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Morning Broadband Bytes

Around the Industry:

Telcos anti-muni war bites (and irks) BusinessWeek columnist
UK mobile broadband provider updates free broadband by offering broadband which - surprise! - isn't actually free
UK Mobile operators get defensive over 3G auctions
DRM-Free music sells, major labels keep pretending the jury is still out
Apples and Oranges: French mobile operator to bundle Mac Books with broadband service
European VoIP market growing "every quarter"
Top sites among US broadband users: Pogo, EA Online, AIM, MySpace

SecurityBits:

Third MS Word exploit released in past two weeks - Happy Holidays!
Security researcher: MIME flaw bypasses virus scanners

TidBytes:

iPhone on Monday?
Google gets into Web site registration
FCC leaks Philips WiFi VoIP phone
Microsoft may pay Zune tax twice
Google Customizes IE 7, Posts Firefox Toolbar Beta

More broadband bytes inside...

Around The Industry:

Telcos anti-muni war bites (and irks) BusinessWeek columnist:

Rob Hof of BusinessWeek is a bit irked. Apparently, after happily using EarthLinks DSL (who resells ATT DSL service) for 'years,' he moved 2 miles down the road and now can't get DSL because he is too far away for service. Writes Rob, "In case you don't know Palo Alto, it has to sport about the highest combination of income and desire to be wired of any city in the country. I, and no doubt hundreds or even thousands of other people, want to pay them up to $35 a month, and they can't bother to install enough gear to accept my money? This is all the more ironic, because the city of Palo Alto decided not to offer its own high-speed Internet service partly when SBC (now AT&T), think[ing] it's unfair, threatened to sue if Palo Alto went ahead with the service." Hey Rob, maybe you should have checked to make sure of service availability right here on BBR before you moved?

UK mobile broadband provider updates free broadband by offering broadband which - surprise! - isn't actually free:

UK mobile operator Orange has updated its free broadband offering by offering broadband which isn't actually free. Orange launched its "real" free broadband service in May this year, shortly after Carphone Warehouse announced its free connections. Users signing a £30-a-month phone contract with Orange are granted a free broadband line. But now Orange has invented a paid alternative. Any customer wanting more than 2Mbps in speed, or 2GB in downloads each month, must pay an extra £5 a month for their broadband connection, on top of their mobile phone rental. To rub salt into the wound, Orange has also started billing users of the real "free" package 50p a minute to report faults. Users paying for their broadband are saved the premium charge.

UK Mobile operators get defensive over 3G auctions:

UK Mobile operators have reacted defensively to the prospect of spectrum auctions that could lead to renewed competition in the UK's 3G market. O2 has called for tight controls to be imposed on market entrants, while Orange and T-Mobile refused to comment on the auctions. O2, along with Vodafone and 3, all sought to downplay the possibility that the auctions might lead to new competition in the 3G market. Ofcom said this week it would auction its largest-ever portion of radio spectrum, which the regulator believes is most likely to be used for 3G or mobile WiMax. It has been six years since the original 3G auctions, for which the mobile operators paid a total of £22.5bn. Observers say the new licences will be available for a fraction of that price.

DRM-Free music sells, major labels keep pretending the jury is still out:

The idea that DRM-free music might just make good business sense smolders along, as eMusic is announcing they've managed to sell 100 million unprotected songs without the world coming to an end. The record labels have consistently claimed you can't be successful selling music that isn't copy-protected -- but eMusic's second place showing (behind iTunes) shows that's clearly not the case. They continue to sell more music than Rhapsody, Napster and MSN Music combined, all while catering to indie music fans by avoiding major label content. Meanwhile the major labels continue to pretend either that the idea has no legs -- or that they need to conduct further experiments to see if demand for DRM-free content actually exists. There simply can be no talk of a trend toward unprotected content en-masse as long as the music industry continues to pursue the idea in half-assed ways.

Apples and Oranges: French mobile operator to bundle Mac Books with broadband service:

Orange, the French mobile operator, announced that it will sell Mac Books together with DSL service starting January 2007 for 2 EUR per day. This move is the first time that a European mobile operator has partnered with Apple to bundle laptops with broadband service. The offer is only available in France, for now. If successful, Orange will offer similar deals in other European countries. Orange has been feeling the heat from Free, the DSL operator owned by the Iliad Group (which has a nationwide WiMAX license in France and recently acquired a Paris FTTH operator) and from Neuf Cegetel (their GSM/Wi-Fi phone with Skype is very cool). Broadband in France is a very competitive business with ISPs battling to deliver bundled VOIP, DSL and IPTV.

European VoIP market growing "every quarter":

The market for enterprise IP telephony infrastructure in Western Europe continues to grow. Sales for IP phones and switching systems both increased during the third quarter of 2006, with total revenues rising by 4.3% to around $580m. IDC, which monitors IP telephony markets in 16 European countries, recorded a 15.7% increase in shipments compared to the previous quarter. A senior analyst for IDC said that "every quarter" sees the number of IP PBX and IP telephone sales growing. And he said that apart from the need to replace existing infrastructure, the growth is driven by employees' need to "communicate with each other more efficiently."•

Top sites among US broadband users: Pogo, EA Online, AIM, MySpace:

Online gaming site Pogo.com led the pack among broadband users, with an average of 4 hours and 23 minutes per person in November. Another online gaming destination, Electronic Arts, ranked #2 with an average of 3 hours and 43 minutes per person. MSN Games and RuneScape also made the top 10, with average times reaching nearly 2 hours. AIM ranked #3 according to time spent by home broadband users, with an average of 3 hours and 24 minutes per person. Yahoo Mail and Gmail were also among the top 10, both with averages over 1 and a half hours. Social networking favorite MySpace followed in 4th place, with a monthly average time spent of 2 hours and 8 minutes per person.

Sierra Wireless, Novotel boost notebook HSDPA:

Both Sierra Wireless and Novatel Wireless have announced deals that will add high-speed HSDPA technology to notebooks. Novatel previously launched its first generation HSDPA cards in March, with cards designed for Dell and compatible with the Verizon and Sprint networks. Currently, the cards are being sold through Nexeira, but Novotel said "several" OEMs are expected to rebrand the card by the end of 2006 and the beginning of 2007. No names were mentioned, however. Sierra Wireless, meanwhile, said that its own MC8775 PCI Express Mini Card module would be added to the V2 notebook from Asus. It too supports all three HSDPA frequency bands and all four EDGE/GPRS bands. Asus has not publicly announced which networks it will support, as it will vary by region.

BT's fixed-mobile convergence system gets Wi-Fi upgrade:

BT's fixed-mobile convergence system, Fusion, has now gone Wi-Fi, effectively linking it up with the provider's UK hot spots, municipal wireless networks and — potentially — global hot spots. Previous versions of BT Fusion relied on Bluetooth for wireless connectivity. BT claims that pricing for the service will start at £15 per month, handset included, for businesses that combine the Fusion service with the BT Business One Plan, a triple-play package for mobile, fixed and broadband. BT said the switch to Wi-Fi will also be made available soon for the home version of BT Fusion.

Commentary: Why wireless means mobile (and broadband):

"A rapidly increasing number of people use their cell phones as their primary, or only, phone, and Farpoint Group estimates this number will grow to 40% of cell phone users over the next 10 years. Perhaps surprisingly, something very similar is happening in broadband. While mobile broadband access remains rare today, due to the high cost of cellular-based services and the limited availability of metro-scale Wi-Fi services, it's going to become a lot more common over the next few years because that's what customers want. In the interim, the key challenges remain the availability of spectrum and its cost. How much will carriers have to charge an individual customer for 2Mbit/sec. (let alone 200Mbit/sec.) of throughput? The key, of course, is to converge the coverage of cellular with the capacity of wireless LANs. Such is the only hope for reasonable prices beyond the ability of competition to serve its usual purpose here."

Vigilante anti-spam system Blue Security back with new name and new game: Politics:

Mike at TechDirt reports: "Last year, we pointed out that the various high profile attempts to build vigilante anti-spam systems that bombarded spammers back seemed like a bad idea. And, while some of the attempts have succeeded in annoying spammers, sooner or later they were going to fight back. One of the most well-known names attempting such a vigilante system, Blue Security, was shut down after spammers started spamming all of its members and getting hit with a massive DoS attack. It looks like they've now come back with a new plan (and a new name - Blue Frog), though it really doesn't sound much better. This time, they've taken their vigilante spamming effort and set it to work for political campaigns. Basically, people will now be able to use it to flood petitions, online comment forms or other feedback mechanisms with canned messages of support or protest. While the policies that this reinvention of the company are looking to support seem like good ones, it's worrisome that they're planning to use such bad tactics to do so."

SecurityBits:

Third MS Word exploit released in past two weeks - Happy Holidays!:

Exploit code for a third, unpatched vulnerability in Word has been posted on the Internet, adding to the software maker's struggles to keep up with gaping holes in its popular word processing program. Microsoft has not yet publicly acknowledged the vulnerability, but the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team issued an alert to warn that Word documents can be manipulated to trigger code execution of DoS attacks. The attack code contains sample Word documents that have been rigged to launch code execution exploits when the file is opened. This is the third code-execution flaw found in Word in the last two weeks.

Security researcher: MIME flaw bypasses virus scanners:

Some of the most popular anti-virus scanners on the market are open to exploitation, according to a security researcher. The exploit involves MIME encoding, which was the subject of serious concern two years ago. MIME decoders are supposed to ignore characters that aren't part of the defined Base64 alphabet, but the researcher found that such characters inserted in an encoded message could allow dangerous content to bypass a virus filter. Vulnerable scanners included BitDefender Mail Protection for SMB 2.0, ClamAV 0.88.7, F-Prot Anti-virus for Linux x86 Mail Servers 4.6.61 and Kaspersky Anti-Virus for Linux Mail Server 5.5.10, he said.

Hardware, Software, and other TidBytes:

iPhone on Monday?

Google gets into Web site registration

FCC leaks Philips WiFi VoIP phone

Microsoft may pay Zune tax twice

Google Customizes IE 7, Posts Firefox Toolbar Beta

Microsoft Releases Vista Update to Fight 'Monster'

Microsoft Releases Bug-Fix Version of Visual Studio 2005

Adobe tackles browser incompatibilities

SanDisk Shrugs off Berlin Court Ruling in MP3 Spat

Xirrus Adds RF Shaping to Wi-Fi Antennas
view:
topics flat nest 

garagerock
Premium Member
join:2002-06-14
Louisville, KY

garagerock

Premium Member

wahhhhhhhhhh !

[sarcasm]he should move if he doesn't like it![/sarcasm]

Wait, he already did. Pity.

FFH5
Premium Member
join:2002-03-03
Tavistock NJ

1 edit

1 recommendation

FFH5

Premium Member

Big spender !!

I got a kick out of this statement by Rob Hof of BusinessWeek:
Palo Alto, it has to sport about the highest combination of income and desire to be wired of any city in the country. I, and no doubt hundreds or even thousands of other people, want to pay them up to $35 a month
Wow, what a big spender. I bet he spends more than $35/week at Starbucks buying his daily fix of Double Decaf Espresso Macchiato. Besides, I'll bet he can get broadband from cable, but he has his knickers all in a knot because he has to pay $43/mo for it.

Yauch
join:2005-06-24

Yauch

Member

Re: Big spender !!

For $35/month I might be willing to throw all his e-mail on the back of a truck and drive it to the nearest CO. But $35, that's not going to be enough to stretch the tubes.
goddan
join:2001-01-15
Quaker Hill, CT

1 recommendation

goddan to garagerock

Member

to garagerock

Re: wahhhhhhhhhh !

Actually, the BBR service-finding tool is not much use before you move. You have to have a phone number for it to check DSL availability, and you usually don't get that when you are just deciding where to move. Even with one it can't always give you the distance to the CO. Last time I moved (into a new development), it wasn't really any help at all.
kristimyers
join:2006-02-20
York, PA

kristimyers

Member

eMusic and DRM (RIAA - feh!)

I have used eMusic for years, and I love it. I think there are lots of reasons why it is Number Two. It has a great interface, easy search tools and a sense of community where each subscriber can contribute reviews, lists of favorites and comments on the service. Not to mention, they carry so many titles I don't see anywhere else, that I will never run out of albums to download.

The fact that the music is DRM-free is just icing on the cake. The only way eMusic could be more perfect is if they could carry some major-label releases, which clearly isn't happening any time soon. (RIAA baaaad!)

My dream? A marriage between eMUsic and AllofMP3. Not literally, of course. We wouldn't want to sully eMUsic with Russian mafia-type alliances and questionable legality. But the two companies have great models for online music sales. I haven't bought a hard copy major label release in a year.

My only complaint about eMusic is the recent change in downloads available per plan (which does not affect me) and the increase in Booster Pack prices (which makes me crazy). I know why they did it, but it is still a bummer.

Long live eMusic.

Cheese
Premium Member
join:2003-10-26
Naples, FL

1 edit

1 recommendation

Cheese

Premium Member

Re: eMusic and DRM (RIAA - feh!)

said by kristimyers:

I have used eMusic for years, and I love it. I think there are lots of reasons why it is Number Two. It has a great interface, easy search tools and a sense of community where each subscriber can contribute reviews, lists of favorites and comments on the service. Not to mention, they carry so many titles I don't see anywhere else, that I will never run out of albums to download.

The fact that the music is DRM-free is just icing on the cake. The only way eMusic could be more perfect is if they could carry some major-label releases, which clearly isn't happening any time soon. (RIAA baaaad!)

My dream? A marriage between eMUsic and AllofMP3. Not literally, of course. We wouldn't want to sully eMUsic with Russian mafia-type alliances and questionable legality. But the two companies have great models for online music sales. I haven't bought a hard copy major label release in a year.

My only complaint about eMusic is the recent change in downloads available per plan (which does not affect me) and the increase in Booster Pack prices (which makes me crazy). I know why they did it, but it is still a bummer.

Long live eMusic.
Do you AllOfMP3, take this site, Emusic, to be your lawfully wedded partner. "I do". And do you Emusic, take this site, AllOfMP3, to be your lawfully wedded partner. "I do". I now pronounce you site and site, you may kiss the RIAA Ass
kristimyers
join:2006-02-20
York, PA

kristimyers

Member

Re: eMusic and DRM (RIAA - feh!)

(I almost fell to the floor with laughter. Great visual, Cheese69.)

Cheese
Premium Member
join:2003-10-26
Naples, FL

Cheese

Premium Member

Re: eMusic and DRM (RIAA - feh!)

said by kristimyers:

(I almost fell to the floor with laughter. Great visual, Cheese69.)