Month: October 2013

Gigabuzz without the bits in Austin and Vegas

13 October 2013 by Steve Blum
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Not the first time the marketing department has promised the moon.

AT&T and CenturyLink are pumping up the gigabit marketing machine, without much in the way of network infrastructure to back it up.

CenturyLink says it’ll deliver a gigabit to select locations in Las Vegas this fall, without specifics on price or location. The press release does say that its previously announced fiber-to-the-premise service in Omaha will be offering service by the end of the month, but only to “targeted homes and business” customers.… More

Fitness for Christmas is a mobile game

12 October 2013 by Steve Blum
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Old school only gets you so far.

About half of the annual sales of consumer electronics products will come between now and the end of the year, so manufacturers are feverishly trying to get their new products in front of consumers. Fitness applications, particularly ones built around smart phones, are getting an increasing amount of attention as the holiday selling season builds.

There’s no question that mobile phones are part of the standard kit for athletes (although hopefully not during races).… More

The world is getting smarter

11 October 2013 by Steve Blum
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Out of 157 countries rated by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), 154 had a better information and communication technology (ICT) environment in 2012 than in 2011. Although some countries saw fluctuations in the usage and penetration of one technology or another, taken as a whole international and domestic connectivity is growing virtually everywhere.

The ITU publishes statistics on a range of telecoms and information technology metrics, from plain old telephone lines to home Internet subscriptions to adult literacy.… More

CPUC small business expo draws hundreds to Salinas

10 October 2013 by Steve Blum
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Giving small business a lift in Salinas.

Rapidly changing business models and utility needs are providing opportunities for small businesses in the twenty-first century. That was Commissioner Catherine Sandoval’s message to several hundred entrepreneurs in Salinas yesterday, at a small business expo and matchmaking fair sponsored by the California Public Utilities Commission.

Sandoval pointed to new rules that were just adopted that allow online ride sharing companies, such as Lyft and Uber, to provide on demand service, despite vehement objections from entrenched – and protected – taxi companies.… More

Supreme Court clears way for lower fees, easier access to utility poles

9 October 2013 by Steve Blum
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More competition for the communications zone.

A standard attachment fee of $7 per foot of vertical space and permission for wireless companies to install equipment on utility poles was blessed Monday by the U.S. Supreme Court. It declined to hear an appeal from a broad group of electric utilities that objected to new pole attachment rules adopted by the FCC in 2011.

The electric utilities claimed that the FCC and the lower appeals court that heard the case misinterpreted federal law, with the result…

The FCC’s one-sided regulation of the century-old ‘joint use’ or ‘joint ownership’ relationship will upset well established private contractual relationships to the unfair benefit of ILECs and the enormous detriment of the electric utility industry.

… More

LG and Samsung give Apple a case of the bends

8 October 2013 by Steve Blum
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LG and Samsung muscle their flex.

LG and Samsung are firing press releases at each other, each claiming to have the first flexible OLED smartphone screen. Samsung teased their new technology at CES earlier this year, while LG unveiled its flex screen yesterday. Regardless of who is first, it’ll create marketing buzz for both companies as they build speed through the fall selling season.

A flexible screen means you can do cool things with design, like offering more useable screen real estate in more interesting ways.… More

No quick changes for Californian broadband subsidy program

7 October 2013 by Steve Blum
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Glaciers are slow, but reliably arrive.

Because it was tagged as urgency legislation and then approved by a two-thirds vote of the California legislature, senate bill 740 took effect the moment it was signed by Governor Brown. Even so, don’t expect any immediate changes to the way the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) is managed or broadband construction subsidies are given out.

Eleven months ago, the California Public Utilities Commission began the lengthy process of changing CASF eligibility rules, under the assumption that the legislature would allow it.… More

Sunk costs support sinking gigabit prices

6 October 2013 by Steve Blum
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Nowhere to go but up.

Fiber-to-the-home system operators are falling in behind Google’s idea that market share counts more than marginal revenue gains (or cost controls). Both Chattanooga’s municipal FTTH network and the Utopia system serving several Utah communities are following Google’s lead in Kansas City and Provo, and offering residential gigabit service for monthly fees in the $65 to $70 range.

At $350 per month, Chattanooga was attracting only a few dozen gigabit-level subscribers. At $70 per month, it should shortly have tens of thousands.… More

Linux kernels find fertile ground in Inyo County

5 October 2013 by Steve Blum
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Opening eyes to open source.

Inyo County, in remote eastern California, might be the first in the country where every student, from kindergartener to high school senior, is given a personal computing device in the public schools.

Terry McAteer, Inyo County superintendent of schools, made that claim last month at a forum organised by the Eastern Sierra Connect Regional Broadband Consortium. Every student in the county’s school system has an Acer Travelmate, a $320 netbook-class machine.… More

Santa Cruz culture gives tech start ups a competitive edge

Santa Cruz inspires Tomfoolery.

“The culture of community is Santa Cruz’s greatest export,” said Sol Lipman, one of three local entrepreneurs speaking at an event Thursday evening celebrating the growth and innovation of the local tech scene.
Sol is the founder of Tomfoolery, a start up that’s targeting the corporate sector with mobile apps that grow social networks within companies organically. He pointed out that the top three social networking platforms used for business are actually well known consumer market apps: Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, in that order.… More