T-Mobile Is Already Trying To Wiggle Out Of Its Sprint Merger Conditions

from the told-you-so dept

Is it too early to say "I told you so" yet?

Despite countless pre-merger promises that its $26 billion merger would create oodles of new jobs, T-Mobile laid off 6,000 employees at its Metro prepaid division before the ink was even dry. Another 200 Sprint employees were fired during a 6 minute conference call a few weeks ago. T-Mobile and Sprint quietly confirmed the layoffs had nothing to do with the pandemic.

Both the FCC and DOJ ignored all critical data and rubber stamped the deal, because that's what feckless, revolving-door regulators do. The only real resistance T-Mobile saw to its competition and job-eroding deal was the California PUC, which set certain 5G deployment (T-Mobile had to deliver 5G connections of at least 300Mbps to 93 percent of California by the end of 2024) and job (T-Mobile had to hire 1,000 additional employees within three years in California) targets. Given T-Mobile told regulators repeatedly that the merger would dramatically expand 5G deployment and jobs by default, neither should have been a problem.

Yet less than three months from the deal's closure and T-Mobile is already trying to wiggle out from underneath its obligations in California by claiming California regulators lack the authority to enforce them:

"The commission simply does not have the authority to require a wireless carrier to hire a particular number of employees in a given time period," T-Mobile wrote. "The legislature has never granted it such authority and, prior to the issuance of the decision, the Commission has not attempted to impose such a mandate on any other communications provider in any context." T-Mobile also said the condition is "particularly burdensome and unjustified in light of the current COVID-19 crisis."

California state law makes in clear the CPUC has the authority to determine whether or not a merger "maintains or improves" service quality for consumers, and "the quality of management of the resulting public utility doing business in the state." Said law also mandates that mergers much be "beneficial on an overall basis to state and local economies," and be "fair and reasonable to affected public utility employees, including both union and nonunion employees." Telecom megadeals routinely fail that test, but, courtesy of a corrupted Congress, we simply adore rubber stamping them anyway.

Meanwhile, COVID-19 creates the perfect cover for T-Mobile to dodge its already flimsy deal conditions, even if the 6,200 employees who have already lost their jobs were laid off due to the merger, not the pandemic. And in April of last year, former T-Mobile CEO John Legere insisted that the company would easily add 11,000 additional employees within three years of the deal's closing:

"Let me be really clear on this increasingly important topic. This merger is all about creating new, high-quality, high-paying jobs, and the New T-Mobile will be jobs-positive from Day One and every day thereafter."

That's in stark contrast to not only telecom history (such consolidation always causes job losses in support and middle management), but unions, consumer groups, economists, and Wall Street analysts, who all made it very clear the deal could, over time, result not only in upwards of 20,000 lost jobs, but lower pay across the sector overall. That's before you get to the fact that reducing overall competitors from four to three will almost certainly result in less price competition and higher prices.

The T-Mobile Sprint merger was always hot garbage. Countless experts made this clear. US telecom megamergers are routinely terrible for markets, consumers, and employees. It's why everybody spends all day bitching about AT&T and Comcast. Yet time and time again, pre-merger promises by companies looking for regulatory approval are eagerly swallowed and parroted by regulators and the press, and conditions are applied to terrible deals that are either too flimsy to be useful, or simply aren't enforced. US merger mania (especially in telecom) remains a purgatorial game of Charlie Brown and Lucy football, where we see the same outcome time and time again, but simply refuse to alter our behavior because, at least for executives and investors, the broken path forward is the more profitable one.

Filed Under: 5g, california, fcc, jobs, merger conditions, wireless
Companies: sprint, t-mobile

AT&T Says Being Misleading About 'Unlimited' Data Plans Was Ok, Because Reporters Told Consumers It Was Being Misleading

from the ill-communication dept

Back in 2014 the FTC sued AT&T for selling "unlimited" wireless data plans with very real and annoying limits. The lawsuit noted that, starting in 2011, AT&T began selling "unlimited" plans that actually throttled upwards of 90 percent of your downstream speeds after using just two or three gigabytes of data. AT&T spent years trying to wiggle out of the lawsuit via a variety of legal gymnastics, including at one point trying to claim that the very same net neutrality and FCC Title II rules AT&T was attempting to kill, prevented the FTC from holding it accountable.

Nearly a decade after the battle began, the company agreed last fall to a $60 million settlement with the FTC without actually admitting any wrongdoing. Though AT&T has also been attempting to tap dance around several other lawsuits over its not really "unlimited" data plans with varying success. A separate 2015 class action continues to stumble through the court system, and AT&T lawyers continue to engage in... creative efforts to derail it.

The California class action argues, among other things, that AT&T was being secretive when it downplayed the hidden restrictions on its unlimited data plans (which is correct). To try and disprove this claim, a recent AT&T filing (pdf), spotted by Stop The Cap, introduces a dozen media reports (including an old one by myself) critical of AT&T's efforts. The logic being that because news outlets were writing about how sleazy AT&T was being, customers couldn't possibly have been surprised by the restrictions on their "unlimited" data plans:

"One of the news articles cited in AT&T’s May 14 filing was written by former DSL Reports’ author Karl Bode, who has been roundly critical of AT&T’s data caps for over a decade. Ironically, AT&T’s defense team is arguing Bode’s report, “AT&T Wages Quiet War on Grandfathered Unlimited Users” offers proof AT&T was not keeping its speed throttling policy “secret,” as at least one plaintiff claimed. Bode suggested AT&T had engineered its speed throttling plan to push grandfathered unlimited data plan customers off the plan in favor of more profitable plans offering a specified data allowance and overlimit fees."

Nifty.

It's not just AT&T that has now spent the better part of the last fifteen years trying to tap dance around their misleading marketing related to unlimited data plans. Verizon had its wrist slapped by New York's Attorney General as early as 2007 for selling "unlimited" data plans with very real limits, and yet the company still to this day imposes all manner of restrictions on such plans. Verizon's most recent unlimited plans, for example, throttle you back to HD and ban 4K video entirely unless you pony up cash for a more expensive plan.

This is by and large acceptable provided Verizon buries its annoying unlimited data plan limits somewhere in its massive EULA.

Still, you'd think that after so many run ins with regulators and consumers, wireless carriers would simply stop using the word "unlimited" entirely, instead focusing on other metrics like speed or reliability. Instead, they keep engaging in the same behavior, AGs and the FTC keep doling out flimsy wrist slaps years after the fact, and telecom lawyers spend years tap dancing around anything even vaguely resembling accountability. And, thanks in large part to AT&T and Verizon lobbyists, we just lobotomized the one government agency custom built to handle these kinds of issues, while also killing net neutrality rules requiring greater transparency in mobile data plans. Good job, America!

Filed Under: 5g, misleading, truth in advertising, wireless
Companies: at&t

The DOJ's Plan To 'Fix' The T-Mobile Merger Is Already A Hot Mess

from the do-not-pass-go,-do-not-collect-$200 dept

Earlier this year the Bill Barr DOJ absolutely tripped over itself to approve T-Mobile's controversial $26 billion merger with Sprint, despite a mountain of evidence that the deal would erode competition, raise prices, lower wages, and result in thousands of layoffs. It was so grotesquely corrupt, the approval process even involved "antitrust" DOJ boss Makan Delrahim literally helping guide T-Mobile through the proposal process using his personal phone and text message accounts.

The DOJ's "fix" for the problematic deal also involved shoveling some spectrum from T-Mobile over to Dish Network, which (it was promised) would then spend the next seven years building a replacement fourth wireless carrier to help offset the competition lost by gobbling up Sprint.

As we noted at the time, the proposal was never likely to work. One, Dish has a long, long history of empty promises when it comes to wireless (just ask T-Mobile), hoovering up valuable spectrum, making ample promises, then failing to deliver. The proposal also requires an FCC and DOJ that are proud of being "hands off" (read: fecklessly obedient to industry giants), suddenly being forced to closely shepherd the deal to fruition. This despite the fact that FCC BFFs AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile are all incentivized to make sure this new fourth competitor never succeeds.

Not too surprisingly, none of this is going particularly well. T-Mobile has already started closing prepaid outlets and firing employees, something the US government and T-Mobile repeatedly promised wouldn't happen. The pandemic is also making it harder for Dish to secure financing and begin the deployment of its promised 5G network. Even some of the basic aspects of the deal (like offloading T-Mobile prepaid brand Boost Mobile to Dish) have been mysteriously stuck in neutral:

As part of the government's remedy in the T-Mobile/Sprint merger, Dish Network is supposed to buy Boost Mobile for $1.4 billion, but so far, that deal hasn’t closed. Analysts are asking: What’s up? And as usual when it comes to Dish and wireless, it’s complicated.

“We are unaware of why Dish has not closed the Boost deal,” wrote LightShed Partners analysts Walter Piecyk and Joe Galone in a blog post today. “It should have been done by June 1st. Something is up."

Dish and T-Mobile have been unable to agree to terms on a 600 MHz spectrum lease as required by the DOJ judgement on T-Mobile’s acquisition of Sprint, and Dish hasn't yet been able to explain why the Boost transition hasn't happened. Again, keep in mind, T-Mobile is incentivized for Dish not to succeed, since they (like AT&T and Verizon) don't actually want a viable fourth competitor to emerge from this process. And, not surprisingly, analysts state that Dish and T-Mobile have been more combative than cooperative:

"Among the questions: How will disputes between Dish and T-Mobile be resolved? “It is clear from recent filings that the momentary kumbaya relationship between DISH and TMUS during the final phase of the merger review has left and there has been a return to the more combative relationship that marked the first phase of the merger review,” wrote New Street policy analyst Blair Levin."

Dish CEO Charlie Ergen is notoriously difficult to get along with. Now, as we've predicted, you've got the "hands off" DOJ and FCC tasked with nannying this deal through to completion, without any indication they have the motivation or competence to do so.

My assumption has always been that this entire merger "solution" has all been little more than elaborate theater.

Dish may simply want to hoard spectrum and then offload it down the road at a premium, dragging feckless regulators the entire way. T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon lobbyists and policymakers are all incentivized to make sure this added competition never takes root. And the DOJ and FCC, little more than glorified rubber stamps to industry at this point, are keen to create the illusion of strong ethical leadership, when in reality they rubber stamped a shitty merger (again, ignoring all objective data). And the US press, so eager to stenograph hype pre-merger, will likely be far less involved in documenting the real cost of merger mania as this paper mache proposal slowly falls apart, employees are laid off, and US consumers inevitably face even higher prices for mobile data in the years to come.

Filed Under: 5g, antitrust, charlie ergen, competition, doj, fcc, spectrum, wireless
Companies: boost mobile, dish, sprint, t-mobile

5G Conspiracy Idiots Now Threatening Telecom Workers That Don't Even Work In Wireless

from the ill-communication dept

On one end, you've got wireless carriers implying that 5G is some type of cancer curing miracle (it's not). On the other hand, we have oodles of conspiracy theorists, celebrities, and various grifters trying to claim 5G is some kind of rampant health menace (it's not). In reality, 5G's not actually interesting enough to warrant either position, but that's clearly not stopping anybody in the post-truth era.

But it's all fun and games until somebody gets hurt.

Baseless conspiracy theories about the health impact of 5G have gone next level during the pandemic. To the point where facts-optional nitwits are not only burning down cell towers in the UK, but putting razor blades and needles underneath protest posters on telephone poles (apparently you solve public health risks by... putting peoples' health at risk?). We've seen a few attacks on telecom infrastructure and employees here in the States, but it's been notably worse in the UK, where telecom engineers are now being routinely insulted and threatened:

"Most incidents could be classified as harassment. Shouted insults, death threats, and the like. But others were more violent. Razor blades and needles had been hidden behind posters on telephone poles, waiting to catch unwitting hands. Attackers had set cellphone masts on fire and shared the videos on social media to the applause of fellow conspiracists. According to figures shared with The Verge by industry body Mobile UK, there were more than 200 incidents of abuse against telecoms engineers since March 30th and more than 90 arson attacks against mobile infrastructure."

The 5G conspiracy theorists are routinely bipartisan in nature. Some, on the left, originate from the "healing powers of crystals" and anti-vaccination set, and believe every shaky, worldview-confirming health claim they can get their hands on. Others, on the right, have stumbled into the 5G conspiracies thanks to their association with histrionic dog shit like Q Anon. In the UK, it's at the point where technicians that don't even work on wireless infrastructure have to tread carefully. Like the tech at the heart of the above-linked Verge article, who spends his days repairing fiber and DSL lines:

"She raised her voice almost immediately: ‘You’re killing people. You know what you’re doing. How could you do this?’”

He tried to follow company training and not engage with the accusations, but the woman was getting more and more upset. 5G was causing the symptoms of COVID-19, she told him, and he was secretly installing the high-speed network under instructions from the local council. The woman was beginning to drag in bystanders at this point. She corralled a group of men who were drinking in the street and pointed Qureshi out to them. “He’s the one who’s killing everyone,” she told them. “He’s spreading all this virus."

Apparently, it's just too difficult to be able to distinguish between a DSL cabinet and a wireless tower? The problem isn't being helped by the large number of grifting jackasses receiving unwarranted fame via social media. Or celebrities like John Cusack, who recently joined the chorus of 5G health conspiracies despite seemingly not understanding how the technology works (or that many flavors of 5G are actually far less powerful than even existing 4G networks).

Much of the recent popularity of idiotic conspiracy is driven by justified public distrust in our most important institutions. Many have lost faith in the health care system, government, news outlets, corporations, and leaders who've routinely prioritized profit over human health, the truth, or an equitable society. Fix the core rot at these institutions with an eye on a more equitable society, and much of the potency of conspiracy (not to mention Russia/Chinese/Iranian exploitation of said conspiracy) dissipates back into the the gullible fringes where it belongs.

Filed Under: 5g, conspiracy theories, covid-19, threats

AT&T Won't Stop Lying About 'Fake 5G'

from the zero-actual-oversight dept

Big wireless carriers haven't been exactly honest when it comes to the looming fifth-generation wireless standard (5G). Eager to use the improvements to charge higher rates and sell new gear, carriers and network vendors are dramatically over-hyping where the service is actually available, and what it can actually do. Some, like AT&T, have gone so far as to actively mislead customers by pretending that its existing 4G networks are actually 5G. AT&T took this to the next level last year by issuing phone updates that changed the 4G icon to "5GE" on customer phones, despite the fact that actual 5G isn't really available.

Sprint sued AT&T last year for being misleading, but the suit was settled (likely so Sprint could focus on its merger with T-Mobile) without much coming of it. AT&T's competitors also complained via the Better Business Bureau's National Advertising Division (NAD), which is a "self-regulatory" system designed to help companies settle disputes without the involvement of regulators. After a year of bickering and appeals, NARB (the enforcement arm of NAD) finally ruled last week that the practice was misleading and the ads should be discontinued:

"Agreeing with NAD’s findings and recommendations, the NARB panel determined that both claims will mislead reasonable consumers into believing that AT&T is offering a 5G network and recommended that the claims be discontinued. At NAD and on appeal, it was not disputed that the AT&T network is not a 5G network. The NARB Panel agreed with NAD’s analysis and concluded that the term “Evolution” is not likely to alert consumers to the fact that the service is not 5G. The Panel noted that the current prevalent technology in wireless is 4G LTE, and LTE stands for “evolution.” Thus, consumers may well interpret “Evolution” in the challenged claims as signifying that AT&T’s technology has already evolved into 5G."

AT&T says it will stop using the ads (months after they'd already aired), but there's no indication that AT&T will stop using the fake 5G icon on user phones, because the icons themselves aren't technically ads:

"But AT&T said the NARB's recommendation only applies to its advertising and therefore will not affect the one element that really matters: Its service icon..."

Again, such "self regulatory" systems are usually designed to pre-empt actual, tough actual regulatory enforcement, often to the detriment of confused consumers and the truth. I've lost track of the times over the last decade NAD doled out a dainty wrist slap months or years after the misleading advertisements have aired, be they false claims of nationwide wireless coverage or bogus ISP claims about the availability of fiber. With the FCC all but an absentee landlord in the Trump era, there's simply no accountability for misleading your customers provided you're even marginally clever about it.

In this case, AT&T can keep pretending its 4G network is 5G, right up until actual 5G is made available to those customers. But the industry's efforts to misrepresent where 5G is and what it can do have a major downside the industry has chosen to ignore: it "teaches" consumers to associate 5G not with better service, but with hype and disappointment. And with studies showing that US 5G is actually far slower and spottier than many overseas deployments, there's going to be a lot of disappointment to go around.

Filed Under: 5g, advertising, fake 5g, truth in advertising
Companies: at&t, better business bureau

Verizon Tries To Temper 5G Enthusiasm After Report Clearly Shows US 5G Is Slow, Lame

from the ill-communication dept

For the better part of two years, Verizon has insisted that fifth-generation wireless (5G) would revolutionize everything. Simply by upgrading from 4G to 5G, Verizon repeatedly insisted, we'd usher forth a "fourth industrial revolution," resulting in smarter cars, smarter cities, and an endless array of innovation. 5G technology was so incredible, Verizon insisted, that it would also quickly usher forth incredible new cancer cures, allowing doctors to conduct remote heart surgery while wearing VR/AR headsets from the back of a rickshaw.

Granted 5G was never actually that exciting. While an important update in terms of faster and more reliable mobile networks, the technology was rushed to market in such a way that coverage was sparse and overstated, 5G handsets were expensive and clunky, and service plans were equally pricey. Worse, recent studies have suggested that because the U.S. lacks a lot of the mid-band spectrum available in other countries (read: policy failure), 5G in the United States is going to be significantly slower and not all that much different than 4G (at least for a while).

On the heels of one particularly damning 5G report on slow US speeds by OpenSignal, Verizon is now suddenly attempting to temper enthusiasm, noting that 5G at first won't be all that much different from existing 4G networks:

"In the beginning, you're going to see some improvements. Over time, dramatic improvements," Vestberg said. "We already have one of the best 4G networks in the world, so that's what you're competing with. It's not like you're competing with an inferior 4G network. In the beginning, it's going to be small [improvements on 5G]."

Verizon's problem is that while the company will be deploying a lot of millimeter wave (mmwave) spectrum in key urban markets, that flavor of 5G lacks range and can't penetrate walls particularly well (for 5G conspiracy theorists, that means the technology is less likely to penetrate your skin and harm you, as well). For most users, what you see now with 4G is what you'll get for several years to come:

"But millimeter-wave frequencies don't travel as far as low- and mid-band radio waves and are easily blocked by walls and other obstacles, making them unsuitable for nationwide coverage. As such, Vestberg was asked whether consumers will see a noticeable difference between 4G and 5G in areas without millimeter-wave coverage. Vestberg said that customers will eventually see "dramatic improvements," but not in the near term."

Again, that's a far cry from Verizon's marketing materials. Especially the ads insisting that 5G will revolutionize healthcare (despite the fact that most hospitals will continue to use existing WiFi and fiber connections and not less reliable cellular, no matter how speedy). U.S. consumers, who already pay some of the highest prices in the world for Verizon 4G service, will also need to pay $10 extra a month (you know, just because), and shell out significant cash for early-adoption 5G devices that are fatter, more expensive, and have worse battery life than their current gear.

Again, 5G five to ten years from now will be a good thing in that it provides faster speeds, lower latency, and more resilient networks. For now though, the consensus remains that 5G has been aggressively over-hyped to spur lagging smartphone sales and network gear orders, and there's no need to rush toward 5G's "transformative" technology anytime in the next year or two.

Filed Under: 5g, enthusiasm, oversold
Companies: verizon

Idiots Begin Attacking US 5G Cell Towers Because, Idiots

from the ill-communication dept

On one end, you've got wireless carriers claiming that 5G is some type of cancer-curing miracle (it's not). On the other hand, we have oodles of conspiracy theorists, celebrities, and various grifters trying to claim 5G is some kind of rampant health menace (it's not). In reality, 5G's not actually interesting enough to warrant either position, but that's clearly not stopping anybody in the post-truth era.

Baseless conspiracy theories about the health impact of 5G have gone next level during the pandemic. To the point where facts-optional nitwits are not only burning down cell towers in the UK, but putting razor blades and needles underneath protest posters on telephone poles (apparently you solve public health risks by... putting peoples' health at risk?). Now the Department of Homeland Security has had to issue warnings here in the States after several similar attacks were launched against US telecom infrastructure over the last few months:

"Since December 2019, unidentified actors conducted at least five arson incidents targeting cell towers in Memphis, Tenn., that resulted in more than $100,000 in damages,” the DHS reports say. “Additionally, 14 cell towers in western Tennessee, between February and April, were purposely turned off by way of disabling their electrical breakers," according to separate DHS field intelligence reporting. In April, arsonists set fire to a major cell tower in Portland, Ore., damaging electrical components at the base of the structure."

The overwhelming scientific evidence currently available indicates that not only is 5G not a serious risk to human health, but some aspects of 5G (especially millimeter wave deployments) are, in many instances, less powerful that existing 4G signals. 95% of the time when you see somebody insisting 5G hurts your health, they're badly misinterpreting debunked studies or this decades old chart. Assuming they're even pantomiming any respect for properly peer-reviewed science in the first place.

The DHS intelligence report states that it's very likely that these attacks will be increasing throughout the year, as a growing crop of nitwits "learn" about the technology online. Sometimes from ordinary domestic crackpots and grifters, but also via foreign governments (Iran, China, Russia) hoping to accelerate the US' descent down the conspiracy idiot rabbit hole:

"Violent extremists have drawn from misinformation campaigns online that claim wireless infrastructure is deleterious to human health and helps spread COVID-19, resulting in a global effort by like-minded individuals to share operational guidance and justification for conducting attacks against 5G infrastructure, some of which have already prompted arson and physical attacks against cell towers in several US states."

Falsehood flies, and truth comes limping after it.

Filed Under: 5g, attacks, conspiracy theories

US Press Continues To Help Prop Up Bullshit 5G Conspiracy Theories

from the ill-communication dept

On one hand, we have wireless companies trying to insist that 5G is some type of cancer-curing miracle (it's not). On the other hand, we have oodles of conspiracy theorists, celebrities, and various grifters trying to claim 5G is some kind of rampant health menace (it's not). In reality, 5G's not actually interesting enough to warrant either position, but you'd hardly know this reading the US and UK press.

While the wireless industry's 5G hype machine has quieted somewhat during COVID-19 (though I'm still waiting for some marketing department to suggest it will easily thwart the pandemic), the folks on the conspiracy-theory end of the spectrum have only gotten louder. To the point where they're not only burning down cell towers in the UK, but putting razor blades and needles underneath protest posters on telephone poles:

"OpenReach workers were told to take care after blades and needles were found behind protest signs. It comes amid a rise in the number of attacks on engineers, fuelled by a conspiracy theory wrongly linking 5G and coronavirus. There were 68 incidents of verbal and physical abuse since 1 April as opposed to 42 for all of 2019, OpenReach said.

Just to be clear: you're protesting the unscientific claim that 5G puts public health at risk by... putting public health at risk?

While it's hubris to insist we know everything about wireless' impact on human health, the science we do have points to a very clear conclusion: 5G isn't going to hurt you. In fact, in many ways 5G is potentially less harmful than previous iterations given that the millimeter wave spectrum being used in many cities can barely penetrate walls, much less human skin. Glenn Fleishman, who has covered wireless networking for decades, has one of the better pieces on the subject, here.

A lack of supporting evidence hasn't stopped news outlets like the New Republic from running inflammatory pieces like this one insisting that 5G poses a serious threat. In it, the outlet interviews a mom who believes her family's health is being put at risk due to nearby 5G signals, based entirely on a handful of "evidence" the news outlet treats very, very seriously:

"Her husband and children, she told me, trusted she was doing the right thing. “If anyone thought I was crazy, they didn’t say so,” she said. “I didn’t know much about this topic before Crown Castle placed that antenna. Then I read the science, and now I know more than I ever wanted to know. We live with involuntary 24/7 radiation, even in my children’s beds as they sleep."

One of the studies that prompted her concern was a 2018 report by the National Toxicology Program, a branch of the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences. Commissioned by the Food and Drug Administration to examine the human health risks of cell phone radiation, NTP researchers placed lab rats in “reverberation chambers”—metal boxes resembling microwave ovens—and, over a period of two years, exposed certain rats for nine hours a day, every day, to EMFs of the type that flow ubiquitously from Wi-Fi hubs and cell sites into our laptops, iPads, smartphones, and, of course, our bodies.

But that study, which insisted there was "clear evidence" that cell phone radiation in male rats can cause cancers and precancerous lesions in the heart and brain, doesn't actually prove what it claims it proves. Ars Technica in particular has done a good job debunking the study, noting repeatedly that the study was "riddled with red flags" and not peer reviewed. In fact the study is so controversial, the control study rats -- which weren't exposed to any radiation at all -- died earlier than those that weren't. In short it doesn't show what 5G conspiracy theories claim it does. Like, at all.

There's numerous other problems with the New Republic piece, outlined well by Joel Hruska at Extremetech, who concludes:

"This is not a piece of journalism. It’s a piece of propaganda written by an author who knows exactly how to create a solid-seeming article, to feed a line of argument he’s been making for a decade using the same rhetorical techniques and half-disclosed facts. The New Republic is in desperate need of a science editor."

For numerous reasons (a lack of competent and well compensated health and science editors and reporters being among them), this is a cycle of conspiracy and dysfunction we just can't seem to escape from. As we've noted more times than we can count, most of the "supporting science" critics of 5G say "prove" that 5G is a health hazard does nothing of the sort. Such as this 20 year old chart by physicist Bill Curry, which conspiracy theorists repeatedly insist proves that human tissue damage increases with the rising frequency of radio waves:

But several reports, including this lengthy New York Times piece from last year, have repeatedly shown that the chart isn't, and has never been, accurate:

"It doesn’t penetrate,” said Christopher M. Collins, a professor of radiology at New York University who studies the effect of high-frequency electromagnetic waves on humans. Dr. Curry’s graph, he added, failed to take into account “the shielding effect.” You Make the Call: ‘Moving Forward With the American Dream’ in New Jersey Dr. Marvin C. Ziskin, an emeritus professor of medical physics at Temple University School of Medicine, agreed. For decades, Dr. Ziskin explored whether such high frequencies could sow illness. Many experiments, he said, support the safety of high-frequency waves."

You'll still see the chart, and the debunked study from the National Toxicology Program, tossed around as gospel anyway -- largely because, as Jonathan Swift wrote as early as 1710: "falsehood flies, and the truth comes limping after it."

Filed Under: 5g, conspiracies, conspiracy theories, health, journalism, radiation
Companies: the new republic

Study Shows US 5G Is An Over-hyped Disappointment

from the we're-not-#1 dept

We've noted for a while that the "race to 5G" is largely just the byproduct of telecom marketing departments and lobbyists hoping to spur lagging smartphone sales and scare lawmakers into obedience. Yes, fifth-generation wireless (5G) is important in that it will provide faster, more resilient networks when it's finally deployed at scale years from now. But the society-altering impacts of the technology are extremely over-hyped, availability has been dramatically overstated, and even if it was a "race," our broadband maps are so terrible (by industry design) it would be impossible to actually determine who won.

Even if you still want to view 5G as a race, there's very little indication we're actually winning it.

A new study by OpenSignal looked at crowdsourced 5G network performance data around the world, and included this telling chart comparing US 5G speeds to the rest of the world:

Sure, doubling 4G speeds isn't nothing. But it's sure as hell not the society-transforming technology we've been repeatedly promised. And in stark contrast to a lot of rhetoric about US 5G supremacy coming from the telecom sector and its BFFs at the Trump FCC, the data so far is aggressively disappointing.

Why is the US lagging behind other nations? One, because while 5G is wireless, you still need fiber fueling towers and providing backhaul country wide. But like so many aspects of US broadband, the companies that feed cell towers enjoy a very comfortable monopoly in most markets. A monopoly protected and propped up by the captured Trump FCC. Thanks to monopoly power and regulatory capture, the incentive just isn't there to deploy fiber anywhere it doesn't make the most immediate sense from an ROI perspective. Limited competition, spotty fiber, captured regulators, slower speeds.

The other problem, as the study explains, is US spectrum policy failure. Whereas many foreign countries have worked overtime to free up valuable, faster mid-band spectrum for public use, the US has lagged well behind on this front. The biggest holders of said spectrum are the Department of Defense and a handful of corporations, neither of which the FCC has had the courage to meaningfully pressure. It was something FCC Commissioners like Jessica Rosenworcel complained about just last year.

Instead, we've relied heavily on low spectrum bands (decent at providing service at range but not much faster than 4G), or high-band, millimeter wave (mmWave) spectrum (which offers very fast speeds in select urban areas, but suffers from distance and wall penetration issues). The result is 5G networks that are offering a fraction of the speeds seen elsewhere around the world, Open Signal notes:

"Now, we find 5G is faster than Wifi in seven out of eight leading 5G countries but 4G is faster than Wifi in only two of these countries, Australia and Saudi Arabia. The U.S. is the exception, where Wifi continues to offer a small edge over 5G because of the large number of U.S. 5G users connecting on widely available, but relatively slow, 5G networks that are deployed using low spectrum bands...Cellular connectivity will not replace Wifi anytime soon."

The study, in one swipe, puts to bed claims that 5G is a "race" that the US is somehow winning through sheer ingenuity and industry coddling deregulation, and that 5G will be some sort of competitive panacea (high prices also hamstring it in this area). OpenSignal has a whole separate study on why 5G won't be supplanting WiFi anytime soon. All of this runs, again, in pretty stark contrast to claims by companies like Verizon that 5G is some widely available, near mystical technology that will revolutionize everything from smart vehicles to modern medicine.

This is all before you get to the fact that carriers are aggressively overstating where 5G is actually available, and trying to prevent the government from accurately mapping availability. Or the fact that most 5G headsets are (for now) expensive, fatter battery hogs the majority of consumers aren't interested in. Or the fact that carriers like Verizon are trying to charge extra for 5G, when US consumers already pay some of the highest prices for mobile data in the developed world.

So on one side, we have captured regulators and wireless marketing departments falsely claiming that US 5G is going to revolutionize everything, including cancer treatment (it's not). On the other hand we have conspiracy theorists insisting that 5G is some cancer-causing Godzilla. But the reality is 5G simply isn't that interesting, powerful, or dangerous. It's a modest evolution, not a revolution. And while it will certainly be a good thing many years from now when it's fully deployed, mindless hype has been its most notable attribute thus far.

Filed Under: 5g, broadband, competition, fcc, hype, race to 5g, us