Commentary
FCC’s Cap On Cable Subs: Bad For HDTV
FCC Chief Kevin Martin wants to restrict the number of subscribers held by a cable operator.
By Swanni
http://www.tvpredictions.com/martin113007.htm

Washington, D.C. (November 30, 2007) — Continuing his anti-cable crusade, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin is now proposing to limit how many customers any one cable operator can have.

According to news reports, Martin is circulating a plan that would restrict a cable operator’s national market share to 30 percent.

Comcast, the nation’s largest cable operator, now has a 27 percent market share with more than 26 million subscribers nationwide.

In recent months, Martin has also tried to force cable operators to adopt ‘a la carte’ programming plans, digital must-carry requirements and a host of other regulatory handcuffs.

His latest effort to impose more rules on cable TV was shot down this week when he couldn’t muster support among his fellow commissioners. (For reasons never quite explained, Martin has not tried to impose similar restrictions on satellite TV operators, telcos or local TV stations. Cable seems to be in the FCC chief’s crosshairs.)

But despite the defeat, Martin is now continuing his crusade with the market cap proposal.

The FCC chief notes that Congress passed a 1992 law that called for a national cap on a cable operator’s subscriber total. The FCC later set that cap at 30 percent, but a federal appeals court rejected it in 2001.

Now Martin wants to reinstate it.

[snip]

[Note: This comment comes from reader Glenn Fleishman. DLH]

From: Glenn Fleishman
Date: November 30, 2007 5:39:21 AM PST
To: Dewayne Hendricks
Subject: Re: [Dewayne-Net] When Networks Collide: AT&T suddenly doesn’t like Apple so much

Cringely wrote:
He lets it slip that next year Apple will release a faster iPhone that will make the existing model obsolete.

Except that I am certain that the 3G iPhone won’t make the 2.5G iPhone obsolete.

All carriers charge a premium for 3G cellphone access, with a very few exceptions. You’re usually paying $40 and sometimes $60 per month for BlackBerry et al service with 3G backing it up. Some simpler phones with 3G add just $20 per month.

Thus I am expecting we’ll have iPhone and iPhone Pro, with iPhone remaining $400 with some new hardware features, but still having EDGE and $20 per month for basic unlimited data/200 SMS. iPhone Pro will cost $600, have 3G, and cost $40 to $60 per month for data plus SMS.

I would be surprised to be wrong because there’s no model out there for pricing a 3G iPhone more aggressively than a 3G BlackBerry.
–
Glenn Fleishman
seattle, washington

20% of Comcast Users To See DOCSIS 3.0 in 2008
Faster speeds coming, but not of the upstream variety
12:54PM Thursday Nov 29 2007 by Karl
http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/20-of-Comcast-Users-To-See-DOCSIS-30-in-2008-89821

Comcast gave a bit more detail on the state of their DOCSIS 3.0 upgrades at the CableNEXT Conference this week in Santa Clara, California. Comcast CTO Tony Werner told attendees that the company hopes to have Docsis 3.0 technology in place in around 20 percent of the company’s footprint by the end of next year. DOCSIS 3.0, as we’ve frequently noted, should allow the operator to eventually offer speeds in excess of 100Mbps.

Werner wouldn’t elaborate on which markets will see deployment first, but you can be sure they’ll mirror FiOS deployment. You can also be sure that users won’t see full capacity at first, the initial offerings being in the 20-50Mbps range. What about upstream speeds?

[snip]

Google unveils GPS-less handset locator technology

Posted Nov 29th 2007 12:13AM by Darren Murph
http://www.engadgetmobile.com/2007/11/29/google-unveils-gps-less-handset-locator-technology/

If your smartphone came with a built-in GPS receiver, you can choose to just overlook Google’s latest technology, but if your mobile is among the 85-percent (or so) out there lacking an integrated GPS module, listen up. The search giant has revealed new software (dubbed My Location) that enables non-GPS-equipped phones to be pinpointed within three miles of their actual location. Google is claiming that it can provide “neighborhood-level” data, and that pressing “0″ while in the app will enable users to skip the task of entering in a starting address when looking up directions. Notably, the system is not set up to collect phone numbers or any other personal details, and for those still paranoid, it can indeed be switched off. Currently, the tracking database still has a few gaps to be filled — namely locales in Europe and all of China / Japan — but Google could very well use the location data to eventually provide targeted ads to those who use it.

EU agrees to open up GSM spectrum for other technologies

Posted Nov 29th 2007 11:31AM by Darren Murph
http://www.engadgetmobile.com/2007/11/29/eu-agrees-to-open-up-gsm-spectrum-for-other-technologies/

A 20-year old EU legislation is on the brink of being abandoned, and it’s good news for those wanting more 3G across the pond. Reportedly, European Union telecom ministers supported proposals to “open radio frequencies allocated exclusively for GSM mobile phone services to other technologies, such as 3G mobile data.” If approved by the European Parliament, creating a 3G network in the 900MHz band could provide “up to 40-percent greater coverage than one in the 2,100MHz band for the same capital expenditure,” according to the GSM Association. Furthermore, some 300 million more individuals across Asia, Europe and Africa could purportedly have access to mobile broadband by 2012 if operators could use the 900MHz spectrum for 3G services. Sounds good from here, but we’ve no idea how long it’ll take to hear a final decision on all this.

Mobile phone subscriptions hit 3.3 billion

Posted Nov 29th 2007 3:59PM by Darren Murph
http://www.engadgetmobile.com/2007/11/29/mobile-phone-subscriptions-hit-3-3-billion/

Just last month we heard that there were some 2.68 billion mobile accounts currently active in the world, but a new study by Informa has found that there are actually 3.3 billion subscriptions. This number is somewhat significant considering that it’s approximately half of the world’s population, but alas, not half of all Earthlings actually own a cellphone. Researchers found that 59 countries had mobile penetration over 100 percent, suggesting that some individuals actually accounted for numerous mobile subscriptions. Sure, the figures here could be picked apart in a myriad ways, but why not just raise your handset to commemorate hitting the big three point three? You are one of them, right?

Google To Announce Bid For Spectrum, As Expected

By James Quintana Pearce – Thu 29 Nov 2007 07:51 PM PST
http://www.moconews.net/entry/419-google-to-announce-bid-for-spectrum/

So it is finalized: Google (NSDQ: GOOG) will announce on Friday that it will apply to bid for wireless spectrum in a January Federal Communications Commission auction reports the Wall Street Journal, citing “people familiar with the matter”…the deadline to announce an intent to bid is December 3rd. Google has been hinting it would bid for a while, but some have suggested it is merely a bargaining chip in its negotiations with carriers, and that Verizon’s (NYSE: VZ) recent announcement that it would open part of its network would take away some of the internet giant’s incentive to bid for the spectrum. Google is expected to bid on the “C” block. Even if Google does bid, some pundits have claimed that it is likely to bid low—that it would bid to justify the pressure it put on the FCC but not to win spectrum.

Nocturnal P2P transmissions account for 95 percent of Internet traffic
By Nate Anderson | Published: November 28, 2007 – 11:24AM CT

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071128-nocturnal-p2p-transmissions-account-for-95-percent-of-internet-bandwidth.html

P2P apps are popular around the globe, even in regions where Internet access speeds are low. New research from German deep packet inspection gear maker ipoque shows that in places like Eastern Europe, P2P apps can account for an astonishing 95 percent of all nighttime traffic. The survey also found that one particular peer-to-peer app, Skype, is also single-handedly responsible for 95 percent of all Internet telephony.

Ipoque gathered its data with the permission of ISPs and universities in Europe, the Middle East, and Australia between August and September of this year (we covered the preliminary numbersback in September). In all, the three petabytes of information collected show that P2P sucks up anywhere between 49 and 83 percent of all Internet traffic during the day, and can spike much higher at night.

But everyone knows that P2P use is high. One of the study’s most interesting findings didn’t concern the volume of traffic, but the fact the 20 percent of it is now encrypted as the “arms race” between P2P users and ISPs, content owners, and law enforcement heats up. Increased network filtering—such as that being proposed in the US by AT&T and supported by content owners—would no doubt lead to the deployment of far more potent encryption. Such a move could leave ISPs with a choice of blocking certain P2P protocols altogether, risking the wrath of those who use them legitimately, or abandoning the attempt at filtering out specific files.

[snip]

November 29, 2007

When Networks Collide: AT&T suddenly doesn’t like Apple so much.
By Robert X. Cringely
bob@cringely.com
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2007/pulpit_20071129_003521.html

AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson this week said what I have been saying since last July — that Apple and AT&T would soon introduce an iPhone that works with AT&T’s faster 3G wireless data network. I said it because I had heard last summer that AT&T was already testing 3G iPhones in Florida, but the better question is why Stephenson said it and why now? For AT&T, his announcement looks, frankly, stupid.

Here’s a guy who is head of the largest telephone company in America and its largest mobile phone company. He has a five-year iPhone exclusive giving AT&T the number one selling U.S. smart phone and a huge generator of primo subscribers mainly poached from other carriers. Christmas is a month away and 1-2 million Americans have been planning to give — or hoping to get — an iPhone. So what does the guy do? He lets it slip that next year Apple will release a faster iPhone that will make the existing model obsolete. The only impact this can have on current iPhone sales is to stop them in their tracks, unless Apple offers a free 3G upgrade, which believe me they never intended to offer and may not.

So what’s up? Was it a simple slip? Or is the guy so out of touch with reality that he doesn’t realize that with a few words he has probably deferred — maybe forever — at least a million new customers worth to Wall Street at least $1 billion in market cap for his company?

I don’t think Stephenson’s statement was by accident and I don’t think he is out of touch with reality. I think, instead, he was sending a $1 billion message to Apple CEO Steve Jobs.

It is no coincidence that Stephenson made his remarks in Silicon Valley, rather than in San Antonio or New York. He came to the turf of his “partner” and delivered a message that will hurt Apple as much as AT&T, a message that says AT&T doesn’t really need Apple despite the iPhone’s success.

It’s one thing to have a private disagreement between companies but quite another to take it public in a way that costs real money.

What I believe is troubling the relationship between AT&T and Apple is the upcoming auction for 700-MHz wireless spectrum and AT&T’s discovery that — as I have predicted for weeks — Apple will be joining Google in bidding. AT&T thought its five-year “exclusive” iPhone agreement with Apple would have precluded such a bid, but that just shows how poorly Randall Stephenson understood Steve Jobs. Steve always hurts his friends to see how much they really love him, so AT&T probably should have expected this kind of corporate body blow.

To his credit, Stephenson took the dispute to the streets this way, showing he isn’t intimidated by Jobs. It was a bold and rare response for big business and was definitely unexpected by Cupertino, which won’t underestimate AT&T again.

I’m not privy to any inside details here, but there are two ways I can see Jobs rationalizing his auction position and they aren’t necessarily exclusive. He could claim to intend the 700-MHz auction participation as a pure investment, just a good use for the $30+ billion Apple has squirreled away.

Nah.

Or Jobs could tell AT&T that Apple is investing solely in a DATA network for which it has no voice ambitions. Maybe all MacBooks will soon get 700-MHz access cards.

This excuse rings truer, but of course it would still be a scam on Steve’s part.

[snip]

Thu, Nov 29, 2007 — 9:00 AM
Verizon, Google and the U.S. Telecom Industry

This week, Verizon vowed to open its network by the end of 2008, and now, Google unveiled plans for a cell phone mapping service. What do these developments mean for the U.S. telecom industry and for consumers?

Host: Michael Krasny
Guests:
Andrew Seybold, founder and principal of Andrew Seybold Inc., a consulting, education and publishing company in Santa Barbara
Howard Shelanski, professor of law at the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology
Mark McClusky, senior editor at Wired Magazine

Listen: Download (MP3) http://www.kqed.org/.stream/anon/radio/forum/2007/11/2007-11-29a-forum.mp3