---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message-ID: <ir5f57w6sjga$.16yr9p292fuay$.dlg@40tude.net> Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2017 21:24:12 -0500 From: tlvp <mPiOsUcB.EtLlLvEp@att.net> Subject: Re: AT&T is losing cellphone customers, fast On Mon, 23 Jan 2017 22:20:54 -0500, Bill Horne wrote: > According to an analyst note from Cowen and Company Equity Research, > seen by Fierce Wireless, AT&T is leading other carriers in customers > departing every quarter. What might be driving customers away? Perhaps the attitude that lets AT&T shutter 2G, thereby disabling some customer equipment? See 2017-01-17's <http://thenextweb.com/apple/2017/01/17/att-kills-the-original-iphone-after-shuttering-its-2g-network/> "After four years of planning, AT&T officially pulled the plug on its 2G network. For ... the original iPhone, this ... nine-year-old handset is now officially dead and relegated to a new role as a nostalgic paperweight." Interesting times we live in, indeed. Cheers, -- tlvp -- Avant de repondre, jeter la poubelle, SVP. ------------------------------ Message-ID: <4ff0edc8d161626dcef98bc5d5ca1ce4.squirrel@email.fatcow.com> Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2017 15:28:47 -0600 From: "Neal McLain" <nmclain.remove-this@and-this-too.annsgarden.com> Subject: Energy & Commerce Leaders Ask Pai to Close Set-Top Docket By John Eggerson, Multichannel News, January 25, 2017 New FCC chairman Ajit Pai is a long and strong opponent of FCC chairman Tom Wheeler's proposal to revamp the set-top box marketplace to boost online video competition, and would be unlikely to exhume that push, but the Republican leadership of the House Energy & Commerce Committee want him to put a nail in the coffin. http://tinyurl.com/410406 -or- http://www.multichannel.com/news/content/ec-leaders-ask-pai-close-set-top-docket/410406 Neal McLain ------------------------------ Message-ID: <o66qon$2rm6$1@grapevine.csail.mit.edu> Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2017 06:04:07 +0000 (UTC) From: wollman@bimajority.org (Garrett Wollman) Subject: Re: Ajit Pai to Be FCC Chair In article <7adffeb8682d48526453fca87dda366f.squirrel@email.fatcow.com>, Neal McLain <nmclain.remove-this@and-this-too.annsgarden.com> wrote: >FCC senior Republican Ajit Pai has been named President Donald Trump's >pick as chairman of the FCC, according to a Republican source >confirming a report in Politico. This is actually a decent choice, I'll give him that. >Because he has already been confirmed by the Senate, Pai does not need >to be renominated or go through a Senate hearing. In fact, the source >said the appointment had been made official--with the stroke of a pen >- by early evening Friday (Jan. 20). The chairman of the FCC is (and has always been) designated by the president from among the sitting membership of the Commission. (So this is nothing new.) A lot of times in the past, when a sitting chairman has stepped down, the president will designate his or her successor as "interim" chairman with the expectation that his nominee to fill the vacated seat will be designated chairman upon confirmation. Historically, it's not uncommon for FCC commissioners to resign rather than serving out their term. One concern is that the commission can't act without a quorum, which it will lose whenever Mignon Clyburn's term is up unless the president appoints (and gains senate confirmation on) commissioners to fill the two vacant seats on the commission. There is a partisan-balance rule prohibiting more than three of the five commissioners from belonging to the same party as the president. The original plan in the Communications Act of 1932 was for seven commissioners serving staggered seven-year terms; this lasted through World War II but was reduced to the current five commissioners in the 1950s, a result of conservative agitation against the power of the FCC to regulate the broadcast media. >Well, that was true -- to my knowledge nobody ever did ask to see it. >But there was always the remote possibility that an FCC inspector >would show up and ask for it. Today, the rules allow for some broadcasters to maintain their public files in online form. It's particularly important for political candidates' lawyers to be able to verify that they were not unlawfully refused advertising time at the federally mandated "least unit charge" and non-discriminatory terms -- one of the few bits of content regulation that has lasted from the three-network era to today. Wouldn't be surprised to see it killed off entirely, although this would take an act of Congress, and they might not care to vote for something that will make their campaigns more expensive. -GAWollman -- Garrett A. Wollman | What intellectual phenomenon can be older, or more oft wollman@bimajority.org| repeated, than the story of a large research program Opinions not shared by| that impaled itself upon a false central assumption my employers. | accepted by all practitioners? - S.J. Gould, 1993 ------------------------------ ********************************************* End of telecom Digest Thu, 26 Jan 2017