TELECOM Digest     Mon, 31 Oct 2005 11:37:00 EST    Volume 24 : Issue 495

Inside This Issue:                             Editor: Patrick A. Townson

    Court Will Not Review Microsoft Patent Case (Reuters News Wire)
    AOL Founder Steve Case Resigns From Time Warner (Reuters News Wire)
    The Comic-Strip Revolution Will Be Televised (Monty Solomon)
    What We Have Here Is a Failure to Communicate (Monty Solomon)
    IIM Services Offer Alternative to Phones, But No Bargains (Monty Solomon)
    Cellular-News for Monday 31st October 2005 (Cellular-News)
    Set Up Home IIS Server Problem (strutsng)
    Re: Old Chicago Numbering (Steven Lichter)
    Re: Are There Prepaid Cellular Plans That Use Existing Phones? (R Kaszeta)
    Re: Los Angeles Numbering, 1940s (Tim@Backhome.org)
    My Latest Blog Site (TELECOM Digest Editor)

Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the
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and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest.  

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

From: Reuters News Wire <reuters@telecom-digest.org> 
Subject: Court Will Not Review Microsoft Patent Case
Date: Mon, 31 Oct 2005 09:44:59 -0600


The Supreme Court on Monday refused to consider an appeal by Microsoft
Corp. in a case involving claims by a privately held California
software firm and the University of California that Microsoft
infringed their patents with its Internet Explorer browser.

Without comment, the high court rejected an appeal by Microsoft that
it said involved more than 64 percent of the $521 million patent
infringement ruling against the software giant.

Microsoft sought review of an appeals court ruling that allows the
privately held firm Eolas Technologies Inc. and the University of
California to seek royalties based on the foreign manufacture and sale
of an infringing software-related product.

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 of interest, please look at:
http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/technews.html

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

From: Reuters News Wire <reuters@telecom-digest.org> 
Subject: AOL Founder Resigns From Time Warner
Date: Mon, 31 Oct 2005 09:47:15 -0600


AOL founder Steve Case on Monday said he has resigned from the board
of Time Warner Inc., ending a storied chapter in the history of the
world's largest media company.

Case, who stepped down as chairman in 2003, was one of the original
architects of the merger of AOL and Time Warner, which helped erase
more than $200 billion in shareholder value from the stock and was the
target of two government probes into its accounting.

Once viewed as an albatross to the owners of the Warner Brothers movie
studio, HBO and Time Inc., AOL has emerged over the past year as the
center of attention for top Internet companies looking to buy a stake
in the division.

"I strongly believe that AOL -- once the leading Internet company in
the world -- can return to its past greatness," Case said in a
statement. "Over the past few months, I have been pleased to see a
renewed focus on AOL at Time Warner, and the emergence of so many
strategic alternatives."

Suitors such as Microsoft Corp., Google Inc., Comcast Corp. and Yahoo
Inc.  have held discussions with Time Warner to varying extents.

Although AOL continues to lose millions of dial-up Internet
subscribers every year, the company made more of its programing
available freely over its Web properties to attract online
advertising.

Case said he was leaving to devote more time to his new company,
Revolution, which provides health-care and wellness programing and
services.

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.

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

Date: Mon, 31 Oct 2005 01:30:07 -0500
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
Subject: The Comic-Strip Revolution Will Be Televised


By LOLA OGUNNAIKE

Los Angeles

FANS fearing that "The Boondocks," the wildly scathing, racially
charged comic strip, will lose its bite when it appears on television
next week need not worry. Within the first 10 seconds of the new show
of the same name, viewers will be offered the following Molotov
cocktail of social criticism: "Jesus is black, Ronald Reagan is the
devil and the government is lying about 9/11."

Since its national debut six years ago, the strip, about two black
children living in white suburbia, has slaughtered its share of sacred
cows, eviscerating everyone from Condoleezza Rice and Strom Thurmond
to 50 Cent and Ralph Nader. President Bush has been a frequent
target. As a result, the strip has been suspended, banished to
editorial pages and dropped from some newspapers (it currently appears
in more than 300).

Trying to translate that incendiary spirit into great television will
be a challenge, an expensive challenge at that. Cartoon Network pays
Sony Pictures Television, producer of the series, an estimated license
fee of $400,000 per episode. Add to that the millions the network has
spent on marketing, including many billboards in New York and Los
Angeles trumpeting the show's premiere on Nov. 6 in the late-night
"Adult Swim" block, and "The Boondocks" becomes the most expensive
show the network has made.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/30/arts/television/30ogun.html?ex=1288324800&en=03145b7ea7594f93&ei=5090

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

Date: Mon, 31 Oct 2005 01:32:10 -0500
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
Subject: What We Have Here Is a Failure to Communicate


Media Frenzy
By RICHARD SIKLOS

JOHN F. STREET, the mayor of Philadelphia, perhaps put it best at the
announcement of a new corporate headquarters for the Comcast
Corporation early this year: "As Microsoft is to Seattle and Coca-Cola
is to Atlanta, Comcast is a symbol of Philadelphia's growth and
innovation." So imagine if the city of Seattle decided to make Linux a
cornerstone of its civic software strategy, or Atlanta sponsored a
program that made Snapple the official beverage of its school system.

That's basically what has happened with a plan by Mr. Street to put
Philadelphia on the map with Wireless Philadelphia, a new municipal
wireless Internet service that, if all goes as planned, would be a
City Hall-sanctioned competitor to Comcast. (Although Comcast would
probably prefer the analogy of Atlanta making something less palatable
 -- like carrot juice, the official school drink -- it doesn't think
Philadelphia's plan is going to fly.)

Municipal wireless programs have become a hotly debated subject,
thanks to the recent news that Philadelphia has selected EarthLink
Inc. to build and run its new network and that mighty Google has
proposed to play a similar role in San Francisco. The general idea --
one that itself is subject to much expostulation -- is that broadband
Internet access is too expensive in the United States, which risks
falling behind countries like South Korea and Japan in this area.

Wireless Philadelphia is intended to put the city on the map, both in
proving its technological chops and in bridging the digital divide
with poorer residents who don't tend to have high-speed Internet
services if they have Internet service at all. On the face of it, the
fact that the city is moving ahead without Comcast's involvement -
indeed, over Comcast's open derision - raises a lot of intriguing
questions not only about wireless Internet services but also about how
much brotherly love has been lost between the nation's largest cable
operator and Philadelphia, the fifth-largest city.

It also illustrates the frustration that Brian L. Roberts, the chief
executive of Comcast, must feel: his company has signed up more
high-speed Internet customers than any other and churns out buckets of
cash, yet it has a sagging stock price because the market perceives
that any number of unproven new businesses are going to usurp its
position. Add Wireless Philadelphia -- brought to you by the people who
regulate aspects of his business -- to the list.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/30/business/yourmoney/30frenzy.html?ex=1288324800&en=7c9723f865b38715&ei=5090

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

Date: Mon, 31 Oct 2005 01:45:32 -0500
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
Subject: IIM Services Offer Alternative to Phones, But Are No Bargains


By Sarmad Ali

All over the world, consumers are turning to the Internet for phone
service. Companies like Skype Technologies and Vonage Holdings have
been marketing inexpensive, even free, calls. Now, Internet giants
like Google and Yahoo, and software manufacturer Microsoft are
upgrading their services and features to win the same customers.

Instant-messaging services with voice calling have been around since
the late '90s, but the sound quality was poor, and most customers
could only text message or call people with the same service.

That is changing. Google recently launched Google Talk, a call service
integrated into its messaging service. And Yahoo and Microsoft have
announced plans for next year to have users trade messages and
eventually conduct voice conversations. The two companies also
recently released versions of their services that aimed to improve
voice quality and offer new features like free voicemail.

I have been testing the latest versions available at Yahoo Messenger
and Microsoft's MSN Messenger on my Windows PC, focusing on IM voice
services. Both voice services worked well, but they still need to
improve voice quality, especially for international long-distance
calling.

http://ptech.wsj.com/archive/ptech-20051027.html

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

Subject: Cellular-News for Monday 31st October 2005
Date: Mon, 31 Oct 2005 08:48:27 -0600
From: Cellular-News <dailydigest@cellular-news-mail.com>


Cellular-News - http://www.cellular-news.com

Telefonica Buys O2 For GBP17.7 Billion In Cash Deal
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14618.php

Telefonica, the Spanish incumbent telecommunications operator, Monday
said it has agreed to buy O2 PLC, the U.K. mobile telecoms company,
for GBP17.7 billion in cash. ...

Vodafone Using Vending Machines to Sell Phone
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14617.php

The vending machine has come a long way since the Ancient Greeks
invented an urn dispensing holy water. Vodafone has installed the
first vending machine in the UK to dispense mobile phones. Initially
being piloted in Vodafone stores in Manchester, th...

Qualcomm Tests Revision A Platform
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14616.php

Qualcomm has announced that successful end-to-end test calls have been
conducted utilizing prototype CDMA2000 1xEV-DO Revision A networks and
handsets. This marks a major milestone in the development of CDMA and
the Rev. A standard, accelerating the ...

3G Network Launched in Estonia
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14615.php

Estonian mobile operator EMT has launched their commercial 3G network
based on Ericsson 3G core and radio technology. As the sole supplier,
Ericsson has delivered a complete WCDMA network and related
services. Under the agreement, Ericsson will also ...

3G Network Launched in Lithuania
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14614.php

A 3G TDD network has been launched in Lithuania, under the brand name,
"Neltes tinklas". The first network in the Baltic States based on the
3G UMTS TDD standard, it supports full mobility and data transfer
speeds of up to 3 Mbps. The company plans t...

New BlackBerry Model Expected To Be Unveiled Next Week
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14613.php

Research In Motion could be set to unveil the latest version of its
BlackBerry device as early as next Tuesday, sources told Dow
Jones. ...

Sprint To Launch High-Speed Cell Network With Music Store
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14612.php

NEW YORK (AP)--Sprint Nextel Corp. is poised for a full-scale launch
of its high-speed wireless network, a service that will include the
first over-the-air music download store in the United States. ...

Russia's Sigma says bailiff bans SMARTS re-registration
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14611.php

A bailiff has prohibited SMARTS annual general meeting of shareholders
(AGM) to re-register the company into open joint stock company, Sigma,
SMARTS' minority shareholder, said in a statement Friday. ...

Ukraine's antitrust body eyes abolishing mobile connection fee
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14610.php

Ukraine's Antimonopoly Committee is proposing that the country's major
mobile operators UMC and Kyivstar consider abolishing connection fee
within 30 days, Alexei Kostusev, the committee's chairman, told
reporters Friday following a meeting of the co...

Chile CTC 3Q Net Profit $700,000 Vs $612 Million
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14609.php

Compania de Telecomunicaciones de Chile SA (CTC) Friday reported a
plunge in net profit for the third quarter after a major one-off
propped up earnings last year. ...

PRESS: Ukraine's URS may be sold to Russia's VimpelCom soon 
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14608.php

Ukraine's minor mobile operator Ukrainian Radiosystems (URS) may be
sold to Russia's second-largest mobile operator VimpelCom
soon, Kommersant business daily reported Friday, citing Timur Novikov,
first deputy CEO of Privatbank. ...

Six Telecom Cos Complain To EU Over Qualcomm Patents
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14607.php

Six major telecom companies Friday filed complaints to European
regulators against Qualcomm, accusing the U.S. company of breaking
antitrust law in its licensing of mobile phone patents. ...

Telsim Reaches Agreement On Debts It Owes Motorola- IHA
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14606.php

Turkish mobile phone operator Telsim said Friday Motorola Inc. has
agreed to collect only part of its approximately $2.5 billion in debt
claims against the Turkish company, the Ihlas News Agency, or IHA
reported Friday. ...

Vodafone Expects Bharti Dividend Within Next Couple Of Yrs
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14605.php

Vodafone Group PLC Friday said it expects to reap dividends from its
10% stake in Bharti Tele-Ventures Ltd. once the company hits cashflow
breakeven. ...

SingTel Says It Wants To Increase Stake In India Bharti
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14604.php

Singapore Telecommunications Ltd. (T48.SG) Friday said it wants to
raise its 30.8% stake in Bharti Televentures Ltd., India's largest
mobile operator. ...

Vodafone's Bharti Buy Gives A Passage To India
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14603.php

U.K. mobile telecommunications company Vodafone Group PLC Friday said
it has bought a 10% stake in India's largest wireless operator Bharti
Tele-Ventures Ltd. (532454.BY) for GBP820 million in cash. ...

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

From: strutsng@gmail.com
Subject: Setup Home IIS Server That Doesn't Allow Outside Connections Problem
Date: 31 Oct 2005 07:55:33 -0800
Organization: http://groups.google.com


I am subscribing SBC Yahoo DSL Express Package, and I want to setup
personal home IIS server at home, that allows outside connections to
my server. I am able to run it internally, but couldn't connect from
outside.

I want to know if ISP SBC block incoming port 80 request from outside?
Any ideas?

Please advise. Thanks!!

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

From: Steven Lichter <shlichter@diespammers.com>
Reply-To: Die@spammers.com
Organization: I Kill Spammers, Inc.  (c) 2005 A Rot in Hell Co.
Subject: Re: Old Chicago Numbering
Date: Mon, 31 Oct 2005 13:49:48 GMT


Wesrock@aol.com wrote:

> In a message dated Sun, 30 Oct 2005 14:21:21 CST, jsw@ivgate.omahug.org 
> writes:

>> Very seldom did Ma Bell use SxS for large metropolitan installations.
>> They seemed to prefer remaining with manual service until they could
>> install 'machine switching' using Panel or later 1Xb.

> "Very seldom"?  How about Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Tulsa,
> Oklahoma City and, of course, much of the Los Angeles area.
> Undoubtedly true of many other places as well..

> All those had been completely converted to dial by the early 1930s,
> perhaps in the 1920s.  The first dial office in Oklahoma City was cut
> over in early 1921 (using Automatic Electric SxS equipment; Bell Labs
> and W.E. had not yet recognized there was a need for such equipment.
> The remainder of the city was converted to dial in 1927 or 1928...by
> this time with W.E. SxS equipmenmt.  I think the remainder of the
> cities mentioned in Texas and Oklahoma had a similar history.

> The first XBs in Southwestern Bell territory outside of Kansas City
> and St. Louis were 5XBs in smaller towns converting to dial.  The
> first 5XB in Oklahoma City was the SKyline office, now 751, which
> happens to still serve where I live (now ESS of course).

> One of the first installations of 5XB in the Los Angeles area was by
> the Sunland-Tujunga Telephone Company.

I don't remember anything other then SXS equipment in Sunland-Tujunga.
That was one of the first offices I worked in with GTE in 1967. I
don't think they would have removed it, I do remember its SATT was 53
type.  It had SXS and a lot of carrier in it.

> 1XB, of course, was intended to be use in metropolitan areas that were
> panel.  As originally configured it used on panel-type revertive
> pulsing -- even when one 1XB office was communication with another 1XB
> office.  It had no provision for communicating with step equipment,
> which is why the 1XB installations in Southwestern Bell territory were
> limited to St. Louis and Kansas City.

>> The strangest Ma Bell payphone numbering I ever remember was in Cape
>> Cod where some payphones had 5xxx numbers.

> Operators' keyshelf bulletins listed the number series used for pay
> phones, either an entire thousand series or a partial thouands series.
> Rate & Route had similar information for all places in the U.S.A.  If
> it was a partial series, on a collect call the operator had to go to
> inward at the destination city and ask inward whether the particular
> number was coin.

> The 9xxx series was the most common, with 89xx probably following, but
> many places could be found with any number series.  In some SxS and
> 5XB offices the 9xxx series did not exist; that is, there was no
> equipment installed for the 9xxx series.

> Wes Leatherock
> wesrock@aol.com

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

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

From: Richard Kaszeta <rich@kaszeta.org>
Subject: Re: Are There Prepaid Cellular Plans That Use Existing Phones?
Date: 31 Oct 2005 08:12:52 -0600
Organization: University of MN ME Dept


William Warren <william_warren_nonoise@speakeasy.net> writes:

> Are there any prepaid cellular plans that will activate a Motorola 120C?

Doubtful, since usually they are either vendor-locked, or effectively
vendor-locked (due to the frequencies they use).

Note, however, that if the main reason you want to keep the 120c is
that you have the accessories, you can get prepaid service from a
number of vendors (tracfone, for example) that still use other
variants of the 120.  You'd have to get a "new" phone (reconditioned,
actually), but the current price of a 120 with tracfone is $19.95.


Richard W Kaszeta
rich@kaszeta.org
http://www.kaszeta.org/rich

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

From: Tim@Backhome.org
Subject: Re: Los Angeles Numbering, 1940s
Date: Mon, 31 Oct 2005 07:18:38 -0800
Organization: Cox Communications


Steven Lichter wrote:

> 60's when the changes were made.  I started with CWT/GTE in 1967 and
> they were already changed and using 48/53 Full Satt.

Wasn't 1967 the year that then General Telephone of California bought
CWT (California Water and Telephone for you lurkers; aka "Cal Drip and
Tinkle."  ;-)

I grew up in Monrovia, a CWT town.  We didn't get automatic dialing
until 1950, as I recall.

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

Subject: My Latest Blog Site
Date: Sun, 30 Oct 2005 23:29:14 EST
From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor)


For any of you who are interested, I have started a new 'blog', replete
with a few links (mostly to td-extra stuff) and I will make comments there
 from time to time as it occurs to me.

http://ptownson.blogspot.com (This is the 'official' blog entry site
maintained by Google, with Google ads, etc. 

Anyone is free to add comments to the postings there; you tell me what
you want to see discussed. 

PAT

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


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End of TELECOM Digest V24 #495
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