Verizon Wireless

Verizon adds usage controls

Sue Marek — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 11:03:23 -0400

Verizon Wireless subscribers now have a new tool to help them manage and control their wireless usage. Called Usage Controls, the new service lets customers (particularly parents) avoid unexpected charges by letting them set thresholds for voice minutes; establish limits for text, picture, IM and video messaging; set restrictions for time of day usage for data and messaging; create lists of trusted and blocked numbers; and establish content blockers for certain times of content.

The application costs $4.99 per month for each line and customers must have a nationwide calling plan to use the service.

Verizon is marketing the Usage Controls service as part of a bigger package that includes Chaperone 2.0, which lets parents keep track of their child's location using the mobile phone. Chaperone 2.0 service costs $9.99 per line per month.

T-Mobile USA introduced a similar usage control service called Family Allowance in late July. However, the operator is charging just $2 per month for the service as part of an introductory offer.

For more:
- see this press release

Related articles:
T-Mobile helps parents set wireless limits
SPOTLIGHT: Alltel to launch parental controls

Verizon CEO predicts layoffs for Alltel employees

Sue Marek — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 10:31:41 -0400

Verizon Wireless CEO Lowell McAdam updated residents of Little Rock, Ark., on Friday about the firm's impending merger with Alltel Communications, which is headquartered there. McAdam said that Little Rock would probably become home to a Verizon Wireless regional headquarters with about 100 employees, which is far less than the current 3,000 employees that Alltel has in the Arkansas town.

While many executive and mid-management level positions at Alltel will vanish because of the proposed merger, McAdam said it would take at least a year or so to determine which positions would be eliminated. And he also said that there may be opportunities for some Alltel employees if they are willing to relocate to other cities where Verizon has openings.

McAdam expects the Verizon/Alltel merger to close by year-end.

For more:
- see this article

Related stories:
Alltel plagued by acquisition expenses
Verizon's Alltel acquisition: What are the ramifications?

Wireless carriers rank high in ad spending

Sue Marek — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 11:06:43 -0400

Wireless companies are big spenders when it comes to advertising. Advertising Age recently ranked the leading national advertisers and AT&T, Verizon and Sprint were ranked No. 1, 2 and 3, respectively. AT&T spent $2.2 billion on advertising in 2007, while Verizon Communications spent $2.1 billion and Sprint spent $1.16 billion. T-Mobile USA was ranked No. 12 and it spent a mere $606 million.

For more:
- see this RCR article

Related article:
Sprint campaign spotlights multimedia, not Nextel

Alltel plagued by acquisition expenses

Sue Marek — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 11:02:04 -0400

Despite strong customer growth and a 10 percent increase in revenues, Alltel reported a loss of $69.9 million, due primarily to interest costs as well as depreciation and amortization expenses following the company's November 2007 merger with an affiliate of TPG Capital and GS Capital Partners. Alltel, however, is expected to be acquired by Verizon Wireless. The deal, which was announced June 5, is expected to close by year-end.

Losses aside, Alltel had a strong quarter with revenues of $2.39 billion, an increase of 10 percent over the year prior. Here's a rundown of the other metrics:

New subscribers: Alltel had total net adds of 319,687 (up from 181,494 in the prior year) and gross adds of 1 million, a 37 percent increase over the prior year. The company's total subscriber base is now 13.4 million.

ARPU: Average revenue per user was $54.42, up 1 percent from last year. Data revenue was $8.18, up 45 percent year over year.

Churn: Postpay churn was 1.21 percent and total churn was 1.92 percent.

For more:
- see this press release
- Also check out our compilation of all the second quarter metrics from the top wireless carriers here.

Related articles:
Leap and others asks FCC to deny Verizon/Alltel merger
Verizon snaps up Alltel for $28.1B

State regulators weigh in on ETF

Sue Marek — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 16:59:25 -0400

The National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) is weighing in on the early termination fee debate. NARUC is establishing a working group to develop national standards to protect consumers from wireless carriers that impose confusing or harsh ETFs. The group sent a letter to the FCC earlier this week stating that its proposal "allows states to instigate changes to national rules based on emerging abuses."

Last month NARUC members proposed the creation of a combined state-federal task force to develop national wireless consumer standards and now NARUC is proposing that states retain their authority to enforce standards, resolve consumer complaints and enforce compliance.

Meanwhile, wireless carriers such as Verizon Wireless have been pushing the FCC to impose federal oversight of early termination fees rather than letting the states set the rules. Carriers, of course, are concerned about the fines that some states have imposed over ETFs. Just last month a California judge ruled that Sprint Nextel must pay $73 million in refunds to its former customers in a lawsuit over early termination fees.

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin has said that he believes there needs to be some federal oversight of termination fees rather than letting states set the rules.

For more:
- see this article

Related stories:
California judge says Sprint must pay $73M in ETF case
Verizon settles ETF suit for $21M
Would the elimination of ETFs make customers any happier?

Leap and others asks FCC to deny Verizon/Alltel merger

Sue Marek — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 11:55:45 -0400

Leap Wireless along with a group of rural carriers and associations including the Rural Telecommunications Group, NTELOS, SouthernLINC Wireless, SpectrumCo, the Organization for the Promotion and Advancement of Small Telecommunications Companies (OPASTCO), Mobi PCS, Revol Wireless, LCW and Denali Spectrum have petitioned the FCC to deny the proposed merger between Verizon Wireless and Alltel.

Leap and the other parties argue that the merger reduces the competitiveness of the wireless industry by eliminating a major regional carrier, exacerbates roaming issues by having fewer major roaming partners (particularly for CDMA carriers), and allows a mega-carrier to increasingly control spectrum.

Leap asks the FCC to do the following before it approves the merger: revise the existing Roaming Order by eliminating home roaming and "in-market" exclusion and initiate a rulemaking on spectrum caps.

For more:
- see this article

Related articles:
Rural operators want spectrum cap
FCC approves Verizon, RCC merger

Motorola exec: FCC white space testing going well

Sue Marek — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 11:43:52 -0400

The FCC's white space device field test, which started last month, is going very well-- at least for some companies. In an interview yesterday with FierceWireless, Steve Sharkey, Motorola's senior director, regulatory and spectrum policy, said that the FCC has just finished most of the outdoor white space device testing and that Motorola's white space device did very well in the tests. Sharkey said that Motorola uses geolocation technology, which means it uses a combination of location technology (such as GPS) and a database that advises the device on what channel to use and whether or not there is compatibility with other white space devices."The geolocation approach has proved highly reliable," Sharkey says.

The FCC is on track to finish its white space testing soon and the commission will release a report with all the test information. Sharkey believes that based upon the performance of Motorola's device, geolocation technology will be part of the recommendation for white space device specifications.

The FCC is conducting the tests to see whether the devices that access unused television airwaves, called "white spaces," will interfere with television broadcasts. Companies such as Google and Microsoft want to use this spectrum to develop new mobile communications devices. However, the initiative has raised the ire of the National Association of Broadcasters, which argues that "white space" devices may interfere with existing television broadcasts.

Verizon Communications Executive Vice President Tom Tauke told Broadcasting & Cable that so far nobody's devices have passed the FCC's white space testing requirements. Verizon has been outspoken in its objection to letting companies use white space spectrum for wireless devices. Tauke says that the company favors licensed spectrum.

For more:
- see this article

Related articles:
FCC will field test white space devices
Google, Philips, Moto submit white space devices

Qwest: Verizon migration is going well

Sue Marek — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 12:22:28 -0400

Qwest CEO Ed Mueller says the company's migration of its wireless offering from Sprint to Verizon Wireless is going well. The company started rolling out its new Qwest by Verizon service about two weeks ago and the telco CEO told reporters that he modeled the arrangement with Verizon after Qwest's similar deal to resell satellite television from DirecTV.

For more:
- see this Barron's article

Related stories:
Qwest now selling Verizon services
Qwest drops Sprint, taps Verizon for wireless
Qwest: Need to fill wireless "hole"

Andrew Seybold - The Rush to 4G

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 16:42:11 -0400

Over the next year, we will be hearing more about the network operators' move to 4G all over the world. I see the shift to 4G as inevitable, but does it need to happen as soon as LTE, for example, is finalized and the first equipment is built? We are hearing wonderful things about LTE, but the data rates and capacity increases being bandied about are theoretical and based on using 20 MHz of spectrum.

One reason the WiMAX community can claim data speed and capacity gains over today's EV-DO Rev A and UMTS/HSPA is due to the amount of bandwidth it uses. EV-DO Rev A occupies only 1.25 MHz of spectrum per carrier and UMTS/HSPA occupies 5 MHz per carrier. The WiMAX community is basing its claims on bandwidths of 8 MHz or more. If you normalize these three technologies in 10 MHz of spectrum, you find they offer about the same data rates and capacity.

Not many network operators have 20 MHz of contiguous spectrum to use for LTE, but LTE can run in any amount of spectrum from 1.25 MHz up to 20 MHz so it will fit almost anywhere. The caveat is that when LTE is used in less than 20 MHz of spectrum, data speeds and capacity are lower than the published specifications and, in most cases, are about the same as the next revisions of UMTS/HSPA+ and EV-DO Rev B (second release). Thus, I wonder why there is a rush to LTE instead of continuing with the enhancements to HSPA and EV-DO. If you put LTE in the A and B Blocks of the just-auctioned 700-MHZ spectrum, you are using 6 MHz by 6 MHz, which is a long way from 20 MHz of spectrum. When you look at what else can be done with this spectrum, you find that you can deploy four or five carriers of EV-DO or one carrier of UMTS/HSPA or LTE (depending on guard bands).

If you look at the data speeds and capacity of all three of these technologies in 10 MHz of spectrum, you will find that LTE has only a slight advantage (10 percent or less). Verizon, with its C Block holdings of 11 MHz by 11 MHz of spectrum, fairs better with LTE but not as much as is being claimed by LTE promoters. As with any new technology, it will take time to get the bugs out and it will be more expensive to deploy.

A lot of the rush to move to LTE is because of the "threat" of WiMAX and WiMAX proponents' claims about high-data speeds and lots of capacity. We are about to learn the truth about WiMAX as the Sprint portion of the new Clearwire network is turned on and independent tests are conducted. For an idea of what is in store for us, go to the WiMAX Forum website (http://www.wimaxforum.org/technology/) where you can read the following statement: "Mobile network deployments are expected to provide up to 15 Mbps of capacity within a typical cell radius deployment of up to three kilometers." If you compare both of the 3G standards deployed today, you will see that there is virtually no difference in total data capacity available per cell sector or cell site.

Perhaps the commercial wireless community is rushing headlong into 4G when it should be continuing to deploy the next revisions of 3G and watching LTE. But most network infrastructure companies would not be happy with this since many of the revisions for the 3G networks are software upgrades and not nearly as expensive as the upgrade to LTE.

The race is on. NTT DoCoMo has fully committed to being the first LTE network operator and others are raising their hands. But like any new technology, it will take years to fully build out on a nationwide basis. The best we will see over the next three to four years is LTE deployed where there is a high demand for data services, and I don't believe we will see anything like a nationwide network in the United States until 2014 or 2015.

Network operators are trying to attract more customers to their broadband data networks and are still rolling out coverage in some areas. If I were a network operator, I would stay with 3G and implement the new revisions as they become available. I would let LTE technology and pricing mature before I made up my mind to deploy it, especially in less than the 20 MHz of spectrum on which today's specifications, including data speed and capacity, are being calculated.

Don't get me wrong, I believe in LTE and next-generation technology. But I also believe in making money and that the best way for networks to do that is to let demand drive them to LTE, not competition from WiMAX or wanting to be the first kid on the block with LTE.

Andrew Seybold is an authority on technology and trends shaping the world of wireless mobility. A respected analyst, consultant, commentator, author and active participant in industry trade organizations, his views have influenced strategies and shaped initiatives for telecom, mobile computing and wireless industry leaders worldwide. www.andrewseybold.com

FCC approves Verizon, RCC merger

Sue Marek — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 11:45:39 -0400

The FCC today approved the $2.67 billion merger between Verizon Communications and Rural Cellular Corp. This move essentially locks up the merger since the Justice Department has already indicated it will approve the deal as long as Verizon gets rid of some of its spectrum in six markets.

The merger, which was announced in July 2007, allows Verizon to expand its footprint and save more than $1 billion in synergies in reduced roaming and OPEX expenses. RCC's customer base is 716,000 and it operates in about 15 states.

For more:
- see this article (sub. req.)

Related articles:
FCC will consider Verizon/RCC merger at Aug. 1 meeting
Verizon Wireless income up, buys RCC