MediaBytes - Monday June 9, 2008 - 1 Comment
2008 06-09 MediaBytes: APPLE - WIMAX - ICAHN - YAHOO - MICROSOFT - COMCAST- BIT TORRENT - MPAA - FCC
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Read Shelly’s commentary on the first networked, broadband election and how Senator’s Obama and McCain shape up against each other.
Watch Shelly’s commentary on APPLE’s (NASD: AAPL) 3G iPhone, which is expected to be unveiled today at Apple’s Worldwide Developer’s Conference in San Francisco.
The six major technology companies which joined together behind WiMAX are expected to form a coalition to jointly license WiMAX-patents. CISCO (NASD: CSCO), INTEL(NASD: INTC), SAMSUNG, SPRINT(NYSE: S), ALCATEL-LUCENT (NYSE: ALU) and CLEARWIRE (NASD: CLWR) will announce the development of the Open Patent Alliance today via conference call, who will license the rights to all WiMAX related products to tech manufacturers. The goal of the organization is to expand the reach of WiMAX, while limiting royalty rates that could push consumers away.
CARL ICAHN sent another heated letter to YAHOO (NASD: YHOO), this time urging the search company to sell to MICROSOFT (NASD: MSFT) for $34.375/share, or $49.5 billion, a nearly $2 billion increase from Microsoft’s last offer. If that doesn’t work out, Icahn advised Yahoo to resume negotiations with GOOGLE (NASD: GOOG) regarding a potential search-ads deal that could significantly boost Yahoo’s cash flow, and make the company more attractive to Microsoft.
COMCAST (NASD: CMCSA) was slapped with three Class Action lawsuits over its decision to throttle the internet connection of customers downloading BitTorrent files. The lawsuits in California, Illinois and New Jersey claim that Comcast misled customers who were promised “unfettered access to all the content, services and application that the Internet has to offer.” This is a major issue that isn’t going anyway any time soon, expect more law suits in the not so distant future.
The MPAA is lobbying the FCC to allow Selectable Output Control (SOC) to be used in order to block the function of digital video recorders on HD movies broadcast prior to their release on DVD. The FCC currently restricts the use of SOC, however the MPAA claims that SOC’s could help deter “illegal copying and redistribution” of Hollywood films. The MPAA is looking to release new films via multichannel video programming distributors “significantly earlier than DVD release”, but is only willing to do so if the DVR function is blocked.
Comments
One Response to “2008 06-09 MediaBytes: APPLE - WIMAX - ICAHN - YAHOO - MICROSOFT - COMCAST- BIT TORRENT - MPAA - FCC”dean collins June 9th, 2008 8:45 am
Saturday, June 07, 2008 Comcast face 3 civil suits over P2P
meddling Comcast may have agreed to end its practice of using
forged TCP reset packets to hinder the P2P traffic of its
customers, but the cable provider isn’t out of the woods yet. Three
class-action lawsuits were filed against Comcast this week in
California, Illinois, and New Jersey, alleging that the company
deceived and misled consumers by advertising that it offered
“unfettered access to all the content, services, and applications
that the Internet has to offer.” For those just catching up,
complaints from suspicious customers began surfacing last fall
about Comcast using questionable methods to block BitTorrent
traffic on its network. In October, the Associated Press decided to
perform its own independent tests to see if the allegations were
true, and found further evidence that Comcast had been sending
“fake” TCP reset packets claiming to be from its customers
attempting to use BitTorrent, therefore timing out their downloads
and seeds. In November, the Electronic Frontier Foundation released
a report detailing its own investigation, confirming that
BitTorrent performance was being selectively degraded by unexpected
TCP reset packets. (more)…
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080606-customers-cry-fraud-over-comcast-p2p-meddling-in-new-lawsuit.html
Yep what can I say, play dirty expect to get sued by people who are
paying for your product and not getting what they expected. I’m
about to place a bet with anyone who wants to take me up on it,
“P2P/traffic shaping/QOS etc will be what breaks up the current USA
monopoly for cable companies” I think in less than 3 years from now
the FCC will report that the current monopoly of exclusive delivery
regions is unworkable, that for too long cable companies have
abused their monopolistic control over connectivity and that this
is the catalyst that is used to ‘break’ current distribution
agreements. The FCC will come in and announce a period of open
access that will encourage new entrants to rapidly deploy a mix of
fiber and radio services - BUT the new structure will allow ANY
carrier to block/manage/control access to the Internet in anyway
they see fit THOUGH because of competition end users who find this
an imposition will be free to go to their competitors. Issues of
‘cherry picking’ and neglected areas will then ensue but this can
be solved in a similar process to the way telephone calls are
’subsidised’ in Ohio/Wyoming etc (basically all Internet
connections pay a ‘tariff’ which is then used to provide subsidies
services to areas that would be more expensive. If the USA
government was smart they would control through legislation and
minimum connection speed mandates etc but here in the USA this
government intervention is seen to be as bad as communism which is
why Asian countries like Korea get government mandated connectivity
which improves over all education, commercial efficiencies and
lifestyle benefits……and the USA doesn’t. Either way time to
start investing in smart smaller dsl/fiber ‘data rbocs’ (as they
will be valuable 6 years from now when they start being acquired by
the majors) and shorting Time Warner/Comcast etc who can only go
down from current penetration levels. Cheers, Dean Collins
http://www.Cognation.net