New York congressman Eric Massa announced that he will introduce a bill that would make bandwidth caps for heavy broadband users illegal. The representative for Corning, NY, where Time Warner Cable plans to test tiered broadband plans, noted that the unlimited data plan currently offered by TWC for $40 a month would increase to $150. The Massa Broadband Internet Fairness Act would "prohibit unfair tiered price structures from internet providers" and "address the importance of helping broadband providers create jobs and increase their bandwidth while increasing competition in areas currently served by only one provider."
eBay announced that it plans to spin off Skype. In a statement, eBay CEO John Donahue noted that "Skype is a great stand-alone business" but "has limited synergies with eBay and PayPal." While a specific timetable has yet to have been set, eBay said that Skype will be spun off as a public company in an IPO in 2010.
TV.com's traffic doubled in the month of March. CBS's online destination for long-form content attracted 679,000 unique users, who streamed 3.4 million videos in March. While the number is a fraction of what competitor Hulu, an NBCU-Fox joint venture, receives in a month, it is a healthy start for the freshly renovated TV.com.
Sources say that AT&T is trying to extend its exclusive iPhone deal through 2011. The current exclusivity deal between the two companies expires in 2010. While details are scarce, it is obvious that AT&T wants to keep the successful smart phone out of the hands of its competition.
NBC plans to require users to pay a subscription fee for online access to the 2010 Winter Olympics. NBC will also once again only offer coverage to users whose cable, satellite or telecom TV service agree to a deal with NBC, which Cablevision did not do during the 2008 Summer Games, effectively shutting out Cablevision customers who wanted to stream the games online.
Shelly Palmer is a consultant and the host of MediaBytes with Shelly Palmer a daily show featuring news you can use about technology, media & entertainment. He is Managing Director of Advanced Media Ventures Group LLC and the author of Television Disrupted: The Transition from Network to Networked TV (2008, York House Press) and the upcoming, Get Digital: Reinventing Yourself and Your Career for the 21st Century Economy (2009, Lake House Press). Shelly is also President of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, NY (the organization that bestows the coveted Emmy Awards). You can join the MediaBytes mailing list here. Shelly can be reached at shelly@palmer.net For information about Get Digital Classes, visit www.shellypalmer.com/seminars