Verizon's UltraFast 5G Can Only Be Accessed 0.8% Of The Time
from the not-the-revolution-we-were-promised dept
We've noted repeatedly how fifth-generation wireless (5G) was painfully over-hyped. To spike lagging smartphone and network hardware sales, carriers, equipment makers, and the lawmakers paid to love them spent years insisting that 5G would change the world, ushering forth amazing new cancer cures and the revolutionary smart cities of tomorrow. But while 5G is an important evolutionary step toward faster, more resilient networks, it's more of an evolution than a revolution, particularly here in the US, and most of the loftier claims have proven to be a bit hollow.
Several studies have now shown how US 5G is significantly slower than overseas networks, thanks in part to our failure to push more high speed, high-range middleband spectrum to market. And within the United States, many 5G networks have shown to actually be slower than 4G. Throughout this, Verizon has particularly hyped its millimeter wave "ultrawideband" (mmWave) flavor of 5G, which offers ultra-fast speeds, but struggles a bit with range and things like building wall penetration.
But a new OpenSignal report indicates that despite years of hype, Verizon's ultra-fast 5G variant is only actually available to consumers with 5G-capable phones around 0.8% of the time:
To be clear, the speeds seen on Verizon's ultrawideband 5G network have reached 692.9 Mbps, an incredible benchmark for wireless service. But those kinds of speeds are only really useful if they're consistently available, and they simply... aren't:
Riot Shuts Down LoL Fan Server After Getting All Wiseguy With Its Developers
from the nice-project-you-have-there... dept
Way back in 2016, we discussed how Blizzard was very busy shutting down fan-made and hosted World of Warcraft servers, pretending like intellectual property forced it to do so. At the time, these fan servers were hosting WoW's vanilla experience, mimicking what the game looked like upon first release, rather than then current iteration of the ever-evolving MMORPG. While Blizzard has since come out with a vanilla experience product of its own, at the time, these fan servers were filling a market desire for a product that didn't exist. Rather than figuring out a way to work with these fans, Blizzard just shut them down.
And now it's all happening again with Riot, makers of League of Legends, an online game that similarly is ever-evolving. Fans of the game once more created a fan server that hosted the older, vanilla version of the game for those who wanted to play it that way. What makes this situation different, however, is that Riot only sent its C&D notice to the developers after the developers posted online an exchange they had with a Riot representative which took on a very 1920's wise guy tone. . .
Fifth Circuit Strips Immunity From Cops Who Ended A Mental Health Crisis By Restraining A Man To Death
from the unfortunately-it-took-a-death-to-obtain-this-result dept
The Fifth Circuit is the worst place to bring a civil rights lawsuit against law enforcement officers. But that may slowly be changing, thanks in part to the Supreme Court, which has played its own part in making qualified immunity an almost insurmountable obstacle in civil cases. Over the past few months, the Supreme Court has reversed and remanded two cases handled by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, ruling that the lower court's extension of qualified immunity was the incorrect conclusion.
This case [PDF] may reflect the Supreme Court's qualified immunity attitude adjustment. Or it just may be that there's no excusing what happened here: a man suffering a mental health crisis being helped to death by San Antonio (TX) police officers.
Jesse Aguirre was reported to dispatchers by drivers on a heavily traveled eight-lane highway. Drivers noted Aguirre seemed to be "mentally disturbed" and possibly in danger of being injured or killed since he was walking on the thin media strip dividing the eight lanes of traffic. Officers arrived at the scene and things just kept getting worse for Aguirre. Fortunately, it was all documented by the dashcam on an officer's vehicle.
Here's the first "offer" of "help" Aguirre received from a police officer:
Officer Gonzales was the first to arrive. She left her vehicle blocking the left-most eastbound lane and approached Aguirre on foot with her firearm pointed at him, ordering him to “come here” and threatening, “I’m going to shoot you, m-----r-f----r.”
Lovely. Gonzales continued to walk after Aguirre, joined by Officer Morgan (also pointing a gun) and Mendez (pointing a Taser). Aguirre then stopped and placed his hands on the concrete median barrier. All three officers rushed Aguirre, grabbing him and placing him in handcuffs. According to the video, Aguirre did not "visibly resist" being handcuffed. The officers then tossed the handcuffed man over the cement barrier, causing him to land on his head.
More officers arrived. And they apparently felt the unresisting man needed more "assistance" dealing with his apparent mental health crisis. . .
Only 14% Of Americans Think Communities Shouldn't Be Allowed To Build Their Own Broadband Networks
from the listen-to-the-people dept
A new poll from Morning Consult indicates that only around 14% of Americans think that communities should not be allowed to build and operate their own, local broadband networks:
That of course operates in pretty stark contrast to the 18 states that have passed obnoxious laws, usually written by incumbent broadband providers, that hamstring such efforts or ban them entirely. That total used to be 19 (Arkansas eliminated many of their restrictions earlier this year), and will soon be 17 (given Washington State just passed a law eliminating its restrictions as well).
The survey found that Democrats and urban residents are more likely that rural and Republican residents to support such options. But that too runs a bit in contrast with reality, given that the majority of community built broadband networks exist in more conservative leaning cities. Like a lot of tech subjects (net neutrality comes to mind), entrenched business interests have successfully framed community broadband as a "partisan issue," which is a great way to stall consensus on a subject you oppose for purely selfish, successful reasons.
Industries, and the captured regulators and lawmakers who love them, adore demonizing such efforts as "socialism run amok" or automatic taxpayer boondoggles. But that's again not based on reason. Such efforts are an organic, grass roots reaction to market failure and monopolization. The efforts aren't pursued because their fun, they're pursued because Americans have, over thirty years, grown increasingly frustrated at the high cost, slow speeds, and terrible customer service that's the direct result of regional monopolization
Rep. Lauren Boebert Decides To Streisand Parody Site Making Fun Of Her, Threatens To Take Legal Action Against It
from the supporting-the-1st-Amendment dept
Rep. Lauren Boebert is one of the new crew of elected Republicans who claims to be "pro-Constitution" and "pro-freedom" but when you get down into the details, it seems that the only part of the Constitution that matters to her is the 2nd Amendment. The website for her campaign proudly states that she's "Standing for Freedom" and is "Pro-Freedom, Pro-Guns, Pro-Constitution."
You do have to wonder if she skipped over the 1st Amendment in her rush to defend the 2nd, however. This morning, her press secretary Jake Settle (who came to her office after working on Mike Pence's communications team) sent quite a fascinating threat email to the operator of a Lauren Boebert parody site, TheLaurenBoebert.com.
The operator of that site, comedy writer Toby Morton, tweeted an image of the letter this morning:
Hello Lawyers/Smart People - Lauren Boebert wants me to take down https://t.co/zjr5H9soIR. What say you @AriCohn @Popehat @ASFleischman @adamsteinbaugh @Jturk125 @wolmanj @questauthority @mmasnick @KathrynTewson @RichSeviora @thewolflawyer @estockbridge @USConst_Amend_I pic.twitter.com/FgBdXFdaCR
— Toby Morton (@tobymorton) May 3, 2021
I have since seen the original email that does, indeed, appear to come from Jake Settle. I have emailed Jake to confirm his side of the story, and asked him to answer a few questions as well. At the time of writing he has not responded. The email says the following:
To whom it may concern,
This website (https://www.thelaurenboebert.com/) needs to be taken down since the photos on here are copyrighted property of the U.S. Federal Government. They are the property of the office of Congressman Lauren Boebert, and your use of them is unauthorized and illegal.
Additionally, the entire website is a defamatory impersonation, and it goes against relevant terms of service and U.S. law. Please remove immediately or face further action.
Sincerely,
Jake Settle | Press Secretary
Rep. Lauren Boebert (CO-03)
If you're wondering what the parody site looks like, it does use the same main image as Lauren's official Congressional site (different from her campaign site). . .
The parody site honestly doesn't have that much more on it. It shows a couple Boebert tweets, then has links to some other parody sites of wacky Republican members of Congress and Senators, and says that it's a parody site (which isn't just a talisman where saying it automatically makes it true). Update: There actually is a bit more on the website that I had missed on first pass: under the "blog" tab, there are some posts that include a number of images of Boebert. It is extremely unlikely that the copyright to any of those works are held by the US government. It is possible that some are held by Boebert herself (unclear if her Congressional Office would hold the copyright), but we'll get there.
Before we even dig into the legal analysis of Settle's threat letter, let's just make one thing clear: whether or not there's a legal leg to stand on, Settle's threat is stupid. All this has served to do is to Streisand a parody site that likely wasn't receiving much if any traffic prior to this. Indeed, Morton has confirmed to me that the site hadn't received much traffic, but now tons of people are looking at it . . .
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