Public Knowledge recently wrote about a growing concern that 911 emergency services were having an alarming amount of difficulty locating callers who placed calls from indoors using mobile devices. This means that for many callers experiencing an emergency situation, help may not arrive on time.

Rumors or announcements of mergers often drop on Friday afternoons, especially around holidays. This time it’s the Wall Street Journal reporting that Sprint is considering a bid for T-Mobile.

I have some thoughts on this! Basically, the national wireless market is already too concentrated. We need more, not less competition.

Verizon wants to replace copper landlines destroyed by Hurricane Sandy with a new fixed wireless service called Voice Link. But should victims of natural disaster be guinea pigs when fundamental basic services are at stake? Especially when it means losing access to broadband?

Ever since Hurricane Sandy destroyed huge pieces of its landline network last October, Verizon made it clear it did not want to rebuild its traditional copper network. Most folks assumed that meant replacing damaged copper with fiber. While some consumers have grumbled about being upgraded to a more expensive service, no one doubts fiber to the home represents a step up – especially on the broadband side. 

But what about those communities where Verizon does not want to spend the money upgrading to FIOS? Turns out, rather than an upgrade to fiber, these communities will play guinea pig for Verizon’s new, cheaper, more limited wireless alternative called “Voice Link.”

We have all kinds of reality-challenged folks in Washington. We got those who believe that we need to go back to the gold-standard and abolish the Federal Reserve. We got those who think vaccinations cause learning autism. To this we can now add “the folks who think we can keep finding federal spectrum to auction forever.”

Today, Verizon Wireless announced its new pricing plans for mobile phones and data.  If you mostly use your phone for data, this is bad news.

Verizon’s New Pricing Plan