The deal for Braintree would give PayPal access to data and lucrative transaction fees from Braintree’s expanding network, which currently processes more than $10 billion annually for companies like OpenTable, Uber Technologies and Airbnb. Braintree charges merchants a 2.9% commission and 30-cent transaction fee.
via PayPal Nears Deal for Braintree Payments – Digits – WSJ.
The WiFi deployment plays a dual role for Virgin Media Business, however. The company uses fiber backhaul connections to ensure the network’s performance, but also to lease to mobile operators that can use it to bolster their 3G and 4G networks. It’s a win-win for everyone: Residents get free WiFi, Virgin gets access to prime real estate for small cells, and the city gets a cut of the revenue it earns from the wireless operators.
via 2013 Leading Lights Finalists: Most Innovative Carrier WiFi Deployment | Light Reading.
One of the biggest obstacles organizers are likely to face are laws discouraging or preventing governments from competing with private broadband providers. So far 19 states have passed such laws.
“It strikes me as crazy that some states are banning communities from building or expanding existing networks, even as we’re subsidizing private companies,” Mitchell said.
He says these laws actually end up preventing incumbent providers from expanding higher speed internet services in many areas, because they know their existing legacy services won’t face competition.
via Why Your City Should Compete With Google’s Super-Speed Internet | Wired Enterprise | Wired.com.
As it stands now, you pay your Internet service provider and go wherever you want on the Web. Packets of bits are just packets and have to be treated equally. That’s the essence of Net neutrality. But Verizon’s plan, which the company has outlined during hearings in federal court and before Congress, would change that. Verizon and its allies would like to charge websites that carry popular content for the privilege of moving their packets to your connected device.
via Verizon’s diabolical plan to turn the Web into pay-per-view | The Industry Standard – InfoWorld.
Also from: Net neutrality faces uncertain U.S. court ruling
Verizon argues that the FCC doesn’t have authority to regulate an information service, a class of communications that the agency has previously exempted from most regulation. The net neutrality rules are a violation of Verizon’s First Amendment free speech rights and its Fifth Amendment property rights, the company has argued.
This puts us in an incredibly uncomfortable position as we do not feel that it’s remotely in their jurisdiction to ask for a detailed budget of our business, any more than it is within our right to ask for theirs.
The company plans to cash in on education with custom-made tablet computers and curricula, as American classrooms move ever closer to complete digital integration. It began by purchasing a company called Wireless Generation, rebranding it as Amplify and pouring in more than half a billion dollars.
via Inside News Corp’s $540 Million Bet on American Classrooms.
As far as anyone on the outside can tell, this is their sole business model: leveraging patents not to build competitive products, but simply to strong-arm others into forking over money when they create something that stumbles into the broadly worded language of the intellectual property protections.
via ‘Patent trolls’ put brakes on S.F. transit app – SFGate.
He was confident the patents in question were bogus, loose legalese describing obvious ideas. Moreover, the service that he received his data from, NextBus, already had a license to use those patents.
The village of Villa Talea de Castro, dotted with small pink and yellow homes, has a population of 2,500 indigenous people. Tucked away in a lush forest in the southern state of Oaxaca, it was not seen as a profitable market for companies such as Slim’s America Movil. The company wanted at least 10,000 subscribers to bring the village into its mobile coverage, AFP said.
So the village, under an initiative launched by indigenous groups, civil organizations and universities, put up an antenna on a rooftop, installed radio and computer equipment, and created its own micro provider called Red Celular de Talea (RCT) this year.
via Ignored by big companies, Mexican village creates its own mobile service – Times Of India.
One way that Sprint and T-Mobile are helping make the MVNO business a success is by enabling many of the back office functions that the MVNOs of the mid-2000s had to do on their own. For example, Chartier said that T-Mobile offers a couple of different options: For traditional MVNOs, the company will provide just network access and the MVNO will handle the billing and logistics. For partner brands, which Chartier compares to a brand licensing arrangement, T-Mobile offers reverse logistics, carrier billing, marketing support and even distribution.
via Sprint, T-Mobile execs explain the MVNO explosion – FierceWireless.
Google will eventually be completely replacing all the routers with its Aruba gear. It expects the process to take 18 months. Cisco would not confirm if it was the exclusive supplier for AT&T’s 7,000 store deployment, but it’s safe to say it will be getting the boot from several Starbucks locations, in the least
via Aruba Networks Replaces Cisco in Starbucks | Light Reading.