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Lost Phone Trackers Wrongly Point Users to Atlanta House

Lost phone trackers have wrongly been pointing users to the same Atlanta house for almost a year, causing frustration among the two homeowners who are always accused of being behind a stolen phone racket.

Ever since February 2015, Michael Saba and Christina Lee, both in their twenties, have been receiving more than a dozen complaints from people blaming them for having pilfered their smartphones, simply because tracking apps always suggest that the devices have winded up in the couple’s home.

While some have been eventually convinced, albeit reluctantly, that this is all just a technical error, others have been more suspicious and far less easy to persuade, contacting law enforcement in order to sort out the entire dispute.

In fact, in July 2015, Saba and Lee have even been considered persons of interest in a kidnapping case: a female teenager had gone missing, and her cellphone was tracked to the couple’s home.

Police officers treated the conspicuous suburban house as an actual crime scene, and forced the pair to wait outside, while deliberating if they should obtain a search warrant in order to make sure that the young girl wasn’t hidden somewhere inside the building after all.

For now, the two Atlanta residents are at their wits’ end trying to understand why their house is always targeted by so many “Find my Phone” apps, and are even fearing for their safety, in case they ever run into a more violent smartphone owner, who will not accept their explanations as valid or reassuring.

It doesn’t appear like the glitch is related to any carrier in particular, since the two Atlanta residents have been contacted by people who had been using various providers, including Boost Mobile, Verizon, Sprint, AT&T and T-Mobile.

Also, the operating system of the hand-held device doesn’t seem to be the source of the problem, since some of the missing smartphones are iOS-powered iPhones, while others are Android phones.

According to Ken Westin, security market specialist at Splunk, and former CEO and founder of GadgetTrak, the mysterious incident may be caused by faulty cell tower triangulation.

Basically, when a phone goes missing and the user is trying to locate it using a tracker app, the program first tries to access signals being transmitted by the device thanks to GPS satellites.

Afterwards, the software attempts to identify cell towers situated near the area where the smartphone was last used, and finally it refers to WiFi maps developed by companies such as Skyhook.

It also tries to obtain the gadget’s IP address, although geolocation attempts using this information are seldom reliable or precise enough.

It may be that local cell towers have been transmitting inaccurate information, leading people with missing phones to Saba and Lee’s residence.

The pair have investigated this possibility, but with little success: apparently, there are 3 such sites in the area, the nearest being operated by T-Mobile, but representatives of the company haven’t been forthcoming when their help was sought.

Saba has even tried to address the problem treating it as a network mapping issue, suspecting that all the tracker apps rely on inaccurate data, but despite updating information pertaining to his WiFi’s MAC address and location on Skyhook, he and his partner still received angry calls and visits from people claiming their smartphones had been stolen.

The router’s configuration doesn’t seem to be at fault either, since the couple has already reset the device, and altered its wireless channel, but nothing good came of that either.

More recently, the couple have also contacted Apple and Google officials, once again to no avail, and have even reached out to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), whose spokesperson has explained that the issue isn’t within the agency’s scope of action.

So far, it appears that no solution is in sight: the couple has even been advised to move out, but since the house is owned by Lee’s family, that idea doesn’t seem feasible either.

At the moment, the couple is hoping that a formal complaint with the FCC might yield more promising results, and has also been making plans to raise this issue with Georgia Senator Johnny Isakson.

Image Source: Flickr

AT&T Has to Explain Itself Before the FCC

Earlier this week, AT&T announced that they would put their plan to deliver the installation of one gigabit-a-second hyper speed fiber network in 100 cities in the United States on hold. While the initial plan made millions of Americans happy about the new infrastructure and the benefits coming with it, now the same expansion program raises concern. Chicago, San Diego, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Cleveland and Miami now just have to wait to be blessed with high – speed fiber Internet, provided the company resumes its previous plans. But AT&T has to explain itself before the FCC for this decision, as this delay reaches the highest levels of public interest.

AT&T motivated the push back of the Internet super speed fiber program on the grounds of losing money if the FCC strengthens its net neutrality policies. On the one hand, we have the Obama administrations and President Obama himself wanting to expand the FCC’s role in regulating broadband networks. This debate sparked heavy controversy among telecom giants, AT&T included. Last week, a rather upset AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson declared that

“If you can’t bring new products to service at your speed, not the government’s speed, if you can’t change prices at the market speed, not the government’s speed, why would you ever make these investments? So we’re on a pause mode right now.”

What Stephenson didn’t see coming was the FCC’s letter, due to which AT&T has to explain itself and present a heap of documents to motivate the delay of the plans. Keeping in mind that AT&T still needs to obtain the FCC’s approval on the merger with DirectTV, the telecom giant is now put in a difficult position.

They basically need to prove that going on with the installation of the fiber network covering 100 U.S. cities would turn to be unprofitable under Obama’s regulations. However, if they prove this, all conclusions will reflect upon the merger with DirectTV, a deal which has as main goal the wiring of two million homes across the country.

Being between a rock and a hard place is an understatement, but AT&T has to explain itself and comply with the FCC request in one week. While the US Federal Communications Commission is not convinced about AT&T’s math, the company got authorities’ attention. Alex Macgillivray, Deputy U.S. Chief Technology Officer, gave an interview to Washington Post earlier this week. One of the most powerful and awareness – raising statements he made was

“It’s not every day that a business says that they’re not going to do something that’s good for their customers. That’s a strong statement.”

AT&T has to explain itself in front of the FCC and present all the convincing documents. The date to pay attention to is November 21, as the FCC decision most likely will affect not only the population, but also public policies.

Sprint T-Mobile Joint Bid for Low-spectrum Frequencies Prevented by FCC

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Any gadget enthusiast is inherently tied to the wireless internet providers. Until we manage to build hand held devices with the capacity to globally interconnect on their own, we depend on AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile and the like. How they organize to provide Internet connections and how the FCC regulates are intricate stories. Right now, the focus is on a potential Sprint T-Mobile joint bid for FCC’s next year’s auction.

While AT&T and Verizon are the largest telecom companies in the U.S., Sprint and T-Mobile come the third and fourth. To cover such a large national space, carriers need large amounts of funding. Sprint and T-Mobile were allegedly discussing a potential merger, arguing that with their forces combined, they could offer better services and wider coverage. To do so, Sprint and T-Mobile hoped to gain a massive advantage in the near future.

The FCC announced that in 2015 it will hold an auction for low spectrum frequencies. These frequencies are crucial for mobile operators wanting to offer faster internet data speeds. Sprint and T-Mobile wanted to prepare a common bid for the auction and prove to the regulators they have serious intentions about the merger.

Sprint T-Mobile joint bid is not going to happen

For FCC, the idea of a merger between two national mobile carriers would be a painfully complicated operation from a bureaucratic point of view. Or it would have been, because the merger does not stand a chance to gain approval. The commission’s telecom bureau chef made an announcement on Friday that dismisses the idea of a merger between the two operators.

“Our goal is to promote the participation of as many parties as possible in the auction. If two of the largest companies are able to bid as one combined entity in the auction, their combined resources may have the effect of suppressing meaningful competition,” Roger C. Sherman, Wireless Telecommunications Bureau Chief stated in a blog post. “Therefore, the item tentatively concludes that joint bidding arrangements between nationwide providers should not be allowed.”

Although not stating specifically, Sherman clearly refers to the potential Sprint Sprint T-Mobile joint bid. Maybe Sprint will be disappointed, but T-Mobile is doing quite well. Iliad, a relatively young French telecom company, announced last week an interest in acquiring T-Mobile. Without competition from Sprint, Iliad might now stand a real chance to enter the acquisition process.

Sprint T-Mobile Merger Before FCC Spectrum Auction

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The four major mobile carriers, AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile, will have the opportunity to enlarge their wireless frequency ranges due to an auction organized by the FCC. According to FCC, in 2014 the frequency spectrum lacks 275 MHz, thus proper wireless services are not fully implemented. In 2015 the FCC will auction LTE frequencies and the carriers are eager to capture larger shares of it. A Sprint T-Mobile merger will complicate the affairs, but the result might be very beneficial to consumers. Half of Americans are addicted to smartphones, so without proper coverage, they will end up frustrated.

Sprint and T-Mobile already talk about a merger. Until the FCC and Department of justice approve the operation and the financial details are fully established, the two carriers think about joining forces in a common bid during the next year auction. The auction is highly important because it offers the mobile carriers access to low-band 600 MHz frequencies. This frequency has important characteristics for coverage improvement. Besides the fact that they can reach wider areas, they can penetrate walls easier, according to BusinessWeek.com.

Sprint T-Mobile merger preceded by common bid for low-spectrum frequencies

Masayoshi Son, the CEO of SoftBank, the company owning Sprint, tries to convince regulators that the merger is as serious as possible and it will benefit consumers. Sources say, according to Businessweek.com, that in August the two companies will announce the merger. Sprint will allegedly pay $32 billion for T-Mobile. However, the regulators will need around one year to analyze the case.

Now Sprint has to obtain the necessary funding to cover both deals, to acquire T-Mobile and to buy new frequencies at the next year FCC auction. As a total of $40 billion is needed, both Sprint and SoftBank are negotiating the issues with banks.

The Sprint and T-Mobile, the third and fourth biggest players in the mobile market have only 10 and 4.5 percent of the low-band spectrum, while At&T and Verizon have more than 30 percent each. Low-band spectrum will be needed to expand coverage in rural areas and small towns.

FCC has not established the auction details yet. The regulator is open to adapt the conditions to any changes in the market. If the Sprint T-Mobile merger happens, Sprint will own licenses for more frequencies than allowed by FCC, transforming the whole acquisition into a bureaucratic nightmare.

LG Nexus 5 hits FCC filing after cropping up on Google’s video

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The LG Nexus 5 is getting closer by the day, with new leaks arriving from multiple sources showing Google’s newest Nexus smartphone, set to run the newest Android version KitKat 4.4.

A few days ago, Google revealed they had gained 1 billion activations on Android and announced the next update for Android would be called KitKat 4.4. To celebrate, they launched a promotional video to show Googlers checking out the big KitKat statue.

The video has since been taken down, due to one Googler videoing the statue with an unknown Nexus device, possibly the LG Nexus 5. Google added fuel to the fire when they decided to take down the video, to make sure less people noticed the smartphone.

Since then, an FCC filing has been added showing what appears to be the LG Nexus 5. It has definitely developed by LG and is a high-end phone with some pretty impressive LTE specs. With LG just launching the LG G2, we do not believe they are in the market for another flagship; unless it is the LG Nexus 5.

Inside the FCC filing, the device has a Snapdragon 800 CPU, 5-inch 1080p display, 2300mAh battery, 7-band LTE (with AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint compatibility), WiFi a/b/g/n/ac, NFC and wireless charging. We are a little worried about the 2300mAh battery, seems a little small to power this high-end device.

Google may see KitKat as the solution the battery life problem, Android 4.3 has started to add some features to enhance battery life on Android devices – KitKat is said to be Google’s finest update to make sure longevity on Android devices. KitKat will also be able to run on any Android device, no matter how poor the specs sheet.

It looks like the LG Nexus 5 is getting closer and the Motorola Nexus rumors are fading into thin air. It does intrigue us as to what Motorola is doing with Google now the LG Nexus 5 has been exposed, could it be another Nexus or some new project entirely?