A British physicist has developed a technology that could one day deliver your wireless broadband connection over any ordinary household lamp equipped with a “light emitting diode” (LED) light bulb.

Professor Harald Haas from Edinburgh University in the United Kingdom says he has developed a super-efficient, super-fast wireless broadband transmission system that uses light instead of radio waves.

Dubbed Light Fidelity, D-Light, or “Li-Fi” for short, Haas demonstrated his invention using an ordinary table lamp that successfully transmitted data at speeds exceeding 10Mbps using light waves from LED light bulbs to a computer located below the lamp.

To prove that the light bulb was the source of the data stream, he periodically blocked the beam of light, causing the connection to drop.

Haas says using light waves for data transmissions could revolutionize wireless communications and end the spectrum shortage plaguing today’s wireless industry.

“The way we transmit wireless data is inefficient electromagnetic waves, in particular radio waves which are limited, they are sparse, they are expensive and only have a certain range,” Professor Haas said. “It is this limitation which does not cope with wireless data, and we are running out of efficiency.”

Haas notes 95 percent of the energy used to transmit electromagnetic waves is wasted through heat dissipation.

Haas added that during today’s spectrum crunch, opening up light waves for wireless telecommunications would increase the amount of available spectrum by at least 10,000 percent, potentially transforming how we think about wireless communications technology.

“Light is part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Wouldn’t it be great to use it for wireless communications?”

Haas believes as we begin to replace energy inefficient traditional light bulbs for LED bulbs, which are becoming increasingly affordable, using them to piggyback data transmissions of all kinds could make staying “in range” of a wireless signal as simple as flicking on a light switch.

“For me the applications of it are beyond imagination,” Haas said.  “All we need to do is to fit a small microchip to every potential illumination device and this would combine illumination and data transmission, and this could solve the problems facing us in wireless communication.”

[flv width=”512″ height=”308″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Harald Haas Demos Light-Fi.mp4[/flv]

What if every light bulb in the world could also transmit data? At TEDGlobal, Harald Haas demonstrates, for the first time, a device that could do exactly that.  (13 minutes)

Verizon Wireless is expected to enter the Alaskan mobile market sometime in 2013-2014, according to incumbent competitors, who expect Verizon’s largest impact will be to bleed AT&T of customers.

Alaska’s two primary local providers — Alaska Communications, Inc. (ACS) and General Communications, Inc. (GCI), are telling shareholders to relax because they don’t expect to see Big Red in the Alaskan market for at least 2-3 years.  Both companies reported net losses for the quarter, and GCI lost 2,400 subscribers recently when more than 4,000 soldiers at Fort Wainwright in Fairbanks were deployed to Afghanistan.

Both ACS and GCI have been using the current poor economic climate and their respective stockpiles of cash-on-hand to retire debt or reissue long-term-debt at more favorable low interest rates.  Both companies are also hurrying to outdo each other’s 4G wireless network deployments before Verizon Wireless shows up, making use of spectrum it acquired last August to enter the Alaskan market.  Government rules require Verizon to sign-on its new network by June 13, 2013.  But Verizon admits it will take up to five years after that to completely build a new network from scratch.

Right now, Verizon Wireless customers taking their phones to Alaska roam on ACS’ network, for which the company is compensated with an increasing amount of extra revenue.  ACS boosted earnings in part on that roaming revenue, even as it lost more of its own customers.  When Verizon switches on its own network, that roaming revenue will rapidly decline, but ACS executives reassured shareholders their knowledge and experience of construction seasons in Alaska guarantee Verizon won’t be able to get its network together until 2013 at the earliest.

But when Verizon opens their doors, Ron Duncan, CEO of GCI expects a hard fight on his hands.

“We recognize ultimately they’ll be a significant competitor, although I see AT&T share more at risk because Verizon’s main claim to fame when they get to Alaska is going to be devices. We’ll still outpace them on coverage. We’ll continue to be the only ones with statewide coverage,” Duncan said. “People who want to buy the coverage buy from us today; people who want devices buy from AT&T because AT&T gets much better devices than we do.”

Just months after Verizon announced they were headed north, both ACS and GCI accelerated plans to roll out respective “4G” networks for wireless customers, although each company is deploying different standards.

GCI

GCI’s cell phone network is a combination of some of its own infrastructure, the acquisition of Alaska Digitel, and a resale agreement to use parts of AT&T Wireless’ coverage it acquired from Dobson Communications Systems.  In and around Fairbanks, Anchorage, Glennallen, Valdez, Prudhoe Bay, Wasilla, and Kenai, GCI offers CDMA service.  In those communities and many other rural regions in western Alaska, GCI relies on AT&T Alascom GSM networks.  GCI pitches its CDMA network’s 3G wireless data capabilities, which offer faster wireless data speeds, if you can get coverage.  For wider coverage in Alaska’s smaller communities, GCI markets GSM phones, which currently only offer 2G EDGE/GPRS data speeds.  If you use a cell phone mostly for voice calls, the wider coverage afforded by GCI’s GSM network is a popular choice.  But if you want faster data, CDMA 3G data speeds are required.

Eventually, GCI’s 4G network may help deliver coverage and faster speeds in both urban and rural areas, particularly as GCI plans to invest up to $100 million to construct more of its own network, instead of relying on resale agreements and acquisitions.

GCI has chosen HSPA+ for 4G service on the GSM network, and will introduce the service in Anchorage later this month.  That’s the same standard used by AT&T and T-Mobile in some areas.  It’s not as fast as LTE service from Verizon Wireless, but is much cheaper to deploy because cell sites need not be linked with fiber optic cables — an expensive proposition.

ACS

Alaska Communications has a large 3G CDMA network in Alaska all its own.  Its coverage is primarily in eastern Alaska adjacent to major cities like Anchorage, Juneau, and Fairbanks, and where it does provide 3G data coverage, the company claims it extends further out than GCI.  ACS doesn’t offer much coverage in small villages and communities in western Alaska, however.

ACS expects to skip incremental upgrades and launch its own 4G LTE service in the future.  It may help the company regain its second place standing, lost to GCI last year, and protect it from Verizon Wireless poaching its customers.

While wireless providers currently treat Wi-Fi as a friendly way to offload wireless data traffic from their 3G and 4G networks, the wireless industry is starting to ponder whether they can also earn additional profits from regulating your use of it.

Dean Bubley has written a white paper for the wireless industry exploring Wi-Fi use by smartphone owners, and ways the industry can potentially cash in on it.

“It is becoming increasingly clear that Wi-Fi access will be a strategic part of mobile operators’ future network plans,” Bubley writes. “There are multiple use cases, ranging from offloading congested cells, through to reducing overseas roaming costs and innovative in-venue services.”

Bubley’s paper explores the recent history of some cell phone providers aggressively trying to offload traffic from their congested 3G networks to more-grounded Wi-Fi networks.

Among the most intent:

• AT&T, which acquired Wayport, a major Wireless ISP, and is placing Wi-Fi hotspots at various venues and in high traffic tourist areas in major cities and wants to seamlessly switch Apple iPhone users to Wi-Fi, where available, whenever possible;
• PCCW in Hong Kong;
• KT in the Republic of Korea, which has moved as much as 67 percent of its data traffic to Wi-Fi;
• KDDI in Japan, which is planning to deploy as many as 100,000 Wi-Fi Hotspots across the country.

America's most aggressive data offloader is pushing more and more customers to using their Wi-Fi Hotspots.

Bubley says the congestion some carriers experience isn’t necessarily from users downloading too much or watching too many online shows.  Instead, it comes from “signalling congestion,” caused when a smartphone’s applications demand repeated attention from the carrier’s network.  An application that requires regular, but short IP traffic connections, can pose a bigger problem than a user simply downloading a file.  Moving this traffic to Wi-Fi can be a real resource-saver for wireless carriers.

Bubley notes many wireless companies would like to charge third-party developers fees to allow them access to each provider’s “app store.”  Applications that consume a lot of resources could be charged more by providers (or banned altogether), while those that “behave well” could theoretically be charged a lower fee.  The only thing preventing this type of a “two-sided business model,” charging both developers and consumers for the applications that work on smartphones, are Net Neutrality policies (or the threat of them) in many countries.

Instead, Bubley suggests, carriers should be more open and helpful with third party developers to assist them in developing more efficient applications on a voluntary basis.

Bubley also ponders future business strategies for Wi-Fi.  He explores the next generation of Wi-Fi networks that allow users to establish automatic connections to the best possible signal without ponderous log-in screens, and new clients that can intelligently search out and connect to approved networks without user intervention.  That means data traffic could theoretically be shifted to any authenticated or preferred Wi-Fi network without users having to mess with the phone’s settings.  At the same time, that same technology could be used to keep customers off of free, third party Wi-Fi networks, in favor of networks operators run themselves.

Policy controls are a major focus of Bubley’s paper.  While he advocates for customer-friendly use of such controls, sophisticated network management tools can also be used to make a fortune for wireless providers who want to nickle and dime customers to death with usage fees, or open up new markets pitching Wi-Fi networks to new customers.

Bubley

For example, a wireless carrier could sell a retail store ready-to-run Wi-Fi that pushes customers to a well-controlled, store-run network while customers shop — a network that forbids access to competitors or online merchants, in an effort to curtail browsing for items while comparing prices (or worse ordering) online from a competitor.

Customers could also face smartphones programmed to connect automatically to a Wi-Fi network, while excluding access to others while a “preferred” network is in range.  Wireless carriers could develop the same Internet Overcharging schemes for Wi-Fi use that they have rolled out for 3G and 4G wireless network access.  Also available: speed throttles for “non-preferred” applications, speed controls for less-valued ‘heavy users,’ and establishment of extra-fee “roaming charges” for using a non-preferred Wi-Fi network.

Bubley warns carriers not to go too far.

“[We] believe that operators need to internalize the concept of ‘WiFiNeutrality’ – actively blocking or impeding the user’s choice of hotspot or private Wi-Fi is likely to be as divisive and controversial as blocking particular Internet services,” Bubley writes.

In a blog entry, Bubley expands on this concept:

I’m increasingly convinced that mobile device / computing users will need sophisticated WiFi connection management tools in the near future. Specifically, ones that allow them to choose between multiple possible accesses in any given location, based on a variety of parameters. I’m also doubtful that anyone will want to allow a specific service provider’s software to take control and choose for them – at least not always.

We may see the emergence of “WiFi Neutrality” as an issue, if particular WiFi accesses start to be either blocked or “policy-managed” aggressively.

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/The Future of Wi-Fi.flv[/flv]

Edgar Figueroa, chief executive officer of The Wi-Fi Alliance, speaks about the future of Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi technology has matured dramatically since its introduction more than a decade ago and today we find Wi-Fi in a wide variety of applications, devices and environments.  (3 minutes)

The AT&T Document Dump

On Friday, the tech-wireless media was in a frenzy over news one of AT&T’s law firms accidentally posted an un-censored copy of “highly confidential information” regarding its merger proposal with T-Mobile on the Federal Communications Commission website.  Although nobody seems to have a complete copy of the notorious filing to share (it was quickly pulled down after Wireless Week — an industry trade publication — blew the whistle), it turns out if you are willing to plow through AT&T’s periodic publicly-available document dumps, you don’t really need “top secret” information to realize how AT&T is trying to sucker America into accepting its competition-busting merger deal with T-Mobile USA.

What AT&T is Telling the FCC’s Lawyers But Hiding from You

As part of the approval process, the FCC sent AT&T a significant homework assignment, demanding answers to some detailed questions about the justification for the merger, how AT&T intends to use both its existing and newly-acquired wireless spectrum from both Qualcomm and, presumably, T-Mobile, and what specific plans the company has to expand its next generation wireless data network to rural America.

Last week, we learned from the unredacted filing that AT&T will pay $39 billion for T-Mobile to expand a 4G network that AT&T refused to spend $3.8 billion dollars to build themselves.  You read that right.  AT&T says it can expand its own 4G network to an additional 55 million people for just under $4 billion, or buy T-Mobile for nearly $40 billion to accomplish the same thing.

And what exactly does AT&T get from T-Mobile?  A largely urban network running a 4G network that goes nowhere near the 55 million largely rural Americans AT&T claims it intends to serve if the merger wins approval.

So scratch AT&T’s claim that the acquisition of T-Mobile’s network will do anything directly for the rural Americans T-Mobile never directly served.

AT&T’s biggest selling point is that its acquisition of T-Mobile will allow it to reach “97 percent of America” with its improved 4G network:

Because of the spectrum gains and the overall economic benefits resulting from the transaction, senior management made a business judgment that the merger with T-Mobile USA allowed AT&T to expand its LTE build-out to 97 percent of the population. These economic benefits include incremental reductions in cost due to the addition of T-Mobile USA resources, greater scale economies, such as higher volume discounts on handsets and equipment, a larger customer base, and the expectation of a higher take-rate for its LTE service. In addition, the transaction will enable AT&T to re-purpose its existing capital budget allocated to spectrum acquisitions to be allocated for other uses. Overall, the scale and scope of the larger combined wireless business will permit the additional capital investment to be spread over a larger revenue base than would be the case absent the merger.

But the unredacted, “highly confidential” part of the same document exposes important facts AT&T didn’t want the public to know:

“AT&T senior management concluded that, unless AT&T could find a way to expand its LTE footprint on a significantly more cost-effective basis, an LTE deployment to 80 percent of the U.S. population was the most that could be justified,” wrote AT&T counsel Richard Rosen.

In other words, by collecting T-Mobile customers’ monthly payments, AT&T can utilize that additional revenue, earned mostly from T-Mobile’s urban customer base, and use it to pay for rural cell sites the company itself won’t spend the money to upgrade to achieve that 97 percent coverage.

You can read between the lines of AT&T’s public statements and come to the same conclusion Rosen made confidentially, but it helps when the company’s own lawyer says it out loud.

Karl Bode from Broadband Reports thinks there is something familiar about that 97 percent figure.  It just so happens to be Verizon’s existing 3G coverage area.  Verizon pointed to their more robust 3G coverage in a major ad campaign that began just prior to the Christmas shopping season in 2009.  It did enough damage to bring AT&T to court in an effort to stop the ads, and reacquainted America with Luke Wilson, who threw postcards on a floor map touting AT&T’s more robust, but considerably less speedy, last-generation EDGE data network.

Verizon completed their expansive 3G network without the benefit of a merger and is in the process of building their 4G LTE network on their own as well — capable of eventually reaching the majority of Americans without taking out the fourth largest wireless carrier in the country.  AT&T, on the other hand, spent its time in court and handing Wilson more postcards to throw  instead of investing appropriately in its network over the last three years.

AT&T’s Document Dump: More than 1 Million Documents Bury FCC and Justice Lawyers

Another important revelation that doesn’t require the accidental disclosure of redacted data is the fact AT&T is burying government lawyers at both the FCC and Department of Justice in virtual paper.  The company admits to sending at least 1.2 million documents to Justice alone.  Reviewing AT&T’s filings with the FCC exposes the use of the old legal trick of burying your opponents in paper, hoping they will miss important documents that could call into question the veracity of the company’s arguments.

With the FCC, AT&T’s lawyers love to use appendices and attachments as virtual dumping grounds, adding copies of virtually any company document that contain “key words” or “search terms” in response to the Commission’s questions.

Take this Q&A exchange:

FCC Question: Provide all plans, analyses, and reports discussing: (a) spectrum requirements for all band segments; (b) the average data transmission speeds that the Company expects customers will be able to obtain; (c) actual and forecasted traffic and busy hour analyses, (d) total data tonnage; (e) capacity utilization rate; (f) vertically integrated operations; or (g) other technical or engineering factors required to attain any available cost savings or other efficiencies necessary to compete profitably in the sale or provision of any relevant product or any relevant service.

AT&T’s Answer: To respond to this request, AT&T conducted key word searches of custodian files as detailed in the tables appended as Exhibit A. Documents responsive to this request are included in AT&T’s production.

It’s the equivalent of putting the phrase “data transmission speeds” into a search engine and then attaching every document that appears in the results and calling it “your answer,” relevant or not.

AT&T used the same approach in answering the FCC’s questions about how the merger would specifically bring improved 4G service to areas without service today, what impact the merger will have on roaming agreements and wholesale access to the combined AT&T/T-Mobile network, and even in response to a basic question about plans for targeting particular competitors, customers, or customer segments after the merger.

Reality: AT&T Doesn’t Care About T-Mobile’s Network

So what else does AT&T win from a nearly $40 billion investment in T-Mobile?  While the leak of confidential information continues to be largely protected by a trade industry publication that has not released it publicly in full, anyone versed in telecommunications can easily find plenty in AT&T’s public documents.

The most important point is that AT&T admits, publicly,  it has not determined exactly what it intends to do with T-Mobile’s most important asset — its network:

• “AT&T, however, will not be in a position to make any final determinations until it is able to obtain more detailed information about T-Mobile USA’s operations, which will occur later in the acquisition process.”
• “AT&T has not yet begun detailed integration planning efforts.”

Would you spend $40 billion to buy a cellular service provider and not have the first clue what you would do with it?

But it gets even sillier.  AT&T doesn’t even know, several months after the merger was announced, exactly where T-Mobile’s cell towers are and what kind of backhaul connectivity they have:

AT&T has not yet begun detailed integration planning and its knowledge of T-Mobile USA’s operations is necessarily limited at this early stage. The actual process of determining which specific T-Mobile USA sites to integrate and which to decommission will require substantially more data from T-Mobile USA regarding its network as well as a more thorough engineering analysis of each area’s characteristics and capacity needs, which could change by the time the Transaction closes. Consequently, AT&T has not yet determined the exact number or location of T-Mobile USA towers or other locations used for transmission of signals that will be integrated into the combined company’s network to increase network density.

Because AT&T has not yet begun detailed integration planning and its knowledge of T-Mobile USA’s operation is necessarily limited at this early stage, AT&T does not have documents regarding the integration of the two companies’ switching facilities and backhaul.

These facts have made it impossible for AT&T to be responsive to specific questions from the FCC about the impact of acquiring and integrating T-Mobile’s operations into AT&T’s.  That left the company answering the Commission’s questions with statements like this:

Q. Provide all plans, analyses, and reports discussing any possible modification by the Merged Company of the terms, including prices, for providing backhaul for unaffiliated mobile wireless service providers to new or existing towers.

A. AT&T has not yet begun detailed integration planning, and its knowledge of T-Mobile USA’s operations is necessarily preliminary at this early stage. Any consideration regarding potential modification of terms and pricing for backhaul has not yet occurred. Thus, AT&T does not have any documents responsive to this request.

Good to know… or not know.

So if AT&T isn’t dwelling on the details of T-Mobile’s network, what do they expect to obtain from its purchase?

Here are AT&T’s “assumptions.”  That’s right, AT&T isn’t actually promising to do any of this.  It just “assumes” it will based on earlier planning — the same kind of planning that was supposed to deliver 4G upgrades without T-Mobile in the equation, until company executives changed their minds:

• Utilize the parties’ combined scale, spectrum, and other resources to extend AT&T’s deployment of LTE services to over 97% of the U.S. population, extending service to an additional 55 million Americans;
• Integrate AT&T’s and T-Mobile USA’s wireless networks, including:

1. Integrate T-Mobile USA cell sites into the AT&T wireless network, resulting in a more robust network grid;
2. Combine AT&T’s and T-Mobile USA’s GSM networks, eliminate redundant GSM control channels and maximize utilization efficiencies;
3. Combine AT&T’s and T-Mobile USA’s GSM spectrum holdings, resulting in channel pooling efficiencies and improved coverage;
4. Optimize usage of the parties’ combined spectrum holdings and deploy additional spectrum to support more spectrally efficient network technologies; and
5. Decommission redundant cell sites and reuse radios and other equipment from decommissioned sites to enhance network efficiency and performance.

• Make AT&T rate plans available to T-Mobile USA customers, while preserving rate plans for T-Mobile USA consumers who wish to maintain their existing plan of choice;
• Make AT&T services, smartphones, and other devices available to current T-Mobile USA customers;
• Integrate retail outlets, dealers, and marketing efforts under the AT&T brand;
• Integrate billing, customer care, and other support services;
• Integrate certain functional units, including, but not limited to human resources, general & administrative, information technology, finance, procurement, and legal.
• Achieve savings in network infrastructure investment and network and customer equipment purchases; and
• Achieve efficiencies in interconnection and transport costs.

During AT&T’s periodic communications with shareholders, the company has spent most of its time talking about cost savings made possible from closing redundant retail outlets, integrating networks, and the always-vague savings from job redundancies (read that major layoffs).  In fact, AT&T has said they will save up to $10 billion dollars in infrastructure expenses with the merger.  At the same time, its public relations efforts promise the company will spend a veritable fortune — up to $8 billion, improving AT&T’s own network.

You can be certain to the uninitiated, eight billion dollars sounds like a lot of money.  It’s a dollar amount that is sure to razzle-dazzle plenty of people.  That is, until you realize during the same period of time, T-Mobile itself would have been spending up to $18 billion of its own money upgrading its network.  Eighteen billion minus eight billion equals the aforementioned $10 billion — the savings AT&T will realize from continuing to under-spend on both its network and T-Mobile’s.

More Fun Facts: AT&T Cares More About Counting Your Usage Than Measuring Network Capacity & Utilization

Wading through AT&T’s filings has revealed another important fact pertinent to Stop the Cap! readers: AT&T obsesses about measuring your wireless data usage but doesn’t have much of a clue about how much network capacity it has at different cell sites, nor the utilization rates at those sites.  No wonder AT&T drops calls.  If the company isn’t carefully measuring network utilization at a granular level, it can’t hope to find overcongested sites that badly need upgrades to stop the problem of dropped calls and slow speed data:

AT&T does not maintain in the ordinary course of business a nationwide list of all CMAs where its individual network is underutilized. With regard to the areas where AT&T’s and T-Mobile USA’s networks may be underutilized relative to each other, AT&T does not have this information on a CMA by CMA basis, nor does AT&T have engineering data that would provide this granular information for T-Mobile USA.

Money - Better Earned Than Spent

However, when the opportunity to engage in highly-profitable Internet Overcharging exists, measuring customer usage takes a high priority, as we learn from AT&T in response to another question from the FCC:

The .csv file in Exhibit 19-1 contains current (as of March 11, 2011) data usage for each UMTS site (by USID) measured in kilobytes, during the monthly busy hour, and separately for the uplink and the downlink. The .csv file in Exhibit 19-2 contains current (as of March 11, 2011) data usage for each GSM site, measured in Erlangs, combined for the uplink and downlink, for the monthly busy hour. At the Commission’s request, AT&T also provides an estimate of GSM data usage in terms of Kilobytes, using a formula that converts Erlangs to Kilobytes. ll Both exhibits identify the CMA associated with each site. The .xlsx file in Exhibit 19-3 contains usage projections that are currently used by the network engineers for each of AT&T’s 27 regional clusters in the ordinary course of business.

AT&T doesn’t lose any money when it drops your call from an overcongested cell site (unless you grow weary enough of it to cancel service), but can lose plenty if it doesn’t measure customer data usage in hopes of limiting customer use or charging them an overlimit fee when they don’t.

AT&T’s Mother-of-all-Disclaimers: AT&T Has Not Verified It Has Produced All Requested Documents

The most flippant part of AT&T’s document dump is the revelation that despite the million plus documents thrown at two government agencies, AT&T isn’t willing to affirm it actually produced copies of the relevant documents the government wants as part of the review process.  In a host of disclaimers and AT&T’s own descriptions of how it defines the meaning of the government requests, the company notes:

Pursuant to discussions with the Commission staff, AT&T is submitting its Response consistent with the following qualifications:

• Custodian files were searched covering the period from January 1, 2009 through March 21, 2011, except for certain custodians, whose files were searched through early May, 2011.
• AT&T has not verified that it has produced “all other documents referred to in the document or attachments,” pursuant to instruction 4.
• AT&T has not searched backup disks and tapes for documents.

Nothing to slip through scrutiny there, right?

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.