Entries tagged with “Wireless and the Law” from WIRELESS AND MOBILE NEWS

If you have ever been charged without your permission for mobile content, a combined lawsuit settlement, may owe you payments or free services. A Cook County, Illinois court granted preliminary approval to a global settlement agreement which combines 30 separate class action lawsuits that claims unauthorized charges for "mobile content" were placed on consumer cell phone bills. 

The deadline for filing a claim is February 22, 2010. You are a member of the Settlement Class and your rights are affected if you are a person in the United States and its territories who, at any time prior to October 10, 2009, were billed and paid for Mobile Content associated with the Defendants that was not authorized.

Each Settlement Class Member who submits a Claim Form shall have the option to choose between either a Set Cash Award of $10.00 or a Cash Refund for up to three (3) months of Mobile Content Subscriptions / Recurring Charges.

The settlement, which was preliminarily approved by the Circuit Court of Cook County in Illinois on September 10, 2009, provides wireless customers across the country with either a cash award or a cash refund for unauthorized mobile content charges and requires that the defendants remain in compliance with the consumer best practices guidelines established by industry trade groups such as the Mobile Marketing Association, CTIA, and other leading industry groups.

Yesterday, we learned about the @#$%& data loss problem due to a Microsoft Danger server outage for T-Mobile SideKick customers. Customers weren't thrilled with the offer of two months of free service. Today, T-Mobile is offering $20 towards and new smartphone and release from contract.

Over 800,000 T-Mobile SideKick customers have been effected. T-Mobile has pulled the SideKick from its online store. A T-Mobile forum member who expressed his disgust was banned from T-Mobile forums.

"T-Mobile banned me from their forums because I was voicing my opinion about their outage and suggesting customers contact the Washington State Attorney General's office," said Richard Anderson in his blog about the data loss.  Anderson claims he lost years of contacts  he can't retrieve.  

He suggested SideKick owners should:

• Claim a breach of contract to T-Mobile's Legal Department.
• Complain to the state of Washington's Attorney General's Office.
• File a complaint with the FCC.

David Coursey at PC World suggests that T-Mobile SideKick customers could file a class action lawsuit.

If you have a SideKick make sure that you keep the battery charged and don't remove it, you may lose your contacts.

Google Voice doesn't call everybody in the country and the FCC wants to know why. On Friday, they sent a letter to Google's attorneys. They want know the wherefore of why Google Voice is blocking calls to rural areas, how they do it and how they inform users of the restrictions. 

AT&T is not happy with Google Voice and Apple blocked the app from iPhones. AT&T contends that Google Voice is in violation of both federal call-blocking regulations and net neutrality principles.

Here's the text of the letter:

Dear Mr. Whitt:
Recent reports indicate that Google's Google Voice service restricts calling from consumers to certain rural communities. In light of pending Commission proceedings regarding concerns about so called "access stimulation," the Commission's prohibition on call blocking by carriers, as well as the Commission's interest in ensuring that"broadband networks are widely deployed, open, affordable, and accessible to allconsumers,"we are interested in gathering facts that can provide a more complete understanding of this situation.

Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety (Advocates) filed a petition with the U.S. Department of Transportation to prohibit or restrict the use of unsafe electronic devices, for talking, texting and other purposes, by operators of commercial motor vehicles, such as tractor trailers, motorcoach buses, and large vans. 

There have been many tragedies caused by cell phone use by commercial vehicles such as the one experienced by Elissa and Jamie Schee of Ocala, Florida, whose daughter Frances "Margay" Schee, age 13, was killed on September, 23, 2008, when a tractor trailer rammed into the back of her school bus that was stopped with its lights flashing. The truck driver's cell phone use was a contributing factor in the fiery fatal crash.

"One year and one day later, we want to express our strong support for this safety petition that is asking our federal government to finally do something to keep commercial vehicle drivers off the phone and to stay focused on the road in front of them," said Elissa Schee.

"What happened to our daughter Margay was not an isolated incident. These tragedies are increasingly occurring on our nation's roadways - and they are preventable."

In the petition is a video of bus driver texting while driving and then the bus crashes into a car in front of it.

It turns out it was VIA driver driving down Loop 410 in rush hour traffic in San Antonio Texas. The bus rammed right into an SUV being driven by Betty Jo Hummel.

"It was horrible," said Hummel. "It was the most horrific thing I've probably ever lived through." News 4 WOAI Trouble Shooters showed the video to her. She was surprised the accident last June didn't kill her.

AT&T issued a statement in favor of FCC Chairman Genachowski’s speech outlining a open Internet. They are concerned when it extends to mobile broadband.

“We commend Chairman Genachowski for his speech today, which begins a public process of considering very important issues that will affect the Internet, and broadband investment, for many years to come.

“AT&T has long supported the principle of an open Internet and has conducted its business accordingly. We were also early supporters of the FCC’s current four broadband principles and their case-by-case application to wired networks. To the extent that the chairman seeks to bolster the FCC’s legal authority to enforce these principles, we would support him. We have also indicated publicly that, despite any compelling evidence of abuses that need correction, AT&T could also consider endorsing a fifth principle relating to actions that are unreasonably discriminatory and that cause material harm. Finally, we have never had concerns with disclosure or transparency regarding network management decisions so long as such requirements are reasonable”

CTIA-The Wireless Association, President and CEO Steve Largent issued astatement in response to the State of Maryland’s demonstration of cell detection and managed access technology to end contraband cell phone use in prisons.

Verizon wants the world to know that the largest cybersquatting judgment, ever has been upheld by a federal court in the Northern District of California. The court denied the motion of the defendant -- OnlineNIC, an Internet domain registration company in San Francisco -- to set aside a December 2008 judgment in which Verizon was awarded $33.15 million.

The case is based on OnlineNIC's attempts to take advantage of Verizon and Verizon customers by using Internet names that are easily confused with legitimate Verizon names.

Yesterday, legislation was introduced in the U.S. Senate that would ban texting and e-mailing while driving. The proposed legislation, called the ALERT Act, was introduced by U.S. Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Mary Landrieu (D-LA), and Kay Hagen (D-NC). Verizon sent out a news release to support the bill.

Verizon Wireless vice president and general counsel Steven E. Zipperstein made the following statement:

"We support federal legislation to ban texting and e-mailing while driving. This approach is a logical extension of our previous breaks with other wireless companies to support state-wide legislation banning texting and e-mailing while driving. We applaud Senator Schumer and the Senate sponsors for their leadership."

Car and Driver recently did a study and found texting while driving to be worse than drinking while driving.

AT&T obtained final judgments and permanent injunctions against defendants in four federal lawsuits stopping the unauthorized bulk buying and resale of prepaid mobile

AT&T has filed 14 lawsuits against companies and individuals in Texas, Florida, California, and New York in an effort to stop the illegal activity. The lawsuits have resulted in a total of 15 permanent injunctions and final judgments totaling $51 million in damages.

AT&T says it will file additional lawsuits to aggressively investigate and combat the issue.

Prepaid wireless handset diversion is an industry-wide issue. Middlemen typically buy prepaid mobile phones in bulk, remove them from their original packaging, discard warranties and manuals, hack into the phones' software and then resell the phones and accessories to unsuspecting customers at a substantial profit.

Among judgments AT&T has recently obtained:

• On May 27, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York entered a consent judgment and permanent injunction against IA Communications, Inc. of Westbury, N.Y.; and DK Wireless Inc., d/b/a Wireless Touch and Talk 2 Me, of Baldwin, N.Y.
• On June 15, the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California entered a stipulated final judgment and permanent injunction against Mohamad Farhat of Coachella, Calif. and his company, Delta Games, Inc. of Montebello, Calif.
• Also on June 15, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida in Miami entered a stipulated final judgment and permanent injunction against defendants Ibrahim El-Zaatari and Tropical Export, Inc., both of Miami.
• On June 25, the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California entered a stipulated final judgment and permanent injunction against California Products International, Inc. of Downey, Calif.

In all of the above final judgments, the Court found the defendants' conduct violated numerous state and federal laws, and awarded a judgment in the amounts of $3 or $5 million in damages.

The injunctions permanently prohibit the defendants in each case from engaging in any activities in any way related to the bulk purchase and resale of AT&T prepaid phones, and from using the AT&T or GoPhone trademarks in connection with such activities without AT&T's authorization.

Yesterday, CTIA-The Wireless Association filed an ex parte with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to show the significant contributions the wireless industry is making to aid the revitalization of United States short and long-term economic health.

Some believe that the filing is to protect the major carriers who are facing antitrust and unfair competition allegations, stemming from customers of carriers other than AT&T who want to be able to buy iPhones.

A CTIA news release states that the filing highlights the wireless industry's contribution to:

General economy - nearly $100 billion in "value added" contribution to U.S. Gross Domestic Product in 2007 Job creation - more than 268,000 direct employees and more than 2.4 million American jobs that are either directly or indirectly dependent Jobb compensation - is more than 50% higher than the national average of other production workers Capital investment - invests $22.8 billion per year on average to upgrade networks

Steve Largent, CTIA President and CEO, offered the following comments in response to the filing:

"With the urgent focus from President Obama and Congress on stimulating the economy and creating jobs, CTIA has submitted a filing to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that demonstrates the substantial investment and contributions the wireless industry is making to achieve the nation's economic and infrastructure goals. In this filing, CTIA shows the leading role that wireless services, and particularly mobile broadband, can play in revitalizing the economy.

"CTIA and our member companies are looking forward to continuing to work with the Obama Administration, Congress and FCC to ensure that wireless services continue to lead the way to economic recovery and prosperity."

Chetan Sharma Consulting conducted its semiannual study on the global mobile data industry. They studied wireless data trends in over 40 major countries - from developed and mature markets such as Japan, Korea, UK, and Italy to hyper growth markets such as China and India. This note summarizes the findings from the research. For some leading operators, data is now contributing up to 35% of the revenues however increase in data ARPU is not completely offsetting the drop in voice ARPU..

• India will shortly be the number 2 market in the world.

• The worldwide markets continue to grow at an explosive pace reaching 3.3B subscriptions by Q407 up 20% from 2006 levels. Significant growth is coming from India and China with both countries registering close to 8-9M net adds per month. India recorded 8.8M net adds in Jan 08 while China added 9.4M in Feb 08. Overall, the world market is at almost 50% penetration.

• US surpassed Japan as the most valuable mobile data market in service revenue with US adding $24.5B vs. $23.2B for Japan in 2007 mobile data service revenues. China with $12.5B was ranked number 3. US registered the highest growth amongst the top 3 with over 55% increase from 2006 levels followed by China at 37% and Japan at 18%. These top 3 markets account for over 50% of the global data service revenues.

• NTT DoCoMo continues to dominate the wireless data service revenues rankings with over $12.13B in service data revenues for 2007 however Q/Q growth has dropped to single digits. DoCoMo crossed 80% in 3G penetration and is expected to touch 90% by end of the year.

• Most of the major operators around the world have double digit percentage contribution to their overall ARPU from data services. Operators like KDDI, DoCoMo, 3 Italy, 3 UK, and O2 UK are topping 30%.

• Both India and China added a whopping 85 million new subscriptions (most of them prepaid). This week India edges past US to become the number 2 wireless market (by subscriptions) in the world. In last two years alone it added almost 150 million new subscriptions (in comparison China added 155 million and the US market added 44 million).

Cricket Communications debuted the UTStarcom UM100C tri-band USB modem in Tulsa, Okla, bringing its unlimited wireless broadband services to new Advanced Wireless Services (AWS) markets across the country, The UM100C mobile broadband USB modem provides high-speed, wide-area wireless connectivity enabling Cricket customers to freely use their laptop computer or PC within Cricket’s existing broadband wireless markets and new AWS markets offering Cricket Wireless Internet Service.

Cricket customers can purchase the new modem for just $99 using a combination of instant and mail-in rebates. The Cricket monthly broadband service plan is just $35 per month for users who also subscribe to one of Cricket’s low-cost unlimited voice plans, and only $40 per month without the voice plan.

Vodafone and Verizon announced a global accounts partnership.

The new program allows both companies to meet the needs of global business customers, while providing a consistent approach to products and pricing. In addition, business customers served by a global account team will be able to have one contract to cover their mobile needs - in the United States, Europe and elsewhere in the world.

T-Mobile announced that it’s Shadow will be available in time for Halloween. The people-centric smartphone running Windows Mobile will come in sage and cooper.

The Shadow features include:

• Email and texting from the MyFaves page.
  
• A spin navigation wheel.
  
• Wi-Fi and EDGE-enabled high-speed Internet access.
  
• A reminder feature.
• T-Mobile Address Book that lets customers easily import contact information from Yahoo!®, Gmail™, Microsoft Outlook® Keypad that is 5 letters wide with two letters each like the Pearl.

The T-Mobile Shadow is expected to sell for between $149.99 and $349.99, depending on the contract. T-Mobile has also lowered its unlimited Wi-Fi and EDGE data plan to $19.99 per month, from $29.99 per month.

According to the September 2007 edition of World Cellular Data Metrics, there was a 43% increase in data ARPU in North America.

Subscribers in North America generated the highest monthly ARPU from mobile data services worldwide, at US$8.90 in 2Q 2007. Subscribers in Western Europe generate on average only US$7 per month.

Strong uptake of all-you-can-eat data packages, a near three-fold increase in 3G subscriptions year-on-year and rapid growth in SMS traffic in North America were the main reasons for the 43% rise in data ARPU in the region in 2Q 2007 compared with 2Q 2006.

A new larger screen Sidekick LX that swivles to reveal a keyboard will be offered by T-Mobile starting October 13, for $300 with a two year contract. Geared for older more sophisticated users the LX also has the ability to send pictures with text messages.

Manufactured by Motorola, the new smaller text-oriented Sidekick Slide's screen slides instead of swivels. The Slide is priced at $200 with a two year contract.

According to a Rueters story AT&T plans to speed up it's data speeds when it upgrades to it network increasing upload speeds to a range of 500 to 800 kilobits per second from its current speed of about 120 kbps. AT&T is comparatively slow to its rivals when it comes to data causing iPhone users to unlock their phones for better data speeds on other carriers.

AT&T's recent study, proves that small business needs its wireless---four in 10 (42 percent) of small business owners surveyed said they could not survive -- or it would be a major challenge to survive -- without wireless technology.

MetroPCS Communications, Inc., provider of unlimited wireless communications service, today announced the launch of its flat rate unlimited wireless service in Los Angeles. MetroPCS will provide the people of Los Angeles with unlimited local and long-distance service.

With plans starting as low as $30 a month, MetroPCS offers the lowest unlimited wireless calling choices now available in the market. Already available in Northern California, including the San Francisco and Sacramento markets, the Los Angeles service launch means expanded wireless coverage and an added value for customers throughout California.

According to MarketWatch:  T-Mobile U.S.A. announced a $9.99 monthly plan for unlimited email service on all BlackBerry smartphones they sell. Analysts predict that the competition will spur a drop in prices for data services from other carriers.  Web browsing is not included in the price.

According to MarketWatch:  T-Mobile U.S.A. announced a $9.99 monthly plan for unlimited email service on all BlackBerry smartphones they sell. Analysts predict that the competition will spur a drop in prices for data services from other carriers.  Web browsing is not included in the price.