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TELECOM Digest Tue, 13 Sep 2005 18:17:00 EDT Volume 24 : Issue 418 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Ex Microsoft Exec Free to Work For Google (Reuters News Wire) Bush Accepts Responsibility for Katrina Blunders (Lara Jakes Jordan) Gripes From Skype Users After E-Bay Buyout (Adam Pasick) Roaming Charges (Kevin Lindow) SBC, Verizon, Qwest Quake in Fear (Mark Hall) VOIP Phones Give Villagers a Buzz (Cyrus Farivar) Re: Back in the Cord-Board Days (Lisa Hancock) Re: Flat Rate Water, was: Verizon Complaints About EVDO (Lisa Hancock) Re: Flat Rate Water (Dave Garland) Re: How a Telephone Works (William Warren) Last Laugh! How Many Members of Bush Admin Needed to Change Light Bulb 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: Reuters News Wire <reuters@telecom-digest.org> Subject: Ex Microsoft Exec Free to Work for Google Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2005 14:21:50 -0500 A Washington state judge has cleared the way for Google Inc. to hire a former Microsoft executive to head its Chinese research and development center so long as the employee does not recruit from Microsoft. King County Superior Court Judge Steven Gonzalez found that former Microsoft Vice President Kai-Fu Lee can begin working for Google by setting up a research office in China and recruiting software engineers if he does not use confidential information gleaned while he worked at Microsoft. "Microsoft has not sufficiently shown that it has a clear legal or equitable right to enjoin Dr. Lee, pending trial, from establishing and staffing a Google development facility in China," Gonzalez wrote in a preliminary injunction ruling. However, in his order, the judge enjoined Lee and his new employer from working on any product or service that relies on confidential information tied to search, natural language processing and speech recognition he obtained while working for Microsoft. Google lawyers had agreed to these specific restrictions ahead of the ruling, a Google spokesman said. The judge was very specific on this point: "no 'whispering', no playing games in job descriptions, etc, you will be monitored on this point as neeed." 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: Lara Jakes Jordan <ap@telecom-digest.org> Subject: Bush Takes Responsibility For Katrina Blunders Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2005 14:21:25 -0500 By LARA JAKES JORDAN, Associated Press Writer President Bush said Tuesday that "I take responsibility" for failures in dealing with Hurricane Katrina and said the disaster raised broader questions about the government's ability to respond to natural disasters as well as terror attacks. "Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government," Bush said at joint White House news conference with the president of Iraq. "To the extent the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility," Bush said. The president was asked whether people should be worried about the government's ability to handle another terrorist attack given failures in responding to Katrina. "Are we capable of dealing with a severe attack? That's a very important question and it's in the national interest that we find out what went on so we can better respond," Bush replied. He said he wanted to know both what went wrong and what went right. As for blunders in the federal response, "I'm not going to defend the process going in," Bush said. "I am going to defend the people saving lives." He praised relief workers at all levels. "I want people in America to understand how hard people worked to save lives down there," he said. Bush spoke after R. David Paulison, the new acting director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, pledged to intensify efforts to find more permanent housing for the tens of thousands of Hurricane Katrina survivors now in shelters. It was the closest Bush has come to publicly finding fault with any federal officials involved in the hurricane response, which has been widely criticized as disjointed and slow. Some federal officials have sought to fault state and local officials for being unprepared to cope with the disaster. Bush planned to address the nation Thursday evening from Louisiana, where he will be monitoring recovery efforts, the White House announced earlier Tuesday. Paulison, in his first public comments since taking the job on Monday, told reporters: "We're going to get those people out of the shelters, and we're going to move and get them the help they need." Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff introduced Paulison as the Bush administration tried to deflect criticism for the sluggish initial federal response to the hurricane and its disastrous aftermath. Chertoff said that while cleanup, relief and reconstruction from Katrina is now the government's top priority, the administration would not let down its guard on other potential dangers. He noted that the administration would 'try to do better' with 'terrorists' than was initially done with Katrina. "The world is not going to stop moving because we are very focused on Katrina," Chertoff said. Paulison, named to the post on Monday, said he was busy "getting brought up to speed." He replaced Michael Brown, who resigned on Monday, three days after being removed from being the top onsite federal official in charge of the government's response. Paulison said Bush called him Monday night and "thanked me for coming on board." Bush promised that he would have "the full support of the federal government," Paulison said. Chertoff said the relief operation had entered a new phase. Initially, he said, the most important priority was evacuating people, getting them to safety, providing food, water and medical care. "And then ultimately at the end of the day, we have to reconstitute the communities that have been devastated," Chertoff added. He said the federal government would look increasingly to state and local officials for guidance on rebuilding the devastated communities along the Gulf Coast. "The federal government can't drive permanent solutions down the throats of state and local officials," Chertoff said. "I don't think anyone should envision a situation in which they're going to take a back seat. They're going to take a front seat," he said. Chertoff said that teams of federal auditors were being dispatched to the stricken areas to make sure that billions of dollars worth of government contracts were being properly spent. "We want to get aid to people who need it quickly, but we also don't want to lose sight of the importance of preserving the integrity of the process and our responsibility as stewards of the public money," Chertoff said. "We're going to cut through red tape," he said, "but we're not going to cut through laws and rules that govern ethics." Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said that some military aircraft and other equipment may be able to move out of the Gulf Coast soon. "We've got to the point where most if not all of the search and rescue is completed," said Rumsfeld, who is attending a NATO meeting in Berlin. "Some helicopters can undoubtedly be moved out over the period ahead." He also said there is a very large surplus of hospital beds in the region, so those could also be decreased. The USS Comfort hospital ship arrived near the Mississippi coast late last week. Rumsfeld added that nothing will be moved out of the area without the authorization of the two states' governors, the military leaders there and the president. Elsewhere, workers with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention aren't finding many sick people, even though the specter of diseases has alarmed relief and rescue figures. Instead, between 40 and 50 percent of patients seeking emergency care have injuries. The CDC has counted 148 injuries in just the last two days, Carol Rubin, an agency hurricane relief specialist, said by telephone from the government's new public health headquarters in New Orleans' Kindred Hospital. While she couldn't provide a breakdown, Rubin said chain saw injuries and carbon monoxide exposure from generators are among them. Those are particularly worrisome because they're likely to become more common as additional hurricane survivors re-enter the city in coming days, she said. The message: Those injuries are preventable, if people take proper precautions, Rubin stressed. 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. For more Associated Press headlines and stories, please go to: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/AP.html ------------------------------ From: Adam Pasick (reuters@telecom-digest.org> Subject: Gripes From Skype Users After eBay Buyout Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2005 14:22:27 -0500 By Adam Pasick Ebay's acquisition of Skype could be worth up to $4.1 billion to investors in the Internet telephony start-up, but it is getting mixed reviews from Skype's fervent supporters. It was the hard-core Skype fans whose word-of-mouth advertising helped it become the world's largest voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) provider without spending a penny on marketing. It has some 54 million registered users and usually has more than 3.5 million people online. But the sale to eBay could signal the end of the evangelical zeal from users that drove Skype's rapid growth. Its software -- which offers free computer-to-computer calls between Skype users -- has spread in classic viral fashion, as each new user convinces friends and family to sign up. In a poll on the forums http://forum.skype.com/viewtopic.php?t=4932 , 69 percent of users said the acquisition is not a good thing, compared with 23 percent in favor of the deal. "In my opinion, the takeover by eBay means to me possibly and probably the end of free Skype services. I anticipate a very bad future for us here but I sincerely hope I am wrong," the Skype user Alan2 wrote on Monday. Users also raised concerns that the purchase of the Luxembourg-based Skype by a U.S. company could mean new legal constraints on the service. "How much time before someone makes a Taliban joke and the feds descend on their home with the Patriot Act?" Skype user Slvaldor wrote. "How long before the music and movie cartels start suing for snooping access to Skype's network through the (U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act) DMCA?" The U.S. government is considering regulating VoIP services, which could include provisions for law-enforcement wiretapping. A ruling by the Federal Communications Commission in August required that some VOIP services provide for wiretap access within 18 months, but it is not yet clear whether the order includes Skype. Skype founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis are sticking with Skype, and eBay Chief Executive Meg Whitman said on Monday that she intends to nurture the core Skype business even as its voice call features are integrated into eBay. The early adopters of fast-growing start-up services like Skype often become disillusioned when their favorite company is sold. Some users of the popular online photo site Flickr (http://www.flickr.com) revolted last month when the new owner Yahoo moved to require Flickr users to register as part of Yahoo's network. Yahoo and fellow online powerhouses Google, Microsoft and AOL, are aggressively targeting the voice-over-Internet market, so unhappy Skype users will have plenty of options if they decide to leave the service. "We can just sit back and watch. Smile. And hey, if eBay is doing that bad we can just switch to tons of other VoIP software," said user Uhura. 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. Also see: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/newstoday.html ------------------------------ Subject: Roaming Charges From: Kevin Lindow <KevLindow@nospamgmail.com> Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2005 19:39:50 GMT Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net I have a situation regarding my cell phone company. I contacted my cell phone service and discussed "roaming" charges before I went cross country. The phone company told me if the cell phone didn't show "roaming" on the phone that the call would stand as a local call. Well, I just got the bill and it is 300 bucks, full of "roaming" charges. I swear only one call indicated "roaming." Should I pay the bill and shutup and chalk it up as experience or should I refuse to pay the bill? And, in the meantime, how do I make phone calls to friends and family back home -- without racking up more "roaming" charges? Kevin ------------------------------ From: Mark Hall <computerworld@telecom-digest.org> Subject: SBC, Verizon, Qwest Quake in Fear Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2005 14:43:52 -0500 Opinion by Mark Hall SEPTEMBER 12, 2005 (COMPUTERWORLD) - ... as open-source private branch exchange software with integrated voice-over-IP capabilities gains adherents. "I believe they already know they're doomed," suggests Brian Capouch, chairman of the computer science department at Saint Joseph's College in Rensselaer, Ind. Capouch argues that giant telecommunications providers and PBX manufacturing goliaths don't stand a chance against perky start-ups such as Huntsville, Ala.-based Digium Inc. and San Diego-based Four Loop Technologies LLC, which does business under the name Switchvox. Those vendors use Asterisk, an open-source technology that lets companies replace their PBX systems and use VoIP to transmit phone calls. Switchvox CEO Joshua Stephens says Asterisk lets you use a standard Linux server to connect to your network via a T1 line for traditional analog calls or to your Internet service provider to support chat via VoIP. Switchvox's system also handles voice mail like e-mail, meaning you can listen to it, forward it, store it and do anything to voice messages that you can do to e-mail, claims Stephens. Switchvox 2.0 ships at the end of this month and will add conference-room, intercom, call-parking and other new features. Pricing starts at $995. Capouch says Asterisk and VoIP combined will do to the telecom market what Linux, Apache, MySQL and other open-source technologies have done to the data center: "radically change the landscape." Capouch shrugs off the argument that perceived problems with VoIP call quality may hinder adoption. "Cell phones have lowered people's quality expectations," he notes. Copyright 2005 ComputerWorld.com and International Data Group (IDG) 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, ComputerWorld.com/IDG. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ From: Cyrus Farivar <wired news@telecom-digest.org> Subject: VOIP Phones Give Villagers a Buzz Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2005 14:34:50 -0500 By Cyrus Farivar http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,68796,00.html 02:00 AM Sep. 12, 2005 PT SAN FRANCISCO -- At first glance, Inveneo's office eight floors above Market Street resembles any high-tech startup -- computer parts scattered on desks, Wi-Fi antennas mounted on the wall. But adjacent to the front door hangs a large colorful map of Africa, and a few steps away a stationary bicycle is hooked up to a backpack-size power generator. From this base, a small group of determined geeks is using solar- and pedal-powered voice-over-internet-protocol phones and Wi-Fi to bring local, national and international dialing to remote areas of the world, beginning with a few villages in western Uganda where nothing resembling a telephone system has ever existed. "What we're bringing to them ... is two-way communication, which they've never had before," said Kristin Peterson, chair and co-founder of the year-old nonprofit effort. The organization has already installed its Linux-based VOIP stations at four isolated villages in Bukuuku subcounty, serving a total of nearly 3,200 villagers. Each village in the Bukuuku program has a custom-built computer with a 2-GB microdrive, to eliminate moving parts, along with 256 MB of RAM and a 533-MHz processor. The computer is wired to a regular analog telephone set and a directional Wi-Fi antenna, which transmits the internet signal to a central hub at one of the villages. Complete with 70-watt solar panels and a bicycle generator -- which can provide power in the event of no sunlight -- each installation costs only $1,800, including the outdoor Wi-Fi 802.11b antenna. Calls between the villages are routed by the hub, and cost nothing -- like dialing another room from a hotel PBX, said Robert Marsh, Inveneo's CFO and co-founder. Calls destined for outside the village network go over a satellite link between the hub and the main Ugandan telephone exchange. Mark Summer, Inveneo's CEO and co-founder, said that while most people in the United States have access to a telephone and can communicate with anyone in seconds, it is not so in these remote areas. "Every time they want to do anything, they have to walk down the hill for three to four kilometers," said Summer. "Being able to make a local phone call is a big deal to them." The effort has already earned praise from other like-minded geek projects in the developing world. Geekcorps founder Ethan Zuckerman said he has been impressed with Inveneo's work. He dismisses critics from SBC and Verizon who argue that there's no need for telecommunications services in these rural areas, and certainly not for free. "You need to find out what the price of certain goods are, you need to find out ... information from the government," he said. "The way people find this out (now) is by getting on buses or motorbikes." Zuckerman argues there may even be commercial telecom opportunities in Uganda, citing a 2000 study conducted as part of the Grameen Bank project that demonstrated it was highly profitable to sell local cell-phone service in rural areas in Bangladesh that had been traditionally ignored by the incumbent telecom operators. "People are willing to pay far, far more money than we would think," he said. "It's pretty amazing." Marsh, a semi-retired Silicon Valley entrepreneur, also co-founded the legendary Homebrew Computer Club in Menlo Park, California, in 1975. He said he looks forward to expanding Inveneo's work in other parts of the world, including Aceh province in Indonesia, as well as that country's capital, Jakarta. "Now's my chance to do good for the world," said Marsh. "We'd like to put technology in use for people who need it most." Copyright 2005, Lycos, Inc, Wired News. Registered trademarks of Carnegie Mellon University. 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, Trustees of Carnegie Mellon University. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Re: Back in the Cord-Board Days (Re: Delay in Reaching Operator) Date: 13 Sep 2005 11:11:20 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Mark J. Cuccia wrote: > New Orleans was one of the first places to have TSPS (Traffic Service > Position System) automation for Operator Servvice, back around 1970 or > so. But automation for operator type services even goes back to the > early 1960s with TSP (Traffic Service Position) and even late 1950s > with PPCS (Person to Person Card Special) in some parts of the midwest > and northeast. In my old neighborhood of Philadelphia, the service was split. All 0+ and coin 1+ calls went to a TSP (the older type) facility which handled a large section of the city. But this facility did not handle plain 0 (zero) calls for some reason. My neighborhood's 0 calls went to a suburban CO that had cord dial-assistance operators. (I don't know where directory assistance calls went, that was another office altogether). The Mountain Bell history ("to Laser Beams") shows pictures of cord boards with some upgrades -- modern illuminated keypads on the keyshelf and little computer terminals. The Bell System did a lot of such improvements to legacy technology to improve efficiency without a full formal upgrade; the Bell Labs Records of the 1970s were full of articles about that kind of thing. Some Step by Step offices had computerized front ends and back ends to help route and charge calls, in some cases becoming a poor man's common control system. (That is, the dial pulses no longer operated the actual Strowger switches but rather were recorded in a computer, which then directed the Strowger switches.) This sort of thing was necessary to expedite higher calling volumes in growing suburban areas and automated toll and operator services. A look at small town telephone directories of the 1960s showed dialing was both limited and cumbersome in many places. To reach a neighbor- ing exchange, one might have to dial a special prefix, and a different prefix for each area, as well as from where you're calling from. The charts could be rather complex. Or, you could only dial your own neighborhood and anything and everything else required 0. ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Re: Flat Rate Water, was: Verizon Complaints About EVDO Date: 13 Sep 2005 11:23:55 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Do you mean to tell me septic tanks are > allowed in New York City? There are some in isolated old parts of Philadelphia. For example, in the outer edges of the city there once were free standing villages with very old houses (before development surrounded them). Those old houses and streets are not connected to the sewer system. It wouldn't surprise me if similar old places even in New York City (particularly in Staten Island but also in outlying parts of the Bronx and Queens) would be likewise. > hooked to the water, and many of them complain about the cost of > 'rural water' which is much more expensive than 'city water'. I cannot > believe there are places and communities so backward that septic tanks > are allowed, except by default in small rural areas. But NYC? Not even > in Chicago do you see that any longer. Our suburban water and sewer rates are FAR higher than what Philadel- phia charges its people. I don't know why. In the city water and sewer is provided by the water department of the city government and it is supposed to run at a break even point without subsidy or profit. Suburban water is provided by private companies that make a good deal of money, sewage is shared by several municipalities and also costs a function. In the outer suburbs, there are quite a few older houses that use wells and septic tanks and are extremely expensive none the less. In our area sewer bills are based on water consumption and sewage costs more than water. Both bills have a high minimum charges -- single people living alone rarely use more than that minimum and probably would pay less on a more usage based rate schedule. This issue can get surprisingly complicated. I think my own area is being grossly overcharged -- if the "big evil city" with all its urban problems can charge so much less the suburban facilities shouldn't be that much more. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Usually, the places which have the water, i.e. Chicago and Lake Michigan, charge less for their own people to use it, while blackmailing the folks with no immediate access to the water (such as the north and western suburbs of Chicago). As an example, Oak Park, Illinois and Harwood Heights, Illinois have to buy their water from City of Chicago _or_ get permission from City of Chicago to extend water pipes from the lake all the way through town out to themselves. That would involve not only much excavation of streets but a lot of politics as well. If those suburbs even tried to get instant access to Lake Michigan, I am sure they would regret it by the time in several years it got out of court. So, they figure its simply cheaper in the long run to purchase the community's water from City of Chicago. Although city does discount the price a little for the bulk purchase, they do not discount it _that much_ and since politics means so much, the suburbs have to add their own 'markup' to the price they charge to resell the water to their citizens. But, speaking of politics, some of the little suburban towns have something Chicago wants as well: Consider Ohare Airport for example: The original Mayor Daley (King Daley I) long ago decided it just would not do to have Ohare 'belong to' or be geographically situated in Park Ridge or that other little town along Mannheim Road where Ohare physically sits, called Rosemont, IL. It had to be part of Chicago, by God, that's how Daley the First in his greed phrased it. But in order to annex the airport into the city itself, state law got in the way. State law requires that in order for one place to annex another place, the two places have to touch at least a little somewhere. For instance Chicago _could_ legally annex Oak Park since they have border lines in common, just as the city many years ago annexed Austin, Illinois on the west side, and Pullman, Illinois on the south side. In the case of Ohare Airport however, none of it _touches_ or has a border in common with Chicago. It touches Rosemont, Schiller Park, and Park Ridge, but not Chicago. So King Daley I had a solution for that also: we will take a tiny little five foot wide length of land on the north side of Irving Park Road (where Chicago touches Schiller Park) and stretch that all the way west then through the Forest Preserve (don't worry about those commissioners, they are my puppets also) and we will keep on extending that little strip of land through Rosemont until it reaches the eastern edge of Ohare, where then we 'balloon it out' to take in all of Ohare. So by that gerrymandering Chicago is able to annex Orchard Field (which they would begin calling 'Ohare' Field; FYI that is why the FAA designation for Ohare is 'ORD', from the Orchard Field days). Corrupted mayor and officials of Schiller Park and Rosemont all line up with hands out; what's in it for us if we give away our little towns to you, oh King Daley? How about if we give you _free water_ from now on, the King replied. You won't have to continue to pay outrageous prices to buy water from Chicago, and you won't have to engage in a lengthy and expensive lawsuit to excavate _our streets_ in order to get water out to _your little rinky dink town was Daley's proposition. And it was, as 'they' say, sold to the highest bidder. That is why over a two or three block stretch of what logically is Rosemont/Schiller Park in that area (as per the design of the street lamps and street marker signs) instead you see _true_ Chicago street lamps and street signs. Just for those few blocks way out west. And where there was one other little nasty, two separate streets in town with the same name (Michigan Avenue to be precise), they took the less well known one in Schiller Park and for that two block stretch (where it intersects with Irving) changed the name to some- thing else, which escapes me at this minute. And just because Rosemont and Schiller Park get their water for free from City of Chicago does not mean they in turn pass along that largesse to their own citizens for free. You didn't think that, did you? But that is how 'Chicago-Ohare International Airport' got that name instead of 'Rosemont-Orchard Field Airport'. Everyone else in the western/southern suburbs of Chicago pay dearly for their water. Going north, however, the Evanston Water Works does a wee bit better for the suburbs west of it; they still pay through the nose also, but not as much or as badly as the towns dependent on the City of Chicago. (Except of course for Schiller Park and Rosemont.) PAT] ------------------------------ From: Dave Garland <dave.garland@wizinfo.com> Subject: Re: Flat Rate Water Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2005 14:26:09 -0500 Organization: Wizard Information It was a dark and stormy night when jared@netspacenospamnet.au (jared) wrote: > Recently my water bill had an ad for a water monitor. Apparently the > meters are read remotely by unit in a vehicle going down the > street. Automatic reporting by telephone (the meter connects to a box that connects to your landline) is more common in Minneapolis, but they also have battery-powered RF devices for situations where a telephone line is not available or the owner refuses to permit a connection to it. To add to the profusion of systems, there are also old meters that must be read manually, and meters with remote readouts (a little counter box that is mounted on the outside of the building for easier access). I think we've got the entire history of meter-reading technology on display. No WiFi units, but that's probably only a matter of time if a plan goes through to provide citywide wifi access. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2005 16:03:51 -0400 From: William Warren <william_warren_nonoise@comcast.net> Subject: Re: How a Telephone Works eagle_speaks@yahoo.co.uk wrote: > Though I am in the telecommunications field ( software side) I am a > bit confused about how everything works, though I have a high level > overview. So I am stating my undestanding, so that someone can > correct or fill up the gaps. > 1. Each home suscriber has a twisted copper pair that runs from his > telephone to a cable containg thousands (why no multiplexing here and > send it through a single wire??) thousands of such pairs; to the local > excahnge or the central office. There's no multiplexing because it means putting active equipment at the end of the wire, and that means the company has to build a weather protection enclosure, connect power, maintain batteries, and pay for easement(s), maintenance, etc. It's more cost-effective to have the pair go back to the CO., at least for most single-family homes. Apartment buildings, especially large ones, are more likely to be multiplexed, since the ILEC doesn't pay for the space needed and it's less expensive to run fiber than copper for the same number of lines. > 2. In the central office there is a hardware equipment (LTG ??) which > has a lot of ports, to one of which the copper pair that runs from the > suscribers telephone is plugged in. > (I hope I am correct here.) Yes, you are correct. Most companies use the term "Central Office" to refer to both the telephone exchange equipment and the building which houses it. > 3. The central office is connected to the tandem office via trunks > which I hope are a thick co-axial cable or optical fiber through which > multiplexed traffic from various CO flows. Almost all fiber; coaxial cables were retired long ago and are now used only for TV transmission, and even then only in locations where the coax is "retired in place" (as far as trunk usage goes) and there's no demand for digital transmission. > Also there is a seperate cable for SS7 siganlling, connecting various > CO to TO . There are separate _circuits_ for SS7, which share the same transmission layer as inter-office trunks, but are always routed to two geographically diverse Signal Transfer Point locations via routes that have nothing in common. > There is also a switch at the tandem office. Yes, it's a tandem switch. The definition _used to_ be along "two-wire" vs. "four-wire" switches, but since all digital paths are four-wire, the distinction is less clear now. It's very common for "local" exchages to do double-duty as small tandem offices, e.g., for E-911 switching to a PSAP, and the only real difference between "local" and "tandem" switching is the circuit packs used at the edges, since all digital exchanges have to have "four-wire" (i.e., separate paths for transmit and receive) internal switching anyway. > 4. Now if a suscriber dials a number, the DTMF tones are resceived at > the CO which has a directory (databse ???) look up. It finds that this > number is at antother exchange and sends a SS7 signal to that . From > there how is the trunk reserved ???? In the Bell System, SS7 is an overlay on the old MF signalling method, so each CO handles trunk reservations the same way for both signalling methods. The exchange keeps an internal list of which trunks are in use, and assigns a vacant trunk to each inter-office call as needed. Intermediate tandems assign trunks in turn, in a daisy chain fashion, until the call is completed or there are no trunks available. There is no "database" of trunks; i.e. they are _not_ preassigned at a central "brain" before the call setup is attempted. Each office maintains a local list, and makes its own decision about which trunk to use for the next hop, with the assignments taking place in sequence from office to office. > 5. Also how is the incoming call from a modem and telephone > distinguished at the CO. Or does the modem also dial DTMF signals??? The modem uses either DTMF or dial-pulse, depending on how it has been programmed, and it dials the call in the same way a subscriber would. The CO is unaware that a modem is being used, either for data or fax. > I hope someone can answer my questions. I hope I have. William (Filter noise from my address for direct replies) ------------------------------ From: Debbie DKTubiolo <debbietubiolo89@hotmail.com> Subject: Last Laugh! How Many Members of Bush Administration Does it Take Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2005 14:28:19 -0500 How many members of the Bush Administration does it take to change a light bulb? 1 One to deny that a light bulb needs to be changed. 2 One to attack the patriotism of anyone who says the light bulb needs to be changed. 3 One to blame Clinton for burning out the light bulb. 4 One to tell the nations of the world that they are either responsible for changing the light bulb or for darkness. 5 One to give a billion dollar no-bid contract to Haliburton for the new light bulb. 6 One to arrange a photograph of Bush, dressed as a janitor, standing on a stepladder under the banner: Lightbulb Change Accomplished. 7 One administration insider to resign and write a book documenting in detail how Bush was literally in the dark. 8 One to viciously smear #7. 9 One surrogate to campaign on TV and at rallies on how George Bush has had a strong light bulb changing policy all along. 10 And finally one to confuse Americans about the difference between screwing a light bulb and screwing the country. ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications topics. 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