the one that Yahoo and Google use. The difference is that the ISP toolbar is introduced within the web-browser of the end-user, without requiring the end-user to install any client-side software, greatly reducing the barrier to adoption by the subscribers. The toolbar is introduced by an inline server placed on the ISP premises, which processes HTTP traffic emanating from the subscriber and destined to the subscriber in such a way that toolbar appears. This processing relies on making precise adjustments to the HTTP content. When the project first started this approach was much simpler to implement than today. In just a few years, the authoring of web-pages has become much more sophisticated, employing advanced plug-ins such as Flash, using AJAX technology, and employing sophisticated JavaScript code that makes changes to a web-page even after the web-page is downloaded. Unfortunately, these advances have complicated the precise processing that the algorithm within the inline server performs. Nevertheless, the team has made significant progress with catching up to present web-authoring technology, whereby the Screen-Estate toolbar is introduced correctly within most web-page. The second component is a VoIP component that allows PC-to-Phone communication from the Subscriber to the local business, with software installation. The importance of this component is that local business will likely not have electronic systems for taking orders, and would still rely on the telephone for sales leads and taking orders. This component was implemented with Java on the web-browser of the Subscriber. The team was able to establish feasibility with this component, but more work needs to done to eliminate open-air echo. The third component is a web-based GIS application that allows local businesses, with minimal technological savvy, to define the areas of advertising. The application was developed using Google Maps API, and is at a point where a local business can overlay simple shapes (circles, squares, rectangles) as well as polygons. Furthermore, the application can determine whether a Subscriber is inside any particular advertising region, which is helpful capability, when a Subscriber does a business category search. The combination of the three components would allow the ISP to play the role of local ecommerce enabler, which in turn is the catalyst for increased profitability, which in turn would lead to increased penetration of Broadband Internet access in rural areas. The three components proved to be technically challenge and diverse. The team certainly needed to leverage its wide range of technological expertise to tackle the technological and intellectual challenges presented by the project.
Publications
- 1- Patent Application: Method of Providing a Web Page with Inserted Content; Hisham Kassab; MobiLaps; May 2004
- 2- Patent Application: Methods of Placing Intermediate Network Entity Content in a Web Browser; Hisham Kassab, Saad Mneimneh, and Won Yoon; MobiLap; March 2007
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