Tag Archives: AT&T 5G

Weekly output: AT&T’s 5G plans, TikTok’s “Project Texas,” JSX’s Starlink WiFi, Mark Vena podcast, reproductive rights, AI writing

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AUSTIN–This is my 10th trip here for SXSW, which means I have long since made my peace with the reality that I’m never going to get to all the panels that I’d like to watch. At least this conference now offers video on demand of panels, so I can catch up on what I missed in my nonexistent spare time.

3/7/2023: AT&T’s Mansfield touts midband 5G, but downplays standalone 5G, Light Reading

I wrote about half of this interview of Gordon Mansfield, vice president for global technology planning, network planning and engineering, on my transatlantic flight back from MWC Thursday of last week, then wrote the other half Friday.

3/7/2023: TikTok Plans to Keep Your Data Safe With a ‘Massive Amount of Oversight’, PCMag

I spent Monday at the State of the Net conference in D.C., not sure of what story I’d come away with, then found one in this brief session in the afternoon. Once again, I wrote half of it on a plane–from DCA to DFW–and then finished it in a hotel room in Dallas.

Screenshot of the story as seen in Safari on an iPad mini 6, as illustrated by a photo showing a Pixel 7 showing a 96.24 Mbps download in the Speedtest app.3/9/2023: Starlink Flight Test: What It’s Like Using SpaceX’s Broadband for Inflight Wi-Fi, PCMag

I’d been trying to find a way to test JSX’s Starlink WiFi when I’d already be on the West Coast near one of the airports this regional carrier serves, but instead the media day the carrier hosted in Dallas allowed me to get this done. (As I noted in the story, JSX provided airfare to and from DFW plus one night’s lodging.) For another read on their inflight connectivity, see Zach Griff’s writeup at The Points Guy; for a take on JSX’s overall value proposition, enjoy this post from Gary Leff at View From the Wing.

3/9/2023: S03 E47 – SmartTechCheck Podcast, Mark Vena

Watch the video version to see me talking with my hands while opining about CDA 230.

3/11/2023: How Can Big Tech Preserve Reproductive Rights? Cool It With the Data Collection, PCMag

Of course the first panel I’d watch in Austin would feature a tech-policy type from D.C., Center for Democracy & Technology president and CEO Alexandra Reeve Givens–along with former Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards and The Markup CEO Nabiha Syed.

3/11/2023: Can You Tell Whether this Headline Was Written by a Robot?, Grit Daily House

I moderated this 20-minute panel at the media house set up offsite by my conference pal Jordan French’s startup-news publication. Something I learned from my conversation with Anne Ahola Ward, John Sung Kim, and De Kai: AI is already doing a lot of work on LinkedIn, in terms of polishing profiles and writing recruitment letters.

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Weekly output: FAA vs. C-Band 5G, CES cancellations, Mark Vena podcast

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For all of the stress 2021 has inflicted, its final days still represent a vast improvement over what the end of 2020 felt like.
 

Screenshot of USA Today column as seen on a Pixel 5a's copy of Chrome12/21/2021: How 5G could make a mess of your next flight, USA Today

The latest in a very long series of 5G explainers was more of an aviation-safety story than a mobile-broadband item, so I talked to a different set of sources. And they convinced me that there’s more to this than the Federal Aviation Administration getting persnickety at the last minute. 

12/22/2021: Some Tech Companies (and Tech Journalists) Scrap Plans for In-Person CES 2022 Visit, PCMag

I wrote about the cast of characters–mostly side-stage exhibitors so far, but also a lot of my tech-journalism friends–that had decided to sit out CES 2022 due to concern over the Omicron variant of the novel coronavirus. After this ran, Lenovo announced that it, too, was canceling plans to show up in Vegas.  

12/23/2021: S01 E23 – SmartTechCheck Podcast, Mark Vena

I joined this podcast for one last time this year to discuss some Apple-shareholder activism, the log4j server vulnerability, the C-Band 5G fracas, and the status of CES.

Weekly output: finessing 5G pricing, cruise-ship apps, RootMetrics 5G report

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The significance of April 15 this year didn’t involve filing my taxes, thanks to the IRS moving back the deadline to May 17. Instead, Thursday happened to be the 10th anniversary of my last day of work at the Washington Post. Looking that up made me realize that I’d never quite decided when my freelance existence began, but now I know: April 29, the date of my resignation from the paper after the two weeks of vacation time I took following that final Friday in the newsroom.

Screenshot of 5G-details post as seen in Safari on an iPad mini4/14/2021: Here’s how AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile slice and dice 5G plans and pricing, Light Reading

This is my first post for a new client–thanks to an old editor working there. Freelancers, remember to be nice to your editors. Readers, give Mike Dano a follow on Twitter if you want to stay current about the wireless business.

4/14/2021: The Rise of Digitalization & Mobile Apps: Travelling Smarter and Safer, Seatrade Cruise Virtual

I was going to have a panel at this cruise-ship conference on my calendar last spring, but then the pandemic sank those plans. Instead, the event resurfaced as an online gathering, at which my role was to interview three executives at cruise lines–Jay Schneider of Royal Caribbean Group, Scott Piccolo of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings, and Luca Pronzati of MSC Cruises–as well as Greg Ross-Munro, CEO of the app-development firm (and panel sponsor) Sourcetoad. We had a good conversation about the design principles that go into cruise-ship apps and where these folks think the industry is heading with them.

4/15/2021: RootMetrics 5G report puts AT&T in first place, Light Reading

RootMetrics PR gave me an advance on their latest report on 5G network performance, which I then wrote up for my new trade-pub client. Lesson re-learned from this: Always read through to the end of a study to see where they tested, which in this case was a grab-bag of mostly medium and small cities.