Best Broadband

South Korea, Japan lead in broadband quality study yahoo.com
Botnets Tighten Their Grip on the Broadband Infrastructure gigaom.com
Why Do Rural Telcos Ignore Wireless? xchangemag.com
Where is My Wireless Revolution? pcmag.com
iPhone Rules Mobile Web; Android and webOS Pick Up Steam gigaom.com
Survey: 23% Of Internet Users Would Pay For ‘TV Everywhere’ multichannel.com
House Committee Pushing P2P File Sharing Bill multichannel.com
Researchers ready $30 fuel cell mobile phone recharger networkworld.com
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Back in January Verizon unveiled the “Verizon Hub,” a multi-function unit built by Open Peak that integrated VoIP, mobile phone service, and a slew of features into a single touch screen broadband device. At the time, Verizon crowed that the unit’s launch was “a dynamic move sure to rattle devotees of plain old home phones.” Apparently, not so much. According to gadgeteer Dave Zatz Verizon today announced the death of the Hub, and Verizon was apparently part of the reason the unit didn’t sell well:

Not only was the Hub’s pricing unappealing, but early reviews of the unit also noted that most of the unit’s features came with restrictions or caveats, like only being able to send text messages to Verizon phones, and a calendar and contact system that couldn’t sync with either your phone or cloud services. Verizon has a habit of shooting usefulness in the foot (see their femtocell that saves Verizon tower capacity, yet mysteriously eats voice minutes).

In addition to being expensive and packed with limitations engineered by Verizon, the Hub of course also came with Verizon’s proud history of billing and support issues free in the box. Verizon also didn’t appear to know what niche the device filled either, the Hub being way too pricey for a regular family facing a recession, and not really needed by higher-end customers who get all the intended functionality via desktops, laptops and smartphones.
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Just a few days after Cox bumped speeds in some of their more competitive markets, a Cox employee has stopped by our forums to indicate that the carrier has clarified their usage caps. With the FCC (and State Attorneys General) increasingly demanding network limitation transparency with consumers, the Cox website now not only lists concrete usage limits for all tiers, but the various top speeds they provision in each Cox market (which is usually dictated by the level of competition they’re facing).

According to the Cox website, their top “Premier” offering comes with top speeds ranging from 15-25 Mbps, with a 250 GB monthly (combined up/down) usage cap. Their “Preferred” package comes with speeds ranging from 9-15 Mbps, with a 200 GB monthly usage cap. The company’s “Essential” and “Value” tiers, which come with 1.5 Mbps and 3 Mbps download speeds respectively, both sport 50 GB monthly caps.

Keep in mind, Cox employs what are called “soft” caps, which may or may not be enforced depending on the level of congestion in your local market. Also note that according to Cox, many of these caps have actually increased. The 50 GB down and upstream cap on Cox’s value tier, for instance, used to be 4 GB down and 1 GB up. If you click the Cox link above, you’ll also note their faster 25-50 Mbps DOCSIS 3.0 tiers come with a fairly massive 400 GB monthly limit. That’s the kind of headroom you’d be hard pressed to find even the heaviest of users complaining about.

If you’ve been here long enough, you’ll recall that Cox was criticized by users for sending out warning letters in 2002 targeting specifics users for excessive consumption — without telling users what an actual limit was. After similar user complains caught the eye of regulators, Cox started being a little clearer about what they defined as “gluttony.” Note there’s no indication that Cox is interested in imposing metered overages (yet), though Cox is one of the only major ISPs we know of that will boot customers from the network for piracy.

One remaining problem is like Comcast, who imposes a 250 GB per month cap on all tiers, Cox doesn’t offer users a tool to track their bandwidth consumption. “We hope to have a customer facing utilization tool up and running in the future but no such tool is available from us at this point,” says Cox.
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Just a few days after Cox bumped speeds in some of their more competitive markets, a Cox employee has stopped by our forums to indicate that the carrier has clarified their usage caps. With the FCC (and State Attorneys General) increasingly demanding network limitation transparency with consumers, the Cox website now not only lists concrete usage limits for all tiers, but the various top speeds they provision in each Cox market (which is usually dictated by the level of competition they’re facing).

According to the Cox website, their top “Premier” offering comes with top speeds ranging from 15-25 Mbps, with a 250 GB monthly (combined up/down) usage cap. Their “Preferred” package comes with speeds ranging from 9-15 Mbps, with a 200 GB monthly usage cap. The company’s “Essential” and “Value” tiers, which come with 1.5 Mbps and 3 Mbps download speeds respectively, both sport 50 GB monthly caps.

Keep in mind, Cox employs what are called “soft” caps, which may or may not be enforced depending on the level of congestion in your local market. Also note that according to Cox, many of these caps have actually increased. The 50 GB down and upstream cap on Cox’s value tier, for instance, used to be 4 GB down and 1 GB up.

If you’ve been here long enough, you’ll recall that Cox was criticized by users for sending out warning letters in 2002 targeting specifics users for excessive consumption — without telling users what an actual limit was. After similar user complains caught the eye of regulators, Cox started being a little clearer about what they defined as “gluttony.” Note there’s no indication that Cox is interested in imposing metered overages (yet), though Cox is one of the only major ISPs we know of that will boot customers from the network for piracy.

One remaining problem is like Comcast, who imposes a 250 GB per month cap on all tiers, Cox doesn’t offer users a tool to track their bandwidth consumption. “We hope to have a customer facing utilization tool up and running in the future but no such tool is available from us at this point,” says Cox.
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Back in March a company by the name of OnLive unveiled their new broadband gaming service, which aims to replace the traditional game console with what’s essentially a broadband-connected dumb terminal. Under the system, which has been proposed in various forums for years now, major title games are completely streamed over your broadband connection — for a monthly subscription fee.

Initial demonstrations were on closed networks, and of course everyone wants to see this service in the real world — where the company admits you’ll need to live within 1,000 miles of a data center. For Standard-Definition gaming, OnLive says it needs a 1.5 Mbps connection. For HDTV resolution (720p60), at least 5 Mbps is required.

Earlier this month the company announced they’d entered open beta, and today the company unveiled they’ve received a third round of funding from a group of companies, including AT&T. It might be the biggest video-game related funding boost this year, and AT&T’s instance instantly infuses Onlive with more credibility. At least in the business world — nobody knows if this service will work as advertised yet.

Of course AT&T’s investment is ironic, given they’re testing metered billing in two markets, imposing caps between 5-40GB with overages between $1-$1.50 per gig. It’s not out of the question that a heavy Onlive HD gamer could blow through a thousand gigabytes a month. As such, you can look at AT&T’s caps in two ways: a great way to capitalize on the bandwidth explosion as more data-intensive apps come to market, or a great way to cripple innovation as customers worry about having to take out second mortgages to play Team Fortress 2.
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Most consumers are completely clueless about their online privacy. For example, ISPs have quietly been selling your browsing data without your consent for years without anybody bothering to notice&#46 Even during the recent stink over behavioral advertising — which most consumers also know nothing about — people remained oblivious to clickstream sales. Your data sold entirely without your consent or knowledge. No problem?

As with most things, a consumer’s tendency to be annoyed is directly proportional to how informed they are. Not too surprisingly, a new study from the Universities of Pennsylvania and California, Berkeley finds that once consumers are educated on the width and depth of today’s online privacy practices, they overwhelmingly oppose this kind of tracking. From the new survey, one of the first done via the phone by someone other than a corporation:

Of course this deflates the claims of ISPs and marketers, who continually insist that consumers are just itching for the kind of tailored advertising provided by tracking your online usage. Worse perhaps for carriers is the study’s finding that the vast majority of consumers support a slate of new privacy laws — including laws that would force ISPs and marketers to delete consumer info if requested, laws that would give consumers the right to know everything a website knows about them, and laws requiring immediate deletion of web browsing activity.

As usual carriers, marketers and lobbyists are way out ahead of this belated privacy awakening by consumers and legislators, given it could cost them billions. Companies have been working overtime in DC trying to convince lawmakers than privacy laws aren’t necessary because the industry can police itself for wrong doing. Verizon, for instance, insists that no consumer privacy protections are necessary because public shame will keep Verizon honest.

Consumers — at least the informed ones — apparently think otherwise.
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A research firm called the CFI Group has released a new Smartphone Satisfaction Survey that claims the iPhone isn’t helping AT&T when it comes to customer service. The group finds no correlation between customer satisfaction with their smart phone and their satisfaction with their carriers, finding that the iPhone ranked tops for satisfaction (83 out of 100) out of all smartphones, while AT&T ranked last in customer satisfaction among all wireless carriers. Raise your hand if you’re particularly surprised?

Not only is the iPhone not helping, but it may be hurting. As customers who switch to AT&T to get the iPhone experience the company’s well-discussed congestion and connectivity problems, they’re dragging down AT&T’s overall score. In fact, the CFI Group says that customers who switched to AT&T to get the iPhone ranked AT&T lower (64) than those who were already with the carrier (72). As we’ve noted though, despite AT&T’s problems, the carrier has the lowest “churn” (customer defection) rate in the industry.

AT&T subsequently locks these disgruntled customers into long term contracts with early termination fees, allowing AT&T executives to delude themselves into thinking customers are sticking around because they’re happy. Brand loyalty and exclusive contracts also play a role; loyal Apple customers stick with AT&T because they have no choice, which in essence is rewarding AT&T for poor customer service and network performance.

Meanwhile Verizon, which had the highest customer service score (79), has its own problems. While 86% of the survey’s smartphone users said Verizon was their “ideal carrier,” only 38% of Verizon smartphone customers say their current phone is their ideal smartphone. That’s the lowest percentage of any provider, and reflects criticism in recent weeks that Verizon fails to offer particularly compelling smartphones. Of course while AT&T’s problem might make Verizon seem like the ideal carrier, Verizon might have struggled with iPhone capacity demand as well.

“The iPhone has been a cash cow for AT&T, but that cash comes at a cost in terms of overall satisfaction. In effect, switchers can be satisfaction saboteurs if they were not already inclined to choose AT&T,” said CFI’s Doug Helmreich. “As for Verizon, the scales may tip if customers continue to demand smartphones that the company fails to supply. Then again, will its network hold up if it adds network-heavy smartphones? For now, its an apples to oranges comparison.”
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Laptop Magazine has taken a look at the customer support service for the four largest mobile carriers, finding that T-Mobile offered the best service while AT&T offered the worst. The magazine’s testers found their experiences in the T-Mobile, Verizon and Sprint stores to be positive, with employees actually knowing how to solve problems. T-Mobile and Sprint also got positive marks for their phone and Internet support. Their AT&T experience however was not great:

The tests are hardly conclusive however, as the magazine says they visited just two stores per carrier and only in New York City. Given customer support can be different from store to store much less city to city you’d need, oh, only about five thousand additional tests in a hundred additional cities to make Laptop Magazine’s survey worthwhile.
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Could Netflix Take Down Cable? wired.com
Captain Obvious FCC: Internet Speeds Much Slower than Claimed maximumpc.com
Customers don t want laptops, they want mobile broadband for Christmas, says T-Mobile broadbandgenie.co.uk
CTIA Wants More Spectrum multichannel.com
BPI Continues To Make Things Up When It Comes To ISPs And File Sharing techdirt.com
Vonage regains NYSE list status northjersey.com
Palm stuffs up during upgrade theinquirer.net
First Motorola Android phone will cost $199.99 totaltele.com
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Several new products made a splash at the Intel Developers Forum, but Intel’s latest unveiling set tongues wagging. The TV set-top device called "Sodaville" will feature an Atom microprocessor and will allow users to integrate web content and social networking services with their television viewing experience. The announcement was made with no small pomp and circumstance, and Sodaville was introduced by LeVar Burton, the actor who portrayed Geordi LaForge on "Star Trek: The Next Generation."

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