- If AT&T Mobile Broadband Banned TV Streaming, Why Does It Allow MLB Streaming?
Earlier this year, we covered AT&T's back and forth over its terms of service, concerning whether or not services like SlingMedia's place shifting (streaming from your TV to a phone or laptop) was allowed. Some had noticed that AT&T's terms of service appeared to forbid it -- but then AT&T said it was a mistake and took it out, only to change its position a little later, and reinsert the language. Because of that, Sling had to disable its own player from working when an iPhone is connected via the 3G cellular network, rather than a WiFi connection.
Yet, recently, Major League Baseball's digital arm, MLB.com announced that it was going to start streaming video of games to its iPhone app, even on 3G connections -- and AT&T seemed fine with it. However, this differential treatment is leading to charges of favoritism and discrimination, even bringing out the dreaded charges that "net neutrality has been broken." The specific question is why AT&T gets to choose which streaming video apps are allowed, and which are not. If your regular ISP told you that you could watch Hulu, but not YouTube, there would be quite an outrage.
AT&T's response is disingenuous, at best, claiming:
AT&T said the MLB app streams video from MLB's website, while SlingPlayer streams from the TV set-top box Slingbox. AT&T also said the company is only trying to ensure all users on its network get the best possible service.
"We're certainly not crippling any apps," an AT&T spokesman said. "This is an issue of fairness.... While we would like to support all video services across our network, the reality is that wireless networks simply lack the capacity to support customers streaming hours of cable, satellite or IPTV video programming to individual users."
While this -- once again -- highlights the point that mobile cellular services are nowhere near legitimate competitors for real broadband services, note that the AT&T person never actually answers the question. The fact that Sling streams from a settop box and MLB streams from MLB's website is functionally meaningless to the iPhone. To the iPhone user it's the same thing. It doesn't care where the server is placed -- it's just receiving a video stream. So AT&T is not being honest or upfront about this at all. If the network is a problem, then it shouldn't allow video at all. Picking and choosing who gets to run video certainly smacks of discrimination and favoritism -- exactly the sort of thing the FCC claims is not allowed.
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- Mythbusters' Adam Savage Discovers Insane Roaming Fees: $11,000 iPhone Bill For A Few Hours Surfing
Every few months or so there's an article somewhere about an insane phone bill that someone gets because they took their phone out of the country without recognizing the insanity that is international roaming rates. This time, it appears to be Mythbusters co-host Adam Savage, who's been doing a bit of traveling lately. He was recently up in Canada, and used his iPhone to do a little web surfing. And now he got the bill. Apparently AT&T wants somewhere around $11,000 for Adam's surfing and have turned off his phone until he pays. Now there will be some who say that he should have read the fine print, but considering just how often these sorts of stories pop up, at some point it's worth noting that the fine print isn't working. And... even if you grant the "fine print" premise, it's hard for anyone to figure out how these international roaming rates make any sense whatsoever. They're so far off the charts as to be unbelievable.
Anyway... next week on Mythbusters... the insanity of mobile phone bills? Can we see Jamie and Adam try to decipher hidden fees, while Grant, Tory and Kari search for the elusive accurate mobile phone coverage map? Maybe Buster can figure out what the real limits are on unlimited data plans? Hmm... maybe not.
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- Court Says Anti-Telemarketing Law Covers Unsolicited Text Messaging
Via Michael Scott we learn that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has found that the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) also applies to unsolicited text messages. The TCPA covers certain kinds of commercial marketing over telephones, and has a rule against the use of "automatic telephone dialing systems," but it wasn't clear if text messaging was an automatic telephone dialing system. The court has now said yes.
Separately, the case looked at whether or not agreeing to a basic terms of service also represented "express consent" which is needed under the TCPA. In this case, the woman had purchased a ringtone, but did not believe she had consented to commercial text messages. In buying the ringtone, the woman agreed to an extremely broadly worded terms of service that was probably purposely designed by lawyers to cover a wide swath of potential other things -- such as allowing the company to let others market things to the user. The question was whether or not other companies, who purchased the phone number from the ringtone company, could then market to the woman. The court here finds that dubious as well, noting that "express consent" is "[c]onsent that is clearly and unmistakably stated," which the court feels was not the case here, since the consent was only for the ringtone company to market messages, not anyone else (even though the marketing company -- in this case Simon & Schuster -- noted that the text message was "powered by" the ringtone company): "Thus, Satterfield's consent to receive promotional material by Nextones and its affilliates and brands cannot be read as consenting to the receipt of Simon & Schuster's promotional material."
This ruling isn't the final say on the matter -- as the appeals court was just reversing a lower court's summary judgment, and telling the lower court that it needs to actually go further in paying attention to the case. However, the points raised above are certainly important ones that I imagine will start showing up in other cases as well. Finally, it's also worth pointing out that the defendant in this case is Simon & Schuster, rather than Nextones. This does raise some interesting questions. Simon & Schuster believed that it was purchasing the right to contact these phone numbers legitimately via a marketing company partnered with Nextones. It had no idea that the "agreement" may be faulty, but it may now be liable for breaking the law. If that moves forward, you would have to think that Simon & Schuster has an argument to sue either Nextones or the marketing company it worked with for misrepresenting the "explicit consent" on those numbers.
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- Revolutions and Time Telling
For about a decade I’ve been talking about “bandwidth built in” and for that long I’ve been using the watch as an example. I’ve used it several times in the past month, so I feel compelled to share it with all of you.
Usually when I talk about the Mobility Revolution, I put it [...] - Observations: Uses - July 2, 2009
Standard disclaimer: don’t take from my selections, ordering, headlines, etc. any indications of the interests or plans of my employer (if you do, you’ll undoubtedly be disappointed when they don’t play out.)
Less Well Known Artists Make Use Of Mobile Platforms To Interact With Fans
At Pittsburgh hockey games, fans dial up live video, replays from mobile [...] - Recent Research: June 2009
Research is good. Free highlights from expensive research reports are great. Here are some recent headlines:
Mobile video to top 534 million subscribers by 2014 (Pyramid Research)
Mobile Ad Spending to Grow to $5.7 Billion (Juniper Research)
Sales of Low-Cost Mobile Phones to Reach 700m by 2014 (Juniper Research)
130 million mobile LBS users in Europe by 2014 (Berg [...] - Observations: Uncategorized - July 2, 2009
Standard disclaimer: don’t take from my selections, ordering, headlines, etc. any indications of the interests or plans of my employer (if you do, you’ll undoubtedly be disappointed when they don’t play out.)
Don’t copy the internet, lets make it better on mobile
Evolution of mobile phone continues: from 8 C’s now 10 C’s
The Novatel MiFi - possibilities [...] - Happy Birthday to the Walkman!
An early proof point of the Law of Mobility turns 30 years old today. Happy Birthday Walkman!
From varnelis.net:
On July 1, the Sony Walkman will be 30 years old. It’s hard to imagine what urban life was before the Walkman. Sony first introduced portable transistor radios in 1957 and these proliferated rapidly. With an earphone [...] - Observations: Services - June 24, 2009
Standard disclaimer: don’t take from my selections, ordering, headlines, etc. any indications of the interests or plans of my employer (if you do, you’ll undoubtedly be disappointed when they don’t play out.)
Opera surpasses iPhone for mobile browser lead
Dissecting mobile broadband stats
With 2M Downloads, Where Is Right on Track
Mobile video viewers looking for laughs
Mobile messages top [...] - Enabling Technology: June 24, 2009
The Law of Mobility talks about value increasing with mobility. The impact of this law is being felt because the barriers to building mobility in are being obliterated week after week. Here are examples of technology advances enabling this to happen:
Power-Sipping Displays
Data eyeglasses
RF cochlea
Memory LCD
4G
Bandwidth management
SDXC
Tiny VGA
Augmented reality
Flash
Webkit
- Observations: Applications - June 24, 2009
Standard disclaimer: don’t take from my selections, ordering, headlines, etc. any indications of the interests or plans of my employer (if you do, you’ll undoubtedly be disappointed when they don’t play out.)
U.S. CTO: Mobile app use may increase broadband spending
RIM: APIs are crucial, enterprises are the target
Most iPhone apps downloaded on the weekend
The Emerging App [...] - Observations: Devices - June 19, 2009
Standard disclaimer: don’t take from my selections, ordering, headlines, etc. any indications of the interests or plans of my employer (if you do, you’ll undoubtedly be disappointed when they don’t play out.)
A Tale of Two Smartphones: US vs Rest of World compared
Smartphones: The New Consumer Necessity
Multiple devices…. quick comment
Subsidies will not be critical to embedded [...] - The Pre is a Report on the Revolution
Last week, I was in California for a meeting of the MobileBeat Advisory Board, with a great group of folks helping fuel the mobility revolution. I was asked to share my reflections on the first week of the Pre being on the market. I tied it all back to the mobility revolution, and [...]
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