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Thursday Evening Links - - Thu, 11 Mar 2010


The FCC Wants You to Test Your Broadband Speeds wired.com
DSL Still Tops Broadband Market Share, Says ABI cable360.net
Kaspersky calls for international internet government v3.co.uk
AT&T CEO Calls For 'Light Touch' Regulations advfn.com
Time Warner Cable Phasing Out Sprint VoIP multichannel.com
Buying bandwidth in the app store theregister.co.uk
Will Verizon 4G Mean the End of "All You Can Eat" Data? pcworld.com
Cox Business lands state contracts in Va. cedmagazine.com
Why the FCC National Broadband Plan Should Include Public Wi-Fi pcworld.com
FCC Scammed Out Of Millions In Telco Scam techdirt.com
ComScore: Motorola, BlackBerry rule U.S. market fiercewireless.com
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Piracy Increases In France Despite 'Three Strikes' Law - Users shift to other sources, while ISPs, entertainment industry lose customers - Thu, 11 Mar 2010


France of course was one of the first countries to impose laws that require ISPs terminate the service of users who repeatedly engage in copyright infringement. Surprising, well, nobody, Torrent Freak points out since France's new antipiracy law was passed last September, piracy has continued to rise. A new study published by the University of Rennes indicates that piracy has risen in France 3%, with users having to only slightly vary their online habits:

This increase in piracy shows that the French are not changing their downloading habits much, despite the tougher legislation. There is, however, an interesting shift in the sources people use to download copyrighted movies and music. At an increasing rate the French are using streaming services along with file-hosting cyberlockers such as Rapidshare and Megaupload.
The law of course doesn't cover direct download sites, and so the use of BitTorrent dropped 7.1% to 14.6% as users migrated to direct downloads and Usenet. Again, French critics continue to charge that instead of playing this game of perpetual whack a mole, the industry should be focusing on offering cheap, compelling, DRM-free alternatives.

In line with other studies, the French study also found that half of all P2P users who download copyrighted content also buy digital content online -- meaning that by kicking them off of the Internet -- both ISPs and the entertainment industry are losing customers.
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Frontier Suggests You Ignore Judge Critical Of Verizon Deal - Because said Judge 'ignores the numerous public interest benefits.' - Thu, 11 Mar 2010


Earlier this week we noted how a Judge in Illinois had issued a 47-page report claiming that Verizon's sale of their DSL and landline networks in the state would be both bad for consumers, and bad for Frontier. According to Judge Lisa Tapial, the $8.5 billion deal (which would immediately infuse Frontier with nearly 6 million new voice and broadband connections) "will diminish Frontier s ability to perform its duties to provide adequate, reliable, efficient, safe and least-cost public utility service." Frontier has issued a press release that unsurprisingly argues that the Judge doesn't know what she's talking about:

Today s proposed order by an ALJ in Illinois ignores the numerous public interest benefits outlined in the complete record developed in the Frontier/Verizon transaction. . . Frontier has been a leading provider of telecommunications services to Illinois customers for a decade, and during this time we have demonstrated our ability to meet our commitment to providing quality service. Without any regulatory mandates we have deployed broadband availability to more than 90 percent of our footprint in Illinois. "We hope to deliver these same broadband benefits to even more consumers in Illinois as soon as possible."
It's not clear what "numerous public benefits" Frontier's referring to, given Judge Tapial's point was that the Verizon deal infuses Frontier with so much debt -- they may not be able to provide any. Meanwhile, it's not exactly as if Frontier is lighting it up in the territories they serve now. Our Frontier user reviews are thoroughly average, the carrier isn't offering next-generation speeds (most users are served with 3 Mbps or less), and just a few years ago the carrier was considering applying a 5GB cap on all DSL tiers.

Which "numerous public benefits" are we talking about, exactly?
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OnLive Broadband Game Service To Launch June 17 - Now the big question: will it actually work? - Thu, 11 Mar 2010


Back in March of last year a company by the name of OnLive unveiled their new broadband gaming service, which aims to replace the traditional game console with what's essentially a broadband-connected dumb terminal. Under the system, which has been proposed in various forums for a decade, major title games are streamed over your broadband connection -- for a monthly subscription fee.

Initial demonstrations were on closed networks, and of course everyone wants to see this service in the real world -- where the company admits you'll need to live within 1,000 miles of a data center. For Standard-Definition gaming, OnLive says it needs a 1.5 Mbps connection. For HDTV resolution (720p60), at least 5 Mbps is required.

Those curious in seeing whether the service works will be interested to know that OnLive has issued a press release saying they'll be commercially launching the service on June 17:

Starting on June 17, 2010, the OnLive Game Service will be available to early registrants throughout the 48 contiguous United States. The initial offering will be supported by a $14.95 monthly service fee, which will provide access to an ever-increasing library of high-end, new-release, instant-play game content without the need to purchase expensive PC gaming or console systems.
According to the OnLive FAQ, that $14.95 doesn't include the purchase or rental of actual games, the base subscription fee subsidizing the hardware and giving you access to demos, videos, and community features (think Xbox Live). Users who sign up get a small microconsole that hooks up via HDMI to your set, and via Ethernet to your broadband router. The service features both Bluetooth and USB connections for up to four wireless controllers.

There's a flood of factors that will dictate whether this service will be successful, and most of them are completely outside of OnLive's control. There's still a lot of Americans on connections well below 5 Mbps, and OnLive's only offering HD gaming at launch for some reason. The system also obviously depends on low latency, which could be a fickle mistress for many. This also isn't an idea that will play nice with ISPs who've decided to impose monthly bandwidth caps.

You can expect the initial launch to feel very much like a beta as the company struggles with real-world Internet weather and last mile limitations. While funded in part by companies like AT&T, OnLive's also gunning against some heavy hitters in the gaming industry, including Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo. Broadband streaming is likely an inevitable future, but OnLive may suffer from being ahead of its time. Stay tuned.
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Researchers Aim To Reduce Copyright Infringement False Positives - - Thu, 11 Mar 2010


According to Slashdot, Cox, Time Warner Cable and Comcast have created a joint venture called PolyCipher. PolyCipher in turn is funding research into a project called BitStalker, which according to the project explanation (pdf) will help copyright holders more effectively identify BitTorrent users trading copyrighted files. The goal is to reduce the number of false positives that pop up (about 11% currently) during efforts to identify pirates on P2P networks. Says the study:

We develop an active probing framework called BitStalker that identifies active peers and collects concrete forensic evidence that they were involved in sharing a particular file. We evaluate the effectiveness of this approach through a measurement study with real, large torrents consisting of over 186,000 peers. We find that the current investigative methods produce at least 11% false positives, while we show that false positives are rare with our active approach.
According to the researchers, the system could potentially monitor up to 20,000 different peers over a period of five minutes using somewhere between 14.4 and 50.8KB/s of bandwidth. It could also work cheaply -- the researchers claim they could monitor the entire userbase of The Pirate Bay for just $12.40 a month. A little more on how they can reduce false positives:
A successful TCP probe indicates that the peer is listening on the correct port. However, an effective counter-strategy could be to register arbitrary IP addresses with ports that are opened (such as web servers). The subsequent handshake probe is more conclusive, as it indicates that the BitTorrent protocol is running on the correct port and also identifies the content being shared by a SHA1 hash. The bitfield probe provides stronger evidence still, since it describes all pieces that the peer has downloaded, which implies active sharing. Finally, requesting and subsequently receiving a block of the file provides the strongest form of concrete evidence for file sharing.
Some ISPs are more willing to become the entertainment industry's content nannies than others. Cox for instance was the first large U.S. ISP to begin voluntarily booting users from their network should they violate copyrights, though Cox tells Broadband Reports only a few users have been kicked. Reducing false positives (like this Qwest using grandmother) is a huge first step if ISPs want to proceed down the road of disconnecting users for copyright infringement (aka "three strikes" or "graduated response").

With companies like Comcast poised to merge with NBC Universal -- that seems like an inevitable outcome. By investing in this technology, ISPs could be looking to limit their legal liability for falsely accusing users. But false positives are only a small part of the issues raised when ISPs begin kicking users off of the network for piracy. Keep in mind not all ISPs and users agree that terminating a user's broadband lifeline is a fair punishment for downloading a handful of LOST episodes, or that ISPs should be propping up struggling entertainment industry business models.

But that aside, there's questions surrounding who tracks users across ISPs, how to treat multi-user homes, or whether small ISPs can afford the cost of such systems. There's still limited transparency into these processes (Qwest for instance absolutely refused to talk to us about any specifics behind their user termination program), no independent oversight, and no recourse for the falsely accused. Meanwhile studies have show that many pirates are also significant buyers of online content, so by kicking them offline -- both ISPs and the entertainment industry are losing potential customers.

Update: Comcast denies to Broadband Reports that they're currently investing in this technology, and claims the Slashdot story is incorrect. According to Comcast, while the cable companies did previously fund PolyCipher, PolyCipher no longer really even exists as an entity -- and this latest research project is not tied to the organization.
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UK ISP Virgin Media Trials Ultrafast Broadband and TV via Telegraph Poles - Thu, 11 Mar 2010
Cable giant Virgin Media UK has announced a new 6 month trial that involves using telegraph poles to deliver ultrafast 50-100Mbps Cable Modem (DOCSIS) broadband services to the rural Berkshire village of Woolhampton. Cable carried over the telegraph poles will also carry Virgin's TV service, including 5,000 hours of catch-up TV and on-demand (VoD) content.

ISP Vtesse Pilots Wireless Broadband Service in Hertford UK Town Centre - Thu, 11 Mar 2010
Broadband provider Vtesse Networks has today announced its intention to deploy a pilot wireless internet service in Hertford town centre during the spring. The service aims to provide net access to those with mobile wireless devices, including Blackberry's, iPhones, smartphones, netbooks and notebook (laptop) computers.

European Parliament Demands Openness from ACTA Negotiations - Wed, 10 Mar 2010
The European Parliament has approved a common resolution that calls for openness over Europe and the USA's Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) negotiations. ACTA is a treaty that has been in the works for over two years and seeks to establish international standards on intellectual property rights enforcement, such as against those suspected of unlawfully downloading copyright content through their ISP.

Report finds online censorship more sophisticated (AP) - Thu, 11 Mar 2010

A woman works online in her cubicle at an office in Beijing on February 4, 2010. China's homegrown social media sites like Weibo are booming thanks to their better knowledge of the world's largest Internet market, and the censorship stifling foreign rivals like Facebook, Twitter, and Google-owned YouTube.(AFP/Frederic J. Brown)AP - Repressive regimes have stepped up efforts to censor the Internet and jail dissidents, Reporters Without Borders said in a study out Thursday.


Feds pledge tough review of Comcast-NBC deal (AP) - Thu, 11 Mar 2010
AP - Federal regulators are pledging rigorous reviews of Comcast Corp.'s proposed purchase of NBC Universal to ensure that it would not stifle competition or harm consumers.

VeriSign to spend more than $300M on tech upgrades (AP) - Thu, 11 Mar 2010
AP - VeriSign Inc., whose technology is key to allowing Internet users to access Web sites with names ending in ".com" and ".net," plans to spend more than $300 million over the next decade to upgrade its systems.

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