FCC Says Wireless Carriers Lie About Coverage 40% of the Time (vice.com) 54
A new FCC study confirms what most people already knew: when it comes to wireless coverage maps, your mobile carrier is often lying to you. From a report: If you head to any major wireless carrier website, you'll be inundated with claims of coast to coast, uniform availability of wireless broadband. But, as countless studies have shown, these claims usually have only a tenuous relation to reality, something you've likely noticed if you've ever driving across the country or stopped by mobile carrier forums. But just how bad is the disconnect? A new FCC study released this week suggests that wireless carriers may be lying about mobile coverage 40 percent of the time or more. The full study, part of the FCC's efforts to beef up wireless subsidies ahead of fifth-generation (5G) deployments, states that FCC engineers measured real-world network performance across 12 states. Staffers conducted a total of 24,649 tests while driving more than 10,000 miles.
"Only 62.3% of staff drive tests achieved at least the minimum download speed predicted by the coverage maps -- with U.S. Cellular achieving that speed in only 45.0% of such tests, T-Mobile in 63.2% of tests, and Verizon in 64.3% of tests," the FCC said. And while carriers have historically claimed they offer faster 4G LTE service to the vast majority of the country, the FCC found that wasn't actually true either. "Staff was unable to obtain any 4G LTE signal for 38% of drive tests on U.S. Cellular's network, 21.3% of drive tests on T-Mobile's network, and 16.2% of drive tests on Verizon's network, despite each provider reporting coverage in the relevant area," the agency said. But of course, the FCC also has no plans to punish the carriers.
"Only 62.3% of staff drive tests achieved at least the minimum download speed predicted by the coverage maps -- with U.S. Cellular achieving that speed in only 45.0% of such tests, T-Mobile in 63.2% of tests, and Verizon in 64.3% of tests," the FCC said. And while carriers have historically claimed they offer faster 4G LTE service to the vast majority of the country, the FCC found that wasn't actually true either. "Staff was unable to obtain any 4G LTE signal for 38% of drive tests on U.S. Cellular's network, 21.3% of drive tests on T-Mobile's network, and 16.2% of drive tests on Verizon's network, despite each provider reporting coverage in the relevant area," the agency said. But of course, the FCC also has no plans to punish the carriers.
FCC Engineers? (Score:5, Insightful)
The FCC still has engineers on-staff? I thought Congress had managed to get rid of all the technically competent people in the regulatory agencies. They must have missed one.
Re:FCC Engineers? (Score:5, Insightful)
In my opinion this is actually the biggest travesty of the US government today. The lack of respect towards the experts. Elected officials are not the smartest people, they mainly win on charisma. The guy who you would like to share a beer with. Effective political leaders are still not necessarily super smart people, but rely on expert who give them good and truthful data for them to make decisions to follow.
This doesn't mean a good leader will prioritize all the data. They may decide that the economy needs a boost more then the environment needs to be cleaned. But this decision should be based on real data. Not from data going into a political filter saying it isn't a big deal. So it meets with the politicians stump speeches.
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Following the data blindly can lead you into things like a lake, over a downed bridge, or into a recession.
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You should only go with you gut when there is lack of real data. Or there is a pressing timeline where we cannot get the data needed.
However people who seem to make good gut decisions, tend to be people with knowledge and experience in the area.
Debugging an application, I can use my Gut to go to the best spot in the code to where the flaw probably is. That is because I know how applications are developed, and pitfalls when doing particular types of coding that causes that type of output problem. 75% of the
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Love the paternal vibe you're trying to create there, dad. Please tell me more about your gut and its fatherly wisdom. Can you dandle me on your knee and call me sport too? Thanks!
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You watch too much television. This is real life, not 'The Green Arrow'.
Go play in traffic, kid.
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Re:FCC Engineers? (Score:5, Insightful)
I suppose it's hard to convince people that government is broken unless you break it first. Ronnie Raygun never figured that part out, but Newt Gingrich made crippling regulatory agencies into an art form.
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That's because Reagan was trying to run a country, and Gingrich was trying to score political points for his party.
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Invading Iraq was supported by the majority of congress in either party. It was a rush to "do something' by almost everyone involved. There *were* quite a few experts who said that the "facts" being promoted were wrong., but they were overruled by their superiors who fed the president only evidence that matched the story people wanted to hear.
TPP was 95% the right thing to do. The parts that were broken was mainly with the intellectual property side of things. The experts weren't wrong here, trade deals
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As of lately they seem more interested in people saying dirty words on television than worrying if your transmitter is producing unwanted harmonics.
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Where is the "Sad but True" mod option?
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Sex Panther (Score:4, Funny)
40% of the time they lie every time.
AT&T (Score:2)
Who ???
Not appearing in this article. LOLZ
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The report states that AT&T's coverage maps are largely accurate (which is why using their icon in the story headline is ironic).
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Well I know that AT&T's "wireless coverage map" is absolutely not accurate for the Bay Area. I get no signal in large stretches of the city street I take on my commute. Their 4G coverage has actually degraded quite a bit over the last few years.
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From the full report [fcc.gov]:
After mobile providers submitted coverage maps to the Commission and during the challenge process, some parties raised concerns regarding the accuracy of the maps submitted by providers. Based on these parties’ complaints and its own review of the record, staff became concerned that maps submitted by Verizon, U.S. Cellular, and T-Mobile overstated their coverage and thus were not accurate reflections of actual coverage.
It kinda strikes me as "these companies didn't lobby enough".
It would seem to me that if you're going to go to the effort to set up a driving test across thousands of miles, you'd at least check on everybody while you're at it. Maybe you don't aim for particular regions to check the unsuspected carriers, but at least do some due diligence...
That said, this is also in the report:
First, the Commission should terminate the MF-II Challenge Process. ... The MF-II Challenge Process was designed to resolve coverage disputes regarding generally reliable maps; it was not designed to correct generally overstated coverage maps.
The recommendations do suggest changing the process to more thoroughly verify every carrier's maps.
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Why can't the carrier maps be validated by third-party crowd-sourced maps? It wouldn't be hard to put out an app that reports this info to a central database.
Or alternatively, just have an app or a webpage where users can report bad coverage. No need to report good coverage, since near universal good coverage is already claimed by the carriers. Even just a few hundred users reporting bad coverage and literally poking holes in the carrier coverage maps would be extremely useful. There wouldn't even need
The 5G 'coverage' is gonna be hilarious. (Score:3)
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Yeah, the coverage maps for 5G that I've seen so far are laughably bad. The millimeter wave 5G that Verizon is rolling out can't go through walls or buildings, so only a handful of streets on select cities have it.
Is the FCC doing its job? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Is the FCC doing its job? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Is the FCC doing its job? (Score:4, Interesting)
That and whoever pushes this stuff through usually '"retires" afterward and becomes a board member for whatever company benefited.
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The FCC is appointed by the president and congress you didn't get to vote.
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Considering the socio-political climate we've seen developing since 9/11, it's probably about more effective spying on America by the DHS more than anything else. We don't need 5G, really, it's overkill, and the main direct effect it'll have on American consumers is to goad them into buying Yet Another New Expensive Smartphone that they don't really need (or even want).
Open Signal (Score:4, Interesting)
So, that means 60% of the time you get... (Score:2)
m
The FTC will still approve mergers (Score:2)
Pretty topical (Score:2)
Verizon was originally going to turn off their old service this month. In anticipation I bought a new LTE phone, and discovered that signal cuts off a mile from my house. And I mean cuts off, like a knife. In 100 feet the signal drops from -98 dB to -110 dB. Apparently the new antenna is blocked by a hill, but the old antenna is not.
So I sent the phone back. It turns out they have extended the non-LTE service for another year. Maybe someone will put up a better antenna.
It's not as bad as it used to be.... (Score:2)
Most carriers have ubiquitous coverage, depending on area and how sparse it is.
There are the usual dead spots.
However, my first thought on this is: the FCC is just NOW figuring this out?
As Dr. House said, "Everybody lies."
Wow that's a lotta coverage! (Score:2)
You're misreading the coverage maps. They show not covered wireless areas, but the owned cogressmen's districts.
Is anyone anywhere surprised? (Score:2)
Hell, my only surprise is that the figure is as LOW as ONLY 40%. I'd have placed the number at at least 99% myself. Between my personal devices, and various test devices at multiple jobs, I have NEVER seen any of the four carriers' networks meet the mandated 4G spec (100Mbps when mobile and 1Gbps stationary). Sitting here right now, on AT&T's network which they are claiming on my phone's screen to be "5Ge", my Speedtest is merely 12.6Mbps down and 1.5Mbps up.
The carriers never bothered to build out a
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I would recommend getting rid of the iToy and getting a good phone. I have one of the Samsung phones and have had excellent throughput on both AT&T and T-Mobile networks if we're within the urban areas. My wife's iPhone can't even keep a WhatsApp phone link when we change towers. Yeah, I know, anecdote != data, but that seems fairly common among other people we know as well.
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60% of the time, LTE+ works every time.
40% (Score:2)
Only 40%? That's a better record than I thought it would be...
Shocked, I say! (Score:2)
I am shocked that it's only 40% of the time!
Can we get back to regulation for the benefit of the consumers now?
the FCC... has no plans to punish the carriers. (Score:1)
And nobody knew this before? (Score:2)
App to keep them honest (Score:1)
Much better than I expected (Score:2)
I have actually experienced better coverage in Greece than in the US and that's REALLY impressive since a large