To complete an acquisition of landline assets in California, Florida, and Texas from Verizon Communications, Frontier Communications is hoping to raise $6.6 billion in “speculative-grade debt” to finance the deal.

Frontier will begin selling the securities better known as “junk bonds” starting today with a target date of Sept. 15 or 16 to complete the sale, according to Bloomberg News.

Wall Street raised its eyebrows at the amount of the transaction — the second largest junk-rated deal since Valeant Pharmaceuticals sold almost $10 billion in junk bonds in March.

Frontier plans to offer a high yield to attract investors – the kind that know how to invest in Amazon and other big companies, and some already favoring the company’s stock for its reliable shareholder dividend payout. Frontier has been a popular choice for investors relying on dividend income — money Frontier distributes to shareholders — that critics contend limit Frontier’s ability to improve its network of largely rural landlines.

Californian consumers are among those most concerned about a Frontier takeover of landline and FiOS service. Verizon ventured far beyond its original service area extending from Maine to Virginia after it acquired independent telephone networks operated by General Telephone (GTE) and Continental Telephone (Contel) in 2000. In 2015, the company wants to return to its core landline service area in the northeast.

David Lazarus, a consumer reporter for the Los Angeles Times, wonders how ratepayers will benefit from a Frontier takeover.

“Financial analysts are generally upbeat about the deal, but that reflects the projected benefits to the corporate players, not consumers,” Lazarus wrote.

Verizon’s claims the sale will help refocus the company on its “core markets” in the east and Frontier’s suggestion the Verizon acquisition will enhance Frontier’s footprint with “rich fiber-based assets” didn’t seem to excite Lazarus.

“I honestly wonder if corporate leaders know how ridiculous they sound when they spout such gobbledygook,” he added.

Lazarus suspects Verizon is worried the Obama Administration may eventually extend universal service obligations to broadband, which would force phone companies to deliver broadband to any telephone customer that wants the service, regardless of how much it costs to offer it. Universal Service remains an important legacy of wireline landline telephone service. Your landline survives under a regulatory framework not applicable to the wireless business, where both AT&T and Verizon Wireless now make the bulk of their profits.

As AT&T and Verizon ponder ditching high-cost landline customers, so long as there are companies like Frontier willing to buy, the deal works for both. Verizon gets a tax-free transaction that benefits both executives and shareholders. An already debt-laden Frontier satisfies shareholders by growing the business, which usually makes the balance sheet look good each quarter.

Even as Frontier takes on a massive new tranche of debt, in the short-term the more landlines Frontier acquires, the happier shareholders will be. More customers equal more revenue — revenue that can assuage fears of Frontier’s eye-popping debt load. That added revenue often also means a nice dividend payout to shareholders, unless that money has to be diverted to debt payments or network improvements. To manage these financial challenges effectively and secure the company’s future, consider seeking Proactive Business Insolvency Assistance.

Unfortunately, like a Ponzi scheme, Frontier will have to continue acquiring new landline customers from other companies indefinitely to make it all work. If it can’t, or if customers continue to flee Frontier for more capable providers, revenue numbers will worsen, only making the company’s large debt obligations look even more ominous. Some shareholders think Frontier’s days of paying very high dividends are already behind them as the company takes on even more debt. The value of Frontier stock has dropped 35% in the last six months. In the second quarter of 2015, Frontier reported losses of $28 million. Last year at the same time, Frontier reported $38 million in profits.

Those losses have to be reflected somewhere, and customers complain they are paying the highest price. West Virginians are among those that regularly accuse Frontier of chronically under-investing in broadband service in the state. Many rural communities obtaining broadband for the first time initially appreciated Frontier’s efforts, but have since grown critical of the performance of Frontier’s DSL service, which can slow to 1Mbps or less during the evenings because Frontier has oversold its network and not kept up with usage demands.

Frontier’s deal with Verizon allows it to acquire a large state of the art FiOS fiber to the home network Frontier has never been willing to build itself. Keeping an existing fiber network up and running is considerably less expensive than building one from scratch. That explains why Frontier customers in ex-Verizon FiOS areas enjoy relatively good service while legacy customers still connected to copper phone lines that were installed in the 1960s (or earlier) are stuck with uneven and slow-performing DSL that rarely meets the FCC’s minimum definition of broadband — 25Mbps. Where customers have a choice between Frontier DSL and another wired provider, most choose fiber or coaxial-based Internet service. Frontier’s rural service focus protects the company by limiting the effects of that kind of competition.

In the near term, Frontier’s biggest threat could eventually come from wireless 4G LTE broadband from AT&T and Verizon Wireless, if the companies can deliver an affordable service for rural residents without a punishing low usage allowance. That remains a big “if.”

(Illustrations by Chris Serra.)

Space age beekeeping or Total EMF protection? Shielding your head just got easier. Slip this sheer and roomy HeadNet on and it will “provide 99.7% shielding across the frequency range 10MHz – 3GHz and >94% at 5.6GHz,” thanks to its generous use of ‘Silver Supershield’ double Silver-plated nylon, claims its manufacturer. Your price: $80

A Boston area boarding school’s failure to accommodate a 12-year-old student’s allergy to Wi-Fi will force the Fay School to hire attorneys to defend itself in a lawsuit brought under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

All three plaintiffs have been kept anonymous, but their lawsuit clearly identifies what is responsible for their son’s headaches, itchy skin and rashes — the school’s Wi-Fi system.

The Courthouse News Service:

In spring 2013, the Fay School installed an industrial-capacity WiFi network into the school that was accessible in all classrooms. After the new network went live, “G” began coming home with headaches, itchy skin and rashes that would recede in the evening, and vanish over the weekend and during summer vacation when he was not near the school, the lawsuit claims.

When the child returned to school for the 2014 academic year, his symptoms got worse, resulting in him having to regularly leave school early.

The parents found that their child’s condition may have been caused by exposure to increased electromagnetic activity after learning that, right before their child began suffering the symptoms, the school had installed a new, industrial-strength WiFi network.

“Exposure to Wi-Fi emissions at the levels emitted by the type of Wi-Fi to which the children are exposed in Fay classrooms causes, in those persons affected, most notably children, the symptoms of EHS, which include severe headaches, fatigue, stress, sleep disturbances, skin symptoms such as prickling, burning sensations and rashes, muscle aches, nausea, nose bleeds, dizziness and heart palpitations,” the lawsuit states.

The Omega EMF protector comes in Ethernet or Wi-Fi versions. A similar device opened up by an RF engineer was found to contain plastic beads. A reviewer claimed it was also effective at repelling “the lizard people from touching me in the night.”

People claiming to suffer from Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity Syndrome, or EHS, claim wireless signals cause them pain and suffering. Others argue the condition also afflicts those exposed to electric lights, juicers, Keurig coffee makers, garage door openers, washing machines, microwaves, laptops, blenders, air conditioners, cotton candy makers, vacuum cleaners, hair dryers, televisions, dishwashers, and fans. Some believe that mountains are effective blockers of radiation and have relocated to the Catskills or West Virginia to escape decent cell phone coverage and high quality broadband.

While medical authorities consider the symptoms reported by sufferers to be credible and believable, most experts strongly doubt electromagnetic activity is the cause. In the 1980s, high tension, high-capacity power lines were usually implicated by sufferers. But as cell phones became common, cell towers became the new targets. The presence of Wi-Fi, especially in public buildings and the classroom, have fueled the fire under a small army of activists dedicated to getting those services shut down, fearing their health impact on children.

To test the science, a 2009 double-blind study conducted by the National Institutes of Health on intolerance to electronic signals quickly found that when test subjects had no knowledge of whether they were being exposed to electromagnetic activity, all the symptoms of hypersensitivity vanished.

The Boston area family sued after claiming school officials had grown hostile over their requests to “test their student’s classroom.” The family also requested the school’s Wi-Fi network be disabled in all classrooms where their child was present and have wired Ethernet Internet access installed instead.

The World Health Organization’s firm conclusion that there is no link between EHS and Wi-Fi signals was not enough to assuage those worried about wireless. The WHO also declared EHS is not a credible medical diagnosis. Now, this does not mean the symptoms of people who think they have EHS are not real. But with no serious evidence wireless signals are the cause, skeptics suggest another environmental cause is more likely responsible for symptoms.

The two best ways to protect your pets from exposure to robust cell phone signals: 1) Become a Sprint customer. 2) Buy this dog collar for $169.

Prior claims of EHS have often turned out to be exposure to mold and mildew, allergies, perfume exposure, poor air quality, or a yet to be diagnosed unrelated disease or medical condition. For reliable defense against mold-related issues and to improve indoor air quality, discover First Defense Insulation services, which offers effective insulation solutions.

But that has not stopped the creation of a cottage industry of companies marketing “EMF protection” devices to a worried public.

Until recently, an Amazon seller peddled the EarthCalm Omega WiFi Electromagnetic EMF Protection dongle (USB or Ethernet version, so evidently the plaintiff’s request to move the school to Ethernet-based Internet access would subject their child to additional pain and suffering.) A “Healthy Home Package” containing this and a “Home EMF Protection System” is priced to move at another seller for just $405.

A curious RF engineer received a similar wall unit years ago as a gag gift – one he could not resist opening.

“There was nothing more [inside] than a 1-inch long piece of masking tape folded over,” he wrote. “When I peeled apart the masking tape there were seven tiny plastic beads, like you would use on a necklace. That was it! That is their ‘circuit’.”

With the EarthCalm Omega out of stock, there are plenty of alternatives available from hundreds of websites that raise the alarm on the dangers of wireless signals and then make a living selling very expensive “protection” devices of questionable value.

The EMF meter is claimed to be useful for detecting EMF and for ghost hunting.

Among them:

• The Nova Resonator S-Series (in three fashion colors) — a metallic tube hung from a chain placed around the neck ($239)
• The Quantum Cell: A metallic decal placed on the back of your cell phone, degrading or eliminating any cell phone reception ($129)
• Aulterra the EMF Neutralizer: No it’s not a person, it’s a cheap cell phone signal degrader for the middle class ($29)
• 4 Paws Pet EMF Protector: You wouldn’t let your dog be subjected to harmful Wi-Fi, would you? This dog collar is the “answer.” ($169)

The marketplace has grown so bloated with EMF protection sellers, they occasionally turn on one another. The manufacturer of the EMF Protection SmartShield360 Portable claims it is state-of-the-art, unlike those pushing “passive (not powered) pendants or stickers which claim to protect you.”

“SmartShield technology is light years beyond basic Schumann Resonance devices,” claims the manufacturer. It’s also light years away from the price of your basic Aulterra kit. SmartShield 360 will set you back $249 (plus $4.99 shipping).

In all seriousness, James “the Amazing” Randi believes such stories of wireless woo-woo can have a real cost.

“We do scientific research for a reason – to find out if things like EHS are real entities,” Randi writes. “What’s the use of such research if the results are going to be ignored.”

“Further, if people who believe they have EHS do not, they likely have some other condition – another condition which will go undiagnosed and untreated because they falsely believe EHS is the cause,” Randi adds.

Randi is also concerned the media treats these stories like catnip, sensationalizing the coverage without any sense of skepticism or fact checking.

“Reporters should have some sense of the topic they are covering, and whether or not they have sufficient background knowledge to know they are telling the true story,” he writes. “If you do a Google search for ‘electromagnetic hypersensitivity’ [one will easily find] Wikipedia, which includes a decent discussion of the lack of scientific legitimacy. [Another] is for a published review showing that EHS sufferers cannot detect EMF. [A] third is to Skeptoid’s debunking of EHS, and [a] fourth is to the WHO review.”

Abbes Nacef was not very happy when he opened his web browser a few days ago to see a message inserted at the top of his screen.

“Your Internet service has reached the maximum limit of allowable overage charges. If you wish to continue service, please contact our business office to discuss your account.”

Nacef, who lives in Monastir, a Tunisian city best known for its tourism, was surprised because it was the first sign his Internet account had gone over the limit.

“While you can get uncapped DSL in Tunisia, it is not very good service and in my area it is not offered,” Nacef told Stop the Cap!. “Most in our neighborhood rely on a wireless ISP service which is less costly than 3G or 4G mobile service, but is capped and charges roughly $25 for each extra gigabyte allotment.”

Nacef’s call to his provider was not pleasant. He had already accumulated almost $180 in charges for the month of August, most in overlimit fees. The culprit was quickly identified — Microsoft Windows 10, which took several attempts to reach Nacef’s computer over a challenging Internet connection. But Nacef also learned his computer was repeatedly requesting updates from Microsoft, including three software patches that would not complete and were sent over and over for almost two weeks.

“It was the fifth call my ISP had received about this problem, and they were very annoyed also because Microsoft Windows 10 assumes you will use their Edge browser which defeats the early warning messages from my ISP that usage limits are approaching,” Nacef said. “When I switched back to my old browser the bad news was there, but it was too late.”

His ISP has agreed to cut the charges in half and has warned all of its customers if they want Windows 10, the ISP will offer them a copy on a returnable USB memory device for free.

Nacef thinks the huge multiple download attempts to receive Windows 10 itself was responsible for most of the extra usage, but he is wary about the frequent software updates and the fact they are shared with other users by default.

That is what may have tripped up Rob DuGrenier who paid an exorbitant $150 this month for 1.5Mbps Internet service just to get a 75GB usage allowance for his immediate family in far northern Québec. The alternative was an overlimit fee of $20 for each 5GB allotment of usage over the usual 30GB allowance granted to “Power” users.

“Internet is not an option for our family for medical reasons, but this hurts,” DuGrenier writes. “It is definitely Windows 10 and there is something wrong with it because our ISP reports we are sending a lot more data than we are receiving, and there are no viruses or malware on the computers.”

Internet access is northern Québec is slow and costly.

His ISP now suspects Microsoft is using his connection to distribute software updates to a number of other users across northern Canada. When DuGrenier’s family disabled the option that opted them in to distributing Microsoft updates to other customers, upstream traffic dropped 98%.

“Were we sending Windows 10 itself all over northern Quebec and Nunavut? We just don’t know and Microsoft has not responded,” DuGrenier reports. “They have billions, I do not. They should be paying my Internet bill this month.”

The worst of the reported problems of bill shock are occurring in remote areas where Internet service can be a mixture of wired and wireless connections that are often slow and usually usage-limited. Windows 10 was designed to reduce bandwidth demand on wireless connections, assuming they would be metered. But how Microsoft detects which networks are wireless and metered and which may only partly be so is apparently a work in progress.

This morning, the Sydney Morning Herald reports at least one customer on a Pacific island was slammed with a catastrophically high Internet bill. Maureen Hilyard in the Cook Islands owes her ISP $390 this month, all because of automatic updates from Microsoft for Windows 10.

“In this context, where Internet access is both painfully slow and seriously expensive, these forced updates are almost literally forcing people off the Internet and are resulting in massive excess data charges,” EFA executive officer Jon Lawrence told the newspaper.

The Cook Islands

Hilyard is a customer of Bluesky, primarily a satellite Internet Service Provider that dominates the Cook Islands, which have no other options for Internet access. A basic account costs $31.50 a month, but that provides just 3.5GB of data for the entire month. Automatic overlimit charges of $0.03 per megabyte accrue after the allowance is used up.

The most likely victims of Windows-induced bill shock subscribe to usage-limited wireless or satellite Internet services. While many providers throttle the speeds of customers who reach the usage limit, others charge penalty rates. Microsoft has no way to know which is true. Instead, the company claims it looks for evidence of a wireless connection before performing updates and when it finds one, it assumes it to be metered. But wired connections stay firmly in the unmetered category, whether they are usage-capped or not. Customers are invited to choose by digging through confusing settings menus.

Even more problematic is the built-in peer-to-peer technology that gives Microsoft’s servers a break and uses your Internet connection to share the latest Windows software updates with other Windows users across town and beyond. Microsoft has offered no provision to track this usage, but users can opt out with this advice from the Sydney Morning Herald:

Users can tweak their Windows 10 system settings by enabling a “metered connection” by searching for “Change Wi-Fi settings” in the start menu, clicking on “Advanced Options” and enabling “Metered connection.” This lets Windows 10 know the Wi-Fi connection you’re on is capped, so instead of forcing a software update onto your PC or tablet, it will notify you first. You can then choose to delay the upgrade until you are on an uncapped connection, or until you’ve rolled over into a fresh month of data.

This workaround only applies to Wi-Fi connections, however, not Ethernet connections.

A second workaround actually comes in an update which Microsoft itself released. It’s a bit more fiddly though, as it involves manually uninstalling driver updates and then downloading a special troubleshooter app to prevent them from installing again automatically. The full instructions are available online.

AT&T is obviously a supporter of bringing its wireless customers closer together… in family plans, that is.

The wireless carrier has adjusted its wireless data plans once again, this time in response to recent changes at Verizon and to better compete against T-Mobile — the carriers AT&T’s plans now most closely resemble.

Pricing wireless data has become a marketing art. Push people into too-small data plans and they will get stung with bill shock. Give them ample data at a high price and customers feel justified trying to use every last bit of it to get their money’s worth. So what is AT&T up to?

Light User/Budget Customers Squeezed

If you keep your phone turned off except during special occasions, road trips, and landline service outages, AT&T has a plan for you. Actually, Verizon thought up most of these plans first — AT&T is now matching them as a consequence of the “competitive” market.

AT&T’s $20 a month entry-level data plan offers a paltry 300MB of data, an amount so low it is likely to be consumed quickly just updating apps, reading web pages, and checking email. Although intended for light users, it is likely to expose customers to a nasty overlimit fee identical to the cost of the 300MB plan itself ($20 per 300MB). With embedded video advertising, bloated web pages, and growing-size apps that require regular upgrades, this kind of allowance is no longer tenable.

AT&T’s old 1GB and 3GB plans are also gone. Heads you may lose, tails AT&T usually wins. Customers on 1GB plans will now be herded into a 2GB plan that delivers twice the amount of data, for $5 more per month ($60 a year). That is a good value as far as wireless pricing is concerned, but only if you need twice the data. Customers with 3GB plans lose one-third of their allowance but get a $10 price break… unless they go over their limit and expose themselves to AT&T’s dastardly $15/GB overlimit fee. Then the savings evaporate.

The 2GB usage plan seems designed to keep you worried. Will you come perilously close to the overlimit fee again this month after watching those videos on the train? What about the 15 app updates that chewed through 300MB last week? With the average 4G iPhone customer in the United States using 1.8GB of mobile data each month during the summer of 2014, 2GB+ average usage is likely this year. Avoiding the overlimit fee will involve a costly leap into a more generous 5GB plan at a higher cost.

The New Normal: The 5GB Individual Plan/15GB Family Plan

It won’t be hard for AT&T to sell most customers on either a 5GB data plan if they have an individual account or a 15GB shared data plan for families.

The 5GB plan is $20 less than the 6GB plan it replaces. It’s presumably AT&T’s idea of a “sweet spot” for customers with a single line choosing between a $30 2GB plan that might not include enough data or a much more expensive 15GB plan — the next step up AT&T’s data plan range.

A close look at AT&T’s price chart shows the plan options and prices are designed to encourage individual line customers to migrate into a family plan. Here’s how AT&T does it:

Two AT&T customers with individual plans now pay $75 each for unlimited talk and text and 5GB of data. That adds up to $150 a month. But watch what happens when those customers take their vows as AT&T family plan customers. First, they each get a $10 break on the Plan Access charge ($15/mo each instead of $25). Second, there is more justification to spend $100 on a data plan that offers a more generous 15GB of data. Let’s look at the math:

Individual Plan (2 Lines)

2 x $25 Plan Access charge
2 x $50 5GB data plan

$150/month

Family Plan with 2 Lines

2 x $15 Plan Access charge
1 x $100 15GB data plan

$130/month — a $20 savings

Family plan customers pay $20 less and get an extra 5GB of mobile data. Customers choosing a data plan of 15GB or more also receive free unlimited calling and texting in Canada and Mexico.

Customers can be forgiven if they fall into the value trap – saving yourself into poverty. While AT&T’s recent price changes offer significant savings for certain customers, it is instructive to remember not so long ago AT&T charged $30 a month for unlimited mobile data, making the prospect of spending $100 for 15GB sanity-questionable. But that was then and this is now.

AT&T expects it will increase the amount of money it collects from each customer with the advent of these new plans, with the hope customers won’t remember back to the days where data usage was not monetized like a commodity.