If AT&T had nicer  3G operators to compete with, it would surely be out of business by now. After a huge PR disaster created by the last terms of service revision, it’s decided to come back for more:

Sometime in the past 24 hours, AT&T changed the TOS again:

This means, by way of example only, that checking email, surfing the Internet, downloading legally acquired songs, and/or visiting corporate intranets is permitted, but downloading movies using P2P file sharing services, redirecting television signals for viewing on Personal Computers, web broadcasting, and/or for the operation of servers, telemetry devices and/or Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition devices is prohibited.

This is a company that already limits users’ consumption of bandwidth (it has a 5 GB cap). (Save the Internet)

It would seem that the death star loves selling the cute little fruitphone on a long, overpriced contract as long as they can keep subscribers from using it very much. While alternatives are limited, they do exist. No  handset is worth so much trouble.

After discovering its customers won’t accept a price increase for the bandwidth they are already getting, Time Warner cable may be willing to do a few upgrades after all.

Confirming reports we’ve heard from Cisco engineers familiar with the deployments, Time Warner Cable is already testing DOC 3.0 gear in NYC, which appears to be their only launch market in 2009:

In advance of our launch of DOCSIS 3.0 we have installed new CMTS equipment in Manhattan. To date, we have been testing at speeds as high as 138 down and 18 up. The system works great. We don’t expect to offer speeds this fast initially but this demonstrates we will be fully capable of meeting our customer’s need for speed for the foreseeable future.

NYC coverage will begin this summer and “completed by year-end,” says Hobbs. The carrier says that further DOCSIS 3.0 deployments will be “surgical” in nature. That’s code for targeting areas where the company faces competition from Verizon FiOS, and can’t get away with nursing last-generation infrastructure. According to Hobbs, the company faces telcoTV competition in 22% of its footprint; 15% AT&T U-Verse and 7% Verizon FiOS. (DSL Reports)

From how I read this, Time Warner only plans to deploy DOCSIS 3 in areas where they anticipate subscriber flight to a competitor.  Over the last year, that technology has become both cheap and easy to implement. Rather than being selective, Time Warner could get a nice revenue bump by offering the service system wide.  If the do, they’ll discover that heavy net users will flock to them and happily pay a premium for the priviledge. That may not be as much fun as bullying its customers into paying more for less in its uncompetitive markets, but it will boost the bottom line just as effectively.

In an article that reads like the world is facing impending doom, a Times Online article forecasts internet “brownouts” or worse in the near future.

Experts predict that consumer demand, already growing at 60 per cent a year, will start to exceed supply from as early as next year because of more people working online and the soaring popularity of bandwidth-hungry websites such as YouTube and services such as the BBC’s iPlayer.

It will initially lead to computers being disrupted and going offline for several minutes at a time. From 2012, however, PCs and laptops are likely to operate at a much reduced speed, rendering the internet an “unreliable toy” (Times Online)

To set the record straight for the tiny minority of our readers who don’t already know it: Bandwidth is not a finite resource. It’s never been cheaper or easier to deliver more of it. A foil hat award goes to reporter John Harlow for being suckered into taking this Al Gore style hoax seriously. I don’t know exactly what agenda his source Nemertes Research is pushing, but it’s probably not what it appears to be.

New earnings reports contradict the premise that Time Warner and Comcast are suffering from a customer base that is over consuming bandwidth without paying for it. Instinctively, we knew that was the case all along. Even with the explosive growth of demand, the wholesale cost of the average bandwidth use per subscriber is falling.

Comcast beat analysts’ expectations and increased profits 5.4 percent to $778 million. Time Warner Cable’s profits fell 32 percent, but this was mostly due to costs associated with the split from its former parent company, Time Warner. The company’s revenue was actually up 5 percent to $4.4 billion when compared to the same quarter a year ago.

Comcast also increased revenue by about 5.3 percent to $8.4 billion.

Meanwhile, both companies reduced capital spending. Comcast cut capital expenditures by 19 percent to $1.16 billion. And Time Warner Cable cut its spending by 18 percent to $33 million. For broadband specifically, Time Warner increased revenues 11 percent to $1.1 billion.

The companies also increased subscribers. Time Warner added 225,000 new broadband users and 166,000 new voice-over-IP customers during the quarter. Comcast added 328,613 high-speed Internet customers, down 33 percent from the previous year, and it added 298,433 digital phone customers, also down about 53 percent.

Even though Comcast isn’t adding new customers as quickly as it did a year ago and Time Warner’s profits aren’t as high as they were a year ago, the companies are still adding new subscribers and making money. And yet they are also cutting capital spending. (Cnet)

I do see potential for some bandwidth issues here, but it’s because while these companies are adding customers, they’re cutting investment in infrastructure. If this isn’t an obvious  sign of an uncompetitive marketplace, then it is surely a sign of extreme arrogance.

Hulu is emerging as front runner in the online video space. With the addition of Disney programming the megaportal may be unstoppable. The carefully indexed site’s diverse offerings, good video quality and tolerable level of advertising are making it the site of choice for online viewers.

This means that TV shows from Disney-owned channels like ABC, SoapNet, and ABC Family will be coming to Hulu. Among them are “Lost,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Ugly Betty,” and “Scrubs.” There will also be Disney movies available on the ad-supported streaming video site, but a press release did not name any of them. Content will be available “soon,” the press release explained.

Reports started to surface about a month ago that Disney was in talks to join Hulu.

Robert Iger, president and CEO of the Walt Disney Company, will take a seat on Hulu’s board of directors, along with Anne Sweeney, co-chair of Disney Media Networks and president of the Disney/ABC Television Group, and Kevin Mayer, executive vice president of corporate strategy, business development, and technology at Disney. (Cnet)

Hulu is something any of the larger cable and telco operators could have easily done. I think the telcos will have the most explaining to do if shareholders ever grasp that. For a fraction of what thay have spent on closed IPTV systems, the telcos could have been riding the wave into the future instead of sinking  into the past.

That’s IP as in intellectual property. The first to fail were the old style newspapers, and they correctly identified the internet as a factor. What has sealed their fate is how they fought the new distribution channel instead of embracing it. Next in the dead pool are the old established players in music, mags, books, video and radio. On the horizon are big education, big manufacturing, and R&D. No big entity is immune,and that includes gluttonous governments.

As I said earlier, the internet is a factor. The old news mongers and music pimps squandered the opportunity to remain dominant by not investing in it as a new channel when it was still a relatively expensive place to do business. Since then, the price has fallen dramatically enabling every man or woman with the passion and a tiny credit limit to publish to the masses.  For example, a highly trafficed site on the internet can be operated for around $9 / day:

In the following article, I’m going to attempt to describe how one might bootstrap the technical components of their startup as cheaply as humanly possible, while still giving you room to easily scale. A lot of this is based on what I’ve learned in the last 2+ years as the CTO of massify.com, an online networking site for film makers.  Your mileage may vary, of course, and I’m sure there are a variety of alternatives to some of the things I’ll be recommending.  I welcome all commenters to pitch in with their own experiences in hopes that we can grow this post into a useful resource for up and coming entrepreneurs.

So we’ve covered everything from domain registration to company infrastructure to hosting and content distribution.  Here’s how the costs breakdown:

DNS	$0.08
Email	$0.00
Collaboration	$0.78
Hosting	$5.20
CDN	$2.63

For a grand total of: $8.69 a day. Not too shabby. (the rest of the article at Interfacelab)

Cost of entry and economy of scale once advantaged big, bloated organizations. The internet first enabled and has since shifted the advantage to the small organization. When the cost of first class infrastructure reaches below the $10/ level anyone can play and a great many do. The lumbering giants that refused to adapt probably will be trampled to death by a swarm of micro businesses. The current recession will only accelerate the transition and the old guard sheds their best and brightest in cost cutting. Many of these best and brightest will chose to form their own businesses for $9 /day.

Yep you read that lede right. A Utah woman has been given a 30day jail sentence for texting in court. I hear you saying… But there has to be more to this then just punching on the chiclet keyboard right? Well see for yourself –

A Utah woman is in jail for sending a text message. She’s being held for contempt of court.

Susan Henwood, a mother of four, has been sentenced to 30 days in the Tooele County Jail because she sent a text message about a court hearing she was observing. “She shouldn’t be there. She did nothing wrong,” her husband, Joshua Henwood, said.

In early April, Joshua was sick and couldn’t make his court appearance in a debt collection case. He sent Susan to ask for a continuance and to keep him updated, so she sent a text that said: “It doesn’t look good for you” and “They’re coming for the Polaris Ranger.” The Polaris was one of several items the other side of the case wanted to sell to recoup supposed losses. Henwood says his wife’s text wasn’t a warning to hide anything, just a heads up.

But Judge Stephen Henroid caught wind of the text and held Susan in contempt of court. She started her 30 day sentence Monday. “You see drunk drivers and what do they get? A few days. She texts and she’s in jail for 30? No, no,” Susan’s grandmother, Dolores Kyle, said.

Judge Henroid wasn’t available for comment. A spokeswoman with the court system says the problem wasn’t that Susan texted in court but the content of her text, but the spokeswoman was unable to provide further detail.

Back in Grantsville, Joshua says he still doesn’t understand why his wife must spend a month in jail. He feels powerless to help. “I think this was an unfit punishment for the crime,” he said.

The court spokeswoman says while everyone in a courtroom is asked to turn off their cell phones, sending a text message will usually just get you a reprimand from the bailiff. In this case, she reiterates, it was the content of the message.

Ok now ask yourself this. Was the content banned? Would the outcome been different if she had stepped outside the courtroom and did this? If it did why? Would have using a public pay phone made a difference?

To tell you the truth I believe the judge overstepped his authority. It would have made no difference if she texted her husband that instant about a possible seizure than if she drove home and told him in person. There is no mention in the article of a gag order.

Linky.

Lexcycle Inc has been purchased by Amazon. Lexcycle produces Stanza which is the most popular epub reader for the iPhone. From their presser –

Mon, 04/27/2009 - 13:00 — marc

We are very excited to announce that Lexcycle has been acquired by Amazon.com!

It has been an amazing experience to see Stanza grow out of our brainstormed ideas into one of the most downloaded iPhone applications. Throughout this period we have attempted to listen to and innovate for our customers to provide a great ebook reading experience.

We are not planning any changes in the Stanza application or user experience as a result of the acquisition. Customers will still be able to browse, buy, and read ebooks from our many content partners. We look forward to offering future products and services that we hope will resonate with our passionate readers.

We are excited to join forces with a company that has innovated on behalf of readers for over a decade and is a pioneer in ebooks. Like Amazon, we believe there is a lot of innovation ahead for ebooks and we could not think of a better company to join during this exciting time.

As always, we encourage people to ask questions or provide feedback through our forums at http://forum.lexcycle.com or directly to us at info@lexcycle.com.

Best,
Marc, Neelan and Abe

The question of course is Amazon’s intention in this matter? The most obvious being they want in on the iPhone space. But what about Kindle? Kindles uses a proprietary format right now. Would Amazon open up Kindle to accept the Stanza code and permit other electronic publication formats? Or will they use this acquisition to bury competition?

What say you Amazon?

Here’s a lesson for Time Warner Cable. If you want more revenue and happy customers, do something positive and outdo the telcos that you are supposed to be competing with. Cablevision rolled out free WiFi in its footprint about a year ago without charging a dime more for the service. Now the company is offering the biggest consumer bandwidth in the US for a price that undercuts FiOS.

The new service will offer download speeds of 101 megabits per second and upload speeds of 15 Mbps for a cost of $99.95 per month. It will be available May 11 to all 5 million of the people in areas served by Cablevision, mainly in the New York City suburbs.

Cablevision is deploying a new technology called Docsis 3 which can utilize more of the capacity of a cable television system for data, offering both higher capacity and lower costs. In Japan, J:Com uses the same technology to offer 160 Mbps service for 6,000 yen ($60) per month.

Yes, the new offering still lags behind the best of world standards, but it’s the best deal going here in the land of the free. It’s absolutely certain that Cablevision will see revenues grow and not a single protest or complaint call will be made in response to its roll out. I can only hope that the Time Warner crew has attended this short clinic. This is the right way to grow revenue.

While traditional newspapers continue their rush to oblivion, online ad spend soars. This years increase could only be the tip of the iceberg:

Brian Wieser, global director of forecasting for Magna, predicts that companies will spend $699 million on online video ads this year, up from $531 in 2008. He expects the amount to crash through the $1 billion mark in 2011. (Media Bistro)

Are the newspapers reading this? Yes, the money is online, and it’s growing. There are infinitely more outlets, but the spend is large even if each outlet’s share of it will be smaller. My advice to the pulp dailies? Get lean and nimble. That means trading your army in  for a tiny squad of commandos. Push your presence online. Think local. Reverse the trend of outsourcing most of your content. Outsource the overhead functions instead. If you must commit some of your work to print, do it weekly on Sunday. Sales for that edition are still good in most areas.