Matthouse

Qwest discussing a wireless deal with Verizon

February 27, 2008 – 1:16 pm
Once again we turn to CNET's news.com for this article, which says that Qwest (the phone company) is in touch with Verizon (the wireless company).  For a number of years, Qwest has sold bundled wireless service that they resell from Sprint along with their home phone and broadband services.  According to the article, Qwest is unhappy with the terms of the deal, and is looking for a "more tightly integrated partnership". Of course investors might be looking to Qwest to come up a wireless merger/aquisition, since they are currently the only major phone company that isn't part of a wireless company.  Wireless isn't profitable, as I've pointed out before (and the article mentions), but they want to get subscribers locked into bundled packages with their other, more profitable services.

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House proposes to force cell carriers to offer contract-free cellular

February 26, 2008 – 3:39 pm
Ran accross this article, entitled "Democratic bill could force Apple, AT&T to unlock iPhone"...  The title is somewhat misleading, only because an article about apple and the iphone is likely to score higher viewership. The bill, proposed by Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) does a number of things, but most notably it would force cell carriers to offer subsidy-free equipment, and plans without termination fees for use on that equipment.  This means you would be able to walk in and throw down for a phone at full price, and then buy service on that phone on a month-to-month basis that is comparable in price to the service you would get had you gone the traditional, subsidized route.  You would also be able to bring a phone in that you purchased elsewhere, and buy service on a month-to-month basis. Lets explain about subsidies and contracts...  Cell phones, contrary to popular belief, are not Free.  ...

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Verizon offers “unlimited” calling plan

February 19, 2008 – 10:09 am
This article hit the news today, which says that Verizon now has an unlimited calling plan for only $100/month with no roaming or long distance.  The article says this could spark a price war, forcing the other major carriers to offer a similar plan for a similar price.  It says Sprint is already offering an unlimited plan for $120/month. I'm not sure I agree -- with all the problems Sprint currently has, they may not be keen to follow suit.

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Analog cellular networks to shut down Monday

February 15, 2008 – 5:28 pm
If you've read my bloG in the past, you might know some of the history of old cellular networks...  To recap, there were originally two analog cellular networks in each major market, one (usually) owned by the phone company.  In the Denver area, if you trace back the roots, those networks are now owned and operated by Verizon and AT&T.  OK, enough history... On Monday the 18th of February, both the AMPS (Advanced Mobile Phone System -- but don't let the word "advanced" fool you, it's the original analog cellular networks) networks are going dark.  It's been almost 30 years since they were first deployed, but people are still complaining about them shutting down, and for good reason.  It's always been there, and now it won't be, thanks to an FCC ruling allowing them to finally shut it down.  AT&T's legacy TDMA network will be shutting down as well. This may have far ...

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Comcast says bloggers keep them honest

February 14, 2008 – 1:46 pm
I'm not a fan of Comcast, and never have been.  Most people I know would rather deal with Comcast than the phone company (Qwest), but not me.  I've been doing telecom long enough to know how to get what I want from Qwest, but Comcast just never can get it right. So with that said, it should come as no suprise that I'm telling you about this link on CNET, which quotes Comcast as saying that bloggers are enough to keep them honest when it comes to bandwidth management (sometimes called traffic management).  The FCC has opened an investigation into Comcast's bandwidth management practices, at the request of a user advocacy group.  Also this news.com article indicates they might be the subject of a antitrust lawsuite, since blocking traffic from, say, a company offering a TV service using bittorrent technology might have the same legal theory as Vonage offering a phone service ...

Posted in Rants, Technology | 1 Comment »

Blackberry down in N.America

February 11, 2008 – 3:49 pm
According to a story on the AP, Blackberry service is currently down for all of north america. Even though I own RIMM stock, I wouldn't use a Blackberry product.  It's bad enough that your cellular provider could, in certain instances, have problems (although to my knowledge none have ever had a problem where *all* of their subscribers, nation wide, were off-the-air).  It's because of problems like these that I occasionally think about building my own 1-way paging network, but I digress. This isn't the first time this has ever happened to Blackberry's service, either.  Back in June, 2005, back-to-back nationwide outages in less than a week took Blackberry users off the air as well. The best advice is to use a PDA or Smartphone that can operate on the internet on its own, and utilize your carrier's direct data connection (GPRS/EDGE/UMTS for GSM, EV-DO for CDMA).  This way at least if you go ...

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Sprint says continuing iDEN network

January 30, 2008 – 2:35 pm
In other Cellular news, Sprint is once again trying to have its cake and eat it too...  According to a press release posted on their site, instead of shutting down this half-breed "cellular" network with no possibility of carrying next-gen services such as mobile web, let alone high-speed data services, they're continueing to invest in it, as well as their CDMA network. OK, I know people hate background, but I once again feel it is warranted here.  In the beginning, the Earth was created.  Not long after, contractors of all kinds (general contractors, electritions, plumbers, and other trades) were created to build things on the Earth, and those contractors (and lots of other businesses - pretty much any company with a mobile fleet) relied on communications provided by radio systems in the SMR service.  The companies who owned and operated those radio systems leased out radios and provided airtime to companies ...

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Apple making inroads to (my) workplace

January 21, 2008 – 3:19 pm
So in the last week or two, several people at my day job have enquired about using a Mac that they purchase themselves for their company workstation.  As I've said, it's no secret that I'm not a fan of Apple, and have made no effort to avoid saying so at work.  I'm as helpful as I can be, but when people want handholding, I can't provide it.  The simple fact of the matter is, in my entire career, I haven't spent more than an hour or two on an OSX-based Mac.  Back in school, I was a Mac person, but that was back in the System-7 and System-8 days.  When I graduated, and entered the working world, there were some holdout Mac people, so I had both a PC and a PowerComputing (remember them?!?!?) Mac clone on my desk.  After only a few years, I got rid of the Mac and, for ...

Posted in Rants, Technology | 1 Comment »

Sprint Nextel to cut jobs

January 18, 2008 – 1:27 pm
Those who have followed my blog in the past know that I tend to rant about the cellular industry (see this post from Sep-2006, and this followup post from Oct-2006).  Today I ran accross this article from the AP, which says that Sprint/Nextel is planning to cut 4,000 jobs and shutter 125 retail locations, "to gird itself for an expected slowdown in subscriber growth and revenue". One other quote struck me:  "The company's struggle dates back to Sprint's 2005 acquisition of Nextel Communications Inc., which has left it with incompatible networks, technical glitches, a customer base filled with credit-compromised subscribers, and a dubious marketing effort."  That pretty much says the company is toast, when I read it. This is just another in a string of wireless companies struggling.  As I've said before, the wireless industry is saturated.  The CTIA estimates that there are currently 253,186,467 wireless subscribers in the United States, while the US Census ...

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Sun to buy out MySQL

January 16, 2008 – 11:36 am
I found this article, entitled Sun to aquire MySQL.  I have mixed feelings about this.  I really like MySQL, both the product and the company.  In fact, at my day job we actually pay them for support -- partially because it's nice to have the support available, and partially because we've built our company on their free product, and it's nice to give back. One really wonders why Sun is doing this.  If Oracle were doing it, that would make perfect sense - Oracle would love to see MySQL in the bit-bucket.  Buy them, fire everybody, and let it die, then everyboyd has to buy Oracle.  Or, turn it into something like Oracle Lite, and charge for it.  But why Sun?  The article says Sun is under pressure to spend some of the cash they're accumulating; why not buy out a hardware company to bolster their server offering?  Or a chip ...

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