Britain’s severely delayed 4G auction came a step closer with confirmation that the bidding for mobile spectrum will finally open up. But with regulators suggesting it won’t happen until early next year, UK consumers won’t see any real LTE service until well into 2013. Read more »
In a surprise move, the National Cable and Telecommunication Association used the results of today’s FCC report on broadband quality to congratulate cable … and to acuse Google and Netflix of slowing down the user experience. Here’s what’s behind its crazy claims. Read more »
I demand a lot from my broadband connection. But I was surprised to see my family uses 125 gigabytes of data a month. And that got me wondering. How much do my parents use? My friends? The little old lady down the street? Read more »
When it comes to speeds Cablevision and Verizon FiOS are the most likely to deliver better than advertised download speeds while any provider offering DSL — AT&T, Frontier, Windstream and CenturyLink– struggle to deliver on their promises. A new FCC report looks at how well ISPs perform. Read more »
The discussion of wired and wireless broadband often resembles a holy war. Devotees of each camp are adamant that theirs is the only true religion in the national effort to get broadband everywhere it needs to be. But they will have to work together. Read more »
A coalition of submarine cable operators is balking at a proposal that would end their exemption from contributing to the Universal Service Fund, a pool of money intended to improve access to telecommunications across America. Read more »
Verizon filed its 116-page suit to appeal the network neutrality regulations enacted by the FCC. The suit has a glossary, 53 pages of legal argument, inflammatory prose on regulating the Internet and even the FCC trampling ISPs’ first amendment rights, but Verizon may prevail. Read more »
TheFCC has settled with Comcast over charges that the cable company made it hard for consumers to find stand-alone broadband packages that don’t cost an arm and leg. As part of the settlement Comcast paid the U.S. Treasury $800,000. Read more »
The Supreme Court chose to keep the country in suspense today over its momentous health care ruling, and instead issued a decision confirming that the FCC was wrong to sanction Fox over brief f-bombs by Cher and Nicole Richie. Read more at paidContent »
It’s tough for the phone business and data released this week from the FCC indicate that it’s not just people abandoning their wireline phones that are helping kill the copper-based voice biz, but also VoIP providers. Read more »
The Department of Justice is looking into the power that cable providers have over how and where consumers can access television content via the Internet. It’s a step that acknowledges the vertical integration of cable as well as their control over the last mile. Read more »
If Google thought its StreetView data collection controversy was over, it can think again. The UK’s data watchdog is re-opening its investigation, maddened that it apparently wasn’t told the full story earlier. Read more »
In its attempts to kill Verizon’s mega-spectrum deal with the cable operators, T-Mobile has begun challenging Verizon’s claims that it is the most efficient user of mobile spectrum in the country. But T-Mo is countering Verizon’s fuzzy math with equally fuzzy math of its own. Read more »
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski reiterated his acceptance of broadband data caps and tiered pricing at The Cable Show. That’s fine, but it would be awesome if he started asking questions about how those caps are set and what impact they have on consumer behavior. Read more »
Comcast, once again, has some explaining to do. An engineer has conducted experiments that he says show the nation’s largest broadband provider is prioritizing traffic– something it’s not supposed to do under the conditions the government imposed when the cable company bought NBC-Universal. Read more »
LightSquared’s bankruptcy is the conclusion of a process that is rigged against broadband competition. Maybe it would have failed for economic reasons, but before it got the chance it fell victim to politics, spectrum warfare, and interests that don’t want more wireless competition. Read more »
We’re at a flashpoint in the evolution of television, and the battle lines are becoming more clear. What’s also becoming clear is that Comcast is playing to win. Here are seven things the nation’s largest cable company is doing to keep its pay TV customers. Read more »
Performing a few mental calculations during his keynote at CTIA Wireless on Tuesday, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski quickly concluded that the same amount of mobile spectrum existed today as existed before the government slapped down AT&T-Mo. So where did this capacity crisis suddenly come from? Read more »
Sen. Al Franken has penned a letter to the FCC and the Department of Justice accusing the agencies of letting Comcast walk all over them when it comes to the conditions they imposed on the cable company when it purchased NBC-Universal. Read more »
While there has been much outrage about Google “snooping” user data over Wi-Fi, even the FCC says this behavior wasn’t illegal, since the networks in question were public. Is this a sign that the laws around privacy are broken, or is the Streetview furor an overreaction? Read more »
The number of junk text messages in the U.S. reportedly rose to 4.5 billion last year. This can create a nasty choice for consumers — pay to be spammed or pay protection money to a carrier. Read more »
Congress, along with many in the content industry, are wondering about the fate of television in an Internet Age. I think the future is broadband, and I’d like to offer this chart from Sandvine, showing that the future is already here. Read more »
Smartphone sales surged both in the U.S. and worldwide, carriers struggled to cope with the ever-increasing consumption of mobile data, and the fight for spectrum remained front and center in the first quarter. Our latest quarterly wrap-up analyzes these trends and more. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam is pitching a form of integrated wireless and wireline cable TV offering if the government approves its plans to buy $4 billion worth of spectrum from a variety of cable companies. But his plans don’t make sense as business or for consumers. Read more »
After Wednesdays’ passage of a bill aimed at reforming the FCC, I realized it could serve as a good example to show technologists and entrepreneurs how DC works. Since DC is clearly getting more interested in regulation technology this might come in handy. Read more »
Go ahead, add Wi-Fi to your toaster. Or Bluetooth to your shoes, because the FCC has relaxed some rules that make using unlicensed airwaves in the PCS band a little easier. And that makes it cheaper to add that frequency band to our wireless gear. Read more »
Are fewer competitors better for mobile broadband customers? Yes, according to a new study, which seemingly ignores trends in mobile network architecture that intended to address the capacity crunch the author’s see, thus undermining the assumptions on which the theory is based. Read more »
Verizon has claimed that it will start running out of mobile broadband capacity as soon as 2013 unless it gets its hands on the cable operators’ unused spectrum. But the FCC has some questions about the math Verizon used to reach that conclusion. Read more »
Like some hideous policy monster that won’t go away, network neutrality will hit headlines again. Verizon and Metro PCS, the two operators that sued the FCC last year over its rules forbidding ISPs from discriminating against traffic on their networks, won a victory on Thursday. Read more »
Google, Aereo and Boxee are shifting the focus of OTT video from catch-up TV and on-demand movie titles that make up much of the Hulu and Netflix libraries to live TV content. If their efforts are successful, they will pose a far greater threat to the ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
After a year of LightSquared fighting GPS industry and government agencies over whether its network would interfere with GPS receivers, the Federal Communications Commission dropped the hammer Tuesday evening, saying it would revoke the would-be carrier’s terrestrial network waiver. Read more »
The Netflix streaming app is now available on over 800 different devices, which is nearly double the number of devices that the app was on only six months ago. Yet for all that growth, Netflix is suddenly looking vulnerable in mobile video as new competitors with ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Boxee isn’t just marketing its live TV tuner as an alternative to cable; it is also fighting with cable companies about having access to their programming. The reason? Cable companies want to encrypt their basic cable tier, which Boxee and other CE makers oppose. Read more »
Report after report points to AT&T marrying Dish Network after Ma Bell’s forced break up with T-Mobile, but given the companies’ increasing belligerence, you wouldn’t think that was the case. What we’re witnessing here is some very cynical pre-nuptial gamesmanship. Read more »
With its executive reshuffling this week AT&T returned to a structure that more accurately reflects where its businesses are heading. The wireless juggernaut that drives most of AT&T’s revenues in now firmly in the hands of former consumer CEO Ralph de la Vega. Read more »
The AT&T-Mo saga wasted countless dollars and resources, dominating the attention of regulators and the wireless industry for a year, but AT&T’s failure more than made up for those losses. We now have more fearsome regulation and a greater awareness of the mobile market’s precarious competitive state. Read more »
Comcast claims it tried but failed to build a wireless business multiple times before it sold out to Verizon. Assuming Comcast is being honest, its failure has big implications for U.S. mobile competition. If Comcast can’t make wireless work, what hope is there for a newcomer? Read more »
PNT ExComm, the federal agency overseeing the national GPS satellite network, has concluded that any LTE network LightSquared would build, no matter how much it scales back its transmission power, would interfere with GPS devices nationwide. LightSquared’s hopes of building its network are quickly dwindling. Read more »
The Supreme Court will hear today whether the FCC can punish broadcast networks for airing one-off cuss words and an actress’s derriere. The… Read more at paidContent »
Sprint has given its partner LightSquared 30 days to get regulators to green-light the launch of its controversial 4G service, but it may not be enough. If Sprint pulls out of the network-sharing deal, LightSquared’s costs multiply, almost certainly killing its rollout plans. Read more »
