News last week that Congresswoman Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) was introducing a bill, dubbed the “Next Generation Wireless Disclosure Act,” that would require wireless carriers to provide more details on their “4G” networks, seemed almost too good to believe.
Here was a member of Congress asking carriers to provide details on their networks that these same carriers have made a shambles of due to their over-eager marketing departments.
The bill has a number of measures included with many of the requests already being provided by carriers in what I think is an easy to understand format. Regardless, I thought I would take a look at some of what the bill is asking and provide a bit of commentary on the impact it might have on the industry.
–“Guaranteed minimum data speeds:” This is a tricky request as network speeds are often impacted by the number of users as well as other variables inherent in wireless technology. If for instance Verizon Wireless sticks by its current claim of between five and 12 megabits per second of downlink speed for its LTE network, but a customer can somehow prove that for an instant in time they only received 3 Mbps of downlink speed, is there some sort of penalty? And, if a carrier seeing that it could be penalized for such an infraction admits that customers might see speeds of less than 100 kilobits per second would its competitors use that against it?
From personal experience I have seen so-called 4G networks provide network speeds much higher than those already posted by carriers as well as speeds slow enough to conjure up memories of CDPD.
I like the thought behind this request, but don’t see how it would be practically implemented.
–“Network reliability:” Again, another tough nut to crack, though something that could be overcome. Carriers already employ various “third-parties” to rate their network reliability claims, that they then spew ad nausea through their advertisements. However, since most of these studies are either paid for by the carriers themselves or are done using different methods, this could be a tough issue to nail down.
–“Coverage area maps:” Carriers have already been forced to provide more detailed coverage maps, and most do with various degrees of success.
However, these maps are still basically “blobs” of colors laid out across maps and seem to have no real link to the real world. With coverage still being the biggest pet peeve of consumers, this request might have legs and could be good news for those companies involved in scouting out network coverage.
–“Pricing:” This seems to be one of the requests that carriers have managed to meet to the greatest extent. We may not like the pricing models some have offered, but it does seem that carriers for the most part have provide the details necessary for consumers to keep track of their data charges.
Not really sure how much more detail needs to be provided, but since everyone is ultra-price conscious, there is a good chance carriers will have to somehow further unravel pricing plans.
–“Technology used to provide 4G service:” This one seems like filler. Do customers really care what technology they are using? In the 3G world customers did not care if they were using a CDMA-based or UMTS-based network, only that what they were using met some sort of condition to be called 3G.
However, in the 4G world that standards body has been whipped by marketers into not standing by what really is 4G. Those original guidelines, which none of the current technologies have met, were pushed aside in the name of marketing prowess and has really been the cause of the confusion that this legislation is looking to clean up.
This request seems to me to be the hollowest and is the one consumers are least likely to care about.
–“Network conditions that can impact the speed of applications and services used on the network:” This also seems like filler, though one that can be summed up to no one’s satisfaction with one word: Everything.
We are talking about wireless technology that is constantly at the whims of just about everything seen and unseen in our world. Carriers already sort of tackle this with small print that says basically “your mileage will vary.”
However, like pricing and coverage maps, this topic is something that I think rings with consumers and could force carriers to enlarge their type on this explanation.
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