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TELECOM Digest     Thu, 22 Sep 2005 01:25:00 EDT    Volume 24 : Issue 432

Inside This Issue:                             Editor: Patrick A. Townson

    Macromedia, Cisco Push Telecom Apps (Mark Sullivan, Light Reading)
    Rita to be Biggest, Strongest Ever in Texas (Pam Easton)
    Louisiana Official Caught Ripping Off Donations (Associated Press Wire)
    EU Executive Outlines Data, Telecom Storage Rules (Huw Jones)
    TiVo Users Fear New Recording Restrictions Planned for Them (Greg Sandoval)
    T-Mobile USA Announces 20-Million Customer Milestone (Joseph)
    Re: Motorola Bag Phone (Joseph)
    Re: Motorola Bag Phone (Steven Lichter)
    Re: VISA/Master Charge Class Action Lawsuit Settled (Joseph)
    Re: Roaming Charges (Joseph)
    Re: Important Medical Recall Announcement (Gene Berkowitz)

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: Mark Sullivan <lightreading@telecom-digest.org>
Subject: Macromedia, Cisco Push Telecom Apps
Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2005 22:58:06 -0500


With the telephony and IT worlds rapidly collapsing into one thing,
the Web-development software titan Macromedia Inc. has partnered with
Cisco Systems Inc. on a Web conferencing platform.

San Francisco-based Macromedia is announcing at the Voice On the Net
(VON) Coalition show today (Tuesday) it has licensed its Flash-based
Breeze Web conferencing technology to Cisco for use in a new suite of
business applications aimed at small and medium-sized businesses.

In addition to putting Macromedia in the telecom market for the first
time, the partnership represents Cisco's biggest move into applications so
far. Both Cisco and Macromedia will now be going head-to-head with Microsoft
Corp., WebEx Communications Inc., and IBM Corp.

The new Cisco product suite, called the "Business Communications
Solution for Mid-Market Companies," is a set of IP communications
applications based around Cisco's popular CallManager softswitch
product (see Airbus Uses Equant, Cisco for VOIP).

Specifically, Macromedia's slick conferencing UI is used in Cisco's
MeetingPlace Express, a browser-based version of its somewhat
higher-end conferencing product, MeetingPlace (see LR Poll: Cisco
Likely to Make VOIP Buy).

Macromedia general manager Tom Hale called Light Reading Monday and
quickly initiated a Breeze-based conference to demonstrate what Cisco
is getting. After opening a browser window and logging in, the
conference page opens. The application's central pane is used for a
slideshow presentation, while smaller panes are placed at the left for
participant status and IM functionality. Hale soon opened yet another
pane for live video from his office in San Francisco, then began using
an arrow to point out various parts of the presentation. To
demonstrate the application's integration with the Cisco softswitch,
Hale dialed a cell phone, which rang then played a recorded invitation
to join the online conference. The feature will be more commonly used
to dial Cisco IP phones in an enterprise's network.

Cisco chose Macromedia mainly for its popular user interface, and
because Macromedia Flash is already installed on 98 percent of all
PCs, according to the companies.

Macromedia's Hale says Cisco's new suite should be attractive to
mid-sized businesses because its applications are all IP-based. "They
don't want to pay a provider for the services because there is a
markup, and every enterprise has an IP network." Hale also points out
that the Breeze Web conferencing application is friendly with machines
running practically any type of operating system.

Macromedia earlier announced the integration of its Flash development
platform with the Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ - message board)
service delivery platform (SDP) for use by service providers
developing next-generation converged applications and services (see HP
Takes Flash Approach to SDPs).

Macromedia also has a deal with VOIP business application provider
Avaya Inc. "We built a connector to Avaya and we sell the product
together," Hale says.

Cisco's new mid-sized business suite includes Mobile Connect, which
creates a single IP phone number for a variety of handset types, and
Unity Connection, a Web browser-based voice-messaging system.


      - Mark Sullivan, Reporter, Light Reading

Copyright 2005 Light Reading, Inc. 

NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the
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------------------------------

From: Pam Easton <ap@telecom-digest.org>
Subject: Rita Could be Biggest, Strongest Ever in Texas
Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2005 23:06:41 -0500


By PAM EASTON, Associated Press Writer

It is already rated category 5, as of Wednesday afternoon.

Gaining strength with frightening speed, Hurricane Rita swirled toward
the Gulf Coast a Category 5, 175-mph monster Wednesday as more than
1.3 million people in Texas and Louisiana were sent packing on orders
from authorities who learned a bitter lesson from Katrina.

"It's scary. It's really scary," Shalonda Dunn said as she and her 5-
and 9-year-old daughters waited to board a bus arranged by emergency
authorities in Galveston. "I'm glad we've got the opportunity to
leave. ... You never know what can happen."

With Rita projected to hit Texas by Saturday, Gov. Rick Perry urged
residents along the state's entire coast to begin evacuating. And New
Orleans braced for the possibility that the storm could swamp the
misery-stricken city all over again. "We do not want a repeat of the
events of Louisiana here in Texas," the Governor noted. New Orleans
Mayor Nagin noted bitterly, "I guess we get off lucky this time with
'only' five or six inches of rain to further harass the levees."

Galveston, low-lying parts of Corpus Christi and Houston, and mostly
emptied-out New Orleans were under mandatory evacuation orders as Rita
sideswiped the Florida Keys and began drawing energy with terrifying
efficiency from the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

Forecasters said Rita could be the most intense hurricane on record
ever to hit Texas, and easily one of the most powerful ever to plow
into the U.S.  mainland. Category 5 is the highest on the scale, and
only three Category 5 hurricanes are known to have hit the
U.S. mainland -- most recently, Andrew, which smashed South Florida in
1992, and of course Katrina a couple weeks ago.

The U.S. mainland has never been hit by both a Category 4 and a
Category 5 in the same season. Katrina, at one point became a Category
5 storm, weakened slightly to a Category 4 hurricane just before
coming ashore.

Government officials eager to show they had learned their lessons from
the sluggish response to Katrina sent in hundreds of buses to evacuate
the poor, moved out hospital and nursing home patients, dispatched
truckloads of water, ice and ready-made meals, and put rescue and
medical teams on standby. An Army general in Texas was told to be
ready to assume control of a military task force in Rita's wake.

"We hope and pray that Hurricane Rita will not be a devastating storm,
but we got to be ready for the worst," President Bush said in
Washington.

Late Wednesday, Rita was centered about 570 miles east-southeast of
Galveston and was moving west near 9 mph. Forecasters predicted it
would come ashore along the central Texas coast between Galveston and
Corpus Christi. Hurricane-force winds extended up to 70 miles from the
center of the storm.

But with its breathtaking size -- tropical storm-force winds extending
370 miles across -- practically the entire western end of the
U.S. Gulf Coast was in peril, and even a slight rightward turn could
prove devastating to the fractured levees protecting New Orleans.

In the Galveston-Houston-Corpus Christi area, about 1.3 million people
were under orders to get out, in addition to 20,000 or more along with
the Louisiana coast. Special attention was given to hospitals and
nursing homes, three weeks after scores of sick and elderly patients
in the New Orleans area drowned in Katrina's floodwaters or died in
the stifling heat while waiting to be rescued.

Military personnel in South Texas started moving north, too. Schools,
businesses and universities were also shut down. Some sporting events
were canceled.

Galveston was a virtual ghost town by mid-afternoon Wednesday. In
neighborhoods throughout the island city, the few people left were
packing the last of their valuables and getting ready to head north.

Helicopters, ambulances and buses were used to evacuate 200 patients
from Galveston's only hospital. And at the Edgewater Retirement
Community, a six-story building near the city's seawall, 200 elderly
residents were not given a choice.

"They either go with a family member or they go with us, but this
building is not safe sitting on the seawall with a major hurricane
coming," said David Hastings, executive director. "I have had several
say, `I don't want to go,' and I said, `I'm sorry, you're going.'"

Galveston, a city of 58,000 on a coastal island 8 feet above sea
level, was the site of one of the deadliest natural disasters in
U.S. history: an unnamed hurricane in 1900 that killed between 6,000
and 12,000 people and practically wiped the city off the map.

The last major hurricane to strike the Houston area was Category-3
Alicia in 1983. It flooded downtown Houston, spawned 22 tornadoes and
left 21 people dead.

In Houston, the state's largest city and home to the highest
concentration of Katrina refugees, the area's geography makes
evacuation particularly tricky. While many hurricane-prone cities are
right on the coast, Houston is 60 miles inland, so a coastal suburban
area of 2 million people must evacuate through a metropolitan area of
4 million people where the freeways are often clogged under the best
of circumstances.

Mayor Bill White urged residents to look out for more than themselves.

"There will not be enough government vehicles to go and evacuate
everybody in every area," he said. "We need neighbor caring for
neighbor, and remember, our Louisiana visitors; this will be their
second evacuation in as many weeks; try to be kind to them also."

Houston Police Chief Harold Hurtt issued a stern warning to anyone
staying behind that looting would not be tolerated and anyone caught
stealing after the storm would be prosecuted. "One of the first things
we will do, when we get back into town is get the jails open and ready
to accomodate looters and other lawbreakers."

At the Galveston Community Center, where 1,500 evacuees had been put
on school buses to points inland, another lesson from Katrina was put
into practice: To overcome the reluctance of people to evacuate
without their pets, they were allowed to bring them along in crates.

"It was quite a sight," Mayor Lyda Ann Thomas said. "We were able to
put people on with their dog crates, their cat crates, their shopping
carts. It went very well. Busses are making two or three trips as
needed, this time let the 'Katrina people' have decent seats and room
for their pets, etc."

But Thomas warned late Wednesday that the city was nearly out of
buses. She said those left on the island would have to find a way off
or face riding out a storm that is "big enough to destroy part of the
island, if not a great part of the county."

City Manager Steve LeBlanc said the storm surge could reach 50 feet.
Galveston is protected by a seawall that is only 17 feet tall. More
than 180 police officers were expected to stay behind to guard the
city, along with 117 firefighters.

Rita approached as the death toll from Katrina passed the 1,000 mark --
to 1,036 -- in five Gulf Coast states. The body count in Louisiana
alone was put at 799, most found in the receding floodwaters of New
Orleans.

The Army Corps of Engineers raced to fortify the city's patched-up
levees for fear the additional rain could swamp the walls and flood
the city all over again. The Corps said New Orleans' levees can only
handle up to 6 inches of rain and a storm surge of 10 to 12 feet. One
Corps supervisor echoed Mayor Nagin's earlier comments, "we may get
lucky and 'only' get six to eight inches of water this time, and not
an actual hurricane." He noted that his workers would continue doing
'temporary' repairs as long as it was safe for them to continue.

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin estimated only 400 to 500 people remained
in the vulnerable east bank areas of the city. They, too, were ordered
to evacuate.  But only a few people lined up for the evacuation buses
provided. Most of the people still in the city were believed to have
their own cars.

"I don't think I can stay for another storm," said Keith Price, a
nurse at New Orleans' University Hospital who stayed through Katrina
and had to wade to safety through chest-deep water. "Until you are
actually in that water, you really don't know how frightening it is."

Rita also forced some Katrina refugees to flee a hurricane for the
second time in 3 1/2 weeks. More than 1,000 refugees who had been
living in the civic center in Lake Charles, near the Texas state line,
were being bused to shelters farther north.

"We all have to go along with the system right now, until things get
better," said Ralph Russell of the New Orleans suburb of Harvey. "I
just hope it's a once-in-a-lifetime thing."

Crude oil prices rose again on fears that Rita would smash into key
oil installations in Texas and the gulf. Hundreds of workers were
evacuated from offshore oil rigs. Texas, the heart of U.S. crude
production, accounts for 25 percent of the nation's total oil output.

Rita is the 17th named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, making
this the fourth-busiest season since record-keeping started in
1851. The record is 21 tropical storms in 1933. The hurricane season
ends Nov. 30, and one or two more hurricanes may still strike the
area before then.

Associated Press Writers Lynn Brezosky in Corpus Christi, Alicia Caldwell in
Galveston and Juan A. Lozano in Houston contributed to this report.

On the Net:
National Hurricane Center: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov

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.

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

From: Associated Press News Wire <ap@telecom-digest.org> 
Subject: Louisiana Official Caught Ripping Off Donations
Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2005 23:08:43 -0500


Police found cases of food, clothing and tools intended for hurricane
victims at the home of the chief administrative officer for a New
Orleans suburb, authorities said Wednesday.

Officers searched Cedric Floyd's home because of complaints that city
workers were helping themselves to donations for hurricane
victims. Floyd, who runs the day-to-day operations in the suburb of
Kenner, was in charge of distributing the goods.

Police plan to seek a charge of committing an illegal act as a public
official against Floyd, and more charges against other city workers
are possible, police Capt. Steve Caraway said.

The donations filled a large pickup truck four times. "It was an awful
lot of stuff," Caraway said.

The donated materials must be processed as evidence but eventually
will be distributed to victims. "We have lots of families that are
begging for these supplies," said Attorney General Charles Foti, whose
office assisted in the investigation.

Attempts to reach Floyd were unsuccessful at home numbers listed under
his name in Kenner. His office number went unanswered after business
hours.

Philip Ramon, chief of staff to Kenner Mayor Philip Capitano, has said
city officials were investigating the alleged pilfering but added that
many employees were themselves hurricane victims.

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.

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

From: Huw Jones <reuters@telecom-digest.org>
Subject: EU Executive Unveils Electronic Storage rules
Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2005 23:10:23 -0500


By Huw Jones

The European Commission on Wednesday adopted a proposal that details
of all telephone, Internet and e-mail traffic should be logged to
combat terrorism and serious crime.

The move challenges European Union member states who are negotiating a
rival plan.

Telephone and Internet firms are waiting for the outcome of the clash
as the proposals differ over how much industry will end up paying to
store data, depending on how much longer it has to be kept.

The push for EU-wide data storage came after the Madrid bomb attacks
last year and intensified after the London bombs in July when Britain
took over the rotating EU presidency.

The Commission's text aims to harmonize the current patchwork of data
retention practices across the bloc.

"We take full account of two main, fundamental rights -- the right to
security ... and privacy protection," Commission Vice President Franco
Frattini told a news conference.

The Commission proposes storing data related to mobile and fixed
telephone traffic for a year to allow the police to trace the time,
place, and numbers used, even for unsuccessful calls, Frattini said.

INTERNET DATA

Internet data such as e-mails and the Internet server used, though not
the websites surfed, would be kept for six months, though it was not
clear how this would apply to Internet cafes, for example. Numbers
dialed using Internet telephony would also be stored.

The member states will be able to ask firms to keep data for longer on
grounds of national security. Their own proposal envisages storing
data between one and three years, and phone companies typically store
data for three months for billing.

Max-Peter Ratzel, director of EU police agency Europol said there was
an urgent need to store data for investigations. "Half a year, from my
point of view, is definitely too short. If we get one year, we can
live with that," Ratzel said.

As with the member state proposal, there is no intention to store the
content of communications.

The Commission's proposal will need to be agreed by member states and
the European Parliament, while the rival plan will need unanimous
agreement among the 25 EU governments.

Some member states fear involving parliament will slow down
legislation as EU lawmakers are seen as being more open to pressure
from industry campaigners and civil liberties groups to water down the
proposals.

Frattini said there is agreement between parliament, member states and
the Commission to approve the Brussels executive's bill by year
end. "Counter terrorism effectively requires that we have no time to
loose," Frattini said.

The Commission will also unveil a data protection initiative in the
first week of October to safeguard privacy, he said.

COMPARISON

A British presidency spokesman said on Tuesday that ministers will
compare both proposals at a meeting in October and decide how to
proceed, though parliament was already claiming victory.

"Winning co-decision for Parliament on this important area is a
success for Parliament's prerogative," said German liberal parliament
member Alexander Alvaro of the legislature's justice and home affairs
committee.

"We must now examine carefully the Commission's draft which seems at
first glance to be heading in the right direction," Alvaro said.

Under the Commission proposal, telecom and Internet firms would be
reimbursed for the "demonstrated additional costs," while Britain has
said telecom firms are rich enough to pay the extra storage costs
themselves.

EU officials could not give precise reimbursement costs, but said it
could run from several to hundreds of millions of euros.

Telecom firms say they already help the police with data requests on a
case-by-case basis, but the Commission said that some traffic data is
not always kept for billing purposes such as for flat rate tariffs,
pre-paid and free services.

EU member states have a patchwork of retention practices with 15 of
the 25 having no mandatory obligations on firms, while in those where
there is such an obligation the period and scope varies significantly.

Commission officials said firms outside the EU, but handling calls to
and from the bloc, would likely be impacted by the rules.

(Additional reporting by Mark Trevelyan in Berlin)

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: Greg Sandoval <ap@telecom-digest.org>
Subject: TiVo Users Fear Recording Restrictions
Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2005 23:11:33 -0500


By GREG SANDOVAL, AP Technology Writer

Many fans of digital video recorders made by TiVo Inc. are beginning
to fear that Hollywood studios will one day reach into their set-top
boxes to restrict the way they record and store movies and programs.

Among the functions included in TiVo's latest software upgrade is the
ability to allow broadcasters to erase material recorded by TiVo's 3.6
million users after a certain date. That ability was demonstrated
recently when some TiVo customers complained on TiVo community sites
that episodes of "The Simpsons" and "King of the Hill" they recorded
were "red-flagged" for deletion by the copyright holder.

Some users also were upset that they were prevented from transferring
these red-flagged shows to a PC via the TiVoToGo service.

Elliot Sloan, a TiVo spokesman, called the red-flag incident a
"glitch" and said it affected only a handful of customers. "It's a
non-story," Sloan said.

Nonetheless, skeptics among TiVo users questioned why TiVo would own
such a technology unless the company planned to one day use it.

TiVo and other digital video recorders let users skip commercials and
jump around a recording quickly. Since TiVo introduced its DVR in the
late 1990s, customers have enjoyed the ability to record anything they
want, and store it indefinitely.

But last year, TiVo quietly disclosed that it would employ
copyright-protection software from Macrovision Corp. for pay-per-view
and video-on-demand programs. According to a post on TiVo's Web site,
the software allows broadcasters to restrict how long a DVR can save
certain recordings or in some cases prevent someone from recording
altogether.

"Program providers decide what programs will have Macrovision copy
protection," said the TiVo post.

Matt Haughey, creator of http://PVRblog.com, the Web site where the
complaints first appeared, said some fans are overreacting about the
red-flag incident.  However, he said he is worried that TiVo has
handed Hollywood a means to restrict recordings.

"TiVo would be of limited utility in the future if the studios were
allowed to do this with regular broadcast content," Haughey
said. "This is like cell-phone jammers. What if you couldn't talk on
your cell phone? If customers can't do something with their TiVo that
they could in the past, they will stop using it."

TiVo is among many platforms that could be transformed by the
entertainment industry's demands for tighter copyright controls.

Broadcasters have also tried to force electronics manufacturers to
insert a technology known as the broadcast flag into new televisions
to prevent programs from being copied or disseminated on the Internet.

The Federal Communications Commission at one point required such
piracy preventions, but those rules were blocked in May by a
three-judge panel for the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the
District of Columbia. Congress may get the last word.


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.

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

From: Joseph <JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com>
Subject: T-Mobile USA Announces 20-Million Customer Milestone
Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2005 18:18:16 -0700
Reply-To: JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com


BELLEVUE, Wash.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 21, 2005--T-Mobile USA, Inc.
(NYSE:DT) announced today that it now has surpassed 20 million
wireless customers, having doubled its customer base during the past
10 quarters.

"I personally thank our 20 million customers for their continued
loyalty to T-Mobile, and for recommending T-Mobile to family and
friends," said Robert Dotson, President and Chief Executive Officer,
T-Mobile USA.

The company credits this achievement in part to the success it has had
in delivering on its Get More(R) promise to its customers. T-Mobile's
commitment to offer more minutes, features and service has resonated
with consumers.

"Customer-centric service, value leadership, and services innovation
is the foundation for our customer growth," Dotson said. "T-Mobile
will continue to grow by meeting the needs of its customers, rapidly
expanding network coverage, and offering widely accessible and
meaningful devices, features and services."

T-Mobile USA reached the 10-million customer mark during the first
quarter of 2003. 

http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20050921005220&newsLang=en

http://tinyurl.com/bxz5k

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

From: Joseph <JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Motorola Bag phone
Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2005 18:18:16 -0700
Reply-To: JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com


On 21 Sep 2005 07:24:23 -0700, hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:

> I would suggest powering up this phone and try making a call on it and
> see what happens.  The phone should be able to reach 911 and you could
> test that by telling the 911 operator immediately that you're testing
> a phone.  If asked for a credit card see if you can find out what it
> will cost to complete a call.  In the middle of nowhere in an
> emergency a $10 call charge isn't so onerous.

Using a credit card with the American Roaming Network is $2.99 to set
up the call and $1.99 per minute.

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

From: Steven Lichter <shlichter@diespammers.com>
Reply-To: Die@spammers.com
Organization: I Kill Spammers, Inc.  (c) 2005 A Rot in Hell Co.
Subject: Re: Motorola Bag phone
Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2005 01:22:23 GMT


hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:

> Steven Lichter wrote:

>> I have one of these.  Don't use it at all; it is not digital.

> As others have mentioned, many carriers will not activate such a phone
> as a matter a policy (not technically).  Verizon in my area will not.

> The newspaper reported consumers are upset by this because there are
> many rural areas where bag phones are still needed for their power due
> to great distances from the nearest tower.  Perhaps the cell phone
> company people think the whole country looks like New Jersey.  It does
> not.

> Such a phone might work as a 911 emergency phone or on an expensive
> pay-as-you-go basis.  I bought an analog cell phone at a yard sale,
> powered it up, and tried to make a call on it.  The system asked me
> for a credit card number to make the call.  I believe they would put a
> call through but at a considerable charge, more so than commercial
> pay-as-you-go cell phones.  I keep in my car glove box just in case.
> (I don't always carry my cell phone with me on local trips.)

> I would suggest powering up this phone and try making a call on it and
> see what happens.  The phone should be able to reach 911 and you could
> test that by telling the 911 operator immediately that you're testing
> a phone.  If asked for a credit card see if you can find out what it
> will cost to complete a call.  In the middle of nowhere in an
> emergency a $10 call charge isn't so onerous.

I did power it up, it said it was not registered on the Verizon
Network, and the 911 did work.  I may just keep it in my truck since I
get into some areas that don't have coverage. I know when I go to Los
Vegas over the 15 highway, I lose digital.

The only good spammer is a dead one!!  Have you hunted one down today?
(c) 2005  I Kill Spammers, Inc.  A Rot in Hell Co.

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

From: Joseph <JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: VISA/Master Charge Class Action Lawsuit Settled
Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2005 18:18:15 -0700
Reply-To: JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com


On Tue, 20 Sep 2005 23:42:21 -0500, Garden City Group
<gcg@telecom-digest.org> wrote:

> Walmart was one such merchant. After two years of litigation,
> VISA/MC decided to settle the lawsuit against them on this matter,
> but the court ruled that _all_ merchants -- not just the big
> Walmart-like merchants -- were entitled to relief as well.

And you should know that like most class actions you most likely will
get diddly-squat compensation while the lawyers will make lots of
money off it.

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

From: Joseph <JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Roaming Charges
Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2005 18:18:15 -0700
Reply-To: JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com


On Tue, 20 Sep 2005 23:52:16 GMT, Ken Abrams <k_abrams@[REMOVETHIS]
sbcglobal.net> wrote:

> If this was 7 years ago, I'm guessing it was analog service; it
> certainly was not GSM.  I'd be interested to see what happens on some
> of those calls today using GSM service.  

Quite the contrary.  GSM service was functional as early as January of
1996 for VoiceStream which is now T-Mobile.  The first GSM network in
the USA was turned on in 1995.  That's at least 10 years ago.

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

From: Gene S. Berkowitz <first.last@comcast.net>
Subject: Re: Important Medical Recall Announcement
Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2005 22:09:06 -0400


In article <telecom24.429.12@telecom-digest.org>, ptownson@telecom-
digest.org says:

> All drugs containing PHENYLPROPANOLAMINE are being recalled.
> You may want to try calling the 800 number listed on most
> drug boxes and inquire about a REFUND. Please read this
> CAREFULLY. Also, please pass this on to everyone you know.

Pat, do you realize that web site was last updated February 19, 2004?
The PPA announcement was covered extensively by the press.  The FDA
released a Public Health Advisory on November 6, 2000 ...


--Gene


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: So I, to my chagrin, found out.  PAT]

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