Communications Technology

Everyone here at Broadband Reports wishes you a happy, safe and respectful long holiday weekend.read comment(s)

Google wants to connect the developing world with wireless gigaom.com Dish, nTelos to Develop Fixed-Mobile Broadband Service foxbusiness.com Fight over TV streaming heats up as broadcasters file new lawsuit in Washington DC paidcontent.org AT&T has fastest LTE service, Sprint not so much... techhive.com The sale of (anonymous) wireless users' location and behavior is already big business fiercewireless.com Android s Market Share Is Literally A Joke techpinions.com DirecTV, Time Warner, Yahoo all bidding for Hulu allthingsd.com Internet caf s declared 'illegal businesses' in Ohio theregister.co.uk New Xbox could doom second-hand games market theregister.co.uk Comcast hiking limited basic fees by 9% in Oregon fiercecable.com

Last summer Verizon introduced their new shared data plans for contract customers, which provide users with unlimited text and voice, but imposed low caps and steep overages on data and per device connection fees to make up for it. A little less than a year later and Verizon now says that about one third of their postpaid customers now use the shared data plans -- or about 30% of the company's 93.2 million postpaid contract customers. Verizon's CFO Fran Shammo this month stated Verizon is absolutely thrilled with the plans, since they nudge users to connect more devices, and thereby use more overall data:Reiterating what he has said at previous investor conferences, Shammo noted that as more people adopt shared data plans, in general they add more devices, such as mobile hotspots and tablets. Then, he said, more consumers will use more data, which will generate more revenue for Verizon Wirelesses, since Share Everything plans are built around usage-based pricing for LTE data.Shared data plans and AT&T and Verizon's quiet war on unlimited wireless data plans have had their critics, who worry that the usage allotments will shrink as the overage fees soar. However, a J.D. Power and Associates study from earlier this year suggested that shared data customers are actually more satisfied -- in part because that, for now, they're saving money over previous plans.read comment(s)

Leading Global Experts to Address Latest Advances in Technologies at IEEE ICC 2013 June 9-13 in Budapest,...

France was one of the first countries to impose laws that require ISPs terminate the service of users who repeatedly engage in copyright infringement. Under the rules, copyright offenders were tracked by a newly-created taxpayer-funded agency dubbed Hadopi and a hired company named Trident Media Guard (TMG). Hadopi then works with ISPs to obtain personal information and send out warning letters or kick people off the Internet. The program hasn't really slowed piracy, and the collected data was the target of a hack attack. Hadopi was supported by ex-President Nicolas Sarkozy, but new French President Francois Hollande made it a campaign promise to eliminate the three strikes program. As part of that promise Hollande assigned an ex-entertainment industry executive named Pierre Lescure to study Hadopi. The results of that study are out, and while it suggests three strikes be killed off, several bad ideas will remain, including user fines and a piracy tax on smartphones and tablets:Hadopi the agency would be done away with, but another agency would pick up some of the responsibilities, it's just that they'd greatly decrease the "punishment" aspect. Rather than losing internet access and having to pay up to 1,500, you'd keep your access and fines would be topped at 60. But, on top of that, there are other policies that Lescure suggests that seem pretty bad as well, including extending the copyright levy (the "you must be a criminal tax") to cover smartphones, tablets and any other connected device.There's of course nothing requiring the government enact any of the reports recommendations. However, it's very clear that three strikes' shelf life appears to be limited -- as is the entertainment industry's long push to have repeat copyright offenders kicked off of the Internet.read comment(s)

Back in April we noted that AT&T was imposing a new $0.61 "Mobility Administrative Fee" on all postpaid wireless subscriber bills. According to AT&T's website, the sneaky fee "helps defray certain expenses AT&T incurs," though like AT&T's equally nonsensical "regulatory recovery fee," those expenses should be included in the cost of doing business, and not buried beneath the line. Few apparently read our report, and as a result only this week did the press finally notice the fee. "Below-the-line fees are nothing more than a way for carriers to stealthily increase their prices," Free Press's Derek Turner tells the Wall Street Journal. "AT&T's administrative fees are no different than the hundreds of other components that go into the cost of doing business," he said. I've been arguing for several years now that regulators should act to prohibit these kinds of fees, given they're effectively false advertising. Advertise one price, then sock consumers with a much higher price by burying ordinary costs of doing business below the line. It's predatory anti-consumer behavior however you'd like to slice it, yet telecom regulators simply couldn't care less. That regulatory apathy comes at a steep price for consumers collectively. While only $0.61 per person each month, it should net AT&T some $500 million in additional cash annually. In other words, AT&T will take an additional $2.5 billion from consumers over the next five years for doing absolutely nothing. read comment(s)

A research laboratory has been launched by BT and Intel to develop networking technologies and smart city capabilities.

Leap Wireless' Cricket brand this week launched what they're calling "Half is More" pricing, which the company claims offers users "unlimited plans for half the price of the competition." According to a Leap/Cricket press release, the company's new $45 Offering provides unlimited text, voice and data services. However, the company rather buries the fact that by "unlimited" they mean around 1 GB, after which you're throttled back to dial-up era speeds for the remainder of the month. "Cricket is challenging consumers and asking the question that if you can pay only half and get the same thing, why wouldn't you?" the company asks. Perhaps because you historically abuse the hell out of the word "unlimited"?read comment(s)

The latest report (pdf) from the American Consumer Satisfaction Index highlights that consumer satisfaction with cable TV services remains among the worst in any industry -- and broadband ISP service satisfaction is even worse. While some companies made small strides, they haven't been enough. Pay TV and ISPs are ranked on par with or worse than most airlines (never a good thing), and well below the rankings seen by banks and government organizations like the Postal Service and IRS. The pay TV industry's average score of 68 (out of 100) is helped slightly by Verizon FiOS (who saw a slight drop to 73 likely due to price hikes), but continues to be dragged down by the likes of Comcast and Time Warner Cable. Despite seeing a 3% bump in customer satisfaction year over year, Comcast's score of 63 still sits near the bottom of the industry. Time Warner Cable meanwhile saw a 5% drop in satisfaction, and is the worst of the bunch with a score of 60. Broadband ISPs, notes the ACSI, do "not deliver on any aspect of customer service in any particular fashion." For the first time ever the folks at the ACSI rank broadband service providers, and the results aren't encouraging. The broadband ISP overall average ranking sits at 65, lower even than the historically dismal pay TV segment, and "the lowest among all industries in the index." Broadband ISPs, notes the ACSI, do "not deliver on any aspect of customer service in any particular fashion." For ISPs, Verizon FiOS tops the rankings with an overall score of 71. From there it's all downhill, with ISPs like Cox (68), AT&T U-Verse (65), Charter (65), CenturyLink (64), Time Warner Cable (63), and Comcast (62) all vying for the worst performance crown. The study attributes high costs and significant continuing connection speed and reliability issues for the dismal rankings. read comment(s)

The Wall Street Journal this week seemed rather surprised to learn that wireless carriers are now happily selling user location data for additional profit. According to the Journal, "carriers are coming to see subscribers as sources of data that can be mined for profit, a practice more common among providers of free online services like Google Inc. and Facebook Inc." As we've noted for some time, this data is purchased by everyone from marketers to city planners, but is generally not as private as carriers claim. As the Journal notes, the data also provides governments with an additional treasure trove of data to hoover up (or for hackers to acquire), and there continues to be no real consumer privacy protections in place to protect users. Tune in tomorrow when the Journal learns that pay TV and broadband services in the Unites States are expensive.read comment(s)