Motorola and Verizon will soon unveil a new tablet with a FiOS digital pay-TV service included, trying a new method to differentiate itself from the growing number of tablets expected to hit shelves this year.
The 10-inch device will run Android 2.x and can launch as early as “this autumn.”
Motorola is a long-time partner of Verizon, creating TV set-top boxes for the FiOS service.
Market leader Apple has sold over 3 million iPad tablets since launch in early April, but HP, RIM, Microsoft, Samsung, Lenovo and LG have all promised tablets by the end of the year, running either BlackBerry, WebOS, Windows 7 or Android operating systems.
None of those devices, however, has promised TV integration.
Verizon has 25 percent share of the U.S. TV market, and 29 percent of the broadband market.
Taking another shot directly at the iPad, the upcoming Motorola tablet will also support Adobe Flash, the standard used by over 85 percent of videos on the Web but blocked by Apple.
Result for: broadband
In their most recent report on the status of broadband internet in the US, the FCC has finally admitted “broadband is not being deployed to all Americans in a reasonable and timely fashion.”
Although this is the sixth Broadband Deployment Report to be issued by the agency since 1999, it is the first to reach this conclusion. Previous reports have been widely criticized for both the benchmark by which broadband was defined and the methodology for determining service areas.
For example, in the last report, from 2008, 200kbps downstream (download) speed was still considered broadband. Additionally, a single address capable of broadband service was equated to the entire zip code being served.
In the current report notes, “Our examination of overall Internet traffic patterns reveals that consumers increasingly are using their broadband connections to view high-quality video, and want to be able to do
so while still using basic functions such as email and web browsing.”
In order to more accurately reflect that reality the standard for broadband has been raised to 4Mbps downstream and 1Mbps upstream. Service areas were based on numbers from the National Broadband Plan, published earlier this year.
Result for: broadband
In their most recent report on the status of broadband internet in the US, the FCC has finally admitted “broadband is not being deployed to all Americans in a reasonable and timely fashion.”
Although this is the sixth Broadband Deployment Report to be issued by the agency since 1999, it is the first to reach this conclusion. Previous reports have been widely criticized for both the benchmark by which broadband was defined and the methodology for determining service areas.
For example, in the last report, from 2008, 200kbps downstream (download) speed was still considered broadband. Additionally, a single address capable of broadband service was equated to the entire zip code being served.
In the current report notes, “Our examination of overall Internet traffic patterns reveals that consumers increasingly are using their broadband connections to view high-quality video, and want to be able to do
so while still using basic functions such as email and web browsing.”
In order to more accurately reflect that reality the standard for broadband has been raised to 4Mbps downstream and 1Mbps upstream. Service areas were based on numbers from the National Broadband Plan, published earlier this year.
Using the new metrics resulted in a determination that 14 million Americans live in areas where broadband internet service isn’t offered.
More information on these changes can be found in Chapter 3 of that plan.
National Broadband Plan Chapter 3 Current State of the Broadband Ecosystem
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