Jefferson Graham

Your cable is out and you want the technician to arrive and help you? That might not be possible right now. Due to the coronavirus and social distancing directives, cable firms will still send out a technician as a last resort, but they might not enter your home. Cox Cable, which serves 19 states across the US, has stopped sending people for in-home visits, and instead has begun doing smartphone video conferences with customers, sometimes even from the truck outside their home, to troubleshoot. Verizon has also stopped routinely sending technicians to the home.

If you have autoplay enabled on your Netflix or Amazon Prime account, listen up: it could cost you hundreds of dollars a year if you’re not careful. ew services like Disney+ offer us unfettered access to most of the gems of the Disney vault, along with Marvel, Pixar, Star Wars and 20th Century Fox, with the expectation that we'll watch them for hours.

The Federal Trade Commission announced a $60-million settlement from wireless giant AT&T for not playing straight with the public. The issue is "throttling" and wireless companies intentionally slowing down your speed to near unusable levels if you consume too much of its "unlimited" data. AT&T said it was sorry, that the practice was way in the past – dating back to 2011 – and that it ha

If you’ve snapped up a smart TV, with built-in Netflix, YouTube, Hulu and other Web connections, heads up on this warning — your smart TV could make you vulnerable to hackers and is probably monitoring more of your viewing than you realize. Consumer Reports just analyzed smart TVs from five big U.S. TV brands — Samsung, LG, Sony, TCL and Vizio — and found several problems. All can track what consumers watch, and two of the brands failed a basic security test. 

The proposed merger of wireless giant AT&T and media powerhouse Time Warner isn’t about raising prices for consumers, but lowering them, AT&T’s CEO said. Noting a new DirecTV package of 100 channels priced at $35 monthly aimed at cord cutters will bow in Nov, “this is a way to drive down prices,” AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson said.

AT&T looks to take on cable as a major competitor, both with its DirecTV subsidiary, and having Time Warner (CNN, HBO, Warner Bros. studio) under the corporate umbrella. “This deal was about how can we change the game in this ecosystem,” Stephenson said. “If there was ever an environment begging for a change, this is it.” He cited 20 million people who have cut the cord from cable TV. ”How do you begin to access that segment of the market?” he asked. Looking toward the future, Stephenson waxed on about the possibilities of the next stage of mobile delivery from super-fast 5G networks, which he said would begin deployment from AT&T in 2018. In a joint talk with Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes, the two said TW products will not be offered as exclusives to AT&T customers.