Prominent law enforcement, public safety, and emergency response organizations held a press event outside the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Monday, November 18th at the opening of a Commission workshop on e911 location accuracy.

Up to two-thirds of emergency calls made over a cell phone lack critical information about the caller’s location, prompting an advocacy group to call the current situation a crisis.

“If you use a cell phone, you probably think that a 9-1-1 operator can find you if you call in an emergency. Unfortunately, that assumption could be fatally flawed,” said Jamie Barnett, former Chief of the FCC’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau and director of the Find Me 911 Coalition. “For two-thirds of wireless callers in some counties, the emergency call arrived without accurate information on the caller’s location, putting lives at risk when callers don’t know or can’t share their location. The FCC should take immediate action to ensure that all 9-1-1 callers can be immediately located in a crisis, whether indoors or outside, in a rural or urban setting.”

The wireless industry’s lobbying group says the problem is complicated and overblown, and the nation’s biggest cell phone companies are placing the responsibility for the problem on poorly trained 9-1-1 operators. But while the issue is debated, lives are being lost. It’s a growing problem, says the Coalition, because 70 percent of all calls to 9-1-1 now come from cellphones. High-powered smartphones with the latest technology can support thousands of apps, streaming video, help travelers find their way home, and access data at megabit speeds, but when you are in a car or building, your wireless carrier might not be able to pinpoint your exact location and share it with emergency personnel until it is too late.

Deanna Cook of Rylie, Tex is just one victim who might still be alive today if 9-1-1 operators could have tracked her precise location. Last August, Cook called 9-1-1 from her home but was too badly injured in a domestic violence incident to provide her address. Operators relied on the current system to access her location. It took just a few seconds to find the cell tower Cook was accessing to place the call. Shortly after that, Cook’s street and general location became available in about a block-wide circumference, part of what the industry calls “Phase One” data. But the operator had to wait nine minutes for Cook’s wireless provider to finally pinpoint what they believed to be her exact address, the critical “Phase Two” data that can bring help to the right door.

The call location problem is growing worse in this Pennsylvania county.

The Dallas Morning News discovered while Cook was pleading for her life on 9-1-1 tapes, responding officers didn’t arrive until 50 minutes after the call was placed and then left when no one answered the door, perhaps uncertain about the veracity of the address given to them. Cook’s body was found two days later by relatives. Her ex-husband was eventually arrested and faces murder charges.

It isn’t an isolated incident, Lt. Midge Boyle of the Dallas police told the newspaper.

Dallas’ emergency call center, like many around the country, has seen an increase in the number of calls in which 911 call takers have to spend precious time trying to get the caller’s location, and what operators do receive from cell phone providers isn’t always correct.

“It’s time-consuming,” Boyle said. “In an emergency when minutes count, it’s a challenge.”

In Delaware County, Penn., new data from the Federal Communications Commission shows despite all the wireless network improvements taking place, problems locating callers are actually getting worse.

The Coalition notes the FCC’s data shows an alarming drop in more accurate “Phase Two” data from 75 percent of all wireless calls placed during March 2011 to just 35% in September of this year.

Countywide data released by the FCC found that 489,726 of the wireless calls received since April 2011 lacked accurate “Phase Two” location information, despite FCC regulations requiring accurate location data be provided with all calls.  In most cases, the 9-1-1 call center only received basic “Phase One” data showing the location of the cell tower from which the call originated, information of little use to emergency responders given the large area covered by each tower.

California regulators named names of providers deficient in providing reliable location data in that state:

• AT&T provided Phase Two location data 20 percent of the time;
• Sprint managed to deliver accurate data 21 percent of the time;
• T-Mobile USA only managed to offer correct information 10 percent of the time;
• and Verizon Wireless scored the highest, but only to the extent it delivered Phase Two location data 37 percent of the time in California.

The Coalition wants the FCC to require more advanced and accurate location technology. A whole range of solutions exist that could pinpoint a 9-1-1 caller even within a downtown office building 70 floors high. Among them:

• Advanced Forward Link Trilateration (AFLT);
• Observed Time Difference of Arrival (O-TDOA);
• RF Pattern Matching;
• Terrestrial Beacon Transmitters;
• and Uplink Time Difference of Arrival (U-TDOA)

The CTIA – The Wireless Association said it was willing to sit down with public safety organizations to discuss the problem, but little more. Barnett hopes the FCC will act more quickly. The Coalition is hoping public support will help nudge the FCC to give the issue priority attention. The group has set up a webpage to help the public draft letters to members of Congress.

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ABC’s “Good Morning America” talked with Nathan Lee, husband of Denise Amber, who was kidnapped and murdered in 2008. Lee advocates an overhaul of the cell phone network after law enforcement failed to find Denise even after she covertly used her attacker’s cell phone to call 9-1-1 for help. “Denise should be alive today had the Local 9-1-1 system performed to every citizen’s expectation.” (1:59)

AT&T this month signed up their 10 millionth customer to U-verse High Speed Internet service, surpassing Verizon FiOS as the nation’s biggest telephone company supplier of broadband, television, and telephone service. Coinciding with that success, AT&T is raising prices for U-verse, despite AT&T’s record earnings from the fiber to the neighborhood service, now accounting for $1 billion a month in revenue.

AT&T is protecting its broadband flank by convincing current DSL customers to switch to higher-speed U-verse broadband as the network upgrade reaches into more homes across AT&T’s service areas. In the last quarter U-verse picked up 655,000 new broadband customers nationwide, many upgraded from traditional DSL. Where AT&T has not invested in U-verse upgrades and cable competition exists, results are not as good. AT&T lost 26,000 DSL customers last quarter, most moving to cable broadband.

“This latest milestone shows how U-verse is helping transform AT&T into a premier IP broadband company,” said Lori Lee, senior executive vice president, AT&T Home Solutions. As of the third quarter of this year, total U-verse high-speed Internet subscribers represented about 60 percent of all wireline broadband subscribers, compared with 43 percent in the year-earlier quarter.

Verizon FiOS, in comparison, has signed up just 5.9 million customers FiOS Internet subscribers on its stalled fiber optic network. Most Verizon broadband customers with no FiOS in their future either stick with DSL service or, increasingly, switch to a cable competitor for faster speeds.

Some of AT&T’s strongest U-verse growth came from its TV package. At least 265,000 cable and satellite cord-cutters looking for a better deal switched to U-verse TV in the last three months, a gain from 198,000 at the same time last year. That’s the second-best quarterly gain ever. A total of 5.3 million AT&T customers subscribe to U-verse TV.

Much of the growth has come from AT&T’s investment in expanding U-verse to new areas. Project Velocity IP is a three-year, $14 billion plan to upgrade AT&T’s wireless and wired broadband networks. AT&T has added almost 2.5 million more homes to its broadband footprint so far this year and hopes to expand broadband availability to reach about 57 million customers by the end of 2015.

Although $14 billion is a significant investment, AT&T has spent considerably more on its shareholders. John Stephens, AT&T’s chief financial officer told Wall Street analysts AT&T has bought back 684 million shares of stock that will save the company more than $1.2 billion in future dividend payouts.  Combined with its dividend payout, AT&T has handed shareholders $18 billion so far this year and more than $40 billion since the beginning of 2012. AT&T expects to spend $20 billion on wireless and wireline network improvements in 2014.

AT&T’s speed upgrades have also not run as smoothly as AT&T claims. Efforts to increase speeds to 45Mbps in 79 markets has had mixed results with a significant number of customers complaining they cannot get qualified for the faster speeds because of infrastructure problems with AT&T’s network. The company still says it is on track to offer 75 and 100Mbps speed tiers in the future and is building a fiber to the home network in Austin to compete with Google.

Many customers who have been with AT&T for more than a year are learning better service does not come for free. AT&T has filed rate increases for its television service beginning Jan. 26, 2014 for customers not on a pricing promotion. The monthly price for the following U-verse TV service plans will increase $3, along with fee hikes for local stations and equipment, bringing AT&T at least $15 million in extra revenue each month:

• U-family to $62;
• U200 to $77;
• U200 Latino to $87;
• U300 to $92;
• U300 Latino to $102;
• U450 to $124;
• and U450 Latino to $134.
• Grandfathered plans also will increase $3: U100 to $64 or $69, depending on when first ordered; and U400 to $119.

• The monthly price of each non-DVR TV receiver will increase from $7 to $;
• Beginning on February 1, 2014, the Broadcast TV Surcharge will increase $1 to $2.99 per month to recover a portion of the amount local broadcasters charge AT&T to carry their channels.

Those customers who have a U-verse TV pricing promotion will continue to receive the promotional benefit until the applicable promotion ends or expires.  Customers are being notified of these changes via bill messaging occurring in November and December and a reminder in January and February 2014.  In addition, customers will be notified of these changes online at www.att.net/uversepricechange and att.com/uversesupport.

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AT&T is trying to get ahead of Google by advertising AT&T U-verse with GigaPower, a 1,000Mbps fiber to the home service promised in Austin sometime in the future. (0:30)

News that two major cable operators are contemplating breaking up Time Warner Cable and dividing customers between them has caused stock prices to jump for all three of the companies involved.

CNBC reported Friday that Time Warner Cable approached Comcast earlier this year about a possible friendly takeover under Comcast’s banner to avoid an anticipated leveraged takeover bid by Charter Communications. Top Time Warner Cable executives have repeatedly stressed any offer that left a combined company mired in debt would be disadvantageous to Time Warner Cable shareholders, a clear reference to the type of offer Charter is reportedly preparing. But the executives also stressed they were not ruling out any merger or sale opportunities.

News that there were two potential rivals for Time Warner Cable excited investors, particularly when it was revealed possible suitor Comcast is also separately talking to Charter about a possible joint bid that would split up Time Warner Cable customers while minimizing potential regulatory scrutiny.

The Wall Street Journal reported Charter is nearing completion of a complicated financing arrangement that some analysts expect could include up to $15 billion in debt to finance a buyout of Time Warner Cable. Such deals are not unprecedented. Dr. John Malone’s specialty is leveraged buyouts, a technique he used extensively in the 1980s and 1990s to buy countless smaller cable operators in a quest to build Tele-Communications, Inc. (TCI) into the nation’s then-biggest cable operator.

In addition to Barclays Bank, Bank of America, and Deutsche Bank — all expected to finance Malone’s bid — Comcast may also inject cash should it team up with Charter’s buyout. Comcast is interested in acquiring new markets without drawing fire from antitrust regulators.

If the two companies do join forces and pull off a deal, Time Warner Cable’s current subscribers will be transitioned to Charter or Comcast within a year. That is what happened in 2006 to former customers of bankrupt Adelphia Cable who eventually became Comcast or Time Warner Cable customers. Analysts predict the two companies would divide up Time Warner Cable territory according to their respective footprints. New York and Texas would likely face a switch to Comcast service, for example, while North Carolina, Ohio, Maine, and Southern California would likely be turned over to Charter.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/CNBC Comcast Charter consider joint bid for Time Warner Cable 11-22-13.mp4[/flv]

CNBC reports Charter Cable and Comcast might both be interested in a buyout of Time Warner Cable that would dismantle the company and divide subscribers between them. (4:18)

Reportedly financing the next era of cable consolidation.

Both bids are very real possibilities according to Wall Street analysts. Comcast has sought formal guidance on how to deal with the antitrust implications of a controversial merger between the largest and second-largest cable operators in the country. The industry has laid the groundwork for another wave of consolidation by winning its 2009 court challenge of FCC rules limiting the total market share of any single cable operator to 30 percent. Despite that, a Comcast-Time Warner Cable deal would still face intense scrutiny from the Justice Department. Getting the deal past the FCC may be a deal-breaker, admits Craig Moffett from MoffettNathanson.

“The FCC applies a public interest test that would be much more subjective,” Moffett said. “It wouldn’t be a slam dunk by any means. The FCC would be concerned that Comcast would have de facto control over what would be available on television. If a programmer couldn’t cut a deal with Comcast, they wouldn’t exist.”

Roberts

Supporters and opponents of the deal are already lining up. Charter shareholders would likely benefit from a Charter-only buyout so they generally support the deal. Time Warner Cable clearly prefers a deal with Comcast because it can afford a buyout without massive debt financing and deliver shareholder value. Comcast shareholders are also encouraging Comcast to consider s deal with Time Warner Cable. Left out of the equation are Time Warner Cable customers, little more than passive bystanders watching the multi-billion dollar drama.

The personalities involved may also be worth considering, because Comcast CEO Brian Roberts and John Malone have history, notes the Los Angeles Times:

Malone and Roberts first brushed up against each other more than two decades ago. At that time, both Liberty and Comcast were shareholders in Turner Broadcasting, the parent of CNN, TNT, TBS and Cartoon Network. When Time Warner, which was also a shareholder, made a move to buy the entire company,  there was tension because Comcast felt Liberty got a better deal to sell its stake. Roberts grumbled at the time that Liberty was getting “preferential treatment.”

A few years later, it was Malone’s turn to be mad at Roberts. When TCI founder Bob Magness died in 1996, Roberts made a covert attempt to buy his shares, which would have given him control of [TCI]. Malone beat back the effort, but it left a bad taste in his mouth.

“Malone was livid,” wrote Mark Robichaux in his book, “Cable Cowboy: John Malone and the Rise of the Modern Cable Business.”

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/CNBC Comcast seeks anti-trust advice over TWC deal 11-22-13.mp4[/flv]

Even cable stock analyst Craig Moffett is somewhat pessimistic a Comcast-TWC merger would have smooth sailing through the FCC’s approval process. Moffett worries Comcast would have too much power over programming content. (3:53)

Ironically, when Malone sold TCI to AT&T, the telephone company would later sell its cable assets to Comcast, run by… and Brian Roberts.

Most of the cable industry agrees that the increasing power of broadcasters, studios, and cable programmers is behind the renewed interest in cable consolidation. The industry believes consolidation provides leverage to block massive rate increases in renewal contracts. If a programmer doesn’t budge, the network could instantly lose tens of millions of potential viewers until a new contract is signed.

Many in the cable industry suspect when Glenn Britt retires as CEO by year’s end, Time Warner Cable’s days are numbered. But any new owner should not expect guaranteed smooth sailing.

“We expect a Comcast-TWC deal would draw intense antitrust/regulatory scrutiny and likely resistance, stoked by raw political pushback from cable critics and possibly rivals who would argue it’s simply a ‘bridge too far’ or ‘unthinkable,’” Stifel telecom analysts Christopher C. King and David Kaut wrote in a recent note to clients. “We believe government approval would be possible, but it would be costly, with serious risk. This would be a brawl.”

Usage Cap Man may soon visit Time Warner Cable customers if either Charter or Comcast becomes the new owner.

While the industry frames consolidation around cable TV programming costs, broadband consumers also face an impact from any demise of Time Warner Cable. To date, Time Warner Cable executives have repeatedly defended the presence of an unlimited use tier for its residential broadband customers. Charter has imposed usage caps and Comcast is studying how to best reimpose them. Either buyer would likely move Time Warner Cable customers to a usage-based billing system that could threaten online video competition.

“Our sense is the DOJ and FCC would have concerns about the market fallout of expanded cable concentration and vertical integration, in a broadband world where cable appears to have the upper hand over wireline telcos in most of the country (i.e., outside of the Verizon FiOS and other fiber-fed areas),” Stifel’s King and Kaut wrote. “We suspect the government would raise objections about the potential for Comcast-TWC bullying of competitors and suppliers, given the extent and linkages of their cable/broadband distribution, programming control, and broadcast ownership.”

Since none of the three providers compete head-on, the loss of “competition” would be minimal. Any Comcast-Time Warner Cable deal would likely include semi-voluntary restrictions like those attached to Comcast’s successful acquisition of NBC-Universal, including short-term bans on discriminating against content providers on its broadband service.

Customers can expect a welcome letter from Comcast and/or Charter Cable as early as spring of next year if Time Warner Cable accepts one of the deals.

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Bloomberg News reports if Comcast helps finance a deal between Charter and Time Warner Cable, Comcast would likely grab Time Warner Cable systems in New York for itself. (2:26)

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/ABC Extended interview with Dr John Cioffi – Father of DSL 11-18-13.mp4[/flv]

Dr. John Cioffi, the “Father of DSL” doesn’t think much of fiber to the home service, suggesting it is a waste of money and delivers budget-busting losses to providers. He has the ear of the man in charge of overseeing Australia’s National Broadband Network, Communications Minister John Turnbull. Turnbull’s public statements imply he supports Cioffi’s approach – a hybrid fiber-copper network similar to AT&T U-verse.

By adopting cheaper VDSL technology, Cioffi claims providers can avoid the “$800 unrecoverable loss per customer Verizon FiOS has experienced” bringing fiber to the home. He also claims fiber to the home service isn’t as robust as fiber proponents claim, with flimsy, easy-to-break fiber cables and loads of service calls commonplace among some European providers.

Few media interviews, including this one with ABC Television, bother to fully disclose how Cioffi has a big dog in the broadband technology fight. Cioffi founded ASSIA, Inc., a firm that markets products and services to DSL providers. ASSIA is backed by investments from AT&T, its first customer, and a handful of overseas telephone companies. Cioffi estimates ASSIA software is used to manage 90 percent of existing DSL accounts in the United States and is a fundamental part of AT&T’s efforts to increase U-verse speeds. Dismantling DSL in favor of fiber could have a marked impact on ASSIA’s profits. (8:47)

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Australia’s new Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull talks with Dr. John Cioffi about the differences between VDSL and fiber technologies. Cioffi bashes one form of fiber to the home service dubbed “GPON” because it shares infrastructure. Cioffi claims fiber speeds drop to 20Mbps when a few dozen people share a GPON connection. When in Paris, Cioffi claims his shared fiber connection maxed out at 2.5Mbps while ADSL still ran at 6Mbps. (3:52)

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Unsurprisingly, Cioffi claims his company’s software is essential for a good vectored VDSL user experience. Cioffi also claims VDSL can easily beat GPON fiber broadband speeds, a very controversial claim. In Cioffi’s view, even Wi-Fi can perform better than fiber. Finally, Cioffi claims Google is spending $8,000 per customer to deploy its fiber to the home network, when VDSL can do the job for much less money. (2:58)

The Australian government’s proposal to launch a nationwide fiber to the home National Broadband Network (NBN) has been scrapped by the more conservative Liberal-National Coalition that replaced the Labor government in a recent election.

As a result, the Coalition has announced initial plans to revise the NBN with a mixture of cheaper technology that can result in faster deployment of lower speed broadband at a lower cost. If implemented, fiber to the home service will only reach a minority of homes. In its place,  cable broadband may be the dominant technology where cable companies already operate. For almost everyone else, technology comparable to AT&T U-verse is the favored choice of the new government, mixing fiber-to-the-neighborhood with existing copper wires into homes..

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Australia’s new Communications Minister moves to put the Coalition government’s stamp on the National Broadband Network, replacing most of the promised fiber-to-the-home technology with a service comparable to AT&T U-verse. From ABC-TV (6:32)

Just a year earlier Telstra, Australia’s largest phone company, was planning to decommission and scrap its copper landline network, considered “five minutes to midnight” back in 2003 by Telstra’s head of government and corporate affairs, Tony Warren. Now the country will effectively embrace copper technology once more with an incremental DSL upgrade, forfeiting speeds of up to 1,000Mbps over fiber in return for a minimum speed guarantee from the government of 24Mbps over VDSL.

The turnabout has massive implications for current providers. Telstra, which expected to see its prominence in Australian broadband diminished under Labor’s NBN is once again a rising star. The Liberal-National Coalition government appointed Telstra’s former CEO Ziggy Switkowski to run a “rebooted” Coalition NBN that critics are now calling Telstra 3.0. Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull also installed three new members of the NBN’s governing board consisting of a Telstra executive, a founder of a commercial Internet Service Provider, and an ex-construction boss who left the NBN in 2011.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/ABC Malcolm Turnbull Outlines NBN Review 9-24-13.mp4[/flv]

ABC reports Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull asked for the resignations of the entire NBN board, one of the first steps to re-envision the NBN under the Liberal-National Coalition’s party platform. Turnbull accused the former government of setting political targets for fiber broadband and was never forthcoming about the true cost and complexity of the ambitious fiber project. (8:50)

Turnbull

Some Australians complain that NBN’s proposed reliance on Telstra copper is a mistake. Telstra has allowed its landline infrastructure to decline over the years and many are skeptical they will ever see faster speeds promised over wiring put in place decades earlier.

The NBN under the Liberal-National Coalition will depend heavily on two copper-based technologies to deliver speed enhancements: VDSL and vectoring. Both require short runs of well-maintained copper wiring to deliver peak performance. The longer the copper line, the worse it will perform. If that line is compromised, VDSL and vectoring are unlikely to make much difference, as AT&T has discovered in its effort to roll out faster U-verse speeds, much to the frustration of customers that cannot upgrade until AT&T invests in cleaning up its troubled copper network.

Coalition critics also warn the new government will foolishly spend less on a fiber-copper network today that will need expensive fiber upgrades tomorrow.

Turnbull isn’t happy with Australia’s mainstream media for lazy reporting on the issues.

ABC Radio reports that the Coalition’s approach to the NBN may be penny-wise, pound foolish. By the time the NBN rolls out fiber to the neighborhood and Telstra is required to invest in upgrades to its copper network to make it work, fiber to the home service could turn out to have been cheaper all along. (5:11)
You must remain on this page to hear the clip, or you can download the clip and listen later.

“I have to say that by and large the standard of reporting of technology and broadband by the mainstream media has been woeful,” Turnbull said. “If the Australian public are misinformed about these issues, it was in large part a consequence of the unwillingness of the mainstream media to pay any attention to what is really going on in the industry.”

The promise of fiber optic broadband may prove elusive under the new government.

With much of the new NBN dependent on Telstra’s copper telephone network, Stuart Lee, Telstra’s managing director of its wholesale division, rushed to defend the suitability of the same copper network Telstra was prepared to scrap under the last government.

Lee said he was especially annoyed with critics that call Telstra’s copper networking “aging.”

“The other thing that makes me cross when I hear it, and I see it a lot in the press is the talk of the aging copper network. It’s not. It’s not an aging copper network. It’s like grandfather’s axe; it’s had five new handles and three new heads. When it breaks, we replace the broken bit. So it’s much the same as it always has been and always will be,” Lee said. “It’s just an older technology, it’s not that the asset itself has deteriorated.”

When questioned about several recent high-profile mass service disruptions Australians experienced on Telstra’s landline copper network, Lee blamed the weather, not the network.

“They correlate to weather events, and the weather events we’ve had in the last [few years] is about five to six times the previous ones, so surprise surprise there is a lot more damage,” said Lee.

The new government has charged the Labor-run NBN with inefficiency, taxpayer-funded waste, and playing politics with broadband by giving high priority to fiber upgrades in constituencies served by threatened Labor MPs. Lee added NBN Co has played loose with the facts, declaring premises “passed” by the new fiber network without allowing customers to order service on the new network. That can become a serious problem, because the NBN plan calls for customers’ existing copper phone and DSL service to be decommissioned soon after the fiber network becomes available.

The Sydney Morning Herald compared the last Labor government’s broadband policy with the new Coalition government policy.

iiNet’s chief technology officer, John Lindsay said that the potential for disconnecting customers from the ADSL network while they still can’t order NBN service was “madness.”

The Labor government’s NBN has also been under fire for a pricing formula that includes a usage component when setting prices. Impenetrably named the “connectivity virtual circuit” charge, or CVC, the NBN charges retail providers a monthly connection fee for each customer and a usage charge that includes a virtual data allowance originally set at 30GB. Retail providers are billed extra when customers exceed the informal allowance. Although the government promised to reduce the charges, they effectively haven’t and likely won’t until 2017.

Lindsay called the CVC an artificial tax comparable to the Labor government’s carbon tax, and represents a digital barrier to limit customer usage.

“It’s a tax on packets,” Lindsay said.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/ABC NBN Copper 11-19-13.mp4[/flv]

Tasmanian residents complain NBN Co’s new fiber network is claimed to be available, but actually isn’t in many neighborhoods now scheduled for disconnection from Telstra’s copper landline and DSL network. (2:17)