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TELECOM Digest Tue, 30 Aug 2005 00:50:00 EDT Volume 24 : Issue 392 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson New Orleans Facing Environmental Disaster (Matt Crenson) New Orleans Phones Out of Order for Duration (Jim Burks) Is Verizon Wireless Sabotaging Older Cell Phones? (Shalom Septimus) Free Wi-Fi at T-Mobile HotSpot Locations in Louisiana (Monty Solomon) History of Phone Billing (Michael Hyman) Re: Book Review: "Spam Kings", Brian McWilliams (mc) Re: RIP, Sussex Cellular (Mark Crispin) 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Matt Crenson <ap@telecom-digest.orf> Subject: New Orleans Facing Environmental Disaster Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2005 22:46:18 -0500 By MATT CRENSON, AP National Writer As Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans on Monday, experts said it could turn one of America's most charming cities into a vast cesspool tainted with toxic chemicals, human waste and even coffins released by floodwaters from the city's legendary cemeteries. Experts have warned for years that the levees and pumps that usually keep New Orleans dry have no chance against a direct hit by a Category 5 storm. That's exactly what Katrina was as it churned toward the city. With top winds of 160 mph and the power to lift sea level by as much as 28 feet above normal, the storm threatened an environmental disaster of biblical proportions, one that could leave more than 1 million people homeless. "All indications are that this is absolutely worst-case scenario," Ivor van Heerden, deputy director of the Louisiana State University Hurricane Center, said Sunday afternoon. The center's latest computer simulations indicate that by Tuesday, vast swaths of New Orleans could be under water up to 30 feet deep. In the French Quarter, the water could reach 20 feet, easily submerging the district's iconic cast-iron balconies and bars. Estimates predict that 60 percent to 80 percent of the city's houses will be destroyed by wind. With the flood damage, most of the people who live in and around New Orleans could be homeless. "We're talking about in essence having -- in the continental United States -- having a refugee camp of a million people," van Heerden said. Aside from Hurricane Andrew, which struck Miami in 1992, forecasters have no experience with Category 5 hurricanes hitting densely populated areas. "Hurricanes rarely sustain such extreme winds for much time. However we see no obvious large-scale effects to cause a substantial weakening the system and it is expected that the hurricane will be of Category 4 or 5 intensity when it reaches the coast," National Hurricane Center meteorologist Richard Pasch said. As they raced to put meteorological instruments in Katrina's path Sunday, wind engineers had little idea what their equipment would record. "We haven't seen something this big since we started the program," said Kurt Gurley, a University of Florida engineering professor. He works for the Florida Coastal Monitoring Program, which is in its seventh year of making detailed measurements of hurricane wind conditions using a set of mobile weather stations. Experts have warned about New Orleans' vulnerability for years, chiefly because Louisiana has lost more than a million acres of coastal wetlands in the past seven decades. The vast patchwork of swamps and bayous south of the city serves as a buffer, partially absorbing the surge of water that a hurricane pushes ashore. Experts have also warned that the ring of high levees around New Orleans, designed to protect the city from floodwaters coming down the Mississippi, will only make things worse in a powerful hurricane. Katrina is expected to push a 28-foot storm surge against the levees. Even if they hold, water will pour over their tops and begin filling the city as if it were a sinking canoe. After the storm passes, the water will have nowhere to go. In a few days, van Heerden predicts, emergency management officials are going to be wondering how to handle a giant stagnant pond contaminated with building debris, coffins, sewage and other hazardous materials. "We're talking about an incredible environmental disaster," van Heerden said. He puts much of the blame for New Orleans' dire situation on the very levee system that is designed to protect southern Louisiana from Mississippi River floods. Before the levees were built, the river would top its banks during floods and wash through a maze of bayous and swamps, dropping fine-grained silt that nourished plants and kept the land just above sea level. The levees "have literally starved our wetlands to death" by directing all of that precious silt out into the Gulf of Mexico, van Heerden said. It has been 40 years since New Orleans faced a hurricane even comparable to Katrina. In 1965, Hurricane Betsy, a Category 3 storm, submerged some parts of the city to a depth of seven feet. Since then, the Big Easy has had nothing but near misses. In 1998, Hurricane Georges headed straight for New Orleans, then swerved at the last minute to strike Mississippi and Alabama. Hurricane Lili blew herself out at the mouth of the Mississippi in 2002. And last year's Hurricane Ivan obligingly curved to the east as it came ashore, barely grazing a grateful city. 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. Watch WWL television for ongoing converage, on the net at http://www.wwltv.com ------------------------------ From: Jim Burks <jbburks@hotmail.com> Subject: New Orleans Phones Are All Out, Also Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2005 02:16:28 GMT Organization: Road Runner High Speed Online http://www.rr.com AT&T has lost multiple DS-3s (probably the whole fiber) between New Orleans and Jackson, MS, and between New Orleans and Gulfport, MS. No ability to reroute at this point. 37 AT&T offices have lost power and are on battery or generator. BellSouth has 64 offices down. Has anybody heard from Mark Cuccia? Hopefully, he either got out of town, or is keeping his head above water. Jim Burks ------------------------------ From: Shalom Septimus <sacrificial_trap@hotmail.com> Subject: Is Verizon Wireless Sabotaging Older Cell Phones? Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2005 23:42:00 -0400 Reply-To: druggist@pobox.com I have long had a Nokia 5180 phone (since Xmas 1998, to be exact). It was on its second battery, but eventually couldn't even keep that charged, and I finally decided, this past February, to claim on my insurance and have them send me a new one. Whaddaya know, there's a $50 deductible that nobody ever mentioned to me. OK, fine, here's my credit card number, send me the damn thing. They didn't have any more 5180s, so they sent me a 5185i. Fine so far, except that this one had the exact same problem as my old one: you turn it on, it lasts three seconds and shuts down. Besides which, it had a manufacturing date somewhere in 2000. I send this back and they send another; this one at least has a sticker saying it's a refurb with a date of 5/04, so at least I know they haven't just sent me someone else's old broken phone. Fast forward six months. I'm standing there with the phone in my shirt pocket, minding my own business, when the thing beeps. I look at the screen to find the legend "Invalid roaming list", with a stop sign, after which it says "Searching for service" and stays that way. I call 611 (from my wife's phone) and ask what's up, and they tell me it needs to be flashed. Finally get to a Verizon store, leave it there for an hour, come back and find that, like about 50% of the phones with this particular failure mode, it has failed to accept the flash. The following conversation resulted. Me: What now? Them: How would you like to buy a new phone? Me: What of this New Every Two that you advertise? Them: You aren't eligible. Me: Why not, I've had this same phone for six years? Them: But you never had a two year contract. Me: (walks out). So I called Asurion (the insurance carrier) back, and told them that the phone they sent me has crapped out. Them: Sorry, you only have a six month warranty on refurbs, and you got that one six months and eighteen days ago. Me: WTF, was there a countdown timer in it that told it when to break? Them: You can file a new claim if you want. Me: I don't want, as that would cost me another $50 deductible. Them: Sorry, can't help you. Me: Lemme talk to a supervisor. Supervisor echoes the above. I point out that at $5/month for six years of premiums, plus the $50 they already got from me for the old phone, I've already paid in at least three times the cost of a new phone; besides, it was very likely that the phone they sent me was defective from the get-go, as the exact same thing happened a few months ago (but the flash worked that time). They check the records, find that in those six years I've only had the one claim, and tell me they're making an exception and sending me another new phone, but they have no 5185i's left either, so I'm getting a 6015i instead; received this last Friday, it works, so I'm set. It's too darn small, and the Select button is where the Clear button was on the old phone, plus the belt clip, car adapter, data cable and so on don't fit it, but these are minor annoyances. Except that I did some go0gling over the weekend, and find that I'm not the only one with this particular phone failure, and it always seems to happen to the older Nokia phones, mostly on Verizon. There are two hypotheses advanced to explain this: Hypothesis 1, the more innocent one: The roaming list has gotten so huge over the years, what with nationwide roaming &c, that the limited memory in these older phones wasn't enough, and the resulting overflow clobbered the phone's firmware. (As evidence, when I tried to put my phone in test mode (*3001#[security code]#), it crashed hard: screen blank, backlight on, random ticking noise in both earpiece and ringer, unresponsive to any keypress except to increase the rate of ticking. Geiger counter anyone? Removing the battery and replacing it cured this temporarily.) Of course, this implies some stupidity on Verizon's part, as they know exactly what kind of phone each customer has, and *should* know the memory capacity of each type; if the phone is listed as one that can't handle the full roaming list, then send it an abridged version, and inform the customer that in some remote areas the roaming indicator will indicate improperly, due to the age of the phone, but the phone will otherwise function correctly. (Does the roaming list do *anything* but tell the phone whether or not to light up the roaming indicator?) Hypothesis 2, the more paranoid one: Some people have been suggesting that Verizon have been deliberately breaking these phones. The reason given is that they aren't E911 compliant, and if they were still functional, Verizon would have to *give* you another one in order to be in compliance with the minimum 85% that the FCC wants. Now that it's "broken", they can *sell* you another one, or lock you in to a new 2-year contract. (Note that this doesn't necessarily contradict the first theory.) So: What do y'all think about this? Is there any evidence for one or the other scenario? Shalom Septimus Reply-To: works. From: also works but isn't read much, if at all. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2005 22:43:21 -0400 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> Subject: Free Wi-Fi at T-Mobile HotSpot Locations in Louisiana, Wi-Fi Internet Service Available Free of Charge at T-Mobile HotSpot Locations in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama; Residents and Tourists Displaced by Hurricane Katrina Can Stay Connected at Open T-Mobile HotSpot Locations - Aug 29, 2005 06:44 PM (BusinessWire) BELLEVUE, Wash.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 29, 2005--T-Mobile What: Free T-Mobile HotSpot Wi-Fi Internet Service When: Immediately. This will be in effect through the end of the week, at which time the situation will be re-evaluated. Where: Locations offering T-Mobile HotSpot service (if open for business): -- Borders Books and Music -- FedEx Kinko's -- Starbucks -- Hyatt Hotels -- Red Roof Inn Motels -- American Airlines, Delta Air Lines and US Airways clubs and lounges News: In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, T-Mobile HotSpot is offering free Wi-Fi Internet service at many of its nearly 66 locations in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama which have not been forced to close due to the storm. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=51444487 ------------------------------ From: Michael Hyman <mhyman@yahoo.com> Subject: History of Phone Billing Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2005 20:18:54 -0700 Organization: OnTarget Solutions Hi, I am looking for information on pre-computer and early computer toll/call billing systems. Does anyone have a good site or reference? Also, information on early call detail reporting/recording systems. Does anyone have a good site or reference? Thanks, Michael [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: At the time my grandmother died, we found among her possessions a _typewritten_ bill from Southwestern Bell Telephone Company dated in 1938. I know of no reason why she was saving it; there was nothing we noted unusual about it. In 1938, she and my grandfather lived in Coffeyville, KS. Nice letterhead stationary, with the AT&T corporate logo (bell in circle) and the phrase Southwestern Bell Telephone Company at a local address in Coffeyville. Her phone number was '309'. She as asked to return the bottom part of the page, (below the perforation) with her payment for the month. Her 'subscription' (as it was called) to service was three dollars and some change. PAT] ------------------------------ From: mc <mc_no_spam@uga.edu> Subject: Re: Book Review: "Spam Kings", Brian McWilliams Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2005 20:14:18 -0400 > "Spam Kings", Brian McWilliams, 2005, 0-596-00732-9, U$22.95/C$33.95 > %I O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. > %O U$22.95/C$33.95 707-829-0515 fax: 707-829-0104 nuts@ora.com > %O http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0596007329/robsladesinterne > After a while, you begin to realize that much of the material is > padded out with conversations taken from old Usenet archives, as well > as instant messaging and IRC (Internet Relay Chat) logs. Oddly > enough, these aren't as interesting as they sound. I wonder how much money he's making quoting things *we* said. Or are the conversations arguments between rival spammers? ------------------------------ From: Mark Crispin <MRC@CAC.Washington.EDU> Subject: Re: RIP, Sussex Cellular Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2005 17:24:40 -0700 Organization: Networks & Distributed Computing On Sun, 29 Aug 2005, John Levine wrote: > Are there any other analog-only carriers in the US at all? I can't > think of any. Even the little carriers in Alaska seem to be doing > TDMA or CDMA. Not true. Copper Valley Wireless (Glennallen, McCarthy, Valdez, Cordova) is still analog-only, although they are planning to offer CDMA in the future. Analog is likely to remain important for them, since quite a few of their customers are on fishing vessels in Prince William Sound. As far as I know, the carriers serving the Arctic (Kotzebue, Wainright, Barrow, Prudhoe, Kaktovik) are still analog-only. Dobson has done a remarkable job in building out the GSM network in Alaska. This year, GSM coverage seems to more or less overlap the TDMA network, enough that I decided to switch from TDMA to GSM. I read complaints about GSM coverage in Anchorage about a year ago, but I had no problem. There is very little CDMA in Alaska. I found (at best spotty) CDMA in Mat-Su and Anchorage. Even in Anchorage, TDMA and GSM are much more reliable. -- Mark -- http://staff.washington.edu/mrc Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate. Si vis pacem, para bellum. ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications 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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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 #392 ****************************** | |