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Sprint has already announced that they hope to cover 123 million potential customers by the end of this year with their upcoming LTE network, and we also recently learned that Sprint LTE pricing will essentially mirror existing WiMax pricing. Sprint held a press event this week at their Overland Park, Kansas headquarters to shed a little more light on the company's upcoming LTE plans. The company in particular offered a little more timeline details, noting they'll finish shuttering their iDen network in 2013 allowing them to refarm that 800MHz spectrum for LTE in 2014. The company also says they'll be offering LTE Advanced starting in 2013. Sprint will shut down about 9,600 iDen cell cites this year alone -- about a third of their total. read comment(s)
A few years ago Verizon signed FiOS franchise agreements with several major east coast cities including Philadelphia, New York City, Pittsburgh and Washington DC. The agreements promised 100% coverage of FiOS to most of these cities, though as we noted at the time most of the deals contained fine print loopholes allowing Verizon to extend or even wiggle out of their obligation if they weren't seeing the kind of TV adoption rates they wanted.
Fast forward a few years and at least one member of Philadelphia's city council is accusing Verizon of failing to live up to their agreement, stalling on getting FiOS deployed into some of the city's less affluent areas. Verizon has often been accused of cherry picking markets (in Buffalo they've been accused of racism), but their upgrade criteria often seem to have no rhyme or reason, with a never unveiled combination of economic and logistical criteria leading to decisions on which markets get upgraded.
Still, Philadelphia city councilman Jim Kenney says someone inside the company is telling him Verizon's shirking on their promises, and Kenney wants a hearing:
Calling for the hearing is councilman Jim Kenney, who says he has information that Verizon is not honoring its Fios buildout plan agreed upon three years ago with City Council. "We ve had information coming from inside the company that says they may not be following what they committed to do when we granted the franchise," Kenney said today. Specifically, Kenney is concerned that lower-income neighborhoods are low on Verizon s priority list.
Verizon has until 2016 to completely wire Philadelphia, and says they reach about a third of all city households. Verizon has promised to cover all of New York City by 2014, and as of the end of 2010 claimed they covered 60% of the city. Locals have debated that number, but so far nobody's fact checked Verizon's coverage numbers. What will likely happen is Verizon will hit somewhere between 70-80% of these cities as intended, then point to the fine print nobody (including Kenney or the press) bothered to read.
Last December Verizon announced that in addition to buying $3.6 billion in spectrum from the cable industry, they'd soon be partnering with them as well -- Time Warner Cable, Comcast, Cox and Bright House all agreeing to bundled Verizon Wireless services with their triple plays. The deal has taken significant heat from consumer advocates for its potential erosion of competition; particularly of the landline variety in smaller markets where competition barely exists as it is.
So far the deal hasn't really amounted to much of anything -- be it anti-competitive or even particularly interesting. Comcast's currently just offering users a $200 prepaid Visa gift card in a handful of markets if they add Verizon Wireless services.
As expected, Time Warner Cable has now joined the party, today launching a website alerting customers that they too can now join the quadruple-play-gift-card fun. Users can check out the full FAQ here for qualifications.
Right now, the bundles are only available in Kansas City, Raleigh, North Carolina., and Cincinnati and Columbus, Ohio. Comcast has made a few statements noting that integrating fused billing and retail support has been a bit of a challenge. Several of these companies have struggled to bill their own customers correctly over the years, so there's no doubt going to be some growing pains as the partnership unfolds.
As it stands a gift card and unified billing doesn't really scream "excitement," though Verizon and the cable industry say that ultimately they'll expand the deals to include video services that work across both wireless and cable services. read comment(s)
Cisco today announced it has expanded its small business product portfolio with new wireless access points, routers, switches, unified communications and partner-managed service offerings. These new solutions help to drive customer productivity and growth by allowing small businesses to get the most out of smartphones, tablets, and cloud applications and services. Cisco 's new WAP121 and WAP321 wireless access points provide customers with fast, robust coverage to support increased productivity from ...
Scientists at the Quantum Dynamics division of the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics (MPQ) in Garching, Germany announced Wednesday that they have built the very first, elementary quantum network comprised of a pair of entangled atoms that transmit information to each other via single photons. The network consists of two nodes, each of which can send, receive and store information, communicating via a single photon traveling along a 60-meter fiberoptic cable. "This approach to quantum ...
AT&T is facing a new class action lawsuit (despite attempts to ban such suits in fine print) accusing the carrier of aiding and abetting cellphone thieves -- while at the same time using cell phone thefts to drive additional revenues. The suit alleges that not only does AT&T do little to nothing to stop thieves from re-activating stolen phones, but the company lies to consumers as well, claiming they're unable to block calls to and from the stolen phones -- or track the phones if they're returned to the store (using a fifteen-digit-long IMEI number and store databases). From the lawsuit:
"Defendants actively have, for years, participated in this practice in order to make millions of dollars in improper profits, by forcing legitimate customers, such as these plaintiffs, to buy new cell phones, and buy new cell phone plans, while the criminals who stole the phone are able to simply walk into AT&T stores and 're-activate' the devices, using different, cheap, readily available 'SIM' cards (computer chips)...
"Plaintiffs have repeatedly asked defendants to track, record, and simply refuse to 'activate' these stolen iPhones, however, to date defendants have refused to do so, even though it is readily, easily able to accomplish, because if they take said proper action, their sales of new iPhones and plans will be reduced and diminished."
The timing of the lawsuit comes just as AT&T this week finally announced they'd start blocking stolen cell phones after some nudging by government, something both Verizon and Sprint have been doing for some time. It certainly wouldn't be difficult for AT&T to store a database of flagged IMEI numbers used to block and/or help law enforcement confiscate stolen goods when presented in store, but giving a damn would rather clearly cost AT&T millions in new phone and plan sales.
This isn't the first time in recent history that AT&T has been accused of turning a blind eye to fraud and crime in order to make an extra buck (or billion). The Department of Justice recently sued the carrier for all-but encouraging IP relay fraud in order to rake in millions in crime-driven revenues. Such decisions speak rather clearly to the values (or lack thereof) of AT&T executive leadership. read comment(s)
A recent ACLU audit of local law enforcement practices highlighted how there's really no rules being followed in terms of wireless consumer surveillance. California is now cooking up a bill that would block governments and law enforcement from obtaining location information from cellphones without a warrant. State Sen. Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) has proposed SB 1434, an amendment to the Penal Code, which would limit search warrants to a time frame "no longer than is necessary" and not exceeding 30 days. "Unfortunately, California s privacy laws have not kept up with the electronic age, and government agencies are frequently accessing this sensitive information without adequate oversight," Leno said in a statement. read comment(s)
Fox network founder Barry Diller recently unveiled a new service dubbed Aereo, which for $12 a month hopes to take over the air broadcasts from major networks and stream them to phones, tablets, and connected televisions. The service is intended to supplement viewing options for users who have cut the cord in favor of Netflix, Hulu, (and/or piracy), replacing the basic cable connection. Not too surprisingly, the company was quickly sued by the cable and broadcast industry who are terrified a consumer somewhere might actually start saving money and enjoying themselves.
It now appears that Aereo is going to have some competition. Atlanta-based Skitter this week announced that the company is offering a new service that streams local networks straight to a Roku or Western Digital Live set-top box. The outfit launched the service in Portland last month and hopes to have Skitter available in five markets by the end of the financial quarter.
The service will cost subscribers somewhere between $12 and $15 a month, but isn't available on computers, smartphones or tablets -- yet. In Portland the company is offering users access to ten live channels, including ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC and PBS. One unique tactical approach by Skitter is they appear to be targeting smaller telcos, who can't afford building a full TV infrastructure by want to offer subscribers an OTT (over the top) option.
This shift is an interesting one because it gives Internet video fans who might "cut the cord" access to one major missing component in the Internet video space: live TV and particular local sports programming. As such, you can expect the cable and broadcast industry to very quickly file suit against the operation before a consumer somewhere actually saves a buck. Unlike Aereo however, Skitter tells GigaOM they have the broadcast licenses for the ten channels currently offered -- though that likely won't stop the industry from finding some basis to sue over. read comment(s)
With the world headed forward to cellular, VoIP and other technology, the pay phone is very obviously starting to become a relic in many locations -- but regulations require many locations to keep some pay phones in service for emergencies. The K & M Telephone Company in Chambers, Nebraska is seeking permission to disconnect the town's last remaining pay phone, which they claim costs them around $1,500 to run annually but netted them only $3.35 last year in change.
K & M isn't alone since Nebraska's Public Service Commission requires each town in the State to have at least one 24-hour public pay phone. While the companies probably don't like eating these costs, the source article omits the fact that most of these telcos (small and large alike) have been subsidized billions for years for services they may -- or may have not -- ever actually provided.
Combined with the bevy of obnoxious fees and the amount of overcharging that goes on for POTS service (like charging $10 for services like callerID that cost pennies to provide), you have to think K&M and others will somehow survive as the pay phone gasps its last breath for a few more years. read comment(s)
Verizon FiOS TV customers are being informed that they'll face temporarily service disruptions as the company redesigns and updates the FiOS TV video-on-demand system. The updates come after Verizon was sued by a company named ActiveVideo for violating four patents related to DVR and video services. A jury in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia awarded ActiveVideo Networks $115 million, and informed Verizon that they had to revamp their video systems by May 23. Up until that point, Verizon was forced to pay sunset royalty payments of $2.74 per subscriber per month. "New VOD shows cannot be ordered during this maintenance, and any VOD shows already in progress as of 12 a.m. will be stopped automatically," customers are being informed this week via their set tops. read comment(s)
AT&T continues to expand their LTE footprint, today announcing they are launching service in the St. Louis, Missouri market. The company has also confirmed that they've expanding LTE service in the New York City market by launching in Staten Island. At the beginning of the month AT&T announced that they had launched service in the Muncie, Indiana, Bloomington, Indiana and Bryan College Station, Texas markets. According to AT&T's handy dandy new infographic (pdf), the company's faster service is now available in part or all of 32 markets covering a potential 74 million customers. read comment(s)
Phillip Falcone's checks to both John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) appear to have cleared, resulting in the two sending a letter this week to the FCC urging the agency to try and save LightSquared. The lawmakers say they "understand" the FCC's February decision to revoke LightSquared's license to offer LTE via the 1.6 GHz L-band, but the two lawmakers go on to perfectly parrot LightSquared's recent positions -- namely that the government should exchange spectrum with LightSquared, while at the same time pushing for new GPS receiver rules:
"Others have rightly pointed out that this situation raises the question of whether the agency should create receiver standards so that license holders operate only in their licensed spectrum," Kerry and Graham wrote..."In the short-term, we urge you to work with industry and the relevant federal agencies to find consensus on alternate spectrum for LightSquared's proposed network...Advancing LightSquared's network in a consensus manner would increase competition in the wireless broadband market and promote the public interest."
Needless to say AT&T, Verizon and the GPS industry have loyal politicians pushing from the other direction. Still, the FCC's refusal to grant a waiver is based on fairly clear science showing that LightSquared's planned LTE network would have severely damaged GPS communications.
LightSquared is very quickly running out of both time and cash, while hopes for any kind of new LTE entrant appear to have now shifted toward Dish Network's potential LTE build. Dish's plans won't suffer from the same interference issues -- but the network may never be built if Dish can be persuaded (or bullied) into selling their spectrum to AT&T. read comment(s)
CNET offers an interesting read by a new small as-yet-unnamed ISP that is promising customers that they will be shielded from surveillance. Founder Nicholas Merrill wants to start a national "non-profit telecommunications provider dedicated to privacy, using ubiquitous encryption" to offer service for as low as $20 a month.
In addition to using encryption, Merrill says the ISP, run by a non-profit named the Calyx Institute, will spend much of its time challenging the government's rather relentless pursuit of total surveillance outside the rule of law. That's quite the bold claim in the age of raw carrier-supported wholesale data sharing, warrantless wiretapping, and giant encyryption-busting NSA super warehouses.
Merrill might be remembered by some of you as the man behind the first (and only) ISP to fight (and win) against the government's National Security Letters, which allow the government to obtain any customer data they'd like -- while then gagging the ISP from talking about the request with absolutely anyone. Merrill fought the government for six years, and this new ISP is the product of that experience:
Merrill's identity was kept confidential for years as the litigation continued. In 2007, the Washington Post published his anonymous op-ed which said: "I resent being conscripted as a secret informer for the government," especially because "I have doubts about the legitimacy of the underlying investigation." He wasn't able to discuss his case publicly until 2010. His recipe for Calyx was inspired by those six years of interminable legal wrangling with the Feds.
From the sounds of it, Merrill and Calyx are going to be offering a wireless service piggybacking on the Clearwire network that uses end-to-end encryption and e-mail stored in encrypted form. Calyx appears to be stocked with people who certainly know what they're doing, ranging from former NSA technical director Brian Snow to the Tor Project's Jacob Appelbaum. That $20 price tag likely means we're not talking about blistering speeds, but more of a utilitarian offering for the security and privacy conscious.
Update: Clearwire reached out to us to note that the CNET story seems to suggest Clearwire is a partner of Calyx, but that they're not (at least not yet). It remains unclear who Merrill plans to turn to in order to operate an ISP of any real scale. read comment(s)
Microsoft today delivered six security updates to patch 11 vulnerabilities in Windows, Internet Explorer (IE), Office and several other products, including one bug that attackers are already exploiting. "The most prominent vulnerabilities are in Internet Explorer, with 4 of the 5 patches marked as critical, " John Harrison, group product manager for Symantec Security Response told us after the announcement. "Because the vulnerabilities could allow remote code execution, we ...
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