---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message-ID: <20170829010300.GA2279@telecom.csail.mit.edu> Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2017 21:03:00 -0400 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> Subject: Would a CenturyLink-Level 3 merger affect EIS? GSA to wait and see Just as the General Services Administration lays the groundwork from implementing its new $50 billion telecommunications contract, there's a possibility it may have to revisit at least a portion of the deal. Two of the 10 awardees for the Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions contract - CenturyLink and Level 3 Communications - are moving forward with a proposed merger that would create one of the larger network service providers on the market. https://www.fedscoop.com/will-centurylink-level-3-merger-affect-eis-gsa-wait-see/ -- Bill Horne (Remove QRM from my email address to write to me directly) ------------------------------ Message-ID: <20170829004405.GA2118@telecom.csail.mit.edu> Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2017 20:44:05 -0400 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> Subject: Here's Why You Should Dump CenturyLink from Your Portfolio On Aug 25, one of the leading regional wireline service providers in the United States, CenturyLink Inc. CTL, was downgraded to a Zacks Rank #5 (Strong Sell). Shares of the company have underperformed the industry's gain in the last month. The stock price decreased 12.3%, as against the industry's gain of 2.6% in the same period. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/apos-why-dump-centurylink-portfolio-143602375.html -- Bill Horne (Remove QRM from my email address to write to me directly) ------------------------------ Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.64.1708281843530.21920@panix5.panix.com> Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2017 18:57:26 -0400 From: danny burstein <dannyb@panix.com> Subject: NYC's police dep't about to dump 35k "smart phones" background: A couple of years ago the NYPD, using a grant from big, make that BIG, financial settlements collected by the New York County District Attorney [a], purchased over 35,000 "smart phones" and handed them out to all officers. To be sure, this was a positive step in general productivity and safety, letting dispatch, for example, send out immediate photos of the Union Square bomber. Plus lots more back and forth usefulness. However..... [NY post] NYPD needs to replace 36K useless smartphones The NYPD has to scrap the 36,000 smartphones it gave cops over the past two years because they're already obsolete and can't be upgraded, The Post has learned. The city bought Microsoft-based Nokia smartphones as part of a $160 million NYPD Mobility Initiative that Mayor Bill de Blasio touted as "a huge step into the 21st century." But just months after the last phone was handed out, officials plan to begin replacing them all with brand-new iPhones by the end of the year, sources said. ===== rest: https://nypost.com/2017/08/28/nypd-needs-to-replace-36k-useless-smartphones/ - the problem: The phones are based on Windows 8.1, which M-Soft and Nokia [b] are no longer supporting. One would think that a customer with 36 thousand of them would have some clout, especially if they got together with others... Triply so as this is Law Enforcement. Another cite, chosen for (hold your noses) the viewer comments: http://gothamist.com/2017/08/28/nypd_windows_phones.php [a] The NY County (i.e., Manhattan) DA has a long arm and brings lots of big financial fraud cases against banks, non bank banks, and non bank non banks. Many of them wind up settling by paying hefty financial penalties. Some of us might call this paying for "get out of jail, free" cards so as to keep their bosses out of the lockup. [b] There's a tangled web between what used to be the Nokia phone manufacturing operation, Microsoft, and Google. So who knows where this decision actually originated. _____________________________________________________ Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key dannyb@panix.com [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded] ------------------------------ ********************************************* End of telecom Digest Tue, 29 Aug 2017