NEW YORK (AP) -- Some cell phone companies appear poised to profit off a new fee that covers the cost of enabling customers to switch wireless services without giving up their phone numbers.
The fee, permitted by the federal government, is already being levied by four national carriers and is generally less than $1 per month. That adds up quickly when multiplied across the millions of subscribers each carrier serves.
And in certain cases, the money being collected appears to exceed the actual cost of meeting a November deadline set by the Federal Communications Commission for "number portability" -- which will let people keep their cell numbers when switching wireless providers.
Sprint PCS, for example, has about 17.9 million customers who began paying an additional 63 cents per month in July, generating $11.3 million per month for "cost recovery."
Over the course of a year, Sprint's fee would bring in about $135 million at current subscriber levels -- though that amount likely will be even higher since Sprint and other carriers are signing up hundreds of thousands of new customers per quarter.
Sprint refused to quantify its expense for enabling number portability beyond a rough estimate of "hundreds of millions of dollars" -- an amount several times larger than more specific estimates disclosed by rivals Verizon Wireless and Cingular Wireless. Similarly, Nextel Communications says it has spent about twice the costs estimated by Verizon and Cingular.
Although costs surely vary among the different companies, government officials and industry analysts say there is little reason to expect those expenses to vary widely as the carriers upgrade systems and create verification processes similar to those that long-distance phone companies use when a customer switches from one service to another.
"A reasonable person would say that carriers of similar size, serving the same markets, providing the same level of service, would have similar cost structures," said John Muleta, the chief of the FCC's wireless telecom bureau. In fact, he added, almost all wireless carriers are using the same software vendor to implement number portability.
'Just and reasonable' fees required Other carriers lump their fee for the changeover in with other charges related to regulatory mandates, such as providing enhanced 911 capabilities so a cell phone can be pinpointed in an emergency.
Nextel has been charging $1.55 per month since October; Since the spring, AT&T Wireless has been charging some customers what it calls a temporary fee of $1.75. Since April, Cingular has been charging from 32 cents to $1.25 per month depending on the state. Verizon says it has not yet decided whether to levy a number portability fee.
Beyond a general requirement under federal law that such fees be "just and reasonable," there is no specific cap. Likewise, the FCC does not require the companies to report their actual expenses and the agency is not monitoring the fees.
But other government officials, and consumer advocates, have criticized the new fees as excessive.
"Sprint is just asking for regulation, and we'll bring tougher regulation on them if they do things like this," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-New York.
Varied estimates Sprint stood firm in asserting it has already spent "hundreds of millions of dollars" to prepare for number portability. That figure contrasts sharply with public estimates from Verizon, which has irked its rivals by breaking ranks with the industry's long-standing opposition to wireless number portability.
Verizon says it has spent about $60 million on preparations, and estimated its ongoing costs to facilitate number portability at 10 or 15 cents per subscriber per month.
With 34.6 million subscribers, Verizon's estimate suggests that it expects monthly portability expenses of up to $5.2 million, or less than half the amount Sprint will be collecting per month.
5 minutes spent on this chick's website and one thing is obvious: she is dealing in her looks and her appeal to geeks to a. make money and b. get some publicity.
her ideas are nothing more than "ideas" and with no solid way to implement them. universal health care? yeah, thats what california needs right now!
gay marriages and legalizing marijuana? hell, why not? at this point you might as well tack those on to your campaign.
putting this cute as a button 26 year old in charge of a huge portion of THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA is laughable to say the least.
everyone has the right to run if they qualify, but for slashdot to rally behind this candidate would be a mistake.
I just got satellite radio, and it is cool. I love Kazaa. Here is the deal: I would pay $25 a month for a complete music solution. An ultimate site that offered every major label (and most of the others) content available for download. No limit, in mp3 format. Also, access to satellite radio in my car at home included. No restrictions. Each song downloaded is registered by the company, and the downloaded stuff gets X amount of cents per d/l. One massive, all in one, no reason to go anywhere else site. And still sell cd's in the stores for reasonable prices. if every cd were 9.99 or less i would still buy my faves and stay subscribed to the music site. not everyone will do this, but i bet most of the 500,000 current xm radio subscribers would sign on. remember, the download selection would have to be EXHAUSTIVE.
I used to do the same on the C64 w/ my Uncle. I remember this game Beachhead we started with, changed the credits to say "Cracked by Dangerous Dan" etc...
FUck Japan and Japanese people. We should have systematically decimated their entire population after we stuck two a-bombs up their ass. A dead Jap is a good Jap. Many of you Jap-lovers grandfather fought and died protecting you from the slanty eyed savages.
I would have loved to heard some interesting comments on this simulation, as I feel the world may be fast approaching another nuclear incident sometime in this decade...
However out of 12 comments ( i am browsing at 3+ to try to get some good intelligent convo) 7 are "FUNNY". Great. I am all for a good laugh, but mostly on Slashdot lately it is merely people looking for any excuse to post a punchline and earn some karma. It is pretty lame if you ask me...
I am not against being "FUNNY" - the contrary. But it has been taken to an extreme lately on Slashdot and the experience is suffering for it. STOP GIVING PEOPLE 4-5 points for lame comments that are obviously karma whoring. PLEASE!
At least on late model GM cars, with the dealership service tools (that plug in under your dashboard) you can set miles on a digital speedo to anything you want. I worked at an Oldmsobile dealership and I used to be bored and set brand new Aurora's speedos to 999,999.99 miles and back again. Easy-peezy, it is only about 6 screens deep in the menu...
Antares auto tune is monumental in that it brings auto tune in rack form for such a low price (and does it practically "live", tho they admit it is actually 4milliseconds or so - not noticeable) and you can get into it for $300 (auto tune only) or $500 (vocal processor - tons of effects). with the 500 one you can do things like get the cher effect, try setting your speed parameter to 0 - I believe in love oh yeah blah....
auto tune kicks ass - it has changed the face of music, like it or not. i love it for performing live, i do alternative rock w/ my band Stratoliner (stratoliner.com) but it helps smooth out those screams - it wont make you a great singer, but it makes you better.
Philipps shut down my auction for this model DVD 24 hours after it started. Luckily someone had already used Buy It Now, and payment went through shortly after the auction was shut down. I e-mailed Phillips copyright bitch and told her to go to hell. This is America, I won't stand for fascism!
Maybe you should just spend the $1500-2k on a nice lightweight model from Sony or Dell. For $1800 you could have an ultra-lightweight runnning a SpeedStep PIII that will run circles around the Crusoe 600. And you will probably have enough left over for an extra battery, and could possibly stretch battery life 6-8 hours on two.
I am afraid the Crusoe didn't live up to the hype. I wish it had, but it's just not going to make it.
Re:was there really a program that could do that?
on
Message from Kabul
·
· Score: 0
Yes - my Uncle somehow had tons of bootleg C64 software back in the day - and I remember playing with that - it really made songs and stuff by high pitch noise from the disk drive - I didnt use it much because i was worried it was tearing up my disk drive.
Jon Katz is not wrong guys! Back when I was working with Al Gore trying to "connect computers" up to one another to form some kind of web, Junis e-mailed me! He had just fired up his cold-fusion powered Altair and told me there would be trouble soon! Anyways...
He finally dug up his Commodore 64, and as soon as he quit playing w/ that program that could make your floppy drive make music w/ the motor noise - he sent me a message!
It seems that he had been lucky enough to hide an extra Sat phone in the chicken coop and had modified it to reach near 1gb data transfer rates! While he was mailing me he was simultaneously watching some bootleg porn and downloading the new Britney Spears! He had to go tho, he was entering his credit card info on apple.com to get that sweet new Ipod!...
Hey - just a note...I am putting together a site to be a one stop shop type deal for hacking the Xbox...I have already added a 40gb drive to a system and got it running - story/pics/etc... coming soon...
I order vinyl on a regular basis, and the only way it arrives to me in good condition is when I buy it on Ebay. I can't tell you how many records I have had ruined from the likes of Amazon, BN.com, etc...
Hey brainiacs...thin vinyl record, obviously I am buying vinyl for its collectability, i dont want it bent in half or all four corners crushed.
Worst part is, most will gladly let you return it and send another IN THE SAME EXACT PACKAGING. This never fails. Hmmm - it didn't work before, maybe this time!!!!
Slashdot Mirror
NEW YORK (AP) -- Some cell phone companies appear poised to profit off a new fee that covers the cost of enabling customers to switch wireless services without giving up their phone numbers.
The fee, permitted by the federal government, is already being levied by four national carriers and is generally less than $1 per month. That adds up quickly when multiplied across the millions of subscribers each carrier serves.
And in certain cases, the money being collected appears to exceed the actual cost of meeting a November deadline set by the Federal Communications Commission for "number portability" -- which will let people keep their cell numbers when switching wireless providers.
Sprint PCS, for example, has about 17.9 million customers who began paying an additional 63 cents per month in July, generating $11.3 million per month for "cost recovery."
Over the course of a year, Sprint's fee would bring in about $135 million at current subscriber levels -- though that amount likely will be even higher since Sprint and other carriers are signing up hundreds of thousands of new customers per quarter.
Sprint refused to quantify its expense for enabling number portability beyond a rough estimate of "hundreds of millions of dollars" -- an amount several times larger than more specific estimates disclosed by rivals Verizon Wireless and Cingular Wireless. Similarly, Nextel Communications says it has spent about twice the costs estimated by Verizon and Cingular.
Although costs surely vary among the different companies, government officials and industry analysts say there is little reason to expect those expenses to vary widely as the carriers upgrade systems and create verification processes similar to those that long-distance phone companies use when a customer switches from one service to another.
"A reasonable person would say that carriers of similar size, serving the same markets, providing the same level of service, would have similar cost structures," said John Muleta, the chief of the FCC's wireless telecom bureau. In fact, he added, almost all wireless carriers are using the same software vendor to implement number portability.
'Just and reasonable' fees required
Other carriers lump their fee for the changeover in with other charges related to regulatory mandates, such as providing enhanced 911 capabilities so a cell phone can be pinpointed in an emergency.
Nextel has been charging $1.55 per month since October; Since the spring, AT&T Wireless has been charging some customers what it calls a temporary fee of $1.75. Since April, Cingular has been charging from 32 cents to $1.25 per month depending on the state. Verizon says it has not yet decided whether to levy a number portability fee.
Beyond a general requirement under federal law that such fees be "just and reasonable," there is no specific cap. Likewise, the FCC does not require the companies to report their actual expenses and the agency is not monitoring the fees.
But other government officials, and consumer advocates, have criticized the new fees as excessive.
"Sprint is just asking for regulation, and we'll bring tougher regulation on them if they do things like this," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-New York.
Varied estimates
Sprint stood firm in asserting it has already spent "hundreds of millions of dollars" to prepare for number portability. That figure contrasts sharply with public estimates from Verizon, which has irked its rivals by breaking ranks with the industry's long-standing opposition to wireless number portability.
Verizon says it has spent about $60 million on preparations, and estimated its ongoing costs to facilitate number portability at 10 or 15 cents per subscriber per month.
With 34.6 million subscribers, Verizon's estimate suggests that it expects monthly portability expenses of up to $5.2 million, or less than half the amount Sprint will be collecting per month.
Verizon's figures are consistent with the estima
5 minutes spent on this chick's website and one thing is obvious: she is dealing in her looks and her appeal to geeks to a. make money and b. get some publicity.
her ideas are nothing more than "ideas" and with no solid way to implement them. universal health care? yeah, thats what california needs right now!
gay marriages and legalizing marijuana? hell, why not? at this point you might as well tack those on to your campaign.
putting this cute as a button 26 year old in charge of a huge portion of THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA is laughable to say the least.
everyone has the right to run if they qualify, but for slashdot to rally behind this candidate would be a mistake.
Water is wet...
Fire is hot...
A beowulf cluster of these puppies!
Sweet!
I just got satellite radio, and it is cool. I love Kazaa. Here is the deal: I would pay $25 a month for a complete music solution. An ultimate site that offered every major label (and most of the others) content available for download. No limit, in mp3 format. Also, access to satellite radio in my car at home included. No restrictions. Each song downloaded is registered by the company, and the downloaded stuff gets X amount of cents per d/l. One massive, all in one, no reason to go anywhere else site. And still sell cd's in the stores for reasonable prices. if every cd were 9.99 or less i would still buy my faves and stay subscribed to the music site. not everyone will do this, but i bet most of the 500,000 current xm radio subscribers would sign on. remember, the download selection would have to be EXHAUSTIVE.
I used to do the same on the C64 w/ my Uncle. I remember this game Beachhead we started with, changed the credits to say "Cracked by Dangerous Dan" etc...
FUck Japan and Japanese people. We should have systematically decimated their entire population after we stuck two a-bombs up their ass. A dead Jap is a good Jap. Many of you Jap-lovers grandfather fought and died protecting you from the slanty eyed savages.
I would have loved to heard some interesting comments on this simulation, as I feel the world may be fast approaching another nuclear incident sometime in this decade...
However out of 12 comments ( i am browsing at 3+ to try to get some good intelligent convo) 7 are "FUNNY". Great. I am all for a good laugh, but mostly on Slashdot lately it is merely people looking for any excuse to post a punchline and earn some karma. It is pretty lame if you ask me...
I am not against being "FUNNY" - the contrary. But it has been taken to an extreme lately on Slashdot and the experience is suffering for it. STOP GIVING PEOPLE 4-5 points for lame comments that are obviously karma whoring. PLEASE!
At least on late model GM cars, with the dealership service tools (that plug in under your dashboard) you can set miles on a digital speedo to anything you want. I worked at an Oldmsobile dealership and I used to be bored and set brand new Aurora's speedos to 999,999.99 miles and back again. Easy-peezy, it is only about 6 screens deep in the menu...
***I told my brother, my girlfriend and my sister***
come on man, you are on slashdot. at least admit you told your "imaginary" girlfriend.
Antares auto tune is monumental in that it brings auto tune in rack form for such a low price (and does it practically "live", tho they admit it is actually 4milliseconds or so - not noticeable) and you can get into it for $300 (auto tune only) or $500 (vocal processor - tons of effects). with the 500 one you can do things like get the cher effect, try setting your speed parameter to 0 - I believe in love oh yeah blah....
auto tune kicks ass - it has changed the face of music, like it or not. i love it for performing live, i do alternative rock w/ my band Stratoliner (stratoliner.com) but it helps smooth out those screams - it wont make you a great singer, but it makes you better.
Kramer tried this and he ended up in the river...
Sleeping less will kill you!
Salon.com was way ahead of you on this, and basically it boils down to MGM f'ing over female fans in the vain search for the young male demo.
Philipps shut down my auction for this model DVD 24 hours after it started. Luckily someone had already used Buy It Now, and payment went through shortly after the auction was shut down. I e-mailed Phillips copyright bitch and told her to go to hell. This is America, I won't stand for fascism!
me'sa confused - i likes to play pretty games tho sho nuf!
...stick it up your ass!
He has a 1.4ghz processor, but cant afford at least a 56k? I smell bullshit.
Maybe you should just spend the $1500-2k on a nice lightweight model from Sony or Dell. For $1800 you could have an ultra-lightweight runnning a SpeedStep PIII that will run circles around the Crusoe 600. And you will probably have enough left over for an extra battery, and could possibly stretch battery life 6-8 hours on two.
I am afraid the Crusoe didn't live up to the hype. I wish it had, but it's just not going to make it.
A beowulf cluster of these things! Awesome!
...a Beowulf cluster of these!!!!!!!!
... a beowulf cluster of these?!!!!!!
Yes - my Uncle somehow had tons of bootleg C64 software back in the day - and I remember playing with that - it really made songs and stuff by high pitch noise from the disk drive - I didnt use it much because i was worried it was tearing up my disk drive.
Jon Katz is not wrong guys! Back when I was working with Al Gore trying to "connect computers" up to one another to form some kind of web, Junis e-mailed me! He had just fired up his cold-fusion powered Altair and told me there would be trouble soon! Anyways...
He finally dug up his Commodore 64, and as soon as he quit playing w/ that program that could make your floppy drive make music w/ the motor noise - he sent me a message!
It seems that he had been lucky enough to hide an extra Sat phone in the chicken coop and had modified it to reach near 1gb data transfer rates! While he was mailing me he was simultaneously watching some bootleg porn and downloading the new Britney Spears! He had to go tho, he was entering his credit card info on apple.com to get that sweet new Ipod!...
etc...
JonKatz - GO TO HELL. You are an idiot.
Hey - just a note...I am putting together a site to be a one stop shop type deal for hacking the Xbox...I have already added a 40gb drive to a system and got it running - story/pics/etc... coming soon...
http://www.boxhack.com
I order vinyl on a regular basis, and the only way it arrives to me in good condition is when I buy it on Ebay. I can't tell you how many records I have had ruined from the likes of Amazon, BN.com, etc...
Hey brainiacs...thin vinyl record, obviously I am buying vinyl for its collectability, i dont want it bent in half or all four corners crushed.
Worst part is, most will gladly let you return it and send another IN THE SAME EXACT PACKAGING. This never fails. Hmmm - it didn't work before, maybe this time!!!!