ping - the ultimate network scanner
"vzw-collector.demo.carrieriq.com, vzw-dis.demo.carrieriq.com and hupload-vzw99.carrieriq.com. None of the three URLs responded to pings at time of writing."
Author is showing their ignorance here.
First, those aren't URLs, they're hostnames. Second, the fact they don't respond to a ping proves absolutely nothing about the reachability of a host these days. In fact, a quick portscan reveals TCP/443 is open on these 'URLs' (sic) which is presumably the ingress point for collected device information.
Even if there were no TCP ports open however, it would be pretty unwise to assume the hosts were 'down' or otherwise incapable or receiving collected information. For example, an VPN daemon listening on a single UDP port using a hashing algorithm would be incredibly difficult to illicit any kind of response from without having the corresponding key (preloaded onto the phones themselves).
The only real use for ICMP echo these days is to check the reachability of a device that you know is a) unfirewalled and b) on the same network segment. Anything else is just likely to yield misinformation.