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The Telecom Digest for May 31, 2012
Volume 31 : Issue 132 : "text" Format
Messages in this Issue:
SPRINT announces sked for Nextel shutdown: June 30, 2013 (danny burstein)
Re: SPRINT announces sked for Nextel shutdown: June 30, 2013 (John Levine)
Re: SPRINT announces sked for Nextel shutdown: June 30, 2013 (tlvp)
Re: Broadcasters Warn of Apocalypse in Dish's Ad-Skipping Service (Marc Haber)
Re: Broadcasters Warn of Apocalypse in Dish's Ad-Skipping Service (Wes Leatherock)
Please tell me about online tutorials for CTI and/or VoIP (Bill Horne)
Re: Broadcasters Warn of Apocalypse in Dish's Ad-Skipping Service (HAncock4)

====== 30 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ======

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Date: Tue, 29 May 2012 23:47:51 -0400 From: danny burstein <dannyb@panix.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: SPRINT announces sked for Nextel shutdown: June 30, 2013 Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.64.1205292345230.14881@panix5.panix.com> New York (AP) - Sprint says it will shut down the Nextel network as early as June 30 next year, cutting off service for its characteristic walkie-talkie-like Nextel phones. .... There were 5.4 million phones active on the Nextel network at the end of March. Many Nextel customers are businesses or government agencies who issue the phones to construction crews and other mobile workers. ------- rest: http://www.wkyc.com/news/article/246453/16/Sprint-to-shut-down-Nextel - anyone know of any other communications network options that have similar "push to talk" ability? There were some GSM phones that were announced that never seem to have hit the market... _____________________________________________________ Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key dannyb@panix.com [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]
Date: Wed, 30 May 2012 14:12:58 +0000 (UTC) From: John Levine <johnl@iecc.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: SPRINT announces sked for Nextel shutdown: June 30, 2013 Message-ID: <jq59t9$m5s$1@leila.iecc.com> > anyone know of any other communications network options that have > similar "push to talk" ability? There were some GSM phones that > were announced that never seem to have hit the market... All of them. Even Sprint's new PTT phones run on CDMA. http://reviews.cnet.com/smartphones/motorola-admiral-sprint/4505-6452_7-35043597.html R's, John -- Regards, John Levine, johnl@iecc.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies", Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. http://jl.ly
Date: Wed, 30 May 2012 15:54:16 -0400 From: tlvp <mPiOsUcB.EtLlLvEp@att.net> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: SPRINT announces sked for Nextel shutdown: June 30, 2013 Message-ID: <1e1tgs7bhgaz3$.187c4cx7nj6g3$.dlg@40tude.net> On Tue, 29 May 2012 23:47:51 -0400, danny burstein wrote: > - anyone know of any other communications network options that have > similar "push to talk" ability? There were some GSM phones that > were announced that never seem to have hit the market... I have a Cingular-branded LG cu-400 -- a GSM unit -- with a PTT button -- pressing it brings up a dialogue window : PTT charges will apply. Do you wish to initialize PTT? : 1 Yes : 2 No (possible responses being 1 [OK} or 2 [OK] or [Back]). As it's a handset I had SIM-subsidy-unlocked, for use with T-Mobile, or with PAYG SIMS while traveling abroad, and never actually used on Cingular, I have no idea how that PTT actually works :-) . HTH. Cheers, -- tlvp -- Avant de repondre, jeter la poubelle, SVP.
Date: Wed, 30 May 2012 04:57:54 +0200 From: Marc Haber <mh+usenetspam1118@zugschl.us> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: Broadcasters Warn of Apocalypse in Dish's Ad-Skipping Service Message-ID: <jq42bd$ame$1@news1.tnib.de> Pete Cresswell <PeteCress@invalid.telecom-digest.org> wrote: >A long time ago, when we used to go to Germany every year or two, >I observed that the commercials there were all run back-to-back >early in the evening. No shows... just continuous commercials. But never for longer than ten minutes, right? >State-run TV, I guess.... Until the mid 1980ies, there was no alternative. Which was good. Since private-run TV is here, the programs have changed to cater for a significantly less intelligent audience. Even today, Commercials are packed up up so that a show is never interrupted more than twice (three times?) in an hour. Greetings Marc -- ------------------ !! No courtesy copies, please !! ----- Marc Haber | " Questions are the | Mailadresse im Header Mannheim, Germany | Beginning of Wisdom " | http://www.zugschlus.de/ Nordisch by Nature | Lt. Worf, TNG "Rightful Heir" | Fon: *49 621 72739834
Date: Wed, 30 May 2012 06:58:03 -0700 (PDT) From: Wes Leatherock <wleathus@yahoo.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: Broadcasters Warn of Apocalypse in Dish's Ad-Skipping Service Message-ID: <1338386283.67626.YahooMailClassic@web111714.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> --- On Tue, 5/29/12, Bill Horne <bill@horenQRM.net> wrote: > The cost of television, in short, is that it has drilled itself into > our consciousness like some succubus that will steal our souls as it > feeds on our innocence and deprives us of the chance to see the > world with our own eyes. The paradigm goes back to the earliest days or radio when it ceased to be just a hobby and became a commercial power house. When we visited in the Bahamas many years ago Bill Paley (and many others) had a listed telephone number in the very excluive millionaires' section of New Providence. Wes Leatherock wleathus@yahoo.com wesrock@aol.com
Date: Wed, 30 May 2012 10:39:02 -0400 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Please tell me about online tutorials for CTI and/or VoIP Message-ID: <jq5be8$9ha$1@dont-email.me> I'm going to take an employment test that includes some questions about Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) and VoIP. If you know of any online tutorials that go beyond basic setup, please pass along the URL. Thank you! Bill -- Bill Horne (Remove QRM from my address to write to me directly)
Date: Wed, 30 May 2012 12:59:30 -0700 (PDT) From: HAncock4 <withheld@invalid.telecom-digest.org> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: Broadcasters Warn of Apocalypse in Dish's Ad-Skipping Service Message-ID: <4e9e9d67-ebe3-411f-bdd2-e83a2b69db76@t23g2000yqj.googlegroups.com> On May 29, 8:55 pm, Pete Cresswell <PeteCr...@invalid.telecom- digest.org> wrote: > >Broadcasters are claiming in federal lawsuits Thursday that Dish > >Network's DVR service, which allows the automatic skipping of > >commercials, breaches copyright law and retransmission agreements. > One solution to their problem might be commercials that most > people do not want to skip. This is an excellent and important point. A viewing of old VHS tapes recorded in the early 1980s reveals less commercial content than now, roughly 5 to 8 minutes more commercials per hour. I understand newcasts have been reduced from 22 minutes to 18 minutes. Cable TV providers claim they must raise basic rates 3% every year to pay for programming received from 'free' channels, e.g. USA Network, LifetimeTV, ABCFamily, AMC, Comedy, etc. But programs on these channels are still loaded with commercials, with even more than on traditional broadcast TV. So, the viewer is paying twice. Why is that? > Seems like there has already been a trend in that direction over > the past several years - although I personally haven't watched > more than 20 seconds of any commercial in a lot longer than > that... the snippits I see look more entertaining and less > intrusive. IMHO, there hasn't been any improvement. At certain times, some of the commercials are horrendously bad, such as blaring ads by lawyers to get money for medical malpractice or adverse drug reaction. Or for rather suspicious life insurance or health care services. (How does anyone 75 years old qualify for life insurance 'no questions asked')? > Understood that automated skip is qualitatively different from > fast-forward.... but people still have to explicitly invoke it. In the old days people would use the bathroom or other tasks during commercials. Commercials used to be evenly spaced throughout a program. But now, to discourage bathroom breaks and hook the viewer in, they keep the first 20 minutes commercial free, then load up the last end with roughly five minutes of content and five minutes of commercials, but not evenly spaced. They also announce "we'll now return to" but then show more commercials, so you'll run out of the bathroom. If my own choice was to watch TV as aired with its many awful commercials, I couldn't watch. Indeed, I get edgely in waiting rooms these days since so many have a blaring TV set. (They told me doctors' offices can't have magazines because they spread germs--is that true?) It gets very confusing for the consumer as to who pays for what. The traditional broadcasters complain, the cable companies complain, the satellite companies complain. Who does a consumer believe? I can't help but suspect they're all making tons of money.
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