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New York kicks Spectrum out of the state for 'recurring failures'
Charter cable company acquired Time Warner Cable in a 2016 merger, becoming one of the largest TV providers in the country. Re-branded as Spectrum, the company introduced a streaming option last year. New York, however, hasn't been impressed with the company's performance, and has now kicked Spectrum out of the state and rescinded its approval for the merger.
Google's latest undersea data cable will run from Virginia to France
Google has been involved in a number of undersea cabling projects in the past, including connections between Chile and Los Angeles, the US to Denmark and Ireland and Hong Kong to Guam. It also completed an undersea cable between the US and Japan in 2016. Now the company has announced a new private undersea venture to connect Virginia to France named after the founder of the Red Cross, Henri Dunant.
Amazon could take on UK broadcasters with a smart TV launch
Cutting the cable cord could soon get a lot easier in the UK, as Amazon is getting set to release smart TVs with Fire TV built in, reports the Telegraph. A smart TV from the online retail giant is currently in testing by DTG, a UK standards body for digital terrestrial broadcast equipment. It's not clear who made the TV that's in for testing, but in the US, Amazon's Fire TV-equipped TVs are manufactured by Element Electronics. Best Buy also sells Fire-TV televisions under its in-house Insignia brand.
Belkin's 3.5mm to Lightning cable delivers retro connectivity
Apple doing away with the iPhone's headphone jack was supposed to make life a bit more streamlined, and while in many cases it has, it still presented something of a headache for those who wanted to use their device to listen to music in the car, or even just to use their favourite headphones while charging their phones. Finding a decent 3.5mm cable with a Lightning connector is no mean feat, which is likely why Belkin has stepped up to the plate with its latest cable offering.
DirecTV offers 4K HDR and Dolby Atmos for Winter Olympics replays
Comcast and Hulu may have already revealed plans for Winter Olympics coverage, but today, DirecTV is letting us in on what it has in store for the next several days. In addition to the regular prime time coverage anyone with access to NBC's family of networks is privy to, the AT&T-owned company has a few other things up its sleeve to enhance your viewing experience. We're talking 4K HDR and Dolby Atmos, for starters, when the festivities kick off this Thursday.
Tivo’s new TV platform will combine cable and streaming
TiVo has launched its new streaming service that promises big things for both consumers and cable or streaming operators. Called the Next-Gen Platform, it gives viewers a convenient, unified way to watch recorded content from both cable providers and streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime. Operators like Altice, meanwhile, can implement TiVo's tech to provide consumers with "hyper-personalization, recommendations and voice-control" on multiple devices and screens, TiVo says.
Comcast accused of enrolling customers in programs without consent
Subscribe to cable service for long enough and you'll probably run into lousy customer service at some point, whether it's technicians who don't show up on time or phone reps that won't let you cancel. However, Comcast's behavior in Washington might take the cake. The state's Attorney General has filed an amended complaint alleging that Comcast subscribed more than half of its Service Protection Plan customers without consent since the option was first available in 2011. It frequently enrolled customers without even mentioning the plan, according to the lawsuit, but the worst was when it did -- employees reportedly claimed the $6 monthly service was free, and would even sign people up after they'd explicitly refused it.
Dish customers can no longer access CBS TV channels
If you're looking forward to watching the NFL this Thanksgiving you might find yourself stuck watching holiday reruns instead, as CBS is making good on its threat to black out dozens of channels in response to its ongoing subscription feud with Dish. According to Dish, the network last night barred customer access to 28 local channels in 18 markets across 26 states.
Amazon reportedly nixed plans for its own live TV service
Amazon was working on plans to launch a streaming bundled TV service that would feature both broadcast and cable networks, though that's been on hold since the spring, according to Bloomberg. However, now we know why this endeavor was scrapped: money. People close to the issue told Reuters that Amazon believes it will be unable to make money on this kind of bundled cable service.
ESPN Plus standalone service will start streaming in spring 2018
After purchasing streaming company BamTech for $1.58 billion, Disney said it would offer content via its own on-demand service, rather than going through Netflix. That's not just going to be Star Wars, Marvel and other movie content, but sports from ESPN, too. During its earnings call yesterday, Disney CEO Bob Iger revealed that ESPN's streaming service would be called ESPN Plus (ESPN+) and launch in the spring of 2018.
The FCC is helping cable companies evade consumer protection rules
VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol): is it an information service or a telecommunications service? This is the question that sits at the heart of an ongoing dispute between the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (MPUC), as the FCC takes steps to help cable company Charter avoid state consumer protection rules.
Comcast's internet service was down in several major US cities (updated)
If you rely on Comcast for your internet service, you probably know that things are down in a big way for the provider. According to the consumer watchdog site DownDetector, there are more than 8,000 reports of outages across the US as of 1:00 PM ET on Monday.
Cable giant Altice will become a wireless carrier with Sprint's help
Just because Sprint was jilted at the altar doesn't mean its weekend was all bad. The carrier has struck a deal that will turn Altice (the French company that bought CableVision) into an American wireless provider. Under the agreement, Altice USA will have "full" use of Sprint's network for nationwide voice and data service. In return, Altice will use its broadband network to help Sprint "densify" its coverage as it adds legions of small cell sites.
YouTube meets cable on Comcast's X1 boxes
Last year Comcast plugged Netflix streaming into the X1 setup and starting today it's rolling out YouTube access nationwide. Just as the company announced earlier this year, the service's videos will be available via the YouTube app, or in Comcast's video on-demand section. According to YouTube exec Robert Kyncl, "The living room is YouTube's fastest growing platform. We are excited to supercharge our distribution there and bring Xfinity X1 users a seamless way to consume all of the content they love. Voice is a key enabler to discovery and we are looking forward to bringing it to Xfinity X1 users."
CBS, Comcast deal brings fantasy football to your cable box
We've seen a few attempts to put fantasy football on TV screens over the years, but despite the game's increasing popularity none have really made an impact (we never did see more fantasy leagues appear for the Xbox One). Now CBS has struck a deal with Comcast to integrate its game with the X1 platform. That's not particularly helpful if you use a different TV setup or have a fantasy league on a different platform, but those are the breaks. If you do have the right combination of circumstances, however, you can keep track of your dominating victory/crushing loss in real time without looking away from the game.
Data leak exposed millions of Time Warner Cable customers
Verizon isn't the only big US telecom whose corporate ally left customer data out in the open. MacKeeper developer Kromtech has discovered that BroadSoft, a frequent partner to service providers, was storing over 4 million Time Warner Cable customer records on Amazon cloud servers without a password. The records, which stemmed from the MyTWC mobile app, date as far back as November 2010 -- years before Charter bought TWC. The information included email addresses, user names, financial transactions (though there's no indication of credit card data) and billing addresses. There was even closed-circuit camera footage from BroadSoft's Indian offices, as if to rub salt in the wound.
Demand for Mayweather-McGregor fight crashed pay-per-view servers
Did you pay for an expensive pay-per-view or streaming pass to watch the hyped-up boxing match between Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor, only to boil with rage as your access went down? You're far from alone. Numerous reports have revealed that servers across the US crashed or buckled under demand for the fight, creating outages serious enough that organizers delayed the fight to make sure people could tune in. Mayweather himself said that pay-per-view servers in California and Florida crashed, while Showtime and UFC failed to load, ran into login trouble and otherwise couldn't keep up with interest.
New FX subscription streams shows ad-free for $6 a month
Comcast announced today that it, along with FX Networks, will launch a new on-demand and streaming service that will give viewers commercial-free access to current and past episodes of FX and FXX series. However, you'll have to be an Xfinity TV subscriber and the service -- FX+ -- will cost you an additional $6 per month.
USB 3.2 doubles your connection speeds with the same port
Your future computer or phone will be capable of stupidly fast transfer speeds. The USB 3.0 Promoter Group unveiled the USB 3.2 specification that effectively doubles the current USB 3.1 spec by adding an extra lane. As such, it will allow for two lanes of 5 Gbps for USB 3.0, yielding 10 Gbps, or two lanes of 10 Gbps for 20 Gbps with USB 3.1. As a bonus, the "superspeed" USB-C cable you're currently using already has the capability for dual-lane operation built in.
Netflix has more American subscribers than cable TV
If it wasn't already clear that Netflix has become a mainstay of the American media landscape, it is now. A combination of official data with Leichtman Research estimates shows that, as of the first quarter of 2017, there are more Netflix subscribers in the US (50.85 million) than there are customers for major cable TV networks (48.61 million). This doesn't make it bigger than TV as a whole (the figures don't include 33.19 million satellite viewers), but it's still a big milestone for a streaming service that had half as may users 5 years ago.
