Will Verizon Throttle Users?

Verizon Wireless backed away from a widely criticized plan to slow down the connections of heavy data users with unlimited LTE plans.

The carrier had announced in July it would extend a practice it calls network optimization to unlimited LTE subscribers starting in October. Network optimization targets the top 5 percent of data users on the network when a cell site is under the heaviest demand, and slows down those users’ network performance. Verizon had already applied the practice to the top users of its 3G network.

“We’ve greatly valued the ongoing dialogue over the past several months concerning network optimization and we’ve decided not to move forward with the planned implementation of network optimization for 4G LTE customers on unlimited plans,” the carrier said in a statement on Wednesday. “Exceptional network service will always be our priority and we remain committed to working closely with industry stakeholders to manage broadband issues so that American consumers get the world-class mobile service they expect and value.”

U.S. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler attacked the plan in a letter to Verizon, suggesting it was a ploy to get customers to switch from their unlimited plans to ones with a cap on monthly data usage. Verizon no longer sells new unlimited plans but allows subscribers with those plans to keep them.

“I know of no past Commission statement that would treat as ‘reasonable network management’ a decision to slow traffic to a user who has paid, after all, for ‘unlimited’ service,” Wheeler wrote in the late July letter to Verizon Wireless President and CEO Dan Mead.

Digital rights group Public Knowledge also attacked so-called data throttling, as well as practices by AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile USA.

The showdown demonstrated the tension over increasing demand for mobile data, which carriers say puts a strain on their networks. Among other things, that demand has led operators to seek ever more spectrum and apply network management techniques they say are necessary to keep serving all subscribers well. Though LTE makes much more efficient use of the airwaves than 3G does, LTE networks are serving a rapidly growing number of subscribers.

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Mobile Carriers Dash To Enter FCC Auction

Three of the four largest U.S. mobile operators and satellite provider Dish Network Corp plan to bid in the Federal Communications Commission’s November auction of airwaves, according to initial applications released on Wednesday.

As expected, the largest U.S. wireless carrier Verizon Communications Inc, No. 2 AT&T Inc, No. 4 T-Mobile US Inc and Dish appeared to be the largest companies to indicate an interest in bidding in the upcoming auction of frequencies known as AWS-3.

Applications from Northstar Wireless LLC and SNR Wireless LicenseCo LLC reported they had entered bidding agreements with Dish, which had indirect ownership interest in both companies.

Northstar’s disclosures showed direct and indirect ownership interest by Alaska Native corporation Doyon Ltd and indirect ownership interest by financial firm Catalyst Investors. Asset manager BlackRock Inc had membership shares in SNR, according to the documents.

T-Mobile and AT&T did not appear to plan joint bids with other companies, and T-Mobile’s Kathleen Ham, vice president of federal regulatory affairs, said the carrier had no such agreements with any company.

A Verizon spokesman did not respond to inquiries about potential joint bidding and Dish representatives declined comment beyond confirming the submission of its application, citing FCC’s anti-collusion rules.

A total of 80 entities submitted initial applications. Interested parties, which may or may not actually bid for wireless licenses in the auction, included smaller U.S. companies such as Bluegrass Wireless LLC, Guam-based wireless company Docomo Pacific Inc and individual spectrum investors.

Scheduled to begin on Nov. 13, the auction is expected to raise at least $10 billion and will include airwaves previously occupied by multiple federal users, including the Department of Homeland Security.

Dish applied to bid in the auction as American AWS-3 Wireless I LLC and disclosed joint bidding arrangements with SNR and Northstar, which in turn had to disclose ownership and other information.

SNR listed former FCC Wireless Bureau Chief John Muleta, now CEO of consulting firm Atelum LLC, as a contact. Muleta, reached late on Wednesday, declined comment, citing FCC’s restrictions.

Northstar’s disclosures listed Allen Todd, assistant secretary at Doyon, a Fairbanks-based Alaska Native Regional Corporation with numerous affiliates in various fields including oil and gas land drilling. Todd could not be reached for comment on Wednesday.

SNR’s and Northstar’s, as well as AT&T’s, initial application appeared to be incomplete, which can be caused by small bureaucratic omissions. Of the 80 applications, 47 were deemed incomplete and have to be properly finished by Oct. 15 to allow the companies to participate.

All initial applications have to put down an upfront payment by Oct. 15 to confirm participation.

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FCC Mandates Text-To-911

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission voted last week to require U.S. mobile carriers and many text-messaging apps to support functionality that allows texting emergency dispatch centers, even after questions about whether the centers will be ready by the deadline.

The commission’s vote requires U.S. mobile carriers and some texting apps to put emergency text-to-911 functionality in place by the end of the year.

Even though the nation’s four largest mobile carriers have all added text-to-911 functionality this year, less than 2 percent of the nation’s 6,800 emergency dispatch centers are ready to receive texts, said Commissioner Ajit Pai. The commission’s action will give smartphone users the impression they can send text to emergency responders, when many will not be able to, he said.

The FCC’s action “encourages the public to dive into text-to-911 functionality, when in reality, there’s hardly any water in the pool,” Pai said. “The order is sure to result in massive consumer confusion, and therefore will endanger, rather than advance, public safety.”

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler applauded the largest mobile carriers — Verizon Wireless, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile USA — for adding text-to-911 functionality. The agency needs to push other carriers and emergency dispatch centers, called public-safety answering points or PSAPs, to do the same, he added.

“A lot of time of has passed since [the four largest] carriers stepped up and did something voluntarily, and the other carriers serving the consumers of America did not,” he said. “If you don’t step up to your responsibility, we will.”

Smartphone users should still call 911 if possible, but text-to-911 services need to be more widely available, Wheeler said.

The adoption of text-to-911 will let smartphone users contact police and other emergency responders when it’s not safe to talk on the phone, Wheeler said. It will also aid people with hearing or speech disabilities, he noted.

“Texting is now as important a function on a mobile device as talking,” Wheeler said. “Some of those text messages are cries for help.”

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Verizon Wins Top Honors

RootMetrics awarded Verizon Wireless its seal of approval in its latest biannual ranking of wireless network performance in cities across the U.S.

Verizon ranked first or was tied for first in 115 of 125 cities for overall network performance during the first half of 2014, leading all three other national carriers — AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile.

Sprint didn’t finish first in any of the cities, while Verizon tied with either AT&T or T-Mobile, or both, in 56. That meant that AT&T was the only first place finisher in 59 cities, including major cities such as Cincinnati, Colorado Springs, Colo., Daytona Beach, Fla., Detroit, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, Nashville, Salt Lake City, San Antonio and Seattle.

RootMetrics found that Verizon finished first in 23 of 50 airport network evaluations for the first half of the year and tied for first in seven out of 50 airports. Verizon won or tied at four major airports: Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles and Denver.

Verizon has its 4G LTE network in 500 U.S. cities, providing access to 97% of the U.S. population. RootMetrics used devices capable of connecting to Verizon’s XLTE network, now operating in 300 cities.

XLTE uses AWS spectrum.

RootMetrics is an independent research company that uses testers driving in cars and in stationary locations, both indoors and outdoors, to conduct thousands of tests in each city to evaluate reliability and speed of connections and call, data and text performance. The company uses unmodified smartphones purchased off-the-shelf from operator stores.

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Verizon Wants Dish’s Spectrum

Verizon Communications Inc unit Verizon Wireless is in hot pursuit of satellite-TV operator Dish Network Corp’s spectrum to improve wireless internet speeds, the New York Post reported, citing sources familiar with the matter.

The two companies have held informal, early talks about the spectrum, the report said.

In May, Verizon Communications Chief Executive Lowell McAdam shot down rumors that the company was in potential merger talks with Dish.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler has proposed restrictions on how much the biggest wireless carriers can bid for in a major auction of TV spectrum scheduled for mid-2015.

A possible merger between Sprint Corp and T-Mobile US Inc could prompt U.S. regulators to rewrite rules they are now considering for the auction.

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Broadcom Going Smart Devices

Broadcom has come out with a new “smart” chip which it hopes will be at the cutting edge of wearable PCs, such as smartwatches, heart and blood-pressure monitor.

Dubbed Wireless Internet Connectivity for Embedded Devices (WICED) smart chip, Broadcom’s designs are supposed to support wireless charging for devices that are too small to connect via a power cord. The devices run an ARM Cortex M3 applications processor that reduces size and cost for OEMs and supports A4WP wireless charging and enhanced data security modes in addition to secure over-the-air firmware updates.

This is an integrated ARM CM3 microcontroller unit with radio frequency and Embedded Bluetooth Smart Stack, all on a single chip. Brian Bedrosian, Broadcom senior director of Embedded Wireless and Wireless Connectivity said that his outfit wanted to push the boundaries on what wearables are capable of with our new smart chip. Broadcom competes in the marketplace with companies such as Taiwan Semiconductor, Marvell and Xilinx.

The Broadcom WICED Smart chip is currently sampling with evaluation boards and SDKs. It is expected to become available sometime in 2014.

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Will Sprint Acquisition Efforts Succeed

Sprint Corp is meeting with banks to devise a funding plan for its bid for smaller rival T-Mobile US Inc, a source familiar with the situation said, as the mobile carrier works to ease regulatory concerns that the deal would hurt competition.

The source said that Sprint, which is owned by Japan’s SoftBank Corp, is looking to fund the bulk of T-Mobile’s estimated $50 billion price tag with corporate bonds and cover the rest with syndicated loans and convertible bonds.

Sprint is currently having discussions with at least five banks, the source told Reuters, including JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank.

Bloomberg, which first reported that Sprint was in talks with banks on Thursday morning in Asia, said the carrier was also talking to Mizuho Financial Group Ltd and Citibank. Softbank is expected to make a formal offer in June or July, Bloomberg added.

Sprint spokeswoman Roni Singleton told Reuters the company does not comment on rumors and speculation. T-Mobile and SoftBank both declined to comment on the Bloomberg report.

Sprint is facing a battle ahead with U.S. regulators who oppose consolidation in the wireless market on the basis it would inhibit competition. The company is aware it may have to give up some of its spectrum holdings to win over critics, the source said.

Two of the most vocal opponents to the deal are Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler and U.S. antitrust chief William Baer, who have pointed to T-Mobile’s success since U.S. authorities rejected a 2011 merger between AT&T Inc and T-Mobile on the grounds the market needs at least four major players to be competitive.

The failure of that deal cost AT&T a $6 billion break-up fee, a penalty Sprint feels confident it can avoid, the source said, adding that it is leaning towards having Deutsche Telekom, which currently owns 67 percent of T-Mobile, retain part of that stake.

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Is The US & UK Lacking In Broadband?

The US and UK are stragglers when it comes to consumer broadband download speeds and appear far down in table rankings.

This puts the countries, swaggering authoritarian surveillance monsters that they are, rather low down on the satisfaction scale.

The ranking produced by Ookla is based on results from Speedtest servers, and is called the Net Index.

“Based on millions of recent test results from Speedtest.net, this index compares and ranks consumer download speeds around the globe,” is the explanation.

“The value is the rolling mean throughput in Mbps over the past 30 days where the mean distance between the client and the server is less than 300 miles.”

Hong Kong takes pole position and it is credited as having download speeds in the area of 71.03 Mbps. There is a big drop of around 20 Mbps down to Singapore in second place with 52.85 Mbps and third is Romania, where speeds are 50.82 Mbps.

You have to look a long way down the list before arriving at the UK, which is in 25th place. Here, or there depending on where you live, consumers get a rather meagre sounding 23.55 Mbps.

The United States weighs in at 31st place and has download speeds of 20.77 Mbps. This puts it below the UK, Germany, Estonia, Hungary, Greece and 25 others.

Closer to home the European Commission has published its report on Broadband Coverage in Europe (2012) and reveals progress on broadband coverage targets. It found that while broadband has improved, it could be faster.

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FCC To Auction Spectrum

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission will sell 10 megahertz of spectrum in the 1900MHz band for commercial mobile services in an auction set to start on Jan. 14, the agency announced.

The agency on last  Friday set a minimum price for licenses in the so-called H block of $1.56 billion, with some of the money funding the First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet), a government board building a nationwide broadband network for public safety agencies.

The auction will help mobile providers address a predicted spectrum shortage, said Mignon Clyburn, the FCC’s acting chairwoman. The auction “will help close the spectrum gap as well as contributing to the goal of making mobile broadband available to our nation’s first responders,” she said in a statement.

Congress, in the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012, required the FCC to license 65 megahertz of spectrum, including the 10 megahertz in the H block, by February 2015.

The FCC has considered auctioning the 1915-1920MHz and 1995-2000MHz spectrum in the past, but concerns about interference with a nearby PCS block kept the commission from moving forward. An FCC order adopted in June created technical rules to keep the H block from interfering with PCS signals.

Commissioner Ajit Pai praised Clyburn for scheduling the auction. The spectrum “will help deliver bandwidth-intensive mobile services and applications” over mobile networks, he said in a statement.

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The DoD May Share Airwaves

The U.S. Defense Department is proposing to share some of its radio airwaves with private industry, a nod to growing pressure from the wireless industry and the Obama administration that federal agencies ease their control of valuable spectrum.

In a letter released by the Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday, the Department of Defense offers to share the airwaves it now dominates in the slice of frequencies from 1755 megahertz (MHz) to 1780 MHz with spectrum-hungry wireless and Internet companies.

The military would rearrange its systems within that slice of spectrum as well as the 2025-2110 MHz band and compress programs into the 1780-1850 MHz band that it would retain.

The Defense Department uses the airwaves for programs such as pilot training and drone systems and has faced criticism from some in the industry and in Congress for resisting efforts to open those airwaves for commercial use to satisfy growing demands posed by data-hungry gadgets and services.

The Pentagon had pointed to its own need for airwaves as its use of drones and other reliance on wireless technology grows. It also had estimated the process of moving its programs to new frequencies would cost more than $12 billion.

Under the new plan, the Defense Department drops the cost estimate to $3.5 billion by compromising on sharing slices of airwaves without completely clearing any of the spectrum bands.

In the letter, originally sent on July 17 to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, which oversees federal airwaves, DOD Chief Information Officer Teresa Takai called the proposal “a workable balance to provide access to the 1755-1780 MHz band most desired by the commercial wireless industry while ensuring no loss of critical DoD capabilities.”

The NTIA, in its own letter to the FCC, said it had not had enough time to review the proposal and could not yet endorse it.

The FCC, with NTIA’s help, is preparing for several auctions of airwaves to take place in coming years, including one that would sell off chunks of federally controlled spectrum. They will be the first reshuffling of airwave ownership since 2008.

Congress has required the FCC to auction off the 2155-2180 MHz band by February 2015 and the industry has sought to pair up that slice of spectrum with the valuable 1755-1780 MHz band, arguing it would collect more money. Lawmakers in the House of Representatives have introduced a bill to ensure such pairing.

The FCC has been drafting a notice of proposed rulemaking that would seek public comments on how the FCC should auction those federally owned or already cleared airwaves to the wireless companies and an FCC official said the agency’s notice will address the Pentagon’s new proposal.

President Barack Obama last month directed federal agencies to look for ways eventually to give up or share more of their airwaves with the private sector. This followed his June 2010 call to open up 500 MHz of federal spectrum for commercial use.

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