Potential Mosaid Buyer WiLAN Sues Apple, HTC, Others Over Mobile Patents
Another day, another patent suit is hitting the courts. Today the Canada-based patent holder WiLAN has filed a suit in a U.S. court against… Read more at paidContent »
Bloomberg TV Takes New Shot At Comcast Over Channel Placement
Bloomberg TV is making a renewed push to fight its way out of the nosebleed section of Comcast’s channel line-up. Tired of being stuck at 10… Read more at paidContent »
OpenDNS and Google team to speed up the web
A few million Americans may find their YouTube requests get delivered faster on Tuesday as Google, OpenDNS, VeriSign and several content delivery networks announce Global Internet Speed Up effort. It’s another way to make content routing at the edge of the network smarter. Read more »
Subscriber Content
What’s so bad about being a dumb pipe?
There’s nothing flashy about broadband services, but that won’t stop many operators from making those services a core focus as time goes on. Due to growing consumer adoption and better profit margins than traditional video services’, high-speed Internet is likely to be the future of the ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Cable still beating out telcos in broadband adds
DSL is on the ropes, and cable companies are seeing their broadband subs rise, according to data from the second quarter. Leichtman Research Group also found that net broadband additions in the quarter were the second fewest of any quarter in the last ten years. Read more »
Why Hulu’s owners want to sell, and why they shouldn’t
After weeks of speculation, a sale of Hulu seems inevitable. But while bids from companies like Google, Amazon, Yahoo and DirecTV are expected Wednesday, there’s a compelling case to be made that Hulu’s owners and content partners might be better off not selling. Read more »
A deal for Clearwire could be a wireless tipping point
If the cable companies gain control of Clearwire the ISPs that control the wireline infrastructure in the country could be the same companies that control the wireless access, and their business models of delivering services, as opposed to access, will stay in place. Read more »
Patents, schmatents! Google + Motorola could change your home
Google’s planned buy of Motorola Mobility is about the patents and the war of mutual destruction in the mobile space. We get that, but it’s also about TV and carriers and the convergence of broadband, data and action in ways that change our lives. Read more »
Why Time Warner Cable is buying Insight for $3B
Time Warner Cable plans to buy Insight Communications, the nation’s ninth-largest cable company, in a deal worth $3 billion as the industry realizes it needs to streamline. The deal offers TWC greater scale as well as about $100 million in annual cost efficiencies. Read more »
Infographic: Netflix by the numbers
Netflix has a catalog of 51,000 movies and TV show episodes, which can be watched on more than 450 devices. Those numbers have helped Netflix to become the biggest video subscription service in the U.S. Check out our infographic for a success story in numbers. Read more »
Why 193,000 people stopped paying for TV last quarter
The pay TV industry shed at least 193,000 subscribers last quarter, based on public earnings results. While most were low-end subscribers that didn’t pay for HD, DVR or other value-added services, the industry faces a tipping point if it keeps focusing on ARPU above all else. Read more »
Verizon’s strike pits its past against its future
More than 45,000 Verizon workers are striking this morning. People are concerned about what the strike could mean for telecom equipment vendors, but a better question is how much will Verizon’s legacy employees drag down the company as it competes against more modern IT companies? Read more »
Clearwire’s LTE plans reinvent the mobile operator
Clearwire’s shift to LTE is not just a move away from WiMAX, but it cements Clearwire’s shift in strategy from being a retail operator to a wholesale provider – a change that has been coming for a while.What must it do to make this transition pay off? Read more »
Comcast adds 144K to bring broadband subs to 17.55 million
Comcast says it added 144,000 new broadband subscribers during the second quarter of 2011. Thanks to growing demand for higher-speed tiers, the company saw its revenues jump almost 10 percent to $2.2 billion for the quarter, thanks to 17.55 million broadband subscribers. Read more »
Comcast CEO: No business model for over-the-top video
More than most cable providers, Comcast could offer a streaming offering with its XfinityTV.com website and iPad app. But it has no plans to extend its products to customers outside its cable footprint, in part because there’s no money in it, according to CEO Brian Roberts. Read more »
Is TV Everywhere a carrot or a stick?
By implementing TV Everywhere–type authentication for broadcast content online, Fox is eliminating some of the friction that’s cropped up in its negotiations with cable and satellite providers. But it could also use access to online video as a way to drive ever-higher retransmission fees. Read more »
Breaking Bad now online — but only for cable subscribers
If you’ve missed the first two episodes of Breaking Bad: Full-length episodes have quietly been added to online video portals of Comcast and Dish Network. But to access those episodes you have to be a cable or satellite subscriber. Read more »
State of the Internet: What are the fastest cities in the world
Internet continues to grow bigger and bigger, thanks to growing number of Internet subscribers and Internet connected devices according to Akamai’s latest State of the Internet (for Q1, 2011) report. This expansion of the Internet is accompanied by steady growth in bandwidth and connection speeds. Read more »
Virgin in UK tries 1.5 Gbps broadband. That’s fast!
Virgin Media, a UK-based cable company, said that it has started delivering a 1.5 Gbps broadband connection on trial basis in a section of London known as Silicon Roundabout. The company describes it as the world’s fastest broadband connection. Read more »
Oh no he didn’t: AT&T’s CEO calls DSL obsolete
AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson spoke Tuesday at the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners summer meeting in Los Angeles, where he called DSL “obsolete.” Since AT&T still provides and profits from DSL, this is a surprising admission. Read more »
Feel bad about your broadband? Canada has it worse.
Shaw, a Canadian ISP said this week that its movies and on demand service would be exempt from its data caps. Such a move places Shaw’s upcoming Movie Club service at an advantage to a competitive movie streaming service such as Netflix. Read more »
Let’s talk about the broadband-cap gap
photo: Flickr user Ryan Franklin
The cautionary tales around broadband caps are trickling in and as I read them I wonder if amid these caps the web ecosystem is failing consumers (and maybe teleworkers) when it comes to broadband and cloud services.Here’s how and where things are breaking down. Read more »
Finding videos on connected TVs is personal
CE manufacturers are creating universal search applications to find content on across platforms. But the Holy Grail for content discovery will be a user interface that lets users find content they’re looking for, while also serve up a stream of videos relevant to their interests. Read more »
How Comcast makes its Skype integration look seamless
If regular users are going to start video chatting in the living room, it will need to be drop-dead simple to do. The good news for Comcast and Skype is that they seem to have succeeded in creating a pretty user-friendly solution. Read more »
NBC’s iPad app is a missed opportunity
NBC has introduced a new iPad app, giving viewers access to programming information and listings, pictures, games and promotional video clips from its shows. But the one thing that’s missing from the app is the one thing viewers will want the most: full-length TV episodes. Read more »
The Killing appears on Xfinity Online. Will more AMC shows follow?
A few episodes from popular AMC series The Killing have popped up on Comcast’s Xfinity TV service, which could mean that other shows, like Breaking Bad, The Walking Dead and hit Mad Men could follow when their new series begin. Read more »
Viacom and Time Warner Cable call truce in iPad fight
Viacom and Time Warner Cable have called a truce in their fight over streams of live TV on the iPad. With a standstill agreement approved by a New York federal court, they will be able to negotiate without having to worry about court deadlines or proceedings. Read more »
Today, security must be built from the inside out
The old days of securing information with virtual barbed-wire fences are over. Today, security aspects have to be incorporated into software applications from the ground floor to ensure safety. And whether an application is hosted in the cloud or on a native server is almost moot. Read more »
Hulu considers sale, but who’s the bidder?
Hulu has reportedly been approach by a company that wants to buy the video site, and is now evaluating its options. Little is known about the potential buyer, other than some people saying it isn’t Google. Which is why we’re asking: Who wants Hulu? Read more »
Your next set-top box could be the size of a deck of cards
We’re dreaming of a future where we don’t need a set-top box at all, and will be able to plug a TV in, connect it to our home network and it’ll just work. In the meantime, we’ll settle for Sigma Designs’ new self-installable thin client. Read more »
Revealed: Facebook’s music plans tap Spotify, others
Facebook has been talking to various music services with a focus on social sharing and discovery of music. In this exclusive report, we share some of Facebook’s plans and features. Expect these announcements at its annual developer conference, likely to be held in August. Read more »
Did the cloud just kill the set-top box?
Comcast CEO Brian Roberts showed off the company’s new user interface today. But more important than the improved search, personalization and social features are how they’re delivered: using a cloud-based model, Comcast will be able to accelerate innovation and add features more quickly and easily. Read more »
Comcast shows off 1 Gbps broadband
Comcast CEO Brian Roberts showed off the next-generation cable broadband technology, which could deliver data at over 1 gigabit per second to our homes. Roberts showed a live 11-mile cable network, touting it as the future of wireline broadband. Read more »
FCC’s Genachowski on broadband, retrans and TV apps
In a phone interview with FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, we chatted about how he hopes to narrow the broadband adoption gap, why broadcasters and distributors should play nice in their retransmission negotiations and why AllVid is still important for the future of TV applications. Read more »
Comcast likely to show off gigabit cable broadband
Comcast will show off a 1 gigabit per second connection on Thursday at The Cable Show in Chicago according to reports. An industry blog reports the nation’s top broadband provider would show off the gigabit connection and launch a symmetrical 100 Mbps speed tier. Read more »
Time Warner’s Bewkes: ‘This is not the music industry’
Despite worries over competition from over-the-top video services and the possibility of cord cutting, Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes said the cable industry was doing better than ever. That said, the industry still needs to work together to meet consumer demand for new services. Read more »
Who are we kidding? Of course it’s Netflix vs. cable.
Netflix execs may insist publicly that they’re no threat to cable, but there’s plenty of evidence that the company’s subscription service and pay TV offerings are squarely competing for the eye balls and subscription dollars of the very same audience. In other words: It’s on! Read more »
The broadband smart energy home grows stronger
Who needs smart meters when you’ve got broadband? Two announcements last week — EcoFactor’s energy-saving data and Comcast’s Xfinity Home Security launch — raise that question. If the broadband channel to home energy takes off, it could leave smart meter–dependent home energy startups in the dust. Read more »
Comcast bringing Skype video chat into the living room
Comcast has partnered with Skype to bring its video chat service to subscriber living rooms. With an adapter box and HD video camera, Comcast subscribers will soon be able to video chat with any other Skype users from the comfort of their living rooms. Read more »
Forget fiber; cable shows off 4.5 Gbps speeds
The cable business isn’t going to cede its share of the broadband market by waiting around for coaxial cable to become obsolete, and now cable providers won’t have to make an expensive transition to a fiber-to-the-home infrastructure to achieve gigabit networks. Read more »
