Google fiber to the home experiment to cover 500,000 users with speeds of 1GB by 2012: [7th Apr 2011]

Despite the good news that Kansas City will be the test location for the new Google fiber to the home experiment, Google has made it very clear that there will be only a few new jobs created as a result. The network is expected to cover between 50,000 and 500,000 users giving them speeds of 1GB by 2012. Matt Dunne from Google has made the comment that most of the work will be done remotely and crews will be brought in to do the ground work. These are people who have been used by the company before and will not include local people. However it has been pointed out that simply having this sort of infrastructure will lead to huge gains for the city.


It was announced last week that companies which use Epsilon to take care of their email marketing have become victims of a hacker. One of these companies is Verizon. It is thought that 2,500 companies have been affected although the number of individuals is unknown. Although it would be safe to say that this number must be significant. Verizon customers have received a letter regarding the breach and explaining that just their names and email addresses have been compromised. It was pointed out that other confidential information was not hacked into.


Verizon has agreed to settle for a payment of $93.5 million over claims that they overcharged the General Services Administration for government data and voice contracts. An investigation discovered that Verizon and MCI submitted false invoices for property taxes, carrier recovery charges and other un-allowed expenses.


A new survey by Changewave research has shown that the Verizon iPhone has experienced far fewer dropped calls than the AT&T version. The survey questioned more than 4,000 users and found that satisfaction rates between the two companies was around the same, but AT&T had a dropped call rate of more than 4% compared to Verizon's 1.4%. AT&T is, in fact, one of the worst providers in the country for dropped calls and usually has very poor satisfaction rates.


A new report has suggested that the deal between AT&T and T-Mobile is likely to take much longer than the 12 months which has been estimated by AT&T insiders. The deal is currently being opposed to by Sprint and is being checked by regulators. It also needs to pass hearings in the Senate and the House and will come under Attorney General scrutiny. This is before it can get final approval from the FCC. The report from Strategy Analytics also points out that a prolonged approval process will not have a financial effect on either company as AT&T have agreed to pay a failure fee to T-Mobile if it falls through. However subscribers may find it difficult to decide what move to make if they are kept waiting until their contracts run out.


A study from the University of Copenhagen has discovered that wasting time on the Internet while at work actually makes people work better in the long run. The study split people into two groups. One watched a funny video while the other simply went straight to work but had to listen to the other group laughing. The group which watched the video made fewer mistakes when asked to complete a task. It is thought that people eventually will become distracted by the Internet and it may be beneficial to allow a certain amount of time each day. Google, for example, allows 20% of the day on the Internet or doing other non-work activities.