Jeff Baumgartner

Looking to provide better, more consistent in-home Wi-Fi, Frontier Communications is hawking AirTies Wireless Networks’ Smart Mesh Wi-Fi” platform via Frontier Secure, a site that sells a mix of smart home products and services. Per the site, Frontier is selling the AirTies Smart Mesh Wi-Fi product individually for $72 and in pairs for $144. Customers link those devices to the main router/gateway to expand and improve Wi-Fi access in the home. Frontier sells products and services via Frontier Secure to residential and small business customers on a national basis, and offers products wholesale through strategic partnerships.

Frontier is the second (and largest) North American operator to deploy AirTies’s Wi-Fi Mesh product; the first was Midco, which is selling a whole-home Wi-Fi service starting at $7.95 per month. Frontier said it also has trials underway with mid-sized and large service providers in the US AirTies is working with several providers outside the US, including Sky, Vodafone, Singtel, and Swisscom.

CenturyLink appears poised to join Internet service providers such as Comcast, AT&T and Mediacom Communications that are testing or have launched usage-based policies for residential broadband services. Per updated policy data, CenturyLink plans to kick off a usage-based billing trial in Yakima (WA) starting July 26, that will charge $50 for a bucket of 50 gigabytes per data when customers exceed their monthly limit.

According to CenturyLink's current data policy FAQ, customers will get a grace period, as they will not be charged for the first two months that they exceed their monthly usage cap. Customers who are subject to the test policy will receive an electronic “no charge” warning the first two times. During months that customers are not billed, they’ll receive online alerts when they approach 85% of their data plan.

Comcast said it has begun to deploy a portable broadband platform, called Xfinity Wi-Fi on Wheels, that was developed in partnership with Ericsson. The platform, tailored to bring Wi-Fi connectivity to venues such as concerts and festivals as well as emergency response situations, is a customized Ford T-350 van equipped with six Ericsson Wi-Fi access points perched on a 40-foot tall mast.

“The Wi-Fi has a 500-foot range and can support up to 3,000 users, potentially reaching speeds five times faster than cellular,” noted Eric Schaefer, Comcast’s SVP of wireless product management. He said Comcast conducted a practice run at the Wizard World Comic Con in Philadelphia, noting that the platform provided users with access to WiFi speeds of more than 50 Mbps. Comcast has since taken its act on the road, stopping by the New Haven Arts and Ideas Festival in June, but have it back in Philadelphia in time for next week’s Democratic National Convention.

NewWave Communications is gearing up to bring 1 Gbps speeds to a handful of rural markets in 2015, and said it will use the emerging DOCSIS 3.1 platform to deliver them.

NewWave will start the deployment in the fourth quarter of 2014 and intends to boot up Gigabit-class services to residential and business customers in a handful of markets -- Poplar Bluff (MO), where it competes with AT&T, and in Monroe, Rayville, Delhi and Tallulah (LA), where it tangles with a mix of municipal and local service providers.

Phil Spencer, CEO of NewWave and Rural Broadband Investments, said it made sense to focus on those initial markets first because the infrastructure there is well-prepared to take on the upgrade.

Charter Communications said it’s unleashing faster broadband speeds and a heavier high-definition television channel lineup in its Southern California systems following all-digital upgrades that are coupled with the introduction of the multiple service operator’s new “Spectrum” branding.

Charter is bidding adieu to its analog spectrum and using that reclaimed capacity toward the boosting of the downstream speeds of its flagship broadband service from 30 Mbps to 60 Mbps, the broadening of its HDTV lineup to more than 200 channels, and enhancing its voice service with features such as unlimited nationwide calling. Charter Spectrum also touts a video-on-demand menu of more than 10,000 “choices.”

Add Jacksonville (FL) to the list of markets where AT&T has committed to deploy its fiber-based 1 Gbps-capable “GigaPower” network.

As has been the case with most of AT&T’s GigaPower market announcements, specific locations of availability and pricing of GigaPower for Jacksonville will be announced at a later date.

The introduction of GigaPower will represent speedier competition for Comcast, Jacksonville’s incumbent cable operator. There, Comcast is already equipped to fight fiber with fiber, as Jacksonville is one of a group of select markets that offer Extreme 505, a fiber-based residential broadband service that delivers up to 505 Mbps downstream and 100 Mbps in the upstream.

Following its launch of ‘GigaPower’ in Austin in late 2013, AT&T has begun to offer services on its fiber-based, 1-Gig-capable network to parts of Dallas and Fort Worth, where the telecommunications company competes with Time Warner Cable, Charter Communications and Grande Communications.

The telco added that it has also begun to offer speeds up to 100 Mbps via its U-verse platform in portions of Dallas and Fort Worth and several surrounding cities, including Allen, Arlington, Euless, Fairview, Granbury, Irving, McKinney, North Richland Hills, Weatherford and Willow Park. Customers in those areas will be able to upgrade to 1-Gig by the end of 2014, AT&T said.

AT&T flurry of GigaPower announcements continued with word that it will bring its fiber-based, 1-Gig-capable network to parts of Miami, where Comcast is the incumbent cable operator.

Per its recent string of GigaPower market announcements, AT&T said it will announce pricing and specific target areas at a later date. In addition to the city of Miami, AT&T is also considering GigaPower deployments in several nearby areas, including Hialeah, Hollywood, Homestead, Opa-Locka, and Pompano Beach.

Netflix posted its Internet service provider (ISP) Speed Index for July 2014, and there was not much shuffling among the top 16 US providers that the streaming giant measures.

In fact, there was just one change in that grouping -- AT&T U-verse dropped one spot, to number 14, delivering an average Netflix streaming speed of 1.44 Mbps. That allowed Clearwire (1.48 Mbps), the only US wireless provider measured in that group, to rise one spot, to number 13.

The final rankings of Verizon FiOS (No. 12/1.61 Mbps) and Verizon DSL (No. 16/970 kbps) were unchanged from the Netflix index for June 2014.

Doctor On Demand, a healthcare service that provides “video visits” with board-certified physicians, announced that it has landed a $21 million “A” round and signed on Comcast as a customer.

Comcast has signed on to offer the service to all of its US employees and will integrate Doctor On Demand into its health and wellness offerings. For certain plans, Comcast will also fully subsidize employees’ visits with Doctor On Demand physicians.