---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message-ID: <4A6FA5EB-2A03-4877-A8CC-B4CDAC076D65@roscom.com> Date: Tue, 11 Oct 2016 01:02:44 -0400 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> Subject: Samsung Halts Galaxy Note 7 Production as Battery Problems Linger The move is a major setback for the world's largest producer of smartphones, which had been gaining ground against Apple in the high-end market. By DAISUKE WAKABAYASHI, CHOE SANG-HUN and VINDU GOEL In 1995, furious over quality problems with one of his company's mobile phones, Lee Kun-hee, the chairman of Samsung and arguably the most famous businessman in South Korea, set a pile of 150,000 defective phones on fire outside a factory. The phone bonfire became a turning point for Samsung's two-decade rise from an electronics maker associated with inexpensive knockoffs to one considered a leader in product quality, design and sales. But to the company's critics, that employee motivational moment has also served as a wry historical foreshadowing of safety problems with one of Samsung's top-selling smartphones. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/11/business/samsung-galaxy-note-fires.html ------------------------------ Message-ID: <7EE12B61-C921-4955-B9BF-274F8340EBBD@roscom.com> Date: Thu, 6 Oct 2016 10:21:25 -0400 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> Subject: Call Centers in India Posed as I.R.S. to Cheat U.S. Taxpayers, Authorities Say More than 600 people were under investigation for posing as I.R.S. officers and sending text messages to American cellphone numbers demanding money. By HARI KUMAR NEW DELHI - The call centers outside Mumbai looked like many others that have sprung up across India in recent decades. But investigators say the hundreds of people who worked at the nine centers had an unusual assignment: posing as Internal Revenue Service officers and demanding money from American taxpayers. The operation had been in place for a year before an informer went to the authorities a few weeks ago. An investigation led to raids, with officers blocking exits on each floor of a building that housed seven of the centers, the police said on Wednesday, adding that 70 people were arrested and 600 people were under investigation. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/06/world/asia/india-call-centers-phone-scam-irs.html ------------------------------ Message-ID: <595D5796-5A71-464F-BFBF-16C4E9BB8D42@roscom.com> Date: Thu, 6 Oct 2016 02:33:41 -0400 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> Subject: T-Mobile now throttling mobile hotspots when network is congested T-Mobile now throttling mobile hotspots when network is congested Phone data prioritized during congestion even if you pay extra for 4G tethering. JON BRODKIN T-Mobile USA has begun throttling mobile hotspot data when its network is congested while giving priority to smartphones and other devices that connect directly to the cellular network. T-Mobile has been notifying customers of the change yesterday and today with a message that says, "We just made your network better again" and that "T-Mobile device data comes first." http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/10/t-mobile-now-throttling-mobile-hotspots-when-network-is-congested/ ------------------------------ Message-ID: <i6idneTAzdxI02_KnZ2dnUU7-cXNnZ2d@giganews.com> Date: Mon, 03 Oct 2016 07:28:05 -0500 From: Doug McIntyre <merlyn@dork.geeks.org> Subject: Re: Mystery Calls Mark G Thomas <Mark@Misty.com> writes: >On 2016-09-28, Matt Simpson <usenet@news.jmatt.net> wrote: >> I have been getting several calls a day to my Google Voice number from >> seemingly random callerids. If I answer, nobody is there. If I don't >> answer, I get a brief empty voicemail message. .... >My theory so far is: >1) Outdialing telemarketing call centers may use dialers where a live > operator isn't allocated and connected to the call until you > answer. I suspect they overcommit on available operators. .... This is called Predictive Dialing. (basic explaination here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictive_dialer And is definately in use in all major (and many minor) outbound call centers. As the article says, it can make your agents have much higher utilization. If you aren't getting connected to the agent, it probably is some robospammer that setup their software wrong, or something else. -- Doug McIntyre doug@themcintyres.us ------------------------------ ********************************************* End of telecom Digest Wed, 12 Oct 2016