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Summary: DSLreports - front page

The largest broadband users community on the web



Weekend Open Thread - Have Something You Need to Get Off Your Chest?


The weekend has arrived, so please dump your thoughts into our comment section below for inspection.
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Date Published: Feb 17, 2012 - 3:52 pm


LightSquared Lawyers Up For FCC Assault - While Investors Sue Falcone For "Squandering" Billions


With the FCC this week refusing LightSquared a necessary waiver on spectrum conditions, the company's future isn't looking particularly bright. As expected, chief financial backer Phillip Falcone has lawyered up for a possible lawsuit against the FCC. The company is also exploring several options, most of which won't work. LightSquared is apparently trying to convince the Defense Department to swap spectrum they're unlikely to give up for LightSquared spectrum nobody wants. Again, LightSquared lacks the cash to wage any sustained battle on this front, and Falcone faces two pending inquiries by the SEC for unrelated financial infractions. He's also now being sued by a group of investors in Harbinger Capital Partners who claim the effort "squandered billions of dollars."
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Date Published: Feb 17, 2012 - 1:41 pm

Utility Smart Meters Screwing Up WISPs, Home Routers - Charging Customers Fees to Disable Wireless Functionality


Users in our forums direct our attention to claims that at least one small WISP has had their service put out of commission due to electric utility smart meters operating in the 900 MHz band. We've previously noted how utility smart meters are interfering with residential Wi-Fi routers, and we're seeing a growing number of complaints about the meters interfering with other residential gear as well. The solution from utilities so far appears to be the hope that all consumers migrated to 2.4GHZ and 5.8 GHZ bands so they don't have to change. However, some smart meters also use the 2.4 GHz range.

"Thankfully, as time goes on, less and less devices will be operating in this band as most commercial products seem to be moving onto the 2.4GHZ and 5.8 GHZ bands," says Chatham-Kent Hydro in Canada...This is a presumptive statement, and what it really means is that they expect their system to chase consumers entirely off the band. It makes no accommodation for the thousands of 902-928 MHz devices already in use. Forcing a migration to other bands is a poor precedent, since there is nothing to stop some other user from deciding to use those bands and chasing consumer equipment to the next band, ad infinitum.

California has been a focused hotbed in this debate because many people with proclaimed electromagnetic sensitivity disorders have been trying to get the wireless signals disabled. Whether it's because it "messes with your chakras, dude" or it just screws up your router, utilities in several markets are now charging an extra fee to turn the radio portion of the smart meter off. Ironically, many of the companies that failed to succeed in the broadband over powerline (BPL) business because of interference, jumped immediately into the smart meter technology business to run face-first into interference problems of a completely different sort.
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Date Published: Feb 17, 2012 - 11:24 am

Comcast Gets Wrist Slapped for Mocking AT&T's 'Old Wires' - AT&T Doesn't Like Last Mile Shortcomings Highlighted


The National Advertising Division of the Council of Better Business Bureaus has given Comcast a wrist slap for a discontinued "tired wires" ad campaign targeting AT&T's U-Verse service. Comcast's ads (see example) targeted AT&T's service for running over "old phone wires" that are incapable of delivering the same speeds as Comcast's DOCSIS 3.0 based service. They featured what "appeared to be a pained or exhausted tangle of wires", something that caused AT&T to file a complaint. While NAD found Comcast could support most of their claims, the group found Comcast took things a little too far:

NAD determined that the advertiser's evidence was insufficient to support the broad implied claims that U-Verse Internet is slow, and always slower than Comcast. In addition, NAD determined that the advertiser's disclosres are not sufficient to avoid conveying the unsupported implied messages that U-Verse Internet is slow, and always slower than Comcast.

In other words, Comcast can correctly note that U-Verse is usually slower than Xfinity, Xfinity has better HD quality, and U-Verse suffers from HD image compression when multiple streams are in use -- but they somehow have to avoid generalities? NAD is a self-regulatory regime set up to manage ad complaints between ISPs to pre-empt regulatory action. Penalties for misleading ads are nonexistent and most offending ads have already stopped running by the time the agency rules, making the entire process more show than substance.

Comcast's marketing department has no shortage of things to focus on when attacking AT&T. In addition to the fact that AT&T settled on slower speeds via a cheaper fiber to the node investment, AT&T has left about half of their customers without next-gen upgrades with no plan to upgrade them anytime soon. They could also highlight the fact that in addition to caps (Comcast has a 250 GB cap on all tiers) AT&T is trying to impose overage penalties on DSL and U-Verse users. AT&T lost 680,000 DSL users last quarter, many of them in un-upgraded markets and tired of sub 5 Mbps connections.
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Date Published: Feb 17, 2012 - 9:12 am

New DOT Guidelines Prohibit Most In-Vehicle Communications - Pay Attention to the Road, Numbskull


As more and more auto-makers begin to incorporate broadband-tied services into vehicles, the U.S. Department of Transportation has proposed new guidelines that would ban the manual use (dialing, sending texts, entering GPS addresses) while a vehicle is in motion. "We recognize that vehicle manufacturers want to build vehicles that include the tools and conveniences expected by today s American drivers," said NHTSA Administrator David Strickland in a statement. "The guidelines we re proposing would offer real-world guidance to automakers to help them develop electronic devices that provide features consumers want without disrupting a driver s attention or sacrificing safety."
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Date Published: Feb 17, 2012 - 7:02 am

Leap Struggles With Customer Defections - As LTE Build Out Continues On Target


On the heels of reports that AT&T might be thinking about buying Leap, Leap Wireless issued fourth quarter earnings that missed many analyst expectations. The company saw a higher churn (customer defection) rate than expected of 3.9%, which the company attributed to "billing system problems that affected new and existing customers in the quarter." The company did add 179,000 customers in the quarter, but it appears the initial surge of competitive impact is starting to wane as the bigger four carriers focus more on Leap's target market. In their conference call with the media Leap stated their LTE deployment remains on target, with the company planning to cover 25 million people with LTE by the end of 2012.
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Date Published: Feb 17, 2012 - 6:13 am

Heartland Institute Leaks Highlight Astroturf Quackery - Comcast, AT&T, Time Warner Cable Exposed as Donors


For years we've watched as the corporate-funded "fauxcademic" group the Heartland Institute took tobacco-industry money, then argued that the industry's ties to cancer deaths were based on "junk science." They've been very active on the broadband front, taking money from incumbent ISPs and then arguing how there is no broadband price, coverage or speed issues, while also fighting tooth and nail against the rights of towns and cities to wire themselves.

altThe public health community's campaign to demonize smokers and all forms of tobacco is based on junk science.alt
-Heartland Institute
Heartland isn't having a very good week, with leaked documents and e-mails showcasing how the firm takes corporate cash to sow seeds of doubt about established science and indisputable data. While they have always hidden their funding, the documents show the company takes money from AT&T, Comcast and Time Warner Cable. The documents also show how they're well funded by corporations to attack climate science, particularly in the classroom.

After the story percolated for a few days, Heartland released a statement claiming that one of the documents in the leak was a forgery. "One document, titled 'Confidential Memo: 2012 Heartland Climate Strategy,' is a total fake apparently intended to defame and discredit The Heartland Institute," says the group, which goes on to insist that "honest disagreement should never be used to justify the criminal acts and fraud that occurred in the past 24 hours." However, much of what's in the supposedly fake document is supported in the other documents Heartland apparently acknowledges as genuine.

If you're familiar with the group's actions in the slightest, it is clear that "honest disagreement" has never been on the agenda. On the broadband side, Heartland has contributed to no limit of polluted discourse, using completely bogus science from other incumbent ISP-tied organizations to endlessly dispute clear data showing that U.S. broadband needs a lot of work. They were also instrumental in pushing the "Exaflood" myth, or the idea that the Internet will collapse from traffic growth unless ISPs get what they want (higher prices, no consumer protections, deregulation, no net neutrality rules).

While the climate side of the story will see the most contentious debate, the most interesting bit here on the telecom front is that the ties between the company and their incumbent ISP donors have been clearly highlighted. It's doubtful that anyone at AT&T, Comcast or Time Warner Cable will want to go on the record to discuss their involvement with such a group.
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Date Published: Feb 17, 2012 - 6:01 am

Verizon: We've Got Plenty of Spectrum, Thanks - No Need to Even Worry About Refarming Right Now


Despite constant tales of spectrum crisis from some corners (including Verizon), Verizon was already on record years ago stating they had plenty of spectrum for their LTE deployment. Verizon Wireless CEO Dan Mead this week reiterated the company's solid spectrum position, saying that after their spectrum acquisition from the cable industry they're in a "solid spectrum position." Their position is so solid, in fact, that Verizon doesn't see the need to even sweat about re-purposing existing spectrum anytime soon. Refarming "is not something that is in front of us in the immediate future because those networks are growing for us," says Mead.
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Date Published: Feb 17, 2012 - 5:44 am



White Space Broadband Dodges a Bullet - Compromise Language Keeps FCC Authority Intact


"White space" broadband, a technology that rides on the unlicensed spectrum freed by the migration to digital television, only recently got off the ground and has great promise as a new, long range niche wireless alternative. Still, the technology faced being killed by regulation this week after AT&T tried to sneak language into the payroll tax extension bill that would have not only crippled the FCC's ability to place competitive rules on spectrum auction, but it would have also prevented them from allocating unlisenced spectrum in the TV white spaces.

According to consumer advocacy group Free Press, politicians reached a "compromise" this week ahead of the full vote. The FCC won't be restricted in their ability to manage white space broadband, and can continue to impose auction rules aimed at helping smaller competitors enter the market, but they won't be able to restrict larger companies from participating based on market dominance and spectrum holdings.

"We are glad that the agreement would preserve at least some of the tools the FCC needs to assign licenses in the public interest and prevent further erosion of competition among wireless providers," said the group. "Parts of the bill the House passed in December would all but ensure that AT&T and Verizon lock up all the most valuable spectrum in any future auction, further tightening the effective duopoly these companies already hold."

We've got a copy (pdf) of the full discussion draft, and pages 81-85 specifically cover the FCC's spectrum auction authority.
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Date Published: Feb 16, 2012 - 3:31 pm

 
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