It’s Cell Company Customer Crackdown-month for AT&T and Verizon Wireless as the two carriers increasingly engage in aggressive “management” of their wireless data networks.  Days after AT&T announced it would throw customers off legacy unlimited data plans if caught using “unofficial” tethering applications, Verizon has reportedly locked out customers from accessing web pages over jailbreak apps like MyWi, redirecting requests to a Verizon Wireless $20 Mobile Hotspot offer instead.

Mobiledia reports Verizon now requires users have a hotspot-capable data plan if they want to tether data from their smartphones to other devices.  At regular prices, those plans start at $20 for 2GB of usage, with a $10/GB overlimit fee.  Certain LTE/4G customers have fared better, being offered unlimited tethering for $30 a month — an option not available to 3G phone owners.

The Federal Communications Commission’s Net Neutrality policy exempted wireless providers from observing its core principles, giving carriers carte blanche to block websites and third party applications from their networks, and Verizon has put the green light to good use.

AT&T has favored direct punitive measures against customers who don’t respond to their demands to upgrade by auto-enrolling customers in $45 tethering plans or threatening legacy customers with the loss of their unlimited data plan.

Some media reports — including those from Mobiledia — have declared third party tethering applications “illegal,” which is inaccurate.  While carriers may not like these applications and declare use of them contrary to their respective acceptable use policies, they do not violate any laws.

Verizon employees rally in New York. (Photo: Gary Schoichet)

More than 45,000 Verizon landline workers are on strike this morning after union workers overwhelmingly rejected a proposed contract from Verizon Communications that could result in as much as $20,000 in reduced benefits per employee, per year.

Workers employed by Verizon East, which serves the company’s northeastern and mid-Atlantic regions from Massachusetts to Virginia, left their jobs as their contract with the company expired over the weekend.  Two unions — the Communications Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, are pitting the dispute as part of a corporate war on the middle class.

Verizon has been demanding serious concessions from union workers in negotiations for a new contract agreement.  But employees are expressing serious concern over draconian salary and benefit concessions that could drastically reduce their pay and benefits package.  According to William Huber, president of IBEW Local 827:

• Verizon is seeking to tie pay increases to company-defined performance reviews;
• Employees would pay significant sums towards health care premiums;
• Pensions would be frozen at the end of 2011;
• Sickness and death benefits would be eliminated;
• Disability benefits would be slashed from 52 to 26 weeks and authorized “sick time” curtailed.

Verizon officials claim the benefit and pay concessions are part of the reality of today’s landline telephone business, which has been in decline for several years.

“We need to reach a contract that addresses economic realities,” said Lee Gierczynski, a Verizon spokesman. “The wireline business is constantly in decline. In order for Verizon to compete, Verizon and the unions need to make some difficult decisions.”

That contention is seriously disputed by the two unions and employees.  The CWA called Verizon one of the most profitable companies in the U.S., noting the company earned $19.5 billion in profits in the last four years and paid over $258 million in compensation to just five top executives.

“So tell me, where is their loss?” said Dino Cantillo, a facilities technician and 17-year employee. Cantillo told the Star-Ledger that Verizon’s CEO, Ivan Seidenberg, earned more than $18 million in total compensation in 2010 – roughly $49,000 every day.

“It takes these guys a year to make that,” said Cantillo, pointing at the two dozen or so protesters who picketed in Howell, N.J.

“They are trying to get rid of the working class,” said Bill Gebhart, a lineman who has worked for Verizon for 15 years. “They are totally annihilating it.”

The unions are especially upset Verizon has been aggressively trying to contract work out of the region, hiring workers offshore in Mexico, the Philippines, and other countries to perform tasks formerly done by regional employees.  The unions also point to significant corporate welfare Verizon received recently — a $1.3 billion federal tax rebate paid for by taxpayers.

“These negotiations are all about good jobs,” said CWA District 1 Vice President Chris Shelton. “Companies like Verizon should be investing in rebuilding the American economy, not contributing to the destruction of good, middle-class jobs.”

Verizon appears to be in no hurry to negotiate, cancelling several bargaining sessions last weekend.

During the last strike by Verizon employees in 2000, requests for repair service, installation, and other construction work languished for weeks, so it is very likely consumers with phone or Internet service problems or new order requests will face growing delays the longer the strike lasts.  Union officials plan to move against company plans to reassign managers and workers from other regions with strike protests and what one union official said would be a “blizzard of paperwork.”

Union workers also suggest the quality of repairs and installations done by those pressed into service with little experience may be below standard.

The CWA recommended that union workers and supporters retaliate against Verizon by canceling their phone, Internet, and cell phone service.  That could be an expensive proposition, particularly for wireless customers who would certainly face the prospect of early termination fees.

[flv width=”640″ height=”500″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Verizon Strike 8-8-11.flv[/flv]

Visible strike actions by Verizon workers have served as catnip for local reporters, who are extensively covering the strike up and down the eastern seaboard.  Stop the Cap! has assembled coverage from stations all across the region. (28 minutes)

Verizon's 20' Monolith (Courtesy: Macro/micro Brooklyn)

Verizon Communications has found a way to outdo AT&T’s enormous and unsightly “lawn refrigerators.”  They have installed 20 foot fiberglass poles in the middle of historic neighborhoods in Flatbush, Brooklyn on top of which the phone company plans to mount boxes containing equipment to support its FiOS fiber to the home service.

The enormous polygonal poles went up suddenly without advance warning, and neighbors left their homes to gaze up at the mysterious new addition to the Victorian-era community.

“The neighbors started gathering around it like it was the monolith in ‘2001,’ ” Rev. Jeanne Person, told the New York Times.

Nobody seemed to know who installed the poles, or more importantly why.

It turns out they are Verizon’s answer to AT&T’s enormous and unsightly 4-6 foot tall metal cabinets that the latter has been installing on street corners and in front of homes throughout U-verse service areas.

John J. Bonomo, Verizon’s director of media relations, told the Times the poles provide an interface between underground cables and above-ground wires that thread through backyards.  Bonomo recognized the way AT&T does it attracts vandals and graffiti.  Verizon’s solution tries to hide the unsightly boxes in the canopy of neighborhood trees, to varying degrees of success.  It also prevents anyone other than Spiderman from stealing equipment inside.

Besides, Bonomo says, the company got all of the necessary permits from the Department of Transportation.  Well, almost all of the necessary permits.

They forgot the Landmarks Preservation Commission, which regulates the look and feel of protected, historic neighborhoods — like Flatbush.  Install 20-foot plastic poles without a permit at your peril.

A spokesperson for the Commission says they hope to reach a resolution with Verizon soon.

It’s not that neighbors are ungrateful that Verizon is extending FiOS into Brooklyn, where it will provide real competition to Cablevision.  Many applaud the fiber service and look forward to signing up.  They just don’t believe randomly placed 20′ poles are the way to do it.

“First we wanted to know what it was,” Rev. Person said. “Then when we figured out what it was, we wanted to get rid of it. What does landmarking mean if it doesn’t protect us?”

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WCBS NY Verizon 20 Pole 6-7-11.mp4[/flv]

Brooklyn residents complained to WCBS-TV about the 20 foot unwelcome additions to their neighborhoods.  (2 minutes)

Sprint’s 4G experience has been nothing to write home about for a number of their customers, who are increasingly disabling the service to save on battery life.

Speed tests of Sprint’s 4G WiMAX experience show increasingly unimpressive results, as the network grows exponentially more crowded with customers trying to capitalize on the higher speeds 4G is supposed to deliver.  The result?  BTIG Research in April found, after exhaustive testing, the average Sprint 4G customer was now getting around 1/1Mbps service from a network that promised to deliver speeds many times that.

This isn't even a contest. (Source: BTIG Research)

Now an increasing number of customers are simply switching the 4G service off completely to extend battery life.

Doug Mahoney, a contributing editor for TechZone360, says he has about given up on WiMAX:

WiMAX tends to stay turned off so I run 3G and there’s no big differences in the convenience of reading email or using simple apps like Twitter and Foursquare.  With more public places starting to offer free WiFi, the case for WiMAX — or LTE — on a smart phone starts to grow weaker between the extra cost and the battery life issue.

Mahoney complains Sprint’s 4G network is simply not robust enough to support consistent speeds and access.  In suburban Washington, he compares Sprint’s 4G coverage to an open air tree, with spotty service scattered across the region.  As a result, his 4G phone spends a lot of time desperately-seeking-signal — a process that accelerates battery depletion.

Given Sprint’s WiMAX “tax” of an additional $10 a month for the service, Mahoney isn’t so certain he’d pay it again on a future Sprint phone.

Are the same speed reductions in store on Verizon’s currently-lightning-fast LTE 4G network few customers use right now?  Perhaps, but Verizon’s brand may force the company to make sure coverage is much stronger than what Sprint customers currently tolerate:

LTE has the same power consumption issues as WiMAX. I suspect Verizon will have better, more ubiquitous LTE coverage just due to the characteristics of the 700 MHz spectrum and physics involved, so I should have faster broadband available in more places rather than the abstract green tree coverage map.

The Federal Communications Commission today released MEASURING BROADBAND AMERICA, the first nationwide performance study of residential wireline broadband service in the United States.  The study examined service offerings from 13 of the largest wireline broadband providers using automated, direct measurements of broadband performance delivered to the homes of thousands of volunteers during March 2011.

Among the key findings:

Providers are being more honest about their advertised speeds: Actual speeds are moving closer to the speeds promised by those providers.  Back in 2009, the FCC found a greater disparity between advertised and delivered speeds.  But the Commission also found that certain providers are more likely to deliver than others, and certain broadband technologies are simply more reliable and consistent.

Fiber-to-the-Home service was the runaway winner, consistently delivering even better speeds than advertised (114%).  Cable broadband delivered 93% of advertised speeds, while DSL only managed to deliver 82 percent of what providers promise.  Fiber broadband speeds are consistent, with just a 0.4 percent decline in speeds during peak usage periods.

Cable companies are still overselling their networks.  The FCC found during peak usage periods (7-11pm), 7.3 percent of cable-based services suffered from speed decreases — generally a sign a provider has piled too many customers onto an overburdened network.  One clear clue of overselling: the FCC found upload speeds largely unaffected.

DSL has capacity and speed issues.  DSL also experienced speed drops, with 5.5 percent of customers witnessing significant speed deterioration, which could come from an overshared D-SLAM, where multiple DSL customers connect with equipment that relays their traffic back to the central office, or from insufficient connectivity to the Internet backbone.

Some providers are much better than others.  The FCC found some remarkable variability in the performance of different ISPs.  Let’s break several down:

• Verizon’s FiOS was the clear winner among the major providers tested, winning top performance marks across the board.  Few providers came close;
• Comcast had the most consistently reliable speeds among cable broadband providers.  Cox beat them at times, but only during hours when few customers were using their network;
• AT&T U-verse was competitive with most cable broadband packages, but is already being outclassed by cable companies offering DOCSIS 3-based premium speed tiers;
• Cablevision has a seriously oversold broadband network.  Their results were disastrous, scoring the worst of all providers for consistent service during peak usage periods.  Their performance was simply unacceptable, incapable of delivering barely more than half of promised speeds during the 10pm-12am window.
• It was strictly middle-of-the-road performance for Time Warner Cable, Insight, and CenturyLink.  They aren’t bad, but they could be better.
• Mediacom continued its tradition of being a mediocre cable provider, delivering consistently below-average results for their customers during peak usage periods.  They are not performing necessary upgrades to keep up with user demand.
• Most major DSL providers — AT&T, Frontier, and Qwest — promise little and deliver as much.  Their ho-hum advertised speeds combined with unimpressive scores for time of day performance variability should make all of these the consumers’ last choice for broadband service if other options are available.

Some conclusions the FCC wants consumers to ponder:

1. For basic web-browsing and Voice-Over-IP, any provider should be adequate.  Shop on price. Consumers should not overspend for faster tiers of service they will simply not benefit from all that much.  Web pages loaded at similar speeds regardless of the speed tier chosen.
2. Video streaming benefits from consistent speeds and network reliability.  Fiber and cable broadband usually deliver faster speeds that can ensure reliable high quality video streaming.  DSL may or may not be able to keep up with our HD video future.
3. Temporary speed-boost technology provided by some cable operators is a useful gimmick.  It can help render web pages and complete small file downloads faster.  It can’t beat fiber’s consistently faster speeds, but can deliver a noticeable improvement over DSL.

More than 78,000 consumers volunteered to participate in the study and a total of approximately 9,000 consumers were selected as potential participants and were supplied with specially configured routers. The data in the report is based on a statistically selected subset of those consumers—approximately 6,800 individuals—and the measurements taken in their homes during March 2011. The participants in the volunteer consumer panel were recruited with the goal of covering ISPs within the U.S. across all broadband technologies, although only results from three major technologies—DSL, cable, and fiber-to-the-home—are reflected in the report.