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Weekend Open Thread - - Fri, 03 Feb 2012
We're headed out for a bit. Please keep each other entertained in the comment section below until we come back to get you.
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Friday Evening Links - - Fri, 03 Feb 2012
Why the House spectrum bill should be ditched: Q&A with Former FCC Chair Reed Hundt networkworld.com
Feature phones: Is the end near? fiercewireless.com
Is Google asking the FCC to allow gigabit Wi-Fi for its gigabit network? gigaom.com
Forget Super Wi-Fi! Go with Super Wi-Fi! Wait. What? tmcnet.com
EU regulators want Google to halt new privacy policy reuters.com
European revolt over ACTA treaty gains ground theregister.co.uk
Poles pissed: US embassy checking up on whether Polish politicians were following the party line on ACTA duringt voting? techdirt.com
Survey Sez: Virgin Mobile Best At Prepaid Customer Service cable360.net
Laptop Wi-Fi said to nuke sperm, but caveats abound ottawacitizen.com
Skype could hit Windows Phone soon, report says cnet.com
Ban on iPhones, iPads Suspended in Germany, Sales Resume foxbusiness.com
Galaxy Nexus and other CDMA devices removed from Google Support pages engadget.com
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Is Dish Serious About LTE or Just Playing AT&T? - New Filing Dishes More Detail On Possible Dish LTE Network - Fri, 03 Feb 2012
Back in August Dish Network made it clear that the company was very seriously interested in launching a wireless network, despite previous executive assurances that the company was accumulating spectrum just for fun. Run from a subsidiary, the company is hoping to launch an LTE-Advanced network under the brand "Ollo." Dish is planning to use the spectrum they acquired from DBSD North America and TerreStar Networks, but is waiting for FCC approval.
AT&T doesn't want the competition and wouldn't mind gobbling that spectrum up for themselves, and this week has been pushing for expedited build timeline requirements they know Dish can't meet. Fierce Wireless directs our attention to a new FCC filing from Dish that combats AT&T's efforts and holds a little more detail on Dish's plans. In it, Dish makes several new disclosures, among them that the company will be offering retail -- not wholesale -- service, and that they'll be jumping directly to LTE Advanced:
"A new, next-generation LTE Advanced retail network simply cannot be viably built in the S-Band at the pace AT&T suggests...Building a network before LTE Advanced devices are widely available would necessitate the use of an earlier standard, followed by a migration to LTE Advanced once network and consumer devices are available. Such a requirement would needlessly trigger backward compatibility and network modernization issues and costs for Dish's proposed network."
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Rogers to End Throttling in March - Now That They Can Just Charge Users an Arm and a Leg - Fri, 03 Feb 2012
For most of the last decade nobody has exemplified the clumsy, ham-fisted approach to network management better than Canadian cable company Rogers. From crippling encryption and VPNs to throttling legitimate apps and games like World of Warcraft, Rogers has accounted for nearly half of all network neutrality infractions in Canada. Recent MLabs data highlighted that Rogers was among the worst ISPs in the world when it comes to aggressively slowing user traffic.
It was Rogers constant and clumsy throttling of World of Warcraft traffic that finally got the company in hot water with regulators, the CRTC last week officially ruling Rogers was violating Canada's new network neutrality rules after years of complaints.
Many of those complaints originated right here in our forums, with anger from Jason Koblovsky, Teresa Murphy and the Canadian Gamers Organization leading to a campaign pushing the CRTC to finally act. In a response to the CRTC, Rogers today announced that they'll finally stop throttling user traffic starting in March. The move comes on the heels of a similar December decision by Bell.
"New technologies and ongoing investments in network capacity will allow Rogers to begin phasing out that policy starting in March 2012," said Kenneth Engelhart, senior vice-president of regulatory affairs in the filing. "These changes will be introduced to half of Rogers existing Internet customers by June 2012 and to its remaining customers by December 2012."
While that's certainly a win for users, Rogers spends the lion's share of their filing taking pot shots at the CRTC and denying any wrongdoing in their implementation of Internet Traffic Management Practices (ITMP). While acknowledging a "few isolated cases of misclassification," Rogers continues to insist their network management platforms rarely catch legitimate traffic in their net.
Rogers says that "out of an abundance of caution" and "to allay any concerns which the Commission s investigation may have created," the company has reconfigured their Cisco hardware so that unclassified traffic that utilizes peer-to-peer ports are no longer traffic managed. In other words, Rogers has finally agreed to obey Canadian law but, despite being universally derided as one of the worst ISPs in the world when it comes to heavy-handed network management -- still swears they didn't do anything wrong.
Either way, users in our forums say they'll take it. Some argue the glacially-moving CRTC and Canada's new network neutrality rules are to thank for Rogers' begrudging change of heart. Others believe Rogers' moves are motivated by the fact that the CRTC recently allowed incumbent ISPs to drastically raise (already very high) rates on consumers and wholesalers, making dramatically degrading the quality of the bandwidth delivered less useful. In other words, cue the broadband price increases.
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DirecTV Stops Selling WildBlue - May be Working With Dish/Hughes On New Option - Fri, 03 Feb 2012
DirecTV has traveled a somewhat rocky road when it comes to offering broadband, their effort at being a DSL provider failing rather spectacularly in 2002. They've flirted with several options since then, though aside from some finished fixed residential LTE trials with Verizon, ultimately settled on just reselling satellite broadband service from WildBlue. Interestingly, DirecTV is sending out an e-mail to customers saying they'll no longer be selling WildBlue satellite broadband service. More interestingly perhaps is the fact that DirecTV may replace this with a broadband service from HughesNet/Dish:
More interesting, however, is that the company says not offering an internet service "is a temporary situation" for resellers to manage. "Stay tuned for a DIRECTV satellite broadband bundle offering coming soon!" (Original emphasis.) While it is unclear how DIRECTV plans to launch such a service, rumblings from the dealer chain hint at a possible deal with HughesNet. Yes... Hughes. As in DISH's Hughes.
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ISP AAISP UK Rails Against Abuse of Official ADR Consumer Complaint Handlers - Sat, 04 Feb 2012
The boss of UK ISP AAISP, Adrian Kennard, has criticised Ofcom's official Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) consumer complaints handlers for being an "unfair" and "one-side pays regardless" style arbitration scheme.
Virgin Media UK Cable Broadband Customers Hit by Unexpected Price Hikes - Fri, 03 Feb 2012
Virgin Media, a UK focused cable operator, has caused frustration among its customers after surprising them with a heap of new broadband and phone price rises. Just in time for Easter.
FTTC Superfast Broadband ISP Technology Could Reach Over 98% of UK Homes - Fri, 03 Feb 2012
Analysys Mason has estimated that between 98-99% of UK homes and businesses could one day access superfast broadband ISP services via FTTC technology, but only if band plan, vectoring and line bonding solutions are used.
For Facebook 'Hacker Way' is way of life
(AP)
- Sat, 04 Feb 2012
AP - Facebook's billionaire CEO Mark Zuckerberg calls himself a hacker.
Hackers apparently hit Swedish government site
(AP)
- Sat, 04 Feb 2012
AP - A group linked to the hacker network Anonymous says it has attacked the Swedish government's website and shut it down by overloading it.
Hackers intercept FBI, Scotland Yard call
(AP)
- Sat, 04 Feb 2012
AP - Trading jokes and swapping leads, investigators from the FBI and Scotland Yard spent the conference call strategizing about how to bring down the hacking collective known as Anonymous, responsible for a string of embarrassing attacks across the Internet.
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