Weekly output: 5G IoT security worries, Big Ten carriage deals, House of the Dragon streaming glitches, Netflix + ads, Russian digital attacks on Ukraine, YouTube TV, Thursday Night Football, Xfinity Mobile, NBC Sports Washington, non-TV video viewing, Plex breach, video budgets, FuboTV, LotR: Rings of Power, SpaceX + T-Mobile

Monday’s schedule has three big items on it: the Space Launch System’s Artemis I liftoff, our kid starting seventh grade, and my flying across the Atlantic for the IFA electronics trade show in Berlin for the first time since 2019. They’re all pretty exciting, although one of them has a vastly more detailed checklist.

(The IFA organizers are covering most of the travel costs for an invited group of U.S. journalists and analysts, your blogger here included.)

Screenshot of story as seen in Safari on an iPad mini 5.8/22/2022: The next wave of wireless security worries: API-driven IoT devices, Light Reading

My Black Hat coverage continued with this recap of a talk about the possible security risks of connected devices on 4G and 5G networks.

8/22/2022: NBCUniversal and its Peacock streamer get Big Ten Saturday night, FierceVideo

I spent my mornings this week filling in at my video trade-pub client, starting with this post about a sweeping deal for college-sports carriage rights.

8/22/2022: Some Fire TV users fired up over streaming glitches with HBO Max, FierceVideo

Some House of the Dragon viewers had trouble watching the Game of Thrones prequel on Amazon Fire TV devices.

8/22/2022: Report: Netflix to keep new movies and kids’ shows ad-free, FierceVideo

I can imagine the relief of cash-strapped parents on learning that the upcoming cheaper-with-ads version of Netflix won’t feature ads in kid-oriented content.

8/23/2022: Six months into the war, how have Ukraine and its Western allies resisted Russia’s digital tactics?, Fast Company

I was almost done with this piece when I got the chance to quiz TCP/IP co-author Vint Cerf at a Washington event about how Russia has abused his creation.

8/23/2022: YouTube TV to add YouTube Shorts and four-channel viewing, FierceVideo

This lede essentially wrote itself: “YouTube TV’s shorter-attention-span viewers may applaud (albeit briefly) two new features apparently coming to the streaming video service.”

8/23/2022: DirecTV-Amazon deal keeps Thursday Night Football in bars, FierceVideo

This story about NFL rights is really one about the uneven availability of broadband in the U.S.

8/23/2022: Comcast’s Xfinity Mobile Cuts Rates for Subscribers With 2 or 3 Lines, PCMag

Verifying the fine print in Xfinity Mobile’s plans took a surprisingly long time.

8/24/2022: Comcast sells D.C. RSN to Monumental Sports & Entertainment, FierceVideo

After I wrote this, the Washington Post reported that MSE founder Ted Leonsis is preparing a bid to buy the Washington Nationals.

8/24/2022: 59% of U.S. adults watch video daily on non-TV devices, FierceVideo

I wrote up a survey of video-viewing habits.

8/24/2022: Plex reports data breach, tells users to reset passwords, FierceVideo

It was somewhat nice to write about a data breach that didn’t involve me.

8/25/2022: Survey: 26% of U.S. households have cut video budgets, FierceVideo

This survey found that Americans’ biggest money-saving move was dining out less often.

8/26/2022: Fubo adds slate of Cinedigm FAST lifestyle channels, FierceVideo

I noted that the streaming-TV provider Fubo’s list of channels is now as long as the average cable company’s.

8/26/2022: WSJ: Amazon spends $715 million on The Rings of Power, FierceVideo

I would have written this piece faster if I hadn’t spent so much time finding Lord of the Rings references to drop into it.

8/26/2022: T-Mobile to Expand Coverage With the Help of SpaceX’s Starlink Satellites, PCMag

A very long Thursday wrapped up with me writing a version of this post from an advance copy of the joint SpaceX/T-Mobile announcement, then rewriting it that night after watching the stream of the event.

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Weekly output: D.C. United’s online-TV experiment, 5G’s home-broadband potential, how the four carriers offer 5G, a 5G forecast for 2020

One of this week’s stories isn’t like the others–because it doesn’t mention 5G wireless at all.

12/9/2019: What D.C. United’s streaming experiment can teach about soccer’s TV future, FierceVideo

D.C.’s soccer team tried to cut its own cord and go with online-only video coverage of matches. That didn’t work, but that doesn’t mean D.C. United was wrong to dump traditional pay TV–or that Major League Soccer has much use for broadcast partners that require an old-school cable or satellite TV package.

12/11/2019: Can 5G replace everybody’s home broadband?, Ars Technica

The second feature in this series for Ars covered 5G’s potential as a source of uncapped home broadband. I struggled mightily to find somebody, anybody, who could testify to their experience of the 5G Home service Verizon sells in small areas of a handful of cities and finally found a few users on Reddit willing to share their experiences.

12/11/2019: Want crazy-fast internet? Here’s what AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, and Sprint offer right now, Fast Company

The four nationwide U.S. carriers are selling four degrees of 5G, and I couldn’t explain them all adequately without going over my usual word count. Note that we updated this post after publication to add a quibble from Verizon over my use of the 5G hotspot that firm sells to judge its 5G connectivity: That $650 M1000 hotspot apparently can’t share more than 400 Mbps or so of 5G speed over WiFi. (My friend Sascha Segan called that out in his review at PCMag, but I had missed that.)

12/12/2019: 5G’s rollout is confusing, uneven, and rife with problems, Fast Company

I wrote up an Opensignal forecast of 5G’s prospects in North America next year. Like me, the people at that London network-analysis firm have serious concerns over the confusion the carriers are introducing by hyping millimeter-wave 5G that many people won’t be able to use.