Weekly output: RootMetrics wireless network report

DOHA, Qatar–Between two daylong conferences in D.C. Thursday and Friday, scrambling to finish up some longer posts so I could put them on a January invoice instead of waiting yet another month, and getting ready to fly almost 7,000 miles here for Web Summit Qatar, I only had one post appear under my byline this week.

Patreon readers, however, got one extra post from me: my annual look into my income sources for the previous year.

1/26/2026: Verizon Has Slight Edge Over AT&T, T-Mobile, Except in One Key Category, PCMag

I’ve been covering RootMetrics’ nationwide testing of wireless carriers for years, but this was the first time I could quiz my former Light Reading editor Mike Dano for a story about them. He moved from that trade pub to become an analyst for RootMetrics’ parent firm Ookla last year, and I could see Mike’s knowledge of the business show up in the new RootMetrics report’s detailed breakdown of network infrastructure progress at AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon.

#Doha #Ookla #Qatar #RootMetrics #WebSummit #WebSummitQatar #wirelessCarriers #wirelessNetworkPerformance #wirelessNetworks

Sunday started with Joe Biden as the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee and is ending with Kamala Harris as the increasingly likely Democratic presidential nominee. I am struck by the selflessness involved in somebody at the apex of political power assessing the circumstances and the stakes and deciding that they require taking himself out of contention–and how well that grace, however grudgingly it may have come, compares to Donald Trump’s incessant self-worship. As Tom Nichols writes in The Atlantic: “Biden’s decision reflected a determination to put the fate of his country ahead of his personal vanity, a choice Trump is inherently incapable of making.”

7/15/2024: Automation Lessens Zombie Account Risks, FedTech

I last wrote for this publication in 2017, but I must have left a decent reputation there for an editor to e-mail me in April to ask if I could do a story about how government-IT types can ease staff transitions between administrations.

7/17/2024: Boost Mobile Unwraps New Plans As 5G Network Buildout Chugs Along, PCMag

We had to correct this post because I had missed how Boost’s most expensive plan does not include mobile hotspot use, even though two of its three cheaper options include it. Which is a dumb pricing game for any wireless carrier to play, but especially one that touts “simplified pricing” in its pitch for its new plans.

7/17/2024: On Speed, T-Mobile Is First in Mobile Broadband, AT&T in Home Internet, PCMag

Ookla, the company behind the Speedtest family of apps, offered me an advance on their latest connectivity report. I’m still confused by how they assessed only AT&T’s fiber service next to all of Verizon’s broadband options.

7/18/2024: Google Ships Fourth And (We Hope) Last Android 15 Beta, PCMag

This was the fifth time this year that I’ve written a short post about an incremental step in Android 15’s development cycle for PCMag.

7/19/2024: Prior to Microsoft Meltdown, CrowdStrike Exec Warned of ‘Single Point of Failure’, PCMag

As I read about the worldwide IT meltdown sparked by CrowdStrike’s epic failure of a driver update, I remembered seeing a CrowdStrike executive declaring at a Washington Post event in early June that “A resilient digital architecture should be able to weather a storm.” Awkward!

Patreon readers got a bonus post related to this story, in which I recounted the continuing utility of keeping notes in a searchable digital format but also revealed that I still have paper notepads from more than 25 years ago–and recently got some unexpected use out of one.

7/19/2024: Ep 103 SmartTechCheck Podcast–CrowdStrike, innovation drought, foldable phones and robotaxis, Mark Vena

I joined my industry-analyst friend’s podcast to talk about a grab-bag of tech topics, one of them being Waymo’s robotaxis as I experienced them in Los Angeles a few weeks ago.

https://robpegoraro.com/2024/07/21/weekly-output-zombie-accounts-boost-mobile-broadband-isp-ratings-android-15-beta-crowdstrike-mark-vena-podcast/

#5G #Android15 #ATTFiber #BoostMobile #CrowdStrike #federalIT #MarkVena #Ookla #Speedtest #TMobile #wirelessCarriers #zombieAccounts

Lilbits: Intel Lunar Lake lineup leaked, Rabbit R1’s security fail, and the FCC could require carriers to unlock smartphones within 60 days, Rabbit R1

The Rabbit R1 has been off to a rough start. When the portable AI device hit the streets in May it was widely panned by reviewers for its limited functionality and unreliable performance. It turns out the company also failed to protect user data: a team of folks who have been working to jailbreak the Rabbit R1 say they discovered a set of hardcoded API keys that […]

https://liliputing.com/?p=169978

#carrierUnlock #fcc #frore #froreAirjetMniSport #intelLunarLake #lilbits #lunarLake #rabbitR1 #rabbitude #smartphones #Steam #steamDeck #steamGameRecording #wirelessCarriers

I was just on hold with my wireless #phone carrier (U.S.), #PureTalk - to my utter dismay, the recorded hold message proudly announced that conservatives like Sean Hannity are customers, along with a bunch of other pseudopatriotic drivel.

This really, REALLY bummed me out, and I am now shopping for a new carrier.

Any ideas? PureTalk, to their credit, have been really good to me- same service I was getting with AT&T for $60, at $20/month.

What are folks using who don't want to support the Douchebag Cause, or to pay an unnecessarily high premium for branding?

#wirelesscarriers
#cellphone

Mobile Carrier Customer Service Ushers in SIM-Swap Fraud - Weak challenge questions by customer service reps make it easy for fraudsters to hijack a phone li... more: https://threatpost.com/mobile-customer-service-sim-swap-fraud/151993/ #twofactorauthentication #challengequestions #weakauthentication #accountcompromise #wirelesscarriers #vulnerabilities #customerservice #mobilesecurity #lineporting #2fabypass #simswap #breach