Live from CES 2012
Posted by Kevin McGuire on Friday, January 13, 2012 · 
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The following is a guest post from Kevin McGuire, vice president of wireless operations for Enhanced Telecommunications Corp., in Sunman, Indiana.
Another year, another CES is upon us. My sense is that it is much larger than last year’s event. The first day on the show floor I was unable to have a conversation with a vendor because so many people were there. Like in years past, I wanted to write a guest post to offer some insight into items I feel might be of importance to the rural telecom industry. Of course the show is so big that it is impossible to get to everything, so apologies if I missed something. Read more
Dish Answers
Posted by Steve Fravel on Monday, October 31, 2011 · ·
Answering its opponents as much as filing reply comments in IB dockets 11-149 and 11-150, Dish Network made its case with the FCC and asked that the concerns raised by the various parties who had filed in opposition to its LTE plans be dismissed.
Briefly, this is what Dish Network has filed applications to do. (1) Approve the company’s applications to transfer control of DBSD and Terrestar spectrum licenses to Dish Network. (2) Grant Dish’s requested waiver and allow the modified ancillary terrestrial component authority, which will allow the company to only provide terrestrial service. (3) Waive the integrated service requirement and allow single-mode terrestrial devices on its proposed network. (4) Waive the FCC’s spare satellite mandate. (5) ”Harmonize” the TerreStar and DBSD regime to extend to the 2MHz MSS allocations previously granted to DBSD — in other words transfer DBSD’s allocations to Dish Network.
Dish Network indicates that all of these elements will allow for efficient and consistent use of the spectrum involved in support of a next- generation mobile broadband service, i.e. Dish’s plans for a 4G LTE network. Read more
Report: Cable Leads in Phone Satisfaction
Posted by Jesse Ward on Monday, October 3, 2011 · ·
Service outages due to severe winter weather have had a notable negative impact on customer satisfaction with telephone service performance and reliability, according to the J.D. Power and Associates “2011 U.S. Residential Telephone Customer Satisfaction Study” released last week.
The study measures customer satisfaction with both local and long-distance telephone service in four regions throughout the United States, based upon five factors: (1) performance and reliability; (2) cost of service; (3) billing; (4) offerings and promotions; and (5) customer service.
In 2011, satisfaction with performance and reliability—the most important factor—declined by 6% to 7.4 out of a 10-point scale.
“The brutal winter weather that plagued much of the country clearly took a toll on service levels,” said Frank Perazzini, director of telecommunications at J.D. Power and Associates. “In fact, the proportion of customers who contacted customer service to report an outage jumped to 21% in 2011, from 12% in 2010.” According to the study, a key driver for mitigating losses in satisfaction is effectively managing customer expectations regarding service restoration. Read more
Skype Launches Home Phone Adapter
Posted by Jesse Ward on Friday, September 2, 2011 · ·
Skype is enabling users to turn their home phone into a VoIP calling platform with its new Freetalk ConnectMe adapter.
The adapter, which can store up to 100 speed dials/Skype contacts, also includes a switch that allows users to jump between their landline and VoIP connections.
It requires a PC for the initial set up. However, to use it, all a consumer needs is a broadband Internet connection and a home phone. This means that once the adapter is set up, users don’t have to turn on their computers to connect with friends and family through Skype – an advantage over its competitor MagicJack. Read more
Dish Lifts the Veil on Broadband Plan
Posted by Steve Fravel on Tuesday, August 23, 2011 · ·
In an effort to capitalize on the court approved purchase of TerreStar and DBSD from bankruptcy, Dish Network has petitioned the FCC to allow consolidation and transfer of its satellite licenses along with a waiver of the integrated service requirement. Dish intends to take the combined satellite spectrum and begin offering a hybrid-terrestrial satellite broadband service.
Skype to Acquire Group Text-Messaging Service
Posted by Jesse Ward on Monday, August 22, 2011 · ·
Skype announced today that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire GroupMe, a provider of mobile group messaging services. GroupMe was founded in 2010 at the Techcrunch Disrupt Hackathon and is headquartered in New York City. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed, however media reports state that Skype paid up to $85 million for the start-up company. Read more
Charter and Comcast Echo TWC Sub Losses
Posted by Steve Fravel on Thursday, August 4, 2011 · ·
Charter and Comcast released second-quarter results, and like Time Warner Cable (TWC), both lost residential cable subscribers. The subscriber loss, as with that reported by TWC, was offset by gains in nonvideo subscribers.
For Charter, which is aggressively marketing broadband and telephone packages with direct broadcast satellite operator Dish Network, the second quarter closed with 673,500 nonvideo subscribers, for an increase of 40,000 from the first quarter. Charter notes that this is a 26% increase over the same period last year. Charter forged an agreement with Dish earlier this year to offer high-speed data and voice to satellite TV customers in specific markets. But Charter indicated that residential video customer totals reflected a loss of 93,100 from the same period in 2010.