As you may or may not know NANPA removed all CLLI information from its public site two years ago. This means that as time goes on our data gets more and more out of date. We still update everything else daily but the CLLI information we have will soon be useless as switch equipment is upgraded, removed, or relocated.
This is not our fault. NANPA redacted their CLLI information [doc | html] after being required by a ruling to do so. The claim was that this was to prevent terrorism but this is complete nonsense. After looking into it a bit more I found that it was "championed" by Verizon (in particular by Robin Smith, +1-410-736-5031, according to the official documentation). I can only guess that it was just a good excuse to keep the smaller guys out of that data so they are forced to by it from database companies at great cost.
NOTE: "Robin Smith" was very clever and didn't put her actual contact information on the request. That number is just a generic Verizon voicemail system
After thinking about it for a long time I can't think of a single way that a terrorist could use this data other than if they had an SS7 switch and peering agreements with big telcos. If they already have that then they already have access to this data since they must have it in order to program their switches. The ulterior motive here is both money and decreased transparency in the telco world, as if it wasn't closed off enough.
What can you do? I think at this point the situation may be beyond repair. Getting something like this enacted in the first place isn't too hard but convincing a bureaucracy to reverse a decision could be a Herculean effort. It's not easy to get a paper-pusher to understand that a decision they made in the past could be so wrong that they'd actually have to rethink it. My suggestion would be to call Robin Smith, record it if it's legal in your jurisdiction, and get a full explanation as to how this data can be used for terrorism. If you send me lawfully obtained recordings of a conversation like this then I will host it here for everyone to hear.
I will PayPal the first person who does this, and gets good information, $10 to get things started. You need to do the following:
Are you up for it? It's at least $10 just to make a phone call if you're the first person to do it successfully. What do you have to lose?
The DROID was released today and Verizon is starting to send out e-mail touting its release. Everyone thinks that getting the DROID at Walmart is the cheapest way to get it. Not so if you're an existing Verizon customer and your contract is up. Verizon's site now shows that lucky customers that fit that bill can get the DROID for $149 with a two-year contract. You do want to save another $50, right?
Go to Verizon and order your DROID today!
In the past few months the mobile phone world in the US has become a bit surreal. If you haven't been following the Android landscape we'll remind you that Verizon promised to have an open platform in December 2007 and tomorrow they'll finally release the Motorola DROID. This is not only Verizon's first Android-based phone but the world's first Android 2.0-based phone so a fair bit of hype has built up around it. Since the T-Mobile G1 we've seen a slow but strong uptake in the number of Android devices being developed and shipped in the US. It seems that finally someone got the point that consumers don't like being locked out of the devices they bought.
In my opinion it is a lot easier of a job just to support the network and let people bring in their own phones. Then you wouldn't have to do all of the other stuff carriers currently do (ie. develop and test custom firmware, figure out what features they can remove, etc). Alas, Verizon is not there yet and neither is Sprint. GSM providers basically do let you this but even they used to be a disaster. Good luck having a sales rep figure out which data plan to put you on. That's changed a lot but don't think they doing you any favors or getting better. They've now just lumped everyone into the more expensive category of data plans.
Anyway, all of that aside, it's been fun to see companies finally competing for our business a bit. It doesn't happen on price. All of the prices are fixed by illegal collusion (AT&T unlimited data: $30/month, Verizon unlimited data: $30/month, T-Mobile is a bit more confusing) but it does happen on handset choice and network coverage.
And this week everyone is whining about handset choice. Verizon, Motorola, and Google inked a deal that would allow Verizon to be the exclusive carrier of the first Android 2.0 phone and would give Motorola early access to the operating system to make that happen. After thinking about it for a bit I really have to wonder why they did it. The only currency OSS has is quality and openness. Compromise either one and people jump ship or start to question the platform viability. This was a bad move on Google's part, for sure. As of today the SDK is available but now everyone else has been delayed unnecessarily.
Consumers aren't the only ones whining though. AT&T is back in court again. The issue is that AT&T's "There's an app for that" commercial was spoofed by Verizon. Verizon's commercial says "There's a map for that" and shows that Verizon's 3G coverage map is 5x larger than AT&T's (their claim, not mine).
So, why is AT&T complaining about a commercial that features their own coverage map from their website? We'll get to that but first let's acknowledge that AT&T makes it difficult to understand where 3G coverage is available. Do this exercise to see what I mean:
This will take you to a coverage map for your specific area that is highly zoomed in. You'll notice that 3G coverage is only available in the blue areas. For every other kind of service (voice, 2G data, Loopt, MobileTV) it is immediately apparent how to see what kind of coverage you get but not for 3G. AT&T's 3G coverage, along with their MobileTV coverage that nobody really cares about, is abysmal. I've built a map that is the closest you'll get to a full 3G map on the AT&T site since once you zoom out to the full nationwide level they turn off the 3G display. Remember, 3G coverage is only in those sparse blue areas.
This commercial gives an honest depiction of their 3G coverage which is no doubt pulled from and pieced together from AT&T's deceptive map application. So, again, what is AT&T's gripe? Their complaint is that it may confuse non-technical viewers into thinking that AT&T users have no service when they're not in a 3G coverage area. Yes, some consumers may be confused by this but the commercial itself is truthful and doesn't refer to voice service in any way. The confusion is either unintentional or very cleverly crafted. I tend to think that the latter is true since really the only clever stuff that's ever come out of Verizon until the DROID was in the form of advertisement. The Verizon commercial claims these very specific things:
No mention of voice, no mention of dropped calls, no mention of not having service outside of 3G areas. So when do we start seeing "There's a tort for that" parody commercials? Someone has to do it...
Go over there and voice your opinion and if we get enough positive votes (and maybe some beer) we'll start planning on a new episode and give you guys a hard deadline on when it will happen.