Sprint updates phones to eliminate Carrier IQ cnet.com
Comcast, TWC, AT&T To Join 'World IPv6 Launch 2012' Event; Aimed at Driving Transition to Next-Gen Internet Protocol multichannel.com
Clearwire to get buddy buddy with LTE TDD lightreading.com
New mobile data pricing plans include mobile hotspot usage lightreading.com
Wireless spectrum doomsday looms informationweek.com
Why is cable discovering the joys of WiFi, and not mobile? gigaom.com
Virgin Mobile suffers UK-wide service outage digitalspy.com
In-App Purchases will dominate the smartphone app business isuppli.com
Entertainment Industry Lobbyists Don't Want To Let Canada Into Secret TPP Negotiations Until Canada Passes More Bad Laws techdirt.com
Apple will not kill iPad 2 on iPad 3 debut reghardware.com
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Tuesday Evening Links -
Posted: January 17th, 2012, 4:32pm MST
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Chattanooga Gets to See What Broadband Competition Looks Like - Lower Prices, Better Services, More Attractive to Businesses
Posted: January 17th, 2012, 3:28pm MST
For many years we've tracked Chattanooga, Tennessee's attempt to wire the entire city with fiber to the home using the local public utility, Electric Power Board (EPB). Back in 2007, the city council voted 8-0 to approve the $200 million project. Despite several failed attempts by Comcast lawyers to cripple the effort, the plan moved forward to offer some of the best speeds and prices anywhere. By late 2010 the company started offering 1 Gbps connections to locals at a steep $350/month price point, though they've since introduced several bundle options including 30 Mbps and 50 Mbps tiers.
The project was originally projected to take ten years, but wound up taking three. With Chattanooga residents also having the option of AT&T U-Verse and Comcast Xfinity services, they're getting to see what competition looks like. That has included lower bundle pricing and being the first in the nation to see new services deployed, as Chattanooga is now a new project test market. The network has had the added benefit of attracting businesses looking for cheaper bandwidth to the area:"In a lot of places, you can get the same kind of high speed service as Chattanooga. The difference is the price," said Dan Thompson with Knoxville-based IT company Claris Networks. "Connectivity there for us is about eight to ten times cheaper in Chattanooga than it is versus Knoxville or other cities. That's a huge deal when you're comparing $100 a month or $800 a month." Claris is rapidly expanding its business in Chattanooga due to the city's infrastructure.
It's all precisely the sort of thing Comcast was frightened of when they tried to sue the project out of oblivion five years ago.
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CarrierIQ Still May Face Investigation - As HTC Keeps Promise to Remove Software on Sprint
Posted: January 17th, 2012, 1:31pm MST
The second half of 2012 wasn't very much fun for software developer CarrierIQ, after its stealthy and stubborn embedded handset software set off fire alarms among the security and privacy conscious. If the company was hoping 2012 would be better it doesn't appear to be the case, as several politicians have sent a letter to the Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee urging that Congress investigate the company's practices. As of December the FTC was rumored to be investigating the company, and several carriers have been slowly backing away from using the company's software. From the letter:"Data collection and transmission by Carrier IQ and similar software is widespread, and consumers appear to have little knowledge and even less control over the practice. There continue to be many unanswered questions about the handling of this data and the extent to which its collection, analysis, and transmission pose legitimate privacy concerns for the American public."
This latest push comes as HTC has announced they've kept their promise to remove the software from their phones on the Sprint network. "HTC can confirm that we're working with Sprint to provide maintenance releases that will remove Carrier IQ and provide security enhancements and bug fixes beginning in January," the company said in a statement to the press. Sprint stated they'd disabled Carrier IQ on 26 million devices last December.
The hysteria surrounding CarrierIQ continues to be amusing given the complete lack of larger context in press coverage and Congressional "outrage." Carriers are already sharing/selling every shred of customer location and usage data that isn't nailed down to governments, companies, marketers and civil planners -- often with little to no real transparency. Efforts to create any real consumer protection laws on this front remain mired in Congressional dysfunction and lobbyist cash.
Yet somehow, like NebuAD before them, CarrierIQ has become a small company lightning rod for privacy issues neither carriers or Congress want to seriously address.
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Rogers Unveils $2 Broadband Price Hike For All - Latest Hike Not Received Well by Users
Posted: January 17th, 2012, 11:30am MST
Users in our Rogers forum note that the Canadian cable operator is informing users that as of March 1, most broadband customers will pay $2 more a month for "the many enhancements" Rogers has launched. Needless to say that the price hike isn't going over well in our forums, with users noting that thanks to limited competition they already pay more for service than many developed nations. Rogers has also led the charge when it comes to throttling and capping services, leading all Canadian ISPs in network neutrality complaints. You can find our user reviews here, which can speak to service quality or lack thereof.
Given these failings, customers are a little curious about what "enhancements" Rogers is referring to. In a post in our forums defending the move, a Rogers representative insists that users are lucky that the hikes weren't worse, given Rogers had to "absorb much of these costs." The company insists the improvements include some additional TV channels and SpeedBoost, a technology that delivers a little extra bandwidth at the beginning of a download (Comcast users in the States know it as PowerBoost):We ve recently added 38 new TV channels and 36% more content to On Demand. We re continuing to roll out the brand new Advanced Search function. We have also developed our Remote TV Manager App for smartphones, allowing customers to set and manage their PVRs while on the go. We ve added SpeedBoost to all of our High Speed Internet packages. We ve also increased monthly usage allowances and increased the posted download speeds on many of our packages.
Rogers is taking a bit of a beating in the thread from customers, many of whom note that Rogers for some time has been advertising Speedboost as a courtesy service offered free of charge. Others note they haven't seen any speed increases in several years, despite seeing annual (or bi-annual) rate hikes. The reality is that Rogers raises rates because the state of poor competition allows them to, something reps obviously can't address honestly. Fortunately for those who do have options, the Rogers hikes come as competitors like TekSavvy are unveiling new unlimited offerings that beat Rogers pricing and restrictions rather soundly.
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SOPA Protests, Blackouts Still Planned - Wikipedia, Reddit Among Sites Going Dark in Protest
Posted: January 17th, 2012, 9:19am MST
Despite SOPA and PIPA running into a bit of a brick wall over the weekend, politicians and entertainment industry lobbyists work overtime to save their controversial legislation. After initially engaging in some fairly major distortions the MPAA has come forward to acknowledge that DNS filtering is officially off the table. Critics contend both laws still have very serious problems when it comes to censorship and erosion of legal rights, and both still put immense pressure on ISPs to become content babysitters.
As a result, planned protests by several major websites will continue as scheduled, despite the community-driven victory against DNS blocks. Wikipedia/Wikimedia has issued a statement saying that the site will be taken offline for the entirety of Wednesday, January 18 to protest bills that "would seriously damage the free and open Internet." Unlike SOPA and PIPA, Wikipedia had broad community input in to whether to proceed with the planned blackout:
SOPA and PIPA are just indicators of a much broader problem. All around the world, we're seeing the development of legislation intended to fight online piracy, and regulate the Internet in other ways, that hurt online freedoms.
-Sue Gardner, Executive Director, Wikimedia FoundationOver the course of the past 72 hours, over 1800 Wikipedians have joined together to discuss proposed actions that the community might wish to take against SOPA and PIPA. This is by far the largest level of participation in a community discussion ever seen on Wikipedia, which illustrates the level of concern that Wikipedians feel about this proposed legislation. The overwhelming majority of participants support community action to encourage greater public action in response to these two bills.
Wikimedia proceeds to note that SOPA and PIPA are just symptoms of a much larger disease:The reality is that we don t think SOPA is going away, and PIPA is still quite active. Moreover, SOPA and PIPA are just indicators of a much broader problem. All around the world, we're seeing the development of legislation intended to fight online piracy, and regulate the Internet in other ways, that hurt online freedoms. Our concern extends beyond SOPA and PIPA: they are just part of the problem. We want the Internet to remain free and open, everywhere, for everyone.
Online community Reddit is also protesting by going offline for twelve hours (8AM to 8PM) on Wednesday.
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Retrans Blackouts Getting Out of Hand - Especially Considering How Much Subscribers Pay
Posted: January 17th, 2012, 6:54am MST
Time Warner Cable and MSG still haven't resolved their ongoing dispute, resulting in a significant number of customers being unable to watch their favorite teams. DirecTV customers have been blacked out from watching NBC and FOX stations. Verizon FiOS customers in Syracuse, NY have been unable to watch local affiliate NewsChannel 9, while FiOS customers in Harrisburg are also unable to watch several local channels. Time Warner Cable users in our forums say they've also been dealing with channel blackouts in South Texas.
This was on the heels of numerous, very ugly disputes in 2011, involving blacked out World Series broadcasts and even the filtering of Internet video services. Are we having fun yet?
It has become rather clear that the rate renegotiation for programming has gotten a little out of hand in recent years, with customers bearing the brunt in blackouts, annoying scrolling warnings, disingenuous PR campaigns and ultimately higher bills regardless of which side wins. So far regulators have been willing to let the kids play, but there's growing calls for some kind of regulatory intervention:In cases where constituents are powerless and faultless, their elected representatives in Washington are supposed to speak up on their behalf. They are supposed to issue statements, hold hearings, make phone calls, threaten to enact crippling legislation -- do whatever's necessary to bring a quick and satisfying resolution to the impasse. This, after all, is all about their constituents. But what do we hear from Congress and the Obama administration? Nothing. Nothing at all.
As it stands, regulators will likely be unwilling to intervene, continuing to insist these are private business disputes that should be handled by the companies involved. Others will argue Congress has much more pressing affairs to attend to -- like pushing for awful laws written by the entertainment industry. Still, you do start to wonder if the cable TV and broadcast industry isn't pushing their luck at a dangerous time when one in five have (or will) cut the TV cord.
Ultimately, both cable and broadcast companies are simply harming themselves. Customers are already tired of paying a premium for a product they believe is over-priced, with bi-annual rate hikes coming down the pike continually. Playing pinata with consumer interest aims to simply encourage those looking for less expensive alternatives -- including piracy.
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Sprint: No More WiMax Devices - Support Will Continue, But New Offerings End
Posted: January 17th, 2012, 6:19am MST
Late in 2010 Sprint announced a new plan to retrofit all of their base stations not only with more energy efficient gear, but also with 800 MHz, 1.9 GHz spectrum, 4G 2.5 GHz hardware that can simultaneously support Mobile WiMax, EVDO and LTE. As Sprint made clear last October they plan to run all three technologies simultaneously for a few years, and while Sprint has chosen their words carefully and insists they're still dedicated to WiMax, the writing has been on the wall for the technology. As you might expect, Sprint says they won't be unveiling any more WiMax devices as the company gears up for the launch of their LTE network and new LTE devices like the Galaxy Nexus sometime in the middle of this year.
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Comcast Still Faces Cable Modem Fee Lawsuit - Case May Move Forward After Clarification
Posted: January 17th, 2012, 5:53am MST
Last week a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit against Comcast by a plaintiff who claims Comcast sells broadband service without disclosing the fact that the subscriber may need to pay to rent a modem. "The amended complaint fails to specify when or where Comcast advertisements were viewed, the content of those advertisements, or which of them in particular Plaintiff relied upon," the Judge ruled at the time. The lawyer in the case is now calling the ruling a good thing, insisting that once the plaintiff highlights specifically where and when Comcast failed to inform them about modem rental fees, that the case will be allowed to proceed. Comcast currently charges a $7 a month modem rental fee unless subscribers buy their own modem.
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Comcast, Verizon Partnership Begins - Seattle, Portland See New Service Bundles
Posted: January 17th, 2012, 5:47am MST
Early last month Verizon signed a massive deal with the cable industry that not only involved grabbing $3.6 billion of cable industry spectrum, but included Verizon being allowed to pitch bundled wireless services to cable customers. Comcast promised that they'd have the partnership up and running in some markets quickly, and the first markets appear to be Portland and Seattle. In both cities the focus is essentially on co-marketing both Verizon LTE and Comcast cable/VoIP/broadband services, with consumers who sign up for multiple services receiving pre-paid Visa card of $100 to $300. Ultimately both Verizon and Comcast say they'll integrate some video and other functionality across wireless and wireline, but initially this is purely a marketing play.
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Tuesday Morning Links -
Posted: January 17th, 2012, 4:49am MST
Google and Facebook say it's not possible to block offensive content that appears on their websites in controversial Indian court case yahoo.com
Netflix hit by class-action lawsuit by investors who claim they weren't informed of the company's (now infamous) price increase move paidcontent.org
Amazon's shoe outlet Zappos reveals that its recent hacking probably affects millions of customers personal info totaltele.com
Verizon, Comcast launch quad-play bundling effort philly.com
UK city's resident's on the (taxpayer's) hook after 92M fast Internet project epically fails yorkshirepost.co.uk
Oopsie! Virgin Media mistakenly sends email to all its subs saying they'll be getting speeds up to 120GB huffingtonpost.com
Europe determined to prevent US from dominating the Cloud bloomberg.com
Comcast sub moves forward with cable-modem rental fee suit multichannel.com
RIM plans 2 more Playbook tablets in 2012, Blackberry 10 in September? yahoo.com
Apple co-founder Wozniak sings praises of Android phones yahoo.com
Nissan introduces self-repairing iPhone case theverge.com
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