[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WRC Washington Bitten by Gigabytes 5-21-12.flv[/flv]

WRC-TV decided to visit with local Washington, D.C. consumers and ask them if they knew what a “gigabyte” was and how many they were using on their cell phone data plan.  Few knew, and even fewer wanted to know, preferring to pay a flat price for worry-free, unlimited data service. Unfortunately, AT&T and Verizon have discontinued their unlimited data plans (Verizon is preparing to throw people off of grandfathered plans when customers upgrade their phones), and T-Mobile throttles customer speeds to near-dial-up after their monthly allowance is reached. Only Sprint sells truly unlimited data, but many customers find Sprint’s data speeds lacking. Consumer reporter Liz Crenshaw visits with Public Knowledge to help educate consumers about what the average 2GB plan really buys.  (3 minutes)

Dispensing with “all-you-can-eat” data plans was the first step towards monetizing mobile broadband. Now some mobile operators are considering how to implement stage two: charging different pricing for different online applications to boost profits.

At the TM Forum Management World conference in Dublin, Ireland, mobile operators discussed managing and monetizing data usage, charging customers different rates for using various online services and applications. Total Telecom covered the conference and found mobile operators conjuring up new pricing schemes to maximize revenue opportunities.

Vikram Chadha, senior marketing director at United Arab Emirates-based Du, offered that mobile operators should bill for video traffic separately from standard data.

″Video is another beast,″ Chadha told the audience of executives. ″Operators need to look at video data in a totally different manner. It’s important to treat video as a different data element.″

Monetizing video streaming can “get high value out of that customer,” Chadha said.

Chadha

He also believes as general browser traffic declines, real money can be made charging different rates for customers accessing different apps. Providers could charge higher data pricing when customers use certain non-preferred apps, at the same time discounting traffic from apps that partner with wireless phone companies.

Chadha pointed to NTT DoCoMo’s partnership with Hulu. Both Hulu and the service provider market the service, with the one making the sale the beneficiary of most of the proceeds. That technically takes revenue away from Hulu and diverts it to NTT, which can engineer customized marketing efforts to target customers for the service.

But it does not stop there, according to Chadha. Mobile operators can generate even greater revenue by introducing Quality of Service (QoS) technology and billing customers extra for additional priority on the company’s wireless network, an important consideration for online video.

Chadha says his company now charges $1.25 for 30 minutes of video streaming from YouTube using “best available” network protocols. Customers who want to assure minimal buffering can buy a VIP Pass from Du for $2.50 for the same 30 minutes, and get priority on Du’s network.

″The [VIP pass customer] is assured of the bandwidth he gets and that gives the operator the opportunity to maximize his revenue,″ he said. ″[Apply] different QoS for different apps and you can charge differently. Or use location, and sell data more cheaply where networks are less congested, or at less busy times of day.”

Chadha’s worst enemy would be a strong Net Neutrality policy, which would prohibit operators from discriminating against or prioritizing different types of traffic. None of these pricing schemes would likely work if Du provided a flat rate mobile service either.

In the absence of such net protections, revenue and profit opportunities abound.

″Application-based charging is going to be very important and so is value-based charging,″ he predicted.

Stephenson: Payback time.

Six weeks after AT&T’s colossal $39 billion dollar merger with T-Mobile USA fell apart, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson opened his checkbook and donated $30,800 (the maximum allowed under federal law) to the Republican National Committee.

That contribution dwarfs Stephenson’s largest previous donation over the past twenty years: $5,000, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Bloomberg reports that Stephenson took a credibility and pay hit from the merger debacle, forcing AT&T to turn over $4 billion in deal penalties to its rival, T-Mobile, including precious wireless spectrum. The deal’s collapse personally cost Stephenson more than $2 million in bonus pay.

Although AT&T is not commenting, Wall Street analysts are, and they suspect Stephenson is sending the Obama Administration a clear message that he is upset with the decision to challenge the merger. The rest of AT&T appears to be following suit, with nearly two-thirds of political contributions, mostly from company executives, going to the Republican party which has traditionally maintained a much more friendly relationship with the communications giant.

Several Republicans criticized the Justice Department and Federal Communications Commission for interfering with the merger deal which consumer advocates argued would reduce competition and raise prices for wireless services. Republicans have also expressed near-universal support for AT&T’s policy positions on Net Neutrality, community broadband, usage-based pricing, spectrum and price deregulation, removal of state oversight of telecommunications services, and marketplace consolidation.

AT&T is a major sponsor of this summer’s Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla. Several former lobbyists for AT&T are now working with the Romney campaign and its money bundling operations on behalf of the Republican presidential candidate.

The center reports no personal political contributions from the heads of either Verizon Wireless or Sprint.

Roger Entner, an analyst with Recon Analytics in Dedham, Massachusetts, notes AT&T was still trying to make nice with Obama Administration officials as late as last December, sending ornate cupcakes to various administration officials, including those at the FCC.

Entner noted it didn’t work.

Data provided by OSHA statistics

A new joint investigation by Frontline and ProPublica reveals serious lapses in safety for America’s cell tower workers, a career now considered one of the most hazardous and life-threatening in America.

In the last eight years, 50 climbers have died, with many more injured installing and servicing cell sites for AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Sprint, and T-Mobile. The investigation finds many of these deaths and injuries were preventable, but as America’s profitable cell phone companies outsource jobs to cut-rate subcontractors (and the sub-contractors they often use themselves), safety measures take a back seat to low-ball bidding and profits.

Efforts to hold companies accountable are stymied by the byzantine layers of third party companies hired to do the work, an under-equipped federal safety agency, and difficulty assessing where the responsibility lies when things go wrong.

From ProPublica and Frontline:

From their perch atop the contracting chain, carriers typically set many of the crucial parameters for work on cell sites, including deadlines, pay rates and even technical specifications, down to the exact degree an antenna should be angled. An analysis of cell tower deaths by ProPublica and PBS “Frontline” showed that tight timetables and financial pressure often led workers to take fatal shortcuts or to work under unsafe conditions.

“We’ve had a number of situations where we think that accidents were caused by companies trying to meet deadlines and … cutting corners on safety in order to meet those deadlines,” said Jordan Barab, OSHA’s deputy administrator.

But Barab said it’s difficult for the agency to hold cell companies responsible for safety violations involving subcontractors. In most cases, federal officials have interpreted OSHA regulations to mean that carriers can be held accountable only if they exercised direct control over subcontractors’ work or were aware of specific unsafe conditions.

OSHA has not sanctioned cell carriers for safety violations implicated in any subcontractor deaths on cell sites since 2003, a review of agency records by ProPublica and PBS “Frontline” found.

Most of OSHA’s enforcement efforts have focused on a transient cast of small subcontractors, though they, too, typically have eluded significant penalties. Over the last nine years, the median fine levied for safety violations linked to a fatal tower accident was $3,750, an analysis by ProPublica and PBS “Frontline” showed.

[flv width=”512″ height=”308″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/PBS Frontline Cell Tower Deaths 5-23-12.flv[/flv]

Watch this segment from PBS Frontline exploring ‘Cell Tower Deaths,’ and what can be done to stop them.  (30 minutes)

Northern Minnesota's Paul Bunyan Communications is threatened by FCC reforms that they claim favor larger phone companies.

Northern Minnesotans will have to wait longer for broadband after a telephone co-op announced it was suspending its $19 million broadband expansion project because funding is being diverted to more powerful phone companies like AT&T and Verizon — neither of which have any concrete plans to improve rural wired broadband.

Bemidji-based Paul Bunyan Communications, which serves 28,000 hearty Minnesota customers, has been working on broadband expansion for several years, bringing broadband to customers who have known nothing except dial-up since the Internet age began. Only now the project is threatened because of well-intentioned plans by the Federal Communications Commission to expand rural broadband, but in ways that cater primarily to larger phone companies that lobbied heavily for the changes.

At issue is Universal Service Fund reform, which plans to divert an increasing share of the surcharge all telephone customers pay away from rural basic phone service and towards broadband expansion in rural America.

Paul Bunyan used their share of USF funding to scrap the company’s existing, antiquated copper-wire network in favor of fiber optics. Other phone companies have traditionally used the money to keep their existing networks running. Now the independent phone company says large phone companies like Verizon and AT&T have successfully changed the rules in their favor, and will now benefit from a larger share of those funds, ostensibly to expand broadband to their rural customers.

Bissonette (Courtesy: MPR)

But neither AT&T or Verizon have shown much interest in rural broadband upgrades. AT&T, which recently announced it concluded its U-verse rollout in larger cities, has also thrown up its hands about how to deal with the “rural broadband problem” and plans no substantial expansion of the company’s DSL service.

Verizon also announced it had largely completed the expansion of FiOS, a fiber to the home service. Verizon has also been discouraging customers from considering its DSL service by limiting it only to customers who also subscribe to landline phone service.

Verizon Wireless has introduced a wireless home broadband replacement that costs considerably more than traditional DSL, starting at $60 a month for up to 10GB of usage.

As a result of the funding changes, Paul Bunyan is reconsidering plans to expand its broadband, phone and television services to Kjenaas and about 4,000 other residents in rural Park Rapids and a township near Grand Rapids.

It may also have to cut workers.

“It’s kind of ironic,” Paul Bunyan’s Brian Bissonette tells Minnesota Public Radio. “The mantra of these changes is to create jobs. It’s killing jobs.”

Minnesota Public Radio explores how rural Minnesota broadband is being threatened by a telecom industry-influenced plan to divert funding to larger companies like AT&T and Verizon for rural broadband expansion those companies have no plans to deliver. (May 23, 2012) (4 minutes)
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