Wireless Telecommunications

The following items have been adopted by the Federal Communications Commission and deleted from the list of items scheduled for consideration at the March 15 Open Meeting:

In response to questions from Sen Ron Wyden (D-OR), T-Mobile has revealed another case of abuse, in which a “bad actor” acquired location information without consumer consent. “It is now abundantly clear that you have failed to be good stewards of your customers’ private location information,” Sen Wyden wrote in another letter March 13 addressed to all of the major telecoms. In the newly revealed incident, in Aug 2014, LocAid—a company that aggregated location data from the telecoms and then sold it onto other clients—informed T-Mobile it was suspending the account of a particular customer

T-Mobile CEO John Legere told the House Judiciary Committee that his network does not now include technology from Chinese Telecom Huawei, that a new T-Mobile-Sprint 5G network would not contain such tech, and that he would even help others try to clear their networks of the technology. That was just one of many pledges he was making to help sell lawmakers on his plan to buy Sprint.

House Antitrust Subcommittee Chairman David Cicilline(D-RI) said he's concerned with a broad range of implications tied to the multi-billion-dollar merger deal between T-Mobile and Sprint. "I'm particularly concerned about the impact on consumers, on the price of services, on choice," he said. Also at the hearing, T-Mobile CEO John Legere commented on Huawei.

On January 24, 2019, 15 senators sent Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai a letter urging the FCC and the Federal Trade Commission to broadly investigate the sale of Americans' location data by wifeless carriers, location aggregators, and other third parties. On Feb 27, Chairman Pai replied: "As you know, the Commission launched an investigation of these practices last year. The Commission takes its responsibility in this regard seriously.

On February 12, 2019, 9 senators wrote to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai urging the FCC to reject the proposed merger between T-Mobile and Sprint. The senators said the deal is likely to raise prices for consumers, harm workers, stifle competition, exacerbate the digital divide, and undermine innovation. "Furthermore, we remain unconvinced that the merger would speed up the deployment of next-generation 5G networks or extend affordable coverage to all Americans," they wrote.

In its continued effort to gain approval for its merger with Sprint, T-Mobile has pledged to keep supporting Sprint's low-income Assurance Wireless brand "indefinitely." Assurance along with Sprint's other prepaid brands, Boost Mobile and Virgin Wireless, and T-Mobile's Metro are popular with lower-income and cost-conscious Americans for their cheaper alternatives to traditional plans than the main four wireless networks.  "The digital divide is real and we want to help eliminate it," T-Mobile president Mike Sievert said.

John Oliver took a swipe at HBO's new parent company AT&T during a segment on March 10''s "Last Week Tonight", which saw him decry the increasing amount of robocalls being made in the US and the Federal Communications Commission's unwillingness or inability to do anything about them. "Everybody is annoyed by robocalls; hatred of them might be the only thing everyone in America agrees on now," he said.He cited statistics that said the number of calls increased by 57 percent last year to nearly 50 billion in total. He also showed a news clip noting that robocalls are the No.

The Federal Communications Commission will hold an Open Meeting on the subjects listed below on Friday, March 15, 2019:

Spectrum Horizons – The Commission will consider a First Report and Order that would adopt rules to make available 21.2 GHz of spectrum above 95 GHz for unlicensed operations and create a new class of experimental licenses for the 95 GHz to 3 THz spectrum range (ET Docket No. 18-21; RM-11795)