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| Date: Wed, 26 Aug 2015 09:58:34 -0400
From: Fred Goldstein <invalid@see.sig.telecom-digest.org>
To: telecomdigestsubmissions.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Southern New Jersey residents want fairness from Verizon
Message-ID: <55DDC60A.3010600@ionary.com>
On 8/25/2015 12:37 PM, John Levine wrote:
>> In response to our concerns about deteriorating or non-existent service,
>> Verizon denounces us, seeking to make us look ridiculous by stating
>> that we are not capable of understanding modern technology.
>>
>>
>> http://www.nj.com/opinion/index.ssf/2015/08/sj_letters_823.html
>>
>
> Ah, Verizon wants to replace real telephone service with Voicelink,
> mobile phones packaged to pretend to be fixed phones.
Nothing like that "cell phone quality", 7 kbps voice compression. They
can't waste too much bandwidth on voice because they need to leave room
for more cat videos.
> Oddly, the rubes in Fire Island and in Manasquan (both full of zillion
> dollar beach houses of NYC business execs) didn't think much of
> Voicelink either.
During the Fire Island kerfuffle, a VZ spokesman went on the radio using
VoiceLink to show how good it sounded. He sounded like a cheap speech
synthesizer doing a metallic robot voice. Which is about what most
cellular calls sound like.
> One of the things I've alwys wondered is if they get away with the
> Voicelink stuff and they abandon all of the wires, how's the mobile
> backhaul going to work?
Verizon's current management concept is that the wireline division
primarily exists to provide fiber backhaul to the cell sites. There are
apparently some strange accounting shenanigans going on there, too,
which may come out one of these days. It appears that the wireline
folks pull fiber to the cell sites, wireline foots the bill, VZW pays
them a rather modest price (compared to what Sprint would pay, but
Sprint can't get the dark fiber VZW is rumored to be getting), and
wireline cries to the regulators about its losses.
|
| Date: Wed, 26 Aug 2015 15:41:10 +0000 (UTC)
From: wollman@bimajority.org (Garrett Wollman)
To: telecomdigestsubmissions.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Consumers are Cutting the Cord to Gain Choices and Pay Less
Message-ID: <mrkmmm$o9f$1@grapevine.csail.mit.edu>
In article <mgknta10l9dhctfb00ng95cop7283mocu2@4ax.com>,
Ron <ron@see.below> wrote:
>I think the question becomes, "Does Garrett Wollman have any
>alternative to Comcast in his area?"
The answer to which question was in the second half of the sentence of
mine that you quoted. The building I live in has all three local
video carriers, which is as much competition as anyone in the U.S. has
for wireline video service. (We don't have satellite, and the
construction of our building is such that the OTARD rule does not
apply -- so there are other people in my neighborhood who have a
choice of five video carriers: Comcast, RCN, VZ, DirecTV, and Dish.)
All three of the wired carriers offer phone service as well.
Currently VZ is trying to force customers off CO-battery-powered POTS
service onto FiOS Voice (but keeping the POTS tariff), so I'm going to
have to decide whether I want to continue my landline with an inferior
level of service (that I have to pay for the electricity to run!) and
if so, whether I want to stick with the tariffed (but relatively
expensive) service or go to one of the unregulated VoCATV options. If
I'm not going to get the reliability and CO power of POTS, the service
is worth quite a bit less.
-GAWollman
--
Garrett A. Wollman | What intellectual phenomenon can be older, or more oft
wollman@bimajority.org| repeated, than the story of a large research program
Opinions not shared by| that impaled itself upon a false central assumption
my employers. | accepted by all practitioners? - S.J. Gould, 1993
|
| Date: 26 Aug 2015 08:54:54 GMT
From: rpw3@rpw3.org (Rob Warnock)
To: telecomdigestsubmissions.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Southern New Jersey residents want fairness from Verizon
Message-ID: <55dd7ede$0$1671$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net>
John Levine <johnl@iecc.com> wrote:
+---------------
| One of the things I've alwys wondered is if they get away
| with the Voicelink stuff and they abandon all of the wires,
| how's the mobile backhaul going to work?
+---------------
Well, from the cell towers to the COs, point-to-point microwave,
of course. ;-} [Or fiber. Maybe.] The real question is if
they abandon all of the wires, how are they going to power the
cell towers, especially during emergencies after the batteries
run out?!?!? [Solar? No. Think hurricanes. Or blizzards. Or
haboobs. Or smoke from wildfires.]
-Rob
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
Rob Warnock <rpw3@rpw3.org>
627 26th Avenue
http://rpw3.org/
San Mateo, CA 94403
|
| Date: Wed, 26 Aug 2015 19:45:25 -0400
From: Eric Tappert <e.tappert.spamnot@frontier.com>
To: telecomdigestsubmissions.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Southern New Jersey residents want fairness from Verizon
Message-ID: <avista1ln8u28qtbmp3num4gt4gi3iqo0v@4ax.com>
On 26 Aug 2015 08:54:54 GMT, rpw3@rpw3.org (Rob Warnock) wrote:
>John Levine <johnl@iecc.com> wrote:
>+---------------
>| One of the things I've alwys wondered is if they get away
>| with the Voicelink stuff and they abandon all of the wires,
>| how's the mobile backhaul going to work?
>+---------------
>
>Well, from the cell towers to the COs, point-to-point microwave,
>of course. ;-} [Or fiber. Maybe.] The real question is if
>they abandon all of the wires, how are they going to power the
>cell towers, especially during emergencies after the batteries
>run out?!?!? [Solar? No. Think hurricanes. Or blizzards. Or
>haboobs. Or smoke from wildfires.]
The cell sites were never powered by the copper wire plant, they
always used local utility power and some battery backup. Recent FCC
action (FCC 07-177), now requires at least 8 hours of backup power in
the event of a local power failure, mainly because first responders
are using cell phones for communication. This order was in response
to hurrican Katrina. Prior to that FCC ruling, there were no backup
requirements for cell sites, although operators did usually provide at
least a couple hours of battery. Some providers are now also
supplying backup generators to meet the 8 hour requirement. There is
no requirement beyond 8 hours (for cell sites, COs have a 24 hour
requirement).
Bear in mind that the central battery design was implemented to save
maintenance cost, not necessarily to provide phone service in the
event of a power failure. Experience with increased calling volumes
(read $$) led to the current backup battery/generator combination
found in COs.
Eric
|
| Date: Wed, 26 Aug 2015 12:37:52 -0400
From: danny burstein <dannyb@panix.com>
To: telecomdigestsubmissions.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: NYC to VZ: You're a big fat lier re: FIOS footprint
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.64.1508261236370.6830@panix3.panix.com>
City claims that the VZ contract said FIOS should
be available citywide years ago...
It isn't.
Verizon is playing semantical games...
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/27/nyregion/new-york-city-and-verizon-battle-over-fios-service.html
_____________________________________________________
Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key
dannyb@panix.com
[to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]
|
| Date: Wed, 26 Aug 2015 09:53:09 -0700 (PDT)
From: Neal McLain <nmclain.remove-this@and-this-too.annsgarden.com>
To: telecomdigestsubmissions.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Consumers are Cutting the Cord to Gain Choices and Pay Less
Message-ID: <3bd2b5de-170a-4a36-8045-1aa1883ebe91@googlegroups.com>
On Friday, August 21, 2015 at 7:44:07 PM UTC-5, Monty Solomon wrote:
> Congress and the FCC can help consumers have more
> broadband options as they choose online services
> over cable TV.
The referenced NYT article states:
| In other words, the big telecom companies will still have
| plenty of leverage. Some analysts predict that as
| customers desert cable TV packages for Internet-based
| services, the telecom giants like Charter and AT&T will
| simply charge more for Internet access, wiping out some
| or all of the savings consumers had hoped for
Perhaps. But there's a countervailing argument: the big telecom companies
won't have to pay monthly license fees for the programming they distribute
over the internet. To the extent that subscribers drop their cable TV
subscriptions and switch to internet delivery for the same programming,
subscribers pay for the programming directly.
The article notes that cable and satellite TV companies lost 600,000 video
subs during second quarter of 2015. Assuming that's true, the programmers
also lost 600,000 subs. Some of them may have recovered some of the lost
revenue through direct sales, but programmers that don't offer programming
over the internet lost all 600,000 subs.
This is particularly true in the case of broadcast stations. Except for local
news programs (and perhaps other locally-produced programming) broadcast
stations don't sell their signals over the internet. Collectively, broadcast
stations lost 600,000 retransmission-consent fees with no alternate source of
revenue.
Will the broadcast industry learn a lesson from this situation? Will station
owners moderate their demands for retransmission-consent fees in the future?
Time will tell.
Neal McLain
|
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