Wireless Internet

When New York City announced in 2014 that a private company would replace pay phones with thousands of kiosks offering free Wi-Fi, Mayor Bill de Blasio called it “a critical step toward a more equal, open, and connected city.” Five years later, many New Yorkers regard the nine-and-a-half-foot panels as little more than miniature billboards and a source of amusing city trivia. The company behind LinkNYC, CityBridge, has installed just 1,774 of the 7,500 promised kiosks.

The Federal Communications Commission, in December 2018, launched an investigation into whether one or more major mobile providers violated the requirements to submit coverage maps to the FCC. FCC staff discovered that the coverage maps submitted by Verizon, U.S. Cellular, and T-Mobile likely overstated each provider’s actual coverage and did not reflect on-the-ground performance in many instances. Only 62.3% of staff drive tests achieved at least the minimum download speed predicted by the coverage maps—with U.S.

The Developing Innovation and Growing the Internet of Things Act (S. 1611) would require the Department of Commerce (DOC) to convene a federal interagency working group to report to the Congress on the Internet of things (IoT). The group would be required to identify laws and regulations that inhibit or promote IoT deployment, examine current and future federal IoT use, and recommend federal IoT security measures. Also under S.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai intends to establish the 5G Fund, which would make up to $9 billion in Universal Service Fund support available to carriers to deploy advanced 5G mobile wireless services in rural America. This investment would be allocated through a reverse auction and would target hard-to-serve areas with sparse populations and/or rugged terrain.

As part of the Federal Communications Commission’s ongoing effort to reform universal service funding of mobile wireless services and focus subsidies on unserved areas rather than on areas that already have service, the FCC unanimously adopted a new data collection of 4G Long-Term Evolution (LTE) mobile broadband coverage maps and a challenge process to determine areas eligible for support in the Mobility Fund Phase II (MF-II) auction. The largest mobile providers supported both this data collection and the challenge process.

Rep Grace Meng (D-NY) announced the introduction of the Closing the Homework Gap Through Mobile Hotspots Act, which would create a $100 million grant program for schools, libraries, US territories, and federally recognized Indian Tribes to purchase mobile hotspots to help close the nation’s homework gap. They would use the funds to create mobile hotspot programs for students to have internet access to complete their homework. As many as 12 million students in the US lack broadband at home.

The House Commerce Committee approved a handful of bipartisan broadband and tech-related bills on a variety of topics, from broadband mapping and network security to freeing up spectrum. “Bills being favorably reported for a vote in the full House were: 

AT&T, the latest to retire old mostly-unlimited plans, did so only 20 months after the June 2018 introduction of its previous offers. The new ones – announced days before the Federal Trade Commission fined AT&T $60 million for not disclosing speed limits on plans sold five years ago as unlimited – require factoring in the same three variables as the other nationwide carriers’ unlimited-ish deals.

The House Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Communications and Technology advanced nine bills in a markup session Nov 14. Eight of the bills moved with little controversey:

To gain federal approval of their $26 billion merger, T-Mobile and Sprint have spent years promising a universe of incredible benefits, from lower prices to better rural wireless coverage. So far, agencies like the Federal Communications Commission have been more than happy to believe them. But US telecom history suggests you shouldn’t believe a word coming out of their mouths.