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AT&T Debuts Videocrawler Search, Which Indexes 1600 Outlets

Andy Salisbury — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 18:40:08 -0600

Understandably, AT&T might not be the name that one thinks of when they consider a comprehensive online video search. But, remaining open minded (as one tends to do in San Francisco), you can’t help but notice how well the telecommunications giant has pulled off their very first video search site, VideoCrawler.

In conjunction with start-up company Divvo, AT&T has managed to launch VideoCrawler, a search that has more than 1,600 online video outlets latched directly into its brain. Sites such as YouTube and MySpace are among the long list of video channels available.

While they don’t offer any services for uploading your own videos, they do have a pretty impressive collection. So go ahead, search for that clip of the dog that never learned how to bark. Chances are might good that you’ll be able to track it down.

AT&T One-Ups Comcast with 20GB (not 120GB) Bandwidth Cap

Paul Lilly — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 11:54:30 -0600

Whether you place the blame on ISPs for not upgrading their infrastructure or the small number of bandwidth hogs clogging up the pipes (with all legal content, of course), metered bandwidth looks to become the norm rather than the exception. AT&T becomes the latest to jump on board and will begin trials for metered internet access for subscribers living in Reno, Nevada. But that's not the half of it.

Those of you who were outraged at Comcast for having put a 250GB cap in place might want to stop reading now. According to a letter filed electronically with the FCC, AT&T attorney Jack Zimmerman says the size of his company's bandwidth caps will vary based on the service level. Customers on the 768kbps plan will be hit the hardest and have just 20GB to work with, while 6mbps subscribers will be capped at 150GB, or 100GB less than what Comcast is allowing. Should customers go over their service level's limit, a $1 per gigabyte charge will be assessed to the monthly bill.

Customers who want no part of the caps can choose to cancel their service and have their early termination fee waived. We imagine there are readily available alternatives in Reno, but should AT&T's test run spread to other areas, finding another ISP may not always be as easy. AT&T boasts 14.7 million subscribers, enough to rank the company as the largest ISP in the U.S.

Is AT&T going to far? Hit the jump and sound off.

The Broadband Price War Erupts with Price Slashing

Paul Lilly — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 12:06:13 -0500

Perhaps a bad economy is to blame, or maybe consumers are more concerned with getting outside this summer than going online. But whatever the reason, broadband operators are struggling to sign up new customers. Twenty of the largest cable operators and phone companies in the U.S. managed to snag just 887,000 new subscribers in Q2 '08, and according to Leichtman Research Group, the comparatively anemic numbers mark the lowest level of growth seen in the past seven years.

That's good news for consumers, as the lower than expected growth might have sparked a broadband price war. Verizon has said it offer six months of free DSL service to new customers who agree to a one year commitment and also grab a landline package. By taking advantage of the promotion, consumers can pay as little as $45 per month for high-speed DSL and phone service, compared to $65 per month.

But Verizon isn't the only one looking to entice new customers, and AT&T has kicked off a new promotion that guarantees customers its current pricing for two years. Prices range from $20 to $55.

As the broadband market continues to saturate, cable companies could feel the pinch too. Comcast added 278,000 high-speed internet subscribers in Q2, which represents 18 percent fewer customers than the company signed one year ago.

AT&T Wireless Says it Will Ban P2P Users

Paul Lilly — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 00:58:50 -0500

Shawn Fanning, the former Northeastern University student who created Napster and popularized peer-to-peer sharing, could never have imagined all the fuss the technology would create nearly a decade later. Comcast earlier this year drew ire over throttling Bittorrent traffic, and now AT&T is taking a hard lined stance against its wireless customers engaging in P2P activities.

FCC Republican Robert McDowell asked AT&T about its policy regarding P2P traffic over its wireless network, and in a letter, Robert Quinn, AT&T senior VP for regulatory affairs, said in no uncertain terms that its customers are strictly forbidden from usng P2P services.

"AT&T's terms of service for mobile wireless broadband customers prohibit all uses that may cause extreme network capacity issues, and explicitly identify P2P file sharing applications as such a use," Quinn wrote.

Unlike Comcast, who drew criticism both for throttling internet traffic and for initially denying it was doing so, Quinn also wrote in his letter that AT&T does not use network management tools to block the use of P2P applications, and that its customers are warned in writing that they could have their service terminated if caught violating the policy.

Do you agree with what AT&T is doing?

More ISPs Pull The Plug On Usenet

Justin Kerr — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 23:01:13 -0500

The New York State Attorney General’s office has won another battle in its war against child pornography on the Usenet. AT&T and AOL have joined Sprint and Verizon to drop large chunks of the alt.* hierarchy, thereby limiting access. This comes as a major disappointment to Usenet surfers who make legitimate use of the alt.* service. Internet service providers have been under increased public pressure to address Usenet abuse since a recent investigation turned up over 11,000 child porn images scattered across 88 different newsgroups. Intervention by ISPs was inevitable, but they are treading very carefully into the foray. Network providers maintain a strict policy of noninterference when it comes to moderating the content of their networks. Improper filtering of content can be seen as promotion and has lead to lawsuits in some cases.

Want to know more about Usenet?

Click the jump to see what else this little known corner of the web is used for.

AT&T Erroneously Promises Free Wi-Fi Access to iPhone Users

Pulkit Chandna — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 18:51:27 -0500

It was an offer that no sane iPhone owner in the U.S could refute. But alas, AT&T quickly sensed its folly and disowned its promise of free Wi-FI access for iPhone users across its network of more than 17,000 hotspots around the country. It had erroneously published a notice on its website apprising users that it was extending free Wi-Fi access to iPhone owners. The notice vanished from the company’s website after a terse stay that lasted for an hour between 8:30 a.m. PDT and 9:30 a.m. PDT.

Soon after, AT&T explained to Cnet that the announcement was a mistake. And so AT&T excused itself from the mistake that had the entire internet abuzz for a while. But AT&T has made quite a habit of erroneously promising free Wi-Fi access as, in May, it had similarly announced free Wi-Fi access for its Laptop Connect customers only to dismiss it as a mistake.

The iPhone 3G Launch: Everything Normalizes after Initial Hiccups

Pulkit Chandna — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 23:51:42 -0500

Apple’s ingenious anti-hacking strategy for the iPhone launch – the phone must be activated in-store - resulted in long queues outside stores, as customers waited for their new iPhone 3G phones to be activated. But the iTunes and AT&T servers connived against the eager customers and crashed. However, the bedlam has subsided and now activations are going along at a canter.

The iPhone firmware 2.0 update for the original iPod Touch is also available on iTunes, finally. Apple might have made a mockery of the Iphone 3G launch but it put a useful feature on its website that allows you to check Iphone availability at your nearest store.

AT&T Makes iPhone Available without Contract

Paul L — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 15:29:32 -0500

Apple recently addressed one of the most common complaints associated with the iPhone by releasing a new version finally equipped with 3G networking, and did so without jacking up the price. Looking to sweeten the deal, AT&T now says it will sell the new version without a service contract "sometime in the future." Sounds great, right?

But there's a worm in the apple making AT&T's latest announcement less appetizing than it could be. While consumers will no longer be forced into a 2-year service agreement in order to own an iPhone, they'll have to pay a hefty $400 premium for the luxury. So even though Apple chose not to introduce a price hike with the new 3G gadget, AT&T will charge $599 and $699 for the 8GB and 16GB models, respectively, for anyone with a fear of commitment. Of course, paying the premium means no longer having to worry about early termination fees, but unless you plan on trying your hand at unlocking the unit and joining up with another service provider, you might still be better off sucking it up and signing on the 2-year dotted line.