Broadband

Comcast is getting into the home security business.

The company plans to announce tomorrow that it's expanding its Xfinity Home Security service. Last year the company began testing the service in Houston. Now it's adding six more cities. Additional cities that will get the new service include parts of Philadelphia; Portland, Ore.; Jacksonville, Fla.; Sarasota/Naples, Fla.; Chattanooga, Tenn.; and Nashville.

The Xfinity Home Security service offers traditional home security features, such as police and fire alarm protection with 24-hour monitoring. It also offers some home automation functions, such as the ability to adjust thermostats and lights remotely. … Read more

An Australian woman was reportedly sentenced to 18 months in prison for stealing a SIM card from a utility meter and racking up more than $190,000 in charges.

Kylie Maree Monks, 33, pleaded guilty to computer-related fraud, receiving stolen property, and one count of making a false declaration, according to a report in Australian newspaper The Mercury. Monks reportedly stole a SIM card from a power meter that had a wireless data connection to Telstra's wireless broadband network.

Aurora Energy, the power company that owned the meter, became aware that the SIM (subscriber identity module) card had been … Read more

The first market that will get Google's new Groupon competitor will be--drum roll, please--Portland, Ore.

The search giant announced Thursday that it will be launching the beta version of its Google Offers coupon and discount deals service in Portland. Google first revealed its plans for the Groupon-like service in January.

Google has already put up a page where people can sign up to receive deals that will be e-mailed each day. Like the Groupon service, users can receive discounts of 50 percent or more at local businesses. But unlike Groupon, the deals won't need to hit a user … Read more

Verizon is eliminating early termination fees for its DSL service as the company also simplifies its plans for broadband customers.

The company on Monday announced that it would now offer just two tiers of DSL service: basic and enhanced. The new basic service will offer between 500 kbps and 1.0 Mbps download speed service for $19.99 per month or $14.99 per month if ordered online. The enhanced service will offer download speeds in two ranges--between 1.1 to 3.0 Mbps and 3.1 to 7.0 Mbps; or between 7.1 and 15 Mbps--depending on what … Read more

It's easy to understand why Internet infrastructure giant Cisco Systems needed to get out of the consumer electronics business, but did it have to send a popular product, like to the Flip camcorder, to an early grave?

Cisco on Tuesday announced that it will stop making the Flip camera, a popular pocket-sized video camera it bought only a couple of years ago from a company called Pure Digital. The reason? The company said it is strategically realigning its business to focus on selling its core products.

"We are making key, targeted moves as we align operations in support … Read more

The real-life drama between Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg appears to be over, as a federal appeals court judge tells the twin brothers to accept their $65 million settlement with Facebook and move on.

On Monday the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth District ruled in favor of Facebook, and upheld the 2008 settlement agreed to by Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss and their partner Divya Narendra (See the ruling here (PDF)).

In that settlement, the Winklevosses and Narendra agreed to accept $65 million in exchange for dropping their lawsuit against Zuckerberg. … Read more

Cablevision is the next cable operator on Viacom's hit-list as the company tries to stop cable companies from offering apps that stream its content on iPads.

Last week, Viacom notified Cablevision that its iPad app, which delivers live TV and video-on-demand to its subscribers on their iPads while they're inside their homes, is not authorized. This is just the latest move from Viacom in a battle to maintain control of its content on mobile devices. Last week, the company became involved in two lawsuits with Time Warner Cable over the cable operator's iPad app.

On Thursday, Time … Read more

The Obama administration has enlisted the help of more than 100 economists to make its case for incentive spectrum auctions that will free up more airwaves for wireless broadband services.

Today, the White House presented a letter signed by 112 economists "who specialize in telecommunications, auction theory and design, and/or competitive policy." The signed letter was part of a summit that the administration put together in an effort to persuade Congress to authorize a round of incentive auctions that would take unused broadcast TV spectrum and use it for wireless broadband services.

In the letter the economists … Read more

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has thrown out Verizon and MetroPCS' suits challenging the Federal Communications Commission's new Net neutrality rules.

The appeals court said in its order today that the suits filed in January by Verizon Communications and MetroPCS were premature. Specifically, the court said that Verizon and MetroPCS needed to wait until the FCC's Net neutrality rules are posted to the Federal Register before they could file their suits.

The suits, which the broadband providers filed separately, accused the FCC of overstepping its jurisdiction in adopting new rules that would … Read more