Verizon Has To Walk Back Bogus 5G Coverage Claims

Wireless

from the make-believe dept

We’ve talked a lot about how while fifth-generation (5G) wireless is a good thing (in that faster, more reliable networks are always good), it’s been comically over-hyped by cellular carriers that have taken every opportunity to misrepresent what the technology is capable of, the kind of real world speeds users will actually see, and where the technology is actually available.

If you listen to Verizon’s 5G ads, you’d think the technology was already available nearly everywhere. Verizon ads routinely proclaim that “People from midtown Manhattan to downtown Denver can experience what your 5G can deliver,” and usually feature thrilled consumers from Omaha to Los Angeles basked in ultra-fast wireless glory.

Reality is… something different. One recent study by OpenSignal found that users in the real world are able to obtain a Verizon 5G signal about 0.4% of the time, largely because the millimeter wave spectrum Verizon is using doesn’t provide very good range, and can’t penetrate buildings particularly well. Even in the places that Verizon advertises as having widespread coverage — like sports stadiums — routinely see patchy availability.

As such, after fielding complaints from AT&T (which has routinely made its own false claims about 5G), the National Advertising Division (NAD)–the investigative arm of a nonprofit dubbed the BBB National Programs–has told Verizon to stop misleading consumers as to where 5G is actually available:

“…the challenged advertising consists of shifting images of Verizon engineers describing the exceptional speed and capacity of Verizon?s 5G network while standing in geographically diverse cities throughout the UnitedStates, with several running real-time speed tests on their phones.& NAD determined that while the challenged advertising communicates the accurate message that Verizon is building its 5G network, the commercials simultaneously tout the current performance of the network, ultimately conveying the net impression that Verizon?s ?ultrafast? 5G network is widely available in cities across the country and, where it has already been launched, is broadly and readily accessible to consumers.”

Carriers have always been full of shit when it comes to wireless data availability maps, but 5G has managed to take things to the next level as carriers attempt to spike lagging smartphone sales and justify some of the highest prices for mobile data in the developed world. That has included not only declaring a 5G city “launched” when just a handful of blocks can get service (something you’ll often see in fiber deployment), but actually using fake phone icons to pretend that existing 4G networks are actually 5G. Carriers have also lobbied against government efforts to improve 5G availability mapping.

The problem of course is that NAD tends to be more decorative than substantive protection against false industry claims. As a self-regulatory apparatus, the organization is used by industry as a form of wrist slap theater to justify regulatory apathy at the FCC and FTC. Most penalties for false advertising are negligible, and by the time these complaints wind their way through the dispute process, the ads in question have often already had their intended impact. So while Verizon has agreed to pull these latest ads, there’s nothing stopping them from doing it all over again a few months down the road with a few tweaks, starting the cycle all over again.

And undaunted, carriers continue to misrepresent 5G as a widely available communications revolution. In reality, studies have indicated that U.S. 5G, while certainly fast, pales in comparison to overseas networks — in large part because we’ve failed to make mid-band spectrum (much of it held by the government) available for widespread public use. By over-hyping what the tech can do and where it’s available (without seriously competing on price in the face of growing sector consolidation), the industry is obliviously training consumers to associate 5G with disappointment.

Filed Under: 5g, false advertising, misleading advertisement
Companies: better business bureau, verizon

UK Buckles, Joins The Evidence-Optional Huawei Blacklist Party

Wireless

from the do-as-we-say,-not-as-we-do dept

While there’s really no denying that Chinese smartphone and network gear maker Huawei engages in some clearly sketchy behavior, it’s generally not anything that can’t be matched by our own, home-grown sketchy telecom companies. And while the Trump administration has been engaged in a widespread effort to blackball Huawei gear from the global marketplace based predominantly on allegations of spying on Americans (mostly to gain leverage in what’s largely seen as a counterproductive tariff and trade war), nobody’s been able to provide a shred of public evidence that this actually occurs despite 20 years of pearl clutching.

That’s not to say that Huawei doesn’t pose national security risks. But for an argument that’s been making the rounds for the better part of the last decade (including one 18 month White House investigation that found nothing), there’s a surprising lack of hard evidence of actual spying on Americans when you actually go looking for it. And there are surprisingly few people that actually seem to care.

With that in mind, Germany and the UK (including UK intelligence services) initially balked at the Trump administration push, noting that if there were security issues with Huawei gear, they’d be caught by existing hardware security review processes. The concern is that a global blackballing — including pulling Huawei gear out of existing networks — would be cumbersome, costly, ineffective, and create potential new problems. And given that Chinese hardware is literally in everything from your home router to the litany of feebly secured “IOT” devices attached to your home and business networks — potentially futile.

This week however the UK finally buckled to U.S. requests, and announced that it would be (slowly) implementing a ban on Huawei gear in both 5G and fixed fiber networks:

“The British government said it would bar telecom companies from purchasing new equipment made by China?s Huawei Technologies Co. and gave them until 2027 to remove its technology from their 5G networks, a sharp about-face that marks a significant victory for the U.S….The U.K is also launching a consultation on when to ban the purchase of Huawei equipment for the country?s fiber-optic network. This will be followed by a transition period that isn?t expected to exceed two years.”

The ban is expected to delay development of 5G by roughly two to three years and cost up to ?2 billion ($2.5 billion) to complete. The move leaves Canada as the last country in the so-called “Five Eyes” intelligence alliance ? which includes the U.S., UK, Australia and New Zealand ? that has yet to decide whether Huawei equipment can be used in their domestic 5G networks.

Huawei, not surprisingly, wasn’t particularly happy about the news:

“It threatens to move Britain into the digital slow lane, push up bills and deepen the digital divide,” said Ed Brewster, a spokesperson for Huawei UK. “Regrettably our future in the UK has become politicized, this is about US trade policy and not security.”

Smaller telecom operators in the US and abroad also haven’t been particularly happy about the entire effort, repeatedly noting that they’re being asked to foot much of the bill for Huawei gear removal and replacement with what’s usually more expensive hardware. While the UK has now folded to the Trump administration’s efforts, Germany and much of the EU remain resistant to the idea of a wholesale ban, would rather exclude Huawei gear based on existing security review standards, and are likely waiting out the next US election to avoid policies that could turn on a dime, which to me, seems more sensible.

Again, there’s ample evidence that Huawei and the Chinese government engage in sketchy behavior. That’s not really debatable. The problem with a telecom-network specific ban for alleged spying is it doesn’t actually solve the problem and imposes all manner of new additional hurdles and costs. Yes, Huawei won’t be in the UK’s telecom networks, but Chinese gear is literally everywhere, from the hardware being used to build power plants, to the millions Chinese routers, internet of things and other “smart” fridges, TVs, door locks, and Barbie dolls (usually with paper mache grade security) we attach to our home and business networks with reckless abandon:

Then there’s the whole hypocrisy thing. The “five eyes” gang has been engaging in often illegal global surveillance of foreign countries (including satellite signal interception and undersea cable wiretapping) for the better part of several generations, starting with programs like Echelon. The US, with the aid of telecom giants like AT&T and Verizon, has been spying on every shred of data that touches their networks for almost as long. That’s before you even get to the fact that the US hacked into Huawei to implant backdoors, and the NSA has been caught intercepting network hardware to install tracking technology.

Is illegal spying bad or not? If it is, surely we’d be OK with other countries banning AT&T, given it’s been made repeatedly clear the company is effectively bone-grafted to the NSA? And if we are going to be doling out lectures on what does or doesn’t qualify as illegal surveillance, shouldn’t we at least make a fleeting attempt to lead by example?

Again, none of this is to defend China’s abhorrent behavior or the genuine risks Chinese telecom companies might actually pose. But you’re not going to fix the problem with completely non-transparent allegations, myopic solutions that don’t tackle broader security issues (like the IOT), nonsensical trade wars (the cost of which are usually borne by American consumers), lobbyists eager to bury anti-competitive business interests under the guise of natsec, and bigoted and patriotic bluster.

Filed Under: blacklist, china, surveillance, telco equipment, uk
Companies: huawei

Chinese 5G Plans Start At $10, Showing The 'Race to 5G' Isn't Much Of One

Wireless

from the race-to-nowhere dept

We’ve noted for a while that the “race to 5G” is largely just the byproduct of telecom lobbyists hoping to spike lagging smartphone and network hardware sales. Yes, 5G is important in that it will provide faster, more resilient networks when it’s finally deployed at scale years from now. But the society-altering impacts of the technology are extremely over-hyped, international efforts to deploy the faster wireless standard aren’t really a race, and even if it were, our broadband maps are so terrible (by design) it would be impossible to actually determine who won.

A big component of the “race to 5G” includes the idea that we must “beat” China. So far, the general consensus is that the only way to “defeat China” is to mindlessly pander to U.S. telecom giants in the form of merger approvals, tax breaks, subsidies, and other perks. But these favors not only don’t result in better or more broadly available networks as promised, they only cement consolidation, limited competition, higher prices, and generally poor customer service. The other part of “beating” China involves blacklisting Chinese gear makers like Huawei for spying on Americans, then refusing to share public evidence of doing so.

A lack of mid-band spectrum here in the States has resulted in measurably slower 5G networks than we’re seeing in other countries, including China. And while US regulators focus largely on kissing entrenched providers asses via dubious, unpopular policy decisions (killing all telecom consumer protections, rubber stamping the Sprint, T-Mobile merger), China’s State-owned carriers China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom have taken a wide deployment lead.

How much of a lead is largely impossible to given the unreliability of both US and Chinese data. Transparency isn’t traditionally a priority for state-owned telecom agencies. While here in the US, ISPs have spent years lobbying against better maps, since better maps would highlight the industry’s deployment and competition shortcomings. And while we have made some small progress toward better mapping, US wireless carriers, which have spent the last few years lying about where 5G is available, are already lobbying to exclude 5G networks from these improvements.

Comparisons on pricing are a little easier, though, there too, that’s a race we’re pretty clearly not winning anytime soon.

Here in the States, consumers already pay some of the highest prices in the developed world for 4G mobile data. So far, 5G looks to be even more expensive, with carriers like Verizon not only charging users $10 more for 5G, but banning HD and 4K video unless consumers pony up even more money.

While numerous aspects of China’s state-owned telecom industry are ugly (surveillance, censorship) and unworthy of emulation, growing competition among MVNOs (mobile virtual network operators), only established in 2013, has driven down 5G prices to the point where users can nab a 5G connection starting around $10 per month:

“Prices have been coming down fast in the ongoing price war, with China Mobile now selling its entry level 5G package for just 69 yuan ($9.76 US) a month, 31% off the original price. A premium 5G package that originally was priced at 128 yuan ($18.08 US) now sells for 88 yuan ($12.43 US), if the customer signs a one-year contract.

China Unicom, another competitor, has responded with price cuts of its own, reducing some plan prices by 30 percent. A popular 5G package called ?5G Refreshing Ice Cream? costs 90 yuan ($12.72 US) per month, not including a small prepaid service fee and a 12-month contract. A premium 5G package is priced at 103 yuan ($14.55 US) per month and comes with a 24-month contract.”

Like here in the States, there’s often monthly data limits (many of these plans have a 30 GB monthly cap). Still, these price points aren’t even remotely comparable to U.S pricing, which is also notably higher than many European providers. That’s likely to get worse now that the DOJ and FCC ignored experts that repeatedly warned approving the Sprint T-Mobile merger would drive up sector costs and drive down sector pay over the next three to five years.

There really isn’t a “race to 5G.” The speed at which a user in China, or Germany, or France gets connected really doesn’t impact a U.S. user and vice versa. But even if there were a race, our regulatory incompetence all but ensures we can neither measure nor actually win it. In large part because, for the better part of thirty years, U.S. telecom policy has consisted of fecklessly pandering to industry giants, either by gutting consumer protections (net neutrality, privacy), doling out poorly-tracked subsidies, or rubber stamping competition-eroding mergers. As such, much of the U.S.’ perceived superiority… doesn’t actually exist.

And instead of fixing our own problems (reforming campaign finance laws to help firewall telecom policy from lobbying, supporting pro-competition polices to drive deployment and lower prices, fixing our broken broadband maps, blocking mergers that harm the market), our policy focus under the Trump administration has largely involved green lighting harmful industry consolidation, and crying about Chinese vendors like Huawei while pretending to care about government surveillance run amok.

Filed Under: 5g, china, competition, race to 5g

T-Mobile Is Already Trying To Wiggle Out Of Its Sprint Merger Conditions

Failures

from the told-you-so dept

Is it too early to say “I told you so” yet?

Despite countless pre-merger promises that its $26 billion merger would create oodles of new jobs, T-Mobile laid off 6,000 employees at its Metro prepaid division before the ink was even dry. Another 200 Sprint employees were fired during a 6 minute conference call a few weeks ago. T-Mobile and Sprint quietly confirmed the layoffs had nothing to do with the pandemic.

Both the FCC and DOJ ignored all critical data and rubber stamped the deal, because that’s what feckless, revolving-door regulators do. The only real resistance T-Mobile saw to its competition and job-eroding deal was the California PUC, which set certain 5G deployment (T-Mobile had to deliver 5G connections of at least 300Mbps to 93 percent of California by the end of 2024) and job (T-Mobile had to hire 1,000 additional employees within three years in California) targets. Given T-Mobile told regulators repeatedly that the merger would dramatically expand 5G deployment and jobs by default, neither should have been a problem.

Yet less than three months from the deal’s closure and T-Mobile is already trying to wiggle out from underneath its obligations in California by claiming California regulators lack the authority to enforce them:

“The commission simply does not have the authority to require a wireless carrier to hire a particular number of employees in a given time period,” T-Mobile wrote. “The legislature has never granted it such authority and, prior to the issuance of the decision, the Commission has not attempted to impose such a mandate on any other communications provider in any context.” T-Mobile also said the condition is “particularly burdensome and unjustified in light of the current COVID-19 crisis.”

California state law makes in clear the CPUC has the authority to determine whether or not a merger “maintains or improves” service quality for consumers, and “the quality of management of the resulting public utility doing business in the state.” Said law also mandates that mergers much be “beneficial on an overall basis to state and local economies,” and be “fair and reasonable to affected public utility employees, including both union and nonunion employees.” Telecom megadeals routinely fail that test, but, courtesy of a corrupted Congress, we simply adore rubber stamping them anyway.

Meanwhile, COVID-19 creates the perfect cover for T-Mobile to dodge its already flimsy deal conditions, even if the 6,200 employees who have already lost their jobs were laid off due to the merger, not the pandemic. And in April of last year, former T-Mobile CEO John Legere insisted that the company would easily add 11,000 additional employees within three years of the deal’s closing:

“Let me be really clear on this increasingly important topic. This merger is all about creating new, high-quality, high-paying jobs, and the New T-Mobile will be jobs-positive from Day One and every day thereafter.”

That’s in stark contrast to not only telecom history (such consolidation always causes job losses in support and middle management), but unions, consumer groups, economists, and Wall Street analysts, who all made it very clear the deal could, over time, result not only in upwards of 20,000 lost jobs, but lower pay across the sector overall. That’s before you get to the fact that reducing overall competitors from four to three will almost certainly result in less price competition and higher prices.

The T-Mobile Sprint merger was always hot garbage. Countless experts made this clear. US telecom megamergers are routinely terrible for markets, consumers, and employees. It’s why everybody spends all day bitching about AT&T and Comcast. Yet time and time again, pre-merger promises by companies looking for regulatory approval are eagerly swallowed and parroted by regulators and the press, and conditions are applied to terrible deals that are either too flimsy to be useful, or simply aren’t enforced. US merger mania (especially in telecom) remains a purgatorial game of Charlie Brown and Lucy football, where we see the same outcome time and time again, but simply refuse to alter our behavior because, at least for executives and investors, the broken path forward is the more profitable one.

Filed Under: 5g, california, fcc, jobs, merger conditions, wireless
Companies: sprint, t-mobile

Yet More Layoffs Hit Sprint/T-Mobile, Despite Promises This Assuredly Wouldn't Happen

Failures

from the refusing-to-learn-from-experience dept

Before regulators signed off on T-Mobile’s $26 billion merger with Sprint, executives like former CEO John Legere told anybody who’d listen that the merger would create oodles of new jobs from “day one.” With the ink barely dry on the deal, it’s abundantly clear that’s not happening.

Last month, T-Mobile laid off an estimated 6,000 employees from its Metro prepaid division, layoffs that had everything to do with the merger, and nothing to do with the COVID-19 crisis. And on June 15th, hundreds of Sprint employees were unceremoniously fired as part of a six minute conference call during which nobody was allowed to ask questions:

“In a conference call on Monday lasting under six minutes, T-Mobile vice president James Kirby told hundreds of Sprint employees that their services were no longer needed. He declined to answer his employees? questions, citing the ?personal? nature of employee feedback, and ended the call.”

Cool. Cool.

This was all ridiculously predictable. There’s 40 years of documented US telecom history showing that the elimination of a major competitor reduces competition and raises prices (oh hi, Comcast). Global markets (Canada, Ireland) have also made this clear. Such deals almost universally result in thousands of layoffs as redundant retail, support, and management positions are culled. It’s why similar deals of this type (AT&T’s 2011 acquisition of T-Mobile, T-Mobile’s 2014 acquisition of Sprint) were blocked. This isn’t a debate topic. It’s not a murky subject. Telecom consolidation routinely ends badly for employees and customers.

Economists made all of these points to the DOJ and FCC, but they were unceremoniously ignored. First by an FCC that couldn’t bother to even read its own staff analysis before rubber stamping the a merger it helped cook up behind closed doors, then by a DOJ whose “antitrust” boss personally escorted the deal to fruition while ignoring all criticism.

If you go back and look at some of ex-CEO John Legere’s blog posts from a few months ago (which I’m sure won’t be around much longer), the CEO repeatedly promised that the merger would be “job positive” from “day one”:

“So, let me be really clear on this increasingly important topic. This merger is all about creating new, high-quality, high-paying jobs, and the New T-Mobile will be jobs-positive from Day One and every day thereafter. That?s not just a promise. That?s not just a commitment. It?s a fact. To achieve what we?re setting out to do ? become the supercharged Un-carrier that delivers new value, ignites competition and delivers nationwide real 5G for All ? the New T-Mobile will provide an amazing and compelling set of services for consumers.”

Legere was so breathlessly offended by statements to the contrary, he tried to insist that union officials were lying — before reminding everybody he testified under oath about the deal’s looming job explosion:

“We also keep seeing the opposition try to use projected layoff numbers from an analyst?s projections that were based on a completely different deal at a completely different point in time to discredit this merger. It?s SO bad that the head of the Communications Workers Association (CWA) was bold enough to refer to those completely unrelated numbers in a CONGRESSIONAL HEARING. I guess if the real numbers don?t tell the story you want, you can just make up new ones? It?s actually offensive. At the hearings, I raised my right hand and swore under oath to tell the TRUTH… and the truth is that the New T-Mobile will CREATE JOBS.”

In the last two months alone we’ve seen 6,000+ non-Covid related layoffs and a 12 hour merger outage (purportedly due to merger integration headaches), so clearly everything is going swimmingly.

For T-Mobile, the COVID-19 crisis comes at an opportune time. It will allow the company to blame any layoffs on the pandemic, even if industry insiders have made it clear the layoffs were inevitable and already in the works. Meanwhile, John Legere has since sold his $17.5 million NYC penthouse in NYC To Giorgio Armani, and is likely already hard at work on his next act, during which we’ll all pretend none of this ever happened. So as usual, we’ll learn absolutely nothing from mergermania history, leaving us to repeat the process all over again down the lane.

Filed Under: competition, fcc, jobs, john legere, layoffs, mergers
Companies: sprint, t-mobile

AT&T Says Being Misleading About 'Unlimited' Data Plans Was Ok, Because Reporters Told Consumers It Was Being Misleading

Say That Again

from the ill-communication dept

Back in 2014 the FTC sued AT&T for selling “unlimited” wireless data plans with very real and annoying limits. The lawsuit noted that, starting in 2011, AT&T began selling “unlimited” plans that actually throttled upwards of 90 percent of your downstream speeds after using just two or three gigabytes of data. AT&T spent years trying to wiggle out of the lawsuit via a variety of legal gymnastics, including at one point trying to claim that the very same net neutrality and FCC Title II rules AT&T was attempting to kill, prevented the FTC from holding it accountable.

Nearly a decade after the battle began, the company agreed last fall to a $60 million settlement with the FTC without actually admitting any wrongdoing. Though AT&T has also been attempting to tap dance around several other lawsuits over its not really “unlimited” data plans with varying success. A separate 2015 class action continues to stumble through the court system, and AT&T lawyers continue to engage in… creative efforts to derail it.

The California class action argues, among other things, that AT&T was being secretive when it downplayed the hidden restrictions on its unlimited data plans (which is correct). To try and disprove this claim, a recent AT&T filing (pdf), spotted by Stop The Cap, introduces a dozen media reports (including an old one by myself) critical of AT&T’s efforts. The logic being that because news outlets were writing about how sleazy AT&T was being, customers couldn’t possibly have been surprised by the restrictions on their “unlimited” data plans:

“One of the news articles cited in AT&T?s May 14 filing was written by former DSL Reports? author Karl Bode, who has been roundly critical of AT&T?s data caps for over a decade. Ironically, AT&T?s defense team is arguing Bode?s report, ?AT&T Wages Quiet War on Grandfathered Unlimited Users? offers proof AT&T was not keeping its speed throttling policy ?secret,? as at least one plaintiff claimed. Bode suggested AT&T had engineered its speed throttling plan to push grandfathered unlimited data plan customers off the plan in favor of more profitable plans offering a specified data allowance and overlimit fees.”

Nifty.

It’s not just AT&T that has now spent the better part of the last fifteen years trying to tap dance around their misleading marketing related to unlimited data plans. Verizon had its wrist slapped by New York’s Attorney General as early as 2007 for selling “unlimited” data plans with very real limits, and yet the company still to this day imposes all manner of restrictions on such plans. Verizon’s most recent unlimited plans, for example, throttle you back to HD and ban 4K video entirely unless you pony up cash for a more expensive plan.

This is by and large acceptable provided Verizon buries its annoying unlimited data plan limits somewhere in its massive EULA.

Still, you’d think that after so many run ins with regulators and consumers, wireless carriers would simply stop using the word “unlimited” entirely, instead focusing on other metrics like speed or reliability. Instead, they keep engaging in the same behavior, AGs and the FTC keep doling out flimsy wrist slaps years after the fact, and telecom lawyers spend years tap dancing around anything even vaguely resembling accountability. And, thanks in large part to AT&T and Verizon lobbyists, we just lobotomized the one government agency custom built to handle these kinds of issues, while also killing net neutrality rules requiring greater transparency in mobile data plans. Good job, America!

Filed Under: 5g, misleading, truth in advertising, wireless
Companies: at&t

T-Mobile Merger 'Synergies' Culminate In Massive 12 Hour Nationwide Outage

Failures

from the do-not-pass-go,-do-not-collect-$200 dept

For much of the last year, T-Mobile and Sprint insisted that their $26 billion megamerger would result in untold amazing “synergies,” lower prices, and better service. You know, pretty much the complete opposite of what US telecom merger history indicates and antitrust experts had predicted. And so far, the antitrust experts have had it largely right; the company has been busy laying off employees at its prepaid division (despite repeatedly claiming this wouldn’t happen), and the DOJ’s attempt to cobble together a fourth replacement carrier out of Dish Network appears to be bogged down in infighting.

This week, T-Mobile’s wireless network experienced a massive, twelve hour outage that left users unable to call or send text messages:

“In our own tests in New York and Seattle, we found that making calls from a T-Mobile phone would fail almost immediately after placing the call. We also found that the cell service on our phones was intermittent, with bars occasionally dropping to zero or losing access to high-speed data.”

Initially, since telecom giants love to avoid explaining (or giving any transparency whatsoever into outages), rumors falsely suggested that the outage was due to a massive DDoS attack. Experts like Brian Krebs later speculated that the cause of the outage was at least partially due to efforts to integrate the Sprint and T-Mobile networks:

Obviously combining the massive footprints of two major US wireless carriers is going to come with some headaches. But it’s worth repeating that this wouldn’t be happening if regulators had heeded experts’ warnings and not rubber stamped the merger in the first place. The outage was enough to warrant a stern Twitter talking to by FCC boss Ajit Pai, who called the outage “unacceptable” and insisted the source of the outage would result in an FCC investigation:

Again though, there are a few problems here. The outage wouldn’t have happened if the FCC hadn’t ignored all warnings and objective data and rubber stamped the gigantic, cumbersome, and unnecessary job and competition eroding deal (before commissioners had even read their own staff’s impact analysis, no less). Pai has spent the last three years pandering to the telecom industry by giving it everything it wants, including the death of privacy and net neutrality protections, merger approval, and a few feckless wrist slaps for one of the biggest privacy scandals in modern internet history.

Now comes a point when he’s supposed to actually “investigate” a problem, and there’s not much faith that anything will come of it. T-Mobile won’t willingly admit the merger integration caused the outage, and given he has a vested interest in defending his merger approval, Pai isn’t likely to admit as much either. T-Mobile could very easily lie here and provide a reasonable-sounding alternative explanation for the outage, and the FCC–beholden as they are–wouldn’t challenge this in the slightest. The only way to determine T-Mobile was telling the truth would be a full investigation–the kind this FCC would never actually do because it conflicts with Pai’s hands off ideology.

Regulators don’t always need to actually regulate. Often it’s beneficial if they don’t. But they need to retain the impression that they’re tough, objective, and could take action at any time so that companies know that there are penalties for malfeasance and incompetence. But when you spend three years mindlessly pandering to an industry you used to work for, the message is sent loud and clear: you will face no serious repercussions for pretty much anything of note.

Filed Under: fcc, integration, merger, network outage, synergies
Companies: sprint, t-mobile

Senator Cotton Dumbly Claims Huawei Building 5G Networks Is Like Letting The USSR Build US Cold War Submarines

Say That Again

from the ill-communication dept

We’ve noted for a while that the “race to 5G” is largely just the byproduct of telecom lobbyists hoping to spike lagging smartphone and network hardware sales. Yes, 5G is important in that it will provide faster, more resilient networks when it’s finally deployed at scale years from now. But the society-altering impacts of the technology are extremely over-hyped, international efforts to deploy the faster wireless standard aren’t really a race, and even if it were, our broadband maps are so terrible (often by monopolist design), it would be impossible to actually determine who won.

A huge part of the idiotic “race to 5G” narrative involves ample fear mongering over China, or the idea that if China somehow deploys 5G faster to Chinese residents, that somehow means… anything to the consumers in the US already facing high prices and patchy availability. The reality is that China is well ahead of the United States in terms of 5G deployment already, and the 5G being deployed here in the States is notably slower than many overseas 5G deployments because of a lack of mid-band spectrum (aka policy failure). It’s simply not a race, and the monopoly-dominated US telecom sector isn’t likely to “win” it.

Yet another aspect of the whole “race to 5G” narrative is the endless pearl-clutching and face-fanning about Chinese telecom giant Huawei, and its role in helping build global 5G networks. The Trump administration has repeatedly tried to claim that Huawei should be unequivocally banned from participating in global 5G builds. Many lawmakers in Germany and the UK have repeatedly balked at this request, quite correctly noting that nobody in the Trump administration has been able to provide any public evidence that Huawei has spied on Americans or Europeans at scale.

Companies like Microsoft have expressed skepticism as well:

“When Microsoft asked US lawmakers to explain the threat, they’ve been too vague for Smith’s liking. Huawei is a major customer of his company: Its laptops come with Microsoft’s Windows operating system. “Oftentimes, what we get in response is, ‘Well, if you knew what we knew, you would agree with us’,” Smith told Bloomberg. “And our answer is, ‘Great, show us what you know so we can decide for ourselves. That’s the way this country works.'”

To be clear, Huawei engages in shaky, unethical behavior. But so does AT&T. So does Verizon. So does the NSA, routinely. And while there’s certainly security considerations when it comes to using Huawei’s gear, a lot of this hysteria has been driven in DC by companies like Cisco for years, simply because they don’t want to have to compete with cheaper Chinese hardware. It’s extremely easy to bury anti-competitive motivations under the din national security. And it’s pretty easy to hoodwink press outlets that can’t identify, much less navigate, their own patriotic bias.

Enter Senator Tom Cotton, who this week equated letting China help build global 5G networks to letting the USSR develop US submarines during the cold war:

“Tom Cotton, who represents Arkansas, said he had geopolitical and technical objections to Huawei and claimed that, if hacked, its equipment could track the movements of key parts for F35 fighter jets. Deploying Huawei, the politician continued, ?would be as if we had relied on adversarial nations in the cold war to build our submarines, or to build our tanks. It?s just not something that we would have ever considered.”

Except that’s hyperbolic nonsense. Keep in mind, the US has already banned Huawei from its networks. And all the UK is proposing is letting Huawei participate in up to 35% of its network builds, which will need to undergo elaborate security and standards checks under the watchful eye of heavy skepticism. And again, there’s also this annoying fact that nobody has been able to provide public evidence that Huawei uses its gear to spy on Americans on behalf of the Chinese, despite fifteen years of vague allegations of this type, including a 18 month investigation by the US government that found… bupkis.

If there was evidence, the administration would have found some way to release at least a heavily redacted version of it. As a result, countries like the UK and Germany have argued that instead of engaging in a costly (and probably unenforceable) game of global blackballing, countries can simply refuse to use gear that can clearly be proven not to be secure via the elaborate security and safety processes that already exist. Many UK leaders are also quite correct in noting that this isn’t a subject the United States really has much credibility on given its history of surveillance, falsehoods, and leadership failures:

“Stewart McDonald, an SNP MP, also challenged Cotton, arguing that the behaviour of Donald Trump, particularly during the George Floyd crisis, adversely affected the United States?s ability to lead on the issue. ?The current presidential leadership and, in particular, his style of leadership is grossly undermining,? McDonald said.”

Huawei, meanwhile, is likely correct in noting that the origins of this entire effort stems from companies that don’t want the Chinese giant encroaching on the US dominated smartphone and network hardware markets:

“Speaking after the hearing, Victor Zhang, the vice-president of Huawei, said the hearing demonstrated that the senator?s principal concern was that the company had become too successful in an industry where the US has traditionally dominated. “It?s clear its market position, rather than security concerns, underpins America?s attack on Huawei as the committee was given no evidence to substantiate security allegations,? he added.”

This is true. There’s an entire cottage industry of US industry lobbyists driving this train that simply don’t want to lose revenues via more intense Chinese competition. How much of this is genuine national security concerns? How much of this is lobbyist gamesmanship? Would the ratio even be measurable?

Again, Huawei is no saint. There’s evidence that the company has helped some governments in Africa spy on political opponents and journalists. But again, this is all stuff the United States, NSA, and partners like AT&T engage in on a regular basis, and you don’t see folks calling for a blacklisting of AT&T (can you imagine the US hyperventilation if a foreign government tried?). The United States has been such a rabid supporter of unchecked global spying — and bullshits so frequently on this subject — that it’s pretty hard to take us seriously when it comes to doling out advice on trust and surveillance.

Again it’s a complicated subject, and few involved with it seem up to the task of separating patriotism, bigotry, and the motivations of US giants like Cisco from intelligent global policy.

Filed Under: 5g, china, conspiracies, infrastructure, networking equipment, tom cotton
Companies: huawei

The DOJ's Plan To 'Fix' The T-Mobile Merger Is Already A Hot Mess

Deals

from the do-not-pass-go,-do-not-collect-$200 dept

Earlier this year the Bill Barr DOJ absolutely tripped over itself to approve T-Mobile’s controversial $26 billion merger with Sprint, despite a mountain of evidence that the deal would erode competition, raise prices, lower wages, and result in thousands of layoffs. It was so grotesquely corrupt, the approval process even involved “antitrust” DOJ boss Makan Delrahim literally helping guide T-Mobile through the proposal process using his personal phone and text message accounts.

The DOJ’s “fix” for the problematic deal also involved shoveling some spectrum from T-Mobile over to Dish Network, which (it was promised) would then spend the next seven years building a replacement fourth wireless carrier to help offset the competition lost by gobbling up Sprint.

As we noted at the time, the proposal was never likely to work. One, Dish has a long, long history of empty promises when it comes to wireless (just ask T-Mobile), hoovering up valuable spectrum, making ample promises, then failing to deliver. The proposal also requires an FCC and DOJ that are proud of being “hands off” (read: fecklessly obedient to industry giants), suddenly being forced to closely shepherd the deal to fruition. This despite the fact that FCC BFFs AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile are all incentivized to make sure this new fourth competitor never succeeds.

Not too surprisingly, none of this is going particularly well. T-Mobile has already started closing prepaid outlets and firing employees, something the US government and T-Mobile repeatedly promised wouldn’t happen. The pandemic is also making it harder for Dish to secure financing and begin the deployment of its promised 5G network. Even some of the basic aspects of the deal (like offloading T-Mobile prepaid brand Boost Mobile to Dish) have been mysteriously stuck in neutral:

As part of the government’s remedy in the T-Mobile/Sprint merger, Dish Network is supposed to buy Boost Mobile for $1.4 billion, but so far, that deal hasn?t closed. Analysts are asking: What?s up? And as usual when it comes to Dish and wireless, it?s complicated.

?We are unaware of why Dish has not closed the Boost deal,? wrote LightShed Partners analysts Walter Piecyk and Joe Galone in a blog post today. ?It should have been done by June 1st. Something is up.”

Dish and T-Mobile have been unable to agree to terms on a 600 MHz spectrum lease as required by the DOJ judgement on T-Mobile?s acquisition of Sprint, and Dish hasn’t yet been able to explain why the Boost transition hasn’t happened. Again, keep in mind, T-Mobile is incentivized for Dish not to succeed, since they (like AT&T and Verizon) don’t actually want a viable fourth competitor to emerge from this process. And, not surprisingly, analysts state that Dish and T-Mobile have been more combative than cooperative:

“Among the questions: How will disputes between Dish and T-Mobile be resolved? ?It is clear from recent filings that the momentary kumbaya relationship between DISH and TMUS during the final phase of the merger review has left and there has been a return to the more combative relationship that marked the first phase of the merger review,? wrote New Street policy analyst Blair Levin.”

Dish CEO Charlie Ergen is notoriously difficult to get along with. Now, as we’ve predicted, you’ve got the “hands off” DOJ and FCC tasked with nannying this deal through to completion, without any indication they have the motivation or competence to do so.

My assumption has always been that this entire merger “solution” has all been little more than elaborate theater.

Dish may simply want to hoard spectrum and then offload it down the road at a premium, dragging feckless regulators the entire way. T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon lobbyists and policymakers are all incentivized to make sure this added competition never takes root. And the DOJ and FCC, little more than glorified rubber stamps to industry at this point, are keen to create the illusion of strong ethical leadership, when in reality they rubber stamped a shitty merger (again, ignoring all objective data). And the US press, so eager to stenograph hype pre-merger, will likely be far less involved in documenting the real cost of merger mania as this paper mache proposal slowly falls apart, employees are laid off, and US consumers inevitably face even higher prices for mobile data in the years to come.

Filed Under: 5g, antitrust, charlie ergen, competition, doj, fcc, spectrum, wireless
Companies: boost mobile, dish, sprint, t-mobile

5G Conspiracy Idiots Now Threatening Telecom Workers That Don't Even Work In Wireless

Stupidity

from the ill-communication dept

On one end, you’ve got wireless carriers implying that 5G is some type of cancer curing miracle (it’s not). On the other hand, we have oodles of conspiracy theorists, celebrities, and various grifters trying to claim 5G is some kind of rampant health menace (it’s not). In reality, 5G’s not actually interesting enough to warrant either position, but that’s clearly not stopping anybody in the post-truth era.

But it’s all fun and games until somebody gets hurt.

Baseless conspiracy theories about the health impact of 5G have gone next level during the pandemic. To the point where facts-optional nitwits are not only burning down cell towers in the UK, but putting razor blades and needles underneath protest posters on telephone poles (apparently you solve public health risks by… putting peoples’ health at risk?). We’ve seen a few attacks on telecom infrastructure and employees here in the States, but it’s been notably worse in the UK, where telecom engineers are now being routinely insulted and threatened:

“Most incidents could be classified as harassment. Shouted insults, death threats, and the like. But others were more violent. Razor blades and needles had been hidden behind posters on telephone poles, waiting to catch unwitting hands. Attackers had set cellphone masts on fire and shared the videos on social media to the applause of fellow conspiracists. According to figures shared with The Verge by industry body Mobile UK, there were more than 200 incidents of abuse against telecoms engineers since March 30th and more than 90 arson attacks against mobile infrastructure.”

The 5G conspiracy theorists are routinely bipartisan in nature. Some, on the left, originate from the “healing powers of crystals” and anti-vaccination set, and believe every shaky, worldview-confirming health claim they can get their hands on. Others, on the right, have stumbled into the 5G conspiracies thanks to their association with histrionic dog shit like Q Anon. In the UK, it’s at the point where technicians that don’t even work on wireless infrastructure have to tread carefully. Like the tech at the heart of the above-linked Verge article, who spends his days repairing fiber and DSL lines:

“She raised her voice almost immediately: ?You?re killing people. You know what you?re doing. How could you do this???

He tried to follow company training and not engage with the accusations, but the woman was getting more and more upset. 5G was causing the symptoms of COVID-19, she told him, and he was secretly installing the high-speed network under instructions from the local council. The woman was beginning to drag in bystanders at this point. She corralled a group of men who were drinking in the street and pointed Qureshi out to them. ?He?s the one who?s killing everyone,? she told them. ?He?s spreading all this virus.”

Apparently, it’s just too difficult to be able to distinguish between a DSL cabinet and a wireless tower? The problem isn’t being helped by the large number of grifting jackasses receiving unwarranted fame via social media. Or celebrities like John Cusack, who recently joined the chorus of 5G health conspiracies despite seemingly not understanding how the technology works (or that many flavors of 5G are actually far less powerful than even existing 4G networks).

Much of the recent popularity of idiotic conspiracy is driven by justified public distrust in our most important institutions. Many have lost faith in the health care system, government, news outlets, corporations, and leaders who’ve routinely prioritized profit over human health, the truth, or an equitable society. Fix the core rot at these institutions with an eye on a more equitable society, and much of the potency of conspiracy (not to mention Russia/Chinese/Iranian exploitation of said conspiracy) dissipates back into the the gullible fringes where it belongs.

Filed Under: 5g, conspiracy theories, covid-19, threats