TELECOM Digest     Mon, 7 Mar 2005 01:21:00 EST    Volume 24 : Issue 99

Inside This Issue:                           Editor: Patrick A. Townson

    Internet Passes Radio for Political News - Survey (Lisa Minter)
    Yahoo to Invest in Blogs, Analyst Says (Lisa Minter)
    Identity Theft : What's in a Name?  Economist.com (Marcus Didius Falco)
    Vonage Outage Last Thursday, was: Vonage (Danny Burstein)
    Re: Vonage (John R. Levine)
    Re: Strange Call ID (John Levine)
    Re: Strange Call ID (Mark Crispin)
    Re: Nokia 6010 Reporting in to Mama - Radio Interference (M. Sullivan) 
    Re: Corporate Identity: Verizon vrs "Bell Telephone" (Michael Sullivan)
    Re: New Monopoly in Department Stores; Federated, May Merge (B Goudreau)
    Re: Vonage's Citron Says VOIP Blocking is 'Censorship' (DevilsPGD)

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----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 06 Mar 2005 20:30:44 -0800
From: Lisa Minter <lisa_minter2001@yahoo.com>
Subject: Internet Passes Radio for Political News - Survey


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Internet surpassed radio as a source for
political news in the United States last year as more people went
online to keep up with the presidential election campaign, according
to a new report released on Sunday.

Twenty-nine percent of U.S. adults used the Internet to get political
news last year, according to the Pew Internet and American Life
Project. That's up from 4 percent in 1996 and 18 percent in 2000.

Television remained the dominant medium for most voters, but 18
percent said they got most of their political news from the Internet,
compared with 17 percent who said they turned to the radio for their
news.

For those with a broadband connection at home, the Internet rivaled
newspapers in importance.

Most Internet users surveyed said they voted to re-elect Republican
President Bush but supporters of Democratic challenger Sen. John Kerry
were more likely to say the Internet helped them settle on a
candidate.

The nonpartisan Pew Internet and American Life Project surveyed 2,200
U.S. adults between Nov. 4 and Nov. 24, 2004.  The survey's margin of
error was plus or minus two percentage points, or plus or minus three
percentage points for questions that surveyed the smaller subset of
Internet users.

NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily
media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at
http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra . Hundreds of new articles daily.

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For more information go to:
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------------------------------

From: Lisa Minter <lisa_minter2001@yahoo.com>
Subject: Yahoo to Invest in Blogs, Analyst Says
Date: 07 Mar 2005 00:00:00 GMT


SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Internet media company Yahoo Inc.  is likely
to build and buy tools that help its users create, publish and search
blogs, Susquehanna Financial Group Marianne Wolk said in a note on
Friday.

Wolk also said she also expects the company to expand into social
networking software, which lets users share and organize content.

Yahoo recently integrated RSS feeds into its MyYahoo home page. RSS,
or really simple syndication, allows users to receive content from
sources such as news organizations and Web blogs. It also is a way for
Web publishers to syndicate their content.

"We believe Yahoo is likely to continue to invest in the blogosphere;
we see Yahoo building and buying blog tools and RSS search
capabilities to complement MyYahoo's readership/aggregation service,"
Wolk wrote in her note.

Wolk added that she expects a potential new advertising market to grow
around blog content.

A Yahoo spokeswoman declined to comment.

Google Inc., Microsoft Corp.  Web unit MSN, Time Warner Inc.'s AOL and
Ask Jeeves Inc. each have invested in blogging tools.  Ask Jeeves
acquired search capabilities through its Bloglines acquisition in
February.


NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily
media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at
http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra . Hundreds of new articles daily.

*** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material the
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For more information go to:
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------------------------------

Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 21:57:09 -0500
From: Marcus Didius Falco <falco_marcus_didius@yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: Identity Theft : What's in a Name?  Economist.com


http://economist.com/printedition/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=3D3730381

Identity theft

 From The Economist print edition

Collecting, and stealing, personal information is big business

PLATO asked What is man? and St Augustine asked Who am I? A new breed
of criminals has a novel answer: I am you! Although impostors have
existed for ages, the growing frequency and cost of identity theft is
worrisome. Around 10m Americans are victims annually, and it is the
leading consumer-fraud complaint over the past five years. The cost to
businesses was almost $50 billion, and to consumers $5 billion, in
2002, the most recent year that America's Federal Trade Commission
collected figures.

After two recent, big privacy disasters, people and politicians are
calling for action. In February, ChoicePoint, a large data-collection
agency, began sending out letters warning 145,000 Americans that it
had wrongly provided fraudsters with their personal details, including
Social Security numbers.

Around 750 people have already spotted fraudulent activity. And on
February 25th, Bank of America revealed that it lost data tapes that
contain personal information on over 1m government employees,
including some Senators. Although accident and not illegality is
suspected, all must take precautions against identity theft.

Faced with such incidents, state and national lawmakers are calling
for new regulations, including over companies that collect and sell
personal information. As an industry, the firms such as ChoicePoint,
Acxiom, LexisNexis and Westlaw are largely unregulated. They have also
grown enormous. For example, ChoicePoint was founded in 1997 and has
acquired nearly 60 firms to amass databases with 19 billion records on
people. It is used by insurance firms, landlords and even police
agencies.

California is the only state with a law requiring companies to notify
individuals when their personal information has been compromised which
made ChoicePoint reveal the fraud (albeit five months after it was
noticed, and after its top two bosses exercised stock
options). Legislation to make the requirement a federal law is under
consideration. Moreover, lawmakers say they will propose that rules
governing credit bureaus and medical companies are extended to
data-collection firms. And alongside legislation, there is always
litigation. Already, ChoicePoint has been sued for failing to
safeguard individuals' data.

Yet the legal remedies would still be far looser than in Europe, where
identity theft is also a menace, though less frequent and costly. The
European Data Protection Directive, implemented in 1998, gives people
the right to access their information, change inaccuracies, and deny
permission for it to be shared. Moreover, it places the cost of
mistakes on the companies that collect the data, not on
individuals. When the law was put in force, American policymakers
groaned that it was bad for business. But now they seem to be
reconsidering it.


Copyright 2005 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group. 

NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily
media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at
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For more information go to:
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------------------------------

From: Danny Burstein <dannyb@panix.com>
Subject: Vonage Outage Last Thursday, was: Vonage
Date: Sun, 6 Mar 2005 23:39:15 UTC
Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC


( lots of earlier posts deleted. One left in for some context)

In <telecom24.98.3@telecom-digest.org> John Levine <johnl@iecc.com>
writes:

>> They definitely have some problems in different parts of the country
>> but my service in the northeast has been rock solid. I wonder -- I
>> know I'm on a Paetec switch so is it a Focal issue?

> No, my service which became unsuably bad was switched by Paetec, too.

A bunch of people have grumbled about problems last week. It turns out
there was a Vonage system outage.

FYI, quoting from an AP dispatch:

"Vonage ... suffered an outage that left about half of its 500,000 
subscribers without phone service for about 45 minutes.

"The outage was caused by a glitch with a software upgrade Thursday night, 
said Brooke Schulz, a spokeswoman for Vonage Holdings Corp.

"The problem struck at about 2:45 p.m. EST, and Vonage stabilized the 
network with a software patch within an hour...

"Vonage said about 50% of all inbound and outbound traffic was affected by 
Friday's disruption.

To which I'd only add, "big deal. yawn." Unlike all the whiners who,
for some reason, love to point out each and every hiccup the
alternates run into.

(Although it will be of interest to see who, if anyone, in the 
Vonage<->PSTN chain files the FCC reports.)

_____________________________________________________
Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key
		     dannyb@panix.com 
[to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]

------------------------------

From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine)
Subject: Re: Vonage
Date: 6 Mar 2005 21:36:42 -0500
Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA


>> No kidding.  I ported my number to Lingo almost a month ago due to
>> Vonage's poor service and non-existent support, and I'm still trying
>> to get hold of someone at Vonage who can cancel my account.  Perhaps
>> they'll notice that I cancelled the credit card.

> Why not use Vonage's website to cancel your account?

I just did, now making three attempts to cancel.  We'll see what
happens.  Since they can't charge me any more and the number's been
ported away, I don't much care what they do.

------------------------------

Date: 7 Mar 2005 03:43:52 -0000
From: John Levine <johnl@iecc.com>
Subject: Re: Strange Call ID
Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA


> I live in Greece. I received a call from my cousin in NY. On my caller
> Id his number appeared as 0044212xxxxxxx (where the x's show his
> actual 212 area code POTS number.

> How is this possible?

It's a bug somewhere, but good luck tracking it down.

I have Lingo VoIP service here in the US, and when calls are forwarded
from my Lingo phone to my cell phone, occasionally the numbers show up
as 01144NXXXXXX, the same bug you're seeing.

In my case the calls are all domestic US calls so it would be
extremely unlikely that the bug was due to them being routed through
the UK.

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: Mark Crispin <MRC@CAC.Washington.EDU>
Subject: Re: Strange Call ID
Date: Sun, 6 Mar 2005 15:17:43 -0800
Organization: Networks & Distributed Computing


On Sun, 6 Mar 2005, Spyros Bartsocas wrote:

> I live in Greece. I received a call from my cousin in NY. On my caller
> Id his number appeared as 0044212xxxxxxx (where the x's show his
> actual 212 area code POTS number.
> How is this possible?

I have occasionally received international calls with caller ID on a cell 
phone, and once or twice I've seen a country code as a caller ID on a 
landline phone.

So clearly it is possible.  It seems thought that most US landline caller 
ID boxes assume that all numbers are in xxx-xxx-xxxx format.

-- Mark --

http://staff.washington.edu/mrc
Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate.
Si vis pacem, para bellum.



[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Has anyone received a phone call from
someone calling via Vonage recently?  My caller ID (on those calls) 
shows the number, but identifies the caller as 'Vonage User'.   PAT]

------------------------------

From: Michael D. Sullivan <userid@camsul.example.invalid>
Subject: Re: Nokia 6010 Reporting in to Mama -- Radio Interference?
Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 04:46:41 GMT


In article <telecom24.97.11@telecom-digest.org>, 
kd1s@nospamplease.cox.reallynospam.net says:

>> True. I was told by a contact at ETSI (the organisation that defined
>> many of the GSM standards) that this was originally an oversight --
>> they had not realised that the modulation scheme was effectively 100%
>> amplitude modulation, which would be "detected" by any rectifying
>> circuit nearby. It caused a lot of consternation in the early days.

>> The "solution" they eventually agreed was to reduce the power
>> transmitted by the phones by a factor of 10. This had been proposed
>> anyway, to reduce the cell size and hence increase system capacity
>> (also to increase battery life).

> So GSM that we have today is a patch on top a patch. Nice to think about 
> that. 

But the 3G migration path for GSM is UMTS, also known as W-CDMA.  It
does not use time division multiplexing; instead it uses a version of
CDMA that occupies 5 MHz down- and upstream (as opposed to cdma2000,
EV- DO, etc., which use 1.25 MHz down- and upstream per channel).
Thus, eventually the buzzing side-effect of GSM will disappear.

-- 
Michael D. Sullivan
Bethesda, MD, USA
Replace "example.invalid" with ".com".

------------------------------

From: Michael D. Sullivan <userid@camsul.example.invalid>
Subject: Re: Corporate Identify -- Verizon vs. "Bell Telephone"
Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 04:51:56 GMT


In article <telecom24.97.9@telecom-digest.org>, hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com 
says:

> As has been done for years, the regular telephone bill mailing
> contained an advertising insert for premium products and services.

> On a recent Verizon leaflet, at the bottom was a small line,
> "Bell Telephone Company of Pennsylvania".

> This was curious since that's a very old name that hasn't been used
> for years.  Even in the Bell era, they shortened it to just "Bell of
> Pennsylvania".  After divesture they became "Bell Atlantic", and IIRC
> they legally changed their name to that.  Further, IIRC, their name
> change to Verizon was a legal name change as well, not just a
> marketing tool.

> So, I'm curious as to why they would use an old name on modern sales
> literature, esp when they're pushing their most modern high tech
> services.  (They changed their name to Verizon specifically to sound
> high tech and not old fashioned with 'Bell Telephone').

> The only thing I could think of is perhaps it's to distinguish this
> mailing for this state, and former Bell customers (as opposed to GTE
> customers).

The various mergers and corporate name changes that have taken place
over the last 20 years among the Bell companies have not, for the most
part, changed the legal name of the operating company within each
state.  All of the Bell Atlantic companies use the Bell Atlantic name
to do business, but the state operating companies all have individual
names, auch as Bell Telephone Co. of Pa.  I think some of them have
changed their names, however.  Most likely the reason for the old name
appearing on the modern literature is a state PUC or statutory
requirement that the actual name of the operating company be provided
on marketing documents.  This would be the name that appears on the
tariff, as well.


Michael D. Sullivan
Bethesda, MD, USA
Replace "example.invalid" with ".com".

------------------------------

From: Bob Goudreau <BobGoudreau@withheld on request>
Subject: Re: New Monopoly in Dept Stores; Federated and May to Merge 
Date: Sun, 6 Mar 2005 23:53:25 -0500


Lisa Hancock wrote:

> The other issue about the Bell System was that it was heavilly
> _regulated_ by both the states and feds.  The Bell System was not
> allowed to use its technology to go into other fields, where it
> probably could've been quite successful.

More to the point, the Bell system monopoly was actually sanctioned by
the government.  No analogous situation has ever existed in US
retail, thankfully.

>> I would be surprised if even the combined market share of Federated
>> and May approached the market share that Sears, Roebuck achieved in
>> its heyday.

> With Sears, it depends on the defined market.  I don't think Sears was
> as big in dept stores as in its catalog.

The defined market that Sears itself paid attention to was "retail",
and Sears was for decades the market leader in the US.  I remember in
the 1980s when Sears execs were warily watching Kmart creep up to
almost match their market share.  They were so busy keeping tabs on
Kmart that they were caught flat-footed when Wal-mart zoomed by BOTH
companies and became the new king of the retail hill (where it
remains today, of course). 

> As a shopper, if Wanamaker's didn't have what I wanted, I'd go up
> the street to Strawbridges, and then over to Gimbel's.  Three
> different stores, run by three different companies.  As mentioned, I
> also_ had the choice of numerous smaller specialty stores and
> discount stores.

And we still do, including a vast plethora of new specialty and
discount stores out there in cyberspace.  The way people choose to
shop is heavily influenced by the available technology.  The railroads
were what made it possible for Sears to invent the nationwide
mail-order retail channel in the late 19th century.  Likewise,
suburban living patterns gave rise to the classic shopping mall in the
mid-20th century.  Refrigeration and transportation advances made the
modern supermarket possible.  As new ways of buying things become
available and popular with consumers, it is inevitable that some of
the older ways will wane in popularity.  And that's a good thing;
"creative destruction", as Schumpeter called it.

>> The management of some of the old department store chains that have
>> fallen by the wayside (e.g., Montgomery-Ward) seems to have stumbled
>> into the same trap that railroad companies fell prey to half a century
>> ago.  Namely, they defined their market sectors too narrowly.  While
>> railroad executives believed they were in the "railroad business",
>> their consumers treated them as being in the *transportation*
>> business.  Thus, the railroads got their lunch eaten by airlines (to
>> which most of the railroads' former long-distance passengers eagerly
>> flocked) and to a lesser extent by trucking firms (which grabbed a
>> quick-growing share of the freight-transport business, though rail
>> still plays a much more important role in moving freight than it does
>> in moving people).

> First, a correction.  The railroads knew they were in the
> transportation business and set up bus, trucking and even aviation
> units and cooperative agreements.  But the govt made the railroads get
> out of most of that stuff.

I think this actually reinforces (not refutes) my point.  (And the
"railroad business vs. transportation business" observation isn't
actually even my own; it's the one made famous by Theodore Levitt in
his 1960 Harvard Business Review article entitled "Marketing Myopia".)
The behavior of the railroad companies shows that they clearly saw
their other business lines as mere adjuncts to support their crown
jewels, which were the railroad lines.  So much so that when they were
forced to choose between the old, proven business and the new,
higher-growth lines, the railroad execs chose to stick with what they
knew and to sell off the other stuff.  They could have chosen instead
to sell off their rail assets and concentrate on the higher-growth
markets.  Of course, that kind of bold step is one that most companies
find hard to take when faced with such a decision, and who can blame
them?  A lot of people were probably skeptical when an old Finnish
industrial conglomerate whose chief products were paper, rubber and
cables decided a quarter century ago to get into telecom equipment and
to ditch the older slow-growth product lines.  But the move was a
success, and now practically everyone has heard of Nokia.  On the
other hand, the formerly stodgy old French water company Gnrale des
Eaux chose to get rid of its original utility businesses several years
ago in order to complete its transformation to Vivendi Universal, an
entertainment conglomerate whose stock price has not so far been kind
to its shareholders.

> 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.

That's exactly right.  The department stores have been trimming
departments as business trickles away to other retailers, especially
"category killers".  How many people would buy a TV or a pair of skis
at Macy's these days, when they know they could get a better selection
and better prices at Best Buy or a sporting goods superstore?

>> That's why the consolidation of the department-store sub-sector of
>> the overall retail market troubles me no more than the shakeout
>> that occurred in the typewriter manufacturer sector a few decades
>> ago, or in the buggy-whip manufacturer sector several decades
>> before that.

> Unlike typewriters and buggy whips, people still need clothes and
> furnishings.

But unlike clothes and furnishings, department stores aren't something
that consumers actually BUY.

People just don't particularly need department stores any more in
order to purchase their clothes and furnishings.  They can buy their
clothes and furnishings elsewhere, and they increasingly are doing so,
which is why the department store chains are having so much trouble in
the first place.  Department stores themselves are not a product
that consumers buy; they are merely a vehicle, a means to sell
products.  Other retail channels have waxed and waned over the years
(how many door-to-door salesmen are still around, for instance?), but
a channel is not a market.  It would be absurd to define the
particular retail sales channel known as "department stores" as a
market in its own right, to which antitrust measures must be applied
in isolation without treating discount stores, "big box" and "category
killer" specialty stores, on-line and catalog retailers, etc. as
part of the same market.  One might as well try to apply antitrust
rules to nonsensical categories such as "retailers whose names begin
with the letter 'N'", or "retailers whose logos don't use the color
red".


Bob Goudreau
Cary, NC


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I have seen mentions of Sears, Roebuck
occasionally in this thread. Back in the 1920's, Sears Roebuck was a
very large chain of stores. The radio station they started
acknowledged this fact by its call sign:  'W'(orlds)'L'(argest)'S'(tore),
based in Chicago. WLS is on AM radio 890 kc, which was and still is a clear
channel frequency. It was called 'The Prairie Farmer Station' in those
days, and I think it was part of the Mutual Network. 

------------------------------

From: DevilsPGD <ihatespam@crazyhat.net>
Subject: Re: Vonage's Citron Says VoIP Blocking Is 'Censorship'
Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 22:40:00 -0700
Organization: Disorganized


In message <telecom24.97.14@telecom-digest.org> joel@exc.com (Dr. Joel
M. Hoffman) wrote:

>> 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

> In the end, the only reason VoIP is so cheap is that it passes the
> costs off to other sectors.

Not exactly.

The difference isn't that VoIP is "passing the cost", but rather, that
with VoIP, the customer is providing the connection from their
premises to the telco.

Back in my ISP days, the ISP I worked for provided DSL over dry copper
pairs.  We were selling 2.5Mb/1Mb and later 7Mb/1.5Mb before either
the telco or cableco were offering any soft of connectivity.

We gave customers a choice: Either provide your own copper pair from
your location to the nearest CO, or pay us more and we'll cover the
loop costs (As well as handle the installation and whatnot)

VoIP is similar.  You can either pay a telco to bring the service to
your door, or you can pay a cheaper rate if you provide the last mile
yourself.

VoIP is virtually always more expensive then traditional telco
services if you include the cost of the internet connection.  However,
since I already have an internet connection, I don't include the cost
of my internet connection in the cost of VoIP service.

In message <telecom24.97.15@telecom-digest.org> Dana <raff242@yahoo.com>
wrote:

>> 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?

> This is a strawman argument, as this is in no way compariable to the
> situation with Vonage. 

How about if Verizon (or other LEC) decided to censor conversations
about other telcos?

> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Actually, back in the 'teens and '20s
> of the last century, Bell had a rule against using profanity on the
> telephone. For example, the cover of the 1920 Chicago Telephone
> Company (predecessor to Illinois Bell) had this notice on the cover of
> the phone directory: "When addressing our operators, please do not use
> profanity. Please address our operators in the same courteous voice
> you would want them to use in their reponses to you. It is not our
> operator's fault if the line you have requested is engaged or does not
> respond. Would you like it if the operator responded with a curse when
> telling you the number did not respond."  Apparently people would ask
> for the number of the train station information line (for example),
> and find it always in use or slow to respond. So people would curse
> out the operator and blame her for it, then slam down the reciever.

While likely true, this is completely different -- They were
requesting that customers not swear AT the company, rather then
limiting the content that they would carry.

[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You mentioned that VOIP was 'less
expensive' because the end user paid for the transport instead of
(for example) telco. This is true, but the end user is paying for
the connection anyway; what added expense does anyone have as a
result of VOIP in that case, other than buying the adapter?  PAT]

------------------------------


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career with a Master of Science in Telecommunications Management
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The MSTM degree draws on the expertise of the OSU's College
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Please contact Jay Boyington for additional information at
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End of TELECOM Digest V24 #99
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