Court Confirms Police Don't Need A Warrant To Do A Limited Search Of A Mobile Phone

from the lock-it-down dept

In a court ruling that came out a little while ago (just catching up now), Judge Richard Posner took the lead in an appeals court ruling that effectively reaffirmed the idea that police don't need a warrant to search mobile phones as they're arresting someone. Of course, this general concept is not new and I've discussed my concerns about police being able to search phones without a warrant in the past -- but this particular ruling does seem pretty limited. While Posner notes some of the bigger questions, he basically compares the phone to a diary, and focuses on the mere searching of basic data, like the address book, to suggest this particular search was limited, and doesn't raise any significant 4th amendment issue.

It’s not even clear that we need a rule of law specific to cell phones or other computers. If police are entitled to open a pocket diary to copy the owner’s address, they should be entitled to turn on a cell phone to learn its number. If allowed to leaf through a pocket address book, as they are, United States v. Rodriguez, 995 F.2d 776, 778 (7th Cir. 1993), they should be entitled to read the address book in a cell phone. If forbidden to peruse love letters recognized as such found wedged between the pages of the address book, they should be forbidden to read love letters in the files of a cell phone.

Effectively, the court more or less says that circumstances matter, and that in situations where there's a chance that data will get deleted or modified, it's perfectly reasonable to do a simple search of the mobile phone, but it could get thornier if it moves more in the direction of voyeurism, rather than as evidence for crimes. I'd certainly prefer much stronger privacy protections -- especially as a phone really is a window into much, much more than just a phone, but the ruling isn't much of a surprise and seems to align with other rulings on similar issues.

Filed Under: mobile phones, police, search, warrant

Mobile Carriers Don't Want To Give Up SMS Without A Fight

from the what-a-racket dept

Apparently there was some tension at the Mobile World Congress—the world's largest mobile phone trade show—as the growing battle over text messaging took center stage. As you may know, SMS text-messaging is a rip-off, and a huge cash-cow for the mobile telecoms, who charge premium rates for a service that has an effective cost of zero (SMS messages are encoded into regular signals that cell towers have to send anyway). But they are losing a growing chunk of that income to data-based messaging services like BBM, iMessage, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and more. Naturally, they aren't happy, and they try to frame it as an unfair disruption of their business model:

Needless to say, mobile companies are not happy at the flood of free messaging services piggybacking on their networks. Telecom Italia chief executive Franco Bernabe told MWC that free messaging services are undercutting the ability of phone companies to invest in their networks. Paid texting, or SMS, has been a cash cow for phone companies which uses minimal network capacity.

The new players "have based their innovation in the mobile domain, without a deep understanding of the complex technical environment of our industry. This is increasingly creating significant problems to the overall service offered to the end user and driving additional investments for mobile operators," Bernabe said.

None of that makes a lick of sense. Bernabe is basically saying that everyone else has a responsibility to not build data apps that compete with telecom services, but unfortunately for him that's not how free markets work. Rather than seeing the huge opportunity that is the growing demand for wireless data access, the telecoms have decided to focus on the one thing that has stopped SMS from being completely replaced already: the lack of a single standard alternative. GMSA, a mobile industry group, has built a new cross-platform messaging service that they hope to get pre-installed on all cellphones and have become the standard for all text, photo and video messaging—though they haven't announced how much they plan to charge for the service. They claim that nine out of ten major device makers have signed up, with all eyes falling on Apple as the probable holdout: Apple is on a crusade to kill SMS messaging, and they likely would have succeeded by now if they weren't committed to their own walled-garden approach that pushes everyone towards iOS.

Of course, the same conference was also attended by the companies that have the telecoms so frightened. Joe Stipher, co-founder of messaging service Pinger, had a wiser perspective on the direction things are headed:

"Text messaging is free, and calling is going to be free," said Stipher, wearing jeans that contrasted with the dark suits favoured by thousands of mobile phone company executives attending the four-day 2012 Mobile World Congress that ended Thursday. "Data is going to be like electricity or water, not totally free, but do you worry about giving someone a glass of water at your home or letting them plug in? No."

I actually think that could be slightly better worded: in the future, there will be no more distinctions like "text" and "voice". Everything is just data anyway. But Stipher is absolutely right that bandwidth is becoming a generic utility, and that's something the telecoms have to accept. For some reason, they are terrified of becoming "dumb pipes"—they want to be "smart pipes" that charge premiums for different "kinds" of data, even though that's basically an imaginary concept. It's an odd attitude, because being a dumb pipe for something that everybody wants is a pretty good position, and if you accept it then you stand to make more money by letting people build whatever they want on top of what you provide. Truly, this would be the smart thing for a pipe to do, and Stipher has some fun with this by co-opting the term for himself. The carriers play along, using their own definition, and what results is an amusing portrayal of the mental disconnect that exists:

[Stipher] explained that "The carriers should be smart, reliable pipes" providing internet data access like utilities give reliable water and electricity, he said. "They need to focus on being good network operators."

[Rene] Obermann [chief executive of Germany's Deutsche Telekom] said carriers are at a crucial point at which they must "develop our own, innovative product suites" through cooperation with the smaller messaging companies. "The smart pipe will be one of the areas where (telecommunications companies) will show their innovation," he said.

Of course, Obermann's own company has a venture capital division that invested $7.5-million in Pinger, so maybe on some level he knows which way the winds are turning.

Filed Under: competition, data, smart pipes, sms, text messaging

Intellectual Ventures Sues AT&T, Sprint And T-Mobile; While Saying That Such Lawsuits Are Evidence Of Progress

from the that's-chutzpah dept

After years of not suing anyone (but always threatening that it might, someday), Intellectual Ventures has become more and more aggressive of late in suing lots of companies. A few weeks ago it sued AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile over a bunch of patents that (of course) involved some of IV's favorite shell companies. Just as it was preparing this lawsuit, a VP from IV went public with an attempt to argue that all this litigation is a sign of innovation at work. The article is rather shocking in how it presents its argument. It mainly relies on false claims that correlation means causation, concerning historical periods of innovation and lawsuits over patents. Of course, what it ignores is that the patent fights often come right after the innovation, not before. In other words, the patent battles aren't a sign that innovation is working. Rather it's a sign of patent holders freaking out that others are innovating. It's entirely about hindering innovation, not helping move it forward.

Along those lines, the folks at M-CAM who continue to call out bogus claims in patent lawsuits analyzed the patents in this IV lawsuit and found them... well... lacking:

Our systems found nearly 500 AT&T patents, with similar claims, that predate the fifteen asserted patents. Sprint Nextel also owns 12 patents that predate the asserted portfolio.

M-CAM also questions the claims that these lawsuits have anything at all to do with innovation, and hint at more nefarious reasons for the use of a bunch of shell companies:

Is IV’s patent litigation helping inventors or investors? Considering that the bulk of the patents in suit were each “acquired” from what the USPTO characterizes as a “merger” with a different relatively unknown LLC, we’ll let you decide. Seems to us that it simply represents an attempt to use opacity and “hidden weapons” for a tactical assault having ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with innovation. In fact, these kinds of structures are also typically employed for tax “optimization” which is to say, to avoid paying taxes for any economic gains resulting from a successful assault, ahem sorry again, we mean “settlement”.

By the way, you may have noticed that Verizon is conspicuously absent from the list of mobile operators being sued here. That's because Verizon paid the entrance fee and is a "member" in the IV club... which apparently only cost the company $350 million. Oh yeah... and it then became an enabler. One of the patents in the new lawsuit... once was owned by Verizon.

Filed Under: mobile phones, patents
Companies: at&t, intellectual ventures, sprint, t-mobile

AT&T's New Scheme To Double Charge For Data: Call It A 1-800 Number For Internet Content

from the ignoring-how-the-internet-already-works dept

Some of you youngsters may not remember what really kicked off the big "net neutrality" fight over the past few years. It was back in 2005, when then AT&T CEO Ed Whitacre suggested that internet companies should pay a second time to reach users. This was particularly nefarious. What Whitacre was suggesting was actually that AT&T get to double charge everyone. That's because the way it was (and still) is that everyone pays for their own bandwidth -- including the big internet services like Google. However, the way Whitacre was describing it, the bandwidth you got only paid for half the transit. That is, you only paid for your bandwidth from your premise to "the cloud" but not back out to any end machine. That that bandwidth was paid for by whoever owns those end machines was entirely ignored. So the plan was not just that Google would pay for its own bandwidth, but that Google would also pay for your bandwidth to get Google to your computer (ignoring that you already paid for it).

That didn't go over so well with people, and got particularly ridiculous when Mike McCurry, running an AT&T lobbying effort, insisted that Google didn't pay a dime for its bandwidth. For rather obvious reasons, he refused my proposition that he agree to pay Google's bandwidth bills.

Either way, it appears that the brilliant minds at AT&T have been trying to devise a new way to present such a plan that doesn't leave them so open to charges of being greedy double chargers -- and they may have found it by focusing on the mobile world, with their new love of "tiered" and "capped" plans that limit how much bandwidth you actually get. What they're going to do is charge app makers a fee to offer their services to you in a way that the data doesn't count against your cap. They describe it as an "800 number for the mobile internet."

"A feature that we're hoping to have out sometime next year is the equivalent of 800 numbers that would say, if you take this app, this app will come without any network usage," Donovan said on the sidelines of a mobile-industry conference here. It's far from clear how willing technology companies would be to pay wireless carriers for data use. Mr. Donovan said there was interest from companies who could use the feature to drum up new business from customers wary of using data-heavy services like mobile video.

This is nefariously brilliant. People associate 800 numbers with toll-free phone calls, so it's kind of like that... except it isn't anything like that at all. It's just a way to get companies to pay for the data connection you're already paying for. But the end result is exactly like what Whitacre wanted five years ago: get the app providers to pay double for bandwidth. Karl Bode summarizes the whole ridiculous plan as only he can (via that link above):

The end result is the same, with AT&T imposing bizarre tolls on content companies to obtain preferred customer status, picking winners and losers while retaining power in the wireless ecosystem.

It's an idea we're sure AT&T will pitch as a cost-saving endeavor for consumers, but given this is AT&T, you'd be naive to think cost savings will be in the equation. You'll still pay the same data rates, content companies will now just pay a fee to obtain preferred "reduced cap impact" status, then pass the higher development costs on to you. It's a ridiculous and dangerous idea, and the fallout will likely be similar to AT&T's "free ride" comments. AT&T executives either don't care how bad these ideas make them look, or don't realize it thanks to too many isolated meetings at headquarters packed with telco-think yes men.

Eventually you start to think that AT&T executives should just stop thinking before they hurt someone or themselves. If AT&T put half as much energy into running a top-flight network with quality support as they did cooking up hare-brained troll toll schemes -- they might just stop coming in last place in all major customer satisfaction studies.

This is really just another reason why the telcos are pushing so hard to move users into unnecessary tiered plans -- because they can't pull off scams like this on unlimited data plans nearly as easily.

Filed Under: double charging, limits, mobile data, net neutrality, tiers
Companies: at&t

Study Confirms What You Already Knew: Mobile Data Throttling About The Money, Not Stopping Data Hogs

from the it's-all-about-the-$$$ dept

Of the four national mobile operators, only Sprint still offers an "unlimited" data plan -- and most industry watchers expect that to go away soon. When the operators talk about this stuff, they complain about how unlimited plans are abused and the amount of data being used by so-called "data hogs" is crippling network bandwidth. Of course, the alternative story is that they just want to charge people higher rates, and putting a toll booth on data usage makes that possible. A new study by Validas confirms that the latter theory seems to match with reality. The company looked at 11,000 mobile phone bills of users on both throttled (tiered) plans and unlimited data plans and found... data usage was effectively the same. In other words, for all the talk about how tiers and throttles are needed to stop bandwidth hogging... reality shows that these plans have little impact on actual data usage. Or, to put it really simply: these plans are all about the mobile operators making more money and have nothing to do with network capacity.

Of course, as I've argued in the past, this is a pretty short-sighted strategy by the mobile operators. While they have every right to set up whatever business models they want in order to maximize profit, this might come back to haunt them. The problem with a tiered or throttled data plan is that it actually makes the mobile data service less valuable. Not only does it cost more for the same usage, it adds mental transaction costs as users have to keep track of their usage. That's only going to make people value alternatives much more. The carriers can get away with that if there are no alternatives (as is the case some of the time), but as more alternatives hit the market, expect people to shift their usage to networks they can actually use without fear.

Filed Under: bandwidth, bandwidth hogs, business model, caps, data hogs, spectrum, throttling, usage
Companies: at&t, sprint, t-mobile, verizon wireless

Why You Should Regret LightSquared's Setbacks

from the competition-is-good dept

LightSquared is a new wireless carrier that has been trying to launch a wholesale 4G network across the USA. Funded by private equity firm Harbinger Capital, it sought to re-purpose satellite communication frequencies to build a nationwide cellular-satellite hybrid network, and then re-sell the network capacity to other brands. In January 2011, the FCC, eager to foster new competitors in the mobile space, gave LightSquared the green light to launch using their spectrum with one provision - that their network equipment NOT interfere with GPS signals and devices. Well, over a year has come and gone, and despite incredible effort and wrangling, the independent testing keeps indicating that LightSquared's terrestrial towers are not compatible with GPS device use. As such, the FCC has basically rescinded LightSquared's request to launch service on their 1.5GHz L-Band spectrum.

Note that, while LightSquared DID knock out GPS devices, it was not LightSquared that transmitted on the GPS frequencies, but rather the GPS devices that sloppily "listen" to the adjacent LightSquared frequencies. The GPS chipsets were generally cheaply made with inadequate filtering. That said, who is at fault is irrelevant: it remains LightSquared's problem to solve if they want to launch their network. A long history of spectrum policy states that new entrants must not mess up the existing radio devices.

What we've lost here is the chance to have a truly innovative wireless carrier which would have stimulated competition, energized the vendor community, and provided a white-label network for MVNOs. LightSquared had, in fact, signed up dozens of partners who would offer LTE wireless services as cellular companies, CE makers, and store brands like Best Buy, for example, who could sell connectivity in a bundle with laptops. Maisie Ramsay over at Wireless Week explains how a vast community of over 30 technology vendors have also lost a valuable path to market.

What strikes me, as someone who works with wireless carriers (LightSquared included), is that we may lose one of the scrappiest players out there. And markets thrive when a scrappy player stirs up the pot. Hutchison Whampoa stirred up the UK markets when it launched 3G in 2003, Free is currently doing the same in France. In the USA, we have regional players like Metro PCS, but nothing at the national level. My role at the Telecom Council of Silicon Valley is right where innovators meet with the telcos, and it was gratifying to see the tornado of new ideas, vendors, and possibilities that came about with a new network. Without legacy systems nor legacy thinking, lots of great ideas are free to emerge.

For now, with LightSquared's options dwindling, we may have to have to look elsewhere for new competition and open creativity. The WiFi space is fairly promising, as the spread of hotspots continues to soar, and new versions (802.11ac) promise greater range and throughput. Chipsets are cheap, and billions of WiFi devices have been produced. Republic Wireless exemplifies the possibilities of leveraging WiFi in mobile phones to the limit. Lots of people are hoping that the "white spaces" frequencies in between TV channels will be offered up to a WiFi variant, which will mean low-frequency spectrum that penetrates walls and buildings much better than today's WiFi. I like what the US carriers have done with the (globally) early launch of LTE, but there's no doubt that with increased competition we'd have a more dynamic market.

Filed Under: competition, gps, interference, spectrum, wifi, wireless
Companies: lightsquared

A 4G iPad Requires A Sensible Shared Data Plan

from the cellular-operators-losing-the-battle-for-connected-devices dept

The Apple rumor mill is spinning at full speed again, with word of a new iPad release in March. This would be on schedule for Apple, so the real speculation is around exactly what improvements this iPad will feature. The Wall Street Journal, normally not the town gossip, wrote that the upcoming iPad would feature a smaller 8-inch screen, and would be LTE-enabled. LTE is the latest, fastest network technology available from Verizon, AT&T, and other network operators. But the intention here is not to pile on to the speculation of what Apple might deliver. The intention is to speculate instead as to what the carriers might have up their sleeves with respect to an LTE tablet pricing plan.

When the LTE iPad hits the market, expect to see it sold with a "shared data plan", or a plan that is connected to a smartphone plan, and share a common pool of MB of traffic per month. Verizon, in particular, has hinted that just such plans will be emerging soon. Lowell McAdam said in December that such plans would emerge "sometime in 2012" to accommodate the increasing number of people with multiple mobile Internet devices. Such devices include smartphones, laptops, tablets, and others. More and more, subscribers are adding devices, and are getting frustrated at having to open a separate account, with a ~$50/month price, just because they choose to browse on their tablet instead of their smartphone. Most customers, rightly, assume that it should make little difference to the operator whether they access the net on their tablet, laptop, or phone. This is just a substitution of the access device. Because of the current punitive billing, owners of multiple connected devices are defecting from the cellular game, and instead opting to use Wi-Fi only on laptops and tablets...and liking it!

Research from The NPD Group has shown how the attach rates (portion that sign on to cellular service) for cellular-ready tablets have been less than stellar, and decreasing over time. In April 2011, NPD says that 60% of tablets only connected via Wi-Fi, but by December 2011, that number had jumped to 65%, showing how Wi-Fi has been winning out over the more expensive and contract-laden cellular offerings. Tablets like the Kindle Fire are sold as Wi-Fi only, contrasting with the earliest Kindles which all had cellular radios embedded. The carriers are at extreme jeopardy of losing the connected device market (and embedded market and M2M) simply because they have lagged in offering the kinds of flexible plans that make sense.

Once a trend away from cellular connection takes hold, it becomes harder to stop. Wi-Fi networks will respond with increased capacity and increased hotspots, OEMs will respond with more Wi-Fi-only devices, and consumer behavior will respond by considering tablets as "portable" Wi-Fi devices, not fully mobile like smartphones. The strategic cost to the carriers is significant. While the trend won't be stopped, it is certain that carriers could retain significance by offering pooled data plans at sensible bundled prices. This means selling data to a consumer, not to a consumers specific device. And what better way to launch such a new pricing plan than with a device that the market has proven to love - a new iPad?

So whatever the shape of the new iPad, and the fantastic new features that fanbois laud while naysayers explain how they were just repurposed from other devices, we should fully expect an LTE iPad with a new kind of cellular pricing model, which drives up the attach rate, increases device utility at a reasonable price, and creates greater carrier loyalty and long-term gains. If Verizon and AT&T do this right, we could all win.

Filed Under: 4g, data plans, ipad, wireless
Companies: apple, verizon

Beastie Boy Mike D Forces AT&T To Let Shareholders Vote On Net Neutrality

from the you-gotta-fight-for-your-right-to-vooooote-on-a-net-neutrality-policy dept

Yeah, well there's a title I never thought I'd write. It seems that Mike D of the Beastie Boys, along with his wife, filmmaker Tamra Davis, and John Silva (of Silva Artist Management, one of the more forward-thinking artist management groups out there, representing a ton of big name acts), have helped to get the SEC to require telcos (mainly AT&T) to include a resolution among shareholder votes over whether or not those shareholders want the company to support wireless net neutrality concepts. Remember, the telcos have been willing to bend (a tiny bit) on wireline neutrality rules, so long as wireless rules have been exempt. So, letting shareholders vote on a resolution concerning wireless neutrality certainly could become a pretty big deal.

I've said in the past that I'm very, very wary of any net neutrality regulations from the government -- because we've all seen how that works, where the telcos take control of the process, and the end result is quite the opposite of what supporters intended. Regulatory capture can be a big deal. But... I am a big supporter in the importance of the concept of net neutrality and the principles of an end-to-end network. If it can be forced on these companies by shareholder proxy that may be the most compelling solution so far. In the past, the SEC has said this issue was not a big enough issue, and could be omitted from shareholder votes as "ordinary business matters." But, now the SEC has come around to realize that net neutrality is, in fact, a big issue, thanks in part to the letter from a group representing Mike D and the others mentioned above. The SEC responded in a pretty straightforward manner:

In view of the sustained public debate over the last several years concerning net neutrality and the Internet and the increasing recognition that the issue raises significant policy considerations, we do not believe that AT&T may omit the proposal from its proxy materials in reliance on rule 14a-8(i)(7).

Of course, who knows if enough shareholders will vote for such a thing. I could easily see a rather confused Wall Street thinking (incorrectly) that breaking the end-to-end principle would be good for business, even if it erodes network usefulness and value.

Filed Under: john silva, mike d, net neutrality, sec, shareholder vote, tamra davis, wireless