Apple iPhone

The Wall Street Journal reports Apple is developing two new iPhones for launch this June, including one that’s designed to work with Verizon Wireless.

According to the report, the new iPhone models can run on CDMA networks, such as the one Verizon Wireless uses.  The introduction of such a phone would mark an end for the three year exclusivity agreement Apple has with AT&T in the United States.

“There has been lots of incorrect speculation on CDMA iPhones for a long time. We haven’t seen one yet and only Apple knows when that might occur,” an AT&T spokesman told the Wall Street Journal.

For AT&T, the Apple relationship has been crucial, helping to make the carrier the U.S. leader in lucrative smart-phone market share. According to comScore Inc., AT&T has over 43% of all U.S. smart-phone customers, compared with 23% for Verizon. These customers are especially attractive because they generally pay higher monthly rates for data plans.

For several quarters, AT&T’s growth has come almost single-handedly from the iPhone. In the fourth quarter of 2009, the carrier said it activated 3.1 million new iPhones. In comparison, it counted only a net total of 2.7 million new subscribers as some customers moved from other phones to iPhones.

“You’re not going to lose the iPhone [exclusivity] and make up growth somewhere else without bearing the cost,” said Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. research analyst Craig Moffett.

The impact on Verizon Wireless data network will be an important measure of whether American wireless broadband networks can sustain the demand customers have for wireless broadband service and speed.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/CNBC Verizon Getting iPhone 3-29-10.flv[/flv]

CNBC carried three reports about the Verizon Wireless iPhone story published in the Wall Street Journal and its potential impact on the American wireless marketplace.  (11 minutes)

[flv width=”512″ height=”308″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Wall Street Journal iPhone On Verizon 03-29-10.flv[/flv]

The Wall Street Journal included this “web-extra” report on their story and what it means for consumers.  (2 minutes)

AT&T may have put the safety of its Salt Lake City customers at risk by diverting cell phone 911 calls intended for local authorities to a 911 call center in Seattle, Washington hundreds of miles away.

Starting last Thursday, AT&T customers who tried to report an emergency by dialing 911 ended up speaking with confused operators in Seattle who couldn’t understand why customers were calling them about problems several states away.  Company officials took until the following day to fix the problem, and it took calls from a local television station to alert local officials and the company that a serious problem existed with the area’s 911 system.

Although the problem has now been fixed, company officials have not released an explanation about what caused the glitch.

[flv width=”480″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/KSL Salt Lake City ATT mysteriously directing Salt Lake 911 calls to Seattle 3-25-10.flv[/flv]

KSL-TV broke the story about the 911 diversion, interviewing one customer whose local Salt Lake City cell phone mysteriously reported his caller ID as in Seattle, Washington.  Part two of this report is from the following day, after service was restored. (4 minutes)

Denver, Colorado

Comcast, like Time Warner Cable, is slowly transitioning many of its traditional analog channels to digital, making more room for additional HD channels and faster broadband.  The latest city about to experience what Comcast calls its “all-digital migration” is Denver, Colorado.

“As part of the technology enhancement, Comcast is making available up to three devices to customers so they can hook up their (analog) televisions and not miss any channels,” said Cindy Parsons, a spokesperson for Comcast in Denver.  “What this allows us to do is provide hundreds of HD channels in the future, faster Internet speeds, better picture quality, and more ethnic programming.”

Customers with any level of service above Limited Basic with an existing digital set-top box may receive two digital adapters at no additional monthly cost; customers without an existing digital set-top box may receive one standard digital set-top box and two digital adapters at no additional monthly cost.

Parsons claims up to 90 percent of Comcast’s Denver customers already subscribe to digital cable on at least one television set in the home.  Comcast is offering free self-install kits through its Digital Now website.

Comcast intends to commence the transition to digital channel delivery starting this spring continuing into the summer.  The entire state of Colorado will follow, with the transition to digital complete by the end of the year.

Of course, customers with many analog televisions, or who dislike the notion of having to deal with add-on equipment, are out of luck.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/KUSA Denver Comcast Digital Upgrade.flv[/flv]

KUSA-TV Denver talked with Comcast’s Cindy Parsons about the city’s imminent “all-digital-migration” to digital cable television. (3 minutes)

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Anti-Cable Pay TV Ad from the 70’s.flv[/flv]

I ran across this “public service announcement” about the perils of cable television coming from the over-the-air broadcasters terrified of the implications of a new concept in television delivery — coaxial cable.

Back in the 1960s and early 1970s, big lobby dollars from broadcasters kept a foot on the throat of the newly-born cable television industry, prohibiting them from showing sporting events, movies and programs offered in syndication, unless they were from local stations of course.

To allow this new competitor to gain access to lucrative programming would cost local jobs, hurt investment in television stations providing local community service, and ruin it for everyone!

Ironically, broadcasters are still using these arguments when confronting intransigent cable companies that won’t write checks to pay those “free TV stations” for the right to carry them on the cable lineup.

Whenever a new player enters the marketplace, the existing ones panic.  That’s why the National Broadband Plan, Net Neutrality, and the concept of open networks terrifies incumbent players.  It’s a whole new world — one they aren’t comfortable with — market instability and players out of their comfort zones always invoke a fear-based response, especially on Wall Street.

Forty years after the pay television monster envisioned in this advertisement, we are still watching local over-the-air broadcasters.  In fact, the only harm viewers have experienced comes from an industry that treats local TV stations like commodities, bought and sold for millions of dollars, even as many stations cut local programming and community service.  These days, it’s not uncommon to find a major local affiliate not even producing a newscast any longer.

We now face another transformation in telecommunications with the release of a national blueprint for improved broadband.  Existing players have no problem with it, as long as they define it, benefit from it and get to implement it.  But the idea of opening their networks and providing consumers with additional choice, as well as protection from meddling providers who want to monetize all-things-Internet, just cannot be entertained.  To do so would … you know, cost jobs, harm investment, and ruin it for everyone.

Much like a broken record, this rhetoric is obsolete.

Martin

The former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission under President George W. Bush says the FCC doesn’t have as much authority over broadband as it might think, and cannot tell service providers not to implement policies designed to limit broadband consumption.

Kevin Martin, speaking last week in Seattle at the Mobile Broadband Breakfast told attendees he doubts the Commission has the authority under current law to implement the full scope of the National Broadband Plan, and probably cannot control what providers do with the marketing and pricing of their broadband services.

“The further it is pushed out the more difficult it is for the commission to address it,” Martin said. “The FCC’s core regulatory authority is on wireless and carriers, so its direct authority is less and less the further out you go.”

Martin is especially skeptical about controlling classic Internet Overcharging schemes like usage caps and usage-based billing.

Broadcast Engineering notes Martin doesn’t believe the Commission has any authority to stop the recent efforts of carriers and ISPs to introduce metered wired broadband, except in instances where price discrimination occurs.

Of course, Congress can grant additional authority to the Commission at any time, and with decisions looming in several broadband-related legal challenges in federal court, what authority the FCC believes it has today may not actually exist should court rulings find otherwise.  That could result in explicit increased authority granted by Congress.

Martin believes broadband improvement will ultimately come from increased deployment of fiber optics, which can also improve wireless network backhaul connections used in mobile broadband.