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Verizon 'Grossly Overstated' Its 4G LTE Coverage In Government Filings, Trade Group Says (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Verizon "grossly overstated" its 4G LTE coverage in government filings, potentially preventing smaller carriers from obtaining funding needed to expand coverage in underserved rural areas, a trade group says. The Federal Communications Commission last year required Verizon and other carriers to file maps and data indicating their current 4G LTE coverage. The information will help the FCC determine where to distribute up to $4.5 billion in Mobility Fund money over the next 10 years. The funds are set aside for "primarily rural areas that lack unsubsidized 4G," the FCC says. If Verizon provided the FCC with inaccurate data, the company's rural competitors might not be able to get that government funding. "Verizon's claimed 4G LTE coverage is grossly overstated," the Rural Wireless Association (RWA), which represents rural carriers, told the FCC in a filing yesterday. "Verizon should not be allowed to abuse the FCC challenge process by filing a sham coverage map as a means of interfering with the ability of rural carriers to continue to receive universal service support in rural areas," the RWA wrote. "RWA's members are in the middle of the Challenge Process but are expending enormous time and financial resources in their efforts due to inaccurate data submitted by Verizon," the group said. "RWA requests that the Commission investigate the 4G LTE coverage claimed by Verizon and require re-filing of Verizon's data to correct its overstated coverage."
According to the RWA, Verizon claims to cover almost all of the Oklahoma Panhandle, an area of 14,778.47 square kilometers, but estimates that the actual coverage area should be approximately 6,806.49 square kilometers. "[That's] not even half of the LTE coverage area Verizon publicly claims to serve," the RWA wrote.
According to the RWA, Verizon claims to cover almost all of the Oklahoma Panhandle, an area of 14,778.47 square kilometers, but estimates that the actual coverage area should be approximately 6,806.49 square kilometers. "[That's] not even half of the LTE coverage area Verizon publicly claims to serve," the RWA wrote.
They are just that. See who supported Ajit's musings, the dismantling of Net Neutrality. Fuck these guys, fine them to death.
Because communication is essential. Try applying for a job without phone/internet access. Try contacting emergency services without 911. Government rightfully so mandates the available of phone access to pretty much everyone within the United States. This, honestly, is one of the few positive aspects of government: people collecting their resources into a centralized pool (tax dollars), and directly using that resource to benefit the people as a whole (communication between each other).
This is just make-believe, but wouldn't it be wonderful if the government agency with oversight authority had Justice successfully prosecute the executives responsible and they received large fines and long jail sentences?
But we all know how this works in the real world; regulators go after the corporation instead, then announce to the public what amazing heroes they for a large financial settlement against an evil corporation. Then Elizabeth Warren has an orgasm and proclaims how wonderful is government regulation. Also, if you are the Obama administration, then you misdirect the proceeds of settlements to left-wing political activists instead of to Treasury. (Really. They did that routinely.) The stock holders, who are at no fault themselves, pay the penalty and the executives who committed the crime are granted immunity in exchanged for testimony and continue on happily with their outsized salaries. Summary: The government responds to corporate crime by punishing the innocent and exonerating the guilty.
Corporations would act less criminally if officials enforcing the laws sought penalties for those who actually perpetrated the crimes. Achieving that depends on replacing regulation with rule-of-law and reforming a grandstanding and ethically corrupt Justice Department.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
This is related to the old style phone system. In exchange for a monopoly AT&T/Bell was required to provide universal service. This was because the free market refused to serve all customers, but it was in the government's interest to have universal service. Today, the internet and wireless service are being considered essential services even for people who don't live in cities.
The handouts are not to unprofitable companies, the handouts are to anyone willing to provide service where no service exists. If the big players want to step up and provide this service then they can do so.
As a liberal from a rural area (which is liberal), this is *exactly* what makes rural voters pissed off about people like you.
You don't even *question* all the subsidization of urban living (cities are not self-sufficient), or sometimes you refer to even those as paying people to live nowhere, such as when people complain about funding roads. To their cities. So that supplies can get to their cities. They don't want those, apparently.
When it comes to universal access to communication, your response is "fuck everybody for not believing what I believe, I got mine".
It benefits everybody in the end, including you, when communication is universal. Until then, for instance, everybody has to maintain separate systems, businesses have to degrade their UIs, etc. -- the "paying people" gets distributed anyway, it just means everybody has to suffer too.