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Weekend Open Thread - Let Us Know What You're Thinking

Fri, 17 May 2013 18:22:01 EDT

Please deposit your funniest, most insightful and intelligent commentary into the receptacle provided below.
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Friday Evening Links -

Fri, 17 May 2013 18:06:21 EDT

FCC Chair Julius Genachowski steps down today, but what will he leave behind? theverge.com
Who Should Be Scared Of Samsung's 1Gb+ Wireless Technology? forbes.com
FCC Nominee to Divest AT&T, Verizon to Avoid Conflict bloomberg.com
Concerns Arise on U.S. Effort to Allow Internet Wiretaps nytimes.com
How Google beat Apple to a streaming music service while iRadio is still mired in licensing talks and not ready for WWDC theverge.com
Apple Mobile Devices Cleared for Use on U.S. Military Networks bloomberg.com
Truly unlimited mobile data plans are a rarity in Western Europe fiercewireless.com
Android-powered gaming console Nvidia Shield pre-orders ($349) start today - 3 days earlier than expected; shipping in June theverge.com
Launching the Internet of Everything One Startup at a Time huffingtonpost.com
Driverless Car Could Be Hacked By '14-Year-Old From Indonesia,' Senator Warns huffingtonpost.com
Google Glass testing prescription prototypes cnet.com
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Amtrak Wi-Fi LTE Upgrades Arrive - Most Trains Should Be Upgraded by End of Summer

Fri, 17 May 2013 16:39:48 EDT

Amtrak has been offering Wi-Fi on board some of their trains for several years (a full list is here), though historically the quality of the connections have been ridiculed. Since earlier this year the company has been promising upgrades. Amtrak nowstates in an announcement (pdf) that the upgrades are complete on the company's 400 mile high-speed Acela route between Washington and Boston, as well as a significant chunk of California.

The upgrades involve updating on-train antennas and hardware so they can obtain LTE speeds from towers (Amtrak uses both Verizon and AT&T networks). Amtrak insists that most of their lines should be upgraded to LTE by the end of the summer.

How reliable that signal is as the train zips in and out of tower range remains to be seen. In the North East, there's plenty of regions along major highway routes where LTE signal simply evaporates for significant stretches. Many Amtrak routes will obviously be worse.

Many users that have LTE smartphones or hotspots obviously find the service redundant. Amtrak also says they'll continue to impose restrictions on how connections can be used, despite the faster technology at play.

"To maximize the Wi-Fi experience for passengers, data-heavy activities that
can slow everyone down, such as streaming video and music, and file downloads larger than 10MB, will continue to be restricted," says Amtrak. "This will ensure high-volume data users onboard the train are not able to degrade the Internet experience for others."
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Verizon Handed Over AP Data, No Questions Asked - Company Doesn't Much Want to Talk About it

Fri, 17 May 2013 14:22:12 EDT

Earlier this week the government came under fire for hoovering up the personal call logs of more than twenty lines belonging to the Associated Press. Initially Uncle Same claimed the snooping and violation of press rights was due to an immediate and pressing life-risking investigation, but as the week rolled on it became clear the government was simply embarrassed by internal leaks and annoyed an AP story stole some public relations thunder. It has also since been made clear that Verizon Wireless was the company that handed over the data without a second thought:

When the feds came knocking for AP journalists call records last year, Verizon apparently turned the data over with no questions asked. The New York Times, citing an AP employee, reported Tuesday that at least two of the reporters personal cellphone records "were provided to the government by Verizon Wireless without any attempt to obtain permission to tell them so the reporters could ask a court to quash the subpoena."

I contacted Verizon Wireless for comment, querying whether the AP incident may prompt the company to change its policy regarding how it responds to such requests. Spokeswoman Debra Lewis said Verizon Wireless complied "with legal processes with regard to requests from law enforcement" but wouldn t comment on specific cases. In regard to a change of policy, Lewis said she was not going to speculate on what may or may not happen in the future."

Granted the law muzzles most of the people to whom these requests are made, but that doesn't mean that carriers have to be quite so mindlessly compliant every time government knocks. We've seen repeated instances where time after time, carriers showed absolutely no independent intelligence or ethics when considering whether to help the government break the law. Only small carriers, like Sonic.net, have bothered to show anything resembling a spine.

In fact, instead of standing up to government, carriers often urge government to take domestic surveillance further. Numerous whistleblowers have pointed out that carriers not only gave the NSA a live feed to ALL data on their networks (both theirs and other companies), but in some cases actively counseled the FBI on how to best violate surveillance law. As Wired noted in 2010, AT&T even volunteered their time as intelligence analysts.

There's tens of billions of unaccountable government subsidies, tax breaks and contracts at risk if these companies don't comply, which should give you a clear indication of just how much your privacy is worth to them when the government calls.
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T-Mobile Blocking Google Wallet to Benefit Isis - The 'Uncarrier' Arbitrarily Declares Own Payment System the 'Industry Standard'

Fri, 17 May 2013 12:35:23 EDT

For much of the last year, Verizon Wireless has been blocking Google Wallet, claiming that its use of a device's "secure element" is what has prohibited them from letting consumers use the app. Numerous people have explained in great detail (including the lawyer that filed the original complaint with the FCC) that this excuse is simply being used to keep Google Wallet permanently stuck in approval purgatory, while the wireless industry's own, competing Isis platform sees no such restrictions.

Using your gatekeeper status to keep a competing service stuck in technical approval limbo for eternity is a clear network neutrality violation. It's also something the FCC should be criticizing, but has been entirely mute on (right alongside AT&T's block of video chat services to push users toward unlimited data plans).

T-Mobile has also been blocking Google Wallet on many unrooted devices, and like Verizon has only given half-hearted explanations, never simply acknowledging that they want to give their own Isis platform an unfair advantage. Until Now. Sort of. Our friends at TMONews point out that T-Mobile's official Twitter account made it pretty clear that Google Wallet was simply being blocked for the sake of Isis, after a user asked why the payment service was blocked on his Galaxy Note 2:

All it took was a simple tweet from a customer to the main @tmobile Twitter account asking why Google Wallet doesn t work on the Note II. T-Mobile s response? "We re supporting ISIS, the wireless payment standard for mobile devices." Which is great, except I don t remember ISIS actually being dubbed the mobile payment "standard." In fact, I don't recall any of the mobile payment services out there being labeled as the de facto industry "standard."

In other words, we're declaring what is or isn't the industry standard, instead of letting users decide that for themselves. While you'd expect this kind of behavior from an incumbent like Verizon, T-Mobile just got done informing everyone how unlike the major carriers they supposedly are. Except, apparently, when it comes to using your power as network gatekeeper to block services that compete with your own.
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AT&T Hangout Block Highlights a Timid, Incompetent FCC - What it Looks Like When Barney Fife Is Your Telecom Regulator

Fri, 17 May 2013 09:46:31 EDT

It is very quickly becoming clear that if you want the FCC to avoid enforcing their network neutrality rules, all you have to do is throw some half-assed, vague-sounding technical jargon at the agency to bog them down in inactivity indefinitely. With yesterday's news that AT&T is blocking yet another video chat application in order to drive users to more expensive data plans, it's rather clear that the FCC lacks the stomach to actually enforce the rules they designed.

The FCC's net neutrality rules already weren't worth much, given they were based on an outline designed by Google and Verizon. As such, they are filled with all manner of carefully engineered loopholes aimed at protecting the potential billions both were making via their mobile partnership.

However, the rules are worth even less with an FCC that's too timid or incompetent to enforce them.

While the FCC is clearly on shaky legal ground given Verizon's lawsuit to overturn the rules, that doesn't prohibit the FCC from at least publicly singling out and commenting on poor carrier behavior when it happens. The agency's inaction is tacit approval of the use of gatekeeper power to behave anti-competitively.

You might recall that back in September of last year FCC boss Julius Genachowski addressed AT&T's Facetime blockade, promising that if good faith negotiations "doesn't lead to a resolution and a complaint is filed, we will exercise our responsibilities and we will act."

A complaint was filed, no action was taken, and Genachowski's now on his way out the door for a new career in think tank life, about to be replaced by a former lobbyist for the wireless industry.

With only consumer groups and blogs standing in their way, yesterday AT&T made it clear they thought it would be fun to block yet more useful application functionality. You need intelligent, tough regulators that know when to stand pat, and when to kick a little ass. What the United States has is Barney Fife.

AT&T's Hangout and Facetime video blockades, while obnoxious, aren't even the worst violations consumers have seen.

For the last year Verizon has been able to block Google Wallet in order to give their own mobile payment platform, Isis, a leg up in the marketplace. That should technically violate not only the agency's neutrality rules, but the "carterfone" conditions attached to Verizon's 700 MHz spectrum. Yet all Verizon needed to do to dodge both is to give a bogus technical explanation regarding Wallet's use of the secure element to keep the FCC bogged down in paperwork and ineptitude for almost a year. Update: T-Mobile, also an Isis partner, has now joined the fun as well.

Google can thank themselves; it was their painful waffling on neutrality principles that helped create weak net neutrality rules nobody is willing to even enforce in the first place. That decision has since come home to roost.
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ViaSat Plans Another New Satellite Launch - ViaSat 2 to Launch in 2016, Double Existing Capacity

Fri, 17 May 2013 08:16:26 EDT

In late 2011 after several delays, ViaSat finally launched their new KA-band satellite ViaSat 1, which allowed the company to finally start offering consumers some faster residential bandwidth speeds via the Exede brand. Now the company has announced that they're hard at work on ViaSat 2, with plans to launch it sometime in the middle of 2016 (in satellite launch parlance, that means probably around 2018). According to ViaSat, the launch of ViaSat 2 will double their existing bandwidth capacity and expand coverage across much of North and Central America. While satellite broadband is still considered the black sheep of the broadband industry because of high prices, high latency and low caps, the faster speeds made availability by this added capacity has clearly been reflected in our user Exede reviews.
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Telus Acquires Mobilicity - As Canadian Wireless Competition Decreases

Fri, 17 May 2013 08:08:07 EDT

Canadian wireless operator Telus today announced that the company would be buying smaller wireless competitor Mobilicity for $380 Million, the first of what's expected to be several similar deals. According to the Globe and Mail, while Telus is looking for quick regulatory approval, the government has suggested they're not entirely thrilled with the erosion of competition and the accumulation of floundering upstart spectrum by incumbents. As for Mobilicity, they insist they looked high and low for other options before sleeping with the enemy. "We beat the bushes as far as they could possibly be beaten and as hard as they could possibly be beaten ... There was not a deal to be found with the other new entrants," said the company.
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Friday Morning Links -

Fri, 17 May 2013 07:57:17 EDT

Innovator: Greg Raleigh's Zact, Pay-as-You-Go Custom Wireless businessweek.com
How four wireless players are manoeuvring for advantage in Canada theglobeandmail.com
Wireless charging still has strings attached - Which wireless charging standard will emerge the winner? One side now appears to have momentum thanks to backing from AT&T cnet.com
Lawmakers fear privacy risks from Google Glass thehill.com
Intel May Have Lost the iPhone Battle, But It Could Still Win the Mobile War theatlantic.com
Australia's net filter sneaks into operation through back door - Regulator's ban on dodgy shares site wipes out hundreds, exposes censorship mechanism theregister.co.uk
Half of youngsters would swap privacy for... cheaper insurance theregister.co.uk
Copyright Owners Can't Sue YouTube As A Group, Judge Rules huffingtonpost.com
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Thursday Evening Links -

Thu, 16 May 2013 19:35:36 EDT

ViaSat announces next-gen broadband satellite, will support fast-growing Exede Internet services prnewswire.com
Wireless companies warm to unlimited streaming of some apps washingtonpost.com
Canada's Telus Buys Smaller Wireless Rival Mobilicity for $380 Million hollywoodreporter.com
New World Record in Wireless Data Transmission pddnet.com
Verizon boosts data allottments in prepaid plans fiercewireless.com
Pirate Bay cofounder to run for European Parliament theregister.co.uk
AT&T Continues To Mock The Concept Of Net Neutrality; This Time With Google Hangouts Video Chat Block techdirt.com
As iPhone Sleeve delays drag on, FreedomPop offers Photon and free 2 GB as consolation fiercewireless.com
No one wants to be a Glasshole: Only 10% of U.S. smartphone users would buy Google Glass if they could afford it huffingtonpost.com
London Olympics site to become digital mega-hub theregister.co.uk
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Verizon Significantly Bumps Caps on Prepaid Plans - $60 and $70 Plans Now Offer 2GB, 4GB Respectively

Thu, 16 May 2013 16:06:18 EDT

Verizon today announced that they're increasing the usage allotments on the company's prepaid wireless offerings. According to the Verizon statement, Verizon's $60 prepaid plan will offer users unlimited voice, texting and 2 GB of data per month -- up from the previous cap of 500 MB per month. Verizon's $70 plan will now provide users with unlimited voice, texting and 4 GB of data per month -- up from the previous cap or 2 GB per month. As noted previously, these plans are for EVDO connectivity, not LTE. According to Verizon Wireless this new pricing is available to existing customers now, and to new customers starting on June 6.
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AT&T Blocks Google Hangout Video Chat Functionality - Because They Apparently Enjoy Playing the Villain

Thu, 16 May 2013 14:07:06 EDT

As part of many announcements at Google's I/O Conference this week, Google announced that they would now be integrating video chat within Google Hangouts across platforms and devices. Well, unless you use AT&T. AT&T's LTE network is being hailed as the fastest LTE network currently available, yet Slash Gear is the first to report that when users try to make a video chat call on the AT&T network using Google's new Hangout upgrade, they're told "you must be on a Wi-Fi network to join a video call."

AT&T's blockade is a mirror image of the fracas AT&T caused when they decided to arbitrarily block Apple's Factime last year. AT&T offered a few nonsensical excuses, but it soon became clear that by only blocking unlimited users from using the functionality, their goal was to drive customers on grandfathered unlimited plans to their new, more expensive metered plans. Consumer groups like Free Press and Public Knowledge filed complaints, the FCC promised action, and...nothing happened.

Fast forward to this week, when AT&T decided it would be a good idea to make the same mistake all over again. The company issued a very AT&T-like statement to the press this afternoon that doesn't actually explain anything, but tries to suggest this is all somehow the OS and device makers faults:

All AT&T Mobility customers can use any video chat app over cellular that is not pre-loaded on their device, but which they download from the Internet. For video chat apps that come pre-loaded on devices, we offer all OS and device makers the ability for those apps to work over cellular for our customers who are on Mobile Share, Tiered and soon Unlimited plan customers who have LTE devices. It s up to each OS and device makers to enable their systems to allow pre-loaded video chat apps to work over cellular for our customers on those plans

That "not preloaded" language is important, since AT&T is previously on record stating they believe that current wireless network neutrality rules don't cover situations where an application comes pre-loaded on a device. You could argue that Hangout technically isn't pre-loaded because you have to download it via the Google Play store, but at this point it seems like AT&T is simply making things up while they wait for the FCC's neutrality rules to be overturned by Verizon.

In the end, AT&T is abusing their role as network gatekeeper and blocking app functionality to force unlimited users on to costlier tiered plans. Not unlike the way Verizon Wireless is blocking Google Wallet for the benefit of their own ISIS mobile payment platforms. In both instances companies are fending off net neutrality violation accusations using faux-technical justifications for anti-competitive behavior. Given such obvious flaunting of the rules, surely the FCC will step in to protect consumers any second now, right?
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