Posts Tagged ‘Verizon’

Mobile TV Is Dicey in Europe, Too

Stacey Higginbotham | Thursday, September 11, 2008 | 8:04 AM PT | 8 comments

Figuring out how to get wireless subscribers to watch and pay for over-the-air television on their mobiles is a problem in the U.S., and apparently it isn’t doing well in Europe either. But instead of asking if people actually want to watch broadcast TV on their mobiles (or would rather just stream it from the web), Europeans are questioning whether they chose the correct technical standard.

Today Italian wireless provider 3 Italia has said it is expanding its three-year-old mobile television offering with more equipment from Alcatel-Lucent that uses the DVB-H technical standard for mobile broadcast. This only caught my eye because an EETimes article earlier this week pointed out that failed DVB-H launches in Germany could throw the entire DVB-H standard into doubt on the continent:

“France will be the final litmus test for DVB-H,” predicted Alon Ironi, CEO & president at Siano Mobile. “If it doesn’t make it big time there, I am not sure of DVB-H’s future.” Siano (Netanya, Israel) is a supplier of multimode mobile TVchips that include DVB-H, DVB-T and China’s CMMB.

I suppose 3 Italia’s 8 million mostly youthful entertainment driven subscribers aren’t enough to prove DVB-H works. Here in the U.S. the de facto standard is Qualcomm’s MediaFLO technology, which AT&T and Verizon are using.  When AT&T chose MediaFLO in early 2007, that was the nail in the coffin for DVB-H in the U.S. and prompted the U.S. DVB-H provider to shut down. But given that mobile TV still isn’t bringing in a large audience in Europe or the U.S., questioning the technical standard might not solve the problem. Perhaps carriers should ask themselves if people want mobile TV at all.

Verizon, Your Hypocrisy is Showing

Stacey Higginbotham | Wednesday, September 10, 2008 | 1:17 PM PT | 6 comments

I happened across a post on Verizon’s Policy Blog this afternoon and had to chuckle. The entire post is an effort to refute statistics used by organizations that claim the U.S. is falling behind in speed or has really pricey broadband compared with other nations. We all know that statistics can lie, but this particular diatribe is hilarious coming from a company that has stood in the way of collecting meaningful broadband data for years, most recently by suggesting the government pay a nonprofit to collect it. From the Verizon post:

The statistics cited regarding broadband speed, penetration and pricing are confusing, often compare apples and oranges, and in most cases don’t measure really important factors such as who is deploying next generation technologies most rapidly. Mark Twain had a very earthy saying about statistics - “There are lies, damn lies, and statistics”. He meant this as a humorous observation about how easy it is to assume numbers are always right. But it is not the numbers per se but rather how they are used and how comparisons are made that is key.

So while the post knocks the numbers and reports available, Verizon, AT&T and other carriers know the penetration, costs and speeds of most of the broadband users in the nation — and continue to fight giving out those numbers. So, to Mark Twain’s “earthy” aphorism I would add, yes, there are lies, damned lies and spin.

FCC Gives Telcos Free Pass on Accountability

Om Malik | Monday, September 8, 2008 | 10:30 AM PT | 6 comments

A new rule would allow phone companies to not report the data on customer complaints and network outages. Continue »

Big Growth In US 3G:

comScore says that the United States has caught up with Western Europe in the adoption of 3G with 28.4 percent of American mobile subscribers having 3G devices versus 28.3% in the largest countries in Europe. That works out to about 64.2 million devices - up 80% from last year. When it comes to 3G penetration are Italy and Spain lead U.S. The growth in 3G penetration comes at a time when the data revenues are growing at a rapid clip for the mobile carriers.

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Where to Get the Cheapest Mobile Data Plans

Stacey Higginbotham | Wednesday, September 3, 2008 | 12:11 PM PT | 24 comments

Updated: We’ve talked about how popular wireless broadband is for a growing spectrum of the population. I personally would give up my iPod before my 3G USB modem. But how much bandwidth can you really get? DSL Reports recently noted that Canadian wireless provider Telus is backtracking on its original unlimited wireless broadband plan and capping users at 1GB for $65. That has some rural users in a tizzy since they use it for their home network. I’d be in a tizzy too, since I use my modem whenever I travel or visit coffee shops rather than pay for Wi-Fi.

In the U.S., Sprint started enforcing a 5 GB data cap on unlimited plans in May; since few people reached those caps the wider consumer market hasn’t protested. But with the iPhone, reasonably priced 3G data plans and the carrier focus on increasing data usage, how long before consumers believe 5GB isn’t enough? Continue »

Broadband Price Wars Could Hurt Consumers

Stacey Higginbotham | Tuesday, September 2, 2008 | 10:03 AM PT | 7 comments

Today the Wall Street Journal drills into another aspect of the maturing broadband market: price wars. But instead of being good for consumers, in the end these may actually end up hurting them — by enticing them into capped services from cable providers or tying them to plans with early termination fees.

With fewer new customers signing up with DSL or cable providers, we’ve tracked the side effects of maturity such as negative advertising and the boosts in speed offered to prospective customers. To illustrate the expected price wars, the WSJ cites price cuts from Verizon and pricing guarantees from AT&T, the nation’s two largest DSL providers, and assumes cable companies will respond. The cable guys had pretty much won the war when it came to attracting new broadband subscribers, partly because they can advertise faster speeds, and because the newer high-speed services from the phone companies are cannibalizing DSL sales.

This is a price war that will be played out among the average user of “garden variety broadband services,” as the WSJ calls it. My guess is these are the folks using what Comcast cites as the average 2 GB or 3 GB per month, rather than those of you taking the 250 GB challenge in response to the caps some cable companies are implementing on their user base. In Time Warner’s case, the caps will likely benefit from price wars as a way to sign up customers under the new capped plans for lower prices. I noticed Verizon’s offer also contains an early termination fee. Both of which mean that in this price war, some consumers will lose.

image courtesy of Verizon

Don’t Like Apple’s iPhone? Check Out the Touchscreen Phones of These 3 Companies

James Kendrick | Sunday, August 31, 2008 | 6:00 AM PT | 19 comments

Three touch screen phones that you can try if you don’t like iPhone. Continue »

Memo To Comcast: Show Us the Meter for Metered Broadband

Om Malik | Thursday, August 28, 2008 | 11:37 PM PT | 64 comments

Comcast is out defending its bandwidth caps and how they are not bad. And how 250 GB transfer is plenty and enough to do whatever we want to do. Of course, in today’s terms that is more than enough, but what happens in the future? Nevertheless, if they are going to put caps, then they need to give us what I think is an acceptable expectation: a meter.

Metered billing needs a meter we can see, use and monitor any time we desire to do so. Water and electric utilities provide that meter (regardless of whether we use it or not), so why not Comcast?

If a customer surpasses 250 GB and is one of the top users of the service for a second time within a six-month timeframe, his or her service will be subject to termination for one year. After the one year period expires, the customer may resume service by subscribing to a service plan appropriate to his or her needs.

Figure out a way to tell us what our monthly usage is, and let us know if we are running up against a 250 GB cap, so that we know when to stop and not pay overage. I want to know at every single minute how much bandwidth I have used.

Continue »

For Qwest, FTTN Not An Option, Necessity

Om Malik | Monday, August 25, 2008 | 12:04 PM PT | 4 comments

Larry Dignan, who writes at the Between The lines blog, talked to Qwest CTO Pieter Poll about company’s future plans including fiber-based broadband. Unlike Verizon, Qwest has opted for fiber-to-the-node strategy. The company is pushing fiber to a point where it can feed 350 homes using VDSL2 over copper.

Some highlights from the conversation and my take on why faster broadband isn’t just an option but a necessity for the company below the fold. Continue »

Cox, CableCos Show Their Wireless Hand

Om Malik | Sunday, August 24, 2008 | 10:05 AM PT | 2 comments

The all-out war between telephone companies and cable companies is now going to be fought on a whole new front: wireless. Last week, Cox confirmed that it was getting into the wireless business, joining cable industry peers. Patrick Esser, president at Cox, revealed wireless at the Progress and Freedom Foundation conference in Aspen, Colo.:

“I won’t divulge too many secrets here, but we’ll focus on providing simple calling plans, integrating all our services into one device with a consistent cross-platform interface; and making our content and applications mobile.” (via PC Mag)

Here is a quick rundown of cable’s wireless plans so far:

  • Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Brighthouse Networks backing the Clearwire-Sprint’s WiMAX venture.
  • Cox Wireless doing it alone.
  • Comcast recently hired Dave Williams, former CTO of O2, to head up Comcast Wireless.
  • Cablevision: no plans.
  • Charter Communications’ owner Paul Allen’s Vulcan Spectrum acquired 700 Mhz spectrum.
  • Bend Broadband of Oregon also snagged a 700 MHz Block B license.

Earlier this year we reported that Cox had started working on a wireless network using some of its newly acquired 700 MHz frequencies. Cox spent around $304 million to acquire 14 Block A and eight Block B licenses as part of the recently concluded 700 spectrum auctions. Chinese equipment maker Huawei is going to supply CDMA gear for a wireless network. Huawei is making gear that works on CDMA and LTE networks.

Phone companies have to be fretting: They are competing in the traditional land-line and broadband business and losing to the cable guys. Now cable companies want to go after their cash-cow wireless operations.

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