The word of the day is "irony." AT&T has sued Cox Communications for anti-competitive behavior at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).  Specifically, AT&T wants access to Cox's Cable channel 4, a regional cable station in San Diego created by Cox over 12 years ago that shows upwards of 150 San Diego Padres baseball games.

The issue is likely to be hard fought, and is in many ways a unique question the FCC has not fully addressed.  On the one hand, Cox will argue that Channel 4 is not the type of "satellite-delivered" content the FCC compels cable companies to share with competitors.  Cox will argue that Channel 4 is  "terestrially" delivered station specifically exempted from forced sharing with competitors.

That said, the FCC has previously identified local sports programming as "must-have" type of programming, and could justifiably compel licensing of the Padres games to avoid giving Cox an unfair competitive advantage.  It is interesting to note that Cox licenses the channel 4 content and baseball games to Time Warner, which simply exists in other areas of San Diego County than Cox, as opposed to being a direct competitor. AT&T U-Verse competes with both Time Warner and Cox directly, and in its suits identifies the lack of Padres games as a documented reason for customers leaving U-Verse or being slow to adopt the new fiber-optic offering.

The irony of the suit by America's classic anti-competitive company is not lost on Cox.  Cox's position in various media reports is that Channel 4 is similar to AT&T's monopoly over the Iphone, and DirecTV's monopoly over NFL Sunday Ticket.  The problem is these analogies really don't work that well.  While its true the Iphone is limited to AT&T's network (unless you engage in various widely publicized hacks that void your warranty), consumers can still go out and get voice and data service, and even have some competing touch screen phones available on other carriers.  As to NFL Sunday Ticket, unlike channel 4, this service is all about out-of-market games, not so much local sports.  Indeed, you can use a $7 rabbit ears antenna and watch most of the chargers games (perhaps not those on ESPN), whereas if you don't get Time Warner or Cox, you simply don't get the Padres.  Believe it or not, the Padres are irreplaceable when you look at it that way.

The decision is likely to be quite interesting, and could increase competition regionally by making satellite and fiber optic options more competitive in offering access to the Padres games.

Of course if you're tech savvy enough, the day seems to be coming where you can largely dump your cable, satellite, or fiber optic programming and use the web entirely as your entertainment, news, and multimedia outlet.

For some, a laptop, proper tv connector cable, and hulu.com, youtube.com, and other video service websites are already an adequate replacement. With higher bandwidths and wider HD video offerings on the web arriving, the Internet itself can be traditional cable & satellite television's biggest competitor in the years to come.

You can read more about the FCC complaint here, or watch my interview with NBC here.

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A Sprint PCS customer in Connecticut wrote UCAN the following question and explained her personal story: How does joining an international calling plan for about a one-month trip to Israel end up costing double the entire cost of the trip?  The customer stated she couldn't find out how this amount was derived because her bill had no itemized call breakdowns to show how the billing total was determined. The customer called to dispute the bill and requested itemization of her bill.  The response was a demand for payment or service termination within ten days of the date of the notice.  The notice was recieved on or about August 18, 2008 and was dated August 10, 2008.

Background:  In preparing for the trip to Israel, the customer shopped for phone service that had the best international plan for incoming and outgoing calls in Israel. The customer's first choice was to remain with Sprint and therefore, was given Sprint's international plan costing $4 to initiate the plan based on the same conditions as the current calling plan and nothing extra beyond the $4 per month.  The customer's current plan was for 300 minutes per month for outgoing calls & unlimited incoming calls. Sprint had also added bonus minutes due to complaints about constant dropped calls in the middle of business conversations. On or about July 14, 2007, the customer's husband phoned Sprint for reassurance of the costs of calling home andthe costs of incoming calls from the family.  He was told outgoing calls were $1.49 per minute and incoming calls were $.07 cents per minute with $.69 cents per minute roaming charges. It couldn't get much better than this and so they had no worries about limiting the number of calls.

Boom:  Here comes the bill on or about August 14, 2008 after being put on hold repeatedly for 15-20 minutes each time. Sprint informed the customer a mistake was made on the rates quoted, but would honor the roaming charge of $.69 cents instead of the $2.49 per minute charged on the bill. This adjustment would have subtracted about $904 from the existing giant bill.

Lesson Learned:  If you don't see it in writing, don't count on it. If a company's web site didn't back the low rates quoted, you know there's a problem.  

Any international roaming nightmare stories to match this one?  Share them with the community below.

Recently I had to "choose" a broadband Internet provider. After having my "choices" narrowed down for me by a serious lack of competition ( I hear U-Verse is on its way some day), I went with my first, last, and only choice, Time Warner. Despite feeling trapped, the Time Warner customer service rep wooed me with promises of a new broadband paradigm, Roadrunner "turbo." For some reason this "15 Mbps down, 2 Mbps" up Internet was cheaper than the default 8 Mbps/ 1 Mbps option of yesteryear, so I pounced on the deal like a caged tiger given extra scraps of meat at dinner.

All seemed fair. I signed away my first born and promised to tattoo the Time Warner logo on my body, and Time Warner promised to possibly show up in a 4 hour window. After installation, the problems began. I noticed slower loading times than I had previously with Roadrunner.

So I ran a series of speed tests at speakeasy.net. The results showed all servers on Speakeasy returning almost exactly 1500 Kbps, that's 1.5Mbps, Time Warner's basic rate. Not 15 Mbps, 1.5 Mbps. I called Time Warner to chat about the issues with my service, and to see when the "turbo" would take effect.

This is where things get interesting. Apparently, had I never called, I would have simply been provided the basic bandwidth, while paying the "turbo" price. The technical department said that what can happen is that the turbo signal does not "attach" to a particular line that the cable modem is on. The explanation was vague, but the lesson is clear, check the bandwidth you're getting from your broadband Internet provider by using a tool like speakeasy.net, and don't take it for granted that the install was done properly.

This seems to be especially true these days with Time Warner's Roadrunner "turbo" Internet.

Share your story on your broadband Internet provider with everyone below!

Telecom political action groups gave twice as much money to Democrats who switched from opposing to supporting legal amnesty to Telecoms that aided the government's warrantless wiretapping program.

Last week Wired reported that Maplight.org had analyzed campaign donations and found that 94 of 220 Democrats who had previously voted against Telecom amnesty had switched their vote to support a bill that expands the government's ability to conduct wiretaps inside American Telecom facilities.

Media General News Service reported that AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and others sought immunity from prosecution for cooperation with the government's anti-terrorism wiretapping program. Click here to read the entire article.

The center for independent media, The Washington Independent, weighed in with their article, "FISA vote tied to telecom donation." Much is summed up with a quote from Mary Boyle, a spokeswoman with Common Cause: "We certainly know that contributions go a long way to gaining access and influence," she said. "The appearance is that money buys votes." Click here to read the entire aritcle.