Verizon Facing FCC Questions on Data Metering After $9,100 Phone Bill

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September 17, 2016, 3:36 PM EDT

The Federal Communications Commission confirmed this week that it is examining complaints about data billing from Verizon Wireless customers. The move comes after a series of stories in the Cleveland Plain Dealer detailing unexplained— and in some cases, inexplicable—upticks in customers’ mobile data usage.

The Plain Dealer’s stories were mostly authored by Teresa Dixon Murray, whose reporting on similar billing issues led to a huge fine against Verizon in 2010. Murray first wrote about mysterious increases in her own family’s data usage, caused in part by data apparently being used while the family slept.

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In response to that first story, Murray received a torrent of tales from readers across the country with experiences that were similar, or even stranger.

One Verizon customer told Murray that she was being charged for wireless data—despite using a flip phone with no wireless data connection, on an account that blocks data. Another customer, Joyce Shinn, had been using her recently-deceased husband’s phone to answer phone calls to settle his affairs. About a year after his death, the phone suddenly started showing data usage, triggering overages on Shinn’s account.

Many more accounts came in from customers detailing incremental rises in data usage over the course of several months, despite no changes in their usage habits.

The capper came from a Tampa mother, Valarie Gerbus, whose data usage suddenly surged from less than 4GB one month to 569GB the next, resulting in $8,535 in data charges. Verizon charged her an extra $600 when she decided to cancel her plan.

Verizon did ultimately agree to waive much of that bill, and in a statement said they had resolved Gerbus’ situation “to her satisfaction.” But the company provided no details about the nature of the initial problem.

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Various Verizon spokespersons speaking to Murray attributed the problems to, essentially, consumer error. Mysterious increases in data usage may have been caused, they said, by a feature called Wi-Fi Assist, which switches phones to a mobile network when a Wi-Fi connection seems poor. Other possible culprits included push notifications, which always use the wireless network rather than Wi-Fi.

These are ultimately anecdotal stories, and anyone with a cell phone plan knows how tough it is to be disciplined about data usage. But as Murray’s previous run-in with Verizon shows, what looks like a scattering of isolated incidents can sometimes add up to something much bigger.

T-Mobile Speeds Up Wireless Service For Newer Phones

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September 6, 2016, 3:17 PM EDT

T-Mobile said it added two new technologies to most of its wireless network to double LTE speeds, but only a few phones so far can take advantage.

Only the latest Samsung phones, the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge, are capable of using the faster speeds. And the phones won’t speed up until they receive a software upgrade next month, the carrier said.

It is possible that the upcoming iPhones upgrades, which Apple is expected to unveil on Wednesday, will also be compatible with the new technologies. “More phones will support it soon,” T-Mobile’s chief technology officer, Neville Ray, said in a blog post on Tuesday.

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The new technologies, called 4X4 MIMO and 256 and 64 QAM, could let customers download data at up to 400 megabits per second, about twice the limits of current LTE.

T-Mobile tmus said 4X4 was available in 319 cities. The QAM addition was live on half of the carrier’s network and would be fully installed by the end of October, Ray said.

The news follows Verizon’s vz announcement last week that it had rolled out a technique known as carrier aggregation to increase speeds by about 50% on its LTE network in 461 cities. T-Mobile said it was already offering carrier aggregation across 425 cities in its LTE network.

The carriers are focused on adding new technologies to squeeze faster speeds out of their current 4G LTE networks as the next generation of wireless, 5G, still appears to be years away.

The battling press releases also come as competition is expected to heat up in the wireless market once the new iPhones hit. In the first half of the year, competition has waned and the rate of customers changing carriers hit a record low. But new iPhones typically prompt a flurry of promotional deals to entice subscribers to defect to get free or discounted Apple aapl devices.

How Verizon’s Faster Download Speeds Lapped the Field

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August 29, 2016, 3:20 PM EDT

Wireless carriers have been slowly rolling out a new technology for the past few years to increase maximum download speeds on their networks.

But on Monday, Verizon Communications surprised the industry by announcing it had added the faster approach in 461 markets covering almost the entire country. That should allow many Verizon customers to spend less time waiting for a new music track or video to download onto their phones.

Known as carrier aggregation, or LTE-Advanced, the technology lets one phone receive data over several wireless channels simultaneously, instead of just one. It requires that carriers update software on cell tower base stations and have enough available spectrum to let some phones use more. Verizon is considered by analysts to have less unused spectrum than its rivals.

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AT&T t , the second-largest carrier, was talking about how it rolled out carrier aggregation in Chicago a few years ago, but hasn’t made much noise since. At this point, AT&T’s LTE-Advanced offering covers territory where the majority of people in its LTE network live, a spokesman said.

Third-largest carrier T-Mobile tmus said at the end of last year that it was using carrier aggregation for what it called Extended Range LTE in 300 markets. And Sprint s , the fourth-ranked carrier, said in April that it offered the technology, under its LTE Plus moniker, in 191 markets, including major cities like New York, Chicago, and Atlanta. On Monday, Sprint reported on the results of its latest carrier aggregation testing, noting it now offered the technology in 237 markets.

Verizon’s leap forward could add to its reputation for having a quality network. And the added speed boost could be welcome at a time when rivals have been closing the gap. Any speed increase also would be welcomed by customers, who are facing a long wait before the next generation of wireless technology beyond LTE, known as 5G, is ready.

But just how much difference LTE-Advanced from any carrier makes in the real world is open to some questions.

Only customers with compatible phones can benefit, though most popular models from the last few years from Apple, Samsung, and others will work with carrier aggregation, according to Verizon. And the amount of extra spectrum for each carrier that’s available for combining differs from market to market, even block to block in some cases.

Verizon, for example, says its faster speeds will only kick in like a turbocharger on a car engine, when a customer is downloading a lot of data at once. Otherwise, customers “will continue to enjoy typical download speeds” of 5 to 12 Megabits per second, or Mbps, Verizon vz says. And while the maximum possible speed of LTE-Advanced is 225 Mbps or more, even when carrier aggregation kicks in, customers’ maximum download speeds will increase generally by only 50% over regular LTE, Verizon says.

Some analysts also aren’t sure just how broad the LTE-Advanced coverage is in each market where it has been deployed.

“It would be great to know the amount of coverage that define these launches,” asks BTIG Research analyst Walt Piecyk. “It’s nice to have super fast speeds at random cell sites but if the consumer is handed off to less spectrum intensive LTE or 3G as they walk down the street, the consumer could be disappointed.”

Egypt’s Telecom Regulator Approves Revised Terms for 4G Licenses

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August 17, 2016, 11:08 AM EDT

Egypt’s telecom regulator has approved revised terms for 4G mobile broadband network licenses, and said it will send them out to operators on Sunday.

The government offered four 4G telecom licenses in June, to Telecom Egypt and to the country’s three mobile services providers—Orange Egypt , Vodafone Egypt, and Etisalat—but only Telecom Egypt accepted the terms. The regulator, keen to prioritize existing carriers, decided to revise them.

A senior official at the Telecommunications Ministry told Reuters on Wednesday that the revised terms include additional frequencies but there is no change in the pricing or the condition that 50% of the payment for the licenses must be made in U.S. dollars.

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The National Telecom Regulatory Authority later issued a statement confirming it approved the final terms and that the companies had until Sept. 22 to accept.

The government, which is grappling with a shortage of hard currency as economic and political turmoil in Egypt in the past few years has deterred foreign investment, has said it hopes to raise 22.3 billion Egyptian pounds ($2.5 billion) in total in license fees.

How Apple Could Deliver a Chinese New Year’s Surprise

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March 21, 2016, 7:08 AM EDT

China Mobile reported last week that it added a whopping 24.8 million new 4G subscriptions in February, a Chinese New Year bump whose biggest beneficiary is likely to be Apple.

China Mobile is China’s—and the world’s—largest mobile phone operator, with 830 million subscribers. For the past year, it has been rapidly converting its 3G customer base to the 4G speeds needed to take full advantage of modern smartphones. At the end of February, it had 360 million 4G subs, up from 123 million a year earlier. (See chart below.)

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Apple is China’s most popular smartphone brand, with a 25% market share at the end of January, according to Kantar. If it maintains that share, and if China Mobile’s 4G growth continues unabated, Apple aapl could finish the March quarter, by one estimate, with iPhone sales up 38% year over year.

That would be considerably better than expected. Wall Street is looking for worldwide iPhone sales this quarter to decline 10% to 20% year over year, no matter what happens in China.

Nokia 5G pickup could begin as early as 2017

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February 21, 2016, 3:37 PM EDT

Mobile equipment maker Nokia sees the shift to the next generation of 5G wireless networks kicking off well ahead of 2020, the year when many in the industry consider mass-market upgrades will begin, its chief executive said on Sunday.

Chief Executive Rajeev Suri said the company plans to pick up investment in 5G technology in 2016 and that sales of 5G-ready equipment capable of future upgrades could begin as early as 2017.

“5G will happen faster than expected. This may surprise some of you,” Suri declared to an audience including investors ahead of the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week.

Suri said that in contrast to past “big bang” rollouts of older mobile equipment cycles, 5G will require plenty of equipment upgrades to occur before some of the key 5G standards are expected to be formalised in 2018 and 2019.

“2020 is probably where we see global volume deployments,” Suri said, but added: “We will start to see a lot of action ahead of 2020 – in 2017, 2018, 2019.”

Demand for current 4G equipment peaked in 2015 after massive rollouts were completed in China, the world’s biggest mobile market, and some analysts are concerned Nokia could suffer years of flat or declining sales until 5G picks up later this decade.

Unlike the previous 2G, 3G and 4G cycles which delivered mobile voice calling, text, pictures and video to phones and computers, 5G will also hook up cars, cities, manufacturing plants and agriculture, or the so-called “Internet of Things”.

Earlier this month, Nokia NOK warned investors to expect “flattish” capital spending from network operators in 2016 and to brace for a possible decline in its mobile network business.

Nokia, which closed its 15.6 billion euro acquisition of Alcatel Lucent in January, is looking to stronger growth in fixed line equipment from the recently acquired business, as well as 900 million euros in cost savings through 2018 to help it shore up profits in the near- to medium-term.

The company has said it will not provide an outlook for 2016 for the newly combined companies until May.

During his speech, Suri highlighted SK Telecom’s ambition to have 5G-ready networks running in time for the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea and Japan’s NTT DoCoMo’s similarly aggressive timeframes for moving to 5G.

Another unnamed customer will use 5G to solve its “last mile” problem of reaching local customers without making further investments in broadband cabling, he said.

“5G will happen faster than expected because these customers are already running fast,” Suri said.

Pre-standard “5G-ready” gear using software defined network (SDN) technology will allow network operators and enterprise customers to move to upgrade to full 5G once radio airwaves are allocated and they acquire licences to operate there, he said.

Qualcomm Inks Critical Licensing Deal with China’s Xiaomi

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December 2, 2015, 3:16 PM EDT

Qualcomm is one step closer to handling its licensing troubles in China.

Xiaomi, the second-largest China-based smartphone vendor, and one of the biggest handset makers in the world, has agreed to pay Qualcomm QCOM a royalty on devices it sells that can connect to 3G and 4G cellular networks, the companies announced on Wednesday. The companies did not disclose the terms of the deal.

Qualcomm is one of the world’s foremost licensees of patents related to cellular technology. According to analysts, the company has 170 patents related to long-term evolution (LTE) cellular technology alone, and in its last fiscal year, generated $8.2 billion on patent royalties for cellular communication. That figure was up from $7.9 billion in the previous year.

Ownership of the basic methods that chips inside mobile devices use to connect to cellular networks are a critical piece of Qualcomm’s patent portfolio. If a device can connect to a cellular network on just about any mobile phone service around the world, a small royalty is technically required to be paid to Qualcomm for that right.

These patents are so valuable that earlier this year, Jana Partners LLC, which acquired more than $2 billion in Qualcomm shares, called on the company to restructure its operation and even consider breaking out its licensing business. The issue, analysts and investors say, is that while Qualcomm generates about two-thirds of its revenue from the production of processors running in smartphones and tablets (among other products) approximately two-thirds of the company’s profit comes from its patent licensing.

Qualcomm’s non-licensing revenue hit $17 billion in its last fiscal year, which ended Sept. 27, down from the $18.6 billion it generated in the prior year. Overall, Qualcomm’s profits slipped from $8 billion to $5.3 billion, year-over-year.

While those figures were enough to raise concerns among investors, China was also a major focal point last month, when Qualcomm announced its earnings. The company acknowledged that it has faced headwinds in China attempting to license its patents to device-makers. That market, which ships hundreds of millions of smartphones each year, had largely ignored Qualcomm’s demands for patent licensing.

Meanwhile, the Chinese government has also proven difficult to work with. In Feb., Qualcomm announced that it had settled a nasty dispute with Chinese antitrust authorities over its licensing policies. The company was forced to pay a $975 million fine and change how it licenses patents for phones sold across China.

Qualcomm said that it was displeased with the findings, but would pay the fine. Perhaps more importantly, the agreement allowed Qualcomm to actively seek out licenses with Chinese device makers, albeit under the rules outlined by the country’s antitrust commission.

Since then, Qualcomm has been working to allay investor fears that China, the world’s largest smartphone market, wasn’t generating enough revenue for the company.

In November, the company acknowledged its issues in China during an earnings call, saying that it had secured more than 60 licenses there. Still, some of the country’s biggest competitors, including Xiaomi, were notably absent from that list. The company said that it was frustrated by how long it was taking to ink deals with manufacturers, but added that it was confident it could sign agreements.

The agreement with Xiaomi is a major step in proving that point. Xiaomi is one of the world’s largest smartphone makers and the second-largest in China behind Huawei. Xiaomi has set a goal of shipping 100 million smartphones worldwide this year. That figure does not include tablets, which could also be part of the deal with Qualcomm.

In February, Qualcomm said that it would charge royalties of up to 5% on smartphones sold in China. Those royalties would be based on 65% of the respective device’s retail price. Using those figures, it’s possible Qualcomm could generate significant revenue from the sale of Xiaomi devices for years to come.

Shareholders haven’t lost sight of that possibility. In trading on Wednesday, Qualcomm’s shares are up 7.4% to $52.96 in response to the Xiaomi deal. The jump stands in stark contrast to the troubles Qualcomm’s stock has faced this year overall—it’s down nearly 29% since January.

Still, it’s unclear what the future holds for Qualcomm in China. Xiaomi may have been an easier target for Qualcomm, since the company’s investment arm, Qualcomm Ventures, owns a stake in the China-based device maker. The company has confirmed Huawei, China’s largest smartphone maker and arguably the most important partner for Qualcomm to land in China, has signed the terms of the February agreement. Qualcomm did not comment on whether Huawei is paying licenses to Qualcomm. The company is expected to ship more than 110 million smartphones this year, alone.

Qualcomm did not respond to a request for comment.

For more on Xiaomi, check out the following Fortune video:

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Update: This story was corrected Dec. 2 to reflect that Huawei does have an agreement with Qualcomm.

Ericsson and Orange Test New Networks for the Internet of Things

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November 25, 2015, 3:36 PM EDT

Ericsson is working with Orange Telecom to test three networks for handling the expected deluge of data from a growing number of Internet connected cars, refrigerators, and industrial sensors.

The telecommunications gear maker and the French telecom’s tests, announced Wednesday, come as the mobile industry races to set new standards for a new generation of cellular networks known as 5G. The goal is to create networks that do a better job of funneling data collected by devices in the emerging category of the Internet of things.

Everyone from car makers to hospitals is recognizing that reliable connectivity is essential for their connected products and equipment. And now these firms are trying to have a say in setting the standards that will ensure it before a 2020 deadline for establishing a 5G network.

But it’s up to companies like Ericsson eric , Cisco, csco and Alcatel-Lucent alu to actually build the necessary infrastructure. That’s why tests like Ericsson’s and Orange’s are important.

Innovation based on the Ericsson-Orange tests will start appearing in networks as soon as 2017 according to Yasir Hussain, strategic product manager in the radio business unit at Ericsson. The first test is designed primarily to improve indoor coverage, and will take place in France over the 900 MHz spectrum that is used in U.S. for cordless telephones, baby monitors and microwave ovens. In Europe, and Africa that spectrum band is reserved for 2G and 3G cellular carriers. The goal is to improve coverage by seven times the current 2G networks so the signals can reach basements or remote outdoor monitoring locations such as those used on farms.

The second and third tests involves LTE modem-maker Sequans, and are designed to extend battery life and reduce costs for cellular connected device. Cellular modems are expensive, and the effort of sending out a wireless signal to cell towers can require considerable electricity, especially if the airwaves are saturated by a high concentration of devices or the signal is faint. It’s why your smartphone battery seems to drain faster in a crowded conference and where there is a weak signal.

Sequans is making a specially designed modem for Orange and Ericsson with only one antenna that uses less memory and processing power. Putting the modem to sleep when not sending data will reduce the drain on batteries. The result, in theory, will be a modem that is 60% cheaper and increase their battery life by up to 10 years.

The power-savings features will work on modems for 2G, 3G and 4G networks, while the cheaper modems with the reduced hardware will only be available on 4G LTE networks. Sequans is also working with Verizon on a cheaper LTE modem for connected devices that would bring the cost down to about $15 from $30.

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For more on the Internet of things, watch this Fortune video:

Why Facebook is intentionally giving developers crummy Internet connections

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October 27, 2015, 3:13 PM EDT

Since it’s headquartered in the epicenter of technology innovation, Facebook has decided to give its employees a taste of what users in parts of the world with less developed Internet infrastructure experience using the service.

To do so, the company is instituting a new initiative, dubbed “2G Tuesdays.” Every Tuesday, when employees log into the Facebook FB mobile app, they’ll be prompted to opt into using the social network at a 2G speed — instead of the 3G, 4G, or LTE speed most of us are used to — for the next hour. The goal is to show Facebook employees what it’s like to use their own product under these conditions, and help them take this under consideration in their work.

“People are coming online at a staggering rate in emerging markets and, in most cases, are doing so on mobile via 2G connections. But on the lower end of 2G networks, it can take about two minutes to download a webpage,” a Facebook spokeswoman told Fortune.

Facebook teams regularly tests the service’s performance on web and mobile apps by taking trips to countries where network conditions aren’t as advanced, and make improvements on page load times, data efficiency, app size, and so on. This new initiative will let any Facebook employee experience these conditions and potentially contribute improvements or ideas.

Facebook also operates two labs on its campus to help its employees ensure the service works well for all users. In its “empathy lab,” employees can test the service on a variety of devices, including lower-end ones that are common in emerging markets. At its Internet.org lab, operated in partnership with Ericsson, developers, even those outside of Facebook, can simulate mobile networking conditions and test websites and apps as they would work in emerging markets.

Qualcomm readies itself for 5G with these 3 tech breakthroughs

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October 14, 2015, 1:50 AM EDT

Carriers and the companies that support them are preparing the next generation of wireless networking called 5G. Every decade or so, the wireless industry gets behind a new set of standards to improve the cellular experience for customers and the bottom line for operators. About ten years ago operators began setting standards for 4G networks, and as customers moved from 3G to 4G LTE cell phone owners noticed a big boost in speed.

5G consumers still get a potential speed boost—perhaps up to gigabit speeds—but there is far more at stake than just cell phones. That’s because the 5G upgrade is also designed for the Internet of things. Unlike all previous versions of wireless networking, this version of technology standards setting will involve automakers, hospitals, and industrial conglomerates.

Unlike the move to 4G, which was all about boosting capacity, the move to 5G is about creating a network optimized for connecting billions of new devices to the Internet. There’s a capacity increase, because we’re still using up as much bandwidth as we can with 4K Netflix on the go and live streaming apps such as Meerkat or Periscope on our mobile phones. But operators are also adding technologies that will save on battery life, reduce the amount of data sent with a mobile data packet, and speed up the amount of time it takes the data to flow across the network for sensors, autonomous cars, and mobile medicine. That speed is known as latency, and it’s going to be a big deal for delivering telemedicine and the huge amount of data autonomous vehicles need.

“All the previous network technologies aren’t quite good enough,” said Marcus Weldon, CTO of Alcatel Lucent and president of its Bell Lab’s division. “Up until now we’ve designed the networks for people and their needs and now we’re designing it for things.”

Unsurprisingly, Qualcomm, a leading chip tech vendor in the mobile world, is already hard at work making upgrades to 5G possible. In an exclusive interview with Fortune, Qualcomm’s executive vice president and chief technology officer Matt Grob says the company has been developing new technologies to commercialize for use in 5G wireless deployments. Grob says he expects to see these in use by 2020.

Altogether these new technologies deal with increasing capacity, reliability, and latency. Before we dive in, it’s important to know that one way 5G plans to eke out more capacity is to go after spectrum that we don’t currently use in what’s known as the millimeter band.

There are several challenges with using this spectrum. The first is that in several parts of the world, including in the U.S., government agencies such as the military are using it and don’t want to share it with civilian communications. The second is that the spectrum itself doesn’t travel through walls, water, or even foliage. That means that rain or a poorly placed tree blocks reception and any data transmission. The other part of Qualcomm’s plan is to go after capacity by using Wi-Fi networks, which causes a lot of worry about how existing Wi-Fi networks will behave when cellular phones start trying to “borrow” their capacity.

Qualcomm’s solution to grabbing more spectrum is complex. It plans to build a radio that can constantly search for any available spectrum be it millimeter wave, Wi-Fi, or licensed cellular radio and use that.

If this sounds similar to what Google and Apple have proposed recently, it is similar in idea, but different in execution. Google GOOG and Apple AAPL are searching for the best radio signals using their respective Android and iOS operating systems, but Qualcomm QCOM will do it at the radio level. The radios will be in both phones and in the cellular base stations that operators put in towers and around towns. One useful feature of this technology is that battery-powered sensors might contain a radio that “speaks” only using a low-power technology to save on battery life, but the base station will still be able to hear it. However, a car might have several types of radios that can speak to a base station to enhance reliability. The base stations will be able to understand it all.

That’s the first technology Qualcomm has developed. The second is around carrier aggregation. Basically, this is one of Qualcomm’s major initiatives and basically means adding a bunch of megahertz of spectrum to make one big chunk of spectrum. This matters because the amount of bandwidth an operator can deliver is limited by the size of the chunks of spectrum they have. To get to gigabit speeds over wireless an operator needs something like 80 megahertz of spectrum all packed together. But since all the good spectrum is taken we can’t make whopping huge chunks out of it. Qualcomm’s big breakthrough is figuring out how to take spectrum used in today’s LTE networks and in Wi-Fi networks and in tomorrow’s 5G networks and squish it all together in such a way that the radios see it as a contiguous lump of spectrum that consumers can use to get their gigabit mobile speeds.

Finally, after all of the spectrum and radio magic has been achieved, carriers still have to make money. Since data is getting to be a commodity and operators are worried about becoming a dumb pipe, Qualcomm has built a new network design that lets mobile operators create new business models around services. This has been a dream of companies such as Alcatel Lucent ALU and Cisco CSCO for a while and so far it hasn’t quite caught on, but with the Internet of things it’s possible that delivering location-as-a-service or perhaps selling guaranteed latency for telemedicine might finally catch on.

These three technologies are Qualcomm’s contribution to 5G networks, a future that will arrive by 2020 according to Grob. As that timeline approaches we’re going to hear from more and more companies about their vision for the 5G future. Already Intel and Verizon are working together to build a partnership around 5G technology. And the fact that Intel intc is involved in this is both a testament to how much Intel’s ambitions have stretched, and how much 5G will expand the role of cellular as it encompasses the Internet of things. So get ready for gigabit wireless internet, but know that that’s the least of what’s happening in 5G.

For more on Qualcomm check out this video with CEO Steve Mollenkopf on growing a company in the mobile era:

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