Morning Broadband BytesAll the industry news you need to start your day ( old news - 05:04AM Friday May 06 2005) • Around the Industry: SBC, AT&T look to Covad for out-of-region broadband reach
Fueling the broadband revolution
BellSouth gives VoIP operators some 911 help
SBC pushes ahead with video despite franchise laws
Intel, Sprint connect on WiMax• SecurityBits: Google Web Accelerator sparks privacy fears
New Microsoft security advisories service
DNS poisoning network attacks may be a distraction• TidBytes: Hackers figure out file extraction from Sony UMD
ISP's customers sold on eBay
Apple Tiger doesn’t play with other hardware• More news from around the industry, SecurityBits, and interesting Tidbytes inside!Around The Industry:• SBC, AT&T look to Covad for out-of-region broadband reach: Counting on an approved merger, SBC and AT&T have agreed to use Covad for extended broadband services. Such an announcement could strengthen SBC's argument before the U.S. government that it plans to compete for residential and business customers throughout the country, ending what critics say has been an implicit agreement among the regional phone companies not to compete with each other. And indeed, SBC and AT&T assert the move will promote competition among telecom service providers.• Fueling the broadband revolution: Broadband access is now growing faster than Internet access, so it’s clear that, in a sense, we’re seeing the dawn of the broadband revolution. It’s less clear if we consider that the difference between broadband Internet and good old dial-up Internet is just speed. There is no question the Internet was revolutionary, even at the snail’s-pace performance early modems supported. If slowness didn’t stop the Internet from being revolutionary, can speed alone make broadband into a true revolution? If not, what will it take?• BellSouth gives VoIP operators some 911 help: BellSouth is opening up its 911 routers to all Net telephony operators and nearing a deal to give Vonage access to its emergency calling infrastructure, the Baby Bell said. A day earlier, a spokesman for Verizon, which also owns a significant portion of the 911 infrastructure, said it signed a pact with Vonage for the same kind of access.• SBC pushes ahead with video despite franchise laws: SBC has charted a collision course with local governments with its plans to launch a video television service late this year without seeking local franchise agreements. SBC plans to offer video to 18 million homes over the next three years, using a combination of new technology and existing telephone wires, in a plan it calls "Project Lightspeed."• Intel, Sprint connect on WiMax: Intel and Sprint will work together to develop WiMax. The companies announced their agreement Thursday, adding they will test equipment for performance and interoperability as they seek to determine if providing wireless high-speed Internet access over multiple miles using WiMax is worthwhile.• BellSouth adds video chat: BellSouth’s DSL customers can now get free video chat service. “We definitely see this as a competitive advantage that can attract customers from cable or convince some of our dial-up customers to move to DSL,” said BellSouth's senior product manager, messaging.• Cablevision says Optimum Voice expanding at record rate: Cablevision says its Optimum Voice phone service is attracting customers at a record rate, another sign that the cable industry is becoming a force in the U.S. phone market. The cableco's unlimited minutes phone service now has 400,000 customers, and is adding about 7,000 more a week, the company reported. A majority of those customers are replacing local phone service from incumbent local phone operator Verizon• Cablevision: Whose afraid of Verizon fiber?: Verizon announced it was expanding its Fios service in 10 new communities on Long Island, New York. The new service will compete head-to-head with existing services from Cablevision. During a conference call with analysts and investors, Cablevisions COO responded by saying he is not worried about Verizon's latest push into the company's region. "The impact has been almost completely insignificant," he said. "It makes you wonder why that kind of capital is being spent." Nice shot there. You know this war is going to get nice and ugly.• Cisco preps Wi-Fi tracking kit; breakout the tinfoil hats: Cisco has announced a wireless tracking appliance designed to allow organisations to monitor the location of devices - or people - within a wireless local area network. Cisco sees the technology as a platform for partners to develop location-based services akin to those under development by mobile operators but tailored towards the needs of enterprises such as hospitals and factories.• Lawmakers question controversial section of Patriot Act: Congresspeople on both sides of the aisle today strongly questioned the need to extend a controversial part of the federal Patriot Act that allows ISPs to give e-mail messages and personal data to federal law enforcement without a warrant or any notification to the person in question. "We can very easily, in good faith, trample on somebody's rights," said a Representative.• Qualcomm talks up mobile TV, reveals trials: Qualcomm said on Thursday it is testing television programing for mobile phones with TV providers such as news network CNN, ESPN and Court TV. Qualcomm, which plans to spend about $800 million to build a network to broadcast TV to phones next year, expects video on phones to be the most popular advanced mobile service. SecurityBits:• Google Web Accelerator sparks privacy fears: Early users of Google's Web Accelerator tool are fretting that they could disclose more than they bargained for."I went to the Futuremark forums and noticed that I'm logged in as someone I don't know. Great, I've used Google's Web Accelerator for a couple of hours, visited lots of sites where I'm logged in. Now I wonder how many people used my cache. I understand it's a beta, sure, but something like that is totally unacceptable."• New Microsoft security advisories service: MS plans to unveil a new security advisories service next Tuesday as part of an aggressive long-term effort to revamp the way it reacts to publicly reported software vulnerabilities. The new offering, dubbed Microsoft Security Advisories, gives engineers an outlet for providing instant feedback, guidance and mitigations when researchers jump the gun and release vulnerability details before a patch is available.• DNS poisoning network attacks may be a distraction: The recent Internet attacks that invaded business networks and installed 18MB of malware on vulnerable computers may have been a smoke screen put up by hackers out to make money rather than cause trouble, security analysts say. The huge payload may have been meant to disguisea small new program that anti-spyware and antivirus don't yet catch.• Phantom menace: Phony war on mobile malware: The mobile phone virus threat is been wildly over-hyped, according to a support firm which says calls about infections by mobile malware are almost unknown. WDSGlobal said it's a myth that mobile viruses are widespread, and anti-virus vendors are overstating the threat to push sales of mobile anti-virus software.• Microsoft patch day lite: Microsoft Corp. on Thursday announced plans to release just one security bulletin on May 10 to provide a fix for flaws Windows. The solitary bulletin will carry a maximum severity rating of "important," the second-highest in its publicly available severity rating system. An "important" rating means that a successful exploit could result in data compromise or DoS attacks.Hardware, Software, and other TidBytes:• Hackers figure out file extraction from Sony UMD• ISP's customers sold on eBay• Apple Tiger doesn’t play with other hardware• PDAs Make A Comeback? Or Research Firm Falls For Marketing Spin?• Review: OpenOffice a Strong Competitor• Taxicabs With a View• Companies Take Satellite Taxes to Court
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