Nortel Patents Sold For $4.5 Billion To Apple, EMC, Microsoft, RIM, Ericsson & Sony

from the this-won't-end-well dept

Well, it wasn't too difficult to see this one coming. A year ago, all that was left of Nortel was a giant patent portfolio that everyone knew would result in a bidding war. At the time, people predicted the portfolio was worth an astounding $1.1 billion. Back in April, Google made news by placing a $900 million "stalking horse" bid for the patents, which had many people shaking their heads at the size of the bid. Google had made it pretty clear that it was seeking to buy the patents to keep them from being used by others to sue and block Google. Of course, Microsoft whined and complained to the government about how unfair it would be if Google won the patents. The government was apparently unconcerned.

So, Microsoft apparently got together with Apple, EMC, Ericsson, RIM and Sony... and coughed up an insane $4.5 billion. It's kind of brilliant in a nefarious way. With six companies together, they could each spend less than the $900 million initially pitched by Google... and then just all agree not to sue each other, but leave open the option to sue anyone else. And, given just how aggressive these companies have been with patents lately, you can rest assured that "license" demands will be made and there will almost certainly be lawsuits. Progress via the courtroom, apparently.

Filed Under: patents, wireless
Companies: apple, emc, ericsson, google, microsoft, nortel, rim, sony

Dumb Arguments: AT&T - T-Mobile Merger Would Be Good For The Children

from the say-what-now? dept

In the typical push to get big mergers approved, we often see particularly dumb arguments. Sometimes these involve astroturfing attempts or lobbyists signing arguments for others (or sometimes forging the letters entirely). And then, sometimes, the companies just get people to push crazy arguments on the off chance that someone might believe them. Take, for example, this absolutely bizarre claim from the executive director of the Texas Rural Education Association, Don Rogers, that allowing AT&T to buy T-Mobile would be good for Texas schools:

The proposed merger between AT&T and T-Mobile will be a giant stride toward providing ALL Texas children quality educational opportunities and experiences. Every Texas student, whether they attend school in inner-city Houston or in rural West Texas, should have access to modern technological advancements, including high-speed wireless Internet.

The resources made available by the merger would make high-speed wireless available to many Texans, both rural and urban. This is vitally important for schools in rural Texas that will finally have the ability to access a high-speed wireless broadband network and all it brings.

He doesn't explain much further. He does explain the importance of wireless broadband, which is great, and we agree that there should be more of it, especially for schools. But what does allowing AT&T and T-Mobile to merge have to do with that at all? The real answer is nothing whatsoever. Nothing in the merger will make it any more or less likely that Texas schools will get mobile broadband. But, Rogers is sure of it:

I know of what I speak when I say that Texas--in particular our rural schools--will benefit substantially from this merger. To deny the educational opportunities this merger would provide to students living in rural areas would do our children a disservice. This merger will ensure that every young Texan will be learning and performing to the best of their abilities.

I know of what I speak when I say the above is pure hogwash. Whether or not you think the merger makes sense, it has nothing whatsoever to do with broadband in schools. And it certainly would not "ensure" that "every young Texan will be learning and performing to the best of their abilities." It's incredibly disingenuous for someone supposedly heavily involved in children's education to suggest that some totally unrelated corporate merger will somehow "ensure" that kids are learning to the best of their abilities.

Filed Under: broadband, children, merger, schools, wireless
Companies: at&t, t-mobile

European Politicians Look To Ban WiFi In School... For The Children

from the not-this-again dept

Every so often we hear from some random city where a bunch of folks who don't understand technology or radiation claim that WiFi is making people sick and it should be stopped. However, would all of Europe go that way? Apparently there's a proposal in the EU to ban all WiFi and cellular technology in schools to "protect" the children, of course. Notably, the proposal fails to provide any actual evidence, but uses the cop-out of "well, it could be harmful." The report says that since there is still research going on, we should wait until that research is done -- as if that kind of research is ever done. Even more ridiculous are things like:

pay particular attention to "electrosensitive" persons suffering from a syndrome of intolerance to electromagnetic fields and introduce special measures to protect them, including the creation of wave-free areas not covered by the wireless network;

How many times does this claim of "electrosensitive" persons need to be debunked? There is a ton of evidence that no such thing as electrosensitivity exists. There are studies that suggest the symptoms are real -- but they are not caused by exposure to electromagnetic fields (they may be caused by the person's own brain, or they may be some third factor). But there has been no serious study that has shown, in a controlled setting, that anyone can successfully and repeatedly "sense" when there's an electromagnetic field around. And we're talking dozens of studies on this, with pretty much all turning up the same result. So why should anyone create "wave free areas" since the evidence shows it won't actually do anything.

The proposal also suggests limits on wireless technology use even in your own home, saying that "preventative thresholds" should be established.

The proposal fails to cite any significant evidence to support most of its claims, instead choosing to use circumstantial claims -- such as noting that since there's an "ongoing public debate" about this, we should block it until that's all been worked out.

Filed Under: eu, wifi, wireless

New Zealand Libraries Considering Shutting Off Public Internet Access To Avoid Three Strikes Law

from the nicely-done dept

We already saw just how confused about the basics New Zealand politicians were before rushing through a poorly thought-out, US-driven copyright law change that put in place a "three strikes" provision. And, now, some of the consequences are becoming clear. While various librarians insist they made this issue known to elected officials, the law makes no exception for operations like a library. That is, if three people in a library use the internet connection there for infringing purposes, the entire library may lose its internet access.

Thus, in order to preserve internet access for those who work at the library, many New Zealand libraries are considering turning off internet access for the public (via TorrentFreak. This is a ridiculous and unfortunate result, but it's what happens when you have politicians making decisions based on economic and technological cluelessness, driven by specific lobbying interests.

Filed Under: libraries, new zealand, three strikes, wifi, wireless

SWAT Team Raids Home Because Guy Had An Open Wireless Router

from the wrong-lessons-learned dept

This is just ridiculous. Apparently a SWAT team raided the home of an innocent guy, accusing him of downloading child porn:

Lying on his family room floor with assault weapons trained on him, shouts of "pedophile!" and "pornographer!" stinging like his fresh cuts and bruises, the Buffalo homeowner didn’t need long to figure out the reason for the early morning wake-up call from a swarm of federal agents.

That new wireless router. He'd gotten fed up trying to set a password. Someone must have used his Internet connection, he thought.

"We know who you are! You downloaded thousands of images at 11:30 last night," the man's lawyer, Barry Covert, recounted the agents saying. They referred to a screen name, "Doldrum."

"No, I didn't," he insisted. "Somebody else could have but I didn't do anything like that."

"You're a creep ... just admit it," they said.

It seems that law enforcement folks now admit that they screwed up, but the "lesson" they're getting out of it seems completely backwards. They're saying the lesson is that you should protect your WiFi router. That may be a good idea for some people, but there are plenty of legitimate reasons for offering an open WiFi connection. Furthermore, as noted, some people don't know how to set up their WiFi security.

But the bigger questions are:

1. Why is law enforcement sending in a SWAT team for child porn downloads? You could potentially see it in cases of production, but with downloads, can't they just do a standard arrest?
2. Why didn't they do a simple check beforehand to see if the router was open before bursting into the home with assault weapons and unproven assertions?
3. How come none of the "cautionary lessons" involve law enforcement folks realizing that they overreacted?

What's really disturbing is that the thrust of the original article is all about how this is a cautionary tale for wireless router owners, rather than a cautionary tale about overaggressive law enforcement.

Filed Under: law enforcement, passwords, privacy, raids, swat team, wireless

It May Take Up To 10,000 Years Before We Finally Get Rid Of 'Up To' Language In Broadband Marketing

from the up-to-something... dept

It's been nearly a decade since we first started calling out various broadband providers for hyping up their connections speeds using "up to" language, where they say you may get speeds "up to" X Mbps. Up to is the ultimate weasel phrase, because you never have to get anywhere near it, and can actually be well under it, and still be "accurate." Every so often federal regulators jump into the debate -- warning companies about this practice. At least a few broadband providers (especially in the US) have started to move away from using "up to" marketing. But it still is rare to see regulators actually go after anyone for making such misleading claims. Broadband Reports points out that UK telco regulator Ofcom seems to come out with a report every single year at this time promising that it's about to crack down on "up to" marketing, but never actually doing so. At some point, companies realize that the threats about "up to" language are about as accurate as the "up to" claims themselves.

Filed Under: broadband, pricing, speeds, up to, wireless

Deep Packet Inspection Firms Trying To Turn Net Neutrality Satire Into Reality

from the yeah,-good-luck-with-that dept

It's been around for a few years, but those of you who follow the net neutrality debate may have seen the following "example" here or there of what various ISPs would like to do to the internet if they could: Basically, the idea is that, if they could, ISPs would like to charge you for what you used specifically online. Of course, this was a joke. It was satire. But, then, a bunch of folks have been talking about a recent presentation given by some deep packet inspection firms, about the future of mobile broadband, where they seem to pitch something quite similar -- except they're serious: The idea, as discussed over at Broadband Reports, is that this is a way for ISPs to get more money out of people using their broadband. It's all hilariously illustrated by the following graphic in the presentation: This, of course, implies that ISPs are somehow unfairly carrying the burden of the services people access online. It may sound nice, but the problem is that it's almost entirely false. Individuals pay for their own bandwidth, and companies pay for their bandwidth. What the ISPs are hoping to do is to effectively double and triple charge both sides in an effort to squeeze even more money out of the system than they already do. What's ignored is that broadband services are already quite profitable, and they're already getting paid for this stuff. What's really happening is that -- just as content providers "overvalue" their content, this story is about ISPs overvaluing their own contribution, and wanting a larger piece of the pie concerning money made online. What they ignore is that the reason there are so many useful services online, that make it worthwhile to buy internet access in the first place, is because of the lack of such tollbooths.

However, before people get too alarmed about all of this, and start demanding "net neutrality" laws, it's worth taking a step back and recognizing just how unlikely it is that proposals like this ever get anywhere. Would the various mobile operators like to do this? Sure. In fact, for years, they tried to resist more open systems by totally locking down their handsets. Even with so-called "smartphones," the experience was entirely controlled (with tollbooths) by the mobile operators. And what happened? Almost no one used them. It wasn't until Apple broke down that wall (though, it set up its own, slightly more open wall) that smartphone usage really took off. And, these days, with even more open Android systems growing, more people are moving to those as well.

Will some mobile operators sign up for a DPI system like this? Maybe. I can certainly see some of them testing it out. But, I can't see it ever actually catching on. While the operators will claim that this will allow for "cheaper" plans for low level users, history has shown that they don't really mean that. The goal is to get the higher level users paying through the nose. And that won't work -- because people have already learned what can be done with mobile broadband on a device, and simply won't agree to go to a system that charges like this. It's a pipedream for some DPI companies and some mobile operators, but the likelihood of it actually becoming the norm seems pretty damn low.

Filed Under: deep packet inspection, mobile broadband, net neutrality, wireless

You Can Use Up Your Entire Monthly Verizon Wireless LTE Data Allotment In Just 32 Minutes

from the broadband-caps dept

We always find it amusing when people point to various wireless data networks as real "competition" to wired broadband offerings, in part because the various 3G offerings out there all have ridiculously low data caps -- usually 5 gigs per month -- that a large percentage of users are likely to bump up against if they used the connection as their primary connection. The one exception -- for now -- is Sprint's WiMax offering which has no cap, but may eventually. The issue, of course, is capacity. These networks simply weren't built to handle the type of capacity that people would use it for if they could. But as the data speeds get faster, it leads to ridiculous situations like the realization that with Verizon Wireless' new LTE offering, you can use up the monthly allotment of 5 gigs in just 32 minutes (of course, that's assuming you've got 5 gigs to download, and you're getting pretty damn good speeds on that network). I'm somewhat surprised that Verizon Wireless isn't following Sprint in dumping the cap for the next generation network. Maybe, instead of just focusing on more speed for press releases, they should focus on building capacity so that people could actually use these next generation networks.

Filed Under: broadband caps, lte, wireless
Companies: verizon wireless

Verizon Wireless Math Strikes Again: Pay Much More For Less!

from the pay-more,-get-less dept

You may recall, from a few years ago, the concept of "Verizon Math," where the company had tremendous trouble understanding the difference between dollars and cents once you added decimals into the equation, repeatedly telling someone that .05 cents was the same as .05 dollars. While this isn't quite as insane, Techdirt reader Pangolin shares with us his experience in trying to see if there was a better deal on his Verizon MiFi that would let him use more than the capped $60/5GB plan at a reasonable rate. Since he was going to be using the MiFi more frequently, and might have to download large files for work, he was worried that he'd be going over the cap, and the $0.05 dollars per MB overage fee seemed high. He figured there must be a "pro" or "business" plan that might make more sense.

After searching and being unable to find it, he began an online chat with a Verizon rep (included in full after the jump below) where he discovered that the upgraded plan was for twice the data... but for more than three times the costs: 10GB for $199. And overage rates? On that plan, they're knocked up to $0.25/MB. As Pangolin notes, why would anyone pay for that, when they could just buy two or even three of the regular MiFi plans, and get a ton more data transfer and significantly lower overage fees even if they did go over. Verizon's answer? "Sorry."

For what it's worth, as Pangolin notes, there's no info online about a higher capped plan, and I contacted Verizon Wireless PR to ask them if such a plan existed. I got back a non-answer, pointing to the webpage showing the 5GB cap. So I asked again. And got no answer. So I asked again. And got no answer. On the fourth try, I was finally told that such a plan does not exist. Yet, if you look around many others have been offered the same plan, and various websites have reported on it as well. So, it sounds like Verizon does offer this oddly priced plan that makes no sense... but just doesn't want to admit it. It makes you wonder why they even bother at all.

In what world does it make sense to charge significantly more for less on an upgraded plan? Full transcript of the chat after the jump...

Filed Under: mifi, pricing, wireless
Companies: verizon wireless