ViaSat picked SpaceX to launch its ViaSat-2 high-capacity broadband satellite aboard a Falcon Heavy rocket, it said in a news release Monday. The launch is scheduled for late summer 2016 at the Kennedy Space Center. ViaSat said it expects ViaSat-2 to "cover seven times the geographic area and offer twice the bandwidth economics advantage" of its previous satellite. Coverage areas will include North and Central America and the Caribbean basin. This new satellite enables ViaSat to offer additional data for its wireless plans, it said. ViaSat-2 will also connect North America with U.K. and European coverage for "high-speed in-flight internet and other mobile services” through ViaSat’s partner Eutelsat and its KA-Sat satellite, a ViaSat spokeswoman emailed us.
Americans would “risk losing the ability to benefit from new services and products” if the FCC subjects wireless to Title II-based net neutrality regulations, CTIA said in a YouTube video released Friday. The group said it supports Open Internet rules but with “mobile-specific” rules. The organization also released a shorter version of the video.
Google is right to argue in a Dec. 30 letter to the FCC that net neutrality rules shouldn’t interfere with cable companies’ pole attachment rights, NCTA said in its own letter to the commission Friday. Google, though, was wrong in arguing that the reclassification of broadband to Title II is necessary to preserve those rights. Google said Google Fiber “‘lacks federal access rights pursuant to Section 224 because it offers an Internet Protocol video service that is not traditional cable TV,’” NCTA said. But the “law is clear” that facilities-based providers of Internet Protocol television services “do qualify as cable operators under the Communications Act,” which defines a cable operator as “one who ‘provides cable service over a cable system,’ without any reference to the technology," NCTA said.
U.S. Cellular will start testing its Voice over LTE service in two or three unidentified markets this year, a U.S. Cellular spokeswoman said Friday. The company also will focus on completing its 4G network.
ADT is combining home automation and security into a single platform in the latest version of its Pulse home automation offering, Tim Rader, director-product development, told us at CES. In the process, the company switched from using phone lines for communication to broadband, which he said is faster and offers more security and reliability. The company has integrated Z-Wave into its platform to be able to communicate with thermostats, lamp modules and with a high-voltage switch that can control outdoor sprinkler systems, pool pumps and hot tubs, Rader said. The company also integrated Wi-Fi for control of cameras and door locks. Pulse previously offered home automation via a three-box system, Rader said, that was specified by ADT, and developed by partner companies including Honeywell and iControl. In the new product, ADT wrote the requirements and worked with Honeywell and iControl with a focus on easier operation for the consumer, simpler and faster installation for the installer, and a “completely wireless solution,” Rader said. “It was time to do a more integrated solution,” Rader said, after realizing from its three years with smart home technology that “home automation is here to stay.” The wireless installation means “less disruption in the home” because it no longer takes an entire day to run wire, he said. A base installation price for monitoring two doors and a motion sensor is $99 with monthly monitoring fees of $50, Rader said. Cost scales from there depending on add-ons such as remote monitoring, notifications, lighting control and video storage from video cameras, Rader said. ADT stores 30 days of video on its servers, he said. Cameras have motion detection built in and when motion is detected, a 30-second video is recorded and then sent to the homeowner, he said. The feature is for security but also for parents who want to know kids have arrived home from school and to give homeowners a view of their pets when they're not at home. ADT "is not just your dad’s security system anymore,” Rader said, citing the company’s new relationship with IFTTT [if this, then that] that allows an installer to create conditional scenes among devices. An IFTTT example would be: “If the alarm goes off, and if you have Philips LED bulbs, turn them red to tell everyone to get out of the house because there’s a fire,” he said. “You can take two separate applications and have them talk to each other,” he said. “We’re expanding," Rader said, "and we're not just a security company anymore."
Though TV sets still give “the best quality picture and viewing experience,” millennials ages 13 to 34 are “drastically” changing how content “is being discovered and consumed,” a joint CEA-NATPE study said. CEA and NATPE commissioned E-Poll Market Research to canvass millennials on their content consumption habits and found only 55 percent use TVs as their “primary viewing platform,” while mobile streaming devices such as laptops, tablets and smartphones “are poised to dominate their viewing preferences," the groups said Thursday. Though many viewers of streaming programs say they're watching more TV programs overall, the study showed a decline “in the amount of time spent watching live television programs during their scheduled air time,” they said. “This is particularly true of the younger, millennial demographic which has some distinctive, common characteristics, including the regular use of multiple sources of program content.” Millennials are “comfortable using many different sources of TV program content and consequently are significantly more likely to consume full-length TV programs from a streaming source,” they said. Of those canvassed, 84 percent streamed a TV show in the past six months, compared with the 54 percent who viewed TV programming at its original air time, and 33 percent who watched content they had recorded on a DVR, they said. Other findings: (1) Millennials “value their Netflix subscriptions” more than broadcast or cable. In the study, 51 percent said they regard their Netflix subscription as “very valuable,” compared with 42 percent who said the same of broadcast channels, and 36 percent who said it of cable subscriptions. (2) Portability is king, as about half of millennials polled said they watch TV programming on a laptop, and for 19 percent it’s their preferred TV viewing screen. Another 28 percent said they routinely watch TV on a tablet, and 22 percent, on a smartphone.
Average global Internet connection speeds decreased in Q3 of 2014, while “attack traffic” increased, said the Akamai Technologies 2014 State of the Internet Report released Thursday. The report’s data was collected by Akamai’s Intelligent Platform and included responses from the company’s customers. Although global Internet connection speeds stayed above the 4 Mbps “‘broadband’ threshold,” those speeds dropped by 2.8 percent to 4.5 Mbps in Q3, said Akamai. The global broadband adoption rate of more than 4 Mbps reached 60 percent in Q3, a 1 percent increase quarter-over-quarter. Adoption rates of more than 10 Mbps decreased by 0.5 percent in Q3. The report located attack traffic from 201 unique countries or regions in Q3, up from 161 in Q2. Fifty-percent of the attacks came from China. The number of Chinese attacks were three times greater than those that came from the U.S., although China and the U.S. were the only countries that accounted for more than 10 percent of global attack traffic. Akamai customers reported 270 distributed denial of service attacks in Q3, a 4 percent decrease from Q3 in 2013. More than 790 million IPv4 addresses connected to the company’s Intelligent Platform from more than 246 countries or regions in Q3. South Korea had the fastest average mobile connection speed, growing from 15.2 Mbps in Q2 to 18.2 Mbps in Q3. Iran’s 0.9 Mbps was the lowest average mobile connection speed in Q3.
Indeed.com Chairman Rony Kahan joined the Coalition for Local Internet Choice’s (CLIC) board of advisers, the group said Tuesday. CLIC’s board also includes Google Chief Internet Evangelist Vint Cerf, Netflix Vice President-Global Public Policy Christopher Libertelli and Gig.U Executive Director Blair Levin. The pro-broadband deployment group said Tuesday that its membership has now expanded to 225 entities. CLIC said it believes the FCC’s current consideration of petitions from the Electric Power Board of Chattanooga, Tennessee, and the city of Wilson, North Carolina, is an opportunity for the commission to remove state restrictions on community choice and encourage local broadband competition. “That can happen only if elected local officials are free to decide what’s best for their communities, whether that means working with willing incumbents, entering into public-private partnerships with new entrants, establishing their own networks, or developing other innovative solutions that work for their communities,” CLIC President Jim Baller told us in an email.
Cryptocurrency advocacy group Coin Center launched its website Tuesday. Coin Center, which formed in September (see 1409220076), said it will use the website to provide background information on cryptocurrency issues and as a repository for its filings and testimony to federal and state agencies on cryptocurrency regulation. The group filed comments with the New York Department of Financial Services in October expressing concerns about possible privacy issues on the DFS’ proposed BitLicense for virtual currency transmitters (see 1410210038). The site will also include columns from Coin Center experts on cryptocurrency issues, said Executive Director Jerry Brito in a blog post.
U.S. consumer spending on digitally delivered home entertainment content climbed 15.6 percent in 2014 to $2.1 billion, the Digital Entertainment Group said Tuesday in its year-end report. But total spending fell 4.1 percent for the year to just under $5.3 billion on double-digit declines in sales and subscription rentals of physical media, the DEG said. “Consumers embraced the convenience and accessibility of purchasing and collecting digital content, while studios reaped higher margins from these digital sales,” it said. “In particular, theatrical new releases delivered exceptional annual growth of more than 60 percent.” Within digital delivery, electronic sell-through spending jumped 25.4 percent to $533 million, while subscription streaming sales climbed 25 percent to $1.1 billion, the DEG said.