Wildfires can result when overloaded utility poles topple in California's Santa Ana winds.

The California Public Utilities Commission’s Consumer Protection and Safety Division is recommending $99 million in fines against the local power utility and several phone companies for overloading power poles with cables which toppled and started a major wildfire in Malibu Canyon in 2007.

Even worse, the PUC alleges, the power company lied to investigators and destroyed evidence to cover up the cause of the blaze, which burned more than a dozen structures to the ground and destroyed dozens of vehicles.

Named in addition to Southern California Edison are phone companies: Verizon Wireless, AT&T, Sprint, and NextC Networks of California. All are being blamed for loading up phone poles with excessive wiring for both traditional utility service and backhaul wired connections to serve area cell towers. The bulk of the proposed fine is likely to be lodged against Edison because of the evidence tampering allegations, but phone companies are also deemed liable.

At issue are the annual bouts of Santa Ana winds which can create gusts up to 80mph or higher. Most utility poles were designed to support a load of a few power cables, landline phone service, and cable television lines. But in many parts of canyon country, wireless phone companies rely heavily on utility poles to connect to their network of cell towers which are strategically located on ridges and mountains to serve populated valley regions below. While some cell phone companies now rely on fiber connections, many also still utilize a series of copper wire circuits to provide sufficient wireless capacity. In some cases, companies may hang several cables to meet bandwidth needs. The more cables, the more susceptible poles become to wind loads, which can literally snap poles in half or force them out of the ground in high wind gusts.

When electric lines topple, they can start fires that quickly grow out of control in remote areas.

Downed power lines are blamed for a number of wildfires in California, including the 2008 Sesnon fire in the San Fernando Valley. Fire investigators and local officials have pressured utility companies to mitigate the hazards from downed power lines by keeping excess cables and equipment off the poles.

Hans Laetz, a Malibu resident who has lived with what he calls “spindly-looking utility poles” for more than a decade was not surprised when life-threatening wildfires were blamed on downed lines.

“My family and my neighbors in Malibu are being placed at risk,” Laetz told the Los Angeles Times. “I drove under those poles on Malibu Canyon Road for 10 years, and I thought one of these days, one of those poles was going to fall. You could tell this was a disaster waiting to happen…. And then it happened.”

Edison denied the allegations it mislead investigators and called the proposed fine “excessive.”

AT&T admits it holds on to some customer data, including text message details, calling records, and billing statements for as long as seven years according to a new Justice Department document that raises privacy and security concerns.

“This disclosure reflects the importance of data minimization,” Greg Nojeim, senior counsel at the Center for Democracy and Technology in Washington, told Bloomberg News. “Some companies do a much better job of disposing of sensitive, personally identifiable information. Once such information is no longer needed for business-reasons, it shouldn’t be held onto because of the risks that it could be obtained by a hacker.”

Privacy advocates are also concerned the lengthy storage offers new opportunities for government intrusion into customer privacy, either for national security or law enforcement purposes.

Although every cell phone company maintains storage of customer and billing records, few keep the data for more than one year.  AT&T stores the data the longest, by far, and that bothers the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina:

AT&T/Cingular appears to keep all of its cell tower records since July 2008. How long do they plan to keep this data for? Are they just creating an infinite record of everywhere you’ve ever been with your cell phone? Do you remember where you were on September 28, 2008? If you have AT&T/Cingular, your phone company may know. And they might tell the cops.

But the company says it acts as a responsible steward of the information it warehouses.

AT&T gathers data to provide “the best customer experience possible” and uses “powerful encryption and other security safeguards to protect customer data,” according to the company’s privacy policy.

(Click to enlarge)

The ACLU chapter filed a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain the data seen above.  Once the ACLU won their request, the Justice Department publicly posted the information on their website.

In addition to basic billing and customer data, cell phone companies also record the specific cell towers used when making and receiving calls and the messages that travel across their networks, including where they originated and where they were sent.  The numbers called, call length, and the times of day when your phone is used the most were all recorded.  Some cell phone companies also use the data for marketing purposes.

Also in North Carolina, last week we shared the story of George Kontos, who single-handedly faced down AT&T, who overcharged his family for nearly two years’ of service.  After finally winning a refund of nearly $2,000, Kontos updates Stop the Cap! with news the North Carolina Attorney General’s office has taken an interest in the case and plans to launch a statewide investigation into AT&T’s billing practices.  If the state turns up problems, it’s only a matter of time before other states start their own investigations.

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The Attorney General of Wisconsin might find something to investigate in Wauwatosa — namely one local woman’s five-year fight with AT&T to maintain basic landline phone service.  WITI in Milwaukee shares the story of Darnelle Kaishian, who considers fighting AT&T her “full time job.”  It’s so bad, her friends now visit her in person, because her phone almost never works.  (2 minutes)

Comcast Ventures, the venture capital affiliate of Comcast Corporation today announced it has launched a new company — CTI Towers, Inc., which will own, operate, and develop telecommunications towers throughout the United States. CTI Towers’ is launching with a portfolio of approximately 800 towers that were previously owned and operated by Comcast Cable subsidiaries. Headquartered in Boston, CTI Towers will actively lease tower space to wireless operators and other tenants, creating additional tower capacity for rapidly evolving businesses and technologies across the U.S.

“Consumers are increasingly relying on their mobile devices and consuming high bandwidth applications, such as streaming video, requiring a next generation of wireless communications infrastructure,” said Dave Zilberman, Principal at Comcast Ventures. “Newly formed CTI Towers will work with mobile operators and other service providers to improve the quality of the wireless network experience to their customers by leveraging the extensive footprint of urban and suburban towers in CTI’s portfolio. With Tony Peduto’s significant experience managing and developing towers and his deep understanding of the tower business, CTI is well positioned to aggressively support the build-out of new wireless networks.”

CTI Towers will take its place among more than a dozen other multiple tower owners as 12th largest in the country.  Its management of 800 towers pales in comparison with Crown Castle, which owns more than 22,000 towers across the United States.

But Comcast’s cable infrastructure comes with the deal, and that could be very lucrative for the venture.  Cable companies are increasingly leasing space on their cable networks to provide backhaul connections between the cell tower itself and the mobile operator.  LTE and other 4G networks require bandwidth greater than traditional telephone company circuits.  While many towers increasingly rely on fiber connections, cable companies that have room to spare on their own networks can more than meet the needs of most cell tower operations.

Courtesy: Wireless Estimator

AT&T customers in western Colorado are furious at AT&T for suggesting expensive phone upgrades were required to get back cell phone service that actually went out because of a cell tower failure.

Stop the Cap! first reported this story earlier this week, when Grand Valley customers discovered their cell phone service (and 2G data services) suddenly stopped working last weekend.  Customers lined up inside and outside the doors of AT&T stores in the Grand Junction area to get an explanation for the service disruption, only to be told their 2G data service had been discontinued and they’ll need to buy new phones to get their service restored.

An undisclosed number of customers signed new two year contracts and upgraded to smartphones — which carry a considerably upgraded price to cover the mandatory data plan that accompanies them.

But now AT&T says a cell tower failure was responsible for customers losing access to voice calling, and any disruption to 2G service will be temporary until the company completes shifting that data service to a different frequency band.

Now customers are complaining they were defrauded by AT&T store employees who emphatically told them no cell service outage existed in the area.

“Is that fraud,” AT&T customer Bill Somerville asked KJCT-TV. “Are they taking advantage of people by not giving them the information they should have gotten?”

“They categorically lied about the status of the service and [forced] people into a new contract and new equipment,” said AT&T customer Jay Anderson.

“If that is customer care, that’s not the customer care I’d like to have,” added Somerville.

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KJCT-TV talked to more angry customers who feel AT&T mislead them into signing expensive new two year contracts for new phones when a tower outage actually was responsible for the disrupted service.  (3 minutes)