FCC chairman says Lifeline program will help bridge the digital divide huffingtonpost.com
Android as we know it will die within 2 years? The Grain
Gigabit WiFi taking center stage at CES macworld.com
4G LTE in the car: The best use of next-gen wireless broadband yet? zdnet.com
Surprise! AT&T's network is pretty good CNN Money
Sprint launches initial 4G devuces, including a 4G hotspot businesswire.com
AT&T to drop PS Vita on Feb. 22nd, also unveils pricing slashgear.com
Android passes iOS for market share during December cnet.com
The Pirate Bay Shows Futility of Domain and DNS Blocks torrentfreak.com
RIM unveils Playbook OS 2.0, Blackberry 7.1 totaltele.com
Buy a one year NYT or People Nook sub, get a Nook free paidcontent.org
Company claims emergency phone's battery has 15 year standby time gizmodo.com
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Monday Evening Links -
Posted: January 9th, 2012, 4:18pm MST
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Mozilla, Others Launch WhatIsMyCap.org - Site Urges FCC to Investigate Usage Caps
Posted: January 9th, 2012, 2:51pm MST
"Although many carriers tout the ability to stream video and interact with the cloud on their networks, strict data caps make actually doing those things expensive or impossible," laments consumer group Public Knowledge. In conjunction the Mozilla Foundation and the Open Source Democracy Foundation, Public Knowledge this week launched a new website called WhatIsMyCap.org aimed at simplifying wireless usage caps and overages. With SMS and voice revenues expected to decline, AT&T and Verizon are now imposing low caps and overages as high as $10 per gigabyte (and Sprint probably not far behind). With one survey suggesting that 86% of Americans don't even know what a gigabyte is, it's not hard to imagine that as HD video over wireless accelerates you're going to see a lot of people crying over their wireless bills.
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Dish Starts Selling Satellite Broadband Bundles - Also Launches New Whole Home DVR Platform
Posted: January 9th, 2012, 1:15pm MST
Dish unveiled several announcements today at CES, including the fact they'll soon start offering bundled broadband services in conjunction with ViaSat -- courtesy of the recently-launched ViaSat 1. According to a company press announcement, they'll be bundling ViaSat's new 12 Mbps down, 3 Mbps up service (which we'll have more details on tomorrow) with satellite TV as part of bundles starting at $80 a month.
The company has also announced the "Hopper" and "Joey" set top and DVR platform that offers users up to 2 TB of pre-recorded content. Dish is playing catch up here to some existing cable, satellite and telcoTV options, though these new set tops try something a little bit new by recording pretty much all prime time content for your perusal at any time:The Hopper's new, unparalleled feature, PrimeTime Anytime allows customers, with one click, to record using a single tuner all of the primetime TV programming from ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC -- the networks that deliver the most popular shows during primetime. Once activated by a customer, PrimeTime Anytime records network programming in high definition, where available, every night and stores them for eight days after they have aired. This creates an on-demand library of approximately 100 hours of primetime TV shows, and makes it easy to catch up on episodes from last night and last week's airing.
The new DVRs will also give users easy access to Dish's so-far-underwhelming Blockbuster streaming services, which the company has decided to rename Blockbuster @Home.
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Wireless Mobile Payment Protections Lacking - Consumer's Union Urges Improvement
Posted: January 9th, 2012, 12:09pm MST
We've noted how AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile all are incredibly interested in having your smartphone ultimately replace your wallet, and are busily working on new services (like Isis) to make this happen. There's obviously already privacy and security concerns from consumers who don't really trust these companies with the personal data they already have -- and now the Consumer's Union has issued a report noting that most of these services lack the fraud protection you'll find with your existing debit and credit services when your phone is lost or stolen. The group is urging carriers to adopt consumer protections that mirror regulations issued by the state's Public Utilities Commission (PUC).
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Comcast Close to Launching Set Top Skype Service - New Set Top Camera Shows Up in FCC Database
Posted: January 9th, 2012, 9:31am MST
Last year we were the very first to report that Comcast was working on a simple way to integrate Skype video chat functionality into the Comcast Xfinity cable set top box using an inexpensive external camera. A few weeks later, Comcast made their plans official at The Cable show, stating they'd be launching the service sometime later in 2011. Comcast missed their original projections, but Wireless Goodness spotted the service, code-named "Astro" internally, winding its way through the FCC approval process.
They've got a little more detail on the service, which should cost users an additional $10 a month when it launches:The device consists of a camera and microphone accessory that attaches to the top of a TV, and a small adapter box which manages connections between Xfinity s set top box and the camera array. The system also comes with a QWERTY remote that should make typing Skype messages pretty painless. User manuals for Skype for TV show a 10-foot style interface that does a good job of bringing Skype s interface to a TV screen. You can make audio or video calls, as well as send instant messages.
Comcast's entry in to the residential videoconferencing market comes just as Cisco announced they've scrapped the Cisco UMI service, which we first discussed back in late 2010 when it launched with a fairly ridiculous $600 (plus $30 a month) price point.
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ViaSat & WildBlue Launching $50, 12 Mbps Service Next Week - Though Company's Murky on Caps, Other Restrictions
Posted: January 9th, 2012, 6:34am MST
ViaSat this week is at CES promoting their new 12 Mbps satellite broadband service, which they say they'll launch next week for $50 a month. Aided by their recent successful launch of ViaSat 1, the company's new tier will be offered starting January 16th through both WildBlue and -- according to this press release -- National Rural Telecommunications Cooperative ISPs.
As we've noted previously there's the usual satellite catch: the service will not only be throttled, it will come with a usage cap ViaSat's being murky about (it looks to be around 7.5 GB), and may even include overage fees or the ability for users to buy additional buckets of bytes.
In a video presentation recorded at CES, ViaSat insists they're over-provisioning bandwidth so consumers have a good experience -- something traditionally not the case if you examine our users' WildBlue service reviews.
Historically satellite providers have struggled to deliver advertised speeds on loaded satellites. As seen in the video the ViaSat representative also references the fact the new service uses new "web acceleration technology" which, like the service's cap, ViaSat hasn't been particularly clear about.
Still, when you consider WildBlue's current 400,000 customers pay $80 for 1.5 Mbps, it won't take much to improve on existing offerings. When you also consider the fact that at several points over the last few years WildBlue has had to turn away paying customers because they lacked the capacity to serve them, the new capacity offered by ViaSat-1 is certainly a good thing.
We'll hopefully have some hands-on impressions by customers next week who can help clarify the new service's cap and other limitations. If you're giving the new service a spin, please drop us a line with your impressions.
Update: We've been told by ViaSat that the company should have more details on price and caps tomorrow when the new service is officially unveiled.
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Deloitte: 1 Out of 5 Have (or Will) Cut The TV Cord - 9% Say They Already Have, 11% Say They Will Soon
Posted: January 9th, 2012, 5:36am MST
The debate over TV cord cutting clearly isn't going away, with how severe of a trend it is depending entirely on who you ask. Folks in the cable industry continue to insist it's an irrelevant and tiny trend, while those covering streaming video sectors noting that endless price hikes and Internet video are setting the stage for a complete revolution in the way television is viewed. 2012's first debate topic comes courtesy of a new Deloitte State of the Media Democracy Survey.
According to Deloitte, one in five Americans say they've either cut the TV cord, or plan to do so soon. More specifically, the study found that 9 percent of respondents recently say the cut the cord, and 11 percent say they'll do so soon. Not surprisingly the report notes that video streaming is exploding, with the number of Americans saying they've streamed a movie jumping from 28 percent in 2009 to 42 percent today.
The results claiming that so many customers are eliminating pay TV doesn't square with industry statistics that show cable operators continue to bleed basic cable subscribers -- but it's usually to a telcoTV or satellite alternative. Overall traditional pay TV growth was simply flat last year -- with most TV customers simply switching between cable, telco TV or satellite to grab the best overall deal.
We've fired Deloitte an e-mail asking what accounts for the difference but have yet to hear back. While still minuscule in the face of overall cable business, the trend toward online streaming is a significant one -- especially for a cable TV industry that continues to insist on bi-annual rate hikes for already pricey service. Even some of Wall Street's most bullish cable analysts argue that the price hikes simply can't continue if the cable industry doesn't want a major backlash.
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Sprint Streamlines, Fires Four Execs - As Company Trims Down and Builds New Network
Posted: January 9th, 2012, 5:29am MST
Sprint is streamlining the company's operations by merging sales and marketing for their business and consumer operations. The streamlining, which comes as the company is starting to build a new nationwide LTE network, will include the departures of four top Sprint executives, according to Reuters. "We believe that we no longer need to support two separate business units (consumer and business), and that it is more logical now to evolve to unified marketing and sales organizations," Hesse told employees in a memo.
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Netflix Streaming Arrives in UK and Ireland - As Company Expands Streaming Industry Foothold
Posted: January 9th, 2012, 5:25am MST
After a series of missteps in 2011 that resulted in their stock price being punished and subscribers leaving in droves, Netflix is trying regain momentum in the marketplace by launching their streaming service in the UK and Ireland. The Telegraph reports that the service will offer older BBC shows and series, with movies from Lionsgate UK and MGM. The Inquirer also notes that the services offers subscribers access to stunning cinema such as "Paul Blart: Mall Cop" and "the Expendables". Part of the beating Netflix stock took was in part due to the fact that 2012 profits will be hampered by this expansion.
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Monday Morning Links -
Posted: January 9th, 2012, 4:34am MST
Hacked memo: Apple, RIM, Nokia providing backdoor for Indian government? computerworld.com
Lawmakers intent on passing SOPA & PIPA despite mass opposition? infoworld.com
T-Mobile parent company wants it out of the house, may sell towers slashgear.com
The wireless world: Is there chaos around the corner? humansinvent.com
NinjaVideo Admin Gets 22 Months In Jail, 500 Hours Of Community Service & Has To Pay MPAA $210k techdirt.com
Microsoft re-invents WiFi for White Spaces technologyreview.com
Netflix live in the UK cnet.co.uk
Symantec says hack poses no threat to its security franchise totaltele.com
Lenovo announces first Android 4.0 TV (but it's no Google TV) venturebeat.com
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