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Message Digest Volume 29 : Issue 74 : "text" Format Messages in this Issue: Re: When is broadband broad enough? Re: When is broadband broad enough? Re: Slammed and crammed Re: Who says Apple has no sense of humor? Re: When is broadband broad enough? Verizon internet rate increase Re: Who says Apple has no sense of humor? Re: Who says Apple has no sense of humor? Waiting for Verizon.. The New Advertising Age / Meet Omar Hamoui, the entrepreneur who channeled innovation and frustration to build a mobile advertising network Google couldn't live without. Fifth U.S. Patent Issued To Jumptap In Nine Months Google Awarded Location Patent Filed Six Years Ago For Use In "Ad System" iPhone and QWERTY Top Devices for Mobile Ads, Says Millennial Barcelona: Mobile First How Pandora Slipped Past the Junkyard Re: How Pandora Slipped Past the Junkyard Re: Verizon internet rate increase Forbidden Fruit: Microsoft Workers Hide Their iPhones Re: When is broadband broad enough? Re: Who says Apple has no sense of humor? ====== 28 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ====== Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer, and other stuff of interest. Date: Sun, 14 Mar 2010 15:24:31 -0400 From: "Bob Goudreau" <BobGoudreau@nc.rr.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: When is broadband broad enough? Message-ID: <6EEECBDB1B8C4F4997D4542EB1BD5F52@estore.us.dg.com> AES <siegman@stanford.edu> wrote: > Since I've been putting effort into trying to obtain faster Internet > connectivity for a certain residential neighborhood, plus reading about > Google's 1 GB proposals, broadband initiatives from the government, > etc., let me raise the meta-question: > ... > And, the experimental fact seems to be that we got along pretty happily > for a decade with a 400 kB DSL connection; and are now more than happy > with a 5 to 10 MB connection in one location for most of the year, and a > 2 MB connection in another location for the rest of the year. > ... Before this debate gets started in earnest, let's all agree to use the proper units and terminology. In particular, it looks like all your figures are off by an order of magnitude because you wrote "B" (bytes) when you appear to mean "b/s" (bits per second), which is the standard unit for specifying data transmission rates. For example, the news coverage I have seen about Google's proposed pilot project has quoted speeds of 1 Gb/s (one gigabit per second), not 1 GB/s. Likewise, your DSL connection is more likely to have a speed of 400 kilobits, not 400 kilobytes, per second. Bob Goudreau Cary, NC Date: Sun, 14 Mar 2010 11:02:09 -0700 (PDT) From: "www.Queensbridge.us" <NOTvalid@Queensbridge.us> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: When is broadband broad enough? Message-ID: <af34226e-6015-41dc-b62b-34dd9425ef93@g11g2000yqe.googlegroups.com> On Mar 13, 12:08 pm, AES <sieg...@stanford.edu> wrote: > Since I've been putting effort into trying to obtain faster Internet > connectivity for a certain residential neighborhood, plus reading about > Google's 1 GB proposals, broadband initiatives from the government, > etc., let me raise the meta-question: > >    What's the target bandwidth that seems reasonably needed >    for an average, normal single-family residential connection, at >    present or in the reasonably foreseeable future? > > Or alternatively, > >    Are there any foreseeable applications or capabilities for which >    this same average, normal single-family customer will really want >    or need a 1 GB connection in the reasonably foreseeable future? (Moderator snip) My wife and I am presently both on-line. She is streaming Countdown with Keith Olberman while I am typing here. We have 3mps internet. This serves all our need. -- http://www.queensbridge.us/ Date: Sun, 14 Mar 2010 18:17:51 +0000 (UTC) From: "Adam H. Kerman" <ahk@chinet.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: Slammed and crammed Message-ID: <hnj98f$9rs$1@news.albasani.net> danny burstein <dannyb@panix.com> wrote: >"Adam H. Kerman" <ahk@chinet.com> writes: >>As the recurring charge lived on, finally, it found a live account >>with the same phone number to which charges could be posted. I suppose >>I'm lucky > ... >>It's entirely possible that at no point was there any fraud, just >>a billing system that seems to encourage posting bills to the wrong >>account. >First, you're believing their story about the previous "owner" >of that phone number signing up for those services. Why? Note: The comment after the elipsis concerned tlvp's bad billing experience extrapolated from the explanation about my situation. I have no direct knowledge of his experience and cannot believe any explanation given. I can only guess. With regard to my situation, I'll believe the explanation. >Second, if any other business, or if you and I.. tried >sending out bills based on this premise, we'd find ourselves >talking to Mr. District Attorney pretty quickly. Would we? Consumer fraud is a vast drain on our economy. Whatever prosecutors are doing about fraud in their jurisdiction, it's not nearly enough to stamp it out. All too few "businesses" that perpetrate it are caught, let alone prosecuted. Date: Sun, 14 Mar 2010 13:28:35 -0500 From: Neal McLain <nmclain@annsgarden.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: Who says Apple has no sense of humor? Message-ID: <4B9D2AD3.9020609@annsgarden.com> Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> wrote: > Of course, if it were up to me, I would have chosen ... > #1 Disk Drive > ... but I guess that's out of fashion. ;-) > Bill Horne Lake Jackson, Texas has streets named This Way and That Way. Lake Jackson was founded during WWII, when Dow Chemical Company began building facilities to extract magnesium from Gulf of Mexico seawater. Dow built the original townsite to provide housing for its employees. The principal architect was Alden B. Dow, son of Herbert Henry Dow, founder of Dow Chemical. Alden Dow laid out streets in a series of meandering circles in a pattern sometimes thought to resemble a flower. Dow himself named the streets in the downtown area, including This Way and That Way. http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AX-bk_WfAjFtZGhucTMydnRfMTNjcmJjd2c&hl=en Neal McLain Date: Sun, 14 Mar 2010 13:26:40 -0700 From: Steven <diespammers@killspammers.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: When is broadband broad enough? Message-ID: <hnjgq0$4ge$1@news.eternal-september.org> Bob Goudreau wrote: > AES <siegman@stanford.edu> wrote: > >> Since I've been putting effort into trying to obtain faster Internet >> connectivity for a certain residential neighborhood, plus reading about >> Google's 1 GB proposals, broadband initiatives from the government, >> etc., let me raise the meta-question: >> ... >> And, the experimental fact seems to be that we got along pretty happily >> for a decade with a 400 kB DSL connection; and are now more than happy >> with a 5 to 10 MB connection in one location for most of the year, and a >> 2 MB connection in another location for the rest of the year. >> ... > > Before this debate gets started in earnest, let's all agree to use > the proper units and terminology. In particular, it looks like all > your figures are off by an order of magnitude because you wrote > "B" (bytes) when you appear to mean "b/s" (bits per second), which > is the standard unit for specifying data transmission rates. For > example, the news coverage I have seen about Google's proposed > pilot project has quoted speeds of 1 Gb/s (one gigabit per second), > not 1 GB/s. Likewise, your DSL connection is more likely to have > a speed of 400 kilobits, not 400 kilobytes, per second. > > Bob Goudreau > Cary, NC > > > > Yesterday on CNN I saw the new Cisco Router that will allow speeds 3X what they are now. Seems interesting but we still have to deal with outside plant which can really slow things down. -- The only good spammer is a dead one!! Have you hunted one down today? (c) 2010 I Kill Spammers, Inc., A Rot in Hell. Co. Date: Sun, 14 Mar 2010 11:16:29 -0700 (PDT) From: "www.Queensbridge.us" <NOTvalid@Queensbridge.us> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Verizon internet rate increase Message-ID: <d3d92fac-cefa-4ca9-af6b-b0b16c40ca5c@t20g2000yqe.googlegroups.com> I just saw my VZ bill, my $29.99 monthly DSL is now 31.99 -- http://www.queensbridge.us/ Date: Sun, 14 Mar 2010 20:16:36 -0500 From: rpw3@rpw3.org (Rob Warnock) To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: Who says Apple has no sense of humor? Message-ID: <0ZadnSDNi7vpFwDWnZ2dnUVZ_tCdnZ2d@speakeasy.net> PV <pv+usenet@pobox.com> wrote: +--------------- | Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> writes: | >Or MeanFree Path. Or RootMean Square. | | I could't find a link, but I've driven by a sign for Northwestern | University student housing in Evanston IL with an address on | Root Mean Sq. It was on Sheridan Avenue if I remember right, so it was | just an informal name by some math or EE geeks. * +--------------- Who had probably read the classic John Brunner novel, "The Shockwave Rider": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shockwave_Rider As one of the residents of Precipice [a.k.a. "Disasterville U.S.A."] says to the newly-arrived protagonist: http://vxheavens.com/lib/mjb01.html ... "You get off at Mean Free Path and walk south until you hit Root Mean Square and then just ask for Ted." ... Involuntarily Kate said, "Mean Free Path? Root Mean Square? Is that some kind of joke?" There were four other passengers at this stage of the journey. All of them chuckled. The driver said over his shoulder, "Sure, the place is littered with jokes. Didn't you know?" ... -Rob Rob Warnock <rpw3@rpw3.org> 627 26th Avenue <URL:http://rpw3.org/> San Mateo, CA 94403 (650)572-2607 Date: Sun, 14 Mar 2010 19:41:45 EDT From: Wesrock@aol.com To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: Who says Apple has no sense of humor? Message-ID: <21644.6f781cb7.38cece39@aol.com> In a message dated 3/14/2010 3:28:44 PM Central Daylight Time, nmclain@annsgarden.com writes: Lake Jackson was founded during WWII, when Dow Chemical Company began building facilities to extract magnesium from Gulf of Mexico seawater. Dow built the original townsite to provide housing for its employees. The principal architect was Alden B. Dow, son of Herbert Henry Dow, founder of Dow Chemical. Alden Dow laid out streets in a series of meandering circles in a pattern sometimes thought to resemble a flower. Dow himself named the streets in the downtown area, including This Way and That Way. And, as shown at the start of the article bought up by the URL, there is an intersection of This Way and That Way. Wes Leatherock wesrock@aol.com wleathus@yahoo.com ***** Moderator's Note ***** Here's the URL: http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AX-bk_WfAjFtZGhucTMydnRfMTNjcmJjd2c&hl=en The intersection Wes mentions is a three way crossing, where This Way and That Way meet Center Way. Since the weekend is over and there's still no possibility of finding a telephone company on that map, I'll close the thread: who says I don't have a sense of humor? Bill Horne Moderator Date: Sun, 14 Mar 2010 16:58:38 -0400 From: Stephen Adler <adler@stephenadler-remove_this.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Waiting for Verizon.. Message-ID: <4B9D4DFE.6030201@stephenadler.com> Hey guys... You may be interested in my latest vlogs... I call it "Waiting for Verizon" Cheers. Steve. http://stephenadler.org/tiki-index.php?page=Verizon+Installation+Vlog ***** Moderator's Note ***** I saw Mr. Adler's post on the Boston Linux and Unix User Group (blu.org) discussion list, and he kindly granted permission for me to republish it here. The title of his post says it all ... Bill Horne Moderator Date: Sun, 14 Mar 2010 22:49:51 -0500 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: The New Advertising Age / Meet Omar Hamoui, the entrepreneur who channeled innovation and frustration to build a mobile advertising network Google couldn't live without. Message-ID: <p06240865c7c35761a107@[10.0.1.4]> The New Advertising Age Meet Omar Hamoui, the entrepreneur who channeled innovation and frustration to build a mobile advertising network Google couldn't live without. By Jason Ankeny Entrepreneur Magazine - March 2010 The story behind the startup that grew to become the biggest mobile technology acquisition in Google's history begins five years ago in a small dorm room on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania. At the time, Omar Hamoui was pursuing an MBA degree at Penn's prestigious Wharton School while struggling to kick-start fotochatter, a mobile social networking startup that lets users share photos with friends. The challenge was reaching consumers: Online advertising for a mobile service was not only impractical, it was also prohibitively expensive--Hamoui calculates that the time and money spent marketing the company translated to customer acquisition costs of $30 per user. So he turned to the emerging mobile web instead, paying sites a penny per click to promote the fotochatter solution. "About 10 percent of people who clicked the mobile ad signed up for the service," Hamoui recalls. "Our customer acquisition cost dropped from $30 to 10 cents overnight." The lessons Hamoui learned from marketing fotochatter led to the January 2006 launch of AdMob, a mobile platform that allows advertisers and publishers to navigate the discovery, branding and monetization complexities hampering their own efforts to target wireless subscribers. "I was a single individual trying to do something in mobile," says Hamoui, CEO of the company, which is based in San Mateo, Calif. "I became frustrated because I didn't have a deal with an operator or a handset maker. I needed a way to connect with users. AdMob was started to help people with interesting ideas bring them to fruition." AdMob now serves more than 10 billion banner and text ads each month across more than 15,000 mobile websites and applications, with a client list that includes Coca-Cola, Procter & Gamble, Adidas and Paramount Pictures. In early November, Google announced an agreement to acquire the firm for a staggering $750 million in stock, the digital services giant's third-largest deal ever, behind Internet advertising solutions provider DoubleClick ($3.1 billion) and video aggregator service YouTube ($1.6 billion). Privately held AdMob doesn't disclose revenues, but J.P. Morgan estimates that the company generates between $45 million and $60 million annually. Based on those figures, the Google deal was priced at a multiple of as much as 16.7 times revenue--the kind of valuation that evokes the gold-rush heyday of the dotcom era. Research firm IDC estimates that together, AdMob and Google control a 21 percent share of the U.S. mobile advertising market. AdMob's closest competitor, mobile advertising network provider Millennial Media, accounts for 12 percent, followed by Yahoo at 10 percent and Microsoft at 8 percent. Most analysts agree that the AdMob deal not only signals validation for the mobile advertising segment as a whole (research firm Gartner reports mobile ad spending worldwide increased 74 percent in 2009, to $913.5 million), but that it's also likely to set off a wave of me-too acquisitions as Google's rivals look to balance the scales. Apple was the first to respond, scooping up mobile ad network Quattro Wireless in early January for a reported $275 million. While mobile still represents just a fraction of advertiser budgets--research firm eMarketer estimates that U.S. mobile ad spending reached $416 million in 2009, compared with $24 billion for online marketing--Hamoui contends that businesses of all shapes and sizes must now give the channel their undivided attention, especially with more traditional advertising mediums on the decline. ... http://www.entrepreneur.com/magazine/entrepreneur/2010/march/204976.html Date: Sun, 14 Mar 2010 22:49:51 -0500 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Fifth U.S. Patent Issued To Jumptap In Nine Months Message-ID: <p0624086bc7c35d24fabd@[10.0.1.4]> Fifth U.S. Patent Issued To Jumptap In Nine Months US PATENT No. 7,676,394 ISSUED TO JUMPTAP FIFTH U.S. PATENT ISSUED TO JUMPTAP IN NINE MONTHS Intellectual Property Portfolio Reflects Increasing Sophistication and Advancements of Mobile Advertising Systems CAMBRIDGE, MA-March 10, 2010 - Jumptap, the leading mobile advertising provider and largest independent mobile ad network, today announced that it was awarded Patent No. 7,676,394 by the United States Patent Office on March 9, 2010. The patent relates to an automated bid management system for dynamically managing bids for presentation of mobile content on a mobile communication facility operated by a user paying for use of the mobile communication facility with a wireless communications provider, wherein the mobile communication facility consists of a mobile phone, a cellular phone, or satellite phone, the system comprising a computer having a computer readable medium having stored thereon instructions which, when executed by a processor of the computer, causes the processor to perform the steps of: ... http://www.jumptap.com/press-release/71 Date: Sun, 14 Mar 2010 22:49:51 -0500 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Google Awarded Location Patent Filed Six Years Ago For Use In "Ad System" Message-ID: <p06240864c7c3537ab6f9@[10.0.1.4]> Google Awarded Location Patent Filed Six Years Ago For Use In "Ad System" by Justi Mar 1, 2010 Google is obviously serious about mobile advertising, and is filing patents left and right with one common theme- location. We reported a while back that Google had developed a process - and filed a patent - for "sniffing" data packets sent and received by users utilizing location-based services in an attempt to come as close as possible to having what the carriers have- true user location data at all times for its subscribers. Last Tuesday, Google was awarded a patent filed over six years ago related to using location for "targeting, setting a minimum price bid for an ad, offering performance analytics, and modifying the content of an ad," as well. While broad, it covers all basis for Google's plan for mobile advertising, even though most of what they describe is already being implemented by the company. Last week, for example, Google starting allowing users to modify their search results based on their location to show results nearby, and Google Buzz was launched using "location feeds" as well. Here's what the patent states as part of its abstract; ... http://www.mobilemarketingwatch.com/google-awarded-location-patent-filed-six-years-ago-for-use-in-ad-system-5598/ Date: Sun, 14 Mar 2010 22:49:51 -0500 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: iPhone and QWERTY Top Devices for Mobile Ads, Says Millennial Message-ID: <p06240868c7c35991244a@[10.0.1.4]> iPhone and QWERTY Top Devices for Mobile Ads, Says Millennial 1 MAR 2010 Millennial Media has released their January Scorecard for Mobile Advertising Reach and Targeting (SMART). It offeres new insights into breakout campaign destination trends including m-Commerce, Social Media and Site Search and Campaign Effectiveness by Ad Vertical, supplied to us by InsightExpress. The U.S. Mobile Web: increased to 67M users, according to Nielsen (Dec.) Devices: Apple remained the number one device manufacturer with a 36.22% share of impressions in January - the largest percentage share since we starting publishing SMART in March 2009. Three new devices entered the Top Ten in January: the Motorola Clutch, Samsung Freeform and the Samsung Messager II. Two LG devices also entered the Top Fifteen: the LG VX5500 and the LG enV Touch. As three of the five new devices to enter the Top 20 had QWERTY keyboards, it is interesting to note, the QWERTY category, within the Device Input Mix, experienced the largest increase, or 16.59%, and represented 37.56% of impressions in January. A very close second within the Device Input Mix was the Touchscreen category with a 36.32% share of impressions. In the U.S. Smartphone OS Mix, Smartphones represented 58% of our network's U.S. impressions in January - a 20% increase month over month. Over 77% of our network's U.S. Smartphone impressions were among the iPhone and RIM OS's. ... http://www.wirelessandmobilenews.com/2010/03/iphone-and-qwerty-top-devices-for-mobile-ads-says-millennial.html Date: Sun, 14 Mar 2010 22:57:44 -0500 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Barcelona: Mobile First Message-ID: <p06240870c7c35fb995b7@[10.0.1.4]> Barcelona: Mobile First Thursday, February 25, 2010 12:07 PM Last week at Mobile World Congress, where more than 55,000 people gathered in Barcelona to see what the coming year holds for mobile phones and computers, Eric Schmidt had the unique opportunity to reflect on achievements in the mobile space, and to discuss what lies ahead - both for the industry and for Google. With the continued growth of smartphone usage -- increasing by more than 30% year over year, with mobile web adoption proceeding at a rate that is eight times faster than the equivalent point ten years ago for the desktop, with more than half of the new Internet connections coming from mobile devices -- it's clear that we're experiencing a fundamental shift in how we access information. So how did we get here and what's in store? Back in December, I pointed to the convergence of three trends: computing, connectivity, and cloud computing. Eric described these in more detail last week. Basically, devices are getting smaller, faster, cheaper, and more powerful; the same is true of processors. Today, roughly 700 million public servers are connected by the Internet, and this pervasive connectivity is being driven further into our daily lives, as evidenced by individuals, companies, and even the US Embassy in Beijing increasingly relying on services like Twitter to constantly share information. Finally, cloud computing not only is essential for storage of sophisticated amounts of data, which can be accessed by multiple devices, but also is paving the way for a new generation of applications and powerful, interlinked systems. These three waves are not new, nor is their intersection. What is new, however, is that the point of intersection is now a phone - a phone that's blazingly fast, is connected to the Internet, and leverages the power of the cloud. Comparing today's possibilities with what was possible 25 years ago, and then thinking ahead 25 years from now, it's incredibly exciting to imagine what we might be able to do. ... http://googlemobile.blogspot.com/2010/02/barcelona-mobile-first.html Date: Sun, 14 Mar 2010 23:01:55 -0500 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: How Pandora Slipped Past the Junkyard Message-ID: <p06240873c7c3616efc51@[10.0.1.4]> How Pandora Slipped Past the Junkyard By CLAIRE CAIN MILLER March 7, 2010 OAKLAND, Calif. - Tim Westergren recently sat in a Las Vegas penthouse suite, a glass of red wine in one hand and a truffle-infused Kobe beef burger in the other, courtesy of the investment bankers who were throwing a party to court him. It was a surreal moment for Mr. Westergren, who founded Pandora, the Internet radio station. For most of its 10 years, it has been on the verge of death, struggling to find investors and battling record labels over royalties. Had Pandora died, it would have joined myriad music start-ups in the tech company graveyard, like SpiralFrog and the original Napster. Instead, with a successful iPhone app fueling interest, Pandora is attracting attention from investment bankers who think it could go public, the pinnacle of success for a start-up. Pandora's 48 million users tune in an average 11.6 hours a month. That could increase as Pandora strikes deals with the makers of cars, televisions and stereos that could one day, Pandora hopes, make it as ubiquitous as AM/FM radio. ... http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/08/technology/08pandora.html Date: Sun, 14 Mar 2010 22:51:57 -0500 From: John Mayson <john@mayson.us> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: How Pandora Slipped Past the Junkyard Message-ID: <6645152a1003142051k6d2d1219xc91d25e0a9939e0b@mail.gmail.com> Pandora is one Internet service I absolutely enjoy. Their music genome project works very well. As I tell Pandora what I like and don't like it goes off and finds music it thinks I'll like and it's largely accurate. I've discovered new artists thanks to Pandora. John -- John Mayson <john@mayson.us> Austin, Texas, USA ***** Moderator's Note ***** Please describe the service for the readers: is it an iTunes clone? I mean, does it download audio files to your iphone for playing as if it was an iPod, or do you get "streaming" audio via the cellular connections? Bill Horne Moderator Date: Sun, 14 Mar 2010 21:18:05 -0700 From: Sam Spade <sam@coldmail.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: Verizon internet rate increase Message-ID: <1yinn.113244$0N3.10716@newsfe09.iad> www.Queensbridge.us wrote: > I just saw my VZ bill, > my $29.99 monthly DSL is now 31.99 > > > -- > http://www.queensbridge.us/ > AT$T in California (Pacific Bell) since being deregulated by the California PUC is going up $4 each year. But, "they" keep telling us there is no inflation. Date: Sun, 14 Mar 2010 23:44:58 -0500 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Forbidden Fruit: Microsoft Workers Hide Their iPhones Message-ID: <p06240878c7c36b65522d@[10.0.1.4]> Forbidden Fruit: Microsoft Workers Hide Their iPhones Steve Ballmer Sours on Apple Product; Work for Ford, Drive a Ford By NICK WINGFIELD March 13, 2010 REDMOND, Wash.-Microsoft Corp. employees are passionate users of the latest tech toys. But there is one gadget love that many at the company dare not name: the iPhone. The iPhone is made, of course, by Microsoft's longtime rival, Apple Inc. The device's success is a nagging reminder for Microsoft executives of how the company's own efforts to compete in the mobile business have fallen short in recent years. What is especially painful is that many of Microsoft's own employees are nuts for the device. The perils of being an iPhone user at Microsoft were on display last September. At an all- company meeting in a Seattle sports stadium, one hapless employee used his iPhone to snap photos of Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer. Mr. Ballmer snatched the iPhone out of the employee's hands, placed it on the ground and pretended to stomp on it in front of thousands of Microsoft workers, according to people present. Mr. Ballmer uses phones from different manufacturers that run on Microsoft's mobile phone software. A Microsoft spokeswoman declined to comment and declined to make executives available for this story. Apple CEO Steve Jobs referred an email asking about iPhone use at Microsoft to a spokeswoman, who declined to comment. Despite Mr. Ballmer's theatrics, iPhone users are in plain sight at Microsoft. At the sprawling campus here in a Seattle suburb, workers peck away on their iPhone touch-screens in conference rooms, cafeterias and lobbies. Among the top Microsoft executives who use the iPhone is J Allard, who helped create the Xbox game console and is chief experience officer for the entertainment and devices division. Nearly 10,000 iPhone users were accessing the Microsoft employee email system last year, say two people who heard the estimates from senior Microsoft executives. That figure equals about 10% of the company's global work force. Employees at Apple, in contrast, appear to be more devoted to the company's own mobile phone. Several people who work at the company or deal regularly with employees there say they can't recall seeing Apple workers with mobile phones other than the iPhone in recent memory. IPhone usage at Microsoft is the latest twist in the rivalry between Apple and Microsoft, tech-industry titans that have mixed it up in everything from computer operating systems to digital music players. For many top Microsoft executives, seeing so many iPhones around the office is a bit like how a Coca-Cola Co. manager might feel seeing underlings drink Pepsi-especially since Microsoft makes its own operating system, Windows Phone, that powers handsets. Employee iPhone use has led to some spirited discussions among Microsoft executives. At a retreat last March for dozens of senior Microsoft executives at its corporate campus, someone asked about employee use of iPhones in a question-and-answer period. ... http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703455804575057651922457356.html Date: Sun, 14 Mar 2010 19:08:56 -0700 From: AES <siegman@stanford.edu> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: When is broadband broad enough? Message-ID: <siegman-91B44B.19085614032010@sciid-srv02.med.tufts.edu> In article <6EEECBDB1B8C4F4997D4542EB1BD5F52@estore.us.dg.com>, "Bob Goudreau" <BobGoudreau@nc.rr.com> wrote: > > Before this debate gets started in earnest, let's all agree to use > the proper units and terminology. In particular, it looks like all > your figures are off by an order of magnitude because you wrote > "B" (bytes) when you appear to mean "b/s" (bits per second), which > is the standard unit for specifying data transmission rates. For > example, the news coverage I have seen about Google's proposed > pilot project has quoted speeds of 1 Gb/s (one gigabit per second), > not 1 GB/s. Likewise, your DSL connection is more likely to have > a speed of 400 kilobits, not 400 kilobytes, per second. > > Bob Goudreau > Cary, NC Agreed, and apologies for careless typing. Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2010 05:26:52 GMT From: Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: Who says Apple has no sense of humor? Message-ID: <87mxya5f8z.fsf@nudel.nodomain.nowhere> rpw3@rpw3.org (Rob Warnock) wrote: > PV <pv+usenet@pobox.com> wrote: > > +--------------- > | Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> writes: > | >Or MeanFree Path. Or RootMean Square. > [snip] > > Who had probably read the classic John Brunner novel, "The Shockwave > Rider": Busted. That's exactly where I stole (remebered and repurposed? :-) the clever names myself. > http://vxheavens.com/lib/mjb01.html I had no idea the whole text was on line. I have the dead-tree version. A sadly overlooked good book. From the same era, and even more overlooked, is _The Programmer_ by Bruce Jachson. Same era (1975) and Jachson's protagonist is mobile but doesn't have a widespread cohort of Precipice citizens whose computers he can use. So [another desperate attempt to remain even close to topic] that meant having a van to lug several crates of gear from one telephone connection to another. -- Mike Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecom- munications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to Usenet, where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Bill Horne. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. The Telecom Digest is moderated by Bill Horne. Contact information: Bill Horne Telecom Digest 43 Deerfield Road Sharon MA 02067-2301 781-784-7287 bill at horne dot net Subscribe: telecom-request@telecom-digest.org?body=subscribe telecom Unsubscribe: telecom-request@telecom-digest.org?body=unsubscribe telecom This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the oldest e-zine/mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Copyright (C) 2009 TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. 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