Judge: State can’t use cell phone location data in case to prove former employee’s absence

A Kent County judge has tossed cell-phone location data obtained by police investigating a Delaware State Police firearms expert accused of theft from the department.

The ruling leans upon a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling which places greater restrictions on how police can access the location data generated by citizen’s cell phones — a ruling that is causing upset in other prosecutions.

It comes as Carl Rone, the state’s former forensic firearms examiner, awaits an October trial for charges of falsifying business records and theft under false pretense.

Rone, 62, was the state’s foremost expert on ballistics, testifying frequently as a state’s witness regarding microscopic analysis matching bullet casings with firearms, mapping bullet trajectory and interpreting the significance of gunpowder residue found at crime scenes.

Read More from Delaware Online Here

Top 10 questions about 5G, the next mobile data standard

If you’ve been reading the headlines about the 5G revolution and imagining smart home of the future and self-driving cars and stupid fast internet, you must have questions on various aspects of the ‘futuristic-next generation cellular networks. To understand how transformative the concept of 5G is, we need to understand the mobile tech that came before it. Each G (or generation) so far has introduced an increasingly advanced set of technologies combined to unlock new potential from your phone – not to mention an entirely new set of products to go with it.

Read More from Dignited Here

AT&T Announces Remaining Cities for Mobile 5G Rollout, Names 3 Technology Suppliers

AT&T on Monday added five cities to its roster slated for the carrier’s mobile 5G deployments later this year.

The latest additions include Houston, Jacksonville, Louisville, New Orleans and San Antonio. Those join the previously announced cities of Atlanta, Charlotte, Dallas, Indianapolis, Oklahoma City, Raleigh, and Waco.

In early 2019, AT&T will expand mobile 5G to parts of Los Vegas, Los Angeles, Nashville, Orlando, San Diego, San Francisco, and San Jose – for a total of 19 cities, with plans to grow the network following initial deployments.

MWCA 2018 Day 3 Mobile Network Test Results: Which Carrier Came Out on Top?

MWCA is now done and Global Wireless Solutions, Inc. (GWS) has finished testing the network performance of the four wireless national carriers throughout the LA Convention Center.  GWS has been marching around the convention center halls all week conducting tests using Rohde & Schwarz’s SwissQual Freerider platform connected to Samsung Galaxy S9 devices.

On Friday (day three of the show), there were no data task failures on any of the networks.  For the entire week, after testing over 5,600 data tasks across the carriers, there was only one T-Mobile task that failed.

As far as throughputs go, AT&T pulled ahead of the pack during the last two days of the show. For T-Mobile and Verizon, “steady as she goes” was the name of the game this week.  T-Mobile delivered 64-68 Mbps download and 22-24 Mbps upload throughputs during the three-day show.

Read More from Wireless Week Here

After Verizon throttling during California fires, emergency workers freed from speed caps

Verizon is offering an olive branch after royally fumbling how it dealt with emergency responders in California.

The nation’s largest wireless carrier said it’s lifted all speed caps for first responders on the West Coast battling wildfires, as well as for emergency workers in Hawaii, who are dealing with Hurricane Lane. It added that if another disaster arises, it’ll lift restrictions on public safety customers.

The company said it also plans to introduce a new plan next week for first responders with unlimited data, no mobile caps and priority access.

The actions come after Verizon drew widespread criticism for throttling first responders who were battling the Mendocino Complex fire in California. The revelations emerged this week out of a court filing, and immediately raised concerns that this was a potential violation of net neutrality and further illustration of a carrier abusing its power.

Verizon said the move to throttle the firefighters was the result of an employee mistake. The company added that it has a plan in place to remove the restrictions in emergency situations, but that customer support failed to act on that plan.

“In supporting first responders in the Mendocino fire, we didn’t live up to our own promise of service and performance excellence when our process failed some first responders on the line, battling a massive California wildfire,” Mike Maiorana, senior vice president of public sector for Verizon, said in a statement. “For that, we are truly sorry. And we’re making every effort to ensure that it never happens again.”

Read More from CNet Here