TELECOM VICE PRESIDENTS COMMITTEE
Telecom Industry News
CWA in the News
USA Today, 4 union leaders: Coronavirus is a stress test for capitalism, and we see encouraging signs, 4/13
NY Post, NY Health Dept.’s call center workers fear they’re being exposed to COVID-19, 4/10
Des Moines Register, ‘Thousands’ of Wells Fargo employees will work from home; 2 test positive for COVID-19, 4/10
The Hill, GE workers protest at multiple sites in pitch to make ventilators, 4/9
Axios, Pandemic sparks tech workers’ interest in unions, 4/9
Fierce Telecom, In face of COVID-19, AT&T lines up $5.5B loan and touts supply chain, 4/7
Wireless
Telecompetitor, Report: AT&T Customers Most Likely to Churn to New T-Mobile, 4/9
Fierce Wireless, Report: Metro by T-Mobile puts non-exclusive dealers on notice, 4/6
Fierce Wireless, Marek’s Take: Covid-19 shutdown is wreaking havoc on 5G deployments, 4/6
RCR Wireless, FCC could earmark $9 billion for rural 5G, 4/4
Wireline
Ars Technica, Frontier bungles redaction of network audit
that it doesn’t want you to see, 4/9
Ars Technica, Verizon
canceling FiOS installs and telling customers to wait a few months, 4/7
Ars Technica, Verizon
refuses to give DSL users its low-income deals during pandemic, 4/7
MultiChannel News,
AT&T, DirecTV Set to Be Hit Hard by COVID-19 Recession: Analyst, 4/6
FirstNet
Urgent Communications, MCPTT-based FirstNet PTT a ‘game-changer,’ potential LMR replacement, N.J. police captain says, 4/13
CNet, AT&T offers three free months of FirstNet service to nurses and doctors, 4/12
Other Corporate Developments
The Verge, Verizon’s new marketing tool sets emails to arrive when you look at your inbox, 4/9
NPR, 4 In 10 U.S. Teens Say They Haven’t Done Online Learning Since Schools Closed, 4/8
Broadcasting & Cable, Charter Plans Permanent $20 Minimum Wage, 4/6
CWA in the News
4 union leaders: Coronavirus
is a stress test for capitalism, and we see encouraging signs
Americans should note which companies and politicians stood up
for workers in the coronavirus pandemic, and which ones kept expanding the
income gap.
Randi Weingarten, Chris Shelton, Mary Kay Henry and James P.
Hoffa, 4/13/20
USA Today
American businesses will certainly emerge from the coronavirus crisis transformed by the trials of human loss, steep recession and Wall Street collapse. The social fabric of capitalism is undergoing a once-in-a-lifetime stress test. We are seeing the faults with the gig economy and the unfounded faith in finance. We are also seeing strengths in well-managed companies with established relationships with workers.
As leaders of labor unions, we believe that all Americans should be paying attention to which companies are preparing to lead the recovery by pulling together and finding new ways to protect, pay and retain employees, and which companies are evading responsibility, protecting top management and share price, and continuing practices that put harmful economic distance between Americans.
Fortunately, some companies recognize that short-term focus, financial shenanigans and corrosive labor-management relationships are not suited to the uncertain future we face. In telecommunications, the Communications Workers of America moved quickly to negotiate agreements with AT&T and Verizon that protect worker health by, for example, temporarily enabling customer service representatives to handle calls from home. The companies also agreed to strengthen sick and family leave protection and provide additional pay for workers during this crisis. And AT&T canceled a massive stock buyback. [Link to full article]
NY Health Dept.’s call center workers fear they’re being exposed to COVID-19
Noah Manskar, 4/10/20
NY Post
Unemployed and looking for health insurance? New York state has promised to help, but it may be endangering its call center workers in the process, The Post has learned.
The contract workers responsible for helping the growing throngs of unemployed New Yorkers find affordable health insurance say they are taking off work to avoid catching the deadly disease as their co-workers get sick and they run out of Clorox wipes.
The absences may be contributing to longer-than-expected wait times, which were already up due to a surge in demand, workers say. A call to the state’s public health-care exchange this week quoted a wait time of more than 30 minutes. [Link to full article]
‘Thousands’ of Wells Fargo employees will work from home; 2 test positive for COVID-19
Tyler Jett, 4/10/20
Des Moines Register
A Wells Fargo & Co. spokesman said “thousands” of call center employees in Des Moines and West Des Moines offices will be working from home by next week.
Spokesman Steve Carlson said in an emailed statement that some employees will continue to work in the offices but will remain “an appropriate distance” from each other. He said the company also will stagger shifts to help keep workers separated.
Two employees, as well as a cafeteria contractor, have tested positive for COVID-19 at a West Des Moines call center from March 29 to April 4. Wells Fargo is sending employees who had contact with the infected workers home for two weeks, Carlson said. [Link to full article]
GE workers protest at multiple sites in pitch to make ventilators
JOHN BOWDEN, 04/09/20
The Hill
Workers at several General Electric plants protested on Wednesday, calling on company executives to shift production toward ventilators in a bid to save jobs.
USA Today reported that four GE locations were the sites of protests on Wednesday as workers represented by the Industrial Division of the Communications Workers of America pushed GE executives to shift production to ventilators and avoid cutting or furloughing employees.
The company had previously announced plans to lay off about 10 percent of its U.S. workforce and furlough about 50 percent of maintenance and repair workers for 90 days, according to USA Today. [Link to full article]
Pandemic sparks tech workers’ interest in unions
Kyle Daly, 4/9/20
Axios
Tech and gig economy workers are talking to unions about organizing as they worry the industry isn’t doing enough to protect them from the coronavirus.
Why it matters: The crisis could breathe life into a tech labor movement that has had trouble gaining traction — though skyrocketing unemployment could also erode workers’ leverage.
What’s happening: Unions that have previously pushed for the tech and gig economy labor force to organize are seeing an uptick in engagement as the coronavirus’ spread puts people like e-commerce fulfillment workers, ride-share drivers and gig shoppers on the front lines of a deadly pandemic. [Link to full article]
In face of COVID-19, AT&T lines up $5.5B loan and touts supply chain
Mike Robuck, 4/7/20
Fierce Telecom
AT&T took a few measures on Tuesday to assure customers and investors that all was relatively well in the face of the coronavirus pandemic. The telco announced it has struck a deal for a $5.5 billion term loan agreement with 12 banks, and that its supply chain was in good order.
“Over the past several years, the company has worked with its suppliers to ensure a geographically diverse supply chain to reduce risk in these types of situations,” AT&T said in Tuesday’s press release. “While the COVID-19 pandemic is subject to rapid change, in general, the company believes its exposure to near-term equipment shortages is limited.”
The term-loans give AT&T added flexibility going forward, and are pre-payable without penalty. The new loan added to AT&T’s debt burden of $163 billion, which was mainly due to its purchase of DirecTV in 2015 and Time Warner, which has been renamed as WarnerMedia, in 2018. [Link to full article]
Wireless
Report: AT&T Customers Most Likely to Churn to New T-Mobile
Joan Engebretson, 4/9/20
Telecompetitor
AT&TAT&T customers are the most likely to churn to the new T-Mobile created out of the merger of T-Mobile and Sprint, according to new research from market research company SurveyMonkey that was commissioned by Waveform, a provider of cellphone boosters, small cells and distributed antenna systems. Nearly 29% of AT&T customers were interested in switching to the new T-Mobile, including 7.6% who were “very interested,” according to the AT&T T-Mobile churn research.
The percentage of AT&T customers interested in switching wasn’t dramatically higher than the 25.3% of Verizon customers who were interested in switching. But considerably fewer AT&T customers (37.7% versus 45.7% for Verizon) said they were not interested in switching.
The remaining 33.5% of AT&T customers and 29.5% of Verizon customers said they were “not sure” if they were interested in switching. [Link to full article]
Report: Metro by T-Mobile puts non-exclusive dealers on notice
Monica Alleven, 4/6/20
Fierce Wireless
T-Mobile isn’t commenting, but according to reports, Metro by T-Mobile has given notice to non-exclusive dealers that they won’t be allowed to sell Metro by T-Mobile if they sell other brands.
The National Wireless Independent Dealer Association (NWIDA) on Friday confirmed, from multiple sources, that Metro by T-Mobile had given a 120-day termination notice to stores that are non-exclusive, which means they sell other prepaid brands alongside Metro by T-Mobile.
NWIDA said it believed between 250 and 750 stores were given notice. Metro by T-Mobile has about 9,000 stores nationwide, of which about 98% are run by independent dealers as opposed to company-owned stores, according to Jeff Moore, principal of Wave7 Research. [Link to full article]
Marek’s Take: Covid-19 shutdown is wreaking havoc on 5G deployments
Sue Marek, 4/6/20
Fierce Wireless
Wireless networks have never been more important than they are today as millions of Americans honor stay-at-home orders by working and studying at home. But there are some signs that these critical Covid-19 measures are putting strains on local governments and that in turn is causing delays in 5G infrastructure permits.
Wireless operators and infrastructure companies need local governments to approve new cell sites that are needed to strengthen their 4G networks and to deploy 5G. Because 5G is a higher speed network that offers more bandwidth and lower latency, it requires more cell sites than previous generations of wireless networking technology. In addition, some wireless operators are using high-band millimeter wave (mmWave) spectrum for 5G. In higher spectrum bands the wireless signal will only travel shorter distances and that means more cell sites are required to provide consistent wireless coverage.
The Wireless Infrastructure Association (WIA) is working with municipalities to try to accelerate these cell site permits. However, most municipalities consider the issuing of these permits as a non-essential activity. [Link to full article]
FCC could earmark $9 billion for rural 5G
Sean Kinney, 4/4/2020
RCR Wireless
5G Fund for Rural America targeting 2021-2023 timeframe
At its upcoming open meeting on April 23, the U.S. Federal Communications will consider whether and how to fund a long-term deployment of 5G in rural and underserved parts of the country. Providing rural 5G service has been a selling point of the T-Mobile/Sprint merger which closed on April 1; New T-Mobile, based on regulatory terms for the merger approval, will cover 99% of Americans in six years with next-generation cellular, including 90% of rural residents.
According to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, the 5G Fund for Rural America “focuses on building out 5G networks in areas that likely would otherwise go unserved. It’s critical that Americans living in rural communities have the same opportunities as everybody else.” [Link to full article]
Wireline
Frontier bungles redaction of network audit that it doesn’t want you to see
Blacked-out text is readable, revealing 952,000 potential network problems.
JON BRODKIN, 4/9/20
Ars Technica
Frontier Communications needs a lesson in how to redact documents.
Frontier is trying to hide large portions of an audit report from the public, claiming that details about the ISP’s broadband-network problems are trade secrets. But when Frontier made a redacted version of the report public, many of the blacked-out parts were still readable simply by copying and pasting from the document.
The Frontier-edited version of the 164-page report, which was ordered by the West Virginia Public Service Commission (PSC) and written by a consultant firm, includes about 80 redacted exhibits and many pages that have been fully or partially blacked out. Frontier seems to have successfully redacted the exhibits, including many charts, but the blacked-out text is easy to lift. (Update: It turns out some of the exhibits weren’t properly redacted, either.) [Link to full article]
Verizon canceling FiOS installs and telling customers to wait a few months
Jon Brodkin, 4/7/2020
Ars Technica
Verizon is canceling many home-Internet installations and repairs during the pandemic, and some customers are being given appointment dates in November when they try to schedule an installation.
The November appointment dates appear to be placeholders that will eventually be replaced by earlier dates. But Verizon is sending mixed messages to customers about when appointments will actually happen and about whether technicians are allowed to enter their homes.
As of yesterday, a Verizon FAQ said, “At this time, our technicians will not be able to enter your home or business to install new services or to do repair work,” according to an Internet Archive capture of the page. The FAQ also said that customers who aren’t eligible for self-installs “may proceed with placing an order for a technician-required installation” and “will receive notification to select an installation date when we resume operations.” [Link to full article]
Verizon refuses to give DSL users its low-income deals during pandemic
Jon Brodkin, 4/7/2020
Ars Technica
Verizon is one of numerous home-Internet providers offering temporarily free service to low-income households during the pandemic. But a big restriction on Verizon’s offer makes it impossible for many people to get the deal.
The Verizon problem is one of several that’s been pointed out by advocates for poor people at the nonprofit National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA). Charter, CenturyLink, and Frontier have also been labeled disappointments even as Comcast earned praise. The NDIA is maintaining a list of pandemic-related telecom offers. A similar group called EveryoneOn offers a search tool to find low-income offers by ZIP code.
Verizon on March 23 said it would provide two months of free home-Internet and phone service for current low-income subscribers in the Lifeline program and $20 monthly discounts for new low-income subscribers. The $20 discount lowers the starting price for 200Mbps Internet to $19.99 a month. But the broadband offers are available only on Verizon’s fiber-to-the-home FiOS service and not in DSL areas where Verizon never upgraded homes from copper to fiber. [Link to full article]
AT&T, DirecTV Set to Be Hit Hard by COVID-19 Recession: Analyst
While telecom had hoped that its pay TV fortunes had finally turned the corner, Craig Moffett says its cord cutting problem is actually going to get worse
DANIEL FRANKEL, 4/6/20
MutliChannel News
After losing nearly 5 million pay TV subscribers across their various platforms in 2019, AT&T executives had told investors that cord cutting should start to decelerate this year amid the launch of the company’s new IP-based video platform, AT&T TV.
But the COVID-10 pandemic, and the related economic recession, will likely disrupt those plans and place AT&T’s pay TV business on an even more accelerated path of degeneration, said MoffettNathanson analyst Craig Moffett.
Moffett said that instead of an earlier prediction, which called for AT&T’s pay TV base to shrink by 13.1% in 2020 to 16.9 million subscribers, he believes it will now decline by 16.6% to 16.2 million customers. [Link to full article]
FirstNet
MCPTT-based FirstNet PTT a ‘game-changer,’ potential LMR replacement, N.J. police captain says
Donny Jackson, 4/13/20
Urgent Communications
FirstNet PTT service—provided by AT&T and built on the 3GPP mission-critical-push-to-talk (MCPTT) standard—delivers the performance that public safety needs and can be an LMR alternative for some agencies, according to the captain of a New Jersey police department that conducted a beta trial of the new offering.
“I think it’s really going to be a game-changer for public-safety communications,” Capt. Guy Patterson of the Cranford (N.J.) police department said during an interview with IWCE’s Urgent Communications.
“I absolutely see [FirstNet PTT] as a replacement, especially as this current generation of LMR inevitably advances to whatever the next generation is. When it’s time to make that move, and you have to do a very large capital project to update your infrastructure and everything else, it makes perfect sense just to abandon the LMR completely and go with the FirstNet Push to Talk.” [Link to full article]
AT&T offers three free months of FirstNet service to nurses and doctors
The carrier took to John Krasinski’s show Some Good News to share its appreciation for those fighting the coronavirus.
Eli Blumenthal, 4/12/20
CNet
AT&T is showing its appreciation for those fighting the coronavirus by giving nurses and doctors three free months of service as part of its FirstNet program. The news was announced late Sunday night on John Krasinski’s YouTube show Some Good News.
As part of the offer, those on the front lines of the pandemic will be able to receive the free service so long as they’re on one of AT&T’s FirstNet first responder plans. The deal is open to all verified, state-licensed nurses and physicians in the US and US territories, regardless if they are new or existing FirstNet users.
Doctors or nurses already on a traditional AT&T plan can switch to a FirstNet plan, which runs $40 a month for individuals for one line of unlimited talk, text and data. Those who also want unlimited mobile hotspot will pay $45 a month. [Link to full article]
Other Corporate Developments
Verizon’s new marketing tool sets emails to arrive when you look at your inbox
The company calls it ‘View Time Optimization’
Nick Statt, 4/10/20
The Verge
Verizon quietly introduced a new email marketing feature yesterday that it calls “View Time Optimization,” which the company says automatically times emails from companies to arrive the moment you’re looking at your email inbox, so it sits at the very top as a new message.
The service is part of Verizon’s suite of email and web advertising properties, which includes AOL and Yahoo, and well-known programmer David Heinemeier Hansson (the inventor of the Ruby on Rails web application framework) called out Verizon on Twitter on Friday for what he calls an “Orwellian” ad placement tool.
(It should be noted Hansson is helping develop a privacy-focused email client called Hey through his company Basecamp, of which he is the co-founder and chief technology officer alongside chief exec Jason Fried.) [Link to full article]
4 In 10 U.S. Teens Say They Haven’t Done Online Learning Since Schools Closed
Anya Kamanetz, 4/8/20
NPR
With most schools closed nationwide because of the coronavirus pandemic, a national poll of young people ages 13 to 17 suggests distance learning has been far from a universal substitute.
The poll of 849 teenagers, by Common Sense Media, conducted with SurveyMonkey, found that as schools across the country transition to some form of online learning, 41% of teenagers overall, including 47% of public school students, say they haven’t attended a single online or virtual class.
This broad lack of engagement with online learning could be due to many factors. The survey was conducted between March 24 and April 1; some districts may have been on spring break or not have begun regular online classes. [Link to full article]
Charter Plans Permanent $20 Minimum Wage
Raise from $15 over two years for all hourly employees
Jon Lafayette, 4/6/20
Broadcasting & Cable
Charter Communications said it is planning to raise the minimum wage it pays all of its hourly employees to $20 an hour from the current $15 level over the next two years.
“As millions have shifted to working and learning remotely, Charter’s employees have been working to ensure our customers stay connected during this crisis. We are proud to say that through their hard work, our networks have remained strong, even with a surge in usage,” the company said.
An initial $1.50 increase will be implemented immediately–and applied retroactively–for frontline employees in the field and customer operation groups. [Link to full article]