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TELECOM Digest Sat, 31 Dec 2005 18:23:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 590 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Another Critical Flaw Detected in Windows Metafile (Jay Wrolstad) Web Services Thrive, But Outages Outrage Users (Adam Pasick) White House Says Counts Visitors, Nothing Else (Anick Jesdanun) Going Back to the c:/ Prompt (Erik Larkin) Unknown Name - 803-567-3694 Call in Middle Morning (Tony) Question About VOIP (Trevor Smithson) Watching an Old Video Tape (Lisa Hancock) Re: Cell Phone Extenders? (Michael D. Sullivan) Re: Cell Phone Extenders? (Rik) Re: Payphone Surcharges (was: Unanswered Cellphones) (DevilsPGD) Re: Amtrak Passengers Stranded in Woods in Georgia (Lisa Hancock) Re: Amtrak Passengers Stranded in Woods in Georgia (Jim Stewart) Re: Amtrak Passengers Stranded in Woods in Georgia (Bob Vaughan) Re: Amtrak Passengers Stranded in Woods in Georgia (Scott Dorsey) Cybergiving Website Accepting Final Donations 2005 (TELECOM Digest Editor) 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: Jay Wrolstad <newsfactor@telecom-digest.org> Subject: Another Critical Flaw Detected in Windows Metafile Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2005 11:19:44 -0600 Jay Wrolstad, newsfactor.com A vulnerability has been discovered in Microsoft Windows that allows hackers to remotely access PCs and install malware through an imaging-handling technology in the operating system. Microsoft acknowledged the release of exploit code that could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code when someone visits a Web site that contains a specially crafted Windows Metafile (WMF) image. Security authority Secunia labeled the vulnerability "extremely critical." Malicious Graphics Files WMF images are graphical files that can contain both vector and bitmap-based picture information. Microsoft Windows contains routines for displaying such files, but a lack of input validation in one of these routines may allow a buffer overflow to occur, which in turn may allow remote code execution. The vulnerability can also be triggered from the Internet Explorer browser if the malicious file has been saved to a folder and renamed to other image file extensions such as ".jpg," ".gif," ".tif," and ".png." It has been detected on a patched system running Microsoft Windows XP SP2. Microsoft Windows XP SP1 and Microsoft Windows Server 2003 systems also are affected. Current exploits use the Windows Picture and Fax Viewer to attack any application that can handle Windows Metafiles. Disabling the Windows Picture and Fax Viewer will not eliminate the risk as the flaw exists in the Windows Graphical Device Interface library. The flaw has also raised concerns that Google Desktop may be another potential attack vector, and that various antivirus software products cannot detect all known exploits for this vulnerability. A Familiar Problem By default, Explorer on those operating systems runs in a restricted mode known as Enhanced Security Configuration, which Microsoft said mitigates this vulnerability as far as e-mail is concerned, although clicking on a link in a message would still put users at risk. Yankee Group senior analyst Andrew Jaquith characterized the vulnerability as a serious security issue that has cropped up before in browsers, including Firefox and Safari. "It's particularly nasty because the browser automatically loads images when users visit a Web site. There is no built-in protection," he said. Jaquith predicted that additional exploits of the vulnerability are expected since there is no patch available and the security hole is difficult to plug. People who use Windows are advised to be wary when opening e-mail and links in e-mail from sources they don't trust. They should not save, open or preview image files from unfamiliar sources. And, as always, people are encouraged to update the patches for their operating systems. In general, just toss out unread email you were not expecting or do not know the origin of. Microsoft vowed to investigate the vulnerability and to provide a security update when it becomes available. Customers who believe they may have been affected may contact the company's Product Support Services. Copyright 2005 NewsFactor Network, 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. And, discuss this and other topics in our forum at http://telecom-digest.org/forum (or) http://telecom-digest.org/chat/index.html *** 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, News Factor Network. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: So, start the new year right with a nasty thing in your computer. If we cannot _even read_ email from people we do not know (or in many cases, ignorant people we _do_ know who like to 'pass this along to all your friends'), and there are a lot of web sites we cannot really trust, then tell me again, what is the purpose of computers? PAT] ------------------------------ From: Adam Pasick <reuters@telecom-digest.org> Subject: Web Services Thrive, but Outages Outrage Users Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2005 11:12:42 -0600 By Adam Pasick Web sites that share blogs, bookmarks and photos exploded in popularity in 2005, but in recent weeks a number of major outages left users stranded and frustrated. The new breed of Web site includes blogging services such as TypePad, the photo site Flickr, the shared bookmark site del.icio.us and many others. They are sometimes known collectively as "Web 2.0": hosted online, relying heavily on users' submissions, and frequently updated and tweaked by their owners. Their growth in the last year has been huge. Flickr and del.icio.us were high-profile acquisitions for Internet giant Yahoo, and there are now at least 20 million blogs in existence, according to some estimates, with tens of thousands being added every day. But the surge in Web-based applications hasn't come without some serious hiccups as several notable services have crashed. Six Apart, whose TypePad service is used by many high-profile bloggers, experienced nearly an entire day of downtime on December 16, when it suffered a hardware failure. Del.icio.us had a major power failure on December 14. Services including Bloglines, Feedster and WordPress have also experienced problems. Nothing underlines the importance of these "social media" services as much as the outcry of users when the sites crash. While the services were usually back up and running within a few days at most, the outages prompted much consternation from users who were temporarily unable to share their blogs and bookmarks with the world. Russell Buckley and Carlo Longino wrote on their blog MobHappy http://mobhappy.typepad.com/ that waiting for TypePad to be fixed was like "waiting for a train to arrive, when you're sitting on a cold, damp platform. It's mildly irritating for the first 5 minutes, but then annoyance levels start to rise exponentially." "TypePad has been growing so rapidly that it is finding the hard way that scale and scalability matter," Business 2.0 technology writer Om Malik wrote on his blog (http://gigaom.com/). "Are they the only ones? Not really -- over (the) past few days Bloglines, Feedster and Wordpress.com have been behaving like a temperamental 3-year-old." The usefulness of Web 2.0 services -- which also include the collaborative Web pages known as Wikis and RSS feeds that deliver customized information to users -- is highlighted when they are abruptly taken away. "You need those services to be 'on.' I have come to expect 99.9 percent uptime, and when a service crashes there is significant frustration," said David Boxer, director of instructional technology and research at the Windward School in Los Angeles, where he runs workshops on subjects like podcasting and photoblogging. "When those services go down, then we are stuck in a ditch," he said. Boxer's students have worked on projects aimed at making them "citizen journalists" via publishing their own blogs, podcasts, documentaries and photo essays. But when those services suffer outages, everything grinds to a halt. When the Blogger Web site went down, Boxer's students lost some of their work. And when del.icio.us crashed recently, "it left me personally in a lurch," he said. "I knew that eventually a machine or software application will crash, but I always expect a third-party provider like del.icio.us will build enough redundancy into the infrastructure that it will never go down," Boxer said. It is still early days for Web 2.0, and some of the recent difficulties are likely just teething problems as companies adapt to their new popularity. However, the outages may make it harder to convince businesses and investors that blogging is ready for primetime. Boxer, for one, is willing to ride out a few outages to take advantage of the new services. "They allow for elements of personalization, content delivery and information pushing unlike any previous incarnation of the Net," he said. WEB 2.0 LINKS TypePad http://www.typepad.com/ : A paid-for service for publishing blogs and photo albums. Competitors include Wordpress http://wordpress.org/ and Google's Blogger.com http://www.blogger.com . Flickr http://www.flickr.com/: An online service for sharing and managing photos. Del.icio.us http://del.icio.us: A site for storing and sharing bookmarked Web pages. Computer book publisher Tim O'Reilly's essay on Web 2.0 http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html 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. And, discuss this and other topics in our forum at http://telecom-digest.org/forum (or) http://telecom-digest.org/chat/index.html For more news headlines and stories, please go to: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/newstoday.html [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This is sort of what happened to me a bit over a week ago. I was in the process of setting up, remodeling and improving the Internet Historical Society web site. I had downloaded it all from its old location, had it in storage, and was working with a fellow who had found a quite nice (speaking in internet real-estate terms) location; was in the process of shoving things around to build its new home, and then -- the hard drive it was all stored on here, _including the passwords, the access to the new location, his name and email address, etc -- all went bye, bye. Picture if you will, you are building a new house, and it all gets destroyed, catches fire, whatever, a week or two before you are going to move in. So I spoke to the old host who had put it all in a .zip file in storage somewhere, got it once again, and now am setting about beginning it again. Obviously I will miss my anticipated start up date of January 1, as I mentioned here about a week ago. But oh well, that is life I guess. At least the majority of my links, etc can be reconstructed. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Anick Jesdanun <ap@telecom-digest.org> Subject: White House Says it Counts Visitors, Nothing Else Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2005 11:15:43 -0600 By ANICK JESDANUN, AP Internet Writer The White House said Friday its Web tracking technology is consistent with federal rules because it only counts the number of visitors anonymously and doesn't record personal information. The White House's site uses what's known as a Web bug -- a tiny graphic image that's virtually invisible -- to anonymously keep track of the number and time of visits. The bug is sent by a server maintained by an outside contractor, WebTrends Inc., and lets the traffic-analysis company know that another person has visited a specific page on the site. Web bugs themselves are not prohibited. However, under a directive from the White House's Office of Management and Budget, they are largely banned at government sites when linked to cookies, which are data files that let a site track Web visitors. Cookies are not generated simply by visiting the White House site. Rather, WebTrends cookies are sometimes created when visiting other WebTrends clients. An analysis by security researcher Richard M. Smith shows such preexisting cookies have then been read when users visit the White House site. The discovery and subsequent inquiries by The Associated Press prompted the White House to investigate. David Almacy, the White House's Internet director, said tests conducted since Thursday show that data from the cookie and the bug are not mixed - and thus the 2003 guidelines weren't violated. "The White House Web site is and always has been consistent with the OMB guidance," Almacy said, adding that the limited tracking is common among Web sites. Jason Palmer, vice president of products for Portland, Ore.-based WebTrends, said Web browsers are designed to scan preexisting cookies automatically, but he insisted the company doesn't use the information to track visitors to the White House site. Smith said the White House and WebTrends could have avoided any appearance of a problem by simply renaming the server used at WebTrends. The Clinton administration first issued the strict rules on cookies in 2000 after its Office of National Drug Control Policy, through a contractor, had used the technology to track computer users viewing its online anti-drug advertising. The rules were updated in 2003 by the Bush administration. Nonetheless, agencies occasionally violate the rules -- inadvertently, they contend. The CIA did in 2002, and the NSA more recently. The NSA disabled the cookies this week and blamed a recent upgrade to software that shipped with cookie settings already on. 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. And, discuss this and other topics in our forum at http://telecom-digest.org/forum (or) http://telecom-digest.org/chat/index.html For more news headlines and stories from Associated Press, please go to: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/AP.html ------------------------------ From: Erik Larkin <pcworldcommunications> Subject: Going Back to the c:/ Prompt Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2005 11:17:35 -0600 Erik Larkin Microsoft has big plans for the trusty old C:\ prompt. For its upcoming Windows Vista operating system, the company is developing a new command-line interface, or shell -- the text-based controls typically accessed by clicking Command Prompt (under Start Menu, Programs, Accessories) in Windows XP. Code-named Monad, the new shell will enable a host of new programs known as scripts -- something at which rival Unix operating systems have historically excelled. While these new commands and scripts will interest primarily administrators and power users, less-technical types may benefit from Monad scripts that could circulate on the Internet as Unix scripts do. For example, a Monad script might quickly reorganize files and directories based on their name or creation date -- a task that can take a fair bit of manual labor in Windows Explorer. A beta version of Monad for Windows XP is available as a free download. Registration is required, and you will also need to have.Net Framework 2.0 (available at the same page) installed. Copyright 2005 PC World Communications, 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. And, discuss this and other topics in our forum at http://telecom-digest.org/forum (or) http://telecom-digest.org/chat/index.html For more technical news from PC World Communications and other sources please go to http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/internet-news.html ------------------------------ From: Tony <webtricity_design@yahoo.com> Subject: Unknown Name - 803-567-3694 Call in the Middle of the Morning Date: 31 Dec 2005 09:22:48 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Hi All, My wife received about four phone calls yesterday and it was the same guy on the other line. She said that he had (she assumes) a deep African accent and she could not understand him. First few calls she was pleasant ... call came in as unknown name, unknown number at first. She told the guy that he had the wrong number, but he would continue to call again. After 4 calls she turned the Anonymous Call Rejection on (*77) ... the calls ceased. Just this morning at 3:22 AM, we received a call and my wife answered ... she said it is the same guy ... she handed the phone to me and at first I did not say anything ... but the guy with the accent said "you need to put the money in the bank". I told him that he had the wrong number and hung up. He called again at 5:29 AM ... same number so I picked the phone up and pushed a button for about 30 seconds ... then released and listened ... he already hung up. (both AM calls showed up now as Unknown Name, with 803-567-3694. I tried to call this number and received operator message of " this is not a working number " , I assume that it is a business in Columbia, SC that does not accept inbound calls. I called my phone company and they said to file a complaint with my local Sheriff Dept ... so I did, and left a message with the Annoyance Call # 888-966-6222 and will have to wait until Tuesday to talk to a live person. Please let me know if any of you have received a call from this same number and if you were able to get them to stop. Thanks in Advance, (and Happy New Years!) Tony [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Your message gave me some important clues. 'Thick African Accent' and 'during overnight/early morning hours' both point to an African origin for the calls (Nigeria, perhaps)? Many people are frankly ignorant of the difference in time zones around the world. Someone in Nigeria might have been calling at a 'reasonable hour' for them, unaware that Americans are fast asleep at those hours. Another clue worth considering is 'you better put the money in the bank'. That tells me a Nigerian phisherman many have landed something, and wanted to encourage the victim to make a hasty bank deposit. Pay no attention to what the caller ID said, if it was not outright bogus, then it may have been a translation error in the way the originating phone company presented it or in the way the carrier from overseas presented it (truncating one or two digits overflow digits from the start of the number, etc.) Caller ID is not extremely trustworthy on international calls, I have learned, nor are American telco techniques to block or avoid such calls. Or, alternatively, some American 'customer' of the phisherman may have had 'buyers remorse' at some point and gave the phisherman _your_ number (or just some random accidental number which turned out to be your number) to avoid any further hassles with the phisher-businessman. Finally, your local sheriff will probably be incompetent or unwilling to push any further on the matter, and the charge your phone company may assess you to push further on it (calls to *57 or the 888-966-6222 number [your local telco's direct number for Annoyance Bureau] typically cost $25-30 minimum for handling) will make it not worth your own expense, and anyway, the only way telco will handle it is by you agreeing in writing with them that if they get any positive results to their trace you authorize them to turn the results over to local law enforcement officials, _not to you_. Telco will explain that (a) even phisher-business-people have privacy rights and (b) that telco is not your personal detective agency. If you insist a crime has been committed, then telco says 'fine', we will tell police about the crime. And anyway, if you later found out that the 'thick African accent' was a relative or 'good friend' (a child perhaps) who likes to play with his telephone and make annoying prank phone calls -- just assume that was the result of the investigation -- would you really want police to get involved? Telco's experience has been most people do not want that, and that many people who engage their services for things like this are only taking the long way around to find out who called them, but not actually do anything. My suggestion is that _you_ take any further such overnight phone calls, and in your best African language-speak give the caller a piece of your mind; emphasize and counsel him that you and your family are _not_ the person(s) he was trying to reach -- I assume you have already closely questioned all members of your household and community of interest on this -- and that future calls from him will be dealt with harshly, then you replace the receiver, dial *60 and 'block last call recieved' and go back to sleep. I left the phone number shown as his feeble caller ID in this message so that if any other readers recieve such a call, they can give him a piece of their mind instead or maybe if it pleases them, hack _him_ to death as well. And Happy New Year to you and your family as well. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Trevor Smithson <trevor_smithson@yahoo.com> Subject: Question About VOIP Date: 31 Dec 2005 04:40:49 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com I have VOIP service for my home and have a question about it. The company I signed up with sent me a gadget that plugs into my cable modem. Then my router is plugged into the phone company gadget, then two computers are plugged into the router. So, does having these two extra pieces of equipment, namely the router and phone company adapter, delay data packets very much? Compared with just having a computer hooked directly to the cable modem. Thank you. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Absolutely it does. Imagine a water pipe: only a certain amount can flow through the pipe at one time, no matter how much water is waiting on one side or the other. This is the same thing with cable internet and DSL. The router and the VOIP 'phone company adapter' don't delay the computer data all that much; actually it is the other way around. Having both computers going at once with large up/downloads and trying to use the phone adapter at the same time frequently causes the phone line to sound pretty awful. Have you ever noticed the phone audio appears to sometimes 'drop out' for a few seconds in a conversation, and you or the other party have to repeat what you said? That's the packets (of your voice transmission) getting lost or delayed or scrambled in the process. Some VOIP carriers send you an adapter box which _attempts_ to 'throttle' the data packets under the assumption your voice phone call should take priority over your data transmission. Sometimes it works but not always as well as desired. This involves the way you plug the the telco adapter box and the router together, having the telco adapter box plugged in 'ahead' of the router and computers, which it sounds to me is what you have done. My general rule of thumb is either transmit/recieve on the comptuer(s) or on the telephone, but not both (or all three!) at the same time. I have the same arrangement as what you have; if I am talking on my Vonage line I usually stop typing on my keyboard, even so my weather station computer once per minute sends a short little 'blip' (an FTP transfer to where it displays) and if I am on the phone I hear the phone cut off for just a second or two, and I lose a word or two of what the oher person is saying. PAT] ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Watching an Old Video Tape Date: 30 Dec 2005 22:08:05 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com I was bored and pulled up an old movie I taped from network TV in 1988. Some observations from watching an 18 year old tape: 1) Movie: It was a made for TV comedy about the prom "Dance till Dawn". Light stuff. Not much different than what they'd do today for that genre, although I think networks don't bother with that style anymore; they want more "soap" and drama, and far more glamourous kids. Hair and clothes styles obviously different, more 1980s, but not drastically different. Popular stars of the day were in it, some have done well since then like Alyssa Milano and Kelsey Gramar (sp?). Others had had hard times, such as Tracey Gold. 2) Commercials: car commercials looked basically the same. Texaco gasoline had several ads, I don't think oil companies run ads today. In my area, Shell has taken over Texaco stations. One major department store advertised their name and reputation for trust, which was true for them. That store was bought out and soon will change its name to the parent company. So much for reputation. Teasers for local news were quite striking. One local newsman had dark hair back then and now is fully gray (it is 18 years after all). Another local fellow, very popular, passed away at a young age from disease. There was clearly less commercials than on TV now. I can't even watch live TV these days because there are SO many commercials, I have to tape it so I can speed through them. I think networks have added 4-5 minutes of commercials per hour, and cable and syndicated shows even more, perhaps only 35 minutes of show per hour. Some TV shows advertised became classics, like Night Court, others I never heard of "Tattinger's"? 3) Technical: the tape was made on my first VCR purchased around 1985. It had a soft appearance but was ok. I couldn't freeze frame without ad lines, and adjusting the slow tracking didn't help. (My #3 VCR can't freeze frame on tapes made on my #2 VCR either, for some reason I don't understand. All are Panasonic, #2 and #3 are 4 head. #1 started crimping tapes badly and was retired some years ago. #3 came with the DVD player and is brand new.) ------------------------------ From: Michael D. Sullivan <userid@camsul.example.invalid> Subject: Re: Cell Phone Extenders? Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2005 07:48:07 GMT > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But if you buy a cell phone and obtain > service from some carrier, aren't you granted a license (on the > carrier's master license) to use the phone as a transmitter? PAT] If you buy a cellphone and contract for service for that cellphone with a licensed carrier, then that carrier's license covers the operation of the phone you activated with that carrier. You can't then go out and use other phones under that contract without the carrier's consent. Likewise, you can't just build a new cellsite, operating on the carrier's frequencies, to provide coverage to your phone in an area (e.g., your entire city, neighborhood, backyard, basement, or office) where the carrier's network doesn't have a good signal. You have to have a license to build a base station or repeater, or an agreement with the licensee(s) whose signal will be transmitted that allows you to use their frequencies. An "enhancer", "booster", or "repeater" is a transmitter (it may be configured as a broadband receiver and linear amplifier, but it's still a transmitter). If it isn't very low power and compliant with Part 15 limits, it requires a license, for good reason. Even well engineered, professionally installed transmitters can cause interference, either to other parts of the same network or to other networks. When interference occurs to the same network, the interference can be managed, because the engineers can tweak the power levels and frequencies of the various transmitters under their control to minimize the effects of the interference or cause users to operate on specific frequencies in given areas. An independently operated transmitter or "booster" of more than minimal signal strength in the same band that "repeats" the signal received at a given location without the carrier's knowledge or consent can wreak havoc on signal quality for other users without the network engineers being able to manage it. Yeah, Joe Blow gets a better signal in his back yard, but causes service to suck elsewhere in the area, and the carrier can't fix it unless they find out who's got the unlicensed transmitter and make the owner turn it off. As I mentioned, even a well-installed transmitter under the carrier's control can cause interference to other networks, and obviously an independently installed transmitter may also cause interference of one sort or another out of band, especially since it won't be manufactured and installed to the same specs as a carrier's network equipment. There are any number of reasons for this, ranging from intermodulation products to desensitization of licensed transceivers. But if interference occurs to a police radio from what appears to be a cellular or SMR tranmsission, the FCC is going to look to the cellular or SMR operator to fix it -- but they can't fix problems caused by third parties using illegal cell boosters. They may have to turn down or turn off cellsites serving thousands of users, not knowing that the problem was caused by an illegal booster. Or the interference may be traced to a particular location by the FCC or the interfered-with party and the carrier is then requested to fix the interference, only to inform them that the carrier doesn't operate a cell at that location. This has actually happened. Michael D. Sullivan Bethesda, MD (USA) (Replace "example.invalid" with "com" in my address.) ------------------------------ From: Rik <hrasmussen@nc.rr.com> Subject: Re: Cell Phone Extenders? Date: 31 Dec 2005 05:38:59 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com This petition to the FCC pretty well covers the issues on signal boosters: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PrivateWirelessForum/files/BDA-SignalBooster-PetitionForRuleMaking.pdf Short version of that link: http://makeashorterlink.com/?Z1AA4246C FCC Part 22 rule excerpts concerning signal boosters: http://www.rfsolutions.com/part22.htm Rik ------------------------------ From: DevilsPGD <spam_narf_spam@crazyhat.net> Subject: Re: Payphone Surcharges (was: Unanswered Cellphones) Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2005 02:29:25 -0700 Organization: Disorganized In message <telecom24.587.10@telecom-digest.org> AES <siegman@stanford.edu> wrote: > In article <telecom24.586.10@telecom-digest.org>, sethb@panix.com > (Seth Breidbart) wrote: >> For 800 number, the FCC set the charge the (last I checked) just under >> $0.30. That's paid by the recipient (who may be a long distance >> carrier, or any sort of company with a toll-free inbound number). > Asking the following just as a matter of fact checking: > If I call an 800 (or 888?) number from a coin-operated payphone (e.g., > in an airport concourse), does the owner or operator of that 800 > number get charged 30 cents for each time I call (and they answer)? > More specifically, does this apply to *all and every* 800 number > owner? Or do some 800 number owners negotiate special (that is, much > cheaper) deals? > And do some 800 number owners -- scumbag types, maybe -- just not pay > these charges? And if so, do they perhaps get away with not paying? > (There's obviously a viewpoint hidden behind these questions -- but for > the minute I'm just seeking to get the "true facts" of the matter.) The tollfree owners get billed the payphone charge along with LD charges. The provider might eat the cost, but the payphone operator gets their money. Keep in mind, we're talking $0.30 here. If your calling card charges more, they're adding markup for their own. Fair enough, you don't really think they're selling anything at cost do you? If your card is charging you too much, it's because you purchased a product which is excessively priced. You can choose to use the payphone's LD service instead, where the prices are disclosed upfront. ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Re: Amtrak Passengers Stranded in Woods in Georgia Date: 30 Dec 2005 21:39:00 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Excuses, excuses! My main point was > _what business does the government have in being in the Rail Road > business anyway? The trains ran perfectly well by > themselves, and when the government took over they just got worse and > worse. PAT] Not correct. The trains did NOT run "perfectly well". Rather, the railroads were losing a tremendous amount of money running them and wanted to discontinue all passenger service. Just before Amtrak, most remaining passenger train service was pretty bad. Remember the Penn Central -- they operated the majority of the country's trains. As mentioned, to save the trains Amtrak was set up as a govt agency. The infrastructure -- tracks (NEC), stations, shops, locomotives, and cars -- were old, poorly maintained, and terribly worn out. Amtrak is not perfect, but it's better than what we had in the late 1960s. (The once crack train, the 20th Century Limited, ran 12 hours late in its last years, for example). We often read about scandals involving toll road and airport government authorities. Yet no one is questioning why the govt is running them. As to your other question of "who is in charge", as others also pointed out, the CSX railroad (CSX doesn't stand for anything) is responsible. It was their derailment, after all, and their railroad. It certainly is frustrating to have people stranded so long. But in isolated areas, you just can't have people abandon their luggage and climb down to the tracks. That climb down to the lower roadbed in itself would be dangerous and difficult for elderly people. Then, in this cold weather, where are they supposed to go? I think we need some more information about the particulars before drawing conclusions. P.S. I forgot to mention that the private capital the railroads used was taxable, while the bonds used to finance roads and airports was non-taxable and often guaranteed. This made financing costs for public bodies much lower than the railroads, and gave them another advantage. Further, the govt was very heavy-handed in railroad regulation. Railroads were forced to run empty trains for years at great losses in the name of "public service". Because of that, the railroads wanted out of the psgr business even in the few places where a psgr train might be profitable. By the way, government regulation was partly to blame for the NYC telephone service crisis of the 1970s. The government ordered NY Telephone to hire unqualified people for craft positions and these people couldn't do the job (per Oslin's book). Accordingly to Oslin, adverse government regulation was largely to blame for Western Union's failure, such as ordered WU to assume the problems of the Postal Telegraph Company and give in to high union demands. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 Dec 2005 21:50:31 -0800 From: Jim Stewart <jstewart@jkmicro.com> Reply-To: jstewart@jkmicro.com Organization: http://www.jkmicro.com Subject: Re: Amtrak Passengers Stranded in Woods in Georgia hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com responded to TELECOM Digest Editor: >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This must certainly be one of the >> grander moments in the glorious history of the Toonerville Trolley. >> If it has not occurred to Amtrack authorities by now to (a) either >> split the wrecked train in two parts and clear the way or (b) >> considering they were already delayed 12 hours in Jacksonville, simply >> evacuate the trains passengers, bus them to the nearest airport and >> have airplanes take everyone to their home town immediatly, then I do >> not suppose another eight or ten hours stranded there will change >> anything. > Note -- The proper spelling is "Amtrak". > I doubt very much splitting the train in two would work since a key > intersection is blocked. A second locomotive would be needed to take > the second part of the train and with the blockade it couldn't reach > the spot. > I suspect passengers can't be evacuated to buses because the train is > in an inaccessible area where buses couldn't reach. Normally that is > done. Further, it seems to be taking CSX too long to clear the > intersection. > You seem to be blaming Amtrak for this incident when it is clearly the > host railroad's fault, and that is CSX. In the last decade, after many > mega-mergers in the railroad industry, Amtrak has had a very tough time > because the host railroads refuse to properly transport Amtrak trains, > indeed, they can't even run their own trains. When CSX and NS (Norfolk > Southern) carved up Conrail a few years ago it was supposed to improve > service but instead service is much worse. > Recently fired Amtrak president David Gunn had a win-win plan to > improve service. He wanted to partner Federal and freight railroad > money to improve key bottleneck intersections per above so that there > is additional capacity to handle more trains and run them faster. The > freight lines would do better and Amtrak trains would do better. The > Bush Adm fired Mr. Gunn, claiming he had no future plans. Gunn had > plans to significantly increase Amtrak train speeds and reliabiltiy at > modest cost by focusing on the best "bang for the buck" needs. Firing > Mr. Gunn was a very stupid decision. The Bush Adm plans for Amtrak > will only destroy it. IMHO, Gunn was fired because he was doing too > good a job and had too many good ideas. >> I mean is anyone besides me old enough to remember when we >> had real, honest-to-God reliable rail service in America? PAT] > The answer to that clear, but a bit complex. We had good trains before > this country chose to invest many billions of our taxpayer dollars into > aviation and highways. Though I agree with much of what you've said, I take issue with this statement. The US had *good trains* before WWII. We wore them out during the war and never fixed them. > While most of their expenses are covered by user fees, a > considerable amount are not. Our local property taxes, for example, > pay for police/fire/rescue of motorists. Highways and airplanes use > land that is tax free, railroads (such as CSX) must pay properly > taxes on their tracks. Indeed, in the 1950s many towns added > surcharge taxes to railroad properties to get money to build a > municipal airport. Other towns had to make up for taxes lost when a > highway used once taxable land. All this killed off psgr trains. > Amtrak's subsidy is a single number easy to see, but highways and > airways get their subsidies from multiple sources. > Today, Amtrak must pay the expensive pensions of retired railroaders > who never worked for Amtrak. Amtrak must pay dearly to clean up PCBs > and asbestos in old facilities it never even used. This is all part of > the terms of creating Amtrak--it inherited all the legacy debt. In > contrast, today airlines have their debts removed by bankruptcy and > won't even pay pensions for their own employees. The airlines have > dumped about $15 billion of their pension funds onto the pension > guaranty fund -- that's enough money to run Amtrak for ten years. > In 1970 some farsighted people realized that the passenger train still > had a role to play and Amtrak was created. It is documented in a book > about the Nixon Adm, "The Palace Guard", that the highway interests > were furious at DOT Sec Volpe for creating Amtrak and pushed for his > firing. Today Amtrak critics focus literally on how many napkins food > service uses, yet conveniently ignore far bigger waste in the highway > and airline world -- waste that we taxpayers have to pay for. Clearly > Amtrak critics are not interested in saving money, but rather pursuing > an ideological battle. We just don't have the land anymore to build > massive highways and airports. A passenger train can snake underground > and the land above used for other purposes as is done in some cities. > Obviously today the highway and airway will be the primary transport > medium, but there is still a need for passenger trains. The demand is > certainly there -- new Amtrak service is well patronized--but Amtrak is > denied the resources to add more services. Mr. Gunn also had a > corridor improvement plan, sadly that is forgotten too. > [public replies, please] > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Excuses, excuses! My main point was > _what business does the government have in being in the Rail Road > business anyway? The trains ran perfectly well by themselves, and when > the government took over they just got worse and worse. PAT] [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Amtrak knew, or should have known what would be imposed on them when they took over the system. If the demands made upon them were unrealistic they should have never agreed to be part of the scheme. The same thing happened in Chicago when the CTA was about to take over in 1947. As word got around to the various private transportation companies that City of Chicago was about to 'municipalize' them ('municipalize' is the politically correct term for legally stealing someone else's property) the various companies deliberatly quit maintaining their equipment. Busses had bald tires on them, the CTA inherited a rolling pile of junk if there ever was one. Elevated train stations were left to go pot (of course over the next fifty years of CTA operation, they let things go the same way), and any number of vehicles were entirely unusable. Tracks went unrepaired, overhead wiring became dilapidated, etc. They said "we are not fools, city will pay us what they want, no more, no less, so get out of it what we can.". By the by, a bit of trivia for you: Most people do not know this, but CTA (Chicago Transit Authority) at one point had a _single freight customer_, and they hauled coal for that freight customer. How it happened was this. Up until sometime in the early 1960's, the old "North Shore Line" operated on tracks shared in common with CTA as far north as city limits. CTA owned the elevated (on stilts above the ground) tracks north to Lawrence Avenue (actually, from just a wee bit north of Wilson Avenue (Uptown Station, Charlie Insull's crown jewel in its time) where the stilts end and then the track runs on _elevated ground level_ the rest of the way. You Chicago riders please take note of this: You pull into Lawrence Avenue station, the stilts have ended and the earth has been graded up onto a hill the rest of the way. With that in mind, North Shore Line _was_ a freight hauler in addition to its passenger business. North Shore had a freight customer in Chicago, the "Lill Coal Company" (from back in the years when people burned coal in their furnaces instead of oil or gas). Lill was on the corner (I think) of Broadway and Montrose Avenue, and had a switch (or side track) from the main line used to deliver the coal to them which they in turn sold to their customers. The only way Lill could get their coal deliveries was from a freight train (full of coal cars) which came in on that siding track. A rule in those days was if a railroad was going to go out of business they had to insure that all their customers were cared for anyway, and the Illinois Commerce Commission required CTA (as the surviving owner in joint custody of those railroad tracks) to continue serving Lill as long as the company stayed in business. By the middle or late 1960's Lill went out of business (very little coal being purchased any longer) and CTA gratefully got rid of that customer. In the three or four year interim of no North Shore Line but Lill still around, CTA had a freight engine and several coal cars and at various times would pull a train full of coal off onto the side track at Uptown Station (Wilson Avenue), down the hill off the stilts and into Lill's coal yard. I remember seeing that only a few times, when I was in high school. That same side track went on south from Lill Coal to Graceland Cemetery and in the 1920-30's the CTA predecessor company "Chicago Rapid Transit" used to run chartered 'funeral coaches' taking the dearly departed and their families to the cemetery as needed. At the corner of Grace Avenue and Halstead Street (?) the funeral coach would disgorge its load, turn around and go back north. PAT] ------------------------------ From: techie@tantivy.tantivy.net (Bob Vaughan) Subject: Re: Amtrak Passengers Stranded in Woods in Georgia Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2005 13:14:36 +0000 (UTC) Organization: Tantivy Associates > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Excuses, excuses! My main point was > _what business does the government have in being in the Rail Road > business anyway? The trains ran perfectly well by themselves, and when > the government took over they just got worse and worse. PAT] What business does the government have bailing out bankrupt airlines? What business does the government have running bus service? What business does the government have running commuter rail service? Would you be upset if there was no public transportation? Would you be upset if there was no way for you to get from place to place just because your town isn't big enough to justify an airport? Amtrak was created from the existing passenger rail lines, that the railroads no longer wanted to run. If Amtrak had not been created, there would be no inter-city rail service in the US today. Amtrak may not stop everywhere, nor may it stop at convienient times, but it does provide service to many areas that are out of reach of the airlines, as well as providing a comfortable alternative to driving, buses, or pressurized tubes flying thru the air. The common misconception among Amtrak bashers, is that the long-haul inter-city trains are where all the money goes, and that if those trains were cancelled, Amtrak would be in a better financial situation. In reality, while all of the trains lose money, the inter-city trains actually recover more revenue than the northeast corridor trains, which have the added expense of maintanance of one of the most expensive, and heavily used railroad properties in the world, the existence of which helps prevent the northeast portion of the country from collapsing under gridlock.. We subsidize the airlines with horribly expensive airports, we subsidize buses and cars with horribly expensive highways. We provide financial bailouts to bankrupt airlines, and yet we complain about a relatively small amount of money necessary to subsidize passanger rail operations, over a mostly privately owned rail infrastructure. I think we have some of our priorities misplaced. -- Welcome My Son, Welcome To The Machine -- Bob Vaughan | techie @ tantivy.net | | P.O. Box 19792, Stanford, Ca 94309 | -- I am Me, I am only Me, And no one else is Me, What could be simpler? -- [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I never said that Amtrak got all of the money or even a large part of it. I know they do not get much money, and are treated like a step-child many times. My question/comment was _why is government_ in any of those illegitimate (for government) businesses in the first place, not how badly some are treated nor how much favoritism is shown to some instead of others. Independence, KS is a small town (about 8000 people) but we _do_ have a privately owned airport here. Mostly it is used by executives of Amazon.com, Boeing Aircraft and other businesses here in town. They also offer unscheduled (or rather, by appointment) commercial flights to Wichita, KS and Tulsa, OK which are scheduled to 'meet' incoming flights from elsewhere or outgoing flights to other places on 'regular' airlines. In those cases, they sell 'through tickets' to wherever the passenger is going, with a ticket tear for Wichita or Tulsa, our two closest cities (110 miles northwest in one case, 80 miles south in the latter case.)I can tell you that a flight from anywhere to Kansas City or Tulsa in comparitivly much cheaper than a flight from anywhere to Wichita or for Gods sakes! a ticket all the way to Independence, even though Kansas City is only 250 miles or so away. We also have a bus station (three or four busses daily each direction between Tulsa and Kansas City) and we _used_ to have a train station with Santa Fe railroad trains between Chicago and the west coast a couple times each daily, but those went out of business many years ago, and another railroad called 'TKO' something. But I don;t think the government should have to pay to keep them running, nor subsidize our airport either. PAT] ------------------------------ From: kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) Subject: Re: Amtrak Passengers Stranded in Woods in Georgia Date: 31 Dec 2005 09:47:25 -0500 Organization: Former users of Netcom shell (1989-2000) > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Excuses, excuses! My main point was > _what business does the government have in being in the Rail Road > business anyway? The trains ran perfectly well by themselves, and when > the government took over they just got worse and worse. PAT] You say this, but you are replying to an article about a disaster that was basically caused by, and then made worse by private companies. The problem is that Amtrak doesn't own the infrastructure ... that infrastructure has NOT been taken over by the government, but is owned by private railroads, and it is falling apart. There aren't enough parallel tracks to be able to maintain schedules, because the private railroads aren't building them and are shutting some tracks down. The existing tracks are not being properly maintained; trains going into Richmond, VA, for example, have to slow down to a crawl because of the poor condition of the tracks. But it's CSX that is responsible for those tracks. If the government can be blamed for _anything_, it's letting the railway owners fall down on their part of the bargain. --scott -- "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I don't think they should do that either. Why doesn't Amtrack for example -- it is a government agency after all -- file _suit_ and force the railroads (who are its landlord, after all) to maintain its property? Amtrak got in a very bad deal when they stepped in to rescue the railroads (and aside from the fact that I do not think the government had any business doing it at all) they should have set a different tune to start with. Build up your property decently to start with if you want us to take it over. Why couldn't government learn from the earlier fiascos they have when they get into these messes? City of Chicago lost out very badly when they decided -- in their greed -- to 'municipalize' (tee hee, sly grin) the property of Chicago Rapid Transit Company, Lake Street Elevated Line, Jackson Park Elevated Line, the Loop Elevated Rail Road, the Boulevard Bus Company, and the Commercial Elevated Service (what is now called the North/Northwest/Ohare el train). No matter what rationale they give (we are nobler, purer, more honest, more utilit- arian, whatever than those other crooks) the fact remains that whatever the government gets its hands on turns to shit. I got a phone call yesterday from a lady who is a reporter (I assume) at one of my competitors, The New York Times, who had read my Editor's Note about the mess with Amtrak in the Georgia woods now going on three days. She demanded to know 'what railroad to you work for?, in other words what could you possibly know about anything? I told her I did not know very much about anything in life, but I damn sure would know to slowly and safely begin backing up all the trains caught there in that logjam one at a time until each of them had been able to reach a safe and convenient place where the passengers could be safely evacuated, properly medicated or otherwise pursed and sent on to their homes via aeroplane with my apologies for being such a screwed up outfit. And I am not a fan of air travel myself these days, given the gyrations one has to go through in the name of 'terrorism' to even get on the aeroplane. (Dump your possessions all over the floor where everyone can look at them, etc). But under the circumstances it would have worked. And I know there is a Greyhound Bus Station in Orlando. That's how I would have done it. And I wished her the best in their latest wrangle with the government which is attempting to find out who tattled on Mr. Bush so _that_ person can be severely punished, rather than Mr. Bush who needs the punishment. She terminated our call. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Patrick Townson <ptownson@cableone.net> Subject: Cybergiving Website Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2005 11:24:20 -0600 Cyber Giving Week, the Last Day http://brand.yahoo.com/cybergivingweek2005/ May I suggest on this last day of 2005 if you have not yet done so or wish to do it again, that you go to the above web site and help as best as you are able to DO GOOD in the world. Habitat for Humanity is one example, there are many others. This is the final day, and the final few hours to get it included in your 2005 tax returns. Thanks! And Happy New Year to everyone! PAT ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications topics. 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