---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message-ID: <20171207163452.GA32579@telecom.csail.mit.edu> Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2017 11:34:52 -0500 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> Subject: Net neutrality protests planned Thursday at Verizon stores nationwide Verizon stores could be busier than usual Thursday - protesters plan to converge at the company's stores throughout the nation as part of a last-ditch effort to save net neutrality rules. The FCC is scheduled to vote next week to repeal regulations established under President Obama in 2015. Those rules prohibit internet providers from establishing fast and slow lanes online, and from favoring certain content over others. Net neutrality means treating all online content equally. http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/12/07/net-neutrality-protests-planned-thursday-at-verizon-stores-nationwide/ -- Bill Horne (Remove QRM from my email address to write to me directly) ------------------------------ Message-ID: <20171207164419.GA32613@telecom.csail.mit.edu> Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2017 11:44:19 -0500 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> Subject: Merger-hungry AT&T sued for price gouging by Texas ISP Awkward timing considering its Time-Warner marriage request By Shaun Nichols AT&T has been hit with a particularly badly-timed antitrust lawsuit accusing it of price gouging. The telecoms giant was sued by Texas-based ISP and TV carrier En-Touch Systems for charging exorbitantly high prices for a local sports channel AT&T owned in the Houston market. The suit, filed in AT&T subsidiary DirecTV's home of Los Angeles, CA, accuses AT&T of violating the Sherman and Clayton antitrust Acts as well as the California Cartwright act. https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/12/06/mergerhungry_att_sued_for_wait_for_it_price_gouging/ -- Bill Horne (Remove QRM from my email address to write to me directly) ------------------------------ Message-ID: <p098oq$1cie$1@grapevine.csail.mit.edu> Date: Wed, 6 Dec 2017 17:18:18 +0000 (UTC) From: wollman@bimajority.org (Garrett Wollman) Subject: Re: The Reason Ajit Pai's Keynote at Verizon in D.C. Today Is Secret In article <20171206065458.GA23741@telecom.csail.mit.edu>, Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> wrote: >Moderator's Note: > >This is a "guilty pleasure" post, and I'm a sucker for "secret" >headlines. Pai's remarks are included in the article, which says it >got them from the FCC website. His written remarks are public. What's secret is whatever he said in the Q&A session after, and in private conversations with other attendees. -GAWollman -- Garrett A. Wollman | "Act to avoid constraining the future; if you can, wollman@bimajority.org| act to remove constraint from the future. This is Opinions not shared by| a thing you can do, are able to do, to do together." my employers. | - Graydon Saunders, _A Succession of Bad Days_ (2015) ------------------------------ Message-ID: <20171207164914.GA32646@telecom.csail.mit.edu> Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2017 11:49:14 -0500 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> Subject: CenturyLink Faces ERISA Lawsuit on Custom Large Cap Fund Design The complaint seeks to state a claim - without relying on hindsight - by arguing the underperformance of a large cap fund was "virtually guaranteed because it contained a serious design flaw from inception." By John Manganaro The latest Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) lawsuit, emerging from the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado, targets CenturyLink for alleged mismanagement of an active large cap U.S. stock fund offered to defined contribution plan participants. By way of background, in 2011, CenturyLink appointed its subsidiary CenturyLink Investment Management (CIM) as its retirement plan investment fiduciary. In 2012, CIM formed the CenturyLink, Inc. Defined Contribution Plan Master Trust and merged the assets of its two 401(k) plans into the master trust. According to the text of the complaint, through the master trust, CIM then reestablished the investment options for the plan considered here, including a number of custom funds designed by CIM. https://www.plansponsor.com/centurylink-faces-erisa-lawsuit-custom-large-cap-fund-design/ -- Bill Horne (Remove QRM from my email address to write to me directly) ------------------------------ Message-ID: <27d42be1-7f11-40b0-de8b-ad17cee45460@ionary.com> Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2017 17:15:21 -0500 From: Fred Goldstein <invalid@see.sig.telecom-digest.org> Subject: Re: Net Neutrality Hits a Nerve, Eliciting Intense Reactions Ask eight blind men what an elephant is. NN is like that. It is no more and no less than a slogan, one designed to evoke a mythical era in which there was an Internet in which all traffic was good, capacity was always ample, and all packets could be treated equally. In other words, NN is the idea that the Internet should be like the telephone network, where all calls are handled the same, except that on the Internet you might have a computer making 10,000 phone calls at once to the same destination. And it's the idea that the government should regulate it to ensure that ISPs all behave that way, even though the actual underlying telecommunications media, which the law says are what's supposed to be regulated, are not. It's the idea that Internet is better left as a regulated monopoly than as a competitive, flexible service. IMHO, both "sides" of the debate are wrong. The bottom layer (telecom) should be separated from the upper layers (Internet), not regulated or unregulated as a vertically-integrated service, even though it's the ISPs who would in such a case resell the telecom they bought wholesale. It's like flour and bread, where two bread bakeries control 100% of the flour supply in most places, and the government argues over whether Arnold White or Wonder White is the one true bread, while other bakers are shut out. -- Fred R. Goldstein k1io fred "at" ionary.com ------------------------------ ********************************************* End of telecom Digest Fri, 08 Dec 2017