File Sharing recognized as an official religion in Sweden torrentfreak.com
Roku unveals streaming stick; goodbye set-top box? MSNBC.com
Spain adopts its own version of SOPA techdirt.com
Metro-PCS to offer live local TV on smartphones cnet.com
Is C Spire's (Cellular South) LTE buildout dead in the water? fiercewireless.com
All smartphones in Chile must now be sold unlocked theverge.com
TD-LTE 4G standard gains momentum techworld.com
Windows Phone gives voice to its version of Siri cnet.com
UK ISP Talk Talk told to stop "safest broadband service" campaign because they're not thenextweb.com
Cisco finally drops Umi lightreading.com
Study finds piracy withering against legal alternatives theregister.co.uk
Lighttower extends fiber network to Mass Broadband Institute's middle mile initiativee fiercetelecom.com
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Wednesday Evening Links -
Posted: January 4th, 2012, 3:51pm MST
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Mobile VoIP Use Will Triple This Year - Despite Carrier Best Efforts to Slow Evolution
Posted: January 4th, 2012, 3:09pm MST
We just got done noting how the carrier SMS cash cow is slowing dying, with the decline impacting foreign earlier adoption countries first and then impacting America's giant carriers starting over the next few years. Another industry mainstay going the way of the dodo courtesy of wireless broadband and smartphones is the idea of the voice minute. While carriers have tried to stall the evolution of mobile VoIP by crippling handsets and imposing usage limits, new data from NPD In-Stat notes the mobile VoIP revolution is coming whether they like it or not. Mobile VoIP users are expected to triple this year:Driven by increased smartphone penetration and a growing breadth of offerings, mobile VoIP usage is on the rise. As the addressable market increases with smartphone penetration a greater number of providers are introducing services, including a growing handful of mobile operators that are beginning to embrace, to some degree, mobile VoIP. New NPD In-Stat research reports that active mobile VoIP subscriber rates will triple in 2011, growing from 9 million in 2010 to 29 million.
While they publicly like to pretend otherwise, carriers like AT&T and Verizon know this (r)evolution is coming, which is why this year they quickly moved to eliminate unlimited data. Jacking up the price of mobile data and annoying new fees are expected to offset some of the revenue lost as SMS and voice minutes become relics of a bygone telecom era.
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TekSavvy Announces Price Hikes - In Wake of New CRTC Ruling
Posted: January 4th, 2012, 12:43pm MST
Back in November Canadian regulators unveiled new rules that -- while preventing Bell from implementing their pure vision of usage-based billing -- allowed Canadian incumbents to jack up prices exponentially on wholesalers. As you'd expect those costs are now being passed on to Canadian consumers, with independent Canadian ISP TekSavvy this week taking to our forums to unveil new broadband pricing.
The new pricing will raise rates for both DSL and cable users by as much as 15% starting February 2. Not all of the news is bad, with TekSavvy introducing some unlimited options for users who don't like caps and don't mind paying a premium. The company's website breaks down the new pricing for both sets of users in detail. For cable users your new options are (click to enlarge): att=1716042 For DSL: att=1716043 Pricing will be different for Quebec users, who are still waiting for their price hike information. The company's website tries to find the silver lining in the massive thunderstorm by insisting that TekSavvy is the "the first in the industry to offer unlimited off-peak bandwidth" because the meter for customers with a 300 GB cap won't run between 2 AM and 8 AM when most people are asleep. There's an additional post on the TekSavvy website exploring how their hand was forced by the CRTC and Canadian incumbents.
In an e-mail to customers, TekSavvy insists that the company is "actively pursuing remedies at all levels to head off the additional dramatic cost increases that this model will impose on Internet users over time."
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BPL Takes Posthumous Beating With IBEC Closure - ISP Blames Tornadoes, Though BPL Failures Played a Role
Posted: January 4th, 2012, 11:32am MST
After years of hype as the "great broadband hope" (as former FCC boss Mike Powell put it) broadband over power line (BPL) technology exists as essentially a largely dead niche broadband solution, outperformed by even many modern wireless technologies. The technology always suffered from interference concerns, and the utilities the services were targeted at weren't sold on the idea of jumping into a duopoly market against companies like AT&T that enjoy regulatory capture.
Despite oodles of hype, most of the companies involved in pushing BPL gear have moved on to selling smart power network monitoring gear to utilities, while the nation's once-touted revolutionary BPL trials (like Manassas, Virginia) have closed up shop.
This week BPL took another belated hit with the news that International Broadband Electric Communications (IBEC) will be closing their doors. In a message posted to their website (via Telecompetitor), the IBM-backed BPL provider blames April tornadoes for their closure.
"Due to our inability to overcome the financial damage from the April 27 2011 tornadoes that ravaged some of our major service areas, we regret that we have no other option than to close our doors and cease operations," says the company. "We expect that your service will remain active through the end of January 2012 but we cannot guarantee the quality and availability of your service during this period," adds IBEC.
While natural disasters are blamed for the company's problems, the fact that BPL was never a truly viable deliver option certainly takes much of the blame. IBEC and IBM initially claimed they'd invest $70 million to serve 340,000 homes in seven states, but the goal was continually scaled back as interference, costs, and deployment problems mounted.While the writing has been on the wall for BPL for at least half a decade, even last year Hunstville, Alabama-based IBEC was busily insisting BPL wasn't a dead technology. Just ignore the corpse laying squarely at their feet in plain sight to all.
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Bell Lowers Caps - Raises Maximum Monthly Penalty Limit
Posted: January 4th, 2012, 6:56am MST
Users in our Bell Canada forums note that the Canadian incumbent telco has lowered the monthly rate of several of their tiers, but they've countered that by lowering customer usage caps as well. A look at the Bell website reveals that the company lowered usage limits on all their tiers, in addition to raising the overage cap penalty limit (at $1 per gigabyte) an additional $20, to $80 per month in maxiumum usage penalties. Bell's Fibe 10 service went from a 75 GB cap to 60 GB, Fibe 12 went from 50 GB to 40 GB, Fibe 16 went from 75 GB to 65 GB and Fibe 25 went from 125 GB to 100 GB. Customers in our forums aren't pleased:I'm keeping a close eye to my allowed quota on their portal. If they drop my package from 75 GB to 60 GB, then they better have a really good offer for me, or this might finally convince this 10+ year customer here to move elsewhere. I had been staying with them recently mostly because of the inconvenience of switching. If my bill is going to increase by another 10-20$/month due to that change, I'm gone.
Bell's "Fibe" service is named to make you think it's actually fiber, but the limitations on the DSL service are abundantly clear.
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Thanks Blogs! Verizon Unlimited Data Loophole Exposed, Closed - Users Who Exploited Ordering Glitch Get Downgraded
Posted: January 4th, 2012, 6:26am MST
Last summer Verizon followed AT&T and eliminated unlimited data, replacing the offer with low caps and overages up to $10 per gigabyte. Fortunately many unlimited users were grandfathered -- and if they weren't there has long been a loophole allowing users to get unlimited data if they were willing to use a little elbow grease. The effort, discussed by users here for some time, required that users call up and exploit a loophole in Verizon's automated ordering system. After the trick was discussed at Slickdeals and promoted by Gizmodo Verizon quickly got wise and fixed the loophole, with users who utilized it now being downgraded back to 2GB capped plans. On the bright side, Verizon appears to still be running a promotion where users get double data allotments if they sign up for a new LTE phone.
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AT&T Will Pay TiVo $215 Million for Patent Violation - TiVo Expects Similar Payout From Verizon
Posted: January 4th, 2012, 6:15am MST
AT&T Has become the latest tv provider to pony up cash for violating TiVo's DVR patents. The company this week announced that they'll be paying TiVo at least $215 million through June 2018, roughly $59.72 for each of AT&T's 3.6 million U-Verse TV subscribers. The first $51 million was paid by AT&T yesterday, with another $20 million due in the first year and quarterly payments each quarter after after that. TiVO says that they're pursuing a similar case against Verizon that should net them a similar payout. The company settled to the tune of $500 million with Dish Network back in May of last year.
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Comcast Cable Box Comes With Cockroach Suprise - As Company is Sued For Very 'Buggy' Gear
Posted: January 4th, 2012, 5:50am MST
Comcast is under fire in Illinois for installing buggy hardware -- literally. An Illinois resident says the company installed a set top box that came with a free cockroach infestation, and once installed resulted in the bugs "pouring out" into his home. When the user went to complain about the used device and his new friends, Comcast took several days to address the problem, the user going so far as to bring a bag of dead roaches into the Comcast office. While normally you'd think this was an isolated incident, Chicago's being sued by nearly a dozen current and former employees who say they were forced to install the "buggy" gear:The employees claim they would find cockroaches crawling in and out of equipment, and in their lockers, trucks and equipment bags. They also claim the South Side facility had rats, a leaky ceiling and birds that flew in and out of the warehouse. The employees claim they saw cockroach eggs fall out of cable boxes that were supposed to be installed in customers homes. When an employee complained, the supervisor said, just put the box in you re in Englewood. They ll only have cable for a month. They won t pay bills, the suit said.
While Comcast was busily installing bug-infested equipment in low-income Illinois homes, the company was making great political hay from a low-income broadband offer most users can't get. "Comcast adamantly denies the allegations and will vigorously defend itself in court," a Comcast spokesman insists.
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Comcast Cable Box Comes With Cockroach Surprise - As Company is Sued For Very 'Buggy' Gear
Posted: January 4th, 2012, 5:50am MST
Comcast is under fire in Illinois for installing buggy hardware -- literally. An Illinois resident says the company installed a set top box that came with a free cockroach infestation, and once installed resulted in the bugs "pouring out" into his home. When the user went to complain about the used device and his new friends, Comcast took several days to address the problem, the user going so far as to bring a bag of dead roaches into the Comcast office. While normally you'd think this was an isolated incident, Chicago's being sued by nearly a dozen current and former employees who say they were forced to install the "buggy" gear:The employees claim they would find cockroaches crawling in and out of equipment, and in their lockers, trucks and equipment bags. They also claim the South Side facility had rats, a leaky ceiling and birds that flew in and out of the warehouse. The employees claim they saw cockroach eggs fall out of cable boxes that were supposed to be installed in customers homes. When an employee complained, the supervisor said, just put the box in you re in Englewood. They ll only have cable for a month. They won t pay bills, the suit said.
While Comcast was busily installing bug-infested equipment in low-income Illinois homes, the company was making great political hay from a low-income broadband offer most users can't get. "Comcast adamantly denies the allegations and will vigorously defend itself in court," a Comcast spokesman insists.
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Wednesday Morning Links -
Posted: January 4th, 2012, 4:36am MST
Billions alloted to extend broadband - to people who don't want it pressofatlanticcity.com
Beyond an Internet of Things towards a Sensor Commons techdirt.com
Is CES still important? pcmag.com
Verizon to deploy media gateway devices to FiOS homes fiercecable.com
Yahoo poised to name new CEO - with eBay's PayPal prez as top bet allthingsd.com
AT&T pays TiVo $215M for use of patents totaltele.com
Google gets hundreds of patents from IBM totaltele.com
Mobile App Devs to get their own professional organization inforworld.com
Rumored 3 iPad approach may mean a sub $300 entry unit cnet.com
Turn your phone into a game console latestgadgets.co.uk
Weak Sony Vita sales prompts price cuts already reghardware.com
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