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

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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.

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[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

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