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The Telecom Digest for December 12, 2011
Volume 30 : Issue 316 : "text" Format
====== 30 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ======
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Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the
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Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2011 10:51:26 -0500
From: Pete Cresswell <withheld@invalid.telecom-digest.org>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: OSHA: Two Federal DOT Agencies Ban Hand-Held Phone
Message-ID: <kak9e79hgtfqok0k8tmsc6d30nsnqs6fgr@4ax.com>
Per David Clayton:
>The solution is blindingly simple - just make those who are need/want to
>use communications devices while driving pass a special skills test to
>ensure that they are capable of doing so.
>
>One can easily imagine that achieving such a thing will be trivial for
>most of those professionals mentioned, but would be a challenge for the
>vast majority of drivers on the roads who are clueless as to how poor
>their overall skills actually are.
Sounds ok reading the words, but I would observe that here in
Southeastern Pennsylvania (USA), they can't even get people to
use their turn signals - cops included.
--
PeteCresswell
***** Moderator's Note *****
Pete, please contact me offline.
Bill Horne
Moderator
Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2011 10:22:44 -0500
From: John Stahl <aljon@stny.rr.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: OSHA: Two Federal DOT Agencies Ban Hand-Held Phone Use
Message-ID: <86.74.00585.ACAC4EE4@cdptpa-omtalb.mail.rr.com>
>--- On Mon, 12/5/11, John Stahl <aljon@stny.rr.com> wrote:
>
>> US Occupational Health & Safety has reported on their web site
...snip...
>> require their drivers to comply." These new rules take effect
>> January 3, 2012.
Not to beat this subject to death, but there seems to be conflicting
stories and accident statistics regarding the distraction caused by
texting/talking while driving.
In a recent article in the Chicago Sun-Times publication,
Post-Tribune (on-line), titled "
Study shows increase in drivers texting behind the wheel",
By JOAN LOWY,
dated Dec. 8, 2011, the Ms. Lowy opens with "
Texting while driving increased 50 percent last year despite a rush
by states to ban the practice, federal safety officials said
Thursday...." Further along in the article, she supports the article
title with, "There were an estimated 3,092 deaths in crashes affected
by distractions in 2010, the safety administration said...." Then in
another interesting statistic she indicates in an apparent opposition
to the deaths related to driving while distracted, that over all
deaths in traffic accidents are down: "Overall, 32,885 people died in
traffic crashes in the United States in 2010, a nearly 3 percent drop
and the lowest number of fatalities since 1949...."
Now in relation to the last sentence, the article indicates the
decrease in traffic deaths with," Safety researchers generally
attribute the lower deaths to a decline in driving because of the
poor economy combined with better designed and equipped cars and
stronger safety laws." But since the comparison statistics go back to
1949 where there were a lot less drivers than today and automobiles
were built like (as I recall) "tanks" - cars of those days were made
out of steel not plastics and aluminum - it doesn't seem that
anywhere are these "researchers" relating "apples to apples"!
Article located at:
http://posttrib.suntimes.com/news/9328300-418/study-shows-increase-in-drivers-texting-behind-the-wheel.html
A person might wonder why all the push against texting/talking while
driving because another article on SmartMotorist.com indicates that,
"Cell phones have gotten a lot of negative media attention recently
-- but other more low-tech distractions cause most traffic accidents.
Have you ever spilled hot coffee on yourself? Dropped something on
the floor while driving?...."
Notice the article indicates that "most" traffic accidents are not
caused by cell phone usage. So what's the big push to stop mobile
communication?
Article located at:
http://www.smartmotorist.com/traffic-and-safety-guideline/distracted-drivers-cause-motor-vehicle-accidents.html
Who knows, perhaps (tongue-in-cheek) some "anti-mobile communication"
group who is against any form of wireless communication or maybe yet,
the telephone land-line companies are at the source of all this negativism!!!!
John Stahl
Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2011 02:10:33 -0500
From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: The ghost of Nortel continues to haunt Canada's tech sector
Message-ID: <4EE5A8E9.5020000@horne.net>
By BARRIE McKENNA </authors/barrie-mckenna/>December 04, 2011
Next month marks a grim anniversary in the annals of Canadian business.
Nortel Networks, the former flagship of the country's high-tech
industry, filed for bankruptcy protection on Jan. 14, 2009.
Three years on, the company's spectacular flameout remains a potent
symbol of the country's failed innovation potential.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/commentary/barrie-mckenna/the-ghost-of-nortel-still-haunts-us/article2259637/?utm_medium=Feeds%3A%20RSS%2FAtom&utm_source=Home&utm_content=2259637
--
Bill Horne
(Remove QRM from my email address to write to me directly)
Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2011 02:03:08 -0500
From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: More bad news for LightSquared
Message-ID: <4EE5A72C.2040904@horne.net>
According to a story by David Murphy in PC Magazine:
When it rains for LightSquared, it pours for LightSquared. The
ambitious, proposed wholesaler of LTE service -- designed to
ultimately give consumers additional options for tapping into
high-speed mobile Internet -- has come under a great deal of fire
for the alleged interference that its network creates for common
GPS devices. And the results of a new government test certainly
don't help LightSquared make its case.
According to the news service Bloomberg, leaked draft results of
government tests indicate that the base stations for
LightSquared's proposed 4G LTE network created "harmful
interference" for 75 percent of the 92 GPS devices used within the
test -- up to 109 yards away from the base station, we note. And
the overall conclusion? The analysis reports that that "millions
of GPS units are not compatible"
Full story is at
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2397491,00.asp
.
Bill
--
Bill Horne
(Remove QRM from my email address to write to me directly)
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