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FCC Won't Release Cell Carrier Reliability Data
imuffin writes "MSNBC is reporting that the FCC has been collecting data on the reliability of different cell phone carriers in the US. This data could be invaluable to consumers trying to choose a company to sign a lengthy contract with. Just the same, the FCC won't release the data to consumers, citing national security risks. The data collection on cell services began in 2004, but were simultaneously pulled from public view. FOIA requests to obtain the data have been denied, and commentators feel this is simply for the government's convenience." From the article: "'There is nothing mysterious behind it, it is corporate competition protection,' said [terrorism analyst Roger Cressey] ... 'The only reason for the government to not let these records get out is then one telco provider could run a full-page ad saying 'the government says we're more reliable.'' Cressey added that he couldn't imagine a scenario where the reports would be valuable to terrorists."
Just the same, the FCC won't release the data to consumers, citing national security risks.
Once again, confirming the fact that "national security risks" and "risks to corporate profit" are the same thing.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Money Talks.
The truth is an offense, but not a sin.------R. N. Marley
Eagles may soar, but weasels never get sucked into jet engines...
it could be financial, technilogical prowess, who knows..
even if it 'were' terrorists, how else will they know which companies service to use for their remote triggers?
lastly. when WHATEVER entity commissioned the collection of data, started with a request for funds to collect the data.. the request must have detailed SOME benefit to justify (stop laughing, even though it's government, it's true) anyone have an idea of what the original justification was?
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Why the hell did they do the study in the first place?
FTA: Consumers have no idea how reliable their cell phone service will be when they buy a phone and sign a long-term contract.
My solution is not to trust any of them. I had a contract with Cingular. Largest Network, Fewest dropped calls, blah blah. I don't buy it. Why should I trust Verizon not that it's claiming to have the largest network? If I get a prepaid phone, It'll be Cingular because most of the rest of my family is on Cingular, but I'm under no illusions that it will work more than 85% of the time away from large towns or cities.
So the Government uses my tax dollars to commision a report, and then denies me the information within that report?
This is information that I am paying for and could weigh heavily in my decision of which service to subscribe to. It is ridiculous that the government does not support a consumer-driven economy.
...a scenario where the reports would be valuable to terrorists.
Rip out the land lines, shoot down the communication satellites, blow up the unreliable cell phone carriers, thank the reliable cell phone carrier for doing a job well done, and Google stock shoots straight up as they own all of the undamaged dark fiber. Did I miss anything?
Yet another incident wherein the public is not allowed to see/do/say/read/etc something because it would be a "national security risk". This is bullshit, obviously. They're using the Terrorism Scare (sort of a neo-Red Scare) to justify actions that would otherwise generate a lot of flack.
"We've been collecting information on cellphone services, and have produced a ranking of reliability. But, unfortunately, if we let Joe Sixpack have access to this information, the terrorists will win! So of course you realize that we're just keeping your best interests at heart, right? You wouldn't want the terrorists to blow up little Johnny's elementary school, now would you?"
"We may face a scorched and lifeless earth, but they're accountable to their shareholders first."
Besides, the fact that something can help terrorists should NOT prevent it, unless the benefit to them outweighs the benefit to the rest of us. Roads, electricity, phones, Internet, cars... all are crucial terrorist tools, so what?
RTFA, and you will see that only really large outages are noted. This does not cover MUCH more common issues like:
* Poor RF optimization, leading to dropped calls and poor coverage
* Span outages to cell sites, forcing all calls on that site to drop and new attempts to be blocked
* Audio issues
AFAIK, while the feds may compile the data, I know of no efforts by any govt agency to independently collect this sort of data, IIRC it's all self-reported.
Now, if they lowered the thresholds (not gonna happen), then you would see more things of interest.
What are they really hiding?
The real issue that is being hidden here is the number of times paranoid homeland security dickheads takeout the cell networks in response to perceived local threats. This may be done with or without the carriers co-operation. However, the carriers know when it is happening.
The deficit and the national debt should also be kept secret for national security concerns.
Views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the author.
Your "risk to corporate profit" argument doesn't fly unless you're arguing that the Bush administration has some kind of stake in the least reliable carriers.
The FCC is an independent agency that answers to Congress, not the president. See USC Tile 47 151 and 154
What I think is more important than grammar mistakes is that your article summary was posted in the form of a direct quotation, with no indication that your words had been edited. That's extremely poor journalism. Quotation marks should always been reserved for direct word-for-word quotations... any changes by editors must be clearly indicated as such by the use of brackets. Or, the editors should paraphrase the summary instead of writing it in the form of a direct quote.
So how is knowing that carrier A drops 3% of calls and carrier B drops 5% of calls really going to make a fking difference to that scenario, brainiac ?
"OMG teh Al Kayeeda blew up the mobile tower, I can't call Mom and tell her to pick me up from soccer practice, let's start pandemonium!!!!1"
"pfft, don't panic, that tower drops 7% of calls anyway, n00bs"
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
If America doesn't convert the totally unaccountable "national security" excuse into a government system that's part of the oversight mechanism of checks and balances, then unaccountable government will destroy America. The national security excuse is therefore clear and present danger to real national security.
I note that "national security" is the excuse that Bush gives to protect his warrantless NSA spying on Americans, which covers the same telcos these reliability data could expose as unreliable with immunity, though they can use the data themselves for anything they want, including business competition.
Is there anyone left who believes Bush and his "national security" excuses are anything but fascism: government by and for, but not of, corporations? Anyone who believes anyone coming after Bush will be any more accountable, now that Bush has proven how easy it is for even a fool to abuse us this way, while we're actually under attack?
Why do they hate America?
--
make install -not war
Assessing domestic vulnerabilities is routinely done to plan for crisis management/response strategies. Questions such as what will happen to the grid if powerplants x, y, and z go down are not trivial to answer since under some particular circumstances loss of less than 1% of generation capacity could bring down over 70% of the grid!
Recall that on 9/11 a loss of certain routers around WTC basically brought down the entire Internet (the very system designed to be withstand losses of individual nodes.)
In case of cell carriers, the justification could have been, if some heavy shit goes down, which network can FEMA take over and use to coordinate first responders, etc.
Another thing you do not hear much about is Feds pushing for cell phone multicast capability: sending some alert to tens of millions cell phones simultaneously should the need arise.
My question is, how does the provider know in the case of mobile phones, how many were affected in a network outage?
They could go by billing address, which, on average might be reasonable assuming that residential and business areas are uniformly distributed but that's not the case. One could assume that a common contributing factor to outages is network congestion. So let's say a provider has an outage in a dense business dominated area where few of the customers have their bills sent to. This might, by the metric above, not trigger a report to the Network Outage Reporting System.
Another issue with this measure is how it would be weighted or manipulated. There are 4 large national generally distinct networks currently in existence: Verizon, Cingular/ATT, Sprint/Nextel, and T-Mobile. I've read in many places, though none truly authoritative, that T-Mobile has the smallest network among the national networks. If that's true, then it's possible they might have the fewest reportable outages. Most of the problems T-Mobile users experience would either be a function of lack of coverage of network congestion, neither of which seem to be reportable.
A different method which would come closer to answering the true question of the quality of a national cell service provider would involve randomly sampling different providers in different regions among different classes of customers (i.e. low, medium, and high volume customers as additional proxies for the variety of places an individual has traveled and to weight their view on network congestion).
Just my 2 cents or 3.46 cents if I melted them down at no cost and resold them
When you read article II you realize the president can't do shit without Congress's approval.
The mandate of the Commander in Chief, as we've seen lately, is rather broad. The U.S. Constitution is one of enumerated powers, but where the separation of powers is unclear, history has demonstrated that politics is the deciding factor. Whichever branch of the federal government jumps in first is likely to control, at least until they screw up. Witness our Fearless Leader. For years Congress didn't want to exercise its war powers, and was content to let the President exercise his. Now they're having second thoughts, and are beginning to give him less lattitude.
As for the FCC, although the FCC Chairmanship must be approved by Congress, it hasn't exactly been the kind of appointment the minority party is willing to fight over. When the majority party runs the House, the Senate, and the Congress, the President will get a rubber stamp on whomever he wants to run the FCC. Nobody likes fussing with FCC politics. It's messy, complex, and the electorate finds it boring. Better to spend political capital going after gay whales and people on respirators.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
The idea that if the government releases the data, everyone will switch to the best provider is ridiculous. If everyone switches to the "best" provider, they'd become oversaturated, lots of service unavailable, and drop calls. They'd stop being the best. Then with the next report, everyone would switch to the new "best" provider. No, it doesn't work that way. Reporting will make all the companies more accountable and try harder to improve their service.
So let's outlaw cell phones then. Can't trigger a bomb with a cell phone if there are none...
Freedom of Information Act. How difficult is that? Not very. My question is, why do I need to file a FOIA request to get this information?
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.