Innovation In Wireless: The Disruption In Connectivity
This post is part of an Intel-sponsored series of posts we'll be doing here at Techdirt on the topic of innovation. Posts in the series consist of a video interview of myself (which you'll see below),...
View ArticleSurprise! AT&T Admits Defeat, Withdraws T-Mobile Takeover Attempt, Pays $4...
This is definitely a surprise, but it looks like AT&T finally read all the writing on the wall, and realized it was unlikely to win its fight with the DOJ and FCC and has officially killed its...
View ArticleIs Verizon Wireless Violating Its Promise To Be Open By Blocking Google Wallet?
You may recall that, back in 2007, Verizon Wireless promised to be more open with its network. In 2008, it made that commitment a bit more forcefully under the law, when it won the C-block auction for...
View ArticleCongress Trying To Regulate Certain Wireless Spectrum Issues... In A Payroll...
We've all seen how Congress sneaks controversial issues into larger "must pass" bills. The folks over at Public Knowledge are highlighting how our elected officials are trying to sneak three...
View ArticleBeastie Boy Mike D Forces AT&T To Let Shareholders Vote On Net Neutrality
Yeah, well there's a title I never thought I'd write. It seems that Mike D of the Beastie Boys, along with his wife, filmmaker Tamra Davis, and John Silva (of Silva Artist Management, one of the more...
View ArticleA 4G iPad Requires A Sensible Shared Data Plan
The Apple rumor mill is spinning at full speed again, with word of a new iPad release in March. This would be on schedule for Apple, so the real speculation is around exactly what improvements this...
View ArticleWhy You Should Regret LightSquared's Setbacks
LightSquared is a new wireless carrier that has been trying to launch a wholesale 4G network across the USA. Funded by private equity firm Harbinger Capital, it sought to re-purpose satellite...
View ArticlePenguin Pointlessly Annoys Readers With USB-Only eBooks
Reader Jason Alcock alerts us to another example of a company taking a backwards approach to value-added services by putting artificial restrictions on their content. Apparently, while ebooks from the...
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Sprint Changes 'Unlimited' Broadband To 5 Gigs... While Still Advertising...
I've actually been one of the few satisfied Sprint customers for many years. Over the past few years, they were the only mobile broadband provider who didn't limit mobile broadband to ridiculously low...
View ArticleIf You Go To The Olympics, You Can Bring Your iPhone Or Android Phone... But...
Among the latest bizarre limitations that the Olympics puts on people is a ban on any sort of private WiFi network via your mobile connection. That is, you're not allowed to tether your phone, turn it...
View ArticleAn Explanation For Why Verizon Is Driving DSL Users To Competitors' Cable Lines
Karl Bode has an interesting story explaining how Verizon is willfully pushing its DSL customers over to cable broadband "competitors." It's worth reading the whole thing, but the short version is...
View ArticleDisruption Starts With A Foot In The Door: Amazon's New Data Plan Is Limited...
Amazon announced a ton of new ereader/tablet devices this morning, which is being covered to death on the various gadget blogs out there. While some of the devices look interesting (and could put some...
View ArticleMore People Realize The Obvious: Telco Regulatory Capture Is Why We Have...
This is hardly a new thing, but it's nice to see it getting more attention. There's a new book, The Fine Print: How Big Companies Use 'Plain English' to Rob You Blind, by reporter David Cay Johnston...
View ArticleNow That We Know The Telcos Exaggerated About The 'Spectrum Crunch'; How...
For years now, the big telcos have been whining and complaining about a supposed "spectrum crunch," saying how they were going to run out of useful radio spectrum and wouldn't be able to set up new...
View ArticleRussia Wants To Ban Children From Using WiFi
Ah, Russia. Officials in the Federal Mass Media Inspection Service (?!?) are considering a plan to ban children from using WiFi -- and would enforce the ban by holding the hotspot owners liable if...
View ArticleAnti-Piracy Group Already Protesting That UK's Anti-Piracy Law Doesn't Go Far...
History teaches us that representatives of copyright holders will complain about any new development in information or communication technology and try to stop or limit its use. Well, it is no...
View ArticleJudge Protects Cellphone Data On 4th Amendment Grounds, Cites Government's...
Various US government agencies have spent a lot of time and energy hoping to ensnare as much cell phone data as possible without having to deal with the "barriers" erected by the Fourth Amendment. The...
View ArticleAT&T Admits That The Whole 'Spectrum Crunch' Argument It Made For Why It...
You may recall that back when AT&T was trying to buy T-Mobile, a big part of the argument was a spectrum crunch around its wireless efforts. The company insisted -- strenuously -- that it would...
View ArticleHomeland Security Spent $430-Million To Tune Its Radios To A New Frequency,...
The incompetence of Homeland Security when it comes to actually doing things is well documented -- though, they're often so clueless that they take credit for successfully misleading Congress about...
View ArticleGoogle Decides Smartphone Market Share Is More Important Than Net Neutrality
As a recent post noted, net neutrality is under threat in France, with ISPs like Free asking Google to pay extra for delivery of its traffic. According to this post on the Forbes Web site, Google has...
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