Rural Americans who cannot get cable broadband or DSL will now pay more money for less service as wireless carriers continue to cancel affordable mobile broadband plans with a generous usage allowance in favor of premium-priced, stingy usage-capped wireless Internet.

Two weeks after Millenicom was forced to drop affordable Verizon wireless broadband service, Blue Mountain Internet received word its unlimited Sprint broadband reseller agreement was being terminated the following day, forcing the company to hurry out cancellation notices to affected customers.

“We received notification yesterday from our upline provider that our mobile broadband accounts utilizing the Sprint network (Net2) will all be cancelled on Friday, Oct. 31st, 2014,” the company wrote in an email to customers. “We apologize for the short notice but we just received notice yesterday.”

BMI had offered customers an unlimited use mobile broadband plan from Sprint for $99 a month. It has been replaced with a Verizon plan that costs a dollar more and comes with a 10GB monthly data allowance with a steep $20/GB overlimit fee. “Heavy users” can pay $120 a month for a monthly allowance of 20GB. Affected customers intending to switch to Verizon get a discount off the monthly plan price if they pay quarterly: $85 (10GB) or $100 (20GB).

Blue Mountain Internet Mobile Broadband Rental Prices & Plans

EVDOinfo notes that with Millenicom and BMI losing their relationships with Verizon and Sprint respectively over the course of just one month, “it seems unlikely that we’ll see another [reseller] emerge with a no-contract, high-data plan using one of the major carriers’ networks.”

Millenicom customers were being offered a slightly different plan if they agreed to switch to a Verizon Wireless account: 20GB a month for $99 with a $15/GB overlimit fee. Customers signing up for a “More Everything” plan will pay considerably more. A 30GB plan with a mobile hotspot device costs $150 a month, not including fees and taxes. A one-year contract commitment usually applies.

The Federal Trade Commission today filed a lawsuit against AT&T for its practice of subjecting grandfathered unlimited data customers to speed throttles that dramatically cut speeds up to 90 percent after customers use more than 3GB of data on AT&T’s 3G network or 5GB on its 4G network. Thus far, according to the FTC, AT&T has throttled at least 3.5 million unique customers a total of more than 25 million times.

The FTC’s complaint alleges that the company failed to adequately disclose to its customers on unlimited data plans that, if they reach a certain amount of data use in a given billing cycle, AT&T reduces – or “throttles” – their data speeds to the point that many common mobile phone applications – like web browsing, GPS navigation and watching streaming video –  become difficult or nearly impossible to use.

“AT&T promised its customers ‘unlimited’ data, and in many instances, it has failed to deliver on that promise,” said FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez. “The issue here is simple: ‘unlimited’ means unlimited.”

FCC chairman Thomas Wheeler publicly complained about Verizon’s plans to start a similar throttling program on its wireless network, questioning the fairness of cutting speeds for certain customers while exempting others. Both Verizon and AT&T have claimed speed throttles are part of a fair usage policy that allows all customers to share its wireless resources. Broadband providers have often painted a picture of a “bandwidth hog” taking a disproportionate share of network resources away from other customers, but there is no evidence heavier users are creating conflicts for other users, especially as wireless carriers encourage customers to use more data.

From AT&Ts website

The logic of rationing Internet use for unlimited customers while providing unlimited access to those willing to pay usage-based charges escaped the FTC, which is what brought the suit.

According to the FTC’s complaint, AT&T’s marketing materials emphasized the “unlimited” amount of data that would be available to consumers who signed up for its unlimited plans. The complaint alleges that, even as unlimited plan consumers renewed their contracts, the company still failed to inform them of the throttling program. When customers canceled their contracts after being throttled, AT&T charged those customers early termination fees, which typically amount to hundreds of dollars.

The FTC alleges that AT&T, despite its unequivocal promises of unlimited data, began throttling data speeds in 2011 for its unlimited data plan customers after they used as little as 2 gigabytes of data in a billing period. According to the complaint, the throttling program has been severe, often resulting in speed reductions of 80 to 90 percent for affected users.

According to the FTC’s complaint, consumers in AT&T focus groups strongly objected to the idea of a throttling program and felt “unlimited should mean unlimited.” AT&T documents also showed that the company received thousands of complaints about the slow data speeds under the throttling program. Some consumers quoted the definition of the word “unlimited,” while others called AT&T’s throttling program a “bait and switch.” Many consumers also complained about the effect the throttling program had on their ability to use GPS navigation, watch streaming videos, listen to streaming music and browse the web.

The complaint charges that AT&T violated the FTC Act by changing the terms of customers’ unlimited data plans while those customers were still under contract, and by failing to adequately disclose the nature of the throttling program to consumers who renewed their unlimited data plans.

FTC staff worked closely on this matter with the staff of the Federal Communications Commission.

The Commission vote authorizing the staff to file the complaint was 5-0. The complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, San Francisco Division.

American Airlines left passengers stewing for more than three hours on board a flight from LAX to London before finally returning to the gate. The reason? A passenger reported a functioning Wi-Fi hotspot labeled “Al Quida Free Terror Nettwork” and complained to a flight attendant.

Flight 136’s passengers were questioned, the aircraft was torn apart by security and airline cleaning crews, and passengers were eventually handed hotel vouchers to stay overnight after nothing was found and the flight was canceled.

Police admitted no crime was committed and no further action will be taken. It is not illegal to misspell the name of the infamous terror group as your Wi-Fi hotspot, nor is it illegal for a passenger to freak out and report it. But the wisdom of both is open to serious question.

“It must have been somebody on the aircraft,” passenger Elliot del Pra told KABC. “Thank goodness that we did not fly because you just don’t know. It’s very scary to think somebody would actually do that, especially on an international flight.”

But the likelihood of an actual terrorist openly calling attention to his bad grammar and spelling skills and his affiliation with a terror network while surfing the net in first class are slim to none.

“It was a stupid prank and everyone completely overreacted,” a British passenger countered, frustrated after being left on the tarmac for hours only to see his flight home canceled. “It’s clear American Airlines won’t be my next flying choice because common sense eludes them completely.”

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/KCAL Los Angeles LAX Al Quida WiFi 10-27-14.mp4[/flv]

Terror on the tarmac? Not quite. KCAL-TV in Los Angeles reports the obvious — someone was pulling a bad prank (and are behind the times) naming their Wi-Fi hotspot after Al Qaeda, long after being eclipsed by ISIS in the headlines. (1:55)

The Federal Communications Commission announced Friday it will postpone an important spectrum auction until 2016 after broadcasters filed suit against the regulator challenging its proposed format.

The FCC wants your free, over-the-air television dial to be a lot smaller with a deal that will pay broadcasters to sign-off their channels for good to benefit the wireless industry. Remaining stations will be moved to VHF channels 2-13 and UHF channels 14-30. The spectrum covering UHF channels 31-51 would likely then be sold in pieces to major wireless carriers including AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Sprint, and/or T-Mobile.

To entice broadcasters to voluntarily switch off their transmitters, the FCC has designed a spectrum auction that would provide tens of millions in proceeds to smaller stations and up to $570 million for a UHF station in Los Angeles to get off the air. Technically, stations giving up their channels don’t have to sign-off — they can move to low/lower-powered broadcasting, share channel space with another television station on a digital subchannel, or move to cable television exclusively.

To sell stations on the deal, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler hired Greenhill, a Wall Street investment bank, to prepare a presentation sent to every eligible television station in the country, encouraging them to sell their channels for some eye-popping proceeds:

(These numbers refer to full-power stations; in some markets there are also Class A stations, low-power stations that meet certain programming requirements. The estimated value of their spectrum is lower.)

Source: The FCC

There is so much money to be made buying and selling the public airwaves — at least twice as much as broadcasters originally anticipated– spectrum speculators have also jumped on board, snapping up low power television station construction permits and existing stations with hopes of selling them off the air in return for millions in compensation. Wireless customers are effectively footing the bill for the auction as wireless companies bid for the additional spectrum. Television stations will receive 85% of the proceeds, the FCC will keep 15%.

Major network-affiliated or owned stations in major cities are unlikely to take the deal. But in medium and smaller-sized markets where conglomerates own and operate most television stations, there is a greater chance some will be closed down, moved to a lower channel, or transferred to a digital sub-channel of a co-owned-and-operated station in the same city. The most  likely targets for shutdown will be independent, CW and MyNetworkTV affiliates. In smaller cities, multiple network affiliates owned by one company could be combined, relinquishing one or more channels in return for tens of millions in cash compensation.

In Los Angeles, the stakes are especially high with auction prices estimated at up to $570 million for a high-powered UHF station like KDOC-TV.

“There is some real money to be had,” Bert Ellis, chief executive of Ellis Communications, which owns KDOC-TV, told the Wall Street Journal. “I think every broadcaster should take a very close look at this.”

Estimates show at least 80 significant U.S. cities will likely lose one or more channels, especially when the bid price well exceeds the value of an independent, ethnic or religious station. Many of these will go dark, move to cable or a less desirable lower power VHF channel, or sign an agreement with a remaining station to carry its programming on a sub-channel.

The National Association of Broadcasters filed suit against the FCC’s auction in August. The NAB wants the FCC to guarantee that stations that wish to stay on the air will not have their coverage area reduced or forced to pay to move to a new channel number assigned by the FCC as the regulator “repacks” a much smaller UHF band.

“We’ve said from day one, if stations want to volunteer to go out of business, that’s their prerogative. But for those stations that choose to remain in business, they should be held harmless,” NAB spokesman Dennis Wharton said.

The spectrum auction is designed to address the wireless industry’s claim of a spectrum crisis, warning that if more frequencies are not found, wireless users will eventually see their service degraded.