Verizon has introduced a Mac version of Media Manager, its media extender software for FiOS TV subscribers. The program is meant exclusively for FiOS DVR set-tops, and lets users listen to iTunes music on a TV, including specified playlists. Images can meanwhile be shared out of iPhoto libraries, viewed by event and/or in slideshow form, the latter with music if assigned in advance.
Time Warner today became one of the last major US cable providers to offer some form of DOCSIS 3.0-based Internet service. The initial deployment gives customers 50Mbps downloads and 5Mbps uploads for the same $100 monthly rate as similar offerings from Comcast and others. Early service is so far only available in parts of New York City, including Manhattan below 79th Street, parts of Queens, and Staten Island.
Time Warner Cable and Verizon today simultaneously said today that they will launch trials of Internet TV viewing for their subscribers. Part of the TV Everywhere effort, the plans both let existing cable TV (for Time Warner) or FiOS TV (for Verizon) customers watch shows on the web regardless of whether or not they're at home. As before, many of the shows will go online closer to their original air dates and will sometimes be shows that rarely reach sites and stores like Hulu or iTunes.
Comcast today revealed that the rollout of its much faster DOCSIS 3.0 cable Internet service is significantly ahead of its original timetable. The provider told BBR that while it had originally predicted covering 65 percent of its subscribers with the added speed by the end of this year, it now expects to reach 80 percent in the same timeframe. The next area to get a DOCSIS 3.0 upgrade should be made public in weeks, the company said.
Time Warner Cable has recently reported its earnings for the second quarter, which revealed an unexpected increase in profit of about 4 percent. At the same time, the cable company's CEO, Glenn Britt, told attendees that mobile WiMAX is coming soon from the provider. Britt promised more details are forthcoming, but went on record to say that a mobile broadband network will be released in the fall, naming Charlotte and Dallas as the first cities to get it. Time Warner was an early investor in Clearwire's WiMAX network, along with rival Comcast, and is therefore authorized to resell the service.
Subscribers to Verizon's fiber optic Internet and cable service, FiOS, now have access to the Widget Bazaar, which lets them check out Twitter apps and log onto Facebook right on their TVs. Users won't be able to post Twitter updates or view their friends' pages, as the young version of the app only allows users to get updates on what they're watching and standard community Twitter updates. The Twitter app remains on the screen as a vertical ticker, even when users are watching TV.
Verizon today ramped up FiOS with speed upgrades for all its regular tiers as well as the addition of a new middle tier. A new 35Mbps plan offers a balance between more typical speeds and the 50Mbps maximum tier; it also has the same 20Mbps upload speeds as the previous symmetric 20/20 tier and the 50Mbps service; the speed would let it upload an hour-long 720p HDTV show in 20 minutes. The carrier doesn't say how much this version of its fiber optic service would cost but says it's only available in bundles with TV or phone service.
Comcast today expanded its DOCSIS 3.0-based cable modem service to Washington, D.C. with a price cut to match. The US capital has the same 50Mbps peak downloads and 10Mbps peak uploads as other areas but has had the price of the service drop substantially, down $40 to $100 per month. It's not specified whether the cut applies just to the Washington area or if other regions also receive the price cut today, though a leak regarding the cut said it would apply broadly on June 20th.
At an earnings conference on Wednesday, Time Warner Cable COO Landel Hobbs said that the cable provider will begin using the newer, multi-channel DOCSIS 3.0 standard to provide Internet and data access to homes and businesses this summer, although it will be limited to New York City only. Time Warner Cable is currently testing DOCSIS 3.0 in NYC, Hobbs says. Testing has netted 138Mbps download speeds and and 18Mbps upload speeds, the COO says, adding that these won't be offered initially.
Verizon today expanded its mobile FiOS DVR control to include a web version of its FiOS TV Central feature. Previously only available either as a desktop site or in a native app for certain LG phones like the enV 2 and Voyager, the feature lets any phone with a sufficiently advanced web browser, including non-Verizon devices like the iPhone, remotely program the IPTV recorder with all the same remote features. Owners can manage as many as three individual DVRs, add or delete shows (including Video On Demand) and browse media guides.
Time Warner Cable has scrapped its plans to trial metered Internet access in Rochester after political resistance, local news said on Thursday. Senator Chuck Schumer delivered surprise news that he had successfully negotiated with the Internet provider to drop Rochester from a planned expansion of metering, which would otherwise have arrived in August. A lack of competition is cited as the primary factor, as subscribers wouldn't get enough alternatives to Time Warner if they dislike the caps and overages.
The state of New Jersey's Division of Consumer Affairs has filed a lawsuit on Wednesday against Verizon for allegedly using "deceptive and misleading" marketing practices for its high-performance fiber-optic FiOS television, telephone and Internet services. The lawsuit states Verizon broke the state's Consumer Fraud Act by misrepresenting and omitting material facts in its promotion of the FiOS service.
The University of Melbourne and NEC in Australia are working on developing a high-powered laser that would cut the costs of bringing high-speed Internet access to rural areas of the country over fiber. Dr. Ka Lun Lee and his colleagues at the University are conducting an experiment in the state of Victoria, where the service can be sent to 99 percent of residents. Results of their work will be presented next week at a fiber optics expo in San Diego.
Charter Communications recently announced it will launch the one of the fastest widely available Internet services in the US, capable of delivering 60Mbps download speeds and 5Mbps uploads. Called Charter High-Speed Internet Ultra60, the service will initially be released in downtown St. Louis before expanding to other, unnamed markets. At the same time, the Internet provider says it will upgrade its Charter High-Speed Internet Max service to give subscribers 20Mbps download speeds instead of the current 16Mbps without increasing their monthly rates.
Lafayette, Louisiana yesterday revealed that it will soon become one of the first significant US cities to deploy a municipality-run fiber optic Internet connection. Lafayette Utilities System plans to launch the service with a combination of Internet, phone and TV services and will offer them either as part of bundles or as individual options. Internet service tops out as high as 50Mbps both downstream and upstream and will offer more bandwidth still for connections between users on the same network, doubling to 100Mbps.
Comcast today said that its DOCSIS 3 Internet access has reached about 20 percent of its coverage areas in less than a year through expansion into three new areas. Subscribers in particular areas of Atlanta, Balitmore and Chicago now have the option of using the faster, channel-bonded access with either a 50Mbps Extreme tier with 10Mbps uploads or an in-between 22Mbps Ultra tier with 5Mbps upstream.
The speeds of Verizon's FIOS fiber-optic Internet access should double in less than a year, the company's technology head Vincent O'Byrne has said at a media event on Thursday. Although the telco has already boosted its service to 50Mbps US-wide just this past June, its plans now have a trial 100Mbps service expanding to an official service sometime in 2009. The increase will be necessary as many services beyond ordinary computer-borne Internet access, such as HDTVs with direct video downloads and network-attached storage drives, will demand a large amount of bandwidth on their own.
Comcast today officially launched and expanded its DOCSIS 3.0 service in a bid to compete against Verizon's FIOS and other very high-speed Internet connections. Originally available in a limited form just in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area, the now established Extreme 50 plan bonds cable channels together to reach downstream speeds of 50Mbps, or bandwidth three times faster than the provider's DOCSIS 2.0-era 16Mbps tier. The performance is high enough to make HD video feasible: a full 6GB movie can download in as little as 16 minutes.
Verizon today said it has upgraded the custom-modified routers for its FIOS fiber-optic Internet service to prep them for the future as well as to give users more control over their home networks. The new versions of the firm's Actiontec and Westell routers support local connection speeds of as much as 175Mbps (up from 75Mbps) that makes sure devices inside the house can make the most of the connection. Each device also supports as many as four Wi-Fi access points at the same time that can be used for public or private networks.
Comcast's cable TV network will be all digital in the space of three years, according to claims by an unnamed senior executive at a communications company. The service provider is allegedly buying up as many six million digital-to-analog devices from Motorola and others this year as well as 12 million in 2009, all of which will be handed out to subscribers whose TVs don't support digital tuning. The move will let Comcast shut off analog cable entirely in favor of purely digital networks; the process should have all of Comcast's cable base on digital channels by 2011.
Verizon today it would upgrade all the speeds for its FIOS fiber-optic service nationwide, giving users in all 16 states the same speeds that were previously reserved only for the most competitive areas. All of FIOS' 16 states now have access to up to 50Mbps downloads with 20Mbps uploads at the highest-end, $140 monthly tier ($90 in New York state and Virginia) versus the 30/15 services that were used for most regions; the synchronous 15/15 service is also slightly faster at 20/20 across those areas without changing the $65 monthly rate.
Verizon will let customers see reduced rates on multiple services for the first time without requiring a landline, the carrier said on Friday. The Flex Double Play bundle will let the company's cellular users drop between $8 and $12 from their monthly rates if they also sign up for specific Internet-based services, including either the 3Mbps DSL connection, a 20Mbps FIOS fiber-optic plan, or FIOS TV. Faster Internet plans aren't qualified for the bundle.
Verizon is claiming to have had extremely healthy financial results in its first quarter, despite intense competition and a failing American economy. Total revenues increased 5.5 percent to $23.8 billion, while operating income went up 14.1 percent to $4.3 billion. The company notably claims that its Wireless division gained more customers than any of its rivals, at a net increase of 1.5 million; this is despite the threat posed by Sprint's Simply Everything plan, and the iPhone carried by AT&T.
Comcast today said it would be the first cable Internet provider in the US to offer Internet access based on the new DOCSIS 3.0 standard for cable Internet service. In its early form, the service will bond together multiple cable channels to offer download speeds of 50 megabits per second, or more than six times the 8Mbps ceiling previously set by the company's existing 8Mbps tier. This early implementation isn't set to have full support for the technology on uploads but will still offer 5Mbps upstream.
Verizon is putting pressure on the Federal Communications Commission to make switching away from cable companies easier, Reuters reports. The company observes while phone companies will often handle the switchover from one carrier to another themselves, cable subscribers must typically get their own cable disconnected. This discourages people from switching, Verizon argues, "entrenching the cable incumbents' dominant market position."
A select number of people now have access to HD video-on-demand through FiOS, Verizon has announced. Customers in Tampa, Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne, Richmond and Virginia Beach can now download approximately 75 HD videos through FiOS TV, among these free episodes from shows such as Golfweek Magazine, and paid movies like Transformers and The Hoax. An HD set-top box is required, which costs $10 a month in addition to FiOS TV service.
Access will expand in 2008 to Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Washington, DC; during the same year, the number of videos should gradually increase to over 1,000, while the total HD channels available will grow past 150.
