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Recover Billions of Dollars for Broadband in Your State

Adapted from an article by Bruce Kushnick, Feb 7, 2019 | Original Medium Article here.

• First, read PART 1: Verizon-NY, Hiding a $5 Billion State Telecommunications Utility that No One Even Knows Exists.

• Then return to PART 2: Recover Billions for Broadband in Your State

FOLLOW THE NUMBERS . . . FOLLOW THE MONEY

This treasure has been hidden deeply by the lawyers and accountants of Verizon, AT&T and the FCC. They have worked very hard to erase the history of what really happened, including the audit trail, but did not escape the sharp eyes of the IRREGULATORS.

Verizon-New York (Verizon-NY) is the only State Public Telecom Utility ('SPTU') still required to submit an annual report to its state. The FCC stopped publishing basic financial data in 2007 to cover all this up, and to cover up the real culprit — the FCC’s own accounting rules.

Recently, the acts of the FCC have attempted to steadily erase the remaining bits of the acounting trail and to absolve the Telecom Holding Cos. of massive wrong-doing — even more quickly. Let’s just start with the numbers presented:

DOWNLOAD: THE ACTUAL REPORT: Page 27 (the Treasure Map has been modified for clarity.)

The image, above, is a marked up excerpt of the Verizon NY 2017 Annual Report, published in June, 2018

Continue reading “IRREGULATORS Treasure Map, Part 2”

Hiding a $5 Billion State Telecommunications Utility that No One Even Knows Exists.

Adapted from an article by Bruce Kushnick, Feb 6, 2018 | Original Medium article here.

PART 1: Verizon NY, The Art of Hiding a $5 Billion Public State Telecommunications Utility ('PSTU') Company That Many Have Forgotten Even Exists

Everyone keeps asking the same basic questions:

• Why do my communications bills keep going up?

• Why isn’t the internet and broadband service considered a utility — one that is required to serve everyone equally at reasonable prices?

• How do we stop the FCC’s current attack on the public interest with over 30 different interlocking actions and proceedings , each designed to erase Net Neutrality, shut off the legacy copper telephone and internet lines and block competition?

• How can anyone believe that 5G, a wireless service that requires a fiber optic wire ever 1–2 city blocks and has a wireless range about the same can serve all of America? Answer: it cannot. This whole so-called Race to 5G is merely a real estate grab for extreme density 4G Wireless infrastructure installed in neighborhoods, in order for Verizon/AT&T et al. to market a fixed wireless video subscription, designed to compete against Comcast, Charter/Spectrum and other Cable TV companies.

• How do we recover $500+ billion of misappropriated funds to complete the promised fiber optic to the premises (FTTP) broadband service in America, close the Digital Divide, lower prices and finally bring real competition to the telecommunications and information services markets?

• How do we get the municipalities, especially in rural areas and low income areas, the same high-speed fiber optic services — that we all already paid for?

• How do we explain that Verizon’s Wireless services depends on PSTU-owned-and-maintained wires (copper and fiber), as do Verizon’s Internet and Cable TV services? In addition, these unregulated, private, wireless subsidiaries are not paying market rates to use these wires.

• Most importantly, why do we allow the companies that control the wires to also control . . .

  • the pricing of almost all services

  • who gets upgraded from copper to fiber and who doesn’t?

Continue reading “IRREGULATORS Treasure Map, Part 1”

Don’t expect the new generation of wireless tech to replace fiber, no matter what AT&T says

Adapted from an article by Karl Bode, Feb 6, 2019 | Original The Verge article here.

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Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Speaking on the company’s earnings call last week, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson said he sees fifth-generation wireless (5G) becoming [an unregulated] “fixed broadband replacement product” [no longer constrained to be offered at reasonable prices] within the next three to five years, providing consumers with faster speeds than most existing cable and DSL connections [most likely, at higher prices].

Continue reading “5G Cannot Fix American Broadband Problems”

Feb 6, 2019 –> G50 Dirksen –> Original announcement here.

Hearing Details:

• Wednesday, February 6, 2019
• 10:00 a.m.
• Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation

U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., chairman of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, will convene the first full committee hearing of the 116th Congress titled, “Winning the Race to 5G and the Next Era of Technology Innovation in the United States.”

The exact start time of the hearing is contingent on the conclusion of an earlier and separate Commerce Committee business meeting that will be open to the public in the same hearing room. This hearing will focus on key steps to maintain U.S. global leadership in next-generation communications technology,spectrum needs to accelerate deployment, and new applications and services consumers can expect with 5G deployments. The hearing will also examine current efforts to modernize infrastructure siting policies and the security of 5G networks.

Continue reading “Senate Hearing: Race to 5G and Next Era Technology Innovation”

Adapted from an article by Richard Halstead, Feb 6, 2019 | Original Marin IJ article here.

A 5G small cell can be attached to an existing tower or utility pole
like this one in San Rafael, pictured in 2014. (Alan Dep/Marin Independent Journal)

On Feb 5, 2019, nearly 200 people showed up at a Marin County Board of Supervisors ('BOS') Workshop to implore the BOS to resist installation of extreme density 4G and 5G antennas on utility and light poles in residential areas for the next generation of wireless telecommunications technology.

Although a few speakers mentioned the unsightliness of the antennas, most focused on their knowledge of health hazards already caused by 24/7 Radio-frequency Electromagnetic Microwave Radiation (RF-EMR) exposures from 2G, 3G and 4G wireless infrastructure antennas that are currently in place. Dozens of people spoke during a 3.5-hour workshop convened by the supervisors Tuesday to discuss direction to staff on possible amendments to the county’s regulations for wireless antenna siting.

Judy Schriebman of San Rafael

“I’ve been at a lot of public meetings. I have never been in a 100-percent-for-one-side public meeting in my entire life. This is unprecedented.”

Continue reading “Marin Supervisors Urged to Reject Densified 4G and 5G Wireless Antennas in Residential Areas”

By Emily Birnbaum Feb 6, 2019 | Original The Hill article here.

The White House is expected to take action within the next few weeks aimed at boosting U.S. artificial intelligence and 5G deployment, an administration official confirmed to The Hill.

The plan will offer the first deliverables of the National Quantum Initiative Act (summary | bill text | all actions), a law passed by the previous Congress that laid out an initiative to improve U.S. efforts on quantum technology, according to the official.

Lawmakers and experts have long raised concerns that China is beating the U.S. in the race to implement artificial intelligence as well as 5G, a mobile broadband technology that could dramatically increase internet speeds and bandwidth.

Why Chinese Tech Giant Huawei Scares the U.S.

Continue reading “White House Poised to Take Action on AI and 5G”

By Karl Bode, Feb 5 2019 | Original Motherboard article here.

The revolving door spins yet again as consumer ally quickly shifts to lobbying for Big Wireless firm, T-Mobile.

Yet another FCC Commissioner has quickly pivoted from representing the public to lobbying on behalf of big telecom.

Recently-departed Democratic FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn has been a staunch defender of net neutrality. She also worked extensively at reforming a broken prison telco monopoly that has historically resulted in inmates and their families being ripped off by a rotating crop of often ethically dubious companies.

But a new Politico report states that Clyburn has been hired by T-Mobile to help gain regulatory approval for the company’s $26 billion merger with Sprint, putting the former commissioner on a collision course with consumer groups that have historically seen Clyburn as an ally.

Continue reading “Former FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn Now Lobbying for T-Mobile”

Judges overturn gutting of tribal broadband program

Court: FCC failed to provide evidence and ignored harm to broadband access.

By Jon Brodkin, Feb 4,2019 | Original ARS Technical article here.

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The DC Circuit Court of appeals has overturned Ajit Pai's attempt to take broadband subsidies away from tribal residents. The Pai-led Federal Communications Commission voted 3-2 in November 2017 to make it much harder for tribal residents to obtain a $25-per-month Lifeline subsidy that reduces the cost of Internet or phone service.

The change didn't take effect because in August 2018, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit stayed the FCC decision pending appeal. The same court followed that up on Friday last week with a ruling that reversed the FCC decision and remanded the matter back to the commission for a new rule-making proceeding.

Continue reading “Ajit Pai and FCC Lose in Court”

Adapted from a Feb 4, 2019 article by Bruce Kushnick | Original is here.

Last year we wrote a report on the FCC’s structural flaws in analysis regarding Net Neutrality and other related issues. New reports are coming in February 2019 . . .
— See REPORT: Solving Net Neutrality: A Fatal Structural Flaw in All 2017-2018 FCC Proceedings.

State Public Telecom Utility (Verizon-New York) 2017 Annual Report

Have you ever heard of the 75% – 25% rule for network “investment” expenses?

• 75% of the construction budgets are being paid by “Local Service”, which means by Title II-regulated, State Public Telecom Utility Cos. ('SPTUs'), which, of course is intrastate"

• Only 25% of the construction budgets are billed to services classified as “interstate”.

Did you know . . .

1. That the fiber optic wires for FiOS broadband and much of the fiber optic wires for Verizon’s Wireless services are using the construction (investment) budgets of the state utilities ('SPTUs') and this was done claiming that these networks are Title II — while the services are classified as interstate?

2. That the FCC’s accounting rules (recently extended through 2025) for allocating expenses of the different private Telecom subsidiary companies use an allocation percentage (a breakdown between regulated vs. unregulated subsidiaries) — based on a formula from the year 2000?

3. That these FCC accounting tricks charges the majority of expenses (and investment) to SPTU companies — and the resulting artificial SPTU losses are used for rate increases for Local Service?

4. That these same FCC accounting tricks have inflated the profits of private Telecom subsidiaries, so that America pays some of the highest wireless prices per-gigabyte in the world?

5. That 5G Wireless requires a fiber optic wire every 1–2 blocks, and that the costs for this long-overdue fiber optic expansion appears to be coming out of the SPTU construction (investment) budgets?

Faulty Broadband Investment Analyses

In the oral arguments for the fate of Net Neutrality regulations occurred on Feb 1, 2019, one thing is abundantly clear:   all of the statistics about investments in America’s Broadband Wireline and Wireless networks being presented by the FCC in Court are fundamentally wrong. No attorney detailed that the majority of this network ‘investment’ was from the construction expenditures that are part of the State Public Telecom Utilities.

Continue reading “Net Neutrality, Telecom “Investment” & Title II”

Lidar (Light Detecion And Ranging) is essential for self-driving cars — here's how some leading lidar sensors work.

By Timothy B. Lee, Feb 1, 2019 | Original ARS Technica article here.

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Lidar, short for light radar, is a crucial enabling technology for self-driving cars. The sensors provide a three-dimensional point cloud of a car's surroundings, and the concept helped teams win the DARPA Urban Challenge back in 2007. Lidar systems have been standard on self-driving cars ever since.

In recent years, dozens of lidar startups have been created to challenge industry leader Velodyne. They've all made big promises about better prices and performance. At the start of 2018, Ars covered the major trends in the lidar industry and why experts expected cheaper, better systems to arrive in the next few years. But that piece didn't go into much detail about individual lidar companies—largely because most companies were closely guarding information about how their technology worked.

But over the last year, I've gotten a steady stream of pitches from lidar companies, and I've talked to as many of them as I could. Ars has now been in contact with senior executives from at least eight lidar companies as well as others involved in the industry as customers or analysts. These conversations have provided a lot of insight not only into trends in the lidar industry in general but also about the technology and business strategy of individual companies.

Continue reading “Ten Companies Pushing Lidar Applications”