For your convenience in reading: Subject lines are printed in RED and
Moderator replies when issued appear in BROWN.
Previous Issue (just one)
TD Extra News
TELECOM Digest Fri, 8 Apr 2005 18:20:00 EDT Volume 24 : Issue 152 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson More Spam! We Reach the 80 Percent Mark Here! (Lisa Minter) More Spam! Monday Morning Blues of an Office Worker (Lisa Minter) More Spam! It Really is Very Profitable (Lisa Minter) More Spam! Get Ready For Spam on Your VOIP/Cell Phone (Lisa Minter) More Spam! Judge Sentences Spammer to Nine Years (Lisa Minter) More Spam! Users To Blame For This Mess (Lisa Minter) More Spam! Spam Ain't Dead Yet, Not by a Long Shot (Lisa Minter) Telecom Update (Canada) #476 April 8, 2005 (John Riddell) Spammer Gets 9 Year Prison Sentence (Chris Farrar) Simultaneous Ring Problem With Cell Phone (Nathan Anderson) 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, 8 Apr 2005 15:02:02 EDT From: Lisa Minter <lisa_minter2001@yahoo.com> Subject: More Spam! We Reach the 80 Percent Mark Here! I have gathered up several articles dealing with the heartbreak of spam, and share several items with you today in this special report. I know PAT said maybe to respond to the bird whose email was published a couple days ago complaining that we here do not exercise enough 'editorial control over what goes out' we would simply open the gate and let it _all_ flow out in a flood at you, but Patrick decided against that. So, here are a few items hopefully of interest. 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/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. Lisa Minter ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 08 Apr 2005 14:21:15 -0400 From: Lisa Minter <lisa_minter2001@yahoo.com> Subject: Monday Morning Blues of an Office Worker This link, is from http://www.HamptonRoads.com and http://www.PilotOnline.com about an office worker who found 624 items of spam in her inbox when she came to work on Monday morning. It could have been written here, except one of us usually flushes the toilet once or twice daily. The most I have ever seen was 310 in a single afternoon. http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories/story.cfm?story=83188&ran=77296 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Apr 2005 14:18:06 EDT From: Lisa Minter <lisa_minter2001@yahoo.com> Subject: Spam is Really Very Profitable For Spammers, Worm Turns a Profit By Brian Krebs For the first two weeks of October 2004, relentless waves of Internet t raffic swamped the Web site of Gaithersburg, Md.-based Harta Instruments, one of six companies worldwide that manufacture devices used to detect a vir us linked to genital warts and cervical cancer. John Lee, the company's owner, initially suspected a digital attack bent on destroying his mostly Internet-based business. Lee later learned that the flood of Web traffic came from more than 300,000 computers seeking softwar e updates at his site. The computers had been infected with the latest vers ion of the "Bagle" worm, one of last year's most prolific and insidious Int ernet viruses. The debilitating attacks have ceased now that his Web site is operating under a new name, but Lee still fumes over the incident, which he says cost his company tens of thousands of dollars in lost sales. "I don't know who was behind all of this, but they need to be caught and then shot," Lee grumbled. Barring a careless misstep by the virus author or authors, the prospects for any repercussions appear dim. The worm that targeted Lee's site was the 44th version of Bagle unleashed in 2004, a year in which teams of virus wri ters forged new alliances with junk e-mail artists to convert millions of home PCs into remote-controlled "zombies" used to fuel spam and phishing attacks. As a result of those alliances, junk e-mail and phishing attacks -- online scams that lure victims into giving up confidential information -- far out numbered legitimate e-mail communications last year. Roughly three-quarters of all e-mail in 2004 was spam or fraud-related, according to Postini, a Redwood City, Calif.-based anti-spam firm. Rent-a-Zombie Bagle was just one of countless e-mail worms unleashed onto the Internet in 2004, but the attack on Lee's site offered security experts a rare glimps e into the thriving economic and operational ties between Internet criminals and virus writers. In many ways, the Bagle virus is no different from other e-mail worms: it seizes control of a recipient's PC after they click on an e-mail attachment that harbors the virus. But Bagle also has outpaced its brethren in other areas. It would become one of 2004's most successful "multi-stage" viruses, in that it was designed to lie dormant for several days after infection, then instruct its host to download software updates from a pre-defined list of more than 130 Web sites. Bagle also was the first high-profile worm to disable the protective firewall that Microsoft Corp. enables in all distributions of Service Pack 2, a software security upgrade made available to Windows XP users in August. Symantec Corp., an Internet security firm based in Cupertino, Calif., intentionally infected some of its computers with the Bagle virus in order to monitor the worm's progress. In a 28-page report published in December, the company found that some of the PCs downloaded software that forced them to forward e-mails used in a pair of elaborate phishing scams targeting customers of SunTrust Banks. Other Bagle-infected PCs were used to spew junk e-mail. One piece of spam hawked cheap generic prescription drugs. Another advertised popular software titles -- including computer-security and anti-virus programs -- at fire-sale prices. Experts say most software sold through spam is pirated, and much of it is itself laced with viruses. Alfred Huger, senior director of security response at Symantec, said most of the infected computers were seeded with additional software over a period of several weeks. "That kind of activity suggests that the people behind the Bagle worm are either running a vast criminal enterprise or they are loaning out their network" of infected PCs to other scam artists and spammers , Huger said. It is common for attackers to sell or rent access to PCs they have compromised, according to Johannes Ullrich, chief technology officer for the SANS Internet Storm Center. In certain little-known underground chat rooms, a hacked computer in the United States can be rented for pennies per week. However, hijacked PCs in some foreign countries often fetch a higher value because they are considered harder for authorities to shutter, Ullrich added. "We've seen the asking price go as high as $25 for a single compromised home system." Recycling the Victim One reason Bagle and hundreds of other so-called "mass-mailer" worms are so prevalent is that virus authors typically reuse machines they have infected to help spawn future incarnations of their creations. Last year, hackers released new Bagle versions roughly once a week, each time using thousands of hijacked computers to "seed" the Internet with initial copies of the virus. Harta's Lee and many others responsible for maintaining the Web sites listed in Bagle's code acknowledged having inadvertently infected one or more of their personal or work computers with earlier versions of Bagle in the weeks leading up to the attacks on their sites. The attackers likely located the victims' Web sites by using one of Bagle' s built-in capabilities: eavesdropping on an infected computer's Internet c onnection for usernames and passwords that victims use to read e-mail, log in to bank sites or administer Web sites. Anthony Flanagan, a real estate development planner in San Francisco, owns a laptop that was infected with the Bagle worm in early September. Two weeks later his site buckled under the traffic of Bagle-infected PCs trying to download software that attackers had planted on his site and laptop. Flanagan's Internet service provider quickly pulled the plug on his Web site because it was crashing other sites operating on the same server. Flanagan said his site normally receives four or five visitors in a busy week, but when his ISP cut him off, the site was choking on more than 120 hits per second. "I didn't know I was infected, or that it was even possible for the virus to make its way over to my Web site," he said. Still, experts say many of the sites listed in Bagle's internal code never hosted any of the phishing or spamming software and were probably used as decoys to throw anti-virus researchers off their trail. Nevertheless, those sites were just as affected by the deluge of traffic from Bagle victims. The Web site for Union Hospital in Elkton, Md., appears to have been one such decoy. Hospital officials directed inquiries about the incident to the site's Internet service provider, Hunt Valley, Md.-based System Source. System Source co-owner Robert Roswell said the hospital's Web address, www.uhcc.com, received thousands of hits per second at the height of the attack, cutting off public access to the site for more than 24 hours. Roswell declined to say how much the attack cost, but said the company "put an enormous amount of defensive energy into keeping the site alive." "Let's just say we blew through about 10 years' worth of service contracts defending the hospital from this attack," he said. No Relief in Sight For the first three weeks of 2005, anti-virus companies saw only minor outbreaks of mass-mailing worms. But on Jan. 26, virus authors unleashed a major outbreak with several new versions of the Bagle worm. Within 24 hours, the amount of spam generated by Bagle-infected PCs increased from 140,000 junk e-mails to more than 1 million a day, according to Symantec, which recently acquired anti-spam company Brightmail. Experts say there are precious few signs that e-mail worms or the spam and scams they facilitate will fade away in the near future. The instructions for creating custom versions of Bagle and many of today's most successful e-mail worms now are freely available online. Virus authors also will continue to exploit weaknesses in commercial anti- virus software, most of which must be constantly updated with new "definitions" to be able to detect the latest viruses and worms. This allows the virus writers to stay a step ahead by releasing slightly different versions of their creations just hours apart. At the beginning of 2004, anti-virus companies took an average of 12 hours to release new definitions following a viral outbreak, according to MessageLabs, a British anti-spam company. By December 2004, that window of opportunity had shrunk by less than two hours, MessageLabs said. Still, the biggest contributor to the future success of such viruses will continue to be new, inexperienced Internet users, thousands of whom venture forth each day worldwide, said Mikko Hypponen, director of anti-virus research at F-Secure Corp. in Helsinki. "There are new users coming online all the time who know nothing about the risks of owning a computer and getting on the Internet," Hypponen said. "We're going to be fighting these e-mail worms for quite some time." Copyright 2004 The Washington Post Company 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 use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. This Internet discussion group is making it available without profit to group members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of literary, educational, political, and economic issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. I believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner, in this instance, The Washington Post Company. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ Date: 08 Apr 2005 11:14:27 -0700 From: Lisa Minter <lisa_minter2001@yahoo.com> Subject: More Spam! Get Ready for Spam on Your Net Phone It was hardly the big conversation topic at the VON conference in San Jose last week, where companies big and small were pitching their Voice over Internet Protocol technology and products. But when conversations at the show turned to security issues, the SPIT started flying. Not literally, of course. Jeffrey Citron, chairman and chief executive of Vonage, took questions after his keynote speech and was asked how he plans to address security issues with VoIP. Clearly, he wasn't going to share his security strategy so early. "The great thing about security is that you don't have to tell everyone what you're doing," he responded. "But we understand that SPIT is an issue." The issue is not only the potential for more telemarketing calls but also voicemail spam -- the thousands of unsolicited voice messages that a spammer could send to VoIP voicemail boxes with a simple click. So far, it's not a major problem. But as VoIP grows over the next few years, you can expect that 'spitters' will be ready. 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 use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. This Internet discussion group is making it available without profit to group members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of literary, educational, political, and economic issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. I believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner, in this instance, Associated Press. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: For those folks not yet familiar with the term 'SPIT', it is spam pushed over internet telephones, and it helps if you understand something about internet telephones and how they work. If I understand correctly, computers which act as switches for internet telephony have 'mailboxes' just like the email box you use for incoming/outgoing email. A piece of voicemail (or 'email') gets put in your slot, something triggers it to ring your net phone and the 'email' gets delivered to you, much like when you are using a Unix computer as I have here, new incoming 'email' triggers a message on my screen saying 'you have new mail'. Just as I can deliver this Digest en-masse to many readers using an 'exploder' style address, I presume spammers can use an 'exploder' address to send a single peice of 'email' to hundreds or thousands of users. And your voicemail box holds those pieces of 'email' which cannot get delivered right now because you are busy on some other 'email'. I am surprised the spammers (or Spitters) are not busy using them already to deliver their trash. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: 08 Apr 2005 11:13:25 -0700 From: Lisa Minter <lisa_minter2001@yahoo.com> Subject: More Spam! Sometimes One Gets Caught: Judge Sentences Spammer By MATTHEW BARAKAT, Associated Press Writer LEESBURG, Va. - A Virginia judge sentenced a spammer to nine years in prison Friday in the nation's first felony prosecution for sending junk e-mail, though the sentence was postponed while the case is appealed. Loudoun County Circuit Judge Thomas Horne said that because the law targeting bulk e-mail distribution is new and raises constitutional questions, it was appropriate to defer the prison time until appeals courts rule. A jury had recommended the nine-year prison term after convicting Jeremy Jaynes of pumping out at least 10 million e-mails a day with the help of 16 high-speed lines, the kind of Internet capacity a 1,000-employee company would need. Jaynes, of Raleigh, N.C., told the judge that regardless of how the appeal turns out, "I can guarantee the court I will not be involved in the e-mail marketing business again." The prosecutor, Lisa Hicks-Thomas, said she was pleased with the sentence and confident that the law would be upheld on appeal. "We're satisfied that the court upheld what 12 citizens of Virginia determined was an appropriate sentence; nine years in prison," Hicks-Thomas said. Defense attorney David Oblon argued in court that nine years was far too long given that Jaynes was charged as an out-of-state resident with violating a Virginia law that had taken effect just two weeks before. "We have no doubt that we will win on appeal," Oblon said outside court. "Therefore any sentence is somewhat moot. Still, the sentence is not what we recommended and we're disappointed." Jaynes declined to talk to reporters. He remains under $1 million bond. Though Oblon has never disputed that his client was a bulk e-mail distributor, he argued during the trial that the law was poorly crafted and that prosecutors never proved the e-mail was unsolicited. He also has said the law is an unconstitutional infringement of free speech. Under Virginia law, sending unsolicited bulk e-mail itself is not a crime unless the sender masks his identity. Prosecutors brought the case in Virginia because it is home to America Online Inc., the leading Internet service provider. Prosecutors have described Jaynes as among the top 10 spammers in the world at the time of his arrest, using the name "Gaven Stubberfield" and other aliases to peddle junk products and pornography. Prosecutors say he grossed up to $750,000 per month. The jury also convicted Jaynes's sister, Jessica DeGroot of Raleigh, but recommended only a $7,500 fine. Her conviction was later dismissed by the judge. A third defendant, Richard Rutkowski of Cary, N.C., was acquitted of all charges. Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. 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/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. This Internet discussion group is making it available without profit to group members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of literary, educational, political, and economic issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. I believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner, in this instance, The Associated Press. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ Date: 08 Apr 2005 11:22:30 -0700 From: Lisa Minter <lisa_minter2001@yahoo.com> Subject: More Spam! Users To Blame For This Mess We have met the enemy and he is us. So says the Radicati Group, which Wednesday released preliminary results of a survey showing that it's bad behavior on the part of users -- us, in other words -- driving the spam and virus threat. And you thought it was spammers and hackers. "Frankly, it surprised us that users are still responding to 'spam' and opening 'unsolicited' mail," said Sarah Radicati, the chief executive of the Palo Alto, Calif.-based market research firm which conduced the online poll. According to Radicati's survey, 31 percent of those polled have clicked on embedded links within spam at one time or another. "Clicking on embedded links helps spammers determine 'live' accounts, which encourages repeated spam attacks," said Radicati. And enterprises can be compromised by a single miscreant. When an active account with a domain is identified, organizations are at greater risk of follow-up directory harvest attacks. Eighteen percent of users admitted that they'd clicked on the "unsubscribe" link in spam, another behavior that's exploited by spammers, who then know the address, and perhaps the entire domain, are active and so potential targets for follow-on spam campaigns. Even worse, spammers sell and trade lists with virus writers eager to accumulate bots, so by telling a spammer they're "live," users increase their risk of later receiving worms and viruses. But the most stunning statistic, said Radicati, was the last: more than 10 percent of the respondents have purchased products advertised in spam. "With the near-zero cost of sending out huge volumes of spam, the fact that more than one in ten users are purchasing products is clearly continuing to drive the economics of spam," said Radicati. "Although one person's spam may be another person's information," she said, "it's clear that education isn't working. Either the spam product offers are just too good to pass up, or users still have an enormous lack of awareness of the danger of clicking on e-mailed links." Companies need to do a much better job, she said, of educating their employees. "They're not," Radicati said. "They may say 'don't do this' and 'never do that,' but there's simply not much formal training." Our continued bad habits, she said, explains why e-mail security threats -- spam, worms, phishing -- continue to explode. "Anti-spam technology routinely achieves 90 percent plus catch-rates, yet no technology in the world can protect an organization if users exercise bad e-mail behavior." 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 use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. This Internet discussion group is making it available without profit to group members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of literary, educational, political, and economic issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. I believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner, in this instance, The Associated Press. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ Date: 08 Apr 2005 11:25:42 -0700 From: Lisa Minter <lisa_minter2001@yahoo.com> Subject: More Spam! It Ain't Dead Yet by Lance Ulanoff - PC Magazine In the past few weeks, I have heard reports that spam is finally dying. But to paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of its death have been greatly exaggerated. The reality at least according to companies tracking and stopping/catching spam for other major corporations and an unscientific survey of my own readers is that spam remains a major problem for both companies and individuals. Roughly 80-85 percent of the world's e-mail is spam. Thanks to the innovative technologies provided by McAfee, MailFrontier, FrontBridge, MessageLabs, and others, we're seeing less of it on our desktops and in our in-boxes. But we need to face facts. Spam hasn't disappeared. It's just being corralled briskly into holding pens for you and your company to evaluate, ignore, and eventually delete. On the whole, however, it still costs companies millions of dollars to manage spam. The CAN-SPAM Act has not been the panacea the U.S. government planned and has done little to stem the flow of spam onto desktops and corporate servers. More than a year after its passage, some companies, like enterprise antispam provider MX Logic, estimate that as little as 13 percent of spam mail complies with the law (by allowing recipients to opt out of getting any more spam from the same sender), down from a 16 percent compliance rate in September 2004. Perhaps the biggest development in the war against spam occurred late last year in a Virginia courtroom, when jurors voted to convict Jeremy Jaynes and his sister Jessica DeGroot for sending bulk e-mails under false e-mail addresses. These were no small-time mom-and-pop felons who did a little black-hat business. Jaynes and DeGroot were listed as number eight on the spam watchdog group Spamhaus's list of most-wanted spam purveyors. The conviction is potentially very good news. But the ruling did have its share of oddities. The trial took place in Virginia, but that's not where the spammers are from; it's simply where the servers they used were located. More interestingly, the jury seemed torn over the severity of DeGroot's and Jaynes's crime, recommending a nine-year prison term and just $7,500 in fines. I'd say they got that part backwards. I don't know what putting these kinds of criminals behind bars will do. Better to bar them from buying and using computers and the Internet for five to ten years. Likewise, spam-catching costs corporations around the world millions of dollars each year in software, servers, and other resources. So, $7,500 is little more than a nod toward the spammers' real fiscal responsibilities. If Jaynes did, as prosecutors charged, make $24 million from his enterprise, he should be fined at least that much. In Germany, they're now promising hefty fines for spammers. The U.S. government should hurry up and do the same. Still, the judicial victory should embolden prosecutors to go after other spammers on Spamhaus's list. Oddly, I have yet to hear about another spammer going to trial or jail, or even being arrested. I guess the next logical step is for companies to go after spammers themselves with civil lawsuits. In theory, some major corporations should be suing Jaynes and DeGroot. They should work with state and federal officials to time those civil suits to hit at the same time the spammers face criminal charges. It could be a hugely effective one-two punch. On the other hand, if those who believe spam is dying are right, we can sit back, do nothing and let CAN-SPAM take its course. With a 13 percent compliance rate, those death throes should continue for another 50 or 60 years. Copyright 2005 Ziff Davis Inc. 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/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. This Internet discussion group is making it available without profit to group members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of literary, educational, political, and economic issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. I believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner, in this instance, Ziff-Davis. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ Subject: Telecom Update (Canada) #476, April 8, 2005 Date: Fri, 8 Apr 2005 15:32:50 -0400 From: John Riddell <jriddell@angustel.ca> ************************************************************ TELECOM UPDATE ************************************************************ published weekly by Angus TeleManagement Group http://www.angustel.ca Number 476: April 8, 2005 Publication of Telecom Update is made possible by generous=20 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: ** VoIP Providers Given 90 Days to Implement 9-1-1 ** CRTC Promises VoIP Decision by May 12 ** Ottawa Sees No Need to Rewrite Telecom Act ** Union to Vote on Entourage Offer ** Resellers Can Now Use Bell Third-Party VoIP ** Bell Forms Small-Business IT Services Division ** Shaw to Increase Internet Access Speeds ** Telus to Extend High-Speed Access in Rural B.C. ** MCI Rejects Qwest Bid But Talks Continue ** RIM Adds 470,000 Subscribers ** Telecom Conference Calls for Papers VoIP PROVIDERS GIVEN 90 DAYS TO IMPLEMENT 9-1-1: The CRTC says that 9-1-1 service is not optional in Canada. Telecom Decision 2005-21 orders all providers of IP-based local telephone service to implement at least Basic 9-1-1 service by July 3. ** Basic 9-1-1 routes emergency calls to the correct Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP). Enhanced 9-1-1 (E911) also delivers the caller's location, and gives the PSAP control of the call. ** Providers of fixed (non-nomadic) IP-based phone services, with a local number within the caller's PSAP serving area, must implement full 9-1-1/E911 service where it is available from the incumbent phone company. ** If the IP service uses "non-native" phone numbers, or is used nomadically, providers must implement an interim solution. The CRTC expresses a preference for solutions that route 9-1-1 calls to an intermediate call centre for screening and routing to the correct PSAP. ** IP telephony providers must obtain customers' express consent to 9-1-1 limitations, and must provide ongoing notification including warning stickers for customer phone sets. ** The CRTC Interconnection Steering Committee (CISC) has been given deadlines for recommending permanent solutions. www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/ENG/Decisions/2005/dt2005-21.htm CRTC PROMISES VoIP DECISION BY MAY 12: This week the Canadian Cable Television Association, Quebecor, and Cogeco all wrote to the CRTC challenging Bell Canada's new "Digital Voice" IP telephony service, describing it as in violation of the Commission's rules and the Telecom Act. In response, the Commission says it will issue its final VoIP decision by May 12 and will rule on these three applications after that. (See Telecom Update #475) OTTAWA SEES NO NEED TO REWRITE TELECOM ACT: Responding to recommendations made last year by the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, the federal Cabinet says it doesn't believe it is necessary to rewrite or combine the Telecommunications, Broadcasting, or CRTC Acts. The government also rejects the Committee's recommendation to create a unified Department of Communications responsible for telecom, broadcasting, and cultural industries. ** The Cabinet response also says it "is not prepared to modify foreign ownership limits on broadcasting or content," but that it expects that the pending telecom review "may be helpful in shedding new light on this important issue." www.pch.gc.ca/progs/ac-ca/progs/ri-bpi/index_e.cfm UNION TO VOTE ON ENTOURAGE OFFER: Bell Canada and Entourage Technology Solutions have given their striking employees what they say is a "final offer" to settle the contract dispute. The Communication, Energy, and Paperworkers Union has recommended rejection of the proposal in Ontario and acceptance in Quebec. RESELLERS CAN NOW USE BELL THIRD-PARTY VoIP: CRTC Telecom Order 2005-123 allows any registered service provider (not just carriers) to use Bell Canada's Internet Voice Access Service to connect a retail VoIP offering to the public switched telephone network. Providers must comply with the Commission's customer privacy rules. (see Telecom Update #455) www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/ENG/Orders/2005/o2005-123.htm BELL FORMS SMALL-BUSINESS IT SERVICES DIVISION: Bell Canada has completed its purchase of Nexxlink Technologies. (See Telecom Update #466) It plans to merge Nexxlink and Charon Systems, another recently acquired IT company, in a new division, Bell Business Solutions, which will provide IT services to small and medium-sized businesses across Canada. SHAW TO INCREASE INTERNET ACCESS SPEEDS: Shaw Communications plans to increase download speed of its High-Speed Internet service to 5 Mbps from 3 Mbps in seven cities of western Canada. High-Speed Xtreme download speed will be increased to 7 Mbps. TELUS TO EXTEND HIGH-SPEED ACCESS IN RURAL B.C.: Telus has promised the B.C. government to spend $110 million by the end of 2006 to extend high-speed Internet access to 119 rural communities in the province. That will leave 32 communities unserved by high-speed access, which the government proposes to provide through a separate satellite initiative. ** The B.C. government also agreed to buy $245 million worth of telecom services from Telus over four years. MCI REJECTS QWEST BID BUT TALKS CONTINUE: MCI has rejected Qwest's acquisition bid of $27.50 a share, terming it "not superior" to Verizon's rival bid of $23.10. MCI/Qwest talks are continuing today. (See Telecom Update #475) RIM ADDS 470,000 SUBSCRIBERS: Research In Motion added 470,000 BlackBerry subscribers in the last three months of 2004, bringing its total to 2.5 million. Revenue of US$405 million was up 11% on the quarter and 92% on the year. RIM took a $294-million fourth-quarter charge to resolve its patent dispute with NTP; RIM's net loss was $2.6 million. TELECOM CONFERENCE CALLS FOR PAPERS: Telemanagement Live, Canada's premier business telecom and networking event, is asking for proposals for workshops and tutorials during its October 17-19 conference in Toronto. Submissions are due by May 6; go to www.telemanagementlive.com/callforclarity.html. HOW TO SUBMIT ITEMS FOR TELECOM UPDATE E-MAIL: editors@angustel.ca FAX: 905-686-2655 MAIL: TELECOM UPDATE=20 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. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Apr 2005 16:33:49 -0400 From: Chris Farrar <cfarrar@sympatico.ca> Subject: Spammer Gets 9 Years North Carolina spammer gets nine years; Sentence postponed while appeal is heard. Jeremy Jaynes was among the top 10 spammers in the world when arrested, prosecutors say. ASSOCIATED PRESS LEESBURG, Va. A man convicted in the U.S.'s first felony prosecution for illegal spamming was sentenced to nine years in prison today, but the judge postponed the sentence while the case is appealed. Loudoun County Circuit Judge Thomas Horne said that because the law targeting bulk e-mail distribution is new and raises constitutional questions, it was appropriate to defer the prison time until appeals courts rule. Jeremy Jaynes of Raleigh, N.C., was convicted in November for using false Internet addresses to send mass e-mail ads through an AOL server in Loudoun. A jury had recommended the nine-year prison term. Prosecutors said Jaynes used the Internet to peddle sham products and services such as a 'FedEx refund processor.' Virginia, where AOL is based, prosecuted the case under a law that took effect in 2003 barring people from sending bulk e-mail that is unsolicited and masks its origin. Jaynes told the judge that regardless of how the appeal turns out, "I can guarantee the court I will not be involved in the e-mail marketing business again." Lisa Hicks-Thomas, the prosecutor, said she was pleased with the ruling and confident that the law would be upheld on appeal. "We're satisfied that the court upheld what 12 citizens of Virginia determined was an appropriate sentence =97 nine years in prison," said Hicks-Thomas. Defense attorney David Oblon argued that nine years was far too long given that Jaynes was charged as an out-of-state resident with violating a Virginia law that had taken effect just two weeks before. Prosecutors have said Jaynes was among the top 10 spammers in the world at the time of his arrest, using the name "Gaven Stubberfield" and other aliases to peddle junk products and pornography. The jury had also convicted Jaynes' sister, Jessica DeGroot of Raleigh, but recommended only a $7,500 fine. Her conviction was later dismissed by the judge. A third defendant, Richard Rutkowski of Cary, N.C., was acquitted of all charges. ------------------------------ From: Nathan Anderson <nathan@anderson-net.com> Subject: Simultaneous Ring Problem With Cell Date: Thu, 7 Apr 2005 21:17:08 -0700 Organization: First Step Internet (www.fsr.net) Reply-To: Nathan Anderson <nathan@anderson-net.com> (I posted a much more detailed version of this note earlier describing exactly what I want to accomplish, why I want to do it, what I had already tried, etc., but apparently it was too much information and thus it was rejected. Clarifications will have to come in the form of replies.) I have "simultaneous ring" call forwarding at home. I want to use this feature to forward to my cell phone which does not have voicemail. If I don't answer my home phone or my cell while it's on, then it goes to my home voicemail. However, if my cell phone is off or out of range, then my cell phone company "answers" the "simulring" call with a message stating that I am not available. This happens before my home voicemail has a chance to kick in. What's the best way to avoid the latter situation so that if my cell phone is off, my home voicemail gets the call? My cellular provider is willing to work with me and entertain suggestions from me, so if anyone has any creative solution, I'm all ears. Apparently, they cannot turn off the message on an account-by-account basis (or so they think). Thanks, Nathan Anderson <mailto:nathan@anderson-net.com> <xri:=nathan.anderson> <http://www.anderson-net.com/> "You can't appreciate Shakespeare until you've read him in the original Klingon." -- General Chang, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I will tell you how I handle the same problem here: Instead of simultaneous ring, my home phone is set up for 'transfer on busy/no answer' to my cell phone. If I do not answer my home phone (or am already on a conversation) then the incoming call forwards (after 3-4 rings) to my cellular phone, then the cellular phone 'transfers on busy/no answer' to voicemail. That way, if I am out, or not in the area, my home phone rings 3-4 times, switches to the cellular which rings 4-5 times, _then_ it goes to voicemail. In other words, your voicemail has to be at the end of the line (after the cell phone) and not in the middle (attached to Inland) as you have it now. Do not let anything 'get in the way' of the voicemail (such as the phone is out of area/not turned on' message people are getting now). And I would not do it on simultaneous ring simply because there is too great a risk of callers getting the inappropriate response they are getting now. I would say do it on 'transfer on busy/no answer' so the only time the cell phone gets the call is if the landline goes unanswered, which is what you would want anyway. And if your voicemail is on the Inland line, it is always going to jump in and intercept calls whether you want to or not. Have the voicemail on the cell phone line, so you in effect get 'two chances' to answer the call (once on home line, and once on cellular) before the call is lost. And if you are out of the area, or the cell phone is unable to get the call, then voicemail will get it rather than the messages people are getting now from it. In your original message which I have here, I think you said the cell phone was timing out with inappropriate responses, busy signals, etc after a certain period of time. Unless you have some objection to the voicemail from your cellular carrier, I would use that one to insure there was always some appropriate response if you did not get the call for some reason. 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. 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. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 620-402-0134 Fax 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 530-309-7234 Fax 3: 208-692-5145 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the oldest e-zine/mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives/ (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from * * Judith Oppenheimer, President of ICB Inc. and purveyor of accurate * * 800 & Dot Com News, Intelligence, Analysis, and Consulting. * * http://ICBTollFree.com, http://1800TheExpert.com * * Views expressed herein should not be construed as representing * * views of Judith Oppenheimer or ICB Inc. * ************************************************************************* ICB Toll Free News. Contact information is not sold, rented or leased. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2004 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. ************************ DIRECTORY ASSISTANCE JUST 65 CENTS ONE OR TWO INQUIRIES CHARGED TO YOUR CREDIT CARD! REAL TIME, UP TO DATE! SPONSORED BY TELECOM DIGEST AND EASY411.COM SIGN UP AT http://www.easy411.com/telecomdigest ! ************************ Visit http://www.mstm.okstate.edu and take the next step in your career with a Master of Science in Telecommunications Management (MSTM) degree from Oklahoma State University (OSU). This 35 credit-hour interdisciplinary program is designed to give you the skills necessary to manage telecommunications networks, including data, video, and voice networks. The MSTM degree draws on the expertise of the OSU's College of Business Administration; the College of Arts and Sciences; and the College of Engineering, Architecture and Technology. The program has state-of-the-art lab facilities on the Stillwater and Tulsa campus offering hands-on learning to enhance the program curriculum. Classes are available in Stillwater, Tulsa, or through distance learning. Please contact Jay Boyington for additional information at 405-744-9000, mstm-osu@okstate.edu, or visit the MSTM web site at http://www.mstm.okstate.edu ************************ --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of fifty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. 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 #152 ****************************** | |