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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 ****************************** | |