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Survey finds Google Fiber getting high take rates in Kansas City

12 May 2013 by Steve Blum
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If the hare has staying power, the tortoise will lose.

Google’s early results in Kansas City have to be giving incumbent carriers the shakes. According to a survey done by Bernstein Research, one-third of the homes in neighborhoods where Google is already offering Internet and television service have signed up. And even more are thinking about it.

Bernstein surveyed 200 homes in the relatively small area where Google Fiber is up and running. One-third were already taking the service and of the rest, about three-quarters were thinking about it.… More

Asia leads in Internet speed and disruption

11 May 2013 by Steve Blum
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Asia-Pacific 4th quarter 2012

Asian countries hit the top of the charts in the latest “State of the Internet” rankings released by content delivery network pioneer Akamai. The numbers for the last quarter of 2012 rank Korea, Japan and Hong Kong 1-2-3 in terms of average broadband download speed, with scores of 14.0, 10.8 and 9.3 Mbps respectively.

Before the hand-wringing over the U.S. not being number one starts, consider that 1. it does pretty well coming in at eighth place with average broadband download rate of 7.4 Mbps and 2.… More

Form defines function for wearable smart phone peripherals

10 May 2013 by Steve Blum
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Good for a casual look.

The Fitbit Flex shipped this week. I previewed it at CES. It’s a jelly bean-sized device that snaps into a wristband and monitors your movement. The data is uploaded to a smart phone or computer, and you can mine some information about your health and fitness.

It’s a smart phone peripheral. If you’re tracking, say, sleep patterns, sensors inside of a phone would not be optimal. You might sleep with your phone next to you, but you won’t have it on you.… More

Municipal broadband under attack in the California legislature

9 May 2013 by Steve Blum
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Cable lobby streams war channel in Sacramento.

It’s doubtful that telco and cable lobbyists could get an outright ban on municipal broadband as far as a floor vote in the California legislature. They managed that much in Georgia, with no result. Democrats and rural Republicans combined to vote down a ban in March, and a similar dynamic is likely here in California.

What they can do, though, is try to hamstring municipal broadband projects bit by bit, and they’ve made good progress so far this legislative session.… More

California senate committee lets industry lobbyists rewrite broadband subsidy rules

8 May 2013 by Steve Blum
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Oh, please, monsieur. It is a little game we play. They put it on the bill, I tear up the bill. It is very convenient.

The latest version of a proposed bill to add money to the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) and extend eligibility beyond traditional telephone companies is bad news for everyone except incumbent cable and telephone companies.

Last week, the senate energy, utilities and communications committee approved senate bill 740 on the basis of a promise by the measure’s author, Alex Padilla (D – Los Angeles), to make it more to the liking of the lobbyists from AT&T, Verizon, Frontier and the cable industry who testified at the hearing.… More

Google's goad sinks a little deeper into Kansas City

7 May 2013 by Steve Blum
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Wanted in Grandview.

Grandview, Missouri is latest addition to Google’s wish list of Kansas City suburbs. The city council – board of aldermen as they call it in Missouri – took a no-brainer decision tonight to invite Google to expand its existing fiber to the home network into their community. Google’s response is to say thank you, but “it will still be awhile before we can build fiber in Grandview — we need to plan and engineer our network there first.”… More

Incumbent carriers' response is exactly what Google intended to provoke

6 May 2013 by Steve Blum
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Google’s fantastic fiber voyage on (a long) course to a happy ending.

In the same way the tiniest virus can trigger a massive flood of antibodies, Google’s willingness to bankroll competitive – and likely money-losing – fiber to the home projects in a handful of markets is rewriting capital investment plans at major carriers.

CenturyLink’s decision to build out an FTTH network in a limited area of Omaha is, as many have pointed out, a special case.… More

The Electric Blackberry Acid Test

5 May 2013 by Steve Blum
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“When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.”

I was wrong to say that Blackberry CEO Thorsten Heins doesn’t seem to be the sort of CEO that might dabble in hallucinogens. First he claimed victory over Apple in the smart phone wars, and last week followed up with a declaration that tablets are dead.

We need Hunter S. Thompson. Now. He broke the ibogaine story in the 1972 presidential race and would quickly find any ambient pharmaceuticals floating through the Blackberry corporate ecosystem.… More

Intel's new captain must turn quickly

4 May 2013 by Steve Blum
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A titanic job ahead.

Sounding defensive about the future of personal computers, Brian Krzanich, Intel’s newly appointed CEO, told USA Today that he’s not giving up on that sector but he will be going after the mobile market with renewed vigor.

With PC numbers falling and mobile device sales exploding, Intel is losing its dominant position in the semiconductor industry. More efficient processors based on ARM technology are the standard in the mobile world. And now, ARM chip makers are about to make a major new move into another Intel bastion, server farms.… More

New T-Mobile launches D-Day assault on retail channels

3 May 2013 by Steve Blum
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Don’t worry if I’m a gone awhile. I’m on a mission.

The T-Mobile/MetroPCS merger was wrapped up this week and now the combined company is packing superior retail firepower.

MetroPCS sells on a no-contract and pre-paid basis, which meshes perfectly with T-Mobile’s business model. It was a good fit. T-Mobile gets three things out of the deal: spectrum, which it desperately needs, nine million customers and MetroPCS’s distribution channels. Over the next two or three years, MetroPCS subscribers will be transitioned off of their CDMA phones, and T-Mobile will light up the cleared spectrum with GSM and 4G services.… More