Citing speculation from "a growing number of Wall Street analysts," The Denver Post insists that Qwest Communications is for sale, and argues that either Winstream Communications or CenturyLink are possible buyers. Including phone and broadband lines, core fiber and data centers, the Post speculates that Qwest is worth somewhere around $20 billion (Qwest bought much of their current infrastructure from U S West in 2000 for $45 billion). It's not clear where the renewed speculation is coming from, given Qwest has technically been on sale for years now, and Qwest executives have acknowledged as much for just as long. The problem has been that nobody's been interested in Qwest's aging, significantly rural copper networks (or their long haul network) at the price Qwest wants people to pay. 2 comments For some time now, Uncle Sam has been pushing for a law that would require ISPs retain all of their user logs for several years, with only a few ISPs thinking that's a particularly good idea given the added regulation and cost. While the push for log retention seemed to stumble since it began in earnest in 2006, CNET notes that the effort is seeing renewed focus in Washington. story continues..47 comments You might recall that before snoopvertising agency NebuAD flamed out spectacularly, a number of ISPs tested the user-tracking technology on their customers -- in many cases without telling anybody about it. When asked by the press about the tests, many of these ISPs simply wouldn't comment. story continues..10 comments Fierce Wireless asks a number of vendors who make a living off of billing systems their thoughts on metered billing in the wireless space, and unsurprisingly is told by each one that a shift to metered billing is "inevitable" in wireless. The article is full of the kind of talking points we're used to from an industry that desperately wants to foist higher per megabyte fees on consumers. story continues..13 comments At launch, Google took heat for a number of things related to their "Nexus One" smartphone, including the fact that customers who canceled service early faced $550 in fees (a $200 ETF from T-Moble, and a $350 Google "Equipment Recovery Fee"), which was more than the phone even cost. Responding to these criticisms, sluggish Nexus One sales, and the FCC's recent inquiry into ETFs, Google says they're lowering the Nexus One "equipment recovery fee" from $350 to $150, and talks about the decision to the Wall Street Journal: A Google representative said the company had been working with T-Mobile to lower the equipment fee. story continues..18 comments
Tuesday Morning Links08:13AM Tuesday Feb 09 2010 by Revcb2 comments
Monday Evening Links07:08PM Monday Feb 08 2010 by Revcb6 comments ( Updated with response from Verizon at bottom.) Last summer you might recall that 4Chan users collectively cried out that they'd been blocked by AT&T, and began firing their trademark digital barbs at the carrier's direction. As it turned out, the website had only been temporarily blocked as AT&T worked to resolve a distributed denial of service attack. story continues..89 comments Back in the summer of 2008 Italian government officials demanded that broadband ISPs in the country begin blocking users from accessing popular BitTorrent website The Pirate Bay. Many ISPs obliged, but oddly decided instead to direct users to the website of the IFPI (the overseas equivalent of the RIAA). In the end the Pirate Bay managed to defeat the order with an appeal, and the end result was that all the publicity simply drove more user traffic to the website. However, the Italian Supreme Court has now ruled that forcing Italian ISPs to block BitTorrent websites is perfectly legal, so the government appears poised to try again. Of course Italian broadband users will find a way around the blockade, and the game of P2P cat and mouse will continue... 13 comments In what appears to be a promotion gone wrong, Cox Communications has accidentally offered free Playstation 3's to every Cox customer in Arizona that signs up for service or upgrades existing service. The deal was supposedly intended only to lure in new Cox customers, but Cox's marketing team accidentally sent the flyers out to all customers. Judging from posts in our forums, Cox did try pretty hard to honor the deal, which requires users sign a 12 month contract (and Cox's ETF is roughly equivalent to the cost of a PS3). Some users who tried to get in on the deal late (and via word of mouth from customers who got flyers) aren't getting PS3's, and have complained to the Consumerist about Cox shutting down the promotion. 20 comments Last week Comcast unveiled their plans to rebrand their Internet, VoIP and TV services all under the "Xfinity" monicker. While Comcast was hoping to create a modern brand that could do battle with AT&T U-Verse and Verizon FiOS, the decision to misspell infinity with "extreme" and painfully cliche 90's brand stylings wasn't a particularly inspired or creative choice. story continues..72 comments After announcing their bankruptcy plan last October, Fairpoint Communications has filed their bankruptcy plan. The company has issued a statement saying the plan "protects the commitments FairPoint made in 2008 when it assumed operations from Verizon," including expanding broadband penetration into under-served regions of Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. Fairpoint failed to meet these commitments after purchasing these networks for $2.3 billion in 2007, and ultimately collapsed under $2.7 billion in debt. Once again, the real winner in this whole exchange? Verizon, who got to offload unwanted networks, debt and union workers, and will just wind up winning many New England customers back with wireless LTE 4G service down the road anyway. 30 comments The wireless industry has a few bad habits. One, they like to advertise one thing, then go and do another -- including advertising services as "unlimited," when they have very clear monthly usage caps. They also like to bury clauses in user contracts that attempt to ban consumers from participating in class action lawsuits to settle complaints -- instead forcing them into binding arbitration, a faux-legal process governed by a company hired by your carrier that the majority of the time winds up with your carrier winning the dispute. story continues..36 comments You might recall that last fall there were a flurry of rumors involving Deutsche Telekom either selling T-Mobile outright, or merging the company with a U.S. partner ( Sprint was mentioned) in order to improve T-Mobile's fortunes in their battle against Verizon and AT&T. Now Business Week suggests that Deutsche Telekom is still looking at a number of options, including a T-Mobile IPO (which analysts in the piece say comes too late), or an acquisition or merger of a smaller prepaid operator like MetroPCS or Leap Wireless (which analysts believe is unlikely). The latest rumors originated in the Wall Street Journal.18 comments
Monday Morning Links08:16AM Monday Feb 08 2010 by Revcb2 comments
Friday Evening Links06:27PM Friday Feb 05 2010 by Revcb23 comments The weekend is here, we're heading out to help DC-area residents shovel snow. Empty your thoughts into the comment section below. Just clean up after yourselves, you troublemakers. 73 comments story continues..33 comments story continues..39 comments Yesterday AT&T received a significant amount of media attention for a announcing that they would be unblocking the Sling player for the iPhone so it worked over AT&T's 3G network. In their press release, AT&T proclaimed that Sling "was willing to work with us to revise the app so it was more bandwidth sensitive," adding that Sling "made important changes to more efficiently use 3G network bandwidth and conserve wireless spectrum so that we were able to support the app on our 3G mobile broadband network." Except, to hear Sling tell it, they didn't change a damn thing: We didn't change anything," Sling Media's John Santoro told Ars. story continues..25 comments ·more stories, story search, most popular ..
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