Tag Archive for 'Verizon'


Call for Papers: Infrastructure Regulation: What works, Why, and How do we know?
Deadline: 05 December 2008.




Google on mobile?

It appears that erstwhile rivals Google and Verizon are talking about putting Google on the mobile palmtop. Good news for those who see a mobile-centric future, like us.

AT&T Warms Up to Google’s Android For Mobile Phones

AT&T is finally warming up to Google’s phone OS, Android. T-Mobile and Sprint and members of the Open Handset Alliance, which champions Google’s new Linux-based platform, and Verizon has promised to make its network open to any device, a move that likely had Android devices specifically in mind.

At the CTIA wireless show in Vegas AT&T Mobility chief, Ralph de la Vega said,
“I like it a lot more than I did before… It’s something we would want in our portfolio.”

His conversion on Android came after Google executives showed him that AT&T would be able to load its own applications on any Android handset it sold. Previously, the company had been fearful the handset would be geared too much towards the Google brand. Too be fair, however,…

Violation of common-carrier principle: a battle is won but war continues . . .

The phone company has reversed its position on censoring content intended for their customers who have indicated their consent to receive the content, but continues to assert its right to decide what messages it will transmit. Public policy must ensure that the common-carrier principle be formally extended to text messages as well.

Verizon Reverses Itself on Abortion Messages - New York Times

Reversing course, Verizon Wireless announced yesterday that it would allow an abortion rights group to send text messages to its supporters on Verizon’s mobile network.“The decision to not allow text messaging on an important, though sensitive, public policy issue was incorrect,” said Jeffrey Nelson, a spokesman for Verizon, in a statement issued yesterday morning, adding that the earlier decision was an “isolated incident.”

Convergence versus common-carrier principles

It has long been a staple of telecom law that telcos could not decide what went through the tube.   According to the article below, this principle does not apply to text messages.   One academic apologist goes as far as claiming that competition will look after the problem.  He misses the point that under present arrangements there is only one way to reach a mobile user with a text message, though his/her operator (an equivalent condition does not exist in the Internet).  Until that changes, the common-carrier principle must applied, be it for text or voice.  

Verizon Rejects Messages of Abortion Rights Group - New York Times

Text messaging is a growing political tool in the United States and a dominant one abroad, and such sign-up programs…

Effects of on- and off-net calling on social networks

The article also contains interesting data on minutes of use by age group.

What’s Good for a Business Can Be Hard on Friends - New York Times

Unlike traditional landline telephones, which once made callers distinguish between local and long distance, cellphone carriers divide the world into in-network and outside. And because basic plans from the three major cellphone carriers, Verizon, Sprint and AT&T, are all about the same price — under $60 a month — the deciding factor for young people, in particular, is what network friends are on.

Carriers are giving customers more options to stay connected with people outside their network. This year, T-Mobile introduced a plan that allows customers to choose five telephone numbers outside its network that they can call free at any…

Patents holding back progress in the ICT sector

We have generally tried to focus on the fundamental issues of access to ICT infrastructure, and not the esoteric issues of Internet governance.   However, after two and half years, we are beginning to think of broadening the scope a little.   The anti-competitive uses of intellectual property have so far been discussed on this blog only in relation to attempts to claim a patent on the way the Sinhala language is standardized for the computer.  Here is another aspect.

A Patent Lie - New York Times

Vonage developed one of the first Internet telephone services and has attracted more than two million customers. But last year, Verizon — one of Vonage’s biggest competitors — sued for patent infringement and won a verdict in its favor in March.

The Gates…

Competition improving service and attitudes

Competition in emerging Asia has spectacularly succeeded in extending connectivity and, now, is also bringing down prices. But there has been little improvement in service. It looks like that too is happening in the US which has facilities based competition between cable and conventional telephone companies.

“When workers from AT&T and Verizon visit homes to install their new television services, they come with blue hospital booties that they slip over their shoes before going inside.

The sight of burly installers in dainty slip-ons might induce snickers. But the booties are just one of the many ways in which phone and cable companies are trying to reverse their reputations for shoddy service and win over customers who have a growing number of alternatives.”

Full story

Fiber to the home, thanks to competition

In the 1990s, I was involved in intense debates in the US about how to incentivize telcos to bring fiber closer to the home. It’s finally happening, and guess what is driving it? Competition.

“Verizon will spend about $20 billion by the end of the decade to reach 16 million homes from Florida to California. But it is in New York City where Verizon has the most at stake, because New Yorkers are some of the nation’s biggest buyers of video, Internet and phone services. The company plans to spend about $3 billion to reach the city’s 3.1 million homes and apartments.

With such a high concentration of potential customers, competition is fierce — and Verizon has been losing ground. Time Warner Cable, Cablevision and others are…

2nd Colloquium

Rohan Samarajiva started out by introducing the four case studies that LIRNEasia will be conducting this year which will be LIRNEasia’s contribution to the Expert forum to be held in September-October 2005. Since all four study teams were represented, Rohan gave an overview of the terms of reference common to the projects and went over the timeline.

Rohan observed that a good research organization and a consulting firm has a common culture, values and quality standards. This is not the case for “bodyshops” and hence their output was unpredictable, varying from mediocre to excellent. LIRNEasia will not be a bodyshop but will build a common organizational culture, value and standards using multiple methods, the colloquium being one. We will experiment with various formats and themes until…