---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message-ID: <n7u801$nq3$1@dont-email.me> Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2016 16:49:28 -0500 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> Subject: Verizon may be skirting net neutrality rules (Associated Press) Verizon has said that it's interested in "sponsored data" as another source of revenue. A company can pay Verizon so that phone users can browse their websites, watch video clips or download their apps without using up their data allotment. Verizon says brands that have signed up include Hearst Magazines and AOL, which Verizon owns. AT&T also launched a sponsored data program two years ago, but relatively few companies are participating. http://www.ibnlive.com -- Bill Horne (Remove QRM from my email address to write to me directly) ------------------------------ Message-ID: <n7u7h3$m1n$1@dont-email.me> Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2016 16:41:30 -0500 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> Subject: T-Mobile invents new drinking game T-Mobile Trolled Verizon's Earnings Call This Morning With a 'Drinking Game' by Tom Huddleston, Jr. T-Mobile is taking its trolling game to a new level. Proving that there's really no type of shade like telecoms industry quarterly earnings shade, T-Mobile launched a sardonic shot against the bow of its largest rival this week by inventing a drinking game poking fun at Verizon's so-called "boring" earnings call. T-Mobile - currently the third-largest mobile carrier in the U.S., behind Verizon and AT&T - on Wednesday unveiled its "Verizon Earnings Call Drinking Game," which encouraged anyone who tuned in for the company's quarterly investors webcast to take a drink of "your beverage of choice" anytime Verizon executives mentioned words like "millennials" or "the young people." http://fortune.com/2016/01/21/t-mobile-verizon-drinking-game/ -- Bill Horne (Remove QRM from my email address to write to me directly) ------------------------------ Message-ID: <n7u7q3$n2f$1@dont-email.me> Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2016 16:46:19 -0500 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> Subject: Verizon unlikely to revive unlimited data Verizon shuts the door on reviving unlimited data by Roger Cheng Don't hold your breath for unlimited data to make a comeback at Verizon Wireless. "At this point, we are not going to entertain unlimited," Verizon Chief Financial Officer Fran Shammo said in an interview Thursday following the company's fourth-quarter earnings report. Verizon, the nation's largest wireless carrier, won't be following in the footsteps of rival AT&T, which last week brought back the unlimited-data option for customers who also subscribe to its DirecTV or U-Verse TV services. http://www.cnet.com/news/verizon-shuts-the-door-on-reviving-unlimited-data/ -- Bill Horne (Remove QRM from my email address to write to me directly) ------------------------------ Message-ID: <n7u871$ol5$1@dont-email.me> Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2016 16:53:13 -0500 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net>> Subject: AT&T's CEO says Tim Cook shouldn't have any say in encryption debate By Chris Welch AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson doesn't think Apple CEO Tim Cook should be making long-term decisions around encryption that could ripple across the technology industry. "I don't think it is Silicon Valley's decision to make about whether encryption is the right thing to do," he told The Wall Street Journal in an interview on Wednesday. "I understand Tim Cook's decision, but I don't think it's his decision to make," said Stephenson. "I personally think that this is an issue that should be decided by the American people and Congress, not by companies." Cook has repeatedly argued there's no feasible way for Apple to create a "backdoor" that would help law enforcement circumvent the encryption on iPhones that protects consumer data, since such an opening could also be exploited by malicious users. http://www.theverge.com/2016/1/21/10808732/att-ceo-says-tim-cook-shouldnt-decide-encryption - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - It's-not-paranoia-if-they-are-really-out-to-get-you department ... I'm not surprised that AT&T, which is, in its capacity as an ISP, able to tie emails to individual senders and receivers, is opposed to encryption. No zealot like a convert, as they say: having lagged the market by several years, I suspect that the company is doing everything it can to extract every possible mill of revenue from its customers, and selling communications intelligence appears to be at the head of its list of new revenue streams. The firm's disdain for encryption is not just applicable to AT&T's own customers, either: the company is a carrier for many other firms, and has access to all the backbones which it rents to major ISPs and upper-tier carriers, and I think they also want to spy on that traffic while it's going past, in much the same way that the earlier incarnation of "Ma Bell" allowed the NSA privileged access to the pipes years ago. As with the firm's opposition to "net neutrality", so it goes with encryption: I'm afraid that the AT&T brass want to avoid any hint of a "public utility" obligation to keep their nose out of my business. It is, AFAICT, no longer acceptable to just get paid for carrying the bits from point A to point B: I think they want to read my mail and sell the keywords to all comers. YMMV. Bill -- Bill Horne (Remove QRM from my email address to write to me directly) ------------------------------ Message-ID: <n7tn4c$4jh$1@blue-new.rahul.net> Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2016 16:58:52 +0000 (UTC) From: Clarence Dold <dold@19.usenet.us.com> Subject: Re: AT&T chooses Ubuntu Linux over Microsoft Windows Bill Horne <bill@horneqrm.net> wrote: > BY KAVITA IYER > AT&T, one of the largest cellular providers has side-lined Microsoft's > Windows and instead opted for Canonical and Ubuntu to power its network, I worked for Convergent Technologies when they built several different computers that said AT&T on the outside, running AT&T Unix SVR2. These were all small by today's standards, but did billing, PBX handling, and served in place of IBM 3270 Terminal clusters. Too bad Novell and SCO drove The One True Unix into the ground. --- Clarence A Dold - Santa Rosa, CA, USA GPS: 38.47,-122.65 ***** Moderator's Note ***** Since I am a Certified NetWare Engineer, albeit for version 3.12, I'll ask that we cut Novell some slack: they offered value for the money, and they lost out to Microsoft in the small server market when Windows NT muscled in. SCO, OTOH, threatened to sue everyone that didn't pay them a "license" fee for a product they didn't own. Bill Horne Moderator ------------------------------ Message-ID: <n7u919$rmg$1@dont-email.me> Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2016 17:07:12 -0500 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> Subject: Centurylink says it will monitor desegregation effort (From a January 13 article in The Ouachita Citizen, which serves Ouachita Parish, Louisiana) Taking a rarely seen and public stance, a CenturyLink official representing the Fortune 500 company announced plans to monitor the Monroe City School Board's compliance with the court-ordered desegregation of its school system. During last week's School Board meeting, the board hired Education Planning Group to be an independent court monitor and evaluate the school system's desegregation efforts in spite of questions about the group's qualifications and hiring. At that time, Carrick Inabnett, CenturyLink's vice president of economic development and associate general counsel, told board members that public education was a key interest for the company. http://www.hannapub.com -- Bill Horne (Remove QRM from my email address to write to me directly) ------------------------------ ********************************************* End of telecom Digest Sat, 23 Jan 2016