Here is your weekly rewind of some of the cable and ISP news from around the US and the world for the week of May 1, 2017:
New Net Neutrality Debate Looms
Feeling empowered after the repeal of Internet privacy rules, Trump’s new FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is talking about releasing new Net Neutrality rules soon. Businesses, organizations, and people are choosing sides. Pai was a vocal critic of them when the FCC under former Chairman Wheeler unveiled the Open Internet Rules in 2015. Pai has called the current Net Neutrality rules “a mistake.” Interestingly, both sides are framing their cases as “We care about an open Internet and this is the way to do it.”
AT&T Rolls Out First Wave of Fixed Wireless in Georgia
Using money from the FCCs Connecting America Fund, AT&T started rolling out Fixed Wireless Internet in rural and underserved locations across Georgia. AT&T plans serve an additional 400,000 locations nationwide by the end of the year and an additional 1.1 million by 2020. This rollout is due to AT&T being paid $428 million a year to bring 10 Mbps Internet to rural areas.
AT&T Jumps The Gun on 5G Announcement
In other AT&T news this week, apparently they jumped the gun by announcing “5G Evolution Internet Speeds.” And what is 5G Evolution you might ask? Basically, it's just spiffed up 4G. According to 3GPP, the group in charge of such things, 5G won’t be ready until at least December. Competitors and journalists had a field day poking fun at the announcement. An executive for T-Mobile announced T-Mobile’s “7G Eventually.”
AT&T's U-Verse Sinking
AT&T does need to do something. AT&T’s U-Verse lost almost a quarter of a million subscribers in the first quarter of 2017. Overall, in the last year, U-Verse TV is down by about 23%. For all intents and purposes, it seems like AT&T will just let the AT&T U-Verse ship go down as they focus more on DirecTV, which they bought back in 2015.
Charter Snags Exclusive Content From AMC Networks
Number two cable provider Charter Communications has partnered with AMC Networks in an attempt to set itself apart from other cable TV companies with original content by aligning with the network that took Zombies to the next level with The Walking Dead.
Survey Says…
According to a survey conducted recently by Comcast, having WiFi was the most important amenity to an apartment renter. It was considered to be more important than in-room laundry facilities according to the survey results.
Speaking of surveys and Comcast, the American Customer Satisfaction Index, which has perennially placed Comcast at the bottom in respect to customer service recently gave the cable company its best marks in 16 years. Pretty soon people might even say "hello" to Comcast employees...in public...in the daylight.
Google Gives Go Ahead in Louisville
After a bit of back and forth, Google has announced they will be moving ahead with their plan to bring Google Fiber to Louisville, KY. Google’s Fiber plan has been in a state of flux recently, as they seemed to be backing off of their initial grand fiber plan. The rollout will probably be a hybrid of fiber and fixed wireless, made possible by Google’s purchase of wireless Internet provider Webpass just last year.
Major Google Earth Update – Only on Chrome and Android
Google has released its biggest update since, well, the beginning of Earth. The new update features Google Voyager, in partnership with groups like NASA, Sesame Street, the BBC, and others to enhance the Google Earth experience with videos, photos, and narration.
Google also brought the “I’m Feeling Lucky” feature over from the search engine to introduce people to locations they might not have learned about otherwise. Currently, the update is only available on the Chrome browser and Android devices.
Google to Decide What is News
To combat the preponderance of “fake” news, Google has decided to filter search results to eliminate what it determines to be fake. Some have accused Google of using “fake” news to censor some results. Well, it is nice that we have someone as well-meaning as Google looking out for us.
Google Adapts its Autocomplete
Google has added a feature to its autocomplete function that lets you flag Google’s suggestion as fake or objectionable. In the past users have complained that the autocomplete suggestions were misleading, rude or even libelous. In Japan, Google was sued after autocomplete replaced a man’s name with a type of criminal activity. Google was ordered to modify the suggestion and to pay a settlement to the plaintiff. The man claimed to have lost his job as a result of the search suggestion.
Google also came under fire last year when its autocomplete seemed to make suggestions that were supportive of one particular presidential candidate.
Facebook Faces “Information Operations”
Facebook announced that they are implementing safeguards to protect against what they call Information Operations, which is intentional manipulation of newsfeeds to promote a certain ideology, belief or product. Facebook’s post seems to point toward governments and others conspiring to manipulate public opinion. I’m shocked that Facebook would even consider that as a possibility.
The operations use fake profiles to share controversial or biased content.
Facebook said that they suspended 30,000 bogus accounts in France leading up to the election there last week.
Battle of the Botnets
Antivirus and security software company Symantec announced last week that a computer worm called Hajime was battling another computer worm called Mirai for control of Internet-connected devices. So far the new worm, called Hajime, seems to be closing ports that would allow Mirai to infect the device. Hajime currently causes no harm to the devices. As a matter of fact, it delivers what is meant to be a reassuring message:
Just a white hat, securing some systems.
Important messages will be signed like this!
Hajime Author.
Contact CLOSED
Stay sharp!
Mirai, which means “the future” infects unprotected online devices and can use them to launch large scale network attacks. Hajime means “beginning” in Japanese and seems to be protecting susceptible connected devices.