Wireless Providers Investigate Priority Access for Data
Posted by Jesse Ward on Friday, May 11, 2012 · 
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While speaking on a panel at the CTIA trade show in New Orleans this week, Verizon CTO Tony Melone revealed that the service provider is interested in offering priority service for select over-the-top media providers. Melone said that carriers such as Verizon are interested in charging application providers, such as Google or Netflix, for fast access to customers, describing the service as “toll-free data” which would allow content providers to pick up the cost of the traffic so it wouldn’t count against users’ data plans.
“As we move away from flat rate pricing, there is room for an 1-800-type of service where certain destinations could offset the cost of the network to get customers to those destinations,” Melone said. “There are net neutrality issues that have to be addressed, too.”
Indeed, the idea that broadband providers of any kind could legally prioritize traffic from a particular service or website is a controversial subject. Opponents of the concept argue that large companies will be able to negotiate and pay for priority traffic, creating a divide between their services and those of other companies, who will then find themselves at a disadvantage in the consumer marketplace. However, service providers see this as an opportunity to create a new revenue stream. Read more
Deutsche Telekom Gives a Thumbs Down on the Verizon-Cable Deal
Posted by Steve Fravel on Thursday, May 10, 2012 · ·
A May 7 article in The Hill discussed a telephone conversation between FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski and Rene Obermann, the German CEO of Deutsche Telekom, the parent company to T-Mobile USA. In the course of the conversation, which took place the week of May 1, Obermann pulled no punches, telling Genachowski that the Verizon-cable spectrum deal should be blocked.
The deal between Verizon and SpectrumCo LLC – a joint venture of Comcast Corp., Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks – and a similar arrangement between Verizon and Cox Communications, would allow Verizon to purchase large blocks of wireless spectrum from the cable companies. The arrangements also call for marketing and cross selling each other’s products and services. Read more
AT&T Partners with VRI on Remote Medical Monitoring Service
Posted by Jesse Ward on Friday, May 4, 2012 · ·
According to the market research firm Kalorama Information, chronic conditions – such as asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder, coronary heart disease, congestive heart failure and diabetes — account for nearly 80% of physician visits, more than 80% of hospital inpatient stays, 90% of prescriptions and 95% of home healthcare visits. Further, patients recently hospitalized with one or more of these conditions are at significantly higher risk for re-admission.
Thanks to advances in technology, caregivers can efficiently care for patients outside of the hospital walls. With the aging population, chronic diseases on the rise and a shortage of healthcare workers, remote patient monitoring solutions can help reduce the amount of time patients spend in hospitals by enabling caregivers to continuously monitor their health.
Remote patient monitoring devices remotely collect, store and communicate biometric health information to health care practitioners. As I discussed in NTCA’s “The Smart Rural Community“ white paper, and more in depth in NTCA’s telemedicine ePaper, remote patient monitoring has widespread applicability, from those who suffer from chronic illnesses to monitoring infants and the elderly. Kalorama projects the market to grow 26% overall, from $6 billion in 2011 to more than $18 billion by 2014. A more recent and conservative report by Technavio estimates that the global patient monitoring market will reach $9.3 billion by 2014. Regardless of the exact figure, the nascent market is poised for exponential growth.
AT&T is capitalizing on this business opportunity, announcing May 1 it will partner with Valued Relationships Inc. (VRI) for the national rollout of a new remote patient monitoring service, designed to manage chronic diseases and help reduce hospital re-admissions. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Read more
FCC Grants Tower Lighting Monitoring Waiver
Posted by Steve Fravel on Friday, May 4, 2012 · ·
The Wireless Telecommunications Bureau (WTB) of the FCC granted a waiver from the quarterly inspection requirement for antenna structure lighting monitoring on April 26 to Crown Castle USA Inc. and AT&T Services Inc.
Crown leases 1564 towers from AT&T that fall under the quarterly inspection requirement. Crown employs remote automatic monitoring systems on some of the leased towers. These monitoring systems are equipped with tracking mechanisms that evaluate the remote monitoring technology, essentially building a log that verifies testing parameters. Crown and AT&T have complied with the quarterly monitoring reporting and have demonstrated the overall reliability and safety the systems provide to the equipped towers.
The WTB noted in its order that it had granted similar waivers to antenna structure owners who were able to provide similar reliability and safety reporting. The waiver moves the reporting requirement under FCC Rule 17.47(b) from quarterly to annual reporting for Crown specifically covering the specially equipped AT&T-owned towers.
The WTB issued the orders after input from the Airspace and Rules Group of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) indicated no opposition, as long as the applicant demonstrated a reliable monitoring technology.
The Crown-AT&T waiver adheres to findings in an earlier ruling favoring Crown. The company had proven the required reliability in earlier filings and had received waivers for towers owned by Crown and equipped with the same monitoring systems.
T-Mobile Reduces Staff
Posted by Steve Fravel on Monday, March 26, 2012 · ·
In a March 22 press release, T-Mobile announced a consolidation plan for its call center operations. According to the release, T-Mobile will reduce its 24 call centers to 17.
“Concentrating call centers is an important step to achieve competitive cost structures to successfully compete as challenger and value player in the wireless market,” said T-Mobile President and CEO Phillipp Humm. “These are not easy steps to take, but they are necessary to realize efficiency in order to invest for growth.”
The list of call centers marked for closing includes Allentown, Pa; Fort Lauderdale, Fl.; Frisco, Texas; Brownsville, Texas; Lenexa, Kan.; Thornton, Colo.; and Redmond, Oreg. Read more
AT&T Defines Wireless ‘Unlimited’ Throttling
Posted by Steve Fravel on Monday, March 5, 2012 · ·
In a March 1 update of the AT&T company support page, AT&T provided clarity to customers on its 3G unlimited data plan who are subject to throttling if they surpass a predetermined data threshold.
AT&T initially added the speed reduction plan last year, but in describing for customers of the unlimited data package how much data they might consume in a month without the throttling affect, the policy read, “smartphone customers with unlimited data plan may experience reduced speeds once their usage in a billing cycle reaches the level that puts them among the top 5% of heaviest data users.” Read more
Operators Get Creative with Broadband Billing
Posted by Jesse Ward on Wednesday, February 29, 2012 · ·
AT&T has received a lot of industry attention for its new, creative wireless billing proposal. The telco revealed its plans in a Wall Street Journal article, which ran earlier this week. AT&T is developing a service whereby content or app developers could somehow pay for their app to have a reduced impact on end user data caps. John Donovan, the executive responsible for AT&T’s network and technology, compared the idea to toll-free calling for the mobile-broadband world or “freight included.” Here is an excerpt from the WSJ: Read more