Author: Jon Brodkin

Two votes taken by the Federal Communications Commission today could have big implications for the transition to faster mobile networks and the discontinuance of old landline networks.

The two votes aren't directly related, but they each prepare for a future that could rely more on wireless technologies for voice and Internet service. In one item, the FCC voted to open up high-frequency spectrum to help carriers create 5G networks that would be faster than existing 4G ones.

The second vote will make it easier for carriers to turn off old landline phone networks as long as they replace them with either wired or wireless equivalents. Copper landlines can be replaced with fiber or wireless technology if they offer the same performance, reliability, coverage, access to 911, and compatibility with systems including medical monitoring devices.

AT&T has begun using drones to inspect its cell towers and wants to eventually use the little flying machines to deliver more mobile data at large events.

Aerial inspections can be performed "more quickly and safely—and [drones can] even access parts of a tower that a human simply could not," AT&T's announcement yesterday said. Drones capture data from network sites and feed the data to AT&T systems, helping the carrier make changes to its network "in real time," AT&T said.

AT&T—which is also working with Intel to test LTE-connected drones—has grander plans for its drone program. If all goes well, AT&T drones could "temporarily provid[e] enhanced LTE wireless coverage at the packed venue so you, along with thousands of others in attendance, can simultaneously send photos and videos to share the moment," the company said.

It's no secret that cable companies hate the Federal Communications Commission plan to make TV channels more widely available on third-party devices and applications.

The proposal would force pay-TV providers to make channels and on-demand content available to third parties, who could then build their own devices and apps that could replace rented set-top boxes. Supporters of the proposal say Comcast and other cable companies just don't want to sacrifice revenue they get by renting set-top boxes to their customers.

But Comcast is willingly giving up some of that rental money by developing its own application for third-party devices such as the Roku, Samsung TVs, and the Nvidia Shield. The Comcast application isn't quite what the FCC wants, since device makers would need Comcast's permission to deploy the app. Nonetheless, Comcast's own initiative could also save customers money by freeing them from rented set-top boxes.

AT&T is getting some help from Frontier Communications in its attempt to block Google Fiber's progress in Kentucky.

As we reported in February, AT&T sued the local government in Louisville and Jefferson County, Kentucky to stop a new ordinance designed to give Google Fiber and similar companies access to utility poles. Although Frontier has no operations in Kentucky, it submitted a court filing last week supporting AT&T's lawsuit because Frontier is worried such ordinances will come to other states.

AT&T did not ask Frontier for its help, but Frontier's filing said, "the issues raised by the case may have important implications for Frontier’s business and may impact the development of law in jurisdictions throughout the country where Frontier operates."

In a time when consumers routinely replace gadgets with new models after just two or three years, some products stand out for being built to last.

Witness the Linksys WRT54GL, the famous wireless router that came out in 2005 and is still for sale. At first glance, there seems to be little reason to buy the WRT54GL in the year 2016. It uses the 802.11g Wi-Fi standard, which has been surpassed by 802.11n and 802.11ac. It delivers data over the crowded 2.4GHz frequency band and is limited to speeds of 54Mbps. You can buy a new router—for less money—and get the benefit of modern standards, expansion into the 5GHz band, and data rates more than 20 times higher.

Despite all that, people still buy the WRT54GL in large enough numbers that Linksys continues to earn millions of dollars per year selling an 11-year-old product without ever changing its specs or design.

Verizon Wireless says it has a big announcement coming next week, and rumors suggest the mobile carrier will start offering rollover data and a "safety mode" that lets customers use slower data without paying overage fees once their monthly high-speed data allotments run out.

The new plans are described in the above image, which was posted by a Reddit user and allegedly comes from a Verizon test site that occasionally leaks new offerings before they hit the main Verizon website. Verizon didn't confirm or deny the new offerings, but the company vaguely told news sites that "We're going to have some fireworks next week—stay tuned."

The "Carryover Data" referenced in the Verizon leak would let customers roll unused data over to their next monthly allotment, similar to rollover plans introduced about 18 months ago by T-Mobile USA and AT&T.

Google and five Asian telecoms have begun using an undersea cable connecting Oregon and Japan. At 60Tbps, "this is the highest-capacity undersea cable ever built," and Google will have access to 10Tbps of that, the company said in an announcement yesterday.

"We'll use this capacity to support our users, including Google Apps and Cloud Platform customers," the announcement said. "This is especially exciting, as we prepare to launch a new Google Cloud Platform East Asia region in Tokyo later this year. Dedicated bandwidth to this region results in faster data transfers and reduced latency as GCP customers deliver their applications and information to customers around the globe."

NEC is the supplier that built the $300 million "Faster Cable System" for Google, China Mobile International, China Telecom Global, Global Transit, KDDI, and Singtel. It won't be the highest-capacity cable for very long, as Microsoft and Facebook recently announced a 160Tbps undersea cable from the US to Europe, to be completed in October 2017.

The Wi-Fi Alliance industry group is now certifying products that can deliver multi-gigabit speeds and improve coverage in dense networks by delivering data to multiple devices simultaneously.

The new certification program, announced today, focuses on the so-called "Wave 2" features of the 802.11ac specification. 802.11ac is a few years old, but it includes several important features that were not available at launch. One such feature is MU-MIMO (multi-user, multiple-input, and multiple-output), which we wrote a feature on in May 2014. MU-MIMO is powered by multi-user beamforming technology that lets wireless access points send data streams to at least three users simultaneously. Without MU-MIMO, routers stream to just one device at a time but switch between them very fast so that users don't notice a slowdown except when lots of devices are on the network.

With the 80MHz channels supported in 802.11ac Wave 1, each data stream could provide up to 433Mbps and, when coupled with MU-MIMO routers, can send up to 433Mbps to at least three users simultaneously for a total of 1.3Gbps. But in addition to supporting MU-MIMO, Wave 2 also doubles the maximum channel bandwidth from 80MHz to 160MHz, boosting the potential throughput of each stream to 866Mbps. Wave 2 also supports four spatial streams instead of three, further boosting the theoretical maximum capacity. Technically, 802.11ac supports up to eight streams, but the certification program is still at four. Delivering eight streams with these data rates would use a lot of electricity.

The US appeals court decision upholding the Federal Communications Commission's net neutrality rules wasn't quite the final word on the matter, as ISPs immediately vowed to appeal the ruling, with AT&T saying it "expect[s] this issue to be decided by the Supreme Court."

But while ISPs will give it their best shot, there are reasons to think that the Supreme Court won't take up the case. The appeal probably won't even make it to a rehearing by the full appeals court, a potential intermediate step before a Supreme Court case, legal expert Andrew Jay Schwartzman wrote last week in a Benton Foundation article titled, "Network Neutrality: Now What?" Schwartzman is a Georgetown Law lecturer, an attorney who specializes in media and telecommunications policy, and a longtime consumer advocate who previously led the Media Access Project.

The broadband industry lost a 2-1 decision (full text) by a three-judge panel at the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which rejected challenges to the FCC's reclassification of broadband as a Title II common carrier service and imposition of net neutrality rules. The next step for ISPs and their lobby groups could be a petition for an "en banc" review in front of all of the court's judges instead of just a three-judge panel. They could also appeal to the Supreme Court after losing an en banc review or appeal directly to the Supreme Court without taking that intermediate step.

Comcast and Charter yesterday told US senators how they're trying to fix their poorly rated customer service. Executives from the nation's two largest cable companies testified in a hearing in response to a Senate investigation detailing the industry's shortcomings.

Comcast Cable Senior VP of Customer Service Tom Karinshak detailed some customer service initiatives, mostly ones that are already in progress. Transcripts of the companies' testimony along with Senate investigative reports are available here. AT&T (owner of DirecTV) and Dish also testified.

"At Comcast, we understand why we are here," Karinshak said. "We and the industry as a whole have not always made customer service the high priority it should have been. We regret that history and have committed to our customers that we will lead the way with initiatives to change it; we are committed to making every part of our customers’ experience better, and we have already begun to do so."