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TELECOM Digest Fri, 4 Mar 2005 18:04:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 95 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Telecom Update (Canada) #471, March 4, 2005 (John Riddell) Vonage (Henry Cabot Henhouse III) Re: Voom Goes Boom (Isaiah Beard) Re: Vonage's Citron Says VoIP Blocking Is 'Censorship' (Isaiah Beard) Re: Vonage's Citron Says VoIP Blocking Is 'Censorship' (Dean) Re: Vonage's Citron Says VoIP Blocking Is 'Censorship' (Chas. Cryderman) Municipal WiFi and Incumbents (Dean) Re: FCC Reaches Telco Settlement Regards Blocking VOIP (jmeissen) Re: Nokia 6010 Reporting in to Mama - Radio Interference (John Levine) Re: New Monopoly in Department Stores (Bill Ranck) Re: Nokia 6010 Reporting in to Mama - Radio Interference? (Isaiah Beard) Re: Phone Prefix 620-924 (Isaiah Beard) Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. 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: Fri, 04 Mar 2005 16:00:32 -0500 From: John Riddell <jriddell@angustel.ca> Subject: Telecom Update (Canada) #471, March 4, 2005 ************************************************************ TELECOM UPDATE ************************************************************ published weekly by Angus TeleManagement Group http://www.angustel.ca Number 471: March 4, 2005 Publication of Telecom Update is made possible by generous financial support from: ** ALLSTREAM: www.allstream.com ** AVAYA: www.avaya.ca/en/ ** BELL CANADA: www.bell.ca ** CISCO SYSTEMS CANADA: www.cisco.com/ca/ ** ERICSSON: www.ericsson.ca ** MITEL NETWORKS: www.mitel.com/ ** SPRINT CANADA: www.sprint.ca ** UTC CANADA: www.canada.utc.org/ ************************************************************ IN THIS ISSUE: ** Richard French Named CRTC Vice-Chair ** Nortel Shakes Up Executive Suite ** Virgin Mobile Begins Service ** 450 to Get 10-Digit Dialing ** CAIP Organizes to Influence Telecom Review ** Shaw Plans Cellphone Service ** Plaintiffs Against BCE/BCI Lose Appeal ** Nortel Gets Another Extension ** Aliant Expands Broadband Access ** Survey Shows User Support for Wireless Portability ============================================================ RICHARD FRENCH NAMED CRTC VICE-CHAIR: Richard French has been appointed head of the CRTC's telecom branch, replacing Vice- Chairman David Colville, who retired in December. French, a former Bell Canada executive and Quebec cabinet minister, more recently held posts with Bombardier in Germany and Tata Communications in India. ** Rita Cugini has been named a full-time member of the Commission representing Ontario. NORTEL SHAKES UP EXECUTIVE SUITE: Nortel Networks has named Gary Daichendt, currently a Cisco Systems EVP, as President and COO, effective March 14. Bill Owens, now President and CEO, will become Vice-Chairman and CEO. Newly appointed CFO Peter Currie will assume the additional post of Executive VP. Pascal Debon will become special advisor to Owens. VIRGIN MOBILE BEGINS SERVICE: Virgin Mobile Canada, a joint venture of Richard Branson's Virgin Group and Bell Mobility, launched its youth-oriented prepaid wireless service in Ontario and Quebec March 2. Airtime price: 25 cents/minute for the first five minutes; then 15 cents/minute. Phone prices start at $99. ** Twelve days earlier, Bell Mobility lowered its prepaid airtime price to 30 cents/minute for the first two minutes and 5 cents/minute thereafter. 450 TO GET 10-DIGIT DIALING: Following a public consultation, the CRTC has decided to apply 10-digit local dialing to area code 450, serving the Montreal region, beginning in October 2006. (See Telecom Update #451, 466) CAIP ORGANIZES TO INFLUENCE TELECOM REVIEW: The Canadian Association of Internet Providers says it will launch TelecomAct Campaign as a vehicle to "advance recommendations and react to proposed changes" with regard to the federal government's review of telecom policy (see Telecom Update #470). Contact Joanne Stanley at 613-236-6550. www.caip.ca SHAW PLANS CELLPHONE SERVICE: According to published reports, CEO Jim Shaw says that Shaw Communications plans to offer wireless service in about six months. PLAINTIFFS AGAINST BCE/BCI LOSE APPEAL: The Supreme Court of Canada has dismissed an appeal by plaintiffs in a $1-billion suit against BCI and BCE. The suit was previously dismissed by Ontario Court of Appeal. (See Telecom Update #415) NORTEL GETS ANOTHER EXTENSION: Nortel Networks has received court permission to delay its 2004 annual meeting to the end of June -- the fourth extension of this deadline. Nortel plans to file its 2004 results by the end of April. ALIANT EXPANDS BROADBAND ACCESS: Aliant says it will invest more than $35 million in 2005 to bring broadband connections to 90,000 more homes in Atlantic Canada. SURVEY SHOWS USER SUPPORT FOR WIRELESS PORTABILITY: A survey of Canadian wireless users by Solutions Research Group reports 79% support for introduction of Wireless Number Portability; 13% were opposed and only 8% not sure. Support was strongest among business users and youth. ============================================================ HOW TO SUBMIT ITEMS FOR TELECOM UPDATE E-MAIL: editors@angustel.ca FAX: 905-686-2655 MAIL: TELECOM UPDATE Angus TeleManagement Group 8 Old Kingston Road Ajax, Ontario Canada L1T 2Z7 =========================================================== HOW TO SUBSCRIBE (OR UNSUBSCRIBE) TELECOM UPDATE is provided in electronic form only. There are two formats available: 1. The fully-formatted edition is posted on the World Wide Web late Friday afternoon each week at www.angustel.ca 2. The e-mail edition is distributed free of charge. To subscribe, send an e-mail message to: join-telecom_update@nova.sparklist.com To stop receiving the e-mail edition, send an e-mail message to: leave-telecom_update@nova.sparklist.com Sending e-mail to these addresses will automatically add or remove the sender's e-mail address from the list. Leave subject line and message area blank. We do not give Telecom Update subscribers' e-mail addresses to any third party. For more information, see www.angustel.ca/update/privacy.html. =========================================================== COPYRIGHT AND CONDITIONS OF USE: All contents copyright 2005 Angus TeleManagement Group Inc. All rights reserved. For further information, including permission to reprint or reproduce, please e-mail rosita@angustel.ca or phone 905-686-5050 ext 500. The information and data included has been obtained from sources which we believe to be reliable, but Angus TeleManagement makes no warranties or representations whatsoever regarding accuracy, completeness, or adequacy. Opinions expressed are based on interpretation of available information, and are subject to change. If expert advice on the subject matter is required, the services of a competent professional should be obtained. ------------------------------ From: Henry Cabot Henhouse III <sooper_chicken@hotmail.com> Subject: Vonage Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2005 11:25:59 -0800 So, anyone else notice that Vonage has taken a dump? I've tried from a number of different networks, nada, zip, kerflunk. Busy when you navigate thru the voice mail, no response from the website, mungled voice response when you call their main number. Ya know, all this just to save $20 a month. I'm porting my number BACK to Verizon. At least they don't have these stupid VOIP outages and calls that sound like you're in a sfx chamber. Bah! ------------------------------ From: Isaiah Beard <sacredpoet@sacredpoet.com> Subject: Re: Voom Goes Boom Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2005 14:47:58 -0500 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Mark Crispin wrote: > On Wed, 2 Mar 2005, J Kelly wrote: >> I keep hearing a vocal minority whining about not enough HDTV >> available. If there are so many people interested in HDTV, explain >> how Voom only managed to convince around 40,000 suckers into signing >> up for their service. Now Voom has gone Boom. > Voom's service started out with a hefty (several hundred dollars) > investment required in equipment that would not be useful for anything > else. Aside from that and all the other drawbacks mentioned, it's important to realize that Voom was the pet project of Charles Dolan, chairman of Cablevision. The rest of Cablevision's board was not very happy having a cable provider own and operate a competing satellite carrier, so every attempt has been made by this board to kill off the company. Satellite radio started off with only a tiny niche market, and yet it lasted and has mushroomed into a promising industry because there no foes in the boradroom trying to kill it off. If Voom had the support, it likely would have succeeded in time, too. E-mail fudged to thwart spammers. Transpose the c's and a's in my e-mail address to reply. ------------------------------ From: Isaiah Beard <sacredpoet@sacredpoet.com> Subject: Re: Vonage's Citron Says VoIP Blocking Is 'Censorship' Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2005 15:05:33 -0500 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com > My local convenience store and drugstore carry certain newspapers, but > not all for my area. Does that mean they are _censoring_ the ones > they don't sell? According to Vonage they are. You comparison is overbroad and overreaching, and compares apples to oranges. I would think of it more this way: let's say that your phone company provider, be it Verizon or other LEC, decided that profanity should no longer be used on its phone lines, and installs special filters to capture and "bleep out" such speech. Would that be acceptable? Okay, you're a clean-talking person, and I can respect that. What if Verizon happened to be more, say, left leaning in who it favors politically, and every time you wanted to talk to someone about how great the president is, the connection would go dead, because Verizon doesn't want to carry that kind of traffic? Yet strangely, calls praising anyone of Democratic affiliation never have this problem. That would be a little odd, wouldn't it? Would that be acceptable? Of course, Verizon could say "If you don't like it, go find another phone carrier!," but gee, they've done a really good job of stifling competition lately, and your ISP happens to be blocking Vonage. Pity, that. Or! Even if we don't want to argue the constitutional route, let's go the technical route as to what are ethical business practices. Let's say that the local wireless provider installs a Motorola mobile telephone switch. Instantly, every phone in the network that isn't manufactured by Motorola gets lower connection priorities, are forced to transmit and receive in downsampled codes, miss calls, and calls that do make it through randomly drop, while all Motorola-branded phones are exhibiting remarkably crystal-clear reception. Would that be considered acceptable and ethical to you? E-mail fudged to thwart spammers. Transpose the c's and a's in my e-mail address to reply. ------------------------------ From: Dean <cjmebox-telecomdigest@yahoo.com> Subject: Re: Vonage's Citron Says VoIP Blocking Is 'Censorship' Date: 4 Mar 2005 12:37:16 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But Lisa, see the two earlier messages > in this issue on this topic (Jack Decker and Danny Burstein). It > would appear the 'government' in the form of the FCC *did* get > involved in this 'censorship' case, and after a friendly chat and a > fine, the ISP had a change of attitude. And unlike at your place of > employment, where someone else is paying the bill, here we have a > public service where presumably the customers are paying the bill for > the type of service they wish to receive. PAT] Yes Pat, but it didn't do it on the basis of the 1st Amendment. As I understand it, the fine was to preserve "Net Freedom" (Powell's term) and although I like it, I still don't understand the legal basis for this action. It seems to me the Telco's ought to be concerned about this because if there is now a "must carry" rule for VoIP traffic, what happens when they start to offer TV/video? Will they be forced to allow competing networks to service their customers? (I don't mean specific channels because the analogy breaks down there). In other words, can I have an SBC broadband connection and bypass SBC's future TV offering to get my TV service (over that same broadband connection) from "PatTV"? If that's the case doesn't SBC lose some of its incentive to push broadband? (I presume the profit margin for the TV service will be much higher than for the access service, so that's where they'll expect to make their money, right?) Regards, Dean ------------------------------ Subject: Vonage's Citron Says VoIP Blocking Is 'Censorship' Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2005 15:49:19 -0500 From: Charles Cryderman <Charles.Cryderman@globalcrossing.com> > The concept of "freedom of speech" is that the _govt_ can't stop you > from speaking. It does not mean that someone has to provide you with the > soapbox or bullhorn from which to speak. When it comes to that, you're > on your own. I totally agree with this. But remember the courts do as they please. A case in point. A very religious married couple in Ann Arbor, Michigan owned a apartment building. Because of their religious beliefs, chose not to rent to un-married persons. Now this was private property and their religious beliefs told them not to, but the courts ruled that they were in violation of the law. So in essence the court said, your right to do as you wish with you private property and to follow your religious teaching do not exists. What takes precedent, the Constitution or laws made by Congress? I was taught that nothing supersedes the Constitution yet the courts do it all the time. > As somene else here pointed out, the VOIP industry had a big > celebration when it was recently determined that they're not under > regulation -- they don't have any of the burdens the traditional phone > companies have which saves them a heck of a lot of money and > aggravation. But now the VOIP people want to impose those very same > regulations on others. Seems rather unfair to me. See this a misconception that the VoIP providers do not have to follow some regulations. What they want to insure is that they do not have to collect a bunch of crap taxes and fees per line. In my opinion none of the companies should be forced to do this. But these providers do pay into these. For the lines that they install to terminate to they are paying E911, sales tax and into the universal service fund. Just not for the customer access side. Why? because the law requires these fees based on a telephone line, not access to making telephone calls. > Someone asked the telecom director of my employer while we don't "save > money and use VOIP". The director replied > emphatically that the Internet is NOT free -- having it requires routers > and servers and networking and all of that comes at a cost. Adding VOIP > on an enterprise-wide basis would add quite a load said installation and > increase its cost. Your telecom director is correct and wrong. Yes, it cost money for the internet access, but less then having the telephone lines. The cost to set this up in a business environment is very high. The Cisco telephones alone cost about $150.00 each from what I understand. Then of course the routers and other items cost. For business they have to decide the payback. If they are only being billed a few hundred dollars a month the hardware cost alone could make it unwise. But if you company is being bill a few thousand a month I would recommend that it be looked at. If the payback is less then a year or two they should go with VoIP. I would even go as far as to say, borrow to do it. > Right now VOIP is a novelty, but if and when a lot of people start > using it I suspect the bandwidth to carry all that chatter will be > consequential and drive up ISP costs. VoIP maybe a novelty to you, but for my employer it is what we are doing. Billions of minuets per month are going across our VoIP network and we are adding more everyday. So much so that we have removed good old fashion TDM switches and plan to have them all gone as soon as we can. VoIP is no more a novelty today then the internet. There are some that have no access or desire for the internet and see it as a novelty, the opposite is true for VoIP. Within the next 5 to 10 years, other then the slow pokes at the LECs no one will have TDM switches in their networks. Our Esteemed Moderator posted: > But Lisa, see the two earlier messages in this issue on this topic > (Jack Decker and Danny Burstein). It would appear the 'government' > in the form of the FCC *did* get involved in this 'censorship' case, > and after a friendly chat and a fine, the ISP had a change of > attitude. And unlike at your place of employment, where someone else > is paying the bill, here we have a public service where presumably > the customers are paying the bill for the type of service they wish > to receive. Did you notice as well, Pat that all along we have been talking about a ISP doing this. It wasn't, it was a regulated telephone company that did it. So all the brew-ha-ha about ISPs wanting freedom from regulation had nothing to do with it after all. Chip Cryderman ------------------------------ From: Dean <cjmebox-telecomdigest@yahoo.com> Subject: Municipal Wi-FI and Incumbents Date: 4 Mar 2005 13:38:18 -0800 This is from yesterday's Guardian. It includes an interesting juxtaposition of Verizon's and BT's positions on municipal Wi-Fi networks. http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/story/0,,1428626,00.html Excerpt: ........ So far, so good. But city hall soon ran into serious problems that could stifle the wireless dreams of municipalities across the world. US cable companies, which see citizen-funded networks as a threat to their commercial fiefdoms, backed a bill that effectively outlawed municipal wireless in the state of Pennsylvania. In December, the state passed a bill forbidding any municipality in the state from running an "information network". Only a last-minute deal with Verizon, the state's de facto monopoly provider of broadband, saved Philadelphia's vision. Verizon promised to allow the city's network, but at the expense of the rest of the state. At least 15 US states are considering similar telco-backed bills to ban municipal networks. To Dianah Neff, Philadelphia's chief information officer, municipal wireless is no mere luxury. Neff, a veteran public servant, sees municipal networks as a potential leveller in a city where 70% of state school children receive free school meals. "We have a vibrant downtown," she says, "but we need to make sure all our neighbourhoods can compete in the knowledge economy. .......... Chris Clark, chief executive for BT Wireless Broadband, said the UK's biggest broadband supplier would not be taking the same approach as Verizon. "The community wireless projects, which started in an environment of concern about rural service, are evolving into providing all sorts of innovative services," he says. "It would be a pity to see such innovation stifled. More recently, a number of metropolitan wireless projects have been in the pipeline. BT is fully supportive of these initiatives." TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: City of Independence was looking very favorably at muni-wi-fi for our town, but SBC -- Southwestern Bell -- put a kibosh on it, threatening to get the state commission to do a rule like that proposed for Pennsylvania. SBC did not like the idea at all of a community giving away for free the DSL service they charge an arm and a leg for. PAT] ------------------------------ From: jmeissen@aracnet.com Subject: Re: FCC Reaches Telco Settlement to Stop Blocking VOIP Date: 4 Mar 2005 21:54:18 GMT Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com In article <telecom24.94.12@telecom-digest.org>, <hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote: > Danny Burstein wrote: >> "We saw a problem, and we acted swiftly to ensure that Internet voice >> service remains a viable option for consumers", said FCC Chairman >> Michael K. Powell. > I don't understand. > Why couldn't the consumers simply switch to another ISP? Why did the > FCC have to intervene? It's not always that simple. Here in my high-tech haven in the Pacific Northwest Verizon has managed to price DSL service at a level which prevents other ISP's from competing for DSL broadband customers (the bare DSL circuit is 50% more than Verizon Online's monthly charge, without including any ISP charges). The ONLY other broadband choice is Comcast (cable), and there is NO choice of ISP with them. And you're not going to run VOIP over a dial-up connection. John Meissen jmeissen@aracnet.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: And some telcos -- such as SBC -- flatly refuse to sell DSL to anyone (other then their own customers with SBC phone service) at all. They know the handwriting is on the wall, and they are going to fight to the bitter end to hang on to their increasingly shrinking market. In Bell's arrogance they never used to have to put up with any competition to speak of; it had to be their way or no way at all, and they still like to act that way. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: 4 Mar 2005 22:04:32 -0000 From: John Levine <johnl@iecc.com> Subject: Re: Nokia 6010 Reporting in to Mama -- Radio Interference? Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA >> My new Nokia 6010 has an interesting and somewhat annoying habit. If >> it's anywhere within a 5 foot radius of my PC speakers, I can hear it >> periodically transmitting something ... > Now, _why_ this stuff is being picked up on the PC speakers -- that's > a whole nuther story. The little song that GSM phones sing seems to be in a low enough frequency range that it's picked up inductively by just about any audio system. My car has a shelf under the radio, and if I put the phone there, the radio picks up the song. Often on conference calls with speakerphones, we have to remind people not to put their GSM phones close to the phone because we'll all hear it singing. Regards, John R. Levine, IECC, POB 727, Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 330 5711 johnl@iecc.com, Mayor, http://johnlevine.com, Member, Provisional board, Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail ------------------------------ From: Bill Ranck <ranck@joesbar.cc.vt.edu> Subject: Re: New Monopoly in Dept Stores -- Federated and May Co to Merge Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2005 22:12:09 UTC Organization: Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia, USA hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote: > Second, the traditional old line dept stores actually had considerable > variety. The modern mgmt have eliminated a lot of departments and > special services. Gimbels, for example, had a scouting/camping dept, > art supplies dept, and bookstore. >> I think this sort of gradual fade into irrelevance is what terrifies >> the heads of Federated and (heavily-indebted) May. ... > It's their own fault, and merger won't fix it, anymore than merging > the Pennsylvania and New York Central railroads saved them. It seems obvious to me that the traditional, old line, department stores have been replaced by *malls*. No, it's not one big store with clothing, furniture, housewares, and whatnot all under one name, but effectively the malls today have all the same stuff in a series of small independent or chain stores under one roof. It's better in some ways because there will be competing stores in a mall selling similar merchandise, while a department store does not have competing departments. So, it seems that malls have both centralized and de-centalized the retail industry at the same time. The telecom industry seems to be working its way toward that same kind of situation. Bill Ranck Blacksburg, Va. ------------------------------ From: Isaiah Beard <sacredpoet@sacredpoet.com> Subject: Re: Nokia 6010 Reporting in to Mama -- Radio Interference? Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2005 15:09:28 -0500 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Ted Koppel wrote: > My new Nokia 6010 has an interesting and somewhat annoying habit. If > it's anywhere within a 5 foot radius of my PC speakers, I can hear it > periodically transmitting something (sort of a rhythmic > dum-diddy-dum-diddy-dum-dum-dum). Sounds like static, but definitely > with a paced rhythm. I haven't timed the intervals exactly, but it > seems to take place every 17-20 minutes. In a related activity, I > hear a big burst of static on my PC speakers, and then some rhythmic > noise, about 5-7 seconds before the cell phone begins to ring. > This is the first cell phone I've had that caused these noises. Do I > have a mutant phone? Is this anything to be concerned about? I've been noticing lately that a lot of the newer GSM phones are starting to do this. I worry that GSM handset manufacturers are starting to get a little bit careless in taking steps to avoid interference. You will find, however, that CDMA based phones (those on Verizon, Sprint, Alltel and a few others) will not have this problem. This is not to say that they are immune to interfering with toher equipment; they just happen to do it in a way that is far less noticeable to the layperson. E-mail fudged to thwart spammers. Transpose the c's and a's in my e-mail address to reply. ------------------------------ From: Isaiah Beard <sacredpoet@sacredpoet.com> Subject: Re: Phone Prefix 620-924 Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2005 15:22:11 -0500 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response to Carl Moore: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: For those who do not know, Liberty, KS > is a _tiny_ little 'wide spot' in the road southeast of Independence, > population about a hundred souls, a Methodist Church, the obligatory > road house and a gasoline station. Dobson Cellular One also has its > antennas there. 620-924 _does_ ring in there but only as DID-type > lines for some of the cell phones based out of there. telcodata.us reports the 620-924 exchange as being assigned to the "Tri-County Telephone Association," whatever that may be, and lists the switch as a Nortel DMS-10 RSLE. > I think 620-485 picks up the rest of Liberty. That it does. The TOTAH telephone company. Another Nortel DMS-10. E-mail fudged to thwart spammers. Transpose the c's and a's in my e-mail address to reply. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Tri-County Telephone Association was formerly the 'Tri-County Telephone Cooperative Society'; it is a group of citizens in southeast Kansas who, back at the start of the last century started rural telephone service in this area, or actually a bit east of us covering the area between Pittsburg, KS and somewhere east of Cherryvale, KS, when Southwestern Bell could not be bothered with them. Once they got set up with 'modern' equipment in the 1930's and Rural Electrification Administration bailed them out of debt, Southwestern Bell started looking at the area with -- as Jimmy Carter would have said -- lust in their heart. Comes the 1950's and they got totally out of their debt to REA, and the farmer's wives got to be too old to run the switchboard, and the farmer's daughters moved away to the big city, Bell's lust got even stronger; all kinds of scummy tricks were played on them; but to their credit, Tri-County stared right back at Southwestern Bell and gave them an old fashioned Archie Bunker-style Bronx cheer, and went with other _independents_ such as Totah and GTE instead. That's pretty much where it stands even today. Since Divestiture, I think they have gotten on somewhat friendlier terms with Bell. PAT] ------------------------------ 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. 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Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. End of TELECOM Digest V24 #95 ***************************** | |