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Cleveland Business Internet, Westlake, OH (2026)

11/25/2015

The FCC has been issuing more fines than ever as it cracks down on poor company behavior, but found itself under fire this week for not bothering to collect any of them. The FCC has issued hundreds of millions of fines in recent years, with many of them levied on AT&T (for defrauding the lifeline program, defrauding IP Relay services, and its misleading throttling practices). The disconnect between attention-grabbing headlines and the lack of collections appears to have drawn the attention of Congress this week.
The FCC didn't comment on the record, but the partisan nature of the FCC's political appointees mean investigations and collections tend to take a long time. An anonymous FCC insider told Politico the announcement of the fines sometimes still facilitate change in company behavior:

quote:

But a spokesperson said the practice of issuing proposed fines technically called notices of apparent liability (NALs) is a major tool to protect consumers, even if companies don t ultimately pay a full penalty. The FCC, which says it normally conducts extensive inquiries before proposing a fine, has seen instances of companies adjusting practices to comply with agency rules after an NAL is filed, said the spokesperson, who declined to be identified, saying the FCC has a policy about not speaking on the record about its enforcement bureau.

Consumers and citizens will have to remember that excuse the next time Uncle Sam comes looking for money owed.read comment(s)
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11/25/2015

While Frontier has yet to formally announce any gigabit deployment plans in the Connecticut territories it recently acquired from AT&T, attentive users in our forums note that the ISP has started marketing ultra-fast services. So far Frontier doesn't offer such speeds, but this "CTGig" website indicates that the option should appear shortly -- even if (like Frontier's gigabit offerings in locations like Durham) we're only talking about a few high-end housing developments.
Frontier's looming gigabit deployments would appear to be a response to bubbling over frustrations in the state regarding next-gen broadband (or more accurately the lack thereof).
Tired of the state's regional duopoly, the state earlier this year announced it was seeking a public/private partnership to begin building gigabit networks. The request for qualification issued is relatively ambiguous, but is only the preliminary step in exploring potential options in a partnership bridging more than fifty towns and cities.
Frontier recently announced that it has started providing some Connecticut customers with two new options: a 90 Mbps down, 8 Mbps up tier that's $55 when bundled with phone service, and $65 a month standalone. That's in addition to a 115 Mbps down, 12 Mbps up tier that costs $60 when bundled with phone service, and $70 a month standalone. The usual caveats about DSL loop lengths apply.
I've reached out to Frontier in regards to more detail about what's clearly a looming Connecticut gigabit fiber launch, but have yet to hear back.read comment(s)

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11/25/2015

In an indication that the FCC's upcoming crackdown on broadband-related privacy abuses should be pretty serious, the FCC today announced that it's hiring 28-year-old Stanford lawyer and computer scientist Jonathan Mayer to act as its "technical lead for investigations into telephone, television and Internet service providers.
Mayer was at the heart of the Do Not Track initiative, and has frequently shown up on the DSLReports front page as a champion of consumer broadband-related privacy issues.
Mayer was at the forefront of exposing Verizon's use of so-called "zombie cookies," or unique identifiers injected into user packets, allowing the telco to track user behavior around the web. Verizon was testing the system for two years before it was even detecting by researchers. It required another six months of media pressure before Verizon could be bothered to make the system opt out.
Mayer's also been a frequent critic of technologies like ad injection technology, having recently unearthed an AT&T trial to inject ads into browsing streams at the Dallas Fort Worth airport.
It's behavior like this that has apparently raised the FCC's hackles, and deflated the industry's claims that it can self-regulate privacy issues without meaningful repercussions. With the FCC ruling in February that ISPs are common carriers under Title II, the agency is beginning to explore whether it should use its newly-established authority to impose new consumer privacy protections.

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11/25/2015

UN Members Are Having Closed-Door Meetings on Global Internet Policy This Week MotherboardGoogle's Internet-spreading Project Loon balloons now fly for three months straight pcworld.comAmazon Video, Music and more now available on majority of JetBlue s Fly-Fi enabled planes techcrunch.comT-Mobile gives existing Simple Choice customers three months of unlimited LTE, as long as they use the Binge On feature, which downgrades video streams to 480p arstechnica.comFCC under fire for (non)collection of proposed massive fines against AT&T, TracFone and others politico.comIn another possible signal of Comcast's intent to enter wireless, a company majority-owned by the MSO acquires 120 towers from Vyve Broadband rcrwireless.comBroadband Forum readies release of G.fast management model fiercetelecom.comCenturyLink, Cogent sign new interconnection agreement fiercetelecom.comFBI Has Lead in Theft of 1.2 Billion Web Credentials nbcnews.com

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11/25/2015

Verizon is rolling out an upgrade for the company's FiOS TV customers that will let them access their home DVR recordings outside of the home, on any mobile device. First spotted by Dave Zatz, Verizon's IMG Software 3.0 will not only let users watch their stored DVR recordings outside the home, but users will be able to watch their full live TV lineup inside the home on mobile devices using the FiOS Mobile app.
Historically, users of the FiOS Mobile app were restricted to a small subset of the overall FiOS TV channels (75, IIRC).
According to users, Verizon recently deployed the update in Syracuse and Buffalo, New York, after already having upgraded users in Harrisburg and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. According to Verizon, the company hopes to have the IMG software 3.0 update deployed to all FiOS TV customers by mid-December.
The update will be made available to FiOS TV users who have FiOS Quantum TV and use the FiOS Mobile App. This community post in our forums is chock full of additional detail, and is worth keeping an eye on if you're waiting for the update.

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11/25/2015

About a year ago Cox was sued by BMG Rights Management of Berlin and Round Hill Music of New York, for purportedly not doing enough to stop piracy. Cox has both refused to participate in the industry's six strikes initiative, and the kind of shake downs being perpetrated by companies like Rightscorp, which threaten repeat offenders with lawsuits if they don't pay up. Cox in court has likened this to harassment, and has failed to forward on these complaints or hand over subscriber data.
But as the Cox case prepares to head to trial next month, a Judge's ruling has some wondering if Cox could lose its safe harbor protections by not kissing up to the entertainment industry.
Both BMG and Round Hill (backed by the RIAA) have been eager to get a court to declare that section 512(i) of the DMCA requires that ISPs kick repeat offenders off of the network. By and large, 512(i) has been considered to apply only to edge providers, like YouTube, though the RIAA has been eager to have this tested in court.
In a troubling new ruling (pdf) that helps this goal along, District Court Judge Liam O Grady delivered a partial victory to BMG and Round Hill, declaring that Cox has not met the requirements for safe harbor protection under the DMCA. While O'Grady acknowledged that Rightscorp engages in "shady" business practices, the Judge made it clear that Cox is entering the trial in a hostile environment with a Judge who doesn't believe Cox is entitled to safe harbor protections.
"There is no genuine issue of material fact as to whether defendants reasonably implemented a repeat-infringer policy," O'Grady wrote.
That rather short sentence could have a huge impact on broadband customers, given that should the RIAA's friends win, it could set up a pretty horrible precedent in which people lose their Internet connections based solely on accusations of infringement.
It's ironic, given that while Cox hasn't been willing to play ball with copyright trolls, We've noted since 2009 that they have relatively significant anti-piracy measures in place that are at least as harsh as six strikes. But because Cox didn't go quite far enough, it now faces the sour proposition of losing its safe harbor protections, which could spell trouble for copyright infringers, innocent broadband users, and ISPs alike.read comment(s)

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11/24/2015

Back when regulators blocked Comcast's attempted acquisition of Time Warner Cable, there were rumblings that some of what was uncovered during the review would come back and haunt Comcast. Among them appears to be data related to Comcast's ad business, as the Wall Street Journal today reported that Comcast is facing a possible antitrust investigation into the company's domination of the "spot" cable advertising market:

quote:

The investigation is focused on monopolization or attempted monopolization of the so-called spot cable ad-sales business in locations where Comcast offers service, according to the document. The document also indicates the government is examining whether Comcast s ad deals with pay TV rivals are an unlawful restraint of trade.

Spot ads are the more local, sometimes lower budget ads that are run alongside the usual assortment of national ads (usually car dealerships or other local fare, but sometimes national brands or even politicians looking to target a specific region).
Comcast sells this ad time through a division called Comcast Spotlight. Comcast also spearheads advertiser negotiations on behalf of rival cable operators in many markets. Comcast owns a majority stake in one of the main companies that helps national advertisers buy commercial time from cable providers in local markets (NCC Media, co-owned by Time Warner Cable and Cox).
It's not entirely clear what Comcast is specifically doing that managed to get the cable giant on regulators' radar, but it's pretty clear the DOJ saw something in the competitor complaints during the merger review that prompted a deeper inquiry. It's entirely possible that nothing comes of this latest investigation into America's least liked company.
"We plan to cooperate fully with the Department of Justice s inquiry, Comcast said of the news.read comment(s)
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11/24/2015

Back in June the FCC fined AT&T $100 million for throttling the company's "unlimited" wireless data users without making it clear it was occurring. According to the FCC, AT&T consumers were deceived by misleading marketing materials and insufficient disclosure when the company arbitrarily began throttling those users who exceeded 2-5 GB of usage -- even when the network wasn't facing any meaningful congestion. Regular readers know AT&T's been waging a not-so-subtle war on these grandfathered users ever since it got rid of unlimited data plans.
In October of last year, AT&T was also sued by the FTC for its behavior related to throttling.
Specifically, the FTC accused AT&T of falsely claiming user connections were "unlimited," despite the fact these lines were throttled after as little as 2 GB Of usage. The FTC complaint stated that AT&T violated the FTC Act by changing the terms of customers unlimited data plans while those customers were still under contract, and by "failing to adequately disclose the nature of the throttling program to consumers who renewed their unlimited data plans."
AT&T's been fighting the lawsuit ever since, and last week appealed U.S. District Court Judge Edward Chen's decision to allow the FTC to proceed with an enforcement action. AT&T continues to argue the FTC lacks the authority to punish it.
"In the 101 years since Congress created the FTC, the FTC has never successfully pursued a cause of action against an entity with the status of a common carrier," AT&T says in an appellate brief filed on Wednesday with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
That continues to be amusing, given that AT&T has fought tooth and nail to avoid being classified as a common carrier by the FCC, but is now using those very same common carrier protections it claimed to loathe to wiggle out of being held accountable for its shady network management practices.
"It is rich to see AT&T in two different appellate courts at once, simultaneously arguing in this case that its mobile broadband is a common carriage service -- and therefore not subject to FTC jurisdiction -- while telling the DC Circuit that AT&T's mobile broadband cannot be treated as a common carrier service," consumer group Free Press notes of AT&T's tap dance.read comment(s)

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11/24/2015

Frontier is launching its IPTV platform in Durham starting in January, the company has announced. It's notable for the fact that it's the first time that Frontier has offered fixed-line TV services outside of the FiOS territories it acquired from Verizon. According to According to the Frontier press release, users will be able to order more than 630 channels via the service, which will come with all the usual bells and whistles, including a DVR capable of storing 500 hours of HD video per customer.
The company says it's using Ericsson's Mediaroom technology and a wireless gateway to transmit TV signal around the house.
The company's suggesting that it will offer "high-quality, high-compression, low-bandwidth TV to the home" suggests in some markets the service will be riding over older Frontier copper. It will also be targeted at the company's highly-limited deployment of gigabit service to select housing developments.
"We'll have a copper-based offering of about 18 Mbps with data, voice and 250 TV channels starting under $70, and we'll go up to our 1 Gbps offering to $150 to be more competitive with AT&T and Google Fiber that are in the market here as well," the company tells Fierce Telecom.

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11/24/2015

In an attempt to kick off the holiday season early, T-Mobile CEO John Legere this week announced that starting December 1, all Simple Choice customers will be receiving unlimited data free of charge for three months. According to a T-Mobile announcement, the carrier is also planning a series of holiday season incentive offers every week for the next month, all aimed at encouraging more users to switch to T-Mobile from AT&T, Verizon and Sprint.
»http://twitter.com/JohnLegere/s ··· 6111360

The fine print notes that the unlimited offer doesn't include tethering, and the carrier warns users that "service may be restricted or terminated for misuse," though they don't specify what misuse technically means. T-Mobile also notes that users need to have the company's new video cap-exemption service, Binge On (see more details here) active for the entirety of the three months to get the unlimited data.
The free unlimited LTE smartphone data will automatically be added to postpaid Simple Choice customers starting on December 1, 2015, through March 1, 2016.
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11/24/2015

Comcast is once again under fire, this time for injecting copyright violation warnings into user traffic streams. While many years old now, the practice has oddly seen renewed criticism after a developer posted one such warning to GitHub, which in turn gained the attention of ZDNet. The message, part of the Center for Copyright Information's (read: the entertainment industry) Copyright Alert System, notifies users that the company has received a complaint about the user's IP address being used to transfer copyrighted material, and asks them to confirm that they've received the notice.
For its part, while the user in question only just noticed the message, Comcast was quick to remind everybody that they've been doing this for several years.
"Comcast published all of the technical details of this several years ago in RFC 6108," Comcast engineering VP Jason Livingood states in our forums. He also notes that this "has been regularly covered in prior news articles," and that the "specified method uses the IETF's Internet Content Adaptation Protocol (ICAP)."
And he's right. We discussed the warning messages in early 2013 when trying to ferret out how ISPs would enforce the entertainment industry's endless game of whac-a-mole attempts to stop users from trading copyrighted files. A similar system is used to notify capped Comcast customers that they've reached their usage limits, and the technology has also been used by ISPs to notify users that their machines may be infected with malware.
Of course while nothing new, it's still not something that's looked fondly upon by net purists, who'd prefer Comcast keep its hands out of user traffic streams. Comcast may be required to forward on entertainment industry warnings to retain its safe harbor protections, but there's nothing that says it has to fiddle with user bits to do so.
"Ultimately, if you want an alternative, what is it?" Livingood asks in our forums. Not doing it at all, our users were quick to suggest.read comment(s)

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