AT&T to expand U-verse to 33M homes, increase broadband speeds to 75 Mbps

AT&T (NYSE: T) said it plans to expand its U-verse TV, Internet and VoIP phone service to 33 million homes and increase the speeds of its Internet product to up to 75 Mbps.

The telco announced the U-verse expansion, which is part of a $14 billion investment that AT&T said it will make on its wireline and wireless networks, on Wednesday. AT&T says it currently passes about 24.5 million homes with U-verse. While Verizon (NYSE: VZ) has halted expansion of its FiOS TV and Internet platform, AT&T is banking that it will be able to recruit enough subscribers from Comcast (Nasdaq: CMCSA), Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC) and other pay TV and broadband providers to turn a profit on the U-verse expansion.

AT&T said it will be able to offer speeds of 75 Mbps, and increase the speed of its U-verse IPDSLAM service, an IP-based DSL product, to up to 45 Mbps, "with a path to deliver even higher speeds in the future."

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Working with your very own personal Certified Luxevo Agent every step of the way, you won't have to worry about a single thing-and you won't miss a moment of fun and excitement. Whether on vacation or at home, luxury is affordable and never out of your reach. Utilizing our Advantage Benefits Program, you'll save on purchases, activities and events--at home or away. Luxevo takes the standard of travel and service to the next level, bringing the perks of extravagant living to your everyday life. Enjoyment, convenience, service, savings, value-that's the LuxPerience.

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Making a Dent in the 21st Century: Women and Technology

"WISENET (Women in ICTs Shared Excellence Network) is the International Bureau’s convening platform that aims to leverage the experience, resources and connections of the international ICT community to better the situation of women, their communities and their countries. As part of this work, the FCC has invited prominent women in technology from around the world  to post blogs sharing their experiences."

Monique Morrow holds the title of Distinguished Consulting Engineer within the Office of the CTO at Cisco.

I love technology, and I am passionate about getting people, particularly women, excited about choosing a career in technology. 

That is why I attended the Women@theFrontier event, “Design the Future 2012” which was hosted at NASA Research Park in Moffett Field, CA. At the event, I met the most amazing women from a variety of backgrounds who are each exponentially making a difference in this world using technology.

With NASA Research Park as the backdrop, I could not help but remember scientist and astronaut Dr. Sally Ride who passed away this summer. Dr. Ride was passionate about science and stimulating that passion in grade school.  She knew that inspirational teachers make a difference in shaping the path of a potential technologist.

Ping Fu, CEO of Geomagic, a leading provider of 3D software (yes, she wore platform shoes and a necklace that she had designed with her 3D software during her presentation) stated that instead of women moving upward to an artificial glass ceiling, we should move forward, just move forward!

Coke CEO, Muhtar Kent also spoke at the event.  He explained that the 21st century is for women. Kent began a program called 2020, designed to promote gender equality within the company.  In three-and-a-half years, Coca-Cola’s management went from 22 percent women to 40 percent. But to that impressive figure, Kent said, “I’m still not satisfied.”

My own career path in technology began with a focus on computer networking, and now I am looking at how Machine-to-Machine communications and eHealth can contribute to assisted living cases. The latter example is more poignant to me as my mother, my hero, has been struggling with Stage IV breast cancer, and continues to follow my numerous achievements whilst asserting, “Nothing is impossible Monique.” 

“Nothing is impossible” has been my modus operandi in everything I do; especially in technology and pursuing technical paths I was told I could not take.

Be curious; ask questions and invent!

FCC Releases Small Biz Cyber Planner 2.0 to Empower Small Businesses with Customizable Cybersecurity Plans

Small businesses are more dependent on the Internet than ever before, but 83 percent don’t have a formal cybersecurity plan to protect against cyber threats [1]  As larger companies improve cyber defenses, American small businesses are becoming more vulnerable targets.  According to Symantec, they were subject to hundreds of millions of cyber threats in just the first few months of 2012.[2] A typical cyber-attack that infiltrates a small business can cost, on average, close to $200,000 – enough to put many of them out of business.[3] 

This week, the FCC is re-launching the Small Biz Cyber Planner 2.0, an online resource to help small businesses create customized cybersecurity plans. Originally launched in October 2011, it is the result of an unprecedented public-private partnership between government experts and private IT and security companies, including DHS, NCSA, NIST, The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, The Chertoff Group, Symantec, Sophos, Visa, Microsoft, HP, McAfee, The Identity Theft Council, ADP and others.

The Cyber Planner 2.0 features new details about cyber insurance to mitigate interruptions to business and financial loss from cyber-attacks, best practices on spyware, including how to avoid advanced versions of spyware and what immediate steps to take in case of infection, and recommendations to install new software systems that enable remote cleaning and tracking of laptops and mobile devices in the case of theft.  The FCC is also releasing an updated one page Cybersecurity Tip Sheet. The quick resource features new tips on creating a mobile device action plan and on payment and credit card security.

Voice T1 Service

Many web sites you will find during your search for dedicated services will focus exclusively on broadband (Fractional T1 through OCX). Here at CheapT1 you will find that we have a unique focus on voice t1 services, both local and long distance, including the popular PRI (23 voice channels plus 1 data channel dedicated for the transfer of information, such as Caller ID for example). Our product specialists have many years of experience helping inbound and outbound call centers, customer support centers, dental offices, law offices, and other business who rely heavily on reliable business telephone service. Not only will we save you the most money, we'll figure out a way to do it without sacrificing the integrity of your t1 voice service.

Recently we added dynamic integrated T-carrier service which has been a hugely popular with SMB's throughout the country. These digital trunks allow you to use all 24 channels for high-speed data broadband connectivity in the event that none of your voice channels are in use. The majority of the time you are able to effectively receive a full 1.54 Mbps, not to mention a new feature-rich voice T1 with local PRI and voice access to the outside world. Not only do these dynamic T1s come with more capability, they also come at a fraction of the cost of old analog circuits. Currently, the average price of a dynamic integrated circuit is $450, as opposed to $750 for a standard integrated access line.

Why cable should bank on broadband and thank Netflix

With initiatives like TV Everywhere and broadband usage caps, is the cable industry biting the hands of the streaming video companies that are driving its most vibrant prospect for growth?
Now that Time Warner Cable, AT&T and Verizon have kicked off the latest round of quarterly earnings reports by multi-channel operators late last month — a series that continues Wednesday when Comcast releases its first-quarter numbers — a case can be made that the cable industry has a better future in providing broadband services rather than TV/video bundles. And they have Netflix and YouTube to thank for that.
This notion has picked up stream recently, with research company Sandvine releasing data last week showing that streaming on Netflix accounts for 29 percent of broadband usage over fixed networks during peak hours (8:15 p.m. – 10:45 p.m.), up 4 percent from last year. YouTube is second in line, accounting for 12.2 percent, up nearly 2.5 percent.
Overall, Sandvine found that “real-time entertainment” accounts for 58 percent of peak fixed-network traffic, up from 49.2 percent a year ago (see chart). Overall, median U.S. broadband usage has more than doubled over the last year to more than 10 gigabytes per month per household.
“The faster bandwidth consumption escalates, the better the cable industry is positioned,” wrote BTIG Research’s noted media technology analyst, Richard Greenfield, on his blog Tuesday. “With an increasing number of IP-enabled devices ‘on net’ in the home all the time, consumers will demand increasingly robust bandwidth and be willing to pay for it.”
For the last several years, cable companies have been losing multi-channel video subscribers to telco-based service providers. But as Greenfield also pointed out, with 214,000 net subscriber additions for high-speed data services in the first quarter, Time Warner Cable had more broadband growth than Verizon and AT&T combined.
The latter two companies are experiencing subscriber losses in the increasingly uncompetitive DSL sector. And their wireless broadband products don’t offer enough bandwidth to keep up with demand, Greenfield added. Neither AT&T or Verizon offers a cap as big as 10 GB a month, for example.
“While the broadband speeds delivered by wireless companies have notably improved, bandwidth caps mitigate the risk of wireless devices replacing in-home fixed broadband connections,” he wrote.
With escalating programming costs and stagnant revenue growth limiting the margins of video services, the performance of Comcast’s broadband services will undoubtedly gather close scrutiny by investors Wednesday.
Time Warner Cable’s revenue for residential video services rose only 2 percent to $2.7 billion, for instance, while revenue for residential broadband was up nearly 10 percent to $1.2 billion.

Best Buy Pulling the Plug on Mobile Broadband Service

Best Buy will end its Best Buy Connect mobile broadband service for existing customers on June 1 and is not accepting any new activations effective immediately, the company said Thursday.

What gives? Best Buys says it "can achieve greater growth by delivering mobile broadband support in ways other than an exclusive Best Buy-branded service," according to Engadget, which first reported the shuttering of Best Buy Connect.

The retailer launched the service in July 2010, offering 5GB of data usage for about $60 a month for access to Sprint 3G coverage in 18,900 cities and 1,855 airports throughout the United States. Best Buy also offered a cheaper, 500MB data plan for $40 per month, plus a 250MB option priced at $30 available only to non-contract holders which levied overage fees but no early-termination fees (ETFs) like the plans for contract holders.

Those ETFs— $125 for Best Buy Connect users with a one-year contract and $175 for those with a two-year contract—are being waived by Best Buy now that it's shutting down the service entirely. The retailer is also emailing out $125 and $150 gift cards to Best Buy Connect customers "to curb the cost of moving to a different carrier," according to Engadget.

Folks using Best Buy's WiMAX Connect service will also have the option to move over to Clear service, the tech blog reported.

Changes to the ways various Internet service providers deliver service appear to be snowballing as carriers, ISPs, and companies like Best Buy reassess the economics of old ways of doing business. Earlier this month, for example, it was reported that Verizon is preparing to end-of-life its standalone, or "naked" DSL service because it isn't making enough money to justify building out and servicing fixed lines without a landline telephone account associated with them.

Best Buy, meanwhile, is going through some restructuring pains in other areas. The company announced in March that it will shut down 50 big box store in the U.S. in 2013, though it does plan to increase the number of its smaller Best Buy Mobile stores from a little over 300 to as many as 800 by the end of 2016.