---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message-ID: <n7j8mg$bkg$1@dont-email.me> Date: Mon, 18 Jan 2016 12:53:58 -0500 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> Subject: AT&T chooses Ubuntu Linux over Microsoft Windows Trip Down Memory Lane Department - While I was an Engineer at the (then) NYNEX corp., I participated in a meeting with Bell Atlantic personnel regarding the computers to be used in the SS7 network. One of the "Bell Titanic" employees made a statement that the soon-to-be-Verizon company should "Just use Windows like everyone else". I responded that I would oppose the introduction of any Microsoft operating system into any mission-critical application. Unix, which is the inspiration for Linux, was invented at Bell Labs, and it has been used extensively in central-office control computers for decades. AT&T's choice is, therefore, no surprise: the company has decided to go open-source for things which *have* to work. Bill Horne - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - BY KAVITA IYER Microsoft Windows loses to Ubuntu Linux, as AT&T chooses Ubuntu for its network and cloud operations Even though Linux may not be performing well in the desktop market, it however owns the two most important markets without any doubt, which are servers and smartphones. On one hand, where PC sales are going down, on the other, sales of Android phones are on the rise which it capturing a major share of the market. While everyone is spending less time on Windows computers, there are more than happy to be glued to their phones, which are likely powered by the Linux kernel. AT&T, one of the largest cellular providers has side-lined Microsoft's Windows and instead opted for Canonical and Ubuntu to power its network, cloud and enterprise applications, making this one of the most important collaborations for the creators of the Linux distribution. Canonical will provide continued engineering support too http://www.techworm.net/2016/01/att-chooses-ubuntu-linux-microsoft-windows.html -- Bill Horne (Remove QRM from my email address to write to me directly) ------------------------------ Message-ID: <n7j722$4vu$1@dont-email.me> Date: Mon, 18 Jan 2016 12:25:59 -0500 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> Subject: What's your hang-up with Verizon? This New Jersey county wants to know Bridgeton - Are you experiencing issues with your landline telephone? If so, Cumberland County (New Jersey) officials want to hear from you. The county has set up a form on its website allowing people to submit any service-related issue they may be experiencing. The county - which is leading a group of 16 communities in South Jersey - says these reports will help its continuing effort against Verizon New Jersey to ensure the telecom giant does not abandon the copper landline telephone service in South Jersey. http://www.nj.com/cumberland/ -- Bill Horne (Remove QRM from my email address to write to me directly) ------------------------------ Message-ID: <n7j6im$2da$1@dont-email.me> Date: Mon, 18 Jan 2016 12:17:49 -0500 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> Subject: What AT&T's Unlimited Data Plans Mean for Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile by Andrew Tonner In explaining telecom titan AT&T's recent decision to reinstitute unlimited data plans for some mobile subscribers, the famous P.T. Barnum quote came to mind: "Without promotion, something terrible happens ... nothing!" At a time when competition among the largest four U.S. telecom companies -- AT&T, Verizon Communications, Sprint, and T-Mobile -- is near a fever pitch, AT&T is leveraging one of its core strengths to steal share from its competitors in a manner few expected. http://www.fool.com/ -- Bill Horne (Remove QRM from my email address to write to me directly) ------------------------------ Message-ID: <n7kh58$q3h$1@dont-email.me> Date: Tue, 19 Jan 2016 05:21:44 -0000 (UTC) From: David Clayton <dc33box-cdt@yahoo.com.au> Subject: Re: Verizon (VZ) Data Outage Grounds JetBlue Airways On Mon, 18 Jan 2016 12:22:28 -0500, Bill Horne wrote: > by Sam Hason (January 14,2016) > > JetBlue flights were unable to take off after Verizon's data center went > down > > A power outage at a data center operated by Verizon, disrupted JetBlue > Airways Corporation's nationwide operations on Thursday. ........ Remember all the propaganda about how outsourcing to external data centres or the "cloud" was going to provide so much more reliability and redundancy than the old fashioned way of managing your own infrastructure? Looks like there is a long way to go before those promises are met, as well as the issue of one location going bad affecting multiple businesses rather than just one. I suppose some vested interests made some money from this strategy, so it has *some* benefit somewhere - just not to the customers who rely on it..... -- Regards, David. David Clayton, e-mail: dc33box-cdt@yahoo.com.au Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Knowledge is a measure of how many answers you have, intelligence is a measure of how many questions you have. ------------------------------ Message-ID: <201601201647001@telecom-digest.org> Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2016 15:16:46 -0500 From: bernieS <bernies.remove-this@and-this-too.panix.com> Subject: SMS spamming case before the U.S. Supreme Court Basically this is about whether a military contractor can enjoy immunity for violating the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) by claiming it has the same immunity that the military does. I think not. So did the SCOTUS. Cheers, -bernieS SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES Syllabus CAMPBELL-EWALD CO. /v/. GOMEZ certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the ninth circuit No. 14-857. Argued October 14, 2015 Decided January 20, 2016 The United States Navy contracted with petitioner Campbell-Ewald Company (Campbell) to develop a multimedia recruiting campaign that included the sending of text messages to young adults, but only if those individuals had "opted in" to receipt of marketing solicitations on topics that included Navy service. Campbell's subcontractor Mindmatics LLC generated a list of cellular phone numbers for consenting 18- to 24-year-old users and then transmitted the Navy's message to over 100,000 recipients, including respondent Jose Gomez, who alleges that he did not consent to receive text messages and, at age 40, was not in the Navy's targeted age group. Gomez filed a nationwide class action, alleging that Campbell violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA)¹, which prohibits "using any automatic dialing system" to send a text message to a cellular telephone, absent the recipient's prior express consent. He sought treble statutory damages for a willful and knowing TCPA violation and an injunction against Campbell's involvement in unsolicited messaging. Before the deadline for Gomez to file a motion for class certification, Campbell proposed to settle Gomez's individual claim and filed an offer of judgment pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 68. Gomez did not accept the offer and allowed the Rule 68 submission to lapse on expiration of the time (14 days) specified in the Rule. Campbell then moved to dismiss the case pursuant to Rule 12(b)(1) for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. Campbell argued first that its offer mooted Gomez's individual claim by providing him with complete relief. Next, Campbell urged that Gomez's failure to move for class certification before his individual claim became moot caused the putative class claims to become moot as well. The District Court denied the motion. After limited discovery, the District Court granted Campbell's motion for summary judgment. Relying on /Yearsley/ v. /W. A. Ross Constr. Co./², the court held that Campbell, as a contractor acting on the Navy's behalf, acquired the Navy's sovereign immunity from suit under the TCPA. The Ninth Circuit reversed. It agreed that Gomez's case remained live but concluded that Campbell was not entitled to "derivative sovereign immunity" under /Yearsley/ or on any other basis. /Held/: 1. An unaccepted settlement offer or offer of judgment does not moot a plaintiff's case, so the District Court retained jurisdiction to adjudicate Gomez's complaint. Article III's "cases" and "controversies" limitation requires that "an actual controversy . . . be extant at all stages of review, not merely at the time the complaint is filed,"³ (internal quotation marks omitted), but a case does not become moot as "long as the parties have a concrete interest, however small," in the litigation's outcome⁴. Gomez's complaint was not effaced by Campbell's unaccepted offer to satisfy his individual claim. Under basic principles of contract law, Campbell's settlement bid and Rule 68 offer of judgment, once rejected, had no continuing efficacy. With no settlement offer operative, the parties remained adverse; both retained the same stake in the litigation they had at the outset. Neither Rule 68 nor the 19th-century railroad tax cases⁵ support the argument that an unaccepted settlement offer can moot a complaint. Pp. 6-12. 2. Campbell's status as a federal contractor does not entitle it to immunity from suit for its violation of the TCPA. Unlike the United States and its agencies, federal contractors do not enjoy absolute immunity. A federal contractor who simply performs as directed by the Government may be shielded from liability for injuries caused by its conduct. See /Yearsley/,//309 U. S., at 20-21. But no "derivative immunity" exists when thee contractor has "exceeded [its] authority" or its authority "was not validly conferred." /Id./, at 21. The summary judgment record includes evidence that the Navy authorized Campbell to send text messages only to individuals who had "opted in" to receive solicitations, as required by the TCPA. When a contractor violates both federal law and the Government's explicit instructions, as alleged here, no immunity shields the contractor from suit. Pp. 12-14. 768 F. 3d 871, affirmed and remanded. Ginsburg, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Kennedy, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan, JJ., joined. Thomas, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment. Roberts, C. J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Scalia and Alito, JJ., joined. Alito, J., filed a dissenting opinion. 1. 47 U. S. C. 227(b)(1)(A)(iii) <http://cts.vresp.com/c/?LegalInformationInst/234cef0da4/17a35bec9b/f0eeed7dfd> 2. 309 U. S. 18 <http://cts.vresp.com> 3. /Arizonans for Official English/ v. /Arizona/, 520 U. S. 43 <http://cts.vresp.com/c/?LegalInformationInst/234cef0da4/17a35bec9b/2443795ca7/520+43> 4. /Chafin/ v. /Chafin/, 568 U. S. ___, ___ (internal quotation marks omitted). 5. /California/ v. /San Pablo & TulareR. Co./, 149 U. S. 308 <http://cts.vresp.com/c/?LegalInformationInst/234cef0da4/17a35bec9b/98e068b097/149+308>, /Little/ v. /Bowers/, 134 U. S. 547 <http://cts.vresp.com/c/?LegalInformationInst/234cef0da4/17a35bec9b/98e068b097/149+308>, /Little/ v. /Bowers/, 134 U. S. 547 < http://cts.vresp.com/c/?LegalInformationInst/234cef0da4/17a35bec9b/6b52634748/116+138> ***** Moderator's Note ***** I reformatted BernieS's submission to move the legal citations to footnotes. Any errors are my fault, not his. Bill Horne Moderator ------------------------------ Message-ID: <n7otnc$lqq$1@panix2.panix.com> Date: 20 Jan 2016 16:20:44 -0500 From: kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) Subject: Re: Class-action lawsuit against Publix seeks $5M for robocalls John David Galt <jdg@diogenes.sacramento.ca.us> wrote: > >When I moved to my present address, I got calls on a weekly basis from a >local grade school reporting on upcoming events there, and from the >kid's doctor's office reminding him to come in for checkups and shots. >It was a hassle finding the school and the doc and getting them to take >my new number off their lists. I suspect the problem here is similar. I have been told by my local CVS pharmacy that they cannot stop calling me because they can't look up my phone number in their database. Clearly someone has my number attached to their account, but they don't know who, they can't find out, and in fact because of their system they can't tell which CVS store is calling me. So I'll just have to put up with the constant calls. >I have no problem with companies making robocalls to their customers if >their customers will put up with it -- but please, include an easy way >for the call recipient to turn the calls off, or at least identify >yourself and give a phone number we can call back for this purpose. It would be nice if the caller ID was valid too. --scott -- "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." ------------------------------ Message-ID: <4fi0ab54hvmju948t7t96ph7reuspspcdb@4ax.com> Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2016 22:06:54 -0500 From: Ron <ron@see.below> Subject: Re: Class-action lawsuit against Publix seeks $5M for robocalls kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) wrote: >I have been told by my local CVS pharmacy that they cannot stop calling me >because they can't look up my phone number in their database. Clearly >someone has my number attached to their account, but they don't know who, >they can't find out, and in fact because of their system they can't tell >which CVS store is calling me. So I'll just have to put up with the constant >calls. No, you don't have to put up with it. You can get it fixed or, at worst, turn it into an income stream. See: https://consumercomplaints.fcc.gov The relevant parts include: Callers are allowed to call a wrong number only once before updating their list. This most commonly comes up when one person consented to be called or texted but then they gave up that number and it was reassigned to someone else. Urgent calls or texts specifically for health or fraud alerts may be allowed without prior consent. They must be free, and consumers can say "stop" at any time. Congress gave consumers a private right of action against callers that violate the TCPA I.e.: They're required to do whatever it takes to not robocall you without permission. The statutory damages you can sue for are $500 for each violation and up to $1,500 for each willful violation. If you've given them written notice that you don't want to receive calls at that number, then, clearly, further calls are a willful violation. I'd suggest a certified mail letter to both corporate and your local CVS. Once they're apprised of the fact that you know your rights and each call may cost them $500+, then you may find that suddenly they *can* fix the problem. --- Ron (user telnom.for.plume in domain antichef.com) ***** Moderator's Note ***** Most of the excuses people give for not taking a number out of an autodialer boil down to "We don't want to take time to learn how". More and more, businesses instruct their employees to lie like hell and concentrate on the paying customers instead of someone with a complaint. Bill Horne Moderator ------------------------------ ********************************************* End of telecom Digest Thu, 21 Jan 2016