The Telecom Digest for July 14, 2010
Volume 29 : Issue 190 : "text" Format
Messages in this Issue:
| Mobile subscriptions hit 5 billion mark | (Monty Solomon) |
| Consumer Reports confirms iPhone 4 antenna design flaw | (Thad Floryan) |
| iTunes password caching | (Monty Solomon) |
| Re: Are hybrids still used? | (hancock4) |
| Re: I before E | (Randall) |
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Date: Mon, 12 Jul 2010 08:11:24 -0400
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Mobile subscriptions hit 5 billion mark
Message-ID: <p06240817c860714e08bc@[10.0.1.3]>
Mobile subscriptions hit 5 billion mark
JULY 9, 2010, 10:29 (CEST)
* 2 million additions per day
* More than 500 million 3G subscriptions
* 50 billion connected devices by 2020
This week marked yet another milestone in the internet becoming
mobile when the 5 billionth mobile subscription added to the count,
largely thanks to emerging markets like India and China.
According to Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERIC) estimates based on industry
information, the 5 billionth subscription was added Thursday, July 8.
In the year 2000, about 720 million people had mobile subscriptions,
less than the amount of users China alone has today.
Mobile broadband subscriptions are growing at similar pace and are
expected to amount to more than 3.4 billion by 2015 (from 360 million
in 2009). Studies show that soon 80 percent of all people accessing
the internet will be doing so using their mobile device.
...
http://www.ericsson.com/thecompany/press/releases/2010/07/1430616
Date: Mon, 12 Jul 2010 16:57:46 -0700
From: Thad Floryan <thad@thadlabs.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Consumer Reports confirms iPhone 4 antenna design flaw
Message-ID: <4C3BABFA.2020209@thadlabs.com>
Lab tests: Why Consumer Reports can't recommend the iPhone 4
July 12, 2010
Full article and video here:
<http://blogs.consumerreports.org/electronics/2010/07/apple-iphone-4-antenna-
issue-iphone4-problems-dropped-calls-lab-test-confirmed-problem-issues-signal
-strength-att-network-gsm.html>
another full article and video here:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/techchron/detail?entry_id=67654
" It's official. Consumer Reports' engineers have just completed testing the
" iPhone 4, and have confirmed that there is a problem with its reception.
" When your finger or hand touches a spot on the phone's lower left side, an
" easy thing, especially for lefties, the signal can significantly degrade
" enough to cause you to lose your connection altogether if you're in an area
" with a weak signal. Due to this problem, we can't recommend the iPhone 4.
"
" We reached this conclusion after testing all three of our iPhone 4s
" (purchased at three separate retailers in the New York area) in the
" controlled environment of CU's radio frequency (RF) isolation chamber. In
" this room, which is impervious to outside radio signals, our test engineers
" connected the phones to our base-station emulator, a device that simulates
" carrier cell towers (see video: IPhone 4 Design Defect Confirmed). We also
" tested several other AT&T phones the same way, including the iPhone 3G S
" and the Palm Pre. None of those phones had the signal-loss problems of the
" iPhone 4.
"
" Our findings call into question the recent claim by Apple that the iPhone
" 4's signal-strength issues were largely an optical illusion caused by
" faulty software that "mistakenly displays 2 more bars than it should for a
" given signal strength."
"
" The tests also indicate that AT&T's network might not be the primary
" suspect in the iPhone 4's much-reported signal woes. We did, however, find
" an affordable solution for suffering iPhone 4 users: Cover the antenna gap
" with a piece of duct tape or another thick, non-conductive material. It may
" not be pretty, but it works. We also expect that using a case would remedy
" the problem. We'll test a few cases this week and report back.
And the two Apple RFPs for PhD-level RF and antenna designers that appeared
within 24 hours of the iPhone 4 hitting the streets are still open:
<http://jobs.apple.com/index.ajs?BID=1&method=mExternal.showJob&RID=55396&Cur
rentPage=1>
<http://jobs.apple.com/index.ajs?BID=1&method=mExternal.showJob&RID=55852&Cur
rentPage=1>
Date: Tue, 13 Jul 2010 12:16:29 -0400
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: iTunes password caching
Message-ID: <p06240829c8623f02e390@[10.0.1.3]>
iTunes password caching
Mike Rohde racked up $190 in iTunes in-app purchases without knowing
it, blaming an app called Fishies by PlayMesh for tricking his son
into purchasing virtual items without a password prompt. He was
obviously pretty upset - I would be too! - but calling it a "scam"
probably goes too far. So what really happened?
It is fairly well known that after the App Store prompts for your
iTunes password, you can download more apps for a certain length of
time (at least a few minutes) before it requires a password again.
What seemed less clear is that this applies to in-app purchases as
well.
To be sure, I ran a test to confirm the behavior:
* Download a new free app from the App Store (I downloaded the
current number 1 iPhone app, Farm Story Summer).
* Enter your password to confirm the download.
* As soon as it finishes, go to another completely different app (in
my case it was Iconfactory's Ramp Champ, which I had downloaded
months ago).
* Purchase an in-app virtual item.
* It prompts for whether you want to buy the item (the standard
Apple prompt), but without requiring a password.
...
http://www.manton.org/2010/07/itunes_password.html
PlayMesh Fishies App Story: iTunes Password Caching
http://www.rohdesign.com/weblog/archives/003193.html
Date: Tue, 13 Jul 2010 13:22:34 -0700 (PDT)
From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Are hybrids still used?
Message-ID: <3b033f4c-161b-4fd7-9a60-571bddc2e73e@41g2000yqn.googlegroups.com>
On Jul 11, 5:45 am, Gilles Ganault <nos...@nospam.com> wrote:
> Hello
>
> I'm not an engineer and was reading this article to learn about echo
> in phone calls:
The following is an old technical article, but it may be of interest
on this topic. It discusses overseas communications and the issues of
2 vs 4 four wire communication.
http://massis.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives/technical/western-union-tech-review/21-4/p174.htm
(click next or previous to navigage)
(this issue also contains an article on ASCII.)
Date: Tue, 13 Jul 2010 18:19:09 -0400
From: Randall <rvh40.remove-this@and-this-too.insightbb.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: I before E
Message-ID: <E9ECEAE8-FB8E-4752-A30A-69D22A66DEA7@insightbb.com>
>> http://www.cr80news.com/2010/02/09/one-in-six-college-students-recieve-blackboard-connect-messages
>
> And four out of five English teachers are pulling their
> hair out when reading that url...
>
> ***** Moderator's Note *****
>
> Repeat after me: 'I before E, except after Cee, or when sounded like
> A, as in "Neighbor" and "Weigh".'
>
> Don't they even teach that at journalism school?
I before E, huh? Weird ...
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