Year: 2018

by Bruce Kushnick 01/11/2018 01:53 pm ET; original article here.

Verizon Has Invested in 470+ Companies/Entities, Worldwide

When you pay your Telecommunications bills, do you ever wonder where all the money goes? Verizon Communications, Inc. had a 5% or more interest in these 470+ companies/entities at the end of 2016. While the company pleads poverty and claims it can’t afford, or won’t, build out and maintain their networks, have funds been transferred for investments worldwide, including to Bulgaria, Iran, India or Estonia?

Or worse, in the Net Neutrality decision, how can the FCC quote research that uses the construction budget of the entire holding company, which has hundreds of companies, to claim that ‘Title II’ harmed the ISP investments in US broadband deployment? (And what does NCC Charlie, NCC Delta and NCC Echo Company do, exactly?)

Note: This is a partial list and doesn’t include Yahoo, for example, which closed in June 2017. (Source: Verizon NY 2016 Annual Report, published June 2017.)

Continue reading “Verizon Global Investments”

Federal Court dismisses Crown Castle NG East LLC’s complaint and finds that the City of Rye, NY properly undertook a SEQRA review of Crown’s request to install dozens of mini cellphone tower’s throughout the City.

On Friday December 8, 2017, Judge Briccetti granted the City’s motion to dismiss Crown Castle’s complaint finding that the City did not violate the 1996 Telecommunications Act (“TCA”) when it rendered a Positive Declaration under the State Environmental Quality Review Act.

According to Rye Mayor Joseph A. Sack:

“This Order recognizes the importance of a diligent review process that includes a review of the potential environmental impacts of installation of small cells. The City considered varying points of view and to have Judge Briccetti affirm that we have acted in accordance with federal law is gratifying.”

Continue reading “Federal Court Dismisses Crown Castle Complaint Against Rye, NY”

Residents of Hillsborough have been protesting plans to build 16 so-called “Small Cell” cellphone towers in their town and it looks like their efforts have paid off. Kiet Do reports. (12/21/17)

See KPIX news coverage here.

Patrick Shannon, an attorney who specializes in government regulation:

The issue is not over. What we really need now is to reform our process of government so that the citizens have a meaningful opportunity to participate in the process. We are going to seek reforms to ensure that that happens.

Reporter:

Verizon has the option to appeal to the full City Council within 15 days.

I spoke to Katharine Leroux, Hillsborough City Manager at Noon on 1/4/18. She confirmed that on 1/4/18 Verizon appealed her decision to the Hillsborough City Council. She posted the Crown Castle Appeal to https://www.hillsborough.net/482/Wireless.

• Hillsborough City Manager decision letter here
• Disucssion about Part V of the decision here
• Transcript from 12/7/17 hearing here

Continue reading “Hillsborough Opposes So-Called “Small Cell” Cellphone Towers”

The Future of Landlines & Wireline Broadband Networks

A new report to be issued by the National Institute for Science, Law & Public Policy (NISLAPP), Re-Inventing Wires: The Future of Landlines and Networks, concludes that blanketing the nation’s residential neighborhoods with densified so-called "Small Cell" cell towers is technologically unsound, unsustainable and will not meet the nation’s immediate or long-term communications needs.

JOIN US at the Commonwealth Club Feb 5, 2018 at 5:30 p.m.

• 110 The Embarcadero, San Francisco, CA 94105
• Registration begins at 5:00 p.m.
• Reception with panelists following the program until 7:45 p.m.
• $8.00 members, $20.00 non-members, $7.00 students

Panelists biographies listed here:

• Timothy Schoechle, PhD; more info here
• Martin L. Pall, PhD; more info here
• Duncan A. Campbell, Esq.; more info here
• James S. Turner, Esq.; more info here
• Camilla Rees, Panel Co-Chair; more info here
• Ellen Marks, Panel Co-Chair; more info here

Dr. Timothy Schoechle:

Government officials have been misled about the adequacy of wireless communications. Legislators should stop enabling the wireless industry’s plans for massive new deployments of 4G LTE and soon 5G millimeter wave antennas throughout American neighborhoods, and instead commit to supporting reliable, energy-efficient and enduring hard-wired telecommunications infrastructure that meets the nation’s immediate and long-term needs.

Continue reading “Feb 5 Reinventing Wires Event”

Merinda Teller, MPH, PhD 12/1/17; Read the original article here.

In an exceptionally short period of time, cellular technologies have become a dominant fixture of modern-day life. When the first clunky cell phones became commercially available in the early 1980s, only the military and “affluent geeks” could afford the four-thousand-dollar price tag.¹ A mere three decades later, more than three-fourths (77 percent) of all Americans willingly spend hundreds of dollars for sleek smartphones (a proportion that has more than doubled since 2011)², and more and more people rely on their smartphones as their sole computer.³ Global projections indicate that over six billion people worldwide will be using a smartphone by 2020.⁴

Most current cell phone carriers offer fourth-generation (4G or 4G LTE) wireless cellular service, which represents the latest iteration in the “exponential evolution” that began with analog first-generation (1G) service in the early 1980s.⁵ Each subsequent decade has ushered in a new generation of mobile networks, with 2G going digital in the early 1990s, 3G emerging in the early 2000s and implementation of 4G/4G LTE unfolding in the early part of the current decade.

With the advent of the dramatically faster 4G service — the first generation designed primarily for data rather than voice — mobile phone users have been able to stream video and music to their heart’s content.⁶ Yet, with perpetually data-hungry consumers flocking to newer applications such as virtual reality and videoconferencing, it appears that even 4G is being stretched to its limits.

As the telecommunications industry anticipates “billions of users, billions of devices and billions of connections,”⁷ it is avidly preparing for the next generation of cellular service, called 5G, which is likely to be ready for rollout well before 2020.⁸

Continue reading “Microwave Radiation Coming to a Lamppost Near You”

January 2, 2018

Mr. Ira Flatow
National Public Radio’s Science Friday
19 West 44th Street, Suite 412
New York, NY 10036

Dear Mr Flatow,

In the 12/22/17 episode of Science Friday, I was disappointed to hear that this National Public Radio program participated in such misleading and one-sided coverage of the proven hazards of exposures to Wireless pulsed, data-modulated, Radiofrequency Microwave Radiation — at the same time that the Trump-FCC is attempting to vote on setting Wireless data transmission of 10M Mbps download/1 MBps upload as the new standard for Broadband for rural America — replacing the current FCC Broadband minimum of 25 Mbps download/3 Mbps upload, which can be easily achieved via fixed, Wireline connections (copper, coaxial and fiber optic).

I will refute much of what was said in this episode in my comments, below that include links to the primary research and analysis that NPR’s Ira Flatow should be referencing and discussing with experts from both sides of the issue: whether or not it is appropriate to allow/encourage 24/7/365 exposures to a proven toxic agent (RF Microwave Radiation) in our homes, workplaces, schools, other public buildings, parks and wilderness areas.

Continue reading “Open Letter to Ira Flatow”