Google vs. the Telcos – a Timeline
Tomorrow, July 31, the FCC will vote on the bidding rules to be employed for the upcoming 700Mhz wireless frequency auction. The outcome is of paramount importance to the future of the Internet in the United States. At issue is whether the bidding rules will be designed to thwart the monopolistic tendencies [...]
WSJ on Wireless Network Neutrality
Today’s Wall Street Journal had an interesting article (subscription required) on the current state of the wireless walled garden. It cites several recent clashes between handset vendors and cellcos over the extent to which consumers can use their phones to access non cellco content. Says the Journal:
At stake for consumers are what [...]
To Download or Stream… Vudu has a New Twist
To download or stream? That decision has always posed a vexing dilemma for video content providers. Which model works better? Making users download video before viewing ensures that the quality is up to par, but can be inconvenient when movie downloads take 2-4 hours over normal broadband speeds. By [...]
EU Tackles the Dumb Pipe Dilemma
Viviane Reding, the European Union telecoms commissioner, has a plan to hasten the adoption of next generation networking services. In an interview with the Financial Times, Ms. Reding stated that the Commission will consider the introduction of “functional separation” as a possible remedy for competition problems when it meets in July to review the telecom [...]
FCC Mulls Future of Unfetterred IP Access
Tom Evslin has posted an informative blog about the latest FCC proposal to release a significant swath of radio frequencies for unlicensed use. The FCC proceeding concerns guard bands that will be freed up when television broadcasts convert to a digital format in 2009. If made available, these frequencies could be [...]
Cingular Blocks FreeConferenceCall.com and Introduces the New Futurephone
I noticed that a blog post from last month about FreeConferenceCall.com was getting an unusually large number of hits, so I decided to find out why. In that blog, I had speculated that FreeConferenceCall.com might be next in line to feel the wrath of AT&T (formerly SBC) following the latter’s suit against Futurephone.
Thirty seconds [...]
Neighborhood Watch for the Internet
Tom Evslin, the blogging pioneer responsible for Fractals of Change, posted an interesting folllow-up to my comments on the Cisco/Brix VoIP quality of service measurement proposal.
Referring to the inherent difficulties of accurately measuring broadband speeds, he suggests that the Cisco/Brix method of testing could serve as a springboard for a grass roots movement to identify [...]
Mobile Vendors’ Embrace of PC Tells a Story About Convergence
Both Nokia and Ericsson recently announced plans that highlight different approaches to the complexity of convergence. Nokia’s announcement addresses IMS-like fixed mobile convergence (FMC) with the novel approach of routing mobile voice calls over a user’s broadband connection, while Ericsson is pushing other IMS services using the laptop PC format as its preferred mobile [...]