Buzz Out Loud Podcast 1130: Verizon is Robbing the Hood

Verizon explains its early termination fee reasoning. It turns out it's just trying to help the poor. You see, when they charge these outrageous fees, it SAVES poor people money on their phones. At least as long as they don't mind being locked into a contract for years. We also rage against the Rage Against the Machine number-one non-Christmas song.

Watch this: Ep. 1130: Verizon is Robbing the Hood

39:56

Podcast

Barnes & Noble to compensate for late e-book Readers http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704786204574608100009605442.html
http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/21/nook-1-1-update-hitting-now/

Yelp bails on Google deal? http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10419547-36.html

Other Stories

Intel launches redesigned Atom chip for Netbooks
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-10419387-64.html
http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2009/12/intel-reveals-next-generation-atom-details.ars

Android stealing consumer attention from iPhones?
http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Mobile-and-Wireless/Android-Stealing-Consumer-Attention-from-iPhones-444606/

Sales of music video games plummet in 2009
https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5BH5DS20091218

PSP-4000 accidentally leaked in print ad over the weekend?
http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/21/psp-4000-accidentally-leaked-in-print-ad-over-the-weekend/

Twitter? Profitable? Really?
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10419569-36.html

Justin.tv to launch pay-per-view service
http://www.beet.tv/2009/12/exclusive-justintv-to-launch-payperview-service-.html

Verizon defends doubling of early termination fee
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/12/19/1429252/Verizon-Defends-Doubling-of-Early-Termination-Fee
http://arstechnica.com/telecom/news/2009/12/verizon-350-etfs-theyre-a-good-thing.ars

Rage Against the Machine beat X Factor winner in charts
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/8423340.stm

VOICE MAIL
Michael from Texas on the Iranian Cyber Army

Anonymous on net neutrality

E-MAIL
Hey BOL,

Since net neutrality and throttling are popping back into the news recently I figured I’d share a recent experience I’ve had: My cable provider in Florida (Brighthouse) offers two different options for cable internet: Earthlink and Time Warner Road Runner. I was previously on Earthlink but switched to Time Warner due to a huge speed jump from Earthlink, and my download tests have jumped from about 8 mbps to roughly 20 mbps. Actual usage experience seems about the same as Earthlink, except for YouTube performance! Most movies pause every few seconds, and HQ/HD mode is almost impossible to use. Hulu and Netflix streaming work fine (most of the time). At first I thought maybe there was something up with the YouTube servers, but days had gone by and there was no improvement. I searched for the words “youtube time warner slow” and found countless discussions about this problem. After analyzing trace routes and comparing performance between users and different providers, the general consensus on the message boards is that Time Warner is throttling YouTube and has been for some time now. Then I stumbled across the most startling advice: Instead of going to https://www.youtube.com, one user suggested going to the *Australian* YouTube at http://au.youtube.com to avoid the Time Warner throttle. After I made that simple change, YouTube was blazing fast. Every video I loaded up started immediately and completed without any pausing, and HD mode worked fine as well! Put a tin foil hat on me- I don’t care: this experience made me a believer. We need net neutrality, NOW. Have you guys heard any other stories from Time Warner users?

Love the show! Happy holidays.

Mike the surfing chip designer in FL

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Hey buzz crew,

I was listening to your podcast on my ipod touch and heard you mention that Apple has made Safari the only browser on the iphone and blocked off any others. That seems to be wrong as I went to the app store and searched “browser” and saw multiple web browsers to download (some free and some up to $3.99). So there you go, you don’t have to use safari.
This may be 100% wrong because maybe the browsers on the app store use the safari engine to generate web pages, in that case I admit my mistake… but not really.

Love the show, keep up the awesome work!
Dmitry Kogosov

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Hey Buzz crew,
Why don’t the movie studios just use public key cryptography methods to encrypt the movies? Each theater could have it’s own public and private key pair, and the studio could encrypt the movie using the theater’s public key and only the theater’s private key would be able to decrypt it. That way if they have the movie they can play it. No need to wait for the key from the studio. Plus, this is much more secure than sending the key via email…

Kevin, Phoenix AZ