---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message-ID: <20160723220254.GA31769@telecom.csail.mit.edu> Date: Sat, 23 Jul 2016 18:02:54 -0400 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> Subject: "Unlimited" has so many limits Verizon to disconnect unlimited data customers who use over 100GB/month Customers using more than 100GB must move to limited data plans by August 31. JON BRODKIN Verizon Wireless customers who have held on to unlimited data plans and use significantly more than 100GB a month will be disconnected from the network on August 31 unless they agree to move to limited data packages that require payment of overage fees. Verizon stopped offering unlimited data to new smartphone customers in 2011, but some customers have been able to hang on to the old plans instead of switching to ones with monthly data limits. Verizon has tried to convert the holdouts by raising the price $20 a month and occasionally throttling heavy users but stopped that practice after net neutrality rules took effect. Now Verizon is implementing a formal policy for disconnecting the heaviest users. http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/07/verizon-to-disconnect-unlimited-data-customers-who-use-over-100gbmonth/ - - - - - - - - - ***** Moderator's Note ***** Verizon blames "Net Neutrality" rules for raising prices. I don't think that makes sense. Bill Horne Moderator ------------------------------ Message-ID: <B2D271C3-7ABA-46DD-8B4F-849FD4CC2ADF@roscom.com> Date: Fri, 22 Jul 2016 08:00:14 -0400 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> Subject: F.C.C. Backs Swedish Company to Run American Phone Routing System Major wireless carriers pushed for Telcordia because of the cost savings, but some intelligence officials have raised national security concerns. WASHINGTON - The Federal Communications Commission has decided to make a European-owned company the clearinghouse for routing billions of cellphone calls and text messages across the United States, despite claims by critics that the plan poses national security risks, officials said on Thursday. The F.C.C.'s approval, which has not been publicly announced, will give a New Jersey subsidiary of Ericsson, the Swedish technology giant, the obscure but critical job of operating a sprawling national system to track and route wireless calls and texts among hundreds of service providers. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/22/business/fcc-backs-swedish-company-to-run-american-phone-routing-system.html ***** Moderator's Note ***** Haven't we heard enough threats about the big red menace? Bill Horne Moderator ------------------------------ Message-ID: <008f01d1e5be$a6722360$f3566a20$@nc.rr.com> Date: Sun, 24 Jul 2016 11:18:36 -0400 From: "Bob Goudreau" <BobGoudreau@nc.rr.com> Subject: Re: Microsoft Confirms Windows 10 New Monthly Charge Lisa Hancock wrote: > On Tuesday, July 19, 2016 at 9:39:29 AM UTC-4, Garrett Wollman wrote: >> Bill Horne wrote: >> >> >If M$ gets away with this, every CEO that ever sold an app for a >> >cellphone will be salivating at the thought of getting that annuity. >> >> "Gets away"? That's the normal way most enterprise applications >> have been offered for ages, not to mention most historic enterprise >> operating systems dating back to the IBM 360 and beyond. >> Enterprises are perfectly willing to accept predictable, periodic >> operating expenses for things that they would otherwise have to >> make periodic large capital expenditures on -- leasing software is >> no different from leasing equipment, cars, or office space as far >> as the accountants are concerned. > > Actually, up to and including System/360, operating system software > and application programs were available for free; they were bundled > with the purchase price of the hardware. > > In the System/370 years, IBM unbundled the software from its hardware. That's true, but it doesn't refute Garrett's observation. That unbundling occurred in almost half a century ago; as Wikipedia notes: "In 1969 IBM 'unbundled' software and services from hardware sales. Until this time customers did not pay for software or services separately from the very high price for leasing the hardware." In fact, until the 1956 consent decree, leasing was the *only* way for customers to access IBM hardware (and thus, the bundled software). That agreement with the Justice Department gave customers the option of purchasing outright instead of leasing. But even after that, many enterprises preferred to stick to leasing's "predictable, periodic operating expenses" model that Garrett mentioned. When the software industry took off after the unbundling decision thirteen years later, many businesses applied the same logic when making their buy vs. sub- scribe decisions about software. Heck, my wife's employer is the world's largest privately-held software firm, and virtually their entire revenue stream comes from software subscriptions and associated services, not one-time sales. So Microsoft will hardly be blazing a trail by offering Windows 10 Enterprise as a subscription-based service. The large companies that use Windows 10 Enterprise (which, remember, is not a consumer-level product) are already used to that pricing model for all sorts of other enterprise software they use. Bob Goudreau Cary, NC ***** Moderator's Note ***** Nobody ever got fired for buy^h^h^h leas^h^h^h^h subscribing to IB^h^h Microsoft? The more things change ... Bill Horne Moderator ------------------------------ ********************************************* End of telecom Digest Mon, 25 Jul 2016