ManyMedia

Platform 12 of the New Delhi Station now has a Cyber Express Café.

The [Railway] Minister announced that RailTel would establish such cafes on all railway stations gradually to provide internet and other telecom connectivity to passengers, industries and market places as ‘A’ category Internet Service Producer licensee. The Minister also announced that RailTel would introduce soon Internet facilities in one of the trains buoyed by its recent successful experiment, which would be extended to other trains later. …

The Café is fully air-conditioned and is powered by a broadband internet connectivity of 256 kbps. Browsing is based on pre-paid billing through pin billing coupons of three denominations of Rs. 15/- for 15 minutes, Rs. 20/- for 30 minutes and Rs. 30/- for 60 minutes. The Internet Telephoy can be used with the ease of a normal telephone call and is aided with the bill printing machine used in the normal PCOs.
This facility shall be open 24 hours to travelling public. RailTel is running the café withM/s Appologic Broadband Systems Limited acting as a franchisee. This is the first experiment of RailTel doing this business using the revenue sharing model.

I’m sure the vast population of India will run with their laptops to catch the train.

Uncategorized

From News.com’s article, P2P caching: Unsafe at any speed?

Peer-to-peer traffic is one of the biggest headaches for Internet service providers, but now a Swedish company says it has developed technology that can help handle the load. …

PeerCache is built to work for FastTrack, one of the most widely used P2P protocols and the underpinnings of such popular applications as Kazaa and iMesh. Joltid said its traffic on FastTrack protocols can account for nearly 70 percent of the network’s total bandwidth. PeerCache plugs in to the ISP network and temporarily caches FastTrack P2P traffic, helping to lessen the bandwidth burden. …

In the United States, copyright laws protect ISPs from liability for their users’ activities. With PeerCache software, ISPs would cache, or temporarily hold, digital copies of pirated files on their servers so they’re more easily accessible to traders on Kazaa and other FastTrack systems. But holding copies of copyrighted material could make ISPs accomplices in illegal file trading, at least according to an early survey by one recording-industry trade association. …

“One should bear in mind that (whether) an ISP is caching a file or not does not make the file more or less available for end users,” he said. “It only impact(s) the load on the ISP’s network. “Thus, by caching P2P traffic, ISPs are not encouraging or (discouraging) users to download files,” he said. “It is just a way for the ISP to organize their network.”

Uncategorized

Satellite phones — now offering smaller handsets with better reception
and lower prices — are finding new acceptance in the marketplace –
especially the rental marketplace. A few years ago a satellite phone cost
thousands of dollars to buy and was the size of a suitcase; now, the phones
are not much larger than cellphones and can be purchased for a few hundred
dollars or rented for less than $50 a week (plus $1 to $2 a minute for
calls). Customers include boaters, schoolteachers on field trips,
businessmen, hunters and missionaries. Rental phones are available at
numerous sites, including www.satellitephonesource.com and
www.worldcell.com. One person in the satellite phone rental business sees
déjà vu all over again: “I remember when the rental of cellphones was a big
business. And now they’ve become ubiquitous, while rentals have become a
very small market. It’s likely you’ll see that scenario play out with
satellite phones.”

Uncategorized

A new Congressional bill would make uploading a single copyrighted file
a felony, with penalties of up to a $250,000 fine and up to five
years in prison. Specifically targeting peer-to-peer file trading, the bill
would allocate an additional $5 million a year to the Justice Department
for investigation, and would promote information sharing
between countries to help with copyright enforcement abroad. “People who use
technology to get artistic content for free are hurting US exporters,” said
Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-MI), who introduced the bill with Rep. Howard
Berman (D-CA). Jason Schultz, staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier
Foundation, called the bill a “sign of desperation” as the recording
industry and Hollywood try to hold on to their business models. Schultz
said the poorly written bill criminalizes the placement of any copyright
work on a computer network. “You may not even know that you are committing
a felony, but this law could put you in jail,” he said.

Uncategorized

Wi-Fi is all the news rage these days.

• USA Today ran an article last Friday outlining some of the unlikely “hot spots” for
  hotspots, such as RV parks, fitness facilities and California beaches.

• NY Times and the Boston Globe covered Wi-Fi security stories
  this weekend, with the Times focusing on some of Manhattan’s vulnerable
  networks while the Globe piece featured a broadband provider in Seattle that
  encourages the sharing of wireless access.

• Today in the New York Times reports, Intel is seeking to use Wi-Fi to solve the
  first/last mile problem “with cheap, super-fast connections so that businesses can
  deliver interactive entertainment … right into America’s living rooms and
  dens.”

• Speakeasy’s Netshare plan allows
  customers to “sublease” access to their wireless router in exchange for a
  share of the fees.

Now combine this with news about Kaufman Brothers issuing a SELL
recommendation on Verizon today…

Uncategorized

Two news items here. First, Verizon and other Bells were, at one time,
under investigation for keeping funny books about their property values.
That investigation and audit by the FCC was mysteriously dropped last year.

Now Teletruth submitted a FOIA request to the FCC for release of the
working papers of the FCC audits. Teletruth also made public data from a whistleblower
revealing the depth of problems with Verizon’s property records,
and sent a letter to the Verizon Board of Directors requesting an investigation.

For info on earlier SEC complaint, which remains under investigation,
see http://www.teletruth.org/auditupdate.html.
For info on the FOIA, see the link above.

As if that were only a mosquito bite, malaria follows:
Kaufman Bros. L.P just initiated coverage on Verizon, recommending stockholders to sell:

VERIZON COMMUNICATIONS, INC. (VZ $38.77) COMMUNICATIONS SERVICES

A GENERAL FLAVOR OF MILD DECAY

Rating: SELL Price Target: $34 Market Cap: $106.7BN

We are initiating coverage of Verizon with a SELL rating and $34 price
target based on sum-of-parts-valuation. We foresee multiple pressure points on RBOCs’ businesses that bode poorly for long-term value creation, including: (1) mounting line losses; (2) revenue deflation; (3) worsening bad debt; (4) worsening credit ratings; (5) debt maturity problems; (6) weak enterprise strategies; (7) government mandated market share losses; (8) cable MSO incursion; (9) wireless migration and substitution; (10) pricing pressure, cannibalization of product lines; (11) outdated networks and a migration to packet-switched architectures, arbitrage products that are evaporating; and (12) looming antitrust issues. We believe the stock is overvalued and does not consider the above-listed risks to the full extent. We would be sellers of the stock at least until it approaches the low 30s or a dividend yield of close to 5%.

Vik Grover, 212.292.8123
vgrover@kbro.com

www.kbro.com

Uncategorized

Mobile phone providers, acting “in
accordance to the existing law and in order to prevent crimes,” shut off the encryption of cell phone users for a 24 hour period earlier this month.

The decision to shut down encryption follows the double suicide bombings
that killed 14 people at the Krylya rock festival Saturday. A cellphone was
found on one of the female suicide bombers, and the FSB is examining its
SIM card for clues as to whether the bombers coordinated the attack with
accomplices, according to local media reports.

The last time Moscow callers saw the encryption alert on their cellphones
was during the Dubrovka theater crisis in October, when a group of 41
Chechen rebels took more than 800 people hostage. After a three-day
standoff, special forces piped gas into the theater to knock out the
captors and rescue the hostages. But more than 120 hostages died, most from
the effects of the gas. …

Mobile phone providers shut down their encryption systems in St. Petersburg
for security reasons during the city’s 300th anniversary celebrations
attended by world leaders early last month.

Uncategorized

From NewsScan:

With a ruling last week, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
shielded Webloggers, e-mail list administrators and Website operators from
libel claims for information they republish, effectively differentiating
such publishers from “one-way” print media outlets. The court based its
decision on the Communications Decency Act of 1996, which provides that “no
provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the
publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information
content provider.” In subsequent court challenges to the CDA the courts have
confirmed that commercial ISPs are protected under the law, and this recent
ruling extends that protection to non-commercial publishers. This particular
case involved an individual message that was reposted to an e-mail list,
causing financial damages to Ellen Betzel, the subject of the message. The
Ninth Circuit remanded the matter to the lower court to determine wheter the
list administrator had reasonable belief that the original message was
intended for republishing, which will add detail to the case’s precedent.

Uncategorized

First, from USA Today: Goodbye bar codes: Packages with transmitters on the way:

Within two decades, the minuscule transmitters are expected to replace the familiar product bar codes, and retailers are already envisioning the conveniences the new technology, called “radio frequency identification,” will bring — even as others are raising privacy concerns. …

Marc Rotenberg, executive director of a watchdog organization, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said retailers should be required to disable the tags before a consumer leaves a store.

“Simply stated, I don’t think most people want their clothes spying on them,” Rotenberg said. “It’s also clear that there could be some very invasive uses of these techniques if merchants use the tracking technology to spy on their customers after purchase.” …

Ron Margulis, a spokesman for the National Grocers Association, said the privacy concerns are far outweighed by the benefits of RFID. Retailers, he said, could respond much more quickly to product recalls and prevent people from becoming ill from tainted products. “You do give up a bit of privacy but the benefit could be that you live,” said Margulis.

Next, from News.com, Wal-Mart cancels ‘smart shelf’ trial,

http://news.com.com/2100-1019_3-1023934.html?tag=fd_lede1_hed

Wal-Mart Stores has unexpectedly canceled testing for an experimental wireless inventory control system, ending one of the first and most closely watched efforts to bring controversial radio frequency identification technology to store shelves in the United States. …

Despite the privacy concerns, Wal-Mart says it has backed away from in-store use of RFID as a matter of priorities, not over concerns of a consumer backlash. “Technology like RFID is so wide, we’ve chosen to put limits on ourselves to help focus and drive it forward,” Williams said. …

According to a survey it conducted in May, Research firm Gartner said that 55 percent of the consumers it polled would shop in stores where RFID technology is being used if it meant faster checkouts. About 16 percent said they would probably or definitely stop shopping in a store using RFID, and 28 percent were undecided. However, when their payment information was electronically stored, almost half, about 45 percent, said they would be unwilling to shop in those stores.

Uncategorized

Haier Group’s P5 penphone, a tidy 66-gram, 18-mm-wide
(0.72-inch), sticklike device, is reportedly breaking new ground in component commoditization, driving rapid
product experimentation and novel designs:

Bells and whistles are surprisingly plentiful in the Pen Phone. Polyphonic
ring tones, storage for 300 names and numbers, and a 15-minute
voice-recording capability add up to an impressive feature set in the
diminutive package. Respectable talk/standby specs of about two hours and
three days, respectively, are claimed for the 420-mA-hr internal lithium-ion
battery. As an intriguing twist, Haier even added a laser pointer to the
P5-likely with noticeable drag on battery life if heavily used.

Noteworthy for both form factor and general fit-and-finish, the Haier phone
employs highly integrated core devices from merchant IC suppliers-in this
case a Texas two-step. Texas Instruments Inc. (Dallas) supplies analog and
digital baseband ICs while the Aero transceiver chip set from Silicon Labs
(Austin) provides the direct-conversion radio.

Four megabytes of Intel Corp. flash memory is paired with the internal SRAM
of the TI baseband chip for system memory. The widely used RF3110 power
amplifier module from RF Micro Devices (Greensboro, N.C.) drives a patch
antenna that’s appliqued to the interior casing. Component count and
semiconductor die area are both remarkably low in the P5, paralleling the
falling barriers to entry for handset manufacturers worldwide as reference
designs, component integration and simplification all continue.

Cost of goods sold for the P5 handset is driving toward the $40 mark…

Uncategorized