GigaOm

[Commentary] Let’s face it: today the Internet is wireless. We need the mobile data those networks provide to be cheap -- dirt cheap.

The price of mobility can’t remain $15-$20 a month for a gigabit of data, otherwise we’re not making the Internet mobile at all. We’re just creating an expensive toy that the majority of people can only access on a limited basis.

We can build that wireless network, but there are two problems we need to solve. The first is a problem of physics, which the wireless industry can work out in the labs. The second is a problem of political will.

[Commentary] There’s been much speculation about the possibility that HBO could one day directly compete with Netflix by offering consumers a way to subscribe to its HBO Go service without signing up for cable.

HBO executives have long said they’re not interested in such a proposition, so here’s a different thought: What if AMC took the plunge instead and became the first network to leave the traditional pay TV world and sold its service directly online?

AMC is currently in 99 million US households, which means that the network makes about $32.6 million per month from retransmission fees. So if 3.2 million people paid $10 a month for a Netflix-style AMC subscription, it could ditch the retransmission revenue stream entirely.

By going online, AMC wouldn’t just reinvent itself. It would also reinvent television for the Internet age, and in turn change the economics of media on the Internet.

[Commentary] In the case of the Internet, the most effective response to repressions will occur beyond the realm of governments. This is true on the level of technical protocols, where privacy tools like TOR developed by nonprofit groups working across states, are helping people access the Internet free of surveillance.

Many of the most promising political tools are, perhaps surprisingly, coming from the legal and policy departments of technology companies like Google and Twitter. The so-called “Transparency Reports” they issue serve as flares to warn where and how governments are suppressing the Internet, and the legal challenges they are deploying in Turkey are serving to slow, if not check, censorship activities.

Meanwhile, civil society groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation are also active in distributing privacy tools, and in energizing online populations around the world to stand up for free Internet communication and to talk to each other across national boundaries.

Finally, the media -- in all its forms -- will have an essential role in ensuring the political protocol of the Internet stays open and free. The very act of reporting, by a giant TV company or a brave single blogger, reinforces the idea that speech and discussion is not limited to national boundaries and that the Internet belongs to people, not governments.

Level 3 Communications, a company that provides bandwidth for a wide variety of customers trying to get content from point A to point B on the Internet, just accused five US Internet service providers (ISPs) and one European ISP of using their market power to interfere with how traffic flows from Level 3 onto the ISPs’ last-mile network.

The result is that customers of those ISPs experience degraded quality for services going over Level 3′s network. This is a so-called peering problem. The issue is that at the interconnection points where Netflix traffic attempts to enter the last-mile ISP’s network, there isn’t enough capacity. Usually, when that happens, the transit provider or the content provider negotiate to add more capacity by opening up more ports.

However, in recent months Level 3, Netflix and Cogent have all gone public accusing some ISPs of keeping those ports congested while trying to charge above-market rates for direct interconnection. Netflix has signed such a direct interconnection agreement with both Comcast and Verizon. But it isn’t happy about it and accuses the ISPs of abusing their market power to extract payments from content companies trying to serve the last mile.

[Commentary] Telemedicine -- using telecommunications to enhance medical and healthcare delivery -- is lauded for advancing the public good, improving the quality of life and transforming the patient/doctor relationship for the betterment of both.

Broadband-driven telemedicine also impacts economic development.

But are communities prepared to ride this particular technology wave to better economic health? The International Economic Development Council (IEDC) indicated in a survey that 43 percent of its members think broadband-enabled medical and healthcare services are a primary economic issue for them. And 28 percent see these services indirectly impacting their local economy.

Contrary to conventional wisdom that rural communities have the greater need for telemedicine services, survey results show urban and suburban communities are just as likely rural ones to place high economic value on telemedicine. But only in a third of the cases do respondents say their communities’ current available broadband speeds are sufficient to attract new physicians, enable video-delivered health services and attract medical research projects.

Similar percentages say the current service is adequate, but could be better, indicating that these speeds will be less useful as telemedicine apps increase in number and capacity requirements.

[Settles is a consultant who helps organizations develop broadband strategies, host of radio talk show Gigabit Nation and a broadband industry analyst]

[Commentary] How will we ensure that the Internet of things is safe? We need the ability to establish the true identity of any device that connects to the Internet, and any system or person that communicates with a device.

Without this, the IoT could enable criminals to attack high-value targets such as your home security system or to disable the alarm on your Internet-connected car.

We need to educate the public about the security risks of the Internet of things, and ensure they understand the importance of being able to authenticate connected devices.

I would like to see this cooperation result in a common standard to which every manufacturer can adhere, so that we do not confuse and alienate end users with a variety of different methods of authentication.

[Storey is the product director at cybersecurity firm Intercede, which specializes in human ID security and access control]

The cable industry is getting more excited about the smart home, but they still have to justify managed services to the mainstream.

The classic do-it-yourself market is getting crowded.

Time Warner just announced its best quarter ever with 13,000 new adds, iControl keeps adding new partners, and AT&T has been dumping tons of money into advertising its Digital Life offering. So what’s different today from a decade ago when cable and telecommunications companies first started offering security services?

• The technology has matured. The arrival of platforms like iControl to manage security and smart home services from the cloud have lowered the cost of support and given cable companies a turnkey way to weave smart home services into their existing install and management infrastructure.
• Perhaps more important, consumers seem to want these services, in part because they now have mobile devices like iPhones and iPads that can act as a universal control point.

Streaming video service Hulu’s decision to use Facebook’s “Like” button on its webpages may have violated a federal law that forbids companies from sharing customers’ video histories, according to a San Francisco court decision that could spell trouble for other companies.

In a 27-page ruling full of technological details, US Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler refused to dismiss a class action complaint that accuses Hulu of violating a 1982 law known as the Video Privacy Protection Act, or VPPA.

While the original purpose of the law was to prevent video stores from sharing their customers’ rental histories, it continues to trip up online media companies like Netflix, which paid $9 million in 2012 to settle a VPPA-related lawsuit.

Even though a recent update to the VPPA permits video companies to tell Facebook and other third parties what their customers are watching, Judge Beeler concluded that Hulu did not obtain the required consent. Hulu did not send lists of its subscribers’ viewing habits to Facebook. Instead, the company is in legal trouble because it shared customers’ movie choices indirectly as a result of the “Like” button.

If TV executives had their way, then Netflix would look a whole lot more like its network-owned competitor Hulu or Amazon’s streaming service.

Executives from Nickelodeon, FX, Showtime and AMC explained that they would like Netflix to follow those services in doing more to promote their networks.

FX Networks EVP of Research Julie Piepenkotter quipped: “Breaking Bad did a whole lot more for Netflix than Netflix did for Breaking Bad.”

Piepenkotter went on to complain that TV shows on Netflix don’t feature an intro, also known as bumper, that tells viewers on which network they originally aired. She mused that part of HBO’s reasoning for licensing its content to Amazon as opposed to Netflix was that Amazon allows for such branding, and added that her own network also has a much better working relationship with Amazon due to this branding.

FX will even tell its viewers that they can catch up on previous seasons of its drama Justified on Prime because Amazon keeps the FX branding on Justified, she said.

Still think American TV audiences don’t like to binge? Think again: Seven out of ten US TV viewers consider themselves binge viewers, according to a study released by Miner & Co.

63 percent of those binge viewers burn through TV show episodes in one sitting at least once a week, while 17 percent even do so every day.