Every Thursday morning at 8:30 a.m. EST, find all the stories you need to know about your friendly telecommunications giant in the Comcast Roundup. Get an e-mail subscri ption for our Comcast news updates.

• FCC’s Meredith Baker goes on the defensive [Post Tech: Washington Post] — “Federal Communications commissioner Meredith Attwell Baker defended her decision to join Comcast NBC Universal just months after voting in favor of the company’s joint venture.”
• The Fastest Growing Industry in the Country? It’s Digital Voice [The Atlantic] — Comcast is leading the charge with ‘cable VoIP,’ which, with ‘peer-to-peer’ like Skype and ‘virtual VoIP’ like Vonage, is marking ‘the death of the land line.”
• Hulu, Networks Close To New Deal [Media Memo: All Things Digital] — “Hulu and its network TV owners are close to a new deal that will keep programs from NBC, Fox and ABC on the Web video site.”
• Ron Meyer offered contract extension as head of Universal Studios [Company Town: LA Times] — “Comcast Corp. has made an offer to renew the contract of longtime Universal Studios chief Ron Meyer “
• Comcast Donates $250K To Alabama Charities For Tornado Relief [Multichannel News] — “MSO Contributes to Governor’s Relief Fund, Local and National Red Cross”
• Comcast OK’s its proposals, nixes those of shareholders [Philadelphia Business Journal] — Including shareholder nominees to board of directors

Every Thursday morning at 8:30 a.m. EST, find all the stories you need to know about your friendly telecommunications giant in the Comcast Roundup. Get an e-mail subscription for our Comcast news updates.

DEFINITE READS

• The New York Times reports on a federal appeals court decision that says the FCC has no authority to keep cable companies from blocking or slowing specific sites and charge high-volume video sites to have their content delivered faster.
• Bloomberg reports that at least five states are involved in the regulatory review of the Comcast acquisition of NBC, in addition to an independent inquiry from the Florida attorney general.

Below, a radio interview on net neutrality, could Comcast want more content than NBC provides and more.

• GigaOM has an interview with Cathy Avgiris, a senior Comcast vice president who is responsible for the company’s bundled Xfinity feature. They talk convergence, bundled packages and services in the pipeline. H/T Philly Tech News
• American Public Media’s “Marketplace” Kai Ryssdal has a conversation with Washington Post tech writer Cecilia Kang about net neutrality and the future of the FCC.

MIGHT BE OF INTEREST

• Young Philly Politics runs a plea on behalf of the Free Press asking for supporters of its ‘Save the Internet’ petition on a net neutrality issue that Comcast leaders say is more complicated than a simple case of transparency.  The Post reports that the deadline for the public to weigh in on the net neutrality issue has been extended to April 26.
• The Business Insider listed the Xfinity branding in 11 of Comcast’s markets one of its ’10 Major Rebranding Disasters.”
• The Washington Post reports that telecommunications companies have begun to criticize portions of the FCC’s recently released national broadband plan. Comcast has yet to give a take. The Post also reports that the above mentioned appeals court decision limiting FCC power will further disrupt its broadband plans.
• The Inquirer’s Joe DiStefano dives into a conversation on whether Comcast might eye additional content deals beyond the NBC acquisition.

GIVE A GLANCE

• DSL Reports takes on the rapid deployment of the long-heralded Comcast usage meters, tracking their imposed 250 GB cap, and noting that going over can result in a warning before having an account suspended for as much as a year.  H/T PTN
• Seeking Alpha says that as much as one-fifth of Comcast’s value is rooted in its VoIP or digital voice business.
• Light Reading reports that Verizon has taken something of a swipe at early efforts at 3D, which includes Comcast’s display of the Masters, and pledged its own 3D service by the 2010 holiday shopping season.
• The Comcast corporate blog features video on just why its 3D capture of the Masters is cooler than how Verizon portrayed it.

When there is just too much Comcast news to follow, the Comcast Roundup will be there every Thursday morning at 8:30 a.m. EST.

Every Thursday morning at 8:30 a.m. EST, find all the stories you need to know about your friendly telecommunications giant in the Comcast Roundup. Get an e-mail subscription for our Comcast news updates.

DEFINITE READS

• USA Today reports that Hulu executives are likely eager to start experimenting with paid version of the popular video streaming site but must wait for the finalized result of Comcast’s deal with NBC, which owns nearly a third of the site.
• The Washington Post reports that today the congressional hearings on the Comcast-NBC deal have begun.
• paidContent reports on Democratic staff memos that discuss, ahead of today’s congressional hearings on the matter, the impact the merger has to “fundamentally shape the way Web video evolves.”

• The Post also reports that Comcast has “blanketed Capitol Hill” with its take that its deal for NBC Universal won’t harm consumers or competitors, sort of like what David Cohen wrote on the company blog.
• Additionally, The Post writes on the consumer advocate who will represent the public in today’s two hearings on the merger.
• Gigaom says that 2010 is the year that Comcast “embraces convergence.”

MIGHT BE WORTH YOUR TIME

• Multichannel News profiles Comcast’s trilingual VP of Video Content Diana Wechsler Kerekes.
• Peter Key of the Philadelphia Business Journal says that Comcast officially unveiling its product tier under the xfinity brand reminds him of what Verizon FiOS stands for.
• The Inquirer’s Bob Fernandez reports on the opponents of the merger. David Cohen gives his take on the company blog.
• DiStefano also reports on anti-Google activist and telecom analyst who unites Verizon and Comcast in the struggle against the search behemoth.

GIVE A GLANCE

• The Philadelphia Business Journal reports that Comcast’s 4Q beat its 2008 and analysts estimates.
• The Inquirer’s Mike Armstrong reports that Comcast and Sunoco both were Center City companies whose earnings were worth following.
• The Inquirer’s Joe DiStefano reports that Comcast and TimeWarner are beating up on Verizon and AT&T in terms of user acquisition.
• Philly Tech News reports that Comcast has agreed to acquire VoIP provider New Global Telecom. Cable Digital News confirms it. H/T PTN
• The Comcast blog goes into the dirty details of its transition from Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) addresses, such as 192.168.1.1. to IPv6.
• The Economist podcast touches on Comcast in its social networking report, calling the telecommunications giant “both a plumber and supplier of water” and discussing whether it’s a model for media companies in the future. Listen below, skipping to 7:56 below.

When there is just too much Comcast news to follow, the Comcast Roundup will be there every Thursday morning at 8:30 a.m. EST

140conf organizers make introductions at National Mechanics in Old City before founder Jeff Pulver takes the stage.

Updated: 2:19 p.m., Copy error.
Updated: 2:26 p.m., Added final attendance figures.

When Vonage co-founder Jeff Pulver decided to take a closer look at social media last year, it was not without skepticism.

“I wanted to see how much of it was bullshit. But it’s real,” Pulver, dressed in a purple checkered shirt, said to a crowd of more than 50 attendees of Philly’s first 140conf, a new social media meetup, its name a play on Twitter’s character limit.

The quiet, bespectacled Pulver, who organized the first 140conf, a larger, semiannual event held so far in New York, Los Angeles, London and Tel Aviv, told Technically Philly in a pre-event interview that so many folks were making the trip from Philadelphia to New York that he decided to cut their trip. With local help, he introduced a Philly-centric monthly installment of the semiannual conference Tuesday evening.

When we sat with Pulver in one of National Mechanic’s mammoth booths as attendees piled into the bar before the evening was underway, he told us he wants not to talk about how Twitter is affecting business. No, that’s just a piece of a greater whole, he says. Pulver wants to use 140conf to talk about the “state of now,” and how connectedness is changing our society in auspicious ways. On a smaller scale, about how it touches us as individuals.

It’s a new twist on an old conversation, one perhaps made tired by news headlines and overdrawn by mainstream media fascination. But the evening was certainly an opportunity for folks networked online to meet in person and talk about the cultural shifts they’ve experienced as a result of online social serendipity.

More than half of the meetup’s registered attendees exchanged conversation in a tightly packed crowd before its opening reception, which included introductions by organizers Gloria Bell, James Bressi and Jonny Goldstein. Onlookers tweeted dialogue on mobile phones as the procession was delivered. Some have already written about the event on blogs. Close to 100 attended the event by the end of the evening, organizers say.

But before we walked up the bar’s stone steps – a grandiose structure with dramatic pillared architecture, once a bank – we couldn’t help but wonder what VoIP, and Pulver’s influence in that once burgeoning industry, has to do with social media. It’s all part of the Internet communications continuum, he told us.

The continuum has evolved from email to IRC, VoIP to new technologies, like Twitter, where connectedness and presence are increasingly apparent. He compared the real-time web’s omnipresence with communication platforms of yesteryear, like amateur radio.

When he was a young man, he says, he’d introduce himself to strangers on airwaves with a call-sign, like “KTQQM.” Now, he needs only sign into Twitter and say “Good morning” to initiate dialogues. “And I couldn’t search those past conversations,” he says.

Although we were only on-hand for a few minutes of Pulver’s speech – missing much of the evening – many of the points he told us before the event were expanded onstage.

While we’d never argue the virtue of connecting virtual communities with real-life interaction, we left the meetup wondering, in earnest, if a new event focused on social media is beneficial to this technology community. Pulver is right to bring up that his 140conf draw non-tech crowds, but Philly’s social media events which tend to do the same seem strong. Pulver’s celebrity draw is appealing. But could an existing group’s events have been strengthened instead of a new one initiated?

140conf Philly co-organizer Gloria Bell, also co-director of the Social Media Club, says 140conf’s focus is a broader scope than traditional social media events in Philly. A lot of events become very technology- or marketing-focused, she says, while there’s larger conversations to be had about the impact of social media.

“We’re touching on local, Jeff is touching on international. He’s bringing a piece of that to each city, to help show that there are a lot industries being affected on a wider scale.”

Did you attend the first 140conf? What were your thoughts?

Updated: 11/12/09 @ 11:19 p.m.: Vivendi no comment on NBC deal

Every Thursday morning at 8:30 a.m. EST, find all the stories you need to know about your friendly telecommunications giant in the Comcast Roundup. Get an e-mail subscription for our Comcast news updates.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Comcast and General Electric have agreed to value NBC Universal in the neighborhood of $30 billion, one of the final details of their impending deal. As the Inquirer’s Bob Fernandez reports, whether or not French cable company Vivendi—with a 20 percent stake in NBC—will exercise its ability to veto the deal, may be announced today during its third-quarter earnings call. The Inquirer reports that Vivendi executives gave no comment during the call.

But Bloomberg reports that Vivendi has little reason to move on the deal and may hold out to get a better deal.

The LA Times entertainment blog reports that “no major regulatory hurdles” need to be jumped for the Comcast-GE deal to happen.

After the jump, the most powerful man in Philadelphia, rivaling ESPN and more.

• Reuters reports that Comcast and General Electric have agreed that current NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker would remain the head of their joint venture, much to the displeasure of the Silicon Alley Insider.
• Philadelphia magazine profiles Comcast Executive Vice President David L. Cohen, calling him the most powerful man in Philadelphia.

MIGHT BE WORTH YOUR TIME

• USA Today questions whether Comcast’s purchase of NBC could create something large enough to rival ESPN, something we’ve heard before. H/T Philly Tech News
• The Inquirer’s Joe DiStefano reports that some say Comcast played a large role in Philadelphia’s city broadband stimulus plan not earning the support of the state. As we previously reported, Comcast executives seemed to take issue with some stimulus grabs duplicating their service.
• Doc Searls, the Harvard University fellow and blogger, pens a letter to Comcast customer service.
• Philly Tech News reports that Comcast’s massive VoIP business services arm will increasingly compete with smaller brands, like the region’s EvolveIP, Alteva and CoreDial.

GIVE A GLANCE

• Reuters reports that Comcast is putting roughly $200 million into another valuation of Clearwire, though Google has balked on this round.
• The Sun Sentinel’s TV blog ponders whether Comcast, if it were to take majority control of NBC, might move to back struggling Jay Leno out of the 10 p.m. slot. Just the kind of decisions a telecommunications giant was meant to make, right?

When there is just too much Comcast news to follow, the Comcast Roundup will be there every Thursday morning at 8:30 a.m. EST

Microsoft has enlisted Old City-based VoIP provider Alteva to help integrate its popular Office suite with phone and communications systems in businesses. We spoke to Alteva CEO Will Bumbernick earlier this month. The companies hope that the partnership helps businesses become further entrenched in the Microsoft brand of business products while simultaneously preempting the inevitable Google Voice/Google Docs juggernaut.

By integrating telecom components, Microsoft looks to offer some of the benefits of “cloud” document services without having to force something like Windows Live.

When Technically Philly spoke with Bumbernick about his company’s future plans in September, he mentioned that the company was looking to offer an API for its telcom systems. The CEO said that Alteva unrolled the API feature due to customer demand and was looking to build an entire ecosystem of applications that integrated Alteva’s services. Presumably, the API played a role in giving Microsoft an easy way to hook its Office suite into Alteva’s product line.

The pair will have some pilot programs in place by the end of the month with the full production offering to be released in Q1 of next year.

The move lines up with Alteva’s strategy of serving small to mid-sized businesses likely relying on Microsoft Office products such as Outlook, Word and Excel.

Read the full press release announcing the partnership.

Alteva

“I followed a girl to Philadelphia. The girl didn’t work out, but the area did,” he says.

And did it ever. After running, and then selling, his own technology consulting firm, Bumbernick, along with engineer Mark Marquez, wanted to start a company in a new sector that relied on monthly subscriptions. Bumbernick said he was enticed bythe stability of a monthly invoice, especially after his consulting days.

The two soon founded Alteva, a company that provides voice over internet protocol (VOIP) services to over 300 small- to mid-sized businesses. And, unlike many tech companies in the Philadelphia region, they are doing it all from inside city limits.

Alteva CEO William Bumbernick

The cornerstone of Alteva’s [pronounced ALL-tee-vah] business is undercutting large, bloated voice-based telephone systems that many business are forced to buy.

Most businesses run telephone systems out of what is called a private branch exchange (PBX). The PBX is a box that a business connects all of its phones to that, in turn, is connected to the telephone carrier.

“That box provides all of the call routing, extension to extension dialing, voicemail, auto-attendance, and it also provides call center queuing,” says Bumbernick.

That simple box can get pretty expensive. Bumbernick estimates that, for a company that has 100 employees, the phone system can cost $1,250 to $1,500 per employee or $125,000 to $150,000 per company.

“Our [data-based] solution is $30,000 for that same set of features,” he says.

In short, Alteva does for small= to mid=sized business what Vonage does for homes. Though, Bumbernick is quick to point out that business demand flawless, reliable telephone systems when the average residential user may not.

“If your phone bill goes from $70 to $20 at home and you have a dropped call, you just think, ‘Man, I saved $50, I’ll just call the guy back.’ Businesses don’t think that way.”

THE BIG MOVE

Anyone with half an eye on Philadelphia business likely often hears the following story:

A business that wants to serve the Philadelphia metropolitan area also wants to be located inside the city limits but instead chooses the outlying suburbs to avoid the crushing taxes. For Alteva, the story is quite the opposite.

The company is based in the Bourse Building facing the Independence National Historical Park in Old City (you know, the one with the overpiced food court in the first floor). The company used to be jammed into the corner of an existing office in Delran, NJ, but Alteva wanted to make its business attractive to the young engineers graduating college.

“We really wanted to place the business where [graduates and young engineers] work and play ,and Old City was the perfect fit for that,” says Bumbernick.

Alteva was also enticed by an incentive package presented by the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation.

LOOKING FOR ACQUISITIONS?

In its sixth year of operations Alteva has over 300 customers and 28 employees. Bumbernick says he plans to build the product like its shareholders are going to own it forever. Alteva forcasts rapid growth, planning to quadruple its current size in three years.

Though most of its customer base is local, Alteva has lines in 48 states and 14 countries and is seeing several market opportunities. The company is weighing whether to acquire an existing company or instead starting satellite operations to be built organically.

“We’re going through those steps right now – we are certainly considering growing through acquisitions or being acquired,” he says.

But Bumbernick doesn’t seem to want to sell anytime soon. He repeatedly mentioned how much fun he was having helming a growing local business.

“In 2003 we decided to hit the ground running – And here we are, six years later, going gangbusters and having a whole lot of fun doing it,” he says.