---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message-ID: <20180727041613.GA12076@telecom.csail.mit.edu> Date: Fri, 27 Jul 2018 00:16:13 -0400 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> Subject: AT&T Wireless Customers Still Without Service in North Carolina's Outer Banks By Sam Walker on July 26, 2018 An outage of unknown origin has taken down AT&T Wireless service along the Outer Banks and across northeastern North Carolina. Service dropped out around 9:30 a.m. (7/26) and has impacted voice calls, texting and mobile data. https://outerbanksvoice.com/2018/07/26/att-wireless-customers-still-without-service-in-the-area/ -- Bill Horne (Remove QRM from my email address to write to me directly) ------------------------------ Message-ID: <20180727041221.GA12057@telecom.csail.mit.edu> Date: Fri, 27 Jul 2018 00:12:21 -0400 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> Subject: With Massive Merger, the Prison Phone Industry Could Become Even More Lucrative BY Kalena Thomhave The prison phone industry, which has come under fire for the exorbitant fees it charges prisoners calling home, may be set to become even more profitable. This month, the giant inmate phone services company Securus petitioned the FCC to approve its plan to buy a smaller competitor, ICSolutions. If the Trump administration's Federal Communications Commission approves the merger, just two companies (Securus and Global Tel Link) would control between 74 percent and 83 percent of the market, according to analysis by the Prison Policy Initiative (PPI). (Securus responded to PPI's analysis, calling it "unreliable and misleading.") http://prospect.org/blog/tapped/massive-merger-prison-phone-industry-could-become-even-more-lucrative -- Bill Horne (Remove QRM from my email address to write to me directly) ------------------------------ Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.64.1807271727150.24564@panix5.panix.com> Date: Fri, 27 Jul 2018 17:28:03 -0400 From: danny burstein <dannyb@panix.com> Subject: NYS to Charter/Spectrum: bad company, no donut The press release sounds ominous. That piece of paper and $25 will get you a cup of coffee: [Public Service Commission press release] PSC Rescinds Charter Merger Approval PSC Takes Swift Action to Address Persistent Non-Compliance and Failure to Live Up to Promises; Seeks Financial Penalties for Charter's Past Failures Albany - The New York State Public Service Commission (Commission) today revoked its approval of the 2016 merger agreement between Charter Communications, Inc. and Time Warner Cable, Inc. because Charter, doing business as Spectrum, has -- through word and deed -- made clear that it has no intention of providing the public benefits upon which the Commission's earlier approval was conditioned. In addition, the Commission directed Commission counsel to bring an enforcement action in State Supreme Court to seek additional penalties for Charter's past failures and ongoing non-compliance. That enforcement action will be filed today in State Supreme Court in Albany. With its decision, the Commission determined that Charter failed to deliver the benefits to New Yorkers that were at the core of the merger approval. The various instances of misconduct include: The company's repeated failures to meet deadlines; Charter's attempts to skirt obligations to serve rural communities; Unsafe practices in the field; Its failure to fully commit to its obligations under the 2016 merger agreement; and The company's purposeful obfuscation of its performance and compliance obligations to the Commission and its customers. ===== rest [pdf, ugly url] <http://www3.dps.ny.gov/pscweb/WebFileRoom.nsf/ArticlesByCategory/1F6E451203ADF727852582D7005F8520/$File/pr18060.pdf?OpenElement> _____________________________________________________ Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key dannyb@panix.com [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded] ------------------------------ Message-ID: <20180729034736.GA19959@telecom.csail.mit.edu> Date: Sat, 28 Jul 2018 23:47:36 -0400 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> Subject: Spectrum internet is getting kicked out of New York [Blog post, see URL for author info] Although I'm on the bandwaggon like everyone else for hating ISP companies, there are few things I'd like to mention in defense of Spectrum. A major reason that Spectrum has been unable to expand to as many areas as they are required to do so, is primarily because of their lack of access to the utility poles in the state. A majority of the utility poles within NY are owned by National Grid and Verizon, which are both being sued by Charter for refusing to or delaying access to the utility poles it needs to expand. http://leadeconomics.org/blog/2018/07/28/spectrum-internet-is-getting-kicked-out-of-new-york/ -- Bill Horne (Remove QRM from my email address to write to me directly) ------------------------------ Message-ID: <20180729035649.GA19993@telecom.csail.mit.edu> Date: Sat, 28 Jul 2018 23:56:49 -0400 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> Subject: Guilty Pleasure Department If you're in the mood to see some first-rate rants, point your browser to once or more of these URLs - https://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/specific_search/AT&T https://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/specific_search/Centurylink https://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/specific_search/Verizon That's all I'll say ... -- Bill Horne (Remove QRM from my email address to write to me directly) ------------------------------ Message-ID: <092820539c5237472e01a506ac8c1d30.squirrel@webmail.mishmash.com> Date: 28 Jul 2018 12:46:33 -0600 From: "Fred Atkinson" <fatkinson.remove-this@and-this-too.mishmash.com> Subject: [Telecom] Cox Communications Premature Withdrawal for Online Payment On Wednesday, July 18th, I received an invoice from Cox Communications for my Internet service. The bill was about forty dollars. I logged into my Cox account and authorized them to take the payment from my credit union account on Saturday, July 21st. As I got paid on Friday, July 20th and I had only about forty dollars left in my credit union's checking account, I was counting on that forty dollars to be available to pay for lunch, gas, and whatever else I might need during my work day on Friday. I logged into my credit union account shortly after I submitted authorization to take the money out on Saturday. There was already a pending charge for my Internet payment applied to my credit union account. This meant that the credit union was withholding those funds and I would not be able to use them as I had planned. It was too late to call their customer service as they had closed they call center for the night. But I did reach them on their chat line. The CSR immediately voided the transaction. But of course it was going to take several days for the credit union to release those funds. I had to charge my lunch [the next day] on my AMEX card which I don't like to do. I wrote Cox's corporate office a letter of complaint. I got a call from a woman in their corporate office who said their standard practice was to attach the funds immediately and then actually withdraw them on the scheduled date. I told them that this was unacceptable. She told me that we would have to 'agree to disagree'. I told her I would do no such thing. I also informed them in my letter that this was probably a breach of law. Today, I filed a complaint with NCUA on the matter. We will wait and see what they say. They may refer me to another enforcement agency. If anyone has any suggestions or ideas about how to pursue this, I would appreciate it if you would email me direct. This is a completely unacceptable practice. As I told her, they shouldn't send anything to my credit union before the scheduled date. This practice has to stop. People choose those dates for a reason. Fred ***** Moderator's Note ***** This isn't our usual kind of post, but I'm allowing it for two reasons: 1. I just finished a ~6 month argument with Chase bank, caused by their policy to effectively ignore the law and to demand that I pay "late" fees their computer tacked on to an account I had ordered them to close. 2. Fred's complaint illustrates the new attitude of many major corporations - that customers are sheep to be shorn and then ignored, and that "Customer Service" should be patterned on the service process which occurs at horse ranches, in a breeding shed. However, I've set the "Reply-To" header, and I won't accept further comment that does not illustrate such practices in the telecom world. Bill Horne Moderator ------------------------------ ********************************************* End of telecom Digest Sun, 29 Jul 2018