Verizon has sent an email to customers to let them know they're getting opted in to its Custom Experience data collection scheme after reports came out about it being turned on by default for some users. From a report: If you (understandably) trashed the email without reading it, the TL;DR is that Verizon's program collects data about your apps and web browsing activity to help "provide you more personalized experiences with Verizon." But of course, Verizon says, you have a choice -- you can turn it off anytime because your privacy is important to it (though not important enough to make the program opt-in instead of opt-out). Custom Experience is a sort of spin-off / successor / rebrand of Verizon Selects, which people were enrolled into when they used the Verizon Up rewards program. Verizon Selects has now been rebranded as Custom Experience Plus, while the Custom Experience with a few limits on tracking is rolling out to most customers who don't actively opt out. Verizon is letting its customers know about the program through emails, like one a member of The Verge's staff received, and texts like this one a reader says they got. The email promises that "you're in control," saying that you can opt out within the next 30 days before the Custom Experience is turned on for your line.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Light Reading: Comcast confirmed that it won't activate data caps and usage-based broadband policies in its Northeast division in 2022, effectively extending an earlier delay to keep the policy out of the region through the end of 2021. There's still no telling whether Comcast will revisit the plan for 2023 and beyond. "We don't have plans to implement our data usage plan in our Northeast markets in 2022 at this time," a Comcast official told Light Reading. Word of Comcast's latest decision follows one made in February 2021 to delay the implementation of data usage and capping policies in its Northeast division until 2022.

Comcast had activated usage-based policies in its Northeast division (which includes parts of 13 states and Washington, D.C., and areas where the cable op competes with the cap-free Verizon Fios service) in early 2021. But Comcast put the policy back on ice there after catching heat from lawmakers about introducing the policy during a pandemic that had forced people to work and school from home and vastly increase their broadband data consumption. Comcast's data usage policies are still active in its Central and West divisions. Comcast restored and updated its data usage policies in July 2020, raising the monthly limit to 1.2 terabytes -- 200 gigabytes more than the 1TB limit that was in place prior to the original COVID-19 outbreak. "Under the current plan, residential broadband customers who exceed 1.2TB of data per month are charged $10 for each additional bucket of 50GB, up to a maximum of $100 per month (Comcast's maximum data overage charge prior to the pandemic was $200)," the report notes. "Comcast also sells a standalone unlimited data option that costs an additional $30 per month."

Major U.S. air carriers warned on Wednesday that plans by AT&T and Verizon to use spectrum for 5G wireless services could be highly disruptive to air travel and cost air passengers $1.6 billion annually in delays. Reuters reports: Trade group Airlines for America (A4A) said if a new Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) directive for addressing potential interference from wireless transmissions had been in effect in 2019 "approximately 345,000 passenger flights, 32 million passengers, and 5,400 cargo flights would have been impacted in the form of delayed flights, diversions, or cancellations." At a hearing Wednesday, senators urged airlines to work to find a resolution. United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby said the 5G wireless issue "is the biggest and most damaging potential issue facing us. We want nothing more than to work to a solution." Southwest Airlines Chief Executive Gary Kelly said the FAA directive "would significantly impact our operations once it is deployed on Jan. 5." The wireless carriers are set to begin using the spectrum in just three weeks. Last week, the FAA issued new airworthiness directives warning interference from 5G wireless spectrum could result in flight diversions.

The aviation industry and FAA have raised significant concerns about potential interference of 5G with sensitive aircraft electronics like radio altimeters. In November, AT&T and Verizon agreed to delay the commercial launch of C-band wireless service until Jan. 5 after the FAA raised concerns. They also adopted precautionary measures for six months to limit interference. The FAA directives order revising airplane and helicopter flight manuals to prohibit some operations requiring radio altimeter data when in the presence of 5G C-Band wireless broadband signals. Aviation industry groups said they were insufficient to address air safety concerns. FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, who did not immediately comment on the airlines' analysis, has said she believes the issues can be resolved and spectrum safely used.

Karl Bode, reporting for TechDirt: Back in 2008, Verizon proclaimed that we didn't need additional consumer privacy protections (or opt in requirements, or net neutrality rules) because consumers would keep the company honest. "The extensive oversight provided by literally hundreds of thousands of sophisticated online users would help ensure effective enforcement of good practices and protect consumers," Verizon said at the time.

Six years later and Verizon found itself at the heart of a massive privacy scandal after it began covertly injecting unique user-tracking headers into wireless data packets. The technology allowed Verizon to track users all over the internet, and the company neither bothered to inform users it would happen, or gave users any way to opt out. It took security researchers two years before security researchers even realized what Verizon was doing. Verizon ultimately received a $1.35 million fine from the FCC (a tiny portion of what Verizon made off the program), but still uses the same tech (albeit with functioning opt-out) today.

A few years later and it's not clear Verizon has actually learned all that much. The company last week began expanding its data collection and monetization once again, this time via a new "Verizon Custom Experience" the company says will help it "personalize our communications with you, give you more relevant product and service recommendations, and develop plans, services and offers that are more appealing to you." In reality that means Verizon is expanding the collection of data on the websites you visit, the people you communicate with, and the apps you use.

Airliners, private planes and helicopters may have to limit landings in low-visibility conditions and follow other restrictions under a government directive to ensure safe operations once a new band of 5G mobile-phone service starts in January. From a report: The Federal Aviation Administration on Tuesday issued two orders laying out potential flight restrictions that could cause severe restrictions at major airports during bad weather.

"The FAA is working closely with the Federal Communications Commission and wireless companies, and has made progress toward safely implementing the 5G expansion," the FAA said in a statement. "We are confident with ongoing collaboration we will reach this shared goal." The agency said in a press release that it believes "the expansion of 5G and aviation will safely co-exist" and stopped short of specific restrictions. But the two airworthiness directives lay the groundwork for what could be severe limitations across the nation's aviation system if the regulator believes the signals -- from a part of the spectrum called the "C-Band" that the mobile carriers have procured to expand their service -- threaten safety.

The Senate voted 68-31 to confirm Federal Communications Commission Chair Jessica Rosenworcel, the first woman to hold that title, to another five-year term, narrowly avoiding a Republican majority at the agency once her current term was set to expire at the end of the year. From a report: Rosenworcel gained the support of key Republicans, including Senate Commerce Committee Ranking Member Roger Wicker, R-Miss. President Joe Biden waited a historically long period to nominate Rosenworcel as well as former FCC official Gigi Sohn to a commissioner role. That prolonged period threatened to temporarily give the two Republicans on the commission a majority, since Rosenworcel would have had to leave the commission at the New Year if she was not confirmed to another term by then. While the role of acting chair, which sets the agenda for the agency, would go to the remaining Democrat on the commission until a permanent chair could be confirmed, the agency would likely not have been able to push forward anything but the most bipartisan of measures. Even with Rosenworcel's confirmation, the commission is set to remain stalemated on more controversial issues until a fifth commissioner is confirmed. Biden has signaled a desire to return to the net neutrality rules adopted by the FCC during the Obama administration, which were later repealed by the agency under former President Donald Trump. Republicans on the commission have continued to signal opposition to reclassifying broadband providers under Title II of the Communications Act of 1934, which the industry has argued would unfairly open the possibility of price regulation of their services. Companies subject to the reclassification included internet service providers like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast, parent company of CNBC owner NBCUniversal.

Verizon might be collecting information about your browsing history, location, apps, and your contacts, all in the name of helping the company "understand your interests," first spotted by Input. The Verge reports: The program, which Verizon appears to automatically opt customers into, is called Verizon Custom Experience and its controls lay buried in the privacy settings on the My Verizon app. The program introduces two different options that appear in the app, Custom Experience and Custom Experience Plus, each of which varies in terms of invasiveness. Verizon provides additional information about both settings within the app, as well as on a FAQ page on its website. It appears that the Custom Experience option is a stripped-down version of Custom Experience Plus, and as Verizon states directly in the app, it helps Verizon "personalize" its "communication with you" and "give you more relevant product and service recommendations" by using "information about websites you visit and apps you use on your mobile device."

Meanwhile, Custom Experience Plus has the same stated purpose -- to help Verizon provide you with a more "personalized" experience. However, it not only uses information about the websites and apps you use on your mobile device, but it also says it uses your "device location," along with "phone numbers you call or that call you" to help Verizon "better understand your interests." This also includes your CPNI, which tracks the times and duration of your calls, and because Verizon is your wireless network provider, it can track your location even if you've turned off location services on your phone. As Verizon explains on its site, it might use your information to, say, present you with an offer that includes music content, or give you a music-related option in its Verizon Up reward program if it knows you like music. Verizon explicitly states that for the more invasive Customer Experience Plus tracking, you "must opt-in to participate and you can change your choice at any time." Signing up for those Up Rewards, or other promotions with consequences buried in the fine print may have opted customers in unknowingly. How to opt-out: "[...] open your My Verizon app, and then hit the gear icon in the top-right corner of the screen. Scroll down and select 'Manage privacy settings' beneath the 'Preferences' heading. On the next page, toggle off 'Custom Experience' and 'Custom Experience Plus.' To erase the information that Verizon has already collected about you through the program, tap 'Custom Experience Settings,' and hit 'Reset.'"

AT&T and Verizon said they will slightly reduce the power of their 5G transmissions in C-band spectrum for six months. The companies said they will do so to allow federal aviation officials more time to study how such transmission might affect radio altimeters in aircraft. From a report: "We are committed to the rapid deployment of 5G and the safety of aviation," the two companies told the FCC in a new letter. "While we continue to believe the FCC's current rules provide for both, we will, without waiver of our legal rights associated with our substantial investments in these licenses, adopt these precautionary measures to allow for additional time for continued analysis." Importantly, according to the Wall Street Journal, executives in the wireless industry don't expect the power reduction to "seriously impair" the operators' 5G operations in the spectrum band. Further, the operators continued to argue that their 5G transmissions in C-band spectrum do not pose a risk to air travel in the US, despite a report from some airlines showing a potential risk of interference to aircraft operations.

Because of a "surprising and sudden request" from America's Federal Aviation Administration that's "based on unverified potential radio interference, a highly anticipated increase in 5G speeds and availability just got put on hold," writes the president/chief analyst of market research/consulting firm TECHnalysis.

But in an opinion piece for USA Today, he asks if the concern is actually warranted? [A]s soon as you start to dig into the details, the concerns quickly seem less practical and more political. Most notably, the plan to launch 5G services on C-Band frequencies has been in the works for several years and really took on momentum after the three big U.S. carriers spent over $80 billion earlier this year to get access to these frequencies. In addition, a report that the FAA cited as part of their complaint has been out for well over a year, so why the last-minute concerns?

U.S. government agencies are, unfortunately, known to hold grudges against one another, sometimes without real clarity as to what's actually involved, as appears to be the case here... Some 40 countries around the world are already using most of the C-Band frequencies for 5G (part of the reason the U.S. has fallen behind on the 5G front), and none have reported any interference with radio altimeters on planes in their countries, the wireless trade association CTIA argues on its website 5GandAviation.com. In addition, new filtering technologies being built into a somewhat obscure part of smartphones called the RF (radio frequency) front end, such as Qualcomm's recently introduced ultraBAW filters, can reduce interference issues on next generation smartphones.

All told, there are numerous reasons why the FAA's concerns around 5G deployment look to be more of a red herring than a legitimate technical concern. While it is true that some older radio altimeters with poor filtering might have to be updated and/or replaced to completely prevent interference, it's not clear that the theoretical interference would even cause an issue.
The article complains that the delayed expansion of bandwidth "could also delay important (and significant) economic impacts," since every previous change in cellular service levels "has triggered billions of dollars of new business and thousands of new jobs by creating new opportunities that faster wireless networks bring with them and 5G is expected do the same...

"While airplane safety shouldn't be compromised in any way, an overabundance of unnecessary caution on this issue could have a much bigger negative impact on the U.S.'s technology advancements and economy than many realize."

Something is slowing internet subscriber growth at Comcast and Charter, reports Bloomberg, "raising concerns about an end to what has been a huge growth business."

But why? Explanations ranging from a slowdown in consumer spending to competition from phone giants. Slashdot reader JoeyRox shared this report from Bloomberg: Charter on Friday reported 25% fewer new broadband subscribers than analysts estimated and said the overall number of new customers would fall back to 2018 levels. Comcast, which had earlier cut its subscriber forecast, reported 300,000 new internet customers Thursday, less than half the number added a year ago. Analysts were expecting some slowdown in demand coming off 2020, a year when broadband sign-ups spiked as the pandemic shifted people to working and schooling from home. Still, with Charter echoing Comcast's gloomy picture from Thursday, suddenly there's a chill on the cable broadband front, which became the most prized segment of the business as consumers cut traditional TV service.

Charter's shortfall raises "questions about whether this is the beginning of the end of the cable broadband story," said Geetha Ranganathan, an industry analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence...

Both Charter and Comcast blamed a slower new home market for some of the slack in demand, leaving the companies to try and squeeze more business out of their saturated markets. Other factors could include a dropoff in lower-paying customers as government assisted broadband funds dry up... New competition from phone companies certainly doesn't help. AT&T Inc. is expanding its network and added 289,000 new fiber internet customers last quarter. Meanwhile, T-Mobile US Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. are very excited about new wireless home broadband offers that aim directly at cable and outlying areas where cable could potentially expand.

Changes in TV viewing may also be a factor. For decades, cable companies sold TV and internet in discounted bundles. With rise of streaming video "the cable promos aren't as appealing for broadband only," Lopez said. Even as Comcast and Charter deploy new faster network technology to attract more lucrative customers, cable's share of the market is starting to shrink, according to Tammy Parker, a senior analyst with GlobalData.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: A newly obtained document written by the FBI lays out in unusually granular detail how it and other law enforcement agencies can obtain location information of phones from telecommunication companies. Ryan Shapiro, executive director of nonprofit organization Property of the People, shared the document with Motherboard after obtaining it through a public record act request. Property of the People focuses on obtaining and publishing government records. The document, a 139 page slide presentation dated 2019, is written by the FBI's Cellular Analysis Survey Team (CAST). CAST supports the FBI as well as state, local, and tribal law enforcement investigations through the analysis of call data and tower information, the presentation adds. That can include obtaining the data from telecommunications companies in the first place; analyzing tower dumps that can show which phones were in an approximate location at a given time; providing expert witness testimony; and performing drive tests to verify the actual coverage of a cell tower.

"When necessary, CAST will utilize industry standard survey gear drive test equipment to determine the true geographical coverage breadth of a cell site sector," the presentation reads. The presentation highlights the legal process required to obtain information from a telecommunications company, such as a court order or search warrant. The LinkedIn profile of one CAST member Motherboard found says they have a "special emphasis in historical cell site analysis which is typically used for locating phones (and the individuals attached to those phones) for cases such as kidnappings, homicides, missing persons, and robberies." CAST provides its own cell phone data visualization tool to law enforcement officials around the country called CASTViz for free. "CASTViz has the ability to quickly plot call detail records and tower data for lead generation and investigative purposes," the presentation reads. The document includes images of and instructions for the CASTViz software itself.

The document also explains how data requests from Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs) such as Boost Mobile are handled, explains how to obtain location data from what the FBI describes as "burner phones," and how to obtain information from OnStar, General Motors' in-vehicle system. The document also provides the cost of some of this data for law enforcement to request. The presentation provides more recent figures on how long telecoms retain data for. AT&T holds onto data such as call records, cell site, and tower dumps for 7 years. T-Mobile holds similar information for 2 years, and Verizon holds it for 1 year. The slide also shows that AT&T retains "cloud storage internet/web browsing" data for 1 year. Another section that provides an overview of the different engineering and location datasets held by telecoms and potentially available to law enforcement agencies tells officials to use some AT&T data "cautiously." "AT&T does not validate results," the presentation reads. That section also mentioned that Verizon has a "new" location tool that law enforcement agencies can use. Rich Young, a Verizon spokesperson, told Motherboard in an email that "This is a tool that our security team uses in response to lawful warrants and emergency requests. For example, this tool would be used in response to cases involving armed fugitives or missing children. As a common industry practice, the tool uses network-based cell site location information. All other major providers use a similar approach."

Just when some wireless carriers were trying to move away from phone giveways, T-Mobile upped the ante on Thursday with a deal offering new customers as much as $1,000 if they switch. From a report: The second-largest U.S. wireless carrier said that starting Friday consumers who bring a bill from their current provider to a T-Mobile store can get a prepaid debit card for any remaining amount owed on their phone, up to $1,000. Rivals AT&T and Verizon reported stronger-than-expected subscriber gains this week after using phone giveaways to help prime the pump in the third quarter.

Verizon's Visible network has confirmed that some accounts were accessed without authorization. Visible is a cell service owned and operated by Verizon that "pitches itself as a less expensive, 'all-digital' network, meaning there aren't any physical stores like you'd get with a tradtiional carrier," notes The Verge. From the report: Starting on Monday, customers on both Twitter and Reddit reported en masse that they'd been getting emails from the company about changed passwords and addresses, and that they've had difficulties contacting the company's chat support. Visible's customer service account on Twitter seemingly hasn't addressed the issue, besides directing upset customers to its DMs. A user marked as a Visible employee on the subreddit posted a statement on Monday afternoon, saying that a "small number" of accounts were affected, but that the company didn't believe its systems had been breached. The statement did recommend that users change their passwords, but as many commenters pointed out (and as I can confirm), the password reset system currently isn't working. In a follow-up article, The Verge reports that Visible has confirmed customer reports of attackers accessing and changing user accounts. The company said that the breaches were carried out using usernames and passwords from "outside sources," adding that it's worked to "mitigate the issue" since it became aware of it. They're recommending you reset your password if it's one you've used for other services.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: [O]rganizers and programmers with the Mycelium Mesh Project are [...] designing a decentralized, off-grid mesh network for text communications that could be deployed quickly during government-induced blackouts or natural disasters. Mesh networks, a form of intranet distributed across various nodes rather than a central internet provider, have the potential to decrease our collective reliance on telecommunication conglomerates like Spectrum and Verizon. During a civil unrest situation, government operatives could theoretically disconnect established commercial mesh networks by raiding activists' homes and destroying their nodes or super nodes. The Mycelium Mesh Project is addressing this potential weak link by developing a system that could be deployed at a moment's notice in non-locations, such as on abandoned buildings, tree tops, electric boxes and utility poles.

Nodes would be cheap, run independently of the power grid, and could be produced with materials that can be obtained locally. So far, the collective has successfully sent and received text messages across thirteen miles during field testing around Atlanta, Georgia with nodes powered by rechargeable batteries harvested from disposable vapes. [...] The Mycelium Mesh Project is still in its relatively early stages of development. Messages aren't encrypted -- a necessary feature for activists -- and the model isn't ready for long-range use. But developers are hopeful that their open-source model will promote cooperation amongst like-minded coders. "The network that we all use will work pretty much fine in 99.9% of the cases. But then when it doesn't, it's a real big problem," Marlon Kautz, an organizer and developer with the project, told Motherboard. "The authorities' control over our communications infrastructure can just completely determine what is politically possible in a situation where the future is really up for grabs, where people are making a move to change things in a serious and radical way."

"This is anti-capitalist work, which is non-commercial. We are not trying to start a business," Kautz explained. "We're explicitly trying to take advantage of open source type concepts. So not not only do we want the code that we're developing to be open source, but our entire production model will be."

A company that is a critical part of the global telecommunications infrastructure used by AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon and several others around the world such as Vodafone and China Mobile, quietly disclosed that hackers were inside its systems for years, impacting more than 200 of its clients and potentially millions of cellphone users worldwide. From a report: The company, Syniverse, revealed in a filing dated September 27 with the U.S. Security and Exchange Commission that an unknown "individual or organization gained unauthorized access to databases within its network on several occasions, and that login information allowing access to or from its Electronic Data Transfer (EDT) environment was compromised for approximately 235 of its customers." A former Syniverse employee who worked on the EDT systems told Motherboard that those systems have information on all types of call records. [...] The company wrote that it discovered the breach in May 2021, but that the hack began in May of 2016.

Yahoo and AOL, formerly known as Verizon Media, have officially been acquired by their new owners and renamed as simply "Yahoo." The Verge reports: Verizon announced it was selling the properties to Apollo Global Management in May in a deal said to be worth $5 billion, around half of the nearly $9 billion the telecom giant originally paid for them, and a fraction of the hundreds of billions the two companies were worth at their peaks.

Yahoo will now be run by CEO Guru Gowrappan, and will operate as a standalone company under Apollo Funds. Apollo is a private equity firm that owns assets like crafts retailer Michaels, Chuck E. Cheese restaurants, and the Venetian resort in Las Vegas. "The close of the deal heralds an exciting time of renewed opportunity for us as a standalone entity," Gowrappan said. "We anticipate that the coming months and years will bring fresh growth and innovation for Yahoo as a business and a brand, and we look forward to creating that future with our new partners."

A new article at ZDNet argues that "The 1990s had a word for being trapped inside a manipulative notion of human contact: AOL."

"Facebook and its ilk are the rebirth of that limited vision." Once upon a time, roughly thirty years ago, there was a computer network called America Online... There was already an Internet, but most people didn't know how to use it or even that it existed. AOL, and a couple of competitors, Compuserve and Prodigy, offered people online things they could do, such as chat with other people... The services had only one drawback, which was that they were limited. People couldn't do just whatever they wanted, they could only pick from a small menu of functions, such as chat, that the services provided... As it grew and grew, the World Wide Web became an amazing place in contrast to AOL... People were so excited by the World Wide Web, they never wanted to go back to AOL or Compuserve or Prodigy. The three services withered...

People got excited about Facebook because it was a place where they could find real people they knew, just like MySpace, but also because it had some features like AOL, like the game Farmville. Business people were even more excited because Facebook started to generate a lot of advertising revenue. Advertisers liked Facebook because it not only knew who was talking to whom, it also knew a little bit about the hobbies and interests of people. Advertisers liked that because they could use the information to "target" their ads like never before. Smart people said that Facebook had what are known as "network effects." It became more powerful the more people joined it...

There were just a couple problems with Facebook. Facebook was a lot like AOL. It limited people by telling them with whom they could communicate.... One of the bad things was that people no longer had control. They had given so much information about themselves to Facebook and its competitors that it was like those companies owned people when they were in Cyberspace. The services didn't seem to do a great job of handling people's information, either.
What's interesting about this article is it even tells you how the story ends: Then one day, someone smart built a new technology that didn't require people to sign away their information. Now, people could meet anyone they wanted and talk about whatever they wanted, not just what Facebook or its competitors said was okay. People felt more relaxed, too, because even though there were ads, people could meet up in Cyberspace without every single action they took being used to fuel an advertising machine.

People got excited again, like the first time they found the Web and gave up on AOL.

But there our story ends, because that chapter has not yet been written.

In a 2015 video, PCMag's lead mobile analyst Sascha Segan showed off "One of the coolest phones at this year's CES."

He's now written an article titled "How I Got Suckered by an (Alleged) $10M Phone Scam. The biggest mobile-phone mystery of the 2010s is finally coming to an ignominious end, as yesterday the U.S. attorney for Utah charged Chad Sayers, founder of entirely notional mobile phone firm Saygus, with conducting a $10 million fraud scheme. Saygus "had" a series of "phones" from 2009-2016 that existed as prototypes that the company took on trade shows and to press tours. There was never any real evidence of production runs. The U.S. Attorney now claims Sayers and associated took $10 million in investor money and lived on it without ever really planning to release a product. (I learned this via David Ruddock....)

The phone kept just...not happening. Sayers' genius was that he produced just enough prototypes to show off and kept them in a constant state of pre-sale... "DEFENDANT failed to disclose that device certification with Verizon expired in 2013 and was never renewed," the Department of Justice notes. A new version of the phone then popped up again in 2015, this one supposedly covered in Kevlar with 320GB of storage. Sayers flogged that prototype until early 2016, at which point he said it was coming "next month."

The Department of Justice says: "Between April 7, 2015 and January 10, 2017, DEFENDANT made at least 26 public statements on Twitter that its phone would be shipping 'this month,' 'this week,' or was otherwise launching, when in fact, it has never launched...."

Sayers kept going on press tours and buying expensive trade-show booths with prototypes of phones that would never hit the market, drumming up enough gullible mainstream press coverage (myself included) to presumably attract a continual stream of investors with his claim of being the next big thing.

"There is no simple answer to this question," argues an article at EE Times. At least, not yet...

Slashdot reader dkatana shares their report: For most industrial IoT applications, the question remains: Do I need 5G for my IoT connections? It depends on the connectivity, the devices, and many other factors. First, does the project need cellular connectivity? There are several wireless low-power wide-area networks (LPWANs) using different radios that can be used without incurring the cost of cellular connections. Other wireless technologies such as LoRaWAN and Sigfox offer massive IoT connectivity for local and wide-area applications with low power consumption. For example, connecting hundreds or thousands of sensors in agriculture can be achieved over an existing Sigfox or LoRaWAN network. Those sensors usually do not require the bandwidth or enhanced security of cellular networks. Additionally, most cellular connections use licensed spectrum, which is additional cost carriers need to transfer to customers.

One reason to invest in 5G connectivity for IoT is that operators are shutting down legacy 2G and 3G networks worldwide. In the past 30 years, hundreds of thousands of Machine-to-Machine (M2M) devices have been deployed using 2G networks. Those are utility meters, alarm systems, and basic sensors that use SMS and GPRS/EDGE for communication. In 2017, AT&T announced that they will start shutting down 2G networks to free up the spectrum for LTE and the upcoming 5G radios. Additionally, Verizon Wireless phased out its 2G CDMA network in the US at the end of 2020; Sprint sunsetted its 2G CDMA network in December of 2021; and T-Mobile plans to sunset its 2G network in December of 2022.

The existing connections are now living on borrowed time.

Like 2G, many carriers are eager to sunset older 3G networks so that they can repurpose that spectrum to support 4G LTE and 5G.

Netflix has stepped up its efforts to ban VPN and proxy users from bypassing geographical restrictions. The streaming service is now blocking residential IP addresses too, since some unblocking tools use these to bypass restrictions. This isn't without collateral damage as many regular Internet users without a VPN now report "missing content" on Netflix. TorrentFreak reports: There is a flurry of complaints on social media from users whose VPN services were suddenly 'blocked' by Netflix. Previously, these people couldn't play any content while using a VPN. That changed last year. Now, VPN users can still see Netflix originals while other content is hidden and blocked. https://torrentfreak.com/netflix-is-less-annoying-to-vpn-users-now-but-some-titles-are-hidden-200618/

Netflix doesn't explain which IP addresses are blocked and why, but the most recent efforts are much broader than before. This issue was brought to our attention by WeVPN, which noticed that the updated geo-fencing system is blocking its residential IP addresses. These IP addresses are assigned to common consumer ISPs such as AT&T, Comcast, Verizon. While it makes sense for Netflix to put an end to these workarounds, there appears to be some collateral damage. "The collateral damage is that you have hundreds of thousands of legitimate residential Netflix subscribers blocked from accessing Netflix's local country full catalog from their home," a WeVPN spokesperson informs us. While we are unable to verify how many people are facing issues, it is clear that the measures are spilling over to regular subscribers.

While Netflix hasn't released an official comment on the situation, the company is aware of the problems. One user who complained on Twitter, got the advice to contact their ISP to see if their IP address is associated with proxy or VPN use. This is a peculiar suggestion, as the blocking is taking place on Netflix's end. WeVPN told us that the company is experimenting with a solution, which appears to function for now. CyberGhost and Private Internet Access, which were also affected by Netflix's new blockades, say they managed to route around it within a day. In an update, a Netflix spokesperson said that the company is not banning all content for VPN and proxy services. Netflix originals are still available and the streaming service is working with people who were inadvertently affected to restore access to the full library.