Posts Tagged ‘cable’
Cox launches mobile phone service to combat AT&T, Verizon
Cox Communications, the third-largest cable provider in the US, announced today that it’s launching a mobile phone service that it will bundle with its cable and internet service, .
The cellular service is launching today in Orange County, California; Omaha, Nebraska; and Hampton Roads, Virginia. The company is hoping to take on phone companies like AT&T and Verizon who have been steadily encroaching on Cox’s TV market share.
Cox says the service will be “unbelievably fair” to consumers by giving money back for unused minutes, and the company will also bundle free TV, Internet, or landline phone service. The company will offer alerts to consumers as they approach their monthly minute limit, and will give 5 cents back for every unused minute (up to $20 a month).
24 percent of its customers said they would switch to its mobile service in May, the company said.
Cox will use Sprint’s 3G network initially, but the company is also working on a network of its own, according to the company’s vice president of wireless, Stephen Bye. The company will offer wireless service only in areas where it operates — it has no plans to become a national carrier. Its monthly contracts will start at $39.99, and the company will offer free calling to other Cox cellphones and landlines.
Cox will offer an array of Android handsets initially, including the HTC Desire, Motorola Milestone and LG Axis. The company will expand its offering based on customer demand, according to Bye. The company will sell the phones at its Cox Solutions Stores.
The news makes Cox the first cable company to pursue a wireless service offering, as well as the first to offer a “quadruple play” of services (wireless, TV, internet, and landline phone). Cox and other cable companies have a long history of joint ventures to enter the wireless business — often with Sprint as their partner — but none seem to have taken off as planned.
I can certainly imagine Cox customers being tempted by wireless plans bundled with other Cox services. But building its own network seems foolish when the company can easily lease service from major carriers. The company may eventually save some money by building its own network, but there’s no guarantee it will be able to recoup its costs.
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100-Year-Old Trick Squeezes Fiber-Optic Speeds from Copper Wires
The technology could enable 100-megabit home DSL without an infrastructure upgrade
That could allow telecommunications companies to effectively compete with the 50-Mbps speeds provided by cable companies, but without the need to install new fiber optic lines themselves. It might also give an extra kick to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) plan for to 100 million more Americans by 2015.
Such speed boosts rely upon a networking trick invented in 1886 by John J. Carty., an electrical engineer who eventually became a vice president at AT&T. He examined the traditional method of sending digital signals over two wires twisted together (one positive, one negative), and discovered that it was possible to send a third signal on top of four wires arrayed as two separate pairs.
The negative part of the phantom connection goes down one pair, and the positive part travels down the other pair. Analog processors sort out the two real signals and one phantom signal at the wires' final destination.
Any added bandwidth from phantom channels typically gets lost in the increased noise caused by electrical "cross-talk" induction among the bundled wires. But another method known as DSL vectoring was used to cancel out the noise by sending the exact opposite of the cross-talk signal.
A third trick known as bonding also treats multiple copper lines as a single cable, and boosts bandwidth by a multiple almost equal to the number of cables. Both vectoring and bonding have been used in certain urban areas of Europe and Asia, where the economics make sense.
Alcatel-Lucent and other companies could make 100 Mbps speeds over copper a reality within five to ten years, a researcher told Technology Review. Until that happens, netizens can check out the for understanding the current allocation of the broadband spectrum.
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FCC Broadband Plan Promises High-Speed Internet For 100 Million More Americans By 2015
The FCC's plan involves the expansion of both home broadband capacity, but also pays special attention to ensuring that hospitals, libraries, and schools, where most Americans currently use broadband Internet services, get upgraded as well. Ultimately, the FCC hopes to provide 50 megabits per second of upload speed, and 100 megabits of download speed, to another third of the US population over the next decade. Additionally, the FCC wants 500 megahertz of wireless spectrum, currently operated by TV stations, rededicated to servicing mobile devices.
Estimates place the cost of the plan at between $15.5 and $25 billion, but FCC claims that the majority of that money will come from altering the Universal Service Fund, a program to subsidize rural phone service paid for by telecomm companies, from paying for telephones to paying for broadband. Additional funds will come from the auction of wireless spectrum for mobile device use. And if that doesn't cover the bill, the FCC has plans to ask Congress for a one-time, $9 billion boost.
The FCC, the telecommunications industry, and Congress all agree that the expansion of broadband is key to ensuring that America remains competitive in the world. The integration of TV and the Internet, the digitizing of medical records, and an increased use of cloud computing all threaten to tax America's currently limited broadband infrastructure. Despite having more broadband users than anywhere else in the world, the US only ranks 19th in percentage use, according to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, behind economic competitors like South Korea, Germany, and Great Britain.
Starting at the end of the month, Congress will begin holding hearings on the plan. However, with a lawsuit between the FCC and Comcast over the FCC's ability to regulate the Internet still undecided, the climate change bill poised to distract the Commerce Committee members tasked with FCC oversight, and an election in November that could reverse party control in Congress, it may be some time before the FCC can begin implementing the plan in full.
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