The year 2013 marked a significant turning point for phone companies that have handled voice telephone calls for over 100 years. For the first time, the volume of domestic telephone calls and the revenue generated from them was nearly flat. For the last two years, both are now in decline on the wireless side of the business as North Americans increasingly stop talking on the phone and text and message instead.

The U.S. wireline business peaked in the year 2000 with 192 million residential and office landlines. Over the next ten years, close to 80 million of those — 40 percent, would be permanently disconnected, replaced either by cell phones, cable telephone service, or a Voice over IP line. Wireless companies picked up the largest percentage of landline refugees, most never looking back.

Over one-third of more than $500 billion in annual revenue generated by telecom companies in 2013 came from voice services. Although that sounds like a lot, it’s a pittance of a percentage when compared to 2005 when AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon Wireless earned most of their revenue from voice calls. Ten years ago, wireless companies principally sold plans based on the number of calling minutes included, and many customers often guessed wrong, paying per minute for calls exceeding their allowance.

At first, this represented a revenue bonanza for the wireless industry, which earned billions selling customers minute-based calling plans that came with built-in cost-controlling deterrents for long-winded talkers — the concern of using up their calling allowance.

Starting in 2008, wireless industry executives noticed something peculiar. While revenue from texting add-on plans was surging, the growth in calling began to level off. Wireless voice usage per subscriber peaked at an average of 769 minutes in 2007 and began falling after that year. By 2011, the average customer was making 615 minutes of calls a month. As customers began downgrading calling plans, wireless carriers shifted their quest for revenue towards text messaging.

For awhile, texting earned wireless companies astounding profits that required little extra investment in their networks. SMS service at most carriers was effectively priced at $1,250 per megabyte, broken up into 160 byte single messages. In 2011, over 2.3 trillion text messages were exchanged. A message that cost a wireless carrier an infinitesimal fraction of a penny to send and receive cost consumers up to 20 cents or more apiece if they lacked an optional texting plan. To further boost revenue, some carriers like Verizon Wireless began to pull back offering customers a variety of tiered texting plans with different messaging allowances, switching instead to a single, more expensive unlimited texting plan. Many customers balked at the $19.95 a month price and began exploring other forms of messaging each other.

The industry’s demand for profit eventually threatened to kill the goose that laid the golden egg. At the same time wireless carriers were raising prices on text messages and forcing customers into expensive texting add-on plans, free third-party messaging apps began eating into texting volume. By 2012, the use of SMS declined for the first time, with 2.19 trillion text messages sent and received, down 4.9 percent from a year earlier.

It took little time for the wireless industry to realize the days of offering plans based on calling minutes and texting were quickly coming to an end. Younger users began the cultural trend of talking less, texting more — but using a growing number of free alternative apps to do so. As a result, both AT&T and Verizon shifted their plans away from focusing on revenue from calling and texting and instead moved to monetize data usage. Today, both carriers offer base plans featuring unlimited voice calling and texting almost as an afterthought. The real money is now made from selling packages of wireless data.

Wi-Fi calling allows customers to make and receive voice calls over a Wi-Fi connection, not a nearby cell tower. The prospect of bundling that option into a cell phone just a few years ago would have been unlikely at some providers, unthinkable at others. It was never considered a high priority at any traditional carrier, although T-Mobile began offering the service all the way back in 2007.

Since most calling plans now bundle unlimited calling, letting calls ride off the traditional cellular network is no longer much of an economic concern.

Some even expect carriers to eventually embrace Wi-Fi calling, declaring it superior to alternatives like Hangouts and Skype, which require an app to handle the call. A Wi-Fi call can be received by anyone with a phone.

This month, the last holdout, Verizon Wireless, capitulated and announced it had won approval from the FCC to introduce Wi-Fi calling to customers, joining Sprint, T-Mobile, and AT&T. But Verizon plans to initially limit that service, offering an app that must be installed to make and receive Wi-Fi calls. The other three carriers integrate Wi-Fi calling directly into the primary phone call app already on the phone.

The introduction of the service is unlikely to have a significant economic impact on any wireless carrier. Most have ample room on their networks to handle cell call volumes. Whether a call is placed over Wi-Fi or traditional cellular service, it will ultimately end up on the same or a similar IP-based phone switch as it makes its way to the called party.

With little revenue-generating opportunities for voice calling or SMS messaging, companies have nearly stopped the practice of monetizing individual telephone calls, preferring to offer unlimited, all-you-want calling and texting plans that used to cost consumers considerable amounts of money.

Now wireless carriers see fortunes to be made slicing up and packaging gigabytes of wireless data, sold at prices that have little relation to actual cost, just as carriers managed with text messaging for the last 20 years. A Verizon Wireless customer using 12GB of data in October that kept a now-grandfathered unlimited data plan paid just under $30 for that usage. (This month Verizon raised the price of that coveted unlimited plan by $20 a month.) Verizon charges $80 for that same amount of data on its new “XL” data plan. Verizon’s cost to deliver that data to customers is lower than it was five years ago, but customers wouldn’t know it based on their bill. As always with the wireless industry, costs often have no relationship to the price ultimately charged consumers.

One of AT&T’s cell towers in Denison, Tex. went missing last Thursday in the 1900 block of West Crawford St. after vandals cut the tower’s supporting guy wires, causing it to collapse.

Nearby residents woke up to find the remains of the tower crumpled on the ground, with dramatically poorer cell service the result for AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile customers in the immediate vicinity. All three mobile providers maintained antennas on the affected tower.

Denison Police say the incident was a clear case of vandalism. After the guy wires were intentionally cut, the tower lacked sufficient support to stay standing on its own.

Nobody was injured during the collapse, but AT&T says the vandals caused $1 million in damages. A temporary cell tower is now in place. It will take three months to permanently replace the cell tower.

AT&T is offering at least a $7,500 reward for information that leads to an arrest.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/KXII Sherman ATT cell tower felled in Denison 11-22-2015.mp4[/flv]

KXII in Sherman, Tex. reports Denison authorities are looking to arrest the vandal(s) that destroyed an AT&T cell tower. (1:30)

ARRIS, one of the country’s largest suppliers of cable modems, is under scrutiny after a security researcher discovered not one, but two secret “backdoors” potentially affecting more than 600,000 of the company’s installed cable modems/home gateways that could allow hackers access to a customer’s equipment and home network.

Bernardo Rodrigues published a report of the exploits on his blog, which affect ARRIS cable modem models including TG862A, TG862G, and DG860A. Rodrigues reports only ARRIS and your local cable company can fix the security problems, and neither seem to be in much of a hurry.

The ARRIS Touchstone 860, which can be identified by its model number depicted on the front lower right of the modem.

“Securing cable modems is more difficult than other embedded devices because, on most cases, you can’t choose your own device/firmware and software updates are almost entirely controlled by your ISP,” Rodrigues writes. Indeed, very few cable modems allow users to self-update their equipment with the latest firmware. To guarantee uniformity, that privilege is given exclusively to the cable company providing service, even if a customer owns their own modem outright.

“ARRIS SOHO-grade cable modems contain an undocumented library (libarris_password.so) that acts as a backdoor, allowing privileged logins using a custom password,” Rodrigues writes. “The backdoor account can be used to enable Telnet and SSH remotely via the hidden HTTP Administrative interface “http://192.168.100.1/cgi-bin/tech_support_cgi” or via custom SNMP MIBs.”

While exploring the potential security damage that backdoor could permit, Rodrigues stumbled on a second, open to additional exploitation by hackers.

“The undocumented backdoor password is based on the last five digits from the modem’s serial number,” Rodrigues wrote. “You get a full busybox shell when you log on the Telnet/SSH session using these passwords.”

ARRIS TG862

In plainer language, one or both backdoors will allow a hacker to bypass the modem’s usual security protections and provide the intruder with full remote access to the affected cable modem. Hackers have likely already identified the security lapse and have exploited it, with some suspecting access key generators are already available allowing the user to automate attempts to reach affected modems on a significant scale.

Unfortunately for consumers, neither ARRIS or cable operators appear to be rushing to update the affected firmware to eliminate the backdoors, having waited more than two months just to acknowledge Rodrigues’ report.

For now, customers using these devices exclusively as cable modems are least likely to suffer a serious security lapse. More at risk are consumers relying on these three models as both a cable modem and home gateway providing Wi-Fi access around the home. Theoretically, hackers could use one or both exploits to gain access to your home network. Consumers using one of the affected models should contact their local cable company and ask them to replace the device with an alternative, preferably from a different manufacturer.

At least one cable company reported they are working with ARRIS to correct the flawed firmware, but early efforts have not been successful. It may be prudent for some security-conscious customers not to wait.

Since Verizon Wireless stopped selling unlimited data plans and turned data into a precious commodity usually worth about $10 per gigabyte, the company can afford to give some of it away to their loyal customers.

This holiday season, Verizon Wireless is handing out up to 3GB of wireless data a month, but only to those who ask. As part of Verizon’s Thanksgiving promotion targeting holiday travelers, customers can get a free gigabyte for use immediately and another gigabyte to use next month just by clicking on a link. The offer can only be redeemed once per account on qualifying plans and is shared by all lines on an account.

Users who want even more free data can snag an extra 2GB a month for three months by downloading Verizon’s Go90 online video app (for iOS and Android) and registering for an account. Your confirmed registration will trigger an immediate gift of 2GB of wireless data for your current month’s data plan and an extra 2GB for the next three billing cycles as well. If Go90 proves uninteresting, you can uninstall it and still get free data during the length of the promotion.

This promotion is only good if you have a More Everything or Verizon Plan. It is not available if you use prepaid service, a different grandfathered plan, or do not keep your account in good standing. National and government accounts also do not qualify. Go90 videos are disabled for jailbroken or rooted devices, although you may still register and participate in the promotion if you use such a device.

Among Verizon’s other Thanksgiving promotions customers can grab on Wednesday, Nov. 25:

• A free $5 iTunes Gift card while supplies last;
• An unspecified number of free eBooks, music, movies, TV an app downloads from Amazon.com;
• A free 30-day trial of Pandora One;
• Up to $20 off a Lyft ride, where available;
• Free airport Wi-Fi from Boingo;
• Free 30-minute Gogo Wi-Fi session on select airlines.

Verizon’s website offers an option to send yourself a reminder to participate when the promotions become active next week.

If you make a voice or video call over Rogers’ wireless network using Skype, you will chew into your monthly data plan. If you make the same phone call over Rogers’ Voice over LTE network, your data allowance is safe.

Rogers this week expanded VoLTE in Canada to iPhone 6 series phones, joining select Android devices that have had VoLTE service available as an option under phone settings for some time.

VoLTE relies on the same wireless LTE 4G network data sessions do, but Rogers has “zero-rated” voice and video calls made over its own phones so they do not count against a customer’s data plan allowance. Customers using a competing app like FaceTime or Skype are not so lucky — using either counts against your data plan.

That could suggest a potential Net Neutrality violation for one of Canada’s largest cellular providers because Section 27 (2) of the Telecommunications Act makes it clear unjust discrimination is illegal:

(2) No Canadian carrier shall, in relation to the provision of a telecommunications service or the charging of a rate for it, unjustly discriminate or give an undue or unreasonable preference toward any person, including itself, or subject any person to an undue or unreasonable disadvantage.

“It is the main ‘backbone’ behind implementation of Net Neutrality in Canada, along with the ITMP rules (2009-657),” said Jean-François Mezei, who closely observes the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission, responsible for upholding Net Neutrality in the country. Mezei tweeted the CRTC this afternoon, asking who they thought would be the first to file a Net Neutrality complaint against Rogers for the practice.

So who is gonna file the part 1 against Rogers for zero rating its new VoLTE voice and video apps ? #CRTC

— Jean-François Mezei (@jfmezei) November 9, 2015