Telecom Daily
Welcome to Faulkner's Telecom Daily. We publish Monday through Friday, updating top stories as events warrant.
Friday, May 22...
Verizon Wireless Enables Uploads for First Time on 5G
Verizon Wireless revealed to
PCMag that customers can now officially use
its 5G services to upload data as well as download it. Until this change, the
company's 5G network would only allow download traffic to connected mobile
devices, routing any uploads over its 4G network instead. Now, consumers can
enjoy increased speeds via 5G uploads. However, those speeds may not be what
many were expecting, as Verizon noted that subscribers should only expect to see
an increase of about 30 percent when compared to 4G uplinks. The new upload
functionality will, according to PCMag, run on a 100MHz block of Verizon's
mmWave 5G spectrum, a significantly larger range than the 20MHz typically
reserved for uploads on the carrier's 4G network.
FCC and FTC Issue New Warnings to Telecom
Gateway Providers over COVID-19 Scams
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
and Federal Trace Commission (FTC) issued a
trio of warnings to telecom gateway providers "allowing COVID-19 pandemic
related scam robocalls into the United States." The agencies demanded that all
offending parties "cut off this traffic or face serious consequences." This is
the second round of crack-downs on gateway providers that allow COVID-19-related
scam calls into the US, following what the FCC called a "successful push" in
April consisting of similar letters to offending network providers. The
companies in this round include IntelePeer, PTGi, and RSCom. All three now have
48 hours to comply before penalties are levied against them. The FCC tracked
down the offending companies in collaboration with the Industry Traceback Group,
a consortium of phone companies that help officials find the sources of suspect
calls.
AT&T Finally Ditching Controversial "5G
Evolution" Branding
AT&T told
Engadget that it will finally abandon its controversial "5G Evolution"
branding to comply with recommendations from the National Advertising Review
Board. The industry self-regulator found that the company's "5G Evolution, the
First Step to 5G" branding was misleading, not making it sufficiently clear that
the service on offer was actually just a form of 4G, not a newer 5G technology.
AT&T still maintains that it “respectfully disagrees” with the recommendation,
but that it wished to support the "self-regulatory process." AT&T did not
specify whether the 5GE icon that appeared on many customers' phones would be
replaced by a more traditional 4G icon. It is worth noting that, despite several
years of complaints about the branding, AT&T waited until its real 5G network
had proliferated across many major markets before terminating the 5G Evolution
campaign.
....Michael Gariffo, Faulkner Information Services
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