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AT&T/DoCoMo Deal For W-CDMA Deployment In U.S.
murky.waters writes "The specifics of several amendments to the original deal are spelled out in a news.com article:
AT&T gets $6.2 billion from NTT DoCoMo, Japan's largest telecom, for deploying a third generation wireless network in four of the top fifty cell phone markets by December 31, 2004. The chosen few are San Francisco, Seattle, Dallas and San Diego. However, there's a city-swap provision to possibly include either Miami or Detroit for Dallas, Phoenix or Houston for San Diego. Last, AT&T could get out of the deal if they chose an alternate third generation technology."
First post of the new year (for me at least)
In soviet russia AT&T substitutes you
As I write this, my cell phone is chirping to inform me that it is switching in and out of roaming mode. The reception at my home is horrible.
Every time I read an article about "next generation network features", I'm curious as to when they'll make the first generation feature - voice communication work better.
Maybe it's different in other parts of the country, but here in Lake Mary, FL, Sprint PCS and their suppose-ed "next generation network" is a bunch of features and fluff surrounded by unusable service.
I think I'm going to make my New Year's resolution to switch cell phone providers.
---
DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
This morning I'll be escorting my wife to the hospital, where the doctors will perform a caesarean section to remove our first child. She didn't want to do it this way - neither of us did - but sometimes the Fates decide otherwise. The Fates or, in our case, government employees.
On the morning of October 26th Mary and I entered Portland International Airport, en route to the Las Vegas wedding of one of my best friends. Although we live in Los Angeles, we'd been in Oregon working on a film, and up to that point had had nothing but praise to shower on the city of Portland, a refreshing change of pace from our own suffocating metropolis.
At the security checkpoint I was led aside for the "inspection" that's all the rage at airports these days. My shoes were removed. I was told to take off my sweater, then to fold over the waistband of my pants. My baseball hat, hastily jammed on my head at 5 AM, was removed and assiduously examined ("Anything could be in here, sir," I was told, after I asked what I could hide in a baseball hat. Yeah. Anything.) Soon I was standing on one foot, my arms stretched out, the other leg sticking out in front of me àla a DUI test. I began to get pissed off, as most normal people would. My anger increased when I realized that the newly knighted federal employees weren't just examining me, but my 7½ months pregnant wife as well. I'd originally thought that I'd simply been randomly selected for the more excessive than normal search. You know, Number 50 or whatever. Apparently not though - it was both of us. These are your new threats, America: pregnant accountants and their sleepy husbands flying to weddings.
After some more grumbling on my part they eventually finished with me and I went to retrieve our luggage from the x-ray machine. Upon returning I found my wife sitting in a chair, crying. Mary rarely cries, and certainly not in public. When I asked her what was the matter, she tried to quell her tears and sobbed, "I'm sorry...it's...they touched my breasts...and..." That's all I heard. I marched up to the woman who'd been examining her and shouted, "What did you do to her?" Later I found out that in addition to touching her swollen breasts - to protect the American citizenry - the employee had asked that she lift up her shirt. Not behind a screen, not off to the side - no, right there, directly in front of the hundred or so passengers standing in line. And for you women who've been pregnant and worn maternity pants, you know how ridiculous those things look. "I felt like a clown," my wife told me later. "On display for all these people, with the cotton panel on my pants and my stomach sticking out. When I sat down I just lost my composure and began to cry. That's when you walked up."
Of course when I say she "told me later," it's because she wasn't able to tell me at the time, because as soon as I demanded to know what the federal employee had done to make her cry, I was swarmed by Portland police officers. Instantly. Three of them, cinching my arms, locking me in handcuffs, and telling me I was under arrest. Now my wife really began to cry. As they led me away and she ran alongside, I implored her to calm down, to think of the baby, promising her that everything would turn out all right. She faded into the distance and I was shoved into an elevator, a cop holding each arm. After making me face the corner, the head honcho told that I was under arrest and that I wouldn't be flying that day - that I was in fact a "menace."
It took me a while to regain my composure. I felt like I was one of those guys in The Gulag Archipelago who, because the proceedings all seem so unreal, doesn't fully realize that he is in fact being arrested in a public place in front of crowds of people for...for what? I didn't know what the crime was. Didn't matter. Once upstairs, the officers made me remove my shoes and my hat and tossed me into a cell. Yes, your airports have prison cells, just like your amusement parks, train stations, universities, and national forests. Let freedom reign.
After a short time I received a visit from the arresting officer. "Mr. Monahan," he started, "Are you on drugs?"
Was this even real? "No, I'm not on drugs."
"Should you be?"
"What do you mean?"
"Should you be on any type of medication?"
"No."
"Then why'd you react that way back there?"
You see the thinking? You see what passes for reasoning among your domestic shock troops these days? Only "whackos" get angry over seeing the woman they've been with for ten years in tears because someone has touched her breasts. That kind of reaction - love, protection - it's mind-boggling! "Mr. Monahan, are you on drugs?" His snide words rang inside my head. This is my wife, finally pregnant with our first child after months of failed attempts, after the depressing shock of the miscarriage last year, my wife who'd been walking on a cloud over having the opportunity to be a mother...and my anger is simply unfathomable to the guy standing in front of me, the guy who earns a living thanks to my taxes, the guy whose family I feed through my labor. What I did wasn't normal. No, I reacted like a drug addict would've. I was so disgusted I felt like vomiting. But that was just the beginning.
An hour later, after I'd been gallantly assured by the officer that I wouldn't be attending my friend's wedding that day, I heard Mary's voice outside my cell. The officer was speaking loudly, letting her know that he was planning on doing me a favor... which everyone knows is never a real favor. He wasn't going to come over and help me work on my car or move some furniture. No, his "favor" was this: He'd decided not to charge me with a felony.
Think about that for a second. Rapes, car-jackings, murders, arsons - those are felonies. So is yelling in an airport now, apparently. I hadn't realized, though I should have. Luckily, I was getting a favor, though. I was merely going to be slapped with a misdemeanor.
"Here's your court date," he said as I was released from my cell. In addition, I was banned from Portland International for 90 days, and just in case I was thinking of coming over and hanging out around its perimeter, the officer gave me a map with the boundaries highlighted, sternly warning me against trespassing. Then he and a second officer escorted us off the grounds. Mary and I hurriedly drove two and a half hours in the rain to Seattle, where we eventually caught a flight to Vegas. But the officer was true to his word - we missed my friend's wedding. The fact that he'd been in my own wedding party, the fact that a once in a lifetime event was stolen from us - well, who cares, right?
Upon our return to Portland (I'd had to fly into Seattle and drive back down), we immediately began contacting attorneys. We aren't litigious people - we wanted no money. I'm not even sure what we fully wanted. An apology? A reprimand? I don't know. It doesn't matter though, because we couldn't afford a lawyer, it turned out. $4,000 was the average figure bandied about as a retaining fee. Sorry, but I've got a new baby on the way. So we called the ACLU, figuring they existed for just such incidents as these. And they do apparently...but only if we were minorities. That's what they told us.
In the meantime, I'd appealed my suspension from PDX. A week or so later I got a response from the Director of Aviation. After telling me how, in the aftermath of 9/11, most passengers not only accept additional airport screening but welcome it, he cut to the chase:
"After a review of the police report and my discussions with police staff, as well as a review of the TSA's report on this incident, I concur with the officer's decision to take you into custody and to issue a citation to you for disorderly conduct. That being said, because I also understand that you were upset and acted on your emotions, I am willing to lift the Airport Exclusion Order...."
Attached to this letter was the report the officer had filled out. I'd like to say I couldn't believe it, but in a way, I could. It's seemingly becoming the norm in America - lies and deliberate distortions on the part of those in power, no matter how much or how little power they actually wield.
The gist of his report was this: From the get go I wasn't following the screener's directions. I was "squinting my eyes" and talking to my wife in a "low, forced voice" while "excitedly swinging my arms." Twice I began to walk away from the screener, inhaling and exhaling forcefully. When I'd completed the physical exam, I walked to the luggage screening area, where a second screener took a pair of scissors from my suitcase. At this point I yelled, "What the %*&$% is going on? This is &*#&$%!" The officer, who'd already been called over by one of the screeners, became afraid for the TSA staff and the many travelers. He required the assistance of a second officer as he "struggled" to get me into handcuffs, then for "cover" called over a third as well. It was only at this point that my wife began to cry hysterically.
There was nothing poetic in my reaction to the arrest report. I didn't crumple it in my fist and swear that justice would be served, promising to sacrifice my resources and time to see that it would. I simply stared. Clearly the officer didn't have the guts to write down what had really happened. It might not look too good to see that stuff about the pregnant woman in tears because she'd been humiliated. Instead this was the official scenario being presented for the permanent record. It doesn't even matter that it's the most implausible sounding situation you can think of. "Hey, what the...godammit, they're taking our scissors, honey!" Why didn't he write in anything about a monkey wearing a fez?
True, the TSA staff had expropriated a pair of scissors from our toiletries kit - the story wasn't entirely made up. Except that I'd been locked in airport jail at the time. I didn't know anything about any scissors until Mary told me on our drive up to Seattle. They'd questioned her about them while I was in the bowels of the airport sitting in my cell.
So I wrote back, indignation and disgust flooding my brain.
"[W]hile I'm not sure, I'd guess that the entire incident is captured on video. Memory is imperfect on everyone's part, but the footage won't lie. I realize it might be procedurally difficult for you to view this, but if you could, I'd appreciate it. There's no willful disregard of screening directions. No explosion over the discovery of a pair of scissors in a suitcase. No struggle to put handcuffs on. There's a tired man, early in the morning, unhappily going through a rigorous procedure and then reacting to the tears of his pregnant wife."
Eventually we heard back from a different person, the guy in charge of the TSA airport screeners. One of his employees had made the damning statement about me exploding over her scissor discovery, and the officer had deftly incorporated that statement into his report. We asked the guy if he could find out why she'd said this - couldn't she possibly be mistaken? "Oh, can't do that, my hands are tied. It's kind of like leading a witness - I could get in trouble, heh heh." Then what about the videotape? Why not watch that? That would exonerate me. "Oh, we destroy all video after three days."
Sure you do.
A few days later we heard from him again. He just wanted to inform us that he'd received corroboration of the officer's report from the officer's superior, a name we didn't recognize. "But...he wasn't even there," my wife said.
"Yeah, well, uh, he's corroborated it though."
That's how it works.
"Oh, and we did look at the videotape. Inconclusive."
But I thought it was destroyed?
On and on it went. Due to the tenacity of my wife in making phone calls and speaking with relevant persons, the "crime" was eventually lowered to a mere citation. Only she could have done that. I would've simply accepted what was being thrown at me, trumped up charges and all, simply because I'm wholly inadequate at performing the kowtow. There's no way I could have contacted all the people Mary did and somehow pretend to be contrite. Besides, I speak in a low, forced voice, which doesn't elicit sympathy. Just police suspicion.
Weeks later at the courthouse I listened to a young DA awkwardly read the charges against me - "Mr. Monahan...umm...shouted obscenities at the airport staff...umm... umm...oh, they took some scissors from his suitcase and he became...umm...abusive at this point." If I was reading about it in Kafka I might have found something vaguely amusing in all of it. But I wasn't. I was there. Living it.
I entered a plea of nolo contendere, explaining to the judge that if I'd been a resident of Oregon, I would have definitely pled "Not Guilty." However, when that happens, your case automatically goes to a jury trial, and since I lived a thousand miles away, and was slated to return home in seven days, with a newborn due in a matter of weeks...you get the picture. "No Contest" it was. Judgment: $250 fine.
Did I feel happy? Only $250, right? No, I wasn't happy. I don't care if it's twelve cents, that's money pulled right out of my baby's mouth and fed to a disgusting legal system that will use it to propagate more incidents like this. But at the very least it was over, right? Wrong.
When we returned to Los Angeles there was an envelope waiting for me from the court. Inside wasn't a receipt for the money we'd paid. No, it was a letter telling me that what I actually owed was $309 - state assessed court costs, you know. Wouldn't you think your taxes pay for that - the state putting you on trial? No, taxes are used to hire more cops like the officer, because with our rising criminal population - people like me - hey, your average citizen demands more and more "security."
Finally I reach the piece de resistance. The week before we'd gone to the airport my wife had had her regular pre-natal checkup. The child had settled into the proper head down position for birth, continuing the remarkable pregnancy she'd been having. We returned to Portland on Sunday. On Mary's Monday appointment she was suddenly told, "Looks like your baby's gone breech." When she later spoke with her midwives in Los Angeles, they wanted to know if she'd experienced any type of trauma recently, as this often makes a child flip. "As a matter of fact..." she began, recounting the story, explaining how the child inside of her was going absolutely crazy when she was crying as the police were leading me away through the crowd.
My wife had been planning a natural childbirth. She'd read dozens of books, meticulously researched everything, and had finally decided that this was the way for her. No drugs, no numbing of sensations - just that ultimate combination of brute pain and sheer joy that belongs exclusively to mothers. But my wife is also a first-time mother, so she has what is called an "untested" pelvis. Essentially this means that a breech birth is too dangerous to attempt, for both mother and child. Therefore, she's now relegated to a c-section - hospital stay, epidural, catheter, fetal monitoring, stitches - everything she didn't want. Her natural birth has become a surgery.
We've tried everything to turn that baby. Acupuncture, chiropractic techniques, underwater handstands, elephant walking, moxibustion, bending backwards over pillows, herbs, external manipulation - all to no avail. When I walked into the living room the other night and saw her plaintively cooing with a flashlight turned onto her stomach, yet another suggested technique, my heart almost broke. It's breaking now as I write these words.
I can never prove that my child went breech because of what happened to us at the airport. But I'll always believe it. Wrongly or rightly, I'll forever think of how this man, the personification of this system, has affected the lives of my family and me. When my wife is sliced open, I'll be thinking of him. When they remove her uterus from her abdomen and lay it on her stomach, I'll be thinking of him. When I visit her and my child in the hospital instead of having them with me here in our home, I'll be thinking of him. When I assist her to the bathroom while the incision heals internally, I'll be thinking of him.
There are plenty of stories like this these days. I don't know how many I've read where the writer describes some breach of civil liberties by employees of the state, then wraps it all up with a dire warning about what we as a nation are becoming, and how if we don't put an end to it now, then we're in for heaps of trouble. Well you know what? Nothing's going to stop the inevitable. There's no policy change that's going to save us. There's no election that's going to put a halt to the onslaught of tyranny. It's here already - this country has changed for the worse and will continue to change for the worse. There is now a division between the citizenry and the state. When that state is used as a tool against me, there is no longer any reason why I should owe any allegiance to that state.
And that's the first thing that child of ours is going to learn.
This morning I'll be escorting my wife to the hospital, where the doctors will perform a caesarean section to remove our first child. She didn't want to do it this way - neither of us did - but sometimes the Fates decide otherwise. The Fates or, in our case, government employees.
On the morning of October 26th Mary and I entered Portland International Airport, en route to the Las Vegas wedding of one of my best friends. Although we live in Los Angeles, we'd been in Oregon working on a film, and up to that point had had nothing but praise to shower on the city of Portland, a refreshing change of pace from our own suffocating metropolis.
At the security checkpoint I was led aside for the "inspection" that's all the rage at airports these days. My shoes were removed. I was told to take off my sweater, then to fold over the waistband of my pants. My baseball hat, hastily jammed on my head at 5 AM, was removed and assiduously examined ("Anything could be in here, sir," I was told, after I asked what I could hide in a baseball hat. Yeah. Anything.) Soon I was standing on one foot, my arms stretched out, the other leg sticking out in front of me àla a DUI test. I began to get pissed off, as most normal people would. My anger increased when I realized that the newly knighted federal employees weren't just examining me, but my 7½ months pregnant wife as well. I'd originally thought that I'd simply been randomly selected for the more excessive than normal search. You know, Number 50 or whatever. Apparently not though - it was both of us. These are your new threats, America: pregnant accountants and their sleepy husbands flying to weddings.
After some more grumbling on my part they eventually finished with me and I went to retrieve our luggage from the x-ray machine. Upon returning I found my wife sitting in a chair, crying. Mary rarely cries, and certainly not in public. When I asked her what was the matter, she tried to quell her tears and sobbed, "I'm sorry...it's...they touched my breasts...and..." That's all I heard. I marched up to the woman who'd been examining her and shouted, "What did you do to her?" Later I found out that in addition to touching her swollen breasts - to protect the American citizenry - the employee had asked that she lift up her shirt. Not behind a screen, not off to the side - no, right there, directly in front of the hundred or so passengers standing in line. And for you women who've been pregnant and worn maternity pants, you know how ridiculous those things look. "I felt like a clown," my wife told me later. "On display for all these people, with the cotton panel on my pants and my stomach sticking out. When I sat down I just lost my composure and began to cry. That's when you walked up."
Of course when I say she "told me later," it's because she wasn't able to tell me at the time, because as soon as I demanded to know what the federal employee had done to make her cry, I was swarmed by Portland police officers. Instantly. Three of them, cinching my arms, locking me in handcuffs, and telling me I was under arrest. Now my wife really began to cry. As they led me away and she ran alongside, I implored her to calm down, to think of the baby, promising her that everything would turn out all right. She faded into the distance and I was shoved into an elevator, a cop holding each arm. After making me face the corner, the head honcho told that I was under arrest and that I wouldn't be flying that day - that I was in fact a "menace."
It took me a while to regain my composure. I felt like I was one of those guys in The Gulag Archipelago who, because the proceedings all seem so unreal, doesn't fully realize that he is in fact being arrested in a public place in front of crowds of people for...for what? I didn't know what the crime was. Didn't matter. Once upstairs, the officers made me remove my shoes and my hat and tossed me into a cell. Yes, your airports have prison cells, just like your amusement parks, train stations, universities, and national forests. Let freedom reign.
After a short time I received a visit from the arresting officer. "Mr. Monahan," he started, "Are you on drugs?"
Was this even real? "No, I'm not on drugs."
"Should you be?"
"What do you mean?"
"Should you be on any type of medication?"
"No."
"Then why'd you react that way back there?"
You see the thinking? You see what passes for reasoning among your domestic shock troops these days? Only "whackos" get angry over seeing the woman they've been with for ten years in tears because someone has touched her breasts. That kind of reaction - love, protection - it's mind-boggling! "Mr. Monahan, are you on drugs?" His snide words rang inside my head. This is my wife, finally pregnant with our first child after months of failed attempts, after the depressing shock of the miscarriage last year, my wife who'd been walking on a cloud over having the opportunity to be a mother...and my anger is simply unfathomable to the guy standing in front of me, the guy who earns a living thanks to my taxes, the guy whose family I feed through my labor. What I did wasn't normal. No, I reacted like a drug addict would've. I was so disgusted I felt like vomiting. But that was just the beginning.
An hour later, after I'd been gallantly assured by the officer that I wouldn't be attending my friend's wedding that day, I heard Mary's voice outside my cell. The officer was speaking loudly, letting her know that he was planning on doing me a favor... which everyone knows is never a real favor. He wasn't going to come over and help me work on my car or move some furniture. No, his "favor" was this: He'd decided not to charge me with a felony.
Think about that for a second. Rapes, car-jackings, murders, arsons - those are felonies. So is yelling in an airport now, apparently. I hadn't realized, though I should have. Luckily, I was getting a favor, though. I was merely going to be slapped with a misdemeanor.
"Here's your court date," he said as I was released from my cell. In addition, I was banned from Portland International for 90 days, and just in case I was thinking of coming over and hanging out around its perimeter, the officer gave me a map with the boundaries highlighted, sternly warning me against trespassing. Then he and a second officer escorted us off the grounds. Mary and I hurriedly drove two and a half hours in the rain to Seattle, where we eventually caught a flight to Vegas. But the officer was true to his word - we missed my friend's wedding. The fact that he'd been in my own wedding party, the fact that a once in a lifetime event was stolen from us - well, who cares, right?
Upon our return to Portland (I'd had to fly into Seattle and drive back down), we immediately began contacting attorneys. We aren't litigious people - we wanted no money. I'm not even sure what we fully wanted. An apology? A reprimand? I don't know. It doesn't matter though, because we couldn't afford a lawyer, it turned out. $4,000 was the average figure bandied about as a retaining fee. Sorry, but I've got a new baby on the way. So we called the ACLU, figuring they existed for just such incidents as these. And they do apparently...but only if we were minorities. That's what they told us.
In the meantime, I'd appealed my suspension from PDX. A week or so later I got a response from the Director of Aviation. After telling me how, in the aftermath of 9/11, most passengers not only accept additional airport screening but welcome it, he cut to the chase:
"After a review of the police report and my discussions with police staff, as well as a review of the TSA's report on this incident, I concur with the officer's decision to take you into custody and to issue a citation to you for disorderly conduct. That being said, because I also understand that you were upset and acted on your emotions, I am willing to lift the Airport Exclusion Order...."
Attached to this letter was the report the officer had filled out. I'd like to say I couldn't believe it, but in a way, I could. It's seemingly becoming the norm in America - lies and deliberate distortions on the part of those in power, no matter how much or how little power they actually wield.
The gist of his report was this: From the get go I wasn't following the screener's directions. I was "squinting my eyes" and talking to my wife in a "low, forced voice" while "excitedly swinging my arms." Twice I began to walk away from the screener, inhaling and exhaling forcefully. When I'd completed the physical exam, I walked to the luggage screening area, where a second screener took a pair of scissors from my suitcase. At this point I yelled, "What the %*&$% is going on? This is &*#&$%!" The officer, who'd already been called over by one of the screeners, became afraid for the TSA staff and the many travelers. He required the assistance of a second officer as he "struggled" to get me into handcuffs, then for "cover" called over a third as well. It was only at this point that my wife began to cry hysterically.
There was nothing poetic in my reaction to the arrest report. I didn't crumple it in my fist and swear that justice would be served, promising to sacrifice my resources and time to see that it would. I simply stared. Clearly the officer didn't have the guts to write down what had really happened. It might not look too good to see that stuff about the pregnant woman in tears because she'd been humiliated. Instead this was the official scenario being presented for the permanent record. It doesn't even matter that it's the most implausible sounding situation you can think of. "Hey, what the...godammit, they're taking our scissors, honey!" Why didn't he write in anything about a monkey wearing a fez?
True, the TSA staff had expropriated a pair of scissors from our toiletries kit - the story wasn't entirely made up. Except that I'd been locked in airport jail at the time. I didn't know anything about any scissors until Mary told me on our drive up to Seattle. They'd questioned her about them while I was in the bowels of the airport sitting in my cell.
So I wrote back, indignation and disgust flooding my brain.
"[W]hile I'm not sure, I'd guess that the entire incident is captured on video. Memory is imperfect on everyone's part, but the footage won't lie. I realize it might be procedurally difficult for you to view this, but if you could, I'd appreciate it. There's no willful disregard of screening directions. No explosion over the discovery of a pair of scissors in a suitcase. No struggle to put handcuffs on. There's a tired man, early in the morning, unhappily going through a rigorous procedure and then reacting to the tears of his pregnant wife."
Eventually we heard back from a different person, the guy in charge of the TSA airport screeners. One of his employees had made the damning statement about me exploding over her scissor discovery, and the officer had deftly incorporated that statement into his report. We asked the guy if he could find out why she'd said this - couldn't she possibly be mistaken? "Oh, can't do that, my hands are tied. It's kind of like leading a witness - I could get in trouble, heh heh." Then what about the videotape? Why not watch that? That would exonerate me. "Oh, we destroy all video after three days."
Sure you do.
A few days later we heard from him again. He just wanted to inform us that he'd received corroboration of the officer's report from the officer's superior, a name we didn't recognize. "But...he wasn't even there," my wife said.
"Yeah, well, uh, he's corroborated it though."
That's how it works.
"Oh, and we did look at the videotape. Inconclusive."
But I thought it was destroyed?
On and on it went. Due to the tenacity of my wife in making phone calls and speaking with relevant persons, the "crime" was eventually lowered to a mere citation. Only she could have done that. I would've simply accepted what was being thrown at me, trumped up charges and all, simply because I'm wholly inadequate at performing the kowtow. There's no way I could have contacted all the people Mary did and somehow pretend to be contrite. Besides, I speak in a low, forced voice, which doesn't elicit sympathy. Just police suspicion.
Weeks later at the courthouse I listened to a young DA awkwardly read the charges against me - "Mr. Monahan...umm...shouted obscenities at the airport staff...umm... umm...oh, they took some scissors from his suitcase and he became...umm...abusive at this point." If I was reading about it in Kafka I might have found something vaguely amusing in all of it. But I wasn't. I was there. Living it.
I entered a plea of nolo contendere, explaining to the judge that if I'd been a resident of Oregon, I would have definitely pled "Not Guilty." However, when that happens, your case automatically goes to a jury trial, and since I lived a thousand miles away, and was slated to return home in seven days, with a newborn due in a matter of weeks...you get the picture. "No Contest" it was. Judgment: $250 fine.
Did I feel happy? Only $250, right? No, I wasn't happy. I don't care if it's twelve cents, that's money pulled right out of my baby's mouth and fed to a disgusting legal system that will use it to propagate more incidents like this. But at the very least it was over, right? Wrong.
When we returned to Los Angeles there was an envelope waiting for me from the court. Inside wasn't a receipt for the money we'd paid. No, it was a letter telling me that what I actually owed was $309 - state assessed court costs, you know. Wouldn't you think your taxes pay for that - the state putting you on trial? No, taxes are used to hire more cops like the officer, because with our rising criminal population - people like me - hey, your average citizen demands more and more "security."
Finally I reach the piece de resistance. The week before we'd gone to the airport my wife had had her regular pre-natal checkup. The child had settled into the proper head down position for birth, continuing the remarkable pregnancy she'd been having. We returned to Portland on Sunday. On Mary's Monday appointment she was suddenly told, "Looks like your baby's gone breech." When she later spoke with her midwives in Los Angeles, they wanted to know if she'd experienced any type of trauma recently, as this often makes a child flip. "As a matter of fact..." she began, recounting the story, explaining how the child inside of her was going absolutely crazy when she was crying as the police were leading me away through the crowd.
My wife had been planning a natural childbirth. She'd read dozens of books, meticulously researched everything, and had finally decided that this was the way for her. No drugs, no numbing of sensations - just that ultimate combination of brute pain and sheer joy that belongs exclusively to mothers. But my wife is also a first-time mother, so she has what is called an "untested" pelvis. Essentially this means that a breech birth is too dangerous to attempt, for both mother and child. Therefore, she's now relegated to a c-section - hospital stay, epidural, catheter, fetal monitoring, stitches - everything she didn't want. Her natural birth has become a surgery.
We've tried everything to turn that baby. Acupuncture, chiropractic techniques, underwater handstands, elephant walking, moxibustion, bending backwards over pillows, herbs, external manipulation - all to no avail. When I walked into the living room the other night and saw her plaintively cooing with a flashlight turned onto her stomach, yet another suggested technique, my heart almost broke. It's breaking now as I write these words.
I can never prove that my child went breech because of what happened to us at the airport. But I'll always believe it. Wrongly or rightly, I'll forever think of how this man, the personification of this system, has affected the lives of my family and me. When my wife is sliced open, I'll be thinking of him. When they remove her uterus from her abdomen and lay it on her stomach, I'll be thinking of him. When I visit her and my child in the hospital instead of having them with me here in our home, I'll be thinking of him. When I assist her to the bathroom while the incision heals internally, I'll be thinking of him.
There are plenty of stories like this these days. I don't know how many I've read where the writer describes some breach of civil liberties by employees of the state, then wraps it all up with a dire warning about what we as a nation are becoming, and how if we don't put an end to it now, then we're in for heaps of trouble. Well you know what? Nothing's going to stop the inevitable. There's no policy change that's going to save us. There's no election that's going to put a halt to the onslaught of tyranny. It's here already - this country has changed for the worse and will continue to change for the worse. There is now a division between the citizenry and the state. When that state is used as a tool against me, there is no longer any reason why I should owe any allegiance to that state.
And that's the first thing that child of ours is going to learn.
Eat shit all you NIGGERS!
Is that how the Japanese say dot-com ?
One problem with the nice docomo phone in Japan is there are towers everywhere. The things have no power because they don't need much.
I met a guy in Perth who had just come from Japan. I showed him how to rechrge the phone using the shaver plug (the 240V ac would have fried the recharger) and when it was fully charged he tried to make a call. He got a voice in Japanese saying there was a problem with his account. I wonder if they are doing trials in Perth.
I've gotten my first... low post..
and yes I'm a coward.
I'm normally a really good citizen.. but, I just can't pass this up... everybodies hung over... except for me!
yeee haw!!!
(6th post... )
I worked for a wireless Interent start-up. The problem was not the technology itself. Its that there are no real uses. I mean, who cares that you can stream video on your mobile phone? Who is dumb enough to pay for it?
IMO, Wi-fi has removed all the need for umts. The mobile phone operators should concentrate on making voice work better, especially in the US where coverage and incompatible networks are a joke.
1000s Warcraft Gold while you sleep
W-CDMA will not live through 2003. By years end DoCoMo will be in it deeper than ever before and CDMA2000 will be crowned champion.
While I see the need to begin a rollout of WCDMA service by AT&T in the future, shouldn't they work on getting their GSM service widely available first? They've still got issues with their TDMA network not having enough towers in some cities to be worrying about moving up in the world.
I took my AT&T phone all over the country and had some pretty good digital reception. Then when I get home (my house is pretty far from AT&T's nearest tower) I get crappy reception and dropped calls all the time. Cingular has a tower down the street from my house. It isn't like I live out in the boonies, I do have a Cingular tower down the street, yet AT&T doesn't feel the need to cover this area better.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
The article is all about scaling back the requirement to deploy WCDMA UMTS to, basically, trial deployment.
It also, very significantly, allows AT&T to choose a technology other than WCDMA. For example, they could choose TD-SCDMA.
I wrote parts of this stuff
This thread was listed as the top Sci/Tech story this morning on google :-) ...
...
AT&T/DoCoMo Deal For W-CDMA Deployment In US
Slashdot - 3 hours ago
murky.waters writes "The specifics of several amendments to the original deal are spelled out in a news.com article: AT&T gets $6.2 billion from NTT DoCoMo, Japan's largest telecom, for deploying a third generation wireless network in four of
NTT DoCoMo's $6 billion AT&T guarantee BusinessWeek
AT&T Wireless could owe $6B if W-CDMA rollout is late ComputerWorld
$8.95/mo web hosting
I've been to both mainland Japan and Okinawa, and I can tell you that you can't even walk a block without seeing a DoCoMo ad with CDMA on it (the side of a building, the back window of the millions of taxis, etc).
:)
This is a HUGE service over there.. If it works as well as it seems to there, then I welcome it.
After all, GSM has problems.. The only thing I wonder about is: Have any government agencies stepped in insiting on making CDMA as easy to eavesdrop on as GSM is? (the encryption used in GSM is very weak). And what does the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (http://www.etsi.fr) think about this? After all, they developed the GSM standard, so won't that mean the competing standard will cause them to loose out?
Just my 2 cents.
I have tried to do wireless data off and on for several years. In each case there were ill defined equipment costs, ill defined areas of operation, and convoluted 'data' plans. It shouldn't have been that hard. Hook the cell phone to the computer, dial the ISP, and be on the internet. Sure it would be slower, but it should have worked.
We now have these pseudo 3G services that claim internet connectivity. Of course to use such a service, you must subscribe to their content. I believe that even mail must be routed through their portal, at additional cost to the subscriber. It reminds me of the original bell attempt to make so much profit off modems that it threatened the BBS.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
AT&T is already in the process of converting their current network (TDMA) to a GSM/GPRS network. I any of you would read the standards, you would find that the upgrade path for GSM/GPRS networks to 3G is WCDMA. WCDMA networks will be backwards compatible with GSM, even though it resides on different frequencies, WCDMA phones also contain a SIM card, which you could easily switch out from your GSM/GPRS phone. Since AT&T has already chosen GSM/GPRS their choice to go with WCDMA was just a matter of time.
When AT&T Wireless first rolled out digital cellular they went with TDMA, the logical 3Gish extension to which is Rx1TT (as used in Korea).
Then, about two years ago they announced they were migrating their network (building an overlay) to GSM, the logical 3G extension to which is WCDMA (European version).
Now they look like they are going down the Japanese WCDMA route, which is based on an earlier standard tham European WCDMA (although it does actually work, which is a plus!)
It seems to me that they really need to sit down and decide exactly what system they want to use. There are numerous issues with cell planning, roaming, etc. affected by their choices. If they continue to mess around like this, who knows when a decent 3G service will be available to Americans.
--- My dad's political betting
What happened to the day when you could travel accross the nation and almost all the cell towers would work with your phone? Sure you would pay alot to roam, but you were at least able to make a call. Now Joe's GSM phone won't work in Steve's TDMA area. Can't we all just get along? :) db
"Do Communications over the Mobile network"
Useless bit of information? Yes. Offtopic? Slightly.
Trivia for the masses never hurt anyone....
This is stupid. Right now, it sucks enough going to a city where there is no GSM service that ATTWS has roaming agreements with. This is just going to make things worse. Right now, we have TDMA, GSM 2G, CDMA, and now W-CDMA. Why can't cellular providers just agree on one standard like in Europe and go with it? So is ATT going to continue to build their GSM 2G network which is still half-assed at best? It will be a happy day when number portability is enforced by the FCC.
Need Free Juniper/NetScreen Support? JuniperForum
Couldn't at&t try finishing their GSM upgrade first? I just switched and it has a long way to go...
Sig removed because it was obnoxious
From a high-end perspective, GSM has major limitations with it's architecture - in terms of bandwidth and scalability. CDMA is much more capable. Europe may have better connectivity now, but when it comes to upgrade the network to something more capable in a few year's time - ouch! They may regret the GSM architecture.
Provided you don't mind Sprint PCS (I don't).
You have to pay the cost of a service plan, but Sprint is offering such plans that include unlimited after-hours voice and unlimited data for $40 a month.
Yes, by default mail must be routed through their equipment. But likely for mass-market easy use. You're quite free to install your own software that can do anything you want.
You can install your own stuff onto the regular phones if you do a bit of hackery - but if you get a phone that is sufficiently advanced - a Palm (Handspring Treo) or PocketPC phone (Toshiba 2032), then you can load your own software easily. With the right software (eg Qualcom's Eudora) you can access whatever email you want - you can even SSH into remote computers from your phone (with Top Gun SSH).
Hell, Microsoft even has a *full* copy of Visual C++ for embedded devices (Pocket PC, Smartphone) available for download from their website - for free! Same is possible with Palm (although I've not done it). How's that for making your own wireless crap you to run on your phone!
Did you realize that NTT Docomo is really an anagram of "Not DotCom" ???
NTT Docomo is the term Not dotcom scrambled. I guess they do not want to be known as one of those dotcom companies!
.. that's the one single question that comes to mind.. why are we doing W-CDMA. why not go GSM/GPRS/etc all the way and be done with it.
AT&T Wireless is largely TDMA (so is Cingular). Verizon/Alltel etc are CDMA. All proprietary technology.
None of which allows consumer choice.
Vote with your cell phone technology for choice.
Poof.
Most likely the only difference in this case between a 2.5G phone (1xRTT is 2.5G, not 3G) and a 2G phone/service is the PRL (Preferred Roaming List).
Essentially, this tells the phone which towers it should be connecting to in each individual area.
Old phones' PRLs can usually be updated automatically (Not sure exactly how old - But any phone less than 2-3 years old, maybe more). On a Verizon network, dialing *228 and then selecting option 2 will update your PRL.
That said - Sprint's coverage sucks. If you want good coverage, get Verizon. Yes, their plans are more expensive, but you get what you pay for.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Um, UMTS and GSM cannot interoperate with each other. Unless you mean "field-upgradable" as meaning "Drive out to tower, remove old equipment, and install new equipment, shutting down old service", there is NO upgrade path whatsoever from GSM to UMTS. GSM uses a TDMA scheme at 1.9 GHz (or 1.8, depending on country), or around 800-900 MHz. UMTS uses a CDMA scheme at 2.1 GHz. There is no technical relationship whatsoever between the two technologies. As a result, if a carrier wants to roll out UMTS, they have to roll out an entire new network essentially from scratch, because the new phones won't work with the old towers.
Also, all of the GSM equipment providers, while well-established, have no experience with CDMA. As a result, UMTS handsets are having the same problems (heat, battery life, etc) that Qualcomm and the other "classic" CDMA companies solved years ago.
Last but not lease, CDMA2000 (both 1xRTT which gives 140-300ish kilobit speeds and 1xEV-DO which gives megabit speeds) IS backwards-compatible with cdmaOne. A CDMA2000 handset will work with a cdmaOne tower and vice versa. (See Verizon Wireless - They have a partial CDMA2000 rollout, but people with old handsets have no problem on the new network, and people who get CDMA2000-capable handsets won't have the handset become useless where Verizon hasn't upgraded yet.)
CDMA2000 lets network providers upgrade as demand dictates, UMTS requires them to upgrade everything at once.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Official 2.5G/3G extensions to TDMA, or more specifically D-AMPS (which AT&T and Cingular used to use) -> Null. (i.e. there are none)
Official 2.5G extension to GSM (Also a TDMA-based system) = GPRS
Official 3G extension to GSM = UMTS (CDMA-based, ZERO technical relation to 2G GSM. i.e. no seamless upgrade path that doesn't involve buying new spectrum and replacing all phones)
Official 2.5G extension to cdmaOne (Known most often as simply CDMA) = CDMA2000 1xRTT
Official 3G extension to cdmaOne = CDMA2000 1xEV-DO
All three are both officially and technically related (cdmaOne was designed with future expandability in mind), and as such CDMA2000 rollouts do not need additional spectrum, and do not require customers to immediately purchase new phones even if they just want to stay with basic voice service. Conversely, CDMA2000 phones work on CDMA networks that haven't yet been upgraded from cdmaOne.
1xEV-DO is what's being rolled out in Korea, 1xRTT is old hat there. 1xRTT or 1xEV-DO is also what KDDI, DoCoMo's main competitor in Japan is doing. KDDI's CDMA2000 rollout has gone much more smoothly than Japan's - Thanks to handsets with horrible battery life and numerous technical problems, UMTS has dragged DoCoMo's name through the mud in Japan. 1xRTT is also the 2.5G service being rolled out by Sprint and Verizon Wireless (Vision and Express Network respectively)
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
CDMA2000 1xRTT = 2.5G (144 kilobits with a 300ish kilobit extension available) Rev 0 and Rev A are the two subdivisions of RTT I believe, Rev 0 being the 144 kilobit version and A being the 320ish kilobit upgrade)
CDMA2000 1xEV-DO = 3G (Megabit speeds)
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
No news source is telling us who the supplier is. I've worked for Ericsson for a while (yeah, I don't need any more grief about it) and the infrastructure supplier will help tell is what kind of bandwidth it'll support. Here in San Diego, Qualcomm has had test systems out for a while. It was real nice to get cable modem speeds from a laptop. I could sit on the beach and do Deathmatch. Many have complained about reception and the way to go is, IMHO, is cellular. I know that means lining Verizon's pockets, but it is a well deployed system. The problem with many PCS solutions is that they just don't have enough antenas!
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