verizon

Verizon says chill out, only a million California homes have crap Internet


One million homes.

AT&T, Verizon and a posse of community broadband advocates joined the debate over eligibility requirements for California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) grants and loans. The advocacy folks want fewer or no restrictions on who can apply for broadband infrastructure construction subsidies. The telcos like the current rules which limit the money to, well, telcos.

Like the cable lobby, the big telcos are most offended by the idea that the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) might give money to competing providers in underserved areas, where broadband service doesn’t meet the minimum standard of 6 Mbps down and 1.5 Mbps up.… More

Mobile carriers' broadband coverage claims challenged by ISPs

Availability maps submitted by mobile telephone carriers are a problem for local Internet companies trying to expand and improve broadband service in California’s central coast region.

Representatives from six Internet service providers – Central Coast Internet, Charter, Cruzio, Razzolink, Redshift and Surfnet – participated in a workshop yesterday organized by the Central Coast Broadband Consortium (CCBC). A number of concerns were discussed, including construction permits, funding, and coordination with other utility and local government projects.… More

Incumbents fighting CASF proposals

Five applications comprising three projects were submitted for California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) subsidies last month by competitive broadband service providers. All are under review by California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) staff. Incumbent carriers – AT&T and Charter Communications – have challenged all three projects (and four of the five applications).

Because of the way CASF rules are written, two of the projects – Race Communications in Kern County and WillitsOnline in Mendocino County – had to file two grant applications each.… More

Mobile broadband claims don't match truth in California

14 August 2012 by Steve Blum
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The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has finished up its first round of mobile broadband field testing, and the results do not support the marketing claims of the carriers.

Sprint doesn’t hit the CPUC’s 6 Mbps download/1.5 Mbps upload benchmark for adequate service anywhere in California. Verizon does the best at 21% of the state. T-Mobile and AT&T manage 10% and 7% respectively. These real world results are dramatically different from what mobile carriers claim to provide.

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Winners and losers in wireless CEO industry leadership pageant

11 October 2011 by Steve Blum
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CEOs from the big three U.S. mobile phone companies gave keynote speeches at the CTIA Enterprise and Applications conference in San Diego this morning.

It’s a chance for CEOs to step out as industry leaders. Or it’s a chance for them to deliver their sales pitch of the day.

Dan Hesse, the CEO of Sprint Nextel, took the high road. As CTIA chairman this year, he had some extra incentive to play the industry statesman role, but others have had that opportunity and taken a pass on it.… More

4G is not 4G without the backhaul to support it

10 October 2011 by Steve Blum
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“4G is not 4G without the backhaul to support it,” said Sara Kaufman, an analyst who follows mobile operator strategy for Ovum, speaking today at the CTIA Enterprise & Applications conference in San Diego. Mobile carriers have to start by connecting cell sites to fiber networks when they upgrade their networks to 4G speeds using LTE technology.

She predicted robust growth for LTE-based 4G mobile data service in the U.S., but had trouble explaining exactly why.… More

M2M: sell the service, not the machine

10 October 2011 by Steve Blum
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Verizon’s approach to the machine-to-machine business is to stop selling hardware and just sell the service. Duncan Sensenich, from their M2M unit, was one of several mobile executives who spoke at Ovum’s M2M seminar at the CTIA Enterprise and Applications conference in San Diego today.

In this case, low expectations might have been the breeding ground for a lower cost, potentially higher profit way of doing business. The M2M segment was traditionally buried in Verizon’s financial reporting and its management structure.… More

Keynote tweets from CTIA Enterprise & Applications conference

I came in while John Chen, CEO of Sybase was speaking. He talked about how wireless is enabling mobile banking, commerce and philanthropy. Interesting stuff. But the best part was when he set the stage (perhaps unwitting, perhaps not) for the second speaker, Dr. Kristina Johnson, an undersecretary at the U.S. Department of Energy. Chen starting talking about various federal agencies, FCC, FTC etc., and called them the F-words.

When Johnson came up on stage, she didn’t exactly return the compliment, but she didn’t have much to say about wireless telecommunications or the mobile phone industry either.… More

Real-time tweets from CTIA and Showstoppers, 7 October 2009

Julius Genachowski, FCC chair, CTIA keynote, commends ATT, Verizon for opening iPhone to Internet calls, adopting Android.

Four priorities at FCC, spectrum for 4G, remove obstacles to 4G, “fair” rules of road for Internet, empower consumers.

Ralph de la Vega, ATT CEO up now, thanks Genchowski, but warns of danger of interference.

Ralph saying US mobile industry most innovative, consumer friendly in world, damn we’re great.

Ralph descends into ATT sales pitch, time for a nap.… More

Carriers can't rock and roll

6 October 2009 by Steve Blum
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AT&T’s Rob Hyatt and Verizon’s Ed Ruth spoke today about the music business at the Mobile Entertainment conference at the CTIA show in San Diego. Neither were upbeat about their success to date, and both seemed to be waiting for something to happen. They seemed to define that something as “innovation” in the market place, but what they really seemed to want are innovations that allow them to keep music downloads and streaming within their walled gardens.… More