Comcast and Charter Communications have begun to compete outside of their respective cable footprints, potentially competing directly head to head for your business, but only if you are a super-sized corporate client.

Comcast Business has targeted selling large Fortune 1000 companies internet service through contractual partnerships with Charter, Cox, and Cablevision/Altice USA for a few years now. The cable giant recently entered the Canadian market, at least for U.S.-based companies that have satellite offices north of the border. Comcast now directly competes with other cable operators selling enterprise-level broadband service, whether the customer is inside Comcast’s footprint or not, but will not offer a similar service to consumers looking for better options.

The cable industry’s longstanding de facto agreement not to compete head to head for customers will probably remain intact even as Charter this week unveils its own national broadband service called Spectrum Total Connect. It will be available across the country, offering customers up to 940 Mbps broadband service at a highly competitive price, but only if you are running a large business and have an account with Spectrum Business National Accounts, which provides connectivity for large business franchises, national retailers, and companies utilizing a large network of telecommuters scattered around the country. Consumers need not apply here either.

Charter has refused to say who it has partnered with to provide the service, but it is likely a reciprocal agreement with Comcast and other cable companies it already works with to provide enterprise-level service. The new service will be rolled out in the next several weeks.

Cable companies have been successful selling connectivity products to small and medium-sized businesses, but large national companies have traditionally relied on phone companies to provide them with total connectivity packages that can reach all of their locations. Until Comcast began selling service outside of its footprint, cable companies have had to turn down business opportunities outside of their respective service areas. But now Comcast and Charter can reach well beyond their local cable systems to satisfy the needs of corporate clients.

But neither company wants to end their comfortable fiefdoms in the residential marketplace by competing head to head for customers. Companies claim it would not be profitable to install redundant, competing networks, even though independent fiber to the home overbuilders have been doing so in several cities for years. It seems more likely cable operators are deeply concerned about threatening their traditional business model supplying services that face little competition. In the early years, that was cable television. Today it is broadband. Large swaths of the country remain underserved by telephone companies that have decided upgrading their deteriorating copper wire networks to supply residential fiber broadband service is not worth the investment, leaving most internet connectivity in the hands of a single local cable operator. Most cable companies have taken full advantage of this de facto monopoly by regularly raising prices despite the fact that the costs associated with providing internet service have been declining for years.

Cherry-picking lucrative commercial customers while leaving ordinary consumers mired in a monopoly is more evidence that the U.S. broadband marketplace is broken and under regulated. Competition is the best solution to raising speeds while reducing prices — competition regulators should insist on wherever possible.

The Unimax U683CL

An inexpensive $39 Chinese-made smartphone offered by a U.S. government-subsidized Lifeline mobile phone service provider is wide open to malware and trojan horse apps, leaving users exposed to privacy violations, adware, and auto-installed backdoor apps that might expose some to fraud.

Malwarebytes Labs, an online security company, issued a serious warning to the public about the Unimax U683CL smartphone’s compromised-from-the-box status, and criticized provider Assurance Wireless for selling the phone and ignoring repeated warnings sent to the company about the phone.

“Assurance Wireless by Virgin Mobile offers the UMX U683CL phone as their most budget conscious option. At only $35 [$39 as of Jan. 13, 2020] under the government-funded program, it’s an attractive offering,” Nathan Collier, a senior malware intelligence analyst at Malwarebytes Labs writes in a company blog. “However, what it comes installed with is appalling.”

Malwarebytes began getting complaints about the phone last fall, and secured one to investigate further. It quickly emerged the phone arrived with questionable software pre-installed:

The first questionable app found on the UMX U683CL poses as an updater named Wireless Update. Yes, it is capable of updating the mobile device. In fact, it’s the only way to update the mobile device’s operating system (OS). Conversely, it is also capable of auto-installing apps without user consent.

Thus, we detect this app as Android/PUP.Riskware.Autoins.Fota.fbcvd, a detection name that should sound familiar to Malwarebytes for Android customers. That’s because the app is actually a variant of Adups, a China-based company caught collecting user data, creating backdoors for mobile devices and, yes, developing auto-installers.

From the moment you log into the mobile device, Wireless Update starts auto-installing apps. To repeat: There is no user consent collected to do so, no buttons to click to accept the installs, it just installs apps on its own. While the apps it installs are initially clean and free of malware, it’s important to note that these apps are added to the device with zero notification or permission required from the user. This opens the potential for malware to unknowingly be installed in a future update to any of the apps added by Wireless Update at any time.

The second piece of unremovable malware is the UMX’s own “Settings” app, crucial to operating the phone. Researchers called this “heavily-obfuscated malware” that is detected as Android/Trojan.Dropper.Agent.UMX. This app quietly downloads and installs apps without the user’s permission, most recently including a variant of HiddenAds, which forces users to endure frequent advertising screens on their phone, even when not web browsing.

The malware activates the moment a user powers on their phone for the first time. Most customers will simply be annoyed if ad-related apps automatically install, but with a security-compromised phone opening the door to more malware in the future, this “lowers the bar on bad behavior by app development companies,” according to Collier.

“Budget should not dictate whether a user can remain safe on his or her mobile device. Shell out thousands for an iPhone, and escape pre-installed maliciousness. But use government-assisted funding to purchase a device and pay the price in malware? That’s not the type of malware-free existence we envision at Malwarebytes,” Collier said.

“We informed Assurance Wireless of our findings and asked them point blank why a U.S.-funded mobile carrier is selling a mobile device infected with pre-installed malware? After giving them adequate time to respond, we unfortunately never heard back,” Collier added.

Dunne

Verizon will hold off on expanding its millimeter wave 5G wireless home broadband service until at least the second half of 2020, citing equipment availability issues.

Ronan Dunne, executive vice president and group CEO of Verizon’s Consumer Division, told attendees at a Citi investor’s conference that Verizon’s initial introduction of Home 5G was just a market test, and until newer high-powered wireless routers arrive that will be capable of more robust reception of the very high frequencies the service works on, Verizon will not expand the service further.

Dunne called the next generation of 5G home receivers “key” to Verizon’s wireless home broadband strategy. Dunne said the new equipment will let consumers receive more distant and weaker 5G wireless signals, allowing Verizon to expand coverage of the service to more households. The current generation of 5G receivers were designed for use in smartphones, which hampers in-home reception quality.

Verizon initially promised to serve about one-quarter of the United States with its wireless home broadband service, eventually capable of supplying 500/200 Mbps and more to subscribers. But Verizon’s goal to reach over 30 million households will take the company as long as seven years to reach.

Dunne also warned Verizon is prioritizing 5G coverage in urban commercial areas instead of suburban, rural, and residential neighborhoods. Verizon’s core 5G network will target dense urban areas, including commercial shopping, business, and entertainment venues like concert halls and sports stadiums where the company measures the highest traffic demand it hopes to satisfy with 5G. Verizon’s home 5G broadband service piggybacks on Verizon’s 5G mobile network, which means it will only be available in neighborhoods where Verizon has deployed its network of small cells.

“It’s very much a mobility strategy, with a secondary product of Home [5G], rather than us changing our overarching mobility deployment to try to accelerate Home at the expense of the overall 130 million customer base,” Dunne explained.

Verizon hopes to offer customers 5G-capable mobile phones for as little as $600 in the coming year and getting widespread adoption of 5G by Verizon customers is a long-term goal for Dunne. He added that once 5G becomes more widely available, Verizon and other wireless companies will consider shutting down Wi-Fi hotspots in favor of 5G.

“In a world of 5G millimeter wave deployments, we don’t see the need for Wi-Fi in the future, because we have a more secure network environment,” Dunne said. “Our view is that when fully deployed there are substantial environments where public Wi-Fi will be eliminated in favor of millimeter wave.”

Brindisi, as he appeared in a campaign ad slamming Charter Spectrum in the summer of 2018.

Rep. Anthony Brindisi (D-N.Y.), who made his battle with Spectrum into an election issue in 2018, is not done with the cable company yet.

This week, Brindisi appealed to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to launch an investigation into the cable company’s debt collection practices.

“Fighting Spectrum on rising rates also includes making sure they can’t use debt collection as another money-making tactic,” said Brindisi. “And the only way to get to the bottom of this is for the CFPB to ask the questions I outline in my letter.”

Brindisi is targeting Credit Management L.P., a Plano, Tex. collection agency that Spectrum relies on to pursue former customers, often to seek compensation for “lost or unreturned equipment.”

“After believing they had paid their final bill in full and returned their equipment, customers are finding themselves face-to-face with this unknown debt collector from Plano, Texas,” Brindisi told the CFPB. “One former Spectrum customer learned from Credit Management L.P. that they owed over $100 long after amicably ending their service. Spectrum never notified this customer they owed a penny. Instead, they sent them to collections, potentially damaging their credit rating and giving up their social security number and other personal information.”

In some cases, customers are being turned over to the collection agency for as little as an allegedly unreturned remote control. As a result, consumers are ending up with damaged credit because of the reported collection activity.

“The Better Business Bureau has logged hundreds of complaints about Credit Management L.P.,” Brindisi added. “Many of these complaints have been about their debt collection practices related to cable and internet companies. Customers have specifically named Spectrum and other cable companies as the source of the erroneous debt. A consumer should not be sent to a debt collector, without warning, for a missing remote control. That is both unfair and a sneaky way Spectrum might be padding its bottom line, which would be unacceptable, worthy of investigation and potentially in violation of federal rules.”

Brindisi wants the CFPB to determine how many customers are being pursued by Credit Management, L.P., how those customers are contacted, how much of the collection agency’s efforts relate to being compensated for allegedly unreturned equipment as opposed to late or non-payment of monthly cable bills, and how the agency handles customers’ private personal information.  Brindisi also wants the CFPB to determine if the collection practices violate federal law.

Brindisi also urged constituents being contacted by Credit Management L.P., on behalf of Spectrum, to call his office at (315) 732-0713.

In addition to running campaign commercials that slammed Spectrum, Brindisi has doggedly pursued the cable industry as a freshman congressman representing an Upstate New York district extending from the east end of Lake Ontario through Central New York to the Pennsylvania border, including the cities of Utica, Rome and Binghamton. Brindisi introduced the Transparency for Cable Consumers Act, promising to provide better oversight of cable and internet providers and hold companies accountable that are fined by a state Public Service Commission. In November, Brindisi slammed Spectrum in an opinion piece outlining his efforts to hold Spectrum accountable. Brindisi also recently launched a district-wide survey of home internet speeds and service to determine if internet customers are getting advertised internet speeds.

Sprint’s prepaid mobile division

Sprint will be closing down its prepaid Virgin Mobile service in February and will shift customers to its Boost Mobile brand instead and drop its standalone Mobile Broadband service.

The wireless company has virtually ignored Virgin Mobile at least as long as Sprint has been in negotiations to merge operations with T-Mobile USA. The Virgin Mobile website has also been neglected, with no media releases for almost two years and over two years of unchanged rates. Last October, Sprint dropped its last major retail arrangement with Walmart that allowed Virgin Mobile devices and airtime to be sold in Walmart stores. Best Buy and several grocery chains ended sales of Virgin Mobile devices even earlier. As of late last year, new customers could only sign up for Virgin Mobile through its own website, a sure sign Sprint was prepared to accept customer attrition and was likely to pull support for the prepaid brand.

Sprint inherited Boost Mobile after it acquired Nextel in 2005. Boost Mobile had offered its own prepaid service over Nextel’s push-to-talk network beginning in 2001. After Sprint shuttered Nextel’s network, it operated both Virgin Mobile and Boost Mobile on Sprint’s network as competing prepaid wireless services. In the last two years, Sprint apparently decided it only needed to support a single brand, and quietly began shifting its marketing exclusively towards Boost.

This week, Sprint confirmed it was shutting down the Virgin Mobile brand in the U.S. in a prepared statement.

“We regularly examine our plans to ensure that we’re offering the best services in line with our customer needs. Beginning on the week of Feb. 2, we will be moving Virgin Mobile customer accounts to our sister brand Boost Mobile – consolidating the brands under one cohesive, efficient and effective prepaid team. In most circumstances, customers can keep their current phone and will receive a comparable or better Boost Mobile service plan with no extra cost.”

The transition will strand Virgin Mobile Broadband and Broadband2Go customers that use a standalone device for mobile broadband service, often used by RV-traveling customers or those in rural areas. Sprint has decided that Boost Mobile will not serve those customers, so mobile data service provided over standalone hotspot devices will end next month.

An FAQ on Virgin Mobile’s website provides some other insight:

Customers were notified in early January about the decision to discontinue Virgin Mobile USA service plans. At that time, we informed customers of the transfer to Boost Mobile. In most instances, your existing account will be transferred to Boost Mobile with your device, and a comparable or better Boost Mobile service plan at no extra cost to you. You will keep your phone number, and your monthly payment date will remain the same as long as you continue on time payments until the transfer to Boost Mobile is complete.

At this time, paying for your service through your PayPal account will not be supported on your new Boost Mobile account and therefore, Paypal will be removed as a registered payment vehicle 4-5 days prior to the migration date. Customers enrolled on a payment method or AutoPay with PayPal accounts will need to re-establish payment options and re-enroll in Autopay using a major credit/debit card. Boost Mobile also does not accept 45/90 Day Top Up Payment Option for service payments. Customers enrolled in 45/90 Day Top Up Payment option will need to re-establish payment option and re-enroll in a Low Balance Autopay option using a major credit/debit card prior to transition in order to avoid service interruption. If your account is impacted by either of these payment methods, we will notify you with instructions for how to make changes prior to transfer date in order to avoid service interruption. Please note the Texas LIDA credits will no longer be issued following transfer to Boost Mobile.

What additional benefits will I receive with my transfer to Boost Mobile?

• Taxes and fees will now be INCLUDED in your new Boost Mobile plan.
• 6,800 Boost Mobile locations nationwide for your convenience.
• 99% nationwide coverage with voice roaming.
• Boost Perks, a reward program exclusive to Boost Mobile customers.

The wind down of Virgin Mobile may also serve as a bit of housekeeping as Sprint prepares to merge with T-Mobile. A condition of that merger is spinning off Sprint’s prepaid services including Boost Mobile service to DISH Network to create another viable national wireless carrier to protect competition. Dropping Virgin Mobile now is likely to provide an easier transition for DISH, which would launch operations with a combination of Virgin Mobile and Boost Mobile customers.