Social Shopping: What's the Big Deal?

How do you use 1Gbps Internet links? Chattanooga residents find out

With the caveat that much will depend on how Google prices its symmetrical 1-Gbps service in Kansas City, Kan., results from Chattanooga, Tenn. suggest that prices will have to be substantially lower than anything consumers yet have seen, to entice people to pay for a full 1-Gbps worth of capability. See http://chattanoogagig.com/.

EPB's fiber network currently covers all 600 square miles serviced by the community-owned Electric Power Board, which has also provided electricity for decades. EPB rolled out a 1-Gbps upgrade in the fall of 2010, but it "hasn't been flooded with calls" for the service, says David Wade, EPB COO.

Indeed, even this may be overstating current demand; only six or seven Chattanooga residents and "several businesses" have ordered the high-end service, which launched with a $350 per month price tag.

Most customers likely are buying the typical triple-play packages of video, phone and broadband access at speeds up to about 30 Mbps that EPB sells for about $120 a month. EPB also sells 50 Mbps connections and 100 Mbps connections as well as the top-end 1-Gbps service.

In November 2010, EPB said it was "ahead of our business plan projections. Since our launch last September (2009), we have signed up 18,873 homes to our EPB fiber optics services."

That is a 15.5 percent take rate. The EPB goal is a 35 percent take rate, and EPB believed in November 2010 that it would reach that level by 2012 or early 2013. See http://www.muninetworks.org/tags-90.

So Google faces a bit of a quandry. Does it really want to make money providing access, or does it want to provide a testing ground for new applications and consumer behaviors. The goals might be contradictory.

How do you use 1Gbps Internet links? Chattanooga residents find out

Comcast's Over-the-Top Dilemma

Comcast Corp. executives are talking about the possibility of selling its own programming to subscribers outside its cable footprint, Senior Vice President of Video Distribution Mark Hess says.

But there are obvious internal struggles over that potential policy. While its programming arm, which now includes NBCUniversal LLC , could benefit from an over-the-top play, Comcast's cable operation is focused on selling a triple play of video, high-speed data and voice to subscribers within its own franchise areas, he says.

So Comcast faces the same issues other content owners have to contend with, namely fostering growth in the emerging online distribution business while protecting the existing multichannel video distributor channel.

Light Reading Cable - IP & Convergence - Comcast's Over-the-Top Dilemma - Telecom News Analysis:

500 million people worldwide to use their mobiles as metro and bus tickets by 2015

Half a billion people worldwide will use their mobile devices as travel tickets on metros, subways and buses by 2015, according to Juniper Research. This is over five times the number generated last year.

Significantly, Juniper expects usage to spread widely from the current concentration of users and providers in Japan and several European countries.

Outside Japan, systems in operation typically use SMS or bar codes, but near field communications is expected to start driving usage by 2013.

That makes sense, as transit tickets represent one of the most-obvious scenarios where a mobile device makes great sense as a mobile payment method. It is a repeated, routine type of purchase involving relatively small amount of money, in a setting where people are moving about, often in a hurry, and where a simple "waive and go" purchase method saves lots of time.

500 million people worldwide to use their mobiles as metro and bus tickets by 2015

Verizon Tweets: "We're aware of an issue with 4G, LTE"

VerizonWireless Verizon Wireless 

We're aware of an issue with #4G #LTE connections & our network engineers are working to resolve quickly. Will update here.

3 hours ago Favorite Undo Retweet Reply

Verizon Wireless Says 4G Network Is Down

"Verizon Wireless said its 4G network was suffering an outage April 27, 2011.

It's the first major problem for Verizon's 4G wireless network, which launched late in 2010.

"Our 4G LTE customers are experiencing connection issues to the LTE network," said a Verizon spokesman.

It's unclear how widespread the problem is, but it might be a nationwide problem.

UPDATE: Verizon Wireless Says 4G Network Is Down - WSJ.com

New Google Docs App for Android

The new "Google Docs" app for Android allows users to filter and search for their content across any Google account, then jump straight into editing docs using the online mobile editors. The app also allows users to easily share items with contacts on their phones, right from within the app.

The Docs app also allows users to upload content from their phones and open documents directly from Gmail. Users can add a widget to their home screens for easy access to three core tasks: jumping to your starred documents, taking a photo to upload, or creating a new document with one tap.
Using the app and the phone’s camera, users can turn photos with text into editable Google documents. Just create a new "Document from Photo" or select the camera icon from the widget, and a converted document will appear in the user's documents list shortly after the user snaps the picture.

One immediate use case: all those conference attendees who snap photos of slides during presentations now can turn the pictures into text documents for later sharing.

Users can also convert photos already stored on your phone by sharing them with the Google Docs app.

Introducing the new Google Docs app for Android

CenturyLink Buys Savvis

CenturyLink is acquiring Savvis, allowing creation of a business unit that will operate 48 data centers located in North America, Europe, and Asia with more than 1.9 million square feet of gross floor space; a national 207,000 route mile fiber network, a 190,000 mile global access network; and a customer list that includes a majority of the Fortune 500 and Fortune 1000 companies.

That is a dramatically different customer profile from the legacy rural telecom operations that have been a staple for CenturyLink, and might provide more evidence that CenturyLink plans a future that is quite different from its past. The acquisition of Qwest brought CenturyLink a handful of larger metro markets and the Qwest national and global operations as well.

Some might have questioned the fit between CenturyLink's legacy customer base and the arguably-different profile of the Qwest enterprise and metro markets customer bases. But the Savvis buy indicates that CenturyLink plans to grow beyond its historic rural carrier emphasis to reposition at least part of the company's operations in non-traditional markets and customer spaces.

"With the addition of Savvis, CenturyLink will achieve global scale as a managed hosting and colocation provider and will accelerate its ability to deliver quality managed hosting and cloud capabilities to its business customers," the company says.

read more here

Cable Ops Want Adaptive Streaming

New mobile and untethered device support is a key reason those capabilities are important.

How Do You Take on Paypal?

PayPal has a mobile app. Venmo thinks it has an app that works better for peer-to-peer payments. And Paypal expects its mobile payment app to be used for $2 billion worth of purchases in 2011.

You might not think that making a payment app "social" will be enough to carve out new space in mobile payments, but Venmo expects to try. First of all, Venmo will make it easy for users to review their history of payments. Second, Venmo will allow users to share the history with other people.

When you go to pay someone in Venmo's app, it automatically assumes that you want to share your payments (the what, not the how much) with the world on its site and your Facebook account. The social aspects of Venmo are its major differences from PayPal.

In some ways, its an analogy to "check in."

Venmo: Fighting the good fight against the online payment giants

Verizon Wireless Starts Mobile Vending Machine Payments Business

Verizon Wireless and USA Technologies are teaming up to enable mobile payments at vending machines nationwide. Some will consider this application a form of machine-to-machine communications or the "Internet of things."

Others will say it is more a way for Verizon Wireless to insert itself into the mobile payments value chain. Either way, the deal is a sign that both M2M mobile revenues and mobile payments are viewed as a practical, achievable new revenue stream for some mobile service providers.

Verizon Wireless aims to corner mobile payments industry

Apple Hints That It Will Release Turn-By-Turn Navigation On The iPhone

"Apple is now collecting anonymous traffic data to build a crowd-sourced traffic database with the goal of providing iPhone users an improved traffic service in the next couple of years," the company says. See http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2011/04/27location_qa.html.

That suggests Apple is building its own turn-by-turn navigation system and service. That presumably will have some implications for the navigation service offered by Garmin, for example, representing about $10 billion in annual revenue.

Apple also would level the playing field with Android devices and Google Maps, whose turn-by-turn navigation application, available for free use on some Android devices and mobile networks, has proven a significant draw for some users.

Apple Hints That It Will Release Turn-By-Turn Navigation On The iPhone

Google Makes Google Apps Easier for Small Business to Buy

Google has created what it calls the "Flexible Plan," a new $5 per user per month pricing option which requires no contractual commitment, designed to be easier for small businesses to buy and use.

With this plan, businesses can add or remove users as necessary and will automatically be billed for the proper amount, Google says. The current pricing option of $50 per user per year with a one-year commitment, will become the "Annual Plan."

Google also is eliminating upfront payments for new customers to make it easier for them to manage their cash flow. Whether they choose the Flexible or Annual Plan, customers will pay at the end of each month. Google also will offer direct debit in the United States, United Kingdom, Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, and Spain to make payment even easier.

Official Google Enterprise Blog: Helping small businesses start and manage Google Apps for Business

High Teen Computer Use Might Have a Downside

A study of Canadian teenagers by epidemiology PhD candidate Valerie Carson has found that high computer use was associated with approximately 50 per cent increased engagement with "smoking, drunkenness, non-use of seatbelts, cannabis and illicit drug use, and unprotected sex." High television use was also associated with a modestly increased engagement in these activities.

The study might suggest that "seeing people engaged in a behavior is a way of learning that behavior," says Carson. "Since adolescents are exposed to considerable screen time – over 4.5 hours on average each day – they're constantly seeing images of behaviours they can then potentially adopt."

Teens who spend time online not dorks after all – study • The Register

Smart Phones $80 to $100, Globally, in 2012?

James Bruce, lead mobile strategist at ARM, says smart phones now are getting so affordable, at the low end, that they will push feature phones to the side. Vendors are already showing U.S. carriers smart phones at $70 per unit.

Bruce believes this will translate to low-end smartphones with price tags of $80 to $100 in 2012, for consumers worldwide.

Light Reading Mobile - 4G/LTE