Tag Archive
Court Unconvinced of FCC’s Authority to Punish Comcast
Federal judges spent much of Friday hearing arguments for and against the FCC’s 2008 hand-slapping of Comcast Corp. for slowing peer-to-peer Internet traffic – the court’s ruling will help determine how much authority the FCC holds over net neutrality decisions. So far, judges’ reactions indicate the FCC is in for …(288 words) Related Topics: 2008,... »
Court Unconvinced of FCC’s Authority to Punish Comcast
Federal judges spent much of Friday hearing arguments for and against the FCC’s 2008 hand-slapping of Comcast Corp. for slowing peer-to-peer Internet traffic – the court’s ruling will help determine how much authority the FCC holds over net neutrality decisions. So far, judges’ reactions indicate the FCC is in for …(288 words) ... »
AT&T Wants to Kill The PSTN
TMCnet contributor Gary Kim has an excellent article about AT&T asking the Federal Communications Commission to create a timetable to shutdown the analog PSTN phone system in the United States. AT&T explains that maintaining two networks – IP and PSTN is retarding the deployment of the newer broadband IP network. Ok, I’ll grant you... »
The Wish List: 7 Things We Hope Will Come True in 2010
With 2009 coming to an end, it is not surprising that everyone is making predictions about what 2010 has in store. So instead, four of us — Liz, Stacey, Sebastian and I — have put together a wish list of seven things we hope come true in 2010. Facebook Goes Public – What Silicon Valley... »
CableVision WiFi Is Really Working
From the earliest of days of public WiFi I have always felt the biggest players that would benefit from it were the cable operators. Seems I was right as Cablevision is proving how in the contiguous areas around New York City that their WiFi cloud is attracting users. And, they are all their already... »
Congressman Sets Realistic Broadband Speed Goals
Congressman Rick Boucher of Virginia is my kind of elected official. He wants us all to have 50 megs down and 20 megs up of broadband. And as the post on DSL Reports mentions, with Docsis 3.0 coming to a cable box near you rather soon, those speeds are more than attainable. In my Sacramento... »
Predictions: The Fabulous 5 for 2010
As the first decade of the 21st century draws to a close, we are on the cusp of another massive change in technology, one that will involve a new, more dynamic two-way experience with the web. However, instead of making specific predictions as to which technologies will win (or lose) in 2010, I am... »
The Google Phone
Let's try to clear up the rumor that a Google Phone that reportedly is coming out in January. That is if you can believe any blog that tells you its a rumor. First of, one has to expect that the phone would not be for the traditional mobile network. Honestly if I was Google I'd... »
Fitch Sees Tough Times for Cable, Telecom Companies Continuing into 2010
Research Recap submits: As Comcast and GE wrap up their deal for Comcast to acquire NBC Universal, Fitch Ratings has a timely report on the cable and telecom industry: “Fitch Ratings expects that many of the competitive and economic pressures of 2009 will remain for U.S. telecommunications and cable operators in 2010. Competitive overlap of... »
Google Voice + magicJack = $1.66/month Phone Bill
What do you get when you combine Google Voice + MagicJack? Well, you get $1.66/month phone service, of course. First, you need a MagicJack which costs $39.99 for the first year and includes the USB device. Subsequent years are $19.99/year or $1.66/month. Second, you need to get Google Voice, which is... »
Sponsored WiFi Access, Sending Party Pays and The Future Of Media
We continue to see more of what I am calling the sponsored model of public WiFi. After all the municipal models failed, with city and county governments in many places buying into a very flawed model that was heavily overplayed by Earthlink and a group of advisors to cities, plus an over dependence on... »
Where Have The Big Internet Players Gone in VoIP and Why
The crusty John C. Dvorak has been a fixture in PC Magazine for many years. This week he penned a piece about Google Voice and free calling. In the opinion column John raised a few points that need to be expounded upon, and I’m in the kind of mood to do just that! Point One: Now... »
NewTeeVee Live: Thank You All for the Show
Kevin Lynch, CTO of Adobe Systems one of our speakers. Photo by James Duncan Davidson Unlike the spritely young team members of NewTeeVee, I am dragging my feet after what was an intense day yesterday. Well actually I was having too much fun at our third consecutive sold-out NewTeeVee Live conference in San Francisco. Great... »
Clearwire: ‘Google Believes in Us’
Larry Dignan (ZDNet) submits: Clearwire (CLWR) has a larger war chest, but still lacks a significant subscriber base for its WiMax, or 4G, wireless services. However, the company maintains that it is in the right place at the right time to become a powerhouse. Those were some of the takeaways as Clearwire CEO William Morrow... »
Another $1.5B Infusion for Clearwire
It shouldn’t come as a surprise: Clearwire, the WiMAX-based wireless network operator, is looking for a $1.5 billion infusion from Sprint and other backers including cable giant Comcast. Clearwire executives, including CEO William Morrow, have been publicly talking about a need for new capital. The announcement is likely to be made later this week,... »
Voice Is Cable’s Secret Weapon for Growth
Earlier this decade, when cable companies started their foray into the phone business, not many gave them much of a chance to succeed. Sure, they could sell a lot of broadband connections, but no one thought they would be players in telecom services such as voice. Fast-forward to today, and the situation is entirely... »
Blabbelon Launches HD VoIP for Video Games
Video gamers love VoIP in video games but have often been disappointed with poor voice quality – including jitter, lag, and choppiness, inability to continue to talk via VoIP once you close the game and just an overall poor user experience. Well, Blabblelon aims to change all that with the... »
Comcast, NBC Universal Could Seal Deal This Week
The Comcast Corp. (CMCSA) acquisition of 51 percent of NBC Universal, one of the companies that controls Internet TV site Hulu, could come sometime this week, according to reports.Whether or not the cable giant pulls off the rumored $4 billion-$6 billion deal, Hulu will start charging for certain content next year. …(141 words) ... »
Research Report Shows VoIP Kicking PSTN’s Ass
According to Infonetics Research, VoIP services brought in $21 billion for service providers in the first half of 2009. According to their report, the number of residential/SOHO VoIP subscribers is forecast to top 225 million by 2013. In other words, with about 310 million Americans that means 75% of all residential subscribers will be... »
AT&T Enters the TV Market: How Big Is the Prize?
AT&T (T) reported results last week that indicated strong performance in the company’s TV business. AT&T’s fiber optic TV service called U-Verse has added more subscribers so far than expected. By offering competitive TV-internet-phone ("triple play") bundles AT&T has drawn customers away from cable and satellite providers. We expect U-Verse TV... »
VoIP Ringing Up Billions in Sales
Can you believe that VoIP-based telephony services brought in nearly $20.7 billion in revenues during the first six months of 2009? Incredible as it might sound, it is indeed true, according to data reported by market research firm Infonetics Research. I fondly remember the early part of this decade when folks dismissed VoIP as little... »
WiMax Coming to Chicago in November
WiMax will finally go on sale next month in Chicago, a city that was to have been one of the first places where the high-speed wireless service was offered in the U.S. Chicago was on the cutting edge of Sprint Nextel’s original push for WiMax in 2007, along with the Baltimore-Washington, D.C., area. A network... »
FCC to draft net neutrality rules, taking step toward Web regulation
The Federal Communications Commission voted unanimously Thursday to begin crafting rules to prevent Internet providers from acting as gatekeepers over which services and content are delivered to their customers, the agency’s surest step yet toward regulating the rules of the road online. The federal government previously had taken a largely hands-off approach to Web regulation... »
UPDATE: Comcast, Clearwire, Sprint Announce Q4 WiMAX Markets
The WiMAX roll-out by Clearwire Corp. and its investors continues with Clearwire, Comcast Corp. and Sprint-Nextel Corp. announcing plans for additional markets to launch in the fourth quarter.The three will each launch commercial 4G service in Philadelphia in the next several weeks, with official launch events and retail store openings …(289 words) ... »
Quincy Smith Unplugged at NewTeeVee Live
In less than a month, when we host our third-annual NewTeeVee Live conference, I will have the pleasure of interviewing Quincy Smith, chief executive of CBS Interactive, onstage. It will be a freewheeling interview about everything from his company’s TV.com to Hulu to TV Everywhere. Smith was one of the two keynote speakers at our... »
Comcast launches HomePoint VoIP Phone/Router, some ask ‘why?’
In an extremely limited release, Comcast is putting its HomePoint VoIP phone/router converged device on the market. The new device integrates Comcast’s VoIP service with its cable Internet service combining a wireless router with a VoIP phone in an all-in-one device. Comcast customers in Fort Meyers, Fla. will be the first to get the... »
Comcast to acquire mid-tier IP communications company Cimco
Comcast has announced that it is buying Chicago area voice and data services provider Cimco Communications. Cimco provides both hosted VoIP services as well as IP trunking for the enterprise and small businesses in the Chicago area. Launched in 2006, Comcast’s commercial services efforts have been focused mainly on small business needs, and the... »
Voice Is Dead or Long Live Voice?
I first started seriously writing about voice delivered over the Internet almost 10 years ago. I’ve written about the meteoric rise and ignominious fall of Vonage, the fabulous sale of Skype, and the deaths of countless wannabe VoIP service providers. Despite the story lines, there was one constant in every conversation I had... »
Arris Group: Demand Should Remain Strong
Vahan Janjigian (Forbes) submits: Cable service providers rely on Arris Group (ARRS) to engineer the equipment and software needed to deliver video, voice, and data over broadband networks. During the first half of 2009, 30.4% of ARRS’s revenues came from Comcast (CMCSA). Time Warner Cable (TWC) contributed 19.2% and international customers accounted for 26.5%. The... »
Comcast Looks To The Future With HomePoint VoIP
In a move that Fierce VoIP is calling a limited release by Comcast, the nations largest cable operator, of HomePoint, a converged VoIP/Router, it would appear that finally, after making all the needed in network (e.g. getting all the hardware and software to be the same in all markets) infrastructure work completed, Big C... »