‘These maps are bogus’: U.S. lawmakers tear into telecom execs over spotty rural coverage

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By Brian Fung        February 14

Members of Congress are fed up with the state of cellphone coverage in the United States, and on Wednesday, they weren’t afraid to lodge their complaints personally — with the leaders of some of the country’s biggest wireless networks.

As Sprint and T-Mobile went to Capitol Hill to defend their $26 billion proposed merger, lawmakers buttonholed T-Mobile’s chief executive, John Legere, and Sprint’s executive chairman, Marcelo Claure, on the frustrating inability to get a cell signal in many parts of the country, particularly in rural areas.

Waving a coverage map of his state in the middle of a congressional hearing, Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) said that despite flashy promises to build a dazzling 5G network, wireless carriers can scarcely manage to serve Vermont with regular 4G LTE.

“In a lot of Vermont, we have no-G,” said Welch. “These maps are bogus.”

When Claure tried to shift the blame to AT&T and Verizon, saying Sprint’s network often relies on those companies’ infrastructure in many areas, Welch interrupted.

“These are no good! These are phony maps!” he bellowed.

Welch wasn’t alone in taking the carriers to task. Rep. Tom O’Halleran (D-Ariz.) complained that when he returns home to his district, “Half the time that map says I should be covered. Half the time I’m not, by anybody.”

Read more from the Washington Post HERE

Analyst Maps Verizon 5G in Sacramento, Finds ‘Pretty Sparse’ Coverage

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By Mike Dano, 2/4/2019

For eight full days spread across December and January, from dawn until dusk, Earl Lum of EJL Wireless Research drove around Sacramento looking for Verizon’s 5G.

“By the end of it, I got pretty good at geomapping,” he said.

It was no small task. In traversing the city, Lum had to travel through a few “dodgy” neighborhoods, got chased by a dog, and had other adventures. “I wasn’t happy with that dog,” he deadpanned.

To find the company’s network in the city, Lum looked up the street addresses serviced by Verizon’s 5G Home service and then drove around until he spotted the cell sites that provide service to those addresses.

The results of Lum’s work are significant — and not inspiring. Verizon is currently using the network to sell stationary, in-home broadband services — $70 per month for speeds of 300 Mbit/s and up — in a challenge to wired Internet providers like Charter and Comcast. Verizon has said it plans to expand that effort into more cities at some point later this year, and will also launch mobile 5G services sometime this year. (See Verizon Confirms Mobile 5G in ‘Early’ 2019.)

So what does Verizon’s initial 5G effort in Sacramento (one of its four 5G Home cities) look like? Below are three observations Lum made while surveying what he estimated were 99% of Verizon’s 5GTF cell sites across Sacramento (the analyst is selling a complete report of his work on his website).

Read more from Light Reading HERE

NEW TECHNOLOGY ALLOWS FIRST RESPONDERS TO PINPOINT CELLPHONE CALLERS

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ANDREW WEEKS    February 5, 2019
 

JEROME, Idaho (KLIX) – County law officers are now able to receive fast and accurate locations of cellphone callers that dial 911.

The technology, called Rapid SOS, works on iPhones with iOS and Android phones 4.0 and up. It is important to first responders so they know where to locate emergency callers.

Formerly when a 911 call was made, dispatchers would see the address of the tower from which the cellphone was transmitting. Afterward, the dispatcher would retransmit the call that would reveal the general location of the cellphone, which wasn’t always accurate.

RapidSOS CEO Michael Martin said the communications technology is being provided to the Southern Idaho Regional Communications Center (SIRCOMM) for use in the several counties the dispatch center covers.

“We are thrilled to provide the communications officers for Jerome, Gooding, Lincoln, and Twin Falls counties with the information they need to get citizens help quickly in an emergency,” he said in a statement.

SIRCIOMM Director Lindsey Hope said her facility is always looking for new ways to improve and that she is excited about using the technology.

“RapidSOS is helping to transform the life-saving platform we operate on a daily basis,” she said.

Article source HERE

 

Hundreds of Bounty Hunters Had Access to AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint Customer Location Data for Years

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Documents show that bail bond companies used a secret phone tracking service to make tens of thousands of location requests.

In January, Motherboard revealed that AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint were selling their customers’ real-time location data, which trickled down through a complex network of companies until eventually ending up in the hands of at least one bounty hunter. Motherboard was also able to purchase the real-time location of a T-Mobile phone on the black market from a bounty hunter source for $300. In response, telecom companies said that this abuse was a fringe case.

In reality, it was far from an isolated incident.

Around 250 bounty hunters and related businesses had access to AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint customer location data, with one bail bond firm using the phone location service more than 18,000 times, and others using it thousands or tens of thousands of times, according to internal documents obtained by Motherboard from a company called CerCareOne, a now-defunct location data seller that operated until 2017. The documents list not only the companies that had access to the data, but specific phone numbers that were pinged by those companies.

In some cases, the data sold is more sensitive than that offered by the service used by Motherboard last month, which estimated a location based on the cell phone towers that a phone connected to. CerCareOne sold cell phone tower data, but also sold highly sensitive and accurate GPS data to bounty hunters; an unprecedented move that means users could locate someone so accurately so as to see where they are inside a building. This company operated in near-total secrecy for over 5 years by making its customers agree to “keep the existence of CerCareOne.com confidential,” according to a terms of use document obtained by Motherboard.

Read more from Motherboard HERE

New technology should dramatically reduce cellphone scam and robocalls

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By: Steve Sbraccia

RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) There’s new hope in this new year that fewer scam or robo-calls will bother people thanks to new technology and blocking efforts by service providers who are being pushed by the FCC to make changes.

In March, Verizon says it’ll be providing its customers with a free app that will help filter out scam and robo-calls.

It will join T-Mobile and AT&T who also offer various forms of free filters aimed at reducing the annoying calls.

Robo-calls from telemarketers and scam calls are inundating mobile phones.

Many of the scam calls originate from overseas using technology that clones or spoofs legit numbers to make it look like the call is coming from someone you know.

It’s getting worse, according to a company that offers data solutions to mobile carriers.

First Orion says it’s anticipating in 2019 at least half of all calls made to cell phones will be fraudulent.

“What we tell people is if you don’t recognize the phone number, don’t answer it,” says Gavin Macomber who is a Senior vice president of First Orion.

He says when you answer a call and start engaging with someone — like pressing a number to connect to an agent, “as soon as you do that, you’ll start receiving a lot more scam calls.”

But there is technology being brought on line that may start eliminating scam or robo-calls right from the source of that call.

Last week T-Mobile began offering “Caller Verified” service.

It’s using a new technology nicknamed STIR and SHAKEN which the FCC wants all carriers to adopt.

Read more at CBS17.com HERE