33 Years of the Digest ... founded August 21, 1981Copyright © 2015 E. William Horne. All Rights Reserved.The Telecom Digest for Mar 16, 2015
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| There is a new mood in America. We have been shaken by a tragic war abroad and by scandals and broken promises at home. Our people are searching for new voices and new ideas and new leaders. Although government has its limits and cannot solve all our problems, we Americans reject the view that we must be reconciled to failures and mediocrity, or to an inferior quality of life. |
| James Earl Carter, Jr. |
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| Date: Sat, 14 Mar 2015 16:45:38 -0700 (PDT) From: HAncock4 <withheld@invalid.telecom-digest.org> To: telecomdigestsubmissions.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: CenturyLink may exclude service to minorities, critics say Message-ID: <74631b31-7a1f-4fdd-9cb4-e1e018d3d3ca@googlegroups.com> On Saturday, March 14, 2015 at 11:03:35 AM UTC-4, Bill Horne wrote: > By Harry Colbert Jr. > Competition is good, right? > Of course it is. Competition in business is so needed that there are > rules in our nation that guarantee a competitive marketplace. So it > may come as a shock that when CenturyLink announced it wants to > compete against Comcast - Minneapolis' only cable provider since 1983 > - the communications company was met with opposition. But those > opposed to CenturyLink say they agree with competition in a free > marketplace, what they don't agree with is CenturyLink being able to > cherry pick where to compete - especially if CenturyLink chooses not > to service areas of lower income that tend to be minority > concentrated. In a free marketplace, a business is free to NOT participate in a marketplace if feels it won't be profitable for it. For example, a store selling senior citizen health and comfort supplies (e.g. adult diapers, walkers, canes, support hoisery, etc), won't find much business across the street from a high school, and a high school malt shop* won't find much business near a senior center. If we are going to impose demands onto providers that cost them money, then obviously we have to impose them on all providers. But first, we need to closely look at the demands to see if they're truly worthwhile. For instance, IMHO, it is reasonable to mandate a restaurant have sanitary inspections because that benefits all customers. However, IMHO, it is not resonable to demand the restaurant stay open at 4 a.m. "just in case someone is hungry". If a business, carrier or otherwise, does not think a neighborhood location will be profitable for them, then I don't think they should be forced to serve that neighborhood. We must remember a BIG reason we got rid of the old Bell System business model was to eliminate the cross-subsidization that Bell was doing. In a competitive marketplace, some people will pay more. For instance, the only gas station in an isolated area will charge high prices, not the prices charged elsewhere. People can't have it both ways. Another example: from time to time an old house of worship (any denomination) announces it's closing due to lack of members. Usually there are a few senior citizens who are upset as they still regularly go to worship and would have trouble getting to a more distant location. But those few seniors are not enough to support a congregation and are basically out of luck, harship or not. *or whatever you call a place teens hang out at these days. |
| Date: Sun, 15 Mar 2015 04:28:35 -0700 (PDT) From: Neal McLain <nmclain.remove-this@and-this-too.annsgarden.com> To: telecomdigestsubmissions.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: CenturyLink may exclude service to minorities, critics say Message-ID: <de271a20-5111-4e99-ab1e-710c644a5ca3@googlegroups.com> On Saturday, March 14, 2015 at 10:03:35 AM UTC-5, Bill Horne wrote: > By Harry Colbert Jr. > > Competition is good, right? > > Of course it is. Competition in business is so needed that there are > rules in our nation that guarantee a competitive marketplace. So it > may come as a shock that when CenturyLink announced it wants to > compete against Comcast - Minneapolis' only cable provider since 1983 > - the communications company was met with opposition. But those > opposed to CenturyLink say they agree with competition in a free > marketplace, what they don't agree with is CenturyLink being able to > cherry pick where to compete - especially if CenturyLink chooses not > to service areas of lower income that tend to be minority > concentrated. As I noted in a previous post: > Yes, there are indeed situations where a second -- or third -- > overlapping network can be financially viable. Especially if > the local governing body changes the rules to make it easier > for the new entrant. https://groups.google.com/d/msg/comp.dcom.telecom/7rgxiuNoU6A/DqRF8QBQNQsJ Neal McLain |
| Date: Sat, 14 Mar 2015 16:28:31 -0700 (PDT) From: HAncock4 <withheld@invalid.telecom-digest.org> To: telecomdigestsubmissions.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: Can't trace Blocked CID? Message-ID: <0227310d-39cc-4e10-aabb-9a13fdc48e64@googlegroups.com> >***** Moderator's Note ***** > The person who received the call probably wasn't able to hit the code > to report the calling number, since that capability is missing from > most PBX extensions. ... It is possible the recipient wasn't aware of the Call Trace feature (*57). The phone company does not advertise it. If someone does use it, it charges a premium ($5) to use it and isn't very consumer friendly to users. So, it's likely most people aren't aware of it. Also, it seems most people don't know that caller-ID can be spoofed and the number displayed may be false. In my humble opinion, Call Trace (which I believe goes for ANI and other 'hard data') should be advertised and its usage encourage for any illegal phone call, including sales marketing. In my area, the telco discloses nothing to the consumer, and only reports it to the police. If one receives, say, an obscene phone call at 3 a.m., nothing is done until there is a repeated pattern of such calls. I can't help but get the feeling the telco doesn't wanted to be bothered with such stuff. Likewise, I think the police are only interested if it is a true life & death threat, not, say, harassment from a ex-partner or illegal sales pitches. ***** Moderator's Note ***** Even if a PBX user knows how to use Star-57, he is usually unable to employ it, since in order to do that, he'd have to be able to dial an outoging call on the same trunk that the call came in on, before the trunk was used again. Bill Horne Moderator |
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