---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message-ID: <ce241e42-d801-4176-8dee-c6c92629a8d7@googlegroups.com> Date: 21 Feb 2019 13:57:57 -0800 From: HAncock4 <withheld@invalid.telecom-digest.org> Subject: Re: Debt Pressures Nudge Rural Phone Companies Closer to the Edge On Thursday, February 21, 2019 at 9:18:35 AM UTC-5, Bill Horne wrote: > Rural telephone companies have tried to embrace the future by offering > cloud services, bulking up on fiber and pushing broadband, but their > landline businesses and huge debt loads are keeping them stuck in the > past. > > https://news.bloomberglaw.com/bankruptcy-law/debt-pressures-nudge-rural-phone-companies-closer-to-the-edge-2 Nothing new. The independent telephone companies suffered from low capitalization and high costs back in the 1950s. They had trouble upgrading their plants to reduce party lines and convert to dial. Even in the 1970s, General Telephone, the biggest independent, had trouble _upgrading_ to _only_ four-party service in the 1970s. The following article shows the progress GTE made in upgrades in 1971. But by 1971, that level of service (four party lines) was not that great. https://books.google.com/books?id=Sl8iAAAAIBAJ&lpg=PA17&dq=general%20telephone%20owosso&pg=PA17#v=onepage&q=general%20telephone%20owosso&f=false ------------------------------ Message-ID: <353FE724-A375-4758-BF3B-D5B707662807@roscom.com> Date: 21 Feb 2019 09:50:29 -0500 From: "Monty Solomon" <monty@roscom.com> Subject: 5G? 5 Bars? What the Signal Icons on Your Phone Actually Mean SOME AT&T CUSTOMERS noticed a strange phenomenon earlier this year. The upper left corner of their smartphones began displaying "5GE," ostensibly indicating their phones were using 5G technology. And while Samsung announced Wednesday that it will soon release a 5G-compatible phone, actual 5G networks in the US are still in their nascent stages. AT&T is engaging in a marketing ploy - one it has used in the past. The 5GE symbol really means a phone is using advanced LTE technology, which is available on other carriers and is slower than the 10-gigabyte speeds 5G promises. When the company introduces actual 5G tech, it plans to call it 5G+ instead. Sprint is suing AT&T over the nomenclature, alleging it constitutes deceptive advertising. https://www.wired.com/story/5g-5-bars-decoding-smartphone-signal-icons/ ------------------------------ Message-ID: <20190222194206.GA16084@telecom.csail.mit.edu> Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2019 19:42:07 +0000 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> Subject: Colorado - Lakewood family fights $4,000 bill from CenturyLink Lakewood family fights $4,000 bill from CenturyLink; 'We did what any sensible homeowner would do' Simple landscaping project causes major headache By: Liz Gelardi LAKEWOOD, Colo. -- A simple home improvement project turned into an expensive bill that showed up in the mail six months later. Amy Arnold and her husband wanted to rip out some bushes in their backyard to make room for a concrete pad to hold their hot tub. When the couple realized they would be digging, they called 811 to locate any utilities that could be in the way. https://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/contact7/lakewood-family-fights-4-000-bill-from-centurylink-we-did-what-any-sensible-homeowner-would-do -- Bill Horne (Remove QRM from my email address to write to me directly) ------------------------------ ********************************************* End of telecom Digest Sat, 23 Feb 2019