Tracking people by cellphone location is a “widespread” practice by U.S. law enforcement and frequently done “without adequate regard for constitutional protections, judicial oversight, or accountability,” the American Civil Liberties Union said in a report (http://xrl.us/bmz7tc) released Saturday. The government should have to obtain a warrant showing probable cause before tracking phones, ACLU said. ACLU said it filed more than 380 public records requests with state and local law enforcement agencies. Of the 200 that responded, only 10 agencies said they didn’t track cellphones, ACLU said. And “only a tiny minority reported consistently obtaining a warrant and demonstrating probable cause to do so,” it said. “While that result is of great concern, it also shows that a warrant requirement is a completely reasonable and workable policy.” Law enforcement can track a phone’s location because the device registers its location with the network several times while getting a wireless signal, ACLU said. “The threat to personal privacy presented by this technology is breathtaking,” ACLU said. “To know a person’s location over time is to know a great deal about who a person is and what he or she values."
The FCC should ban cramming on cellphone bills, Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Monday. Cramming is the practice of billing customers -- often on behalf of third parties -- for products or services they either didn’t order or don’t want. Wireless customers should not be charged third-party fees unless they give explicit consent, Schumer said. While the FCC crafts rules, wireless carriers should voluntarily ban the practice, he said. “Cell phone cramming is merely scamming by another name -- it steals money from cell phone users and the FCC and carriers must take prompt action to snuff it out,” he said. Cramming legislation should cover wireless and VoIP, the Consumers Union said Monday. But the wireless and VoIP industries resist extending the rules beyond landline. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., plans to introduce a cramming bill soon but is still working out the details, a committee aide said. In a letter Monday to Rockefeller, Consumers Union said the bill should apply to wireless and VoIP and landline. The group praised recent announcements by AT&T and Verizon to end third-party billing on landline invoices. “But more needs to be done to protect consumers, especially in these tough economic times,” Consumers Union Policy Counsel Parul Desai said. “With more consumers moving away from landline services, it’s imperative that these same protections against unauthorized charges are extended to wireless and VoIP users.” Don’t blame wireless carriers for fraud committed by third parties, CTIA spokesman John Walls replied. “Instead of focusing on the carriers, who, like their customers, are victims of these scammers, the proper focus should be on putting the scammers who are responsible for perpetrating these frauds out of business,” he said. “All major wireless carriers … clearly display charges” for purchases from third parties and provide “a convenient means to challenge any suspect charges,” he said. The VON Coalition didn’t comment but historically has opposed applying cramming rules to interconnected VoIP. In FCC comments from October, VON said the VoIP industry already is “diligent about protecting consumers from unauthorized, third party charges.”
Ericsson on Monday completed its acquisition of BelAir Networks, a wireless network equipment provider. Ericsson has acquired 100 percent of BelAir, and BelAir now operates under the Ericsson brand. BelAir’s staff will be integrated into Ericsson over the next few months, the company said: “Ericsson is committed to ongoing evolution of BelAir Networks’ former customer networks and the assurance of a seamless business transition.” The companies announced the agreement in February (CD Feb 22 p13).
CTIA filed at the FCC a list of broadcasters still using TV Channel 51. CTIA noted it previously filed a petition for rulemaking and request for licensing freezes asking the FCC to address interference issues raised by continuing use of Channel 51 (http://xrl.us/bmz7fm). Representatives of CTIA and its member companies also met with Wireless Bureau staff to discuss interference concerns in the 700 MHz band, an ex parte filing said. “CTIA explained that its members remain committed to delivering on the President’s and the Commission’s spectrum policy goal of encouraging rapid wireless broadband buildout.”
Pendrell Corporation has acquired more than 1,300 patents covering wireless technologies, e-commerce, mobile apps and video delivery and security, the intellectual property investment firm said Monday. Following its subsidiaries’ acquisition of the patents, Pendrell now owns more than 1,500 patents internationally, it said. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. “These patents greatly enhance Pendrell’s portfolio in technological areas that will be important for years to come,” said Pendrell CEO Ben Wolff. “The inventions we have acquired are being used today by a wide range of leading handset, tablet, computer and consumer electronics manufacturers, online retailers, content providers, infrastructure vendors and network operators. He said Pendrell “will continue to accelerate and expand our strategic partnering and licensing programs worldwide."
The FCC should “abandon its efforts to create a 3G mobility fund and instead concentrate on the creation of a 4G mobility fund in conjunction with creation of a Connect America Fund,” U.S. Cellular Senior Director Grant Spellmeyer said in a meeting with Jim Schlichting, senior deputy chief of the Wireless Bureau. “In addition, I argued that $100 million to $300 million in funding for mobility was totally insufficient to accomplish the goals of providing universal mobile broadband coverage,” Spellmeyer said in a filing at the FCC (http://xrl.us/bmz7ae).
MetroPCS said it has not had a chance to review the responses of Verizon Wireless, SpectrumCo and Cox to the latest document request by the FCC on the sale of AWS licenses from the cable companies to Verizon. The various companies “still have failed to provide sufficient information for the Commission to find that a grant of the Applications would serve the public interest,” MetroPCS said in reply comments filed at the FCC (http://xrl.us/bmz65o). “Indeed, the Commission has already reached this same conclusion by serving upon each of the Applicants an extensive Information and Discovery Request. ... However, the timing of the Applicants’ responses to these Requests, coupled with delays inherent in the protective order processes which govern highly confidential documents, have prevented MetroPCS and other interested parties from reviewing and commenting on these supplemental materials.”
The city of London on Wednesday will start the final retuning process for its phase of the U.K.’s DTV switchover (DSO). The process ends April 18, when 12 million viewers in 4.8 million London-area homes will have been converted to all-digital, with any bugs ironed out, well ahead of the London Olympic games, which open July 27 for a two-week run. The April 18 landmark switchover will be celebrated with a 200,000-watt light show at the 219-meter-tall Crystal Palace transmitter site run by network operator Arqiva. The five-year, $1 billion DSO plan will be halted briefly for the Olympics, then resumes in August before finishing in October with Northern Ireland and the last of the U.K.’s 1,154 transmitter sites being converted. At that point, 98.5 percent of the U.K. population will be able to receive digital TV with some HD channels, using new DVD-T2 modulation and MPEG-4 coding. HD has until now been available only in selected areas. The staggered DSO plan, unique in all the world, is necessary because the U.K. has been running parallel analog and digital services for 70 percent of the country since 1998. Once complete, the DSO plan will give the U.K. government what has been called a “digital dividend” of 16 UHF channels to sell off, probably for mobile broadband. After the DSO plan is complete, some 5,000 analog amplifiers will be junked, but recycled for their raw material content, with only 1 percent destined for landfill, authorities have said.
Members of two performers unions voted to approve their merger, the unions said. The American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and the Screen Actors Guild said more than 80 percent of each of their voting members supported the combination, well exceeding the 60 percent threshold required to move forward with the plan. “This merger … brings together the best elements of both unions and positions us well to thrive in the changing 21st-century media landscape,” said Ken Howard, co-president of the combined union.
Big Bend Telephone Co. will default on loan covenants by next year and could run out of cash in 2016 if its request for waiver of three new USF rules is denied, it said in reply comments Thursday (http://xrl.us/bmzxgc). BBTC pointed to comments of USTelecom and the National Telecom Cooperative Association, which support BBTC’s position due to the “particularly challenging nature” of its service area, and the “extraordinary costs” it faces. Should BBTC go under, consumers could lose access to voice and broadband services because there’s no other terrestrial provider of those services in its area, the telco said.