Tag Archives: T-Mobile

FCC releases analysis of proposed AT&T/T-Mobile merger (updated x2)

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The FCC has released its report on the likely impact of AT&T’s proposed merger with T-Mobile.  It isn’t pretty. Among other conclusions, the report determines that if the merger were to occur, there would be a no significant wireless competition in any major US city (with the sole exception of Omaha).

Update: The FCC report was originally at the link shown above, but has been removed from that location. Currently, a copy of the report is available here.  However, the new version of the report is heavily redacted. What the heck is going on here?

Update 2: Via Lauren Weinstein, the original version of the FCC report is available here.

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How long does your mobile carrier keep your data?

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Sometimes indefinitely. Check out the details from this formerly secret Justice Department memo.

The nation’s major mobile-phone providers are keeping a treasure trove of sensitive data on their customers, according to newly-released Justice Department internal memo that for the first time reveals the data retention policies of America’s largest telecoms.

The single-page Department of Justice document, “Retention Periods of Major Cellular Service Providers,” (.pdf) is a guide for law enforcement agencies looking to get information — like customer IP addresses, call logs, text messages and web surfing habits – out of U.S. telecom companies, including AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon.

Economics quote of the day

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We believe the combination of AT&T and T-Mobile would result in tens of millions of consumers all across the United States facing higher prices, fewer choices and lower-quality products for their mobile wireless services.

– James M. Cole, deputy Attorney General, announcing that the DOJ will seek to prohibit the merger of the second and third largest US mobile telecom operators. Leaving only two significant operators absolutely would be against the interest of consumers.

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Risks of “cloud” computing (updated x2)

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So, cloud computing has been a trendy meme for the last few years. The basic idea is that your digital data lives on computer servers connected to the Internet. This collection of servers is the “cloud.”  The upside of such an approach is that your data is managed by someone else and you merely access it via any device you choose, such as a personal computer or your smartphone. You don’t even need to back up if your data is on a cloud managed properly. And you can store gigabytes of data without upgrades to your local hard drives.  Services like Yahoo Mail and Google Docs are examples of cloud computing.

But here is the hitch. What if the Internet is down? What if you are somewhere with no data connection? And, even worse, what happens if there is a serious problem with the servers that make up the cloud? Well, a huge number of users are about to find out.

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Users of Sidekicks, a smartphone/personal data device made by Danger (now owned by Microsoft) and running on T-Mobile’s network, are being notified that all their data is likely lost because of server problems at Danger/Microsoft.  Besides server failure, it also appears (unbelievably) that Danger/Microsoft does not have backup of their users’ data.

This is a epic fail (and a huge cautionary tale) for cloud computing.

Update: T-Mobile is allowing their angry users to cancel their contracts without penalty and they are at least temporarily halting sales of all Sidekicks. That is certainly the least they can do. What is Microsoft offering to do? Nada.

Update 2: It is now being claimed that the data loss was due to internal sabotage at Microsoft. This story keeps getting more strange.