AT&T has consistently stated that the company didn’t think they’d lose that many iPhone customers to Verizon, so it’s thoroughly unsurprising to see AT&T acknowledge that — they’re not losing that many iPhone customers to Verizon. “We haven t seen any surprises, and everything is pretty much within our expectations,” AT&T boss Ralph de la Vega said this week, though the company failed to give any real numbers.
The company repeatedly insisted they expected little movement due to the large number of people under family and business contracts — not to mention the company’s $325 ETF, which the company raised last year just for this purpose. Despite AT&T’s consistent last-place ranking in most consumer satisfaction studies, and traditional congestion issues in markets like NYC and San Francisco, there are a significant number of iPhone users content with AT&T service.
As we’ve noted repeatedly, the real damage for AT&T arrives next year (if it really arrives at all) after all their iPhone 4 users’ ETFs expire. We’ll also see what happens when Apple releases an LTE-based iPhone and AT&T has to directly compete with Verizon’s LTE network, which at that point will cover more of the population. read comment(s)
On the heels of Comcast saying they’re getting closer to offering faster upstream speeds via channel bonding, Cox and Motorola have some upstream speed news of their own. According to an announcement by the companies, the companies claim to have broken a world speed record for upstream coaxial service, using a Motorola DOCSIS 3.0 RX48 return path receiver module operating within a Motorola BSR 64000 CMTS Edge Router. The companies say the 356 Mbps (and later 400 Mbps, which would be shared, not per user) for a 5-85 MHz return path was achieved by transmitting across twelve return path channels of which six channels employed 256QAM modulation. In contrast, typical hybrid fiber coaxial networks have two or three upstream channels delivering an aggregate of 40-70 Mbps, shared. There’s no word on when users can expect to see the benefits of these advancements. read comment(s)
As it says: The Webbox is externally just a 14cm by 25cm QWERTY keyboard that has an RCA cable dangling from its rear–this coaxial cable will connect to a domestic TV tuned to a particular channel, and lets Webbox content appear on its screen. Inside it’s pretty sophisticated, with the guts of a 3G smartphone powering it–it runs over EDGE or 2.5G networks to get its data, and leverages Opera’s Mini browser suite (which compresses web pages to much smaller file sizes remotely) to ensure that the data burden on cell phone networks is low–which is good for low-income users and struggling cell networks alike–and that the device works swiftly.
It is an interesting concept. It combines a ‘mobile telephony’ through 2.5G (or horrors of horrors through GPRS) and thence output through your television.
I have run Opera Mini on my laptop through Java Emulator; it’s brilliant access at times when I don’t have access to Wifi. This Internet TV is something similar in it’s approach although they have routed the output through a usual TV.
However, this is not the end all. Heavy Java Script sites would not work; although the demo is not clear, Opera Mini is expected to run the mobile versions alone; this is not a very pleasant experience.
What gets my goose is that India has been lumped with the bygone nations -Kenya, Ghana and others. This only reflects their “poverty of thought” and generalized assholism. I am not a fan of Vodafone at all; despite their slick advertisements, it does nothing to “serve” it’s customers and perhaps one of the worst telecom companies. Nevertheless, this is a good innovation; it remains to be see how well they are able to capitalize on this, if and when it is launched.
Oh by the way, expect some rather crude “download limits”; these buggers are going to charge you per kb. Their billing systems are pathetic and try wrangling out the details from their customer care executives. You’d be appalled.
Last but not the least. Beyond certain “platitudes” and ass licking in the media (with crumbs thrown at the journalists and news papers), I really doubt whether they would have a mass market for it. They could have easily loaded up Opera Mobile instead.
And yes, as the dingbat in the advertisement says about “technological leap”, it isn’t so. The mobile phone circuits (and the RAM) is cheap with an output for the TV and external keyboard. It’s not big deal but it’s a good idea.
