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.