Smart watch might give Windows a boost in the mobile market

15 April 2013 by Steve Blum
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It’s not a smart watch unless it looks smart.

Microsoft is the latest company to get into the smart watch business, or so the latest rumors say. It could be a way to give Windows a competitive boost in the mobile OS market, if Microsoft can integrate it into the ecosystem in an interesting way.

The hot smart watch at CES in January was the Pebble. It links to a smart phone via Bluetooth, allowing users see messages and alerts or control phone functions.… More

More competition means lower FTTH prices according to Swedish study


Sweden breeds competitors.

Competition drives prices down on open access municipal fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) systems. That’s the conclusion of a study completed by a graduate researcher in Sweden. Ziyi Xiong, a masters candidate at the KTH Institute of Technology in Stockholm, examined data from 290 Swedish municipalities – with and without FTTH service – and found that the cost of a 10 Mbps subscription dropped by about a dollar a month for every service provider on a given fiber network.… More

New M2M radio specs could challenge mobile networks

13 April 2013 by Steve Blum
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Wide area of possibilities.

Two new low power standards for wireless machine-to-machine (M2M) communications have been released in the past couple of weeks. The Zigbee Alliance and the Weightless special interest group have published specifications for wide area networking standards that address the low power, low bit rate needs of many M2M applications. Both are initially targeting the smart grid sector, which is growing rapidly as electricity providers deploy tools to intelligently manage power distribution systems in real time.… More

Civinomics launches platform for cooler, smarter conversations about hot button issues

12 April 2013 by Steve Blum
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Civil discussion about community issues is the goal of a start-up launched last night in Santa Cruz, California. Civinomics is a platform for online workshops and in-person polling, aimed at engaging a wider segment of the public in conversations about local issues and ideas. Where ever those might be.

“It represents the evolution of social media into civic media,” said Chris Neklason, the company’s product management guru and the co-founder of Cruzio, an independent ISP and the host of the ribbon cutting event.… More

Serving urban homes means adapting CASF to urban broadband business models

11 April 2013 by Steve Blum
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Sometimes the last mile is a matter of feet.

Urban areas haven’t benefited from California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) infrastructure subsidies. All of the 34 broadband projects approved in past years and the 29 currently under review are in rural areas of the state. Two reasons account for it, one conceptual and other structural.

To be eligible for CASF infrastructure subsidies, an area has to at least qualify as underserved, which means there’s no broadband service available that delivers at least 6 Mbps download and 1.5 Mbps upload speeds.… More

AT&T snarls but cable lobby embraces expansion of California broadband subsidies

10 April 2013 by Steve Blum
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But Austin is a peaceful planet!

The California cable lobby has stopped foaming at the mouth over the idea of expanding the list of companies and organizations that are eligible to apply for California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) subsidies. In comments filed with the California Public Utilities Commission, the California Cable and Telecommunications Association seems to have figured out that relaxing the rules gives them the chance to stick their nose in the honey jar too.… More

AT&T gets the Googlefinger

9 April 2013 by Steve Blum
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I guess it’s just coincidence your suit fits too, Mr. Bond.

“Mr Bond, they have a saying in Chicago: Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it’s enemy action.”

AT&T is reacting to Google’s Austin announcement with the same paranoia that Auric Goldfinger eyed James Bond on their second, not-so-accidental meeting. The Texas capital is now positioned to get gigabit service from both companies.

It’s Google’s second venture into fiber to the home service, which could mean they just want to check results from what is still an experiment in Kansas City.… More

British Telecom rolling out user-financed FTTH service


Brits surf different too.

The cost of directly connecting a home to British Telecom’s fiber network will be in the thousands of dollars range. BT has released details on the formula it will use to calculate the charge for running fiber from a neighborhood node – fiber to the cabinet in BT’s terminology – to a home or business.

The minimum charge is £700, about $1,075 at today’s exchange rate. BT says that 55% of its customers can fiber up for somewhere between £700 and £1,500 (about $2,300).… More

Modest FTTH growth benefit found in rigorous Swedish study


Blow fiber, not tumbleweeds.

Fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) systems drive growth in cities by a measurable amount, according to a recent study in Sweden. The analysis was done by Ziyi Xiong, a graduate student at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm.

She crunched demographic and network data from 290 Swedish municipalities, factored out other possible influences, such as the degree of urbanization, and found that increasing fiber availability at workplaces by 10% results in population growth of nearly two-tenths of a percent (.17%).… More

Fewer rules in the new Uverse

6 April 2013 by Steve Blum
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No regulation, no cap.

AT&T seems comfortable feeding a lot of bandwidth to its unregulated Uverse customers. Research done by Broadband DSL Reports indicates AT&T isn’t enforcing the 250 GB monthly data cap it tells Uverse customers to expect.

On the other hand, heavy users of traditional DSL service – tied to the regulated side of the business – are being throttled if they exceed monthly caps as low as 150 GB, according to the newsletter.… More