Wireless Telecommunications

The FBI hasn’t been able to retrieve data from more than half of the mobile devices it tried to access in less than a year, said FBI Director Christopher Wray, turning up the heat on a debate between technology companies and law enforcement officials trying to recover encrypted communications.

In the first 11 months of the fiscal year, federal agents were unable to access the content of more than 6,900 mobile devices, Wray said. “To put it mildly, this is a huge, huge problem,” Wray said. “It impacts investigations across the board — narcotics, human trafficking, counterterrorism, counterintelligence, gangs, organized crime, child exploitation.” The FBI and other law enforcement officials have long complained about being unable to unlock and recover evidence from cellphones and other devices seized from suspects even if they have a warrant, while technology companies have insisted they must protect customers’ digital privacy.

The long-rumored and much-anticipated merger of T-Mobile and Sprint merger may be happening soon. Both companies have decided to forego the investor question-and-answer sessions that typically take place after the carriers release their quarterly earnings.

T-Mobile struck first Oct 23 releasing its third-quarter earnings a day earlier than expected and, instead of a live Q&A with telecommunication analysts, the No. 3 wireless carrier opted for a video blog starring CEO John Legere. "With all the rumors and speculation out there we decided that we wanted to make sure you all saw and focused on our Q3 results," he said in the video. Also on Oct 23, two days before its own second-quarter results are released, Sprint said it will not host a conference call Wednesday.

[Commentary] No matter how valuable the Lifeline program is in theory, it’s wasting millions of taxpayer dollars. It allows the telecommunications carriers who profit from the program to verify eligibility for their participants — and too many are turning a blind eye. Lifeline was poorly structured and badly executed from the start. The goal of providing low-income Americans help regaining their economic footing with phone and broadband service is worthwhile and admirable — but that doesn’t mean that any plan doing that is worthy of unequivocal support.

Sidestepping the problems in this terribly run program is a disservice to all participants as well as those footing the bill, and will endanger the program’s existence if we allow it to continue. I’ll remain engaged on this issue and committed to serious changes. In the meantime, I encourage my party, as well as my friends from across the aisle, to join me in pushing for oversight and accountability regardless of its political convenience.

I’m sure that those that love to regulate will try to make the weak case that the status of the wireless industry occurred because of — and not despite — the Federal Communications Commission’s regulations, particularly our Net Neutrality burdens. Beyond being desperate to validate their myopic decision, this argument completely ignores the counterfactual, or what would have occurred absent such burdens. The reality is that had the Commission rejected the liberal mantra of Net Neutrality, the entire wireless picture could have been even better.

In the wake of the devastating and deadly California wildfires, Sens Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Kamala Harris (D-CA) have written the Federal Communications Commission with their concerns that wireless emergency alerts (WEAs) lack potentially lifesaving precise geotargeting, and are urging the FCC to implement that requirement ASAP.

The FCC in 2016 proposed rules, which FCC Chairman Ajit Pai voted for as a commissioner, that would require wireless carriers to provide precise geotargeting of WEA warnings, but Sens Feinstein and Harris wrote Pai that they were disappointed the FCC has never voted a final order, and that it provided "a temporary waiver of the existing, imprecise geotargeting requirements for certain carriers." They ask if the chairman intends to proceed with the rulemaking and if so, will he do it expeditiously, and if not, why not. They also want to know whether the FCC has gotten feedback from emergency services in Northern California about whether the WEA system is meeting their needs, referring to news stories that suggested it was not, and whether it has sought the same info from hurricane-it areas.

Gov Jerry Brown (D-CA) vetoed a bill that would have streamlined policies for small-cell deployments, handing CTIA - The Wireless Association and major wireless carriers a significant defeat in the nation’s most populous state. The bill, SB 649, essentially would have given wireless companies the same rights as public utilities. It would have enabled carriers and infrastructure vendors to place transmitters in public rights-of-way and capped fees cities could charge to install their devices.

The bill had become a top priority for CTIA, which claimed it would boost California’s economy and pave the way for faster network speeds, better coverage and increased capacity. But it was opposed by some 300 California cities, dozens of counties more than 100 local organizations. “There is something of real value in having a process that results in extending this innovative technology rapidly and efficiently,” Gov Brown said. “Nevertheless, I believe that the interest which localities have in managing rights of way requires a more balanced solution than the one achieved in this bill.”

[Commentary] As nearly all usable radio spectrum has been allocated to particular uses and assigned to particular users, shifting spectrum toward modern uses almost certainly requires taking from one use or user to give to other uses and users. Such spectrum repurposing need not be contentious and is often successful. The recent $41 billion AWS-3 spectrum auction, the largest-grossing auction in history, involved spectrum repurposed from Federal government incumbents to mobile wireless providers. Yet, success is not guaranteed.

Spectrum, like land, is typically “zoned” to particular uses that play nice together. For instance, a relatively low-powered satellite signal might be drowned in a sea of high-powered, land-based cellular signals. Like small and big dogs being kept separate at a dog park, different types of radio signals are managed to mitigate conflict using technical means such as power limitations and boundaries between interfering frequencies or assigning users and uses varying degrees of priority. Before one can reassign satellite spectrum to terrestrial wireless broadband use, therefore, one must seek permission from the FCC: terrestrial services are prone to interfering with satellite signals, so an approval requires a demonstration that interference with others is not a problem.

[Dr. George S. Ford is Chief Economist of the Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal & Economic Public Policy Studies]

In 2014, Sprint tried to buy T-Mobile in a deal that ultimately fell apart under scrutiny by the Justice Department and the Federal Communications Commission. Regulators at the time concluded that having four major competitors in the cellular space, not three, would do the most to preserve competition and help consumers. Analysts say that a new agreement between the two companies would likely hand the reins to T-Mobile, which overtook Sprint in 2015 as the nation's third-biggest carrier. Given that T-Mobile was behind the push for many of the industry changes we've seen in recent years, it's possible that T-Mobile could do a lot with Sprint if it led the company. But many of the underlying issues — such as what happens to competition in a world of three national providers — remain.

As recently as last week, staff members at the Justice Department were said to be skeptical of a Sprint/T-Mobile deal. One argument you can expect to hear, analysts say, is that building out the next generation of wireless data — known as "5G” — will be fairly expensive and that it would be cheaper for everyone involved if T-Mobile and Sprint could join forces and build a single 5G network rather than build two of them separately. Another argument you might hear is that Sprint, whose business is weakening, simply can't survive alone and that by teaming up with T-Mobile, the combined company could more effectively compete with AT&T and Verizon.

Apparently, T-Mobile US and Sprint plan to announce a merger agreement without any immediate asset sales, as they seek to preserve as much of their spectrum holdings and cost synergies as they can before regulators ask for concessions. While it is common for companies not to unveil divestitures during merger announcements, T-Mobile’s and Sprint’s approach shows that the companies plan to enter what could be challenging negotiations with U.S. antitrust and telecommunications regulators without having made prior concessions.

It was reported recently that some of the Justice Department’s antitrust staff were skeptical about the deal, which would combine the third and fourth largest U.S. wireless carriers. However, regulators can only begin reviewing a corporate merger once it has been agreed to and announced. T-Mobile and Sprint are preparing a negotiating strategy to tackle demands from regulators regarding asset sales, including the divestment of some of their spectrum licenses after their deal is announced, apparently.

The vast majority (96%) of rural young people age 14 to 22 years old have cellphones, including 17% who get mobile service from a local provider and 75% who get service from a national carrier, according to a rural youth technology survey conducted by the Foundation for Rural Service. Nearly the same amount (95%) have internet connectivity at home, and a substantial portion of them get connectivity from a local provider. Just under one in three respondents get internet connectivity from a satellite provider. That 95% number is considerably higher than overall home internet take rates that other surveys have found, underscoring how much more important the internet is for households that include teens and young adults.

The survey also included questions about how rural youth use technology — information that could become increasingly valuable as those young people become technology decision makers. About two-thirds of respondents to the FRS survey would consider living in a rural area soon after graduation.