AT&T Unveils Usage-Based Pricing

As Todd Spangler wrote in Multichannel News [subscription required], “It might be the beginning of the end for the all-you-can-eat broadband buffet”, as AT&T announced usage-based pricing last week for its DSL and U-verse customers. According to Multichannel [this link free], Sanford Bernstein senior analyst Craig Moffett says that this move may provide “air cover” for large U.S. cable operators to do the same. As more users are watching “over-the-top” video services instead of just web-surfing on their broadband connections, cable systems financial models are eing stressed.

Comcast, Cox and Charter cable systems already have usage caps on their broadband services and Canada’s Rogers moved to consumption-based broadband pricing several years ago. Time Warner, however met with customer resistance when it experimented in 2009 with usage-based pricing on some of its systems.

So what does this all mean for the average couch potato? Well if you were expecting to cut your cable service from the SuperOptimal Platimum Tier to Basic Cable and watch all your shows on Hulu Plus, your broadband provider just might have something else in mind.

UPDATE: Netflix Cuts Data Use on Canada Streaming Service [and the techie details from BGR.]

Online Blows Past Papers in Ad $$

According to the the eighth annual State of the News Media report, more money was spent on online advertising than on newspaper advertising in 2010. This correlates with the fact [from the same report] that more people (46%) now get their news online at least three times a week, versus newspapers (40 percent) for the first time. “Only local TV news is a more popular platform in America now (50%),” says the Pew Study.

Another key finding in this year’s report was that “nearly half of all Americans (47%) now get some form of local news on a mobile device.”

Japan Quake – NHK World Feed

If you’re a news junkie like me, you’re not watching a US broadcast or cable net, you’re watching the NHK World TV feed; either on the net [in English] or on cable/satellite [in Japanese].

• Cablevision Channel 265*
• Fios Metro DC Chan 456
• Comcast Metro DC Chan 272
• Cox Virginia Chan 471
• RCN Metro DC Chan 35
• Comcast Minneapolis Chan 78

* On Cablevision, there is often English on the SAP (Secondary Audio Program) channel. On your cable remote hit the Settings button, scroll up to “Choose SAP Language” item, use the right selection arrow to change “Japanese” to “Spanish” and hit “SEL”.

UPDATE: The Washington Post comments on NHK’s coverage.