Wireless Telecommunications

There are many small business benefits of rural broadband, argues ACT – The App Association in a well-researched blog post that cites numerous real-world examples of those benefits. ACT, an association of small technology firms, wrote the blog post to advocate for TV white spaces (TVWS) broadband, but the benefits cited would apply to other high-speed broadband technologies as well. The business benefits of rural broadband that ACT references include:
Small and medium businesses that access global markets over the internet have a survival rate of 54%, which is 30% higher than for SMBs that are not internet-connected, according to the World Economic Forum.
30% of companies that sell goods online through Etsy are based in rural areas – and considering that $2.84 billion in goods were sold through Etsy last year, those rural retailers apparently are generating considerable revenues online. Etsy sellers generally are small businesses, which the company refers to as entrepreneurs and “internet-enabled microbusinesses.”
Small businesses create roughly two thirds of jobs in rural America, according to the U.S. House of Representatives small business website, highlighting the important economic benefits those businesses could generate, provided that they have high-speed broadband available to them.

Government requests for the mass disclosure of every caller who connected to a particular cellphone tower have spiked during the first half of 2017, according to Verizon’s latest transparency report. Law enforcement seek so-called tower dumps to try to identify a suspect in a crime, compelling tower operators to provide the phone numbers of all devices that connected to a specific tower during a given period of time. “This tool is being used much more frequently by law enforcement,” Verizon said in the report.

Verizon has received approximately 8,870 warrants or court orders for cell tower dumps in the first half of this year — a huge increase over 2013, when the government sought only 3,200 dumps across the whole of that year. In 2016, the total figure was 14,630. Law enforcement demands for customer data totaled at 138,773 for the first half of the year — relatively steady with six-month segments over the past two years. Verizon rejected around 3 percent of requests, granting around 68,000 subpoenas, 700 wiretap demands and about 4,000 “trap and trace” orders that let investigators see what phone numbers are calling a target in real time.

Verizon announced that its existing unlimited data plan is being divided into three new options: Go Unlimited (starting at $75 for a single line), Beyond Unlimited ($85 for first line), and Business Unlimited. Unlike the relatively straightforward unlimited plan that Verizon surprised customers with in February, these new monthly plans are chock-full of fine print and caveats. And in a move sure to anger network neutrality advocates, the regular “Go Unlimited” plan throttles all smartphone video streaming to 480p / DVD-quality. The new plans go into effect beginning tomorrow, August 23rd, so this change is happening fast. Existing postpaid customers can keep their current plan, but some things will change even for them.

The acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the federal agency charged with deportations, has confirmed in a new letter that it does not use cell-site simulators, also known as stingrays, to locate undocumented immigrants. In the August 16 letter, which was sent to Sen Ron Wyden (D-OR), acting Director Thomas Homan wrote that, since October 2015, ICE has followed similar guidelines put in place by the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security a month earlier, which require a warrant before deploying a stingray. Sen Wyden has also recently sent a similar letter to the Department of Justice, which has not yet responded.

In December 2016, mobile devices (smartphone and tablet) accounted for 43 percent of all traffic vs. 36 percent the same time the year before. We already see the same trend through June of 2017 and it will likely accelerate in the second half of 2017.What we discovered is that even though desktop users are switching to total mobile, when we dive deeper into the data we actually see tablet users declining and smartphone capturing the majority of the shift in users from desktop. This trend is already true halfway through 2017. We anticipate smartphone usage to increase more than 37 percent in 2017.

Fourteen of the biggest US tech companies filed a brief with the Supreme Court on Aug 14 supporting more rigorous warrant requirements for law enforcement seeking certain cell phone data, such as location information. In the statement, the signatories—Google, Apple, Facebook, and Microsoft among them—argue that the government leans on outdated laws from the 1970s to justify Fourth Amendment overreach. One perhaps surprising voice in the chorus of protesters? Verizon.

Verizon's support means that the largest wireless service provider in the US, and a powerful force in Silicon Valley, has bucked a longtime trend of telecom acquiescence. While carriers have generally been willing to comply with a broad range of government requests—even building out extensive infrastructure to aid surveillance—Verizon has this time joined with academics, analysts, and the company’s more privacy-focused corporate peers. Carpenter v. United States is “one of the most important Fourth Amendment cases in recent memory,” wrote Craig Silliman, Verizon’s executive vice president for public policy and general counsel. “Although the specific issue presented to the Court is about location information, the case presents a broader issue about a customer’s reasonable expectation of privacy for other types of sensitive data she shares with any third party.… Our hope is that when it decides this case, the Court will help us better apply old Fourth Amendment doctrines to an evolving digital era.”

More than a dozen high technology companies and the biggest wireless operator in the United States, Verizon, have called on the US Supreme Court to make it harder for government officials to access individuals' sensitive cellphone data. The companies filed a 44-page brief with the court Aug 14 in a high-profile dispute over whether police should have to get a warrant before obtaining data that could reveal a cellphone user's whereabouts.

Signed by some of Silicon Valley's biggest names, including Apple, Facebook, Twitter, Snap, and Alphabet's Google, the brief said that as individuals' data is increasingly collected through digital devices, greater privacy protections are needed under the law. "That users rely on technology companies to process their data for limited purposes does not mean that they expect their intimate data to be monitored by the government without a warrant," the brief said.

The Federal Communications Commission is seeking input on how it should gauge whether broadband is being deployed in a timely manner — a determination the commission makes annually in the FCC Broadband Progress Report. Under consideration is “whether some form of advanced telecommunications capability, be it fixed or mobile, is being deployed to all Americans in a reasonable and timely fashion.” Alternatively, the commission asked for input on whether it should consider an area to be served only if both fixed and mobile broadband are available there. Traditionally the report has only considered fixed service in gauging broadband deployment progress.

A startup that wants to build a mobile data network to fuel the Internet of Things is trying to convince regulators to let it use crucial airwaves. It's the second time the company, now called Ligado Networks, has fought this battle. Its previous iteration, backed by Phil Falcone and called LightSquared, hit a dead-end 5 years ago. Now it's back with a new name, lots of money and well-connected allies as it tries to strike gold with connected devices, which it says it can serve using a combination of satellite airwaves and traditional spectrum — creating a sort of hybrid network. If successful, Ligado could become an important Internet of Things player and produce a big payout for big-name investors like Centerbridge Partners, Fortress Investment Group and J.P. Morgan Chase (the industrial Internet of Things market could be worth $110 billion by 2020, according to estimates).

But Ligado's years-long corporate drama shows the risks involved in making bets on technologies that hinge on regulatory approval. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai hasn't tipped his hand, and there are no indications that a decision is imminent. "We have no update to provide that this point. We're studying the issue," he said recently, adding the agency is listening to all stakeholders. But Ligado is on the clock: it was reported earlier in 2017 that the company was working with bankers to explore a possible sale or find another investment.

Sprint plans to support 180,000 low-income high school students with free wireless devices and connectivity. About 70% of America’s high school teachers assign homework that requires online connectivity, yet low-income students often don’t have the broadband at home that they need to complete their schoolwork. It’s a problem known as the “Homework Gap” that affects more than 5 million families.

As part of the 1Million Project, the Sprint Foundation is ponying up to supply service and equipment for up to four years while the kids finish high school. The first year of the five-year project kicks off this week, to encompass more than 1,300 schools across 32 states. The initiative should impact 180,000 students. Over the course of the program, the hope is to help up to 1 million high schoolers who lack internet access at home.