A resurgent housing market and stronger economy, along with our growing need for speed and connectivity is the reason why demand for US broadband is booming. Here are some numbers to give you an idea as to who is winning and who is losing. Read more »
TV broadcasters and programmers must embrace a new set of video-delivery techniques to reach consumers today. Online delivery to so many types of consumer devices means that video programmers must produce multiple internet-streaming formats that use different types of security and different ways of inserting ads. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
The purpose of the on-screen guide has shifted. By connecting the guide to content-recommendation engines and advertising platforms, service providers and connected-TV device manufacturers are using the EPG as an access point for understanding consumers and reaching out to them to own the living room. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
The Justice Department is giving Verizon clearance to close its $3.9 billion acquisition of the cable companies’ 4G airwaves. While it is imposing conditions on their joint-marketing agreements — basically non-compete pacts — to resell each others wireline and wireless services, the concessions are relatively minor. Read more »
The decline of DSL in the US has life tough for the phone companies – who in total lost 70,000 subscribers during the second quarter of 2012. Winner: cable companies in general and Comcast in specific as 260,000 new folks signed up for broadband in the US. 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 »
Verizon’s newly launched 300 Mbps-tier is expensive. What’s amazing here isn’t the price, but the audience for high speed broadband. Verizon expects roughly 70 percent of FiOS customers to take speeds of 50 Mbps or higher — the top-of-the-line speeds four years ago. Read more »
The slow death march of DSL continues!. Last week, Verizon reported a loss of about 89,000 DSL connections, but increased demand for faster FiOS Internet. Today, numbers from AT&T follow the same trend. Read more »
Long-haul networks aren’t the only pipes getting 100 gigabit upgrades these days. On Tuesday Verizon said it is upgrading the metro networks in at least seven U.S. cities to meet the demand for broadband at the edge. Looks like we’re closing in on the terabit age. Read more »
Last week, Verizon announced a $3.6 billion deal to buy wireless spectrum from cable operators and resell their pay-TV services. This week,… Read more at paidContent »
Verizon’s blockbuster deal with the major cable operators has made casualties of its future residential broadband expansion plans and its partnership with DirecTV. Verizon is wasting little time in embracing its rivals Comcast and Time Warner and overturning the competitive dynamics of the residential broadband industry. Read more »
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 »
Verizon is unbundling its data plans from its video offering, providing a more flexible offering to its customers. By doing so, the telco enables its customers to pick and choose the data plans they want without them being tied to a certain number of video channels. Read more »
Kansas City may not be alone in getting gigabit broadband. In Google’s blog today, it said: “We’ll also be looking closely at ways to bring ultra high-speed Internet to other cities across the country.” Sounds like Google isn’t finished yet. And that’s a good thing. Read more »
Verizon is today enhancing online management functions to give customers a single portal for checking email, managing account information and remotely programming a FiOS DVR from a web-connected computer or mobile phone. The portal brings advanced account functionality to feature phones that don’t support mobile applications. Read more »
Verizon’s FiOS Digital Voice was always digital, but relied on central switches to route phone calls. Now the product uses Session Internet Protocols and softswitches in the home to privately manage calls on Verizon’s network which increases QoS while also reducing costs for Verizon. Read more »
Some 80 percent of respondents don’t know the actual broadband speed to their homes, an FCC broadband survey finds. To educate and gather more data, the agency is looking for 10,000 volunteers to use a hardware box for speed testing. Will you join the broadband army? Read more »
Comcast-NBC Deal Lets FCC Seek Web-TV Concessions; U.S. regulators may use their veto power over Comcast Corp.’s planned purchase of NBC Universal to demand concessions that help Web startups. (Bloomberg) FiOS To Offer YouTube, Net Radio; Verizon’s FiOS TV service has signed new deals that, it […] Read more »
Why Hulu Will—And Should—Charge For Hulu Plus; When Hulu finally announces its subscription plans, it will have a small but critical window of opportunity to explain itself to the market. If it gets the details of the plan right, it will succeed. (paidContent) Vudu Starts Offering […] Read more »
Kids, stay in school! At least if you’re at NYU’s IPT program, that is, because its students can actually get credits for developing apps for Boxee, as NYU’s Shawn Van Every told the audience of the TV of Tomorrow Show in San Francisco today. The school […] Read more »
BBC Signals an End to Era of Expansion; The BBC will close two radio stations, shut half its website and cut spending heavily on imported American programmes in an overhaul of services to be announced next month. (Times Online) Did Chatroulette Just Launch the Interactive Video […] Read more »
Android-based phone owners that are also Verizon FIOS customers now have access to a free app that enables remote control of the service. In the meantime, Nexus One owners may have a fix for the 3G connectivity problems that’s been plaguing so many of them. Read more »
Yesterday I called my dad on my cell phone (neither of us have landlines) to tell him about something his granddaughter did, and a few minutes into the conversation he asked if I were near my computer. If I was, couldn’t we Skype instead? In my […] Read more »
Verizon Chief Technology Officer Dick Lynch said today that in the coming years, wired broadband will likely be sold in packages based on the amount of data a person wants to consume, much like wireless broadband is sold today. In comments made to press at the […] Read more »
[qi:gigaom_icon_fttx] Time Warner Cable today finally launched its super high-speed wideband consumer and business Internet service in New York. It’s been a long time coming, for as we’ve noted before, Time Warner Cable is a laggard when compared to other cable providers. The company has already […] Read more »
Last week my cable went out. Most of my channels simply had the on-screen message “One Moment Please.” I called Comcast, navigated menus of phone tree options, and waited for a service rep. And waited. And waited. When the rep finally came on, they remotely reset […] Read more »
Being a FiOS subscriber, I was excited a week back when I’d heard the telco TV provider’s widget bazaar featuring Facebook and Twitter for the TV had gone live. As an analyst covering the migration of social media from the web to the mobile screen, I’ve […] Read more »
Twice in the last week, I’ve received images of broadband speed tests from my colleagues that show how fast their networks are, especially on the upload side. I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of envy when I checked out Kevin’s symmetrical 20 Mbps FiOS connection […] Read more »
A Comparison of Legal Terms from Different Hosting Services; what rights do you give up when posting to services like blip, Flickr or Dailymotion? (Advancing Usability) Report: Adobe’s DVRCast Launching Within a Week; product makes live video events instantly available on-demand, so you don’t have to […] Read more »
Breakthroughs in digital media technologies have converted media consumers from spectators into participants. This transformation has impacted all aspects of the media value chain, from content creation through delivery to the consumer experience itself. The interactive nature of the broadband Internet has set high consumer expectations ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
After a slow start, IPTV, or Internet Protocol Television, has become established as a legitimate pay TV alternative to satellite and cable. Now that several IPTV operators have each attracted more than 2 million subscribers, IPTV has begun to attract the attention of media companies and ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Cox has launched its DOCSIS 3.0-based broadband service in Northern Virginia. The service, which offers 50-Megabit-per-second (Mbps) downloads and 5 Mbps uploads and comes with PowerBoost, will cost $139.99 per month. In comparison, Cablevision is charging $100 a month for 101 Mbps service in parts of […] Read more »
Cablevision, the Bethpage, N.Y.-based cable and Internet service provider, has continued its tradition of being a cable industry innovator by introducing 100-megabits-per-second service in Long Island. The service, dubbed Optimum Online Ultra, utilizes DOCSIS 3.0 technology to deliver the ultra-broadband experience over cable’s wires and comes […] Read more »
Watch Subtle Watchmen Ads Through Innovid; video ad placement company changes up posters hung in the background of Kyle Piccolo — Comic Shop Therapist depending on who is watching ad what placements have been seen. (Ad Age) Kutiman Makes Ultimate YouTube Jam Band; Israeli musician blend […] Read more »
Ustream is reportedly going up against Qik, Kyte and Flixwagon with the creation of a mobile vid-casting application, writes Mobile Crunch. We contacted Ustream for confirmation but only got back an email saying, “We don’t have a comment on mobile at this time.” The big differentiator […] Read more »
Comedy Central Orders Secret Girlfriend Pilot; Freemantle Media’s first-person web show features hot girls talking to the camera; pilot will run just 11 minutes. (Broadcasting & Cable) CenturyTel to Buy Sprint Spin-off Embarq; deal worth $11.6 billion, combined company would have 400,000 video subscribers. (DSLReports) TV […] Read more »
Verizon recently launched its FiOS TV and fiber-based broadband service in New York City, The New York Times is taking stock of the service, which seems to be doing well. Verizon’s $23 billion investment into FiOS wasn’t viewed kindly, and Wall Street viewed AT&T’s cheaper U-Verse […] Read more »
Verizon will start selling FiOS TV in New York City on Monday. The announcement will be made at a glitzy ceremony at the Grand Central Station, and will be webcast as well. NYC had granted Verizon a television franchise in May, and the franchise was confirmed […] Read more »
Verizon is beta testing web video on its set-top boxes, according to a post this week by Dave Zatz. Initial partners include YouTube, Veoh, Blip.tv and Break.com. According to Zatz, rather than pulling content from YouTube’s H.264 servers the way TiVo and Panasonic do, Verizon is […] Read more »