Southern Colorado shakes Earthquake

The earthquake center has now reported at least 11 earthquakes in Colorado since Monday evening.
Most of the quakes have been minor aftershocks following the 5.3 magnitude earthquake that hit around 11:46 p.m. Monday.

A magnitude 5.3 earthquake has shaken southern Colorado near the New Mexico border.
The National Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colo. said the quake was recorded at about 11:46 p.m
. MDT Monday about five miles west of Cokedale, Colo.
One witness in Colorado Springs said they woke up around midnight and could feel their bed shaking.
The quake follows two smaller ones that hit the area earlier in the day.A magnitude 4.6 quake was recorded at 5:30 p.m. about 11 miles southwest of Cokedale, and a magnitude 2.9 quake was recorded shortly before 8 a.m. about 12 miles west-southwest of Cokedale.
The center's Jessica Sigala said the quake has the potential of causing minimal damage.
A dispatcher at the Las Animas County Sheriff's Office said she has received many calls from residents who felt the shaking.
Cokedale is about 190 miles south of Denver.

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Sprint iPhone may portend

Once Sprint Nextel gets the iPhone, you can bid farewell to its unlimited-data plan.
If history is any indication, Sprint will have to make some tough decisions, if Apple's blockbuster device starts weighing on its network. It's something the other carriers have done, and it's part of a broader trend of telecommunication companies struggling to keep up with growing bandwidth consumption.
After suffering through years of heavy bandwidth usage from iPhone users, AT&T relented and switched to a tiered pricing plan last year. It only took Verizon Wireless a few months after launching its version of the iPhone 4 before it opted to apply similar data caps.
Sprint, which The Wall Street Journal reported today will be getting the iPhone 5 at the same time as AT&T and Verizon in October, will likely follow the same path.
I have no first-hand knowledge of Sprint's thinking on its successful--but taxing--offer of an all-you-can-eat data plan for its smartphones. A Sprint representative wasn't immediately available to answer my questions.
But I do know that networks aren't fundamentally different from each other, despite the marketing jargon and hype that surrounds them. Sprint doesn't have any more capacity than Verizon and AT&T. In fact, it may be in a worse position now because its unlimited-data offer is unique in the market, likely attracting the heaviest of users.
The carriers' switch to tiered plans doesn't include existing unlimited-data customers, who have had the option to be grandfathered into an unlimited plan. You can see the strain the grandfathering is putting on the carriers, with both AT&T and Verizon switching to language in their service agreements that allow them to throttle, or choke off, the connection speed when a user exceeds a certain threshold of data consumption.
Sprint is in a touchy spot because it has positioned itself as the unlimited carrier. Ads talk about the company's truly limitless plans, and Chief Executive Dan Hesse has been featured on commercials deriding competitors' actions such as throttling.
As I've written, Verizon's decision to switch to a capped plan has been a boon for Sprint. The carrier is the only remaining company to offer a truly unlimited-data plan, a rare marketing and competitive edge outside of cheaper prices. Even Sprint's prepaid arm, Virgin Mobile, has decided to employ throttling.
But all good things have to come to an end. Speaking to a roundtable of bloggers and reporters last month, Hesse acknowledged that data traffic could eventually be an issue.
"Nothing's a guarantee that it's forever," he said at the time.
For Sprint, the choice is a trade-off: keep the unlimited-data plan and spur additional customer growth, or cut back on the plans and ease the need to invest in more capital for the network. Its decision may indicate whether it is favoring the consumer or Wall Street.
When I wrote about Sprint eventually dropping the unlimited-data plan, analysts gave it a year to 18 months before a change would happen. But with the iPhone becoming available to Sprint customers, that timetable could be accelerated. Thanks to its more affordable data plans, Sprint has a higher base of smartphone customers than its rivals--roughly half of its total customers.
While it has gotten used to dealing with the bandwidth-intensive Android phone, Sprint may be in for another pounding, once more customers start upgrading their basic phones for the iPhone.
And even if the iPhone isn't significantly more data-hungry than its Android counterparts, Sprint may use the iPhone's reputation as an excuse to close off the unlimited-data spigot.
So what does that mean for customers? If the iPhone does come out for Sprint, hop on an unlimited-data plan while you can (and thus get grandfathered in). The plan may not be around much longer.

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Uncle Frank of 'Kimmel Show' fame dies at 77

Frank Potenza, a former New York City police officer who turned to comedy as "Uncle Frank" on his nephew Jimmy Kimmel's late-night talk show, died early Tuesday. He was 77.
A statement from ABC's "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" said Potenza was "beloved by his co-workers and considered an uncle to all."
"His kindness and humor will be missed by everyone he touched," the statement said. It did not include further details.
The show is on hiatus until Sept. 6, and ABC did not have any immediate information about an on-air tribute to Potenza.
The silver-haired Potenza had served as a police officer for two decades and as a private security guard before Kimmel asked him to join his fledgling show as a guard and cast member in 2003.
On "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" the uniformed Potenza was paired in comedy bits with Guillermo Rodriguez, a real-life parking lot security guard for the show. The two men also joined with Veatrice Rice, another show security guard, in a clueless discussion about news events. Rice died in 2009.
Potenza and his former wife, Conchetta "Chippy" Potenza, were sent by Kimmel on comic "adventures" such as working on a dairy farm and learning self-defense.
"Thank you for your kind words about a very kind man -- my Uncle Frank -- who passed away this morning," Kimmel said in a Twitter posting.
A native of Brooklyn, N.Y., and a Korean War veteran, Potenza served as a police officer for 20 years before working as a guard in Las Vegas and at St. Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan. Then Kimmel asked him to move to Los Angeles to work with him.
Potenza is survived by his three daughters and a newborn granddaughter, according to the show's statement. Funeral plans were not released.

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