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The Telecom Digest for November 24, 2010
Volume 29 : Issue 317 : "text" Format

Messages in this Issue:

Re: [OT] Public Interest Registry whois date stamp error (Garrett Wollman)
Re: US may disable all in-car mobile phones(Adam H. Kerman)
Re: US may disable all in-car mobile phones(Steven)
Re: US may disable all in-car mobile phones(Richard)
Cellphone bias in polls?(Wes Leatherock)
Re: Cellphone bias in polls?(John Levine)
Re: Cellphone bias in polls?(Garrett Wollman)
FCC Updating 911 for the Texting Generation, SRSLY (Thad Floryan)
Re: US may disable all in-car mobile phones(Stephen)


====== 28 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ======
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Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2010 18:27:36 +0000 (UTC) From: wollman@bimajority.org (Garrett Wollman) To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: [OT] Public Interest Registry whois date stamp error Message-ID: <icecmo$28r7$1@grapevine.csail.mit.edu> In article <QNmdndkEN5-x23fRnZ2dnUVZ_qKdnZ2d@giganews.com>, Sam Spade <sam@coldmail.com> wrote: >Further, some domain names have copyright protection, No they don't. No domain name can be copyrighted. Many domain names are protected under trademark laws, which are far less uniform in application than copyright. -GAWollman -- Garrett A. Wollman | What intellectual phenomenon can be older, or more oft wollman@bimajority.org| repeated, than the story of a large research program Opinions not shared by| that impaled itself upon a false central assumption my employers. | accepted by all practitioners? - S.J. Gould, 1993
Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2010 16:31:17 +0000 (UTC) From: "Adam H. Kerman" <ahk@chinet.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: US may disable all in-car mobile phones Message-ID: <icgq8l$epj$1@news.albasani.net> David Clayton <dcstar@myrealbox.com> wrote: >I still think anyone caught using a phone while driving should have the >device smashed to bits before their eyes, but for some reason this >punishment seems a little excessive to some (can't understand why, I'd let >them have the SIM card first). ;-) The cell phone is innocent. Crush the car.
Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2010 11:44:55 -0800 From: Steven <diespammers@killspammers.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: US may disable all in-car mobile phones Message-ID: <ich5jp$604$1@news.eternal-september.org> On 11/23/10 8:31 AM, Adam H. Kerman wrote: > David Clayton<dcstar@myrealbox.com> wrote: > >> I still think anyone caught using a phone while driving should have the >> device smashed to bits before their eyes, but for some reason this >> punishment seems a little excessive to some (can't understand why, I'd let >> them have the SIM card first). ;-) > > The cell phone is innocent. Crush the car. > What do you do when you are ran over with a shopping card in a market, I smashed the phone, it was hit and keep om waking as they had no idea they knocked me over.. -- The only good spammer is a dead one!! Have you hunted one down today? (c) 2010 I Kill Spammers, Inc. A Rot in Hell Co.
Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2010 15:36:26 -0800 From: Richard <rng@richbonnie.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: US may disable all in-car mobile phones Message-ID: <vtjoe69clah6b6hjbfik4sah9qs6nv2rdd@4ax.com> On Tue, 23 Nov 2010 16:31:17 +0000 (UTC), "Adam H. Kerman" <ahk@chinet.com> wrote: >David Clayton <dcstar@myrealbox.com> wrote: > >>I still think anyone caught using a phone while driving should have the >>device smashed to bits before their eyes, but for some reason this >>punishment seems a little excessive to some (can't understand why, I'd let >>them have the SIM card first). ;-) > >The cell phone is innocent. Crush the car. The car is innocent also. Crush the person. Or at least put them in jail for a long time.
Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2010 10:00:23 EST From: Wes Leatherock <wesrock@aol.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Cellphone bias in polls? Message-ID: <36267.6a38b8fd.3a1d3107@aol.com> This was in today's Washington Post. I thought that calls to cellphone users were limited to those who had agreed to be called, This would suggest that polls involving cellphone users are likely to be biased by the views of persons choosing to opt in and be polled, perhaps to promote their views, while landlike users are much closer to a random sample. Wes Leatherock wesrock@aol.com _wleathus@yahoo.com_ (mailto:wleathus@yahoo.com) The politics of cell phones By E.J. Dionne The Pew Research Center has performed _an important piece of analysis_ (http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1806/growing-gap-between-landline-and-dual-frame-election-polls) that ought to shape the way we look at polls over the next two years. And its findings have real political impact, so please read on even if you're not obsessed with public opinion surveys. There has been much debate in recent years over whether telephone surveys conducted only on landlines have produced distorted findings because so many Americans, particularly the young, now use only cell phones only. Pew has shown that this fear is justified. And it notes that this problem is growing. In essence, landline-only polls give the Republicans a measurable advantage. Here's the key finding: "Across three Pew Research polls conducted in fall 2010 -- conducted among 5,216 likely voters, including 1,712 interviewed on cell phones -- the GOP held a lead that was on average 5.1 percentage points larger in the landline sample than in the combined landline and cell phone sample." By E.J. Dionne | November 23, 2010; 8:28 AM ET Categories: Dionne (http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/dionne/)
Date: 23 Nov 2010 19:53:39 -0000 From: John Levine <johnl@iecc.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: Cellphone bias in polls? Message-ID: <20101123195339.78309.qmail@joyce.lan> >This was in today's Washington Post. I thought that calls to >cellphone users were limited to those who had agreed to be called, No, they're not subject to the TCPA, but one problem is that since no cell numbers are listed in the (fast disappearing) white pages, and people often keep their cell number when they move, it is hard to find a reasonable sample of cell numbers. The other problem, of course, is that people are not particularly inclined to use up their airtime minuts being polled. R's, John
Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2010 19:03:09 +0000 (UTC) From: wollman@bimajority.org (Garrett Wollman) To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: Cellphone bias in polls? Message-ID: <ich35d$290r$1@grapevine.csail.mit.edu> In article <36267.6a38b8fd.3a1d3107@aol.com>, Wes Leatherock <wesrock@aol.com> wrote: >This was in today's Washington Post. I thought that calls to >cellphone users were limited to those who had agreed to be called, Robocalls to cellphones are limited in that way. If you have an actual human dialing the randomly-chosen numbers -- even if they work in some telemarketing boiler-room -- then it's OK. There have always been issues with getting a representative sample by any means of polling -- whether automated telephone or in-person interviews or anything in between -- because many people (most people?) will refuse to participate. The polling industry has historically assumed that (non-)participation is effectively uncorrelated with the variables the survey is investigating; this is usually handled by weighting the survey results to match an objective population model (usually taken from census data and, for political polling, historical election results). Pew's data show conclusively that cell-phone-only households are not representative of the population as a whole[1] and therefore cannot be modeled in this way. Of course, there is still a large nonparticipation rate even when cell numbers are included in the sample, so we still don't know whether the nonparticipating cell-phone-only households have the same bias as participating cell-phone-only households. -GAWollman [1] Specifically, cell-phone-only households are younger, more Democratic, and less affluent than landline households, if I remember the Pew results correctly. You can go to Pew's Web site and find the complete survey protocol. -- Garrett A. Wollman | What intellectual phenomenon can be older, or more oft wollman@bimajority.org| repeated, than the story of a large research program Opinions not shared by| that impaled itself upon a false central assumption my employers. | accepted by all practitioners? - S.J. Gould, 1993
Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2010 13:56:40 -0800 From: Thad Floryan <thad@thadlabs.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: FCC Updating 911 for the Texting Generation, SRSLY Message-ID: <4CEC3898.6010503@thadlabs.com> http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/11/fcc-911-texting/ FCC Updating 911 for the Texting Generation, SRSLY By Ryan Singel November 22, 2010 In a bid to bring the life-saving emergency service 911 into the 21st century, the FCC is looking at letting citizens report crimes through text messages and even stream video from their mobile phones to emergency centers. Established as a national standard in 1968, 911 handles more than 230 million calls a year -- 70 percent of which now come from mobile phones. The last real overhaul of 911 by the FCC came in 2001, when mobile carriers were required to allow 911 to identify the location of callers either through GPS or cell-tower data. In the middle of the decade, some internet telephony companies were also required to implement 911 calling that would route emergency calls to the appropriate local center -- a non-trivial task given the mobility of laptops and equipment using voice-over-internet protocol (VOIP). But the 911 system still can't handle text messages, multimedia messages or streaming video, all of which could be very helpful to first responders. A system that could handle those messages would also allow people to report crimes without being overheard, which could be useful in situations ranging from kidnapping to seeing someone being robbed on the street. In a press release announcing Tuesday's changes, the FCC pointed to the now-infamous shooting rampage at Virginia Tech as an example of how a more modern system could be useful. "The technological limitations of 9-1-1 can have tragic, real-world consequences," the release said. "During the 2007 Virginia Tech campus shooting, students and witnesses desperately tried to send texts to 9-1-1 that local dispatchers never received. If these messages had gone through, first responders may have arrived on the scene faster with firsthand intelligence about the life-threatening situation that was unfolding." The FCC also plans to allow automated pinging of 911 by sensors, including chemical detection sensors, alarm systems, medical devices and systems like On-Star in automobiles. It's not clear yet where the money will come from for the upgrades, whether they will be federal requirements states and cities must carry out or if they will simply be suggestions. It's also unclear whether Facebook's new Messages service will let you send a note to 911 straight from your Facebook page or mobile app (that's a joke, sort of). Related: http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2001/10/47356 "FCC Grants Waivers on E911"
Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2010 21:54:53 +0000 From: Stephen <stephen_hope@xyzworld.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: US may disable all in-car mobile phones Message-ID: <nldoe6hpukc396deuo0gnii0nm8mrj5pfj@4ax.com> On Fri, 19 Nov 2010 08:28:27 -0800 (PST), Lisa or Jeff <hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote: >On Nov 18, 7:59 pm, Thad Floryan <t...@thadlabs.com> wrote: > >> LaHood may be right. Disabling mobile phones in cars should not be looked >> at as a way of protecting you from yourself, but instead as a way of >> protecting you from the stupid. > >While I don't like the intrusiveness of this proposal, and I fear it >may have unintended negative consequences, unfortunately it is needed. > i suspect there are other unintended consequences. what makes anyone think that any suppression of the signal will confine itself to the car? trains only stop cell phone leakage from outside to inside if the windows have gold film or other Faraday cage type construction. most cars are transparent to radio - otherwise cell phones wouldnt work inside and this would not be an issue so any suppression is going to "leak" as well. this could make cellphones unuseable alongside a major road, in a car park, from someone in a broken down car on a motorway or near a traffic accident What does that do for public safety? >As a motorist and pedestrian, I see countless examples of driver >errors caused by their distraction of a cell phone conversation. >Drivers suddenly make a turn from the wrong lane. Slow down too much >in the wrong place. Miss a stop sign or traffic light. Tailgate*. > >It's not holding the cellphone, but the conversastion itself. Thus, >hands-free phones are not the answer. > If this is true (rather than shades of gray) then it isnt the cellphone that is the problem, but the distraction. time to ban talking in cars, kids in the back seat and all the other distractions that have caused accidents......... >I don't think the problem would be so bad if motorists had short quick >conversations, "Hi, I'll be home in 45 minutes." But they have >extended detailed conversations, "What do you want me to pick up at >the store? The Acme or A&P? Is that the eight ounce or tweleve ounce >bottle? Regular or diet?" > >Then of course is the problem of teens texting while driving, which >obviously is very distracting and dangerous. > >(I don't understand how a group of teens walking down the street >ignore each other and focus instead on their cell phones, but that's >another issue. But how do middle and high schools prevent teens from >texting during class?) > > > > >* While visiting Chicago, I was almost rear ended by a phone company >employee talking on a 'brick' unit in the early days of cell phones. >She was completely oblivious to her surroundings. -- Regards stephen_hope@xyzworld.com - replace xyz with ntl
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End of The Telecom Digest (9 messages)

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