| To: ftth who wrote (31009) | 8/16/2009 11:15:31 PM | | From: Frank A. Coluccio | | | | Good point, ftth the poster, although I'm not so sure that I'm any more comfortable knowing that the condition is as systemic and all-pervasive as you are suggesting, rather than just being able to point a finger to large companies that are usually top-heavy with capital ;)
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| To: Frank A. Coluccio who wrote (31010) | 8/16/2009 11:26:24 PM | | From: ftth | | | | re: "I'm not so sure that I'm any more comfortable knowing that the condition is as systemic and all-pervasive as you are suggesting..."
I wasn't meaning to suggest that. Kushnick was the one that used the word "always."
I just used the word "often," meaning "less that always" but more than "never." That gives me a wide, unenforceable range to say I'm right ;o)) |
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| From: Frank A. Coluccio | 8/16/2009 11:26:50 PM | | | | | | Russian and Belarus Telcos to Begin Deployment Of EPON Fiber Networks
August 16, 2009 | The Being HAD Times <sic>
According to Teknovus, a developer of access chips and embedded software for the FTTx market has announced that Russian and Belarus telcos have begun deployment of EPON fiber networks using the company’s products.
Broadband penetration in Russia is expected to grow from 18 percent in 2008 to more than 28 percent by the end of 2010. Many Eastern European telcos are following the EPON testing and deployment process adopted by China Telecom (News - Alert), which began with evaluations of PON technologies in 2006, and now, has more than 14 million EPON-based subscribers throughout the country.
Paul Runcy, director of carrier marketing at Teknovus said they are delighted about the wins in Russia and Belarus that have a combined population of more than 145 million people.
“Eastern European telcos and national governments understand the importance of high-speed fiber access communications for business and residential services and for national growth and prosperity,” said Runcy.
Teknovus’ offerings support EPON at 1G, 2.5G and 10G speeds and allow for the delivery of advanced triple-play services like IPTV (News - Alert) through optical fiber networks.
In addition, their solutions ensure carrier-grade service management with guaranteed bandwidth per service per user.
Premier Electric, which distributes electronic components and modules for the telecommunications industry in Russia and Belarus, is one company supporting Teknovus’ EPON projects in Eastern Europe with communications equipment vendors like General Datacomm, Angstrem Telecom and Mikst.
According to Pavel Katlerov, marketing manager at Premier Electric, Russian and Belarus communications equipment vendors are enabling their respective service providers to cost-effectively deploy fiber-based access networks.
bhtimes.blogspot.com
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| From: Frank A. Coluccio | 8/17/2009 12:10:44 AM | | | | | | Consumers are Drawn to E—Reader Convenience but Seek Tactile Experience
6 August 2009 | cellular-news
E-reader adoption has piqued some interest among consumers, but according to a new report from market research company The NPD Group there is still some consumer convincing to be done. While 37 percent of consumers surveyed expressed interest in purchasing an e-reader, more than 40 percent of consumers said they were "somewhat uninterested" or "not interested at all."
Cont.: cellular-news.com
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FAC: Leaving the e-readers alone for a moment, some of my longest-standing 'romances' with hard copy editions of my favorite mags have been utterly ruined by publishers bringing their content to Web zines exclusively, or bastardizing their delivery by bifurcating between the two media. It particularly pisses me off when they employ subtle measures to discourage use of the hard copy by ever-reducing the font sizes (I think one of my regulars is now down to an 8pt font) and altering the coloration and contrast levels of print against background in the hard version. Yeah.. yeah.. I know, I'm just getting older and can't see as well as I used to, I know. But, what I'm saying here is true just the same. After being unable for years to get users to "opt" into using e-zines through email polls, they'll now use tactics to get their way, anyway they can, even if it means resorting to subterfuge and feigning ignorance about how they're doing it. Don't get me wrong. It's sometimes nice to have access to the zine edition too, as an option, but I find that when they are the "only" option they're wanting, since they are not as portable and convenient for knock-around reading, and frankly I don't find them as ergonomically pleasing and enjoyable to read as their tactile kin. So there! I'm glad I had this opportunity to bitch a little. Now I can go to sleep.
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| To: ftth who wrote (31009) | 8/17/2009 12:35:47 AM | | From: axial | | | | When you consider the degree of capture, and the regulator's historical failure to enforce regulations already on the books, I think it's fair to say the regulator's decisions favor the companies.
That is, the regulator acts for the companies - to the even when companies are clearly in violation the law, and defrauding taxpayers of billions.
Intentionally vague language is merely part of s duplicitous strategy, designed to make regulations opaque and infinitely arguable. That's how the regulators disguise the extent of capture.
Hair-splitting distinctions are merely part of the game. Clear, intelligible regulations are the last thing status quo players want, in the same way the financial sector wants maximum obfuscation in credit-card agreements: to increase the likelihood of end-user ripoffs, and the probability that challenges will be accompanied by protracted and costly litigation.
Does anybody seriously believe promises, if made, cannot be enforced? That clear agreements, demonstrably upheld, are beyond our ability?
Jim |
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| To: axial who wrote (31015) | 8/17/2009 1:58:24 AM | | From: Frank A. Coluccio | | | | You've made some good points too, Jim, to add to ftth's.
I'm convinced that some of the most inexplicable and bizarre circumstances and conditions exist throughout any given area of interest (be it local politics, industry groups, labor organizations, the corner saloon clique, among college alumni, you name it) based on the dynamics of cultural memes within each of those areas. I've never understood (maybe someone here, or a lurker looking in, will be kind enough to explain it to me?) how the regulatorium could ignore the claims made by Bruce in his exposé of the $200 Billion ripoff, and do so without even an acknowledgment of being in receipt of the message. Not even to stand up and say Bruce You're Wrong about this.
Now I could be all wet about this, but the only thing that I've been able to gather concerning the latter is that through some means of don't-bother-me-with-the-facts and, as if through an act of executive fiat, the powers that be decided to grant forbearance and forgive the commitments earlier made by the telcos to actually build what they had earlier claimed they'd build if they' were granted (which they were) the rate treatment that they'd asked for and received. Hence we come to “Kushnick’s Law” – 'A regulated company will always renege on promises to provide public benefits tomorrow in exchange for regulatory and financial benefits today.'
In some ways it's similar to how the underground cash world operates, a lot of see-no, hear-no, speak-no evil going on. Things have changed somewhat in my neck of the woods, when taking a view of the whole, compared to twenty years ago in some of the accepted practices in the building trades area. But for a time, the memes possessed by landlords and certain factions of labor and even field engineering forces of large vendors, for example, made it perfectly reasonable for even the most prestigious and bluest among blue chip organizations to overlook subtle acts of extortion (oops.. I mean 'customary practices') that were acted out in order to get work done after hours or through the use of the 'freight elevator', or in some other marginally non-ordinary circumstance.
[Yeah, ya give a guy a tip if ya appreash what he's done fer ya, but after the fact out of yer own digs, not outta yer client's.]
I recall once refusing to play ball, which resulted in my being very close to being asked to end an engagement because of it. In that instance an associate stood in for me when he saw I was unwilling to budge and arranged to donate several tens of thousands of dollars (obviously, this was being done with the complicity of the client) to a given entity's "retired members disability fund" in order to get an installation deadline honored for a project that had some very serious Fed compliance-related repercussions associated with it, if missed.
No one except I even flinched. OK, so I'm a wuss in this respect, but a wuss who prefers to remain squeaky clean nonetheless. It was as if...so what, dude... what do you care? It's not as though it were your money!
It was all very normal and customary. A part of the culture. This meme was freely and unabashedly shared throughout the collective, top to bottom, is my main point. I sense that a similar meme permeates the regulatorium. Some may notice, but no one speaks, hence no one else ever gets to learn about it, much less cares. Yet, bizarre occurrences appear to unfold regularly, and when all else fails the answer is: Forbear it. Again and again and again until you've created a revolving door of forbearance.
I suspect that the latter would be the explanation, were anyone to bother answering Bruce's claims, concerning the now-infamous 45 Mbps lines that were once promised but never installed in NJ and elsewhere during the Nineteen Nineties.
So whaddayathink? Ya think it's time I assumed an alias in these parts? Eh?
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| To: Frank A. Coluccio who wrote (31016) | 8/17/2009 3:24:24 AM | | From: axial | | | | "So whaddayathink? Ya think it's time I assumed an alias in these parts? Eh?"
Maybe. It's a question of degree isn't it? Nobody works in a completely honest system. Not judges, not cops, not purchasing departments, not governments, not unions.
"Yet, bizarre occurrences appear to unfold regularly, and when all else fails the answer is: Forbear it. Again and again and again until you've created a revolving door of forbearance."
When does forbearance become acceptance? I don't know, but at some point we begin to realize there's no practical difference between our supposed "morality" and that of the Banana Republics we disdain.
Then, we're not just talking about petty graft by low-level players, we're contemplating systemic corruption that goes to the highest offices in commerce and government. In many cases at present, corruption occurs in so many sophisticated ways that it's indistinguishable from business as usual.
Are we there yet?
Jim |
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| To: axial who wrote (31017) | 8/17/2009 8:11:18 AM | | From: Peter Ecclesine | | | | Doctored Data Cast Doubt on Argentina
Economists Dispute Inflation Numbers
By Juan Forero, Washington Post Foreign Service, Sunday, August 16, 2009
washingtonpost.com
BUENOS AIRES -- Workers at the government's National Institute of Statistics call it crass manipulation: Their agency, under pressure from above, altered socioeconomic data to reflect numbers palatable to the presidency. Inflation and poverty miraculously dropped, they said in interviews, and the economy boomed.
At least officially.
"They just erased the real numbers," said Luciano Belforte, an 18-year veteran at the institute. "Reality did not matter."
The alleged manipulation, which is under investigation by anti-corruption prosecutors, has angered Argentines. But in a globalized world, where a pensioner in Italy might be as likely to invest in Argentina as in Fiat, the suspected modifications are being felt far beyond this city.
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Statisticians, mathematicians and survey-takers who still work at the INDEC described how managers stopped surveying products that had recorded steep price hikes. "If something went up more than 15 percent, they'd take it off the list," said Marcela Almeida, a mathematician and one of several workers deposed by prosecutors.
Almeida said managers would obsess about certain products, such as bread, urging surveyors to come back to the INDEC office with prices that remained low. If they were not low enough, Almeida said, "the person who received their forms would change this price."
The controversy has raised questions about the government's official poverty figure. The INDEC's calculation is 15.3 percent; the Catholic Church says it is closer to 40 percent. After Pope Benedict XVI called poverty in Argentina a "scandal" this month, the government acknowledged that as many as 23 percent of Argentines might be poor.
But economists, among them Juan Bour, of the Latin American Foundation for Economic Investigations, said they expect no major changes in the INDEC's data-gathering. "It would be a recognition of significant failure," Bour said. |
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| From: Lou K. | 8/17/2009 9:44:25 AM | | | | | | Over the last few days my neighborhood as become a sea of orange cable markings. Most of the routes are lead to and from CATV hatches and cross sidewalks to enter into backyards - apparently there is some shallow "Fiber" as well?
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