---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message-ID: <8F2D6007-5F27-46E0-AB3B-9B36C4101A18@roscom.com> Date: Sat, 27 Feb 2016 09:49:11 -0500 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> Subject: new encrypted Apple phone David Sipress's Daily Cartoon previews the new encrypted Apple phone. http://www.newyorker.com/cartoons/daily-cartoon-022516-apple-phone ***** Moderator's Note ***** This is remarkable: a single-rotor cipher machine! Bill Horne Moderator ------------------------------ Message-ID: <27a62998-7443-4c31-aee1-33043cfc4c04@googlegroups.com> Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2016 20:53:27 -0800 (PST) From: Neal McLain <nmclain.remove-this@and-this-too.annsgarden.com> Subject: Cable operators should stopping 'laughing off' wireless broadband Cable operators should stopping 'laughing off' wireless broadband threat, analyst says By Daniel Frankel, FierceCable, February 26, 2016 While cable operators continue to 'laugh off' slower and less reliable wireless broadband networks, BTIG analyst Walter Piecyk said they need to wake up and realize that the declining prices of wireless data is making it an increasingly compelling alternative. In a Friday blog posting for investors, Piecyk conceded that wireless companies haven't marketed their networks as a replacement for wired broadband yet. But that could change fast. "We believe telcos will feel increased pressure to identify new services to bolster revenue growth as early OTT offerings stumble and as a result of the diminishing marginal impact of customer migrations to higher wireless data buckets," Piecyk said. "We are still bullish on the opportunity for wireless operators to monetize data growth but Q4 was not encouraging as most companies reported lower than expected ARPU." http://www.fiercecable.com/ -or- http://tinyurl.com/huezj4f Neal McLain ------------------------------ Message-ID: <20160226150924.691F21A507@dork.etherwright.net> Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2016 09:09:24 -0600 (CST) From: merlyn@themcintyres.us (Doug McIntyre) Subject: Re: My local phone company is lost at the frontier In comp.dcom.telecom Bill Horne wrote: >... plus taxes: he wouldn't tell me what the taxes would >be, nor the Universal Service, access, or other fees; he did, however, >estimate that they would be about "fourteen to eighteen" dollars per >month. He also suggested that I look at my neighbor's phone bill to >find out the exact figure. ... I guess I've been dealing with the LEC's since only the ealry '90's as part of my work, so I've gone through the ILEC in my area being NW Bell, then Qwest, then CenturyLink. I've dealt with every CLEC that has come into my area (and mostly left), as well as the national carriers that dally with providing services, only to figure out it isn't profitable to pull out. I have never been able to get a complete listing of all fees and taxes out of a telco sales person, be it the ILEC, a CLEC, or other data carrier. I think part of it is that the government has made it soo complex a tax structure. eg. just for sales tax, we have to charge different sales tax depending on the zip code of the customer being shipped to. So if I have a customer that has three locations, almost certainly, the sales tax for them will be different for each of their locations. Ie. Besides the base state tax rate, Downtown has an additional tax levy of 0.5%. Hennepin county has an additional tax levy of 0.15%. There is also a transit tax levy of 0.25% in Hennepin county, but not in Scott county. Thankfully we're not doing any hospitality or entertainment, as those are additional levys ontop of those listed above. My wife for a time had a side line selling beauty items. When going to a home party, she'd have to lookup the zip code she was going to, and try to figure out what the sales tax rate would be in the city she was travelling to so she could properly count it. I think in the end, she just punted and went with a base sales tax amount and left it at that. I think in the end, the sales people realize this, and the billing departments haven't extended all the junk they go through in figuring it out into sales, and I've often heard the advice you've gotten, read an existing bill. Over time, we've seen enough examples and our own billing to know what we get billed in our area for existing services, but I'd imagine other areas have totally different billing in fees and taxes. When we get new services, its always a new adventure. -- Doug McIntyre doug@themcintyres.us ------------------------------ Message-ID: <nao425$ljs$1@grapevine.csail.mit.edu> Date: Thu, 25 Feb 2016 23:51:33 +0000 (UTC) From: wollman@bimajority.org (Garrett Wollman) Subject: Re: My local phone company is lost at the frontier In article <20160225202353.GA32208@telecom.csail.mit.edu>, Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> wrote: >I'm angry about this: getting basic, publicly-available information >from a public utility should not be this hard. I suppose that all the >fast-buck operators who pay for ads on 411.com think that they'll make >up for every guy like me by selling a "package" to some twenty- >something who just fell off a turnip truck, but I expect the >ILEC to be willing to quote me the rates that their tariffs specify. Nobody under the age of 30 has a landline. Nobody under the age of 20, if they grew up in the US, remembers a day when cell phones were not ubiquitous. (Unless they grew up in some place like Adirondack Park or the Green Bank Radio Quiet Zone where cellular service is restricted.) -GAWollman --

Garrett A. Wollman wollman@bimajority.org Opinions not shared by my employers.

What intellectual phenomenon can be older, or more oft repeated, than the story of a large research program that impaled itself upon a false central assumption accepted by all practitioners? - S.J. Gould, 1993

------------------------------ Message-ID: <93307A4B-A010-480B-A5F7-23BB4E4BAD52@roscom.com> Date: Sat, 27 Feb 2016 10:48:38 -0500 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> Subject: It Really Doesn't Matter What Apple's Motivations Are - Idealistic or Other Wise By Brian Feldman Apple CEO Tim Cook's refusal to help the FBI access an encrypted phone is an important and unprecedented event in the long, strained relationship between Silicon Valley and the government. But there is one particular line, near the end of his letter, that sticks out: "We are challenging the FBI's demands with the deepest respect for American democracy and a love of our country." Quite frankly, that's bullshit. http://nymag.com/following/2016/02/apple-doesnt-care-about-you.html ------------------------------ ********************************************* End of telecom Digest Sun, 28 Feb 2016