How accurate is the map?

The biggest story you know nothing about is taking place at the Federal Communications Commission in Washington, where regulators are trying to figure out what to do with $185 million in leftover broadband expansion funds Internet Service Providers either could not qualify for or did not want. The FCC is on the verge of making a decision, one that will rely on broadband map data that service providers are now calling grossly inaccurate.

During the first phase of the Connect America program to fund broadband expansion in rural areas, the Commission offered up to $300 million to providers willing to wire consumers and businesses deemed too unprofitable to serve.

The rules largely favored phone companies, and although some including Frontier Communications gratefully accepted the funding to expand their DSL service, both of America’s largest phone companies expressed little interest. Many others, including CenturyLink and Windstream, petitioned to change the rules.

In the end, less than half of the available funding — $115 million — was actually spent, none in areas served by AT&T and Verizon.

The initial guidelines for participation were not exactly a high bar to cross. Under the program’s original rules, providers are required to deploy broadband within three years to certain locations that receive less than 768kbps downstream and 200kbps upstream (or no service at all). That “means test” set the bar far below the minimum speed providers can even call “broadband” under the FCC’s own current definition: 4/1Mbps.

Anyone served by 1-3Mbps DSL “broadband” was instantly ineligible because the FCC effectively deemed those speeds ‘good enough for now.’ The FCC argued it wanted to first target funds to those without any service at all, not those who had inadequate service.

Participating carriers receive compensation up to $775 per home to defray connection costs, bringing expenses closer to the Return on Investment-test that decides whether your rural home will have broadband service or not. Large phone companies complained the subsidy was not nearly enough and did not bother applying. Some others said even with the subsidy, it was still too unprofitable to wire rural homes in their service areas.

This not-so-auspicious start of the Connect America project has driven the FCC to propose modifying the rules to increase participation by disinterested providers. In an opaque “Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking,” the Commission proposes new rules that will “further accelerate the deployment of broadband facilities to consumers who lack access to robust broadband.”

Under the new guidelines, providers could be able to apply for funding if the areas they propose to serve are not already getting at least 4/1Mbps service. But in a surprising footnote, the FCC announced they will “use 3Mbps downstream and 768kbps upstream as a proxy for 4/1Mbps service.” In other words, the FCC is ignoring its own standard definition of broadband and settling for something less. That will leave customers waiting for something better than 3Mbps service up the creek, excluded from Connect America funding.

The U.S. Telecom Association is a lobbying group dominated by AT&T, Verizon and other phone companies.

The U.S. Telecom Association (USTA), which represents phone companies, was appalled, suggesting this footnote will block funding from approximately one million rural households that receive what most of us would consider substandard broadband.

“This is particularly true for rural areas served by DSL which in most cases has been engineered to provide an upstream speed of 768 Kbps,” the USTA wrote in comments to the FCC. “In such cases, significant and costly network upgrades would be necessary to provide broadband service meeting the 4/1Mbps  benchmark. Therefore, rather than relying on evidence of 3/768 service to exclude areas from eligibility, the Commission should use the next speed tier—6/1.5Mbps as a proxy for 4/1 service.”

Windstream, in its own comments, was reduced to educating the FCC about the basic technical facts of DSL:

One Mbps upload speeds are not necessarily available to all customers served by standard ADSL 2+ architecture over a 24 AWG copper pair of 12,000 feet. Rather, delivery of reliable upload speeds of 1 Mbps would require an upgrade, such as two-pair bonded ADSL 2+. Two-pair bonded ADSL2+ essentially doubles last mile deployment cost since the end user modem is two to three times the cost of a normal single pair modem, two cable pairs are used instead of one, and two ADSL2+ ports are required at the DSLAM. Moreover, to achieve 1 Mbps of customer payload throughput would require an upload connection speed of more than 1.2 Mbps, while an upload connection speed of 1 Mbps would produce an actual throughput of about 820 Kbps.

Even where the loop length from the DSLAM to the customer is less than 12,000 feet, a service provider can only deliver service meeting the 4/1 requirement—or more precisely, service at speeds of 6/1.5Mbps, the next-fastest standard service tier—if the DSLAM is ADSL2+ capable and fiber-fed.

Windstream provides a primer on DSL to the FCC.

The resource that will determine who qualifies for broadband funding and who does not is the National Broadband Map, which seeks to describe the broadband options available at hundreds of millions of American addresses. If the map shows an area unserved, it qualifies for funding. If the map shows there is no broadband inadequacy, no funding will be offered.

Unsurprisingly, providers of all kinds are hurrying in comments that declare often considerable inaccuracies in the FCC’s map. This is ironic since much of the collected data on which the map is based was voluntarily supplied by those providers.

In various submissions filed with the FCC, several ISPs suggest the national map is not to be trusted. Some complain the updated service areas they earlier submitted have never been incorporated into the map, others are discovering inaccuracies for the first time because they can make the difference between winning or not qualifying for rural broadband funding (either for themselves or a competitor). Among other complaints: providers are overestimating their coverage and fibbing about actual speeds, the map’s census tract granularity ends up declaring an area served if even one household manages to get DSL service while others cannot, and providers only serving business customers are treated as if they serve everyone.

Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant is asking the FCC to clean up the inaccuracies in the Mississippi portion of the National Broadband Map.

The state of Mississippi is the poster child for inaccuracies in the National Broadband Map. All that was required to disqualify most of the state from rural broadband funding was a boastful and inaccurate submission from one cable broadband reseller that claimed they served virtually all of Mississippi. Nobody bothered to question the veracity of their submission or verify it. Now the governor’s office is involved in efforts to scrub the inaccurate broadband map they consider more a fantasy than reality on the ground.

With the FCC preparing to launch the second phase of the Connect America Fund with up to $1.8 billion of available funding per year over five years, the money sharks are in the water circling one another.

Cable operators and wireless ISPs are asking the FCC not to hand out money to their competitors and phone companies are returning fire claiming those providers are lying about their coverage areas and have restrictions on service.

Companies ranging from Comcast to small, independent cable operators working with the American Cable Association are filing objections to the existing map. Wireless ISPs, often family-owned, are even more worried what will happen if phone companies like Windstream get federal dollars to upgrade their DSL service while unsubsidized WISPs are left to compete on their own.

In fact, the Competitive Carriers Association argues wireless providers are best positioned to make use of the unspent funds to deploy rural wireless broadband immediately.

“Wireless carriers offer the best opportunity to bring much needed broadband services to unserved and underserved areas, and it only makes sense for the FCC to consider proposals from wireless carriers,” said CCA president Steven K. Berry. “Many of our members are ready and willing to build out these networks, but depend on [financial] support in order to do so.  Wireless remains underfunded, and this could be an opportunity for the FCC to provide significant support for the services consumers want most.”

Not if the USTA and Windstream have anything to say about it. Both are on the attack in comments filed with the FCC:

WISPs: “Coverage should be independently verified before such areas are considered ineligible for Connect America funding. Like satellite providers, WISPs often have capacity caps and service quality issues, including unpredictable degradation from third-party interference from common devices such as cordless phones, garage door openers and microwave ovens when WISPs use unlicensed spectrum. The sustained speeds WISPs offer, particularly during busy times, also tend to be slower than those offered by [phone company broadband], and certainly slower than the 4Mbps downstream standard required of future recipients of federal funding.” — U.S. Telecom Association

The USTA also attacks WISPs for their usage caps, which they claim should disqualify them from serious consideration because their networks are technically and realistically inadequate to service today’s broadband consumer.

Cable “Competitors”: Windstream claims the bare existence of a cable operator alone should not disqualify the phone company from funding. Windstream suggests cable companies in its service areas may only serve one or two customers in a census tract, not really offer service at all, or provide sub-standard broadband that is so bad, nobody will do business with them.

Windstream proposes its own competition test: “In many areas […] with an alleged presence of an unsubsidized competitor, Windstream has received no requests in the past two years from customers for telephone number ports that are accompanied by cancellation of the customer’s Windstream broadband service. In other words, despite the alleged presence of a competitor providing service at speeds of at least 3/768 in areas where Windstream itself does not provide service exceeding 3/768, Windstream has not received a single request in two years in an entire area to port a phone number to a competitor and cancel the associated Windstream broadband service. Windstream submits that the lack of such porting requests throughout an entire area over a reasonable historical period is strong evidence that there is no competitor providing 3/768 or better service in that area.”

The independent phone company proposes that alleged unsubsidized competitors offer proof they are actually providing service before the FCC excludes an area from funding consideration.

“Here is our view.” — Phillip Dampier

Consumers are free to share their own views with the FCC on these matters by filing their own comments here. The Proceeding Number you will need is 10-90. It is generally easier to create a .PDF, standard .txt file, or Microsoft Word document and attach it to the submission form. Your comments will be publicly visible and posted to the FCC website.

Stop the Cap! feels the FCC should not renege on its commitment to fund rural providers that will guarantee customers will receive at least 4/1Mbps service. This barely adequate minimum will require phone companies to upgrade their facilities to next generation DSL technology that can support future speed upgrades. Compromising on lower speeds gives phone companies the option to deploy outdated early generation DSL that cannot be upgraded easily. In a positive development, many phone companies seem willing to commit to these upgrades with some financial assistance.

Funding should also be available to the provider that can deliver the best broadband service at the lowest cost. As urban and suburban customers have learned, that service often does not come from the phone company. Cable operators willing to commit to rural broadband upgrades should not be disqualified from funding, nor should community-owned providers who want to build their own networks.

We have also repeatedly complained about broadband mapping that lacks a formal mechanism to clearly verify coverage and speeds independent of the ISP supplying the data. Providers have an incentive to artificially boost or reduce coverage, particularly if it means the difference between qualifying for federal broadband expansion funding or disqualifying a competitor because the provider can falsely claim they already offer the service.

Our thanks to Cassandra Heyne, who dubbed the current situation an FCC ‘maptastrophe.’

The nation’s largest broadband stimulus grant recipient has turned a $126.3 million taxpayer funded broadband expansion program into an “orchestrated train wreck,” charged West Virginia Delegate Nancy Guthrie (D-Kanawha) on Monday.

West Virginia Homeland Security Director Jimmy Gianato defended his management of the project before a joint state House-Senate technology committee just learning it had been scaled back, dropping more than 400 sites that were slated to have fiber broadband upgrades Gianato claimed they already had.

Gianato defended the project, noting the original grant proposal was held up by the Commerce Secretary as one of the best-written proposals in the country.

Lawmakers did not criticize how the proposal was written. Instead, they questioned how the project was administered and how the money was spent.

“We’ve done everything the grant said we would do,” Gianato countered.

Many of the questions surrounded the decision to purchase 1,064 Cisco routers in 2010, which cost taxpayers $22,600 each, and were rejected by more than a few intended recipients. Several hundred routers ended up in storage, unused.

Still murky is why project managers only considered a single, expensive Cisco-brand router recommended by Verizon-employed consultants and ultimately purchased directly from Verizon.

Guthrie

Gianato claimed the federal government tied his hands requiring West Virginia’s broadband project be “shovel-ready.”

“All of the equipment was bought off contracts that had been competitively bid,” he told the conference.

But project managers and consultants can custom-tailor specifications that make it impossible for vendors to specify anything other than the Cisco router Verizon conveniently happened to sell.

Several members appeared unmoved by statements defending the decision to deploy identical, expensive routers to every West Virginia anchor institution, despite the fact they were designed to serve a minimum of 500 concurrent users and often ended up in rural community libraries with less than five public terminals.

Gale Given, the state’s chief technology officer, supported Gianato.

“The team determined that capacity should be provided to permit these community anchor institutions to deploy the applications that were required to meet future needs, not their current needs,” Given wrote in a letter to state lawmakers. “It would be a mistake to determine in advance that entities with low bandwidth requirements today will not have high bandwidth requirements in the future. To have shortchanged our smaller, more rural areas would have gone against the entire intent of the program.”

But now West Virginia taxpayers will be on the hook to cover the costs of making the new equipment compatible with existing equipment in certain state facilities.

At least 70 State Police detachments will begin using the once-rejected routers once the state spends $90,000 for new modules to update the agency’s voicemail system, which is not compatible with the routers.

State libraries also won a break from Frontier Communications, who agreed to supply fiber broadband service to 170 mostly small, rural libraries that could not afford the fiber upgrade. Frontier has agreed to supply the fiber service for the same price libraries pay for their existing service.

Critics of the broadband stimulus project question why the state spent money on unnecessary equipment and failed to identify anchor institutions that already had adequate service.

Another round of miscalculations by project managers overseeing a $126.3 million federal broadband stimulus grant nearing expiration will cost nearly half of West Virginia’s anchor institutions their promised fiber broadband connections.

As a consolation prize, state officials are promising those left out will receive new routers paid for by federal taxpayers whether the institutions want them or not.

As the deadline nears for West Virginia to finish spending their 2010 federal broadband grant, the state has been on a spending spree. Just last week, officials designated 175 new sites as “community anchor institutions” qualified for upgraded Internet service. But the Charleston Gazette found just seven of them will receive fiber broadband upgrades. The rest are getting expensive routers that the state has been trying to unload for nearly two years or new routers the state will spend additional grant funds to purchase.

Among the top vendors paid with grant funds: Frontier Communications, which provides connectivity, and Verizon Communications, the company that supplied the overpowered routers.

“Due to the amount of time required for environmental assessments and fiber builds, we determined that we would limit most of the additional sites to ‘router-only’ so that we could complete the build on time,” Diane Holley-Brown, a spokeswoman for the state Office of Technology told the newspaper.

The state defended its decision to scale back on fiber upgrades pointing out many of the institutions targeted already had the service. That left the state scurrying to find new projects for unspent grant funds.

The state’s latest award of Internet routers is separate from the earlier revelation West Virginia had over-purchased equipment that either proved unnecessary or duplicated equipment already installed.

Eric Eyre’s watchdog reporting in the Charleston Gazette over how the state’s $100+ million broadband grant has been spent has triggered a federal and state investigation.

In 2011, then Gov. Joe Manchin promised that federal broadband stimulus funding would provide fiber connectivity to 1,064 schools, libraries, public safety and health care institutions. When the project funding expires at the end of January, only 639 institutions will be slated to receive fiber upgrades.

Schools are among the hardest hit institutions. At least 60 percent of those promised upgraded Internet service will only receive a new router instead.

The project has remained under scrutiny since the Gazette revealed $24 million of the grant was spent on 1,064 Cisco routers that were never intended for use at many of the institutions targeted to receive them. Hundreds of the $20,000+ routers were stored, unused, in state buildings for at least two years waiting for a new home.

The U.S. Department of Commerce’s Inspector General and West Virginia Legislative Auditor are reviewing the router purchase.

When the grant expires West Virginia officials have made it clear those institutions left without fiber upgrades should not hold their breath waiting for the state to pick up where the federal government left off. The reason? The grant money is nearly gone and the state is not interested in financing additional upgrades.

While a lot of people would love to get Verizon to wire their communities for the company’s fiber optic network, at least three New York City multi-dwelling unit property owners have told Verizon to get lost, in some cases telling the company none of their tenants were interested in the top-rated fiber to the home network, even as they remain without phone service three months after Hurricane Sandy damaged Verizon’s facilities in the city.

Verizon Communications has now had to force the issue, filing an official complaint with the New York Public Service Commission to get owners to open their buildings for the fiber upgrade which will also restore telephone service. In one case, a property owner allegedly demanded financial compensation from Verizon to gain admittance to the building to begin repairs.

“I have been complaining about Verizon’s lack of FiOS work in my building for a long time and I had no idea Verizon was banging on the door all along only to be told by the boneheads that own my building that nobody was interested,” says Brad, a Stop the Cap! reader in Manhattan. “The morons at the property management company don’t have a clue or they want money from Verizon in return for the keys. Meanwhile, there is no dial tone and Verizon says they are at an impasse until the property owners, who obviously don’t care, let them in to do repairs.”

Indeed, Verizon sent certified letters to all of the affected property owners informing them, if they didn’t already know, that tenants in their buildings were without telecommunications service after Sandy wreaked havoc on Verizon’s infrastructure:

Locked out.

In addition, you should be aware that residents at your Property are currently out of service as a result of damage to Verizon’s network caused by Hurricane Sandy. Providing Verizon with access to install FiOS, a fiber-based network that is less vulnerable to weather-related damage, will allow Verizon to restore those residents’ services. Verizon intends to install FiOS facilities at your property to provide both cable television service as well as voice telephone services. If you do not provide Verizon with access to your Property, your residents will continue to remain without telephone service from Verizon. In addition, you should be aware that residents at nearby properties are currently out of service as a result of damage caused by Hurricane Sandy. Verizon needs access to your Property in order to bring FiOS – its fiber-based network that is less vulnerable to weather-related damage – to those nearby properties. If you do not provide Verizon with access to your Property, nearby properties will continue to remain out of service.

The excuses for denying entry have been documented by Verizon and made public in its filing with the Albany-based regulator:

• TF Cornerstone’s properties at 2 Gold Street and 201 Pearl Street are out of service even as property management informed Verizon that “the owners do not want FiOS in the building.”
• Rockrose Development’s buildings at 200 Water Street and 22 River Terrace are without service because property management tells Verizon “they are not interested in FiOS.”
• Verizon reports DSA Management required “compensation in exchange for allowing Verizon access” to its building at 11 Maiden Lane and also refused Verizon entry to 700 E. 9th Street because “the property management is having a problem with Verizon at another location.”

New York State law is very clear on the subject:

PUBLIC SERVICE LAW
§228. Landlord-tenant relationship
1. No landlord shall (a) interfere with the installation of cable television facilities upon his property or premises, except that a landlord may require: 
(1) that the installation of cable television facilities conform to such reasonable conditions are necessary to protect the safety, functioning and appearance of the premises, and the convenience and well being of other tenants; 
(2) that the cable television company or the tenant or a combination thereof bear the entire cost of the installation, operation or removal of such facilities; and
(3) that the cable television company agree to indemnify the landlord for any damage caused by the installation, operation or removal of such facilities.
(b) demand or accept payment from any tenant, in any form, in exchange for permitting cable television service on or within his property or premises, or from any cable television company in exchange therefore in excess of any amount which the Commission shall, by regulation, determine to be reasonable; or
(c) Discriminate in rental charges or otherwise, between tenants who receive cable television service and those who do not.
2. Rental agreements and leases executed prior to January first, nineteen hundred seventy-three may be enforced notwithstanding this section.
3. No cable television company may enter into any agreement with the owners, lessees or persons controlling or managing buildings served by a cable television company, or do or permit any act, that would have the effect, directly or indirectly of diminishing or interfering with existing rights of any tenant or other occupant of such building to use or avail himself of master or individual antenna equipment.

A new report critical of broadband providers’ implementation of usage-based billing and data caps finds providers are not using them to handle traffic congestion, instead implementing them to monetize broadband usage and protect pay television from online video competition.

The New America Foundation and the Open Technology Institute today released its report, “Capping the Nation’s Broadband Future?,” which takes a hard look at the increasingly common practice of limiting subscribers’ broadband usage.

The paper finds that provider arguments for limiting broadband traffic don’t make sense, but do earn more dollars from customers forced to upgrade their service to win a larger monthly usage allowance.

“Although traffic on U.S. broadband networks is increasing at a steady rate, the costs to provide broadband service are also declining, including the cost of Internet connectivity or IP transit as well as equipment and other operational costs,” the reports argues. “The result is that broadband is an incredibly profitable business, particularly for cable ISPs. Tiered pricing and data caps have also become a cash cow for the two largest mobile providers, Verizon and AT&T, who already were making impressive margins on their mobile data service before abandoning unlimited plans.”

The study finds providers are attempting to invent a climate of broadband scarcity, particularly on the nation’s wired networks, to defend the introduction of various forms of Internet Overcharging, including data caps, usage-based billing, and overlimit fees.

The New America Foundation is calling on policymakers to take a more active role in defending online innovation and controlling provider zeal to cap the nation’s broadband future.

The False Argument of Network Congestion

Providers’ tall tales.

The most common defense for usage caps providers put forward is that they curb “excessive use” and impact almost none of their customers. The report points out many of the providers implementing usage caps have left them largely unchanged, despite ongoing usage growth patterns. In 2008, the report notes Comcast measured the average monthly usage of each broadband customer at around 2.5GB. Just four years later that number has quadrupled to 8-10GB. While many customers rely on Comcast’s broadband service for basic e-mail and web browsing, the cable operator has begun to entice customers into utilizing its online video platform, which in certain cases can dramatically eat into a customer’s monthly usage allowance, which remained unchanged until earlier this year.

Many broadband providers are less generous than Comcast, some imposing caps as low as 5GB of usage per month.

“Data caps encourage a climate of scarcity in an increasingly data-driven world,” the report concludes. “Broadband appears to be one of few industries that seek to discourage their customers from consuming more of their product. Thus, even as the economic and engineering rationale for data caps on wireline broadband does not hold up given the declining costs of providing service and rapid technological advancement, the proliferation of data caps is increasing. The trend is driven in large part by a woefully uncompetitive market that allows the nation’s largest providers to generate enormous profits as well as protect legacy business models from new services and innovators.”

The argument that increased usage puts an undeniable burden on providers is untenable when one examines the financial reports of providers.

The study found, for example, Time Warner Cable’s latest 10-K report shows that connectivity costs as a percentage of revenue have decreased by half, from an already modest 1.20% in 2008 to a little over 0.60% in 2011.

In 2012, the company is again exploring ways to introduce usage caps on at least some of its customers, in return for a modest discount.

Upgrade? Spend Less and Charge Customers More Instead!

The report notes cable companies like Time Warner Cable and Comcast, whose networks were originally built for television services and have now been repurposed for broadband as well, are enjoying lucrative profits on
networks that have long been paid off. In fact, Time Warner Cable recently disclosed it earns more than 95 percent in gross margins on its broadband service, with additional rate increases for consumers likely in the near future. The company recently began charging its customers a modem rental fee as well.

Shammo

At these margins, the report concludes selling broadband service to “data hogs” who consume hundreds of gigabytes of traffic per month are still profitable for providers.

As financial reports disclose capital spending on network upgrades continue to fall, operators are instead content imposing usage limits on customers to control traffic growth and further monetize an already enormously-profitable business.

The nation’s largest phone companies also come in for criticism. The report quotes from Stop the Cap!’s coverage of Verizon’s chief financial officer openly admitting it is investing most of its available capital in the highly profitable wireless sector.

“It is clear that in shifting a greater percent of their overall capital expenditures to their wireless segments, Verizon and AT&T are more interested in expanding their dominance in the wireless industry than they are in upgrading DSL or expanding fiber connectivity to provide aggressive competition for residential broadband service,” the report found.

Verizon’s chief financial officer recently made the following statement at an investor relations event:

“The fact of the matter is wireline capital — and I won’t give the number but it’s pretty substantial — is being spent on the wireline side of the house to support wireless growth,” [Verizon CFO Fran Shammo] said. “So the IP backbone, the data transmission, fiber to the cell, that is all on the wireline books but it‖s all being built for the wireless company.”

Wall Street Educates Providers on How to Lead the Way With Data Caps

Although the majority of subscribers loathe usage restrictions on their already-expensive broadband accounts, a vocal group on Wall Street strongly favors them, and routinely browbeats providers on the issue.

Helping educate cable companies how usage caps can protect against cord cutting and further monetize broadband.

The report’s authors discovered some Wall Street banks even invest time and money developing presentations advocating usage caps and consumption billing to protect video revenue. A 2011 Credit Suisse presentation outlined ways usage-based billing can protect cable operators’ video revenues:

“…over the longer term, consumption based billing could reduce the attractiveness of over the top video options (e.g., Netflix and Hulu), as the economic attractiveness of such over the top options could be partially offset by a [broadband] bill that is higher, due to [broadband] overage charges that would be driven by large amounts of data being streamed via a customer’s [broadband] connection.”

Yet most cable operators vehemently deny usage caps and consumption billing are designed to decrease usage or protect video revenue. Credit Suisse and other Wall Street banks and analysts say otherwise, and express little concern over network congestion.

The report finds compelling evidence that data caps have effectively stopped new competitors and online innovation already, noting a Sony executive stated that the company was putting the development of its own online video service on hold, citing Comcast’s monthly usage cap.

The Wireless Cap Shell Game: Caps Protect Scarce Airwaves While Companies Promote More Usage, For a Price

The report also found suggestions of a forthcoming wireless traffic tsunami are greatly exaggerated. AT&T and Verizon Wireless have issued repeated alarmist rhetoric claiming that wireless data’s exponential growth is threatening to overwhelm available network capacity.

But both carriers recently changed pricing models to encourage consumers to bring more devices to their networks, along with suggestions customers upgrade to higher allowance plans to handle the additional traffic generated by those devices. In fact, both AT&T and Verizon Wireless see profitable futures in forthcoming “machine to machine” wireless traffic that will allow cars, appliances and medical devices to communicate over their respective mobile networks. AT&T’s security and home automation system also relies on its own wireless network, offering customers remote access to their homes, chewing up wireless bandwidth as they go.

Despite suggestions from both providers their new wireless data plans would save customers money, it has brought overall increases in the average revenue earned from each subscriber instead.