<a href="http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Time-Warner-Cable-Close-to-Brand-Refresh-118601″>
Time Warner Cable has been <a href="http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Time-Warner-Cable-To-Change-Name-106222″>talking about a brand change ever since they were spin off from Time Warner back in 2008. Like their DOCSIS 3.0 network upgrades they’re taking their time accomplishing this, acknowledging last summer the refresh would involve the elimination of the Roadrunner brand, and possibly the Time Warner Cable name entirely.

Sources at Time Warner Cable inform Broadband Reports the brand change should finally come sometime in the next few months.

There’s no word yet on what’s going to happen to the roadrunner/rr.com domain and e-mail names, and it’s not clear yet if the brand refresh will go so far as to give all services an entirely new name (think Comcast Xfinity) or eliminate the Time Warner Cable name.

“‘I’ve heard “Time Warner Communications’ a few times as a possible name,” says the source.

What is confirmed is that the Roadrunner mascot is being shelved, and the plan will involve some name changes to Internet tiers. Those changes will be fairly simple, with existing tier names simply seeing the addition of the word “Internet” (the “standard” tier will simply become the “standard Internet” tier). The source also confirmed that Time Warner Cable will be eliminating the term “wideband” in reference to DOCSIS 3.0 upgrades, which has proven confusing to some customers.

<a href="http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Knology-is-Looking-For-a-Buyer-118598″>
In August of 2010 we <a href="http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/109725″>noted how cable operator Knology (see our user reviews) acquired Sunflower broadband, a small Kansas ISP that came to national “fame” by being one of the first ISPs to impose the low cap and high overage billing model here in the States. Now Knology is looking to sell itself. Anonymous sources tell the Wall Street Journal that the company is shopping itself around to potential buyers — including private-equity firms. Knology, headquartered in West Point, Georgia, serves just under 800,000 residential TV and broadband subscribers. The report also notes that Wave Broadband is also still looking for a buyer.
<a href="http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Knology-is-Looking-For-a-Buyer-118598″>

<a href="http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Comcast-Still-Not-Interested-in-UsageBased-Pricing-118597″>
Responding to Time Warner Cable’s <a href="http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Time-Warner-Cable-Returns-to-Optional-Metered-Billing-118574″>latest usage-based pricing experiment, Comcast executives say they still have no intention of experimenting with metered billing. “We have a very high customer satisfaction rating and we don’t really want to rock the boat on that product,” Comcast chief financial officer Michael Angelakis told attendees this week at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom conference in San Francisco. “I give them credit for trying different things,” Angelakis said of Time Warner Cable’s efforts. “We have real momentum in that business and the goal is to keep it.”

In other words, Comcast faces competition from uncapped Verizon FiOS in far more markets than Time Warner Cable does, and would prefer not to shoot themselves in the foot. While saying they have “very high” customer satisfaction rankings is a bit of a stretch (they’ve traditionally fallen into the bottom half of rankings), the company doesn’t want to lose any of the ranking gains they’ve seen over the last few years by imposing confusing and/or punitive new pricing models that aren’t really necessary in the first place.
<a href="http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Comcast-Still-Not-Interested-in-UsageBased-Pricing-118597″>

<a href="http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Only-1-Million-Google-TV-Devices-in-Use-118596″>
It was kind of clear that Google TV landed with a bit of a thud, when Logitech CEO Guerrino De Luca recently stated their launch of the Google TV powered Revue was “a mistake of implementation of a gigantic nature,” and that Google’s product was a <a href="http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Logitech-CEO-The-Revue-Was-a-Bust-116994″>glorified beta. But how big of a thud? Janko Roettgers dug through some data to find out that there’s less than a million Google TV devices currently in use, and about half of those are the discontinued Revue. That of course won’t include those who bought Google TV devices and never turned them on for some reason, but it doesn’t paint a very flattering picture of an effort Google hoped would revolutionize television.
<a href="http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Only-1-Million-Google-TV-Devices-in-Use-118596″>

<a href="http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/TMobile-Email-Says-Roaming-Caps-Arrive-April-5-118594″>
Last month <a href="http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/TMobile-Imposes-Domestic-Data-Roaming-Caps-118127″>leaked information suggested that T-Mobile was preparing new charges for users who roam off network, and now users are receiving e-mails confirming them of this fact. The e-mail (see enlargable image below) informs users that the company will begin imposing roaming data limits and overages starting April 5. As of that date, T-Mobile’s 5 GB plan now comes with a 100 MB off network roaming cap, and their 10 GB plan now comes with a 200 MB off network roaming cap. Unlike normal T-Mobile caps where the customer is throttled, in this case T-Mobile will sever data connectivity for users completely until connection to a Wi-Fi hotspot is made. The precise limits and the e-mail: att=1731722
<a href="http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/TMobile-Email-Says-Roaming-Caps-Arrive-April-5-118594″>

<a href="http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Wednesday-Morning-Links-118593″>
Broadband stimulus scandals: Missteps in the buildout, and what’s at stake fiercetelecom.com
Metro-PCS warns new promotion could raise subscriber prices totaltele.com
Apple snags multipoint touchscreen patent – can sue the bejeezus out of everyone now theregister.co.uk
Phone apps help themselves to our contacts,Google tracks our web history,and supermarkets monitor our buying habits: The end of online privacy? guardian.co.uk
802.11ac ready to scream into the marketplace fiercebroadbandwireless.com
The five biggest U.S. cable operators, plus Time Warner, are trying to prevent Dish Network from securing trademark on TV Everywhere multichannel.com
Sources: New Apple TV launching in March, near-immediate availability hinted for new iPads 9to5mac.com
Less than 1M GoogleTV devices in use gigaom.com
GSM mobile standard wide open for attack; corrupt telcos, more computing power to blame theregister.co.uk
Apple to reveal iPad 3 on March 7th fiercewireless.com
WiFi from LED lights? mobile-ent.biz
Raspberry Pi credit-card sized Linux PCs are on sale now, $25 Model A gets a RAM bump engadget.com
<a href="http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Wednesday-Morning-Links-118593″>

<a href="http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Tuesday-Evening-Links-118591″>
Mobile net kingpins v the world: ‘Why should we pay the 4G tab?’ theregister.co.uk
Apple developing new audio file format to offer ‘adaptive streaming’ guardian.co.uk
Cisco first out the door with next-gen hotspot gigaom.com
Fox, Warner want secure, high-def film players cnet.com
Why the vaunted spectrum auctions won’t cut it cnet.com
The Forces Shaping Broadband in Western and Eastern Europe ecommercetimes.com
Serious Internet outage strikes East Africa after several undersea cables cut ispreview.com
Comcast launches “smart home” program gazette.com
How mobile broadband can transform Africa CNN.com
Duracell Powermat WiCC could bring wireless charging to all smartphones pcauthority.co.au
FTC Chairman: New Google Privacy Plan Forces Consumers to Make a Brutal Choice allthingsd.com
The Pirate Bay, Now Without Torrents torrentfreak.com
<a href="http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Tuesday-Evening-Links-118591″>

<a href="http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/HBO-Go-Coming-to-Xbox-360-118589″>
Back in October Microsoft announced that they’d soon be bringing significant additional broadband video content to the console, including content from Comcast and FioS TV. Upon <a href="http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/116436″>closer inspection the offer left a little something to be desired, with users needing to have a cable TV subscription and broadband subscription from a particular ISP to access most of the content. They’re now adding to that lineup, with Engadget being told by HBO’s Eric Kessler that HBO Go will be arriving on the Xbox 360 starting April 1. You’ll of course need to subscribe to traditional cable (and it has to be a cable company with an HBO Go agreement with HBO), traditional HBO, and have an Xbox Live Gold subscription to access this content via the 360.
<a href="http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/HBO-Go-Coming-to-Xbox-360-118589″>

<a href="http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Verizon-Family-Data-Plans-Coming-Mid-Year-118588″>
Both <a href="http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/114317″>Verizon and <a href="http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/ATT-Hints-At-Mobile-Data-Family-Plans-114511″>AT&T last year hinted more than a few times that they’d finally be joining the modern age by offering family data plans. Ideally the bucket-o-bytes approach would, like voice minutes, work across different family accounts and more importantly across devices, meaning no more annoying additional individual subscriptions for your tablet, handheld game console, or other device. While AT&T did recently announce a <a href="http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/117954″>price hike, family plans were nowhere to be found during recent earnings announcements.

Verizon seems closer to a launch, telling attendees (transcript, pdf) at the Deutsche Bank Media and Telecommunications Conference that family plans will be dropping very soon. Verizon CFO Fran Shammo told investors that the company has been slow on the idea because it’s a “a very complex equation,” and Verizon has wanted to make sure such plans would be “good for Verizon and…good for our customer.” Shammo gave mid year as a vague launch window, starting with LTE users:

As it stands, Verizon makes plenty of money charging each individual member of a family an individual data plan for each device, with most of their allotments left unused. Verizon and AT&T pricing is very carefully crafted so that the least expensive option (usually around 200-300MB) is too little, but the next step up (usually 2-3 GB) is too much.

People clearly want pooled data if we’re moving to per byte wireless. However, shifting away from the existing model, which is carefully designed to get everyone paying as much money as possible, has clearly confounded both companies. Both AT&T and Verizon will introduce new plans that try to give the impression of value, without eroding existing profits. In other words, expect oodles of caveats when these options finally arrive later this year.
<a href="http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Verizon-Family-Data-Plans-Coming-Mid-Year-118588″>

<a href="http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/LightSquared-CEO-Resigns-118585″>
With the company <a href="http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/LightSquared-is-Dead-118383″>all but dead after being denied a necessary FCC spectrum condition waiver, LightSquared CEO Sanjiv Ahuja is getting out while the getting is good. The company released a statement this afternoon announcing that Ahuja resigned his position, but will continue to serve as chairman of the board. While the company hunts for a new CEO, they’re appointing chief network officer Doug Smith and CFO Marc Montagner as co-Chief Operating Officers.

Sanjiv has shown great leadership in bringing the LightSquared vision to this point, including leveraging his experience in the telecom industry to sign dozens of critical partnerships across the country,” said LightSquared’s chief financial backer Phillip Falcone in a statement. “As the company takes the next step forward, we continue to be excited about the prospects and look forward to working with new leadership to accomplish our goal of building and operating an innovative, competitive wireless network.”

The next step forward is most likely into nonexistence, and the thirty-five wholesale partners Ahuja signed deals with will likely now simply look to Sprint or Clearwire for their connectivity needs. The FCC doesn’t appear eager to bend on the necessary condition, and it remains unclear if LightSquared intends to sue the agency as they had once promised. Despite dwindling hope and resources, Falcone insists they still hope to build an actual network someday.

We are…committed to working with the appropriate entities to find a solution to the recent regulatory issues. We, of course, agree that it is critical to ensure that national security, aviation and the GPS communities are protected. I am confident that working together, we can solve this problem and bring the American consumer the lower priced 4G wireless alternative they need and deserve,” Falcone said.
<a href="http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/LightSquared-CEO-Resigns-118585″>