PERSONAL BROADBAND BIG PICTURE

McCaw's Next Bet

The telecommunications pioneer wouldn't let a small thing like two big company failures slow him down. He's back with a new plan to remake the nation's wireless landscape. Craig McCaw is one of the more fascinating billionaire entrepreneurs around. But in the past decade, McCaw has been taking huge swings for the fences, and mostly whiffing. Don't count him out. Craig McCaw may have largely dropped off the radar after his last move, the satellite-internet access provider Teledesic, crashed in 2002 in the face of crippling costs and meager demand. But now he's back and swinging for the fences. In yet another example of the standards battles that have long balkanized the cellular industry, the telecommunications entrepreneur is taking sides, staking his next effort on WiMax, which some expect to be the successor to WiFi. He's looking at a tough battle ahead. He just engineered a major deal with Sprint Nextel to combine its WiMax investment with his Clearwire venture to roll out high-speed wireless internet access. But Clearwire faces stiff competition from a rival "4G" networking technology known as Long-Term Evolution, or L.T.E, which is being championed by Sprint Nextel's competitors, AT&T and Verizon Wireless. more…

Charging by the Byte to Curb Internet Traffic

Some people use the Internet simply to check e-mail and look up phone numbers. Others are online all day, downloading big video and music files. For years, both kinds of Web surfers have paid the same price for access. But now, three of the country’s largest Internet service providers are threatening to clamp down on their most active subscribers by placing monthly limits on their online activity. One of them, Time Warner Cable, began a trial of “Internet metering” in one Texas city early this month, asking customers to select a monthly plan and pay surcharges when they exceed their bandwidth limit. The idea is that people who use the network more heavily should pay more, the way they do for water, electricity, or, in many cases, cellphone minutes. That same week, Comcast said that it would expand on a strategy it uses to manage Internet traffic: slowing down the connections of the heaviest users, so-called bandwidth hogs, at peak times. AT&T also said Thursday that limits on heavy use were inevitable and that it was considering pricing based on data volume. “Based on current trends, total bandwidth in the AT&T network will increase by four times over the next three years,” the company said in a statement. more…

Casting a Wider Net

Several leading lights of the Internet world believe that access to broadband is a civil right, like water, roads and sewage treatment, and have renewed their call for making such access a national priority. To further their goal, they have introduced a Web site, internetforeveryone.org. They banded together Tuesday in New York to make their pitch to the media, saying that broadband access is so essential — to education, commerce and public discourse — that it is no longer a luxury but a necessity. They want to raise awareness of the digital divide so that every home and business in America has access to high-speed Internet and they want to encourage competition among providers so that the price goes down. The cause of universal Internet access is, of course, an old one, and over the last decade it has stirred little response among the powers that be. While it has languished, the United States has fallen further behind the rest of the world in making broadband available. Since 2001, the country has slipped from having the 4th highest percentage of homes with broadband per capita in the world to 15th. Much of this has to do with the increasing price of broadband in the United States, where customers pay an average of $636 a year for a subscription. Americans pay among the highest prices for some of the slowest speeds, and only about half the country is wired. The average broadband offering in Japan is 10 times faster than the average service available to Americans and at half the cost. more…

FCC details plans for free nationwide wireless broadband

T-Mobile USA worries over interference The Federal Communications Commission is seeking feedback on new options to auction a nationwide wireless broadband license with requirements to provide free Internet service, content filtering and open access to third-party devices and applications. While the agency’s move is not apt to assuage fierce critics of the initiative, it could give federal regulators greater legal cover if opponents decide to take the FCC to court after a final decision is made. The FCC proposed combining the 2155-2175 MHz band with the 2175-2180 MHz band to create a 25 megahertz block of spectrum that would support a single nationwide license. The spectrum is commonly referred to as advanced wireless services-3. “This larger block size may allow the AWS-3 licensee to make more robust use of the spectrum while operating at a stricter out-of-band emission limit,” the FCC stated. “Alternatively, another proposed option would be to retain the 2155-2175 MHz AWS-3 block and allow the licensee to operate with a more traditional out-of-band emission limit.” more…

LTE? Hmmm--Most Spectral efficient technology becomes IEEE 802.20 standard

The iBurst mobile wireless broadband technology - arguably the first truly mobile broadband technology to go into commercial service when it was launched in Sydney in March 2004 - has finally become an international standard, IEEE 802.20. The IEEE issued a statement on 12 June announcing finalisation of the standard, years behind schedule, but not acknowledging any proprietary underpinnings. That has now been followed by an announcement from Kyocera claiming that: "having been a draft standard since January 2006…iBurst has finally been approved as an 802.20 standard by the IEEE." Masashi Yano, general manager of Kyocera's corporate communication system equipment division, said: “With this industry standard approval, we are expecting to expand the iBurst service area to more and more countries.” The IEEE started work on the standard in 2002 expecting to finalise it by 2004, but a highly dysfunctional working group delayed things badly (The technology was touted as being superior to both 3G HSPA and mobile WiMAX because it was designed from the outset to be all IP. More…

FCC Finally Redefines Broadband

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), following years of criticism and threats of Congressional action, yesterday finally issued an order scrapping its previous definition of "broadband" as any service delivering of at least 200 Kb/s. The order, to be implemented by new rules to be issued within 120 days, sets 768 Kb/s as the minimum speed for what the FCC is now calling "basic" broadband, which extends up to 1.5 Mb/s. Slower speeds, from the old 200 Kb/s definition of broadband up to 768 Kb/s are redefined as "first generation data." In addition, the FCC said it will now require broadband providers to report subscriber totals for individual higher speed tiers, which it didn't give names to, of; 1.5 Mb/s - 3 Mb/s; 3 Mb/s - 6 Mb/s; and above 6 Mb/s. Changing the definition of broadband had become a highly politicized issue, with the Republican-controlled FCC often accused of keeping the lower speed definition in an attempt to show that broadband in the United States was growing at a healthy pace. However Democrats, on both the FCC and in Congress, had been howling. Now, with election year finesse, things are apparently changing. more…

Shake-up' for internet proposed

The net could see its biggest transformation in decades if plans to open up the address system are passed. The net's regulators will vote on Thursday to decide if the strict rules on so-called top level domain names, such as .com or .uk, can be relaxed. If approved, it could allow companies to turn their brands into domain names while individuals could also carve out their own corner of the net. The move could also see the launch of .xxx, after years of wrangling. Top level domains are currently limited to individual countries, such as .uk (UK) or .it (Italy), as well as to commerce, .com, and to institutional organisations, such as .net, or .org. To get around the restrictions, some companies have used the current system to their own ends. For example, the Polynesia island nation Tuvalu, has leased the use of the .tv address to many television firms. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann), which acts a sort of regulator for the net, as well as overseeing the domain name system, has been working towards opening up net addresses for the last three years. more…

Watch out Google and Android, Nokia to buy rest of Symbian, free its software

Nokia Corp. is buying the consortium that makes the software for its phones and making it available for free to other manufacturers, in hopes of blunting the influence of competing software providers. Nokia said Tuesday that it is offering to buy the 52 percent of Britain's Symbian Ltd. that it doesn't already own for about $410 million. Symbian's software is the most widely used on high-end phones. Nokia will then establish a foundation with handset makers Sony Ericsson and Motorola Inc. and Japanese carrier NTT DoCoMo to make the software available royalty-free. They will combine their three different versions of the Symbian software for advanced, data-enabled phones into one open platform. AT&T Inc., LG Electronics, Samsung Electronics Co., STMicroelectronics N.V., Texas Instruments Inc. and Vodafone Group PLC will also join the foundation, Nokia said. more…

New America’s Report on New Broadband Opportunity

New America's Wireless Future Program hosted a policy forum highlighting the critical need for developing an affirmative national broadband strategy to keep the U.S. prosperous in the 21st Century. We also released a new Issue Brief, by NAF's Benjamin Lennett, that explains how unlicensed access to TV band 'white space' will give a big boost to rural broadband. At the forum the e-NC Authority released and presented a major report that comprehensively examines trends and issues in broadband deployment. FCC Commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein both called for a comprehensive and coordinated federal effort to rapidly increase broadband availability throughout the U.S. Download report.

Unlimited Data Bundling is becoming the norm

New research reveals that mobile operators’ calling plans increase in “super size” and “unlimited” bundles of texts and minutes. Operators are trying to steer away from prepaid putting the emphasis on 30-day contracts and automatic top ups driving price competition. By comparison so far data plan bundling has been more limited and present the new battleground for mobile operators looking for growth. In a report entitled Mobile Pricing Trends and Service Innovation published by Tariff Consultancy Ltd, the market for prepaid, postpaid and so-called hybrid contracts are evaluated from mobile operators across the globe. The report offers detailed pricing adopted by mobile operators in both emerging and developed markets for new services such as Messaging, Mobile Instant Messaging (MIM), Mobile TV, Mobile Music, Mobile Gaming and more. Bundling and flat rate data services are gaining ground. The trend towards inclusive and unlimited offers is becoming unstoppable. more…

FCC gives Sprint Nextel more time to turn over spectrum

Sprint Nextel Corp. has more time to relinquish spectrum on which part of its network operates. The Federal Communications Commission, which had set a June 26 deadline for Sprint Nextel to turn over the spectrum, has given the company leeway for some channels. The wireless carrier was to trade its spectrum for public safety spectrum, but the public safety channels aren't ready to be turned over. Now, Sprint Nextel can swap out the spectrum within two months of when the public safety channels are ready for the switch, company spokesman Scott Sloat said Thursday. "This is very helpful," he said. A federal appeals court in May had backed the FCC, saying it could force Sprint Nextel to meet the June deadline even though doing so might leave its Nextel network with insufficient spectrum. The network serves 16 million customers. The June deadline still applies for some channels; Sprint awaits a decision from the FCC on its request to continue handing that spectrum over in pieces, Sloat said. more…

Google to Offer a Tool To Measure Web Hits

Google plans to unveil a new service that measures Internet use, according to advertising executives who have been briefed on it. The tool is intended to help advertisers identify the best places to buy online ads by telling them which Web sites their target audiences visit. Google's approach, aimed at bolstering its ad-sales business, could pose a major threat to the Web measurement services that are available now, ad executives say. The two main players in the business -- comScore and Nielsen Online -- gather data on Internet use largely by tracking what panels of people do online or by conducting surveys, and their results can be inconsistent and incomplete. Google's new offering will be based mostly on data from Web servers, allowing for a deeper and broader view of Internet use. And unlike the services from comScore and Nielsen, Google's will be offered to marketers free, according to ad executives. more…

Survey: 51% of telecom execs say bandwidth will break Internet

Telecom executives are split on whether increasing bandwidth demands are likely to break the Internet, according to a new survey conducted by Tellabs and IDC. Fifty-one percent of the respondents said that bandwidth demands will eventually break it; of those 51 percent, about 25 percent said that it could happen within two years. The remaining 49 percent of respondents said that bandwidth demands will not break the Internet. "The findings of this survey make it very plain that bandwidth is not infinite," said Lee Doyle, group VP and GM for network infrastructure and security products and services at IDC. "Unless there is sufficient investment into new infrastructure, the increased bandwidth demands of new advanced services could well outstrip capacity." Of the 80 percent of respondents who identified a way to deal with Internet congestion, 32 percent thought that providers should address spikes in traffic by prioritizing via packet inspection, while 24 percent said that spikes are better handled by charging more for excess bandwidth. Forty-three percent of respondents said that up to 30 percent of overall Internet traffic today is video, and 40 percent of respondents expect that to increase to up to 75 percent in five years. more…

Cisco unveils alliance for WiMax stimulation

But the group doesn't include Motorola or Qualcomm Cisco Systems Inc. will join Clearwire Corp., Sprint Nextel Corp. and three WiMax equipment providers to announce an initiative aimed at simulating WiMax innovation through the sharing of WiMax patents. The group behind the initiative includes Alcatel-Lucent, Intel Corp. and Samsung, according to Cisco officials. However, several well-known WiMax providers are not on the list, including Motorola Inc., which is providing equipment for a field test of mobile WiMax services in Chicago as part of the Xohm initiative spearheaded by Sprint. Motorola officials did not say whether they plan to join the new alliance, but said they continually evaluate proposals they hear about regarding patents and intellectual property associated with 4G networking gear, which includes WiMax. "Motorola is actively engaged in searching for improvements in the intellectual property rights environment for 4G wireless standards, more…

FCC tests 'vindicate' white space lobby

Not so fast, says FCC. Microsoft wants you to know that when its white space prototypes malfunctioned during lab tests at the US Federal Communications Commission, the lab did not burn down. Last week, the FCC completed tests of devices from several white space-obsessed outfits, and despite the repeated failure of its own engineering prototypes, Microsoft says these tests demonstrated that sending high-speed net traffic over unused TV spectrum is one good idea. "If you read the press, you would have thought the FCC was in flames and people were running out the door with their skirts over their heads," Microsoft's Ian Ferrell said this morning at Supernova, a San Francisco tech conference. "But the commission has gotten more than enough valuable and valid data to show that you can use these devices to do spectrum sensing, that you can identify TV channels, and that you can identity them to the level that you're not causing interference." more…

Global Market for Consumer Telecommunication to Reach US$2 Trillion by 2012

Revenue from consumer telecommunication network services will grow at a steady annual clip of about 5.7%, on average, over the next five years, reports In-Stat. The strongest growth will be in the broadband and pay TV sectors, but 60% of total revenue will be derived from consumer mobile services, the high-tech market research firm says. In-Stat just completed some new research and aggregated it with a wealth of existing research to produce a detailed quantitative analysis of this important market. “The digital divide will continue to grow. By 2012 broadband penetration in developed countries will exceed 85%, while developing countries languish at less than 10% penetration” says Keith Nissen, the analyst who authored the report. “Over the next five years, 150 million PSTN lines will be eliminated; yet total voice revenue worldwide will remain steady. The ME/AFR and CALA regions will experience high mobile subscriber growth. Mobile operators in developed nations must look to new 3G applications and bundled services for increased ARPU. more…

Local investors to run Philadelphia Wi-Fi network

A group of local investors said they have bought Philadelphia's wireless Internet network, a week after EarthLink Inc. gave up on the system because it failed to make a profit. The investors said they plan to form a for-profit company that will provide businesses both wired, high-speed Internet access and wireless service. They also plan to maintain the citywide wireless network Earthlink Inc. built for $17 million and offer wireless service free to consumers. more…

Online Ad Revenue Reached $5.8B in Q1 08

So much for the string of record quarterly gains for online ad revenues… The Interactive Advertising Bureau reported that internet ad revs reached $5.8 billion in Q1, an 18.2 percent rise over Q107. But this was the first time in three years that online ads experienced a sequential decline. For the past three years, every quarter brought another record in IAB tallies; this one was the “second highest” after Q407’s $5.9 billion take. The 18.2 percent gain, while healthy, also provides further evidence of how online ad growth has been slowing over the past year: in Q107, the IAB reported 26 percent year-over-year growth. David Silverman, partner, Assurance, PricewaterhouseCoopers, which helped prepare the IAB report, sought to explain the sequential decline from Q407 to Q108, pointing to the traditional drop in ad spending after the holiday season, along with an overall economic slowdown. more…

AT&T CEO looks toward Personal Broadband for growth

Mobility will be the key driver of growth for phone companies in the coming years as they expand their businesses to include new services like TV and broadband, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson told attendees at an industry trade show.. AT&T and the entire telecom industry have been transforming themselves over the past few years as traditional phone business slowly dies. No longer are these companies simply offering telephony, but they also offer TV, high-speed Internet, and wireless services. But it will be the mobilization of new services that will drive growth for companies in the next few years, Stephenson predicted during his keynote speech at the NxtComm trade show. He used the U.S. Open final as a perfect example of how mobility is changing usage. Stephenson said that he wasn't able to watch Tiger Woods clinch the U.S. Open golf title on his big screen TV at home, so he watched it on his mobile handset that uses the MediaFlo mobile broadcast TV service offered through AT&T. more…

Zoom, Pan, Throw: A Peek At What Firefox Mobile Could Be

Firefox Mobile, which has been seriously in the works since at last October, is finally starting to take shape. In the video below, Aza Raskin, head of user experience at Mozilla Labs, goes through some prototype concepts for the user Firefox Mobile’s user interface. Raskin, the young founder of Songza and Humanized, was hired by the Mozilla Foundation in January. The user interface shown in the video is a working prototype and will change, but there are some worthwhile concepts—some borrowed from Apple, some borrowed from Firefox. The mobile browser is built for a touch screen and allows scrolling with a flick of the mouse like on the iPhone (although it is single-touch, not multi-touch). The need to type is minimized by displaying any number of pre-defined buttons at appropriate moments, such as “search Google”, “send email,” and “map this.” more…

FCC Chief Presents Plan for Early Termination Fee

Kevin Martin, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, has announced a plan that will regulate the early termination fees that wireless carriers charge their subscribers when they want to give up a contract. Over the last few years there have been numerous complaints from people who have been charged fees amounting from $150 to $200 when they have announced their mobile phone providers that they want to cancel their contracts with them. Advocacy groups think that this sort of policy forces people into keeping a contract with a company they would normally leave. If Martin’s plan will be adopted, people will still have to pay an early termination fee, but this time its value will vary depending on the price of the phone that had been bought by the subscriber when he or she closed the contract with the carrier. What is more, the longer the subscriber will remain in the network, the less he should pay when he chooses to change the wireless carrier. more…

Nortel Ditches WiMAX Work In Favor Of LTE

Nortel is ending all development work on WiMAX hardware, instead plowing all of its resources into Long Term Evolution (LTE), signing a deal with Israeli wireless broadband house Alvarion for any WiMAX that Nortel might need. With every major wireless carrier in North America, with the exception of Sprint-Nextel, now committed to LTE -- to say nothing of all of China's wireless companies, NTT DoCoMo, and the vast majority of other carriers worldwide - North America's largest hardware vendor is clearly following the money. In particular Nortel is said to be chasing after Verizon, it largest customer, which has already announced its plans to leave the putative CDMA upgrade trail and switch to LTE, at one time seen as primarily the GSM upgrade path. China Telecom, the world's biggest carrier, did exactly the same thing. more…

Clearwire forecasts massive US growth

Clearwire, the new 4G wireless broadband company formed by Sprint Nextel, Clearwire and a handful of partners, expects to have 1.3m US subscribers by the end of next year, growing to 4.6m in 2010, and is forecasting revenue of over $17.5bn by 2017. Clearwire’s bold ambitions for its proposed nationwide US network based on WiMax technology, were set out for the first time on Thursday by Benjamin Wolf, chief executive. Mr Wolf detailed Clearwire’s business plan and timetable during a presentation to investors on Thursday – the first since Sprint Nextel, the third largest US wireless network operator, and Clearwire, the WiMax pioneer set up by Craig McCaw, announced the formation of the $14.5bn venture last month. more…

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