Copyright lawsuit targets owners of non-secure wireless networks; Failure to secure routers may let others download copyrighted content computerworld.com
Global broadband snapshot: Hong Kong throttles the rest of the world networkworld.com
Voice and Video Calls Via Wi-Fi From 30,000 Feet? cio.com
Sprint details IDEN's death lightreading.com
Powerline Carrier Close,but Likely No Cigar networkworld.com
Solving the Snowballing Wireless Data Problem ecommercetimes.com
Android nabbing more than half of new smartphone buyers cnet.com
CheapAir.com First to Tell Travelers Which Flights Have WiFi, TV and More prnewswire.com
Prepaid iPhone Set to Disrupt Industry wirelessweek.com
Portable gaming: Is mobile the future? fiercewireless.com
Qualcomm is exploring the last 4G frontier: The sky gigaom.com
Amazon in the Process of Launching a Retail Store goodereader.com
SOPA/PIPA Opponents Tell Hill To Scrap Legislation, Period; All Efforts, including OPEN Act, Should be Deep-Sixed for a Do-Over multichannel.com
CableLabs: VOD Advertising Technically Ready To Roll multichannel.com
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Monday Evening Links -
Posted: February 6th, 2012, 4:27pm MST
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ISP Six Strikes Plan Still 'Coming Soon' - Entertainment Industry "Education" Campaign Looms
Posted: February 6th, 2012, 3:24pm MST
Last summer major ISPs including Comcast, AT&T, Verizon and Cablevision signed off on a new plan by the RIAA and MPAA taking aim at copyright infringers on their networks. According to the plan, after four warnings ISPs are to begin taking "mitigation measures," which range from throttling a user connection to filtering access to websites until users acknowledge receipt of "educational material." The plan, as with most plans of this type, was hashed out privately with the government's help -- but with no consumer or independent expert insight.
The EFF has already pointed out some serious problems with the plan, ranging from users only being able to use the "open hotspot excuse" once, to users having to shell out $35 to protest their innocence. It will also likely jack up the cost of broadband service further, as non-pirating users have to subsidize efforts that likely won't do much to impact piracy.
So where does the plan stand now? According to a report over at Ars Technica the plan's still still in the oven, the group that will spearhead the effort (the Center for Copyright Information) remains hard at work, and ISP users should start being "educated" very soon:Curious if the consensus behind the deal was falling apart of proving harder to implement than expected, I spoke to several sources in the rightsholder and Internet communities; each agreed to speak off the record, as CCI has yet to make public announcements. Each confirmed that the project is pressing ahead and that it will in fact launch shortly. CCI has just hired an executive director, and the group plans a set of new announcements once the director is in place and up to speed.
Meanwhile ISPs like Verizon continue to send users letters at the entertainment industry behest, some going so far as to voluntarily insist that users will have their connections severed if the file transfers persist (in Verizon's case, we've found they're bluffing).
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Falcone's Hedge Fund Takes a LightSquared Beating - Loses 47% of Value Thanks to GPS Woes
Posted: February 6th, 2012, 1:51pm MST
Anonymous investors tell The New York Times that billionaire hedge fund manager and LightSquared backer Philip A. Falcone didn't have a very good 2011. Falcone's hedge fund, Harbinger Capital Partners, lost 46.6 percent of its value last year as LightSquared ran face first into political headaches and GPS interference concerns. "The investors who remain in the fund are not happy with the results, but at least some who spoke on condition of anonymity saw it coming," says reporter Azam Ahmen. "One felt that the valuation was overly rosy for too long." LightSquared's fortunes don't look to be improving anytime soon, and Falcone continues to face several SEC investigations.
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Google Starts Hanging Kansas City Fiber - 'We've Eaten Way Too Much Barbecue...'
Posted: February 6th, 2012, 11:27am MST
Earlier this month we noted that Google's effort to deploy 1 Gbps fiber in Kansas City had run face first into some pole attachment bureaucratic delays, Google apparently believing their brand name would be enough to help them float over and above the annoying red tape hurdles faced by all ISPs. This week Google suggests those problems have been resolved, a company blog post stating the company has started hanging fiber in Kansas City, Kansas. "We ve measured utility poles; we ve studied maps and surveyed neighborhoods; we ve come up with a comprehensive set of detailed engineering plans; and we ve eaten way too much barbecue," says Google's Kevin Lo. "Now, starting today, we re ready to lay fiber." Initially Google says they'll focus on the backbone build, and is giving no hard date for when locals will get their 1 Gbps connections.
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AT&T Wages Quiet War on Grandfathered Unlimited Users - 2GB Throttle Not So Subtly Pushing Users Toward Meters
Posted: February 6th, 2012, 9:31am MST
After eliminating their unlimited data option in 2010, AT&T grandfathered those users -- though most knew the fun wouldn't last. In 2011 AT&T announced they'd start throttling wireless data customers who consumed "more than their fair share" of network data. AT&T stated that the throttling would specifically focus on just the top 5 percent of the heaviest data users in a billing period. AT&T also stated targeted users consumed 12 times more data than the average of all other smartphone users.
Early on, AT&T's data line seemed rather high, with some users consuming up to 10 GB before getting warnings. Now that AT&T has been throttling for some time, more users are noting that they're getting warnings from AT&T after around 2GB of usage each month. As CNET notes, it's a not-so-subtle nudge to try and get grandfathered unlimited users to switch to AT&T's metered tiers:AT&T's throttling program seems to target customers, who are just over the 2GB threshold. And its new higher priced data plans that offer 3GB of data for $30 looks like an attempt to get customers to switch from their unlimited data plans to the 3GB plan for the same price. Whether you can live with the slower data rates is up to you. But clearly AT&T is trying to entice people who use a lot of data to get off the unlimited and onto a tiered plan where the service is never throttled.
In other words, pay $30 for "unlimited" service where you're actually only getting 2 GB of data before your phone becomes useless, or sign up for a 3GB tier for the same price so you're in line to get socked with the usage overages of tomorrow. Having your fancy new smartphone throttled to near dial-up speeds isn't particularly fun, as this video attests. As we've noted previously, AT&T has also been automatically eliminating grandfathered unlimited user privileges if they're found to be tethering unofficially.
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Verizon and Coinstar's Redbox Form Joint Venture - Details Scarce, Launch Expected Later This Year
Posted: February 6th, 2012, 6:42am MST
Confirming rumors that popped up late last year, Verizon and Coinstar (operators of RedBox) today announced that they've formed a new joint venture that intends to take aim at Netflix's video streaming crown. Actual details in the announcement are very scarce, with the video service launching sometime during the second half of this year. The announcement says the service, which will likely retain the familiar RedBox brand, "will leverage Verizon's industry-wide relationships with entertainment content providers, its advanced cloud computing technologies and state-of-the-art IP network infrastructure to distribute video on-demand content to its customers."
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Rogers Study Says Canadian Broadband Secretly Awesome - Just Ignore the High Prices, Low Caps, Heavy Throttling
Posted: February 6th, 2012, 6:17am MST
Not only to Canadians lay claim to some of the most expensive broadband among all developed countries it's also among the lowest quality, with numerous ISPs heavily throttling data and imposing unreasonably low caps and high overages in the HD video age. What are you to do if you're an ISP like Rogers and the data repeatedly shows Canadian broadband is expensive and heavily capped due to weak competition? You fund your own study. A new study funded by Rogers insists Canadians now enjoy some of the fastest and least expensive broadband service anywhere:The report, based on the results of 52 million speed tests of broadband users across the G7 countries and Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) membership, was produced by Montreal-based consulting firm Lemay Yates Associates Inc. on behalf of Rogers Communications Inc., the country's largest broadband service provider. It disputes the OECD's own report, published in July, that ranked Canada's high-speed Internet offerings significantly below those of other countries.
You really only have to look at Rogers prices and caps, our user reviews, and the fact that Rogers is among the worst ISPs when it comes to clumsy network management to understand why Rogers would want to fund a new study of their own contradicting all previous studies. The speed tests used by Rogers to declare themselves supreme winners of the Internet benefit from Speed Boost technology (known as Powerboost here in the States) and don't really consider usage limits or Rogers' tendency toward slowing down legitimate traffic.
You can head to our Rogers forum to see exactly what the ISP's own users think about discovering they're getting such great broadband service.
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Cox Trims Staff After Wireless Plans Die - 100 Engineers, Product Managers and Designers Let Go
Posted: February 6th, 2012, 5:51am MST
Last October Cox Communications scrapped their entire wireless ambitions. Those plans started with them planning a new LTE network, which ultimately de-volved into another Sprint MVNO before being discarded entirely. Like other cable operators Cox then recently offloaded their spectrum holdings to Verizon, and is poised to join Comcast in re-selling bundled Verizon LTE services. Not too surprisingly, Cox is now shedding a lot of the hires acquired during their brief wireless effort, laying off roughly 100 engineers, product development managers and infrastructure designers tied to the wireless unit. Cox, which has roughly 60,000 employees, did not sell their 700 MHz spectrum licenses to Verizon.
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SureWest Sold to Consolidated Communications - $340 Million Deal For 145,700 Customers
Posted: February 6th, 2012, 5:43am MST
Recent rumors had suggested Surewest Communications was on the verge of being acquired by Google. As it turns out, that was only half right. Surewest Communications this morning announced that the company has been acquired -- by Consolidated Communications Holdings (see our user reviews) for $340 Million. SureWest currently serves 130,000 residential subscribers and 15,700 commercial businesses in the greater Kansas City and Sacramento regions, offering a combination of cable and limited fiber to the home services. "This transaction combines our cash flow-generating business with SureWest's growth-oriented strategy, resulting in a financially strong company with a robust balance sheet and attractive dividend payout ratio," Consolidated CEO Bob Currey said in a press statement.
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Monday Morning Links -
Posted: February 6th, 2012, 3:48am MST
AT&T Starts Throttling Unlimited Data Users after 2GB of Monthly Usage macrumors.com
CentMesh aims for first open-air Wi-Fi network newsobserver.com
Are we in the post-PC era now? cnet.com
Google abandons CDMA techeye.net
Why the Internet should be considered a luxury, not a right smartplanet.com
Unused Wi-Fi costs Minneapolis millions startribune.com
Is getting throttled a bad thing? coolsmartphone.com
Google may add WiFi, Bluetooth to Kansas City project kansascity.com
Southwest Airlines to offer football & baseball games via WiFi chicagotribune.com
WiFi and cellphone service finally coming to 30 NYC subway stations thenextweb.com
In Russia, downloading 419GB of data over 3G in 1 week wins you a $5000 vacation thenextweb.com
WalMart helping AT&T users figure out how to defect and avoid trouble denverpost.com
Google testing mystery entertainment device pocket-lint.com
BitTorrent Giant BTjunkie Shuts Down For Good torrentfreak.com