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CNET was ready to give the Hopper with Sling DVR, a set-top box from Dish Network, a spot in the finals of its “Best in CES” awards at the Consumer Electronics Show — until a directive came through from the site’s corporate parent CBS that the Hopper couldn’t win the award, because CBS is suing the company over its AutoHop commercial-skipping feature.

Not only was the Hopper disqualified from the award, but CNET added an editor’s note to its review of the device saying it would no longer be reviewing any products that were the subject of litigation with its parent company — a list that would include both the Hopper and Aereo, the over-the-net video broadcasting startup backed by Barry Diller, which CBS is also suing.

As John Hermann of BuzzFeed noted, this is probably every tech journalist’s nightmare: being told by a corporate parent that they can’t do their jobs because the parent co. is involved in a a lawsuit. But it’s more than just a journalist’s nightmare — it could be a serious problem for CNET when it comes to maintaining the trust of their readers. The site noted that the restrictions only affects its reviews and not its news reporting, but will readers make that distinction?

Presumably, when someone goes to the CNET site looking for information about set-top boxes or video-streaming hardware, they want the most complete information they can find. If they know that certain products aren’t going to be reviewed because CBS doesn’t like them for some reason, that’s going to color their impressions of the site’s thoroughness in doing its reviews — and it might also make them wonder about what else is being left out.

The more cynical might wonder whether anyone will even notice once the CES decision blows over, but for media entities — even large ones — in times like these, the trust of their readers is more valuable than ever, and it should probably not be squandered lightly.

Post and thumbnail images courtesy of Flickr user Hans Gerwitz

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By broadcast, McAdam was referring to LTE-broadcast, one of the many multicast technologies that’s been kicking around the wireless industry for years. LTE-broadcast would turn cell towers into the equivalent of mini-digital TV towers that could multicast video, audio and even data to multiple users simultaneously.

Right now mobile multimedia works through an on-demand unicast model. Every time you stream a video or a song to your smartphone, you get your own dedicated portion of the cell’s capacity to deliver your content, even if the guy right next to you is watching the same program. That unicast model and video’s intensive bandwidth demands explain why mobile video is such a network hog.

LTE-broadcast, however, would turn a portion of a network’s bandwidth into a multicast network, sending a single video or audio stream to multiple devices similar to the way TV and radio towers broadcast their programming.

If this all sounds familiar, you’re probably recalling Qualcomm’s FLO TV service of the last decade, which shut down in 2010 for lack of subscribers, devices and compelling content. Or perhaps the TV broadcasters’ own Dyle mobile digital TV initiative, which appears to be going nowhere very slowly. But there are some pretty key differences between those efforts and the LTE-broadcast technology that McAdam is talking about.

Qualcomm’s FLO technology required (and Dyle requires) a special receiver and therefore a dedicated TV handset to receive their respective transmissions. That pretty much doomed them from the beginning. But LTE-broadcast is based on the evolved Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service (eMBMS) technology being standardized for LTE. Chipmakers like Qualcomm have already committed to supporting eMBMS in their future radio silicon. That means future handsets will be pretty much eMBMS-ready whether carriers chose to use the technology or not.

eMBMS also uses the same LTE radio infrastructure, requiring only upgrades to the network core. So if a carrier decides to get into the broadcast business, the equipment is largely in place. The barriers to entry are much lower for LTE-broadcast, but there’s still one big question: will consumers actually use it?

The age of personalized multimedia

The problem is that an increasingly technically savvy public is moving away from broadcast models completely when it comes to digital content. Consumers are personalizing their radios with Pandora and Spotify. The reason HBO Go rocks is we don’t have to be at home a pre-determined hour –- or set our DVRs –- to watch the next episode of Game of Thrones. We just pull content out of the air whenever we please.

There are still plenty of people consuming broadcast video and audio on their TVs and car stereos, but on smartphones and tablets streaming is king. By imposing a broadcast model, carriers would be going against mobile data trends.

That’s why McAdam highlighted the Super Bowl as the ideal use case for LTE-broadcast. Blockbuster live events would attract hundreds of thousands of simultaneous viewers that would best make use of the technology. Verizon already streams entire NFL games through its NFL Mobile app, so being able to multicast those games would save it enormous amounts of network capacity — or so you might think.

There are a lot of cells out there

The thing about mobile networks is that they’re much denser than TV broadcast networks. Instead of using a single tower to cover a whole city, hundreds if not thousands of towers — each sporting multiple sectors — blanket any given metropolis with mobile broadband. Even if thousands of people in the same city are watching the same game on their phones, chances are few of them are going to be in the same cells at the same time. Multicasting effectively becomes unicasting if there is only one person receiving the transmission.

Nokia Siemens Networks’ conception of a heterogeneous network

What’s more, cells will start shrinking and multiplying as carriers begin deploying small cells and heterogeneous network (HetNet) architectures. The more cells in the networks, the less chance you’ll have users simultaneously streaming the same content in any given cell, unless you’re talking about big events. But playoff games and the State of the Union Addresses don’t occur everyday.

According to a new research report from iGR, carriers are weighing those factors, and some of them are leaning towards deploying LTE-broadcast selectively, targeting venues where people are most likely to stream the same content. Airports would be a good example, but so would a sports arena. Ticketholders might be watching the same games live, but they could all view the same replay videos simultaneously.

The iGR report also proposes that LTE-broadcast could turn our phones and tablets into mobile DVRs. We could subscribe to particular TV programs on apps like HBO Go. At set times, the LTE-broadcast network would schedule the download of various shows, beaming them down to thousands if not millions of devices simultaneously and caching them for later consumption. There’s nothing to prevent LTE-broadcast from being used for other types of media or data like digital magazines or device OS updates.

iGR projects that mobile video will account for 71 percent of mobile network data traffic in 2016. By utilizing LTE-broadcast, the study concludes, carriers could reduce capacity demand on their networks by 12.5 percent overall and by 15 percent at peak hours, the study found. The bottom line is unicast on-demand video will remain supreme, but a 15 percent capacity savings when the network needs it most is certainly nothing to scoff at.

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock user Peter Sobolev

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Though Legere and T-Mobile haven’t said explicitly which Apple device or devices the carrier would sell, the timing would put T-Mobile in line to retail the current-generation iPhone 5 a good four to five months before the smartphone is likely to be refreshed this fall. There’s also the off chance that T-Mobile might be a candidate for the rumored “cheap iPhone” Apple is supposedly developing.

Neville Ray, CTO, T-Mobile (c) 2012 Pinar Ozger pinar@pinarozger.com

What’s more, T-Mobile probably wouldn’t have to sell the iPhone as a mere 3G device as many international operators and smaller U.S. carriers are forced to do. T-Mobile CTO Neville Ray revealed at T-Mo’s big CES event that he would have a good portion of his LTE network online by mid-2013. Couple that with Ray’s rapidly accelerating HSPA+ network upgrade around the country, and T-Mobile will be able to support all of the iPhone 5’s connectivity capabilities in many of its markets at launch. Not bad for a carrier that couldn’t get anything more than a 2G signal to the iPhone just six months ago.

T-Mobile originally planned to launch LTE in the second half of this year, making it the last U.S. operator to deploy the latest generation mobile broadband technology. T-Mobile is still behind its primary competitors, but management has apparent lit a fire under Ray’s engineering team. At CES, Ray said T-Mo’s first LTE systems would go online in Las Vegas in the next few weeks, which would put him five months ahead of schedule.

The iPhone won’t be the only device benefiting from T-Mobile’s accelerated LTE plans. The Verge is reporting that T-Mobile will soon offer an LTE version of the Samsung’s popular Galaxy S III smartphone. Though The Verge didn’t name a launch date, the device could hit shelves well in advance of the actual LTE launch since T-Mobile could activate its LTE radios at any time with a simple over-the-air software update.

T-Mobile had a big CES. In addition to the LTE and iPhone revelations, T-Mobile made multiple updates to its technology and service plans.

• My colleague Kevin Tofel wrote about T-Mobile’s plans to take unlimited smartphone plans contract-free, answering one of T-Mobile customers’ biggest gripes. T-Mobile is moving to an unsubsidized model, meaning customers will either pay full freight for their devices, bring their own phones or buy them in installments. Since contracts are supposed to cover carriers’ upfront subsidy costs, enforcing contracts with no subsidy makes little sense. It will be interesting to see if T-Mobile moves away from contracts completely as it phases out subsidies this year.
• T-Mobile revealed its network is now high-definition-voice compatible, which means it can support a much higher call quality than current cellular voice systems. Three current devices – the Galaxy S III, the HTC One S and the Nokia Astound phone – will support the HD features, but there are also some big limitations to its initial appeal. As PC Mag’s Sascha Segan explains, HD calls will only work between T-Mobile devices that both have the HD client, and so far T-Mo’s technology is incompatible with any of the HD codecs other carriers are working on.
• In order to encourage devices other than smartphones onto is network, T-Mobile is offering 200 MB of free data each month for two years on select Windows 8 laptops. Called 4G Connect, the program could get really interesting if T-Mobile expands it tablets, providing a big incentive for consumers to buy 4G versions of the iPad and other slates.
• T-Mobile has upgraded its HSPA+ network to support iPhone frequencies in four more markets: Denver, Los Angeles, San Diego and Virginia Beach, Va. The network refarming is now complete in 46 cities covering 126 million people. The reconfiguration is key to T-Mobile supporting the iPhone’s data capabilities, and at its current pace should be largely complete at the iPhone’s launch.

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AT&T revealed at the show that it activated 10 million smartphones in the fourth quarter, mostly iPhones and Android devices. That figure bests its previous record set in Q4 of 2011 of 9.4 million smartphones sold. According to the carrier, it averaged 110,000 smartphone sales a day during the three-month period.

Verizon hasn’t released its gross smartphone activations, but at a Citi conference held in conjunction with CES Monday, Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam said the carrier racked up 2.1 million net new subscribers in Q4, FierceWireless reported. Adam added that 85 percent of the device smartphones sold in the quarter were smartphones, and that 23 percent of its subscriber base now uses an LTE device, up from 16 percent in the third quarter.

That big jump in 4G subscribers has a lot to do with the new LTE-enabled iPhone 5, which went on sale in September. In fact, both carriers saw huge boosts in iPhone sales leading into the holidays. According to research group Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, in the 12 weeks leading up Nov. 25, iOS phones accounted for 71.8 percent of AT&T’s smartphone activations and 55 percent of Verizon’s — big increases over the same period in 2011 when the iPhone 4S was released.

The iPhone is also doing well at the single U.S. nationwide operator that doesn’t yet sell it. At the same Citi conference on Tuesday, T-Mobile USA CEO John Legere said it is connecting 100,000 iPhones a month and it currently hosts 1.9 million Apple smartphones on its GSM and HSPA+ networks, TMoNews reported. Though T-Mo doesn’t offer the device to its customers, it’s actively encouraging consumers to bring their unlocked iPhones to its network.

Of course, T-Mobile is only connecting the same number of iPhones a month that AT&T sells in a day, but that should change once T-Mo starts selling the device directly later this year.

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock user Stanislav Komogorov

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The project is called Avicii x You, and on its website, you can listen to and download the basic chord progression for the song’s planned melody. Starting on Wednesday, the site will begin accepting submissions (the process is still a bit vague) for audio samples of a fully developed melody using the chord layout, pitch and key Avicii has indicated. Over the next two months, the site will begin accepting submissions for the song’s bassline, effects, rhythms and vocals. The finished single will be released as a single on Feb. 26, coinciding with the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

It’s not clear whether participants will have any say in the samples used for the various tracks or any other input on composition beyond their initial submissions. But it looks like Avicii will have the final say on the finished single. In that sense, the crowd isn’t so much composing the song as providing a huge repository of raw audio materials.

Ericsson is spearheading the project with the help of Avicii’s label Universal Music Sweden as part of its Networked Society initiative, which aims to discover new means for industries, institutions and people to interact through real-time broadband communications. According to Ericsson, the music industry has already embraced the digital network as a means of distributing music and connecting to fans. The project will explore whether the network can be used as means of producing music as well.

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textPlus, formerly known as Gogii, and FreedomPop have matching philosophies and business models, which the companies said made them an ideal fit for a partnership. Both have a baseline service that they offer free to customers: FreedomPop gives out 500 MB of free WiMAX data, while textPlus offers free in-network messaging and calling. Both start charging if you move beyond that core service: FreedomPop selling additional megabytes and textPlus phone calls to customers outside of its network.

It’s not quite clear exactly how the two will integrate their services when they launch this quarter, though FreedomPop said it would start offering the equivalent of monthly calling plans, the cheapest being free while the most expensive would be a $15 plan with unlimited texting and 1000 voice minutes.

FreedomPop is a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO), relying on Clearwire’s WiMAX network to provide 4G service. Unlike other mobile broadband MVNOs like Karma and NetZero, it isn’t just focusing on data modems and hotspots. It’s also selling a sleeve which fits over the iPhone 4 and 4S, replacing the devices’ standard 3G connectivity with its own 4G service. FreedomPop’s ultimate aim is to make its money by selling value-added services, not access itself. Voice and SMS are key components of that strategy.

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AT&T revealed it is exploring a universal mobile phone number, which can be detached from the phone and stuck in any device or app. On the connected home front, Ma Bell announced it was expanding its Digital Life home security and automation service beyond its initial two trial markets. In the U-Verse group, AT&T is also launching a new subscription video-on-demand service, which allows customers to stream movies and TV shows to their smartphones, tablets and PC browsers.

Let’s take them one at a time:

• The big news at AT&T’s Developer Summit was a new API which gives third party programmers and device makers access to AT&T’s most important customer asset: the phone number. By tapping into the API, developers can start tying IP voice, messaging and social networking platforms directly to AT&T phone numbers and extend a single number to multiple devices and applications. The API platform, which was developed over Voxeo Labs’ Tropo platform and rides over AT&T’s Ericsson-built IP Multimedia subsystem (IMS) services framework, is still just in beta, but it could wind up being one of AT&T’s most sought after APIs. If there is one login or network identifier that every mobile user has it’s a phone number.
• AT&T’s Digital Life connected home service will be available in eight markets in March and will roll out to more than 50 markets in 2013. The service is currently available in Dallas and Atlanta, but AT&T didn’t reveal the identity of the six new cities. AT&T has big ambitions for its smart home unit cementing together disparate connectivity areas ranging from climate control to the pet monitoring. To that end, Ma Bell and Cisco Systems announced a new home control panel, which connects those apps and their supporting hardware to the network.
• The new VOD service will be called Screen Pack, and it’s likely AT&T’s answer to Netflix and other on-demand streaming services. AT&T is charging $5 a month for the service, offering up unlimited streaming of “more than a thousand” movies on demand from the set-top box, a browser or from U-Verse smartphone and tablet apps.

CES is just getting started, so we may hear plenty more from AT&T as the week progresses, but don’t count on this year’s event as being a big phone-centric event. FierceWireless polled several analysts and insiders before the event, arriving at the conclusion that the mobile carriers and device vendors would focus more on the “mobile experience” rather than the mobile device. Given AT&T’s news today, Fierce appears to be on the mark.

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