On Friday, Paul Taylor published a column in the Financial Times extolling the value of femtocells. While Taylor focuses mostly on the benefits femtocells bring consumers (e.g., better cell coverage at home and in the office, removal of the last real stumbling block to cutting your wireline connection), I was struck by the benefits to […]
In Monday’s FCC hearing [video link] on Comcast’s network management practices, Vuze, a video sharing Website that uses P2P technologies to enable near zero distribution costs, apparently argued that BitTorrent does not hog bandwidth. Real World IT’s George Ou responded with a wonderfully cogent and fact-based response that demonstrated BitTorrent was a gigantic upstream […]
Verizon Wireless has set March 19 as the date it will release the first version of its open network service specs. As c|net’s Marguerite Reardon points out, the pricing of the “Any Device, Any App” service is still up in the air (no pun intended):
“But even though Verizon appears to be embracing the network openness, […]
On Monday, Starbucks announced that it would switch providers for its ubiquitous Wi-Fi hotspots, replacing T-Mobile with AT&T. Starbucks also announced it will start providing two hours of free Wi-Fi for customers who buy coffee on their Starbucks purchase card as well as cheaper rates monthly (and after that two hour freebie). AT&T’s broadband customers […]
On Monday, BlackBerry users suffered another service outage. As the outage appears to have affected all wireless carriers, it sounds like another software glitch more than a network issue, but one quote from the AP’s article caught my eye:
“[Stuart] Gold . . . plans to ask his company to buy him a backup smart phone […]
iPhone users having problems with AT&T’s EDGE network at the biggest consumer electronics show in the U.S.?
I am shocked. Shocked, I say.
If only there was some sort of planning solution that could help carriers ensure that their networks can support their services . . .
Happy New Year, everyone! Here’s to a great 2008!
While I was home watching the ball drop in Times Square and celebrating the start of 2008 with friends and family, millions of other people were busy text messaging their far-flung friends and families to wish them a happy new year. According to the AP, […]
Verizon Wireless has made a large footprint in the “Open” movement over the last week — first opening its network to outside devices and applications, then announcing its plan to use the LTE (Long Term Evolution) standard instead of UMB (ultramobile broadband), and Tuesday joining Google’s Open Handset Alliance. The company is positioning the OHA […]
Reading the news and analysis about Google’s Android and OHA announcements this week, I was reminded of a good rule of thumb in networking technology and telecom services - “simple wins, cheap wins, open wins.” An Android-based phone has all three - it’s easy to use (it’s Google), inexpensive (no or little embedded software […]
This week’s BusinessWeek had an interesting report on the debate over 4G mobile standards. In my opinion, each of the candidates (WiMAX, LTE and UMB) has its own pros and cons, but which is “the best” depends on the factor you consider most important:
Being nearly ready for deployment (Mobile WiMAX is already being pushed by […]
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