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FCC believes mobile carriers may have lied about coverage
Federal Communication Commission Chairman Ajit Pai announced that one or more major mobile service providers are being investigated for potentially lying about their coverage maps. While the agency undergoes the inquiry, it is suspending its Mobility Fund reverse auction that will allocate subsidies meant to help companies build out high-speed broadband networks in rural areas.
Verizon accused of misleading FCC on rural LTE coverage
Rural carriers have accused Verizon of using shady tricks to hinder its cellular competition. In a letter to the FCC, the Rural Wireless Association accused Verizon of providing the regulator with a "sham coverage map" that distorted the reach of its LTE network in order to deprive competitors of Mobility Fund subsidy money. Big Red said it covered nearly all of the Oklahoma Panhandle in its report to officials, but engineers testing against the FCC's 5Mbps standard estimated that the real coverage area was less than half as large.
FCC to dole out up to $300 million to help carriers expand service in rural areas
It seems like almost every day that we receive a press release announcing Verizon or AT&T is planning to expand its LTE coverage to three, five, eleven new markets. But in some remote pockets of the country, you'd be lucky to latch onto even a solid 3G signal. In a bid to make sure those folks in the boonies get their due, the Federal Communications Commission is establishing a fund to encourage carriers to roll out 3G and 4G service in sparser areas. All told, the agency plans to award up to $300 million to mobile operators, with funds going to the providers offering the lowest rates. The winners will be decided in a sealed, single-round auction, which opens June 27th and is set to close July 11th. As a condition for receiving the funds, carriers must agree to cover at least 75 percent of the road miles within a given census tract. While it's unclear at this early stage which mobile players will take the bait, the FCC's already signaled which parts of the country will be first in line for upgraded service -- namely, Rocky Mountain states like Utah and Idaho, along with Maine, Appalachia and upstate New York.
