A sweeping deregulation measure sponsored by Verizon Communications would end the telephone company’s obligation to provide landline service and remove state-mandated customer quality of service standards in Massachusetts.

House Bill 2930, “An Act modernizing telephone regulation and encouraging economic growth,” introduced by Rep. Stephen L. DiNatale (D-Fitchburg) is succinct:

SECTION 1. Chapter 25C of the General Laws, as appearing in the 2010 Official Edition, is hereby amended by inserting after section 7 thereof the following sections.

Section 8. Notwithstanding any other general or special law to the contrary, the department shall have no jurisdiction, general supervision, regulation or control over wireless service, including mobile radio telephone service, or radio utilities.

Section 9. Notwithstanding any general or special law to the contrary, subject to the provisions of section 10 of this chapter, no provision of this chapter, Chapter 25 or Chapter 159, 8 and no regulation, order or settlement or portion thereof adopted pursuant to any such provision, shall apply to any telephone company (or a common carrier offering telephone service) in any municipality for which the company or carrier certifies to the Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation that there are at least two providers offering voice telephone service to retail residential customers in that municipality using any technology, including but not limited to wireless voice service and VoIP service.

Section 10. Nothing in sections 8 or 9 of this chapter shall be construed to affect or modify:
a. the authority of the attorney general to apply and enforce chapter 93A or other consumer protection laws of general applicability;
b. the department’s authority under sections 18B and 18H of Chapter 159, concerning enhanced 911 service, and under section 15E of Chapter 166, concerning telephone relay service;
c. the rights or obligations of any carrier under 47 U.S.C. § 251 or 47 U.S.C. § 252; or
d. the department’s authority to administer the federal Lifeline and Link-up programs or the Connect America Fund.

SECTION 2. Sections 11, 12, 12A, 13, 14 and 15 of Chapter 166 are hereby repealed.

The measure was discussed at a hearing this week before the Legislature’s Energy & Telecommunications Committee. Verizon argued its company is still regulated as if it was a monopoly, with reporting requirements and customer service mandates that do not apply to its competitors in the cable or wireless industry.

DiNatale

“We have to answer a customer’s call within x number of seconds,” said Verizon spokesman Phil Santoro. “If we don’t, we get penalized. No other company that provides phone service has to do that. They’re all regulations that were formed when we were a monopoly, and they haven’t been changed.”

Verizon lobbyist Joe Zukowski told the Boston Business Journal Verizon is required to respond to repair calls within a 24-hour window, something not required of its biggest competitor Comcast. Verizon has to report its annual finances and various customer metrics governing response times and outages to state regulators. Verizon also has to offer landline service anywhere in its service area across most of the state, while cable companies can pick the places they wish to serve.

DiNatale regularly supports Verizon’s legislative initiatives. In 2012, he proposed a bill to amend state law to remove the authority of the Department of Telecommunications and Cable to regulate the wireless industry, deferring instead to federal regulations that industry representatives said would level the playing field.

DiNatale suggested Massachusetts could be left behind if the legislature didn’t adopt the measure. Rep. Randy Hunt, a Sandwich Republican, asked if Massachusetts had missed out on any innovations in technology because of overregulation. Zukowski suggested a Massachusetts legislature hostile to business interests would make the company think twice about expanding its 4G LTE network in the state. By November, the bill was effectively buried in a legislative maneuver and by June 2013, Verizon announced it largely completed its 4G LTE upgrade, regardless of the bill.

DiNatale’s latest bill includes last year’s wireless oversight ban as well as forbidding the Department of Telecommunications and Cable from regulating Verizon in any part of the state where at least one provider of any kind offers competitive service.

Despite DiNatale’s attempt to ban state regulation of wireless service,  Sen. Karen Spilka (D-Ashland), argued at Tuesday’s hearing for (S 1617), “The Cellphone User’s Bill of Rights,” that would require clearly published prices and service policies, monitors the quality of cell service in the state, and limits all cell contracts to 12 months.

“Many people don’t have landline phones anymore. However, as wireless subscribership increases, so do complaints about the contracts and services,” Spilka told the committee.

Zukowski suggested that rural areas will still be covered by regulation where Verizon maintains a monopoly. But the legislation eliminates regulation from any part of the state where even one competitor promises to provide service. AT&T Mobility alone would give Verizon an effective way out of regulatory oversight, because AT&T claims it already provides solid service to the majority of the state.

AT&T Mobility claims its competing cell service is available across almost the entire state of Massachusetts. The areas boxed in red are the only significant parts of the state without claimed coverage by AT&T.

There are only about three dozen or so towns in the state with no cable voice service, and even fewer with significant sections that have no cell phone service, all in the sparsely populated rural central and western parts of the state.

Other key components of this and another bill Verizon is supporting this term:

• Verizon would end its commitment to provide universal service in the state. Under the terms of the bill, Verizon could also justify ceasing rural landline service and offer an alternative such as Voice Link, a wireless landline replacement not subject to state oversight;
• Verizon would not have to report finances and customer service metrics and would no longer have to meet mandated customer service standards;
• State authority to compel reliable E911 service without any charge to the calling party and mandates regarding service for the disabled are weakened or eliminated;
• Elimination of a requirement providing Verizon customers with 10 free directory assistance calls per month, unless the customer is certified as elderly or disabled;
• Impose clear terms that wireless service is off-limits to state regulators.

The bill is co-sponsored by: Rep. Stephen Kulik (D-Worthington), Sen. Anthony Petruccelli (D-East Boston), Rep. Kathi-Anne Reinstein (D-Revere), and Sen. Sal DiDomenico (D-Everett).

The “breakthrough” unlimited data deal with AT&T didn’t last long.

When Apple first introduced its AT&T 3G-equipped original iPad, both companies marketed it with an unlimited 3G wireless Internet plan that soon became unavailable for new buyers and left grandfathered customers enduring a speed throttle when AT&T decided you used their network too much.

Burned customers banded together and sued both Apple and AT&T for bait and switch unlimited broadband. The two companies have now decided to settle, and as well as a whopper payout for the attorneys who filed the class action case, original iPad owners are going to share the proceeds:

• Customers purchasing a 3G-ready iPad before June 7, 2010 will receive a $40 check from Apple, even if you still have a grandfathered unlimited data account.
• Customers purchasing a 3G-ready iPad before June 7, 2010 who never activated an AT&T unlimited tablet mobile data plan will get a $20 discount off AT&T’s current $50 a month data add-on for up to one year.

Customers complained the steep price premium they paid for a 3G-equipped iPad wasn’t worth Apple’s asking price once AT&T removed the unlimited data option that Steve Jobs called part of a breakthrough deal.

Customers will not receive any awards until after February of next year, when the settlement is expected to be approved.

If you thought waiting three days for a service call was too long, you haven’t talked with Tod Robberson, editorial writer for the Dallas Morning News. AT&T has scheduled his U-verse installation 23 years from now.

Robberson has been buried in AT&T promotional mailings pushing its U-verse fiber to the neighborhood service he was ready to sign up for two years ago, but wasn’t yet available in his neighborhood. Dozens of mailings arriving this summer indicated that finally changed and he was ready to see the back of Time Warner Cable:

I phoned one day after receiving my first notice. I signed up immediately for service. The friendly sales person told me because of high demand, she couldn’t set an installation date for sooner than two weeks. Whatever. Fine. We agreed on August 19, somewhere between 9 and 11 a.m. I couldn’t wait.

Then, on August 16, they called with bad news. They needed to delay the installation for another week. Big disappointment, but I could live with it, I thought.

A week later, they called again and said there was another delay. The lines in my area needed “conditioning.” Each week since then, I’ve received a call from an AT&T person telling me about the conditioning problem. I finally offered to get out my own bottle of conditioner and do it myself. They didn’t get the joke.

Finally, today, I escalated. I talked to Gilbert in Complaints. Gilbert the Problem Solver. He heard me out. I told Gilbert that AT&T had me at hello. I was just dying to get U-verse and was very frustrated that no one at AT&T would listen. I could swear he even giggled a little when I made the “bottle of conditioner” joke. Then he did some checking around and told me that, well, truth be told, I could be waiting another year before they got around to installing my service. That’s right, one year.

Turns out that Gilbert was optimistic. I went online today with AT&T just to make sure I didn’t misread the notice I got from AT&T. Did they really tell me that service was now available? Well, I couldn’t have signed up if it wasn’t. AT&T’s system is set up to block you if your neighborhood isn’t ready.

But now, the “due date” on my installation has changed. It reads: 12/31/2036.

Dallas is home to the headquarters of AT&T and was an early adopter of U-verse. But AT&T has won the right under state law to decide when and where it chooses to deploy the service, leaving a large number of Dallas residents waiting since its introduction in 2010.

For the foreseeable future, Robberson’s tree-infested, satellite-unfriendly neighborhood is stuck with one choice for pay television and broadband: Time Warner Cable.

*-Terms, conditions, and a whole lot more applies.

Austin residents are getting spoiled with promises of gigabit broadband — the first major city in the country offered a competitive choice of 1,000Mbps Internet providers — Google and AT&T.

But one of those claiming to offer a “100-percent fiber Internet broadband network that will deliver up to 1Gbps per second,” is already fudging on that commitment before activating its first fiber customer.

AT&T’s sudden interest in selling 1,000Mbps service came as a surprise to Austin residents that have been told for years their broadband service was fast enough as is. Grande Communications had been the choice for customers seeking the fastest speeds — they sell up to 110/5Mbps for $110 a month. Time Warner Cable still tops out at 50Mbps and AT&T’s U-verse, still not fully deployed in Texas, sold up to 24Mbps ‘screaming fast’ Max Turbo service as its top offering until recently, when AT&T began limited roll-out of up to 45Mbps service.

Mere hours after Google announced Austin as its next choice for Google Fiber, “me-too” AT&T was announcing it would build its own gigabit fiber to the home network in the same city. That was a complete 180 for AT&T, which has consistently argued that running fiber to the home was an unnecessary expense. While Verizon faced the wrath of Wall Street for its decision to launch FiOS — an all-fiber-network — analysts were complaining Verizon was spending too much while AT&T was spending considerably less on its fiber to the neighborhood U-verse system that keeps existing copper wire into the home.

Right from the beginning, AT&T has always accompanied certain terms and conditions for any fiber deployment — winning equal concessions that Google received from local officials with respect to pole attachment fees, zoning, permits, and other expenses. If those were not forthcoming, AT&T could walk away from its fiber commitment at any time.

On Monday, AT&T announced it had started deploying fiber for AT&T U-verse with GigaPower, with a plan to launch in December in neighborhoods with the highest number of votes to get the service. AT&T is taking names and numbers of interested customers seeking to show their interest in fiber service. No deposit or commitment is required to vote, but you will be placed on AT&T’s marketing mailing lists.

“Austin embodies innovation and social consciousness, and is the heart of a vibrant, ever-evolving tech culture and entrepreneurial spirit,” said Dave Nichols, president of AT&T Texas. “With our all-fiber U-verse services, we are building the foundation for a new wave of innovation for Austin’s consumers, businesses, and civic and educational institutions. It’s about engaging the full community and empowering the city and its people with all that technology can offer us. This investment will help attract new business and new jobs to Austin.”

Phillip Dampier

As long as those consumers, businesses, and jobs are within the first deployment zone for AT&T’s fiber network.

For the rest of this year and well into the next, that will be a very exclusive neighborhood.

AT&T’s press release claims it will “initially reach tens of thousands of customer locations throughout Austin and surrounding areas this year, with additional local expansion planned in 2014.”

The five-county Austin–Round Rock metropolitan area has a population of 1,834,303 residents. Assuming AT&T managed to offer fiber service to 100,000 residents — and that is a generous figure, that represents only 5.5% of Greater Austin. The old U-verse is still a work in progress in several Texas cities, so it could take years for AT&T to deploy fiber in Austin. Expect AT&T to start with the low-hanging fruit — multi-dwelling units such as apartments, condos, and other similar buildings, some that already have existing fiber connections in place.

AT&T may never get around to offering fiber to more rural locations in Austin’s suburbs: “There are many factors involved in stringing an advanced fiber network, so having your neighbors vote to be notified about U-verse with GigaPower is no guarantee we’ll get to your neighborhood first, but it does give us some idea of where we want to focus our efforts; and besides, things are always more fun when we work together.”

AT&T is already backing away from its commitment to offer gigabit service, at least initially.

“The December launch will initially feature symmetrical speeds of up to 300Mbps, […] with an upgrade to speeds up to 1 Gigabit per second when available in mid-2014, and at no extra cost,” AT&T writes in its press release.

Speaking of cost, nobody at AT&T is willing to give us one for the 1,000 300Mbps launch tier.

If AT&T is smart, it better set it lower than what Google is likely to charge, considering AT&T will initially only deliver less than 1/3rd of the promised gigabit speed.

While thinking about that, AT&T might also want to dump usage caps. The fastest U-verse tiers come with a 250GB usage allowance, which can really crimp a screaming fast fiber experience once your allowance runs out.

A website glitch by Verizon Wireless last weekend let customers with legacy unlimited data plans to upgrade to a new subsidized smartphone on a two-year contract and keep unlimited data.

This afternoon, Verizon Wireless representatives confirmed they will honor upgrades from customers that took advantage of the mistake, despite the fact Verizon’s CEO has gone out of his way to declare unlimited data service “unsustainable.”

Over the past weekend, there was a software issue involving some orders for customers seeking to upgrade their devices. A number of customers who were upgrading devices were able to maintain an unlimited monthly data feature while paying a subsidized price. Verizon Wireless will honor those orders that were approved this past weekend, allowing those customers to retain their unlimited plans for the duration of their contract and receive their new device. Verizon Wireless corrected this software issue today.  The company no longer offers unlimited data plans and customers who want to retain existing unlimited data plans, must pay full retail price for a replacement phone.

Verizon Wireless discontinued offering unlimited use data plans, but has allowed customers still on those plans to keep them indefinitely. Last year, Verizon Wireless amended its policy for grandfathered unlimited customers denying them access to subsidized, discounted devices unless they switched to a usage-based plan. A website error allowed unlimited customers to bypass a usual restriction requiring them to abandon their unlimited plan to complete the upgrade order. Dozens of customers reported this morning they had received their new phones with unlimited data still intact. With the glitch fixed, customers attempting to upgrade will once again need to give up unlimited data in return for a device discount.

Verizon Wireless CEO Lowell McAdam said last week offering unlimited data service was “unsustainable” as a matter of physics. McAdam said carriers still offering unlimited data will be overwhelmed by excessive customer use, running wireless networks “out of gas.”

Sprint countered it has plenty of “runway” to continue selling unlimited data service, and even offers a “lifetime guarantee” of unlimited service on its wireless network.

At least one Wall Street analyst agreed with Sprint.

“This Verizon comment simply makes no sense. When two different people look at the same thing you often get two completely different perspectives. That’s what is happening here. It does not mean either is right or wrong, just different,” said tech analyst Jeff Kagan. “Unlimited wireless data may not make sense for Verizon Wireless for a variety of reasons. Perhaps they want to have some control over how much wireless data is being used. Perhaps they want to increase their profitability. Whatever the reason, this is Verizon’s belief and they are not wrong, for Verizon. Sprint is a different story.”

Sprint’s chief financial officer Joe Euteneuer, speaking at a Goldman Sachs conference in New York on Thursday, said Sprint’s acquisition of 2.5GHz radio spectrum from Clearwire will give it a capacity edge once its 4G network build-out is done in mid-2014.

“We feel very good about our positioning having that spectrum . .. and our portfolio spectrum vs. the competition,” Euteneuer said. “So we’ll get leverage there.”

“Sprint’s unlimited plans are the right idea at the right time,” added Kagan. “They have plenty of capacity on the network. Sprint in fact has much more spectrum than Verizon. Sprint needs to hang on to their existing customer base and attract new users. If Sprint charged the same as Verizon or AT&T they would lose. So Sprint needs to attract attention. That’s what always happens in a market. The leaders and the followers take different marketing and positioning angles. And that’s exactly what is happening here.”