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• 

  Tuesday Evening Links -

  Posted: January 3rd, 2012, 4:12pm MST

  
  Hackers Figuring Out How To Set Up Satellites To Route Around Internet Censorship bbc.co.uk
  New law in Malaysia's largest city requires thay all restaurant's must provide WiFi thenextweb.com
  LTE, VoLTE and HSPA+42 will highlight 2012 fiercewireless.com
  Will 2012 be the 'Year of Convergence'? computerweekly.com
  People want more wireless broadband, US needs to take care of that pesky digital divide huffingtonpost.com
  Wilson Electronics announces first LTE signal booster wirelessweek.com
  China adds 42 cities to integrated communications network trial totaltele.com
  Carriers talking about building new trans-pacific network to handle data increases lightreading.com
  EU politicians calling for lower Internet roaming charges (again) guardian.co.uk
  Android, iOS app downloads top 1 Billion during Xmas week networkworld.com
  Belarus digitizes its iron curtain, citizens banned from foreign websites theregister.co.uk
  Secret Motorola XOOM project may be Androd 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) update bgr.com
  RIM cuts all PlayBooks to $300, gets ad hoc Android Market electronista.com
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  Netflix to Launch New Original Series - As Company Focuses On Combating Licensing Hikes

  Posted: January 3rd, 2012, 2:42pm MST

  
  As Netflix becomes more and more powerful, they're facing greater and greater challenges from the companies whose legacy business models they threaten. The cable and ISP industry is busy protecting TV revenues by imposing new caps and overages, even as the cost of delivering landline bandwidth continues to decline. The broadcast industry has been busy jacking up licensing fees in new negotiations with Netflix. As such, Netflix is focusing on new original content, snapping up the rights to a new show by David Fincher and Kevin Spacey, as well as the rights to the cancelled-but-popular Fox show Arrested Development.
  
  The company today also announced they're launching a new series about a mobster (played by Sopranos actor and Bruce Springsteen pal Steven Van Zandt) under witness protection in Norway.

  The one-hour show -- which is set in Lillehammer, Norway, where New York transplant Frank "The Fixer" Tagliano tries to make a new life for himself -- was developed by and is a production of Norway's Rubicon TV AS. "Lilyhammer" will also air on Norwegian TV, Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos recently told TheWrap.

  While Netflix made no shortage of stupid moves in 2011, they continue to be in the best position to disrupt traditional television in 2012.
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  SMS Cash Cow Continues Slow Decline - Though Foreign Markets Are Witnessing Trend First

  Posted: January 3rd, 2012, 11:41am MST

  
  As we've frequently covered, SMS is a huge cash cow for carriers as it costs virtually nothing for a carrier to provide. As the SMS cash cow slowly dies, they're getting their pound of flesh one way or another -- by either jacking up data rates -- or making your SMS options fewer and more costly. Other data has suggested the cash SMS cash cow won't truly start to die until after 2015 or so, but that fate is being accelerated by applications like Skype and iMessage. As erosion accelerates, SMS usage declines are popping up first in early adoption foreign markets:

  Signs of consumers moving on from text-messaging to social media, email and IP-based messaging systems started cropping up in 2011 in advanced SMS markets like Netherlands and Philippines. What we seem to be witnessing is a situation where those countries where SMS took off first during Nineties are now the first ones to see a steep decline in SMS usage.

  What's happening first in other early adoption countries will hit carriers like AT&T and Verizon next year and in 2013. Both companies anticipated this, which is why they were among the first to eliminate unlimited data. This attempt to revenue counter-balance is something that will likely force Sprint off of their position of selling unlimited data for smartphones sometime in the next two years.
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  RIM CEOs May Get Demoted - As Titanic Deck Chairs Get Rearranged

  Posted: January 3rd, 2012, 9:34am MST

  
  After product delays, multi-continent unexplained service outages and lackluster offerings, questions as to how and why RIM's co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie still have jobs reached a fevered pitch last month. Anonymous sources tell the Financial Post that both Lazaridis and Balsillie will likely soon be forced to relinquish their titles as co-chairmen of the board as the company explores separating the chairman and CEO roles. The two co-founders collectively own 12% of RIM s outstanding shares, making them second and third largest shareholders in a company where no one owns more than 10% of the stock. Shuffling the Titanic deck chairs won't do much if RIM doesn't start fielding competitive product, and investors are growing increasingly impatient -- many asking for the company to be chopped up and/or sold off.
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  Sprint Starts Charging $2 For Paper Bill - Belatedly Joins Established Industry Trend

  Posted: January 3rd, 2012, 8:03am MST

  
  Users in both our forums and over at the official Sprint forums note that the company this week began charging users an additional $2 monthly surcharge if customers want to get a fully itemized, paper bill. Sprint customers can avoid the surcharge by enrolling in autopay. The effort is an attempt to offset printing costs and migrate more users to automated billing, and it's a fee companies like Verizon have been charging for some time.
  
  Sprint had traditionally avoided such practices in the hopes it would differentiate them in the market, but as the company looks to build their LTE network they've been mirroring the behavior of their larger counterparts more closely in order to generate more income. The new paper bill fee comes on the heels of other Verizon-esque practices that have included Sprint raising their smartphone ETF to $350, shortening 30 money back guarantee windows and moving away from unlimited broadband.
  
  Last week Verizon faced heated public opposition to a plan to begin charging wireless users a $2 fee if they wanted to pay via credit card or over the phone, a move Verizon backed off of after the FCC said they'd be taking a look at the move.
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  Sprint Gives LightSquared 30 Days to Figure Things Out - As LightSquared's Future Looks Increasingly Dim

  Posted: January 3rd, 2012, 6:51am MST

  
  Last October Sprint finally uneveiled their LTE plans, noting that in addition to partnering with Clearwire the company planned to partner with LightSquared, hopefully using LightSquared's 1600MHz spectrum for LTE FDD. That of course depends on LightSquared's ability to manage the problems they're having getting regulatory approval, which hinges in turn on whether or not they can fix their network's potential to interfere with GPS signals. Over the weekend Sprint announced that they've given LightSquared a thirty day extension in the terms of their deal to get regulatory headaches ironed out. Recently things have started looking more troubled for LightSquared, with the company running out of money and primary financial backer Phillip Falcone facing a potential SEC investigation for securities fraud.
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  Court OKs Immunity For Domestic Telco Spying - Because of National Security. No, Don't Ask Why.

  Posted: January 3rd, 2012, 6:21am MST

  
  You'll recall that a few years ago it was leaked that the government and phone companies were working hand in hand on a warrantless domestic surveillance system that had little to no oversight, with AT&T employees revealing (pdf) all phone and data being dumped wholesale in the government's lap. When civil liberty groups became justifiably outraged that the phone companies and the government were breaking the law -- the government simply had the law changed, granting retroactive immunity to phone companies.
  
  A group of 33 cases against companies like AT&T, Verizon and Sprint were consolidated and last week finally made their way before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The Court ruled that the law giving the phone companies retroactive immunity was constitutional since it was done under claims of national security. In short, the ruling insisted that retroactively protecting companies against suits for breaking the law was ok -- because you want to ensure that companies help the government in the future:

  When considering how to respond to lawsuits like this one, the Committee "recogniz ed the importance of the private sector in assisting law enforcement and intelligence officials in critical criminal justice and national security activities." ... The Report further states that "electronic surveillance for law enforcement and intelligence purposes depends in great part on the cooperation of the private companies that operate the Nation's telecommunication system."

  Mike Masnick over at Techdirt makes a few good points about this, noting that there's serious potential for abuse of the new law, since the law puts the government's own Attorney General in charging of deciding who gets immunity (allowing the AG to abuse the law to aid his own investigations instead of making real impartial rulings). The ruling states the government can still be held liable, but as Techdirt notes the case can easily still be killed or end with the government getting a wrist slap -- then proceeding right along on their merry way.
  
  In the end you've still got government and industry changing the law when they were found to be breaking it, something those with less power and money likely wouldn't get very far attempting.
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  Time Warner Cable Pulls Plug on MSG - Insists MSG Wanted 53% Rate Hike

  Posted: January 3rd, 2012, 5:54am MST

  
  For the last few years we've seen increasingly contentious disputes between broadcasters and cable operators over retransmission fees. Such debates usually leave consumers stuck in the middle, left to deal with higher rates, lost programming and contentious ads by each side trying to pitch consumers against the other. This week's feud comes courtesy of Time Warner Cable and MSG, Time Warner Cable customers losing access to the latter due to what Time Warner Cable claims was a 53% rate hike demand by MSG.
  
  While negotiations have frozen and MSG insists that the 53% fee hike claim is a "gross mischaracterization," as of January 1, Time Warner Cable customers can no longer watch Knicks, Rangers and Devils games. As an added bonus, consumers will face higher bills regardless of which side "wins" this dispute.
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