AT&T Mobility and Unwanted Wireless Device Charges

On December 12, 2011, the Florida Attorney General’s office announced that it had reached a settlement with AT&T Mobility, “resolving allegation that the company charged Florida customers’ wireless device bills for a service that those customers neither ordered nor wanted.”  The AVC, short for “Assurance of Voluntary Compliance” (one wonders how truly “voluntary” it is, but I digress) is the result of unauthorized charges appearing on some AT&T Mobility bills.  Specifically, the AG determined that over a 7 year period, more than 600,000 AT&T Mobility customers, whose billing addresses are within the state of Florida, were charged for Roadside Assistance at $2.99 per month without either granting consent for such charges or using the service.

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Wiretap Decision Aims at Feds, Not Carriers

While most of us were in the throes of a self-induced butter/sugar-diet coma between Christmas and New Years', the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals announced two important decisions, covering a number of consolidated cases on the issue of warrantless wiretapping. The program, under which telecommunications service companies conducted warrantless eavesdropping on American citizens at the direction of the National Security Administration (NSA), allowed access to both domestic and international telephone communications and emails without warrant. These actions, which were initially were disclosed in 2005 by the New York Times, and confirmed by the President in early 2006, were originally approved by President George W. Bush, shortly after the tragic events of 9/11.

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AT&T Calls Off T-Mobile Deal

AT&T recognized that the winds from Washington were not blowing favorably.

Yesterday, while in the midst of doing something else, I noticed news flashing across my screen that the AT&T had withdrawn its offer of $39 billion for T-Mobile USA. This is very big news for a number of reasons.

1. It was a huge merger that would have left AT&T with 120 million customers.
2. It would arguably have been bad for consumers and good for shareholders.

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Universal Service Reform: An Overview of Changes

The FCC will create two funds: the Connect America Fund, which will provide support to traditional landline broadband services; and the Mobility Fund.
For almost as long as the Universal Service Fund has been in place (since the Telecommunications Act of 1996 created it), there has been talk of its reform--both from those who contribute to the fund and the recipients of that funding. Particularly within the past five years, as voice services looked less like traditional analog voice and more like data, the calls for reform have morphed into downright bellows.

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