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Time Warner Cable 50 Mbps Arrives in Buffalo, Dallas - Expect a flurry of market announcements shortly...

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 10:57:14 EDT -

As we recently noted, Time Warner Cable is a little behind in terms of DOCSIS 3.0 cable upgrades, and has sold faster 50 Mbps broadband service to just 2,000 users in parts of New York City. However, the company is poised for a fairly quick push into a number of additional markets over the next few weeks. One Time Warner Cable employee familiar with the plans tells Broadband Reports that Time Warner Cable signed up their first DOCSIS 3.0 customer in Buffalo, New York today.

Other markets should be launching in quick succession, so expect a wave of official announcements either this week or next.

Another supposed live-but-unannounced market is Dallas, where users in our forums are the first to note that the service is up and running, and should be live for everyone in the market by the nineteenth of this month (aka late next week). Users interested in the fastest speeds these upgrades offer will of course need to upgrade to a new DOCSIS 3.0-compliant modem.

Users in upgraded markets can sign up for a new 30 Mbps downstream 5 Mbps upstream tier that costs $25 over Time Warner Cable's standard plan (which can vary in price and speed by market depending on competition). Users also have the choice of signing up for a 50 Mbps downstream 5 Mbps upstream tier for $99 a month. That's less expensive than Verizon's 50 Mbps FiOS tier, which costs $140 bundled, or $145 standalone. That $99 price tag is the same for Time Warner Cable whether you bundle additional services or not.

Regional promotional pages have been popping up in Time Warner Cable markets the company plans to upgrade. The carrier has long stated that these upgrades will be "surgical" in nature -- which when translated means markets where Time Warner Cable sees competition from Verizon FiOS or AT&T U-Verse (and that's roughly about a third of Time Warner Cable's market). Those interested should take a look at Time Warner Cable's Wideband FAQ.
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FCC Will Release Broadband Plan One Day Early - Next Tuesday, March 16, at 10:30 EST

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 09:27:47 EDT -

According to an FCC announcement (pdf), the FCC will officially unveil our first ever national broadband plan at an FCC meeting next Tuesday, March 16, at 10:30 EST. That's one day earlier than the plan was supposed to be unveiled before Congress, though technically it's about a month behind its originally-scheduled unveiling date. The plan is expected to put a heavy emphasis on delivering more spectrum to incumbent wireless carriers, the construction of a national wireless emergency network and "digital literacy" efforts. However, early glimpses indicate the plan does little to shake up a stagnant U.S. duopoly market or to seriously tackle limited competition and high prices.

ACTA Faces Huge Setback In Europe - EU Parliament votes 663 to 13 against

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 08:58:26 EDT -

The entertainment industry's efforts to impose U.S.-style DMCA copyright law on the globe (and push ISPs toward being network content nannies) has suffered a bit of a setback. EU Parliamant has voted overwhelmingly against the ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) to the tune of 663 to 13. According to the EU the agreement, hashed out largely in secret between the entertainment industry and world governments, "flouts agreed EU laws on counterfeiting and piracy online." One EU lawmaker put his disdain of the entertainment industry's end-around this way:

"This Parliament will not sit back silently while the fundamental rights of millions of citizens are being negotiated away behind closed doors. We oppose any "legislation laundering" on an international level of what would be very difficult to get through most national legislatures or the European Parliament," added Lambrinidis.

The past few weeks have seen a strong push in the European Parliament to have ACTA negotiations made more transparent, and to ensure that the rules don't force ISPs to impose "three strikes" rules that would require they boot copyright infringers from their networks.
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Wednesday Morning Links -

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 08:25:16 EDT -

The FCC's Misguided Spectrum Quest wsj.com
Google, Yahoo, Ebay, UK's largest ISP's all agree: UK Internet law 'threatens free speech' ft.com
Verizon sees Wi-Fi-only iPad as opportunity to sell 3G data plans appleinsider.com
Fiber firm unplugs from Palo Alto, blaming power outages mercurynews.com
NFL punts Sprint, signs with Verizon as official wireless partner bizjournals.com
EU Politicians Get Serious Demanding ACTA Transparency And No Three Strikes techdirt.com
Vodafone ships malware infested mobiles theinquirer.net
White House Cyber Security Guy: There Is No Cyberwar - Just Espionage techdirt.com

Cable Companies Petition FCC for Help in Fee Dispute - Suddenly government regulation is apparently ok...

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 08:24:31 EDT -

Most major carriers spend a lot of time complaining about regulation in the telecom sector being akin to puppy murder -- unless of course that regulation can be applied to the other guy. With that in mind, Verizon, Time Warner Cable and Cablevision have petitioned the FCC to step in and do something about the kind of retransmission fee disputes that resulted in Cablevision customers almost missing the Oscars (gasp) over the weekend. Time Warner Cable issued a statement saying they wanted the FCC to impose restrictions ensuring that consumers don't lose channels during these disputes:

Time Warner said it would ask the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to "address skyrocketing consumer costs by establishing a new framework for resolving retransmission consent disputes and ensuring that consumers are not caught in the middle. "Specifically, we plan to ask the FCC to consider arbitration and forcing continuation of carriage during a dispute."

Of course during Time Warner Cable's recent dispute with Fox over the network's desire for a new per-subscriber fee, Time Warner Cable seemed more than willing to "get tough" against broadcasters, even if that meant consumers losing access to channels. As we've been exploring, neither side in these disputes are faultless, and the end result of these disputes winds up being higher TV rates for consumers -- no matter which company "wins."

Verizon, Cablevision and Time Warner Cable have some consumer advocate support in their effort to get the FCC to act. Consumer advocacy firm Public Knowledge issued a statement urging the FCC or Congress to "examine the current retransmission consent process and consider whether the system needs adjustments to ensure that viewers are not disenfranchised." Something tells us they're a little late.
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The NFL Dumps Sprint, Prefers Verizon's Huge Bag Of Money - Verizon now the exclusive wireless carrier of the NFL...

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 08:20:19 EDT -

The NFL loves their exclusive arrangements and the huge bags of money these make, be it with Electronic Arts (who is the sole publisher of video games allowed to use the NFL brand), or DirecTV (who pays a billion a year to be the sole TV carrier of out of market NFL games). For a while the NFL liked Sprint, who has been paying the NFL about $100 million a year to stream NFL games wirelessly and be the NFL's official wireless carrier. Now the NFL loves Verizon, who just ponied up $720 million to take Sprint's place. Sprint spokeswoman Melinda Tiemeyer tells the Kansas City Business Journal that Sprint chose not to extend the sponsorship because the cost "reached a point where we questioned the return on our investment." Verizon apparently had no such worries.
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Tuesday Evening Links -

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 19:09:09 EDT -

Speakeasy CEO talks VoIP success networkworld.com
Comcast: ITV Ready For 50 Networks Later This Year; Targets 100% Deployment of EBIF in Motorola Footprint by Midyear multichannel.com
FCC Plan Asks for Govt.-Funded Broadband Training yahoo.com
Apple s Draconian Secret iPhone Developer Agreement Goes Public wired.com
Smartphone app botnet experiment blows up a storm theregister.co.uk
New Internet Explorer code-execution attacks go wild theregister.co.uk
It's official: Adobe Reader is world's most-exploited app theregister.co.uk
Windows 7 SP1 will be brought forward theinquirer.net
Iowa House OKs Cell Phone Ban for Young Drivers wirelessweek.com
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FCC Hopes To Use Some Spectrum For 'Free or Cheap' Wireless - But you might want to see if they can fix the USF first...

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 17:45:35 EDT -

The FCC has begun their sales pitch for the nation's first national broadband plan ahead of its formal unveiling next week. As we've been discussing, we haven't been too impressed by the plan's failure to tackle competition, or its tendency to make proclamations that sound good but are rather empty upon closer inspection. The FCC is back today making headlines about how the agency hopes to help the estimated 100 million Americans without broadband by offering "free or low cost wireless plans" according to Reuters:

U.S. regulators may dedicate spectrum to free wireless Internet service for some Americans to increase affordable broadband service nationwide, the Federal Communications Commission said on Tuesday. . . One way of making broadband more affordable is to "consider use of spectrum for a free or a very low cost wireless broadband service," the FCC said in a statement.

Looking at the actual FCC statement (pdf) however, there's no real explanation of how exactly the agency hopes to do this. The statement also suggests that the FCC will "consider" such a plan, not neccessarily that they'll implement it. With spectrum obviously a limited resource, clearly the FCC's thinking about some kind of subsidy package to the nation's telcos if they provide cheaper service. Of course the FCC already plans to subsidize carriers as they examine "reforming" the long broken USF system.

That reform, according to several people familiar with the plan, could involve a new monthly fee on broadband connections used to expand the plan to cover residential broadband (right now it covers only rural phone service, and broadband provided to schools). We're told the fee is slated to be somewhere around $1 a month per person, but could be higher when the final plan is unveiled. However, "free or low cast wireless service" seems like a long shot.

Reforming the USF is a very complex and difficult task in and of itself, given the fund (and the e-Rate program) has a bit of a history as a poorly supervised mess, according to GAO studies. $25 billion has been dumped into e-Rate alone since 1998, though the FCC for many years didn't track where it went. That means that maybe that money helped, or maybe it didn't. Maybe it just found its way into the pocket of a phone company, or maybe it helped buy a high school PC in Pensacola, Florida.

One thing we know is that AT&T and Verizon have been lobbying Uncle Sam very hard for several years to ensure they get a bigger chunk of the USF pie. From the looks of things they're going to get it to the tune of several billion per major incumbent annually, according to one plan source. Getting more money for incumbents will be the primary goal. Maybe consumers will see that money put to use in tangible ways like "free or cheap" wireless service -- but maybe they won't.
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Illinois Next Up To Approve Verizon/Frontier Deal - Though Judge's report finds the deal isn't good for consumers or Frontier

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 16:06:49 EDT -

According to a new 46 page Illinois study by a state Judge, Verizon's proposed sale of their networks in Illinois would harm consumers. The $8.5 billion deal immediately infuses Frontier, which has 2.3 million customers, with 4.8 million new residential and small-business phone lines and 1 million broadband connections. Such a huge influx of new customers will restrict Frontier's ability to offer low-price, quality service -- and to raise funds for upgrades, improvements and expansion:

Lisa Tapia said in the 46-page report that allowing Frontier to purchase the Verizon lines in Illinois "will diminish Frontier s ability to perform its duties to provide adequate, reliable, efficient, safe and least-cost public utility service." She also concluded the acquisition also could hurt Frontier s ability to raise capital by taking on the additional financial obligations. Opponents and supporters filed hundreds of pages of testimony prior to release of the recommendation.

Unions and consumer advocates continue to protest the deal, given the debt and huge influx of support issues will likely put broadband expansion and upgrades on the back burner. Of course the alternative (having Verizon stay in markets it doesn't want to upgrade) isn't particularly compelling either. Despite repeated warnings and studies within regulatory agencies showing the negative impact of the deal, regulators in six states have proceeded to unanimously approve the deal anyway.

In other words, expect Illinois regulatory approval in short order.
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Cisco Changes The Universe And Mankind Forever! - Well ok, not really. They just unveiled a new, really fast router...

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 14:06:32 EDT -

Late last month Cisco began leaking word to media outlets that on March 9, they'd be "making a significant announcement that will forever change the Internet and its impact on consumers, businesses and governments." Given the fact that the country was fawning over Google's new 1 Gbps fiber to the home trial announcement at the time, it seemed like Cisco was getting ready to announce some kind of significant counter punch.

Today's the day, so what was this Internet-changing, paradigm smashing announcement? According to Cisco, it's...a new router.

According to the networking company, the new CRS-3 router technology is capable of transmitting data at about 322 Terabits per second, which Cisco claims is twelve-times faster than their closest competitor. Apparently, people pushing the Exaflood myth since 2007 will need to construct a new bogeyman.

According to the Cisco press release, the new CRS-3 offers enough bandwidth to transmit the entire printed collection of the Library of Congress in just over a second, or to allow every man, woman and child in China to make a video call, simultaneously. Cisco's own numbers have projected that Internet video should comprise about 60 percent of all consumer Internet traffic by 2013, and according to Cisco, the CRS-3 will "set the pace for the astonishing growth of video transmission, mobile devices and new online services through this decade and beyond."

AT&T sent us a press statement noting that the carrier had just completed a live network environment field trial of 100-Gigabit backbone network technology. "This trial included Cisco's new CRS-3 equipment," the company tells Broadband Reports. While good news at AT&T's core, it may not have a huge impact on your home connection, given AT&T's decision to milk last mile copper instead of upgrading users to fiber to the home technology.

But hey, you can still take the CRS-3 home with you for $90,000 (starting price) when it officially launches during the third quarter of this year. You know, take it home, set it up next to your 1.5 Mbps DSL modem, and pretend you're beating the hell out of the Exaflood.
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Google Conducting Set Top Android Tests With Dish - 'Target ads to individual households based on search and viewing data.'

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 11:44:53 EDT -

According to the Wall Street Journal, Google continues to expand into, well, everything. The company is working in conjunction with Dish Network to test a Google-powered set top box based in part on the Android operating system. According to the Journal, Google's "trying to replicate the internet experience on TV, offering users the ability to search the Internet and explore web-based content via the device. The tests are currently ongoing in Google employee homes, and obviously bringing ads to your living room is Google's primary interest:

Google's test, which began last year, is limited to a very small number of the company's employees and their families and could be discontinued at any time, said the people familiar with the matter. Viewers in the Google test, these people said, can search by typing queries, using a keyboard rather than a remote control. Google hopes to connect the service with its nascent TV ad-brokering business, allowing it to target ads to individual households based on search and viewing data.

Cable won't much like Google encroaching into their dream territory of localized and behavioral cable TV advertising. The cable industry has been working hard on a unified advertising platform dubbed canoe, though they've struggled with the technology needed to make the idea of more nosy living room advertising a reality. The telcos too want in on the set top ad market, and it's unlikely that either cable or phone providers want to share their take of this market with their arch-nemesis Google if they don't have to.
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New Comcast TV, Broadband, Phone Price Hikes April First - Competition? Most broadband and TV packages going up by $2 a month...

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 09:14:42 EDT -

Fresh off a suite of price hikes last fall that included an increase in the cable modem rental fee from $3 to $5 a month, Comcast is notifying customers they're raising prices again starting April 1. Many Comcast users are being sent these letters informing them that there's several new rate hikes for broadband and TV services starting April 1, including a hike in the cost of several of Comcast's lower-priced broadband tiers by $2 a month. Several TV packages are also seeing hikes including Comcast's Standard ($61.45 to $63.45) and Expanded (from $48.55 to $50.55) services.

Comcast's "Economy" 1 Mbps downstream 384 kbps upstream service is jumping from $24.95 to $26.95 for those who bundle other services, and $38.95 to $40.95 for those who don't (what's economical about $41, 1 Mbps service?). Comcast's "Performance" 12 Mbps / 2 Mbps tier is jumping from $42.95 to $44.95 bundled, and $57.95 to $59.95 unbundled. Similarly, Comcast's "Blast!" 16 Mbps / 2 Mbps service will be jumping to $54.95 bundled, and $69.95 unbundled.

Even VoIP service isn't going to be immune from this round of hikes, Comcast raising the price of additional lines for Digital Voice "Premium" service $2 to $21.95, and the price of additional lines for their Digital Voice "Basic" service $2 to $11.95. According to the letter, Comcast is raising prices "as part of our commitment to provide you with the very best entertainment and communications experience."

Of course these changes won't impact you if you're under contract, but they will once your contract expires. Like AT&T's recent slew of price hikes for DSL and VDSL service, Comcast has focused on raising the prices for lower tiers, while leaving the price of their "Ultra" (22/5 Mbps) tier alone at $62.95 bundled, or $77.95 unbundled. That gives the user the impression that it's more "economical" to upgrade to the higher speed tiers.

As usual the question remains: if the industry is half as competitive as the industry says it is, why are carriers allowed to continually jack up prices in unison without competitive repercussions?
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