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Friday Evening Links -

Posted: January 6th, 2012, 3:43pm MST

O2 to roll out Europe's largest free wireless broadband zone in London cable.co.uk
All that free music you've been enh'joying from Spotify is about to end businessinsider.com
Vodafone/Verizon merger would make sense fiercewireless.com
Leap mulls LTE tie-up with Sprint wirelessweek.com
Comcast starts to kiss analog TV goodbye lightreading.com
Fujitsu wants its 4G femrocell to go global cnet.com
Home Depot will be first brick & mortor presence for PayPal techcrunch.com
FTC asked to probe Facebook Timelines for privacy violations zdnet.com
Android in-app system robs users? MSNBC.com
Symantec Confirms Hackers Accessed Source Code of Two Enterprise Security Products securityweek.com
Beast SSL fix in super size Patch Tuesday theregister.co.uk
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Weekend Open Thread! - So, What's New With You?

Posted: January 6th, 2012, 2:56pm MST

Deliver your bytes and bits into the comment section repository below.
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Indian ISPs Forced to Block Entire Domains - Simply to Try and Stop Trading of One Film

Posted: January 6th, 2012, 12:46pm MST

Movie studio Reliance Entertainment has somehow convinced courts in India to block entire domains -- simply to try and stop the trading of a single movie. According to Torrent Freak, not only have ISPs been ordered by the courts to block BitTorrent websites like BtJunkie, but they've also been ordered to block legitimate storage locker services like MegaUpload. Unsurprisingly, first in line to enthusiastically block entire domains is Reliance sister company Reliance Communications. MegaUpload insists that this will be a great opportunity to test anti-blocking technologies:
Commenting on the censorship, Megaupload s Kim Dotcom told TorrentFreak that the effects of these blocks are usually resolved in a week, but while they stand they give the company a chance to do some analysis. "For us the India block is a great opportunity to see how users respond. In India we have one of the highest installation rates of our Megakey application. It gives users direct access to our servers. The Megakey instantly cures any kind of ISP or DNS blockade and always finds the fastest route to our servers, Kim adds.
In other words, those who want to get the copyrighted file will simply find a workaround, while less tech savvy users will be greeted with a broken Internet. The effort illustrates concerns many have with SOPA here in the States, in that filtering entire domains to try and stop piracy simply erodes free speech rights while breaking core Internet functionality -- all to protect the revenues of companies that failed repeatedly to adapt their business models to the modern age.
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Sprint: We Don't Throttle Postpaid Users - Though We Reserve the Right To Kick Users Off Network

Posted: January 6th, 2012, 10:35am MST

This morning we noted that much was being made of the fact that Sprint CEO Dan Hesse told investors at a conference this week that the company is throttling the top 1% of "unlimited" users. That seemed odd, given that Sprint has made a big deal out of their unlimited offerings, and has been running ads claiming the company doesn't throttle anyone. Sprint has since come out with a full statement stating that the claims, which originated with a report by Dow Jones newswires, are false.

Sprint says the company does not throttle any postpaid phone data users for on-network or off-network usage. They also continue to insist they're still the only major wireless carrier that offers truly unlimited data plans with no throttling, metering or overages for smartphone users. Apparently the Dow Jones reporter hallucinated the fact Hesse said they throttle, as Hesse was simply noting that Sprint boots extremely heavy users that violate Sprint's terms and conditions:
Sprint does have terms and conditions which prohibit certain types of data use that may impair other customers' usage or harm or interfere with the network. At yesterday s investor conference, Sprint CEO Dan Hesse was referring to Sprint s right to terminate service of data abusers who violate Sprint s terms and conditions. Customers who abuse our network by violating the terms and conditions will be contacted by Sprint in an effort to have the customer change their usage to comply with their subscriber agreement. Customers who do not change their usage and remain in violation of the terms and conditions may be subject to actions reserved by Sprint, including but not limited to termination. Consistent with our advertising, engaging in such uses will not result in throttling for customers on unlimited data-included plans for phones.
Booting the really ridiculously heavy users (after having conversations with them) is pretty much par for the course. Still, as we noted this morning, Sprint's dedication to unlimited likely won't last long as their LTE build budget gets tight.
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Where's C Spire's LTE Network? - Apple iPhone Deal May Have Cost Them Network Cash

Posted: January 6th, 2012, 9:54am MST

In 2010 C Spire Wireless (formerly Cellular South insisted they'd have a new LTE network up and running by the end of 2011. That didn't happen. As last year rolled on the company became more vague about an LTE timeline, putting more PR emphasis on the improvements they'd made to their EVDO network. Fierce Wireless notes that the company's LTE ambitions may have taken a hit for several reasons. The huge premium they had to pay to get the iPhone may have seriously damaged deployment funding, already tight from having to buy and test more expensive gear using 700 MHz spectrum in the band class 12 range. C Spire's CEO will only state the company is "working diligently toward" LTE, but the company refuses to give any solid timeline.
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Comcast Says DOCSIS 3.0 Upgrades Complete - Hopefully You Got In On Them?

Posted: January 6th, 2012, 7:25am MST

Some companies (like Time Warner Cable) don't see significant competitive pressure from FiOS or U-Verse -- and with slow DSL as their only competitive threat, have been somewhat glacial in getting faster DOCSIS 3.0 speeds deployed. Comcast, facing FiOS competition in many markets, dedicated itself to deploying DOCSIS 3.0 quickly, a move that enabled greater HD channel lineups and downstream speeds up to 100 Mbps. Comcast CFO and Vice Chairman Michael Angelakis told attendees of a Citigroup investor's conference this week that their deployment of DOCSIS 3.0 has been "completed."

It's not clear if the company means they completely upgraded their entire footprint or if they've simply upgraded most of it -- with markets they don't really care about getting the short end of the stick. From perusing our forum comments I'm guessing the latter (Albuquerque remains un-upgraded), though you can let us know if you've been upgraded in the comment section below.

Recent data suggests that only about 43% of consumer cable modem hardware is DOCSIS 3.0 compliant, meaning that most cable companies still have a long way to go before they get most of you upgraded. Numbers from the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA) are more optimistic, insisting that 77 percent of the country should have been upgraded by the end of 2011.

In Comcast's case the company covers a whopping 52.38 million homes and businesses. Their next priority will be in completing trials of upstream channel bonding, a technology that should deliver faster upstream speeds and was supposedly supposed to have started popping up last year.
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Siri is a Little Bandwidth Pig - iPhone 4S Consumes Twice the Data of iPhone 4

Posted: January 6th, 2012, 6:52am MST

According to network firm Arieso, Apple's voice-powered personal assistant gimmick service Siri results in the iPhone 4S using twice as much data as the iPhone 4, putting additional strain on carriers who were already struggling to accommodate the device. Their full study on smartphone data usage is worth a read, noting that heavy users are getting even hungrier, with just 1% of subscribers now consuming half of all downloaded data on wireless networks.

"The introduction of increasingly sophisticated devices, coupled with growing consumer demand, is creating unrelenting pressure on mobile networks. The capacity crunch is still a very real threat for mobile operators, and it looks set to only get harder in 2012," said Dr. Michael Flanagan, CTO, Arieso and study author. The mobile industry needs new investment and new approaches to boost network performance and manage the customer experience."

The firm notes iPhone 4S users download 276% more data than the average iPhone 3GS user. The next heaviest smartphone users are Galaxy S users, who consume 199% more data than iPhone 3GS users. Still, you wonder how much of the surge in iPhone 4S data traffic is just early adopters having fun with their phones, and if this is anything more than a radar blip as users show off their new devices.

The firm also has a vested interest in highlighting congestion to sell products that can resolve it, so their suggestion that there's some unmanageable bandwidth apocalypse afoot is par for the course for these kinds of reports. The story remains the same: carriers that fail to adequately invest in network infrastructure tend to have problems. In an age where quarterly investor returns trump consumer interests or even network health, there's more than a few companies that fall into that category.
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Sprint CEO Says They're Throttling Unlimited Users - Then Company Proceeds to Insist He Misspoke

Posted: January 6th, 2012, 6:26am MST

While Sprint has continued to insist they're dedicated to offering unlimited data, the writing has been on the wall for some time that this dedication is going to have a short shelf life. Sprint has killed off unlimited data for everyone but smartphone users, and now CEO Dan Hesse is acknowledging that they are throttling the heaviest unlimited users. At a conference Hesse acknowledged that Sprint throttles about 1% of those users, telling investor attendees that "for those that want to abuse it, we can knock them off."

While you'd expect network management, the problem is their ads say they don't throttle.

Sprint insists that their CEO somehow misspoke, and that he was only referring to Sprint prepaid providers Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile. Other outlets seem to be claiming that Hesse was misquoted in the Dow Jones report that started it all, and was only referring to users who roam.

False advertising or not, as SMS revenues dry up and mobile VoIP erodes traditional voice revenues, Sprint's going to inevitably kill off their purported love of unlimited data. The company has already been on a roll in mirroring the behavior of larger competitor giants AT&T and Verizon, jacking up ETFs and eliminating numerous discounts in order to help fund their LTE deployment. It would be fairly surprising if Sprint's unlimited smartphone offers survive 2012.

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HBO Makes Netflix Pay Retail For DVDs - As Their Battle Against Video Evolution Continues

Posted: January 6th, 2012, 5:56am MST

You might recall that HBO didn't exactly rush to embrace broadband video. The company initially poisoned copies of their TV shows available for download via BitTorrent, petitioned the FCC to make DVR recording of subscription video-on demand illegal, and threatened Slingbox for place shifting technology. It took years for HBO to finally offer their HBO Go broadband video service, but they've walled it off so that it's only available to users who subscribe to traditional cable.

Now in a one-two punch for Netflix, Time Warner has decided to not only double the new release delay window to nearly 60 days (someone should tell executives that simply drives users to piracy), they're also going to stop selling HBO content on DVD directly to Netflix at a discount:
Netflix typically buys the film and TV show DVDs that it rents to customers through wholesale venues, thereby taking advantage of volume discounts. But from now on, Netflix will have to buy DVD sets of shows like True Blood and Boardwalk Empire at retail in order to rent them to customers. It's not a huge financial hit to Netflix, but it is a signal about what the competitive landscape looks like. Asked about the change, a Netflix spokesman said, Netflix will continue to provide HBO titles on DVD and Blu-ray to our members."
This move comes as HBO and Time Warner already prevent Netflix from streaming HBO shows. HBO executives believe that by making content available to fewer people, they'll somehow retain HBO's reputation (in their minds) of HBO as a premium entity. In reality, HBO's doing what many cable operations are doing, trying to wall off and jack up the price of content in the false belief this can protect legacy business models from both piracy and competitors. Netflix meanwhile is getting into original programming, something that terrifies the folks at traditional outfits like HBO.
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Friday Morning Links -

Posted: January 6th, 2012, 3:44am MST

iPhone 4S is biggest network hog; just 1% of mobile users consume 50% of all downlink data totaltele.com
Sprint admits to throttling 1% of unlimited customers, but says there are no plans to adopt tiered tariffs totaltele.com
Ad mix-up reveals Sprint Galaxy Nexus 4G cnet.com
US Cellular pushes back 4G rollout; hints at probable first areas to get service engadget.com
UK ISP mocks regulator by re-releasing just-banned commercial claiming "safest broadband" ispreview.co.uk
Facebook ready to launch the last piece of its "frictionless sharing" plan venturebeat.com
All major labels now suing GrooveShark nytimes.com
Kodak heading for Chapter 11, finally done in by digital imaging? theregister.co.uk
RIAA: We Must Take A Shoot First, Ask Questions Later Approach To Censorship techdirt.com
The 550 Challenge: Can We Connect Everyone In The World Online (Yes, Everyone) By 2018? techdirt.com
LG, Samsung, Sony And Vizio On Board With Google TV 2.0 multichannel.com
Time Warner Cable Kicks Off HBO Go Beta Test; Initial Access to 'TV Everywhere' Limited to MSO's SignatureHome Customers multichannel.com
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