NBC’s Saturday Night Live proves an important point about today’s smartphones and data products.  Only a handful of consumers really understand what LTE, 4G, and 3G are really all about.  Just as few can tell you what a “gigabyte” is or how many they used, or increasingly important — how many they have left before the overlimit fees kick in.  (2 minutes)

A billionaire who invested enormous sums to purchase airwaves for a new national wireless broadband network learned Tuesday ruled he cannot use them to launch LightSquared.

The Federal Communications Commission said yesterday Philip Falcone’s vision for competitive wireless service cannot go forward on the frequencies he acquired because tests show they create significant interference to other nearby spectrum users, especially GPS.

Falcone’s hedge fund poured nearly $3 billion into LightSquared, which the company still claims would not create significant problems for GPS users including aircraft, cars, and ships.

Falcone

But when tests were conducted in early 2011, significant interference problems were reported, some that could jeopardize the safety of American air travel.  The FCC decided it preferred to be safe instead of sorry.

The announcement by the FCC calls into question the future of the company and the value of its airwave assets, which are now likely worth a fraction of the price paid.

The company’s agreements with at least 30 wholesale customers are also at risk, and one of its largest partners, Sprint-Nextel, has spent the last few months distancing itself from the project, anticipating the decision the FCC announced yesterday.

The rejection has upset the FCC’s plans to increase wireless competition for AT&T and Verizon, which dominate American wireless.  The agency hoped the spectrum LightSquared obtained would open the doors to a new national player, but that appears unlikely for now.

LightSquared executives said in October they would sue the FCC in court if the agency blocked their network from operating.

The only new player on the horizon may be Dish Network, which earlier acquired wireless spectrum from two bankrupt companies, and now seeks to use them as mobile phone spectrum.  Separately, Clearwire is working with Sprint to construct a new national 4G network, while still operating Clear’s existing WiMAX 4G service.

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CNBC discusses LightSquared’s new troubles and where the company can go from here.  (3 minutes)

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Fox News’ Shepard Smith launched into an off-script tirade against AT&T after sending him a text message he was one of the “5%’ers” about to have their data service throttled.  “I’m gonna pay more for this crap, because it -is- crap,” Smith said.

Smith just discovered the reality of Internet Overcharging.  Get customers hooked on unlimited use plans that soon become a part of their daily lives, and then allow an uncompetitive marketplace to turn data into a “limited resource” that can be monetized for all it’s worth.

“I signed up for this [unlimited] plan, I bought this phone, [and] they told me I could do this, and now that I’ve signed up… and I’ve done everything the way they tell me to do it, now I gotta pay more.”

“It’s like all you can eat crack, until you like a lot of crack, and then you gotta pay more.”  (2 minutes)

Thanks to reader Mileena for alerting us.

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Comcast has concluded the last of four public meetings to address consumer complaints with the quality of the cable company’s products and customer service in Savannah, Ga.

Dozens of customers filled Armstrong Center to complain about billing, hold times, and service issues. Comcast technicians were on hand and literally followed some customers home to address long-standing problems on the spot.

The public meetings came at the urging of Savannah city officials who have received hundreds of complaints about Comcast’s poor performance in the Georgia city. 

“We are committed to continuously improving the services that we offer and the way we deliver the service, said Andrew Macke, vice president of government and community affairs. “There’s ongoing efforts to improve that, but certainly as we value our relationship with the city, we’ll continue to work with them to highlight some of the things that we’re doing but also address some of the common themes.”  (2 minutes)

Time Warner Cable dropped the ball… right on the heads of temporary customers Alice and Dan Beissel, who signed up for service and canceled just ten days later.

The Corpus Christi, Texas couple decided to cancel service from AT&T and give the cable company a try and, according to them, it was trouble right from the start.

The Beissels say the cable service never worked right, with picture outages and other equipment troubles that came and went.  Frustrations mounted when a service call found nothing wrong, until the Time Warner truck pulled out of the driveway and the picture again went blank.

But the final straw was a conversation Dan Beissel had with the company’s customer service support center.

“What did you do that was wrong,” the representative asked Beissel.

Beissel must have thought the answer was ‘signing up for cable service,’ because the family decided to cancel after that call ended.

Now the couple has been forced to turn to KZTV’s Troubleshooter consumer reporter in an effort to collect an overdue refund check for their service.  The station ran into the same kind of frustration the Beissel family did:

We’ve made several calls to Time Warner Cable in an attempt to speak with anyone who can help the couple.

Unfortunately, there is no customer service contact in Corpus Christi.

Time Warner Cable says refund checks are normally processed within four weeks and mailed from a California office.  A local employee working for the cable company in the Corpus Christi area said he would look into the missing refund check.

KZTV in Corpus Christi is helping one family find a missing refund check owed to them by Time Warner Cable.  (2 minutes)