Who is Dan Gallant?

OK. I finally got creative and made a self-promotional video. For all of the work it took to create it, I can hardly believe it is a mere one minute and 40 seconds long! Outside of blogging about it, I need to think of something else to do with it. Please watch and share with your friends! Here's the YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xd8x4VFcuTs

Who is Dan?

More good news for IPTV

Two of the biggest operators of IPTV in the US: AT&T & Verizon, both reported significant subscriber growth in Q1, according to separate articles in Fierce IPTV (two articles are really not enough, so they dedicated an editorial to this as well).

According to editor Dan O'Shea, "Telco TV subscriber figures are not the only indicator of how TV service providers are making their way through a harsh economy, but the TV subscriber numbers from the two largest telcos in the U.S. are showing virtually no ill effects at all. Verizon Communications and AT&T each added nearly 300,000 TV customers during the first quarter of this year."
Fierce IPTV: Video cord proving hard to cut
Fierce IPTV: Verizon FIoS TV adds 299,000 subs in Q1
Fierce IPTV: AT&T gains 284,000 TV customers

Avail and Cisco team up on IPTV

Cisco Systems and Avail Media have recently announced their partnership to provide wholesale IPTV outsourcing and content aggregation. The agreement integrates Avail's satellite distribution of MPEG-4 video content with Cisco's IP NGN architecture capabilities, including, "IPTV encoding, encapsulation, middleware and digital rights management, scrambling and descrambling, satellite receivers, conditional access, set-top provision, service management, systems integration services, and program management for video hub office components."

It seems that the point is to offer a more seamless, end-to-end solution for companies looking to provide IPTV services.

According to Fierce IPTV, "While SES Americom is exiting the wholesale market with the shut down of its IP-Prime offering, other companies in this segment have been ramping up their offerings in recent months to win over IP-Prime customers and pursue new opportunities."

Cisco Press Release

Fierce IPTV - Cisco, Avail Media Team up in Wholesale

Customers bury their own

It was bound to happen sooner or later. There is always some consumer unhappy with a cable or fiber optic roll-out schedule, that they just go ahead and trench it themselves. This however, was somewhat unexpected.

Telephony Online reports about a Norweigen Triple-play provider that is encoraging their customers to trench fiber. They install the fiber right to the edge of the customer's lawn, then give instructions to the homeowner on how to do the rest of the job. Apparently, the discount is significant enough that 80% of their customers select this option. Of more interest, customers who bury their own are less likely to churn out - maybe because they have invested time and energy into the project.

Telephony Online - FTTH provider's customers bury their own fiber

What's wrong with LinkedIn?

This may seem a bit off-topic for this blog, but LinkedIn is a tool many of us know and love; it is a means to meet and associate with folks that want to help each other professionally. Yet, it doesn't do all of the things it aught. According to Steve Perkins at Cross Connects, the way it's built drives one behavior (collecting contacts) while LinkedIn management works hard to suppress this. I find myself in agreement.

Broadband Stimulus draws many to seek $$$

Ed Gubbins from Telephony as usual, had the correct information. Seeing all that free moolah available brought out many companies (competitors in some cases) to join forces and see what they can get from the Government.

Interestingly, the Bells haven't jumped in just yet; either there are too many restrictions or they don't want this business. After all, their reluctance to seek rural business led to the creation of thlephone cooperatives in the first place.

It's also worth mentioning that rural satellite Internet providers, most notably Wildblue, is joining forces with it's rivals Huges and Inmarsat, looking to get money for a new bird to share. Hughes and Wildblue already serve the needs of residential rural Internet, and they argue (correctly) that Internet via satellite requires no additional infrastructure other than a dish.

Read more:

Telephony Unfiltered: Broadband stimulus draws a wave of muni telecom bids

Denver Business Journal: WildBlue hopes to fly high with share of stimulus funds

T-Mo to release home phone and tablet PC on Android platform

According to the New York Times, T-Mobile USA will be launching a home phone and a tablet PC based on Google's Android platform. The carrier will sell the home phone in 2010 and the tablet PC shortly afterward, according to documents the newspaper obtained from one of T-Mobile's partners.

Supposedly the device will plug into a docking station and will be coupled with another device that will synchronize data for the phone while it charges the phone's battery. T-Mobile did'nt comment on the specific devices mentioned in the report, but did confirm that it plans to introduce more Android-based devices.

As for the tablet PC, the report said the gadget will have a 7-inch touchscreen and no physical keyboard. Users will be able to do basic computing tasks and manage data on different home devices.

According to FierceWireless, "If confirmed, the new products would cement T-Mobile's image as the most Android-friendly carrier in the United States. It already offers HTC's G1, the first phone in North America based on Android, and will, in all likelihood, launch the HTC Magic, HTC's second Android phone. In addition, T-Mobile likely will also offer a Samsung Android-based phone."

Here are some of the different sources: New York Times, Engadget article, FierceWireless, Gizmodo