Apple wants to ensure that customer experience with its iPhone 5 lives up to what the company is promising, and it will take strong measures to do so, including telling carriers when they can and can’t make the phone’s LTE capabilities available to subscribers. Generally speaking, carriers test to ensure devices meet their own network standards, but Apple seems to be in a strong enough position to… → Read More
In practice, most Wi-Fi routers offer much less than their advertised speeds. Although I’ve seen some fast throughput in my time, most of the gear we use is rated for much higher than network traffic will allow. Some researchers at NC State University , however, have figured out a way, in software, to improve throughput by 700%. → Read More
When Dish announced their new ad-skipping tech, response was fairly muted. Sure it was some cool technology – the experience is seamless in that you notice maybe the first second of a commercial and then a little notification pops you over the commercials entirely – but TV execs are reportedly upset by Dish’s unilateral decision.
Fox’s Peter Rice said it was “a strange thing to do” and NBC is… → Read More
According to Sony, the Playstation Network is back online in North America and the US. You will need to upgrade your firmware to 3.6.1 and change your password to play. Our long national nightmare is over. → Read More
Damn, if you squint your eyes you just may be able to see the Iogear DVI Net ShareStation. It’s a small box you put onto your home network that then lets up to six different computers share the same monitor. (You plug the monitor into the box, then the box into the network.) It supports resolutions up to 1600×1200, so you’re not sacrificing too much screen real estate by sharing… → Read More
Sascha at PCMag writes a charming little piece on the death of Usenet as a method of discourse and its eventual rebirth as a repository for porn, spam, and pirated warez. He recalls the days of “serious conversations” on 8-bit Atari architecture and net.manners. In a way inconceivable in today’s Web-fragmented marketplace, Usenet was where you went to talk. Conceived back in the… → Read More
The CEO of Buzz Broadband just shuttered his WiMAX network and, in a conference in Bangkok, called the technology worthless. He complains that out of line-of-sight with the antenna WiMAX degrades horribly, resulting in network failures. He is now using a number of standards including TD-CDMA to get about 10Mbps and will not be using WiMAX. Gulp! And we just bought a huge transmitter for the whole… → Read More
[photopress:internet2usamap1.jpg,full,center] Verizon is kicking its major network routes up to 100Gbps early next year. It’s looking at upgrading it’s backbone after successful trails last year over a short piece of network (short being 300+ miles) proved it feasible. They’re calling it Internet2. Catchy! It won’t affect your home connection in most ways, but it will… → Read More
John is pretty hopped up on this stuff, so I’ll continue the trend. The undersea cables that were cut last week will, hopefully, soon be back up and running. Ships have been deployed to begin repairs and the one nearest the UAE is receiving treatment as we speak. FLAG Telecom, an Indian-owned cable network operator released this statement: “FLAG repair team is operating in extreme… → Read More
Da-dunt! Da-dunt! Da-dunt! I can’t stand it/I know you planned it… Well, it seems ships didn’t break the network cable links to Egypt — now they’re suspecting submarines. Not sure what to make of this development and unless Islamo-fascists have access to undersea vehicles and care enough to keep the devleloping world from connecting to the Internet, I don’t know… → Read More
Om is quoting a study on Verizon FiOS in the wild and came away with a starling realization: fiber optics will probably tear cable Internet and TV a new poop hole. Although only a few places have FiOS now, when Verizon rolled it out in Massachusetts: Comcast lost 5,216 subscribers across a base of 204,160, a drop of 2.6%. RCN lost 1,813 subscribers, or 7% off its base of 25,895 subscribers. While… → Read More
HAVA Platinum HD Monsoon’s HAVA Gold and HAVA Platinum full-featured video streaming devices are now available through Fry’s Electronics, TigerDirect.com and other select retailers nationwide. The boxes allow you to view and control your live TV feed from anywhere through a broadband-connected PC or mobile phone (think Slingbox). The HAVA Gold retails for $129.99 while Platinum HD is… → Read More
Late last night some AT&T geeks started benchmarking their network speed. Suddenly, after months of sub-standard EDGE speeds, they noticed 200+kbps during most trials, suggesting that someone out there has been tweaking things to make iPhone browsing a little less like pulling teeth. → Read More
Skype must be wanting to cash in on the fact that America is hooked on cellphones. Yesterday, they sent a letter to the FCC asking for cellular carriers to allow customers to run any communication application they so choose. In a nutshell, Skype basically wants companies like T-Mobile, AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint to allow customers to install a cellular version of Skype for making inexpensive or… → Read More
If you’re trying to find that old Jermaine Stewart video of “We don’t have to take our clothes off (to have a good time)” from 1986 on YouTube, you better do it soon. Music videos from MTV, BET and other clips could soon disappear from the video-sharing site. Viacom, parent company of MTV, failed to reach an agreement with Google’s YouTube. The entertainment giant is now ordering YouTube… → Read More
According to a new California law, any device “that includes an integrated and enabled wireless access point…[that] is manufactured on or after October 1, 2007, for use in a small office, home office, or residential setting, and that is used in a federally unlicensed spectrum,” will have to include some a warning about the dangers of not securing your wireless network. The… → Read More
QuickerTek has released a WiFi Transceiver that will allegedly double the signal strength of a MacBook Pro. Although that is a respectable gain, the transceiver utilizes an AC adapter which effectively limits portability. Adapters are the bane of laptop users, and the fact that this device utilizes one makes it a bit undesirable. Now if you thought that the fact that it’s powered by a clunky… → Read More
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