“TV Everywhere” and “cord-cutting” were major themes at this week’s NCTA Cable Show in Washington, D.C. where the industry presented technologies intended to sustain its relevancy. Examples included Roku and Xbox as cable set-tops, smartphones as remotes, iPads as TVs, a Slingbox product from Arris and more. Comcast unveiled its X2 cloud DVR and TiVo is expanding its TV Everywhere options with a new Web portal. Continue reading NCTA Cable Show: Battling Cord-Cutting with Technology

According to CCS Insight’s new market forecast, more than 6.6 billion mobile phones will be in use worldwide by the end of 2017, and two-thirds of them are expected to be smartphones. Teamed with the growing adoption of tablets, by 2017 mobile devices are projected to outnumber people on the planet for the first time. Additionally, CCS predicts sales of 4G devices to grow tenfold between 2012 and 2017, to 650 million units. Continue reading Market Forecast: Mobile Devices to Outnumber People by 2017

At the National Cable and Telecommunications Association conference yesterday in Washington D.C., Comcast announced that it has begun shipping a new wireless gateway to its residential broadband customers that will serve as both a private Wi-Fi router and a public hotspot. The bold (and possibly controversial) move will enable Comcast to essentially crowdsource its Wi-Fi network, turning home gateways into public hotspots. Continue reading Cable Show: Comcast to Create Crowdsourced Hotspot Network

Verizon Wireless will pay the National Football League a reported $1 billion over four years for the rights to make additional football games available on its customers’ smartphones. In a significant move for the mobile industry, the NFL will begin to show Sunday afternoon games on Verizon Wireless phones next year. Select Sunday, Monday and Thursday night games are already available on Verizon phones, but there are typically 10-12 games scheduled on a Sunday afternoon. Continue reading Verizon to Stream Sunday Afternoon NFL Games to Phones

Intel and Samsung announced a partnership this week that will allow Samsung TV owners to stream movies directly from PCs running Intel’s latest processors. The companies are teaming to integrate Intel’s Wireless Display technology directly into Samsung’s TVs, which will eliminate the need for a separate receiver to play media content on TVs streamed from a PC. The technology is expected to reach consumers by the end of this year. Continue reading Streaming Movies from Intel-based Laptops to Samsung TVs

According to PricewaterhouseCoopers’ “Entertainment & Media Outlook 2013-2017” report, consumer spending on mobile Internet access will surpass spending on home broadband connections this year. Combined spending is projected to grow from $91 billion in 2012 to $153.3 billion in 2017. The report also predicts that 87 percent of the U.S. population (286.7 million people) will have mobile Internet devices within four years. Continue reading Mobile Net Spending to Exceed Home Broadband for First Time

Samsung won a largely unexpected legal victory against Apple yesterday that could potentially stop the sale of early model iPhones and iPads. The U.S. International Trade Commission, which has jurisdiction over certain trade practices, ruled that Apple violated a Samsung patent related to tech used to send data over wireless networks. Devices in question include the iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPad 3G, iPad 2 3G and iPad 3 (the more current iPhone 5 and fourth-generation iPad were unaffected). Continue reading ITC Ruling Favors Samsung, Could Impact Apple Products

Mozilla is teaming up with major phone manufacturers as part of a plan to offer sub-$50 smartphones in emerging markets. The company is looking at international regions with growth potential as the global market for smartphones continues to take off. Mozilla is also pushing for more mobile devices to run its Firefox operating system, which it is pitching as an alternative to dominant systems from Google and Apple. Continue reading Mozilla Planning Affordable Smartphones for Firefox Adoption

Dish Network is reportedly making a play for shares of Clearwire Corp., which could complicate a planned purchase of the broadband company by Sprint Nextel. In an effort to better compete in the U.S. wireless market, Sprint had agreed to purchase the roughly 50 percent of Clearwire that it does not already own. Additionally, Sprint agreed to a $20 billion acquisition by Japan’s SoftBank Corp. However, Dish also made a $25.5 billion offer to acquire Sprint.  Continue reading Dish Pursues Clearwire: Could Complicate Sprint Nextel Plans

In a new twist to cord cutting, the trend in which consumers cancel their cable subscriptions in favor of Internet video, surveys indicate that hundreds of thousands of Americans canceled their home Internet service last year. As consumers leverage the growth of free Wi-Fi hot spots and fast new wireless networks via their smartphones and tablets, some are cutting their home Internet cord more so than their pay TV cord. Continue reading Cord Cutters Canceling Internet Service More Than Pay TV

As part of its initiative to connect a billion or more new people to the Internet, Google is planning to build and help run wireless networks in emerging markets such as Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa where connections are not currently available. According to people familiar with the strategy, the planned networks could also be used to improve the speeds of Internet connections in urban areas. Continue reading Google Plans to Develop and Fund Global Wireless Networks

Major phone companies have begun selling data related to their subscribers’ locations, travels, interests and Web browsing habits. The availability of such data provides a long-anticipated and powerful tool for marketers, but not surprisingly raises a number of privacy concerns. Mining data for profit marks a shift in the relationship between carriers and subscribers, similar to what is typically expected today with services such as Google and Facebook. Continue reading Phone Companies Begin Selling Customer Data to Marketers

Though it won’t be widely available at first, a new, faster version of Wi-Fi is set to hit the market this year. It will give users the speed to download an entire television series in less than one minute. Called 802.11ac, it can triple the current norm’s typical speed, according to wireless experts, meaning it can handle more than a billion bits of data per second in ideal settings. Continue reading Wireless Development: High-Speed Wi-Fi Set to Launch

Pay TV operator Dish Network announced yesterday that it has placed a $25.5 billion bid for wireless carrier Sprint Nextel, which is presently ranked third in the U.S. behind Verizon Wireless and AT&T. Dish Network’s chairman and former CEO Charlie Ergen is hoping to bridge the gap of current wireless models by offering customers faster and more affordable television, high-speed Internet and cellphone services in a single package. Continue reading Dish Network Submits $25.5 Billion Bid for Sprint Nextel

The data coming from cell phones carries with it a huge amount of information about users’ real-world activities and has for years been under lock and key. But now an increasing number of wireless carriers are mining and repurposing that subscriber data to track statistics about how people are living their lives and selling the data to businesses and city planners. This is information that experts believe could change societies. Continue reading Wireless Carriers Selling Subscriber Data to Businesses