[telecom] Re: To Thwart TiVo, a Nod to Television's Golden Age

Sat, 31 May 2008 16:01:07 -0400 Monty Solomon quoted a NYTimes article:

Unfortunately TV has learned some new "tricks" that totally turn me off. It wasn't bad enough that all the networks and local TV decided to put a logo (at first just a watermark and now something that actually blocks the screen) they decided that those watching TV were stupid so they needed to put a popup to tell them what they are watching and then more popups to show what's going to be up next, next week or next month. They even go further to put ads in their network logos annoying even more. If that's not enough they think that adding wooshing noises and sound effects makes their programming more valuable. It's getting to the point now where spending $50 or more per month is like flushing money down the commode and you're better off renting DVDs from Netflix and forgetting about live TV entirely. I think someone in network programming stays awake nights thinking up things to make watching TV more annoying than it is already.

***** Moderator's Note *****

So long as Ma Bell doesn't put ads on their ring tones and busy signal, I'll be content to see television fulfill Newton Minnow's predictions.

Bill Horne Temporary Moderator

(Please put [Telecom] at the end of the subject line of your post, or I may never see it. Thanks!)

Reply to
Joseph Singer
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Do you not think the telcos have already thought of this profit model? Thats a scary thought.

OTHH, it will force telemarketers and bill collectors that use some form of voice pattern detection to start playing their prompts to rethink a few things.

Reply to
DTC

On a similar note, now, more annoying than paying a 1 minute charge to hear the beginning of a voice mail announcement when you don't want to: The "Please enjoy the music while we contact the person you called". Complete crap, it immediately connects the call and starts to charge you whether or not you will actually speak to the person. This is nothing more than a sham in many ways, they probably charge the subscriber for this "custom music" feature, they collect revenue for terminating the call if it's intralata (?), also the originating telco receives money for the call. Really, when I call someone I want to speak to them. Very rarely leave a voicemail and if I know they're not available and it's a mobile phone # then a text message is much better than a voice message in most cases.

The US needs to get with the program and stop using 1 minute billing increments. Most Euro based pre-paid etc.. phone service I have used bills in per second increments or [increments] much smaller [than a minute, such as] 5 or 10 second blocks of time so you don't get ripped off for that 2 second call to someone's voicemail. In fact, in Brazil the first 3-4 seconds of the call is non-chargeable if you hang right up.

Reply to
B. Wright

The issue of time increments for billing isn't a technical issue but a policy issue instead.

It comes down to regulation. The wireless carriers operate under very little regulation. They only report to the FCC and that entity is more concerned with selling bandwidth than actually regulating anything.

It might be time to stop the political games at the FCC and empanel a committee that won't be answerable to any hack poitician or lobbyist. Then pass acts to give the FCC serious regulatory enforcement powers.

That would put every carrier on the same page, fix the time increments hopefully in the seconds vs. minutes direction, and quite possibly give us open standard for cellular communications.

Reply to
T

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