TechDirt reports that Russia and Iran have both used terrorism as a cover reason for silencing the Telegram app, when anonymous political dissent is what the countries are really trying to shut down. In Iran, the political leaders have unleashed their own messaging program Soroush, promoted by the government with a “Death to America” emoji and “stickers” with messages supporting Iran’s leadership. In Iran, though, things are complicated. On April 30, the country's Culture and Media court ordered telecoms companies to block the Telegram app from its country's 40 million users. The next day Iranian president Hassan Rouhani said both that his government did not block Telegram and that he did not approve of the thing his government did not do. "If a decision has been made to restrict or block the communication of the people, the real owners of this country, which are the people, should be included in making such decisions," Rouhani said.

Ars Technica reports that, don't worry, the earth's magnetic fields are not about to flip. There is a weak spot in one place called the South Atlantic Anomaly. It has been over 800,000 since the earth's magnetic fields have flipped and the authors of new research published with the title, "Earth’s magnetic field is probably not reversing," don't think it will soon. The researched found several other periods when the magnetic field was similar to the current field, and no evidence that a flipping followed that time. "We infer that for excursions to occur," they write, "a weakening of the field across much of the globe spreading from multiple sources is required, and not just localized weakening expanding from an South Atlantic Anomaly-like feature."

Ars Technica reports that lawmakers in New York are now mirroring efforts in California, to pass their own net neutrality bills that may be tougher than the ones stripped away by a 3-2 federal vote in December. In California, the bill has been approved by two Senate committees needs to get through a third committee vote, before getting to the state Senate floor. In New York Manhattan-based State Senator Brad Hoylman said that he is introducing a bill this week similar to the California proposal. In December the Federal Communications Commission voted on party lines to repeal its net neutrality rules and said that states could not pass their own net neutrality rules. All sorts of lawsuits are entering courts now over the net neutrality issue, and these possible state laws would create even more billable hours for lawyers.

The U.S. Office of Special Counsel ruled May 1 that Federal Communications Commission Commissioner Michael O’Rielly violated the Hatch Act during an appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference on February 23. At the convention O'Rielly told a crowd that one way to avoid policy changes was to “make sure that President Trump gets re-elected,” So the Office of Special Counsel issued the FCC commissioner a warning letter about how administration officials can't mix political calls-to-action with working for the public. In fact, the OSC "has advised Commissioner O’Rielly that if in the future he engages in prohibited political activity while employed in a position covered by the Hatch Act, we will consider such activity to be a willful and knowing violation of the law, which could result in further action pursuant to 5 U.S.C. § 1215." In March, the OSC said senior White House aide Kellyanne Conway committed two violations of the Hatch Act during last year's Alabama special Senate election. The report claimed Conway "impermissibly mixed official government business with political views about candidates." At least two other administration officials have been mentioned in Hatch Act investigations including Mick Mulvaney, the White House budget director, and John Bolton, the national security advisor.

Free Press reports that on May 9 activists will start a serious, if unlikely attempt to restore net neutrality by forcing the Congressional Review Act resolution to a vote. Democrats claim that all 49 of them in the Senate, plus independent Susan Collins from Maine, will vote to repeal the repeal of net neutrality passed by the Federal Communications Commission in December. So the Democrats need just one Republican to vote with them. Even if this magic Republican would emerge, the measure does not have much hope in the House of Representatives. “We will finally force lawmakers to let us know if they stand with the 85 percent of Americans who support net neutrality – or with the cable companies that want to manipulate the internet in service of greater profits,” said David Segal, Executive Director of Demand Progress. “The people are on our side – and if they make their voices heard over coming weeks, we will push this resolution through the Senate and House.” That's all probably wishful thinking, with the net neutrality wars more likely to end with a court ruling then from help from the House and Senate.

USA Today reported that T-Mobile and Sprint announced a merger April 29 that would make the combined company the third-largest cellular carrier in the U.S. The new company, which would be called T-Mobile, would have more than 90 million wireless subscribers, behind AT&T's 93 million subscribers, and Verizon's 116 million. The combined companies would be valued at $146 billion, including debt. "It's a very simple rule of business. Both companies need each other," said Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure on a conference call April 29. "The reason why this is going to work is that T-Mobile cannot do the 5G strategy without Sprint and Sprint cannot do it without T-Mobile." Currently, the two companies employ 80,000 people, but most mergers like this result in layoffs at redundant positions. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat from Minnesota on the Senate’s antitrust subcommittee, said in a statement, “Competition among the four largest cell phone carriers has led to lower prices, better service and more innovation.... I remain concerned that increased consolidation could undermine benefits to consumers.” T-Mobile and Sprint said they believe the Federal Communications Commission and the Justice Department will sign off on the merger by the first half of 2019.

Ars Technica reports that after recent media reports of "increased use" by the President of his unsecured cell phone, Rep. Ted Lieu (D-California) and Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Arizona) sent a letter to the White House Communications Agency, the Secret Service, and for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence about presidential phone usage. Last year, Ars Technica reported that Donald Trump surrendered his personal Android phone "after expressing outrage over the DNC's failure to let the FBI search its servers and taunting Arnold Schwarzenegger on March 5." Based on Twitter metadata, replaced it with an iPhone, reportedly with only one app, Twitter. It is unclear, however, if Trump's phone has any encryption or security features. So the legislators are worried that Trump's loose thumbs could betray national secrets. "Our national security should not depend on whether the President clicks on a malicious link on Twitter or his text application, or the fortuity of foreign agencies not knowing his personal cell number." They also have specific questions:
• How frequently does the WHCA update the President’s phone’s operating system?
• Does the President use encryption when he makes phone calls or texts from his personal cell phone?
• How has WHCA adapted to the growing threat of "Stingray" devices, or IMSI catchers, in Washington D.C., especially given the President’s alleged proclivity for making outgoing voice calls on his personal cell phone?
Neither the WHCA, the Secret Service, nor the ODNI would comment on the letter from Lieu and Gallego.

The Broadcast Law Blog reports that, a few months after doing away with the Main Studio Rule, the Federal Communications Commission will vote May 10 to eliminate the rule requiring radio stations to post their license at their control point. So radio stations no longer have to have a studio in the area where they broadcast, and they soon will no longer have to post their license in any studio. The license information will still be available online in the FCC’s database. But when the FCC's enforcement division, searching for pirate radio stations, knocks on doors in the future, they won't be asking radio station personnel to show their license anymore.

The Communications Law Blog reports that the Federal Communications Commission wants to make the process of launching smaller satellites into orbit easier. Instead of the long forms of bureaucratic paperwork to fill out, smaller satellites, 180 kilograms or less, would get a streamline process under the proposal. A single small satellite license would cover up to ten satellites over five years. The rules mandate any satellite launched into an orbit higher than the International Space Station, must have a propulsion system to maneuver if needed. The new small satellite licensing requirements also include: no risk of human casualty on re-entry; risk of collision with large objects must be less than 0.001; no satellites smaller than a 4 x 4 x 4 inch CubeSat; the satellites’ radios must be able to be shut off from the ground; and satellites include a unique telemetry marker. There are no comment or reply dates for the FCC's Notice of Proposed Rulemaking yet, so stay tuned.

Amid a number of media reports April 23 that the Federal Communications Commission finally, officially ended net neutrality, the Electronic Frontier Foundation pointed out that, actually most of the old net neutrality rules remain in effect until later this year. "On the Federal Register’s website — which is the official daily journal of the United States Federal Government and publishes all proposed and adopted rules — the so-called “Restoring Internet Freedom Order” has an “effective date” of April 23. But that only applies to a few cosmetic changes. The majority of the rules governing the Internet remain the same—the prohibitions on blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization—remain. Before the FCC’s end to those protections can take effect, the Office of Management and Budget has to approve the new order, which it hasn’t done," the EFF wrote. There will be a notice in the Federal Register when that happens, but it should be May or June before net neutrality is eliminated and the Internet is reclassified as a Title I instead of Title II information service, which will allow ISPs to start paid prioritization programs, and block or throttle content from competitors or anyone they determine is using too much bandwidth. Broadband providers will mostly be regulated more, at that point, by the Federal Trade Commission than by the Federal Communications Commission.

Variety reports that on April 20 in Washington D.C., it was not looking good for the Sinclair Broadcast Group, in their efforts to merge with Tribune Media. There, a three-judge panel on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals questioned Sinclair's lawyers on the UHF discount, an old rule revived by the FCC, seemingly, just so this merger can get done. Sinclair already owns more local stations then any other company in the U.S., and has been criticized for putting a conservative slant on the local news coverage of its affiliates. Sinclair wants a $3.9 billion merger with Tribune Media, which would give the station group market coverage of 72 percent of the country. Current rules would not allow such a concentration of control over U.S. airwaves, but reviving the UHF discount, would only count some stations in the deal, those nominally on UHF channels, as half-stations. The old rule compensated for the lack of transmission power UHF stations had against VHF stations. Now, though, the signals are all digital and often relayed through cables, satellites, and the internet, so there is virtually no difference between VHF and UHF stations today. Judge Gregory Katsas said at this hearing that there was, “no reason for thinking at that the end of the day, part of the solution will be keeping the discount.” Competitor Chris Ruddy, the CEO of Newsmax, said in a statement that, “the judges on the DC Circuit reviewing the FCC’s UHF discount were left scratching their heads wondering why the rule was re-instated when everyone — Republicans and Democrats alike — agree that the discount is an analog relic and makes no sense in a digital world.... The FCC should avoid the appearance of impropriety and proceed with a transparent national ownership cap proceeding to set a level playing field before approving any merger that benefits just one company, namely Sinclair.”

The FiveThirtyEight.com website reports about space transmission, and the dwindling bandspace for radio waves and a pending switch to laser communications. The current speeds of space communication can be compared to download and upload speeds on Earth. "We can receive 1.5 megabits per second from Mars, which is an average 200 million kilometers from Earth. From Pluto, 7.5 billion kilometers out, download speeds are more like 1 kilobit per second," Rebecca Boyle writes in the story. Those speeds are over the Deep Space Network, with spacecraft sending signals to a collection of giant radio antennas managed by NASA in California, Spain, and Australia. Sometimes, though, there are too many transmissions. “Our current scheduling techniques work quite well when missions are spread across the sky as they typically are,” said Stephen Lichten, manager for special projects at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “It is more challenging when missions are ‘clumped,’ such as when a large number launch at the same time for the same destination.” In 2020, for instance, the network will be overwhelmed with missions to Mars from SpaceX, India, the United Arab Emirates, the European Space Agency, and NASA. So NASA is testing a new interplanetary internet called disruption tolerant networking with relay stations "that can hold information in transit, serving as a buffer against delays or glitches." But space agencies have further plans to move off of radio waves and switch to lasers. "Laser communications systems encode data onto a beam of optical light (as opposed to radio wavelengths) and then transmit it between spacecraft and to Earth. Focused laser light operates in wavelengths 10,000 times shorter than radio waves, meaning that lasers can pump out more information per second. As a result, laser data-transfer rates are 10 to 100 times better than those of radio systems. Lasers are also better at maintaining their signal strength across vast distances," Boyle writes. The Laser Communications Relay Demonstration mission launches next year.

The Hill reports that 15 Democratic senators including New York's Kirsten Gillibrand and Elizabeth Warren from Massachusetts, sent a very strongly worded letter to the Federal Communications Commission about how there are so many automated solicitation calls, or robocalls. “In an era when the onslaught of unwanted and abusive robocalls is on the rise, we are concerned that the absence of these core protections could result in even more invasive calls and texts,” the senators wrote in a letter to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai. Last year the FCC gave out a $122M fine for one robocall scammer accused of nearly 100 million illegal robocalls over a three-month period. But going after robocallers one at a time won't work. And the governments "Do Not Call" lists are not working. The "Do Not Call" registry began in 2003, and since then the the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department have only filed 131 cases against violators. So in the letter to Pai, the senators propose making the do-not-call protections stronger.

Ars Technica reports that, after nine years, Democrat Mignon Clyburn is leaving the Federal Communications Commission. Clyburn was known for her votes for consumer-protection regulations over the objections of Internet service providers, championing net neutrality and other issues. Her term expired in June 2017, but FCC rules let her to stay until the end of 2018. But she decided to leave early and not seek another five-year term. Former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler frequently called Clyburn "the conscience of the commission." Other Democrats had more praise. "Mignon Clyburn will go down in history as one of the best FCC commissioners of all time," former FCC official and consumer advocate Gigi Sohn said. "For nearly nine years, she has been a vocal and passionate advocate for the public interest and defender of the most vulnerable in our society." If President Donald Trump follows protocol, he will appoint a Democrat recommended by the Senate's Democratic leadership, and the Senate will then vote to confirm the new commissioner. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said last month that FCC official Geoffrey Starks, an assistant chief in the agency's enforcement bureau, would be the nominee. An enforcement official will hardly be a replacement for a public advocate like Clyburn.

In the past year, human error caused a nuclear war alert in Hawaii, and human hackers got 156 Dallas warning sirens blaring. In the latter attack, the 90 seconds of siren wailing caused by unknown hackers led to over 4,000 calls to 911. In Wired hacker Balint Seeber details how to hack San Francisco's alarm system with with a laptop and a $35 radio. Actually, Seeber found, similar systems are used in other U.S. cities. "If you wanted to send out your own music or your own alert, you could broadcast it across entire cities," Seeber says. "You could do it with something as cheap and easy as a handheld radio you can buy from Amazon." The hacker and his security firm Bastille said that alarms systems in San Francisco and Wichita, Kansas, and another unnamed city, are missing basic encryption and use the open airwaves, so anyone could break in. Bastille could hack into the software of ATI Systems, and the company issued a statement. "Before customers panic too much, please understand that this is not a trivially easy thing that just anyone can do.... At the same time, a certain level of concern is justified. As technology evolves, the level of threat evolves." The level of threats to infrastucture around the world is rising. Last August, there was a cyberattack against a petrochemical plant in Saudi Arabia intended to cause an explosion. And Russia has been accused of attacking Ukraine's electrical grid. Sometime soon, someone will successfully hack an alert system, or worse, in the United States.

Deadline reported that on Friday the thirteenth in April 2018, paranormal radio legend Art Bell died at his Nevada home. Bell started KNYE 95.1 FM in Nevada and, at his peak, he discussed paranormal actions, supernatural occurrences, and conspiracy theories on his late-night "Coast to Coast AM" show on 500 North American radio stations. He got an FCC technician license at age 13 and once set a Guinness World Record for broadcasting solo for 116 straight hours as a DJ at KSBK in Okinawa, Japan. Bell also was known to have operated a pirate radio station at Amarillo Air Force Base, playing anti-war music. He retired several times from both terrestrial radio and SiriusXM satellite radio, but never for too long. “It’s my life, and that’s all I have ever done,” he said. “I went through a lot of family problems, so that interrupted things, and I was overseas four years, and that certainly interrupted things. I went back into radio because I love it.” Often after broadcasting for hours late at night Bell would go on the 75 meter amateur radio band with a group of friends using the phonetics “Old Broken Bottles” for his call sign. His final broadcast, then on "Midnight in the Desert," was Dec. 11, 2015, when he said unspecified security concerns at his home drove him from the radio, causing conspiracy theories to ripple like waves across the air.

TechDirt reports that the Federal Communiications Commission's Broadband Deployment Advisory Council keeps losing members, with those resigning say the council is only meant to parrot industry views. "It has become abundantly clear that despite the good intentions of several participants, the industry-heavy makeup of BDAC will simply relegate the body to being a vehicle for advancing the interests of the telecommunications industry over those of the public," said San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo in his resignation letter in in January. The apparent goal is to create a set of rules that will provide industry with easy access to publicly-funded infrastructure at taxpayer subsidized rates, without any obligation to provide broadband access to underserved residents." New York City CTO Miguel Gamiño Jr. is the latest to step down, saying, "It is clear that despite good faith efforts by both the staff and members involved, the membership structure and meeting format of the BDAC has skewed the drafting of the proposed recommendations towards industry priorities without regard for a true public-private partnership."

Ars Technica reports that lightning-quick 5G cell service will launch later this year, with the first 5G devices available in 2019. AT&T has been testing the new service, with better-than-expected results. They've gotten reliable speeds of more than a gigabit per second from millimeter wave frequencies, even in bad weather. And even non-line-of-sight connections have performed better than expected, with very low latencies, the company said. Currently, mobile devices use 4G LTE networks on frequencies below 1GHz, which are good for covering long distances and penetrating obstacles. The 5G networks will use millimeter wave signals of 30GHz and above, which were not thought to do well with building walls and getting through foliage. That means instead of seeing the occasional cell tower every few miles, there will be lots of small antennae beaming cell signals from poles, town halls, church steeples, and other structures. AT&T has been testing 5G in In South Bend, Indiana; Kalamazoo, Michigan; and Waco, Texas. Weather does not seem to be blocking the radio waves, which are traveling up to 900 feet away from the cell sites in line-of-sight conditions. That still means a lot of transmitters and antennae need to be hung around the country, if they are every 900 feet or so. In exchange so, users get 1.2Gbps speeds, compared to 15Mbps average speeds that OpenSignal say are the norm for 4G. It will be awhile before consumers can use those speeds, though, with T-Mobile planning to build out 5G mobile networks in just U.S. 30 cities this year, and Sprint not starting until 2019.

NBC News reports that four U.S. government sources tell them that Russians are jamming American radio-controlled military drones in Syria. "GPS receivers in most drones can be fairly easily jammed," said Dr. Todd Humphreys, the director of the Radionavigation Laboratory at the University of Texas at Austin. "It's like shooting at them with radio waves instead of bullets." Blocking or scrambling a drone's reception of a signal from a Global Positioning System satellite could cause them to malfunction or crash. "At the very least it could cause some serious confusion" for the drone operator who might read an incorrect position and get lost. Humphreys says the Russian military began jamming drones in eastern Ukraine four years ago, during the invasion of Crimea. U.S. military officials are mum about what the Russian signal-blocking is doing to the smaller surveillance drones. "The U.S. military maintains sufficient countermeasures and protections to ensure the safety of our manned and unmanned aircraft, our forces and the missions they support," said Pentagon spokesman Eric Pahon.