Kevin Martins Four Fall Priorities for Cable - Focus on a la carte prior to presidential elections (1)
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DSLreports - front page (33)
9 hours, 22 minutes
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Kevin Martin could be leaving his position as head of the FCC within a couple of months depending upon the outcome of the presidential election. If Obama wins, Martin is expected to almost immediately give his position over to one of the FCC s democrats. If McCain wins, there will be some wiggle room in terms of how long he sticks around but he doesn t want to take his chances on covering some major ...
Qwest Brings a Knife To a Utah Gun Fight - After years of fighting FTTH projects, launches ADSL2+.... (1)
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DSLreports - front page (33)
1 day, 8 hours
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For years, Qwest has sent lawyers after communities who, unhappy with Qwest service, wanted to deploy their own broadband. The baby bell has been particularly aggressive in the state of Utah, where the telco sued the Utopia FTTH project in an effort to prevent them from using regional utility poles. The suit resulted a costly eighteen month delay in deployment of the wholesale service, which, through resellers like XMission, MStar and even AT&T, offers state ...
New Dell Netbook Has Integrated 3G - Though it wasn't announced as deals are still being worked on... (1)
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1 day, 10 hours
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The other day, Dell CEO Michael Dell predicted that wireless carriers would start subsidizing sub-$500 netbooks in an effort to sell more 3G wireless broadband connections. What he didn't mention is that Dell's new Inspiron Mini 9 comes ready for that future, with an integrated 3G card that wasn't mentioned in the initial release. Apparently, the feature wasn't announced because Dell hasn't sealed the deal with wireless provider partners yet, though an announcement should arrive ...
AT&T Lowers U-Verse Voice Prices - 'Unlimited' from $40 to $30, 'Voice 1000' from $30 to $25 (1)
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DSLreports - front page (33)
2 days, 8 hours
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As previously noted, there's a lot of movement on the AT&T VoIP front lately, with the company's decision to stop taking new CallVantage customers indicating that there's a new BYOB VoIP product on the horizon for vanilla DSL (non-U-Verse) customers. As for U-Verse voice customers, there's some good news for those of who who've never been particularly impressed with the product's price point. With AT&T's launch of U-Verse Voice service in Northeastern Illinois this week, ...
Infected Botnet PCs Quadruple In 90 Days - It's getting easier to keep compromised machines under control? (1)
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4 days, 8 hours
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The Register and a post over at the SANS Internet Storm Center points to new data that suggests the number of infected zombie botnet machines has quadrupled in the last ninety days. "I imagine that the bad guys have gotten better about keeping machines owned," suggests John Bambenek, who also says the spike coincides with an increase in SQL injection attacks against webservers. According to the post, malware honeypot detection and analysis techniques have been ...
Microsoft Says Google Is Years Behind on Privacy - Draws attention as IE8 enters new beta (2)
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1 week
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Microsoft executive Peter Cullen says that Google might have some great products but that they are about ten years behind Microsoft in terms of protecting people s privacy online. One cited example is the problem that Google has had with Street Views capturing photos of people that they don t want online, a problem Google has dismissed by saying that anyone could take those same pictures and put them on the Internet. Cullen says that ...
Qualcomm Fined For Violating Chips Injunction - Broadcom chips used in Sprint's Q-chat violate court order (1)
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1 week
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After a long series of lawsuits between Qualcomm and Broadcom last year, it was determined that Qualcomm was in violation of patents when using certain chipsets and an injunction was issued. A court has found that Qualcomm has been violating that injunction and has ordered Qualcomm to make a payment to Broadcom for profits lost. The violation is for the use of the chipsets in the company s Q-chat walkie-talkie feature used by Sprint Nextel. ...
AT&T Busted For Fine Print Trickery - Court says mouse print banning class action participation 'unconscionable' (1)
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DSLreports - front page (33)
1 week, 1 day
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Over the past few years a growing number of wireless and broadband ISPs (AT&T, Comcast, Verizon and T-Mobile come to mind) have been trying to erode your legal rights via fine print. By burying legalese in your contract, carriers attempt to prevent you from participating in class action lawsuits. Instead of allowing you your day in court, the companies require that customers participate in mandatory binding arbitration (an outside the court settlement system where you ...
AT&T Source Provides iPhone Glitch Technical Specifics - Firmware will fix things, but only if all users update... (2)
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1 week, 1 day
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Ah, sweet anonymous sources. If it weren't for you, American consumers would be forever trapped in a candyland unreality of rosy service perfection, where service problems are forever denied by bubbly PR agents and ignored by ridiculously overpaid executives. An anonymous source from AT&T speaks to Roughly drafted about the 3G iPhone coverage issues, AT&T's network, and Apple's recent attempt to fix things with a firmware upgrade. It's starting to look like things can be ...
Comcast 250GB Cap Goes Live October 1 - Official word should drop sometime today.... (10)
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1 week, 2 days
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Back in May I broke the news that in addition to throttling back high-consumption users to "DSL like speeds," Comcast was considering implementing a 250GB monthly cap as part of their shift toward "protocol agnostic" network management. Despite consumer grumbling, that plan is in fact now moving forward. Sources tell me that Comcast will officially announce that they're implementing this new system starting October first.Originally, the source indicated Comcast was considering charging $15 for each ...
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Rob said:
Sad news. There needs to be more competition.
TiVo Downplays Threat of Networked DVR - As if you expected they'd do anything else? (1)
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1 week, 2 days
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A few years ago, cable operators were very eager to eliminate the DVR, replacing it with a DVR-esque system that would store content at the ISP network head end. Unfortunately, the entertainment industry, fearing a loss of control as usual, took them to court. This resulted in several popular network DVR trials at both Cablevision and Time Warner Cable getting scrapped. But with Cablevision's recent court win on this front it appears the network DVR ...
Comcast 250GB Monthly Cap Goes Live October 1 - Official word should drop sometime today.... (4)
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DSLreports - front page (33)
1 week, 2 days
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Back in May I broke the news that in addition to throttling back high-consumption users to "DSL like speeds," Comcast was considering implementing a 250GB monthly cap as part of their shift toward "protocol agnostic" network management. Despite consumer grumbling, that plan is in fact now moving forward. Sources tell me that Comcast will officially announce today that they'll be implementing this new system starting October first. Originally, the source indicated Comcast was considering charging ...
iPhone Glitches May Be AT&T's Problem After All... - New tests indicate that the hardware itself is performing just fine.... (2)
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DSLreports - front page (33)
1 week, 2 days
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A few weeks ago, a Wall Street analyst raised a ruckus by claiming the iPhone contained a faulty chip from Infineon, which was causing 3G connectivity problems he claimed wouldn't be firmware upgradeable. Last week however, researchers in Sweden conducted tests showing that the iPhone's reception was just fine. Obviously, users impacted by the problems wanted more definitive data, so they offered their troubled phones for testing, and again the researchers found no physical hardware ...
Verizon Giving Refunds For Ungrounded FiOS Installs - As part of plan to deal with New York State install complaints... (1)
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1 week, 2 days
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Last week I noted that Verizon was quietly revisiting every single one of their FiOS installations in New York State after the State PSC found that a number of installs weren't properly grounded and/or bonded. Light Reading editor Phil Harvey e-mails me to note they have more information on the problems and some photo examples of improperly grounded ONTs (optical network terminals). Verizon is apparently giving customers a refund should it be found their install ...
AT&T Thanks Democrats For Telecom Immunity - In private party in Denver crashed by Salon.com... (2)
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DSLreports - front page (33)
1 week, 4 days
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There's a slew of private corporate-sponsored parties occurring at this week's Democratic National Convention in Denver, one of which was hosted by AT&T. AT&T is surely eager to thank Democrats for recently getting them off the hook for handing over American phone and data records to the NSA without a warrant. The move saved AT&T from billions in legal penalties, as it kills lawsuits from the likes of 22-year AT&T employee turned whistle blower Mark ...
AT&T Revamps International iPhone Data Plans - For the second time in less than a year... (1)
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1 week, 4 days
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It appears that AT&T has yet again revamped their international data plan prices for the iPhone. In a plan unveiled last November, customers shelled out $24.99 for 20MB or $59.99 for 50MB when traveling in 67 AT&T-approved countries. Starting Wednesday, AT&T users can add (and drop) two new international traveling plans to their current plan at any time: 100MB for $120, and 200MB for $200. "AT&T has worked diligently to provide affordable options for international ...
Dish First To Be All MPEG-4 - 'Nonny nonny,' says satellite operator (1)
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1 week, 4 days
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Dish Network is tooting their own horn this morning by announcing they're the first company in the pay-TV industry (in the U.S., anyway) to transmit all standard and high definition programming in the MPEG-4 Advanced Video Coding Standard. New customers living in 21 markets in the eastern half of the United States will be the first to get the all MPEG-4 service, with new markets arriving "in the coming months." The MPEG-4 compression standard uses ...
Mapping the iPhone's Global Network Performance - Different networks, different results...go figure... (1)
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1 week, 5 days
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Wired News recently conducted an iPhone user survey of network quality and rather unsurprisingly found that the quality of your 3G connection varies greatly by the country you're in and the network you're on. They also found that some of the recent problems with 3G iPhone connectivity should be blamed on the networks -- not the phone. Some interesting bits from Wired's report:• European T-Mobile users reported the fastest 3G Download Speeds: 1,822 Kbps on ...
VP Candidate Is Pro-RIAA, Anti-Privacy - Biden's tech history doesn't align with Obama's beliefs (1)
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1 week, 6 days
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Barack Obama has named Joe Biden as the Democratic vice presidential candidate. CNET offers an interesting article reviewing Biden s tech history and showing that his legislative past is filled with pro-RIAA, anti-privacy moves that are in direct contrast to the sentiments that Obama has expressed. Biden has backed bills that expand copyright law and urged the Justice Department to use taxpayers money to monitor and prosecute illegal filesharing. He is a friend not only ...
Web-Connected Cars Could Be The Death Of Us - Chrysler's new service sparks safety concerns among drivers (3)
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1 week, 6 days
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Tomorrow marks the day that Chrysler is about to begin offering in-car Wi-Fi and people are expressing strong concerns about what this means for safety on the road. While Chrysler says turning your car into a Wi-Fi hot spot is really just meant as an extra form of entertainment for kids in the back seat, some believe that drivers won t be able to resist the temptation to surf the web while they re supposed ...
