34 Years of the Digest ... founded August 21, 1981
Copyright © 2015 E. William Horne. All Rights Reserved.

The Telecom Digest for Oct 29, 2015
Volume 34 : Issue 198 : "text" Format
Messages in this Issue:
PBX 556 looking for a good home (Neal McLain)
Re: FCC hopes to shut down robocallers by publishing numbers weekly (Pete Cresswell)
Bill would allow debt collectors to robocall your cellphone (HAncock4)
Re: New federal rate caps on telephone calls by prison inmates (Gordon Burditt)
Re: Apple sued over iOS 9's eagerness to chew up cellular data (Gordon Burditt)

We think ourselves possessed, or, at least, we boast that we are so, of liberty of conscience on all subjects, and of the right of free inquiry and private judgment in all cases, and yet how far are we from these exalted privileges in fact!
John Adams

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Date: Wed, 28 Oct 2015 14:46:42 -0700 (PDT) From: Neal McLain <nmclain.remove-this@and-this-too.annsgarden.com> To: telecomdigestsubmissions.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: PBX 556 looking for a good home Message-ID: <a7142288-9e81-48b1-bdcc-02896e316df3@googlegroups.com> The following message came to me via the Telephone Collectors Inter- national listserv. If interested, contact Walter directly at the address below. ---------------------------------------- This is an inquiry email via http://www.telephonecollectors.info/ from: Walter Farley <walterofarley@remove-this.gmail.com> I have a PBX 556 available. I live in Seattle Washington and no longer have space for it. It is free to a good home. Do you know anyone who would like it? I can deliver within 50-75 miles of Seattle ---------------------------------------- Crossposted by Neal McLain
Date: Wed, 28 Oct 2015 09:08:55 -0400 From: Pete Cresswell <PeteCress@invalid.telecom-digest.org> To: telecomdigestsubmissions.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: FCC hopes to shut down robocallers by publishing numbers weekly Message-ID: <8th13bdc78smnjecu7ho70vsufvb88op7n@4ax.com> Per Telecom Digest Moderator - >The most frequent trick I've seen is to use the same NPA-NNX as mine, >but not my line-number. I get the feeling there's som >lord-of-telemarketing doing a maniacal laugh in his fortress of doom >every time I answer one of those - until I've wasted five or ten >minutes of the human's time and then said "I'm not interested. My >number is on the do-not-call list, so don't call me again." > >I don't know why, but they always say they can't do that. When I answer the phone I do so in a soft, rapid voice. If nobody responds within about a second or so - and/or the line has that distinctive "Dead" sound - I just hang up. My theory is that there's a computer dialing thousands or hundreds of thousands phone numbers. When somebody picks up, the computer knows it and then starts listening for a human voice. Once it recognizes a human voice, it flips the call to a telemarketer who is not currently busy. The soft, rapid voice is not readily recognized by the computer. Occasionally I wind up hanging up on somebody calling from a cell phone - for reasons I do not understand - but they usually call back and, if the phone rings again within a few seconds I'll go the whole route with "Hello, hello, is anybody there ?". Like I said... that's strictly a theory and I know nothing about what is really going on... but it fits and mostly works. -- Pete Cresswell
Date: Wed, 28 Oct 2015 10:20:50 -0700 (PDT) From: HAncock4 <withheld@invalid.telecom-digest.org> To: telecomdigestsubmissions.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Bill would allow debt collectors to robocall your cellphone Message-ID: <6a876a41-ee44-492d-9961-2e4948dd3465@googlegroups.com> The Washington Post reported that tucked into the congressional budget deal is a provision that would let companies robocall Americans' cellphones to collect any money owed to or guaranteed by the government, including federal student loans, mortgages and taxes. The proposal would amend a law that consumer advocates say protects Americans from being harassed or inundated with text messages and calls that could run up their cellphone bills. for full article please see: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2015/10/27/the-government-wants-student-debt-collectors-to-robocall-your-cellphone/ [In my humble opinion, consumers need more protection from robocalls, not less. A few years ago some in Congress tried to allow sales calls to cell phones, which fortunately did not pass.]
Date: Tue, 27 Oct 2015 22:02:41 -0500 From: gordonb.75uoe@burditt.org (Gordon Burditt) To: telecomdigestsubmissions.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: New federal rate caps on telephone calls by prison inmates Message-ID: <SfydneZEiMhMp63LnZ2dnUU7-IOdnZ2d@posted.internetamerica> >>> It seems to me that... with telephone sets costing, perhaps, five >>> dollars apiece for basic units, it would be better to treat them as >>> disposable throways and simply budget for a replacement each month. Or >>> even each week. Or perhaps even each CALL. > A prison phone is shared and queued, so it is very busy. Let's say it's > used 5 hours (300 minutes) per day. At five cents/minute, those fifteen > bucks/day pay for the phone in a few months. But prison phone calls > sometimes cost multiple dollars per minute. They could buy a new phone > every day for what they have been charging. It's a web of kickbacks to > the turnkeys that fuels the bill. I suggest going in the opposite direction. At the rates prisoners are currently paying, they can probably get off cheaper buying a really, really cheap one-use phone for each and every phone calling session (I'm presuming they are allowed to make several calls in a row in case of wrong numbers or talking to several dispersed family members or trying to get witnesses and their lawyer to get together. So maybe they can get up to half an hour to make as many calls as they want?) Do you think someone can make an edible (landline) phone expected to last for an hour of use for $2? They don't have to accept incoming calls or ring. At the end of the session, the prisoner is required to eat the phone. If he doesn't, he won't be allowed to buy any more. Edible phones with decent nutritional value also save on other parts of the food budget. I seem to recall something about cheap prepaid cell phones being "printed" on cardboard, including the electronics and the battery, and perhaps they could use pizza instead. I think they were already under the $2 cost. You can power a clock with a potato in a science fair project, why not a phone that has to last less than the duration of the science fair? It would make some sense if each prisoner could take responsibility for taking care of his/her own phone, however, the risk of things like beating someone over the head with it or strangling someone with the cord probably makes this impractical.
Date: Tue, 27 Oct 2015 22:33:15 -0500 From: gordonb.xwqep@burditt.org (Gordon Burditt) To: telecomdigestsubmissions.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: Apple sued over iOS 9's eagerness to chew up cellular data Message-ID: <dNOdnZqGcsFm3K3LnZ2dnUU7-RmdnZ2d@posted.internetamerica> > Not happy that iOS 9's WiFi Assist feature is quietly gobbling your > iPhone's cellular data for the sake of boosting your WiFi performance? > You're not alone -- and you might get compensation for your > troubles. A California-based couple has filed a class action lawsuit > accusing Apple of doing too little to warn iPhone owners about WiFi > Assist's data use. Samsung has a similar feature called "Download booster" in the Galaxy S6. It can speed up downloads of files greater than about 30MB by downloading via LTE and Wi-Fi simultaneously. It is, however, defaulted OFF, and they do warn, right at the point you go to turn it on, "Downloading via mobile networks may result in additional charges depending on your payment plan". I haven't used it. Most of the updates I've downloaded are under 30MB and I have no easy way of knowing how large they will be in advance. > Allegedly, the guide it posted in response to > concerns about the feature doesn't cut the mustard. It "downplays" the > kind of overage charges you could rack up after upgrading to the newer > iOS revision, according to the complaint. > > > http://www.engadget.com/2015/10/25/apple-sued-over-ios-9-wifi-assist/ > The S6 I recently got has racked up about 4GB of Wi-Fi data in the last month, largely from updating just about all the software that came with the phone, sometimes more than once, and new apps, but something like 0.3GB of LTE data. Perhaps I've been a little over cautious about that. Wi-Fi Calling on the S6 also lets you shift LTE traffic to Wi-Fi from home if you've got your own home Wi-Fi. It did take a little work to figure out what holes I had to punch in the firewall to make it work correctly, though.

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