Why iPhone & Android Tethering Stopped Working on AT&T & Verizon?


Recently we warned that AT&T & Verizon were about to declare war against the practice of tethering a smartphone to share its data connection with iPads and other devices. It appears that AT&T and Verizon have taken the next steps to curtail tethering by blocking the Wireless Tether app on handsets on those carriers.  Most of us on T-Mobile and Sprint recognizes that being able to tether your smartphones to your iPad and laptop for free is one major reason to use a smaller carrier.  For those not on AT&T & Verizon this is how to use an iPad without a 3G data plan.

The Wireless Tether app allows Android phones that have been rooted to connect devices to the wireless carrier by using the phone’s data connection over WiFi. Google thoughtfully put the ability in Froyo, and Android phone owners were quick to jump on it to avoid the monthly fees (typically $20-$30) that carriers charge for the service. Droid Life reported today that the app is no longer available on Android phones on the AT&T and Verizon networks. It no longer shows up on those phones when accessing the Android Market due to a block by the carriers.  Read more about the tethering police are indeed here as predicted.

Why Did Apple Buy iCloud.com Domain?

iCloud.com Now Redirects to iCloudiCloudcom

Apple has purchased the domain iCloud for $4.5M from a Swedish cloud company.  It is rumored that Apple is going to start a storage locker service as well as music storage service to store your iTunes music.  I think I understand the interest to protect by starting this service.  However, consumers are using and buying music less now that services like Pandora are taking off.  This is one reason why we think it would be smart for Apple to buy Pandora now.   Will you use a media storage service from Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL)? Here is a poll to express your opinion. 


How Many Unlocked iPhones on the Market in 2011?

20 to 30 Million Unlocked iPhones On the Market
How many iPhones have been sold?  108 Million as of Q1 2011.  There were reports back in 2008 that between 800,000 and 1.5 million phones had been unlocked. However, now that that sales have quadrupled (see chart below) we estimate there are between 20-30 million iPhones unlocked on the market if you use this same calculation. Apple is now selling 15 million phones per quarter and quickly becoming a victim of their own success.  We did a search for used iPhone on eBay and found 10,000 used Used iPhones for $100 and 33% were being sold unlocked.   This is one of the major reasons why AT&T is buying T-Mobile and trying to consolidate the US market into only have one GSM carrier buying the last remaining GSM carrier.   See GSM CDMA unfair competition.

Unlocking is the process of using software to modify the iPhone to work with other GSM carriers if purchased from AT&T or CDMA carriers if you purchased a Verizon phone.  With such a huge number of used phones on the market, will Apple be able to continue its carrier subsidy model for phones on 3G.  It may take the iPhone 5 on LTE to revive the demand for the phone and thus one of the reasons Apple (AAPL) stock has been lagging lately we think.

New iPhone Sales Per Quarter

10,000 Used iPhones on eBay for $100

10,000+ Used iPhones on Ebay
After a quick search on eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY) today we found well over 10,000 used phones that were selling for between $120 to $150 dollars.   It is even more amazing to see that well over 33% of these phones are unlocked 3,000+.  This means you can take the phone to any 3G GSM carrier around the World or go to T-Mobile in the US and use it on a cheaper data plan than AT&T.  Directions how to Unlock iPhone for T-Mobile here. 

This is a great deal especially if you want to do a pre-paid phone plan or don't want a long term contract. AT&T (NYSE: T) will be challenged to get $600 for the new iPhone 4 when the iPhone 3GS is also 3G and not 4G. You can also buy a $50 iPhone directly from the carrier but this requires a long term contract and who would want that?  If the phone is Verizon you can take the phone to any CDMA carrier.  Why is this important?  If the T-Mobile and AT&T merger goes through there will only be one USA GSM carrier in the US and that is horrible for consumers.  

How Many iPhones & iPads Are Jailbroken?

Now that 3GS iPhone are being sold for $50 and the used unlocked iPhone market is huge. How big is the market and how many phones are jailbroken?  This is the largest category on eBay unlocked iPhones.  We think that greater than 10% of iPhones have been jailbroken  and possibly 20-30 million iPhones unlocked?  We were not surprised to see that Apple supporters quickly tried to bury the link in Google.  Here is a story on how to jailbreak the iPhone 4 for T-Mobile and think this is one of the major reasons why AT&T is acquiring T-Mobile to prevent this massive defection that is going unpublicized.  If anyone has any credible sources of information we would appreciate a post in the comments section below.

How to Fix Gmail Running Slow

Enable NEW Gmail Labs Feature Background Send

Thanks to our friends at Twit.TV Gina Trapani for recommending the use of this feature. This only seems to happen when using the Chrome, Explorer, Firefox, Safari browsers.  However, it never seems to happen when using an Android phone thank God!

Who knows why this is happening because Google most definitely has hundreds of thousands of email servers around the World to prevent this.  However, as a conspiracy theorist I wouldn't be surprised to see the evil carriers AT&T and Verizon slowing down the transmission of Gmail data.  This is exactly why we must force net neutrality on the carriers or they will do tricks like this in order to get paid.  I would be surprised to see the carriers blocking or screwing with our Gmail data.  Why? Because these evil money sucking carriers would like consumers to start paying for data downloaded just like they do on mobile phones.  They would prefer data caps and limitations on the amount of email downloaded.  

How to Get Free AT&T WiFi Tethering With MyWi

The price of $19.99 for the MyWi iPhone App is a lot better than paying AT&T $25 per month for tethering you should be entitled to under your data plan.  Paying $300 per year for tethering is absolutely ridiculous and those who are on T-Mobile already can do it for free.  However, now AT&T is warning those who are tethering to pay but it is not clear to me that they can do anything about it.   

Create an iPhone WiFi HotSpot or iPad WiFi HotSpot without paying $25 per month.  Wherever you are - you can connect your laptop or another mobile device to your iPhone / 3G iPad easily without paying for an additional data plan.  MyWi 4.0 now works on iPhone 4 IOS 4 and will also work with all jailbroken iPhones on T-Mobile (including 2G/3G/3GS/4) and iPad on 3.1.2 or later.

Who Really Cares About 3D on iPad?

ipad 3d

iPad 3 Has 3D and Who Cares?

It has been reported that the iPad 3 will have 3D but does it make any sense?  I have 2 3D TV's in my home and I love them for sports.  However, I would never buy a 3D tablet and think it's useless?  What is Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL), Sharp, and Lenovo (PINK: LNVGY) thinking?  3D requires a large screen and a dark room.  There really isn't anything appealing about watching a 3D movie on a tablet or iPad in my view.  However, I would appreciate hearing any opinions otherwise below. 

The third-generation iPad, commonly known as the iPad 3, which was released by Apple in 2012, does not have 3D display technology. The iPad 3 features a high-resolution Retina display, but it does not support stereoscopic 3D visuals.

Apple has not incorporated 3D display technology into any of its iPad models thus far. If you're specifically looking for a tablet with 3D capabilities, you may need to explore other brands or models that offer such features. However, it's important to note that 3D functionality in consumer electronics has become less prevalent in recent years, as the demand for 3D has decreased.

AT&T T-Mobile $3B Break-Up Fee in Escrow?


AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) on Tuesday sold $3 billion of bonds in a two-part debt offering comprising five- and 10-year notes, according to a person familiar with the transaction.  Is this the $3B break-up fee required to pay Deutsche Telecom (PINK: DTEGY) if the merger fails to get approved?

The $1.75 billion, five-year piece bearing a 2.95% coupon priced at a discount to yield 2.989%, or 0.97 percentage point over comparable government debt; while the 10-year, $1.25 billion piece with a 4.45% coupon priced to yield 4.459%, or 1.15 percentage points over Treasury's. Proceeds from the notes, which were rated A2 by Moody's Investors Service, will be used for general corporate purposes.

Barclays Capital (NYSE: BCS), Citigroup (NYSE: C), Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) and Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) were joint leads on the deal, supported by Williams Capital as a co-manager. Read more from WSJ.  What does this mean for the probability of the AT&T $20B bridge loan that JPMorgan (NYSE: JPM) is leading?

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Why The FCC Has No Credibility

Why The FCC is One Big Puppet Show

10 Reasons Why the FCC is a Joke
Despite the enforcement "lip service" you hearing from FCC Chairman Genachowski and Commissioners in the media about net neutrality or the big merger, the FCC is not working for you the consumer and are simply puppets of the carriers.  Here are two very important reasons why it's a failed organizational structure.  #1) The FCC refuses to publicly acknowledge or regulate the difference between actual vs theoretical cellular/broadband coverage and therefore cannot accurately enforce competition.  #2)  99% of their $500M of annual funding for 1,900 employees does not come from the taxpayers and comes directly from fees paid by the carriers themselves.  

One of the biggest arguments in the AT&T and T-Mobile merger is that there is sufficient wireless competition and rural coverage and therefore the merger of two large carriers should be allowed.  We would argue this is totally false and we can provide thousands of consumer-reported examples of where consumers can only get one carrier and sometimes 0 in certain cases.  Competition isn't fair on a regional basis and must be carefully audited by the FCC before allowing the merger to go through.  However, the FCC can't do this because they lack the resources to do it and continue to ignore the dead zone data we generate.  This is a huge failure on the part of the Government and will come back and bite all consumers if this continues.

DeadCellZones.com has reached out to the FCC for help numerous times over the last decade and asked them to take our consumer-reported dead zone data for free.  However, the FCC would rather "try" and generate their own data to mask the problems so they don't piss off their carrier constituencies.  So what did the FCC do?   They responded by launching their own FCC "Dead Zones" reporting website a 10 years later which has failed miserably.  However, their dead zone reporting tool was "designed to fail" because the FCC doesn't really want to know the truth or regulate the wireless carriers' false coverage claims.

Folks it gets even weirder with some questions that were asked of us by FCC executives.  They asked us "why we have created dead zone the maps"?  My answer is always because its the right thing to do by showing the deficiencies of a Government agency that doesn't really work on the consumer's behalf to regulate.  It was the aha moment for me to show there is way too much corruption between the FCC and the companies they regulate.  We won't stop what we are doing until the Government and the carriers themselves acknowledge why and what we are doing is good for consumers.  A little like "David vs Goliath".

The FCC is a "Government-regulated entity" that is funded by the companies they are supposed to be regulating and not the taxpayers.  Its a huge corrupt game the public does not understand and the financial media ignores.  The FCC has 1,900 employees and is supposed to act as an "independent agency" of the US government with an approximate budget of $466 million which is funded by measly $1 million in taxpayer appropriations and the rest in regulatory fees paid by the largest US telecom companies: AT&T (NYSE: T), Verizon (NYSE: VZ), T-Mobile (NYSE: DTEGY), Sprint (NYSE: S), Cox, Comcast (Nasdaq: CMCSA), TimeWarner (NYSE: TWX), Cablevision (NYSE: CVC), etc.  The mission of every employee at the FCC is to write policy but does that really regulate if no one does anything or takes action?  Does this sound like an independent agency or a puppet agency with 99% of its' revenue coming from the companies it regulates?

AT&T is claiming this based on theoretical coverage maps not actual coverage that real customers try and receive.  The reason Deadcellzones.com was started almost 12 years ago was that carriers were being dishonest about where they were providing coverage.  In this decade coverage and speeds have expanded a lot but the same problem still exists.  No entity is auditing the coverage maps and the actual coverage that the carriers claim to provide.  This lack of oversight only hurts the smaller consumer who lives out in the middle of Iowa or Kansas in rural America.

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Rural Wireless Customers Have Fewer Choices
Wireless Consumers Are Getting Screwed

FCC: Leap, Cellular South, Cellular One, Cellular South, Cincinnati Bell

Rural regional carriers are worried about being able to compete and need the FCC to intervene in order to protect competition.  Fast forward to the minute 3 in this video and listen to Mignon Clyburn who is FCC Democratic commissioner.  The commissioner is concerned that there are areas that cover 10 million people that cover 2 or fewer carriers in some areas.  Concerned carriers include: US Cellular (NYSE: USM), Leap Wireless (NYSE: LEAP), Cellular One, Cellular South and Cincinnati Bell Wireless (NYSE: CBB), who combined have about 60% of T-Mobile USA’s customer base.  Carriers also want better inter carrier compensation and universal service reform to help bring down costs for consumers.  FCC also sees VoIP as a viable technology that should be more competitive with current voice technology.

AT&T to FCC: "I Am Not A Crook"


AT&T continues to lie about the T-Mobile acquisition that should not be allowed.  Here are 5 lies from their merger submission to the FCC.     

#1) AT&T (NYSE: T) does not consider the current incarnation of T-Mobile USA to be a real competitor and points to smaller rivals like MetroPCS Communications (NYSE: PCS), U.S. Cellular (NYSE: USM), Leap Wireless (NYSE: LEAP),  Cellular South Inc. and Cincinnati Bell Wireless (NYSE: CBB), who combined have about 60% of T-Mobile USA’s customer base.  Read more.

#2) AT&T also claims to lack enough spectrum to launch UMTS in some markets. Spectrum shortage exaggeration.

#3) AT&T claims channel pooling for GSM services will increase capacity by as much as 15% in some areas.     How to relieve 3G data congestion.

#4)  T-Mobile's removal from the marketplace will not have a significant competitive impact.  AT&T says it is more focused on Verizon and Sprint than on T-Mobile USA, and AT&T too is seeing increased competitive threats from rapidly growing mavericks like MetroPCS and Leap and other providers.  Wireless competition

#5)  No mention of CDMA vs GSM handset competition

Apple Exploits Kids With In-App Purchases

Apple Class Action Lawsuit for Exploiting Kids to Make App Purchases
A father of two girls in Pennsylvania is taking Apple to court for allegedly banking millions of dollars on unauthorized in-app purchases. Garen Meguerian of Phoenixville, Penn., is the lead plaintiff in the class action lawsuit against Apple, Apple Insider reports. Meguerian claims that the company's old approach to in-app purchases on iOS devices allowed his 9 year-old daughter to purchase roughly $200 in virtual goods without permission.

Meguerian's lawsuit says the new in-app purchasing method still isn't good enough, because it doesn't protect against instances where the child already knows the parent's iTunes password. Honestly, I'm not sure what he expects Apple to do about that. Ever since Apple enabled in-app purchases in 2009, parents have been able to restrict this feature with parental controls, behind a separate PIN. At a certain point, the parent has to take some responsibility. Read more from PCWorld.com

How Does the FCC Evaluate Competition?


The FCC will identify specific markets that require additional review using a test known as the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI), which measures the concentration of wireless providers in the area. The commission will also look at the spectrum for mobile services in a given area and see what percentage of that spectrum is held by the parties in question.

AT&T executives have argued that in a local market analysis it will show that at least four carriers and sometimes five are available in most major cities. However, consumer groups like Deadzones.com take issue with this notion and know that Verizon & AT&T are cozy cartels. It is obvious by analyzing the financials of the two biggest wireless players AT&T and Verizon have a significant advantage with annual revenues almost 5X larger than the nearest competitor. AT&T & Verizon generated $100B+ in annual revenue and are getting bigger while smaller competitors aren’t able to keep up especially in light of specialized deals with companies like Apple iPhone and their huge marketing budgets.

AT&T Wireless Data Plan "Bytes"

Why AT&T Limited Data Plans Byte!

So what does AT&T's 2GB DataPro plan provide?  Many non-AT&T customers think tiered data plans are a scam to rip customers off even further.  Carriers steal you money with their text messaging scam and by  removing unlimited data plans. If an AT&T customer exceeds 2 GB during a billing cycle they will receive an additional 1 GB of data for $10 for use in the pay cycle. The 200 MB plan DataPlus is $15 per month, the DataPro 2GB plan is $25 per month without tethering and for a whopping $20 per month extra you can have the 2GB plan for $45 per month.  Here is an estimate of what the 2GB data plan will provide you in theory.

10,000 emails with no attachments
1,500 emails with attachments
4,000 web pages
500 photos to social media sites
200 minutes of streaming video
66 Hours of Pandora music at 30MB per hour


Why DataCaps Are Killing iPhone App Market

Mobile Apps Fear Data Caps

Mobile apps fear AT&T's data caps and are killing the growth of iPhone app downloads and putting developers out of business.  Just when you thought the iPhone was getting fun to use AT&T (T) has decided to put the kibosh on your mobile app pleasure because they can't get their network in order.  This has killed the growth of application downloads in the market and the consumption of data on the phone.  AT&T is a greedy dividend pig that would rather stifle growth and innovation to collect more dollars for its shareholders.  This is very short-sighted and will ultimately result in the main reason why I think Ralph de la Vega will be fired.  This change in tone by the carriers AT&T and Verizon really pisses off Steve Jobs.  I think this is one of the reasons why Apple's (AAPL) stock has been in a decline lately.  What happened to carriers and applications subsidizing applications apps with advertising?  This is one reason I think that Apple should buy  Pandora.   Here is what AT&T has done that is making their customers scared and therefore using their phone less.   Not only did AT&T put data caps on but they killed AT&T unlimited data plans

Verizon "Can You Hear Me Now" Actor Fired For Getting Old & Fat?

Former Verizon Can You Hear Me Now Actor
Why Was The "Can You Hear Me Now" Guy Fired by Verizon Wireless?

After nine long years in the role of blowing smoke up our asses in the Verizon commercials which patronize the intelligence of mobile phone users.  Don't be afraid of Dead Zones!  Paul Marcarelli will no longer be in Verizon commercials and has lost his luster with Verizon's arrogant management team.  You might know Paul Marcarelli as the geeky guy in glasses who, at the end of the Verizon commercials, is desperate to know if you can hear him.  We all know that Verizon is full of shit when they send Phil out in the middle of the desert because we have offered to give Verizon thousands of coverage complaints that they would rather ignore.  See Verizon Dead Zones.

Verizon has decided to move in a new direction now that they have the iPhone and has fired Phil Marcarelli from the role of the "Can You Year Me Now" guy.  Was this is a result of bad karma (read more) that Phil experienced in life as a result of working for the evil giant?  Or was it because Phil put on a little weight and looked fat next to the new Verizon iPhone 4?

Over the years Marcarelli started experiencing the effects of bad karma brought on by lying for the evil giant. According to The Atlantic, "A few months ago, he attended his grandmother's funeral. As her body was being lowered into the ground, he heard the hushed voice of a family friend: "Can you hear me now?" Marcarelli also recounted several incidents in which neighborhood youths drove by his house and yelled homophobic taunts. Once he considered filing a police report but changed his mind because he was unsure about exposing himself as Verizon's "Test Man."  

Young Skinny Phil in His First Commercials

10 Reasons Why Text Messaging is a Scam


Have you ever sent a text to someone and its not received or delayed by a few hours?  Do you wonder why text messaging is so expensive when email is free?  Its one of the biggest scams in US history and the FTC and FCC can do nothing about it because there are very few alternatives.  

At current data plan rates mobile phone consumers are paying $1,300 per megabyte for this service.  Consumers are paying $5-$20 per month or hundreds of dollars per year in some cases with lots of overage charges.  We estimate that consumers are paying Verizon & AT&T $10 billion each per year for text messaging services.  AT&T and Verizon each generate $100+ billion per year and revenue and text messaging is a big chunk of it.   The money goes right to the bottom line and is sent directly to AT&T and Verizon shareholders as dividends.   Text messaging is the most profitable line of business for carriers with nearly 99% margins it seems.  

Carriers can charge you upwards of $20 for 1,500 text messages or even $5 for 200 messages.  Not only is this a ripoff but you get charged .35 to .50 cents per message that you go over your plan without any carryover.  Do you ever wonder why email is free and text messaging is not?  Free text messaging is a growing trend and will likely get even bigger as the carrier giants AT&T and Verizon continue to ripoff their customers. However, there are solutions out there to the problem including Google Voice free text message.  Free text mess

1) Delayed text messages without explanation
2) No confirmation if message was received
3) No confirmation if text message was read
4) No receipts or guarantee of delivery
5)  $5 - $20 for 200 to 2000 messages
6)  You are paying $1,300 per megabyte for text that is easy to move through the network
7)  No ways to prevent spam from reaching you
8) Spam still costs YOU money against your plan
9)  .25 cents to .50 cents for going over your text messaging plan
10)  No carryover for text messages not used

Members of Congress Paid by AT&T

Members of Congress Who have Cashed Checks from AT&T

Corruption yields political power when you have lots of free cash flow money to throw around. AT&T’s PAC spent $15 million in 2010 and Verizon spent $16 million strategically targeting influential new members, returning lawmakers and congressional leaders on panels of jurisdiction from both parties.

Members of Congress Who Received Donations from AT&T
House Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.), Telecom panel chief Greg Walden (R-Ore.) and all but two of the members on Walden’s committee cashed checks from AT&T this past election cycle.  Half of the Senate’s top Antitrust panel collected AT&T cash during the last election cycle.  Every member of the Senate Commerce Committee including Chairman John Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) and freshmen GOP Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida, John Boozman of Arkansas, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire has in his or her career collected AT&T campaign cash. AT&T also has powerful personal connections with leading federal officials on both sides of the political aisle including Bill Daley, President Barack Obama’s White House chief of staff. Daley took over as No. 2 at SBC in 2001 and left in 2004 to join JPMorgan Chase before SBC announced its plans to merge with AT&T. Read more:

AT&T Also Hires New Lobbyists 
AT&T employed about 90 lobbyists, both in-house and through outside hires last year. Some of those lobbyists are former members of Congress and top Hill aides, according to the center. According to federal lobbying disclosures, four of the lobbyists work at a single firm: Peck, Madigan, Jones, & Stewart. They include Jeffrey Peck, a former staff director and general counsel for the Senate Judiciary Committee; Sean Richardson, a former chief of staff to Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., who sits on the antitrust subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee; John Michael Gonzalez, who served as chief of staff to former Rep. Melissa Bean, D-Ill.; and Peter Madigan, who was chief of staff to former U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick.  Read More.

Taxes on Your Cell Phone Bill

Consumers are paying an average of $7.67 per month on their cell phone bill taxes per month.  Did you know that cell phone state tax rates range from 5% to 20% per month depending on where your cell phone bill is sent?  That is approximately $92 per year for the average cell phone bill which is $47.21 per month.  All together US consumers per $26,875,860,000 in total taxes from mobile phone customer each each by AT&T and Verizon.  No wonder AT&T and Verizon are the largest donors to Congress because it appears that its one big ponzi scheme.  We look for companies like Google to come into the market in the near future and provide advertising supported wireless to disrupt this telecom corruption and tax on consumers.   See the tax map provided by the TaxFoundation.org.  

Related Stories:
AT&T Steals $1 Billion from Customers in Illegal Taxes
Verizon Steals $93.5M From Taxpayers with Fake Surcharges & Taxes

Cell Phone State Tax Rates Are Ridiculous

Americans are now being paying an average of 16.26% tax on monthly cell phone bill.  Depending on the state that number can shoot up as high as 23.69%.  Each month, the talking tax is silently imposing on America's wireless customers, and unless legislative action is taken the rates go go even higher.  The highest states are Nebraska, Washington, New York, Florida and Illinois.  All the more reasons to start using free wireless whenever possible and dump your data plans because Wi-Fi competes with 4G LTE.  On top of these ridiculously expensive tax rates AT&T & Verizon are the most expensive carriers by far compared with wireless carriers around the world.  Not only do you pay high taxes each month but your data plans are funding two of the highest paying dividend companies on Wall Street.  See the tax map provided by the TaxFoundation.org.  


Verizon Forced to Allow Roaming by FCC

Verizon Learning to Share Its' Network  & Allow Roaming
The Federal Communications Commission approved a data roaming rule today that would allow consumers to access the Internet from their smartphones anywhere in the nation even if their carrier doesn’t have coverage in an area. The new rule requires that carriers with cell phone coverage allow other carriers to offer roaming services to their customers assuming.

Does this mean that Verizon won't be able to charge its exorbitant roaming fees?  We do know this is great news for AT&T who will soon be the only GSM carrier and allows them to screw more customers.  However, it royally screws Verizon's whole marketing campaign of "More Coverage in More Places".  There are many CDMA carriers in the US who will want to roam on their network which is the most extensive.  But at what price?  So you must ask yourself does the AT&T / T-Mobile merge still make sense in light of this FCC ruling and unfair CDMA & GSM competition?

“The framework the FCC will adopt today will spur investment in mobile broadband and promote competition,” said FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. “It will ensure that rural and urban consumers have the ability they expect to use their mobile phones throughout the nation for voice calls or data like e-mail or mobile apps.”

Verizon Wireless immediately opposed the order saying that the FCC doesn’t have the authority to regulate Internet service providers. Rural carriers such as Cellular South have argued that they are at a competitive disadvantage to the national major carriers because they can’t offer users full Internet access in the nation. The rules would require carriers to work out reasonable negotiations for roaming partnerships, and the FCC said it would punish companies that delay deals or “negotiate in bad faith.”

This is a huge step for the FCC who must be congratulated for taking this bold action despite the opposition of the two largest oligopolies U.S. wireless carriers who have lobbied against this. AT&T’s proposed acquisition of T-Mobile and the threat Verizon poses to the continued wireless competition it is mandatory that the FCC stand up to these companies who are holding us back from innovation and are only worried about paying dividends to shareholders.

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Verizon Steals $93.5M From Taxpayers with Fake Surcharges & Taxes


Verizon Communications (VZ) paid the U.S. $93.5 million to resolve allegations the company overcharged the government on invoices dealing with voice and data telecommunications services contracts. The Justice Department said Verizon subsidiary MCI Communications Services charged the General Services Administration (GSA) for a variety of federal, state and local taxes and surcharges in violation of the contracts and applicable regulations. The DOJ's investigation found Verizon and MCI submitted false claims under the contracts for the reimbursement of property taxes, common carrier recovery charges and unallowable surcharges, charges that are not directly reimburseable under the FTS2001 contracts. The lawsuit was not publicly known, until it was revealed as settled on Tuesday. The whistle-blower lawsuit was filed on behalf of the government by Stephen M. Shea and 2Probe LLC, according to the statement. This is the 2nd time this year Verizon has settled with the US government for overcharging fees. Read more from WSJ

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How to Cancel AT&T U-Verse Without Fees

Swear to AT&T Customer Service Reps
Here is a great example of how many large companies deal with internal customer service problems.  Rather than solve the problems it's more efficient to use online reputation management strategies and bury the complaints or terminate your own customers.  It's easier for these corrupt giants to terminate disruptive customers versus trying to improve service because they know consumers have few choices. This story we discovered in the LA Times highlighting a new provision in AT&T's contract now stipulates that the company can cancel your service "if you engage in conduct that is threatening, abusive or harassing" to the company's workers, or for "frequent use of profane or vulgar language" when dealing with customer service reps. If AT&T terminates your contract and service they won't charge early termination fees to anyone it decides to cut off or drop. So, I would hate to put creative ideas into your head but if you're pissed off about data usage caps, higher fees, or have to move your house.  You might think about using some creative profanity if you feel like the corporate giant is being unfair. AT&T U-Verse can have inserted language in the new contract allowing it to unilaterally upgrade your U-Verse DSL service without you knowing.

This is not an endorsement of how to terminate the contract.  We are simply highlighting how AT&T would rather not deal with problems directly and would rather fire their own customers. 

Net Neutrality is a Civil Right


If Verizon, AT&T, MetroPCS had it their way they could discriminate bits and bytes that come over their pipes and block information.  Sound familiar to civil rights issues of the 1960's?  If Martin Luther King were alive we might have a credible spokesman who could give consumers a louder voice about this importance of keeping the internet open.  These corporate telecom giants are not too dissimilar to the racists who wanted segregation of blacks and whites on the bus.  There are so many analogous issues and parallels to the civil rights issues from the 1960's it makes me sick.  So many people don't understand net neutrality and its' purpose. If this isn't enough to help you understand why it is then watch the Jon Stewart video on Net Neutrality.

Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit today dismissed the Verizon and MetroPCS cases after the FCC argued they were premature. The adopted by the FCC in December have not been published in the Federal Register which is a a step needed before they take effect. Court ruling document.  I hope the Obama Administration and the FCC recognize the parallel issues and permanent block the ability for any telecom company to stop net neutrality.  Republican's hate Net Neutrality because they are deeply in the pockets Verizon and AT&T & other telecom shareholders who are large campaign donors. Any new Republican President after Obama will try and overturn the net neutrality law.

Verizon's Social Media Customer Experience

Verizon's Social Media Reputation Management Team

If you are a VIP in the media and you write or say something negative about Verizon you might just get a call from one of these guys.  Here is a by Chris Dawson from ZDNet and his rant about Verizon’s inability to provide DSL service to an address where he had steadily been serving broadband for the previous three years.

@VerizonSupport on Twitter responded to my angry Tweets with offers of help if you follow them. Of course I’d follow them and send them a direct message with my issues! This, however, was not the panacea for which I was hoping.  Not surprisingly, I got a call the very next morning from Verizon’s “Social Media and Customer Experience Team.” These are what you’d call cleaners in a gangster movie. They make everything work for high-profile folks who will keep telling the world about their bad experiences if things keep going wrong. Fundamentally this really bothered me. Why should I get the royal treatment just because I get to write blogs on ZDNet and tens of thousands of people get to hear how upset I am?   Here is the full story
Verizon has an unrelenting reputation of phony marketing and social media content farms who try and squash any information that comes up in the media that is negative about the company.  If they can't squash the information they will just ignore it until they are forced into responding to it by a legal entity or government agency.  Verizon very often goes to extreme means of trying to get comments taken down versus actually doing any thing to resolve the problem.  We often say "Verizon's Arrogance Rules the Air" and Verizon has 5X more coverage lies than AT&T.  We have also seen many examples of Verizon using social media content farms who try to bury negative blog posts in Google  by writing bogus content for the search engines.  Deadcellzones.com and our mutual Verizon customers have poking holes in Verizon's dishonest coverage maps for years.   Now that the industry is down to two major corrupt companies AT&T and Verizon it just might be up to one of the smaller carriers like Sprint or cable company offering wireless to finally get aggressive about exposing the marketing fraud.

Wireless Spectrum Shortage Exaggeration


Why the spectrum shortage exaggeration?  AT&T is simply trying to block competition and thus making your service worse in the long run.  The "spectrum crisis" has been hugely exaggerated for political purposes.  Spending billions of dollars to have the right to use airwaves or licensing wireless spectrum, is essential to phone companies and its a huge government revenue generator despite very few people understanding it.  Most spectrum today is unlicensed such as WiFi but the licensed spectrum is often hoarded to fend off competition.  For example, AT&T has gone to great lengths to add capacity to its congestion 3G network in such cities as New York and San Francisco not by tapping its unused spectrum, but by upgrading its cell tower and networking equipment and backhaul.   If AT&T's data network is overloaded in an area, the traffic doesn't move over to T-Mobile's network if there is spare capacity at the tower. But that would happen after the two companies combine, resulting in better utilization but likely even more network congestion for both AT&T and T-Mobile customers.

More spectrum available means more simultaneous phone calls and more data can be carried in the same area.  According to the experts AT&T already has an ample supply of unused wireless spectrum that it plans to use to expand its network over the next several years. And much of T-Mobile's 3G spectrum is already in use, so the acquisition won't result in fresh airwaves becoming available for AT&T customers.

AT&T has reasons besides spectrum hoarding to pay $39 billion for T-Mobile.  It lost the iPhone exclusivity and wants to persuade T-Mobile's customers to switch to smartphones, which carry higher monthly fees and data plan. That's an argument that appeals to Wall Street investors, but not to regulators at the FCC or the Department of Justice who are reviewing the merger.  All the more reasons why we think the Obama Administration will block the merger in order to persuade the industry to have 3 large competitors and encourage vertical integration not horizontal.   

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