Look out! Over UCAN's protests, a State Senate committee just voted unanimously for a bill that will strip the California Public Utilities Commission of the power to regulate phone companies. If passed, Senate Bill 1161 will also jeopardize landline phone service and telecommunications programs that aid low-income and hearing-disabled persons. 

According to the Los Angeles Times, the bill's author, Senator Alex Padilla, has received significant campaign contributions from AT&T and other telecom interests. More.

As a UCAN member, you’ve no doubt already signed up to receive our latest and greatest offer: UCAN's Blackout Buster, an emergency crank radio. This is a great little piece of technology, as it is not only a flash light and a radio but it is also a charger for your cell phone. Most people with smart phones know just how atrocious the battery life can be. The UCAN emergency crank radio is great for charging phones and you should consider it a vital tool in your emergency kit.

However, just like any handyman worth his salt has multiple tools in his tool kit to tackle any job, a prepared UCAN member should have more than one tool in their emergency kit. In addition to the UCAN crank radio, you can now get an emergency cell phone that is powered by a single AA battery.

One of the greatest things about this country is the availability of choice. Want a breakfast cereal? You can choose from a multitude at your local grocery store. A loaf of bread? White or wheat no longer cut it--now, the more grains you have the better. 5? 10? 15? The grain sky is the limit. The ability for consumers to choose can be a good thing as long as there is actual choice. However, when we look at certain consumer areas--cell phone providers, for example--the actual ability to choose a specific provider is a limited one. The culprit? The early termination fee.

Spoof? I AIN'T AFRAID OF NO GHOST! Oh, you said spoof, not spook. As in caller ID spoofing? Well, I guess I had been afraid of spoofing in the past. But with the new enforcement rules laid down by the FCC, spoofing isn't as scary as it used to be. Read more after the jump. 

If you are a Verizon Wireless customer, chances are you recently received an email from Big Red discussing changes to its privacy policy. Most of you may have just deleted the email without reading it, but if you took the time to see just what changed you'd be in for a big surprise.

T-Mobile announced today that it is moving from from an unlimited data plan to a tiered data plan. This isn’t a drastic change from its current data plan offering, but it does change the game a bit. Is this change what consumers want or is it what the industry wants?

It’s time for an another exciting edition of FunTOS! Today’s fun comes from Verizon Wireless. You all know them as the second US wireless carrier to get the iPhone. If you are thinking about switching to Verizon or you are already a Verizon customer, take a look at the changes Verizon made to section in its customer agreement titled, “How Do I Accept This Agreement?"

It looks like Verizon’s golden child, its new LTE network, is feeling some growing pains during its formative years. According to posts by Fierce Wireless and Engadet--and confirmed by a post on Verizon’s Twitter account--Verizon’s LTE network went down on Tuesday evening. Little information has been released as to the cause of the outage, but it could be seen as a big blow to Verizon’s growing LTE network.