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TELECOM Digest Sat, 16 Jul 2005 14:56:00 EDT Volume 24 : Issue 326 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Menino Maps Cellphone Gaps (Monty Solomon) Curbing Cellphones (Monty Solomon) Net-Based Technology Would Allow Limitless TV (Monty Solomon) Muzzling the Muppets/Bush Wants PBS to Toe Republican Line (M Solomon) Nigeria Jails Woman in $242 Million Fraud Case (Tume Ahemba) News Corp Forms Internet News Division (Fox News)(News Wire) 866 383 0986 (Lisa Metcalf) Re: Don't Let Data Theft Happen to You (Jim Rusling) Re: Camelot on the Moon - From Our Archives (Justa Lurker) Re: Meaning of ABCD Bits in T-1 (Justa Lurker) Re: Prepaid GSM With Roaming Allowed Available in the US? (Joseph) 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, 15 Jul 2005 22:53:03 -0400 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> Subject: Menino Maps Cellphone Gaps Cruising to Learn if Dead Zones Tied to Minority Areas By Andrea Estes, Globe Staff It is an aggravation of the age, the conversation-stopper that seems always to include the phrase, "You're breaking up." Cellphone dead zones have irritated many, but recently they have really annoyed Mayor Thomas M. Menino, who says his cellphone conversations get cut off day after day as he traverses the city's neighborhoods. The low-tech, urban mechanic mayor is fed up, he says, and there's no acceptable explanation why a city like Boston should have so many pockets of fog. http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2005/07/15/menino_maps_cellphone_gaps/ http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2005/07/15/menino_cellservice/ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2005 22:52:16 -0400 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> Subject: Curbing Cellphones GLOBE EDITORIAL Curbing cellphones The Boston Globe July 15, 2005 CELLPHONES PROVIDE people with an addictive freedom, to talk for business or pleasure, anywhere and any time, but a study released this week shows, finally, that they should not be used behind the wheel of a car. The Massachusetts Legislature needs to act quickly to prohibit the use of cellphones while driving. Under present state law, motorists can use cellphones on the road so long as they keep one hand on the steering wheel and operate the vehicle safely. A study released this week by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety suggests that this use is inherently unsafe. The study was done in western Australia because US phone companies would not provide access to records so researchers could determine whether motorists hospitalized for accidents had used a cellphone at the time of the crash. In Perth, Australia, the researchers found that those who were using the phones were four times more likely to be involved in an accident than those who weren't. This result confirms the conclusions of another, less comprehensive, survey and the intuitive feelings of many people. It is inherently distracting to talk on the phone while driving. The intensity of conversation drags the mind away from concentration on the road. The Legislature's Joint Committee on Transportation will need to take this study into account this fall when it considers three bill to regulate cellphone use. http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2005/07/15/curbing_cellphones/ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2005 23:36:15 -0400 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> Subject: Net-Based Technology Would Allow Limitless TV By Hiawatha Bray, Globe Staff The next big thing in television could be a technology borrowed from the Internet. IPTV (the 'IP' stands for Internet protocol) will let users choose from a vast variety of video entertainment, available on demand through a simple piece of wire. Telephone wire, to be exact, because phone companies -- not cable TV firms -- are leading the way. SBC Communications Inc., which offers phone service in 13 US states, is spending $5 billion to build the first IPTV network in the United States, set for launch late this year or in early 2006. Verizon Communications Inc., which is spending $3 billion to bring TV service to its customers, will use IPTV to deliver on-demand movies. Cable companies could adopt IPTV technology as well. But for telephone companies the technology offers the first chance to sell TV services. It's also an opportunity for Microsoft Corp., which is providing much of the underlying technology, to become as powerful in entertainment technology as it is in software. IPTV could shake up the cable industry in the same way that voice-over-Internet phone systems have roiled SBC's own voice telephone business Already, about a million people use IPTV systems, mostly in Hong Kong and Italy. Last month, British Telecom said it would work with Microsoft to deploy IPTV in Britain. On this side of the Atlantic, SBC spokesman Michael Coe said his company expects to make IPTV available to 18 million homes over the next three years. http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2005/07/14/net_based_technology_would_allow_limitless_tv/ ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Jul 2005 14:29:46 -0400 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> Subject: Muzzling the Muppets/Bush Wants PBS to Toe Republican Line By TIM DICKINSON Ken Tomlinson may be America's most accomplished propagandist. He got his start as an intern for Fulton Lewis Jr., who ruled right-wing radio when Rush Limbaugh was still in diapers. In the early 1980s, Tomlinson ran Voice of America, promoting the policies of Ronald Reagan to the rest of the world. As editor in chief of Reader's Digest in the early 1990s, he published the most reliably reactionary magazine in the country. Now, as President Bush's handpicked chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Tomlinson is in a position to spread the Republican message to Sesame Street. As head of the board that doles out $400 million in federal funds for public broadcasting, Tomlinson is actually required by law to provide PBS and NPR with "maximum protection from extraneous influence and control" by meddling politicians. But in recent months, Tomlinson himself has been the one trying to alter PBS programming. A close friend of Karl Rove since they worked together overseeing Voice of America, he hired a right-wing consultant to secretly monitor Bill Moyers for signs of "liberal bias." He collaborated with the White House to hire two "ombudsmen" to keep an eye on Frontline and All Things Considered. And after President Bush was re-elected in November, Tomlinson warned a gathering of PBS executives that the country had moved to the right -- and that their programming should reflect that. http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/_/id/7483528 ------------------------------ From: Tume Ahemba <ahemba@telecom-digest.org> Subject: Nigeria Jails Woman in $242 Million Fraud Date: Sat, 16 Jul 2005 12:25:57 -0500 By Tume Ahemba A Nigerian court has sentenced a woman to two and half years in jail after she pleaded guilty to fraud charges in the country's biggest e-mail scam case, the anti-fraud agency said on Saturday. Amaka Anajemba, one of three suspects in a $242 million fraud involving a Brazilian bank, would return $48.5 million to the bank, hand over $5 million to the government and pay a fine of 2 million naira ($15,000), the agency said. Scams have become so successful in Nigeria that anti-sleaze campaigners say swindling is one of the country's main foreign exchange earners after oil, natural gas and cocoa. Anajemba's sentencing by a Lagos High Court on Friday is the first major conviction since the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) was established in 2003 to crack down on Nigeria's thriving networks of email fraudsters. The agency said in a statement that the judgment was "a landmark achievement by EFCC in the fight against advance fee fraud, corruption and other related crimes." Typically fraudsters send out junk e-mails around the world promising recipients a share in a fortune in return for an advance fee. Those who pay never receive the promised windfall. Anajemba, whose late husband masterminded the swindling of the Sao Paolo-based Banco Noroeste S.A. between 1995 and 1998, was charged along with Emmanuel Nwude and Nzeribe Okoli. The prosecution said the three accused obtained the $242 million by promising a member of the bank staff a commission for funding a non-existent contract to build an airport in Nigeria's capital Abuja. All three accused pleaded not guilty, but Anajemba later changed her mind to enter a guilty plea in order to receive a shorter sentence. Her prison term was backdated to start in January 2004 when she was first taken in custody. The trial of the two others who maintained their not guilty pleas was adjourned to September. Ranked the world's second most corrupt country after Bangladesh by sleaze watchdog Transparency International, Nigeria has given new powers to the EFCC which is prosecuting about 200 fraud and corruption cases. The anti-fraud agency has arrested over 200 junk mail scam suspects since 2003. It says it has also confiscated property worth $200 million and secured 10 other convictions. ($1=132.70 Naira) Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. 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. ------------------------------ From: News Wire <reuters@telecom-digest.org> Subject: News Corp. Forms Internet Division Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2005 21:17:12 -0500 Media conglomerate News Corp. Ltd. on Friday said it has formed a new Internet division to create an online hub for its Fox news, sports and entertainment programing. The debut of Fox Interactive Media comes just three months after Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch's impassioned plea to the newspaper industry to explore new distribution technologies or risk losing the news franchise. Fox Interactive Media will house News Corp.'s existing sports, news and entertainment Web sites. The company also plans to make "strategic investments" to bolster existing properties. Ross Levinsohn, senior vice president of Fox Sports Interactive Media, was named president of the new Los Angeles-based division. Bert Solivan, vice president of news information at Foxnews.com, was named executive vice president of Fox Interactive Media. News Corp., like much of the media industry, has struggled to find new ways to reach the next generation of news and entertainment consumers, who are more likely to switch on their PCs or cellphones rather than stay glued to the living room television. Media observers have noted that many viewers preferred live online broadcasts by Time Warner Inc.'s America Online of the recent Live8 music concerts in early July to raise awareness of poverty in Africa over the ad-cluttered MTV cable television and ABC network TV broadcasts of the event. Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. 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. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: As far as I am concerned, Fox News is the most biased, one-sided news outfit around anywhere. Very extremely conservative, and mostly liars at that. A web site I recommend to everyone is http://www.newshounds.us where their slogan is "We watch FOX so you don't have to". You'll find their RSS feed among other RSS feeds of interest in our td-extra area also. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Lisa Metcalf <lisammetcalf@hotmail.com> Subject: 866 383 0986 Date: Sat, 16 Jul 2005 14:50:27 +0100 http://massis.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/TELECOM_Digest_Online2005-1/0596.html I have visited the above site as I have just received a hangup call from 866 383 0986. I find this quite strange as it's a toll free US site, yet we live in England. There are few hits on Google related to this. I of course tried to dial it and got the same "enter the number you wish to monitor" as I'm originally from the states and thought perhaps someone was trying to get ahold of me. I do use ecommerce. Is it possible our phone number was sold on? I have no idea why we would get this call. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Neither would I ... PAT] ------------------------------ From: Jim Rusling <usenet@rusling.org> Subject: Re: Don't Let Data Theft Happen to You Organization: Retired Reply-To: usenet@rusling.org Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2005 19:13:43 -0500 John Smith <user@example.net> wrote: > Jim Rusling wrote: >> I would worry about the security of the wireless connection. > Well, I wouldn't worry about it. I would recognize the obvious > necessity of high-grade encryption for any and all financial > transactions, but I don't think "worrying" would be the right word to > use. > If you're determined to worry, consider this: In Paris, at least, you > have a substantially greater risk of having your card number > compromised by pickpockets than by packet sniffers. Instead of worry, how about concerned? Without doing some research, how do I know that the site is secure? I recently ran into a completely open wireless network at a business with sensitive records. The owner thought that it was secured. He immediately called the company that installed it and had them come out to secure it. Things bad do happen. Jim Rusling More or Less Retired Mustang, OK http://www.rusling.org ------------------------------ From: Justa Lurker <JustaLurker@att.net> Subject: Re: Camelot on the Moon - From Our Archives Organization: AT&T Worldnet Date: Sat, 16 Jul 2005 00:47:46 GMT Patrick Townson wrote: > Eleven years ago in the Digest, we paid homage to an event which > happened a quarter-century before that: American astronauts walking > on the moon. Now it has been 36 years since that event which > occupied our attention during the hot summer of July, 1969. The > principal contributor to the Digest with a report on _his_ part > in that historic event was Don Kimberlin ... There are 2 anomalies with Kimberlin's story, as I read it. (1) > Problem: Fragile Telecom Link > What many people don't know is that it came very close being a > failure. And at the very last moment, the last possible launch window > for a lunar mission in the 1960's was almost missed. If the July, 1969 flight of Apollo 11 was the "last possible launch window for a lunar mission in the 1960's", then how did Apollo 12 take place between 11/14/1969 and 11/24/1969 ? (2) ... as well as numerous mentions of "NASA color video and sound we were all observing from the moon". While there was indeed capability for color video from the Command Module [at that point, in orbit around the moon tens of miles overhead], the transmissions from the Apollo 11 Lunar Module on the surface of the moon were monochrome. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: As I recall, what we saw on television that night was entirely black and white. However, in the NASA archives (reached via this report in our telecom archives) there are many color photos of the same event; also you can see the certificate NASA awarded Don Kimberlin for his part in the project. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Justa Lurker <JustaLurker@att.net> Subject: Re: Meaning of ABCD bits in T-1 Organization: AT&T Worldnet Date: Sat, 16 Jul 2005 00:58:34 GMT Andrew Chalk wrote: > Can anyone give me the "table" (or a URL to) of ABCD bit values in T1 > signalling. Everywhere I Googled refers to these but none give the > meaning of each of the bit combinations. I'm particularly interested > in "off-hook/onhook" states. http://www.cisco.com/en/US/tech/tk652/tk653/technologies_tech_note09186a00801123bb.shtml http://www.cisco.com/en/US/tech/tk652/tk653/technologies_tech_note09186a00800e2560.shtml http://www.cisco.com/en/US/tech/tk652/tk653/technologies_tech_note09186a00800a6210.shtml May be instructive and useful ... P.S. ---- I know you said "T1", but just as FYI http://www.cisco.com/en/US/tech/tk652/tk653/technologies_tech_note09186a00800943c2.shtml has some good info on various flavors [or should I say, flavours :-)] of E1 R2 signalling, and the accompanying signalling bits if anyone is interested. ------------------------------ From: Joseph <JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com> Subject: Re: Prepaid GSM With Roaming Allowed Available in the US? Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2005 19:12:35 -0700 Reply-To: JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com On Fri, 15 Jul 2005 14:20:20 +0200, Marc Haber <mh+usenetspam0339@zugschl.us> wrote: > Hi, > A friend of mine lives in the States, has two kids and bad credit > records. She wants (alone) to come visit Europe this fall, and wants > her kids to be able to call her in Europe by dialing a local US > number. She's got a problem. If she has bad US credit and she wants to be able to be reached by dialing a local US number (assuming that it's a US GSM carrier's number.) To be able to call a US number and be reached in Europe requires international roaming. International roaming in western Europe is 99=A2 per minute or more (depending on whether a major operator such as T-Mobile or cingular is used.) The carriers won't even allow you to have international roaming unless you have really good credit since the ability is there to rack up really big international roaming bills. > If the issue were the other way round, I'd come to the States with a > prepaid GSM SIM that has roaming enabled, and put that SIM into a > borrowed GSM phone over there. You'd still pay a huge amount of money with roaming rates as high if not higher than the other way around. > She now tells me that prepaid GSM is almost a non-market in the US, > and that no prepaid GSM SIMs are available that allow international > roaming. International roaming does not exist on prepaid in the US. Even not all prepaids in Europe offer international roaming and the ones that do it's quite expensive. > A GSM phone useable in the European GSM networks is available here, I > have a spare Nokia 6310. The issue is the prepaid SIM that allows a > phone located in Europe to be reachable with an American number. It does not exist. Roaming in another country is expensive no matter what you do. ------------------------------ 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! 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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 #326 ****************************** | |