Earlier today, Hawaii’s biggest and oldest ILEC, Hawaiian Telcom, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in Federal court. The move was widely expected after HawTel and its owner, the Carlyle Group, ran into trouble paying its creditors and bondholders. Carlyle owes over US$1 billion in debt that financed their 2005 acquisition of HawTel.
The company’s half-a-million local subscribers won’t see any immediate changes in their service. In the long term, HawTel may need to restructure its union contracts, and shed or reconfigure its business units. The state Public Utility Commission has to approve these changes before they can take effect, so this bankruptcy may last longer than the largest previous bankruptcy in the state, which was done by Hawaiian Airlines in 2003.
IPTV to the rescue?
The company’s struggling IPTV business unit is one area of concern. HawTel needs a competitive television service to lock in its current residential landline customers. However, the company has delayed its plans for IPTV deployment over the last 3 years. This has given Time Warner an unprecedented opportunity to “skim the cream” and take HawTel’s best customers by offering VoIP, television and broadband Internet service packages. Once these customers leave Hawaiian Telcom, they’re unlikely to return.
A few of the comments on these articles suggested that police officers would encounter problems enforcing a text messaging ban. It’s unlikely that a driver will be pulled over for texting, especially if there is no state or Federal law on the books. A city law would be enforced on city streets.
It’s much more likely that these laws will be used to file additional charges related to a traffic or pedestrian accident.
Every mobile phone carrier also keeps a record of the time, date and content of each text message. The carrier’s logs may also note the cell phone tower that received the text message. That information is enough to link the message and the device to a specific time and location.
Carriers still include on the monthly invoice a time/date stamp and phone number for every text message. All the police have to do is subpoena the accused’s mobile phone carrier for these records.
It’s easy enough to spot someone who is text messaging. They’re hunched over their phone. Video game usage isn’t tracked by mobile phone towers if the device has no radio, but officers and eyewitnesses can still testify that they saw a distracted driver using a device.
When I lived in Florida, there was a state law that banned headphone use by drivers. This was in the early 1980s, when Walkmen tape players and radios were popular.
When I’m walking, I try to count the number of drivers who are wearing earbuds or headphones. I see too many people who drive with their ears covered, especially on scooters and mopeds. It’s amazing how little common sense some people have.
Image courtesy of bradleygee on Flickr through a Creative Commons license.
I teach graduate courses on information systems. This fall, I’m teaching two undergraduate sections of an entry-level computer science course about Microsoft Office.
I’ve been polishing up my syllabus, and writing a very short policy about Internet use in the classroom. Cara Finnegan, an associate professor of communications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, describes student usage of email, the web and mobile phones during class time as a problem of divided attention, and posted this policy in an article on her blog entitled The syllabus it is a-changing:
“If you aren’t using it to perform a task specifically related to what we are doing in class at that very moment, put it away.”
It’s an excellent policy. Classroom time is limited, and students need to pay attention to what is happening. At the same time, instructors should plan an interesting and engaging series of activities for each class meeting. A well-planned session will help reduce the temptation for students to whip out their cell phone or check their email.
In the past, I’ve reminded students that the classroom computers and the wireless networks are monitored by university IT staff. It’s a good point of discussion when the class is studying network security or phishing. But more students are coming to class with mobile data cards in their laptops, or smartphones that use the mobile phone network. An Internet “kill switch” on the instructor’s podium might control the classroom’s connection to the university network, but they won’t disrupt a wireless connection.
It’s a classroom, not a lunchroom
Students often complain about arbitrary rules and inconvenient procedures. These rules have a variety of purposes, but they do help us identify students who can’t or won’t follow instructions.
I continue to include eating in my policy, especially when my courses meet in the Frear Center. My university has posted a strict no eating and drinking policy in that building for the last 6 years, but many instructors and students outside my college choose to ignore the rule.
I’ve heard a wide variety of stories and excuses. Some students have claimed they have never encountered a similar rule at their other schools. That might be true, but I’ve seen “no food and beverage in the classroom” policies at every university that I’ve worked at or attended.
At times, I’ve seen students smuggle in food and then lie about what they had done. Lying to a security guard seems like a poor idea, especially when the guards are supposed to keep homeless people and lost tourists out of the classroom building.
Students who bring in their own food usually don’t consider that their classmates or instructor might be allergic to an ingredient in the food. I’ve often wondered what would happen if a teacher had to cancel an in-class exam because they were allergic to peanuts.
My university has relied upon instructors to remind students about these policies. It boggles my mind when some students fail to understand that these same instructors might be grading their assignments and exams.
I do my best to be courteous when I remind students about these policies. I have less patience for my fellow faculty members who ignore these policies or encourage students to flaunt the rules.
Other readings
Finnegan cites a New York Times article as an inspiration for her policy. The closest article was published on 23 March 2008 and called The tension builds (It’s almost Monday) - not the 25th as Finnegan claims in her post. That article discusses the digital leash that employees willing wear during the weekend as they cheek their work-related email and messages.
I’m back in Honolulu after my conference, and I am catching up with my social media sites today. Some of the sites have reasonable mobile versions, so I was able to post updates and stay current through my phone or my iPod’s WiFi connection:
At least one of my sites offer mobile versions with very limited feature sets:
LinkedIn offers a contact list. On an iPod Touch, it’s a little clumsy to use. Other than that, there’s hardly any useful content available.
Some of my favorite social media sites have no mobile versions at all. Bookmarking sites are a good example, as most of these sites are designed to support desktop and laptop users. Mobile phone users have to use their browser’s bookmark menu.
Golden Shellback is a coating that is applied to mobile phones and other electronic gadgets. Apparently it requires placing the device in a vacuum chamber. Once the process is complete, the device can be dunked under a foot of water without damage.
http://www.vimeo.com/2400743
