Romney Runs Against History in Touting CEO Credentials

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Mitt Romney 2002 Olympics

Mitt Romney, president and CEO of the Salt Lake Organising Committee (SLOC) for the Winter Olympic Games of 2002. Photograph: Corbis

Mitt Romney, president and CEO of the Salt Lake Organising Committee (SLOC) for the Winter Olympic Games of 2002. Photograph: Corbis

Shortly after his election as
governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney gathered the people who
would fill the state’s top jobs for a get-acquainted luncheon.
As the group tucked in to plates of pasta salad and greens,
Romney — like the management consultant he once was –
distributed a paper explaining his operating style. About a
dozen bullet points, including “talk to each other, not about
each other” and “family first,” filled the pages.
Beyond the bromides, Romney outlined the disciplined, data-
driven process that had made him wealthy and then helped him
rescue the 2002 Winter Olympics from scandal.
“I have never seen such self-awareness about one’s own
style,” says Dan Winslow, who became Massachusetts’s chief
legal counsel. “He wanted us to understand it.”
If the presumptive Republican nominee wins the presidency,
the approach he spelled out over lunch at the Seaport Boston
Hotel is the style he’d bring to the White House.
Some historians doubt it would work in Washington.
Since 1900, few former businessmen have made it to the Oval
Office. The most prominent was the nation’s 31st president,
Herbert Hoover, whose handling of the economy during the Great
Depression cemented his reputation as a failure.
“Our greatest presidents, like Lincoln and FDR, were
career politicians,” says Bruce Miroff, an expert on the
presidency at the State University of New York in Albany.
Unfamiliar Constraints
The presidency’s unique requirements mean that everyone who
holds the office needs some on-the-job training, something
Romney has done before. Still, the White House would bring
unfamiliar constraints. There’s no equivalent in the corporate
world to the separation of powers that often thwarts a
president’s will. And the job demands political savvy more than
managerial excellence.
“Our entire system of government is meant to preclude
models and skills used in the corporate world, which may be why
presidents with business experience are not our most successful
presidents,” says Barbara Perry, a senior fellow at the
University of Virginia’s Miller Center.
Coming from a profit-centered environment where they enjoy
unrivaled authority, executives often stumble amid politics’
fungible goals and multiple power centers, says Mickey Edwards,
who served eight terms as a Republican congressman from
Oklahoma. And compared with the iron logic of a balance sheet,
the politician’s ability to read the public mood — an essential
skill for governing — is amorphous.
Taking Abuse
“You have to like politics,” says former U.S.
Representative William Frenzel, 83, a Minnesota Republican, who
spent 20 years in Congress after a 16-year business career.
“You can’t object to glad-handing. You can’t object to taking
some abuse from people you have no reason to take abuse from.”
The late Richard Neustadt, author of the classic study
“Presidential Power and the Modern Presidents,” rejected the
analogy of the president as an all-powerful CEO, writing:
“Presidential power is the power to persuade.”
George W. Bush was the first president with a master’s in
business administration. His father, George H.W. Bush, made a
fortune in oil before entering politics. In their pre-Oval
Office days, Jimmy Carter ran a peanut farm and warehouse and
Hoover was a wealthy mining executive and financier.
Of that group, only George W. Bush was re-elected.
‘Didn’t Inhale’
Now, at a time of [...] Continue Reading…

Article source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-15/romney-runs-against-history-in-touting-ceo-credentials.html

Just Cellular Taps UPS Capital for Business Funding

CHATSWORTH, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–

Just Cellular, Inc., a leading online source for affordable new, used,
and refurbished cell phones, today announced a new funding agreement
with UPS Capital, the financial services arm of UPS. Under the
agreement, a line of credit is provided to Just Cellular using the
company’s in-transit inventory as collateral.

“In today’s economic environment small to medium size businesses are
seeking creative ways to finance growth,” said Eric Kirkland, CEO and
founder of Just Cellular. “Our agreement with UPS Capital is reassuring
to our traditional banking partners, who are comfortable knowing that
UPS’s visibility and tracking tools are on the other side of this
transactional financing.”

The increased cash flow has enabled Just Cellular to accelerate payment
to its suppliers, who are mainly based in China. This in turn has
allowed Just Cellular to negotiate more favorable terms with these
suppliers. The agreement is also ideally suited for the Company’s
international financing needs, as traditional business lenders typically
do not advance funds against inventory that is not within the borders of
their home countries.

To better coordinate its shipping and customer service, Just Cellular
has integrated the UPS delivery system into its custom-designed
enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. The ERP system provides sales
analytics, forecasting, and customer data for maintaining ongoing
customer relationships.

Today, Just Cellular products can be found on eBay, Amazon and at www.justcelluarstore.com.

About Just Cellular

Just Cellular, Inc., a family-owned business, is a leading online source
for affordable new, used, and refurbished cell phones. Customers can
visit the Just
Cellular webstore, Amazon or eBay where they can choose products
from major brands like BlackBerry, Casio, HTC, LG, Motorola, and
Samsung. They can also search by carrier, which includes ATT, T-Mobile,
Sprint, Verizon, and many more.

Through the use of its proprietary, custom-designed enterprise resource
planning (ERP) system, Just Cellular prides itself on delivering
unparalleled service to its hundreds of thousands of customers.

Article source: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/just-cellular-taps-ups-capital-164500831.html

Current weather

On Friday, Digicel Trinidad and Tobago introduced their 4G mobile broadband service, a long-awaited and significant upgrade from the GPRS/EDGE connections which have been the standard for Internet connections to cellular phones for more than a decade.
 

Local telecommunications incumbent TSTT has announced the build, out of their own 4G network scheduled for completion in September. Competitive considerations aside, and that’s removing a lot from the table, since both providers seem set for a vigorous battle for mindshare over the next six months, true mobile broadband is set to change many presumptions about local Internet use.
 

By January 2013, Trinidad and Tobago’s internet consumption profile will look quite different. Cellular phones enjoy the widest distribution of any communications technology, but mobile Internet penetration, according to the Telecommunications Authority’s Market update for 2011 continues to hover at around 10 per cent. This is surprisingly high for a service which has offered dial-up speed for most of the 21st century.
 

The headroom for growth becomes clearer when compared to the 56 per cent market penetration for fixed Internet connections to households. Two things are predictable in the market for this new technology—initial rates will be relatively high, and competition for customers will be vigorous when both players, offering rival HSPA+ networks, pursue the installed base of mobile phone users.
 

The enthusiasm of local cellular phone users for adopting new technologies will also play a role in the rate of adoption for mobile broadband. Trinidad and Tobago was a leader in unlocking the iPhone after it was introduced, and that was when removing carrier restrictions from the device was quite challenging.
 

This amplification of Internet access will bring both opportunities and challenges. The Ministry of Education has made a commitment to ensuring that children are digitally connected when they enter secondary schools, first with laptops and soon, if conversations on the matter turn to action, on tablets.
 

More connectivity choices will mean that there will be a greater need for IT department level teacher and parent monitoring of these digital tools and more robust education about the way these technologies should be used by the children they are intended to benefit.
 

Businesses will need to begin preparing for a communications climate in which a web-enabled public migrates to Internet based channels for information and to cultivate business relationships. Companies which are first movers on these possibilities will reap the rewards of early adoption.
 

Of all the sectors to be affected by the coming of mobile broadband, the local software development industry is best poised to take advantage of a substantial growth in not just local broadband connectivity, but a surge in consumption of local content and services.
 

Delivering that information and those services efficiently and elegantly can act as a leveraging incentive for real expansion and sustainability in the local technology sector. The Government’s role in what must remain a private sector service, subject to the vagaries of the market and all its attendant rewards for successful implementation, must be that of a facilitator.
 

Quite apart from obvious Government initiatives to develop its own service-based apps and improved Internet accessibility, is the need to focus its engagement in the technology sector on critically needed support systems. It is one of the great infrastructure errors of our local technology industry that many of our most popular local Web sites are hosted in the US, creating needless subsea traffic to view content created locally and consumed, to a large degree, by local Internet users.
 

The Government should act as an incubator for more market focused programming training and ensure that long delayed projects such as the technology park at Tamana substantively address the future needs of a more digitally enabled Trinidad and Tobago.

Article source: http://www.guardian.co.tt/editorial/2012-05-14/tt-poised-broadband-battle

Nigeria fines mobile phone carriers Airtel, Etisalat, Globacom and MTN $7.3M over poor service

By Jon Gambrell, The Associated Press
LAGOS, Nigeria – Regulators in Nigeria have fined four mobile phone carriers a total of $7.3 million over poor service in a nation that depends on cellular phones for communications, a spokesman said Sunday.
The Nigeria Communications Commission’s penalties hit Bharti Airtel Ltd. of India, Abu Dhabi-based Etisalat, local firm Globacom Ltd. and South Africa-based MTN Group Ltd., some of the dominant carriers in Africa’s most populous nation. Etisalat and MTN must pay $2.25 million apiece, while Airtel faces a penalty of $1.68 million and Globacom faces a $1.125 million fine, said Reuben Muoka, a commission spokesman.
The fines come for poor service, dropped calls and bad line quality in March and April, Muoka said. The commission issued a statement Saturday saying that they decided to allow January and February to be a grace period for the companies to improve their services.
In October, the communications commission warned carriers it would begin fining them for poor service.
“The current penalties signal a new regime of quality of service management in the Nigerian telecommunications industry,” the commission said.
The companies have until May 21 to pay the regulators or they will face further penalties.
MTN, long the dominant provider in Nigeria, has 41.1 million subscribers in the nation after 10 years of doing business there. MTN did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Etisalat said in a statement it is committed to delivering quality service to more than 12 million subscribers in Nigeria, and expects to spend more than half a billion dollars on upgrading its network this year.
The CEO of Etisalat’s Nigeria division, Steven Evans, blamed “the failure to hit some of the quality measures” in part on industrywide difficulties including a lack of reliable power, accidental damage to transmission lines and occasional sabotage.
“These factors are unique to the operating environment in Nigeria and pose a tough challenge for operators to deliver quality of service levels equal to that of other countries,” Evans said. “What we would like to see is the declaration of the telecommunications industry as critical national infrastructure which would afford the industry and its facilities greater protection.”
Emeka Oparah, a spokesman for Airtel in Nigeria, declined to comment. Officials with Globacom could not be reached Sunday.
Nigeria, long troubled by pothole-littered roads and little electricity, has relied on mobile phones since the government granted the public access to them about a decade ago. Landlines are almost nonexistent, as the state-run telephone company has collapsed and repeated efforts to sell it to a private company have failed. However, carrier service is often so poor that those who can afford it carry multiple phones with different providers to be able to make calls.
The ultimatum by the commission comes as Nigeria, home to 160 million people, continues its explosive growth, making it a lucrative market for mobile phone service providers. The arrival of Airtel sparked a price war in the market, with local phone calls now down to pennies a minute.
___
AP Business Writer Adam Schreck in Dubai, United Arab Emirates contributed to this report.
___
Jon Gambrell can be reached at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP.

Article source: http://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/nigeria-fines-mobile-phone-carriers-114746712.html

Nigeria fines 4 mobile phone carriers $7.3M

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — Regulators in Nigeria have fined four mobile phone carriers a total of $7.3 million over poor service in a nation that depends on cellular phones for communications, a spokesman said Sunday.The Nigeria Communications Commission’s penalties hit Bharti Airtel Ltd. of India, Abu Dhabi-based Etisalat, local firm Globacom Ltd. and South Africa-based MTN Group Ltd., some of the dominant carriers in Africa’s most populous nation. Etisalat and MTN must pay $2.25 million apiece, while Airtel faces a penalty of $1.68 million and Globacom faces a $1.125 million fine, said Reuben Muoka, a commission spokesman.The fines come for poor service, dropped calls and bad line quality in March and April, Muoka said. The commission issued a statement Saturday saying that they decided to allow January and February to be a grace period for the companies to improve their services.In October, the communications commission warned carriers it would begin fining them for poor service.”The current penalties signal a new regime of quality of service management in the Nigerian telecommunications industry,” the commission said.The companies have until May 21 to pay the regulators or they will face further penalties.MTN, long the dominant provider in Nigeria, has 41.1 million subscribers in the nation after 10 years of doing business there. MTN did not immediately respond to requests for comment.Etisalat said in a statement it is committed to delivering quality service to more than 12 million subscribers in Nigeria, and expects to spend more than half a billion dollars on upgrading its network this year.The CEO of Etisalat’s Nigeria division, Steven Evans, blamed “the failure to hit some of the quality measures” in part on industrywide difficulties including a lack of reliable power, accidental damage to transmission lines and occasional sabotage.”These factors are unique to the operating environment in Nigeria and pose a tough challenge for operators to deliver quality of service levels equal to that of other countries,” Evans said. “What we would like to see is the declaration of the telecommunications industry as critical national infrastructure which would afford the industry and its facilities greater protection.”Emeka Oparah, a spokesman for Airtel in Nigeria, declined to comment. Officials with Globacom could not be reached Sunday.Nigeria, long troubled by pothole-littered roads and little electricity, has relied on mobile phones since the government granted the public access to them about a decade ago. Landlines are almost nonexistent, as the state-run telephone company has collapsed and repeated efforts to sell it to a private company have failed. However, carrier service is often so poor that those who can afford it carry multiple phones with different providers to be able to make calls.The ultimatum by the commission comes as Nigeria, home to 160 million people, continues its explosive growth, making it a lucrative market for mobile phone service providers. The arrival of Airtel sparked a price war in the market, with local phone calls now down to pennies a minute.___AP Business Writer Adam Schreck in Dubai, United Arab Emirates contributed to this report.___Jon Gambrell can be reached at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP.

Article source: http://news.yahoo.com/nigeria-fines-4-mobile-phone-carriers-7-3m-112624207--finance.html

The ABCs of camera phone technology

Camera phones have come a long way since the first sub-megapixel models of the late 1990s and early 2000s. Aside from being more broadly available — there’s barely a phone sold today that doesn’t have a camera — they’ve also become much less of a novelty and much more useful as cameras.Thanks to general advances in camera technology, which benefited both standalone cameras and phones, a good camera phone today takes pictures that are on a par with a previous generation of point-and-shoots. Camera phones now can have double-digit megapixel counts, genuine optical zoom and the ability to shoot true HD video. It’s gotten to the point where, according to Flickr’s metadata harvesting, the #1 camera overall among Flickr’s users is the one on the iPhone 4.In this article, I look at the key technologies that have allowed camera phones to become good enough to be the default way many users take pictures. But I’ll also examine what it is that still sets apart a full-blown camera — whether it’s a pocket-size point-and-shoot or a professional-level DSLR — from its smaller phone-based brethren.Image sensors: CMOS vs. CCDThe core technology of any digital camera is the same, regardless of how it’s packaged: a lens, an image sensor and image-processing hardware. A camera phone has to cram all of this into a space that’s usually about the size of a dime.Phone manufacturers can opt for one of two major image sensor technologies: charge-coupled devices (CCDs) and complementary metal oxide semiconductors (CMOS).A history of camera phonesIs it a camera that also has a phone, or a phone that also has a camera? If you want to know where we’ve been and where we’re going in this area of technology, check out our slideshow:Camera phones: A look back and forwardCCD image sensors, the more mature and established of the two technologies, pipe a signal from each pixel in the sensor to a single (analog) output, which is then processed in separate circuitry. This way, more of the silicon can be used for image capture, as opposed to image processing. The overall image quality is higher, but at the cost of greater power drain. As a result, there have been very few phones that have used CCD; one exception was the Sharp Aquos Shot 933SH, which was never released in the U.S.With CMOS, a legacy technology recently adapted to imaging, each pixel sensor performs its own light-to-signal conversion and then passes the resulting digital information to other signal-processing circuitry on the same die. Because CMOS packs more functionality into a single chip, it’s easier to integrate into other systems — such as phones — and requires less energy.CMOS’s big drawback, however, is the “rolling shutter” problem. Because the image sensor acquires its image by scanning line-by-line — instead of all at once — anything in extremely fast motion (for instance, a helicopter propeller) will be distorted in bizarre ways. These limitations show up most profoundly when shooting video, but they can mar still images as well. Software can compensate for these problems to some degree, but can’t eliminated them entirely.That said, CMOS is being continuously improved in ways that make it more useful in phones. Consider “back-side illumination,” which increases CMOS light sensitivity by placing the sensor-to-sensor wiring in the CMOS behind the sensors rather than in front of them. The iPhone 4 camera uses this technology, and sensors made by Toshiba and Sony now use it as well.Lenses: Why megapixels alone aren’t enoughAnyone who’s followed the evolution of conventional digital cameras couldn’t help but notice how most of the conversation seems to be dominated by talk of megapixels. Granted, the more pixels in the sensor, the bigger the native resolution of the image. But the quality of the image fed to the sensor depends on another, far more fundamental camera technology: the lens.Camera phone lenses are constrained by the size of the phone, so phone makers have made up for this in one of two ways: creating better sensors (as described above), and creating more advanced lens technologies.Most of us are familiar with the basic ground-glass lens, where glass is first cast in a basic structure and then machine-tooled into a more specific shape. These lenses still yield the best quality, despite the cost and the manufacturing effort. A second method, injecting polymer into a metal mold, allows for rapid production but at lower quality. The fixed-focus lenses on low-grade camera phones typically use polymer lenses.A sample wafer scale lens. The entire package includes a lens and a sensor in a space of only a few millimeters. Image courtesy Alps Electric Co. Ltd.A third approach, the wafer-scale lens, uses some of the same silicon-wafer manufacturing techniques used for microprocessors. The results are still not quite of the same grade as full-blown glass, but they allow the sensor to be packaged into a much smaller space. They can be found in a few phones such as India’s OliveSmart V-S300 and the older Nokia 2330.Camera phone softwareMost camera phones ship with a default picture-snapping app, which traditionally does little more than take very basic photos. As a result, third-party camera apps that let users improve, edit and/or share their images have been developed to fill the void. Most recently famous, thanks to its acquisition by Facebook, is Instagram, a photo-snapping app with some funky filtering and useful sharing options (for both iOS and Android users).Any photo app is going to be limited by two things: the phone’s own hardware, and the way the phone’s operating system makes that hardware available to applications. It may be possible to get around some of those limitations by rooting or jailbreaking the phone, but that’s not always practical.Consequently, photo apps can improve picture quality by only so much, so most third-party camera apps instead supply photo-management, image-adjustment and picture-taking features — in other words, ways to make the process more convenient.Phone cameras versus standalone camerasI’ve hinted before at how phone cameras tend to be more convenient but less functional [...] Continue Reading…

Article source: http://www.arnnet.com.au/index.php?id=1563697295&rid=-159

Collinsville gets new cell phone store

SUBMITTED PHOTO

The Cellular Connection, a Verizon Premium Wireless Retailer, opened at 1108 Collinsville Crossing. It celebrated with a ribbon cutting on April 30. The retailer offers internet, home phones, Dish Network and cell phones. Hours are 9 a.m.-8 p.m. Monday-Friday, 9 a.m.-7 p.m. Saturday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday.

Article source: http://www.stltoday.com/suburban-journals/illinois/life/collinsville-gets-new-cell-phone-store/article_c220c0e7-95c1-5dda-ae74-73bfc3ce2866.html

Mobile Phone and Tablet Chip Markets Continue to Explode, Poised for Double-Digit Growth Through 2016

FARMINGTON, Conn., May 10, 2012 /PRNewswire-iReach/ — Global Information Inc. is pleased to announce two significant new reports on the rapidly evolving cellular handset and tablet chip markets.
Cellular Handset Tablet Chip Markets 2012
The mobile handset, smartphone, and tablet chip markets have seen tremendous growth in the last 5 years, driven by innovative new products like Apple’s iPhone and iPad, and Google’s Android phones and tablets. Forward Concepts’ new cell phone and tablet market research report, Cellular Handset Tablet Chip Markets ’12, offers extensive forecasts for all cellular handset and cellular-enabled tablets, and virtually all of the chips that enable them through 2016. This extensive 654 page market study covers handsets, tablets, integrated circuits, and major semiconductor components. Moreover, the study provides forecasts through 2016 for annual unit shipments, average selling price and revenue for handsets, tablets and individual chip components.
Declining growth in cellular handset shipments (6.5% in 2011 compared with 12% growth in 2010) is largely offset by a predicted 17% growth in smartphone sales. Baseband chips constitute the largest non-memory cellphone chip market, valued at $15.9 billion for 2011. Power management units account for a $5.5 billion market value. Other major cellular chips are  RF transceivers ($3.7 billion), RF power amplifiers ($3.6 billion), image sensors ($2.9 billion),  standalone application processors ($2.8 billion), and  touch-screen controllers ($2.7 billion).
For startups and smaller companies, the market for cellular peripheral chips presents more profitable opportunities than these major core markets. Wireless peripheral “combo” radio devices consisting of Wi-Fi, FM/AM, Bluetooth, GPS and (perhaps soon) NFC together constitute a growing share of the cellphone component market.
An Executive Summary for this report and a free sample of the full document are available at http://www.giiresearch.com/report/fc239908-cellular-handset-tablet-chip-markets-12.html
Near Field Communication (NFC) Market to 2016
The NFC-enabled handset market is set to grow at a CAGR of 68.8% from 2011-2016, according to GBI Research’s new NFC and mobile technology market research report, Near Field Communication (NFC) Market to 2016 – Increased Availability of NFC Embedded Handsets Key for Higher Market Penetration.
This NFC market forecast predicts that NFC will also be integrated in BlueTooth chipsets before 2016. Indeed, BlueTooth-embedded handset sales are expected to reach 2.4 billion units by 2016, and the majority of these phones will also feature NFC. Bluetooth 4.0 (BLE) was launched in November 2011 and this version is expected to lead handset manufacturers to opt for dual mode chips that support both BLE as well as older BlueTooth technology.
This report covers the latest information and research efforts of a number of NFC companies and organizations around the world. The report provides information on the market size of different NFC secure element (SE) form factors and provides analysis of the key NFC end user market segments.
An Executive Summary for this report and a free sample of the full document are available at http://www.giiresearch.com/report/gbi233231-near-field-communication-nfc-market-2016-increased.html
About Global Information Inc. Global Information (GII) (http://www.giiresearch.com) is an information service company partnering with over 300 research companies around the world. Global Information has been in the business of distributing technical and market research for more than 25 years. Expanded from its original headquarters in Japan, Global Information now has offices in Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Europe and the United States.
Media Contact: Jeremy Palaia, Global Information, Inc., 1-860-674-8796, Press@gii.co.jp
News distributed by PR Newswire iReach: https://ireach.prnewswire.com

Article source: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/mobile-phone-tablet-chip-markets-234800483.html

AT&T U-verse Expands To Ottawa, Kansas

OTTAWA, Kan., May 10, 2012 /PRNewswire/ — ATT* today announced that ATT U-verse® services, including ATT U-verse TV, ATT U-verse High Speed Internet and ATT U-verse Voice, are now available in Ottawa, Kansas.
This marks the latest expansion of ATT U-verse availability across Kansas, where ATT U-verse first launched in March 2007. ATT U-verse services are now available to more than 540,000 living units in and around the Kansas City, Topeka and Wichita areas.
“Our most recent expansion of ATT U-verse in Ottawa reflects our commitment to make the investments necessary to bring consumers across Kansas a new era of communications technology,” said Steve Hahn, president of ATT Kansas. “Ottawa residents have asked for more choices in television service and today we’re delivering.”
ATT U-verse services, which are all delivered over ATT’s advanced Internet Protocol (IP) network, offer an alternative to cable with a better DVR, better features and apps, and a better TV experience. ATT U-verse allows customers to bring together their TV, broadband, home phone and ATT wireless services ? all on one bill ? with unique features that provide a new level of integration, convenience and control.
ATT U-verse TV has ranked “Highest in Residential Television Service Satisfaction in the South Region, Four Years in a Row,” according to the J.D. Power and Associates 2011 Residential Television Service Provider Satisfaction Study(SM) .
ATT U-verse is being expanded in Kansas thanks to legislation supported by many state legislators, and signed into law by the governor. This important legislation created an environment that encourages new video providers, such as ATT, to invest in Kansas to compete against incumbent cable providers.
“Competition and investment are two hallmarks of an open and thriving marketplace, and this announcement by ATT demonstrates that the Video Competition Act we passed in 2006 had the intended outcome,” said State Sen. Pat Apple, chairman of the Senate Utilities Committee. “I want to publicly thank ATT for its substantial investment in bringing U-verse to Ottawa. U-verse brings state-of-the-art technology in internet access, video and voice services. ATT could have invested in other states or communities but chose Ottawa.”
ATT U-verse TV is the fastest growing TV service in the country, with more TV subscribers added than any of the major TV providers reported over the last 12 quarters combined. In the first quarter of 2012, ATT U-verse added 200,000 TV subscribers, and in April, ATT U-verse passed the 4 million mark in U-verse TV subscribers nationwide.
“Such strong growth shows that traditional cable was the only game in town for too long,” said Nancy Garvey, vice president and general manager for ATT’s Greater Midwest Region. “We know Ottawa customers want a better choice to break free from cable, and ATT U-verse is the answer. We’ll continue to make U-verse TV even better for customers with regular upgrades and new cool applications that enhance your TV experience.”
More Choice, Advanced Features
ATT U-verse TV is the only 100 percent Internet Protocol-based television (IPTV) service offered by a national service provider, making ATT U-verse one of the most dynamic and application-rich services available today, with advanced capabilities that customers don’t get from other providers.
Where ATT U-verse services are available, U-verse TV customers can enjoy numerous features and applications, the ability to manage their DVR recordings, and, for qualifying TV customers, watch hit TV shows on their iPad or select smartphones with the U-verse app; the freedom to manage and playback recorded programs from a single DVR on any U-verse connected TV in the house with Total Home DVR; the ability to choose and watch up to four of their favorite channels at one time with the ATT U-verse My Multiview app; an extensive High Definition (HD) channel lineup; personalized, on-screen weather, sports, traffic and stock information via ATT U-bar; the ability to check the current weather conditions and forecasts in any U.S. city with Weather On Demand; and more.
With ATT U-verse High Speed Internet services, every ATT U-verse customer or small business broadband user can enjoy faster available speeds than ATT previously offered. Packages include a range of speeds, with the fastest downstream speeds up to 24 Mbps. All ATT U-verse High Speed Internet packages include wireless home or office networking capability at no extra cost.
ATT U-verse Voice is a managed IP-based service that is delivered over ATT’s fiber-rich network. This allows U-verse Voice customers to enjoy great sound quality and reliability, as well as innovative calling features that integrate with your ATT U-verse TV, high speed internet and ATT wireless services. Customers can benefit from a single, combined voice mailbox for ATT U-verse Voice and ATT wireless messages; an online portal to manage your call preferences and settings from any PC; an online voice mailbox; the ability to view your incoming calls and voicemail notifications on your U-verse TV with Caller ID on TV; the ability to view your Call History on your U-verse TV and initiate a call from your PC or TV using Click to Call; and more. All U-verse Voice customers have 911 service.
ATT U-verse offers multiple combinations of TV, Internet and Voice packages to customize your experience. Standard professional installation is included with most packages. Additional promotional offers may be available to qualifying customers who add U-verse Internet or U-verse Voice service.
For additional information on ATT U-verse — or to find out if it’s available in your area — visit ATT U-verse or visit an ATT retail location.
*ATT products and services are provided or offered by subsidiaries and affiliates of ATT Inc. under the ATT brand and not by ATT Inc.
About ATT
ATT Inc. (T) is a premier communications holding company and one of the most honored companies in the world. Its subsidiaries and affiliates – ATT operating companies – are the providers of ATT services in the United States and around the world. With a powerful array of network resources that includes the nation’s fastest mobile broadband network, ATT is a leading provider of wireless, Wi-Fi, high speed Internet, voice and cloud-based services. A leader in mobile broadband and emerging 4G capabilities, ATT [...] Continue Reading…

Article source: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/t-u-verse-expands-ottawa-191100593.html

Would you pay extra for seamless Wi-Fi connectivity?

The Wi-Fi Alliance conducted a survey that shows wireless users want easier access to Wi-Fi.
(Credit:
Wi-Fi Alliance)

NEW ORLEANS–Wireless carriers are looking to Wi-Fi to help them offload traffic from their cellular networks. And a new standard will make it even easier for consumers to use the unlicensed airwaves. But would you pay extra for that easy access?
The Wi-Fi Alliance, a trade association promoting the use of Wi-Fi, says a recent survey indicates that nearly three-quarters of respondents said they would.
The Wi-Fi Alliance is promoting the new standard, which will basically allow people to access a carrier’s Wi-Fi without ever typing a passcode or even selecting a Wi-Fi hot spot. The technology will automatically authenticate users, and it will layer on security that is typically missing from some Wi-Fi hot spots. Depending on roaming agreements between carriers, users could get access to many more Wi-Fi networks via this technology than they would without it.
The Wi-Fi Alliance says that devices using the so-called Passpoint technology will start being certified in June.
The survey, which was conducted by Wakefield Research on behalf of the Wi-Fi Alliance, found that 90 percent of the 1,000 respondents polled said they would be more likely to stick with their current service provider if it offered the ability to connect automatically in Wi-Fi hot spots. And about 72 percent said they would pay more for it.

While it’s no surprise that wireless subscribers would be happy about doing away with the cumbersome process of signing on to Wi-Fi networks, what is surprising is that people would be willing to pay extra for it.
Wi-Fi Alliance CEO Edgar Figueroa said this is an indication that wireless service providers might want to consider charging extra for the access as another revenue stream. But he was careful to say that he hasn’t talked specifics with carriers about their monetization strategy when it comes to this technology.
“I think that we are at the dawn of where Wi-Fi providers can offer differentiated services from open Wi-Fi connections,” Figueroa said. “And carriers could charge for that access, which could offer another revenue stream.”
Wireless carriers have already been turning to Wi-Fi to help them alleviate congestion on their networks, especially in densely populated areas where usage is very high. Some carriers, such as ATT, are building Wi-Fi hot zones in cities like New York and Chicago. Customers initially have to enable access to the wireless networks, but then they can be automatically authenticated onto those networks.
Today, the service is offered free of charge to customers who already subscribe to wireless data. And when using the Wi-Fi network, the data used isn’t counted toward their monthly totals. Cable companies also offer Wi-Fi access in public areas for free to subscribers of their broadband services.
Figueroa said he didn’t know if any carriers, like ATT and the cable companies, would ever start charging for the access to Wi-Fi.
“We haven’t talked about business models with the carriers,” he said. “But it’s an option.”
Other survey findings suggest that 85 percent of respondents prefer Wi-Fi to their carrier’s cellular network. I also find this claim interesting, but potentially misleading. Wi-Fi is faster, and perhaps many people prefer it because it’s fast. But I also think many smartphone or
tablet users accessing Wi-Fi like it because it doesn’t count against their data plans. And for many with data plans it’s also free.
In any case, it will be interesting to see if wireless carriers use Wi-Fi as a potential source of revenue or if they simply give it away for free to help alleviate congestion on their network. If history is any indication, companies may offer it as a perk until things becomes congested or difficult to manage, and then they’ll start charging for it.
What do you think? Would you pay extra on your monthly wireless bill for easy access to Wi-Fi?

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