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Mrs InFool7s and I's phones both stopped connecting just now. Anybody else without phone service?

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including section 301 of title 3, United States Code, it is hereby ordered as follows:Section 1.  Policy.  The security, integrity, and availability of United States telecommunications networks are vital to United States national security and law enforcement interests.Sec. 2.  Definitions.  For purposes of this order:(a)  “License” means any license, certificate of public interest, or other authorization issued or granted by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) after referral of an application by the FCC to the Committee established by subsection...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump’s pledge to help a Chinese telecommunication company that broke U.S. sanctions law sparked a backlash from lawmakers who said the move could weaken the U.S. hand in upcoming trade talks with Beijing. The Commerce Department last month banned U.S. companies from selling to ZTE Corp for seven years after it illegally shipped goods made with U.S. parts to Iran and North Korea, prompting the company to shut its main business operations last week. Trump said on Sunday that he was working with Chinese President Xi Jinping to help ZTE revive jobs. In exchange for...

Like many [ultra-secure phones], the CryptoPhone 500...features high-powered encryption. Les Goldsmith, the CEO of ESD America, says the phone also runs a customized or "hardened" version of Android that removes 468 vulnerabilities that his engineering team team found in the stock installation of the OS. His mobile security team also found that the [standard] Samsung Galaxy SIII leaks data to parts unknown 80-90 times every hour. [snip] To show what the CryptoPhone can do that less expensive competitors cannot, he points me to a map that he and his customers have created, indicating 17 different phony cell towers known as...

merica’s traditional phone system is not as dependable as it used to be. Just last month, the Federal Communications Commission told phone companies to start . According to one estimate, as many as 1 in 5 incoming long-distance calls simply doesn’t connect. The problem may be in the way those calls are being routed — often via the Internet, which is cheaper. It may also have something to do with the gradual decay of traditional landline infrastructure. Dan Newhouse, a farmer in eastern Washington state, hears that decay on his home phone every day. “We live out in the country,...

U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., is backing a federal bill that would impose a five-year ban on wireless communications and cellular telephone tax increases. The Mobile Wireless Tax Fairness Act of 2009 would put in place a moratorium on federal, state and local tax increases on wireless services and infrastructure. McCain and other sponsors contend it would help consumers and that governments have unfairly targeted wireless communications with levies and taxes. The measure has a number of backers in the U.S. Senate from both political parties. The average tax rate for goods and services is 7.07 percent, but federal, state...

SAN FRANCISCO — Cellular subscribers are paying hundreds of millions of dollars each year to subsidize landline telephone service, enriching big telecommunications companies while providing little or no benefit to cell phone users. The subsidies are intended to reimburse the companies for providing traditional phone service in rough terrain and rural areas where stringing lines can be costly. But rampant development has transformed some of these backwaters into booming subdivisions, with no real adjustment to the distribution formula; others, like the oceanfront celebrity playground of Malibu, are receiving subsidies simply because of their difficult topography. Outdated formulas for tabulating the...

Ever wonder why the telcos spend so much on lobbyists rather than, oh I don’t know, value-creating new applications like Skype and Vonage? And don’t think for a second that killing net neutrality isn’t a huge issue. It has already happened in Canada and the results weren’t pretty. As the National Journal noted today, this could be an election deal-breaker for the GOP!

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T - news) on Sunday agreed to acquire BellSouth Corp. (NYSE:BLS - news) for about $67 billion, to expand its reach into the southeastern United States and acquire the rest of Cingular Wireless it does not already own. BellSouth shareholders will receive 1.325 shares of AT&T common stock for each common share of BellSouth. Based on AT&T's closing stock price on March 3, that equals $37.09 per BellSouth common share, a 17.9-percent premium. The long-awaited deal would give the combined company a national long-distance telephone and data network, residential customers stretching from Florida to California...

LONDON, Jan. 23 (UPI) -- Iran is set to launch a satellite this year that will provide telecommunications services and Earth imaging for the Islamic republic. The Mesbah spacecraft will be Iran's second satellite launch in about three months and will be sent into orbit from the Polstesk launch facility in northern Russia, Ahmad Taleb-Zadeh, head of Iran Aerospace Organization, said. The Sina-1 telecom satellite was launched last October. Iran has plans to launch four more birds after Mesbah. Taleb-Zadeh's statements were reported by the English-language IranMania Web site and cited Iran's Iranian Labour News Agency. Mesbah has been considered...