July 2013

2 New Plans to Upgrade Smartphones After a Year

For devotees of new technology, the people who help set trends and chase the latest gadgets, the joy of buying a new smartphone has been met with an equally strong annoyance: long-term commitment. Now they are getting some overtures to avoid breaking up.

In recent days, several major phone carriers have announced plans to tweak the typical cellphone contract, usually two years long, giving the tech aficionados an incentive to stay and giving other customers also frustrated with their plans a possible cause for hope. AT&T, the second-largest American phone carrier, plans to announce a plan that gives customers a chance to upgrade phones after one year. T-Mobile USA announced a similar option earlier, underscoring one of the biggest problems in the phone industry: fewer people are upgrading year after year.

AT&T Leaps in T-Mobile's Way

Could a giant like AT&T be threatened by an upstart like T-Mobile? AT&T's purchase of Leap Wireless International suggests it is already playing defense.

For AT&T, valued at $261 billion including net debt, Leap is a blip on the radar. It has about five million subscribers and wireless spectrum covering mostly second-tier markets, and AT&T says Leap will provide entry to prepaid wireless. But a closer look at Leap's spectrum suggests the deal may be more of a jab at T-Mobile than a boost to AT&T. More than 60% of Leap's spectrum resides in a band where T-Mobile has a major presence and AT&T, only a smattering of licenses, according to Moffett Research. Buying Leap thus keeps its highly complementary spectrum out of T-Mobile's hands. And AT&T may have a growing reason to do so. T-Mobile Chief Executive John Legere said that his company's "porting ratio" against AT&T—customers switching to T-Mobile from AT&T over those doing the reverse—had shot up to 1.75 from 0.59 in the first quarter as a result of new contract-free service plans announced in March. A desire to lock up Leap could explain why AT&T is paying more than eight times 2013 earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization.

Antidrug Campaign, Lacking Federal Funds, Turns to Social Media

A multimedia campaign that was deemed effective in fighting drug and alcohol abuse among American teenagers is seeking a second act after the federal government ended its financing.

The campaign, known as Above the Influence, was introduced in November 2005 by the Partnership at Drugfree.org, formerly the Partnership for a Drug-Free America; Foote, Cone & Belding, now the Draftfcb division of the Interpublic Group of Companies; and the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. Unlike many public service campaigns, which gain significant exposure only if media companies agree to donate substantial amounts of commercial time and advertising space, Above the Influence was guaranteed considerable placements because the drug control office spent $540 million of federal money, appropriated by Congress, to run the campaign; the money was amplified by matching donations from the private sector. Congress reduced the annual appropriated amounts several times; they fell from a high of $120 million in 2005 to a low of $45 million in 2010 and 2011 before hitting zero last year. Executives of the Partnership at Drugfree.org have decided to try keeping the campaign going, taking steps like soliciting corporate sponsorships and shifting to lower-cost platforms — among them digital and social media — from pricier previous efforts that included television commercials.

FCC Seeks Comment on H Block Auction Procedures

The Federal Communications Commission has provided insight into the window for auctioning the H block spectrum.

The FCC is seeking comment on that auction, which will free up 10 MHz of spectrum for wireless broadband. The FCC wants input on, among other things, the auction design, structure and procedures, as well as eligibility. The notice follows the FCC's decision to approve the rules of the road for opening up more spectrum for mobile broadband in the H band, which came in acting FCC chairwoman Mignon Clyburn's first public meeting last month. By statute, the auction must occur by February 2015; in the public notice, the FCC suggests it is aiming for January 2014. The notice follows the commission's decision to approve the rules of the road for opening up more spectrum for mobile broadband in the H band, which came in acting FCC Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn's first public meeting last month.

Cyberattackers learn targeted advertising tricks

One of the most prevalent ways cybercriminals are taking control of computers is by seeding infections on millions of legitimate Web pages. Click on an infected page, and the bad guys own you. Now the best and brightest of these crooks are borrowing methodologies perfected by the online advertising industry to increase their effectiveness.

"You have two disciplines that care very much about targeting their content," says Wayne Huang, chief executive of virus-detection company Armorize Technologies. "You've got this one discipline taking very mature, very advanced targeting technology from another discipline and adapting it for their malicious use."

Telemarketers call in reinforcements as they ignore do-not-call list

Regardless of having registered a phone line with the Federal Trade Commission as a telemarketer-free zone, a growing number of consumers are saying that some businesses are ignoring their stated preference and calling anyway.

A particular annoyance: automated robocalls that get you on the line before looping in a human telemarketer. Such calls frequently use "spoofed" lines that hide their origin or make it look as if the call is from someone you know. It's not people's imagination that telemarketers are stepping up their game. "We're definitely seeing an uptick in consumer complaints," acknowledged Lois Greisman, associate director of the FTC's division of marketing practices, which oversees enforcement of the do-not-call list. But why the recent increase in robocalls and telemarketing? Greisman blamed it on technological advances that make such calls easier and cheaper, including auto-dialers that can generate thousands of calls a minute. She also cited technical tricks such as spoofing that help marketers hide their identity and get around people's caller-ID defenses. Simply put, federal officials had no idea that scammers and marketers would become so sophisticated when the do-not-call list was established 10 years ago.

A La Carte Pricing Would Hurt TV

Cable operators moving to a la carte pricing would leave a massive financial hole in the TV business, according to a new report.

Needham analyst Laura Martin estimates that so-called unbundling would remove 50% of total revenue for the industry at large, which comes out to about $70 billion. Also, fewer than 20 channels would make it if consumers paid network-by-network carriage fees as ad dollars would crater, Martin says. Advertising accounts for about 50% of total content costs. With ESPN costing operators so much, there have been suggestions about putting it on a sports tier, but Martin indicated that widespread sports tiering -- she did not cite ESPN by name -- would cost the TV ecosystem $13 billion.

App economy expected to double by 2017 to $151 billion

The combined value of paid apps, app-enabled purchases of goods and services and in-app advertising is expected to double to $151 billion in the U.S. by 2017, AppNation said.

The research shows that the largest segment of the so-called app economy is sales of app-enabled physical goods and services, which made up about $45 billion of the nearly $60 billion total at the start of 2013. By the middle of this year, the $60 billion total reached about $72 billion, which is expected to more than double to $151 billion in 2017. AppNation said paid app downloads are a sliver of the total, accounting for less than $1 billion in 2013 and rising to just above $1 billion in 2017.

CEA Publishes New DTV Interface Standard

The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) has published a new digital television (DTV) Profile for Uncompressed High-Speed Digital Interfaces, the CEA-861-F. The move is important because it will offer a number of improvements, including support for Ultra HD and widescreen video formats, explained Brian Markwalter, senior VP of research and standards at the CEA, in a statement. The standard applies to a variety of DTV-related high-speed digital physical interfaces, including the High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI), Digital Visual Interface (DVI) 1.0, and Open LVDS Display Interface (LDI) specifications.

Startup to Replace Traditional Satellite Dish

Kymeta Corp. is commercializing technology that promises to deliver broadband communications anywhere in the world using a new flat satellite antenna the size of a large book.

The company says its antennas use "metamaterials"—synthetic materials that can manipulate incoming electromagnetic radiation such as light or radio waves to redirect it. Kymeta's products can replace a traditional satellite dish with a device that doesn't need any moving parts to maintain a high-bandwidth connection with a satellite, the company says. Its first product, a portable satellite terminal, which it expects to have on the market in 2015, can replace a satellite truck for news gathering or provide high-speed data connections for industries such as mining and energy exploration.

Benton

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