Tag: AT&T

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Holiday Amusement: Internet access

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Digital Divide slowly closing

It has been said many times that access to the internet is fundamentally access to the digital economy — those without will fall further behind in education, income and knowledge. In the past decade, the number of people without access has fallen to about 17% of the U.S. population, thanks mostly to smartphones which are the device used most frequently to access the internet. Morning Brew

dis-rup-shun: Looking more closely at the numbers, it is clear that rural populations are most under served, as nearly 30% of rural residents don’t have access. The reasons for no access are attributable to service providers, who have chosen not to cover sparse, unprofitable areas, and to legislators who have chosen not to require coverage for every citizen, regardless of location or cost. Of course, some citizens in every geography will not connect even if offered internet service for free due to fear, poverty or illiteracy. Meanwhile Musk and others are launching satellite constellations such as Starlink that aim to place a belt of satellites in low orbit, eventually providing broadband access to almost every geography on the planet. Serving the under served is not a very attractive business proposition, since only a small percentage of the under served desire or are prepared to pay for service. Satellite providers, therefore, will increase the supply of services, locking terrestrial providers such as AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile/Sprint in an eternal price battle until one party proves that it can differentiate its network sufficiently to charge a premium. All in all, broadband services measured in Mbps per dollar will continue to fall in price as demand for higher speeds climbs. Expect high growth of mobile devices that perform bandwidth hungry functions, such as video and navigation, to proliferate our lives in the coming decade.

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Streaming game of thrones: Viacom and CBS form latest alliance

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Viacom and CBS align for battle in the streaming wars

Viacom and CBS announced their merger, providing a combined network with a vast content library, similar to NBC’s merger with Universal in 2004 and acquisition by Comcast in 2011. This will strengthen CBS’ streaming service, as the combined company owns 140,000 TV episodes, 36,000 films and 750 series. ViacomCBS is now in a better position to challenge Disney, Netflix, AT&T and Comcast in the streaming wars. CNBC

dis-rup-shun: A bit like GOT itself, the seven kingdoms are aligning to have a seat at the throne of your smart TV. A streaming service, be it from a cable network (Comcast), an over the top service (Netflix) or from a studio (Hulu) is mere commodity without unique content. To compete, you must purchase or create a production studio and build a library of popular content. Netflix changed the world by offering a new format (anytime TV) at a new price point. Others followed but found it hard to differentiate. Content differentiates, and now when cord cutters drop their pay TV subscriptions with AT&T or Comcast, there is a good chance they will subscribe to a streaming service partially owned by AT&T, Comcast, CBS, Disney, etc. Realignment of subscribers beats total loss of subscribers any day.

Nest accounts become Google on August 31st

Customer backlash prevented Google from cancelling support for third party devices that controlled Nest devices (through Works with Nest programs). On August 31st, only security support for Nest accounts will be provided, meaning that Nest accounts will work, but won’t receive any feature enhancements. But if you control a Nest device, like a camera or thermostat from a 3rd party app, don’t migrate to a Google account, as you will lose the ability to control your Nest devices from apps provided by third parties. CNet

dis-rup-shun: Confused? Nest is increasing its control of data created through the use of its devices, and is providing incentives for its customers to control home devices through its Google Home smart speaker devices. It is doing so, in part, by discouraging use of third party devices. This is a risky strategy for a number of reasons: 1) the smart home is way too big and diverse for a single vendor to dominate, and if one were to dominate, it would likely be an Apple or Samsung, who provide many more devices than Google/Nest; 2) Nest thermostats and cameras are strong selling standalone products, but if they don’t work (well) with other devices and hubs, there are many good alternatives and this move will ultimately hurt sales of Google/Nest products.

A side by side look at home Internet and Wi-Fi services

The largest Wi-Fi providers, by market share, are  Comcast, Charter Spectrum, AT&T, Verizon and Cox Communications. When selecting a provider, be aware of hidden fees such as modem rental fees, data overage fees, installation fees, and early termination fees.

ISPS: 100 – 150MBPS PLANS COMPARED

Comcast Xfinity Charter Spectrum AT&T Fiber Verizon Fios Cox Communications
Max download speed 150Mbps 3 – 300Mbps (same price for all plans in this range) 100Mbps 100Mbps 150Mbps
Max upload speed 10Mbps 1 – 20Mbps (same price for all plans in this range) 100Mbps 100Mbps 10Mpbs
Data allowance 1TB, then $10 / 50GB Unlimited 1TB, then $10 / 50GB Unlimited 1TB, then $10 / 50GB
Installation costs Up to $60 Up to $140 Up to $99 Up to $99 Up to $75
Promotional price $50 / month $45 / month $50 / month $40 / month $60 / month
Promotional period 12 months 12 months 12 months 12 months 12 months
Price after promotion $80 / month $66 / month $60 / month $55 / month $88 / month
Modem/router fee $13 / month $5 / month $0 $12 / month $11 / month
Early termination fee Up to $120 None Up to $180 None Up to $120

CNET

dis-rup-shun: Differences between services are subtle, unless you live in a household that watches many movies everyday, are running a compute intensive home-based business, or unless you are an online game player and every Mbps counts. Bundles with other services, like pay TV (unless you have already cut the cord), or streaming subscriptions thrown in for free, may be the biggest difference makers in your choice for next generation broadband service at home.

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How Bezos will spend his $1.8 billion paycheck

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Bezos cashes a check for $1.8 billion

Bezos sold Amazon stock worth $1.8 billion over the past few days. The value matches the value gained in last fall’s run up of stock value. Gizmodo

dis-rup-shun: How do you spend $1.8 billion? Turns out Jeff is likely moving his money to his space exploration company, Blue Origin, which just won a long term contract with NASA. The rocket business, undoubtedly, consumes a lot of cash, and Bezos has enough to build a footbridge to Mars. Ex-wife MacKenzie Bezos has pledged most of her $36.6 billion divorce settlement to charity, content to live off of whatever is left after “most.”

What to think of AT&T DirecTV now

AT&T is changing the name of its brand streaming service (Netflix killer?) called DirecTV Now to AT&T TV Now. AT&T’s journey into the streaming world has been bumpy, as the service experienced multiple network outages, and has lost 500,000 subscribers in the past year. Combine that with total subscriber losses across all TV properties, and the losses total 2.5 million subscribers. ArsTechnica

dis-rup-shun: If streaming services are the future, what’s up with AT&T’s tinkering?

Here are a few answers:

  1. AT&T is not stupid. In fact, they earned $19 billion in profit last year and have maintained leading market share in multiple communications/entertainment industries.
  2. AT&T knew that cord cutting (dropping pay TV packages) was a growing trend, yet they invested in Time Warner and their Now streaming service.
  3. The power of the bundle is not to be discounted. AT&T is in a unique position to offer customers Internet, wireless, and entertainment services.
  4. As entertainment shifts to streaming services, market share will be gained by those services with differentiated content. That’s why the company purchased Time Warner — to make the content.

The company is positioned for a long, expensive battle with Netflix, Amazon, Disney and others to restructure entertainment services. AT&T will come out a winner at the end of the slog, but it will be three to five years of building on shifting sands and heavy subscriber movement.

The next wave of Intel chips coming for Christmas

Intel is, after much delay, releasing its generation 10, 10 nanometer chip family in time for holiday 2019 purchases. What does that do for you? The processors bring to computing much higher battery life (9 hours), better graphics processing, optimization for AI, faster Wi-Fi (version 6), and support for more really fast ports (Thunderbolt). Wired

dis-rup-shun: Intel is increasingly challenged by competition, including Qualcomm, Apple, Samsung, and many others, who are gobbling up share of non-PC computing devices. It is rumored that Apple will move away from Intel CPUs sometime next year for Mac computers. Expect Intel to be increasingly on the hot seat as it is not changing as fast as the world of computing.

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T-Mobile Sprint merger: do you approve?

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Sprint T-Mobile merger: good or bad?

T-Mobile has been cleared by the Justice Department to acquire Sprint. This is the third attempt by the carriers to combine forces. 13 states are suing, claiming the deal will reduce competition and increase prices. The carriers have promised to freeze prices for three years and will give away some of their services and spectrum to Dish Networks, already an owner of significant spectrum, so that it may launch a fourth wireless network service, thereby not reducing the number of competitors. CNET

dis-rup-shun: The best argument for approving the deal is that three big carriers will continue to be ‘cutthroat competitive’ to win market share. AT&T and Verizon are not likely to be less aggressive in the market given the merger, but will be more aggressive, given that the new T-Mobile will be a third giant. T-Mobile with Sprint will be financially stronger to accelerate the race to deliver 5G networks and Dish will be the weak ‘also ran’ that must introduce creative plans for niche customers but even so will likely not be profitable. Given that the merger will not reduce market competitiveness and will accelerate 5G, the DOJ made the right decision.

Capital One data breach exposes 140,000 SSNs

A data breach and subsequent posting of SSNs and Capital One bank account numbers was announced. One perpetrator, 33 year old Paige Thompson, was arrested and charged in Seattle. The breach will cost Capital One between $100 million and $150 million.

dis-rup-shun: Seems that Seattle is increasingly the epicenter of tech innovation, good and bad. It turns out that Thompson briefly worked for Amazon. This breach is another reminder that higher standards are required for storing personal information. Encryption and its keys must be stronger such that access to personal data must be limited to only a handful of traceable employees at even large corporations.

Banned Huawei reports 23% increase

The Chinese tech giant that has been banned by the U.S. and many Western partners, experienced strong growth, mostly by selling more smartphones in China. The gains come at the expense of Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo, and Apple. The Verge

dis-rup-shun: What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger, Huawei may be saying. On the other hand, Huawei’s challenge — selling 5G infrastructure gear across the planet, remains a challenge with increased sanctions. The power of the consumer — the power to make or break companies such as Apple and Motorola and Nokia (remember when the Razr and Nokia candy bar phones were “it”) — has floated Huawei. Could it be Chinese nationalism causing consumers to favor Huawei smartphones, or are they just that good?

Internet crosses oceans through 380 underwater cables

Today, Internet communications from continent to continent rely on not just a few submerged cables, but 380 which are owned and operated by telcos as well as by Google, Microsoft, Huawei and others. While cables are frequently disrupted by ship anchors, fishermen and seismic activity, the ability to re-route traffic means most outages are not noticed. CNN

dis-rup-shun: The space race, often covered by dis-rup-shun.com, seeks to provide a more economical means of covering the globe with network services through satellites in constant orbit, rather than vulnerable undersea fiber. Companies that control the physical Internet infrastructure are guaranteed a financial advantage for essentially now until the end of civilization.

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Big Tech stares down Congress

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Congress summons Big Tech for a big chat

Top executives from Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google were on the Hill this week, arguing that they are not monopolies and are not using customer data for competitive advantage. Data is used, said Amazon’s Sutton, to better serve customers, when asked if the company launches its own products based on what’s selling. Wired

dis-rup-shun: Everyone except for small business was a winner this week as congress persons posed as tough on tech, tech executives sounded smarter than legislators by delivering punchy but circuitous answers, and lobbyists validated their billings by offering evidence that tech is increasingly under fire by legislators. Legislators have to find the balance between an increasingly less-competitive landscape and nationalistic interests in defending against global competition, mainly from China, for next generation technology dominance.

Netflix faces first significant subscriber loss 

In Q2, Netflix faced loss of 130,000 U.S. subscribers and added only 2.7 million global subs instead of the predicted 5 million. The Verge

dis-rup-shun: Why is the unstoppable streaming service slowing down? A number of reasons, and they aren’t new competition, as Disney, Apple and AT&T’s ‘Netflix killer’ streaming services are not yet open. The reasons include saturation — with nearly 60% of U.S. households already subscribers, those that aren’t, don’t want to spend the money or don’t watch TV. Existing competition is increasing its original content, making some other services more desirable than Netflix (since House of Cards is finished), and rising inflation has been slowly taking a bite out of U.S. consumers’ disposable incomes. Netflix may be an indicator of a slowing economy.

AT&T and Microsoft form $2 billion alliance for cloud and 5G

AT&T announced that it will move much of its business computing needs to Microsoft’s public cloud, Azure. In addition, it’s 268,000 employee workforce will use Microsoft  365 applications for its computing needs. The $2 billion deal does not include AT&T outsourcing its network infrastructure, like cellular communications networks. The companies are also cooperating on development of 5G tools. Reuters

dis-rup-shun: This deal looks like a huge win for Microsoft and likely a cost-savings move for AT&T which continues to seek efficiencies as it prepares to engage in a long battle for streaming content viewership following integration of Time Warner. Microsoft Azure is cleaning up cloud services accounts from many companies that consider Amazon a competitor on various fronts including retailers (Walmart) and shippers (FedEx). Microsoft also secured additional defense against Google apps by ensuring that AT&T continues to use Microsoft’s office tools.

Maps with images only moments old

Online maps such as Google Street View feature photos of locations that are often months if not years old. Nexar’s Live Map application uses dash cam and smartphone images to refresh map images constantly, showing viewers a wreck moments after it happened. The company has been quick to address privacy concerns by stating that pictures of people, addresses and licenses are anonymized and blurred. TechCrunch

dis-rup-shun: Privacy is a big concern when a) everyone’s every move is captured on a dash or doorbell camera, and b) companies collect and store those images and promise to self-police breaches in privacy. This puts companies in a position of high liability as they are liable to shareholders to monetize data they collect, and liable to society to not use that data in a way that would compromise privacy. Big profits come to those that expose secrets.

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When tech giants become property developers

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Alphabet, Google’s parent, plans a smart city in Toronto

On Monday, Alphabet’s subsidiary, Sidewalk Labs, released plans for its $1.3 billion smart city on the Toronto waterfront. The plans boast private investment of $38 billion by 2040, and the creation of 44,000 jobs and $4.3 billion in annual tax revenue. Locals are mixed on support of the venture, which is yet to win full support of urban planners and city leaders. The Verge

dis-rup-shun: Tech giants’ disruption of real estate markets in places like Seattle, San Francisco, and Austin have previously been with the help of the usual brokers, financiers and builders. Alphabet is making its own rules in Toronto and showing that it is more powerful than the local establishment. On the one hand, established city leaders are suspicious of grand ambitions backed by big money and the arrogance associated with big tech. On the other hand, the smart cities vision will take decades to evolve organically unless accelerated by a visionary company that just builds it.

 

Facebook’s future inside a ringed fence

Facebook has been the PR whipping post for all that is wrong with the Internet, social networks, and disclosure of personal data. Despite all the bad press and example making by regulators, its subscriber count is up 9% and its revenues, 30%. Forrester researchers say that the company’s undoing will not be public opinion or legislation, but will be its own shift to focus on private messaging as this move will stall growth of social networks, and will prevent the company from selling more personal information to advertisers. Meanwhile, the watchful eye of regulators will make it very difficult for the company to acquire new companies. Forbes

dis-rup-shun: The notion that Facebook has painted itself into a corner is hard to fathom, as statements of direction can change in the blink of a CEO’s eye. The fact that Facebook continues to grow, and continues to be an important source of news and information for its 2.3 billion monthly users portends that, despite bad press, it will be the virtual water cooler for years to come. It’s $540 billion market cap means the company can spend a great deal on public relations and congressional lobbying. 

 

How to slice up big tech

Kara Swisher shares thoughts on competition and how big tech is too big to challenge. The Recode editor shares thoughts on how regulators might break Google, Apple or Amazon into some logical pieces and encourage new entrants into markets that have been ceded to the giants. The Verge

dis-rup-shun: January 1, 1984 was the day that AT&T’s monopoly ended and baby bells were created. While the decision was rough on AT&T, many of the bells thrived by merging, acquiring, and entering into new businesses. The action accelerated communications technology, including wireless telephony, and spurred the strongest tech economy in the world. History has shown competition to be economic lifeblood and dominance to lead to stagnation.

 

Industry leaders reply

In response to Should Facebook’s currency be blocked? Former Lowe’s Iris Smart Home VP and GM Kevin Meagher replies: In the UK in the 18th and 19th century single large employers (mill owners/mines/steel mills) in towns and regions created and issued their own currencies to pay staff.  This currency was only recognized in businesses owned by the companies and their partners so what was paid to employees eventually came back to the company.  It was a great way to squeeze competition out of the town and hold everyone hostage to what was in effect a feudal system.  I’m pretty sure this happened in some early settlement in the US.  How the wheel goes round!

 

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Streaming TV to look like cable you just cancelled

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How streaming TV is repeating the evolution of cable TV

Wired lists seven free streaming services with advertising that you will want to have as backups to Netflix and Amazon Prime Video accounts: IMDbTV, the Roku Channel, Kanopy, Tubi, Pluto TV, Crackle, and Vudu.

dis-rup-shun: If you are old enough to remember when cable TV was a new thing, you remember that for a reasonable monthly fee, your three-channel rabbit-ear antenna TV could become clear and sharp. Then came more channels. Then came movie channels such as HBO. Then came original content, like the Sopranos. Now that 76% of us U.S. households have Netlix and 51% have Amazon prime, we see the add on of many more streaming ‘channels’ or services. The next step will be bundling of many services into streaming packages, enabling one to access many services through a single sign-on and credit card authorization. With the pay TV providers such as AT&T driving those bundles, these new services will come from the same providers who used to offer cable TV packages. Once again we will be buying packages from big TV providers — but this time based on when we want to watch.

How apps get to the Apple App Store

Apple’s process for reviewing and approving or rejecting apps for publication on the App Store includes over 300 human reviewers who speak 81 languages, at two offices in Sunnyvale, CA with a goal to complete review of a submission within 24 to 48 hours. Each reviewer must review between 50 to 100 apps per day to ensure they run properly, are not illegal, and do not contain prohibited content. CNBC

dis-rup-shun: Apple fan or not, one must credit the company on the high quality of available apps. Apple takes up to 30% of revenues generated from sales on the app store, so the company has an incentive to provide a quick turn-around and ensure a good app experience. TechCrunch states that 2/3rds of an estimated $75 billion (2018) in app revenue is generated by Apple’s app store. The revenue gap between Apple and the Google Play Store increased last year, with Apple advancing its lead. Research firm Sensor Tower states that rising revenue disparity is driven by increasing number of subscriptions to monthly services such as Netflix, and Tinder.

Drones for humanity

Eco-entrepreneurs are developing a working drone that will biodegrade in weeks after completing its mission. Otherlab of San Francisco has built a gliding drone made now from cardboard but later to be made of a mushroom-based mycelium material. The Apsara drone is funded by DARPA who required a design that not only could carry cargo to a designated spot, but that would also decompose quickly. Wired

dis-rup-shun: Given last week’s downing by Iran of a $220 million U.S. surveillance drone, it is easy to consider drones as weapons, but this brilliant drone design will enable humanitarian aid of emergency food supplies and medicines in an effective and responsible way — likely helping to maintain populations that are caught in the cross hairs of military actions.

Kano, the Erector Set of today, will boost STEM interest

Microsoft has invested in UK youth computer maker Kano which will now run Windows 10. The $300 computer kit comes with creativity and development software which encourages kids to design 3D objects, build their own programs, computer art, and collaborate with other builders through a youth version of Teams collaboration software. TechCrunch

dis-rup-shun: Today’s youth have most often clamored for Apple to be their first device. By introducing a computer designed to engage youth prior to the age of ownership of first computer, Microsoft has seized on an opportunity to develop renewed interest from tomorrow’s newest scientists. Hopefully the move will address the shortage of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) students by developing an early interest in computer science.