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The Telecom Digest for March 9, 2012
Volume 31 : Issue 65 : "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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See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details
and the name of our lawyer, and other stuff of interest.
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Date: Thu, 08 Mar 2012 08:07:04 -0500
From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Sprint May Soon Cut Ties With LightSquared
Message-ID: <jjaats$40u$1@dont-email.me>
Sprint May Soon Cut Ties With LightSquared
By GREG BENSINGER
NEW YORK--Sprint Nextel Corp. may cut ties with billionaire Philip
Falcone's LightSquared Inc. as soon as mid-month as the wireless
start-up has struggled to get regulatory approval for a nationwide
fourth-generation mobile broadband network, according to people familiar
with the situation.
Sprint may take advantage of a contract clause that would let it end its
relationship with LightSquared as early as March 16, the people said.
Sprint and LightSquared last year signed a 15-year accord to share
network building and operations costs, an arrangement LightSquared said
could save it $13 billion through the end of the decade.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204781804577267552181746144.html
-or-
http://goo.gl/mccet
--
Bill Horne
(Remove QRM from my address to write to me directly)
***** Moderator's Note *****
The Wall Street Journal site sometimes demands that users subscribe
before they can read the entire story. AFAICT, this one is an
exception.
Bill Horne
Moderator
Date: Thu, 08 Mar 2012 08:36:37 -0500
From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Broadband forum: Century Link is horrible
Message-ID: <jjacl7$dkp$1@dont-email.me>
This is from the CNET Broadband forum
Broadband forum: Century Link is horrible
I had service from Century Link for roughly a year. During that time I
never once got the speed they claimed. I was paying for 3mb/s and most
of the time it stayed at 1. I have seen it go as low as 300kbps however.
In late December early January I decided I had had enough and would not
like to renew service. I called them and notified their customer service
representative that I would like to discontinue service. The
representative I spoke to said that would be fine and that service would
not continue. As soon as my payment was received they reconnected
service and now are saying I am on the hook for several months of
service I had explicitly asked to be disconnected from. They claim that
there is no record of the call even though I can show very clearly from
my phone records that I spoke to them twice in the two days prior to
payment being sent. When I asked to see their records of my calls the
second level manager I spoke to said he could not authorize that and
that it could take a week for them to get that information to me. Like
he couldn't just do a print screen and e-mail it. He also said that even
if I had asked for service to be disconnected it would have been
reconnected automatically because I paid electronically through my bank
rather than paying over the phone. That also makes a whole lot of sense.
http://forums.cnet.com/7723-7583_102-528538/century-link-is-horrible/
-or-
http://goo.gl/gj84x
(Full disclosure: I used to work at CenturyLink)
--
Bill Horne
(Remove QRM from my address to write to me directly)
***** Moderator's Note *****
I'm not usually comfortable with anonymous postings, even from a
source like CNET, but I'm making an exception in this case, because it
occurs to me that there is almost no negative publicity concerning
CenturyLink anywhere on the net. I suspect that the firm has paid
search-engine-optimization specialists to flood the Google archive with
fluff: I couldn't find any Google entry showing any major news outlet
that is even vaguely critical of CenturyLink, and that scares me.
Bill Horne
Moderator
Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2012 13:06:15 -0800
From: "Jon Danniken" <jonSPAMMENOTdanniken@yahSPAMhoo.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Broadband forum: Century Link is horrible
Message-ID: <jjb707$5jg$1@speranza.aioe.org>
"Bill Horne" <bill@horneQRM.net> wrote:
>
> I'm not usually comfortable with anonymous postings, even from a
> source like CNET, but I'm making an exception in this case, because it
> occurs to me that there is almost no negative publicity concerning
> CenturyLink anywhere on the net. I suspect that the firm has paid
> search-engine-optimization specialists to flood the Google archive with
> fluff: I couldn't find any Google entry showing any major news outlet
> that is even vaguely critical of CenturyLink, and that scares me.
Try typing "centurylink sucks" in the search engine; I got a number of
results that way.
sidenote: google no longer has the "search settings" button available, so I
am limited to 10 results per page (this is without logging in - I don't log
to use google).
Jon
Date: Thu, 08 Mar 2012 08:20:42 -0500
From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Sprint can't sit with the cook kids
Message-ID: <jjabne$8j9$1@dont-email.me>
Poor Sprint gets nothing as Verizon, AT&T nab 4G iPads
by Roger Cheng March 7, 2012 2:44 PM PST
Sprint, despite carrying the iPhone, didn't get an iPad of its own,
unlike AT&T and Verizon Wireless.
Apparently, Sprint Nextel's seat at the cool kids' table got revoked by
Apple.
As AT&T and Verizon Wireless got their hands on a shiny new 4G-enabled
iPad, Sprint got stuck with zilch.
"Sprint is not carrying the iPad at this time," said a Sprint spokesman.
He declined to comment on whether the company would eventually get to
sell the device.
It's a bitter pill to swallow considering Sprint has committed to $20
billion over the next few years to carry the iPhone. While AT&T and
Verizon Wireless get to bask in the afterglow of the new iPad
announcement, Sprint has to sit quietly with its iPhones as its sole
source of comfort.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-57392790-1/poor-sprint-gets-nothing-as-verizon-at-t-nab-4g-ipads/
-or-
http://goo.gl/5kaSc
--
Bill Horne
(Remove QRM from my address to write to me directly)
Date: 8 Mar 2012 10:07:02 -0500
From: kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey)
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Is the Philadelphia Cell Phone Jammer a Hero or Pest?
Message-ID: <jjahum$dlm$1@panix2.panix.com>
T <kd1s.nospam@cox.nospam.net> wrote:
>In article <e1gdl7p9o5rqh21n6vbdnm3n0q6r21eprn@4ax.com>,
>PeteCress@invalid.telecom-digest.org says...
>>
>> Per David Clayton:
>> >
>> >https://mashable.com/2012/03/05/philadelphia-cell-phone-jammer/
>> >
>>
>> Sounds like an idea for restaurants. Maybe a "Cell-Phone-Free"
>> area and a regular area.
>
>I have to wonder, does the Communications Act only cover active devices,
>e.g. something that broadcasts a signal? What is to prevent a business
>from putting a grounded copper mesh throughout a room. That would blot
>out signal too.
Yes, and that is legal and reasonable, and folks do it. It's harder
to do with cellphones since the wavelength is so short, but it's done.
>From my perspective, I don't care if cellphones get jammed. I boggle
that people trust them for emergency communications in the first
place. However, the cellphone jammers cause a lot of collateral
damage. I have seen several instances where they have caused
interference to 950 Mhz broadcast auxiliary services.
The cheap jammers sold on ebay and dealextreme are just broadband
noise sources that cover the cellular bands and sadly they cover a
whole lot of other stuff as well.
The smart way to jam cellphones is to pretend to be a cell tower.
You advertise a connection, then you refuse to complete a call. This
can be done with very low power levels (probably levels legal under
Part 15 even) and very effectively. Unfortunately nobody makes a
cheap device to do this, although it's only a matter of time.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."
Date: Thu, 08 Mar 2012 08:15:38 -0600
From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi)
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Is the Philadelphia Cell Phone Jammer a Hero or Pest?
Message-ID: <07mdnV_PRJaXIsXSnZ2dnUVZ_sadnZ2d@posted.nuvoxcommunications>
In article <MPG.29c1ae46c410d66d989d35@news.eternal-september.org>,
T <kd1s.nospam@cox.nospam.net> wrote:
>In article <e1gdl7p9o5rqh21n6vbdnm3n0q6r21eprn@4ax.com>,
>PeteCress@invalid.telecom-digest.org says...
>>
>> Per David Clayton:
>> >
>> >https://mashable.com/2012/03/05/philadelphia-cell-phone-jammer/
>> >
>>
>> Sounds like an idea for restaurants. Maybe a "Cell-Phone-Free"
>> area and a regular area.
>
>I have to wonder, does the Communications Act only cover active devices,
>e.g. something that broadcasts a signal? What is to prevent a business
>from putting a grounded copper mesh throughout a room. That would blot
>out signal too.
>***** Moderator's Note *****
>
>The FCC regulates "Incidental" radiators, such as the local
>oscillators in receivers, computer timing chips, etc., as well as
>licensed services.
>
>IANALB, AFAIK, it's legal - although prohibitively expensive - to cut
>off cell signals in a private building. Passive shielding, which forms
>a Faraday cage, would be effective. It's also possible to use
>electrostatic shielding, but that costs a lot too.
It's not necessarily -that- expensive.
Circa 40 years ago, a bunch of volunteers (me included) did the Faraday
cage thing to a church sanctuary. 'Wallpapered' it with Reynold's wrap,
followed by a skim-coat of plaster, and repainted. Fine-mesh wire screens
over the windows completed the cage. The doors were metal-core fire-rated,
so all they needed was 'straps' across a hinge, to connect to the foil
shell.
It wasn't a "perfect" cage, but it worked "well enough" to keep
'interference' (over-modulated, over-powered, CBs, mostly) out of
the audio system.
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