May 2012

[Commentary] Killing off their unlimited data plans in recent years hasn't made U.S. wireless carriers very popular in certain circles, but it has helped them make a lot of money off your mobile-data habit.

In the last quarter alone, AT&T reported more than $6.1 billion in revenues from mobile-data plans, while Verizon took in $6.6 billion. Those numbers also reveal significant growth of as much as 20 percent on an annual basis, despite the fact that carriers are adding customers at a slower pace now that most people already have a smartphone. That's because more people are gobbling up more wireless data, and they're also paying more for it as Verizon and AT&T have stopped offering unlimited data to new customers in favor of a variety of tiered pricing plans and overage charges that all add up -- literally -- to billions for the carriers and their shareholders. This doesn't stop the carriers, particularly AT&T, from trying to have it both ways.

The ubiquitous Wi-Fi standard officially improved on May 7, with the IEEE publishing its fourth revision to 802.11. The updates include faster throughput, improved cellular hand-offs, and better communication between vehicles in addition to other improvements. Once considered a secondary connection compared to wired Ethernet, Wi-Fi is becoming a dominant wireless protocol — 9 of 10 iPads sold are Wi-Fi models — with an increasing number of uses as consumers add more connected devices to their lifestyle.

Hip-hop icon Adam Yauch (MCA) of the Beastie Boys passed on May 4, leaving a legacy of advocacy and great music. The albums of Yauch and his band taught suburban kids about malt liquor and dust, but were also a wizardly pastiche of music and culture — from Sly & the Family Stone to Mr. Ed to Alfred E. Neuman.

The Beasties were pioneers of remix culture, drawing on sound samples to share hundreds of references in a single album. They also become reluctant pioneers in a series of copyright lawsuits. In one case that went to the Supreme Court, the Beasties were sued over a few seconds of flute music even after they paid to use it. Scholars have recently questioned whether the band could even have made their landmark 1989 Paul’s Boutique album today. The increased cost of the samples and the cumbersome process to clear them means producing Beastie Boys style music has become impossible from a legal standpoint — even as it gets easier from a technological one.

Traditional publishers believed that mobile computers with large, colorful screens, such as the iPad, iPhone, and similar devices using Google's Android software, would allow them to unwind their unhappy histories with the Internet. What went wrong? Everything.

Apple demanded a 30 percent vigorish on all single-copy sales through its iTunes store. Profit margins in single-copy sales are thinner than 30 percent; publishers were thus paying Apple to move issues. Many responded by not selling single copies of their magazines. Then, for a year after the launch of the iPad, Apple could not figure out how to sell subscriptions through iTunes in a way that satisfied ABC, which requires publishers to record "fulfillment" information about subscribers. When Apple finally solved the problem of iPad subscriptions in iTunes, it again claimed its 30 percent share. From June of last year, Apple did permit publishers to fulfill subscriptions through their own Web pages (a handful of publishers, including Technology Review, enjoyed the privilege earlier); but the mechanism couldn't match iTunes for ease of use, and most readers couldn't be bothered to understand it. And while Google was more reasonable in its terms, Android never emerged as an alternative to the iPad: today, most tablet computers are Apple machines. There were other difficulties. It wasn't simple, it turned out, to adapt print publications to apps.