Cell Towers Making People Sick Is All In The Mind

from the psychosomatic dept

A lot of noise has been made in the UK lately about the supposed health dangers of WiFi and other types of wireless communications -- though the media stories about them are generally full of shoddy reporting and bad science. The reports, as a rule, feature a person who claims to have "electrosensitivity," and that radiation from WiFi or mobile phone networks makes them sick. Despite the claims, these people generally fail double-blind tests to see if they really can feel the presence of WiFi or other wireless networks, and another study has now once again confirmed this. Researchers said that people claiming to have electrosensitivity weren't faking it, and really were displaying the symptoms they claimed -- but that they were brought about by the people's belief that they were being harmed by radiation, and not the radiation itself. Just two of 44 people claiming to be "electrosensitive" correctly determined when the wireless signals were being emitted in six out of six tests; this compares pretty evenly to the 5 out of 114 control participants. Somehow, though, it's hard to imagine this study will end debate on the matter. After all, claiming that electronic smog is hurting children is far too juicy a story to pass up -- even if it isn't true.

Filed Under: mobile, radiation, wifi, wireless

Come To The Slocan Valley, Where Your Cell Phone Won't Work

from the sounds-of-silence dept

As the move towards the hyperconnected lifestyle -- in which people are never out of touch, whether from work or friends and family -- continues, the backlash against it rises. A group of citizens in a rural Canadian valley have asked a telco there not to build a planned cell tower, but not for the usual reasons. It's not unusual for communities to object to towers on aesthetic grounds, or because of health concerns, but people in this community don't want the tower as a tourist attraction. They hope to sell their area to visitors based on its lack of cell coverage, promising them a visit uninterrupted by "the incessant sound of ringtones, immediately followed by someone's shouted conversation." While this approach might be a bit extreme, since it denies the area's residents and visitors the benefits mobile phones can provide, as well as cutting down on the annoyances, it's not particularly surprising. As people get more and more fed up with many mobile users' manners, this sort of blunt-force way of dealing with things could become more popular.

Filed Under: manners, mobile, wireless

What Happens To Customers Whose Providers Disappear?

from the no-more-service-for-you dept

Last week, VoIP provider SunRocket pulled the plug, and it looks like it will be joined on Tuesday by mobile virtual operator Amp'd. But in addition to out of work employees and unpaid creditors, there's another group of affected people here that seem to have gotten lost in the shuffle: these companies' customers. As the comments to one of our posts about SunRocket attests, the company's customers were left hanging in the wind, with no real information about what would happen to their service, or their phone numbers. Amp'd users got a helpful text message ("AMPD MSG: Your svc may be disconnected on 7.24 @ 12:01am. Go to http://www.ampd.com or contact the location where you activated your service for further info.") and a hastily written FAQ. It's not like these companies will really care about their ex-customers, and acting in the name of morality, or even just being decent, won't pay their bills. But the bigger issue here is what this means for other upstart companies, particularly in entrenched industries like telecom. For all their faults and downsides compared to VoIP providers, it's unlikely that companies like AT&T or Verizon will go out of business and leave their customers in the lurch -- and that could make it harder for newer, smaller companies to pull in users.

Filed Under: mobile, telecom, voip, wireless
Companies: amp'd, at&t, sunrocket, verizon

Verizon Wireless Again Accused Of Crippling Handset Features

from the same-old-story dept

An anonymous reader has submitted a story about Verizon Wireless apparently crippling the GPS functionality on the BlackBerry 8830 handsets it sells, after advertising the feature as one of the device's selling points. This sounds a lot like the situation Verizon found itself in a few years ago, when a bunch of pissed-off customers filed a class-action lawsuit against the operator (which it ended up settling) after it advertised the Bluetooth functionality of a Motorola handset, then crippled it so it would only support certain functions. The legal or liability ramifications of what Verizon's done here aren't clear, but judging by forum posts, there's a number of annoyed customers out there. Of course, Verizon's done this sort of thing before, whether it's continuing to cripple Bluetooth, keeping its customers in a walled garden so they can only access data services that make Verizon money, or by making misleading claims about the "unlimited" aspects of some of its services. While Verizon's strategy seems to result in plenty of unhappy customers, it's unlikely to change until a good number of them start voting with their wallets and fleeing to other operators. After all, the bad publicity and occasional class-action suit doesn't seem to be having much effect.

Filed Under: gps, mobile, wireless
Companies: rim, verizon

Google Puts Its Money Where Its Mouth Is On Open-Access Wireless

from the open-the-wallet dept

Google has been one of the leading voices in the call for the FCC to adopt "open access" rules for winners of spectrum licenses in the upcoming 700 MHz auction. The auction, slated for late this year or early 2008, is a big deal because of the huge amount of spectrum on offer, as well as its propagation characteristics, which makes it ideally suited for high-speed broadband services. Google and a number of consumer groups have put forth a four-point open access plan to the FCC, and the Commission's chairman, Kevin Martin, appears to have met them halfway. Incumbent operators were, unsurprisingly, not happy with the plan, though AT&T now says it supports it. But Google and the consumer groups weren't satisfied with Martin's proposal either, mainly because it didn't include a provision that would force license winners to sell wholesale access to their networks on a non-discriminatory basis, and they see this as a crucial step in encouraging competition in the broadband space.

One of the telcos' responses to Martin's proposal was that putting restrictions and rules on license winners would hamper bidding and hold down the revenues the auction would generate. Now, in an effort to allay those fears, Google says that if the FCC adopts its four-point plan, it will commit to bidding $4.6 billion in the auction. It's been rumored for some time that Google was interested in getting its hands on some of the 700 MHz spectrum, and it's even talked about a model for real-time spectrum auctions. Still, saying the company's willing to pony up the reserve price for the auction doesn't make it certain that Google will come away with spectrum licenses, since the cost of the licenses will undoubtedly go beyond it -- nor is it even certain that Martin and the FCC will care about Google's pledge all that much. But this should be seen as a signal that Google wants to play ball, and that will cause some concern among incumbent operators. Even if Google itself doesn't come away with spectrum, it's possible it could help fund another bidder's efforts and help create a significant competitor in the wireless and broadband markets.

Filed Under: mobile, spectrum, wireless
Companies: at&t, fcc, google

FCC Chairman Talks Up Open-Access Wireless Networks

from the different-tune dept

Just last month, we noted how FCC Chairman Kevin Martin sounds like a broken record when it comes to telecom policy, always covering the same ground with his same old ideas of what constitutes a competitive market. Maybe the summer heat has gotten to him, but he's now gone and changed all that, as he's getting ready to propose dramatic new rules for the upcoming 700 MHz wireless spectrum license auction, mandating that winners of licenses for a third of the spectrum build open-access networks -- networks that allow any compatible device to connect and for any service to be run across them. The 700 MHz spectrum is pretty prime real estate, as these things go: there's a lot of spectrum that will be available, and the low frequency gives it excellent propagation and building-penetration characteristics. There's been a lot of talk from tech companies and other groups about handling these licenses differently than previous ones, in order to encourage the development of broadband wireless networks that offer real competition to fixed-line networks. Typically, this entails mandating that license winners build wholesale networks which sell access to any service provider that wants to then sell the service on to consumers. While Martin's draft of rules doesn't go that far, it does offer a significant change to how wireless spectrum licenses have typically been sold and regulated. Unsurprisingly, the trade group of cellular operators isn't happy, and says that there's no need to regulate what it sees as a perfectly competitive marketplace. Whether or not the cell phone service market is competitive is an argument for another day, but it's pretty clear that as things stand now, it doesn't have much of a competitive impact on the broadband market, which is still largely a duopoly of cable and telephone companies. The operators hope to use their deep pockets to buy up as much spectrum as possible -- not just to use it themselves, but to keep it out of the hands of any potential new entrants that could come into the market and actually compel them to compete.

Filed Under: open access, wireless
Companies: fcc