News and Trends in the Telecommunications Industry

In the United States, Google Inc. is defending itself against lawsuits, a congressional probe and a 37-state investigation led by Connecticut Atty. Gen. Richard Blumenthal regarding personal information the Internet giant collected from unsecured wireless networks while assembling photos and data for its Street View mapping service.

But Great Britain’s data protection watchdog says that its review of the information collected by Google found that it included only fragments and no “meaningful personal details that could be linked to an identifiable person.”

“There is also no evidence as yet that the data captured by Google has caused or could cause any individual detriment,” according to the statement.

That was the point that Google made to Congress last month, that it believed its mapping vehicles had captured only fragments of data.

Google has apologized for collecting the data and said it had not done anything illegal.

British authorities did say they had no knowledge of the information Google collected from unsecured wireless networks in more than 30 countries.

Google grounded its Street View fleet after disclosing in May that it had gathered snippets of information by mistake. Some vehicles are now back on the road, minus the wireless scanning equipment.

By Jessica Guynn, The Los Angeles Times

{ 0 comments }

Verizon Wireless smartphone customers use 25 percent more data than AT&T iPhone customers, thanks in large part to new Verizon’s new Android smartphones, a recent study indicates.

Validas, a company that analyzes cell phone bills and usage for consumers and corporate customers, analyzed 20,000 consumer phone bills between January and May of 2010 and discovered that Verizon Wireless smartphone customers consume on average about 421 megabytes per month. Meanwhile, AT&T iPhone users consume roughly 25 percent less data, or about 338 megabytes per month.

The full Validas report will be published on September 1.

The comparison between smartphone data usage on Verizon’s network and iPhone data usage on AT&T’s network is important to note, because iPhone users have typically been viewed as the heaviest data users in the entire mobile market.

The fact that Verizon is seeing a major uptick in data usage in the past six months, largely due to new Android smartphones, could be a key predictor of wireless data usage patterns going forward. If the trends continue, Verizon could see an explosion in data usage.

So far, Verizon’s network hasn’t faced any major hiccups due to the onslaught of new data traffic. This is in contrast to AT&T’s network, which, over the past three years since the iPhone was launched, has beencriticized for dropping calls and offering slower than expected data download speedson their iPhones in some parts of the country.

“Verizon’s network is holding up really well as it adds more data traffic,” said Ed Finegold, chief analytics officer for Validas. “Verizon has always had a reputation for a solid network. And it looks like so far, it has been able to handle the additional traffic.”

As Verizon continues to sell more Android devices, the carrier will likely put its network to the test even further. Smartphone data usage started exploding for Verizon when the company launched its first Android phones in the fourth quarter last year, Finegold said. With more Android devices coming on the market in the next few months, it’s likely that the volume of Android smartphones on Verizon’s network will increase.

That said, the total number of cell phone customers — including those using feature phones and smartphones — using Verizon data services is much less than the number of customers using these services on AT&T’s network. For example, 71.2 percent of all AT&T cell phone subscribers, which includes users of smartphones like the iPhone as well as feature phones, use data services, while only 43 percent of all Verizon cell phone users subscribe to data services.

Even though fewer Verizon cell phone subscribers are using data services, individually, they are consuming roughly the same amount of data each month as the average AT&T customer. AT&T cell phone subscribers, on average, consume 149.6MB a month. The average Verizon cell phone subscriber consumes about 147.2MB of data per month.

When it comes to smartphones, usage patterns between AT&T and Verizon customers are also similar. But Verizon appears to have more power-users that fall in the midrange of data consumption.

According to data analyzed by Validas, about half of AT&T’s iPhone customers use less than 200MB of data per month. And about 47 percent of their iPhone subscribers use between 200MB and 2GB of data with about 90 percent of those customers using less than 1GB of data per month. This means that about 2.5 percent of AT&T’s users consume more than 2GB of data per month.

To read the full article, click here.
By Marguerite Reardon, CNN Tech

{ 0 comments }