Forbes, 1/9/2012

AT&T switched on 4G access in 11 areas over the holidays, but speedy service is likely to strain spectrum and raise prices for users.

AT&T Business Solutions chief John Stankey announced AT&T 4G now reaches New York, San Francisco, San Jose, Austin, Los Angeles, Oakland, Orlando, Phoenix, Raleigh and San Diego, as the company marches to complete total coverage by the end of 2013.

However, Stankey also echoed the industry’s concerns about spectrum pressures caused by increasing wireless demands, and warned if the situation remains unchanged, pricing will rise.

Like other carriers, AT&T is scrambling for options as the spectrum crunch looms, but the company’s one big attempt to shore up its airwave allocation by purchasing T-Mobile was scuttled by federal regulators, citing antitrust concerns late last year.

The Federal Communications Commission did, however, approve the smaller, $1.9 billion deal for the Dallas, Texas-based company to buy spectrum from Qualcomm.

AT&T will gain much-needed spectrum from its Qualcomm purchase, but the carrier is expected to seek out other deals, including a rumored scaled-back joint venture with T-Mobile or an acquisition of another company like Dish Network.

Dish has broadband spectrum to spare since it acquired two satellite networks last year, and the satellite television provider is expected to explore its options in 2012. A deal with Dish, which isn’t direct-carrier competition, will likely invite less regulatory scrutiny, a reason other carriers are likely eyeing the company.

Stankey pointed out customers’ video streaming represents 30 percent of mobile data traffic, an amount he characterized as “unsustainable” because of costs.

Stankey, speaking at the Citi Global Entertainment, Media & Telecommunications Conference, questioned how much longer consumer demand can exceed capacity without affecting pricing, hinting the carrier will have to raise prices to manage the spectrum shortfall.

Still, the 4G expansion will help AT&T catch up with number-one carrier Verizon, whose high-speed network covers 200 million people and continues to expand.

Verizon’s network is growing ahead of schedule, giving it a distinct competitive edge, but recent 4G outages in December raise speculation the carrier is building out too quickly, creating a possible opportunity for rival carriers like AT&T to gain ground this year.

Related posts:

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2. Wireless carriers beg FCC for spectrum, blame smartphones Nate Anderson, Ars Techinca,9/26/2009 Mobile carriers in the US have...
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Joseph Volpe, Engadget, 10/7/2011

We knew more or less that an announcement of this sort was coming. Back in July, Dan Hesse had teased us face-to-face with the promise of a “great story this fall around 4G,” and now the time to tell that tale has arrived. At its strategy event today, Sprint finally went public with plans to “simplify its network” by converting its 1900MHz holdings and LightSquared’s 1600MHz spectrum (“pending FCC approval”) to LTE, an industry favorite. Helping the operator make that transition is the swath of 800MHz spectrum it reclaimed from the, now defunct, iDEN push-to-talk network — which had been a drain on the company’s resources. This spectrum, acquired from Nextel, will be phased out by mid-2013 and rolled into LTE. The company plans for a rapid deployment of this new 4G network, with the first LTE markets and handsets to hit in mid-2012, and the full rollout mostly completed by 2013. Current subscribers signed up for WiMAX plans won’t have to worry as their devices will continue to be supported throughout 2012.

Beginning tomorrow, Sprint’s consolidating its 4G LTE (including LightSquared), 3G and Direct Connect networks into one single architecture. All the major technical milestones, such as test calls and field integration, have cleared their hurdles and work on over 22,000 cell sites are currently in process. Samsung, Alcatel Lucent and Ericsson have partnered with Sprint to install multimode 3G and 4G base stations to handle the network’s future traffic, essential for deploying the multitude of frequencies required by hosted devices. Prospective iPhone 4S users on the network will be able to take advantage of better signal strength and improved voice service as Sprint intends to also offload the latter onto 800MHz.

Expect a steep “reduction in roaming costs” and deeper signal penetration throughout the operator’s expanding national footprint over the course of the next two years. Naturally, LTE speeds on this new network will be significantly improved over the currently in-use WiMAX, and a planned implementation of WiFi offloading should help to cut congestion by 20 percent. By the end of next year, Sprint aims to have a combined WiMAX/LTE population coverage of 176 million — with 123 million covered by LTE and 76 million overlapping both. When the network build-out is nearly complete in 2013, the company should have over 250 million blanketed in LTE, far outstripping the stagnant 120 million served by WiMAX.

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Jordon Crook, TechCrunch, 10/5/2011

After years of having a GPS-equipped phone, the idea of not having GPS is a little crazy. Even with smartphone adoption rates dramatically increasing, there are still plenty of folks out there with maps and awesome memories. But come 2018, all of our directionally gifted friends will have GPS on their phones like it or not.

The FCC has ruled that all telephone service providers — including VOiP services — must offer only GPS-capable handsets by 2018 to better aid in pin-pointing the location of 911 calls.

According to Courthouse News Service, it’s still unclear what the sunset deadline is for use of phones not equipped with GPS. 911 calls from phones without GPS require the carrier to triangulate the caller’s location from cell towers, which is less efficient than the phone’s GPS simply relaying location data back to emergency services.

Either way, the FCC estimates that with or without the new rules, 85 percent of cell phone owners will have GPS-equipped devices by 2018. Hopefully the leftover 15 percent gets with the program before anything that requires a call to 911 goes down.

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Jordan Crook, Mobile Crunch, 6/7/2011

Verizon Wireless got hit with an FCC complaint this morning by an organization called Free Press, over the restrictions placed on Verizon’s 4G LTE smartphones. The group claims that Verizon’s rules don’t necessarily jive with the regulatory policies of the Federal Communications Commission when it comes to tethering to Verizon’s speedy 4G LTE network.

More specifically, the complaint claims that Verizon asked Google to block tethering functionality in its Android devices, which is a direct violation of FCC requirements that the carrier not “deny, limit, or restrict” its subscribers’ ability to use whichever devices and applications they choose.

Here’s what Free Press policy counsel Aparna Sridhar had to say on the matter:

Verizon’s conduct is bad for the public and bad for innovation. It also appears to be illegal under the FCC’s rules that govern Verizon’s LTE network. Users pay through the nose for Verizon’s LTE service, and having done so, they should be able to use their connections as they see fit. Instead, Verizon’s approach is to sell you broadband but then put up roadblocks to control your use of it.

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Lance Whitney, CNET News, 5/10/2011

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Phil Goldstein, FierceWireless, 4/7/2011

The FCC voted to approve automatic data roaming rules, effectively settling a dispute that had split the wireless industry between larger operators that were against the rules and smaller carriers seeking to put data roaming on par with voice roaming.

The five-member commission voted, 3-2, to approve the rules, which will require mobile broadband providers to provide data roaming on “commercially reasonable” terms and conditions. The commission’s three Democrats voted in favor of the rules, arguing that consumers need and expect nationwide data roaming, and that a lack of data roaming agreements harms competition. On the opposite side of the issue, the commission’s two Republicans said the FCC was overstepping its authority and imposing common-carrier rules on data service, which they argued is not classified as a commercial mobile service but rather an information service that cannot be subject to roaming rules.

Importantly, the commission’s order sets out several limitations governing the rules. Carriers that are offering roaming may negotiate terms on an individualized basis, and may condition effectiveness of the roaming deals by making sure the carrier seeking roaming offers service with a generation of technology comparable to the one they want to roam on. Additionally, operators can negotiate reasonable traffic management tools to ensure that their networks are not flooded with data traffic from roaming partners.  Companies can seek resolution of disputes through filing complaints or seeking a declaratory FCC ruling on the disagreement.

Commissioner Michael Copps framed the debate in practical terms: “What good is that smartphone if it can’t be used when that subscriber is roaming across the country, or across the county?” he asked.

The FCC voted in April 2010 to explore whether it could and should mandate data roaming, a vote made in conjunction with the agency’s move to abolish home roaming rules for voice services. Since then, Verizon Wireless and AT&T Mobility have strongly petitioned against the automatic data roaming proposal, arguing they already have dozens of data roaming agreements, that the issue doesn’t require federal oversight and that the FCC does not have the authority to enforce the rules anyway. Smaller carriers, including Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile USA and Cricket provider Leap Wireless, have argued that excessive charges for data roaming inhibit competition.

Like many issues in the wireless industry, data roaming rules have been clouded by AT&T’s proposed $39 billion acquisition of T-Mobile. The carriers have been locked in a 3G data roaming dispute. However, if the deal is approved, AT&T will combine the companies’ networks, and plans to use T-Mobile’s AWS spectrum to deploy LTE service.

The issue is also critical to some carriers, such as MetroPCS, that plan to move voice traffic onto their data networks via Voice over LTE technology.

There also is the distinct possibility that the FCC’s actions might result in another legal uproar. The FCC mandates voice roaming rules since voice is a common-carrier service–but opponents have argued that mobile data can be considered an information service and therefore may not fall under the agency’s purview. That was the same argument opponents of net neutrality rules used when arguing that the FCC cannot enact broadband rules by reclassifying broadband as a Title II common carrier service.

Austin Schlick, the FCC’s general counsel, said that the FCC was justified in adopting the rules because of Title III of the Communications Act, which gives the FCC authority to manage spectrum and modify licenses and spectrum usage in the public interest. He said that because the rules allow carriers to strike roaming deals on a case-by-case basis, they are not common-carrier rules.

Robert McDowell, one of the commission’s two Republicans, said the commission “simply does not have the legal authority to adopt the regulatory regime mandated by this order.” His fellow Republican commissioner, Meredith Attwell Baker, said the rules could lead to a “revolving door” at the FCC, wherein smaller carriers could keep objecting to data roaming agreements in an effort to seek lower roaming rates.

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Jason Mick, Daily Tech, 1/13/2011

Spectrum demands are rapidly rising, but its as hard as ever to find free spectrum

While it’s easy to put the blame regarding slower than expected progress in the realm of wireless communications on the telecoms, they aren’t the only problem.  Next generation 4G networks are incredibly spectrum hungry, and even the biggest players like Verizon and AT&T are racing to find spectrum.

As a result, their 4G efforts (LTE, WiMAX) are falling far short of promised speeds — or worse yet, some are giving up and billing even slower HSPA+ networks as “4G” (testing has shown HSPA+ to be nearly twice as slow as current LTE, despite T-Mobile’s claims and “demos”).

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission, the organization tasked with regulating our nation’s communications under the federal Communications Act of 1934 (amended by Telecom Act of 1996), is struggling to dig up spectrum to sell to the big carriers — Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile — in order to allow them to better deliver on the their smartphone data speed promises.

AT&T Inc Chief Executive Randall Stephenson in a Reuters report says that is vitally needed as where 10 MHz of spectrum would have lasted four to five years in the old days, “Today, we’ll burn through that in about 10 months.”

The great hope for grabbing more spectrum is to repurpose a couple hundred MHz of unused spectrum and gain another 120 MHz of spectrum by approach television providers like ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox and offering to auction their unused spectrum.

Under the scheme, the networks would pocket part of the proceeds and the government would keep a chunk too.  And the telecoms would be the biggest winners, as they could finally give customers faster 3G and 4G data speeds.

However, the proposal for these “voluntary incentive auctions” must navigate its way through a partisan Congress, which is divided with a Republican-controlled House of Representatives and a Democratic-controlled Senate.  Still, there is hope that both sides of the political spectrum will see the value of this proposal.  States FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, an appointee of U.S. President Barack Obama, “Every month that goes by without tackling this is a month that hurts us from a global competitiveness perspective.”

Despite initial hesitance, the National Association of Broadcasters has endorsed the idea, assuming the auction is “truly voluntary”.

Even if the auction succeeds, it does not solve the underlying fact that we are running out of usable spectrum.  That means that dreams of wirelessly connected vehicles, appliances, and more may see slower adoption.  It also prohibitively raises the barrier to entry into the U.S. telecommunications market, virtually guaranteeing it to be an oligarchy composed of the big four — Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile (ranked from first to fourth, respectively, in number of subscribers).  The only solutions here will be to find new ways to use spectrum more efficiently and perhaps find ways to make the use of previously “junk” spectrum financially and technically feasible.

Related posts:

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Grant Gross, IDG News Service, 12/21/2010

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission, in a historic vote Tuesday, approved network neutrality rules prohibiting broadband providers from blocking customer access to legal Web content, but many consumer groups decried the new regulations as weak and full of loopholes.

The new rules provide fewer protections for mobile broadband subscribers and may lead to a fractured Internet, critics said. The new rules, a compromise championed by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, would bar wireline-based broadband providers — but not mobile broadband providers — from “unreasonable discrimination” against Web traffic, prompting some consumer groups to call the rules “fake” net neutrality.

Genachowski’s plan, approved after more than seven years of debate about whether net neutrality rules are needed, also contains several loopholes for broadband providers, critics said, including an exception for managed services separate from the public Internet.

But Genachowski defended the rules as “strong and balanced.”

“As we stand here now, the freedom and openness of the Internet are unprotected,” he said. “No rules on the books to protect basic Internet values. No process for monitoring Internet openness as technology and business models evolve. No recourse for innovators, consumers, or speakers harmed by improper practices. “And no predictability for Internet service providers, so that they can effectively manage and invest in broadband networks.

Critics on the other side of the net neutrality debate, including Commissioner Robert McDowell, ripped the action as unnecessary and legally dubious. The new order is an attempt to circumvent an April ruling by a U.S. appeals court striking down an FCC effort to enforce informal net neutrality principles, he said.

“This new effort will fail in court as well,” McDowell said. The rules adopted Tuesday will be “tied up in courts for years,” he predicted.

The National Journal reported Tuesday that Verizon Communications was mulling a lawsuit over the new rules. A Verizon spokesman wasn’t immediately available for comment.

McDowell argued that the Internet is working and that new regulations would hurt investment in broadband. The FCC’s action will put the agency on a “collision course” with Congress, where about 300 lawmakers have raised concerns about net neutrality rules, McDowell said.

There have been “fewer than a handful” of examples of net neutrality violations in recent years, he added, and the FCC has resolved those cases in favor of consumers under current law. “Nothing is broken in the Internet access market that needs fixing,” McDowell said.

Genachowski disagreed, saying Internet investors need consistent rules going forward.

“We are told by some … not to try to fix what isn’t broken, and that rules of the road protecting Internet freedom would discourage innovation and investment,” he said. “We have heard from so many entrepreneurs, engineers, venture capitalists, CEOs and others working daily to invent and distribute new Internet products and thereby maintain U.S. leadership in innovation. Their message has been clear: the next decade of innovation in this sector is at risk without sensible rules of the road.”

The FCC approved the rules in a 3-2 party-line vote, with both of the commission’s Republicans voting against the proposal. The rules adopted require broadband providers to disclose their network management practices and performance metrics to customers, in addition to prohibiting broadband providers from blocking legal Web content.

The rules create a handful of exceptions for mobile broadband. The FCC will not prohibit mobile carriers from unreasonable discrimination, with commissioners instead saying they will watch the industry for evidence of problems. The rules will prohibit mobile providers from blocking voice and other applications that compete with their services, but will not prohibit them from blocking other applications.

The new rules also exempt specialized, or managed, services offered by broadband providers from the rules. The FCC will monitor specialized services for signs that they are hurting the public Internet, FCC staff members said.

Commissioner Michael Copps, a Democrat, said he voted for the rules with reservations. Copps wanted broadband reclassified as a regulated, common-carrier service with more protections for mobile customers, but the FCC has improved the rules since Genachowski first proposed them in early December, he said.

The new version of the rules provide net neutrality protections for schools, libraries and small businesses, and not just consumers, Copps said. The new version also calls paid prioritization of Web content unreasonable discrimination that’s prohibited for wire-based providers, he added.

Without action Tuesday, “the wheels of net neutrality would grind to a halt for at least two years,” Copps said.

The new rules “fell far short” of what the FCC could have accomplished, said Gigi Sohn, president of Public Knowledge, a digital rights group in favor of strong rules.

“The commission could have established clear rules that would give more protections to Internet users than the one approved today,” she said in a statement. “Instead, these rules will be subject to manipulation by telephone and cable companies. The commission will have to be very serious about the enforcement of these rules in order for them to succeed.”

The Center for Democracy and Technology, a digital rights group, and the Telecommunications Industry Association, a trade group representing broadband providers, both praised the decision. The FCC showed restraint by not reclassifying broadband as a regulated service under Title II of the Telecommunications Act, the TIA said.

“We appreciate the commission’s observation that its long-standing, light touch regulatory approach has fostered significant broadband investment and innovation, due in large part to the regulatory certainty provided by this framework,” TIA President Grant Seiffert said in a statement. “Today’s decision recognizes TIA’s assertion that reclassification under Title II would stifle this growth.”

Related posts:

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2. FCC approves mandatory data roaming rules Phil Goldstein, FierceWireless, 4/7/2011 The FCC voted to approve automatic...
3. Companies, Lawmakers Tell FCC to Dump Net Neutrality Grant Gross, IDG News Service, 10/15/2009 As the U.S. Federal...

Darren Murph, Engadget, 12/4/2010

Hey, don’t knock the naming engineers — “Clear Modem with WiFi” just works. Indeed, that’s the official title of Clear’s new at-home WiMAX modem (the same one that flew through the FCC back in September), designed to bring the 4G superhighway into one’s home for as little as $35 per month. According to the operator, it’s an all-in-one solution that’s “around the size of a book,” offering 4G reception as well as an internal 802.11b/g/n router to distribute those waves across your home without the need for a separate WLAN router. It’s available today from your local Clear store, with a $120 outright price or a $7 per month lease rate. Furthermore, Clear home service customers can add home voice service, with unlimited local and long distance calling in the US, Canada and Puerto Rico, for an extra 15 clams per month. Oh, and if your math skills are a tad fuzzy, we’d recommend buying it if you’re planning to keep the service for greater than 17 months.

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Mike Dano, FierceWireless, 10/26/2010

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