This week starts with the wireless trade group CTIA’s 5G Summit on Monday but otherwise doesn’t have too much in the way of appointments or deadlines–which after the end-of-the-month crush last week feels like a real treat.
(Speaking of stories written in the last hours of April, I wrote a post for Patreon readers Tuesday about the unpredictable nature of WordAds income here.)
4/29/2024: FCC Fines Wireless Carriers Almost $200 Million for Careless Sale of Location Data, PCMag
That number in the headline requires the context of the billions of dollars in profit each of the big three carriers reported for the first quarter of 2024, so I made sure to include that. We then updated the post after publication with a statement from AT&T decrying the FCC’s action; Jon Brodkin’s post at Ars Technica includes comparable responses from T-Mobile and Verizon.
4/30/2024: Congress Votes to Strengthen Measures Against Online Child Sexual Exploitation, PCMag
Congress passing any substantive bill ranks as news these days, but a bill addressing a tech-policy problem from hell is even more newsworthy–even if this bill doesn’t include added funding to help attack this problem.
5/1/2024: Your Home Internet Bill Can Be Deceptively Confusing. Now It’s (Slightly) Easier to Understand., Wirecutter
Wirecutter asked me to write an explainer of the broadband-facts labels that the Federal Communications Commission now requires Internet providers to post, and I said I’d be delighted to help after covering this issue multiple times over the last two years. Then after I asked Comcast about criticisms of its implementation of the label, the company added a modem-rental fee that it had left out in some situations. (You’re welcome.)
5/1/2024: T-Mobile Completes Mint Mobile Deal, Promises New Perks for Mint Users, PCMag
Shout out to my editor for spotting the Wall Street Journal’s report that actor and part owner of Mint Mobile Ryan Reynolds should make about $300 million from this completed transaction, then adding a link to the WSJ story in this piece.
5/2/2024: Congress Makes Last-Ditch Effort to Save Low-Cost Broadband Program, PCMag
I wrote about two bills that seem like they might have better-than-usual odds of reviving the Affordable Connectivity Program: one that would restore the FCC spectrum-auction authority that Congress inexplicably let lapse last March and devote some of the resulting proceeds to the ACP, another that would expand the FCC’s Universal Service Fund by requiring broadband providers and large online platforms to contribute (an idea that I’ve seen both Democrats and Republicans endorse) and plow that new revenue into the ACP.
#ACP #AffordableConnectivityProgram #broadbandLabels #Cantwell #cellSiteLocationInformation #CSAM #FCCFines #Fetterman #KaEna #locationData #MintMobile #REPORTAct #Securus #TMobile
