Ars Technica

AT&T has sued Nashville (TN) to stop a new ordinance designed to accelerate the deployment of Google Fiber. The lawsuit was filed in US District Court in Nashville Sept 22, only two days after the Nashville Metro Council passed a “One Touch Make Ready” rule that gives new Internet service providers faster access to utility poles. The ordinance lets a single company make all of the necessary wire adjustments on utility poles itself, instead of having to wait for incumbent providers like AT&T and Comcast to send work crews to move their own wires. Google Fiber says it is waiting on AT&T and Comcast to move wires on nearly 8,000 poles. AT&T’s lawsuit claims that the ordinance is preempted by Federal Communications Commission pole attachment regulations and violates AT&T’s 58-year-old pole attachment contract with Nashville. The company seeks a declaration that the ordinance is unlawful and a permanent injunction preventing the local government from enforcing it.

Charter is trying to convince the Federal Communications Commission to backtrack on a plan that would force cable providers to charge a separate fee for cable modems.

Charter is unusual compared to other cable companies in that it doesn’t tack on a cable modem rental fee when offering Internet service. But FCC officials don’t think that’s good for consumers, because the price of Charter Internet service is the same whether a customer uses a Charter modem or buys their own. Charter argues that it doesn’t pass the cost of the modem on to consumers. “Our pricing is competitive and comparable to other providers,” Charter told Ars. In addition to the base price, other providers "charge a modem fee of around $10. Our service isn’t $10 more expensive. We don’t bake in a modem fee, we include it for free with the service." Charter said, "If transparency is the ultimate goal of the FCC’s provision, we would be more than happy to specifically note on our customers’ bills that our modems are free."

Verizon Wireless is facing questions about the accuracy of its data meter after a series of newspaper stories on customers who were charged big overage fees after unexplained data usage increases. The Plain Dealer of Cleveland detailed a $9,100 bill charged to a customer named Valarie Gerbus. “For months, the mother of two from suburban Tampa paid $118 a month for her cellphone package that included 4 gigabytes of data, which she says she never exceeded,” the article said. “That changed last month when Verizon charged her with using an eye-gouging 569 gigabytes for a whopping $8,535.” Verizon added $600 to the bill when she dropped her plan. Gerbus refused to pay and asked Verizon “repeatedly” to explain how her bill soared, but she got no answer, the article said. "I told them that I won't pay the bill,'' Gerbus said to the Plain Dealer. "I can either wait until they take it to a collection agency or when they take it to court. Either way, my credit history will be ruined. I can go bankrupt here.'' Gerbus was planning to file a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission, but then Verizon agreed to waive the $9,100 bill after the article ran. Gerbus still has to pay a cancellation fee.

Plain Dealer reporter Teresa Dixon Murray described her own "mysterious" increase in Verizon data usage in a story on September 2 and was then flooded with similar stories from customers around the country. In a followup article last week, Dixon Murray wrote that "thousands of people, mostly Verizon customers,” said they had “seen their data use jump significantly—doubling or tripling since the spring in many cases, even though their cell phone habits haven't changed.”

Even if the Russian government was behind the hack of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and various other political organizations and figures, the US government's options under international law are extremely limited, according to Jack Goldsmith, a Harvard law professor and former US assistant attorney general. Goldsmith, who served at the Justice Department during the administration of George W. Bush and resigned after a dispute over the legal justifications for "enhanced interrogation" techniques, spoke about the DNC hack during a Yale University panel.

"Assuming that the attribution is accurate," Goldsmith said, "the US has very little basis for a principled objection." In regard to the theft of data from the DNC and others, Goldsmith said that "it's hard to say that it violates international law, and the US acknowledges that it engages in the theft of foreign political data all the time." As far as the publication of the stolen data in a way intended to interfere with the US presidential election, Goldsmith noted that the US has a long history of interference in other countries' politics. "Misinformation campaigns are a core element of what the [Central Intelligence Agency] has done" since it was created, he said.

As the Nashville (TN) Metro Council prepares for a final vote to give Google Fiber faster access to utility poles, one council member is sponsoring an alternative plan that comes from AT&T and Comcast. The council has tentatively approved a One Touch Make Ready (OTMR) ordinance that would let a single company—Google Fiber in this case—make all of the necessary wire adjustments on utility poles itself. Ordinarily, Google Fiber must wait for incumbent providers like AT&T and Comcast to send construction crews to move their own wires, requiring multiple visits and delaying Google Fiber's broadband deployment.

The pro-Google Fiber ordinance was approved in a 32-7 preliminary vote, but one of the dissenters asked AT&T and Comcast to put forth a competing proposal before a final vote is taken. The new proposal from council member Sheri Weiner calls for Google, AT&T, Comcast and Nashville Electric Service to create a system that improves the current process for making utility poles ready for new cables. Weiner said AT&T and Comcast helped draft the resolution she proposes. Weiner said that she asked AT&T and Comcast to propose a resolution.

A trio of major media entities—The Associated Press, USA Today, and Vice Media—sued the FBI in an attempt to force the agency to reveal details from a mysterious deal that the agency struck in order to bust into a seized iPhone used by a now-deceased terrorist. In April 2016, FBI Director James Comey suggested that his agency paid over $1.3 million to an unnamed company to unlock the iPhone 5C that was used by Syed Farook Rizwan, the man behind an attack in San Bernardino (CA) in December 2015.

The Department of Justice and Apple were set to square off in federal court in California in March 2016 before the hearing was called off. The government soon announced that it had been shown a new technique to unlock the phone and no longer needed Apple's help. The DOJ previously received a court order that would have compelled Apple to create an entirely new customized iOS to allow investigators to brute force the passcode on the device. Apple, for its part, forcefully argued that this was a significant government overreach.

The city council in Wilson (NC) has reluctantly voted to turn off the fiber Internet service it provides to a nearby town because of a court ruling that prevents expansion of municipal broadband services. The Federal Communications Commission in February 2015 voted to block laws in North Carolina and Tennessee that prevent municipal broadband providers from expanding outside their territories. After that vote, Wilson's Greenlight fiber Internet service expanded to the nearby town of Pinetops (NC). But the states of North Carolina and Tennessee sued the FCC to keep their anti-municipal broadband laws in place, and in August they won a federal appeals court ruling that reinstated the law that prevents Wilson from offering Internet service to nearby municipalities.

At Sept 15's city council meeting, Wilson decided not to appeal the court decision and voted to terminate the service agreement with the town of Pinetops, Wilson's city spokesperson, Rebecca Agner said. About 200 home Internet customers in Pinetops will thus lose their Internet service on October 28, Agner said. The nearby Vick Family Farms that employs about 250 people will also lose its service, she said. "We must comply with our state law," Agner said. But city council members were very vocal in their opposition to the law and regret having to disconnect the service, she said.

The operators of free Internet kiosks in New York City plan to disable Web browsing on publicly available tablets after reports of "lewd acts," such as people watching porn and masturbating. LinkNYC kiosks have been replacing New York pay phones, offering free Wi-Fi access and a tablet that can be used by anyone who doesn't have their own mobile device. But LinkNYC announced that it "will be removing Web browsing on all Link tablets while we work with the City and community to explore potential solutions, like time limits." The tablets will still offer free phone calls, maps, and access to emergency services. New Yorkers can also continue to connect their own devices to LinkNYC Wi-Fi hotspots. But browsing on the publicly accessible tablets is being restricted after some disturbing reports.

Two titans of the legal world faced off Sept 13 before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in a case that pits the cell phone industry against the city of Berkeley (CA). If the court ends up reversing a lower court’s earlier decision and ruling in favor of CTIA - The Wireless Association, it would overturn a new Berkeley city law that aims to alert cell phone users about possible radiation risks by forcing retailers to post signs in their stores. That law went into effect earlier in 2016 after the cell phone trade group sued to halt it.

Earlier in 2016, a federal judge ruled in favor of the defendants in CTIA v. City of Berkeley, allowing a municipal ordinance to stand, with one small revision. The Cellular Telephone Industries Association (CTIA), meanwhile, has argued that this violates the industry’s First Amendment rights, as it compels speech. “This is confusing,” Ted Olson, a former solicitor general under the George W. Bush administration, argued before the 9th Circuit on behalf of CTIA. “What the [Federal Communications Commission] says, your honors, with respect to its findings of cell phones used in the US is that they are safe. What Berkeley's message says is: ‘Watch out!’” Olson, who previously made similar arguments before the US District Court level, repeated his claim that this government-required notice was a “burden on speech.” “There’s a reason why Berkeley put the word ‘safety’ in there, it’s to send an alarm,” he said.

The European Commission has promised free Wi-Fi in every town, village, and city in the European Union, in the next four years. A new grant, with a total budget of €120 million, will allow public authorities to purchase state-of-the art equipment, for example a local wireless access point. If approved by the the European Parliament and national ministers the cash could be available before the end of 2017. The commission has also set a target for all European households to have access to download speeds of at least 100Mbps by 2025, and has redefined Internet access as a so-called universal service, while removing obligations for old universal services such as payphones. It also envisions fully deploying 5G, the fifth generation of mobile communication systems, across the European Union by 2025.

Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker made reference to many of these proposals while also promising to abolish roaming once and for all in his "State of the European Union" address on Sept 14. To do all this the commission has proposed a new law—the European Electronic Communications Code—which merges four existing telecoms Directives (Framework, Authorisation, Access, and Universal Service Directive); as well as an updated Regulation on the Body of European Regulators of Electronic Communications (BEREC); a Regulation to support local communities in providing free public Wi-Fi to their citizens; and an Action Plan to deploy 5G in the EU.