OK, so I’m very confused about Apple’s announcement today that YouTube videos will be viewable on the iPhone via Wi-Fi or EDGE networks. (The videos are viewable today via AppleTV). Apple has designed an application that will wirelessly stream YouTube videos now that YouTube has been encoding their videos to the H.264 format.
I get that the videos will be viewable via Wi-Fi, but EDGE? That’s the wireless standard that partner AT&T deploys. And AT&T has a hard and fast rule: no streaming video on its handsets that it doesn’t specifically condone.
In fact, it’s all-CAPS prohibited use in the standard user agreement:
EXCEPT FOR CONTENT FORMATTED IN ACCORDANCE WITH AT&T’S WIRELESS CONTENT STANDARDS, UNLIMITED PLANS CANNOT BE USED FOR UPLOADING, DOWNLOADING OR STREAMING OF VIDEO CONTENT (E.G. MOVIES, TV), MUSIC OR GAMES. FURTHERMORE, UNLIMITED PLANS (EXCEPT FOR DATACONNECT AND BLACKBERRY TETHERED) CANNOT BE USED FOR ANY APPLICATIONS THAT TETHER THE DEVICE (THROUGH USE OF, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION, CONNECTION KITS, OTHER PHONE/PDA-TO-COMPUTER ACCESSORIES, BLUETOOTH OR ANY OTHER WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY) TO LAPTOPS, PCS, OR OTHER EQUIPMENT FOR ANY PURPOSE.
Does Apple’s announcement that YouTube will be available over EDGE networks means that AT&T is changing its ban on streamed video? Or does it meant that YouTube’s videos meet AT&T’s wireless content standard? Is AT&T a partner in this effort? Will users be billed for data usage minutes when they watch YouTube videos?
I’ve asked the Apple PR people about this (forget about getting in touch with the AT&T PR people today — NXTcomm is sucking all the oxygen out of that company), but, as usual, don’t expect a response any time soon, if ever.
If I hear back, I’ll let you know.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 10:16 AM | Print | Comments (1)Verizon’s fiber-to-the-prem high-speed Internet service has hit a key milestone: one million customers. The Rich and Marjorie Bayer family of Massapequa, New York have been officially embraced as the one-millionth Verizon FiOS broadband customer and the telco is making quite a fuss over them in a very interesting new approach to corporate PR.
The news release of the milestone arrived in an email that consists solely of a link to a “press kit.” The press kit is a mini-website that features not only the release, but also a navigational bar that links to a fact sheet, a bio of the family, video of the family and the installation of the broadband service, photos and more.
This comprehensive approach to corporate message management seems to be powered by a company called Publicaster, but it’s the first time I’ve seen it in use. (See picture below.)
In any event, CEO Ivan Seidenberg plans to announce the achievement of this milestone during his speech at NXTcomm today. One other tidbit: Verizon also claims it now serves almost 500,000 FiOS TV customers, which would put its Q2 07 quarterly gains for this service at around 152,000, roughly on par if not slightly higher than the 141,000 net new FiOS TV customers added during Q1 07.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 9:18 AM | Print | Comments (0)
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