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Communications Technology

ISP Admits Lying To FCC About Size of Network To Block Funding To Rivals (arstechnica.com) 88

Ryan Grewell, who runs a small wireless Internet service provider in Ohio, last month received an email that confirmed some of his worst suspicions about cable companies. From a report: Grewell, founder and general manager of Smart Way Communications, had heard from some of his customers that the Federal Communications Commission's new broadband map falsely claimed fiber Internet service was available at their homes from another company called Jefferson County Cable. Those customer reports spurred Grewell to submit a number of challenges to the FCC in an attempt to correct errors in Smart Way's service area.

One of Grewell's challenges elicited a response from Jefferson County Cable executive Bob Loveridge, who apparently thought Grewell was a resident at the challenged address rather than a competitor. "You challenged that we do not have service at your residence and indeed we don't today," Loveridge wrote in a January 9 email that Grewell shared with Ars. "With our huge investment in upgrading our service to provide xgpon we reported to the BDC [Broadband Data Collection] that we have service at your residence so that they would not allocate addition [sic] broadband expansion money over [the] top of our private investment in our plant."

The email is reminiscent of our November 2022 article about a cable company accidentally telling a rival about its plan to block government grants to competitors. Speaking to Ars in a phone interview, Grewell said, "This cable company happened to just say the quiet part out loud." He called it "a blatant attempt at blocking anyone else from getting funding in an area they intend to serve." It's not clear when Jefferson County Cable plans to serve the area. Program rules do not allow ISPs to claim future coverage in their map submissions. Jefferson County Cable ultimately admitted to the FCC that it filed incorrect data and was required to submit a correction. The challenge that the ISP conceded was for an address on State Route 43 in Bergholz, Ohio. The town is not one of the coverage areas listed on Jefferson County Cable's website.

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ISP Admits Lying To FCC About Size of Network To Block Funding To Rivals

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  • by Retired Chemist ( 5039029 ) on Friday February 03, 2023 @10:38AM (#63262493)
    That the FCC would believe any of the service providers large or small about their coverage, indicates corruption, laziness, lack of resources, or naivety in some combination. All of the providers large and small lie about their coverage for both internet and wireless service all the time. The FCC either can't or won't bother to check up on them.
    • they've had decades of right wing, pro-corporate administrations and Congress undermining them. The Republicans are using the filibuster to block a Democratic majority on the FCC [prospect.org], making it difficult if not impossible to do anything.

      Biden will likely win in 2024 (Trump is rising in the primary polls rapidly but can't win in the general after Jan 6th, and if he loses he's likely to do a 3rd party run so that he can use his candidacy to shield himself legally). Assuming he lives, but given the quality of
      • by Anonymous Coward

        I wouldn't downplay Trump. Trump has one asset that Biden has, the same asset which got Bush Jr. the Oval Office: The Supreme Court. If the election count is anywhere near close, they will get Trump in. If there are issues with a state election or Republican gerrymandering fails, it will be appealed to SCOTUS which will hand Trump a victory.

        Trump may not be a day to day item, but he still has the Republican party under his thumb, because all the people that were not, were primaried out, perhaps via anon

        • Jan 6th ended his chances. It was an all or nothing, do or die kind of thing. Also Biden is an old school politician. Unlike Hilary He knows how to campaign. Hilary wasn't just a terrible candidate (she was) she was a terrible campaigner. She actually believed in that "blue firewall" nonsense.

          And the economy's doing fine. 2.9% GDP growth and low unemployment. Yeah, lower paid workers are still getting screwed, but they don't vote, on either side. Average Trump voter made $71k/yr average Hilary voter $61
  • And this behavior won't stop until people at the top get punished for it. And by "punished" I don't mean "get fired with a golden parachute"

  • by smoot123 ( 1027084 ) on Friday February 03, 2023 @10:47AM (#63262519)

    A company wants to hobble it's competitors and uses government influence to do so? Who'da thunk it!

    Seriously, with subsidy money flying around, no kidding people will lie to get it or lie to keep their competitors from getting it. Lying is bad and ought to have consequences when discovered. But perhaps we should also consider reducing the incentive to lie?

    • by DarkOx ( 621550 )

      More like company does not want to see its competitors gifted tax payer funds to strength their market positions.

      I am not excusing the lying but this isnt a leveraging government to create entry barriers thing. Which is not say government has not done exactly that too, granting them rights of way to the exclusion of others in the past etc.

      However the fact that we have all these federal, state, county broadband build out programs running we are already well and truly down the path of government picking winn

      • Ask yourself, if you spent decades building an organically funded network in a region how would feel about the government coming by and handing a potential rival millions of dollars to expand into your territory or even adjacent areas you'd had designs on? Would you feel that its fair? Remember you took the risk building without supports should not be able to reap the rewards of higher prices and your *natural* monopoly?

        Firstly, if you don't have fiber service in those areas deployed, functional and serving customers then it is by the rules "not your territory" as it states you can't claim future areas. Just like I can't claim territory in a war without putting troops there. I can say whatever I want belongs to me (I personally claim all of Ohio belongs to me) but it doesn't mean anything. The government here is not giving one companies customers to another company, they are looking at an unserved area and allocating it

        • by DarkOx ( 621550 )

          Its your territory if for example you have some kind of service offering there, even if its crappy point to point radio, or ADSL.

          it is by the rules

          Rules government entities 'made up' for how they wanted to tamper with the market place, certainly not any natural rules.

          Like i said I am actually not against the policy here, in terms of supporting broad band build out. All I was saying is if I was an incumbent local telecom owner, and the government was literally handing other people money to compete with me I would probably f

          • Its your territory if for example you have some kind of service offering there, even if its crappy point to point radio, or ADSL.

            FIber exists alongside those. If i have a bunch of shitty legacy DSL lines and have no installed fiber to replace that should I be allowed to block all competitors from installing fiber if they are ready and able to? I can still sell my DSL lines, the other company is not ripping those out as far as I am aware. If the goal is "more fiber for more residents" then that makes sense. I don't think the goal should be "make sure entrenched company remains sheltered"

            certainly not any natural rules.

            What are the natural rules? Corporate enti

            • by DarkOx ( 621550 )

              Hyperbolic but this ISP in question can't hire 8 year olds to climb poles and replace wires.

              No obviously because, minimum working ages apply to all companies across all industries. So it does not trample on the ISPs market. It does certainly trample on the ability to market ones labor if you are 8.

              If i have a bunch of shitty legacy DSL lines and have no installed fiber to replace that should I be allowed to block all competitors from installing fiber if they are ready and able to

              Of course not absolutely not - but that is 100% not what we are talking about here. We are talking about trying to block SUBSIDIES going to others to do it.

              What are the natural rules?

              Come now you know what rule, supply, demand, freedom to make agreements, etc. Government is DIRECTLY tampering with the curves here.

              If there were pe

      • by Zak3056 ( 69287 )

        I'm normally on the "free market" side of things, but "I'll build my monopoly when I get around to it someday, and don't you dare serve those people sooner" is just plain offensive and indefensible. Also, "fraud" is not "gaming the system."

  • It seems to me the telecom industry collectively is terrible. The question is "why is this industry so bad?" We know about the customer service problems, the pricing deception, the reporting issues. Is this due to managers just assuming "this is how the game is played, and we have to be as bad as everyone else to compete?" Is it due to the semi-utility nature of the industry, where there are local monopolies or duopolies, with less oversight and accountability of other utilities (e.g. electric power?)

  • Prison? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Immerman ( 2627577 ) on Friday February 03, 2023 @11:03AM (#63262573)

    And who is going to prison over this multi-million dollar fraud? Nobody? Oh yeah, I'm sure that will stop it from happening again...

    • Re:Prison? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by godrik ( 1287354 ) on Friday February 03, 2023 @11:14AM (#63262615)

      I certainly hope it does happen. Lying (not just being wrong) to a federal agency (even though it is not not a law enforcement agency I think) seems like the kind of thing you should go to prison for.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Here in the US, fraud is okay. Look how a bunch of convicted people got pardoned under 45. Now, possessing a joint, shoplifting to feed family, being homeless(especially in Tennessee where camping was made a felony), or a child with lunch debt... now THOSE are crimes that end up being be punished by long stays in private prisons. Some guy bilking the government of millions? That's just business as usual.

  • As 5g rolls out things will get better and more competition will exist. In San Diego, there is a big push by T-Mobile and Verizon to offer 5g home Internet service. They provide a wireless router that connects to their service and acts as a hotspot for your home. Most of these services start around $50 and provide a 100mb down (forget the up stream), which is extremely comparable to what Cox Communications (cable ISP) charges for stand alone 100/25 service.

    Some areas also have ATT serving the same area as C

    • Correct me if I'm wrong but on their site it says that Verizon is the parent company of Visible so they do not appear to be a typical MVNO like Ting, etc. As a matter of fact it looks like direct competition against the traditional MVNOs that have catered to people who want an alternative to the big 3 (i.e. 4-line plans for $150/mo), albeit still using the big 3 infrastructure.

      https://www.visible.com/about-... [visible.com]

      • Oh okay cool. I'd go Verizon direct but they seem to think everyone needs 4 lines... Visible, one line, $30 out the door and unlimted talk, text, data and hotspot (5mb down but that's enough to stream and most sites don't let me download even close to that anyway). I'm very satisfied. If I get other people to sign up with my reference link, I get $10 off for the next month, though I haven't bothered to do this yet.

  • No punishment (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dirk ( 87083 ) <dirk@one.net> on Friday February 03, 2023 @11:16AM (#63262627) Homepage

    The biggest issues with this is that the only punishment is that they had to submit a correction to the FCC. That means they basically got away with it and there is zero incentive to stop them for doing it again. If rules are put in place, there needs to be punishments corresponding with the severity of the rule breaking, or there might as well not be any rules at all.

    • You or I commit fraud, we go to jail.

      CEO commits fraud, he gets a massive bonus.

      And so it goes.

    • by Holi ( 250190 )

      They issued a correction for that one address the neighboring house and others in the area are still listed in their coverage zone.

    • The biggest problem is, even if there is a fine, it's less than the cost of doing business. What's a Capitalist going to do in event of that fact? The fine becomes another cost, and do it anyway.

      The best way to fix this is to fine both the company and the C-Levels directly.

      The company is fined a 20% of gross income before any taxes (et al.) for the scheme. That fine is not able to be used to offset any taxes.

      The C-Levels are personally fined a 20% of total compensation (direct pay, stock options, e
  • by Anubis IV ( 1279820 ) on Friday February 03, 2023 @11:17AM (#63262633)

    If a resident tries to subscribe for service that has been advertised at their address, a failure to provide that service seems to me to be a breach of truth in advertising law. Put the company on the hook for it by fining them the price of whatever they advertised and paying it out to the affected resident as a "finder's fee" for the false advertising. Oh, and make it recurring: if the company fails to correct the false advertising, that resident is entitled to point it out again once the initial term ends (e.g. a resident would be entitled to receive $30 every month if they continue reporting an ISP that continues to falsely advertise a $30/mo. service at their address).

    • If a resident tries to subscribe for service that has been advertised at their address, a failure to provide that service seems to me to be a breach of truth in advertising law. Put the company on the hook for it by fining them the price of whatever they advertised and paying it out to the affected resident as a "finder's fee" for the false advertising. Oh, and make it recurring: if the company fails to correct the false advertising, that resident is entitled to point it out again once the initial term ends (e.g. a resident would be entitled to receive $30 every month if they continue reporting an ISP that continues to falsely advertise a $30/mo. service at their address).

      A better penalty would be to require the ISP to provide the advertised service at the advertised price. Don't let the ISP say it is impossible: they can reach anywhere on the Earth's surface by laying fibre and installing microwave links. If it takes time to get the service installed, fine them per day for non-performance, and if the fine isn't enough to motivate them, increase it.

  • Eliminate Funding (Score:5, Insightful)

    by DewDude ( 537374 ) on Friday February 03, 2023 @11:52AM (#63262753) Homepage

    The FCC should not only require ISP's to return funding received by the government based on lies; but should disqualify them from future funding. Absolute corrupt anti-competitive behavior should come with actual consequences.

  • by kylef ( 196302 ) on Saturday February 04, 2023 @04:23PM (#63265501)

    One of the best parts about the FCC Broadband Map in my opinion was the idea that it was essentially "crowd-sourced" in that users could file challenges to the data and fix mistakes. But I was surprised to discover recently that there are huge limitations on the challenge process.

    A month ago, I was interested in purchasing a property and one of my criteria was having fiber service available. The FCC Broadband Map showed fiber being available there, but before placing an offer, I called the broadband provider to confirm. The representative on the phone apologized and said that no service was available at that address, nor did the system show it becoming available soon. I mentioned that the info at the FCC Broadband Map was incorrect for this address and needed to be corrected, but she did not know what to do about that, but she would "make a note about it" and pass it along. I happened to check the map again about 30 days later, but it was still listed incorrectly. I decided to be helpful and file a challenge myself directly via the FCC website.

    Unfortunately, before clicking on "submit" you are required to certify that you are either a current resident at the address or are the legal owner/manager of the property. No one else is permitted to file a challenge, based on the current website language. That's a significant hindrance in this case, because the current owner of the property obviously has no incentive to update the map to make the property look worse to prospective buyers, and obviously the provider here can't be bothered to fix it either. If interested 3rd parties are not allowed to file challenges on behalf of others when they have evidence, then the entire challenge process is sadly flawed and strongly designed to favor the status quo.

    In fact, based on the OP, it sounds like this challenge which came from a competing ISP was actually against the FCC's own challenge policy, and I'm pleasantly surprised it went anywhere without simply being tossed/ignored.

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