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TELECOM Digest     Mon, 26 Sep 2005 19:54:00 EDT    Volume 24 : Issue 438

Inside This Issue:                             Editor: Patrick A. Townson

    More Louisiana Survivors, More Damage (Brett Martel)
    Web Advertising up 26 Percent in Second Quarter (Reuters News Wire)
    Microsoft Starts Selling Paid Search Ads on MSN (Reuters News Wire)
    Huwaei-Marconi Merger Rumors Swirl (USTelecom dailyLead)
    The Front Lines - September 26, 2005 (Jonathan Marashlian)
    Re: Getting Rid of "Legal" Spam? (Lisa Hancock)
    Re: Bell System Phone Label Code? (Brad Houser)

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: Brett Martel <ap@telecom-digest.org>
Subject: Rescuers Find More Survivors, More Damage
Date: Mon, 26 Sep 2005 17:31:13 -0500


By BRETT MARTEL, Associated Press Writer

With Hurricane Rita's floodwaters receding along the Texas-Louisiana
coast Monday, rescuers pushed deeper into hard-hit bayous to pull out
residents on skiffs, crews struggled to clean up the tangle of smashed
homes and downed trees, and Army helicopters searched for up to 30,000
stranded cattle. Basically they had to start over where they had
left off with Katrina.

The death toll from the second devastating hurricane in a month rose
to seven with the discovery in a Beaumont, Texas, apartment of five
people -- a man, a woman and three children -- who apparently were
killed by carbon monoxide from a generator they were running indoors
after Rita knocked out the electricity.

While residents of the Texas refinery towns of Beaumont, Port Arthur
and Orange were blocked from returning to their homes because of the
danger of debris-choked streets and downed power lines, authorities in
Louisiana were unable to keep bayou residents from venturing in on
their own by boat to see if Rita wrecked their homes.

"Knowing these people, most of them are hunters, trappers, farmers,
they're not going to wait on FEMA or anyone else," said Robert
LeBlanc, director of emergency preparedness in Vermilion
Parish. "They're going to do what they need to do. They're used to
primitive conditions."

And many were finding that conditions were, in fact, primitive. Across
southwestern Louisiana's bayous, sugar cane plantations, rice fields
and cattle ranches, many people found they had no home to go back to.

Terrebonne Parish's count of severely damaged or destroyed homes stood
at nearly 9,900. An estimated 80 percent of the buildings in the town
of Cameron, population 1,900, were leveled. Farther inland, half of
Creole, population 1,500, was left in splinters.

"I would use the word destroyed," Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honore said of
Cameron. "Cameron and Creole have been destroyed except for the
courthouse, which was built on stilts on higher ground. Most of the
houses and public buildings no longer exist or are even in the same
location that they were."

Houses in the marshland between the two towns were reduced to piles of
bricks, or bare concrete slabs with steps leading to nowhere. Walls of
an elementary school gymnasium had been washed or blown away, leaving
basketball hoops hanging from the ceiling. A single-story white home
was propped up against a line of trees, left there by floodwaters that
ripped it from its foundation. A bank was open to the air, its vault
still intact. A lifeless telephone sat nearby.

"We used to call this sportsman's paradise," said Honore, a Louisiana
native. "But sometimes Mother Nature will come back and remind us that
it has power over the land. That's what this storm did."

In the refinery town of Lake Charles, National Guardsmen patrolled the
place and handed out bottled water, ice and food to hundreds of people
left without power. Scores of cars wrapped around the parking lot of
the city civic center.

Dorothy Anderson said she did not have time to get groceries before
the storm because she was at a funeral out of town. "We got back and
everything was closed," she said.

Louisiana's Department of Wildlife and Fisheries said its teams used
small boats to rescue about 200 people trapped in their homes. In
Chauvin, a steady stream of people were brought by small boats from
flooded sections of Terrebonne Parish. Some cried as they hauled
plastic bags filled with their possessions.

"This is the worst thing I've ever been through," said Danny Hunter,
56. "I called FEMA this morning, and they said they couldn't help us
because this hasn't been declared a disaster area."

"Texas is a disaster area!" Jenny Reading shouted. "I guess the
president made sure of that, and everyone just forgot about us."

A Federal Emergency Management Agency spokesman said that Terrebonne
Parish was declared a disaster area for Katrina but not for
Rita. Officials were checking to see if the residents were eligible
for Rita help.

With the floodwaters going down, officials turned their attention from
rescuing people to saving property, including cattle - many of which
were seen swimming in the brown floodwaters.

The Army used Blackhawk helicopters equipped with satellite
positioning systems to search for cattle amid fears as many as 4,000
may have been killed in Cameron Parish alone, where ranchers on
horseback struggled to herd the weak and emanciated animals into
corrals attached to pickup trucks.

"Take all the coastal parishes, they all had cattle," said Bob
Felknor, spokesman for the Louisiana Cattlemen's Association. "It
could be more than 30,000 in trouble."

Texas put the damage from Rita at a preliminary $8 billion.

At least 16 Texas oil refineries remained shut down after Rita, which
came ashore early Saturday at Sabine Pass, about 30 miles from
Beaumont. A refinery in Port Arthur and one in Beaumont were without
power, and a second Port Arthur refinery was damaged and could remain
out of service for two to four weeks.

"We didn't dodge a bullet with Rita; we took a couple bullets in the
legs with Katrina and Rita," said Tom Kloza, an analyst with the Oil
Price Information Service of Wall, N.J. "It's still a significant
loss, and it's going to create some supply problems through at least
mid-October."

Early estimates were that Hurricane Rita will cost U.S. refiners about
800,000 barrels a day in capacity, on top of a drop about 900,000
barrels a day because of Katrina. Kloza said the national average for
a gallon of regular gasoline could again top $3.

In Washington, President Bush said the government is prepared to again
tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to ease any new pain at the pump,
and he urged motorists to cut out any unnecessary travel.

"We can all pitch in by being better conservers of energy," Bush said.

Gasoline and traffic were both flowing smoothly as metropolitan
Houston continued its second day of a voluntary, staggered re-entry
plan, an attenpt to avoid the epic gridlock that accompanied the
exodus of nearly 3 million people last week.

"It's not stop-and-go traffic. Everything is flowing," said Mike Cox,
a spokesman for the Texas Transportation Department. He said crews
were also making progress in clearing trees and downed power lines
from major roads.

In New Orleans, Mayor Ray Nagin picked up where he left off before
Rita with his plan to reopen the Big Easy, inviting people in the
largely unscathed Algiers neighborhood to come back and "help us
rebuild the city."

About 300,000 customers were without power in Louisiana, and 250,000
in Texas on Monday, a number cut in half since the storm hit. A
spokesman for Entergy, a major utility in both states, said it could
be more than a month before some customers have power restored, and
rolling blackouts are possible if residents in unaffected areas do not
cut back on usage.

Among the deaths attributed to Rita was a person killed in Mississippi
when a tornado spawned by the hurricane overturned a mobile home, and
a Texas man struck by a falling tree. Two dozen evacuees were killed
before the storm in a bus fire near Dallas.

Associated Press writers David Koenig, Julia Silverman, April Castro and
Lara Jakes Jordan contributed to this report.

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: Reuters News Wire <reuters@telecom-digest.org> 
Subject: Web Advertising up 26 percent in Second Quarter
Date: Mon, 26 Sep 2005 17:33:07 -0500


U.S. Internet advertising revenue grew 26 percent to $3 billion in the
second quarter, driven by paid search listings and more sophisticated
video and audio ads known as rich media, according to a study released
on Monday.

The data provided by the Interactive Advertising Bureau and
PricewaterhouseCoopers bolsters expectations that advertisers are
spending more on the Internet as consumers devote more time to the Web
and away from other media.

Online ad revenue in the first half of the year also rose 26 percent,
to $5.8 billion, from a year earlier.

"The consistent growth in overall revenues shows marketers may be
shifting more of their total advertising budgets to online," said
David Silverman, partner at PricewaterhousCoopers.

Paid search listings, which allow advertisers to pay to display ads
next to relevant search terms, remain the bulk of online advertising
at 40 percent, buoying results for Internet companies like Yahoo and
Google .

Regular display ads, such as Web page banners, represent 20 percent of
online advertising, classified ads grew slightly to 18 percent, while
rich media comprises 8 percent.

The IAB represents 200 online companies responsible for selling nearly
90 percent of Internet advertising in the United States.

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: Reuters News Wire <reuters@telecom-digest.org> 
Subject: Microsoft Starts Selling Paid Search Ads on MSN
Date: Mon, 26 Sep 2005 17:34:11 -0500


Software maker Microsoft Corp. on Monday said it would start selling
paid search listings, which allow advertisers to purchase advertising
space alongside search results on its MSN Internet site.

The widely expected move comes as Microsoft, the world's largest
software maker, continues to take on Google Inc. in the Web-based
information and services market.

At stake is the lucrative income from online advertising, particularly
ads that are displayed next to search results, the main driver of
search leader Google's revenue.

Microsoft, which previously signed up advertisers via Yahoo Inc.,
launched the paid search service called adCenter in France on Monday
after beginning in Singapore on August 31. U.S. testing of adCenter is
set to begin in October.

Microsoft's paid search system allows advertisers to indicate whom
they want to reach based on criteria such as geographic location,
gender, the subject of their search and helps advertisers estimate the
cost of their ads.

According to research firm JupiterResearch, Internet search
advertising is set to overtake more commonplace online banner
advertising by 2010, as online sales double to $18.9 billion.

Growth in search-based ad reflects both rising advertiser confidence
in the market, as well as the sophistication of software technology.

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.

For more news from the daily press, go to: 
http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/nytimes.html   and also
http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/newstoday.html and also
http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/morenews.html

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

Date: Mon, 26 Sep 2005 14:16:19 EDT
From: USTelecom dailyLead <ustelecom@dailylead.com>
Subject: Huwaei-Marconi Merger Rumors Swirl


USTelecom dailyLead
September 26, 2005
http://www.dailylead.com/latestIssue.jsp?i=24894&l=2017006

		TODAY'S HEADLINES
	
NEWS OF THE DAY
* Huwaei-Marconi merger rumors swirl
BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH
* Verizon Wireless, Alltel mull bids for Midwest Wireless
* Q-and-A with Legg Mason's Blair Levin
* Music and mobile phones: a good marriage?
* Yahoo! remake includes original content
* Palm, Microsoft sign Treo deal
* AOL rekindles Time Warner flame
USTELECOM SPOTLIGHT
* Triple Play Technology:  Today and What's NEXT, Sept. 29, 1pm ET
TECHNOLOGY TRENDS
* Broadband providers offer more bandwidth
* Forecasting the 3G, WiMAX battle
* Videoconferencing event highlights HD's future
* Softphone technology untethers VoIP users
REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE
* Proposed rules would require European telcos to store call data

Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others.
http://www.dailylead.com/latestIssue.jsp?i=24894&l=2017006

Legal and Privacy information at
http://www.dailylead.com/about/privacy_legal.jsp

SmartBrief, Inc.
1100 H ST NW, Suite 1000
Washington, DC 20005

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

From: Jonathan Marashlian <jsm@thlglaw.com>
Subject: The Front Lines - September 26, 2005
Date: Mon, 26 Sep 2005 15:16:58 -0400
Organization: The Helein Law Group


http://www.thefrontlines-hlg.com/ The FRONT LINES
http://www.thlglaw.com/

Advancing The Cause of Competition in the Telecommunications Industry 

FCC RELEASES ORDER EXTENDING CALEA TO ALL BROADBAND PROVIDERS; SETS
COMPLIANCE DEADLINE AT 18 MONTHS

On August 5, 2005, the FCC announced the adoption of rules extending
the application of the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement
Act (CALEA) to providers of certain broadband and other information
services.  On September 23, 2005, the FCC released the text of its
Order and adopted a Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking.

In its Order, the FCC concludes that CALEA applies to facilities-based
broadband Internet access providers and providers of interconnected
voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service.  The FCC stated that its
Order is the first critical step to apply CALEA obligations to new
technologies and services that are increasingly relied upon by the
American public to meet their communications needs.

Of particular note, the FCC found that facilities-based providers of
any type of broadband Internet access service, including but not
limited to wireline, cable modem, satellite, wireless, fixed wireless,
and broadband access via powerline, are subject to CALEA.

The FCC also announced that, "[i]n the coming months, [it] will
release another order that will address separate questions regarding
the assistance capabilities required of the providers covered by [its]
Order pursuant to section 103 of CALEA.  This subsequent order will
include other important issues under CALEA, such as compliance
extensions and exemptions, cost recovery, identification of future
services and entities subject to CALEA, and enforcement."

The FCC is taking a two-step approach in order to focus debate on the
implementation rather than the applicability of CALEA to providers of
broadband Internet access services and VoIP services.  By clarifying
the applicability of CALEA to these providers now, the FCC's goal is
that affected providers will begin planning to incorporate CALEA
compliance into their operations.  Another FCC goal is to ensure that
the appropriate parties become involved in ongoing discussions among
the Commission, law enforcement, and industry representatives to
develop standards for CALEA capabilities and compliance.
 
Acknowledging that providers need a reasonable amount of time to come
into compliance with all relevant CALEA requirements, the FCC
established a deadline of 18 months from the effective date of its
Order, by which time newly covered entities and providers of newly
covered services must be in full compliance.

The FCC also issued a Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking seeking
comment on two aspects of the conclusions reached in its Order.
First, with respect to interconnected VoIP, the FCC seeks comment on
whether it should extend CALEA obligations to providers of other types
of VoIP services, such as "managed" VoIP service.  Second, the FCC
seeks comment on what procedures, if any, the Commission should adopt
to implement CALEA's exemption provision to exempt certain entities or
classes of entities from the requirements of its Order.

SBC FILES PETITION ASKING FCC TO DECLARE ACCESS CHARGES APPLY TO CERTAIN
PROVIDERS OF WHOLESALE IP TRANSMISSION

On September 26, 2005, the FCC released a Public Notice requesting
comments on Petitions filed by SBC and VarTec.  Both Petitions request
clarification regarding the application of access charges to certain
providers of wholesale transmission using Internet Protocol (IP).  As
described below, SBC and VarTec take contrary positions on the issue.

On September 21, 2005, SBC filed a petition for declaratory ruling
that wholesale transmission providers using Internet protocol (IP)
technology to transport long distance calls are liable for access
charges.  SBC filed its petition after the United States District
Court for the Eastern District of Missouri dismissed without prejudice
SBC's claims seeking payment of access charges for long distance calls
that were transported using IP technology.  The court found it
appropriate to defer the issues raised by SBC to the primary
jurisdiction of the FCC.

In its Petition, SBC seeks a declaratory ruling that wholesale
transmission providers using IP technology to carry long distance
calls that originate and terminate on the public switched telephone
network (PSTN) are liable for access charges under section 69.5 of the
Commission's rules and applicable tariffs.  SBC seeks a ruling that
providers meeting these criteria are interexchange carriers.

VarTec filed a petition for declaratory ruling on related issues.
Specifically, VarTec seeks a declaratory ruling that it is not
required to pay access charges to terminating local exchange carriers
(LECs) when enhanced service providers or other carriers deliver calls
directly to the terminating LECs for termination.

VarTec also seeks a declaratory ruling that such calls are exempt from
access charges when they are originated by a commercial mobile radio
service (CMRS) provider and do not cross major trading area (MTA)
boundaries.  VarTec also seeks a declaratory ruling that terminating
LECs are required to pay VarTec for the transiting service VarTec
provides when terminating LECs terminate intraMTA calls originated by
a CMRS provider.

Interested parties may file comments on or before November 10, 2005,
and reply comments on or before December 12, 2005.

FCC RELEASES TEXT OF WIRELINE BROADBAND (DSL) DEREGULATION ORDER

On August 5, 2005, the FCC announced the adoption of an Order to
re-classify wireline broadband Internet access as an "information
service," consistent with the Supreme Court's NCTA v. Brand X
decision. Generally, this affects Digital Subscriber Line services
offered by incumbent local exchange carriers.  On September 23, 2005,
the FCC released the text of its Order.

A summary of the actions taken in the Order follows:  

* Consistent with the Supreme Court's opinion in NCTA v. Brand X, we
determine that facilities-based wireline broadband Internet access
service is an information service.

* Facilities-based wireline broadband Internet access service
providers are no longer required to separate out and offer the
wireline broadband transmission component (i.e., transmission in
excess of 200 kilobits per second (kbps) in at least one direction) of
wireline broadband Internet access services as a stand-alone
telecommunications service under Title II, subject to the transition
explained below.  In addition, the Bell Operating Companies (BOCs) are
immediately relieved of all other Computer Inquiry requirements with
respect to wireline broadband Internet access services.

* Facilities-based wireline carriers are permitted to offer broadband
Internet access transmission arrangements for wireline broadband
Internet access services on a common carrier basis or a non-common
carrier basis.

* Facilities-based wireline Internet access service providers must
continue to provide existing wireline broadband Internet access
transmission offerings, on a grandfathered basis, to unaffiliated ISPs
for a one-year transition period.

* Affirm that neither the statute nor relevant precedent mandates that
broadband transmission be a telecommunications service when provided
to an ISP, but the provider may choose to offer it as such.  Determine
that the use of the transmission component as part of a
facilities-based provider's offering of wireline broadband Internet
access service to end users using its own transmission facilities is
"telecommunications" and not a "telecommunication service" under the
Act.

The Order also addresses other important areas relating to the
provision of broadband Internet access services including:

* Maintains the status quo for universal service during for a 270-day
period pending resolution of the USF Contribution Methodology
proceeding.

* Ensure no adverse impact on public safety through the continued
requirement that voice over IP (VoIP) providers using wireline
broadband Internet access facilities comply with E911 obligations.

* Confirm that this Order does not affect disability access
obligations the Commission has adopted pursuant to its Title I
ancillary jurisdiction, and we will continue to exercise Title I
authority, as necessary, to give full effect to the accessibility
policy embodied in section 255.


* Nothing in the Order changes requesting telecommunications carriers'
rights to access unbundled network elements (UNEs) under section 251
and related implementing rules.

Finally, the FCC adopted a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking seeking
comment on the need for any non-economic regulatory requirements
necessary to ensure that consumer protection needs are met by all
providers of broadband Internet access service, regardless of the
underlying technology.

                  =================

The Front Lines is a free publication of The Helein Law Group,
providing clients and interested parties with valuable information,
news, and updates regarding regulatory and legal developments
primarily impacting companies engaged in the competitive
telecommunications industry.

The Front Lines does not purport to offer legal advice nor does it
establish a lawyer-client relationship with the reader. If you have
questions about a particular article, general concerns, or wish to
seek legal counsel regarding a specific regulatory or legal matter
affecting your company, please contact our firm at 703-714-1313 or
visit our website:

http://www.thlglaw.com/

The Helein Law Group
8180 Greensboro Drive, Suite 700
McLean, Virginia 22102

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

From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com
Subject: Re: Getting Rid of "Legal" Spam?
Date: 26 Sep 2005 13:41:39 -0700
Organization: http://groups.google.com


A. Berger -- Onlynux wrote:

> The best way to get rid of spam is always give an email alias to
> everybody, this way all people will have a different email address and
> when you want to stop the spammer simply delete the alias, also you
> will know for sure who the spammer is.

I do not have the resources to get multiple email addresses.

Indeed, it would be inconvenient to use different addresses every time
I did e-business.  Usually a company will send a confirmation memo, so
I would have to keep careful track of multiple addresses.  Too much
trouble.

Anyway, all of my e-business so far (the little I do since I avoid it)
has not had a problem until this particular time.  As mentioned, this
is not some little fly-by-night outfit, but a large ongoing business.

Someone mentioned "Yahoo" offers 'free' email.  Are these hard to get?
Do you have to give information to Yahoo to get one?


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: To get a free Yahoo mailbox all you
need to do is go to http://yahoo.com and sign up for one, plus answer
a few simple questions which are mainly for security purposes. You
will have an opportunity at that point to sign up for 'enhanced' service
features (re the amount of space alloted, spam filtering, etc, which
you can either accept or decline. I have a couple of their mailboxes,
and they come in handy. You'll also have an opportunity to sign up for
features like Yahoo Groups ( a sort of newsgroup thing; this Digest
has a 'group' there), My Yahoo (a home page with news headlines that
you choose to format as desired), Yahoo Messenger (which is free group
or one-on-one chat), Yahoo Personals (romanticly-oriented personal
ads, this last feature is not totally free, you pay to transmit and
receive email of a more personal nature.) Yahoo has a lot of good
features, all mostly advertiser supported.  You do have to give some
information, as noted above, mostly for security verification
purposes.   PAT]

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

From: Brad Houser <bradDOThouser@intel.com>
Subject: Re: Bell System Phone Label Code?
Date: Mon, 26 Sep 2005 14:52:28 -0700
Organization: Intel Corporation
Reply-To: bradDOThouser@intel.com


On Thu, 22 Sep 2005 18:41:08 -0500, Allen Newman wrote:

> On the number cards/labels affixed to latter-decades' Bell System
> phones, there was a letter M stamped like this:

>  -----------------------------
> |  AREA                     |
> |  CODE   M     555-4321    |
> |  595                      |
>  -----------------------------

> What did the M mean?

Ma? (Bell) 

Brad H

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

End of TELECOM Digest V24 #438
******************************

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