Comcast on Monday announced that it will launch its 4G mobile broadband service in the Portland area via the Clearwire network starting Tuesday.
The service, dubbed 2go, will only be available if bundled with one or more of Comcast's Internet, phone, or cable services.
Comcast is offering two data cards and service plans: 2go Metro, which offers 4G service in the Portland area; or 2go Nationwide, which offers 4G service in Portland, and 3G service nationwide via Sprint's network.
The 2go service will be bundled in "Fast Pack" offerings.
Fast Pack Metro will be available for $49.99 and includes Comcast's 12 Mbps Internet service, a Wi-Fi router, and 4G service with up to 4 Mbps download speed. Fast Pack Nationwide will run $69.99 per month with the same services, plus Sprint nationwide.
Triple Play customers who subscribe to voice, cable, and Internet will be able to add 2go starting at $30 per month.
A version of 2go will also be available for small- and medium-sized businesses.
In May 2008, Sprint agreed to take over the combined WiMAX operations of Clearwire in a deal backed by tech titans Comcast, Google, Intel, Time Warner Cable, and Bright House Networks. In June 2009, Clearwire quietly launched its Clear WiMax service in Las Vegas today, but Sprint demurred, keeping the two companies' WiMax systems still separate for now.
Slowly but surely, Americans with over-the-air TVs are realizing that their analog service will not return. Nearly two weeks after the DTV transition, about 1.8 percent of U.S. households are without digital service, according to data from Nielsen.
That equals about 2.1 million households, down from 2.5 million last week. Since the June 12 switch from analog to digital signals, about 400,000 households have successfully secured digital service, Nielsen said.
The Albuquerque-Santa Fe region remains the least prepared, with about 6.22 percent of all homes without TV service, followed by Austin, Texas with 4.72 percent, and Dallas-Forth Worth with 4.4 percent.
Los Angeles still has the largest number of unprepared households, at 190,549, or 3.37 percent of its population. Last week, that number was at 225,040.
Broken down by race, about 4 percent of African Americans are still without service, as are 2.9 percent of Asians, 2.8 percent of Hispanics, and 1.3 percent of whites.
About 4 percent of people under the age of 35 are unprepared, but less than 1 percent of people over 55 are without digital service.
Verizon on Monday unveiled faster pricing tiers for its FiOS Internet service and announced a promotion that will provide new residential customers with the choice of a free netbook or Flip camcorder.
The company will bump its entry-level, fiber-optic FiOS service from 10 Mbits/s download and 2 Mbits/s upload speeds to 15-Mbits/5 Mbits. Mid-tier speeds will also jump from 20-Mbits/5-Mbits to 25-Mbits/15-Mbits, Verizon said.
For unbundled FiOS Internet service, an annual plan for the 15-Mbits/5 Mbits service will cost $44.99 per month, and a month-to-month plan will cost $54.99. For 25-Mbits/15-Mbits, an annual plan will be $64.99 per month and a month-to-month option will cost $72.99 per month.
In Long Island and the New York City suburbs, entry-level service will be available for 25-Mbits/15-Mbits and mid-tier will have speeds up to 35-Mbits/20-Mbits. To receive 35-Mbits/20-Mbits, however, cutomers must subscribe to a $109.99 per month bundle that also includes FiOS TV Extreme HD plus Showtime, and Freedom Essentials voice service.
To pull customers away from cable to FiOS, Verizon will be offering a free Compaq Mini netbook or Flip Ultra camcorder to customers who subscribe to certain pricing tiers and bundles.
Looks like someone has designs on Sonos: Yamaha Electronics has unveiled the MusicCAST2 Network Music System, a completely wireless, multi-room music setup that supports Rhapsody streaming, Internet radio, and NAS (Network Attached Storage) devices.
MusicCAST2 consists of the Network Music Commander (MCX-RC100, $500, pictured)--a compact remote control--along with two Network Music Players (MCX-A300, $400, and pre-amp-equipped MCX-P200, $400) that can live anywhere in the house. The system works with up to 32 Music Commanders and Music Players, and can play MP3, WMA, WAV, FLAC, and iTunes AAC files (without DRM). Meanwhile, the MCX-RC100's 3.5-inch, full-color LCD displays zone and source icons, album art, song titles, and other relevant info. There's also a built-in alarm and sleep timer. Yamaha throws in a charging cradle to keep the whole thing ready to go.
The only downside I see immediately compared with Sonos is the lack of 802.11n support--or at least, Yamaha doesn't mention it. That could be a problem in crowded apartment buildings. To sweeten the deal, Yamaha put together a start-up package called MusicCAST2 Zone Pack 2A, which bundles one MCX-RC100 and two MCX-A300s for $1,200 (a $100 savings). Optional accessories let users hook up iPods, Bluetooth devices, and USB thumb drives. All components are available now.
Almost a week after the DTV transition, about 2.5 million U.S. households, or 2.2 percent of the TV public, are without TV service, according to data from Nielsen.
These numbers are an improvement of 300,000 households since Nielsen last collected DTV numbers on June 7. At that point about 2.5 percent of the U.S. was totally unready for the switch from analog to digital signals.
The Albuquerque-Santa Fe TV markets have the largest percentage of unprepared households at 6.85 percent. In terms of actual unprepared households, Los Angeles tops the list with 225,040 homes without service, which is 3.98 percent of its residents.
Nielsen broke out its data by race and found that African Americans are most likely to be unready, at 4.6 percent. About 3.6 percent of Hispanics did not prepare, followed by 3.2 percent of Asians, and 1.6 percent of whites.
Though many people joked on June 12 that their grandparents would not be able to watch TV now, only about 1.1 percent of people over 55 are unprepared. In fact, about 4.4 percent of people under 35 are still not ready. Those numbers are an improvement of about 2 percentage points since June 7 for both groups.
Those of you planning to watch Netflix movies via your Xbox on Tuesday might want to make other plans. A scheduled Xbox maintenance outage will also affect its Netflix linkup.
"While Xbox is performing this maintenance, you won't be able to instantly watch movies on your TV via your Xbox 360," Catherine Fisher from Netflix corporate communications wrote in a blog post.
The outage, which will affect Xbox Live and Xbox.com, will last all day - from 12:01am to 11:59pm Pacific time. Users will not be able to access the "My Xbox" section of Xbox.com and Xbox forums will in a read-only mode. The rest of the Web site will be operational.
The downtime will not result in any new functionality or features, according to a memo from the Xbox team.
Editor's Note: Story was updated to correct attribution.
If you're still clueless about Friday's DTV transition, then I'm not sure what's wrong with you. Get a converter box, subscribe to cable, call 1-888-CALL-FCC, stare blankly at that analog nightlight, but don't say we didn't warn you.
For those of us who have read a newspaper in the past year, Thursday was a flurry of last-minute reports, statements, and predictions about tomorrow's big switch from analog to digital signals. Here's the run-down.
GOP Reps Calls Shenanigans on Delay
Not everyone is excited about June 12. Reps. Joe Barton of Texas and Cliff Stearns of Florida - both of whom opposed the delay from Feb. 17 to June 12 - penned a letter to Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and acting FCC Chairman Michael Copps that suggested the delay was simply a waste of taxpayer money.
According to NTIA data, Commerce has $250 million to cover 6.2 million converter box coupons. "If that is so, why was it necessary to delay the transition and allocate another $650 million in the stimulus package for DTV?" the congressmen wrote.
Meanwhile, of the 3.6 million coupons redeemed with stimulus funds, 900,000 of them were from unprepared households, the letter said.
"Doing the math, $650 million in stimulus funds to reach 900,000 unprepared homes comes to more than $700 per unprepared household for a $50 device. Does that sound like a sensible expenditure of taxpayer dollars?" they wrote.
The congressmen also asked for detailed information on how Commerce and the FCC spent the money allocated by the stimulus package.
Officials: Expect Disruptions
Financial inquiries aside, officials at the FCC and Commerce were ready to go, but warned users that confusion and problems will happen tomorrow, no matter what.
Monster kicked off the Consumer Electronics Association's New York showcase with the introduction of several new products, including a super-thin cable for HDMI, high-speed cables for HDMI, a tabletop universal remote, and new speed tiers for its PowerNet networking solution.
The SuperThin cables are the first products to come out of Monster's collaboration with chipmaker RedMere. Monster utilized RedMere's MagniEye technology, which requires no external power supply and sends HD signals directly to the cable.
As a result, the cables do not need heavy-gauge copper and are about 65 percent slimmer than normal HDMI cables, measuring 3.5 mm in diameter, Monster said.
They are available in 4-, 8-, and 16-foot versions via the company's DigitalLife line of products for $89.95, $99.95, and $119.95, respectively. An 8-foot SuperThin cable for camcorders will cost $99.95.
Monster will also offer the SuperThin cables as part of its Core line in 1-meter, 2m, 4m, and 5m lengths, ranging in price from $79.95 to $119.95.
Monster has also teamed with THX to produce faster THX certified cables for HDMI.
Two days out from the June 12 digital TV transition, about 2.5 percent of U.S. households are completely unready for the switch, according to the latest data from Nielsen.
About 2.8 million households have not taken steps to prepare for the switch from analog to digital TV signals. Homes with younger people, African Americans, and Hispanics are most likely to be unprepared. The elderly, meanwhile, are ready to go.
"Since February, when the U.S. government postponed the transition for three months, the number of households that are completely unready has been cut in half - from 5.8 million to 2.8 million homes," Sara Erichson with Nielsen said in a blog post. "Given the importance that television plays in the day-to-day life of most people, we expect that the most of the remaining unready homes will take the necessary steps to get ready once the stations make the final switch to digital transmission."
This latest data is a slight improvement from stats published on May 28, which said 2.7 percent of households were clueless about the transition. When Congress decided to push the switch from Feb. 17 to June 12, unreadiness was at 6 percent.
Almost 1,000 stations will switch to digital signals on Friday. Most of those switches - nearly 500 - will occur between 6pm and midnight. Other stations have opted to switch between midnight and 6am, 6am and noon, and noon and 6pm, according to the Federal Communications Commission.
Dell has added the Intel "My WiFi" technology to three notebooks: the Studio 15, Studio 17, and the Studio XPS 16, the company said Tuesday.
What is My WiFi? Put simply, it's the combination of an Intel Centrino 2 platform as well as some associated Intel software that turns your Wi-Fi client into an access point, so that others might share a single Ethernet-based Internet connection.
The technology allows up to eight Wi-Fi devices and to share files
between them on a Centrino 2-based laptop running Windows Vista, according to Lionel Menchaca, who blogged about the addition for Dell.
"So what could do with My WiFi? If you're at a hotel and logged in for
broadband access, you could share your connection with other Wi-Fi
enabled laptops in a room, or transfer images from a Wi-Fi enabled
smartphone to your laptop," Menchaca wrote. "In the home networking side, you could use
it to print wirelessly or to share photos from your laptop directly to
a photo frame without having to transfer the images through a cable or
via an SD card. Pretty cool stuff."
Verizon Wireless just became the first carrier to launch Novatel's MiFi personal hotspot gadget - and there's no subscription required. Yes, if you want, you can pay $99.99 for the hotspot and $59.99 a month for 5 GB of data. But to me, the killer combination for occasional travelers is $269.99 for the device and $15 for an unlimited use 'day pass' - no commitment required. (There's also a 250MB plan for $39.99/month.)
The MiFi is a Wi-Fi router with a twist: it's battery powered and has a cellular modem built in. So just turn it on anywhere Verizon has signal, and pow, you're broadcasting Wi-Fi to up to five PCs. The battery lasts about four hours of use and 40 hours of standby on a charge, according to Verizon Wireless. And the MiFi is pretty tiny: only 3.5" x 2.3" x .4" and 2.05 oz.
All five computers will share one EVDO Rev A connection, so you'll be splitting about a megabit down and 500 kilobits up between whoever's on the hotspot. And they'll all contribute to filling the monthly data quota. But still, this makes getting online with Verizon's network easier than ever.
When we first heard about the MiFi last December, Novatel pointed out that the router is actually a tiny Linux PC, capable of running its own software. The router could check email and store messages on a memory card without a PC, in theory. But Verizon's version looks like it's just a Wi-Fi router - for now, at least.
Now that profiles have been added to search, Google is working hard to promote the feature. The company has teamed up with Internet printing company iPrint to offer users free business cards based on their on their profiles. The companies are giving away 25 free cards to the first 10,000 people who sign up.
If you've already filled out your profile, you'll see an offer at the top to "Order profile business cards to tell your friends about your profile." The link will bring you to iPrint. Fill that out and the company will send you 25 free cards.
It's nice little promotion for both companies--but heck, who can turn down free?
If your home has coaxial wiring, D-Link's just-announced HD MediaBridge Coax Network Starter Kit makes it easier to connect your broadband Ethernet connection with the computers and other devices around your home. Simply connect an included Coax Adapter to your router as well as to a coaxial outlet. Then, connect the second adapter to a computer or game console in another room.
The kit promises fast and reliable streaming, so the target audience is people who want to stream high-definition video from the Internet, or play Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 games online with friends. The kit includes two adapters and sells for $156 (although it's somehow on backorder already).
Beginning today in Atlanta, AT&T announced that it will offer a variety of ultra-portable netbooks with
built-in AT&T 3G wireless capabilities starting at $49.99 with the purchase of AT&T "Internet at Home and
On the Go" broadband services.
The company said in a statement that it is also offering similar mini laptop promotional
rates with the purchase of AT&T DataConnect plans in eight AT&T
retail locations in the Philadelphia area.
For some inexplicable reason, AT&T is calling the machines "mini laptops." But the lineup, which consists of the Acer Aspire One, Dell Inspiron Mini 9 and Mini 12, and LG Xenia, should put to rest any ideas that they're somehow different than netbooks. Here's a rundown of the pricing, as per the company statement:
If you're looking for a fully loaded wireless router for a competitive price, the D-Link DIR-825 Xtreme N Dual Band Gigabit Router might be exactly what you need. It's one of the brainiest routers we've tested in the PCMag Labs, yet it's simple enough for home users to set up and use with no problem.
This router has a USB port with 3G wireless capability, simultaneous dual 2.4-GHz- and 5-GHz-band Wi-Fi mixed mode, power-saving green technologies, and a ton of other customizable feature to satisfy even the most demanding personal networks. You get all this for very reasonable $169 (direct). It's a great choice for heavy duty online gamers and small office users alike. Get the full scoop on this Editor's Choice router in PCMag's in-depth review.
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