Supreme Court Rejects Appeal in Cellphone Search Warrant Case

On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court has rejected the case for privacy in the digital age, declining to decide if police require search warrants to examine cellphone location information by a wireless carrier. All of the nine justices turned away an appeal which was filed by a man from Florida, Quartavious Davis, who was initially convicted of participating in a string of 2010 robberies in Miami and was sentenced to 162 years of imprisonment.

Later, Davis challenged the conviction in the part because police didn’t seek a warrant when asking the cellphone provider, MetroPCS Communications Inc., for location information that further linked him to 7 more crime scenes from August to October 2010. 

 

Davis challenged the Supreme Court’s decision after the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled this May. The appeal further stated that the failure to obtain a warrant didn’t violate Davis’ right to be free from unreasonable searches. Furthermore, the information that law enforcement agencies can readily obtain from wireless carriers that depict where local users connect at a time that they make a call. This will inevitably help the police to investigate if the suspect was in the vicinity of the crime scene or not. 

Similar cases where objection was raised regarding companies protecting their privacy rights are still pending in the lower courts. Lately, the four major wireless carriers, Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile, have received thousands of requests from the law enforcement for what is known as “cell site location information,” or CSLI.
 

Davi’s lawyer at the American Civil Liberties Union defended him by saying that police require “probable cause” and also a warrant so as to avoid constitutionally unreasonable searches. But based on a provision of the Federal Stored Communication Act, the government stated it doesn’t need any specific cause to obtain customer records. Instead, it declared that prosecutors will have to show their “reasonable grounds” for the record    and further investigation.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

Data Overage Charges Suppressing U.S Customers

U.S. cellphone customers are paying comparatively more data overage fees than before. 

More than a quarter of AT&T customers and also 20% of the Verizon customers have complained that they have started paying overage charges in the last six months. 

Well, instead of fading away, the problem is growing every year. The wireless industry is expecting data usage to double in the years to come. “I simply think our usage is outstripping our plans," said Colby Synesael, the analyst at Cowen & Co.

Verizon customers have drastically increased their data plans and the percentage of the customers who have switched from small to bigger plans has abruptly grown for the second quarter in a row. Strangely, the percentage of AT&T customers who have bumped up their plans to include a bigger bucket of data has fallen for four straight quarters. While Cowen & Co. believes that AT&T is not offering appropriate data tiers. It offers a 2GB plan for $30 a month, a 5GB plan for $50 a month and 15GB plan for $100 a month with nothing in between. 

Verizon recently made a smart move by adjusting its data bucket and started offering 1GB, 3GB, 6GB and 18GB tiers. If you wish to upgrade from one tier to the next level then it would cost just $20 a month extra, not the $50 jump that AT&T charges to go from 5GB to 15GB. 

Both, Verizon and AT&T kept numb on the story. On the other hand, T-Mobile and Sprint customers fared much better in the survey. T-Mobile doesn’t charge overages, but the provider slows down customers' speeds once they reach their monthly data allotment. T-Mobile allows 5GB a month to its subscribers and they can upgrade to an unlimited plan for just $10 additional. 

Virtually, all the customers are on unlimited data plans, but few of them are on tiered plans and 3% of Sprint customers have been recently reported paying overages. "We are always looking at what customers want and watching trends in data consumption closely, so stay tuned on this," said a spokesman for T-Mobile. Sprint confirmed that its customers get the best value. "They don't worry about overages with unlimited data," said a spokeswoman for Sprint. "Plus, AT&T and Verizon don't even offer unlimited plans to new customers."

Comcast Plans to Enter Cellphone Market

Recently, Comcast notified Verizon that it wants to start providing cellphone services. According to a source, it intends to exercise its option to resell cellular service using the carrier’s network. A couple of years back, Comcast and various other cable operators had the chance to join Verizon. Last week Verizon confirmed in a conference that at least one of the cable companies is exercising its options to tap its network. 

Verizon CFO Fran Shammo said on a call “We have an existing [cellular service] agreement and we were informed that they are going to execute on that agreement.” One of the major questions that arises is whether the company is going to revise the year old deal which was drafted earlier, even before data became a more crucial part than voice calls and texts. 

“I am not going to get into whether we are discussing revising the agreement or the terms and conditions of that since it’s under NDA and we will see how this plays out,” Shammo said. “Obviously, the industry is moving. Cable is going to do what they are going to do and we’re going to do what we’re going to do.” He also announced that Wi-F is not at all a replacement for the high-speed cellular network. The Comcast representative declined to expand Shammo’s remarks when asked about the company’s plans and thoughts.

“We don’t know exactly when and how (because they don’t know exactly when and how), but they will launch a wireless offering in due course,” Chaplin told Re/code in an e-mail interview. Chaplin said that he expects a Comcast wireless service could begin six months after the company notified Verizon, with a commercial service potentially in place within a year.

If it somehow managed to enter the cellphone market, Comcast will firstly rely on its large Wi-Fi network. Verizon is not just relying on Comcast. The company has plenty of other options to resell service from the Sprint network. 

Chaplin is afraid that Comcast may overpower some of the major carriers including T-Mobile US. “We would guess that Comcast will test a Wi-Fi first offering, first using Verizon and see how it performs,” Chaplin said. “Before rolling it out commercially I would assume they will see if they can get a better deal out of T-Mobile and Sprint, similar to Google’s (Fi service). At the same time, we wouldn’t be surprised if they take a hard look at buying T-Mobile.”