Showing posts with label internet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label internet. Show all posts
Skype-Killer VoxOx Relaunches, Adds Tons of New Features, iPhone App Coming Soon (Hopefully)
VoIP service VoxOx thought its rebranding at CES — which includes a massive effort to unify almost every method of communication known to man, and new features like being able to pick your own phone number for free — was such a big deal, they had an army of extras with duct-taped mouths following around an alien who gave away “dozens” (according to VoxOx) of iPhones at the show.
In fact, the PR stunt attracted so much attention it detracted from VoxOx’s actual message about all the neat stuff they’ve bundled into their reworked desktop app, and that they’re well on the way to having an iPhone app out, pending Apple’s approval (and as should be expected, VoxOx says they’ve focused on putting out an iPhone app ahead of any possible Android app).
Here’s the big picture about some of the new features; everything — apart from some outgoing calls — is free:
* Everything from Facebook and Twitter updates, to AIM and Yahoo Messenger chat, to voice and fax communication has been unified under a single window; all the various channels through which to get hold of contacts is now grouped and contacts can be contacted directly through whichever means you choose through a single point; VoxOx is stressing the concept of unification very heavily (the titanic “UNIFY” on the VoxOx website might be a hint).
* Users signing up for their free account can now select whatever phone number they want, (as long as it’s not already taken), and even pick the area code (although users signing up outside the U.S. get a pre-selected area code). That new VoxOx number can then be set up to forward calls, with a dizzying array of options, to any mobile number or landline. The VoxOx number also comes with voicemail.
* Two-way realtime language translation: type stuff into the chat window, and VoxOx will automatically translate it to one of the other available languages. Works for incoming text too; great for conversations with your new Brazilian girl/boyfriend.
* Files up to 100 MB can be uploaded to the VoxOx servers and shared with a VoxOx-generated link.
* There’s more we haven’t mentioned. Here’s a chart comparing VoxOx with services like Google Voice, Skype and others.
VoxOx seems less expensive than Skype too — for instance, their unlimited calling plan for outgoing calls to the U.S. & Canada mobile and landlines (from within the same) is $2.45, compared with $3 for the same Skype plan. And all incoming (and VoxOx-to-VoxOx) communication of any kind is free.
We’ll have a review up eventually (hopefully when the iPhone app is released), to see if the quality of the service really does stack up; In the meantime (and while we’re waiting for the iPhone app), we think the massive plate of free features makes signing up a no-brainer.
1:58 AM 0
Hotmail Emails Deleted? Users Report Missing Emails
"Please help me get them back," wrote one user under the moniker 'Zacgore' in a post dated Saturday. "All my kids' info and pictures are in there!"
Others complain that the majority of the e-mail in their inboxes was sent to their deleted mail folders instead. It is unclear from the posts how widespread the problem is.
The free Web-based e-mail service is the world's most used with about 360 million users globally, according to comScore Inc.
Windows Live support technicians have said in numerous threads that the Hotmail team is aware of the problem and working on a fix.
"At this point it appears to be a limited issue, and Microsoft is working with individual users who are impacted. We apologize for any inconvenience to our customers," Microsoft spokeswoman Catherine Brooker said in statement Saturday. She declined to disclose what caused the glitch.
Microsoft's forum contains 476 pages of complaints about lost and deleted e-mails that date back to early November.
12:28 PM 0
Skype Explains Outage In-Depth
Essentially, a server overload set into motion a chain of events that led to a perfect storm of problems and issues that impacted the very core of the P2P network that keeps Skype () running. As a result, the service was down for many users for up to 24 hours.
In his blog post, Rabbe describes the sequence of circumstances that led to the outage. The main point of breakdown — aside from the initial overload of a cluster of support servers — centered around the Skype for Windows () client. Instead of correctly processing the delayed response from the overloaded servers, Skype for Windows version 5.0.0.152 would instead crash.
The latest version of Skype for Windows, version 5.0.0.156, the 4.0 versions of Skype for Windows, Skype for Mac, Skype for iPhone, Skype on your TV and Skype Connect/Skype Manager were not impacted by this first wave of issues.
The problem, unfortunately, was that approximately 50% of all Skype users across the globe were using the 5.0.0.152 version of Skype for Windows. This was the first stable release of Skype 5, released in October. The updated version of Skype for Windows was released on December 14, but unless a user happened to manually check for the update or download the latest version, chances are, he or she was running the crashtastic Windows client. Rabbe says that program crashes caused approximately 40% of clients running the buggy version of Skype for Windows to fail — in other words, 20% of Skype clients in use failed because of this issue with the older version of the software.
This is where the perfect storm elements start to come together. Those failed clients represented 25 to 30% of the publicly available “supernodes.” In essence, a supernode is a connection point that can also help funnel traffic for other users. The way that peer-to-peer VoIP networks like Skype work is that a client must connect to a supernode in order to make a connection, send voice or video data or exchange instant messages. By default, every Skype client can be a supernode, depending on your firewall settings and bandwidth capacity. If your Skype client crashed and you were a supernode, the number of available connection points for other users just dropped.
Rabbe writes, “The failure of 25—30% of supernodes in the P2P network resulted in an increased load on the remaining supernodes. While we expect this kind of increase in the instance of a failure, a significant proportion of users were also restarting crashed Windows clients at this time. This massively increased the load as they reconnected to the peer-to-peer cloud.”
As luck would have it, all of this occurred just before the usual daily peak in usage. That meant that traffic to the remaining supernodes “was about 100 times what would normally be expected at that time of day.” To further complicate matters, this additional load triggered built-in-protection mechanisms, that under ordinary circumstances, could indicate something beyond just a sudden drop in available supernodes. These triggers created what amounted to a positive feedback loop, where overloaded sueprnodes shut themselves off, which in turn overloaded other supernodes, causing them to shut themselves off and so-on. This was the event that basically took down Skype for the majority of users — whether you were using Windows or not.
Lessons Learned
This Skype outage and Rabbe’s detailed explanation are interesting in that they highlight what — for all intents and purposes — was a fluke. Had the Windows client not had the propensity to crash and had the time of the outage not occurred during peak usage and just ahead of a major holiday, the situation likely would have been much different.
The big takeaway, at least from our perspective, is that Skype needs to look at providing better auto-update mechanisms for its desktop clients. While it’s true that auto-updating can be considered user-hostile, for minor (relatively speaking) revisions like the latest Skype update, it would probably be better to push those updates to clients automatically and set that as the default. This is what Google () does with its Google Chrome () browser to great success. Skype wouldn’t even have to go as far as Google — it could still require users to approve an upgrade to a major version (provided the old version was still supported) and only auto-update smaller hot fixes.
This outage was also an interesting look at how the Skype ecosystem operates. Skype continues to be unique amongst VOiP providers in part because of its P2P roots. This system is an implicit part of why Skype works so well, but under the right circumstances, it can also provide its own unique set of problems.
1:05 AM 0
Internet Explorer Is Still The King Of All Browsers
It's not geek favorite Mozilla Firefox, or fast-growing newcomer Google Chrome. It's the classic clunker Internet Explorer.
In fact, not only does Internet Explorer far outstrip the market share of its closest competitor Firefox, but any one of its three currently available versions (IE 6, 7, and 8) beats out all versions of Chrome combined, based on results compiled by the market share tracking service Hitslink.
Internet Explorer is one of the oldest browsers around. Since initial development in 1995, IE, manufactured by Microsoft, has dominated the market. Though it currently holds close to 60 percent of usage share, that number has been steadily declining over the past decade (other estimates have pegged IE's share at below 50%).
And for all its popularity, IE has always been a subject of derision for the techno-savvy. PC World named IE6 one of the 25 worst tech products of all time. Its most recent reincarnation, IE 8, has a little over 32 percent of market share.
Mozilla Firefox, with its usage share of around 23 percent, was first released in an officially supported format in 2005, though earlier versions had been around since 2003. Its functionality for optimization, which numerous add-ons and tabbed browsing, has made it a favorite for those in the digital know.
Yet since the introduction of Google's first web browser, Chrome, in 2008, Firefox has had to fight to hold on to their number two spot in the browser rankings. Though Chrome trails Firefox at close to 10 percent for third, it has steadily eroded Firefox's lead in the past two years.
It seems, though, considering Internet Explorer's enduring popularity, that many web surfers don't care about trendiness when it comes to their browsing.
(h/t The Next Web)
12:53 AM 0
Home Internet with Anonymity Built In
The Tor software masks Web traffic by encrypting network messages and passing them through a series of relays (each Tor client can also become a relay for other users' messages). But using Tor has typically meant installing the software on a computer and then tweaking its operating system to ensure that all traffic is routed correctly through the program.
"We want to make anonymity something that can happen everywhere, all the time," says Jacob Appelbaum, a Tor project developer. "When you are connected to a router with Tor inside, all your traffic goes through Tor without you changing your system at all. It makes it simple to use."
Appelbaum says volunteers are already testing a small number of modified routers with Tor installed. The prototypes were made by installing new software onto a popular low-cost wireless router made by Buffalo Technology. The software was developed by Appelbaum and colleagues at Tor and is based on the work of the OpenWrt project, which offers open source code for networking equipment. The finished routers can be configured to pass all traffic through Tor, or only some kinds of communications. "You might want to run your VOIP device through Tor but not your other traffic," Appelbaum explains. They will also be capable of simultaneously offering Tor-protected and conventional wireless networks.
"If we find that these routers are useful [in the trials]," he says, "we could partner with OpenWrt and Buffalo to offer a version for sale that helps support the Tor and OpenWrt projects." The software will also be made available for people to install on routers they have bought themselves, Appelbaum says.
Besides serving as Tor clients, the new routers will help anonymize the traffic of other Tor users. This means that they could help boost the performance the Tor network.
When a person uses Tor to bring up a Web page, the request is encrypted and sent along a random path through other Tor computers that act as relays. This obscures the originating IP (Internet protocol) address—a unique code that can be used to track down a Web user, to filter access to certain sites or services, or to build up a profile of a person's Web use.
Generally, the process results in lag and restricts bandwidth, which deters some people from using Tor, says Chris Palmer, technology director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "The primary way to address that problem is to have more Tor relays in more places, connected to high-bandwidth, low-latency lines," he explains. "Wireless routers may fit the bill well, if they can be built with the computational resources necessary to run a Tor relay of decent capacity." Although consumer-grade routers are necessarily relatively low-powered, their capabilities have grown markedly in recent years, Palmer notes.
Tor routers could also make the entire Tor system better able to resist government attempts to block its use. An individual installation of Tor software hooks into the network by referring to a list of relays in a directory maintained by the Tor project. It is possible to block Tor by checking the same directory and preventing connections to the servers listed—a tactic apparently used by the Chinese authorities. It is possible to get around such a block, however, by configuring the Tor software to act as a "bridge," or a private relay, that can only be discovered by word of mouth. A Tor router can also act as a bridge, and Appelbaum is considering making that a default setting.
During the protests in Iran that followed the 2009 election, the EFF campaigned for more people to act as Tor bridges to keep the government from blocking the tool, and Palmer says increasing the supply of bridges remains important. "It makes the adversary's job more difficult when there are more possible bridges to advertise and use," he says.
Appelbaum says, "If you have 10,000 people using these little routers, then China would have a lot more difficulty blocking Tor."
4:33 PM 0
Skype recovers from global blackout
Free internet phone service Skype says it has 'stabilized' its service following a two day outage.
In a blog post put up late on 23 December, it said it was handling 90% of its typical call volume. Audio, video and instant messaging systems that run over the Skype network were now running normally, it said.
Skype said the fault had been caused by a "software issue" on critical parts of its network.
"We take outages like this really seriously and apologise for the inconvenience," Skype chief Tony Bates told BBC News.
In a blog post, the company said that it would offer compensation in the form of call credit vouchers to its paying customers.
The only services left to fix were offline instant messaging and group video calls. It said the problems that took the service offline were not caused by a malicious attack. It hoped to publish a more in-depth explanation in the near future.
Business failure In an earlier post, the firm said that the problem had been caused by a series of "supernode" failures. These "act a bit like phone directories", the firm said, routing traffic between users.
"If you want to talk to someone, and your Skype app can't find them immediately (for example, because they're connecting from a different location or from a different device) your computer or phone will first try to find a supernode to figure out how to reach them," it read.
"Under normal circumstances, there are a large number of supernodes available. Unfortunately, today, many of them were taken offline by a problem affecting some versions of Skype."
BBC reader Igor Hnatko, who runs an outsourcing company in Kuala Lumpar, Malaysia, said his firm had been "severely affected" by the outage.
"It had made me realise to what extent my business is dependent on VOIP technology and Skype as a solution to keeping in touch with clients, and employees," he said.
"Usually, Skype service is of a very high standard, but today, it has been non-existent."
He said his employees had been "unable to log into Skype at all".
"We do accounting and tax for Australian accounting firms here in Kuala Lumpur and during this crucial period in the run-up to the holidays, when our capacity is 100% taken up, we have experienced Skype collapse, which is disappointing to say the least.
"We have started looking at some alternatives, but Skype product has been a part of our business for the last five years, and having to switch to an alternative provider would be hard, but we will have to have that as a back-up plan following this incident."
"Skype is one of the key applications of the modern web," he wrote.
"It is already a hit with consumers, and over the past few years it has become part of the economic fabric for startups and small businesses around the world. I am not sure we can comprehend the productivity cost of this outage.
"The outage comes at a time when Skype is starting to ask larger corporations for their business. If I am a big business, I would be extremely cautious about adopting Skype for business, especially in light of this current outage," added Mr Malik.
6:28 AM 0
Skype Is Back, but Some Features Are Still Broken
“We’ve been able to successfully stabilize Skype () due to the dedicated supernodes deployed by Skype’s engineering team. We’re at roughly 90 percent of normal user volumes,” Skype CEO Tony Bates announced in a blog post.
But while Skype’s video, audio and IM capabilities are fully operational, its Group Video Calling and offline IM features are still down for the count. Skype didn’t lay out a time frame for their return.
Bates says that the company now knows what caused Skype to kick the bucket for over 24 hours. He didn’t elaborate on the specific cause (it promises to post an analysis of what happened soon), but states that it was not caused by a malicious attack.
To make up for the extended downtime, Skype will be issuing vouchers for 30 free minutes of landline calling to all of its Pay As You Go and Pre-Pay users. It’s the company’s first step in what will likely be an arduous process to regain user trust.
7:57 PM 0
Ladieshoesme: the dating site where ladies pick a man like a pair of shoes
Members essentially have to identify themselves as a pair of shoes on the platform. That means, when you create your profile, you also have to include a picture of your favorite pair of shoes.
Don’t have one? Not to worry, the site has a selection you can choose from. Plus, you have to also include some information in your profile regarding shoes and feet – like “For me, shoes are…(fill in)” or “What I really hate to see on someone’s feet is…(fill in).” It’s kind of silly and kind of fun, but does this whole expressing yourself via shoes business really change that much?
Yet, I can definitely see why the founders decided to equate men with shoes – in fact, I often have difficulty distinguishing the two. Ok, not really. To be honest, the whole “women are obsessed with shoes” cliché kind of annoys me. But to be fair, allowing members of a dating site to express themselves via an inanimate object is rather creative – whether it’s food or shoes or whatnot. And it turns out that the team actually decided to develop this idea after reading a report stating that roughly 1 out of every 3 people finds shoes to be an important factor on a first date. People, not necessarily women. Ok, I’ll end my feminist banter here.
Going back to Ladieshoesme, the community has a self-selection procedure kind of similar to that of AttractiveWorld, the French dating site which closed a 4th round of funding back in May. However, for the Ladieshoesme community, only the women get a say in who can join. Adoptaguy is another French dating site that aims at giving women maximum control in a similar way. For this site and Ladieshoesme, it’s only the men that pay for the service – whether it be a monthly subscription or buying simple credits to send messages. On the Ladieshoesme platform, packs of credits start at €4.90 and monthly subscriptions range from €24-29.90.
The site is currently only available in France but the team is looking at going international rather quickly. Plus, keep an eye out next time you buy a pair of shoes online, from Zappos, Sarenza, Spartoo, etc. Who knows, perhaps the e-commerce sites and dating sites will team up for some special offers !
7:29 AM 0
E-Mail Gets an Instant Makeover
And you enjoy using e-mail.
Young people, of course, much prefer online chats and text messages. These have been on the rise for years but are now threatening to eclipse e-mail, much as they have already superseded phone calls.
Major Internet companies like Facebook are responding with message services that are focused on immediate gratification.
The problem with e-mail, young people say, is that it involves a boringly long process of signing into an account, typing out a subject line and then sending a message that might not be received or answered for hours. And sign-offs like “sincerely” — seriously?
Lena Jenny, 17, a high school senior in Cupertino, Calif., said texting was so quick that “I sometimes have an answer before I even shut my phone.” E-mail, she added, is “so lame.”
Facebook is trying to appeal to the Lenas of the world. It is rolling out a revamped messaging service that is intended to feel less like e-mail and more like texting.
The company decided to eliminate the subject line on messages after its research showed that it was most commonly left blank or used for an uninformative “hi” or “yo.”
Facebook also killed the “cc” and “bcc” lines. And hitting the enter key can immediately fire off the message, à la instant messaging, instead of creating a new paragraph. The changes, company executives say,
leave behind time-consuming formalities that separate users from what they crave: instant conversation.
“The future of messaging is more real time, more conversational and more casual,” said Andrew Bosworth, director of engineering at Facebook, where he oversees communications tools. “The medium isn’t the message. The message is the message.”
The numbers testify to the trend. The number of total unique visitors in the United States to major e-mail sites like Yahoo and Hotmail is now in steady decline, according to the research company comScore. Such visits peaked in November 2009 and have since slid 6 percent; visits among 12- to 17-year-olds fell around 18 percent. (The only big gainer in the category has been Gmail, up 10 percent from a year ago.)
The slide in e-mail does not reflect a drop in digital communication; people have just gravitated to instant messaging, texting and Facebook (four billion messages daily).
James E. Katz, the director for the Center for Mobile Communications Studies at Rutgers University, said this was not the death of e-mail but more of a downgrade, thanks to greater choice and nuance among communications tools.
“It’s painful for them,” he said of the younger generation and e-mail. “It doesn’t suit their social intensity.”
Some, predictably, turn up their noses at the informality and the abbreviated spellings that are rampant in bite-size, phone-based transmissions. Judith Kallos, who writes a blog and books about e-mail etiquette, complains that the looser, briefer and less grammatical the writing, the less deep the thoughts and emotions behind it.
“We’re going down a road where we’re losing our skills to communicate with the written word,” Ms. Kallos said.
Mary Bird, 65, of San Leandro, Calif., is another traditionalist, if a reluctant one. “I don’t want to be one of those elders who castigate young peoples’ form of communication,” she said. “But the art of language, the beauty of language, is being lost.”
Ms. Bird’s daughter, Katie Bird Hunter, 26, is on the other side of the digital communications divide and finds her parents to be out of touch.
“They still use AOL,” she says, implying with her tone that she finds this totally gross.
Ms. Hunter says she seeks to reach friends first by text, then by instant message, then with a phone call, and then by e-mail. “And then, while I’d probably never do this last one, showing up at their house.”
Like a lot of younger people, Ms. Hunter, who works in construction management in San Francisco, says e-mail has its place — namely work and other serious business, like online shopping. She and others say they still regularly check e-mail, in part because parents, teachers and bosses use it.
David McDowell, senior director of product management for Yahoo Mail, conceded that the company was seeing a shift to other tools, but said this was less a generational phenomenon than a situational one. Fifteen-year-olds, for example, have little reason to send private attachments to a boss or financial institution.
Yahoo has added features like chat and text messaging to its e-mail service to reflect changing habits, as has Gmail, which also offers phone calls.
“Mail is now only a part of Gmail,” said Mike Nelson, a Google spokesman. “It’s video conferencing, texting, it’s I.M., it’s phone calling.”
Mr. Katz, the Rutgers professor, said texting and social networks better approximated how people communicated in person — in short snippets where niceties did not matter. Over time, he said, e-mail will continue to give way to faster-twitch formats, even among older people.
The changing trends have even some people in their 20s feeling old and slightly out of touch, or at least caught in the middle.
Adam Horowitz, 23, who works as a technology consultant for a major accounting firm in New York, spends all day on e-mail at his office. When he leaves it behind, he picks up his phone and communicates with friends almost entirely via texts.
Yet he sometimes feels caught between the two, as when he texts with his younger brothers, ages 12 and 19, who tend to send even shorter, faster messages.
“When they text me, it comes across in broken English. I have no idea what they’re saying,” said Mr. Horowitz. “I may not text in full sentences, but at least there’s punctuation to get my point across.”
“I guess I’m old school.”
6:22 AM 0
Pew Study: Wealthier Americans Use Internet More
The "digital divide" is still real, even though broadband Internet has been widely available for over ten years. The study found that while 95% of households earning $75,000 or more use the Internet in some way, just 57% of households earning $30,000 or less do so.
The numbers are even starker when it comes to broadband access in the home: 87% of users in the income top bracket have Internet in their homes, but just 40% of the lowest bracket do. Even in the next-lowest income bracket, consisting of households earning $30,000 to $49,000 per year, only 64% of households have Internet at home.
Users belonging to different income brackets also use the Internet differently. Of the highest earners, 74% use the web to get their news, whereas 34% of the lowest earners do. Unsurprisingly, higher income users also own more gadgets.
Such statistics may give fuel to net neutrality advocates, who could argue that these numbers already show that poorer people cannot afford the same access to the Internet as their richer counterparts. The FCC published their plan to initiate a national broadband plan to bring high-speed Internet to those who cannot access it readily earlier this year.
5:07 AM 0
Net Neutrality Rules Poised To Pass FCC Tomorrow
The rules would prohibit phone and cable companies from abusing their control over broadband connections to discriminate against rival content or services, such as Internet phone calls or online video, or play favorites with Web traffic.
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski now has the three votes needed for approval, despite firm opposition from the two Republicans on the five-member commission. Genachowski's two fellow Democrats said Monday they will vote for the rules, even though they consider them too weak.
The outcome caps a nearly-16-month push by Genachowski to pass "network neutrality" rules and marks a key turning point in a policy dispute that began more than five years ago.
"The open Internet is a crucial American marketplace, and I believe that it is appropriate for the FCC to safeguard it by adopting an order that will establish clear rules to protect consumers' access," Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, a Democrat, said in a statement.
Yet many supporters of network neutrality are disappointed. Clyburn and the other Democrat, Michael Copps, both said the rules are not as strong as they would like, even after Genachowski made some changes to address their concerns.
That sentiment was echoed by some public interest groups on Tuesday.
"The actions by the Federal Communications Commission fall far short of what they could have been," said Gigi Sohn, president of Public Knowledge. "Instead of strong, firm rules providing clear protections, the commission, created a vague and shifting landscape open to interpretation."
A number of big Internet companies, including Netflix Inc., Skype and Amazon.com Inc., have previously expressed reservations about the proposal as well.
Meanwhile, even the weakened rules are likely to face intense scrutiny as soon as the Republicans take over the House next year.
The chairman's proposal builds on an attempt at compromise crafted by outgoing House Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., as well as a set of broad net neutrality principles first established by the FCC under the previous administration in 2005.
The rules would require broadband providers to let subscribers access all legal online content, applications and services over their wired networks – including online calling services, Internet video and other Web applications that compete with their core businesses.
But the plan would give broadband providers flexibility to manage data on their systems to deal with problems such as network congestion and unwanted traffic like spam as long as they publicly disclose their network management practices.
Senior FCC officials stressed that unreasonable network discrimination would be prohibited.
They also noted that this category would most likely include services that favor traffic from the broadband providers themselves or traffic from business partners that can pay for priority. That language was added to help ease the concerns of Genachowski's two fellow Deomcrats.
The proposal would, however, leave the door open for broadband providers to experiment with routing traffic from specialized services such as smart grids and home security systems over dedicated networks as long as these services are separate from the public Internet.
Public interest groups fear that exception could lead to a two-tiered Internet with a fast lane for companies that can pay for priority and a slow lane for everyone else.
They are also worried that the proposal lacks strong protections for wireless networks as more Americans go online using mobile devices.
The plan would prohibit wireless carriers from blocking access to any websites or competing applications such as Internet calling services on mobile devices. It would require them to disclose their network management practices too.
But wireless companies would get more flexibility to manage data traffic as wireless systems have more bandwidth constraints than wired networks.
"Individuals who depend on wireless connections to the Internet can take no comfort in this half-measure," said Joel Kelsey, political advisor for the public interest group Free Press.
Republicans, meanwhile, warn that the new rules would impose unnecessary regulations on an industry that is one of the few bright spots in the current economy, with phone and cable companies spending billions to upgrade their networks for broadband.
Burdensome net neutrality rules, they warn, would discourage broadband providers from continuing those upgrades by making it difficult for them to earn a healthy return on their investments.
Still, Genachowski's proposal is likely to win the support of the big phone and cable companies because it leaves in place the FCC's current regulatory framework for broadband, which treats broadband as a lightly regulated "information service."
The agency had tried to come up with a new framework after a federal appeals court in April ruled that the FCC had overstepped its existing authority in sanctioning Comcast Corp. for discriminating against online file-sharing traffic on its network – violating the very net neutrality principles that underpin the new rules. Comcast argued that the service, which was used to trade movies and other big files over the Internet, was clogging its network.
To ensure that the commission would be on solid legal ground in adopting net neutrality rules and other broadband regulations following that decision, Genachowski had proposed redefining broadband as a telecommunications service subject to "common carrier" obligations to treat all traffic equally. But Genachowski backed down after strong opposition from the phone and cable companies, as well as many Republicans in Congress.
4:53 AM 0
Parents Seeking To Limit Kids' Access To Internet, TV: SURVEY
As the two mediums converge, parents are quickly coming to see TV and the Internet in similar ways and are seeking to limit their kids' access to both, according to a report out this week from researchers at the University of Southern California.
The survey from the USC Annenberg Center for the Digital Future found that two-thirds of parents say they restrict their kids' access to TV as punishment, a number that has barely budged over the past 10 years. But the percentage of parents who limit Internet access as a form of punishment has nearly doubled in the last decade.
Among parents surveyed this spring, 57 percent said they withheld Web access to punish their kids. That is up from 32 percent in 2000.
Michael Gilbert, a senior fellow at the center, said parents are starting to not see a big distinction between TV watching and Internet use. Even so, parents are still more comfortable with the amount of time kids spend on the Internet – 71 percent said it was "just about right" compared with just 51 percent for TV.
Earlier surveys by the center have shown that families are spending less time together than they used to, a decline that has coincided with the explosive growth of social networks in the past few years.
Now, parents are saying Internet access at home is also reducing the time their children spend with their friends face-to-face. Gilbert called this a worrisome trend, though noted that the number of parents to report this is still small – 11 percent in 2010 compared with 7 percent in 2000.
Of course, the Internet and social networks also make it easier to communicate and they help families stay in touch with loved ones.
"The answer is never about technology. It's always about parental responsibility," Gilbert said. But he noted that the explosive growth of digital technology has made it increasingly difficult for parents to monitor what their kids are doing.
The 2010 survey was conducted in April among about 2,000 Americans over the age of 12. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.
3:39 AM 0
UPDATE 1-Approval of Internet traffic rules likely-analysts
The Federal Communications Commission will vote on Dec. 21 on whether to adopt regulations that ban the blocking of lawful traffic but allow Internet service providers to ration Web traffic on their networks.
The proposal laid out two weeks ago by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski was met with concern from the other members of the FCC, putting in question the likelihood of winning over a majority of the five-member FCC.
The two Republican commissioners have objected to FCC action on Internet rules, saying the Internet is best able to thrive in the absence of regulation. And Genachowski's two fellow Democrats on the panel could withhold support from any measure they view as too weak.
But analysts said commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Michael Copps, the Democrats on the panel, are more likely to consider it in the majority's interest to move ahead with so-called net neutrality rules.
"There aren't really any better options for Copps and Clyburn than to support the chairman, despite their preference for tougher rules," said Paul Gallant, an analyst with MF Global.
"After the November elections, the chairman's room to maneuver on net neutrality got a lot narrower," he added.
Net neutrality rules would determine whether high-speed Internet providers should be allowed to block or slow information or charge websites for a "fast lane" to reach users more quickly.
Genachowski's proposal is more flexible for wireless broadband, acknowledging that wireless is at an earlier stage of development than terrestrial Internet service.
High-speed and mobile Internet providers like Comcast Corp (CMCSA.O), Verizon Communications (VZ.N) and AT&T Inc (T.N) are likely to oppose any regulations that seek to go beyond Genachowski's initial proposal.
"Our sense is an order likely will be approved, with some modifications, but not radical changes, to the draft, given the tightrope the FCC leadership appears to be walking," Stifel Nicolaus analysts said in a research note.
Stifel Nicolaus is particularly plugged in to FCC developments, with analyst Rebecca Arbogast having previously been a division chief at the agency.
A possible tweak of Genachowski's initial proposal could include clearer language against paid prioritization, Stifel Nicolaus analysts said, but strengthening the rules much further could prompt legal challenges from companies.
"Party loyalty will trump some of the policy differences," Medley Global Advisors analyst Jeffrey Silva said of Copps and Clyburn's potential reasons not to defect from the chairman.
Strengthening rules for wireless carriers beyond anti-blocking and transparency provisions, which Clyburn has supported, would probably be a deal-breaker for industry support of the regulations, Silva said.
"There's not a lot of room to tinker with the compromise that's been struck without threatening the compromise," Silva said.
Even if the rules are adopted, lawmakers are likely to challenge the rules, as Republicans have been vocal that they oppose any FCC action geared at governing the Internet. (Reporting by Jasmin Melvin, editing by Dave Zimmerman and Matthew Lewis)
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