Wireless Telecommunications

[Press release] The Federal Communications Commission will hold an Open Meeting on the subject listed below on Thursday, July 12, 2018: 

The good news is that, after years of having to pay per gigabyte, unlimited plans are now the norm at all of the major US wireless carriers. The bad news is that, somehow, those same companies have managed to create different categories of unlimited. At the low-end, some have data caps before speeds are throttled. At the high-end, many come with premium video services (the latest battleground).

AT&T: The biggest challenge with AT&T's unlimited plans is that the options and combinations keep changing.

The Competitive Carriers Association (CCA), the Computer & Communications Industry Association,  ITTA – The Voice of America’s Broadband Providers (ITTA), and NTCA – The Rural Broadband Association (NTCA) have filed joint reply comments with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in opposition of the Commission’s proposed rule to prohibit the use of money distributed from the Universal Service Fund (USF) to purchase or obtain equipment or services from any providers identified as posing a national security risk to communications networks or the communications supply chain.

The Trump administration has moved to block China Mobile, a state-owned Chinese wireless carrier, from linking up with the US market, citing national security concerns. China Mobile wanted to provide cell phone and other communication services between the United States and other countries. It submitted an application for a license to US regulators back in 2011.

I have spent the last two weeks or so doing a deep dive on what, exactly does 5G actually do — with a particular emphasis on the recently released 3GPP standard (Release 15) that everyone is celebrating as the first real industry standard for 5G. My conclusion is that while the Emperor is not naked, that is one Hell of a skimpy thong he’s got on. More precisely, the bunch of different things that people talk about when they

Charter unveiled Spectrum Mobile, the cable company's mobile wireless service. The new Wi-Fi first mobile service looks to be closely following the Xfinity Mobile model, which was also expected. Spectrum Mobile offers two plans: an unlimited data option for $45/month, or a by-the-gig approach for $14 per gigabyte (GB) of data, per month. Spectrum mobile matches Comcast’s Xfinity Mobile pricing for unlimited, but does charge $2 more per gig than Xfinity’s $12 per gig model, at $14 per GB.

Comcast's Xfinity Mobile service is imposing new speed limits on video watching and personal hotspot usage, and the company will start charging extra for high-definition video over the cellular network. Videos will be throttled to 480p (DVD quality) on all Comcast mobile plans unless you pay extra, while Comcast's "unlimited" plan will limit mobile hotspot speeds to 600kbps.

Sacramento (CA) expects to soon be the first city in the nation with commercially available 5G telecommunications networking. City officials see big promise in the emerging technology. “Smart city stuff, IoT, autonomous vehicles: We will use it for all of those things,” said CIO and IT Director Maria MacGunigal.  Yet MacGunigal isn’t primarily focused on the whiz-bang municipal impact of 5G. “The use cases will change 100 times,” she predicted. “What we do know is that we will need the infrastructure, so we want to build it and build it well.

Verizon and AT&T quickly rejected a proposal by Federal Communications Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel to use San Jose’s (CA) approach to small cells as a template for similar deployments in other cities. Hovering over the issue is a continued push by the nation’s wireless network operators to get the FCC to issue guidelines for how cities and states should smooth the rollout of small cells—including how much local regulators can charge carriers for small cell deployments.

The scramble among mobile carriers to amass airwaves for fifth generation (or 5G) wireless networks is picking up steam — and the frenetic pace will continue, even as industry players promise to begin rolling out 5G networks to consumers as soon as 2019. Regulators are rushing to make more spectrum available for what the industry promises will be super-fast speeds and quick response times perfect for applications like virtual reality and self-driving cars.