Category: Archaic Telecom

Bloomberg Complaint Against Comcast: Not Neighborly?

By Editor June 30, 2011 May 3, 2012

When Comcast acquired NBC from General Electric, one of the conditions in the FCC order approving the acquisition was that this media conglomerate must carry in their existing news neighborhoods “all independent news and business news channels”—like, for example, Bloomberg’s upstart TV channel.

You knew Comcast wasn’t going to make this easy.

Earlier this month, Bloomberg filed a complaint with the FCC against Comcast in which it documented in excruciating detail how in the 35 most populous DMAs (designated market areas), Comcast effectively exiles Bloomberg’s content away from a key block of consecutive news channels.

The correspondence summarized in the complaint between Dan Doctoroff, President of Bloomberg, and Comcast’s Neil Smit is comical in a bureaucratic, miscommunication kind of way.

Archaic Telecom

Cable Over the Air

By Editor June 28, 2011 September 7, 2011

At last week’s CEA Line Show, I was reminded again about that other industry that uses wireless and cable transmission to distribute content onto a flat LCD screen.

Admittedly, some of my television watching has been replaced by web browsing and the focus of this blog has been on apps and Internet, rather than TV channels and set-top boxes, but I was still stunned by ESPN’s 3D sports channel.

In other words, there’s still much to get excited about in the non-interactive, non-social TV medium.

This became clearer when I met briefly last week with industry pioneer and disruptive force Jack Perry, whose company Syncbak has worked out a clever solution that would let local TV stations monetize their live transmissions on the Web.

As with most things involving communications, this story about retransmitted broadcast signals includes well-intentioned but conflicting public policy, litigious players, and the Internet making everything more complicated and the stakes higher.

Archaic Telecom

Good VoIP Choices from Ars Technica

By Editor June 28, 2011 June 28, 2011 1

Ars Technica, a favorite read of mine, answered a question yesterday from a reader seeking a VoIP solution for a remote office situation. In the “Ask Ars” column, Jon Stokes provides a few cloud-based telephony providers that should be familiar to readers of this blog.

Stokes approves of Junction Networks’ OnSip, which by the way is the service used by Ars as well as by Technoverse’s editorial offices, and 8×8’s Virtual Office.

He even talks about using SIP softphones with these services, and there’s a mention of Asterisk, the PBX software project (but nothing on SipXecs)

It’s a good run down and worth a read.Continue reading

Archaic Telecom

Download Speed Competition: US Is Definitely Not Number 1

By Editor June 21, 2011 October 24, 2011 1

It’s not news that US broadband speeds ain’t world-class.

For confirmation, check the OECD’s (Organisation for Economic Cooporation and Development) extensive data sets culled from the advertised speeds of ISPs across many countries.

The spreadsheet I looked at, based on data from 2010, shows that US cable broadband performance is somewhere in the middle: ahead of France, Chile, Luxemborg, and Germany, but behind Estonia, Slovak Republic, Portugal and Finland.

Those last two, by the way, have the best speeds in Europe.

And let’s not even get into fiber bit rates.
Continue reading

Archaic Telecom

Back at the FCC: Community Information Needs and Hurricanes

By Editor June 15, 2011 September 7, 2011

The FCC released another paperweight-class report.

Entitled The Information Needs of Communities, this 478 pager (with footnotes) is “an in-depth analysis of the current state of the media landscape along with a broad range of recommendations.”

Produced by journalists, academics, entrepreneurs, and led by Steve Waldman, a former editor and the founder of Beliefnet, the report has the obviousities you would expect, including newspaper revenue has dropped, local TV is a not source of investigative reporting, and the Internet has reduced the cost of gathering and distributing news.Continue reading

Archaic Telecom

Avaya Files IPO: S-1 Paints a Bleak Picture

By Editor June 10, 2011 September 25, 2011 4

I just took a peek at Avaya’s S-1 filing with the SEC.

To these admittedly non-financial eyes, this ain’t pretty.

We learn that this legacy PBX vendor, which had pinned its hopes on something called unified communications, ended its 2010 fiscal year last September with a net loss of over $800 million.

And it appears from their income performance for the first six months of 2011 that they are ahead of schedule: dripping red ink at the rate of $600 million.

On the balance sheet, they’ve accumulated around $6 billion in debt, a result of the pricey private equity buyout by Silver Lake and TPG in 2007 and then the purchase of Nortel’s Enterprise Solutions business in 2009.

Archaic Telecom

Good Move AT&T: Free WiFi in NYC Parks

By Editor June 9, 2011 September 8, 2011

New York City’s Mayor Bloomberg announced today an agreement with AT&T to provide free public WiFi service for the next five years in 20 city parks.

They’ll soon be coverage in parts of Manhattan’s Central Park, in Battery Park, along the trendy High Line, and Tompkins Square Park.

Thank you AT&T and New York City. Now I can realize my dream of checking emails on a non-3G Android tablet while strolling in “The Ramble”.

Brooklyn residents will be able to connect with AT&T’s WiFi in Prospect Park, Brooklyn Bridge Park, and Fort Greene Park.

On a related matter, their WiFi initiative takes some of the sting out of one of Sprint’s criticisms in its lengthy petition to deny the T-Mobile acquisition.Continue reading

Archaic Telecom

Why Else Would You Go to the Grand Canyon?

By Editor June 1, 2011 September 7, 2011

There may be good arguments in support of AT&T’s acquisition of T-Mobile, but improved WiFi access in the Grand Canyon is not one of them.

But that’s the claim that the Grand Canyon Hotel Operators Association makes in its comment to the FCC.

In the words of this trade group: “What our beloved canyon does not have, however, is state of the art wireless broadband service.”

Archaic Telecom

Back at the FCC: Sprint Files 377-Page Petition

By Editor May 31, 2011 September 30, 2011

I’m going to review this massive petition to denial filing—redacted, though, for public viewing—over this short holiday week. Not surprisingly, Sprint Nextel is not happy with AT&T’s bid to swallow T-Mobile.

With the word duopoloy (according to my PDF search) showing up on 21 pages and anti-competitive on another 23 pages, I think you get an inkling of how this carrier feels.

And here’s a choice nugget from the beginning of this thing:Continue reading

Archaic Telecom

Twilight of Telephony at TechCrunch Disrupt

By Editor May 27, 2011 September 30, 2011

I don’t recall seeing a single wired phone at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference.

At trade shows, they’ve been exiled from the booths for awhile now with the cell phone explosion.

More surprising for me was that I didn’t even spot one at an administrative or reception area.Continue reading

Archaic Telecom

Parlor.fm Launched at TechCrunch Disrupt

By Editor May 24, 2011 September 30, 2011

I get a small thrill out of finding voice-oriented apps in these normally data centric startup events. That was the doubly the case with Parlor.fm, which launched its smartphone software earlier today at TechCrunch Disrupt.

After years of having been traumatized by partially cooked “unified communication” software from the legacy PBX makers, it’s reassuring for me to see a well-designed, perfectly intuitive app that uses voice as the foundation.Continue reading

Archaic Telecom

Jon Stewart on Meridith Baker’s Jump to Comcast

By Editor May 19, 2011 September 26, 2011

I didn’t think there was much to say about FCC Commissioner Meredith Baker’s bold decision to leave the FCC for NBC Universal.

Shocking? No really.

As we all know Baker voted to approve Comcast’s acquisition of NBC a few months ago. She’ll move her files, notes, and computer gear over to the cable company’s Washington lobbying offices after her resignation takes effect in June.

Her new position has the fancy title of senior vice president for governmental affairs.

Fortunately, Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart has used Baker’s speedy exit as grist for his “Well, that was fast” segment. Continue reading

Archaic Telecom

Libyan Rebels Keep GSM Network Going

By Editor May 17, 2011 May 17, 2011

Aljazeera has a long, interesting article detailing how engineers kept cell service online in the rebel-controlled eastern part of Libya.

According to reporter Evan Hill, Gaddafi’s government severed a fiber cable connecting Tobruk in the east to Ras Ajdir in the west. Without access to central HLR servers, a GSM network element containing a registry of cell phone numbers, service was lost in eastern Libya.

But a separate cell provider, Libyana, was able to restore voice communication by configuring a spare HLR located in Benghazi.Continue reading

Archaic Telecom

Back at the FCC: Carrier Voice Revenue is Shrinking

By Editor May 16, 2011 September 26, 2011 3

Last week, the FCC released its annual report on carrier revenue based on Form 499 filings, this blog’s favorite regulatory worksheet.

And those numbers confirm what we already knew: revenue from voice—both mobile and fixed line—has already plateaued and is coming down fast.

The FCC reported that the total 2009 telecom revenue pot from both end-users and carriers providing services to other carriers dropped to $281 billion from 2008’s $297 billion.

The 2010 FCC numbers, while preliminary, all point to the inevitable and long-predicted slide as the industry transitions to data services.Continue reading

Archaic Telecom

Douglas Holtz-Eakin: AT&T Is Not a Monopoly

By Editor May 10, 2011 September 7, 2011

Economist Douglas Holtz-Eakin has filed his $.02 in the FCC’s AT&T/T-Mobile docket.

According to Eakin, who was John McCain’s economic adviser on the campaign trail:

If this merger is approved by the FCC and the Federal Trade Commission, no monopoly will dominate the telecommunications market. T-Mobile was hardly the only competitor and AT&T still must compete with its main national rival, Verizon.

You can read the rest of his letter below.Continue reading

Archaic Telecom

Virtual Office Solo: Cool Startup Project from 8×8

By Editor May 6, 2011 September 20, 2011

If Virtual Office Solo had been worked out by a few moonlighting developers, and the founder lined up some angel investors and delivered a cool presentation at say New York Tech Meetup, it would be getting a lot more attention from all the usual tech sites.

Solo was instead launched by 8×8, a NASDAQ-traded company that has a long history as a VoIP service provider. Remembered by some (including me) for their residential VoIP service, called Packet8, they’ve since refocused their efforts on the business market.

With Virtual Office Solo, 8×8 now has a simple, ready-to-go browser-based softphone coupled with a virtual phone number that’s designed to appeal to teeny businesses.

I received a demo account from the 8×8 crew yesterday, and have been playing around with this inexpensive ($7.99/ month) service in my spare moments.Continue reading

Archaic Telecom

So Who Invented the Cell Phone Again?

By Editor April 26, 2011 April 26, 2011

CNET has gone on a spelunking expedition into the recent AT&T FCC filing and brought a few things up to the surface. One nugget that caught my attention is from a document written by AT&T’s Chief Technology Officer, John Donovan.

Donovan says AT&T “invented the first mobile phone and the first mobile network”.

Wait, wasn’t there another company involved? It will come back to me.Continue reading

Archaic Telecom

Group Conferencing Startups: Pay the USF Fees

By Editor April 22, 2011 April 22, 2011

It’s a slow afternoon here, so I had a little time to consider one mind-numbing regulatory aspect of the growing number of group messaging and conferencing startups.

Eventually when these companies (Fast Society, Group.me, et. al) start charging for their services—most of them don’t now—my understanding is that they will be required to file an FCC Form 499.

Ok, so it was a very slow day.

Remember Form 499? That’s where providers of telecommunications for pay—and that includes call conferencing services—tell the FCC about their VoIP revenues apportioned to interstate connections.

And then our regulators calculate how much money is owed to the Universal Service Fund kitty.Continue reading