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TELECOM Digest Mon, 17 Oct 2005 11:51:00 EDT Volume 24 : Issue 470 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson 'Cramming' Hits Consumers When They Least Expect It (Mark Huffman) Senate Bill Sets Spring 2009 Demise for Analog TV (Monty Solomon) Surfin' U.S.A. (Monty Solomon) A Marriage of Bookshelf and Phone (Monty Solomon) All the News That You Can Use. And More (Monty Solomon) Palm Inc. and BlackBerry Maker Sign Licensing Agreement (Monty Solomon) Cellular-News for Monday 17th October 2005 (Cellular-News) Re: Recorded Weather Forecast for New York City? (Paul Coxwell) Re: 14.4 Runs Faster Than 56k Modem. Why? (Scott Dorsey) Re: Telephone Chat Line Software (Carl Navarro) Re: What's up With OneSuite? (weasel@indiainfo.com) SMS Gateway (touchring@yahoo.com) 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 Huffman <consumeraffairs@telecom-digest.org> Subject: 'Cramming' Hits Consumers When They Least Expect It Date: Sun, 16 Oct 2005 21:08:23 -0500 By Mark Huffman ConsumerAffairs.Com "Cramming" used to be what you did the night before a big test. Now the word has a more sinister meaning -- like placing unauthorized charges on your telephone bill. "I have a phone bill that says Voicemail Monthly fee $12.95. I want to know what that is for and if it's not suppose to be on there, I want it off my phone bill," said Deborah of Johnson City, Tennessee, one of hundreds of consumers who have written to ConsumerAffairs.com to complain about mysterious, unauthorized charges appearing on their telephone bills. "I got my phone bill and ILD charged me $30.88 for some kind of internet service that I never authorized," said Christie, of Connel, Washington. "When I called them, I was kept on hold for over 30 minutes and have not been able to dispute these charges." Of all the cramming complaints received at ConsumerAffairs.com, nearly 800 are about ILD TeleServices, whose name and telephone number appear next to the unauthorized charge on their phone bills -- and the number of complaints is steadily rising, with 80 filed in just the last three months. ILD TeleServices claims that it is merely a billing "clearinghouse," meaning it is collecting the money on behalf of other companies -- some legitimate and some, perhaps, not -- who deliver their services through your local phone company. If it all sounds confusing, you can blame the Telecommunications Act of 1996. That piece of landmark (others might suggest a different adjective) legislation changed the telecommunications landscape -- not entirely for the better, at least not for consumers. Fortunately, there are some little-publicized provisions that give consumers an effective way to fight back. In deregulating the local telephone markets, the new law required big telephone companies like SBC Communications and Verizon to lease their lines to smaller companies and to bill their customers on behalf of companies providing such deregulated services as pay phones, collect calls and long-distance calls from public places, like hotels, hospitals, airports and prisons. The purpose was to open local phone markets to competition and create more services at less cost to the consumer. But an unintended consequence has been an outbreak of profiteering by companies eager to fleece captive or unsuspected consumers. Many of the new entrants are companies that attempt to bill unsuspecting consumers for things they never asked for -- like voice mail -- hoping they will not look that closely at their monthly phone bill and just pay it. Other shameless profiteers are the hotels, hospitals, universities and prisons that add outrageously expensive charges for the use of their telephone equipment. With so many layers in the billing process, the system has been open to abuse from the start. The company placing the charge does not bill the consumer directly. Instead, the charge is billed by a "clearinghouse," like ILD, which in turn contracts with your local phone company to place the charge on your bill. The local telephone company makes nothing but a small administrative fee and has little choice in the matter; it is required to provide billing for these supposedly "competitive" entities. In the case of ILD, the company says it executes hundreds of thousands of bills each month for a wide variety of companies, and that only a tiny fraction of the charges produce complaints. Company officials say they work with complaining consumers to resolve disputes, and that if one of its clients produces a large number of complaints, it is dropped. Your Service Can't Be Terminated Consumers writing to ConsumerAffairs.com have expressed the concern that their local telephone service would be cut off if they refused to pay an unauthorized third-party charge. It can't be. Failure to pay a disputed "miscellaneous" change on a phone bill cannot, under the Truth In Billing Act, be grounds for termination of service, as long as all other legitimate charges are paid. The first step a consumer should take is to call the local telephone business office and speak to a customer service representative. "Verizon has a first call resolution policy for our customers who call us with a cramming issue," Ells Edwards, a spokesman for Verizon, told ConsumerAffairs.com. "If the customer tells us that the charge is unauthorized, Verizon will remove it from their bill, no questions asked." Edwards says the only exception is if the disputed charge is for a phone call charged by another carrier. In those cases he says Verizon requests the customer first contact the third-party carrier to dispute the charge. If the customer fails to get satisfaction, at that point Verizon will eliminate the charge. Preventing Cramming In The First Place Consumers can take action to block miscellaneous, third party charges of any kind from appearing on their telephone bills. "For Verizon customers, it's as simple as calling the business office and asking a customer service representative to place a block of third party billing on their account," Edwards said. Once a block is in place, Edwards said the only charges appearing on a consumer's phone bill should be for local and long distance telephone services. How do consumers become targets of cramming scams in the first place? The Federal Trade Commission says it can happen when someone uses your phone to call an 800 number. "With the right technology, companies can get your phone number when you call them, using a process similar to caller ID. Once they have your number, an unscrupulous company can cram charges onto your phone bill," the FTC said in a release. "What's more, since this technology can automatically bill the phone number that is called from, other people using your phone can cause charges to be billed to your phone." The agency also says consumers should carefully read the fine print before they fill out contest forms, especially if they ask for your phone number. Likewise, read the fine print before you place a call in response to a sweepstakes promotion. Also, avoid placing calls to costly 900 numbers. The FTC says consumers should consider a 900 number block; it stops calls from going through to 900 number services. Blocks also are available for international, long distance, and local toll calls. Never accept collect calls. If you have a friend of family member who will be traveling, get them a prepaid calling card. It's highly unlikely Congress will revisit the Telecommunications Act of 1996 to fix the loopholes that have caused consumers so much grief. Instead, it appears consumers have to educate themselves about their rights and never hesitate to exercise them against those who would manipulate the system for fraud. Copyright 2003-2005 ConsumerAffairs.Com Inc. 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, Consumer Affairs.com For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: And do you know who _first_ got this concept started? The Western Union Telegraph Company back about 1920 or so when they -- along with AT&T -- the Bell System -- mutually agreed to allow telegrams to be charged to telephone bills as a 'courtesy' to users of both companies. It was not uncommon in those days -- nor anytime, really, until the late 1970's or early 1980's -- to charge telegram business to telephone accounts. I think maybe it actually went back to Kingsbury when AT&T was in some legal trouble about monopolies once before. AT&T and the telephone companies tried to back out of the deal in the 1980's - 1990's when the worst of this scandal -- companies like Pilgrim Telephone and Integratel were first getting started. Both of these are billing aggragating companies and could _never_ have survived had they been forced to bill and collect on their own. Pilgrim and Integratel both promised lawsuits against the Baby Bells if they tried to back out of what had been their 'historic relationship' over the decades with Western Union, and given the mood of the 1980's I am certain Bell would have lost any court case involving refusing to bill for those bandit aggregators. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Oct 2005 01:22:21 -0400 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> Subject: Senate Bill Sets Spring 2009 Demise for Analog Television By Arshad Mohammed Washington Post Staff Writer Senate Commerce Committee staffers have drafted a bill setting April 7, 2009 -- the day after March Madness ends -- as the date to end nationwide analog TV broadcasts and complete the switch to digital transmission. Millions of people who watch traditional, over-the-air analog broadcasts on sets with antennas will have to buy new digital TVs or set-top converter boxes to keep getting signals. Congressional aides said they settled on the deadline -- which falls one day after the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball championships -- so as not to cut off any TV viewers at the height of the popular college basketball tournament. Aides also said they hoped to give consumers plenty of time to buy new sets and are making plans to offer a federal subsidy of undetermined size to help people afford converter boxes. Ending analog broadcasts, which have brought everything from "I Love Lucy" to NFL Football into living rooms for decades, will free up spectrum already set aside to improve police, firefighter and other emergency communications. It will also bring a windfall in federal revenue by allowing the government to auction off spectrum to private companies who hope to exploit it for wireless Internet access and other high-tech uses. In a letter yesterday, Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates and 30 other executives urged Congress to set a deadline quickly and argued it will be a boon to the economy. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/14/AR2005101401960.html ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Oct 2005 01:48:36 -0400 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> Subject: Surfin' U.S.A. By WALTER S. MOSSBERG FOR YEARS AMERICANS WHO accessed the Internet via cellphone networks looked across the ocean to Europe with envy. The speed of American cellphone networks badly trailed those in Europe. But not anymore. Gradually, and with relatively little fanfare, Verizon Wireless has deployed a nationwide cellular data network in the United States that blows away the fastest widely deployed networks in Europe, the so-called 3G networks that have been rolled out there to huge publicity. And Sprint is starting its own rollout of a similar speedy network based on the same technology Verizon uses. That technology is called EV-DO, for Evolution-Data Only, or Evolution-Data Optimized. It is the first wireless technology deployed over a wide area that matches the speed of home broadband - at least the slower reaches of that wired service. Unlike the most common form of wireless broadband, Wi-Fi, the new EV-DO service doesn't rely on hot spots. It's available all over a metro area, wherever there is cellphone service - even in a moving car. Verizon has been rolling out the new service, city by city, over the past year or so, and it is now available in 61 major metropolitan areas and 65 airports across the country, according to the company. Because it's based on a technology called CDMA, developed by the U.S. company Qualcomm and not widely used in Europe, EV-DO has given the U.S. an edge, even if only for a while. http://ptech.wsj.com/archive/report-200510.html ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Oct 2005 01:53:56 -0400 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> Subject: A Marriage of Bookshelf and Phone by David Pogue A GROWING number of states and countries have passed laws banning cellphone use while driving. But if we're really going to be serious about safety, we need laws against the even more distracting things people do while they drive. Which brave lawmaker will propose the No Fixing Hair, Fishing the Back Seat Floor for Baby Bottles or Arguing About Politics While Driving Act? At least there's one glimmer of good news: new audio-entertainment sources like iPods and satellite radio are making AM radio less and less of a distraction. No longer must you glance down to change the channel the 600th time the same herbal supplement ad comes on. Last week, though, commuters, exercisers and people sitting around for jury duty gained an ingenious new audio alternative: books on phone. Its actual name is Audible Air, and it's a way to download spoken recordings from Audible.com to the Palm Treo cellphone and other wireless gadgets -- over the air, wherever you happen to be. But to appreciate its significance, you must first understand how Audible works. Audible.com offers digital "books on tape" for the intellectually inclined. Today, 600,000 people listen each month to Audible's spoken recordings of over 7,000 books and 47 magazines and newspapers. Most people these days listen to Audible recordings -- or "content," as the company annoyingly calls them -- on portable players like iPods and Palm organizers, after first downloading them to their computers. (In fact, you get a free iPod Shuffle when you sign up for six months of Audible service, or a free Creative MuVo with a one-year contract.) http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/13/technology/circuits/13pogue.html?ex=1286856000&en=d053dcf65181c704&ei=5090 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Oct 2005 02:03:08 -0400 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> Subject: All the News That You Can Use. And More. E-Commerce Report By BOB TEDESCHI NEWS enthusiasts, rejoice. A Web site is being introduced today that will not only let you find articles on the topic of your choice from hundreds of newspapers and magazines, it will also alert you to all the other news accounts floating around cyberspace that have any connection whatsoever to anything you read. The site, Inform.com, developed by Inform Technologies, a New York start-up, will perform information-delivery feats that its founders claim no other Web site can match. The question is whether the average reader will want to follow the spectacle. At first glance, Inform.com resembles so-called news-reader services like Yahoo News and Google News, which can be customized to hunt down stories related to, say, technology or entertainment. But Inform goes further, scanning every news article from hundreds of well-known publications (and some blogs), then creating an index of important elements in the article. So as a user reads a WashingtonPost.com article about Sandra Day O'Connor, for example, Inform offers a short list of related stories about the justice and other people, places, organizations, topics, industries and products mentioned in the text. The article appears as it would on the newspaper's site -- with The Post's advertisements -- while the Inform links appear in a border. If readers choose not to dig into Supreme Court-related issues, they can search another topic, browse a directory of hundreds of news categories or read articles on a list of "hot" people and organizations, ranked according to how many times they are mentioned in Inform's article database. If that sounds like a trick the search engines could just as easily pull off, it's not that simple. While Google News, for instance, will retrieve articles about I.B.M., it will miss other items referring to the company as IBM, or International Business Machines. Inform's system has been programmed to look for those variations even as it searches for the specified term. When users register with the site, Inform will also watch what they read and make suggestions on their home pages based on past sessions. For all its user-friendly ambitions, however, some specialists wonder whether Inform.com will have broad appeal. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/17/technology/17ecom.html?ex=1287201600&en=12ea4ad635f412a3&ei=5090 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Oct 2005 02:06:47 -0400 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> Subject: Palm Inc. and BlackBerry Maker Will Sign a Licensing Agreement By LAURIE J. FLYNN SAN FRANCISO, Oct. 16 - Palm Inc., maker of the Treo smartphone, and its rival Research In Motion, the maker of the wireless BlackBerry device, are expected to announce on Monday a licensing agreement that could alter competition in the market for phones that offer e-mail and other functions, one of the fastest-growing segments of the cellphone industry. As part of a broad strategy to become a software company as well as a device maker, Research In Motion, or R.I.M., will allow Treos to use its e-mail and communications technology, called BlackBerry Connect. The deal is significant because it gives Palm, a 10-year-old Silicon Valley company, a greater opportunity to sell Treos to corporations that have spent substantial sums outfitting their workers with BlackBerrys, which are still big sellers among business users. Treo has gained momentum in the corporate market because thousands of business software programs can run on its devices. Over the last several months, some cellphone makers, like Nokia and Sony Ericsson, have also licensed BlackBerry Connect, but they have only recently started promoting that service. For R.I.M., the deal with Palm takes the company further down the strategic path it announced more than two years ago, after it became clear that the company needed to reinvent itself if it wanted to maintain its growth rate. While R.I.M. continues to sign up new subscribers -- in its last quarter it added 620,000 accounts, for a total of 3.65 million, its growth is starting to slow. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/17/technology/17palm.html?ex=1287201600&en=1b6c9287100ba653&ei=5090 ------------------------------ Subject: Cellular-News for Monday 17th October 2005 Date: Mon, 17 Oct 2005 07:35:13 -0500 From: Cellular-News <dailydigest@cellular-news-mail.com> Cellular-News - http://www.cellular-news.com Drive Your Car with a Cellphone http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14418.php You may recall that in the James Bond movie, Tomorrow Never Dies, the British secret agent has a nifty Ericsson JB988 mobile phone that can be used to control a BMW car. Well, fact follows fiction and a patent has just been granted for exactly the sa... T-Mobile Details HSDPA Launch Plans http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14417.php T-Mobile Austria say that it will be offering the first HSDPA-capable data card from this November. When the commercial start of HSDPA is launched at the CeBIT 2006 trade fair, customers will be able to search the Internet in downlink with data rates... One Million Telia Customers Use Their Phones for More Than Calls http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14416.php Sweden's Telia has reported that in one year, usage of mobile data services has increased more than 300% among its subscribers. The number of Telia subscribers who can use mobile data services in Sweden has doubled in one year and now totals one mill... Pakistan Earthquake: TSF runs Satellite Telecoms Centre for rescue efforts http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14415.php Staff from the aid charity, Telecoms Sans Frontieres (Telecoms Without Borders) arrived in Pakistan on October 9th, the day after the earthquake and installed a satellite Telecoms Centre for rescue teams near Muzaffarabad heliport where hundreds of i... MMS Interoperability for Ukraine http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14414.php MMS interconnection has just been launched in Ukraine - with UMC, KyivStar, Ace&Base and Djuice all now permitting MMS's to be sent between each others networks... Funding Improvement for Handset Distributor http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14413.php InfoSonics Corp., one of the largest distributors of wireless handsets in the United States and Latin America, has obtained a new credit facility of up to US$20 million. The new agreement replaces the prior bank line of up to US$15 million with a dif... 3G Wireless Will Reshape China's Telecom Landscape - report http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14412.php China's telecom services market will undergo dramatic changes over the next three years, once the national government awards licenses to offer licences -- changes that will include a short-term increase in capital spending and probable carrier consol... Base Station inside a Clock http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14411.php AlanDick, the broadcast, cellular, radar, enterprise and communications infrastructure specialist, has developed a base station that looks like a village or shopping mall clock. Building on the success the company has enjoyed with its wide range of e... ABI Examines WiBro: Is it Really Mobile WiMAX in Disguise? http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14410.php WiBro is a soon to be implemented mobile high-speed Wireless Internet access service for the South Korean market. Positioned between traditional wired broadband access and mobile phone data services, it could fill an important niche.... Russia's Dalsvyaz sees its 2005 mobile user base up to 170,000 http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14409.php Dalsvyaz, a Russian fixed-line and mobile operator in the Far East Federal District, expects its subscriber base to rise to 170,000 people by the end of the year, the company's General Director Anton Alexeyev told Prime-Tass on Friday. ... THE RATINGS GAME: Motorola Said Showing Signs Of Wireless Momentum http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14408.php [Premium] Shares of Motorola Inc. gained as much as 5.4% Friday, bolstered by a report saying the company got regulatory permission to market new wireless phones and by indications that it gained market share in the third quarter. ... Sprint Nextel Board Approves New Deferred Compensation Plan http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14407.php Sprint Nextel Corp. (S) disclosed Friday that its board approved a new deferred compensation plan, to be effective Jan. 1, 2006. ... KPN Unit E-Plus To Launch Turkish Mobile Brand In Germany http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14406.php Royal KPN NV's (KPN) German wireless arm, E-Plus, said Friday that it will launch a Turkish brand targeted at the 2.6 million Turks living in Germany. ... FOCUS: Russia's Sistema under attack ahead of Svyazinvest auction http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14405.php As the auction for Russia's Svyazinvest holding draws nearer, the key bidder for the asset has come under attack by the latest weapon of choice -- the Russian court system. ... SingTel's Optus Won't Comment On AAPT Speculation http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14404.php Singapore Telecommunications Ltd.'s (T48.SG)) Australian unit Optus on Friday declined to say whether it is in discussions to buy AAPT, an Australian unit of Telecom New Zealand (NZT). ... Research In Motion, T-Mobile In Pact For Yahoo Mail Access http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14403.php Research In Motion Ltd. (RIMM) and T-Mobile USA launched a new Blackberry model 7105t with an Internet e-mail service for Yahoo Inc. (YHOO) Mail users. ... ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Oct 2005 12:11:04 +0100 From: Paul Coxwell <paulcoxwell@tiscali.co.uk> Subject: Re: Recorded Weather Forecast for New York City? >> They should work fine if you're calling from the NYC area. The >> 212-976 and 914-976 prefixes are pay per call, so long distance >> carriers won't connect to them. The last time I called (a long time >> ago) the charge was a quarter. > I'm pretty sure I called in from outside the NYC area via long > distance and got through, despite being 976. Perhaps my LD carrier > won't do it. However, I note that the AAA book no longer lists the > number though it did before. It seems to be something of a lottery depending upon the long-distance carrier concerned. When I called (212) 976-2828 over the weekend from here in England it worked fine via my usual carrier (Call-1899). I know they route different ways on weekdays and at different times of day to get the cheap rates, but trying again this morning (Monday) has given curious results. There is a much longer initial delay before connection, then an intercept from the U.S. end: "The number you are trying to reach cannot be dialed from the phone you are using. If you feel you have reached this recording in error.... " etc.. The recording ID is "Eureka (sp?) Info Highway, zero zero eight." However ... At the end of the recording instead of a reorder or disconnect there's a few more seconds delay, then it rings and connects to the number anyway! Dialing directly via BT (which will hand the call off randomly to AT&T, Sprint, MCI, etc.) seems to connect immediately every time. -Paul. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Here in the USA -- at least in Kansas -- routing calls to any area-976-xxxx via MCI (unless it happens to be one they, themselves own/operate) brings back an intercept saying, "at the present time, MCI does not connect to 976 numbers". PAT] ------------------------------ From: kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) Subject: Re: 14.4 Runs Faster Than 56k Modem. Why? Date: 17 Oct 2005 10:19:40 -0400 Organization: Former users of Netcom shell (1989-2000) <hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote: > I only have a 14.4 modem for my dial up connection. It obviously runs > slow nowadays with all the junk they throw on the Internet. (for > straight text, it runs great). > I needed access to some information and went to a neighbor who has a > 56k dial up. I went to the desired site and to my surprise, the site > loaded much slower than it does on my home machine. That didn't make > any sense to me. Clearly, the bottleneck is not on the local loop. There are lots and lots of links and routers between the site and your machine. Probably more between the site and your neighbor's machine. --scott "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." ------------------------------ From: Carl Navarro <cnavarro@wcnet.org> Subject: Re: Telephone Chat Line Software Date: Mon, 17 Oct 2005 14:24:12 GMT Organization: Road Runner High Speed Online http://www.rr.com On 16 Oct 2005 03:31:17 -0700, danarz@gmail.com wrote: > This is a silly question. > 1. What kind of software/hardware is used for those > phone-chat/party-lines? Try searching for audio conferencing bridge and you might get to TEC or Aastra or any number of companies that manufacture this equipment. At the bottom end, TEC makes a 9-port unit for about $600. A good Aastra will cost 10 times that for 24 ports and you still have to get the lines into it. The Aastra will handle VOIP/SIP connections. Somewhere in-between you can find a 16-24 port unit for about $3K. > 2. How would I go about setting up a server that can work as an online > answering service? Online to what? I have an auto attendant and personal extension online to my Packet8 line at 567-202-4152x200. I also have a voice mail to e-mail account that costs me $15 a year (www.maxemail.com). It isn't much different than an answering machine. You could duplicate this with almost any IVR system or roll your own with a Asterisk PBX. Since the hardware isn't cheap, you're going to have to have somebody WANT to use your service, but that's your business plan, not mine :-) Carl Navarro ------------------------------ From: weasel@indiainfo.com Subject: Re: What's up With OneSuite ? Date: 17 Oct 2005 07:28:08 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com I just tried OneSuite and it is up and running. It seems they had a maintanence situation. I crossed my fingers all weekend. Too bad I don't have to make any phone calls today. I am quite happy that they are still in business. I don't think I would be happy with anyone else. ------------------------------ From: touchring@yahoo.com Subject: SMS Gateway Date: 16 Oct 2005 22:15:10 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Hello, for those looking for SMS utilities/solutions, I'm releasing two very interesting messaging middlewares. Welcome all suggestions, enquiries, and biz proposals. VisualGSM Lite (Freeware) Description on CNET download ... From the developer: "The VisualGSM Lite edition allows personalized broadcast of text/flash SMS messages using GSM modems or compatible GSM mobile phones via serial data cable or infrared link. Features include the ability to send unicode/Chinese SMS messages, send log, import/export addressbook, auto-detect function allows automatic detection of your device setup configurations, API to integrate to 3rd party applications and web portals using HTTP. Users can make use of VisualGSM Lite to build various innovative messaging applications such network resource monitoring, and SMS marketing applications." CNET download (Popular download) - http://download.com.com/3000-2349-8359870.html?tag=lst-0-1 Tucows download (ranked 4 cows) - http://www.tucows.com/preview/232179.html VisualGSM Enterprise (Shareware) From the developer: "VisualGSM Enterprise SMS Gateway is an open-platform SQL DB driven SMS and WAP Push application suite, that empowers corporate managers to self-deploy Interactive/Concatenated SMS and WAP Push applications rapidly throughout their organization. It has an easy-to-use real-time configurator to connect enterprise applications to the GSM network via built-in APIs. Provides a built-in application testing environment to allow Rapid Application Deployment. Integration components include email2sms, sms2email, sms2sql, sms2http, http2sms, etc. VisualGSM Enterprise's WAP Push delivery mechanism delivers multimedia movies, polyphonic ringtones, pictures and Java application to mobile devices." Download: http://www.visualtron.com/download.htm More information is available at http://www.sms-gateway-software.com or http://www.wap-push-gateway.com. I will also answer all GSM, SMS, WAP Push related questions at http://www.visualgsm.com/forums/ Best Regards, Joshua Lim Visualtron Software ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. 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