I was traveling when Apple launched the new iPhone 14 series. For once, I had no desire to upgrade from my 13 Pro — only a year old. It is a great little device and does pretty much everything I need it to do. However, being the camera nerd I am, I couldn’t resist. The … Continue reading My Verizon + Apple eSIM Problem
Telecom companies tend not to be particularly good at anything, including running their own businesses. They never seem to learn — only to spend incompetently on expansions into new markets involving content and media. I would go as far as to say that, when it comes to shareholder value, their repeated attempts at “diversification” are … Continue reading Weapons of mass (value) destruction
The launch of the iPhone 12 has focused our collective attention on “5G,” a collection of fifth-generation wireless technologies that will supersede the fourth generation (4G) wireless — including Long Term Evolution (LTE). The new 5G is supposed to be faster — so fast that people talk as if it might be magical. I usually … Continue reading The 5G Hocus Pocus
We are all living with too many subscriptions. And often we can forget when services we are using or have forgotten to cancel. So it is nice to see a company do the right thing and stop charging people after a non-usage of 24 months. A very small percentage of our members have not watched … Continue reading Netflix is (almost) doing the right thing
If you live in America and are dreaming of 5G to come and sizzle up your devices (which might set you back big money), it is, frankly, time to wake up and smell the hype. While U.S. wireless companies like AT&T love to talk up 5G, when it comes to sharing details on availability, they quickly hide behind legal doublespeak. No wonder, as Ars Technica points out, they want to hide the map of 5G availability from the American public
Unfortunately, as outlined in the Wired story, that doesn’t work. Continue reading “The Scourge of Robocalls”
Remember GoTV? Or the Verizon’s much talked about the acquisition of once-very-hot Vessel? And all those press releases from Verizon where it talked up its dreams of being an OTT video giant. All those have resulted in nothing, and The company has called it quits and is now looking to partner with former competitors. The … Continue reading May 25: Worth Reading
Like Verizon’s similar purchase, last year, of another ancient bauble, the once ubiquitous dial-up service AOL, the acquisition of Yahoo speaks mainly to the past. Tomorrow’s Internet users don’t dream of using Yahoo’s properties any more than they do AOL’s. Instead, they lavish their attention on Instagram and Snapchat, Musical.ly and Spotify. And software continues to move in directions far removed from the early Web, as new voice-based interfaces, on devices such as Amazon’s Alexa and Google’s Home, train us to think about the Internet beyond browsers and smartphones.
For past five years, the net new additions to the overall number of broadband subscribers in the US has hovered around the 3 million a year. 2015 was no different — 3.1 million signed up, according to Leichtman Research, a research group that tracks the broadband market. As of now there are over 90.5 million broadband … Continue reading U.S. has over 90 million broadband subscribers
How tech became the enemy — then (dot com) and now. [Ellen Huet] Our routers, ourselves. [Paul Ford] Facebook, Ego and Oculus Rift. [Michael Mace] Why Facebook’s acquisition of Oculus still seems unfair. [David Banks] New Jersey wants the 45 Mbps Verizon Promised 20 years ago. [Karl Bode] Why Alibaba could be way more valuable … Continue reading What I am reading today
