---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message-ID: <20160922144600.GA18357@telecom.csail.mit.edu> Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 10:46:01 -0400 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> Subject: Sorry, Verizon customers, no unlimited data for you by Roger Cheng Verizon once again slammed the door shut on the idea of unlimited data. "At the end of the day, people don't need unlimited plans," Verizon Chief Financial Officer Fran Shammo said at an investor conference on Thursday. If you listen to Shammo regularly, you'll know this isn't a new sentiment. But Verizon's rivals have put a renewed emphasis on unlimited data that could have prompted him to change his tune. https://www.cnet.com/news/sorry-verizon-customers-no-unlimited-data-for-you/ -- Bill Horne (Remove QRM from my address to respond to me directly) ------------------------------ Message-ID: <ns0r8o$o0f$1@dont-email.me> Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 10:53:23 -0400 From: Fred Goldstein <fg_es@removeQRM.ionary.com> Subject: Re: AT&T Lab's Project AirGig Nears First Fiedld Trials On 9/20/2016 11:26 PM, Neal McLain wrote: ... > > AT&T unveiled today Project AirGig, a transformative technology from > AT&T Labs that could one day deliver low-cost, multi-gigabit wireless > internet speeds using power lines. We're deep in the experimentation > phase. This technology will be easier to deploy than fiber, can run > over license-free spectrum and can deliver ultra-fast wireless > connectivity to any home or handheld wireless device. We designed > Project AirGig literally from the ground up to be both practical and > transformational. Our initial and ongoing testing at AT&T outdoor > facilities has been positive. We expect to kick off our first field > trials in 2017. > ***** Moderator's Note ***** > > This sort of breathless, amateur-hour self-promotion by AT&T would > normally merit no more than a trip to the bit-bucket. However, I'm > publishing it because I want to make people think about some advice my > dad gave me over fifty years ago: he said "They'll spend a million > dollars to eliminate your job." > > He was right. BPL is yet-another-effort to eliminate the jobs of the > technicians who are paid to wire the last 100 feet of any current > Internet connection method. It is designed to allow the wet dream of > every monopolist in telecommunications: the provisioning of Internet > (and therefore telephone) service through the post office, with > customer-installable devices arriving in the mail, which require only > that they be plugged into an electrical outlet. > > It doesn't matter that BPL has gone through several deaths and > rebirths, or that it is widely thought of to be impractical. So long > as the labor costs are at stake, BPL will keep crawling out of the > grave. This isn't BPL. It's a different meaning of "over". In AirGig's case, it's "on the same pole, above". There are at least three distinguishing features of AirGig compared to other last-mile wireless systems. One is that it is optimized to be mounted on the top of electric poles, in the power space near the 15 kilovolt primaries. Which btw means that only an electrician or power-trained technician can touch it, usually a 3-man crew with thick gloves. In order to go up there, it has to have NO exposed metal. It is reportedly all plastic on the outside. There's nothing wrong with this -- many low-cost microwave systems used by WISPs are plastic -- but it's not traditional telco style. Number two is that in order to power it, rumor has it, they're doing some kind of hack to inductively pick up a little power off of the passing 15 kilovolt lines without actually touching them. Power lines can leak a little, after all, so they can arrange with the power company to pay for a little leakage. Number three is that they may actually be counting on the nearby electric wire to provide some waveguide/transmission help. While millimeter wave (>30 GHz) transmissions can go a half kilometer or more even in heavy rain, they require very accurate lines of sight. AT&T is reported to have a patent on letting wire help with that, though they don't physically touch it. It's all rather risky and I have some doubts that they'll follow through in volume. But it's not BPL, which, like Generalissimo Franco, is still dead. ***** Moderator's Note ***** If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck ... ... the net effect is to remove the "home install" technician from the equation. "Requiring" an electric company lineman to mount it doesn't make up the difference: there are no connections to wire, no adjustments to check, and (most importantly) no time-consuming visits to individual residences. It should be called Broadband Without Employees (BWE). I think Generalissimo Franco would approve. Bill Horne Moderator ------------------------------ Message-ID: <EBFD0158-F348-4017-BF1E-F9383BB0C4BF@roscom.com> Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 08:41:04 -0400 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> Subject: Hey, Check Out My New Phone! It Does Nothing. Hey, Check Out My New Phone! It Does Nothing. By Ryan Knutson The crowd gasped with oohs and aahs when Chris Sheldon pulled his company's new gadget from a silky black bag in front of hundreds of techies. "We are very proud to introduce the least-advanced NoPhone ever," he said at a technology conference in Canada this month. The NoPhone is a plastic rectangle that looks like a smartphone but does absolutely nothing. More than 10,000 have been sold in the past two years for about $10 each. https://www.google.com/amp/www.wsj.com/amp/articles/hey-check-out-my-new-phone-it-does-nothing-1474381419 ***** Moderator's Note ***** Here's a smart phone I can support: it leverages the man/machine interface to achieve levels of insight, intelligence, and perspective which were previously unobtainium in the ranks of young, gadget-grasping graduates. Bill Horne Moderator ------------------------------ Message-ID: <20160922145554.GA18378@telecom.csail.mit.edu> Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 10:55:54 -0400 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> Subject: CenturyLink plans thousands of job cuts this fall By Mike Rogoway CenturyLink, Oregon's largest phone company, plans to lay off as many as 3,500 workers nationwide by the middle of December. "We are not focusing on a specific group of employees or states. We are making adjustments to meet the needs of the business," CenturyLink spokesman Mark Molzen wrote in an emailed statement. He said the number of layoffs will depend on the number of employees who take buyouts. http://www.oregonlive.com/silicon-forest/index.ssf/2016/09/centurylink_planning_thousands.html -- Bill Horne (Remove QRM from my email address to write to me directly) ------------------------------ ********************************************* End of telecom Digest Fri, 23 Sep 2016