From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Oct 5 14:49:30 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i95InU323906; Tue, 5 Oct 2004 14:49:30 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 5 Oct 2004 14:49:30 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200410051849.i95InU323906@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V23 #471 TELECOM Digest Tue, 5 Oct 2004 14:50:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 471 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson T-Mobile HotSpot 802.1x Security Standard (Monty Solomon) Software Disasters Often People Problems (Monty Solomon) Re: Toll Free Number Registry? (CrowT) Re: Paper Tape; Gates at Harvard (W Randolph Franklin) Re: Cell Phone Incident Results in DC Metro Arrest (Tony P.) Re: Vonage Upgrades Local Unlimited Calling Plan (Dave Close) Re: Cell Phone Attracts Lightning? (Gary Novosielski) Re: Voicepulse Disconnects Remote Computers (Michael D. Sullivan) Re: Punch Card Machines (was What is the Name of #? (Doug Faunt N6TQS) Re: Voice PRI T1 vs CAS (Henry Cabot Henhouse III) Re: What is the Name of #? How did # Get its Name? (Paul Sawyer) Re: More on "Social Activists" and Public Utilities (Henry) Re: Cell Phone Attracts Lightning? (Paul Vader) Re: Cell Phone Attracts Lightning? (SELLCOM Tech support) Re: AT&T Lowers Price on Internet Calling Service (Truth) Re: Wrong Address For 911 Caller a Tragic Ordeal (Lisa Hancock) Re: Wrong Address For 911 Caller a Tragic Ordeal (Dave VanHorn) All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 5 Oct 2004 13:03:29 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: T-Mobile HotSpot 802.1x Security Standard T-Mobile HotSpot Customers Get More Security as Wi-Fi Leader Rolls Out 802.1x Across Nationwide HotSpot Network Enhanced Security Expected to be Tipping Point for Corporate Adoption of Wi-Fi T-Mobile USA announced today that it is the only US wireless carrier to provide both Wi-Fi users and corporate IT managers additional peace-of-mind for wireless broadband data security due to the implementation of the 802.1x security standard across the nationwide T-Mobile HotSpot wireless network.(a) With this enhancement to its existing security practices, T-Mobile not only reinforces that it is the premium brand for Wi-Fi, but again delivers an industry first to the US market -- being the first national wireless carrier to deploy 802.1x. The 802.1x standard provides one of the highest degrees of Wi-Fi security commercially available by encrypting and helping protect the wireless broadband signal between a laptop and/or PDA and the network's wireless access point or antennae. Customers will enjoy a higher degree of security at more than 4,700 T-Mobile HotSpot locations and, in turn, will have more opportunities to access their corporate information, or what matters most, all while wireless. This enhanced security is just one more layer of reliability to a Wi-Fi offering that already includes: - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=44058490 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Oct 2004 13:00:33 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Software Disasters Often People Problems By MATTHEW FORDAHL AP Technology Writer SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) -- New software at Hewlett-Packard Co. was supposed to get orders in and out the door faster at the computer giant. Instead, a botched deployment cut into earnings in a big way in August and executives got fired. Last month, a system that controls communications between commercial jets and air traffic controllers in southern California shut off because some maintenance had not been performed. A backup also failed, triggering potential peril. Computer code foul-ups also recently held Tacoma, Wash.'s budget hostage, delayed financial aid to university students in Indiana and caused retailer Ross Stores Inc.'s profits to plummet 40 percent after a merchandise-tracking system failed. Such disasters are often blamed on bad software, but the cause is rarely bad programming. As systems grow more complicated, failures instead have far less technical explanations: bad management, communication or training. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=44061405 ------------------------------ From: dcs@mail.myacc.net (CrowT) Subject: Re: Toll Free Number Registry? Date: 4 Oct 2004 20:29:49 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Thank you both for your responses! [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I assume you got in touch with Judith and she either found you an appropriate word phrase for your existing 800 number -- or she is otherwise helping you sort it all out. PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Paper Tape; Gates at Harvard From: W Randolph Franklin Date: Tue, 05 Oct 2004 00:33:06 GMT I was there. Harvard did not have a CS Dept. The CS program, called, IIRC, the Center for Research in Computing Technology, was a little piece of the Division of Engineering and Applied Physics, which, despite its name, did little Engineering. The CRTC, like most good CS programs, used DEC HW. In the mid 1970s, the machine room had some obsolete PDP-1s, a PDP-KA-10, and some PDP-11s. There were also some PDP-8s around. The PDP-10 was paid by DARPA, and was on the original ARPANET. DEC equipment, including all those machines, used paper tapes, not punch cards. IIRC, Gates used the PDP-10 (and maybe other machines), and so could have used its paper tape reader. In 1973, Harvard students also had accounts on a commercial timesharing PDP-10. The I/O was a teletype with paper tape. Even then, the Aiken machine was obsolete and nonfunctional. How to use paper tape on a bare machine: 0. Turn machine on. 1. Toggle in the bootstrap loader using front panel switches. 2. Read the paper tape containing the text editor. 3. Read the paper tape with your program. 4. Edit it using the TECO editor on the teletype. 5. Punch out the new version of your program. 6. Read in the tape containing the assembler. 7. Read in your program, perhaps twice for a 2-pass assembler. 8. Punch out your assembled program. 9. Read in your assembled program. 10. Execute. 11. Debug with the front panel switches. 12. Go to step 2. W. Randolph Franklin ------------------------------ From: Tony P. Subject: Re: Cell Phone Incident Results in DC Metro Arrest Organization: ATCC Date: Tue, 05 Oct 2004 02:01:08 GMT In article , hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com says: > Michael Quinn wrote >> Sakinah Aaron was walking into the bus area at the Wheaton Metro >> station several weeks ago, talking loudly on her Motorola cell >> phone. A little too loudly for Officer George Saoutis of the Metro >> Transit Police. >> The police officer told Aaron, who is five months pregnant, to lower >> her voice. She told the officer he had no right to tell her how to >> speak into her cell phone. > I think the police were correct and the woman was wrong. It would've > been quite easy for her to simply lower her voice, but she chose to > make a big deal out of it. Instead of placing the blame on the woman, place it on the crappy cell phones we have. The side tone is nearly absent on almost every cell phone I've used over the years. > In the old days -- when I was a kid in public school -- part of our > education was good manners that we were expected to display at all > times. I guess today it's somehow a violation of personal expression > to teach and expect good manners. Somehow too many people today > _erroneously_ think they have all sorts of "rights" that include being > obnoxious and a nuisance to other people. Interesting. I started elementary school in 1970 and even then you could see social skills breaking down. Fortunately I wasn't in a public school so it was a bit different. > So, today enforcing manners becomes a law enforcement issue, complete > with arrests, citations, and fines. It's a shame it has come to that. Indeed it does. Part of it is taking away the parents power to discipline. > I'd like to point out that some years ago the NYC subway system was a > mess from deviant behavior. The police were unable to do anything > because social activists successfully sued the police claiming the > disruptive behaviors were actually constituionally protected free > speech or the police efforts were discriminatory. The NYC subway mgmt > put together a psgr rule book that meets the constitutional muster and > discourages disruptive behavior and is now enforceable. The bad thing > is that they removed any kind of discretion and had to make the rules > they were allowed to enforce very strict. Bottom line -- the social > activists who claim they are protecting our rights get so extremely > and end up taking rights away from us. A rule BOOK? Wow -- who knew there were that many rules. RIPTA has very few rules but they're violated every day. What ever happened to the common courtesy of offering the elderly or those who are pregnant, etc. a seat on a bus? I've seen a few old folks speak up about it and I so want to cheer them on when they do. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Maybe so, Lisa. I will suggest however, > that 'disorderly conduct' and other such open-ended, define them as > you go along laws are a police officer's best friend, because there is > not a person in the world who cannot be guilty of 'disorderly conduct' > if an officer decides to make them so. I say thank god for 'social > activists' (as you called them) who look out for the rights of the > rest of us. PAT] Sort of like the Failure to Move statute we have here in Providence. It can be applied to all sorts of situations. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Chicago Police have a good one for you, where any gathering of individuals (except those the police approve of, of course) can be defined as a 'mob action', and police can order an immediate dispersal or the 'mob' is subject to arrest, etc. So if police tell you to 'move along' you best do so. Trouble is, it was found to be unconstitutional, since the way the law was written it could apply to church groups, sports groups, political assemblies, etc. Mayor Daley was quite indignant: "well, I didn't mean a church group, or people at Wrigley Field or the Republican convention." ACLU told him "yeah, we know what you meant; you were talking about groups of young black men standing on street corners, so say what you meant." Well of course, Daley and his racist police would not dare to say what they really meant. City Council has tried to pass that 'no loitering' ordinance now five or six times (rephrasing it slightly each time) and it has gotten shot down each time by ACLU and others. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 4 Oct 2004 20:52:20 -0700 From: Dave Close Subject: Re: Vonage Upgrades Local Unlimited Calling Plan to Premium Date: 4 Oct 2004 20:48:33 -0700 Organization: Compata, Costa Mesa, California Dave Garland writes: > Let us know when all numbers within the NANP can be dialed without any > charge other than that for local phone service. /I/ can dial all calls to anywhere in the US or Canada without extra charge. The Caribbean is extra. I dial all of them as 11 digits, both on my Sprint PCS and my Vonage lines. I could dial them the same way on my SBC wireline, but I do get dinged extra for most so I don't. This pricing scheme is still leading edge, from VOIP and cell companies primarily. But does anyone here doubt that it will become the standard way to price phone calls soon? The only extra expense for the telco in providing long-distance is the cost of keeping track so they can bill. (Yes, I know about call termination charges. I contend that they are essentially a wash for most large companies, and wouldn't even exist without regulatory and tax imperatives. Like the Internet, telcos should charge each other for connections and maximum usage, not per minute.) Some might respond that, sure, the calls don't cost extra but the monthly rate is higher. With most cell plans, that may be true. But except for nominally means-tested rates, the lowest unlimited local wireline rate offered by SBC in my area comes in at about $16.70 per month (including taxes which seem to change every month). I believe the lowest rate from Verizon is about $15 higher. The Vonage rate is $16.94 per month, everything included. That's not much of a difference from SBC, and it's a lot lower than Verizon. Use three minutes of local toll calls per month on SBC and you'd exceed the Vonage charge. I think it's time to get the state regulators out of the business of setting pricing and dialing plans. There is no reason why every wireline company should have to use the same calling areas. And if they didn't, there would be no rational excuse for mandating a dialing plan, either. The market should decide the appropriate dialing plans. Now that we have real choice for local service -- including cell and VOIP companies -- if you don't like the dialing plan enough, you can change providers. But the fact is that most of us use more than one dialing plan now. The only reliable method that should work on all of them is 11 digits. And except for places like Texas, which stupidly won't allow 11 for a wireline "local" call, it does work for nearly all companies and plans. Some of you may worry about using a phone not your own. But if you think that mandating a uniform dialing plan will protect you or the phone's owner, consider that the phone may well be subscribed to a VOIP account. You can't depend on state dialing plan regulation right now. Note, I didn't say the regulators should not control actual prices, just pricing plans. I'd rather the agencies didn't even exist, but we do need some transition plan to get to that point. Unfortunately, I am not aware of any regulator with a plan to phase itself out of existence. Dave Close, Compata, Costa Mesa CA "You can't go to Windows Update dave@compata.com, +1 714 434 7359 and get a patch for stupidity." dhclose@alumni.caltech.edu -- Kevin Mitnick ------------------------------ From: Gary Novosielski Subject: Re: Cell Phone Attracts Lightning? Date: Tue, 05 Oct 2004 04:27:54 GMT Truth wrote: > Nonsense! > If he was holding a carrot, the same thing would have happened. It's also quite likely that the carrot would have exploded. ------------------------------ From: Michael D. Sullivan Subject: Re: Voicepulse Disconnects Remote Computers When Phone is Used Date: Tue, 05 Oct 2004 04:50:04 GMT In article , dave.garland@wizinfo.com says: > It was a dark and stormy night when PAT wrote: >> Does anyone know how to patch two routers together if four holes is >> not enough? Or is that even possible? > You don't want another router, you want either a hub or a switch (in > your usage, it doesn't really matter which, you can get a cheap switch > for $20, a hub, which is less sophisticated, should be even less). Your > router apparently has a 4-port one built in. The new one will need > either a crossover cable to connect it to the router, or often the last > port is (or can be set to be) a crossover port, in which case you can > use a regular patch cord. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This is the second suggestion. The > first suggestion, in the last issue of the Digest, was to make sure > the DHCP on one of the routers was turned off. I will ask at Radio > Shack when I go downtown tomorrow about hubs and switches. I am not > sure what the difference is between a 'hub' and a 'switch' and why > one of those would be better than using another router but 'with the > DHCP turned off on it'. If you would like everything to operate on a single network, without separate subnets, you don't want another router, you want a hub or, preferably, a switch. If you use a hub or switch, all of your devices will be on a single subnet, and you will be able to use file and printer sharing without undue difficulty. All of the devices will use addresses from the same IP subnet, such as 192.168.168.xxx, assigned by the single router via DHCP if you choose. There is only one router doing NAT. If you daisy-chain routers, even if one has DCHP turned off, you will still most likely be doing NAT twice, and you may not to use file and printer sharing between devices on router #1 and those on router #2 (unless there are some work-arounds). If you can turn NAT off on the additional router, as well as DHCP, you will have turned a $50 router into a $20 switch, at best. The difference between a hub and a switch is that a hub sends all traffic from any port to all other ports, while a switch sends traffic only to the port that the traffic that has the relevant IP address. For the most part, this is not a big deal, but its primary significance for the home user is that if you have a couple of devices that have fast ethernet NICs, they can transfer data between them at 100 MB/s even if there are other devices communicating at 10 MB/s because they only have standard ethernet cards. With a hub, if there is slow traffic, all other traffic slows down, too. At least that's my understanding of it; engineers can feel free to correct the details. > Still a third suggestion which was made to me in a conversation a > few minutes ago was to get one or two more wireless cards and use > those instead, making certain of course to have them on separate > channels and telling the NetGear router to only respond to > instructions from the (names of those PCMCIA wireless cards). After > all, the wireless router I have now can handle DHCP assignments from > .2 through .51 (.1 is the gateway, the router itself) and I am only > using at present .2 through .6 (.2 through .5 are the four ports or > holes on the back of the box and .6 is my sole existing wireless > card.) I find it difficult to believe that a router would assign separate IP addresses to its own ports. The way DHCP works is that a device (e.g., computer, router, etc.) asks the server (i.e., the router) for assignment of an IP address. The ports on the back of the router are actually connected to a hub or switch inside the box, which in turn is connected to the router. These should not need or be assigned IP addresses. If you had four devices connected to the four ports that use DHCP, when these devices are booted up they will ask for IP address "leases." IP addresses will be assigned from the pool of DHCP dynamic addresses (unless you have told the router to associate "static" DHCP addresses with particular MAC addresses) in the order in which they make their requests. So if the device connected to port 4 boots up first, it will get address .2, then if the device connected to port 1 boots up, it will get address .3, etc. > And speaking of wireless routers and cards: I was priding myself on > probably being the only person in my immediate neighborhood with such > a card, thus not to worry about people driving down the street deciding > they wanted to stop and 'check their email'. And Hotwire and other > directory services of public wi-fi has nothing listed for zip code > 67301 which is all of Independence. The nearest *public* wi-fi is in > Wichita (110 miles northwest) or Tulsa (80 miles south). So yesterday, > Sunday, I was out and about on my block, in front of my house sitting > on the cement ledge there when I finally lost my signal (I think I > mentioned how a couple of mods got me up to speed: I put up a little > tin foil reflector behind my single rubber ducky antenna, and I > re-installed the router software and told it I was in *Asia* instead > of in the USA, presto I can now get over all my house and into my back > yard.) But I tried it yesterday in front of my house on the street > and the sidewalk out there. I finally lost my own signal, but when I > looked at 'site survey' I found a neighbor listed! hahahahaha, and > giving almost as much of a push power-wise as mine started giving once > I moved to *Asia* and constructed my flimsy little EZ-10 tin foil and > cardboard reflector. > I tracked the signal down to being right across the street from me Amazing how Asia is just across the street from Independence, KS, USA. It's a small world, after all. It's a small world after all. It's a small world after all. It's a small, small world. (Now you won't be able to get that Disney tune out of your head, haha!) Of course, Pat, I assume you were just kidding about setting your wireless router to Asia and using channels that are forbidden in the U.S., which would be illegal. Just like going 70 in a 55 zone. Nobody would advocate that. ß^:)> Michael D. Sullivan Bethesda, MD, USA Delete nospam from my address and it won't work. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This is all just theoretical of course. No, I would never advocate driving 70 in a 55 mile per hour zone, nor configuring some radio device to think it was is Asia when it really was in Kansas, and per chance put out a hundred milliwatts of RF were it was not allowed. So just speaking theoretically *why* does NetGear warn users to be careful about selecting their country when setting up the wireless router? The two variables seem to be the *frequency* and the *output power*? Am I overlooking some other variable? I assumed 802.11 always meant 802.11 on frequency, therefore the only other variable was power and where one country allowed 3/10ths of a hundred milliwatts output another place allowed a full hundred milliwatts. What am I overlooking here? Otherwise why would NetGear bother to splash a screen at you asking "are you sure you are living in that place?" and warning you severely not to get mixed up. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Doug Faunt N6TQS +1-510-655-8604 Subject: Re: Punch Card Machines (was What is the Name of #? Date: 05 Oct 2004 01:07:54 -0400 Organization: at home, in Oakland, California Julian Thomas writes: > This is correct. >> Also, most IBM lines of keypunches included printing and non printing >> models, and the non-printers were cheaper. > Also correct (I'm not sure there was a non-printing 12x model -- these > were the ones with a nicer keyboard introduced around 1960?). > Duplication of binary cards with the printing turned on was strongly > discourages, since it wrecked the printing mechanism (a matrix printer > with a Rube Goldberg mechanical character generation mechanism). We certainly kept an 024 around for duping column binary cards. And the IBM FE's hated it. 73, doug ------------------------------ From: Henry Cabot Henhouse III Subject: Re: Voice PRI T1 vs CAS Date: Tue, 5 Oct 2004 05:24:26 -0700 The prices we pay for channelized T1 and PRI from a local CLEC are very similar, where you get dinged is on a channelized T1 you pay 24x the EUCL... on a PRI, it's 5 or 7x. Dave jaarons wrote in message news:telecom23.469.4@telecom-digest.org: > Is there a price difference between a Voice PRI T1 (ESF/B8ZS/23 > channels) and a Voice PRI CAS (24 channels D4/AMI, Wink). About 8-10 > years ago a telco voice PRI was billed at a higher rate. I don't > think PRIs are charged premium rates anymore. Can anyone attest to > this? ------------------------------ From: Paul Sawyer Subject: Re: What is the Name of #? How did # Get its Name? Date: Tue, 5 Oct 2004 12:42:59 UTC Organization: Me kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) wrote in news:telecom23.468.4@telecom- digest.org: > [...] > Does anyone, by the way, have any specs on the proprietary Datapoint > programming languages? I keep meaning to look for manuals to torture > my students with. How evil! I may have some of the original books somewhere (that was almost 30 years ago!) The DATABUS language started out proprietary to Datapoint, but seems to have evolved into PL/B, which is an ANSI standard. One source: http://www.mmcctech.com/pl-b/plb-0100.htm Good luck! ------------------------------ From: henry999@eircom.net (Henry) Subject: Re: More on "Social Activists" and Public Utilities Date: Tue, 5 Oct 2004 16:02:59 +0300 Organization: Elisa Internet customer Lisa Hancock wrote: > social activists ... are incompetent, have hidden agendas, and do > more harm than good for the people. Aside from the fact, as another respondent noted, that this is an overgeneralisation, it is an extremely naive one at that. How do you think the world ever gets better? Here is a little story you would do well to read, about one day in the life of "Mr. & Mrs. Conservative". http://www.e-thepeople.org/article/35475/view?viewtype= quote: Get up at 6:AM to prepare morning coffee. The water they fill the pot with is cleaner because liberals fought for minimum clean water standards. They take daily medication with the first swallow of coffee. Presumably medications are safer to take because some liberal fought to insure their safety and that they work as advertised. All but $10.00 of their medications are paid for by his employers medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance, now Mr. & Mrs. Conservative enjoy those benefits too. They take their morning showers reaching for the shampoo. Today the bottle is better labeled with ingredients because some liberal fought for the right to know what they are putting on their bodies. After Mr. & Mrs. dress they walk outside and take a deep breath. The air is cleaner because some tree hugging liberal fought for laws to stop industries from polluting our air. They walk to the subway station for the government-subsidized ride to work; it saves them considerable money in parking and transportation fees. You see, some liberal fought for affordable public transportation. They start the workday; they have good jobs with excellent pay, medical benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some liberal union members fought and died for these working standards. If Mr. or Mrs. Conservative is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed they will get workers' compensation or an unemployment check because some Liberal didn't think he should lose his home because of his temporary misfortune. It's noon, Mr. Conservative needs to make a Bank Deposit so he can pay some bills. His deposit is federally insured by the FSLIC because some liberal wanted to protect people's money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the depression. Mr. & Mrs. Conservative have to pay the Fannie Mae underwritten mortgage and a below market federal student loan because some stupid liberal decided people and the government would be better off if they were educated and earned more money over his life-time. Mr. Conservative is home from work. He plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive to Dad's; his car is among the safest in the world because some liberal fought for car safety standards. He arrives at his boyhood home. He was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers Home Administration because bankers didn't want to make rural loans. The house didn't have electricity until some big government liberal stuck his nose where it didn't belong and demanded rural electrification. (Those rural conservatives would still be sitting in the dark!) He is happy to see his dad who is now retired. His dad lives on Social Security and his union pension because some liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Mr. Conservative wouldn't have to. After his visit with Dad he gets back in his car for the ride home. He turns on a radio talk show, the host keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. (He doesn't say that his beloved Republicans have fought against every protection and benefit Mr. Conservative enjoys throughout his day) Mr. & Mrs. Conservative agree. We don't need those big government liberals ruining our lives; after all, we are self made and believe that everyone should take care of themselves, just like we have. ------------------------------ From: pv+usenet@pobox.com (Paul Vader) Subject: Re: Cell Phone Attracts Lightning? Date: Tue, 05 Oct 2004 15:05:25 -0000 Organization: Inline Software Creations Rick Merrill writes: > Perfectly reasonable: the antenna was the highest point and the cell > phone was the path of least resistance, which is all it takes. *Perhaps* a cellphone in a hand might be a path of least resistance - thought I doubt it - most of them are made of plastic. But I can't say I've seen any cellphone made in the last decade where the antenna would be the highest point on a person - they're little stubby things. Maybe if it was a satphone ... More likely, the cellphone was IN the path that the strike took, and the battery blew up because of that. * * PV something like badgers--something like lizards--and something like corkscrews. ------------------------------ From: SELLCOM Tech support Subject: Re: Cell Phone Attracts Lightning? Organization: www.sellcom.com Reply-To: support@sellcom.com Date: Tue, 05 Oct 2004 16:09:51 GMT Truth posted on that vast internet thingie: > If he was holding a carrot, the same thing would have happened. I think we can put this to bed with a sound piece of advice to anyone concerned. Can we find agreement here? Do not stand out in lightning storms whether or not you are holding any object. (Note to students: The guy holding the kite string is dead, that's right DEAD! as is his photographer!) Steve at SELLCOM [Please insert your favorite dislclaimer here and agree to all terms and conditions and EULA for reading this post. ] http://www.sellcom.com Discount multihandset cordless phones by Siemens, AT&T, Panasonic, Motorola Vtech 5.8Ghz; TMC ET4000 4line Epic phone, OnHoldPlus, Beamer, Watchguard! Brick wall "non MOV" surge protection. Uniden 2line 5.8GHz cordless If you sit at a desk www.ergochair.biz you owe it to yourself. ------------------------------ From: Truth Organization: http://www.x.com Subject: Re: AT&T Lowers Price on Internet Calling Service Date: Tue, 05 Oct 2004 17:02:51 GMT > AT&T Corp on Thursday on Thursday said it was lowering the price on > its CallVantage Internetcalling service by $5 per month, matching > the price from several other suppliers. I remember about 10 years ago talking to people around the world over the internet for free with shareware programs in which you just enter in the other person's ip address and you could talk through the microphone and speakers for free for hours while putting up pictures on your monitors and pointing to things with the mouse for the other person to see. Why would anyone pay when we have the ability to talk over the internet for free? ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Jeff nor Lisa) Subject: Re: Wrong Address For 911 Caller a Tragic Ordeal Date: 5 Oct 2004 10:35:52 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Jack Decker wrote > Finally, 5-month-old Christopher Vasquez stopped breathing, and Staats > let out a piercing, terror-filled scream. He died moments later, > shortly after an ambulance was dispatched -- a little over four minutes > after Staats made her call. In a situation like this, I'm not sure anything could've been done to save the baby. Even in ideal situations, 911 has to take down information, then dispatch an ambulance. The ambulance crews must get their things and drive over, all of which takes a few minutes depending on traffic and how far the home is from the ambulance garage. One of the articles mentioned the person lives in an "unincorproated area". Perhaps that is a limitation on services at her particular location. I am not familiar with the geography out there. > Now, Staats has sued her telephone company, Comcast, and two other > companies, claiming that because they put the wrong address for her > phone number into the 911 system, her son died that day in the spring > of 2003. I don't understand why her address wasn't correct in the system. Doesn't the phone company need an address for billing purposes, and wouldn't it use that by default (unless told otherwise)? I'm unclear on why it took so long to transfer the call to the proper 911 center. When I call 911 on my cell phone, it usually goes across the state line since that is the nearest tower. But the other state can quickly transfer me to the right place. Many people have moved to the suburbs expecting the same public safety services they had in the city or old suburb. In some cases they are actually better, but in others they may be worse. In places where there's a lot of new housing, fire and rescue may lag behind to meet the new demand. The article mentioned Colorado, and I understand there has been tremendous growth in once wide-open rural areas. > Staats may not be alone in having the 911 problem. There are a lot of problems with 911 nationwide for a variety of reasons. First off, is "911" even universal nationwide? Secondly, is enhanced 911 that shows the caller's address universal nationwide? Another problem with rapid nomadic suburban growth is that people actually don't know where they specifically live. That is, their region may have a general name or post office, but it may not be the same of their specific munipality that provides rescue service. Addresses may be repeated throughout a county. Our county had a person's house burn down pre-E911 because the resident didn't know this information. Recall years ago suburban/rural telephone directories had charts in the front for fire/rescue/police numbers specific to municipalities, and those residents would note such numbers prominently near their phone. The articles weren't clear whether the woman had VOIP or landline service, but I don't think it should matter since she was at home; unless VOIP isn't providing that information to E911 officials. ------------------------------ From: Dave VanHorn Subject: Re: Wrong Address For 911 Caller a Tragic Ordeal Date: Tue, 5 Oct 2004 12:48:29 -0500 > Dave VanHorn wrote: >> Given that houses don't often move, why not go with a fixed IP, and >> tie the IP to the address (as it probably already is, in the billing >> records). > I'd have to say this is going to be unlikely for a number of reasons. > Some broadband providers like the idea of being able to recycle unused > IP addresses on short notice (DSL with PPPoE is a notorious example). > And some carriers, such as Patriot Media, decided to build out their > networks the quick-and-dirty way, using what amounts to NAT gateways for > streets and whole city blocks and allocating private address space > within that subnet. > It also runs counter to current trends, where even standard phone > numbers are starting to get divorced from their geographical regions. > The New York Times did a piece on this recently: > http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/01/nyregion/01code.html?oref=login Isn't that what databases are for? As you point out, GPS is somewhat broken for this, and somewhat overkill as well. I don't see a fundamental reason that IPs can't be tied to the service address in a database. ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. 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