From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Sep 13 23:14:05 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id XAA18431; Mon, 13 Sep 1999 23:14:05 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 13 Sep 1999 23:14:05 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199909140314.XAA18431@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #401 TELECOM Digest Mon, 13 Sep 99 23:14:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 401 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: This Digest's Name Has Been Stolen by Nynex **IMPORTANT** (B Levant) Your Telecom Digest (David B. Horvath) Re: This Digest's Name Has Been Stolen by Nynex (L. Winson) Re: This Digest's Name Has Been Stolen by Nynex (Thor Lancelot Simon) Telephone Site (Graham Caldwell) SIT Test Line (misc@neverserve.net) Looking for Rockwell 7200 ADPCM Algorithm (Pat Noziska) Re: AT&T's 1-800-CALL-ATT Incompatible With AT&T Cell Phones (Travis Dixon) World Telephone Numbering Guide Updated (David Leibold) Re: Cellular "Priority Bit" in NAM (Richard D.G. Cox) Re: Slammed by Excel Telecom (John McHarry) Re: Having no Long Distance Provider? (ellis@ftel.net) Re: Cell Phone-Driving Ban (Dave O'Shea) Re: Cell Phone-Driving Ban (Brett Frankenberger) Re: Off Topic: Drunk Drivers and Wasted Lives (Fred Atkinson) Re: Explaining Positions in Quite a Lucid Way (Barry Margolin) OT Trivia: HU3-2700? (Brian Hess) Advertising on the Web Site (L. Winson) Re: Bill Pfieffer Briefly Mentioned on World of Radio (Scott Fybush) New Security Hole Found in Hotmail (Monty Solomon) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Wlevant@aol.com (Bill Levant) Date: Mon, 13 Sep 1999 20:58:58 EDT Subject: Re: Telecom Digest's Name Has Been Stolen **IMPORTANT** PAT: I think you should register the name "Telecom Digest" as a federal trademark (or service mark; I'm not clear on which applies, but I THINK it's a service mark) AS SOON AS YOU POSSIBLY CAN. If you hold the registered trademark (or service mark) "Telecom Digest", I don't think NYNEX (or anyone else) can steal the name (or the domain), and you might be able to force NYNEX to give it up. According to the US Patent and Trademark Office web page (www.uspto.gov), "registering a mark can provide significant advantages to a party involved in a court proceeding...." > What are the benefits of federal trademark registration? > 1. Constructive notice nationwide of the trademark owner's claim. > 2. Evidence of ownership of the trademark. > 3. Jurisdiction of federal courts may be invoked. > 4. Registration can be used as a basis for obtaining registration in foreign countries. > 5. Registration may be filed with U.S. Customs Service to prevent importation of infringing foreign goods. In short, if you're registered, no one can say that they didn't know you were out there, and no one can say that they own the mark and you don't. Forms are available for download at www.uspto.gov; the filing fee is presently $245.00, but may go up on October 1st. CAVEAT: I'm not a trademark lawyer (a specialty unto itself; foreclosing widows and dispossessing orphans is more my speed) but I'm willing to help you wade through it all if there's someone else out there who can help prevent me from blatant malpractice. Thus, please don't rely on this as 'legal advice', even though IAIFAL (I am, in fact, a lawyer). Bill [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Thanks for your kind note of support. If anyone knows that area of the law well enough to advise Bill, please correspond with him directly. Let's see what happens in the next few days with that buffoon, Mr. Sermporn. I wonder if he will report me to his superiors at Nynex for ripping off his .gif images and installing the better quality ones on my own web site. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 13 Sep 1999 18:51:47 EDT From: dhorvath@cobs.com (David B. Horvath, CCP) Subject: Your Telecom Digest (A letter sent to Mr. Sermporn) Are you aware of telecom-digest.org? Pat Townson has been publishing The Telecom Digest internationally via email close to 20 years now. I'm a long-time reader, occasional contributor, and have even sent money to Pat to continue his fine work. Then I see you using the name! Is that fair? Will you please correct this? David ------------------------------ From: lwinson@bbs.cpcn.com (L. Winson) Subject: Re: This Digest's Name Has Been Stolen by Nynex Date: 13 Sep 1999 22:33:21 GMT Organization: The PACSIBM SIG BBS Pat, please keep us posted on how this works out. Frankly, I'm not to optimistic anyone from Nynex or the search engines will bother to get back to you with any substantive reply. (When I've emailed owners of commercial web pages I always get a nice warm fuzzy automatic "Thank you for your letter, your business is very important to us and we appreciate hearing from our customers ...", but I rarely get any kind of meaningful answer to a question.) ------------------------------ From: tls@panix.com (Thor Lancelot Simon) Subject: Re: This Digest's Name Has Been Stolen by Nynex Date: 13 Sep 1999 21:29:48 -0400 Organization: PANIX -- Public Access Networks Corp. Reply-To: tls@rek.tjls.com In article , Gene Gaines wrote: > Pat, the page you are complaining about is at: > http://sermporn.com/telecom/ > http://209.132.83.126/telecom/ > The email address given on that page for the editor is: > sermporn@nynexbk.co.th > This is not the NYNEX we knew/loved/hated in the wilds of New York and > New England. > Rather, the web address belongs to a: > Nynex Science and Technology Asia Ltd. > 22nd Floor Telecom Tower > 18 Ratchadapisek Road, Hwaikwang > Bangkok 10310 Thailand NYNEX Science and Technology (or "S&T") was NYNEX's in-house telecom research organization before they were bought by Bell Atlantic. Used to be headquartered in White Plains, NY. Perpetrated some totally horrible custom hacks like the "Bridged Facility" voice dialing system which haven't yet quite disappeared from the PSTN to this very day. As another poster pointed out, NYNEX once had extensive overseas telecom holdings -- perhaps some were spun off when they merged with BA, or perhaps this business just kept the old name to preserve continuity in a country where "Bell Atlantic" probably doesn't carry much weight? Who knows. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, I think it's a reasonable assumption that they're owned by Bell Atlantic like the rest of NYNEX. Thor Lancelot Simon tls@rek.tjls.com "And where do all these highways go, now that we are free?" ------------------------------ Reply-To: Graham Caldwell From: Graham Caldwell Subject: Telephone Site Date: Mon, 13 Sep 1999 21:43:44 +1200 Maybe you would like to look at our new telephone site, it is, http://members.xoom.com/ferrymead/telephony.html Graham Caldwell [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Thank you for letting us know about this, Graham. Perhaps some folks will decide to come visit you. Have you decided on a name for your site yet? Why don't you call it 'Telecom Digest'. That's the name Mr. Sermporn decided to use, and I've decided to make him the southeast Asian bureau chief for my internationally-renowned publication, but I haven't told him yet, so please don't say anything. You can be our New Zealand correspondent if you wish. PAT] ------------------------------ From: misc@neverserve.net Subject: SIT Test Line Date: Mon, 13 Sep 1999 08:04:16 -0400 Organization: ICAN.Net Customer I discovered an SIT test line the other day, but I dont know what the telco's use this kind of number for -- can anyone shed some light on this? ------------------------------ From: Pat Noziska Subject: Looking for Rockwell 7200 ADPCM Algorithm Date: Mon, 13 Sep 1999 12:06:40 -0700 Organization: aracnet.com Does anyone know where I get a specification of the Rockwell 7200Hz ADPCM algorithm that is used in Rockwell voice modems? There are a number of obsolete links on various Web sites, supposedly pointing to a description of the Rockwell voice modem ADPCM algorithm, but the www.rss.rockwell.com and nb.rockwell.com sites have been replaced by www.conexant.com, and I cannot find similar pages on the Conexant Web site. Conexant's Sales Support people have been less than helpful in my search (I'll be happy to hear from any Conexant people out there that can help me understand why the willingness to help has been so poor). I'm not looking for the definition of the AT+V #V voice command set - that information is readily available from a number of places. I'm looking for the definition of the actual ADPCM speech compression algorithm. All I want to do is produce a simple transcoder under Linux, so I can play the speech back on industry-standard sound cards. Does anyone out there have an electronic copy of the algorithm that he/she can share? Thanks, Pat ------------------------------ From: Travis Dixon Subject: Re: AT&T's 1-800-CALL-ATT Incompatible With AT&T Cell Phones Organization: None of Your Business Date: Mon, 13 Sep 1999 20:14:45 GMT Dr. Joel M. Hoffman wrote: > It seems AT&T has just changed its 1-800-CALL-ATT calling card so that > calls from an AT&T cell phone must go through an operator. This is > obviously very annoying. > (The reason one might want to use a calling card from a cell phone is > that int'l calling card rates are MUCH, MUCH less than the cell phone > rates. E.g., over $1.00/min to Europe vs. 10-25 cents/min via the > calling card.) Are you sure that this is not just for international calls? I had to place a international call via my (corporate issued) AT&T recently from my landline phone and it was intercepted by an operator who asked for the same information. I'm assuming that it's a fraud prevention issue. Ask them if they have an option to turn the intercept off since you (maybe occasionally) use a modem to dial and no voice-capable handset is available. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 13 Sep 1999 17:09:16 EDT From: David Leibold Subject: World Telephone Numbering Guide Updated The latest WTNG update (dated 12 September 1999) is now available at: http://phonebooth.interocitor.net/wtng/ This page seeks to follow the various changes to telephone numbering internationally. (Please update any outdated web addresses for this ... this URL is fairly new; thanks to Joey and fans of music artist Gary Numan for making the webspace for WTNG possible.) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1999 00:42 BST From: Richard@office.mandarin.com (Richard D G Cox) Subject: Re: Cellular "Priority Bit" in NAM TELECOM Digest Editor noted: > In Motorola cellular phones I have had in the past, there is a setting > (supposedly only to be adjusted by the dealer who sold you the phone) > which has to do with the 'group' you are in. In every phone I've had > where I inspected the NAM or reprogrammed it, the original setting of > the bit for your 'group' was the same as the final digit of the phone > number; ie, xxx-1234 would be part of 'group 4'. A dealer said to me > he did not think any cellular company anywhere bothered using it for > anything. If it were to be used, the idea was that if the cellular > company had to ration its service for some reason, they could choose > certain 'groups' to receive service and certain 'groups' to be denied. In GSM -- and I suspect in your phone too -- this "setting" is a hex digit, not decimal. Known as "ACCOLC" (Access Overload Control) it behaves exactly as you observed -- i.e. it will seem to make no difference -- for values 0-9, and installers/dealers are indeed told to program it with the last digit of the phone number (or in some cases the penultimate digit) to make its functionality less conspicuous. Digits higher than 9 (A through F, or 10 through 15) are the digits that have significance. The higher your digit, the more "important" you are to the network/community. A police chief might get 12 or 13, but 15 (the highest value of all) is reserved for "PLMN Staff" i.e. the engineers who actually operate and maintain the mobile phone network. If you were to change your ACCOLC digit to a value which your phone isn't authorised to use, the change would be quickly spotted and you might soon find your subscription suspended while the irregularity is investigated! Richard D G Cox PO Box 111, PENARTH, UK; Telephone +44 29 2031 1131; Fax +44 29 2031 1131 To reply by private email, simply take "office" out of the e-mail address ------------------------------ From: mcharry@erols.com (John McHarry) Subject: Re: Slammed by Excel Telecom Date: Mon, 13 Sep 1999 23:50:18 GMT On Sun, 12 Sep 1999 13:45:43 -0400, Fred Atkinson wrote: > On a tangent, I've heard of a lot of folks [here in Maryland] > talk about getting phone calls from Bell Atlantic asking that they pay > their long distance bill before the billing date [because they've run > up a high volume of long distance calls]. They apparently tell those > called that the PSC in Maryland gives them to authority to require > this. I suspect it is hype as one person told me he refused to pay > before receiving the monthly bill and they did not interrupt his > telephone service. I don't know anything about Maryland law, but in Illinois unauthorized termination of a utlily used to be a felony. Also, trying to get someone to do something by threatening to commit a felony against them was felony intimidation. For all I know, that still holds. I remember this from a case involving a landlord in Champaign-Urbana who wanted to break a lease and had his tenants' electricity turned off when he knew they weren't home. ------------------------------ From: ellis@ftel.net Subject: Re: Having no Long Distance Provider? Date: 13 Sep 1999 22:37:53 GMT Organization: Franklin interNet http://www.franklin.net In article , Leonard Erickson wrote: >> I do find it fascinating that AT&T wants $5 a month minimum fee for >> being your long distance carrier, but then runs 10-10-345 and only >> charges a 10 cent fee per call. > The $5 minimum almost certainly applies to 10-10-345 too. Why do you say that? They certainly don't mention any minimum in their ads or on their web site. http://www.fnet.net/~ellis/photo/ ------------------------------ From: Dave O'Shea Subject: Re: Cell Phone-Driving Ban Date: Sun, 12 Sep 1999 17:51:44 -0500 Steven J Sobol >>> You won't get ticketed if you use a handsfree kit. >> Of course, you still _should_. Every study that's examined it (at >> least that I'm aware of) has found that drivers using hands-free >> cellphones are just as dangerous as drivers using "normal" cell >> phones. That is, almost as dangerous as drunk drivers ... (eeeee!) > Citations, please? I believe the largest study was by the NHTSA. I recall the result was that using a cellphone is roughly equivalent (in terms of increased accident rates) to having a 0.12 blood alcohol level. > Of course the safest handsfree kit is one that lets you dial by speaking > at the phone instead of dialing ... I'm not convinced it would make a significant difference. Most of the idiots I see drifting across the road are not dialing the phone or writing something -- they're just talking. They become so engrossed in the conversation that they fail to notice that they're doing 40 in a 70. Or 70 in a 40. Or heading right up on the curb (white pickup truck, this morning). Or driving right into the rear end of a car (red Dodge, this morning.) The problem is a mismanagement of concentration, not of eyesight. ------------------------------ From: brettf@netcom.com (Brett Frankenberger) Subject: Re: Cell Phone-Driving Ban Date: 14 Sep 1999 02:41:19 GMT Organization: rbfnet In article , Cortland Richmond wrote: > Also note calls placed 5 minutes before each accident are much more > dangerous than calls placed 15 minutes before. It seems that these > calls were probably not COMPLETED before the accident. If so, it > indicates distraction from calling didn't last after hanging up, which > although logical is not inevitable. Again, we'd have to read the > paper for more. They knew when the call was completed. It means that the risk of a collision *while talking on the phone as part of a conversation that was less than 5 minutes old* was higher than the risk of a collision *while talking on the phone as part of a conversation that 15 minutes or more old*. That is, you only got included in the "15+ minute" category if you initiated a call more than 15 minutes prior to the collision and were still on it at the time of the collision, and you only got included in the "5 or fewer minute" category if you initiated a call less than 5 minutes prior to th collision and were still on it at the time of the collision. One of the biggest holes is: the study only included people who had been in an accident within the past 14 months. This effectively selects rather strongly for relatively unsafe drivers. So, while the risk of a relatively unsafe driver having a collision might be 4 times higher if he is talking on a telephone, that doesn't necessarily say antyhing about the relative risk of a safe driver having a collision while talking on a telephone. (NEJM is a rather high quality journal. I would guess that this potential error is acknowledged in the paper.) I'm going to get a copy of the study (it's only ten bucks) ... if I find any more big holes, I'll be sure to post here ... -- Brett ------------------------------ From: Fred Atkinson Subject: Re: Off Topic: Drunk Drivers and Wasted Lives Date: Mon, 13 Sep 1999 08:56:43 -0400 > It is interesting that in North Carolina they are starting to charge > drunk drivers with murder 1 if they cancel anyone. > It's not a bad idea. Well, I wonder about North Carolina. I lived there briefly after I finished electronics school. They have some very absolute laws. During the energy crisis (and maybe they still do), they suspended your license for two less than ten miles an hour over the speed limit tickets within a year, which I think is a bit extreme. Back then when you got *one* ticket for less than ten over the limit, they sent you a nasty letter warning you that you'd lose your license for one more less than ten over the limit ticket within the next year. I never got a ticket in North Carolina, but some of my coworkers did. One told me about the nasty letter he got. I rode with him many a time. He was a good, safe driver and tended to observe the speed limit. I found the folks at the DMV there to be quite rude and unresponsive when you called to find out how to get your car registered or where to get a driver's licensing manual. Of course, that was back in the seventies. With the emphasis on customer service these days, maybe that's changed sine then. When I registered my car, I listed my automobile insurance by the group name (Kemper) on my registration application. Several months later, I got a nasty letter from DMV informing me that my registration would be suspended if I did not provide the name of the *exact* company (Fireman's Fund, as I seem to remember) in that insurance group within a short waiting period. I really had a problem with the tone of the letter. They also had (does anyone know if they still do?) a law that speeding in excess of eighty miles and hour was mandatory license suspension. For myself, I thought that those folks were 'Abuse Incorporated'. I hope they've changed their tune. Fred ------------------------------ From: Barry Margolin Subject: Re: Explaining Positions in Quite a Lucid Way Organization: GTE Internetworking, Cambridge, MA Date: Mon, 13 Sep 1999 17:55:18 GMT In article , Jack Perdue wrote: > These people are charged with a 21st century job and they're using > 20th century technology? Flying the whole group around the globe? > Having hour long teleconferences? > Has nobody told them about e-mail??? I've been using email for 20 years. One thing I've noticed on many committees I've belonged to is that email is not a very good medium for forming concensus. It's fine for raising issues and having low-bandwidth discussions, but when it comes time to hashing out the final decisions, nothing beats a face to face meeting. You can accomplish in a couple of days things that would take a month or more to resolve over email. However, perhaps something intermediate, like an interactive chat session, could replace most of the in-person meetings. Barry Margolin, barmar@bbnplanet.com GTE Internetworking, Powered by BBN, Burlington, MA *** DON'T SEND TECHNICAL QUESTIONS DIRECTLY TO ME, post them to newsgroups. Please DON'T copy followups to me -- I'll assume it wasn't posted to the group. ------------------------------ From: Brian Hess Date: Mon, 13 Sep 99 18:27:58 -0400 Subject: OT Trivia: HU3-2700? Pat -- Could you help me scratch a mental itch? Who in Chicago had Hudson-three-two-seven-hundred? Was it Magikist? A loan company? I just can't get that old radio jingle out of my head now. And it's all your fault, for contributing to the resurrection of these antiquities. Cheers, Brian [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: It was not a loan company. Magikist Carpets sounds likely, or maybe it was C.E.T., the company which sold television sets back in the 1950's ... I do very distinctly recall the man with the deep baritone voice singing, 'Hudson three two seven hundred' at the conclusion of each of their commercials. It went on for many years. Alan Kerman may recall the answer to this, or surely David Tamkin would know. I am drawing a blank on this otherwise; the phone number itself is very familiar. PAT] ------------------------------ From: lwinson@bbs.cpcn.com (L. Winson) Subject: Advertising on the Web Site Date: 13 Sep 1999 00:33:12 GMT Organization: The PACSIBM SIG BBS I must admit I don't care for any advertising unless it is absolutely necessary to generate funds to maintain the service. One reason is that I just don't care for it -- I thought the reasons you originally posted made very good sense. A second reason is that my connection is relatively low speed and I prefer web sites I access make the most efficient use of bandwidth as possible. Having Advertising Council messages to fill up "free time" would just slow things down for people like me. ------------------------------ From: world!fybush@uunet.uu.net (Scott D Fybush) Subject: Re: Bill Pfieffer Briefly Mentioned on World of Radio Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1999 01:49:49 GMT Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA PAT remarked: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: There have been some questions about > the 'drunk-driving crash' remarks above and I want to stress that > Bill P. was **not** drunk, nor did he drink at all that I know of. And I want to echo PAT on this: the wording in the first version of this week's NERW report was unintentionally ambiguous on that matter, something which was brought to my attention and corrected quickly. I by no means wanted to imply that Bill had been drinking; I was merely passing on the reports that the driver who hit Bill appeared to have been doing so. My apologies to anyone offended by the original wording. -s ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 13 Sep 1999 22:21:55 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: New Security Hole Found in Hotmail September 13, 1999 By Brian McWilliams InternetNews.com Correspondent Microsoft's Hotmail service is at risk again from a new security threat. Bulgarian programmer Georgi Guninski has discovered that the Web-based email service allows embedded javascript code to be automatically executed on the computers of Hotmail users. http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article/0,1087,3_199751,00.html ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #401 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Sep 14 04:29:10 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id EAA28619; Tue, 14 Sep 1999 04:29:10 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1999 04:29:10 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199909140829.EAA28619@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #402 TELECOM Digest Tue, 14 Sep 99 04:29:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 402 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Linking and Advertising on the Net (TELECOM Digest Editor) Re: This Digest's Name Has Been Stolen by Nynex (Steven) Re: This Digest's Name Has Been Stolen by Nynex (Steven J. Sobol) Re: This Digest's Name Has Been Stolen by Nynex (Rainer Raupach) Re: Swedish Teen on Trial For Linking to Music Files (Adam Frix) Re: Cell Phone-Driving Ban (Steven J. Sobol) Re: OT Trivia: HU3-2700? (Ron Donnell) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1999 02:45:01 EDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Linking and Advertising on the Net As you well know, I am not a lawyer. I cannot give legal advice, and I do not represent or provide counsel to any of you in any official capacity. With the way things are going on the web these days, any number of opinions might be given, and depending on the judge, the jury, the arguments given, etc, any outcome is possible. It is my belief however that you will ALWAYS prevail in any dispute about linking or copyright/trade mark/service mark violations if you limit your responses purely to purely First Amendment issues and the traditions of the net. First of all, never be in possession of something you are not authorized to possess. That means, do not have something on your web site or computer that does not belong to you, and that you did not obtain permission for. If you paid for it, are franchised or licensed for it, that is another matter. Being in possession of something is a different matter than talking about the same thing or pointing to it, or viewing it 'from a distance' where it is located on some other computer. Do not claim authorship or copyright or even imply authorship or copyright for something that is not yours. Do not obscure the copyright or true ownership of something that is not yours, such as by erasing copyright indicia or the author's name. Leave it intact on the work at all times. Do not put yourself in a postion where someone can say that you 'stole' it. A company's name or the name of its products is its property. You are not authorized to take its name and claim it is your own, for example by naming your website the same as theirs, etc. Make sure the only thing that you do is view, point at, or discuss some object that is on public display. In the context of the internet and the world wide web, 'public display' means that the object is in a publicly accessible directory. It means a directory upon which the permissions are set at least for 'others can read'. In the context of the internet, the 'world wide web' is software which permits any person to view the contents of any file located on the public directory of any other site. Persons who install web server software or web browsers cannot be forced to use them as intended, but neither may they prevent you from using it as it is intended; i.e. a 'link-everywhere' protocol. You may link to *anything you want, anywhere you want, on any site you want* if you meet the above conditions. If the poster places the information in a public directory, then it is permissible for public viewing. It does not matter what arrangements the poster of the information may have with other parties such as his agreement to show advertising as part of it. You were not party to any such agreement. Furthermore he is not arranging for the display of his information to you, but rather, you have made your own arrangements to view it. He is free to stop this from happening by removing the information from his public directory and placing it in some private place. You do not have the right to go into his private places to look at things. You always have the right, contrary to what the web site owner may say, to view, discuss, and refer others to any information in any public directory. That is how the web was constructed, that is how it was intended. Now let us say you have received a letter from some company or a lawyer advising you that you are forbidden to link to their site or to some certain page on their site. Do NOT attempt any sort of negotiations with them. Do NOT even recognize the validity of their claim. I assume now there are no copyright violations; that you are linking to the information on their server instead of a copy of the information/object on your own server, etc. Your very short response might go like this: Dear Sir, Thank you for your letter of xx/xx/xx. The web page to which you are referring is located on the PUBLIC directory of xxxxxx.com, a site which in turn is connected with the public internet. According to the protocol and traditions of the World Wide Web, I may not be prohibited from viewing any item which has been placed in the public way, nor may I be prohibited from discussing such items in the public way or pointing to them that other members of the public may view them also. Your recourse would seem to be to place the information in question in an area which is not defined as public. Since you seem to be unfamiliar with the protocol and traditions of the World Wide Web, I will direct your attention to http://xxxxxxxxxxx where an FAQ file may be able to explain it and answer any questions you may have. After reviewing that FAQ, you may detirmine that the World Wide Web is not an appropriate place for the presentation of the information we are discussing now, and I wish you the best in relocating the information to some other resource you find more appropriate for your needs. I regret I can be of no further assistance to you. Sincerely yours, Webmaster's Name Now notice please, our response has been limited purely to advising him that he is in the public way, and that our rights permit us to view what is in the public way and discuss it. We offer to be helpful by providing him with a reference file which discusses web protocols, traditions and customs. We acknowledge that he may be unhappy with how things are done here, and suggest that he may be in the wrong place for what he is attempting to accomplish. *We can do nothing further for him* ... Do not -- even once -- suggest that there might be exceptions, that 'you were told it would be okay' or that 'other sites do it' or anything of the sort. Limit your response at all times to the statements above: You are in the public way; I have the right to view what is public, discuss what is public, and instruct others on how to see what is public. Let it go at that! Do not bring up his site in particular in your response; discuss only 'public directories', the method by which the web operates, and your rights. Let him get around to talking about his web site if he ever does, and why he should be an exception to the protocol of the web. "You are violating my copyright/trademark/service mark" I have never claimed to be the originator of the work nor the holder of the copyright. I have never obliterated or obscured your indicia or statements of ownership. I am not now nor have I ever been in possession of a copy of your work. Will you please show me where I have done so? Then you put it right back in the 'public directory' category once again; it is in the public way, you may not prevent me from viewing, discussing, etc. Are you sure, sir, that you are using the right medium for what you are attempting to do? Sorry, I cannot be of any more help to you. "Maybe you never have done those things, but by linking to me you are encouraging, aiding and abetting those people who do in fact violate my copyright, etc" My function here is similar to that of a television or radio station or the print media. Have you forced the television/radio people to discontinue displaying your product because of your allegation that nameless unidentified persons may abuse the transmission by illegally copying it and violating your copyright? I suggest sir, that you take action on that matter, and if you will provide me with evidence that you have forced the more traditional media to cease displaying you, talking about you and pointing at you because of your concern for copyright violations, then at that point, I will discuss this with you further and re-evaluate my own activities. I am sorry there is nothing further I can do for you at this time. "You cheated me out of advertising revenue" I have no agreement with you or anyone you have contracted with, nor did I try to interfere with your display of the ads. I do not prevent people from coming to the front page of your site on their own should they wish to do so. I have used a free speech exercise of my own to tell persons that you have positioned yourself in the public way and because of that, they have no obligation to pay you for what they saw or heard publicly. Sir, are you really certain that for what you are trying to do, a public computer network like the web is the best place to do it? How can you make any money if all your stuff is out on PUBLIC display in a PUBLIC directory? Have you considered using some other medium than the web? The web is not really designed for what you want to do. I am sorry there is nothing further I can do for you at this time. "You have advertising on your web site" Yes I do. I notice you have advertising on your website also. I have bills to pay, the same as everyone else. The advertising helps offset the costs of my web site. Is that how it works for you as well? "You have no right to boost up your hit count (and thus the value of your advertising) by inticing people to visit you by making my links available." I've never claimed that in order for people to view your product they had to come through my site and view my advertising. I do not sell the information at the end of your links. I do not operate my web site to profit from the information at the end of your links. I operate my web site as an informative service for the net commun- ity, advising them of PUBLIC displays in PUBLIC directories, and since the URLs are frequently sixty to eighty characters in length, I offer to type the URL for them so they get it right. Consider me like a tour-bus operator, and yourself like someone giving a concert outside in the PUBLIC park. Some people come to you and buy a ticket to obtain a seat in comfort and listen or view the event. I drive down the public street next to it and all the passengers on my tour bus hear the music. Because I charged them to ride my bus to pay for the gasoline and my expertise in driving around town, did that somehow cause you to get cheated of some money? Or consider an outdoor 'drive in theatre'. Should occupants of cars driving down the highway next to it be penalized for seeing part of the movie? Or consider the Chicago National League Baseball Club, aka the 'Chicago Cubs'. Although they have a twelve foot stone wall around the perimeter of their playing field to prevent persons on the public sidewalk outside from seeing what they are doing without paying for it, that was not sufficient to keep people on the other side of Sheffield Avenue from occupying rooftops higher than twelve feet from viewing the action in the park. At first, the Chicago Cubs said that was illegal, you cannot view us without paying for it. When the owner of the building with the rooftop started charging admission to use the roof, the Cubs were especially furious saying it was really depriving them of revenue. They said the landlord was (to use internet parlance) 'linking' to them without permission and selling entertainment which they were providing. When it all got settled in court, it turned out the landlord was not selling the Cubs baseball game at all; he was charging rent to stand on his roof and charging rent for a seat to sit in while on the roof. The fact that the Cubs players were in plain view was coincidental to the whole thing. The court also noted that people walking down the sidewalk could hear the amplified sounds of the announcer, the music and see the scoreboard. Should the entire street or sidewalk be blocked off, or people required to close their eyes and plug their ears when walking past? And so it is with you, sir. You wish to occupy the public way as defined by one internet/web standard after another because you find it convenient, yet you do not want to face the result of having others view your public spectacle. ----------------------------- Whatever you do when confronted by the anti-linking people (typically the large companies trying to do their thing), *never* let the conversation get away from the simple fact that they are in the public way and that you will not allow your rights of free speech to be violated when you choose to comment on public occurrences. Do not allow them to twist it in any other direction for any reason. And remind them repeatedly that maybe they are in the wrong place. Maybe the web is not where they ought to be to accomplish what they have in mind. PAT ------------------------------ From: steven@primacomputer.com (Steven) Subject: Re: This Digest's Name Has Been Stolen by Nynex Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1999 05:59:17 +0800 Organization: Prima Computer What sort of legal right do you have to the name? They might not be able to declare you a cybersquatter, or apply for a trademark if you have been using it, but they may be able to use it as well. Presumably you have some things with the good ole (C) notice that will help you a little, and hits on the search engines could show that they are deriving benefit from your name. Still, without a trademark, etc you will have a hard time at best considering the common use/definition of telecom and digest. Steven ------------------------------ From: sjsobol@JustThe.Net (Steven J Sobol) Subject: Re: This Digest's Name Has Been Stolen by Nynex Date: 14 Sep 1999 05:27:48 GMT Organization: North Shore Technologies Corp. 888.480.4NET On Mon, 13 Sep 1999 10:10:07 EDT, dleibold@else.net.ANTISPAM allegedly said: > You should have trademarked the Digest name :-( But, of course, I can't > speak as a lawyer on that. Does Thailand honor US trademarks? North Shore Technologies JustTheNet Dialup Internet Access Cleveland, Akron, Canton, Geauga Co., Lake Co., Portage Co., Lorain Co., OH Nationwide Access coming soon! Watch this space for details or dial 1.888.480.4NET for more info! ------------------------------ From: Rainer Raupach Reply-To: Rainer.Raupach@novedas.de Subject: Re: This Digest's Name Has Been Stolen by Nynex Date: Mon, 13 Sep 1999 15:23:59 +0200 Organization: NOVEDAS Unternehmensberatung GmbH Pat, This is one of the worst I have heard about so far. I regret the fact that ruthless people like the one you are facing take advantage of non-commercials. (I wait for the time when those people start to take advantage of the Red Cross/Half Moon, the U.N., etc.) This is not funny, anymore! A couple of years ago things like this one would have been settled in the I-Community without lawyers. Whatever I can do to help you, let me know - contributions to fees for lawyers, moral support, etc. Rainer Raupach, NOVEDAS Unternehmensberatung GmbH Notkestr. 13, 22607 Hamburg, Germany fon +49(0)172.7052474 www.NOVEDAS.de [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, thank you very much for your kind note of support. Perhaps you could write a letter to Mr. Sermporn and suggest that if he is trying to Make Money Fast on the internet, he stopped at the wrong place. Perhaps he would like to try publishing some other type of journal. I would really hate to lose my southeast Asian telecom news bureau so soon after starting it, but I understand I cannot prevent him from moving on to bigger and better opportunities for himself, nor would I want to stand in the way. If he needs a good job reference, I will be glad to give him one. In the short time he has worked for me, his work has been great, even though his news items have not been updated since sometime in July. PAT] ------------------------------ From: adamf.nospam@columbus.rr.com (Adam Frix) Subject: Re: Swedish Teen on Trial For Linking to Music Files Date: Mon, 13 Sep 1999 23:16:53 -0400 Organization: Road Runner Columbus In article , TELECOM Digest Editor wrote: > Another way of putting it is that I like to do private things in > my bedroom. You like to do things which you would prefer remain > private on your front porch or lawn. The trouble is, the neighbors > always see you. Your answer to them is that they should cover > their eyes and ears when they walk past, that they have no right > to see it unless you have authorized them to see it. I get all the > guys on my tour-bus and drive them past your front lawn where they > can all gape at what is going on. You claim I ripped you off by > charging the guys to ride my bus, indeed, even by virtue of driving > down that street. I'm waiting for the police to declare a certain color of blue as belonging strictly to them, and no one else, and that no one but a policeman is allowed to see that color blue. Then, they'll start painting signs to themselves and erecting them in public rights-of-way, confident in the security of the information on these signs -- because, after all, it's illegal for any citizen to see that color blue, therefore citizens don't see it. And any citizen that does see it, is doing something illegal -- and will be imprisoned. Sounds stupid, doesn't it? No, not really. Not nowadays. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: See my tutorial for new webmasters as the first item in this issue. I do honestly believe if Microsoft had stuck to its guns and debated purely its right to link as it chose on the web, it would have won the Ticketmaster battle. Ditto the kid in Sweden, and others like it. Without getting into things like copy- right violations, if a judge somewhere is brazen enough to rule some day that the free speech rights of one webmaster can be trampled on by another webmaster, and that each site has the right to decide for itself whether 'public directory' means what it sounds like or not, then the best thing the rest of us could do at that point would be to turn off our computers and walk out on it, leaving the whole thing to the companies and spammers to sell to each other. Just say, 'here judge, you take it and you run it, the rest of us are out of here.' PAT] ------------------------------ From: sjsobol@JustThe.Net (Steven J Sobol) Subject: Re: Cell Phone-Driving Ban Date: 14 Sep 1999 05:33:26 GMT Organization: North Shore Technologies Corp. 888.480.4NET On 13 Sep 1999 12:51:51 GMT, andrew@3.1415926.org allegedly said: > This is only anecdotal, Yes, > http://wcco.com/news/stories/news-990912-175514.html and one story doesn't prove a thing. North Shore Technologies JustTheNet Dialup Internet Access Cleveland, Akron, Canton, Geauga Co., Lake Co., Portage Co., Lorain Co., OH Nationwide Access coming soon! Watch this space for details or dial 1.888.480.4NET for more info! ------------------------------ From: Ron Donnell Subject: Re: OT Trivia: HU3-2700? Date: Mon, 13 Sep 1999 23:34:00 -0700 Organization: AT&T WorldNet Services I, too, still hear that voice in my head -- sometimes -- or often -- and I didn't think it was Magikist -- I vaguely associated it with the letter "B" -- but that's as far as I could go until I tried http://www.tollfree.att.net/telq.html -- "483-2700" -- "Ends with" -- "IL" -- and I got: GENL BOUSHELLE SERVICES 1670 N Mannheim Road Stone Park, IL 60165-0112 630 483 2700 (Carpet & Rug Cleaners) Pros't, Ron Brian Hess wrote: > Could you help me scratch a mental itch? > Who in Chicago had Hudson-three-two-seven-hundred? Was it Magikist? > A loan company? > I just can't get that old radio jingle out of my head now. And it's > all your fault, for contributing to the resurrection of these > antiquities. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: It was not a loan company. Magikist > Carpets sounds likely, or maybe it was C.E.T., the company which > sold television sets back in the 1950's ... I do very distinctly > recall the man with the deep baritone voice singing, 'Hudson three > two seven hundred' at the conclusion of each of their commercials. > It went on for many years. Alan Kerman may recall the answer to > this, or surely David Tamkin would know. I am drawing a blank on > this otherwise; the phone number itself is very familiar. PAT] [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yep, that is the bunch. Good old Boushelle Carpet Cleaners, now known as General Boushelle. Nice to see they are still in business. The people who sold television sets back in the 1950's on the corner of North Avenue and Halsted Street also had a catchy little jingle they would sing in their commercials which included a phone number. Something like, 'Cee Eee Tee, for televisions! ...' and a line about their bargains, the address of their store and their phone number, which was I suppose just as commonly known in those days as was Hudson 3-2700, in other words, by everyone. The other singing commercial with a phone number which still goes on in Chicago, and has now for forty years or more is 588-2300 for Empire Carpets, which is the only way they have ever been known. When it was all 312, the jingle worked out just fine, proper meter with the words and all that. Then came the area code splits and they had to find some way to fit '708' into the jingle and later '847'. Finally they got a toll free line, using 800 with their existing number, and they sort of dropped the 'eight hundred' on the front end of the bouncy little five eight eight, two three hundred part. 'eighthundred ...... five eight eight, two three hundred! Empire!' Let's chat again tomorrow, and goodnight, Mr. Sermporn, wherever you are! PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #402 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Sep 14 14:56:04 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id OAA20553; Tue, 14 Sep 1999 14:56:04 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1999 14:56:04 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199909141856.OAA20553@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #403 TELECOM Digest Tue, 14 Sep 99 15:56:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 403 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Bellsouth MH9918 900MHz Cordless Phone, Piece-o-$hit??? (Greg) Re: Cellular "Priority Bit" in NAM ? (Alan Boritz) Re: AT&T's 1-800-CALL-ATT Incompatible With AT&T Cell Phone (Joel Hoffman) Re: Inexpensive T-1 Service on Tap From Start-up (Dr. Joel M. Hoffman) Enough is Enough (Leonard Erickson) Terminal Framing (Anthony Alcazar) Re: Swedish Teen on Trial For Linking to Music Files (Zhihui Jerry Huang) Re: Swedish Teen on Trial For Linking to Music Files (Joey Lindstrom) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: nyamuk2001@enteract.com (Greg) Subject: Re: Bellsouth MH9918 900MHz Cordless Phone, Piece-o-$hit??? Date: 14 Sep 1999 14:59:35 GMT Organization: EnterAct Corp Turbo-Elite News Server In article , Steve Winter wrote: > Greg spake thusly and wrote: >> they captured the correct "data". I went so far as disconnecting >> every device on the house line and calling from a cell-phone (which I >> know shows caller-id info) and it still shows "DATA ERROR". So >> ... I'm guessing for $60 (it was on sale) ... I'm getting what I paid >> for. Any thoughts besides being a cheap barsteward??? :-) > That is not so cheap in this day and age for a 900mhz analog. It > should still work as advertised. I can understand range problems > because there are too many variables to make many promises about that, > but it sounds to me like your phone is simply defective. Agreed. Bought a similar phone made by Northwestern Bell yesterday for $10 less and it worked out of the box! I switched batteries so I was able to test the phone immediately. > Didn't you get a warranty? The original phone I bought was only 1 day old. I plan on returning it to K-MART today. Thanks for your follow-up. Regards, Greg nyamuk2001@enteract.com <- remove "2001" to respond directly ------------------------------ From: aboritz@CYBERNEX.NET (Alan Boritz) Subject: Re: Cellular "Priority Bit" in NAM ? Date: Mon, 13 Sep 1999 21:58:01 -0400 Organization: Dyslexics UNTIE In article , wb9fop@excite.com wrote: > Seems I recall a brief mention a few years back about a so-called > "secret" priority bit that could be set in the NAM to allow public > safety officials a higher priority access to cellular channels in time > of crisis. > Was this something that was only possible with a specific type of > cellular technology or was it just one of those urban legends? It's something quite real, only the concept of public safety officials using it is the urban legend. I found the priority option in the standard, just before it became part of the FCC rules for cellular service, and asked NYNEX Mobile, when I purchased the first cellphones for the City of New York. The answer I got was that no one really knew how it was being used, so the mayor and all of his commissioners very definitely did NOT get priority treatment. As far as I know, that's still the case today. I had Motorola set various phones for every possible priority setting and noticed that there was absolutely no difference. And with only six or fewer channels working in lower Manhattan, Staten Island, and Brooklyn, and no coverage in midtown, it was sorely needed, when NYNEX first turned up the New York system (compare that with former 12 VHF and 10 UHF IMTS channels that covered the entire city from one site). I found that when only one channel pair was available, I could grab it away from ANY of the phones when a call was ringing in unanswered, regardless of the priority setting on the phone being called. > If it is/was possible, it is still something that's available to > bona-fide emergency service agencies today using the newer digital > phones? I can pretty much assure you that at least in the New York metropolitan area, public-safety officials are treated no better for cellular system access than any other customer. That's probably not the way it should be, but, unfortunately, that's the way it is. ------------------------------ Subject: Re: AT&T's 1-800-CALL-ATT Incompatible With AT&T Cell Phones Organization: Excelsior Computer Services From: joel@exc.com (Dr. Joel M. Hoffman) Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1999 14:21:05 GMT >> It seems AT&T has just changed its 1-800-CALL-ATT calling card so that >> calls from an AT&T cell phone must go through an operator. This is >> obviously very annoying. >> (The reason one might want to use a calling card from a cell phone is >> that int'l calling card rates are MUCH, MUCH less than the cell phone >> rates. E.g., over $1.00/min to Europe vs. 10-25 cents/min via the >> calling card.) > Are you sure that this is not just for international calls? I had to No, int'l and "local" (within the US). > place a international call via my (corporate issued) AT&T recently > from my landline phone and it was intercepted by an operator who asked > for the same information. I'm assuming that it's a fraud prevention > issue. They also have a fraud prevention program. The first (or first two) times you call a certain country, you get the intercept. But with my card, it's only from my cell phone that I get the intercept. I hate it. Joel ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Inexpensive T-1 Service on Tap From Start-up Organization: Excelsior Computer Services From: joel@exc.com (Dr. Joel M. Hoffman) Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1999 14:23:14 GMT >> The T-1 biz is about to get very exciting as HDSL2 arrives. It's a >> version of DSL that runs over a single pair but looks to each end like >> a T1 or E1 so it's a "drop in" replacement for T1. Pricing should be >> in line with other DSL services, more like $40/mo than $500. > Much of what you're paying for is not the equipment or technology to > geet the line to you. At least with US West, you're paying for a team > of individuals that answer the phone right away in case of trouble. I think you're also paying for the bandwidth. You pay for the ability to dump all that data onto the internet. Joel ------------------------------ From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson) Subject: Enough is Enough Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1999 01:15:59 PST Organization: Shadownet I just got my first AT&T billing in *months* with my phone bill. Specificly, it covered from Jun 02 to Aug 30. That's annoying enough. What's *more* annoying is discovering that AT&T has either changed the rates or rate periods again (and as usual, without telling me). Mind you, since these calls are to pick up fidonet email, they are usually only one minute calls. But it still ads up. And, of course, I'm being charged the $4.53 "carrier line charge" and the $2.97 "Universal connectivity Charge". I'm looking for recommendation for an LD carrier that will give me low rates for evening/night calls. I make one call a night to Oklahoma (from Oregon). Usually less than a minute. Sometimes 2-3 minutes. And I make occasional calls to pick stuff up from elsewhere in the NANP. I'd like low rates, but almost as important is advance notification of rate change and especially of rate *period* changes. And *regular* bills would be nice too. None of this 2 & 3 months at a time stuff. Well, I could handle the long waits between billing if they were at least *consistent*. Oh yeah, I don't care if I have to dial funny access codes, as I can program the computer to do that. :-) So 101 codes are not at all a problem. Especially if they'll let me lose that $4.53 carrier line charge nonsense. Heck, that's half the LD charges for the entire month! Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow) shadow@krypton.rain.com <--preferred leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com <--last resort ------------------------------ From: alcazar3@my-deja.com (Alonzo Alcazar) Subject: Terminal Framing Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1999 14:09:07 GMT Organization: Deja.com - Share what you know. Learn what you don't. What is the difference between terminal framing and signal framing? Thanks for any answers. Alonzo ------------------------------ From: zhuang@quip.eecs.umich.edu (Zhihui Jerry Huang) Subject: Re: Swedish Teen on Trial For Linking to Music Files Date: 14 Sep 1999 16:29:36 GMT Organization: University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA In article , Zhihui Jerry Huang wrote: > In article , Monty Solomon wrote: >> represents record companies. If convicted Olsson could be fined a >> few hundred dollars, which is about how much he made from ads on ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > Our Moderator might not have realized that the kid deep-linked to > music files _and_ sells ads on the page where the links reside. I > don't think you can as effectively argue the case as if the kid is not > making money off of the links. > IMHO, the kid _was_ ripping the plaintiff off in this case. >> his Web site. But a conviction could leave him liable for damages. And our respected moderator instigated: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: If the music files had been in a [...lines deleted...] > place. I can look at your public directory and you can look at mine. > So, since we are on the topic, exactly what is it *you* do not > understand about the web, sir? If you insist on doing things in > your front yard instead of your bedroom, then build a ten foot high > fence around your yard if you wish, but don't blame the tour-bus > operator for 'ripping you off' if he knows the best streets to > drive on, and the passengers trust his experience enough to pay > him to take them on a good ride. PAT] Pat, Let's get the record straight. 1) I'm not for registering users to a website, nor am I for ad-filled websites. I've had Internet access since 1989 (BITNET) so I probably won't qualify as 'one of those newcomers that are screwing things up for us oldtimers'. 2) I'm not arguing that deep-links to a website is illegal -- and I agree that anything that you put on a website _that you don't protect with some ways of authentication_ is fair game. However, 3) I'm arguing that if one deep-links to a website and profits from doing that, you cannot in good conscience say that he did not rip the deep-linked website off. IMHO, if you really want to use the bus operator comparison, I would argue that the front page of the target website is the front yard and deep-linking is like looking into the bedroom window with a high-power binocular. It may be legal, but it's certainly not good taste. And charging people money for it? Think about it, he's using the plaintiff's resources to make money for himself. Come on! 4) If the kid just operates the website and _does not_ charge of it, then I would've agreed that he has caused no harm to the plaintiff. This is what I think is fair. 5) Where's your normal dose of 'we want everyone to share not take' medicine and why are you not giving it to the kid? You didn't have to get personal and ask what *I* don't understand about the web. And you have no business deciding for me what I can do in my front yard -- though I suspect it would go no further than... If you can address 3,4,5 above and not get personal, I'd appreciate it. jzh [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Alright, let me try to speak about your points 3,4, and 5. Regards (3), I would never claim that many or most website operators have good taste. For too many have very poor taste, or are completely tasteless. Regarding what is the true reason for his advertising, ie (a) to make money from what resides at the end of his links or (b) to make money for his overall efforts with any given link content merely being coincidental, I would say it is necessary to examine his site overall, detirmine the general purpose, examine his stated intentions and then reach some conclusion. If his whole website consists of 'here is some music by a great band, read my advertising and listen to the music' then he is ripping off those musicians (or in the case at hand, their authorized represen- tative). There is no difference between doing that and someone at a radio station buying some recordings intended for individual use and playing them over the air repeatedly to lure an audience into listen- ing to commercial messages between songs. On the other hand, if he presents his website thusly, 'there are a number of places on the web where musicians display their work. Because the net is a large, very complex thing, it is hard for people to always know where to link to what they want, so I have started this site as a service for netizens. I keep track of those long, very complex URLs which are often used, provide you with a player to use in case you never downloaded one on your own (or do not wish to use it), and I have them all right here on one page for your easy refer- ence' now he has added value of his own (in his opinion, perhaps) and he has a right to seek assistance in meeting his expenses. Please note the USA is a free country, and we can all wander around from state to state aimlessly if we wish to do do, looking at a monument here, a historical place there, etc, without being hindered or charged. That does not invalidate the work of the person who draws maps or sells maps at a profit. The catch then is to have a 'value- added' website. Never make a direct association between a link on your site and a source of revenue for yourself. Maintain a 'search engine' kind of site. A highly specialized one perhaps. "your link to me is illegal, violates copyrights, etc" Fine, then go talk to Infoseek/AltaVista/Yahoo/Excite ... and when you have reached some agreement to your satisfaction with them come back and let me know; I'll see what I can do here for you. On your point (4), we both agree. On point (5), I would say it depends on the results of the examination of his web site, per (3) above. Was he offering anything of his own, even in the most trans- parent way, or on the day the band quits playing is that the end of his web site? In general I do find most advertising on the net to be suspect at best regards the webmaster's intentions with same. A lot of it is tasteless. But I will concede that many commercial enterprises can be and are good netizens who respect the standards and traditions in use here, and I will concede that an alliance between these commercial enterprises and private netizens has made possible many good sites we would otherwise not see. Just as people have compromised with me regarding the limited advertising you see here, I am willing to compromise with others in the same way. Unfortunatly, too many sites on the net now are established for nothing but advertising. Even some young kid who compiles all his favorite music and puts it out for others on the net to listen to is not as guilty of treason to the net as some commercial sites I could name. Its all a matter of degree I guess, and there are some around the net who are guilty as hell. No redemption possible for them at all. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Joey Lindstrom Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1999 05:18:38 -0600 Reply-To: Joey Lindstrom Subject: Re: Swedish Teen on Trial For Linking to Music Files On Tue, 14 Sep 1999 04:29:10 -0400 (EDT), Adam Frix wrote: > I'm waiting for the police to declare a certain color of blue as > belonging strictly to them, and no one else, and that no one but a > policeman is allowed to see that color blue. Then, they'll start > painting signs to themselves and erecting them in public > rights-of-way, confident in the security of the information on these > signs -- because, after all, it's illegal for any citizen to see that > color blue, therefore citizens don't see it. > And any citizen that does see it, is doing something illegal -- and > will be imprisoned. > Sounds stupid, doesn't it? No, not really. Not nowadays. Heh heh. Actually, something similar to this actually happened. Here in Calgary, I work for a company called Associated Cabs. Our drivers are required to wear navy blue dress pants and a light-blue uniform shirt. These shirts are provided by a local company called "AeroMode" and are quite sharp-looking -- in fact, the cut and general look of the shirts is unique and quite distinctive. AeroMode sews on our company crest to the shoulders of each shirt, and thus our taxi drivers are quite identifiable when they walk into a bar looking for the guy who called for a cab. Only one problem. The city police were wearing the exact same shirts (ok, so they're not so unique), made by the same company -- indeed, the only difference between our shirts and the cop shirts was the crest on the shoulders -- theirs said "Calgary Police Service" along with a coat-of-arms. This wasn't a problem for many years cuz Associated was a small company. But Associated began to grow and finally became the largest, most popular taxi fleet in town. Police officers began noticing that they'd walk into a bar and not be taken seriously as a police officer because they looked like a cab driver (well, a cabbie with a gun on his hip, but these drunks aren't too observant). The police chief called up our company's owner, Roger Richard, and asked him politely to change to a different uniform shirt. After all, the cops were using 'em first. Roger said "no thanks". The cops then DEMANDED that Roger change the uniforms. Roger said "I've got 650 drivers, each of which own three or four uniform shirts. Who's going to pay for all these new shirts? Not me, so get lost!" So then the cops went to AeroMode and demanded that they stop selling these shirts to Associated Cab drivers. AeroMode, naturally, told 'em to go to hell -- the cabbies were buying twice as many shirts as the cops were. :-) End result: the cops switched to a new, all-black uniform shirt. They still buy 'em from AeroMode, but they had AeroMode design these ones EXCLUSIVELY for the police, with a contract that says ONLY the cops could buy 'em. The new shirts are, in fact, even spiffier-looking - but lemme tell ya, they were *NOT* happy about having to do this. It was an expensive change and represented something of a loss-of-face for them. The cops threatened to do all kinds of nasty things to both Roger and AeroMode -- even going so far as to threaten to arrest our drivers for "impersonating a police officer" (with no jacket, hat, or gun? Yeah right!), but in the end, both stood on their rights, and (again) in the end, the cops BACKED DOWN. Sometimes that's all it takes. Sometimes, alas, rights get trampled. PS to Pat: Bravo, re: your long post on "public directories". Spot on, and I think you'll be vindicated in the end, as judicial decision after decision falls along these lines. From the messy desktop of Joey Lindstrom Email: Joey@GaryNumanFan.NU or joey@lindstrom.com Phone: +1 403 313-JOEY FAX: +1 413 643-0354 (yes, 413 not 403) Visit The NuServer! http://www.GaryNumanFan.NU Visit The Webb! http://webb.GaryNumanFan.NU "Nobody is pure." --Everything I Need To Know I Learned From Babylon 5 ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #403 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Sep 15 01:23:26 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id BAA15104; Wed, 15 Sep 1999 01:23:26 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999 01:23:26 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199909150523.BAA15104@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #404 TELECOM Digest Wed, 15 Sep 99 01:23:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 404 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Y2K Activities (Art Knight) Question About International ASR Rates (Vince Patterson) Re: Slammed by Excel Telecom (Steven) Re: Cell Phone-Driving Ban (Tony Pelliccio) Re: Cell Phone-Driving Ban (Ross Parsons) Autodial Devices (Michael Baldwin) Re: AT&T's 1-800-CALL-ATT Incompatible With AT&T Cell Phones (M Brukhartz) Western Electric Phone (JeffBet@aol.com) Re: Enough is Enough (Steve Winter) Re: Bellsouth MH9918 900MHz Cordless Phone, Piece-o-$hit??? (Herb Stein) Re: Off Topic: Drunk Drivers and Wasted Lives (Steven) Re: Off Topic: Drunk Drivers and Wasted Lives (Steve Winter) Telecom Chat Lines & Bulletin Boards (David Romano) Re: OT Trivia: HU3-2700? (David W. Tamkin) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Art Knight Subject: Y2K Activities Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1999 14:32:23 -0500 Patrick, As an avid reader of the Telecom Digest, I admire the work you put into it, and the world wide interest it generates. And, on that vein, I would ask if you or your regular contributors have considered putting up a notice site for New Years Eve. It could be beneficial to us Norte Americanos if some of the gentlemen in the southern hemisphere would consider e-mailing the results of the clock roll over at midnight on New Years Eve. ( eg: were any problems encountered, and what were they?) Please give this some consideration, and keep up your health and good work. Respectfully, Art Knight, Project Manager - Y2K C.& I. S. Department Health Sciences Centre Winnipeg, Manitoba R3E 0T3 Ph. (204) 787-7848 Fax(204) 787-2855 e-mail: artk@hsc.mb.ca [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yes, I have thought about it. It would not be the southern vrs. northern hemisphere so much as it would be what we term the 'far east' although I guess off-hand Australia and NZ are still an hour or two ahead of Hong Kong and/or Singapore on the clock. I had thought that on December 31 in the United States, it would be a good service to issue bulletins as you suggest throughout the day based on reports coming in from the other side of the world. That assumes of course that the telephone network on the other side of the world is operating correctly after midnight, and that computers attached to the internet are functioning so that reports can get out. I don't really have any structure in place to do it right now. I do not have anyone who has committed to send me email on the topic, and I cannot be certain my southeast Asian news bureau (you may have heard of it, it is an excellent service called Telecom Digest) will still be in operation, or that Mr. Sermporn will have updated his news files dating from July before then. But if a half-dozen or so correspondents from Australia/NZ/Singapore/Hong Kong/Thailand will promise to each send me several messages on January 1 (their time) after listening to their local news reports, etc, I will push the messages directly out to the web via http://telecom-digest.org/y2k.html, Usenet and this mailing list. Many of the problems probably will not occur until after daylight arrives, and because it is a weekend, (did I ever mention to you that new milleniums *always* begin on Wednesday or Saturday? The only exception was the year 1000.) some problems may not be apparent until Monday when people go to work. But if some of you will kindly visit cash dispensing machines, make a phone call or use other automatic devices that Saturday morning (in the far east) when you wake up that day and send off email to me right away, it will be appreciated. Ditto, late Friday afternoon/early Friday evening it would be good if people from Europe and areas of the middle east would check in and summarize things. I think we here in the USA/Canada will have a much better idea of where things are at however on Sunday afternoon as the others ahead of us begin their new work week. I will say the folks in Australia/NZ will have one advantage over us; warm, pleasant summer weather for any riots they decide to have starting sometime the week before. Here in the USA and other very primative cultures, riots are almost assured, but regretably both December and January are extremely cold months in the northern hemisphere so as people set about looting the grocery stores and vandalizing cash machines and whatnot, they'll need to dress warmly. At that time of year in the USA, electrical power and a reliable supply from the gas works is also critical; without them, furnaces will be inoperative (you cannot burn the electricity and the gas will not flow unless electronic relays in the thermostat tell it to do so) and people will be starting fires to keep warm. I hope they do not burn down their house in the process. In Quantico, VA several thousand big, tough Marines are in riot control training as I write this. Their duties will include shooting you dead if you do not obey when told to put down the bag of groceries you are carrying from the store, or you otherwise are of the impression you can survive on your own without following the emergency mandates enacted by our public servants for the occassion. Overall, it should be a wonderful weekend for everyone. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1999 14:46:55 -0500 From: Vince Patterson Subject: Question About International ASR Rates Pat, Do you know or can you point me into the direction if there are benchmarks for call completion rates to different countries? Example would be ((attempts - not completed)/attempts) 50% completion rate to India for companies. Thanks, Vinson Patterson ------------------------------ From: steven@primacomputer.com (Steven) Subject: Re: Slammed by Excel Telecom Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999 03:52:06 +0800 Organization: Prima Computer If I got slammed I would sit home at night praying to have my local service cut for non payment. Few things make a better lawsuit then discontinued service over disputed fraudulent charges! Just because these guys get away with this kind of crap all the time doesn't make it right, or legal. If they want to put other peoples bills on their bills then they are responsible for explaining them. The key to a lot of this is to not waste your (or their) time trying to resolve it on the phone. Send a registered letter saying you dispute the charges and watch the whole thing go away real quick. Spend an hour on hold and watch an hour get wasted away. Your choice. Steven fatkinson@loralorion.com says... > The problem with this is when the billing appears on your local bill. > The local phone company can hold unpaid balances against you > whether you intend to pay them or not. Trying to get the local phone > company to remove them (at least here in Maryland) is troublesome at > best. They'll simply refer you to the long distance company to try to > make an adjustment. So, now you've got to worry about whether or not > the local company is going to cut you off for not paying the long > distance portion of the bill. ------------------------------ From: nospam.tonypo1@nospam.home.com (Tony Pelliccio) Subject: Re: Cell Phone-Driving Ban Organization: Providence Network Partners Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1999 22:44:08 GMT In article , daveoshea@email. msn.com says: > Steven J Sobol >>>> You won't get ticketed if you use a handsfree kit. >>> Of course, you still _should_. Every study that's examined it (at >>> least that I'm aware of) has found that drivers using hands-free >>> cellphones are just as dangerous as drivers using "normal" cell >>> phones. That is, almost as dangerous as drunk drivers ... (eeeee!) >> Citations, please? > I believe the largest study was by the NHTSA. I recall the result was > that using a cellphone is roughly equivalent (in terms of increased > accident rates) to having a 0.12 blood alcohol level. The issue here is that the cellular carriers have infinitely more money than some of the cities and towns that are trying to ban the use of wireless phones in moving vehicles. I helped my bosses father pick out a new Nokia 6120 today and was talking to the rep at CellOne about it. I told her that collectively the wireless providers could buy a few state and federal judges without a bat of an eye. She sort of laughed at that one but agreed that the wireless folks have a hellishly poweful lobby. >> Of course the safest handsfree kit is one that lets you dial by speaking >> at the phone instead of dialing ... > I'm not convinced it would make a significant difference. Most of the > idiots I see drifting across the road are not dialing the phone or > writing something -- they're just talking. They become so engrossed in > the conversation that they fail to notice that they're doing 40 in a > 70. Or 70 in a 40. Or heading right up on the curb (white pickup > truck, this morning). Or driving right into the rear end of a car > (red Dodge, this morning.) Generally I'll take the call and explain that I'm in bumper to bumper traffic -- can I call you back? Then if I happen to spot a rest area I'll pull over and call back. > The problem is a mismanagement of concentration, not of eyesight. Agreed. The one thing that bothers me about this ban on cellphones in moving vehicles is that it inadvertently makes some other activities illegal. What about two way radios? And then there're the folks who: a) Eat meals (I'm occasionally guilty of that.) b) Apply makeup/shave c) Yell at kids in the back seat. Etc, etc ... In article , andrew@3.1415926.org says: > This is only anecdotal, but ... > http://wcco.com/news/stories/news-990912-175514.html > (Man dies in head-on collision while he talks on cell phone.) Darwinism in action. == Tony Pelliccio, KD1S formerly KD1NR == Trustee WE1RD ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1999 15:44:39 +0100 From: Ross Parsons Organization: CIT Publications Ltd Subject: Re: Cell Phone Driving Ban What story is only anectodal? Isn't it strictly illegal to operate a cellphone while driving? The offence seems to be driving without due care and attention ... at least it is in the UK. CIT Publications Ltd, 3 Colleton Crescent, Exeter, Devon EX2 4DG Telephone: +44 1392 315567, Facsimile: +44 1392 315556 For a full list of all telecommunications and media reports published by CIT Publications, please visit our website: http://www.citpubs.com If you would like to subscribe to CIT Publications' FREE daily E-mail news service - Communications Update or one of our FREE monthly Telecoms Market Analysis services: European Telecoms Market Analysis Eastern European Telecoms Market Analysis Latin American Telecoms Market Analysis Asia-Pacific Telecoms Market Analysis please visit our website: http://www.citpubs.com ------------------------------ From: mike@x.bell-labs.com (Michael Baldwin) Subject: Autodial Devices Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1999 16:56:27 -0400 I am looking for a device that will hook up to a POTS phone or line, and when the phone goes off-hook, it will auto-dial (via touch tones) a pre-specified number. Where can I get such a thing? Michael Baldwin Bell Labs, Lucent Technologies ------------------------------ From: Mark.Brukhartz@wdr.com (Mark Brukhartz) Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1999 22:07:25 -0500 Subject: Re: AT&T's 1-800-CALL-ATT Incompatible With AT&T Cell Phones My first AT&T calling card call to London (also from an AT&T mobile phone) was intercepted for verification. The operator said that only the *first* call to a country required verification. Subsequent calls to London have gone through without a hitch. For a real incompatibility, program a Nokia 6160 (popular AT&T phone) to use an MCI VNET calling card. MCI never receives the correct card number. Selecting longer tones does not help. A Qualcomm QCP-820 only occasionally delivered the card number properly. It appears that the MCI calling card equipment is too picky about card number tone timing. Mark ------------------------------ From: JeffBet@aol.com Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1999 23:12:32 EDT Subject: Western Electric Phone Hi, I have an Western Electric Phone,Type 293A, Serial # 5075561, its a wall phone. Would you have any information for me on this phone? Thanks, Jeff (jeffbet@aol.com) ------------------------------ From: steve@sellcom.com (Steve Winter) Subject: Re: Enough is Enough Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1999 20:21:57 -0400 Organization: WWW.SELLCOM.COM Reply-To: steve@sellcom.com shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson) spake thusly and wrote: > Mind you, since these calls are to pick up fidonet email, they are > usually only one minute calls. But it still adds up. You might want to look at transx that does email and echomail via email. www.multiboard.com I believe is their web site. It works and it appears that they are putting a lot of time into it and supporting it. Steve http://www.sellcom.com Cyclades Siemens EnGenius Zoom at discount prices. SSL Secure VISA/MC/AMEX Online ordering Listed at http://www.thepubliceye.com as SELLCOM New Brick Wall "non-MOV" surge protection ------------------------------ From: herb@herbstein.com (Herb Stein) Subject: Re: Bellsouth MH9918 900MHz Cordless Phone, Piece-o-$hit??? Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999 01:27:32 GMT I think Greg is refering to the Northwesterb Bell Excursion 39705. I found it for $49.95 someplace here in the St. Louis area and it works great! See: http://www.nwbphones.com/39705.htm In article , nyamuk2001@enteract.com (Greg) wrote: > they captured the correct "data". I went so far as disconnecting > every device on the house line and calling from a cell-phone (which I > know shows caller-id info) and it still shows "DATA ERROR". So > ... I'm guessing for $60 (it was on sale) ... I'm getting what I paid > for. Any thoughts besides being a cheap barsteward??? :-) > Bought a similar phone made by Northwestern Bell yesterday > for $10 less and it worked out of the box! I switched batteries so I > was able to test the phone immediately. Herb Stein The Herb Stein Group www.herbstein.com herb@herbstein.com 314 215-3584 ------------------------------ From: steven@primacomputer.com (Steven) Subject: Re: Off Topic: Drunk Drivers and Wasted Lives Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1999 05:59:12 +0800 Organization: Prima Computer What a crazy idea! Punishing someone for actually hurting someone. That would be like punishing someone for shooting someone instead of punishing them for holding a gun. 1st degree is a bit harsh, and it would never hold up in court. Second degree would be a piece of cake though. I wish they would peruse it more often and impose maximum sentences on the bastards. Unfortunately while the moral majority wants to send you to the chair for sipping satans brew, the ACLU wants to plead diminished responsibility for crashing that bus load of orphans while drunk driving. Somewhere in the middle the average working bloke looses his right to forget his miserable existence for a few hours. Steven P.S. I meant to say something about telephones, I realy did. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The only problem I have with lodging > a charge that severe against a drunken driver who kills someone is > that normally we require specific intent by a person acting of his > own free will before charging them in this way. We believe that if > a person (a) does not act intentionally, or (b) has no understanding > of what they did, or (c) is mentally incapacitated that they are > either not responsible for their actions or responsible to some > lesser degree. Our laws require that a person understand what it is > he has done, and understand why he is being punished. > So do you charge them with intentional murder, as humiliated and > ashamed as they are when the full reality of what took place is > explained to them? PAT] ------------------------------ From: steve@sellcom.com (Steve Winter) Subject: Re: Off Topic: Drunk Drivers and Wasted Lives Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1999 18:51:14 -0400 Organization: WWW.SELLCOM.COM Reply-To: steve@sellcom.com Fred Atkinson spake thusly and wrote: > For myself, I thought that those folks were 'Abuse Incorporated'. > I hope they've changed their tune. I think it may be the cute dead kids that are making them somewhat calloused towards drunk drivers. What about drunk drivers talking on cellphones? Steve http://www.sellcom.com Cyclades Siemens EnGenius Zoom at discount prices. SSL Secure VISA/MC/AMEX Online ordering Listed at http://www.thepubliceye.com as SELLCOM New Brick Wall "non-MOV" surge protection ------------------------------ Reply-To: David Romano From: David Romano Subject: Telecom Chat Lines and Bulletin Boards Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1999 15:41:04 -0400 Organization: TeleSource Management Group I have been spending a lot of time unsuccessfully locating chat lines and bulletin boards relative to the telecom industry. Can you help? David Romano ------------------------------ From: dattier@yahoo.com (David W. Tamkin) Subject: Re: OT Trivia: HU3-2700? Date: 14 Sep 1999 14:42:16 -0500 Organization: Customer of MCSNet, a division of Winstar, Lafayette IN 47903 Reply-To: dattier@yahoo.com Yes, HUdson 3-2700 was Boushelle's number. Magikist never seemed to include a phone number in their ads, but they're still at 773-378-8600 (that's EStebrook 8 to us prefix name fans). I remember how they said, "We'd rather you call Boushelle than" rent carpet-cleaning equipment and attempt it oneself in some of their commercials. Boushelle's original number was in the Chicago-Stewart switch on what would now be the 773-483 prefix before they moved to the suburbs. Our editor wrote in : > The people who sold television sets > back in the 1950's on the corner of North Avenue and Halsted Street > also had a catchy little jingle they would sing in their commercials > which included a phone number. Something like, 'Cee Eee Tee, for > televisions! ...' "MOhawk four, four one hundred, C E T for televisions." That is a Chicago- Superior prefix and is still in 312, but CET is long gone. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I know they are gone from that location but are they gone totally? I thought they were now in Morton Grove, IL on Waukegan Road about two blocks north of Dempster. By the way, David, is Empire still using that 'five eight eight two three hundred' with the 'eighthundred' sort of wedged in on the front of it? PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #404 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Sep 15 02:02:04 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id CAA16426; Wed, 15 Sep 1999 02:02:04 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999 02:02:04 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199909150602.CAA16426@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #405 TELECOM Digest Wed, 15 Sep 99 02:02:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 405 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Another "Illegal Link" (James Ford) Re: Enough is Enough (Michael G. Koerner) Re: Canada's Yak Plan and Canadian Telco System in General (Jim Borynec) Workers Use Technology to Stop E-Snooping (Monty Solomon) CRTC Forces CABLE ISPs to Discount High Speed Internet! (Jim Borynec) How Low Can They Go? (Monty Solomon) Re: Swedish Teen on Trial For Linking to Music Files (Adam Frix) Re: Swedish Teen on Trial For Linking to Music Files (Alan Boritz) Re: Swedish Teen on Trial For Linking to Music Files (Darryl Smith) Re: Swedish Teen on Trial For Linking to Music Files (Joey Lindstrom) WebTV Exposed Users' Account Details (Monty Solomon) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1999 23:38:03 CDT From: James Ford Subject: Another "Illegal Link" It's not just large corporations which apparently have problems with (cough) "illegal links". This was in our local newspaper. The entire newspaper article is included below, reprinted without permission. Web Site's Link to UA Newspaper Questioned - Robert DeWitt TUSCALOOSA - It's not hard to find Campusrag.com's email address; just look on almost any powerpole around campus. University of Alabama officials want to find the people behind the address. Small white signs with "See Campusrag.com" began showing up around campus about a week ago. It's a web site targeting University of Alabama student interests. Users provide much of the content. But the Crimson White, UA's student newspaper, has unwittingly been providing some of the content, and that has become a bone of contention. "We didn't give permission or even know about it until it showed up on the Web," said Paul Isom, UA director of student media. "They're using the current masthead on their website as a button to connect to our paper". [Submitter note: I _suspect_ that campusrag.com has since slightly changed the graphic used for the link but don't know for sure. --James] It also tells readers they can write a letter to the editor of the Crimson White through the site, which the student newspaper may print. Isom tried to change that. "The first thing I did was look and see how you can contact them", Isom said. "There really isn't any information like that on that site. I looked for a phone or an email address and couldn't find anything. Isom turned over the problem to Jan Duvall, UA's director of publications. "I've sent them a cease-and-desist message, which they have ignored." Duvall said. "My message said that their use of the Crimson White masthead was a violation of copyright.". Attempts to contact anyone associated with Campusrag.com were unsuccessful. Its organizers failed to respond to an email message. The site has buttons for jokes, drink recipes, restaurants and bar information, classified ads and campus newspaper and radio. The newspaper button is a link to the Crimson White's web site, and the campusrag.com advertising appears above it. Both the office of student media and the Crimson White have web sites. "We're autonomous, and, in some ways, they may be a competitor," Isom said. "We have advertising on our website, and that may be a conflict. This may sound pompous, but I really don't want our newspaper associated with a website called `Campusrag'. We're not a `rag', or we don't consider ourselves one. If it had been called `greatnewspaper.com' we might feel a little different." Duvall said the problem involves ground that is still being broken by the Internet. "This raises all sorts of issues which are just being figured out on the web. Who owns the content? Is a link a permissible thing?" It also exemplifies the difficulty in enforcing it. "The issue is can somebody else link to your content and make it the main thing they offer?" Duvall said. "If not, what can you do about it?" (end story) The domain "greatnewspaper.com" is currently not registered -- perhaps one day someone will register it and add a link to the Crimson White. One wonders what their reaction would be then? Or perhaps UA would take a softer stance if they realized that the internic administrative/billing contacts for "campusrag.com" has a local number, local PO box ("campusrag.net" and "campusrag.org" are registered with a street address) and thus probably pay taxes which help support the institution? James S.P.A.M. - Stupid People's Advertising Method - it's not just for snailmail anymore ... ------------------------------ From: Michael G. Koerner Subject: Re: Enough is Enough Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1999 23:51:02 -0500 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Leonard Erickson wrote: > I just got my first AT&T billing in *months* with my phone bill. > Specificly, it covered from Jun 02 to Aug 30. That's annoying enough. > What's *more* annoying is discovering that AT&T has either changed the > rates or rate periods again (and as usual, without telling me). > Mind you, since these calls are to pick up fidonet email, they are > usually only one minute calls. But it still ads up. > And, of course, I'm being charged the $4.53 "carrier line charge" and > the $2.97 "Universal connectivity Charge". > I'm looking for recommendation for an LD carrier that will give me low > rates for evening/night calls. I make one call a night to Oklahoma > (from Oregon). Usually less than a minute. Sometimes 2-3 minutes. > And I make occasional calls to pick stuff up from elsewhere in the NANP. > I'd like low rates, but almost as important is advance notification of > rate change and especially of rate *period* changes. And *regular* > bills would be nice too. None of this 2 & 3 months at a time stuff. > Well, I could handle the long waits between billing if they were at > least *consistent*. > Oh yeah, I don't care if I have to dial funny access codes, as I can > program the computer to do that. :-) > So 101 codes are not at all a problem. Especially if they'll let me > lose that $4.53 carrier line charge nonsense. Heck, that's half the LD > charges for the entire month! I was wondering what happened to my AT&T bill over the past two months, too (and I usually make $20-40 in LD calls each month), so I called their '1-800' number and, after patiently navigating their voice-mail system and putting up with about 15 minutes of their annoying 'music on hold' and sales pitches, learned that they have gone to a billing system where they will send a bill (inserted into my regular monthly Ameritech bill) when either $30 or more in calls are placed or 3 months elapses, whichever comes first. Annoying in that I was never informed of the change, but I can live with the plan. I do use a '10xxxxx' dialaround for daytime calls, though, in that my ATT plan has a higher rate during those times. However, nearly all of my LD calls are nights and weekends. Regards, Michael G. Koerner Appleton, WI ------------------------------ From: Jim Borynec Subject: Re: Canada's Yak Plan and Canadian Telco System in General Reply-To: jborynec@agt, .net@telusplanet.net Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999 04:51:14 GMT ianangus@angustel.ca (Ian Angus) wrote: > Raymond D. Mereniuk wrote: >> Just to clarify an issue here, are you, Mr. Angus, in anyway a paid >> lobbist for the Canadian Telcos? Or, do you accept any funding >> from the Canadian Telcos? > If the discussion is sinking to this level, it is time to end it. > For the record: I have many clients in many parts of the industry, > including, from time to time, telcos, ISPs, CLECs, end-customers, > governments, and others. No one familiar with my work would ever > describe me as a lobbyist for anyone. My many criticisms of the > Canadian telcos are on the public record. Aw come on Ian, don't be so thin skinned. He clearly doesn't know you from a hole in the ground. I'm sure he's not the only one. I will, however, vouch that Ian isn't a telco flack. We have crossed keyboards a couple of times. Of course, I work for a telco, so my bias is obvious. >> I sense part of the reason for your bringing up the differences >> in the CAN$ cost of telephone service versus the US$ cost is to >> justify further rate increases to Canadian rate payers. > This is getting laughable. It was you who started this discussion with > your unproven assertion that Canadian phone rates are unreasonably > high -- a claim no knowledgeable observer supports. > I merely pointed to the results of a recent study (by the Yankee Group, > which I have no affiliation with) which concluded that "Canadian > telcos are leading the pricing game in North America, and Canadian > consumers are the beneficiaries." It will be interesting to see how this all plays out. Right now, we still have a large subsidy flowing from long distance to local. This subsidy (contribution) will be drying up in a few short years. Unfortunately, Canada's rural areas are likely to remain fairly isolated. How will we as a society get them high speed hookups? Do we hope for a technological miracle? j.b. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999 00:59:25 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Workers Use Technology to Stop E-Snooping TECH BUSINESS Published Monday, September 13, 1999, in the Miami Herald REID KANALEY Knight Ridder News Service While the boss is watching for illicit e-mail and naughty Web surfing on the job, some workers may now be fighting back. Surveillance of Internet use is becoming more common in the workplace as companies strain for decorum and productivity from Net junkies. In the latest high-profile incident, First Union fired seven employees last month for sending what it called pornographic and otherwise inappropriate e-mail. http://www.herald.com/content/today/business/tech/digdocs/033581.htm ------------------------------ From: Jim Borynec Subject: CRTC Forces CABLE ISPs to Discount High Speed Internet! Reply-To: jborynec@agt.net Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999 05:00:37 GMT In a decision released today, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission directed cable carriers to sell their higher speed Internet services to other Internet providers at a discounted rate -- 25% lower than their lowest retail rate. Cable carriers must make these services available for resale within 90 days. http://www.crtc.gc.ca/ENG/NEWS/RELEASES/1999/R990914e.htm Begin editorial comment: The Cable companies have been dragging their heels in opening their networks to competitors. Now the CRTC is forcing them to sell it for a very low price ... to their competitors! It's deja vu all over again ... j.b. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999 01:04:54 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: How Low Can They Go? By Jason K. Krause The grandest prediction to be made about the looming bandwidth glut is that phone calls will someday be offered free, thrown in as a kind of bonus when you order data or Internet services. It makes sense: Voice calls are expected to use up only a fraction of the available bandwidth, so why not just give phone service away as part of a package with more expensive and bandwidth-intensive applications? http://www.thestandard.net/articles/display/0,1449,6273,00.html ------------------------------ From: adamf.nospam@columbus.rr.com (Adam Frix) Subject: Re: Swedish Teen on Trial For Linking to Music Files Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1999 21:28:55 -0400 Organization: Road Runner Columbus In article , TELECOM Digest Editor wrote: > On the other hand, if he presents his website thusly, 'there are a > number of places on the web where musicians display their work. > Because the net is a large, very complex thing, it is hard for people > to always know where to link to what they want, so I have started > this site as a service for netizens. I keep track of those long, very > complex URLs which are often used, provide you with a player to use > in case you never downloaded one on your own (or do not wish to use > it), and I have them all right here on one page for your easy refer- > ence' now he has added value of his own (in his opinion, perhaps) > and he has a right to seek assistance in meeting his expenses. Please note that years ago, Compuserve -- back when it was a good place to be -- asserted something similar with respect to their discussion forums. Compuserve stated, and rightly so IMHO, that while they didn't own any individual message on any given forum, they did own the compilation copyright. It was Compuserve's resources that allowed the creation and existence of the forum discussions, and no one else had the right to capture those discussions and use them without Compuserve's permission. In other words, Compuserve added value to the entire proposition of discussing common issues and causes. Compuserve made all this quite clear. ------------------------------ From: aboritz@CYBERNEX.NET (Alan Boritz) Subject: Re: Swedish Teen on Trial For Linking to Music Files Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1999 21:51:18 -0400 Organization: Dyslexics UNTIE In article , TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response to zhuang@quip.eecs.umich.edu (Zhihui Jerry Huang): > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Alright, let me try to speak about > your points 3,4, and 5. Regards (3), I would never claim that many > or most website operators have good taste. For too many have very > poor taste, or are completely tasteless. Regarding what is the true > reason for his advertising, ie (a) to make money from what resides > at the end of his links or (b) to make money for his overall efforts > with any given link content merely being coincidental, I would say > it is necessary to examine his site overall, detirmine the general > purpose, examine his stated intentions and then reach some conclusion. > If his whole website consists of 'here is some music by a great band, > read my advertising and listen to the music' then he is ripping off > those musicians (or in the case at hand, their authorized represen- > tative). There is no difference between doing that and someone at a > radio station buying some recordings intended for individual use and > playing them over the air repeatedly to lure an audience into listen- > ing to commercial messages between songs. 100% wrong. Radio stations rarely buy records, unless when replenishing an outdated library, or if some titles are too old to get from the record companies. The custom is for record companies and promoters to provide free promotional copies to encourage air play. There's nothing even borderline illegal for a radio station to play a record they are given, or purchase, provided that the appropriate music licensing is paid for, which is not always done in advance of playing any particular piece. Most radio and TV stations will buy a blanket ASCAP and BMI license, but, for example, may not buy a SECAM license, depending upon the music they usually play. If an audit pops up some SECAM charts, the station will take care of it when the time comes. Jukebox operators do something similar, though they can have an exact count of the number of times any particular record was played, so calculating the licensing fees for them is a lot easier. The issue upon which you should focus is presenting another's work as your own. A web site author who goes beyond providing informational links to another's site, and writes his pages so it appears that materials (not just entire web pages) contained within another's site is really being provided by HIM, deserves to get whacked. At the very least, he's violating the other's compilation copyright on the original presentation. At worst, in the case of recorded music, may also violate the music licensing company's copyright unless if he pays licensing fees just like a radio or TV station. An excellent demonstration of this concept is the difference between the fair use doctrine and simple infringement. 17 USC Section 107 and 108 permits ANYONE to excerpt ANY copyrighted work for purposes such as criticism, satire, research, news reporting, and teaching, provided that there's no infringement. For example, Monty Solomon's article excerpts with a web site address is an excellent example of fair use. Other author's copying of an entire article from another publication source without permission is an excellent example of infringement. Music licensing companies have historically gone overboard when trying to exploit new sources of income. I doubt that many of this group are old enough to remember the musician boycotts when this issue first came up for radio stations. But if you figure that ASCAP and BMI have been very public in their harassment of groups as small as mom & pop luncheonette operators who have radios playing in their stores during a secret visit from an investigator, you can imagine what's going to happen next when they get cooking on web site content searches for musical content being presented to the public. BTW, musical, sculptural, and audiovisual works are excluded from fair use, and may not be used without permission of the copyright owners. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Alan, please notice I said 'buying records intended for individual use' *not* 'promotional copies of records given to stations by record companies to promote their music' ... I have seen records in the libraries of radio stations. They will often times have a sticker on them or a notice which says something like, 'radio station promotional copy, not for resale'. I probably cut some corners in the way I phrased it originally, but I assumed people knew that radio stations have agreements with music licensing companies, etc that an individual does not have. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Darryl Smith Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999 06:09:34 +1000 Subject: Re: Swedish Teen on Trial For Linking to Music Files G'Day > I'm waiting for the police to declare a certain color of blue as > belonging strictly to them, and no one else, and that no one but a > policeman is allowed to see that color blue. Then, they'll start > painting signs to themselves and erecting them in public > rights-of-way, confident in the security of the information on these > signs -- because, after all, it's illegal for any citizen to see that > color blue, therefore citizens don't see it. According to rumour this almost happened in Australia... But it was not the police ... Some students from Sydney Uni aparently went to the Australian version of the FCC and requested that they have *EXCLUSIVE* access to a certain frequency ... and the frequency was quite high up, and no-one had ever requested a license for such a frequency. Aparently they almost got access to the frequency until someone looked at the spectrum and saw where they were applying for. They were applying for *EXCLUSIVE USE* of the colour *ORANGE*. Under the radiocommuniations act at the time they could have forced everyone to pay them money for use of Orange. Darryl Smith VK2TDS Sydney, Australia ------------------------------ From: Joey Lindstrom Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1999 18:02:27 -0600 Reply-To: Joey Lindstrom Subject: Re: Swedish Teen on Trial For Linking to Music Files On Tue, 14 Sep 1999 14:56:04 -0400 (EDT), Zhihui Jerry Huang wrote: > 4) If the kid just operates the website and _does not_ charge of it, > then I would've agreed that he has caused no harm to the plaintiff. > This is what I think is fair. Obviously you're not a lawyer. :-) Neither am I, but I've made a study of copyright law, which is really what we're dealing with, and you're completely off base. Specifically, this presumption that it MAKES A DIFFERENCE whether or not the kid operating the website profits or does not profit from a copyright violation. Let's leave the question of whether or not copyright was ACTUALLY violated aside for the moment. Either the kid is violating copyright or he is not -- whether or not he makes a profit from doing so is irrelevent to the basic act of violating said copyright. If I create an MP3 file of my favourite new single, and email it to many friends and encourage those friends to email it to all their friends, ad infinitum, I have violated the copyright of the rights-holder of that music. I MADE NO MONEY IN THE PROCESS, yet I am just as guilty. On the other hand, if I put that same MP3 file on my website and charged people to download it, I'm still "just as guilty" - the fact that in the second example I actually made money from the violation would affect only the size of the award I'd have to pay to the rights-holder once I lost my court case. Making a profit from, or not making a profit from, somebody else's work cannot push a borderline case from "not in violation" to "in violation", as you seem to be implying. "Caused no harm" is subjective, and it can easily be argued that even a single download "caused harm", whether or not the kid made money. In the above example, I can see no case for copyright violation -- HOWEVER, I HAVE NOT VIEWED THE WEBSITE IN QUESTION. As Pat has pointed out, things can get tricky with copyright (even stuff being freely distributed) if you are not careful about how you represent yourself. For example, a page that said: "Here are some links to some great music on the web!" (Followed by a list of links, each of which identified the name of the band, name of the song, website it comes from, etc.) ... wouldn't be in violation of copyright at all. But a page that said: "We've got some great new stuff for you this week! Click here to hear it!" (and that was a link to some band's new song on some record label's website) ... might be in violation because you've implied that the work is/may be your own. The simple act of deep-linking itself, as Pat has pointed out ad infinitum, cannot and should not be construed as copyright violation IN AND OF ITSELF. Nor is anyone in copyright violation by clicking on the link and downloading the music files in question. Because they're located on a public directory on the internet, and the copyright holder CHOSE TO PLACE IT THERE. The rights-holder has the right to control distribution as he/she sees fit, but if they put it in a public place, they have no recourse if the public looks at it (see earlier examples re: baseball games viewable from rooftops, sex on the front porch, etc.) But how you represent yourself (if you're doing the deep-linking) is also important. To put all this in another more-offensive way, I could easily set up a web-site called "The Telecom Zone" and deep-link to all of Pat's content on The Telecom Digest. That, in and of itself, is not illegal. But my presentation could tip the balance: if I represented the links as "my" work, or purposely obscured the origins of that work (ie: didn't indicate in any way that it was coming from The Telecom Digest), Pat would have a valid copyright-violation case against me (should he choose to file suit), as would any of the individual people who wrote the articles I've linked to (unless their copyright information is explicitly contained within the articles themselves of course). From the messy desktop of Joey Lindstrom Email: Joey@GaryNumanFan.NU or joey@lindstrom.com Phone: +1 403 313-JOEY FAX: +1 413 643-0354 (yes, 413 not 403) Visit The NuServer! http://www.GaryNumanFan.NU Visit The Webb! http://webb.GaryNumanFan.NU I had to stop driving my car for a while... the tires got dizzy. --Steven Wright ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1999 23:44:21 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: WebTV Exposed Users' Account Details Lisa M. Bowman The account information of some WebTV customers could have ended up in the wrong hands, as a result of a security flaw in the set top box's software. Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq:MSFT), which owns WebTV, said Tuesday it has taken care of the flaw, which made it possible for malicious hackers to tinker with WebTV customers' accounts. http://www.lycos.com/cgi-bin/pursuit?query=3878&fs=docid&cat=zdnet&mtemp=zdnet ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #405 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Sep 15 15:20:04 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id PAA11015; Wed, 15 Sep 1999 15:20:04 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999 15:20:04 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199909151920.PAA11015@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #406 TELECOM Digest Wed, 15 Sep 99 15:20:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 406 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson 1973 Area Code Split (703/804) in Virginia (Mark J. Cuccia) Re: How Low Can They Go? (Kevin DeMartino) Ralph Nader to Give Keynote at CPSR DNS Conference (Danny Burstein) ESS-99 Update (Philippe Geril) Musician Publishes Book of Eavesdropped Cell Phone Calls (Monty Solomon) Will Low-Use Charges Fall Flat? (Jeff Colbert) Global Tie-Ups (Ross Parsons) Re: Autodial Devices (David Clayton) Re: Autodial Devices (Michael Muderick) Re: Slammed by Excel Telecom (Leonard Erickson) Re: OT Trivia: HU3-2700? (Andrew Green) Re: OT Trivia: HU3-2700? (David W. Tamkin) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999 12:47:27 -0500 From: Mark J. Cuccia Subject: 1973 Area Code Split (703/804) in Virginia There have been over 100 new Area Codes introduced in the NANP since 1995, most of them splits, some overlays. The NANP-Caribbean has also broken up into 19 unique area codes for each geo-political region (18 new codes, with the Dominican Republic retaining the original 809 code). The US Pacific Territories of Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands were incorporated into the NANP in Summer 1997, with the numericals of their previous ITU Country Code becoming the digits of their +1 NANP Area Code. And also in 1997, the northern Canadian territories of the Yukon and the Northwest Territories (Nunavut was still part of the NWT at that time) broke into their own unique NPA of 867 (Yukon and the western/southern part of the NWT had previously been part of Alberta's 403 NPA, while the eastern/Arctic part of the NWT -- mostly now Nunavut -- had been a part of the 819 NPA, one of Quebec's at that time three area codes- even Quebec has another area code now!). But what memories do people have of the 1973 area code split in Virginia? As far as new "POTS/geographic" area codes go, in the 1970's there was _ONLY_ the split of VA's 703 NPA, with the new 804 NPA taking effect in the southeastern part of the state. At the time I was only about twelve years old (and either in the 6th or 7th grade), but I do remember seeing a note about this split in the "Bell Notes" flyer in my Dad's monthly South Central Bell telephone bill at that time. There was a map of Virginia showing the boundaries and location of the 804 NPA and the rest of Virginia retaining the 703 NPA. Who was around back then, and also living in Virginia (or nearby)? What were the press releases and public notices like from C&P (Bell) Telephone of Virginia? Or Contel, GT&E, Centel, other independent telcos? What types of announcements did other telcos in the North American Dial Network have? Or for that matter, telcos in other countries around the world? I do remember seeing some big "blurbs" and maps at that time in the telephone directories for towns in Virginia (or nearby states) when I'd look through the out-of-town telephone directories at the Public Library. Did anyone out there do any "test dialing" as the "permissive date" of the 804 NPA was close? Or "test dial" to (now) 804 areas but using 703 instead - after the "mandatory date" - to see what type of NPA "change" recording would be returned? Incidently, the ONLY time that Toll Free INWARD WATS needed a new 800-NNX code due to an Area Code split was with the 1973 Virginia 703/804 split. Back in the 1970's, Toll-Free 800 Service (at least for inTER-state toll-free calling) was set up such that each NPA region had at least _ONE_ dedicated 800-NNX code. (InTRA-state / province toll-free 800 used the sixty-four 800-NN2 codes). 800 was set up in the US around 1966 or 1967, and there were no new "geographic/POTS" area codes in the US or Canada between then and 1973 with Virginia. When the _next_ new "geographic/POTS" area code split happened around 1982 or 1983, with either California's 714/619 split or Texas' 713/409 split, AT&T's toll-free service was somewhat more "portable". _ALL_ assigned 800-NNX codes (and it wasn't all possible 640 or 792 NNX codes, however - it was ONLY those 800-NNX codes which already had been in use), could be assigned to customers located _ANYWHERE_ in the country. In 1966/67, Inward-WATS customers in Virginia had their toll-free numbers of the format 800-336-xxxx, if they had service for people to call them from outside of Virginia. But when the 703/804 NPA split happened, those customers located within the part of Virginia which was retaining the 703 NPA kept their 800-336-xxxx number. However, customers located in the southeastern (new 804 NPA) part of Virginia had their 800 number changed to 800-446-xxxx. Finally, what do people remember about the 1965 Area Code split that happened in northern Florida? Prior to that, the 305 area code served customers throughout the ENTIRE state, _EXCEPT_ for the southern part of Florida's western (Gulf-of-Mexico) coast - the area that is part GT&E and part United Telephone of Florida. Area Code 904 was split off of 305, with 904 covering the northern part of Florida - the entire 'panhandle' and all the way eastward to the Atlantic Ocean, including Jacksonville and Daytona Beach. In 1965, most of the switches in the US (and many in Canada) were capable of customer-originating DDD (Direct Distance Dialing), and the major towns of Florida were most likely all capable of being reached by customers directly dialing. So, obviously, there was some degree of publicity by AT&T/Southern Bell (as well as Centel and the other independents), or by various telcos throughout the US and Canada indicating that calls to that northern part of Florida was now to be dialed using Area Code 904 instead of 305. Thanks for any actual memories anyone has to share! MARK_J._CUCCIA__PHONE/WRITE/WIRE/CABLE:__HOME:__(USA)__Tel:_CHestnut-1-2497 WORK:__mcuccia@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu|4710-Wright-Road|__(+1-504-241-2497) Tel:UNiversity-5-5954(+1-504-865-5954)|New-Orleans-28__|fwds-on-no-answr-to Fax:UNiversity-5-5917(+1-504-865-5917)|Louisiana(70128)|cellular/voicemail- ------------------------------ From: Kevin DeMartino Subject: Re: How Low Can They Go? Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999 13:25:04 -0400 In Vol. 19 #405, Marty Solomon quoted from an article by Jason Krause: > The grandest prediction to be made about the looming bandwidth glut > is that phone calls will someday be offered free, thrown in as a kind > of bonus when you order data or Internet services. This prediction is not as far out as it sounds. It the current issue of IEEE Spectrum, there is an article that talks about the possibility of providing data rates over 6 Mb/s using asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) techniques over existing twisted pair access lines. A data rate of this magnitude could support nearly 100 uncompressed voice channels (at 64 Kb/s each). Of course there are caveats. This data rate can be achieved only in the downstream direction. However, the corresponding upstream data rate would be 640 Kb/s, which could support 10 voice channels. About 50 % of the existing local loops in the U.S. could support the full data rates and about 30 % of the loops can support ADSL at reduced data rates. About 20 % of the existing loops are unsuitable for ADSL. So for the lucky 50 %, a phone call would use up only about 1 % of the downstream capacity and about 10 % of the upstream capacity. (This of course assumes that the network switches and trunks are upgraded to handle the higher data rates.) At this point, phone calls wouldn't be free, but they should cost a lot less than data and video services. ADSL is just an interim solution, although this interim period may last a long time. Over the long run, fiber will replace twisted pair access lines and subscribers will be provided with much higher capacities. For example with broadband ISDN, the fundamental data rate is 155 Mb/s, which would be able accommodate the equivalent of over 2300 voice channels. At this point phone calls should be virtually free. This raises the question: Why do we need voice over IP, or voice over ATM for that matter? If there are whole lot of voice channels available, why is it necessary to share channels? Why can't a voice channel be dedicated to a particular call, as it was when channels were relatively scarce. (Note that the situation is different for mobile/wireless networks, where the capacity is much more limited.) Kevin DeMartino Dynamics Research Corporation ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999 13:33:57 EDT From: Danny Burstein Subject: Ralph Nader to Give Keynote at CPSR DNS Conference * * * Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR) * * * Ralph Nader will give the keynote speech at CPSR's conference on global Internet administration. The conference, to be held in Alexandria, Virginia, on September 24 and 25, will examine the issues surrounding the creation of the new private Internet corporation, ICANN, to manage core technical functions of cyberspace. A full conference announcement is below. GOVERNING THE COMMONS: THE FUTURE OF GLOBAL INTERNET ADMINISTRATION a conference by Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR) September 24-25 (Friday and Saturday) Hilton Mark Hotel Alexandria, Virginia http://www.cpsr.org/conferences/dns99/dnsconf99.htm or http://www.cpsr.org CONFERENCE THEMES The implementation of a global institution for Internet administration continues to raise vexing policy questions. As the new Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) completes its first year of existence, supporters and critics have differed sharply in their assessments. Is ICANN "out of control"? Are ICANN's critics undermining the public good? Disagreements have emerged between individuals, firms, and countries -- and even between different branches of the U.S. government. What is at stake is nothing less than the global administration of cyberspace into the next century. This conference will provide a forum that allows parties to articulate their positions in public, to engage in moderated debate with other parties, and to educate a broad audience of policymakers and stakeholders. The conference program addresses the following topics: 1. Introduction to the Issues 2. Competition in the Domain Name System 3. Technological Change and Institutional Design 4. Stakeholder discussion 5. The Big Picture: The Emerging Institutional Order PROGRAM & SPEAKERS Stakeholders Session Moderator: Coralee Whitcomb, CPSR Don Telage, Network Solutions, Inc. Esther Dyson, ICANN David Post, Temple University School of Law Jamie Love, Consumer Project on Technology David Farber, University of Pennsylvania (invited) Paul Scolese, House Committee on Commerce (invited) Also invited: National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) European Commission (DG-XIII) Introduction to Issues Session Chair: Theresa Amato, Consumer Project on Technology Jean Camp, Harvard University Kennedy School of Government & CPSR Hans Klein, Georgia Institute of Technology School of Public Policy & CPSR Internet Registries: Competition or Sharing? Session Chair: Milton Mueller, Syracuse School of Information Studies Mike Vita, Federal Trade Commission Paul Garrin, Founder and CEO, Name.Space, Inc. Chris Ambler, Image Online Design, Inc. Technological Change and Institutional Design Session Chair, Hans Klein, Georgia Tech School of Public Policy & CPSR Scott Bradner, Harvard University and Internet Society Karl Auerbach, Individual Domain Name Owners Constituency (IDNO) Peter Deutsch, Shophound Inc. The Big Picture: Internet and Global Telecommunications Order Session Chair: Rick Barry, CPSR Esther Dyson, ICANN Tony Rutkowski, NGI Associates Milton Mueller, Syracuse School of Information Studies Michael Froomkin, University of Miami School of Law The event begins on Friday 9/24 at 1 PM and ends Saturday 9/25 at 4 PM. To book a hotel room, call: HILTON HOTEL AT MARK CENTER 5000 SEMINARY ROAD ALEXANDRIA, VA 22311 (703)845-1010 1-800-445-8667 To register for the conference, please see: http://www.cpsr.org/conferences/dns99/dnsconf99.htm or http://www.cpsr.org Or send email to: cpsr@cpsr.org This event is sponsored by the Morino Institute and the Open Society Institute. Co-sponsors include the Consumer Project on Technology, a Ralph Nader-affiliated public interest group ( http://www.cptech.org ). =========================================================================== Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR) CPSR is an organization that addresses the benefits and risks to society of information technology. For information, please visit the CPSR web page at http://www.cpsr.org ------------------------------ From: Philippe Geril Subject: ESS-99 Update Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1999 17:02:37 +0200 Organization: SCS Europe Bvba Reply-To: Philippe.Geril@rug.ac.be Dear Colleagues, This is to inform you that the ESS'99 (European Simulation Symposium) preliminary programme is now online. See: http://hobbes.rug.ac.be/~scs/conf/ess99 This year's event features 146 presentations covering: Methodology and Tools Logistics Telecommunications Virtual Reality Analytical and Numerical Modelling Techniques Simulation in Industry and Economics and High Performance Simulation Registration forms for the event are available under http://hobbes.rug.ac.be/~scs/conf/ess99 Also be aware that a number of tutorials are foreseen and that pre-registration for these is necessary All half-day tutorials are complimentary to your registration fee. All full day tutorials are at extra charge. Tutorials are: 1 Week Tutorial on Java 1 Day Tutorial on Object Orientation 1 Day Tutorial on Virtual Reality 1/2 Day Tutorial on High Performance Simulation 1/2 Day Tutorial on Field Programmable Devices Furthermore a special session will also be organised on HLA. More information on this will be posted before the end of this month. Authors are hereby also reminded that their paper-submission deadline of September 20th is coming up. If you have any problems meeting that deadline, please inform me as soon as possible. Best Regards, Philippe Geril Tel: +32.9.233.77.90 SCS Europe Fax: +32.9.223.49.41 Coupure Links 653 E-mail: Philippe.Geril@rug.ac.be B-9000 Ghent URL: http://hobbes.rug.ac.be/~scs Belgium URL: http://hobbes.rug.ac.be/~phil Your information site on Computer Simulation - Concurrent Engineering - Multimedia http://hobbes.rug.ac.be/~scs ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999 01:31:51 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Musician Publishes Book of Eavesdropped Cell Phone Calls A small press lends an ear to the airwaves. By Craig Offman After nearly 10 months of delays, Incommunicado Press has finally released its controversial book, "I Listen: A Document of Digital Voyeurism." A collection of transcripts of eavesdropped cell phone conversations, "I Listen" is the brainchild of a 29-year-old musician from San Diego who calls himself the Spacewurm. http://www.salon.com/books/log/1999/09/14/spacewurm ------------------------------ From: Jeff Colbert Subject: Will Low-Use Charges Fall Flat? Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999 16:09:43 GMT By Susan Bahr Consumers stand to benefit from a new FCC inquiry concerning the flat long distance charges imposed on presubscribed customers who make few or no long distance calls. But the potential for the commission to regulate the long-deregulated long distance sector has raised a few eyebrows. Local exchange carriers (LECs) and wireless carriers also could be affected if the scope of the proceeding is widened to include the flat charges they impose for federal programs such as universal service. http://www.americasnetwork.com/issues/99issues/990901/990901lowuse.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1999 15:51:21 +0100 From: Ross Parsons Organization: CIT Publications Ltd Subject: Global Tie-Ups For useful and bang up-to-date index of the world's top 100 telecoms operators please go to: http://www.citpubs.com CIT Publications Ltd, 3 Colleton Crescent, Exeter, Devon EX2 4DG Telephone: +44 1392 315567, Facsimile: +44 1392 315556 For a full list of all telecommunications and media reports published by CIT Publications, please visit our website: http://www.citpubs.com ------------------------------ From: David Clayton Subject: Re: Autodial Devices Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999 20:23:27 +1000 Organization: Customer of Connect.com.au Pty. Ltd. Reply-To: dcstar@acslink.aone.net.au mike@x.bell-labs.com (Michael Baldwin) contributed the following: > I am looking for a device that will hook up to a POTS phone or line, > and when the phone goes off-hook, it will auto-dial (via touch tones) > a pre-specified number. Where can I get such a thing? I remember such things built into emergency phones in elevators here, (lift handset and the maintenance company is dialled), but I can't remember the manufacture's name. Regards, David Clayton, e-mail: dcstar@acslink.aone.net.au Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Dilbert's words of wisdom #18: Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level then beat you with experience. ------------------------------ From: Michael Muderick Subject: Re: Autodial Devices Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999 09:57:33 EDT Viking makes various autodialer modules , or complete phones. Check out their website at www.VikingElectronics.com They also have a faxback -checkout documents 315(pulse) and 317(tone). The faxback number is 715-386-4345. Mike Muderick ------------------------------ From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson) Subject: Re: Slammed by Excel Telecom Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999 09:51:33 PST Organization: Shadownet steven@primacomputer.com (Steven) writes: > If I got slammed I would sit home at night praying to have my local > service cut for non payment. Few things make a better lawsuit then > discontinued service over disputed fraudulent charges! Just because > these guys get away with this kind of crap all the time doesn't make > it right, or legal. If they want to put other peoples bills on their > bills then they are responsible for explaining them. > The key to a lot of this is to not waste your (or their) time trying > to resolve it on the phone. Send a registered letter saying you > dispute the charges and watch the whole thing go away real quick. > Spend an hour on hold and watch an hour get wasted away. Your choice. I suggest you take a look at the long distance bill your local phone company has included with your local bill. You will find the name of the LD carrier, and a phone number. No address. You *can't* send a registered letter to these outfits. Not without a postal address. Which you don't get until things have escaleted to a collection agency. Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow) shadow@krypton.rain.com <--preferred leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com <--last resort ------------------------------ From: Andrew Green Subject: Re: OT Trivia: HU3-2700? Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999 08:53:50 -0500 > "MOhawk four, four one hundred, C E T for televisions." That is a > Chicago-Superior prefix and is still in 312, but CET is long gone. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I know they are gone from that location > but are they gone totally? I thought they were now in Morton Grove, IL > on Waukegan Road about two blocks north of Dempster. I suspect you're describing Abt Television & Electronics, which seems to be doing land-office business at that location. You'd think they'd have a web page these days, but I couldn't find one in a quick search; the closest I can come is http://www.equatorappl.com/dealers/IL/morton-grove.htm. In any event, business seems to be booming at that location; nice to see some long-time Chicago businesses are continuing to prosper. > By the way, David, is Empire still using that 'five eight eight two > three hundred' with the 'eighthundred' sort of wedged in on the > front of it? PAT] Not sure about the "eighthundred" part but the rest of the jingle lives on. There was a rock concert at the United Center downtown not too long ago when the band -- I think it was Eddie Vedder and Pearl Jam -- played the jingle as a quick gag and the entire audience joined in to sing it. Andrew C. Green Datalogics, Inc. 101 N. Wacker, Ste. 1800 http://www.datalogics.com Chicago, IL 60606-7301 ------------------------------ From: dattier@yahoo.com (David W. Tamkin) Subject: Re: OT Trivia: HU3-2700? Date: 15 Sep 1999 09:45:17 -0500 Organization: Customer of MCSNet, a division of Winstar, Lafayette IN 47903 Reply-To: dattier@yahoo.com When I wrote in : > "MOhawk four, four one hundred, C E T for televisions." That is a > Chicago-Superior prefix and is still in 312, but CET is long gone. The editor asked, > I know they are gone from that location but are they gone totally? I > thought they were now in Morton Grove, IL on Waukegan Road about two > blocks north of Dempster. That would be Abt Television & Appliance, who used to be in Niles, on Dempster just west of Harlem. It still belongs to the Abt family, as it did when Swislow and Geist owned CET. I don't know who purchased CET or whether the successor is still operating, but to the best of my knowledge Abt has no connection with any remnants of CET. (Ameri- tech's directories list them as ABT at the start of the A's. That's incorrect.) Their area code has been cut from 312 to 708 to 847, but the number's still YOrktown 7-8830. > By the way, David, is Empire still using that 'five eight eight two > three hundred' with the 'eighthundred' sort of wedged in on the > front of it? Yes. Like other companies trying to protect their phone numbers in all local area codes, they had their fill of trying to get it in every new area code (or every old area code when one of their numbers would end up on the even more unfortunate side of a split). One wonders whether that would be an issue in an overlay: if everyone has to dial ten or eleven digits, is it worthwhile to grab another ten- or eleven-digit way to be dialed? At least the jingle with Empire's phone number comes only once at the end of each commercial. Spots for Olson Rug, who now also have a shop-at-home service and are in direct competition with Empire Carpet, suggest every four to five seconds that you "call eight eight eight, Olson Rug" -- and if you hear it on the radio and misspell the name as Olsen or Olsson, you'll get the wrong number (unless they've reserved all three), because they never give it in digits. The reply address is valid but I'll see mail to dattier at mcs dot net sooner. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yes, I was thinking about Abt Television and Appliances, sorry. They are just a block south of where my friends Mr. and Mrs. Chung have their motel. The Village of Morton Grove, IL (although some people in spelling the name intentionally omit the 't' in the first word) has tried for several years to get the poorer people and black people out of the village, and one tactic which has proven rather successful in doing this is condemning the housing in which they live. The village has managed to condemn and tear down all the inexpensive housing on the east side of Waukegan Road with the exception thus far of the motel Ken Chung and his wife operate. I might be mistaken on this, but didn't Abt also have a location in Chicago back in the 1950-1960's somewhere on the near north side more or less where the Cabrini housing project is now? PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #406 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Sep 15 20:01:15 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id UAA21411; Wed, 15 Sep 1999 20:01:15 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999 20:01:15 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199909160001.UAA21411@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #407 TELECOM Digest Wed, 15 Sep 99 20:01:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 407 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson FCC Setting Technology Standard to Locate 911 Calls (Tad Cook) Doing Your Own In-House 411 (John Ledahl) Re: Cell Phone-Driving Ban (Bob Goudreau) Re: Off Topic: Drunk Drivers and Wasted Lives (Steven J. Sobol) Re: WebTV Exposed Users' Account Details (Paul Rubin) Re: Y2K Activities (Darryl Smith) Re: Y2K Activities (Matt Simpson) Locating Telecom Chat Lines & Bulletin Boards (David Romano) Re: This Digest's Name Has Been Stolen by Nynex (Robert S. Hall) Re: Advertising on the Web Site (Matt Ackeret) Re: Linking and Advertising on the Net (Steve Winter) Re: Linking and Advertising on the Net (James Bellaire) Re: Musician Publishes Book of Eavesdropped Phone Calls (C. Richmond) Re: Swedish Teen on Trial For Linking to Music Files (Ed Ellers) Last Laugh! First Family Mortgage (Richard Thomsen) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: FCC Setting Technology Standard to Locate 911 Calls Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999 11:46:09 PDT From: tad@ssc.com (Tad Cook) By Kalpana Srinivasan Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal regulators are taking the next steps toward ensuring that cell phone users who dial 911 automatically give emergency dispatchers a key piece of information: their location. The action by the Federal Communications Commission would set technology standards for cellular companies to follow as they make 911 caller location available in their phones. The FCC was expected to vote on the matter today, in hopes that cellular companies will begin providing phones with locator technology within two years. "This decision will save lives without question," said FCC Chairman Bill Kennard in an interview. In situations such as auto accidents, when a few hours can mean the difference between life and death, knowing the location increases chances that emergency personnel will get to the scene on time, Kennard said. Currently, when a person makes a 911 call from a regular wireline phone, say from home or work, the location of the caller will pop up on a screen read by emergency dispatchers. Regulators want to see similar information provided for cellular 911 calls. In 1996, the FCC adopted rules requiring wireless carriers to set up systems by Oct. 1, 2001 that could locate a cellular caller within 410 feet. New innovations have cropped up since then so cellular companies now have some choices in reaching this goal, Kennard said. The FCC is trying to lay out the rules carriers must follow, but are staying neutral on which technology to select, he said. One option wireless companies have is to modify their network so they can track their customers. That way, the system could work with the existing 65 million wireless phones nationwide, said Mike Amarosa, vice president of public affairs for TruePosition Inc., which has opted to develop this kind of technology. Other carriers are leaning toward building the technology right into the phone handset. The phones then could be pinpointed by the Defense Department's Global Positioning System. Companies designing the location devices for the handsets say it offers even greater accuracy and flexibility for future advances. "It lends itself very readily to continual upgrades," said Ellen Kirk, vice president of marketing and strategic planning for the San Jose- based SnapTrack Inc. But such a plan also would require wireless customers either to replace or upgrade the phones they have. For this reason, regulators also must consider how such a system would be phased in. Some privacy advocates have raised concerns that there exists the potential for abuse in a system that has network-wide location tracking built in. But industry leaders say companies are only going to be using the technology to find people who want to be found. "We operate in a very competitive market. I don't think any carrier would be dumb enough to try and do that," said Michael Altschul, vice president of the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association. Public safety officials say their main concern is to see that the safety enhancement makes its way to consumers. "The clear goal is to jump start this process and to see location technology arrive on the scene," said Joe Hanna, president of the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials. In other matters, the FCC today was expected to: --Decide what pieces of their network Bell companies and other major local phone providers must make available for rivals to lease. --Decide whether to provide U.S. companies with direct access to the international satellite consortium Intelsat, allowing it to bypass Comsat Corp. for services. The commission also is looking at whether to permit defense company Lockheed Martin Corp. to acquire 49 percent of Comsat. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999 09:00:59 -0700 From: John Ledahl Subject: Doing Your Own In-House 411 The Livermore Lab here is considering doing their own In-House 411. They have operators in place to handle the calls. Anyone have any suggestions on creditable 411 database sources? Anyone doing this today that I can consult with? Thanks in advance. John ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999 10:03:49 EDT From: Bob Goudreau Subject: Re: Cell Phone-Driving Ban nospam.tonypo1@nospam.home.com (Tony Pelliccio) wrote: >> This is only anecdotal, but ... >> http://wcco.com/news/stories/news-990912-175514.html >> (Man dies in head-on collision while he talks on cell phone.) > Darwinism in action. As far as providing an argument for banning phone use while driving, even at the anecdotal level, the incident cited above is of no help at all. I fear that many folks here in the Digest have been posting followups without bothering to read the original news story, and are assuming that the man who died talking on the cell phone directly contributed to his own death. But in fact, the story contains no such evidence at all. To the contrary, the sole cause of the collision appears to be the driver of the *other* car, who was driving on the *wrong* side of a divided highway when he ran head-on into the car driven by the phone user. Whether on the phone or not, how many of us could guarantee our own survival in an encounter with a drunk or madman suddenly and unexpectedly appearing in the night bearing down on us at a relative closing speed of, say, 100+ mph? There are probably hundreds of collision reports that provide anecdotal support to the scientific studies linking cell phone use to increased collisions. But the story above just isn't one of them. Bob Goudreau Data General Corporation goudreau@rtp.dg.com 62 Alexander Drive +1 919 248 6231 Research Triangle Park, NC 27709, USA ------------------------------ From: sjsobol@JustThe.Net (Steven J. Sobol) Subject: Re: Off Topic: Drunk Drivers and Wasted Lives Date: 15 Sep 1999 05:53:11 GMT Organization: North Shore Technologies Corp. 888.480.4NET On Tue, 14 Sep 1999 05:59:12 +0800, steven@primacomputer.com allegedly said: > Unfortunately while the moral majority wants to send you to the chair for > sipping satans brew, the ACLU wants to plead diminished responsibility > for crashing that bus load of orphans while drunk driving. Somewhere in > the middle the average working bloke looses his right to forget his > miserable existence for a few hours. That's a crock. Someone who wants to "forget his miserable existence" can and should get someone else to drive him home if he's drunk. Period. North Shore Technologies JustTheNet Dialup Internet Access Cleveland, Akron, Canton, Geauga Co., Lake Co., Portage Co., Lorain Co., OH Nationwide Access coming soon! Watch this space for details or dial 1.888.480.4NET for more info! ------------------------------ From: phr@netcom.com (Paul Rubin) Subject: Re: WebTV Exposed Users' Account Details Date: 15 Sep 1999 19:23:44 GMT Organization: NETCOM / MindSpring Enterprises, Inc. Monty Solomon wrote: > Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq:MSFT), which owns WebTV, said Tuesday it has > taken care of the flaw, which made it possible for malicious hackers > to tinker with WebTV customers' accounts. http://www.lycos.com/cgi-bin/pursuit?query=3878&fs=docid&cat=zdnet&mtemp=zdnet That link doesn't work. Try this one: http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2334232,00.html ------------------------------ From: Darryl Smith Subject: Re: Y2K Activities Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999 21:25:04 +1000 Pat... I would love to submit a few bulletins; I can do them progressively, both during the night and over the next few hours. I live in Sydney, Australia so I am 11 hours ahead of UTC at that time of year. Maybe you could set up a private mailing list to remind us a week before, and also have the email submitted somewhere direct incase we have problems. Power is not a problem. I work for the power utility. Darryl Sydney Australia ------------------------------ From: msimpson@uky.edu (Matt Simpson) Subject: Re: Y2K Activities Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999 09:53:49 -0400 Organization: University of Kentucky Computing Center In article , Art Knight wrote: > And, on that vein, > I would ask if you or your regular contributors have considered > putting up a notice site for New Years Eve. It could be beneficial to > us Norte Americanos if some of the gentlemen in the southern > hemisphere would consider e-mailing the results of the clock roll over > at midnight on New Years Eve. ( eg: were any problems encountered, and > what were they?) It's being done. See http://www.wired.com/news/news/technology/story/21723.html Matt Simpson - Paris, KY ------------------------------ Reply-To: David Romano From: David Romano Subject: Locating Telecom Chat Lines and Bulletin Boards Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999 12:41:15 -0400 Organization: TeleSource Management Group Can you help me? I have been unsuccessful in locating robust telecom chat lines and bulletin boards. I need to locate certified individuals (Nortel, Octel, Lucent & Mitel) in the US and Canada. Thank you, David Romano 905-847-8384 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I do not know how 'robust' you think it should be, but your message now appears on the longest running telecom 'bulletin board' in the world, i.e. comp.dcom.telecom and if you wish to chat, try http://telecom-digest.org/chat for starters. If you would like to say why you need to locate certified individuals, it may be some will respond to you here or through email. PAT] ------------------------------ Reply-To: From: Robert S. Hall Subject: Re: This Digest's Name Has Been Stolen by Nynex Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1999 20:51:45 +0800 Pat: Before you go getting your knickers in a twist, please understand that the use of 'porn' in a Thai name IS a common occurrence. It DOES NOT mean the same thing as it does to us in English. It's just the way Thai names are transliterated into English. It's similar to the way the Chinese surnames 'Fuk' and 'Fook' work. I'm not defending the registering of 'Telecom Digest' in the major search engines as being correct. AND, I'm not saying that you won't find REAL porn at sites in Thailand, but I think you're barking up the wrong tree on this one! I don't wish to see you expend your time chasing down 'porn-meisters' when, in fact, these four letters are just a common part of a name in Thailand (when translated into English). It's a global world now, thanks to telecommunications and the Internet! You had some input into this happening. I've been reading the Digest daily from Hong Kong for a number of years. Take some pride in the fact that s/he at least put a link to your site from his/hers. Deep breath! Clear head! A couple of friendly e-mails! Then call in the wolves. Cheers, Rob Hall Hong Kong [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I never said that 'sermporn.com' was a pornographic web site. Someone else wrote and said it was unlikely that a 'Fortune 500 company' (meaning Nynex in this context) would own a web site with 'porn' in the name. That was the argument they gave as to why, in their opinion, Nynex did not own the site. Indeed, it seems that Thailand has its share of pornographic web sites (what is their fixation on little boys all about, anyway? It must be where all the money is at in the sex business in Thailand these days ...) as does the USA, but Mr. Sermporn is not accused of that at all. All we have been talking about is his good taste (or bad taste, depending on your point of view) in using my name here for his publication. PAT] ------------------------------ From: mattack@area.com (Matt Ackeret) Subject: Re: Advertising on the Web Site Date: 14 Sep 1999 16:15:24 -0700 Organization: Area Systems in Mountain View, CA - http://www.area.com In article , L. Winson wrote: > I must admit I don't care for any advertising unless it is absolutely > necessary to generate funds to maintain the service. > One reason is that I just don't care for it -- I thought the reasons > you originally posted made very good sense. > A second reason is that my connection is relatively low speed and I > prefer web sites I access make the most efficient use of bandwidth > as possible. Having Advertising Council messages to fill up > "free time" would just slow things down for people like me. (1) Turn off graphics if you insist on using a GUI browser. I) Use a faster GUI browser - such as iCab - www.icab.de (2) Use an _even faster_ browser like lynx (http://lynx.browser.org) or w3m (http://ei5nazha.yz.yamagata-u.ac.jp/~aito/w3m/eng/), both of which are much faster than GUI browsers even with their graphics turned off. Lynx supports frames, and you can use secure sites with third party SSL libraries linked in. (Example: I use my bank and stock market accounts through Lynx all of the time.) mattack@area.com ------------------------------ From: steve@sellcom.com (Steve Winter) Subject: Re: Linking and Advertising on the Net Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1999 20:18:59 -0400 Organization: WWW.SELLCOM.COM Reply-To: steve@sellcom.com TELECOM Digest Editor spake thusly and wrote: > "You are violating my copyright/trademark/service mark" On our front bottom page we have a disclaimer as follows (of course companies that we are selling their stuff have never complained about me advertising their stuff, but I do "ask first"): "Any trademarks or servicemarks on this site are probably the property of their respective owners" I must admit that I did not ask Bill about using the flag from whitehouse.gov but when I looked and saw that it was created with unregistered shareware and had no copyright notice I figured it must belong to Al anyway ... :O) Steve http://www.sellcom.com Cyclades Siemens EnGenius Zoom at discount prices. SSL Secure VISA/MC/AMEX Online ordering Listed at http://www.thepubliceye.com as SELLCOM New Brick Wall "non-MOV" surge protection ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1999 21:54:48 -0500 From: James Bellaire Subject: Re: Linking and Advertising on the Net At 04:29 AM 9/14/99 -0400, in TELECOM Digest Pat wrote: > First of all, never be in possession of something you are not > authorized to possess. That means, do not have something on your > web site or computer that does not belong to you, and that you did > not obtain permission for. Does that mean that taking images from others websites without their permission is wrong? Do you have anything copied from anyone else's site on yours? Or is there a double standard in effect? I'm not trying to be annoying here. I just find that it is easier to complain and instruct if one is not guilty of breaking the codes they are instructing. "Do as I say, not as I do" is a bad habit. James [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I do not have any .gif or .jpg files on my site which were not either obtained from one of the dozen or so public archives of same (where they encourage you to take the item, rather than using bandwidth by linking to it) or that someone simply gave me or gave me permission to use. One does not have to steal content from other websites in order to have a decent looking one of his own (at least I feel http://telecom-digest.org is a nice site.) There are dozens -- literally dozens -- of web sites in the business of providing artwork, javascripts, and other content at no charge, free for the taking. Do you want news, sports, weather, audio, video, polls, fifty thousand .gif images to select from, make-your- own banners, run-our-cgi-scripts-for-free, you name it. Some say please take it with you and do not link to our copy while others ask you to link to them. Sometimes you have to link to them because their servers control the content such as what you see if you go to http://telecom-digest.org/news or http://telecom-digest.org/radio.html One site says 'run your own television station' and after you pick through the several hundred programs they have available, they make up some HTML code on the fly which you then insert on a page at your site. Another site says, 'have a co-branded radio station on us free of charge; or how about a newspaper at your site with your name on it'. You pick the features, the comics, the news categories you want.' After you do so, they hand you some HTML code to insert on a page at your site. A couple other sites invite you to carry off music or .midi files by the bucketful, 'please limit yourself to a dozen files daily; you may use these on your web site but do not resell them or charge for them; please do not tie up our site by linking, keep the .midi at your end'. Only a dozen a day??? One newspaper says, 'when you link to us, be sure to put us in a frameset which is one hundred percent of the window so it looks like it is your own newspaper. Would you like some nice .gifs to go with that, and a link than is a linkback (or loopback) to your own site, so the users do not get away from you and go elsewhere? Here, have some HTML on us. Don't forget to include a little audio with that, we've included some in the code we just emailed to your site for your convenience in installing it.' Seriously Jim, to build a web site you do not have to steal; countless websites will give you all you want for free, encouraging you to take it with you rather than linking when that is technically feasable. Would you like ten thousand javascripts to pick through and use at your site? Just ask ... I did make one exception however; Mr. Sermporn has a great little animated 'Telecom Digest' .gif at his site and also a banner for the top of a page saying 'Telecom Digest'. When I saw those, I had lust in my heart so I right-clicked them and brought them over to my directory. I think I will probably start using it with http://telecom-digest.org/latest-issue.html to make that page a little nicer, or maybe on the page where I link to my southeast Asian news bureau. Don't you wish *you* had a southeast Asian news bureau to link to? PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999 13:58:52 -0700 From: Cortland Richmond Organization: Alcatel Subject: Re: Musician Publishes Book of Eavesdropped Cell Phone Calls Sort of like killing spotted owls and bragging about it. I imagine "Spacewurm" will get more feedback than he intended. But not more than he deserves. Cortland On Wed, 15 Sep 1999 01:31:51 -0400 Monty Solomon (monty@roscom.com) wrote: > A small press lends an ear to the airwaves. > After nearly 10 months of delays, Incommunicado Press has finally > released its controversial book, "I Listen: A Document of Digital > Voyeurism." A collection of transcripts of eavesdropped cell phone > conversations, "I Listen" is the brainchild of a 29-year-old musician > from San Diego who calls himself the Spacewurm. ------------------------------ From: Ed Ellers Subject: Swedish Teen on Trial For Linking to Music Files Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999 15:43:32 -0400 Alan Boritz (aboritz@CYBERNEX.NET) wrote: > There's nothing even borderline illegal for a radio station to play > a record they are given, or purchase, provided that the appropriate > music licensing is paid for, which is not always done in advance of > playing any particular piece. Most radio and TV stations will buy a > blanket ASCAP and BMI license, but, for example, may not buy a SECAM > license, depending upon the music they usually play. If an audit pops > up some SECAM charts, the station will take care of it when the time > comes." I believe you mean SESAC -- originally the Society of European Stage Artists and Composers, though now it's simply called SESAC Incorporated and is headquartered in Nashville. ------------------------------ From: Richard Thomsen Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999 13:47:06 -0600 Subject: Last Laugh! First Family Mortgage Pat, Not telecom related, but I thought you might like to see this. Richard Thomsen Subject: First Family Mortgage (The sad part is that it's true.) Hi, Mr and Mrs. Clinton. Welcome to EZBreeZee Mortgages. I'm Alan Greenspan. No, no relation, sorry to say. May I call you Bill and Hillary? Fine, first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton and Bill it is. So you want to buy the old Rye Brook place, four-something acres as I recall. That's $2.2 million, and with the customary 20 percent down-that's $440,000--leaving a mortgage of $1,760,000. No problem. We do those kinds of deals all the time. Now let's have a look at your financial statements. Let's see, Mr. Clinton, you are the president of the United States, of course, and your salary is-oh, dear--$200,000 a year. We recommend buying a house that costs no more than two and a half times your annual salary. That means you should be looking for something around $500,000, perhaps a nice brick rancher on a quarter of an acre, not too fancy a neighborhood? And I see here that you'll be out of a job in 16 months or so. What will you do then? Open a library. In Little Rock, Arkansas. Wow. I bet that will be some kind of moneymaker. Mrs. Clinton, you're running for Senate, right? Senators are paid $130,000 a year assuming, of course, you're elected so even with your pension you're still looking at a house in the $825,000 range. Maybe a nice center hall colonial where the schools aren't so good. Mrs. Clinton, you haven't worked outside the house since 1991, correct? But you did some volunteer work, I see. You came up with a plan to overhaul the entire national health care system? I see. It flopped, in other words. But I see you had several business ventures back in Arkansas. How about this Whitewater Development Corp.? It went bankrupt. And Madison Guaranty? Bankrupt. And Castle Grande? Bankrupt, too. If you had gone to Yale business school instead of Yale law, you could probably get your money back Don't get upset. It was just a little joke. A little bad luck with the law, too, I see. Three of your business partners went to jail. Maybe you could get your money back. This is embarrassing, I know, but we have to ask because it does, after all, affect your ability to pay: Any problems in your marriage? No? Fine. Let's look at your assets: $1.5 million. Not bad. Yes, yes, Mr. Clinton, we're not forgetting your Mustang back in Little Rock. But-oh!--those liabilities. You owe $5.5 million. That means you're $4 million in the hole. How do you expect to pay that off? You're hoping people will donate to a special fund? So basically you're relying on the charity of strangers. You also have some serious expenses. A kid at Stanford has got to be setting you back $30,000 to $35,000 a year, probably more with the air fares. And she wants to go to medical school? Ouch! And Mr. Clinton, there's a little matter of a $90,000 fine for lying in court. I guess that rules out putting your law degree to work. Say, how do we know you're not lying on your loan application? Good point. It would look a lot better if you were lying. Are there any other legal matters we should know about? You say you're in the clear, Mr. Clinton, and the first lady is pretty much in the clear indictment-wise. What does that mean? You don't think -- don't think -- she's going to get hit with a perjury or obstruction of justice rap. But we're not totally sure, right? That means there's a remote possibility -- note that I say "remote" -- that you could be trying to pay off a $1.76 million mortgage while making 12 cents an hour stitching mailbags for the feds, and he is trying to make a go of a library in Little Rock. Let's review the situation. One of you is now unemployed and the other one soon will be. You have these whopping great debts that you're hoping someone is going to come along and pay. You have a financial history that can only be described as "checkered", plus a bunch of serious financial demands and ongoing legal problems. Your tangible assets seem to consist of an old Ford. So, Congratulations! Welcome to the EZBreeZee family of homeowners! You've got your mortgage! ====================== Isn't that what happened when you applied for your mortgage? Don't all mortgage companies operate that way? Maybe you just got the wrong one. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #407 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Sep 16 17:00:56 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id RAA29247; Thu, 16 Sep 1999 17:00:56 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 16 Sep 1999 17:00:56 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199909162100.RAA29247@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #408 TELECOM Digest Thu, 16 Sep 99 17:00:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 408 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Internet Conference in Geneva (Danny Burstein) Book Review: "The First 100 Feet", Deborah Hurley/James Keller (Rob Slade) Using the Internet to Alleviate Poverty: www.netaid.org (Atri Indiresan) Re: Linking and Advertising on the Net (James Bellaire) Re: How Low Can They Go? (Tony Pelliccio) Re: How Low Can They Go? (David Koltermann) Lightning Discharge Tubes (Re: Troubleshooting Phone Problem) (D Peterman) Re: FCC Setting Technology Standard to Locate 911 Calls (Randolph Herber) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999 21:30:43 EDT From: Danny Burstein Subject: Internet Conference in Geneva Courtesy of the Voice Of America. INTRO: Business and technology leaders are trying to find ways to regulate the multi-billion dollar electronic-commerce industry to protect sellers and buyers from fraud. Lisa Schlein reports 700-delegates are meeting in Geneva in an effort to prevent piracy of products such as music, software, and movies that can be directly downloaded on the Internet. TEXT: Participants at the meeting want to find a way to regulate trade on the Internet without strangling it. The World Intellectual Property Organization, which protects trademarks and copyrights, says electronic commerce is vulnerable to fraud. This is because it takes place on the global, borderless medium of the Internet. It notes much of the buying and selling takes place between companies or individuals in two different countries. This means these transactions are not subject to the usual national laws for commerce. U-S Commerce Secretary, William Daley says a way must be found to protect the rights of the creators of music, movies, and software sold through so-called E-commerce. He says this poses some real challenges. /// DALEY ACT ONE /// How do you protect the songwriter's rights when you can download that song anywhere in the world and the expected protections and royalties are not there and the technologies are not there yet to block that. And, there are those who believe that you should not be able to block it. /// END ACT /// Another big issue is that of maintaining privacy for consumers doing business on the Internet. In April,the Commerce Secretary urged the private sector to take the lead on consumer protection. He says he is pleased that several large companies including I-B-M, Microsoft, and Time Warner have adopted his suggestion and have formed a group to protect online consumers. On another matter, Mr. Daley says he opposes draft legislation by the European Union that would allow disgruntled Internet shoppers to sue foreign companies in their own national courts. Currently, online shoppers can sue only in the country where the Internet business is located. Mr. Daley says the new E-U legislation would create a serious question as to whose law prevails. /// DALEY ACT TWO /// Many in the private sector would feel that the location of the company should be the determining jurisdiction and many consumers believe it should be where the consumers are located, obviously creating a very challenging situation. /// END ACT /// Mr. Daley says the proposed E-U law could have a chilling effect on booming on-line trade. But he says he agrees it is important to prevent a rush by companies to set themselves up in countries that would be most protective to them. He says that could jeopardize the rights of consumers. (SIGNED) NEB/LS/JWH/RAE 15-Sep-1999 12:02 PM LOC (15-Sep-1999 1602 UTC) NNNN Source: Voice of America [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: William Daley is the brother of Chicago's mayor. At the time of Bill Clinton's election, Mayor Daley was promised if all the people in Chicago would vote for Clinton and if he then won the election, they would find a job somewhere for his brother Bill. The mayor and his political machine fixed things so it would happen that way, and Bill Daley was rewarded with a nice desk in an office with a window in Washington. He used to be an official with a bank in Chicago. Of course when I met him, it was long, long before that, when his father was still alive and the mayor of the fair city known as Chicago. In fact I think it would have been his father's second or third term in office (out of five), sometime in the very early 1960's. He had either just gotten out of high school or was still in high school; I don't remember. But, I digress, and I do not want to do that. Does it seem to you, as it does to me, that these people so hell-bent on taking over the internet are a classic example of trying to pound a square peg into a round hole? They are trying to make things happen that just will not work as the internet is constructed or designed. The internet was designed for sharing, with a minimum of security. It was never designed with technical specifications in mind to meet the demands being made of it today for commercial use. It is like trying to turn a real old television set into a computer monitor. Yes, it can be done somewhat, you never get a very good picture, the resolution never works out quite right, etc. Another example might be using a cooking stove with an oven as a way to heat your home in the winter. Yes, it can be done, but the gas fumes can be extremely dangerous to a person asleep in the same room. Why not get a furnace which is safe and built to do the job instead, properly ventilated, etc. I am amazed by the complaints I see at times on some websites. A lady wrote to one the other day and said "please tell me how to stop people from viewing the source code for my web site ... I do not want people to look at it." The answer given to her was there is no way to do it. I wrote her some email and asked her why she did not ask instead how there would be a way to take off all her clothes on State Street in downtown Chicago and not have people look at her. The latter is just as realistic as the former. They complain because stuff is stolen from their virtual store. I ask them, do you leave your store unlocked and on self-service all night when you are not there? Do you put all your administrative records and window-dressings out for the public to inspect? If you do, then welcome to the Internet, you should feel right at home here. It is much like me attempting to run a commercial grade radio station using my citizen's band radio. Why can't I talk (legally) all over the USA with it? Why are things I say overheard by others when I am not speaking to them? Can we somehow pass laws to change these conditions? If I go get my golden screwdriver and take the CB radio apart can I somehow make it talk all over the world in an encrypted message so that I and someone in Australia can do business privately? Does that all sound silly to you? Well it sounds just as silly to me listening to people whining and complaining about the internet and how it is so hard for big business to do business here. The internet was not built that way. What must we do or say or demonstrate to convince some of these people that this is not the medium they want to be using? I mentioned above the lady who wrote to the website (one of these 'we help you make money fast on the net' sites that are all over the place) who complained because people were pulling the source code for her home page. When I emailed her I suggested if she was unhappy with the way things were here, why not close up her virtual storefront and go run a real one instead? But it would seem some people are damned and detirmined to make the square peg fit the round hole. They hold all these little meetings in Geneva and Santiago and everywhere else, (the better to prevent the real netizen community from keeping up with them) and work so hard at something they are never going to accomplish. The one side says let's remake the internet so it is of the 'industrial strength' we need to accomplish this (that will never work) and the other side says why bother with all that when we can just bully all the netizens into compliance by pushing them around and showing them how tough we are. Well my friends, losing the internet for use by private citizens like you and me won't be the first time I've had big bullies get up in my face and steal things from me, and it probably won't be the last time either. I am sure they need it more than I do, but the sad part is it doesn't even meet their needs, no matter how much they plan to alter it. The very idea that someone would write and ask 'how do I keep people from reading my source' exemplifies perfectly what the newcomers on the net are all about. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Rob Slade Organization: Vancouver Institute for Research into User Date: Thu, 16 Sep 1999 08:30:00 -0800 Subject: Book Review: "The First 100 Feet", Deborah Hurley/James H. Keller Reply-To: rslade@sprint.ca BKFSOHFT.RVW 990731 "The First 100 Feet", Deborah Hurley/James H. Keller, 1999, 0-262-58160-4, U$25.00 %E Deborah Hurley deborah_hurley@harvard.edu %E James H. Keller keller@lexeme.com %C 55 Hayward Street, Cambridge, MA 02142-1399 %D 1999 %G 0-262-58160-4 %I MIT Press %O U$25.00 +1-800-356-0343 fax: +1-617-625-6660 www-mitpress.mit.edu %P 209 p. %T "The First 100 Feet: Options for Internet and Broadband Access" This book suggests that one can take the problem of the "last 100 feet," the drop from the telecommunications infrastructure or physical roadside curb to the home or small business, and turn it around to see some kind of business opportunity. Certainly it is plain that there is a growing demand for higher bandwidth to the end nodes of the network, but the collection of articles here presents no new business ideas, and seems to have grasped only the tip of the technical iceberg. Part one looks at market factors for these access services. Chapter one suggests that consumers provide the drop themselves, but never really examines the idea. A number of technical and business terms related to the last mile are listed and semi-defined in chapter two, but without significant analysis. Chapter three asks, but never answers, the question of whether consumers will be willing to pay for access. Part two looks at options for consumers to provide their own last mile connections. Chapter four looks at spread spectrum radio communications, but doesn't delve into the areas of node connection or mass installation. Essentially the same material is repeated in chapter five. Chapter six tries to appear technically oriented in a review of power line data transmission, but is somewhat behind the curve. Satellite options are discussed in chapter seven, but the text does not deal with the last mile at all, and does not use any data from the Iridium system which is now finally operating. Part three opines on the chances of non-traditional service providers. Chapter eight is a meandering and unfocussed look at municipally based networks. The next two papers suggest that electrical utilities should be interested in becoming access providers, chapter nine being less convincing than eight. Chapter ten talks about one specific experience with a municipal network. Overall, the essays collected into this work seem to have been compiled by enthusiasts with limited technical knowledge who seem to think they are onto something new. While reasonably up to date, none of the proposals, if there are any beyond "we need more studies," are startlingly original. All of the business or technical models are variations on existing hierarchical patterns rather than true community paradigms that might be derived from, say, extensions of the dynamic routing model proven by the Internet married to a wireless technology. For those who have not been following the last mile activities, this book does provide an introduction to some of the topics in the field, but it paints neither a complete nor an original picture. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1999 BKFSOHFT.RVW 990731 ====================== (quote inserted randomly by Pegasus Mailer) rslade@vcn.bc.ca rslade@sprint.ca slade@victoria.tc.ca p1@canada.com Eat well, stay fit, die anyway http://victoria.tc.ca/techrev or http://sun.soci.niu.edu/~rslade ------------------------------ Subject: Using the Internet to Alleviate Poverty: www.netaid.org From: Atri Indiresan Date: 15 Sep 1999 21:59:01 -0400 Hi Pat, I would like to bring this web site to the attention of the readers of TELECOM Digest. NetAid will host a concert on October 9 to help introduce the NetAid Foundation and its web site. The concert will be in New York, London and Geneva, and will be webcast, in addition to live TV and radio coverage. Thanks, Atri Indiresan Here's some information from the web site: http://www.netaid.org Why NetAid? NetAid is the beginning of a new, long-term effort to utilize the unique networking capabilities of the Internet to promote development and alleviate extreme poverty across the world. The NetAid Foundation will serve as a global exchange point to link people to successful agents and agencies of change. NetAid's mission is to use the powers of the Internet to help the millions of men, women, and children who don't live on the cutting edge, but who live on the edge of survival. Our goal is to connect all those who share these common values to promote the useful exchange of ideas, challenges, resources, and success stories. NetAid will work to: - Facilitate community building, direct communications, and coordination among the millions of people dedicated to these aims. - Act as a one-stop resource for people interested in making a commitment to change. - Build new on-line tools to promote exchanges of ideas and success stories. - Help our developing country partners get access to and learn to utilize new technologies. - Issue periodic calls to action on items of urgency and focus attention on what works. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I think this is an excellent idea, and I am glad to pass it along to the readers here. You ought to consider making a button which could be displayed on websites and would link to NetAid. That is what the Hunger web site has done, and I have their button on several of my pages. That is what the Advertising Council has done also. A web site can use just a small bit of HTML code which is provided free by the Council which links to a server from which one of their various messages gets sent back. If the user clicks on the banner, he is taken to a socially responsible web site operated by the not-for-profit agency or organization represented by the Advertising Council. If you are familiar with http://telecom-digest.org/radio.html which is a little 'desktop radio' (actually, a tiny one-inch window which will collapse to the taskbar) you may have noticed that it uses all Advertising Council messages in the 24/7 continuous news feed. The news stories are interspersed with messages from the Council, and then on the 29th and 59th minute of each hour the audio feed goes silent in order to allow the individual website using the service to insert messages of its own if it wishes to do so. I had given some thought recently to starting something similar to what you are doing. I was going to call it I-CARE.ORG and those letters mean Internet Community Aid (for) Relief in Emergencies. The idea would be to link with sites that had been set up to report news in places where there had been a disaster, such as Turkey. When netizens wished to help, they would use a button that linked to the escrow people out in California that I tried to use here, and the escrow people would forward the money on to Red Cross or whatever was applicable. I just do not have the resources for it right now, or I would have started it. Good luck with yours, though! PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Sep 1999 08:35:01 -0500 From: James Bellaire Subject: Re: Linking and Advertising on the Net At 08:01 PM 9/15/99 -0400, I asked: > Do you have anything copied from anyone else's site on yours? > Or is there a double standard in effect? And Pat's reply was "I don't steal" except: > I did make one exception however; > Mr. Sermporn has a great little animated 'Telecom Digest' .gif at > his site and also a banner for the top of a page saying 'Telecom > Digest'. When I saw those, I had lust in my heart so I right-clicked > them and brought them over to my directory. I think I will probably > start using it with http://telecom-digest.org/latest-issue.html to > make that page a little nicer, or maybe on the page where I link to my > southeast Asian news bureau. Don't you wish *you* had a southeast > Asian news bureau to link to? PAT] So Mr. Poonsapya steals from you and you steal from him. That makes you even, doesn't it, Mr. Pat? And please, it is Mr. Poonsapya. Or Sermporn Poonsapya. Sermporn is the first name of your chosen advisary. BTW: You haven't replied nor published my question about: http://telecomdigest.net which points to Mr. Poonsapya's site. And, no I don't need an Asian bureau. I have Chicago. James Bellaire Telecom Indiana and Telecom Chicago [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I am sorry but I do not think I saw or received your comment about http://telecomdigest.net which does indeed point to http://sermporn.com/telecom ... would you mind restating your question or comment? If you are asking who set it up, the answer is I certainly did not. I did however just today establish two sites you might enjoy visiting: http://telecomdigest.n3.net http://sermporn.n3.net Both simply alias back to me; and as luck would have it, they are both 'down under', located in Mr. P's neck of the woods. I may decide to redirect sermporn.n3.net to something more interesting in the near future however than just some boring, dry old telecom journal. I found some, umm ... 'interesting' pictures in Thailand myself a couple days ago. If I redirect it, and do a good job of milking the search engines, sermporn will turn out to be a heavily trafficed site, as well as quite a sight! Sick people everywhere will love it. Regards his .gif images, as I said, I made an exception to my own rule. I do not think of it in terms of two wrongs equaling one right. Regards your Chicago office, you are welcome to it. I got out of that dirty, filthy, politics- ,graft- and scandal-ridden place for good. The town, I mean, not your office. After fifty years, I just do not have the stomach for it any longer as I used to. I moved away just before that crazy man went around shooting at the people in Skokie. Regards my new Asian bureau, I think you need to do as I do, Mister Jim, and take a world-view of things, and not just content yourself with the strip of land between Chicago and South Bend, directly under Lake Michigan. Please do tell me again what it was you said regards http://telecomdigest.net ... my filter rules seem to have let me down again. PAT] ------------------------------ From: nospam.tonypo1@nospam.home.com (Tony Pelliccio) Subject: Re: How Low Can They Go? Organization: Providence Network Partners Date: Thu, 16 Sep 1999 02:51:58 GMT In article , monty@roscom.com says: > By Jason K. Krause > The grandest prediction to be made about the looming bandwidth glut > is that phone calls will someday be offered free, thrown in as a kind > of bonus when you order data or Internet services. > It makes sense: Voice calls are expected to use up only a fraction of > the available bandwidth, so why not just give phone service away as > part of a package with more expensive and bandwidth-intensive > applications? Where the heck is bandwidth getting more expensive? My ISP just offered me 1.1MBps SDSL for $399 a month. They also install for free, and the first month is free. This pales in comparison to Bell Atlantic's 7.1MBps at $241 a month. But Bell says that it's not available in Providence until "some time next year". To add insult to injury, Bell says my store in Norwood doesn't loop qualify for xDSL yet my ISP says it does. They're all tripping over themselves, just like the cellular carriers. It's the one and only thing I like about the breakup of Ma Bell. == Tony Pelliccio, KD1S formerly KD1NR == Trustee WE1RD ------------------------------ From: kol@netcom.ca (David Koltermann) Subject: Re: How Low Can They Go? Date: Thu, 16 Sep 1999 05:53:03 GMT Organization: Netcom Canada So much is claimed for the new "information economy", and I'd like to see some discussion of this pricing issue if someones interested. I suspect that there is some irreducible minimum charge for service, regardless of how much bandwidth you use, which is simply required in order to cover the provisioning and mainteance of the physical plant. One home, one wire pair/fibre/whatever, which had to be installed, connected up and maintained. It might be a lot like PC's are now. Until very recently, you pay basically the same price all the time for greatly increasing power. There is a minimum price for power supply, case, keyboard, generic mother board etc. below which no one can go. We get more for the money, so that you can accurately claim that processor cycles are getting steadily cheapter and vanishingly small, but it still costs several hundred dollars to get any processor cycles at all! Sure there are now "free" PC's for those who agree to watch advertisments for a couple of years, but that is a business model that doesn't work if everybody tries to use it! Someone has to pay for something, so that advertisers have revenue to turn over to "free" PC outfits. It may happen that the cost of providing many circuits to a single location need not be any higher than providing one, but that first circuit will always cost a measurable amount. What do others think? On Wed, 15 Sep 1999 13:25:04 -0400, Kevin DeMartino wrote: >In Vol. 19 #405, Marty Solomon quoted from an article by Jason Krause: >> The grandest prediction to be made about the looming bandwidth glut >> is that phone calls will someday be offered free, thrown in as a kind >> of bonus when you order data or Internet services. ------------------------------ From: dougpeterman@my-deja.com Subject: Lightning Discharge Tubes (Re: Troubleshooting Phone Problem) Date: Thu, 16 Sep 1999 13:47:17 GMT Organization: Deja.com - Share what you know. Learn what you don't. I've been trying to troubleshoot my home (recent move) phone wiring to achieve better connect rates. Currently I can only get up to 28.8 with a v.90 modem. The telco suggested I disconnect the NI modular plug and plug directly into it. I tried this and found that all my phones still worked after disconnecting at the NI box and waiting one minute+. The only way to deactivate the phones was to disconnect the wires running into the house from the NI modular plug. I found in my basement something that fits the description of the Lightning Discharge Tubes described in the message below. The inside wiring is attached to this device from the main inside junction box. Is the lightning discharge tube connection necessary or is this functionality provided through the NI box? Could the lightning discharge connection be introducing line interference that is preventing me from going above 28.8? Should I have the telco come out and rewire the NI box or is this normal behavior (for the phones to work after unplugging the modular plug in the NI box)? Thanks. Doug In article , jweeks@visi.com (John A. Weeks III) wrote: > In article , Randy Broman > wrote: >> ago. Suddenly none of the phones works. Pick up any phone, no dial tone. >> Inbound callers get a busy signal. > Sounds like you either have a device off-hook, a device that has failed > in the off-hook mode, or a short across the red and green. >> 2) The house does not have a network interface box. Instead, the >> (two-wire) phone cable comes in thru a wall to an obviously old >> interface device, which has a porcelean base screwed to the wall, and >> two long thin tubes (resistors? capacitors? isolators?). External wiring >> hooked to one end, internal wiring hooked to the other. I tried bridging >> across it and that doesn't seem to work. > Those are likely lightning discharge tubes. They are normally open, > but conduct to ground under high voltages like you would see in a > lightning strike. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Sep 1999 14:55:57 GMT From: herber@dcdrjh.fnal.gov (Randolph J. Herber) Subject: Re: FCC Setting Technology Standard to Locate 911 Calls Organization: Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory In article , Tad Cook wrote: > WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal regulators are taking the next steps toward > ensuring that cell phone users who dial 911 automatically give > emergency dispatchers a key piece of information: their location. ... > Other carriers are leaning toward building the technology right into > the phone handset. The phones then could be pinpointed by the Defense > Department's Global Positioning System. ... My first order reaction is 'fertilizer' --- in large quantities. I have had several 'opportunities' to use a combination of 911 and GPS. I have encountered accidents in rural areas when I had a GPS receiver up and running in the car with me. 911 was available where I was at. I called 911 and reported the accident. When I tried to give the location using my GPS, I was told very strongly to stop the 'fertilizer' and give a _proper_ address. When I told them that I was not from the local region (I was several hundred to a thousand miles from home) and did not know the location addressing schemes, I was told to drive around until I found a local resident with a _fixed_ address and have them report the accident. This is hard to do in central Wyoming in I-80 where the nearest village is 8 miles away or in the national forests of northern Michigan, Wisconsin or Minnesota. Fortunately, in each case, I had known on what road or highway I was and could determine the distance to a nearby town or village along that road in a nearly straight line. They could translate that data to something with which they could work. When the help arrived, they reported surprise that it actually was, e.g., 7.98 miles from the center of the named village, when that was the way I had described the location (surprise, surprise). The 911 services need to be able to handle GPS coordinates _first_. Then, they may demand that the GPS coordinates be supplied by the cellular telephone services. Randolph J. Herber, herber@dcdrjh.fnal.gov, +1 630 840 2966, CD/CDFTF PK-149F, Mail Stop 318, Fermilab, Kirk & Pine Rds., PO Box 500, Batavia, IL 60510-0500, USA. (Speaking for myself and not for US, US DOE, FNAL nor URA.) (Product, trade, or service marks herein belong to their respective owners.) ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #408 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Sep 16 22:11:05 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id WAA10189; Thu, 16 Sep 1999 22:11:05 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 16 Sep 1999 22:11:05 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199909170211.WAA10189@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #409 TELECOM Digest Thu, 16 Sep 99 22:11:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 409 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Just Another Mass Killing in the USA is All ... (TELECOM Digest Editor) US/NOAA Web Sites Down During Hurricane Floyd (Alan Boritz) Re: MCI Worldcom Residential Customer Service (ewvewv@my-deja.com) Re: Cell Phone-Driving Ban (Leonid A. Broukhis) Re: Cell Phone-Driving Ban (Robert Casey) Re: Cell Phone-Driving Ban (Paul Rubin) Re: Doing Your Own In House 411 (Lou Jahn) Re: Doing Your Own In-House 411 (John Nagle) Re: WebTV Exposed Users' Account Details (Andy McFadden) Last Laugh! When You Call to Get Your Phone Repaired (Jeff) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! 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Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 16 Sep 1999 21:16:21 EDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Just Another Mass Killing in the USA is All ... So by now you all know the details; seven teenagers were killed and seven others seriously injured in an attack on a church youth group meeting at Wedgwood Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas. The gunman then showed the courage of his convictions by using the gun on himself. He also threw a pipe bomb into the sanctuary where the kids were meeting. Maybe he wanted to make sure that the gun did not take all the blame this time around. These are happening about once a month now, aren't they? I remember when they used to be years apart, and were considered a horrible abberation. When Charles Whitman stood in the bell and clock tower in Austin, Texas that afternoon in the 1960's firing at the people below, no one in this country had ever heard of such a thing happening before. Then it got to where every year or two something similar would happen, then a couple times every year, and now we have this kind of assault on our sensibilities about once a month. Some of you took the British Broadcasting Corporation to task for an announcer who began the story of the Jewish Day Care Center by noting sort of ho-hum, 'another mass killing in the USA today ...' by telling me that 'mass' means 'many' and 'killing' means, well ... killing someone and that since no one had died, therefore by defin- ition there had been no 'mass killing' that day. I forwarded that mail without any names to a contact of mine there who works in their Internet service. While agreeing that the announcer had spoken hastily based on a 'rip and read' note which came through a couple minutes before from the BBC contact person in Los Angeles who had transmitted it to them literally in the first few minutes of the police arrival, while some police were chasing around looking for Buford and other police were trying to assess the extent of it all, the contact told me they modified the report a few minutes later when more news came to them from California. Then I thought the next comments in our correspondence were most interesting: "You know, its not the fault of the BBC that Buford was such a loser he even got his final grand scheme all muddled up. What was it, he could not shoot straight or something? Most of them over there in your country, don't they take down a few and then turn the weapon on themselves? If we attributed one more mass killing to the USA this year than you have coming, I am sorry. "And I get told the BBC has 'a thing about gun control' and tilts what the on-air staff will say to meet some agenda of our own. Let me ask you this, when you Yankees go around marking up synagogues and fire-bombing them you don't take a gun along do you? When you struck a match to all those Negro churches everywhere you went two years ago you didn't have a gun did you? And that fellow in Wyoming was it? We reported on him. The one that was beaten nearly to death and then left strung up on a post along the road until he did die and was found a day or two later. Were there any signs of gunshot wounds? I didn't hear of any. "You do not need to be concerned if BBC has something to say about guns. If our on-air staff seems blaise or disinterested in reporting 'another mass killing in the USA today' it is because the mental pathology which has overtaken so many of you Yankees has become apparent to the whole world. One of you escapes from the mental hygiene clinic, goes around killing a few people or starting fires, and by the time of the next newscast the rest of you have all forgotten about it and are busy fighting about something else. You'll pardon me if I suggest the violence, hatred and intolerance in the home of the brave and the land of the free no longer is news to anyone." ----------------------------- On their overnight Wednesday/early Thursday (US time) reports regards Fort Worth, they did phrase things somewhat differently, saying that 'there has been another act of violence in the United States just about one hour ago. A man went into a church in Texas with a pipebomb and a gun. A young people's meeting was going on to discuss what they had done at their Flagpole ceremony. The man cursed at them, mocked their religion, threw his explosive at the group and then fired his gun several times. We do not know how many at this point were killed if any, but we are told he did then use the weapon to take his own life.' (His use of the term 'Flagpole ceremony' was in error; around the United States yesterday, many high school students observed what was termed 'meet you at the pole' day, an informal gathering to protest the violence they deal with frequently. Each school did its own thing and teens involved with many church groups also gathered at their school's flag pole as part of it.) A very fine ending to 'meet you at the pole' day, wasn't it? But we here have more important things to discuss, like customer service problems at MCI . So let's carry on. PAT ------------------------------ From: aboritz@CYBERNEX.NET (Alan Boritz) Subject: US/NOAA Web Sites Down During Hurricane Floyd Date: Thu, 16 Sep 1999 13:50:38 -0400 Organization: Dyslexics UNTIE Seems that one of the times we need the National Weather Service and the (US) National Hurricane Center web sites, they're not available. The (US) National Weather Service web site (http://www.nws.noaa.gov) has been down since yesterday. As of a few seconds ago, the NOAA's satellite service division's server was unreachable (sgihss3.wwb.noaa.gov). At 7 p.m. yesterday, media web sites depending upon Accuweather, such as WABC-TV, or Yahoo, had weather data that was at least 5 hours old. Today, Accuweather's web site is not showing satellite images, either, and is extremely slow to respond (if at all). If you're looking for up-to-date hurricane information, don't expect to find it at the US National Weather Service, or any media site that's not charging for service. ------------------------------ From: ewvewv@my-deja.com Subject: Re: MCI Worldcom Residential Customer Service Date: Thu, 16 Sep 1999 02:50:59 GMT Organization: Deja.com - Share what you know. Learn what you don't. I have to add my comments to the obvious desperation I see here over trying to get fair treatment from MCI. Back in the beginning I thought MCI was a technology/customer driven company trying to do a good job compared to the old monopoly attitude. But whatever MCI once may have been, today they are a bunch of crooks who badly need to be reigned in. Almost two years ago I caught them charging us higher commercial rates for our home telephone -- without telling us and in spite of a long history of assurances to the contrary ("you're getting the best residential rate", etc., etc.). It turns out that MCI has two divisions -- commercial and residential -- that don't talk to each other and which apparently compete with each other. They don't volunteer which division they are and don't even volunteer that there is such a scheme. You think you are talking to a representative of "MCI", i.e., a single company, who can be counted on to tell you the truth, but all the while they playing Clintonesque "refinition" games with words to mislead you. (And it turns out this isn't the only price scam they are running.) When we caught them at this racket two years ago we made them switch our account to residential. We have been trying ever since to get a refund for the obvious overcharges and have found that they not only could care less, but are downright ruthless. Their "customer service", as it is euphemistically called, serves as a buffer insulating management from complaints. I found that if I had a problem beyond the most trivial, routine matter, they simply blow you off. After waiting interminably to get through their telephone maze, I found myself consistently being thrown back into the maze to start all over or put on indefinite "hold", only to eventually discover that patience and perseverance doesn't help because there is no way through the maze if you have a problem they don't want to deal with. You're supposed to be able to complain to a manager if you are not being treated properly, but I found that the operators consistently refused to let me talk to anyone above them -- "that's not a management issue" is the standard line. In fact they refused to provide any information on how to talk to anyone -- "that office doesn't have a phone." They wouldn't even tell me where the executive offices are located. This behavior is immune from protest because they won't identify themselves. The operator typically would rapidly slur some first name (hardly unique) at the beginning, then refuse to repeat it later. Some of them outright hung up on me when I tried to be persistent. Writing is no better. All I get back is either form letters and postcards that having nothing to do with what I wrote -- or nothing at all. There is absolutely no accountability and no place to appeal. I found the location of the executive offices on my own through the web and was even lucky enough while calling around to get someone who didn't know any better to let out a fax number (customer aren't supposed to get that far, so some employees apparently haven't been properly instructed on keeping the secrets). Writing and faxing to the head office made no difference. I thought for a while that someone was looking into it (an "Administrative Assistant" who claimed she had been asked to handle the situation by Bert Roberts himself) until I found a few months ago that she was doing nothing. She wrote a classic bureaucatic "response" that was a complete fabrication rewriting history for the proper "paper trail" and ignored everything I had told her. I wrote back with a detailed refutation, a pile of documents and some very explicit factual questions and haven't heard from them since. That was last July. I sent a copy to the "customer service" department and haven't received an acknowledgement from them either. All I have is the certified mail return receipts to prove that it did in fact arrive. (But "prove" to whom if no one cares and there is no appeal?) I withheld my final payment when we dropped the account last summer in order to get their attention and all it got was harassing calls from the "collection department". The people that call are oblivious to the historical record of the case. One of them said almost a month ago that they would send it back to "research" and "appeals", but it made no difference. The latest "response" was another form letter with no acknowledgement of anything I had sent or why, but asserting they had "researched it thoroughly" whatever that is supposed to mean. There are no details in the letter whatsoever, but there is, of course, the usual quota of advertising hype. I can only conclude that someone didn't want to deal with it, didn't bother to look into the record, and shoved it back into the computer to get rid of it. One thing I can advise is that it made absolutely no difference keeping our account with them in the hopes that they might care more about an existing, loyal, long term customer. It meant absolutely nothing to them. I finally dropped our account with MCI when I was furious to discover that in the new "residential" account they were billing calling card calls at 55 cents a minute when the fast talking salesmen had said the card made no difference. (It's practically impossible to figure out what all the rates actually are trying to dig them out of all the promotional hype.) A final irony is that they keep pestering me to come back (two letters and three phone calls so far) with the same fast-talking nonsensical promises and not a concern in the world as to why I had to leave them. As an overall policy they seem to hire the equivalent of "trained seals" to carry out carefully delimited, compartmentalized functions following a script, with the result that no one is accountable for anything. If anyone in that company has the brains to do anything other than push buttons to keep the big machine working, they aren't allow to use them. I am at my wits end over what to do about this. There are many more details of dishonesty, rudeness and stonewalling I could describe, but can't in what is already too long. MCI has obviously crossed the line past fraud in several respects, but are so powerful against a single consumer that they get away with whatever they want. They don't answer to state commissions and I have consulted with an attorney about enforcing the state consumer protection laws, but if MCI continues its practice of stonewalling to run up the bill, it would still be a net loss. It looks like I will be filing a complaint with the FCC at the federal level, but who knows if that will lead to anything. What we need is a good, high value class action suit that would get their attention (and maybe the attention of Congress for ensuring our right not to be defrauded by abusive organizations), but who can organize that? For others who are concerned about MCI's behavior the best I can suggest is that if you have to complain about MCI it means it's too late. The best course of action is to have absolutely nothing to do with them. At least now with the monopoly gone there is a choice. Erich > (Alan Gore Responded:) >> The main reason we haven't canceled is that I think, perhaps >> irrationally, that my chances of resolving this are better if I remain >> a customer. Once I drop off, they can forget about me completely if >> they want to. Write to MCI? The company carefuly arranges things so >> there is no way to contact them by snailmail. You call the 800 number, >> which refers you to other 800 numbers, each connected to offices in >> different states and which do not communicate with each other. > There are high quality, low cost, international-focus carriers > available that will let you have "casual access" to their network, so > that you can dial their 101xxxx code and then get superior rates to > "Europe" or wherever else you may call, and you can have your primary > "PIC" as MCI, so that MCI still thinks that you are their customer. > Then, when you have resolved you MCI issue, the chosen carrier can be > your primary PIC so that you can elminate dialing the extra digits. ------------------------------ From: leob@best.com (Leonid A. Broukhis) Subject: Re: Cell Phone-Driving Ban Date: 16 Sep 1999 02:56:15 GMT In article , Adam H. Kerman wrote: > A study by Donald Redelmeier and Robert Tibshirani ("Association > Between Cellular-Telephone Calls and Motor Vehicle Collisions," New > England Journal of Medicine, Vol 336, No. 7, 13 Feb. 1997, > pp. 453-502) indicates that this has a risk comparable to driving Does the study distinguish between regular cell phones and hands-free kits? If not, it is of no merit. > drunk. Several countries, including England, Spain, Israel, > Switzerland and Brazil restrict the use of cellular phones by drivers. Why don't they restrict listening to the radio as well, then? Leo ------------------------------ From: wa2ise@netcom.com (Robert Casey) Subject: Re: Cell Phone-Driving Ban Date: 16 Sep 1999 03:57:05 GMT Organization: NETCOM / MindSpring Enterprises, Inc. In article : > I believe the largest study was by the NHTSA. I recall the result was > that using a cellphone is roughly equivalent (in terms of increased > accident rates) to having a 0.12 blood alcohol level. > idiots I see drifting across the road are not dialing the phone or > writing something -- they're just talking. They become so engrossed in > the conversation that they fail to notice that they're doing 40 in a > 70. Or 70 in a 40. Or heading right up on the curb (white pickup > truck, this morning). Or driving right into the rear end of a car > (red Dodge, this morning.) > The problem is a mismanagement of concentration, not of eyesight. If having a conversation on the cell phone is too distracting, why isn't the same thing true with a conversation with a passenger sitting to your right? Or is it that the passenger will spot a danger and warn the driver? ------------------------------ From: phr@netcom.com (Paul Rubin) Subject: Re: Cell Phone-Driving Ban Date: 16 Sep 1999 00:50:31 GMT Organization: NETCOM / MindSpring Enterprises, Inc. Bob Goudreau wrote: > Whether on the phone or not, how many of us could guarantee our > own survival in an encounter with a drunk or madman suddenly and > unexpectedly appearing in the night bearing down on us at a relative > closing speed of, say, 100+ mph? Guarantee? Nobody. Have a much better chance of noticing the situation in time to swerve out of the way? Everybody who stays off the phone while driving. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999 22:29:42 -0400 From: Lou Jahn Subject: Re: Doing Your Own In House 411 Pat, In Volume 19 # 407, John Ledahl asked where he could find an accurate 411 database for utilization by his in house operators. We provide just such access into our database which is also used by many telco operators for National 411 service. We have total coverage for the US and Canada. We have direct feeds of listings with daily updates from all RBOCs and most major LECs in the US. This covers over 94% of the US listings, the remainder are enhanced transcribed white page listings. We have been consistently measured as being accurate in the mid to high ninety percentages. Our telco users are not part of the many negative articles you have seen on national directory assistance. If the operators use either Windows or NT positions, it is a simple task to be attached into our DBs located in dual redundant datacenters. Commercial customers can reduce their DA and National DA costs by 50-60%. LECs can almost fully fund their operator centers via the addition of national 411 using our database. We also have a portable software version where high volume users can access our system via local calls around the globe via SprintNet. We charge by the actual release of telephone numbers not by simple access into the system. We also provide reverse directory look-ups. Louis Jahn Info Partners Corp 609-823-6602 609-823-2202 Fax ------------------------------ From: nagle@netcom.com (John Nagle) Subject: Re: Doing Your Own In-House 411 Date: 16 Sep 1999 18:49:59 GMT Organization: Netcom John Ledahl writes: > The Livermore Lab here is considering doing their own In-House > 411. They have operators in place to handle the calls. Anyone have any > suggestions on creditable 411 database sources? Anyone doing this > today that I can consult with? Maybe they can recycle some of their over-the-hill physicists as directory assistance operators. (LLNL is sort of a senior activity center for aging bomb designers. DOE is trying to insure that there's still somebody around who remembers how to build an H-bomb. There's a glut of spare bombs, and no more testing, so there's little real work for the bomb-makers. The latest big laser project there is frankly described by DOE as something to keep people interested in the field.) John Nagle ------------------------------ From: fadden@netcom.com (Andy McFadden) Subject: Re: WebTV Exposed Users' Account Details Date: 16 Sep 1999 03:27:09 GMT Organization: Lipless Rattling Crankbait In article , Paul Rubin wrote: > Monty Solomon wrote: >> Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq:MSFT), which owns WebTV, said Tuesday it has >> taken care of the flaw, which made it possible for malicious hackers >> to tinker with WebTV customers' accounts. http://www.lycos.com/cgi-bin/pursuit?query=3878&fs=docid&cat=zdnet&mtemp=zdnet > That link doesn't work. Try this one: > http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2334232,00.html Much ado about nothing. You get a numeric userID back, with which you can do exactly nothing. None of the articles mention what sort of "tinkering" is supposed to be possible, because there's nothing to say. No interesting information was exposed. The only reason this caught anybody's interest is because of the recent hotmail troubles, and both Hotmail and WebTV are owned by Microsoft. (I work for, but do not speak for, WebTV.) Send mail to fadden@netcom.com (Andy McFadden) CD-Recordable FAQ - http://www.fadden.com/cdrfaq/ (a/k/a www.spies.com/~fadden) Fight Internet Spam - http://spam.abuse.net/spam/ & news.admin.net-abuse.email ------------------------------ From: Jeff Subject: Last Laugh! Getting Someone to Fix Your Phone Date: Thu, 16 Sep 1999 19:01:56 GMT Sometime in 1999: "Hello. This is Bell Atlantic-Nynex-MCI-TCI-America Online customer service. May I help you?" "Yes, I'd like to report a problem with my telephone." "Our records show you don't have local phone service through us." "How'd you know who I am? I didn't give you my name." "We have ways." "Well, I'm pretty sure you have my phone service." "Our records show you have long-distance, cellular, satellite TV, Internet access and your MasterCard through us. Your phone service must be through one of the other three big communications companies. Have you looked at your bill?" "My bill is 134 pages long." "Oh, you're one of our light users. But we'd be happy to become your local phone provider. If you sign up, you get one-third off long-distance calls made on your cellular phone to friends and family members who have an Internet home page." "It's tempting, but I just want my phone fixed." "Fine, sir. Just a reminder: Next time you need to contact us, try our Internet site. And when you get there, you can sign up for a free showing, through your satellite TV system, of Hamlet starring Bell Atlantic-Nynex-MCI-TCI-America Online CEO Ray Smith." "Thanks. Goodbye." Click. Dial. Ring. "Good morning! This is SBC-Pacific Telesis-Sprint-GTE-Little Caesars." "Little Caesars? You do pizza?" "You buy it over phone lines. It's content. Would you like one? You get a medium with two toppings when you order HBO on cable." "Uh, no. I called because my phone line isn't working right." "I see. Do you have your phone over your cable line or do you have your phone over a phone line." "A phone line, I think." "OK, then that's not SBC-Pacific Telesis-Sprint-GTE-Little Caesars. My file shows that you get cable TV and video games on demand from us, but in your area, we only offer phone service over cable lines. If you use a phone line, it must be one of the other companies." "Thanks. I'll call them." "And sir? We're testing some new products in your area. We're offering electric service and natural gas service for 10% less than the public utilities. One-stop shopping. We want to provide you with everything that comes into your house and connects to a device or appliance." "No, thanks. Bye." Click. Dial. Ring. "Hello. Endorphin Enterprises." "I'm sorry. I must have dialed the wrong number." "You're probably in the right place. We just changed our name. We used to be US West-UUNet-Universal Pictures-Ameritech, but that got pretty cumbersome. I guess they wanted to call it UUUUSA, but then decided to start fresh. So we're Endorphin Enterprises." "Clever." "Personally, I thought we should call ourselves Youse Guys. Get it?" "Yeah, that's good. Um, I was calling because my phone line doesn't seem to work right." "Ohhhhh. What services do you have with us?" "I'm not sure." "We offer everything: local, long-distance, cellular, cable TV, satellite TV, Internet access, music on demand and so on. But so does everybody else these days." "Yes, well, it's gotten a little confusing. I've already called those two other companies with long names." "Oh, right. OK, see, it looks like you don't have anything at all with us. Now, we could make your life easier by giving you all the services so you'd know who to call. Except in your area, we only offer movies on demand over the Internet, so that could be a problem." "No, really, I just want to get my phone fixed." "My guess is you must have your local phone service through AT&T. That's the only other company left in the business." "OK, I'll try AT&T." Click. Dial. Ring. "Hello. AT&T. Bob Allen speaking." "Bob Allen? The chairman? I'm sorry. I wanted customer service." "No problem. Hold on a moment." Pause. Rustling sounds."Hello. Customer service. Bob Allen speaking." "Mr. Allen, I really just wanted customer service." "This is it. We spun off everything but my office. It goes totally against the megamerger trend. Our shareholders love it. I'm getting paid $55 billion this year." "Well, sir, my phone line doesn't work right, and I think I need someone to come fix it." "Be right there, as soon as I can find my tool belt." ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #409 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Sep 17 05:32:16 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id FAA22671; Fri, 17 Sep 1999 05:32:16 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 17 Sep 1999 05:32:16 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199909170932.FAA22671@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #410 TELECOM Digest Fri, 17 Sep 99 05:32:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 410 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Cyberspace Electronic Security Act (CESA) (Monty Solomon) Administration Updates Encryption Export Policy (Monty Solomon) Stopping Unsolicted Fax Spam (Wulf Losee) Practical Followup on my US/UK/EU GSM Question (Tomb Byfield) Re: Autodial Devices (Web Nerd) Re: Autodial Devices (Dave Garland) Re: Off Topic: Drunk Drivers and Wasted Lives (Steven) Re: Off Topic: Drunk Drivers and Wasted Lives (EclectiJim) Re: Off Topic: Drunk Drivers and Wasted Lives (Steve Winter) Re: Off Topic: Drunk Drivers and Wasted Lives (Satch) Re: OT Trivia: HU3-2700? (Leonard Erickson) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 16 Sep 1999 22:18:35 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Cyberspace Electronic Security Act (CESA) http://www.pub.whitehouse.gov/uri-res/I2R?urn:pdi://oma.eop.gov.us/1999/ 9/16/14.text.1 THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary For Immediate Release September 16, 1999 TO THE CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES: I am pleased to transmit for your early consideration and speedy enactment a legislative proposal entitled the "Cyberspace Electronic Security Act of 1999" (CESA). Also transmitted herewith is a section-by-section analysis. There is little question that continuing advances in technology are changing forever the way in which people live, the way they communicate with each other, and the manner in which they work and conduct commerce. In just a few years, the Internet has shown the world a glimpse of what is attainable in the information age. As a result, the demand for more and better access to information and electronic commerce continues to grow -- among not just individuals and consumers, but also among financial, medical, and educational institutions, manufacturers and merchants, and State and local governments. This increased reliance on information and communications raises important privacy issues because Americans want assurance that their sensitive personal and business information is protected from unauthorized access as it resides on and traverses national and international communications networks. For Americans to trust this new electronic environment, and for the promise of electronic commerce and the global information infrastructure to be fully realized, information systems must provide methods to protect the data and communications of legitimate users. Encryption can address this need because encryption can be used to protect the confidentiality of both stored data and communications. Therefore, my Administration continues to support the development, adoption, and use of robust encryption by legitimate users. At the same time, however, the same encryption products that help facilitate confidential communications between law-abiding citizens also pose a significant and undeniable public safety risk when used to facilitate and mask illegal and criminal activity. Although cryptography has many legitimate and important uses, it is also increasingly used as a means to promote criminal activity, such as drug trafficking, terrorism, white collar crime, and the distribution of child pornography. The advent and eventual widespread use of encryption poses significant and heretofore unseen challenges to law enforcement and public safety. Under existing statutory and constitutional law, law enforcement is provided with different means to collect evidence of illegal activity in such forms as communications or stored data on computers. These means are rendered wholly insufficient when encryption is utilized to scramble the information in such a manner that law enforcement, acting pursuant to lawful authority, cannot decipher the evidence in a timely manner, if at all. In the context of law enforcement operations, time is of the essence and may mean the difference between success and catastrophic failure. A sound and effective public policy must support the development and use of encryption for legitimate purposes but allow access to plaintext by law enforcement when encryption is utilized by criminals. This requires an approach that properly balances critical privacy interests with the need to preserve public safety. As is explained more fully in the sectional analysis that accompanies this proposed legislation, the CESA provides such a balance by simultaneously creating significant new privacy protections for lawful users of encryption, while assisting law enforcement's efforts to preserve existing and constitutionally supported means of responding to criminal activity. The CESA establishes limitations on government use and disclosure of decryption keys obtained by court process and provides special protections for decryption keys stored with third party "recovery agents." CESA authorizes a recovery agent to disclose stored recovery information to the government, or to use stored recovery information on behalf of the government, in a narrow range of circumstances (e.g., pursuant to a search warrant or in accordance with a court order under the Act). In addition, CESA would authorize appropriations for the Technical Support Center in the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which will serve as a centralized technical resource for Federal, State, and local law enforcement in responding to the increasing use of encryption by criminals. I look forward to working with the Congress on this important national issue. WILLIAM J. CLINTON THE WHITE HOUSE, September 16, 1999. # # # ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Sep 1999 22:17:20 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Administration Updates Encryption Export Policy http://www.pub.whitehouse.gov/uri-res/I2R?urn:pdi://oma.eop.gov.us/ 1999/9/16/15.text.1 THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary For Immediate Release September 16, 1999 FACT SHEET Administration Updates Encryption Export Policy Today, the Clinton Administration announced a new approach to encryption policy that includes updates and simplifies export controls. The major components of this update are as follows: Global exports to individuals, commercial firms or other non-governmental entities Any encryption commodity or software of any key length can now be exported under a license exception (i.e., without a license) after a technical review, to commercial firms and other non-government end users in any country except for the seven state supporters of terrorism. Exports previously allowed only for a company's internal use can now be used for communication with other firms, supply chains and customers. Additionally, telecommunication and Internet service providers may use any encryption commodity or software to provide services to commercial firms and non-government end users. Previous liberalizations for banks, financial institutions and other approved sectors are subsumed under this Update. Exports to governments can be approved under a license. Global exports of retail products Retail encryption commodities and software of any key length may be exported under a license exception (i.e., without a license) after a technical review, to any recipient in any country except to the seven state supporters of terrorism. Retail encryption commodities and software are those products which do not require substantial support for installation and use and which are sold in tangible form through independent retail outlets, or products in tangible or intangible form, which have been specifically designed for individual consumer use. There is no restriction on the use of these products. Additionally, telecommunication and Internet service providers may use retail encryption commodities and software to provide services to any recipient. Implementation of the December 1998 Wassenaar Arrangement Revisions Last year, the Wassenaar Arrangement (33 countries which have common controls on exports, including encryption) made a number of changes to modernize multilateral encryption controls. As part of this update, the U.S. will allow exports without a license of 56 bits DES and equivalent products, including toolkits and chips, to all users and destinations (except the seven state supporters of terrorism) after a technical review. Encryption commodities and software with key lengths of 64-bits or less which meet the mass market requirements of Wassenaar's new cryptographic note will also be eligible for export without a license after a technical review. U.S. Subsidiaries Foreign nationals working in the United States no longer need an export license to work for U.S. firms on encryption. This extends the policy adopted in last year's update, which allowed foreign nationals to work for foreign subsidiaries of U.S. firms under a license exception (i.e., without a license). Export Reporting Post-export reporting will now be required for any export to a non-U.S. entity of any product above 64 bits. Reporting helps ensure compliance with our regulations and allows us to reduce licensing requirements. The reporting requirements will be streamlined to reflect business models and practices, and will be based on what companies normally collect. We intend to consult with industry on how best to implement this part of the update. ### ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Sep 1999 13:37:22 PDT From: Wulf Losee Subject: Stopping Unsolicted Fax Spam Dear TELECOM Digest readers: It is my understanding that there are Federal statutes prohibiting unsolicited marketing faxes. Is this true? Would anyone know the appropriate statute? Also who would I report this problem to? I have a company that has been sending me numerous unsolicited faxes (Fax ID, Inc.). They claim I can be taken off their list by dialing 1-800-965-5329 to talk to one of their customer service reps, but all I get is voice mail, and they haven't responded to my requests to be removed from list. Time to get tough. Thanks! Wulf ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Sep 1999 14:42:25 +0100 From: Tom Byfield Subject: Practical Followup on my US/UK/EU GSM Question grtz. I thought I'd follow up on my actual experiences with US/EU (well, UK so far) GSM question of some weeks ago. (1) The Bosch 718 Worldphone is quite nice. Of the two dual- band handsets Omnipoint sells (the other one being the Ericsson i888[?]), it's the only one that isn't 'locked' by its software to the SIM card it's issued with. (Evidently, there's a hack floating around that will unlock the Eric- sson; how reliable it is or what else it might do, I won't vouch for.) The drawbacks of the Bosch are: to establish a modem connection with it, you need to buy a PCMCIA adap- ter or/*and* a palm pilot adapter (both of which cost about the same as the price difference between the two handsets, ~$150), whereas the Ericsson has an IR port and a 'modem' adapter that'll work with IR-enabled platforms; Bosch acces- sories -- batteries etc. -- are hard to find; and swapping the card in the Bosch is a nontrivial exercise. Upshot: if you want to use a dual-band handset for voice and (9600bps :/ ) data, buy the Ericsson and hack it. (2) Technically speaking, one can buy a SIM card in the UK and just stick it in the Bosch. Practically speaking, doing so is tricky because of the ways in which various UK cell carriers 'commoditize' their offerings. For example, some carriers will set up an account only if you pay by direct debit, i.e., have a UK bank account; and there are various other strictures, of course, if you don't want to sign an annual contract. So in many cases your choices will be lim- ited to 'pay as you go' accounts, most of which don't work throughout the rest of EU -- unless you pony up ~UKP35 for it, in which case they charge *exorbitant* rates for roaming. I'm told that this problem is peculiar to the UK but haven't verified that. Upshot: you may well end up buying a cheap (you guessed it: ~UKP30) UK handset just for the card. But: the Bosch 718 is solid, works well, and accepts different cards. So, if you're SURE you won't want to use it for data, get it; if you do want data capabilities, the Ericsson is the one -- probably. Since I would like to, I'll probably trade up to the Ericsson and report back on the hack. Cheers, t ------------------------------ From: Web Nerd Subject: Re: Autodial Devices Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999 21:45:47 -0400 Mike, Don't know if you got an answer to your question yet ... Viking http://www.vikingelectronics.com has the "ring down" elevator phone device you are asking for. Best Regards, \/\/eb/\/erd ------------------------------ From: dave.garland@wizinfo.com (Dave Garland) Date: 16 Sep 99 14:20:49 -0600 Subject: Re: Autodial Devices Organization: Wizard Information mike@x.bell-labs.com (Michael Baldwin) wrote: > I am looking for a device that will hook up to a POTS phone > or line, and when the phone goes off-hook, it will auto-dial > (via touch tones) a pre-specified number. Where can I get > such a thing? Mike Sandman's got them in his catalog for $25. http://www.sandman.com or 630-980-7710. Dave ------------------------------ From: steven@primacomputer.com (Steven) Subject: Re: Off Topic: Drunk Drivers and Wasted Lives Date: Thu, 16 Sep 1999 23:19:59 +0800 Organization: Prima Computer Why is it a crock? That the moral majority has a prohibitionist attitude, or that the ACLU is intent on blaming all that is wrong in the world on society as a whole, and eliminating personal responsibility? Who said anything about not getting a ride home? I was simply referring to the police-state like human rights abuses being inflicted on people in the name of stopping drunk driving. (drugs, terrorism, shootings, piracy, 13 year old geeks bent on world domination, etc) Long ago there was a great country where people were free. They were free to do all kinds of things, including make mistakes, for which they were punished. Somewhere along the way everyone realised this was a mistake and that free will and personal responsibility were bad things. They came to realised how stupid statements like "Those who are willing to sacrifice freedom for safety deserve neither" were. Under the firm leadership of King William and Prince Albert they evolved into a new race of uber-men known as Politicus Correctus. Collectively referred to as sheeple, they knew what was right and wrong for everyone, or at least they were told they did. They didn't need to think about it because they were told everything they needed to know through MTV style government propaganda, often involving eggs. One day some of them woke up and realised they weren't allowed to do anything at all. They said "Well damn, if George Washington could drink, smoke, and use strong encryption then why cant we?" The government promptly outlawed realizing and that was the end of that. Steven sjsobol@JustThe.Net says... > On Tue, 14 Sep 1999 05:59:12 +0800, steven@primacomputer.com allegedly > said: >> Unfortunately while the moral majority wants to send you to the chair for >> sipping satans brew, the ACLU wants to plead diminished responsibility >> for crashing that bus load of orphans while drunk driving. Somewhere in >> the middle the average working bloke looses his right to forget his >> miserable existence for a few hours. > That's a crock. Someone who wants to "forget his miserable existence" > can and should get someone else to drive him home if he's drunk. Period. ------------------------------ From: eclectijim@aol.comnsp (EclectiJim) Date: 17 Sep 1999 02:22:27 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: Off Topic: Drunk Drivers and Wasted Lives Refering to TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: > The only problem I have with lodging > a charge that severe against a drunken driver who kills someone is > that normally we require specific intent by a person acting of his > own free will before charging them in this way. During the trial of the drunken driver who killed two of my brothers-in-law, I don't recall any testimony to the effect that anyone had held the driver down and forced alcoholic beverages down his throat -- he did that of his own volition. Nobody forced him to go from the bar-stool to the driver's seat; nobody held a gun to his head and told him to ram the van ahead of him -- he did it by himself. He wanted the high of the drunkenness; why not charge him for the results? Big Brothers (Guv, Biz & Labor) are watching you ... ------------------------------ From: steve@sellcom.com (Steve Winter) Subject: Re: Off Topic: Drunk Drivers and Wasted Lives Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999 22:56:47 -0400 Organization: WWW.SELLCOM.COM Reply-To: steve@sellcom.com steven@primacomputer.com (Steven) spake thusly and wrote: > What a crazy idea! Punishing someone for actually hurting someone. That > would be like punishing someone for shooting someone instead of punishing > them for holding a gun. > 1st degree is a bit harsh, and it would never hold up in court. Did already. Cute dead kid. The guy was convicted. Steve http://www.sellcom.com Cyclades Siemens EnGenius Zoom at discount prices. SSL Secure VISA/MC/AMEX Online ordering Listed at http://www.thepubliceye.com as SELLCOM New Brick Wall "non-MOV" surge protection ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Sep 1999 01:52:33 GMT From: satch@concentric.nospam.net (Satch) Subject: Re: Off Topic: Drunk Drivers and Wasted Lives Organization: SBC Internet Services Alledgedly sjsobol@JustThe.Net (Steven J. Sobol) said on 14 Sep 1999 in the following: > That's a crock. Someone who wants to "forget his miserable existence" > can and should get someone else to drive him home if he's drunk. Period. Hmmm ... then think on this. When I decide to tie one on, I tend to prefer to WALK to the local fueling station, then walk back. When I did this with some of the neighbor ladies, one of the local constabulary stopped and hassled us for being intoxicated. Now which is it? Should we drive? Or walk? Or what? _____ __/satch\____________________________________________________________ Satchell Evaluations, testing modems since 1984, 'Netting since 1971 "The only good mouse-trap is a hungry cat" ------------------------------ From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson) Subject: Re: OT Trivia: HU3-2700? Date: Thu, 16 Sep 1999 12:32:20 PST Organization: Shadownet > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: > They are just a block south of where my friends > Mr. and Mrs. Chung have their motel. The Village of Morton Grove, IL > (although some people in spelling the name intentionally omit the 't' > in the first word) has tried for several years to get the poorer people > and black people out of the village, and one tactic which has proven > rather successful in doing this is condemning the housing in which > they live. The village has managed to condemn and tear down all the > inexpensive housing on the east side of Waukegan Road with the exception > thus far of the motel Ken Chung and his wife operate. I thought there was a federal law that said that if you tear down low income housing to build something else, you are required to replace it with an equal number of units IN THE SAME PRICE RANGE. I remember this from when they tore down a couple of old "residence hotels" in downtown Portland to build a new Federal Courthouse. The TV stations all mentioned the law. Now for the bad news. There seems to be no trace of the replacement housing, even now that the courthouse is finished. :-( I guess "some animals are more equal than others" to quote from Animal Farm. Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow) shadow@krypton.rain.com <--preferred leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com <--last resort [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, we have always known that some animals are more equal than others. In the case of Mor(t)on Grove, Illinois -- the /t/ is optional in their name since the early 1980's when they passed the village ordinance saying the Second Amendment did not apply in their case, and they totally banned possession of any kind of gun within the village, licensed or not, except for their own (ie. the police) -- it is a village of about fifteen or sixteen thousand white people and until a year or so ago, about two hundred black people. Most of the black people and a few other very poor people lived in a cheap motel in the 9500 block of Waukegan Road. That was still too many black people in town, if you understand what I mean. So Morton Grove cooked up a scheme where they got some real estate speculators to promise to buy the land where the motel was and put up a shopping mall there instead. They condemned the motel, took over the land and sold it to the real estate people. Trouble is, it did not go very smoothly at all; they were in court for about five years before they could get possession. They would think they had it settled, and the motel owner would go back to court with still another objection, etc. Finally they got it settled, or so they thought, and were ready to begin tearing it down once all the tenants were evicted. Then, in the village's own words, 'troublemakers from Chicago' came into the picture. A fair housing organization and its lawyer came in and threatened to sue the village if some accomodation was not make for the tenants. Morton Grove wound up giving the tenants two hundred dollars each, or five hundred dollars total for a family and telling them to find somewhere new to live. The trouble was, there was no place to live in Morton Grove itself, which is all single family homes except for two small apartment buildings and the cheap motel which was being torn down. Most of the people wound up moving to Chicago. For those who had not found anywhere to live by the deadline date, the Salvation Army helped them move out of the motel and put them in an emergency shelter in Chicago. The Pacific Garden Mission, also in Chicago, took a few of them. The fair housing committee lawyer told Morton Grove they would have to do a little better than that so the village came up with another four or five thousand dollars which they gave to Catholic Charities and the Salvation Army, essentially telling those two organizations, 'you deal with it'. Eventually I guess all the displaced persons got relocated into various other cheap motels in Chicago, or else they stayed at the missions. Morton Grove would do nothing until the lawyer would threaten to sue the village, and then as little as possible. Finally the last of the former motel tenants got relocated (in almost every case in a similar dumpy motel in Chicago) and the deal with the real estate guys went through. They bought the property for about three million dollars from the village and are now working on it, for some corporate clients of theirs. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #410 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat Sep 18 03:54:14 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id DAA01043; Sat, 18 Sep 1999 03:54:14 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sat, 18 Sep 1999 03:54:14 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199909180754.DAA01043@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #411 TELECOM Digest Sat, 18 Sep 99 03:54:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 411 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson CPUC Halts 310/424 Overlay, Reverses 1+10D Requirement in 310 (L. Madison) Floyd Strikes in NJ (Joseph Wineburgh) Rochelle Park CO Update 4:37PM (Joseph Wineburgh) Floyd is Gone But We've Got a Telecommunications Problem (Richard Baum) Northern NJ Without Phones After Hurricane Floyd (Alan Boritz) Floyd/NJ Telecom Problems - More Info! (Richard Baum) What Language is Used in PCS Phone Software? (Paul Migliorelli) Wet 42 Block Called 911? (John R. Covert) Re: Cyberspace Electronic Security Act (Peter Dubuque) Low Audio on U S West Privacy Plus (Paul Migliorelli) Re: MCI Worldcom Residential Customer Service (David Esan) Re: US/NOAA Web Sites Down During Hurricane Floyd (Bob) Re: US/NOAA Web Sites Down During Hurricane Floyd (Bill Levant) Re: AB 818 (FCC Action) (Lauren Weinstein) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 16 Sep 1999 20:39:37 -0700 From: Linc Madison Subject: CPUC Halts 310/424 Overlay, Reverses 1+10D Requirement in 310 On Wednesday, the FCC announced a decision allowing the CPUC to order mandatory thousands-block pooling and other number conservation measures. Today, 9/16, the CPUC announced that it was stopping the 424 overlay on the 310 area code and reversing the mandatory 1+10D dialing requirement that had been imposed in 310 in anticipation of the overlay. An initial pool of 160,000 numbers has been set aside for thousands-block allocation. However, my understanding is that there are something in the neighborhood of 300 pending requests for number blocks. Also, there are about 11 rate centers (+/-, off the top of my head) in 310, and you will still have the requirement that those 160,000 numbers be allocated in chunks of 10,000 per rate center, even if only 1,000 per operating company. In short, today's decision looks an awful lot like a Band-Aid on a bullet wound. There were also no details given on a timetable for recapturing unused or sparsely populated blocks, nor for modifying the switches to again permit 7D HNPA dialing. ------------------------------ From: Joseph Wineburgh Reply-To: Subject: Floyd Strikes in NJ Date: Fri, 17 Sep 1999 12:01:13 -0400 Just in case anyone was wondering about the telecom-related effects of the recent storms ... I was just advised by various by the service managers that the Rochelle Park Central Office is without power due to flooding by the Hackensack River. This location is an access tandem and service is effected. Bell Atlantic is working on the problem. Both battery backup and the emergency generator on site have been effected. Equipment on the fourth floor is not effected. This is a power issue only. The recording they play when you call someone in the Passaic area is "Due to the flood in the area you are calling, your call cannot be completed at this time, please try your call later 080T." That's a new one for me! JOE ------------------------------ From: Joseph Wineburgh Reply-To: Subject: Rochelle Park CO Update 4:37PM Date: Fri, 17 Sep 1999 16:39:25 -0400 An update from Bell Atlantic ... #JOE As of right now the estimated recovery time for Rochelle Park is tonight (no specific time given) as the entire building and surrounding area is flooded and 7 feet deep water is in this building as well as others like EDS and the surrounding streets. Apparently -- though non confirmed -- a river retaining wall burst causing flooding. Our building is elevated which makes this all the more devastating. I am told that this is the first time a major flood has happened in this area. The Rochelle Park CO is equipped with battery backup and an emergency generator in case of power failure. The Power Plant in the building is down and submerged. This includes the Battery backup which kicked in after the power went out and the emergency generator which was also effected by the flood conditions. I do not know the sequence of events which caused the power down. The Rochelle Park DMS switch is powered down, all toll service, T-3's and SONET, and DACs services in the building are powered down. I am told that all the equipment associated with these services are not damaged because they are on an upper floor. The issue is one of no power to the building due to flood water damage. All the vendors (Lucent Alcatel, Seimens, etc) needed to bring the services back on line are on site, however nothing can be turned back on until the area and building are pumped out. Most importantly, each vendor and BA must bring up service and avoid power surges. Crews have been working at the location since early morning. ------------------------------ From: Richard E. Baum Date: Fri, 17 Sep 1999 21:27:24 -0400 Subject: Floyd is Gone But We've Got a Telecommunications Problem Pat, In the wake of Hurricane/Tropical Storm Floyd, we're in the middle of a serious telecommunications crisis here in NJ. There is a major telephone switching center in Rochelle Park, NJ. It's got (depending on which news report you believe) between 7 and 14 feet of water in it. Because of this, most people within Bergen County (201 in the NANP) can can currently make local calls. Some have no telephone service whatsoever. I've not been able to call into the area all day. At the same time, both the Bell Atlantic and AT&T cellular networks appear to be down. In the mean time, I can't call people with northern NJ cellular numbers, but I can dial numbers near where I am now (Central NJ). This means I can't call my own phone (908) but I can use my own phone to call within most of 732 and south of it. I also can't seem to reach some people on their cellphones who have 732 numbers and who are within a mile or so of where I am (many miles south of the affected area). Bell Atlantic has put out a press release on some of this, at this URL: http://www.ba.com/nr/1999/Sep/19990917003.html They also put out a 5:00pm update at: http://ba.com/nr/1999/Sep/19990917004.html From the first release come these two lists: Those with no local service are directly served by the flooded switching center and are in: Lodi, Maywood, Paramus, Rochelle Park and Saddle Brook. The list of local telephone exchanges that still have local calling but limited ability to make calls out of or receive calls into their community: Cliffside Park, Clifton, Closter, Dumont, Englewood, Fair Lawn, Fort Lee, Hackensack, Westwood, Haledon, Little Falls, Little Ferry, Mountain View, Oakland, Passaic, Paterson, Ridgewood, Ramsey, Rutherford, Pompton Lakes, Oradell, West Milford and Wycoff. The most interesting thing about all of this is that I've heard nary a peep about it on the local "news" broadcasts. I hope they fix it soon! reb reb@lucent.com ------------------------------ From: Alan Boritz Subject: Northern NJ Without Phones After Hurricane Floyd Date: Fri, 17 Sep 1999 22:40:12 -0400 Most residents in Bergen County, in northern New Jersey, woke up to find they had no telephone service, beyond their own exchange, and no cellphone service from either AT&T or Bell Atlantic. Bell Atlantic's Rochelle Park central office, through which all Bergen County long distance and interexchange traffic flows had a local river flowing through the first floor of their facility. There's literally no one to call to find out what's happening, and, at least in Mahwah, the Weather Channel was the only way to find out about the Ramapo River overflowing it's banks, closing Route 17 and parts of the NY State Thruway. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Sep 1999 21:53:31 -0400 From: Richard E. Baum Subject: Floyd/NJ Telecom Problems - More Info! Pat, Earlier I sent you info on the telecom problems in NJ. I just found a press release from AT&T explaining why their cellular coverage is down that says (in part) this: "As a result of flooding in a Rochelle Park, N.J., switching facility, [cellular] service has been interrupted since late last night to customers in Brooklyn, Upper Westchester, Rockland, and Putnam Counties in New York, and Litchefield County in Connecticut, as well as Bergan, Essex, Lower Passaic, and parts of Hudson and Union Counties in New Jersey. Wireless service to Newark International Airport is also impacted by these flood conditions." In reality, I've found the outage to be a bit wider than what is claimed here. In addition to the area described above, I can't reach mobile customers in Manhattan or many other parts of NJ. The full URL to the press release is: http://www.att.com/press/item/0,1193,668,00.html reb reb@lucent.com ------------------------------ From: Paul Migliorelli Subject: What Language is Used in PCS Phone Software? Date: Thu, 16 Sep 1999 22:11:57 -0600 Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com Reply-To: paulmigs@pobox.com Just curious to know what language is used for writing phone software code. For instance, what is the code writeen for the Samsung 2000 phone offered by Sprint?? Is it standard for these to be designed in Java, along the same realm as small appliances?? Just a curious question that a friend and I were discussing. Thanks. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Sep 1999 10:21:42 -0400 From: John R. Covert Subject: Wet 42 Block Called 911? Yesterday afternoon in the midst of the storm I noticed that one of my lines was a bit unbalanced (hum). I ignored the problem for the time being, assuming it was a cable problem and that it would either clear up when the weather dried out or I'd report it later. About midnight, the police are at the door, claiming I've dialled 911, and insisting that they must come inside the house and speak to everyone present (including waking everyone). After they got my wife out of bed, they told me which number had made the call. I showed them that it was out of order -- by this point it didn't even have dialtone, and they insisted that I call repair service right then and there. That seemed to make sense, because maybe someone on a crossed pair DID call 911. But after they left, I went out into the rain and pulled the plug in the demarc, and found that the problem was inside the house. I then began the process of isolating the various inside wiring runs until the problem was isolated to the oldest piece of wiring still in the house, which goes to an old 42 block in a damp corner of the basement. I opened each splice in this ancient run, and finally just wired some new station wire from an appropriate point to the 42 block. Still a problem. So I pulled the 42 block from the wall, and found that there was some damp paint and corrosion on the back. I cleaned all of that up and reinstalled the 42 block. No more problem. But a damp and corroded 42 block calling 911? Very strange! Just to be sure that I had covered all the bases, I checked with the police this morning to be sure of the time of the call and that it was a silent call, which it was. The 911 supervisor says that they get a lot of silent 911 calls when the phone systems are misbehaving; he thinks that the telephone exchange sometimes sends anything it doesn't understand to 911. If I hadn't been home, I might have come home to a broken-down door. /john ------------------------------ From: Peter Dubuque Subject: Re: Cyberspace Electronic Security Act Date: 17 Sep 1999 20:58:46 GMT Organization: The Internet Access Company, Inc. Monty Solomon wrote: > http://www.pub.whitehouse.gov/uri-res/I2R?urn:pdi://oma.eop.gov.us/1999/ > 9/16/14.text.1 > A sound and effective public policy must support the development and > use of encryption for legitimate purposes but allow access to plaintext by > law enforcement when encryption is utilized by criminals. This requires an > approach that properly balances critical privacy interests with the need to > preserve public safety. As is explained more fully in the sectional > analysis that accompanies this proposed legislation, the CESA provides such > a balance by simultaneously creating significant new privacy protections > for lawful users of encryption, while assisting law enforcement's efforts > to preserve existing and constitutionally supported means of responding to > criminal activity. > The CESA establishes limitations on government use and disclosure of > decryption keys obtained by court process and provides special protections > for decryption keys stored with third party "recovery agents." CESA > authorizes a recovery agent to disclose stored recovery information to the > government, or to use stored recovery information on behalf of the > government, in a narrow range of circumstances (e.g., pursuant to a search > warrant or in accordance with a court order under the Act). In addition, > CESA would authorize appropriations for the Technical Support Center in the > Federal Bureau of Investigation, which will serve as a centralized > technical resource for Federal, State, and local law enforcement in > responding to the increasing use of encryption by criminals. Funny, in the stories I've seen regarding the "relaxation" of crypto export controls, nobody's yet pointed out that the above text is just a long-winded way of saying "key escrow." Peter F. Dubuque - dubuque@tiac.net - Enemy of Reason(TM) O- ------------------------------ From: Paul Migliorelli Subject: Low Audio on U S West Privacy Plus Date: Fri, 17 Sep 1999 19:44:56 -0600 Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com Reply-To: paulmigs@pobox.com I've been a very satisfied user of U S West's offering of Privacy Plus, enhanced caller id service. I'm curious though, about the poor audio quality of all parts of the system. That is, horribly low audio, when callers announce their names (the recording should really say, "at the tone shout loud"), also low audio on all calls that you accept, and low audio when people decide to go through it and go for the leave a message option. I'm told that the call hits our C O in Table Mesa, goes and hits the intelligent peripheral, and then comes in and out, looping through the office twice. Do you think cutting over to a 5 E will improve the quality? We currently are in a 1 A, and I've heard other Denver 1 A folks say also yes, great feature but the audio is nasty. And, also out of curiosity, who makes these new intelligent peripherals, as in this whole generation of privacy products, that is, privacy plus, and the "no solicitation service" one?? I've definitely found the privacy plus totally worth it, as it does work well towards no solicitation as well. Lots of times when people go through it, I end up immediately calling them back, as I have only rather fringe hearing due to degenerative hearing loss, and I can ***really tell who is calling through what (laugh). Any comments would be welcome. Thanks much. ------------------------------ From: davidesan@my-deja.com Subject: Re: MCI Worldcom Residential Customer Service Date: Fri, 17 Sep 1999 14:23:16 GMT Organization: Deja.com - Share what you know. Learn what you don't. In article , ewvewv@my-deja.com wrote: How much money are we talking about? If it is a small amount, how about filing against MCI in small claims court? File for all costs -- the overcharges, the mail, your time, your suffering. That could wake them up. Or find a disreputable lawyer who will work on a contingency fee. Sue for $2 Million for suffering, pain, and annoyance. It sounds like you have everything documented, and they will have no idea what hit them. Bet they settle quickly. Or step three. Contact a consumer group, like Ralph Nader. They always are looking out for cases like this. We always read about these tails of woe with carriers. I examine each phone bill for added costs, calls I did not make, anything out of the ordinary. And yet in all these years I have not had one problem with my phone bill. PAT -- you haven't done a survey in a while. How about a satisfaction survey --- Who is your LD phone company, and how would you rank them? The results might be useful for the group. David Esan Veramark Technologies desan@veramark.com ------------------------------ From: Bob Subject: Re: US/NOAA Web Sites Down During Hurricane Floyd Date: Fri, 17 Sep 1999 12:23:17 -0500 > Seems that one of the times we need the National Weather Service and > the (US) National Hurricane Center web sites, they're not available. In the future, you might think about the NWS's IWIN. I've only seen it down for something around five minutes during the entire Floyd thing. http://iwin.nws.noaa.gov/ It already serves gobs and gobs on a daily basis, probably as much or more than all the rest of their sites combined, and this speaks nothing about what happens during hurricanes. For everything but the 'nice-looking' images you might get from Intellicast or whoever else, it's much better. Local weather, warnings, and just about everything else under the sun. -Nathan ------------------------------ From: Wlevant@aol.com (Bill Levant) Date: Fri, 17 Sep 1999 21:09:32 EDT Subject: Re: US/NOAA Web Sites Down During Hurrican Floyd > Seems that one of the times we need the National Weather Service and > the (US) National Hurricane Center web sites, they're not available. > The (US) National Weather Service web site (http://www.nws.noaa.gov) > has been down since yesterday. As of a few seconds ago, the NOAA's > satellite service division's server was unreachable (sgihss3.wwb.noaa.gov). Not so from here (suburban Philadelphia, via Netaxs, a local Tier 1 provider) from about 2 PM (EDT) on; I was able to dial up the satellite pictures and the NOAA graphics regularly all afternoon and into the evening, though the servers were admittedly quite slow (~90 second response times). In fact, I was impressed by the timeliness of the data and the ease with which anyone with a modem can get it. If you wonder where your tax dollars are going, I'd say that -- at least for a portion of 'em -- we're getting a bargain. Bill (And no, I don't work for NOAA or any other part of the Federal Gub'mint.) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Sep 99 12:50 PDT From: lauren@vortex.com (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: Re: AB 818 (FCC Action) On 9/15/99, the FCC granted California interim permission to begin 1000-number block pooling trials, to establish usage thresholds, to reclaim unused and reserved prefixes and portions of those prefixes, and various other measures sought to help limit the need for future area code splits or overlays. Similar actions were taken regarding requests from New York, Florida, and Massachusetts. These interim rules will ultimately be superseded by new national Numbering Resource Optimization standards currently being formulated. --Lauren-- Lauren Weinstein lauren@vortex.com Moderator, PRIVACY Forum --- http://www.vortex.com Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy Host, "Vortex Reality Report & Unreality Trivia Quiz" --- http://www.vortex.com/reality ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #411 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat Sep 18 16:35:07 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id QAA21750; Sat, 18 Sep 1999 16:35:07 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sat, 18 Sep 1999 16:35:07 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199909182035.QAA21750@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #412 TELECOM Digest Sat, 18 Sep 99 16:35:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 412 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Stopping Unsolicited Fax Spam (Steven J Sobol) Re: Stopping Unsolicited Fax Spam (John R. Levine) Re: Stopping Unsolicited Fax Spam (Steve Winter) Re: Stopping Unsolicited Fax Spam (Bill Levant) Re: Stopping Unsolicited Fax Spam (Monty Solomon) Re: Cell Phone-Driving Ban (Jeremy Greene) Re: Cell Phone-Driving Ban (Paul Rubin) Re: Cell Phone-Driving Ban (Craig Williamson) Re: Cell Phone-Driving Ban (Maurizio Codogno) Sprint Purchase (Everett E. Larrabee) Re: MCI Worldcom Residential Customer Service (Tony Pelliccio) TCP/IP Protocol on RS232 Serial Port Between Two Computers (Frank) Slammed by Excel Telecom (Ed Ellers) Area Code Relief News in Boston Globe (Steve Kleinedler) Crypto Policy (Monty Solomon) Re: Administration Updates Encryption Export Policy (Barry Margolin) Re: Administration Updates Encryption Export Policy (Truman Boyes) FCC, PUC Allows Allocation in Blocks of 1000 (Anthony Argyriou) Question re: Portability of Numbers (Patrick Peters) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: sjsobol@JustThe.Net (Steven J Sobol) Subject: Re: Stopping Unsolicited Fax Spam Date: 17 Sep 1999 14:42:30 GMT Organization: North Shore Technologies Corp. 888.480.4NET On Thu, 16 Sep 1999 13:37:22 PDT, wulf@cerfnet.com allegedly said: > It is my understanding that there are Federal statutes prohibiting > unsolicited marketing faxes. Is this true? Would anyone know the > appropriate statute? Also who would I report this problem to? I have a > company that has been sending me numerous unsolicited faxes (Fax ID, > Inc.). They claim I can be taken off their list by dialing 1-800-965-5329 > to talk to one of their customer service reps, but all I get is voice > mail, and they haven't responded to my requests to be removed from list. > Time to get tough. 47 USC 227. $500 per incident, or $1500 if it can be proven that the defendant already knew what they were doing was illegal. Normally you would send them a bill and take it to small claims court ... North Shore Technologies JustTheNet Dialup Internet Access Cleveland, Akron, Canton, Geauga Co., Lake Co., Portage Co., Lorain Co., OH Nationwide Access coming soon! Watch this space for details or dial 1.888.480.4NET for more info! ------------------------------ Date: 17 Sep 1999 11:38:48 -0400 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: Stopping Unsolicited Fax Spam Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > It is my understanding that there are Federal statutes prohibiting > unsolicited marketing faxes. Is this true? Yes, it's true. 47 USC 227 makes it illegal to send an unsolicited fax ad and lets you sue the sender for $500 per fax, tripled to $1500 if he knew he wasn't supposed to, in state or federal court. If the faxer is local to you, sue in small claims court and you'll probably win. John R. Levine, IECC, POB 727, Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 387 6869 johnl@iecc.com, Village Trustee and Sewer Commissioner, http://iecc.com/johnl, Member, Provisional board, Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail ------------------------------ From: steve@sellcom.com (Steve Winter) Subject: Re: Stopping Unsolicited Fax Spam Date: Fri, 17 Sep 1999 17:35:46 -0400 Organization: WWW.SELLCOM.COM Reply-To: steve@sellcom.com Wulf Losee spake thusly and wrote: > It is my understanding that there are Federal statutes prohibiting > unsolicited marketing faxes. Is this true? Would anyone know the > appropriate statute? Also who would I report this problem to? I have a > company that has been sending me numerous unsolicited faxes (Fax ID, > Inc.). They claim I can be taken off their list by dialing 1-800-965-5329 > to talk to one of their customer service reps, but all I get is voice > mail, and they haven't responded to my requests to be removed from list. > Time to get tough. We FAX them to the FCC. You need to call in advance and make arrangements Check www.fcc.gov I believe it is for contact info. The FCC is pursuing them actively. Steve http://www.sellcom.com Cyclades Siemens EnGenius Zoom at discount prices. SSL Secure VISA/MC/AMEX Online ordering Listed at http://www.thepubliceye.com as SELLCOM New Brick Wall "non-MOV" surge protection ------------------------------ From: Wlevant@aol.com (Bill Levant) Date: Fri, 17 Sep 1999 21:49:31 EDT Subject: Re: Stopping Unsolicited Fax Spam > They claim I can be taken off their list by dialing 1-800-965-5329 > to talk to one of their customer service reps, but all I get is voice > mail, and they haven't responded to my requests to be removed from list. You could try *69 (or get caller id) to see if you can get their fax number, and if so, whether you can either (a) fax back to them; (b) call-block them, or (c) reverse-lookup the number so you can figure out where to sue them. If they're faxing out in bulk, not using POTS facilities, none of this will work, BUT it's probably worth a try. Bill ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 18 Sep 1999 11:13:02 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Re: Stopping Unsolicited Fax Spam I received an unsolicited facsimile purporting to be a poll on handgun control listing two different 900 numbers to respond to via facsimile to indicate your vote (at $2.95/min). It is interesting to note that my facsimile number is not published or listed. What are the current regulations on unsolicited facsimile transmissions? They provide a number to call to opt out of further polls - 800.606.5720. The facsimile states that the poll was commissioned by 21st Century Fax Ltd 1204 Third Avenue Suite 108 NY NY 10021 and states that they have a web site at http://www.pollresults.co.uk/ Monty [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I suggest you follow the instructions given by other correspondents in this issue and make your appropriate claim for $500 as they have done or are doing. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Jeremy Greene Subject: Re: Cell Phone-Driving Ban Date: Thu, 16 Sep 1999 23:48:50 -0400 Organization: EarthLink Network, Inc. Paul Rubin wrote in message news:telecom19.409.6@ telecom-digest.org: > Bob Goudreau wrote: >> Whether on the phone or not, how many of us could guarantee our >> own survival in an encounter with a drunk or madman suddenly and >> unexpectedly appearing in the night bearing down on us at a relative >> closing speed of, say, 100+ mph? > Guarantee? Nobody. Have a much better chance of noticing the > situation in time to swerve out of the way? Everybody who stays > off the phone while driving. A year ago I was in the above situation. I was driving 40. A drunk driver, driving a truck twice the weight of my vehicle, came around the corner and veered into my lane going about 60. The reason I am still in one piece is because I swerved at the last second to avoid a head-on collision. He hit me in the door and my car was destroyed, but I escaped with only a bruised rib and the shattered remains of the rear windshield embedded in my scalp. Luckily I had my cell phone with me and I called the police. I received medical attention, and the other guy left in handcuffs. Although I am grateful that I had my cell phone with me, I am positive that, had I been using the phone at the time of the crash, I would not have reacted in time to swerve out of the way. I admit that I occasionally use my phone while driving, and it is indeed a dangerous distraction. I would say that it is equally, or more, dangerous than carrying on an involved conversation with a passenger. The difference is that often your passenger is watching the road, so you have a second pair of eyes. I also find that when talking to someone via the phone, my mind tends to wander more than if I were talking to someone right next to me. I don't have a degree in Cognitive Sciences, so I don't know why this is the case. I find the radio distracting too, but only when I am trying to concentrate on navigating in an unfamiliar area. I guess these things vary from person to person, and you could go on and on about which is more distracting. But the bottom line is, you are safer concentrating on the road and pulling over if you need to make a call. ------------------------------ From: phr@netcom.com (Paul Rubin) Subject: Re: Cell Phone-Driving Ban Date: 17 Sep 1999 04:14:18 GMT Organization: NETCOM / MindSpring Enterprises, Inc. Robert Casey wrote: > If having a conversation on the cell phone is too distracting, why > isn't the same thing true with a conversation with a passenger sitting > to your right? Or is it that the passenger will spot a danger and > warn the driver? Conversations with passengers are usually much less intense than cell phone conversations can sometimes be. If you're driving, you might chat with a passenger to pass the time. The conversation simply doesn't occupy as much of your brain as a high powered business negotiation (etc.) would. And you'd temporarily stop talking to your passenger if the driving situation got complicated. I'm guilty of occasionally talking on the phone while driving, but it's usually a quick, low intensity call (most commonly, saying I'm stuck in traffic and will be late to something). The really distracting conversations are the ones that require you to think a lot. You (or at least I) normally wouldn't get into those with a passenger. ------------------------------ From: Craig.Williamson@ColumbiaSC.NCR.COM (Craig Williamson) Subject: Re: Cell Phone-Driving Ban Organization: NCR Date: Fri, 17 Sep 99 12:29:02 GMT In article , wa2ise@netcom.com (Robert Casey) wrote: > In article : >> I believe the largest study was by the NHTSA. I recall the result was >> that using a cellphone is roughly equivalent (in terms of increased >> accident rates) to having a 0.12 blood alcohol level. >> idiots I see drifting across the road are not dialing the phone or >> writing something -- they're just talking. They become so engrossed in >> the conversation that they fail to notice that they're doing 40 in a >> 70. Or 70 in a 40. Or heading right up on the curb (white pickup >> truck, this morning). Or driving right into the rear end of a car >> (red Dodge, this morning.) >> The problem is a mismanagement of concentration, not of eyesight. > If having a conversation on the cell phone is too distracting, why > isn't the same thing true with a conversation with a passenger sitting > to your right? Or is it that the passenger will spot a danger and > warn the driver? A passenger is in the car and sees the same traffic problems you see and can shut up when a problem arises to keep from distracting you. The person on the other end of the cell phone call does not see the traffic and has no idea you need to suddenly swerve and will keep distracting you. Also when you hold a cell phone to you head it "feels" like a regular phone call and some people tune out everything else when on the phone. I use a handsfree cell phone, but still notice some distraction when using it. I keep it short due to this. "Lovers come and go, but a good -Craig Williamson friend is forever." Craig.Williamson@ColumbiaSC.NCR.COM - Harry Stone, Night Court craig@toontown.ColumbiaSC.NCR.COM (home) ------------------------------ From: mau@beatles.cselt.it (Maurizio Codogno) Subject: Re: Cell Phone-Driving Ban Date: 18 Sep 1999 06:50:57 GMT Organization: CSELT, Torino, Italy In article , Leonid A. Broukhis wrote: >> drunk. Several countries, including England, Spain, Israel, >> Switzerland and Brazil restrict the use of cellular phones by drivers. > Why don't they restrict listening to the radio as well, then? Actually in Italy the driver is forbidden to use a cellular phone while driving if he has to keep it in his hand. So the problem is not hearing the conversation, but not having both hands on the steer. .mau. ------------------------------ From: ELarra1015@aol.com (Everett E. Larrabee) Date: Sat, 18 Sep 1999 11:38:12 EDT Subject: Sprint Purchase Dear Sir: As a 30+ year member of the United Telephone / Sprint family I would like to take a minute to set the record straight. In an article dated September 1, 1999 you wrote that "It (United Telephone) was purchased a couple of years ago by Sprint to become Sprint's local service component." Sprint never bought United Telephone. It was the other way around. United Telephone bought the remaining 80% of Sprint from GTE as it already owned 20% of the LD carrier under a previous partnership arrangement. It was call Sprint/United Telephone and later the United Telephone was dropped because of the marketing visibility that had been established by previous advertising campaigns. To some it will always be United Telephone Co ... Thanks for your time. An old lineman ... Everett E. Larrabee Senior Network Planner/Switching Sprint Mansfield Ohio 44907 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Mr. Larrabee, thank you very much for writing to set the record straight on this. As a person who, by virtue of location, is now served by United Telephone Company, I must say I wish they had retained the United name and placed more emphasis on that rather than the Sprint name. You see, the phrase 'Sprint' does not have a terribly good reputation in many quarters. I realize it is a huge corporation, with many components to it, but I could not begin to count all the complaints which have been published in this Digest over the years about one unethical practice or another in which they have engaged as a long-distance carrier. Deceptiveness in publishing their long-distance rates, unresponsiveness in customer service, the list goes on and on. When I first located where I am now, I called Southwestern Bell for phone service. I found their phone directory here and 'just assumed' they were the service provider. It turns out they do serve the town next to me and publish a directory which includes both that town and this one. When the service rep put me on hold a couple minutes and came back on the line to say 'you will need to call Sprint for service at that location', and gave me the number to call, my first reaction was one of dismay. I called the number she gave me, (toll-free in some city hundreds of miles away) fully expecting the worst. Quite by accident I found out in the conversation I was speaking with a local person here in my community (despite the 800 number which had been initially picked up in Kansas City or somewhere) when she gave me her fax number and it was a local number on the same exchange as myself. When I asked her location, and found out it was at 6th and Adams Street, in the local telephone exchange building, I went down to pay the bill in person since it is only a short walk of a few blocks from where I live. A sign on the front of the building said 'United Telephone' and some of the people said they had worked there for years, long before any consideration of Sprint. I immediatly commented on arrival that based on years of experience and discussion about Sprint as long distance carrier (after all, I first tried them out in the old dialup days when you dialed seven- digits to reach their switch and then used a PIN, back in the 1970's) I was not very enthusiastic about having them for local service, this lady got sort of a pained look on her face and said she had heard this same sort of thing other times, particularly when they first 'merged with/were purchased by/bought out' (depending on the person talking, and what they knew or did not know) Sprint. She said there were some people, particularly businesses in the community who were quite concerned. That's the kind of reputation Sprint had in so many quarters you see, for double-talk with sales people who would sell one thing and administrators who would serve things up another way. She said to me I would be dealing with United Telephone's traditions and practices. "We bought them, they did not buy us" ... and I thought it was cute that in writing up the order she said, "since you and Sprint don't get along very well, do you want me to put down AT&T as your default carrier?" I told her my choice was 'none' and asked for a couple other features on the line which are apparently rare enough in this community that she raised her eyebrows somewhat. She said to me, "you seem to know about telephones", and I told her perhaps I did have some knowledge about it, yes ... and she replied, "you and I will get along just fine. I hope you will be pleased with United Telephone, which many people now refer to as 'Sprint Local Service', and others as merely 'Sprint', which is our correct name." I told her I was sure we would, and that if any problems arose, she could pick a convenient time to meet me at the State Commission offices to resolve any complaints either of us might have. I've not had a single problem, but it has only been six months. I walk down to their office to pay them and say hello once a month. They really should have gone with the United Telephone name instead of Sprint. Instead of 'Sprint starts local service' which scared any number of people to death in the affected communities, 'United acquires long-distance subsidiary' would have sounded so much nicer. Just my opinion. PAT] ------------------------------ From: nospam.tonypo1@nospam.home.com (Tony Pelliccio) Subject: Re: MCI Worldcom Residential Customer Service Organization: Providence Network Partners Date: Sat, 18 Sep 1999 02:32:33 GMT In article , ewvewv@my-deja.com says: > Their "customer service", as it is euphemistically called, serves as a > buffer insulating management from complaints. I found that if I had a > problem beyond the most trivial, routine matter, they simply blow you > off. After waiting interminably to get through their telephone maze, > I found myself consistently being thrown back into the maze to start > all over or put on indefinite "hold", only to eventually discover that > patience and perseverance doesn't help because there is no way through > the maze if you have a problem they don't want to deal with. If you think they're bad on the consumer side, try them from the business side. About a year and a half ago we switched our local provider to Brooks. For about six months after that the service from Brooks was wonderful. Whenever I had a problem I called the local switchroom in Providence and they fixed it. Now, anything you want goes through MCI/Worldcom's "Customer Care". They care alright. I asked for a busy study because I suspect we're losing business due to busy lines. The first rep I called treated me like I had a third head or something. Didn't know what the hell a busy study was. After roughly 45 minutes on the phone with the bimbo I hung up in disgust. Today I called back, got a different rep and again asked for a busy study. A what? Okay, I want to see what my line utilization is. Once I explained it the rep knew exactly what I wanted and explained that in order to kickoff a busy study a trouble ticket has to be issued. So, got that done, talked to one of their switch folks and they're doing my busy study now. In some respects I REALLY miss Ma Bell. Sure, the prices weren't phenomenal, but the business customer service was ALWAYS great. == Tony Pelliccio, KD1S formerly KD1NR == Trustee WE1RD ------------------------------ From: Frank Subject: TCP/IP Protocol on RS232 Serial Port Between Two Computers? Date: Fri, 17 Sep 1999 11:14:06 +0800 Organization: Universidad de Guadalajara Can I run TCP/IP protocol on RS232 serial port between two computers? Thank in advance, Frank ------------------------------ From: Ed Ellers Subject: Slammed by Excel Telecom Date: Fri, 17 Sep 1999 03:51:46 -0400 net_demon@my-deja.com wrote: > They offered to get rid of the charges they incurred due to the > switch, but still expected me to pay for the long distance calls! Get > this, they offered to "reprice" the calls I had made so they would > cost the same as my previous long distance service, AT&T. > Repeat: their long distance services cost MORE than AT&T! > I don't like the idea of them getting ANY of my money, since I never > authorized them to service my calls in the first place (and they admit > it). I still believe that a good answer to this would be a provision in which the slammed customer, instead of paying the slammer, would pay the same amount *to his preferred carrier* that would have been charged if the slam had not taken place. This would eliminate the risk of customers falsely claiming slamming to get out of paying for calls, but would leave the customer no worse off financially, would compensate the preferred carrier for having had its customer stolen from it for a while, and best of all would leave the dirtbags with no ill-gotten gains. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Sep 1999 07:40:46 CDT From: Steve Kleinedler Subject: Area Code Relief News in Boston Globe Pat: This article about area code relief was in the {Boston Globe} today. http://www.boston.com /dailyglobe2/260/business/Slowing_need_for_area_success+.shtml Thought you might be interested. Steve Kleinedler ------------------------------ Reply-To: Monty Solomon From: Monty Solomon Subject: Crypto Policy Date: Fri, 17 Sep 1999 15:52:21 -0400 White House cypher proposal could upstage Congress A palpably apprehensive, sweat-soaked bundle of Clinton-administration luminaries held a press conference last night to tout the White House's latest end-run around Congress in the realm of crypto exports. http://www.theregister.co.uk/990917-000008.html Decoding the Crypto Policy Change Why did the Clinton administration cave on crypto? What caused the nation's top generals and cops to back down this week after spending the better part of a decade warning Congress of the dangers of privacy-protecting encryption products? http://www.wired.com/news/politics/story/21810.html Clinton Relaxes Crypto Exports WASHINGTON -- The Clinton administration announced Thursday afternoon that US firms will have greater freedom to export privacy-protecting encryption products. http://www.wired.com/news/politics/story/21786.html Crypto Law: Little Guy Loses Thursday's White House announcement loosening encryption import standards may make it easier for big businesses, but it won't help anyone who wants to distribute software freely on the Web. http://www.wired.com/news/politics/story/21790.html ------------------------------ From: Barry Margolin Subject: Re: Administration Updates Encryption Export Policy Organization: GTE Internetworking, Cambridge, MA Date: Fri, 17 Sep 1999 14:43:41 GMT In article , Monty Solomon wrote: > Any encryption commodity or software of any key length can now be > exported under a license exception (i.e., without a license) after a > technical review, to commercial firms and other non-government end users > in any country except for the seven state supporters of terrorism. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ I wonder what the implication of this clause is for Internet distribution of encryption software? Currently, many vendors require you to go through a form where you attest that you're a US/Canada citizen, and the web server performs some heuristic DNS and WHOIS checks to try to confirm that you're downloading from the US or Canada. What will happen now? Will the form be inverted, to ask if you're from one of those seven countries? Would a terrorist really be expected to answer truthfully? And would he be silly enough to do his download from his home country? I wouldn't be surprised if these web sites simply leave their test scripts unchanged, out of inertia. Barry Margolin, barmar@bbnplanet.com GTE Internetworking, Powered by BBN, Burlington, MA *** DON'T SEND TECHNICAL QUESTIONS DIRECTLY TO ME, post them to newsgroups. Please DON'T copy followups to me -- I'll assume it wasn't posted to the group. ------------------------------ From: Truman Boyes Subject: Re: Administration Updates Encryption Export Policy Date: Fri, 17 Sep 1999 17:57:52 EDT Organization: SuperLink Internet Services (732) 432-5454 On Thu, 16 Sep 1999, Monty Solomon wrote: > Any encryption commodity or software of any key length can now be > exported under a license exception (i.e., without a license) after a > technical review, to commercial firms and other non-government end users > in any country except for the seven state supporters of terrorism. This is an excellent step in the right direction, but who are the seven state supporters of terrorism? .truman.boyes. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Sep 1999 10:12:30 -0700 From: Anthony Argyriou Subject: FCC, PUC allows allocation in blocks of 1000, overlays may be delayed The {San Francisco Chronicle is reporting: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/1999/09/17/MN99520.DTL (during baseball season!) that the FCC and the California PUC have made rulings which allow phone companies to be allocated blocks of 1000 numbers instead of 10,000 at a time. The PUC has rescinded the 310 overlay in response. http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/news/1999/990916_cpuc_stops_overlay.htm The FCC has also ruled that the PUC can require phone companies to report their inventory of actually used phone numbers. Anthony Argyriou ------------------------------ From: Patrick Peters Subject: Question re: Portability of Numbers Date: Fri, 17 Sep 1999 18:17:53 -0500 Organization: Airnews.net! at Internet America I work for a small business that's thinking about getting a "hundred" number (like 345-6700) for our main business number. We're also considering a number of local exchange carriers and we realize that we might want to change carriers in the future. If we change local carriers, would we have to change our phone number as well? There's a "number portability charge" on my phone bill at home every month, but I don't know if this is the kind of portability they had in mind. Thanks for any information you have. Patrick Peters OrthoTel, Inc. Dallas, TX ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #412 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat Sep 18 21:20:09 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id VAA01021; Sat, 18 Sep 1999 21:20:09 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sat, 18 Sep 1999 21:20:09 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199909190120.VAA01021@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #413 TELECOM Digest Sat, 18 Sep 99 21:20:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 413 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: CPUC Halts 310/424 Overlay, Reverses 1+10D Requirement (Mike Koerner) Re: Enough is Enough (Dennis Metcalfe) Spam: Work at Home - UpTo$1800/Week Now (Louis Raphael) PAT's Thai "Friend" (Bob Goudreau) Re: Our TELECOM Digest (James Bellaire) Re: Linking and Advertising on the Net (James Bellaire) Re: Linking and Advertising on the Net (John R. Levine) I Was a Victim of Fraud (Sandra Stephenson) Re: Off Topic: Drunk Drivers and Wasted Lives (Steven J. Sobol) Re: Mort?on Grove Housing (was OT Trivia: HU3-2700?) (Derek Balling) Re: Last Laugh! Getting Someone to Fix Your Phone (Ed Ellers) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. 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Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael G. Koerner Subject: Re: CPUC Halts 310/424 Overlay, Reverses 1+10D Requirement in 310 Date: Sat, 18 Sep 1999 15:05:43 -0500 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Linc Madison wrote: > On Wednesday, the FCC announced a decision allowing the CPUC to order > mandatory thousands-block pooling and other number conservation > measures. Today, 9/16, the CPUC announced that it was stopping the 424 > overlay on the 310 area code and reversing the mandatory 1+10D dialing > requirement that had been imposed in 310 in anticipation of the > overlay. > An initial pool of 160,000 numbers has been set aside for > thousands-block allocation. However, my understanding is that there > are something in the neighborhood of 300 pending requests for number > blocks. Also, there are about 11 rate centers (+/-, off the top of my > head) in 310, and you will still have the requirement that those > 160,000 numbers be allocated in chunks of 10,000 per rate center, even > if only 1,000 per operating company. > In short, today's decision looks an awful lot like a Band-Aid on a > bullet wound. > There were also no details given on a timetable for recapturing unused > or sparsely populated blocks, nor for modifying the switches to again > permit 7D HNPA dialing. I would like to see this decision extended nationwide, including 'reclaiming' unused 1,000 number blocks and even be extended to include reclaiming entire sparsely utilized NXX codes, with the active customers in those NXXs being reassigned line numbers in the other 'reclaimed' local 1,000 number blocks. I agree, though, with having NPA-NXX codes assigned to rate (or wire) centers, less confusing all around for the public than with having 'NPA-NXXX's being 'shotgunned' around entire geographic NPA codes (especially the less densely populated ones, such as in the states of Montana, South Dakota, etc). I would ultimately assign 'NPA-NXX' codes to local 'rate (or wire) center *administrators*' who in turn would assign the 1,000 number blocks to whomever locally needs the line numbers. It is my firm belief that most of our current 'NPA-NXX' feeding frenzy would end if the above '1,000 number block' numbering system were to extended nationwide. Numbers would still retain a 'goegraphic' significance (that many people like) while returning a sense of sanity to the whole numbering process. Regards, Michael G. Koerner Appleton, WI ------------------------------ From: dmet@flatoday.infi.net (Dennis Metcalfe) Subject: Re: Enough is Enough Date: Sat, 18 Sep 1999 17:44:28 GMT Organization: InfiNet Reply-To: dmet@flatoday.infi.net On Tue, 14 Sep 1999 01:15:59 PST, shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson) wrote: > I just got my first AT&T billing in *months* with my phone bill. > Specifically, it covered from Jun 02 to Aug 30. That's annoying enough. > What's *more* annoying is discovering that AT&T has either changed the > rates or rate periods again (and as usual, without telling me). > Mind you, since these calls are to pick up fidonet email, they are > usually only one minute calls. But it still ads up. > And, of course, I'm being charged the $4.53 "carrier line charge" and > the $2.97 "Universal connectivity Charge". Those amounts are for three months, right? > I'm looking for recommendation for an LD carrier that will give me low > rates for evening/night calls. I make one call a night to Oklahoma > (from Oregon). Usually less than a minute. Sometimes 2-3 minutes. Have you taken a look at BigZoo? http://www.bigzoo.com Prepaid phone account, set up through the Net with a credit card ... 3.9 cents per minute, including all taxes, for US mainland long-distance calls 24x7 ... nothing appears on your phone bill ... accessed through an 800 (888) number ... start off with only $5 so that if they collapse, you are risking almost nothing ... they are growing rapidly (duh, I wonder why) ... some reports of difficulties in getting to the switch during peak periods but I've not had a problem since they expanded their capacity. If you go this route, you may want to dump your pre-subscribed long distance carrier completely to avoid those minimum monthly charges other than what your local carrier charges for no-PIC. Dennis Metcalfe [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I am not quite certain how they can take in your call on an 800 number, and send it back out to wherever, meet their own administrative expenses and make a profit all for 3.9 cents per minute. I wonder if by chance some telco along the way (either the one giving them inbound via 800) or the one giving them the outbound, or maybe both) is getting stalled on payment. That comes down to two cents per minute each direction which is awfully cheap, even at the discounted rates telcos pay each other. In fact, it is even less than that going to the involved telcos by the time you factor in the discount taken by the credit card company and what- ever they pay the office clerk/switch technician/webmaster for their web site. I could almost see it happening if they handled only one side of your call and assuming their 'employees' were actually indentured servants, ie. slaves, but I just cannot make the math work out the way you have described it, unless one or more parties to the transaction is being left in the trick-bag unwittingly. Why don't you think it through and tell me how you think it might work with the price per minute as quoted. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Sep 1999 00:27:11 -0400 (EDT) From: Louis Raphael Subject: Spam: Work at Home - UpTo$1800/Week Now Pat, I find it disturbing that ZZN is being abused in this way, especially as it is your preferred provider of anonymous e-mail. This is about the third spam with ZZN return addresses (fake or not, I do not know) that I get in the last week or so. They don't actually seem to *come* from ZZN, but one doesn't usually get so many with similar return addresses. Louis ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Received: (from raphael@localhost) by willy.cs.mcgill.ca (8.8.8/8.8.4) id WAA06995 for raphael; Mon, 6 Sep 1999 22:44:43 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: willy.cs.mcgill.ca: Processed from queue /tmp X-Authentication-Warning: willy.cs.mcgill.ca: Processed by raphael with -C /etc/sendmaillocal.cf Received: from pobox by localhost with IMAP (fetchmail-5.0.5) for raphael@localhost (single-drop); Mon, 06 Sep 1999 22:44:42 -0400 (EDT) Received: from cmc.cuk.ac.kr (cmc.cuk.ac.kr [203.227.0.2]) by pobox.cs.mcgill.ca (8.9.3/8.9.3/Debian/GNU) with ESMTP id WAA29352 for ; Mon, 6 Sep 1999 22:17:32 -0400 From: realmer@deal.zzn.com Received: from firewall ([203.227.0.3]) by cmc.cuk.ac.kr (8.9.1a-H1/8.9.1) with SMTP id LAA04773; Tue, 7 Sep 1999 11:18:08 +0900 (KST) Date: Tue, 7 Sep 1999 11:18:08 +0900 (KST) Message-Id: <199909070218.LAA04773@cmc.cuk.ac.kr> To: realmer@deal.zzn.com Subject: Work at Home - UpTo$1800/Week Now ------------------------- [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Oh dear, it looks like my Korean bureau has been sending out advertising again. Sometimes when business is slow he does that to make ends meet. I'll have to send some explicit orders to my bureau chief, Mr. Yoo, and tell him to stop it immediatly. I think he told me his first name was Fuk. Write to postmaster@zzn.com to complain, and tell them 'real.zzn.com' seems to have a problem. They'll either warn the offender or bounce them entirely, depending on the circumstances. ZZN itself is pretty serious about spam. I have no specific 'preferred provider' for anonymous email. Zap Zone Network is fairly decent as far as web-based email is concerned. Obviously, do not use any service like that for mail which needs security or privacy. Not in my opinion at least. I installed it on http://telecom-digest.org as a way for people to write me without getting pestered by a lot of spam as a result of their actual email address appearing in public. My feeling is you should sign up at http://telecom-digest.org/postoffice using anything *but* your real name, etc. Then when it becomes spam-ridden just abandon it and set up another one. It is much easier than having to get your ISP/sysadmin to always be changing your 'real' email address. And if your main email address receives a lot of spam from ***.zzn.com just add a couple filter rules in this order: first, accept any mail from an address '@telecom-digest.zzn.com' and second, send any mail from 'zzn.com' to your bit bucket. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Sep 1999 09:54:36 EDT From: Bob Goudreau Subject: PAT's Thai "Friend" bellaire@tk.com (James Bellaire) wrote: > And please, it is Mr. Poonsapya. Or Sermporn Poonsapya. Sermporn is > the first name of your chosen advisary. Actually, it's not obvious to me whether "Mr. Sermporn" or "Mr. Poonsapya" is correct. Remember, Thailand is among the East Asian cultures that use the form of name-ordering, the opposite of the western practice. Sometimes (most often for Japanese names), this ordering is reversed in western contexts, so we see names in print such as "Yasuhiro Nakasone", a former Japanese prime minister who Ronald Reagan regarded as such a buddy that he was on a "first-name basis" with him and called him "Yasu". Of course in reality, back in Japan the name was "Nakasone Yasuhiro". But generally, Thai names in western media are used unchanged from their native format, so unless Sermporn Poonsapya has consciously reversed the ordering due to his use of English on his website, I would call him "Mr. Sermporn" (assuming it's not a female name!). Bob Goudreau Data General Corporation goudreau@rtp.dg.com 62 Alexander Drive +1 919 248 6231 Research Triangle Park, NC 27709, USA ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 18 Sep 1999 04:38:09 -0500 From: James Bellaire Subject: Re: Our TELECOM Digest [RESENT Upon request - I *did* get an autoreply the first time.] [Originally sent September 14th] At 11:14 PM 9/13/99 -0400, in Issue 401, it was written by Wlevant@aol.com (Bill Levant): > I think you should register the name "Telecom Digest" as a federal > trademark (or service mark; I'm not clear on which applies, but I > THINK it's a service mark) AS SOON AS YOU POSSIBLY CAN. Since the offending party is in Thailand, it may be difficult to enforce, but at least it will help against the next "Telecom Digest". But then your target MAY be back in the USA ... follow along. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Thanks for your kind note of support. > If anyone knows that area of the law well enough to advise Bill, > please correspond with him directly. Let's see what happens in the > next few days with that buffoon, Mr. Sermporn. I wonder if he will > report me to his superiors at Nynex for ripping off his .gif images > and installing the better quality ones on my own web site. PAT] Actually, Sermporn seems to the first name. It is Mr Poonsapya. He has had his domain since January 18th, and his Thai Telecom page since June or so ... (based on the last mod dates on the images served). Wow - his hit count must be flying with all the publicity! And his news was last posted August 20th. Almost current. --- (c) Network Soulutions via Whois > Poonsapya, Sermporn (SP8041) sermporn@NYNEXBK.CO.TH The domain that is more interesting is telecomdigest.net - which was registered by Mr. Poonsapya on January 12th of 1999. It is a direct forward to sermporn.com/telecom/ . I doubt if this guy has any real work at NYNEX S&T. BTW the only two domains registered to 'NYNEX S&T Asia' are his. The REAL NYNEX sites are not using "kookiejar.net" and NSI for DNS servers. The IP number 209.132.83.126 is owned by Simple Network Communications Inc. of San Diego, CA. Good luck on anything you can do against this person and keep your name. It is annoying when others steal your name on the net. I'm getting replies to TINTKING.COM's emails because they sent them out using sales@TK.COM as an antispam. The TK-TCL bunch also drive me nuts. (Not the real domain, but the programmers who think remote@tk is a cool anti-spam. Never use a real domain as an anti-spam unless YOU own it.) James Bellaire [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I am sorry your original copy of the above went astray; it was not on purpose. Your mention of simplenet prompts me to say that they are good people. I do not think they would have done this on purpose. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 18 Sep 1999 05:14:42 -0500 From: James Bellaire Subject: Re: Linking and Advertising on the Net At 05:00 PM 9/16/99 -0400, Pat wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I am sorry but I do not think I saw > or received your comment about http://telecomdigest.net which does > indeed point to http://sermporn.com/telecom ... would you mind > restating your question or comment? I have resent the original EMail from September 14th. > Regards his .gif images, as I said, I made an exception to my own > rule. I do not think of it in terms of two wrongs equaling one right. So are you right and he wrong when the net.crime is the same? > Regards your Chicago office, you are welcome to it. I got out of > that dirty, filthy, politics- ,graft- and scandal-ridden place for > good. The town, I mean, not your office. After fifty years, I just > do not have the stomach for it any longer as I used to. I moved > away just before that crazy man went around shooting at the people > in Skokie. Regards my new Asian bureau, I think you need to do as > I do, Mister Jim, and take a world-view of things, and not just > content yourself with the strip of land between Chicago and South > Bend, directly under Lake Michigan. Please do tell me again what it > was you said regards http://telecomdigest.net ... my filter rules > seem to have let me down again. PAT] Unlike Mr. Poonsapya, when I went out into the world to build my website I took into account what others have done, and refused to copy their work. Where I have copied I have done it with advance notice and permission. Back in the 'good old days' when TK.COM was just email, no website, I had many files on my computer relating to telecom numbering - some of them passed through the Digest, some through a specialty telnum mailing list, and were emailed to me directly. I was compiling a real nice set of data on the good old NANP - until http://areacode-info.com/ opened up. (And their coverage of Indiana is excellent too!) David Leibold took on the world with his site, and Linc Madison does an good job on his site. If we could get Mark Cuccia a website all would be well in this world! :-) I chose not to duplicate other's efforts. There is one mirror on my site, the rest is from my hard drive, and hard work. I even thought about geting telecom.org when it was still available a few years back, but decided to stick with my domain. So instead of becoming another rendering of information already out there, I focused on what others were not doing, and what I know well. The entire state of Indiana -- not just the South Shore strip. After being encouraged by a few people I opened up the 'Chicago Bureau'. I have many plans in my to-do list. I need to update the nationwide PCS pages (cool javascript, written before telecom-digest.org was turned on, and tasefully rendered IMHO) plus the cellular areas could use a workover. Then again I haven't had time to update my npa-nxx lists in two months, nor update the cgi-bin lookup of where a dialed number would take you in this world. I also have about a hundred pictures for my CSS&SB railroad pages sitting on my computer waiting to be shared. And I still haven't updated my "plan your own split" page to include a three way option. It has been busy around here. I started my pages in a ~bellaire directory when I was a student and had plenty of time. Now I have a dot-com and I work 55-65 hrs a week. It is amazing how much that cuts into my time on my own site. But work pays the rent and buys toys. So I'll stick with my concentration -- Telecom Indiana - Telecom Chicago - and Beyond. At least I know what I am talking about. Pick a focus and do it well. The best advice for any aspiring webmaster. BTW: Mr. Poonsapya's pages are of no threat to you. His focus is different than yours. James Bellaire Always somewhere near a telephone, back home again in Indiana. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I did not say 'I am right, he wrong' regards his .gif files. You said that. I refuse to say either way. By the way, I first became acquainted with Mr. Poonsapya Sermporn's work when one of the links on my linkspage.html showed me his list of links and said "you may find the one called 'Telecom Digest' very interesting". Indeed I did, and began thinking of many ways it might prove useful. *If* I eventually decide to link to him, I may do so by linking to my own page 'Asian Telecom News' and using an invisible frame taking up 95 percent of the window and HTML for the page which says FRAMESET SRC="http://sermporn.com/telecom/something other than his front page", leaving just enough room on the screen for an oversize Operator Pat to serve as a link back to my index.html ... I do not want my visitors getting lost over there and not finding their way back after all ... you see, Mr. Jim, as an international web site I have to take a world view where telecom is concerned. I cannot just limit myself to things going on in the USA. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: 17 Sep 1999 00:10:35 -0400 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: Linking and Advertising on the Net Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > http://telecomdigest.net which points to Mr. Poonsapya's site. To forestall further confusion, I've registered telecom-digest.net, telecom-digest.com, and telecomdigest.org and pointed them to the same place as telecom-digest.org. It appears that telecomdigest.com belongs to a speculator, but it's completely inactive with no web or mail service, so it hardly matters. John R. Levine, IECC, POB 727, Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 387 6869 johnl@iecc.com, Village Trustee and Sewer Commissioner, http://iecc.com/johnl, Member, Provisional board, Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Thank you, John. And as I noted here a couple days ago, I have directed 'telecomdigest.n3.net' to point to myself as a response to his 'telecomdigest.net' which points to himself. I am also working on a very lovely new site which will be known as 'sermporn.n3.net' or perhaps 'sermporn-com.n3.net' or maybe both. It will explain my rigid requirements for anyone who wishes to operate one of my international bureaus. PAT] ------------------------------ From: san96038@my-deja.com (Sandra Stephenson) Subject: I Was a Victim of Fraud Date: Sat, 18 Sep 1999 13:29:54 GMT Organization: Deja.com - Share what you know. Learn what you don't. Reply-To: rks@cybcon.com In article , Barry Koester wrote: > No one wants to hear this, but it is your responsibility to know your > own balance. You do this by keeping track of it in a register. I know > that when you write a check more than your balance you are actually > committing fraud. I don't know if the same would hold with a debit > card. > Joey Lindstrom wrote in message news:telecom19. > 335.4@telecom-digest.org: >> On Tue, 24 Aug 1999 00:42:22 -0400 (EDT), Steven J Sobol wrote: >>> On Sat, 21 Aug 1999 21:50:27 -0700, mdesmon@us-one.net allegedly said: >>>> I think that depends on your bank. I've done that a few times before >>>> when I didn't track my balance correctly and the bank would treat it >>>> like a bounced check. They would honor the Visa and ATM transactions >>>> and then charge me a returned check fee of $29. >>> That's what my bank does too ... They can't *not* honor the >>> transaction after the merchant was given an approval. That's the >>> thing. Honoring the transaction and charging the NSF charge is, in >>> my opinion, the correct thing for the bank to do in this case. If you wouldn't mind, I'd like to ask you some questions also about my Debit card. I'm at the end of my rope trying to find any one with answers to my questions. 1. My bank statement has been having duplicate charges with same time and date. Plus there will be four or five charges with the same time and date but different states. One night I stayed at three hotels in two different states on the same night. I have been going crazy because I know mine but lots of them are not and I have not lost my card. I live in a small town and the bank manager knows me and that these are not my charges. But, my bank has paid these and now I do all the leg work to prove they're not mine. I don't even have a clue how they got there let alone get them to refund my money. Now I am getting NSF because of this. 2. I received in the mail at two different times an "Advice of Funds Transfer" slip for $1000 mailed from my bank. With just one signature on the line" Prepared By" and nothing on the line "Approved By" plus no date or time. There is a check in the box 'telephone request'. But I never requested over the phone to any one to transfer money from my savings to my checking. This is how they paid themselves for my NSF. This is turning out to be a nightmare. It seems every time I put money in it is gone the next hour. And I'm not in Texas or Washington at same time and date to at least enjoy it. 3. I put $5000 in this account and just let it sit for three weeks on the advice of the bank manager till we could get it to reconcile. Plus at her advice I opened a new account at the same bank with $2000. Well I'm sure you guessed it; they're both in the red with charges adding up to over my head. She took money from my new account she said to cover late checks that just came in on the old one that was just cooling it's heels. Without me being told of her transferring it so I bounced a check on this new account! She does not work at this bank anymore I have been told so it is even a bigger mess. Thank You so Much, Sandra Stephenson [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You did not mention the name of the bank in question or its location, but I frankly cannot imagine how things could be 'even a bigger mess' than they are already. You are talking substantial enough amounts of money that my suggestion is you IMMEDIATLY withdraw from the bank every single nickle that remains in your account -- if indeed, anything remains in your account -- and see about opening a new account somewhere else. You also need to consult with an attorney immediatly. If you are saying that the bank has repeatedly dipped into your checking and savings accounts to the extent of seven thousand dollars or more to pay for debit card transactions which you have stated are fraudulent, and that even after being alerted to the fraud they continue to approve transactions, then you had better get an attorney as fast as you can to stop them, and compensate you for what has happened. Based on the way you described it, I believe the bank manager tricked you into making the deposit merely so that they could get the money and compensate themselves for the loss up to that date. It may be that one or more persons has your debit card number (which for all intents and purposes simply functions like a credit card with a 'credit limit' of whatever you have available in the bank that day) and they are abusing it via 'no signature on file/no card presented' situations such as making purchases via the internet, or making those hotel reservations you mentioned via a hotel's telephone reservation center. There may also be an error with that debit card number being linked or associated incorrectly with your bank account. That is to say, the number on some other debit card has somehow been pointed at your checking account number. Someone else with their own debit card is using it in good faith in an honest way but the charges are getting sent to you. The sales authorizers are looking at the correct account (for that customer) when approving the transaction, but then a routing error down the line is sending the charge your way, thus the continued approvals on sales despite the (I would hope by now) freeze on your account. Gather up what you have of any charge tickets you signed, your bank statements for all the months since this began, and take this all to an attorney. Explain to the attorney what you said here. The attorney will know what to do next: for any item on your bank statement which is in dispute the attorney will make demand for a copy of the charge tickets, signatures, etc. It may be that when the attorney merely contacts the bank's attorney or a senior officer to make this demand, things will begin to fall into place. I doubt at this point, based on what you are telling us, that the bank will respond in your favor without being sued. Perhaps seeing your attorney lay the groundwork in place to sue them will prompt a senior officer at the bank, or the bank's attorney to resolve all this. And it seems to me that convincing you to deposit five thousand dollars in one account and two thousand in another account 'so the accounts can reconcile' only to have the bank grab it all the next day comes very close to the bank itself committing fraud. They can reconcile it all on paper with no need for actual cash in hand. Get your money out of that bank now Sandra, and go to an attorney. And if by chance you overlooked some of the details in this smelly situation in the way you recited it here, be certain to give the attorney any details you failed to tell us. Attornies do not like getting egg on their face in court and surprised with 'little details' brought to their attention by the opposing side which their client should have told them about six months earlier in preparation for their litigation. Or, get your money out of the bank and forget about going to the attorney if you feel that is wiser. But do not give that bank any more of your money. PAT] ------------------------------ From: sjsobol@JustThe.Net (Steven J Sobol) Subject: Re: Off Topic: Drunk Drivers and Wasted Lives Date: 17 Sep 1999 14:41:03 GMT Organization: North Shore Technologies Corp. 888.480.4NET On Thu, 16 Sep 1999 23:19:59 +0800, steven@primacomputer.com allegedly said: > Why is it a crock? That the moral majority has a prohibitionist > attitude I'm not a Jerry Falwell follower, and I'm not an ACLU member. I just believe that your right to the pursuit of happiness shouldn't trample my right to life and liberty. Even the Bill of Rights says that rights are only guaranteed as long as you don't infringe on someone else's rights in the process of exercising yours. North Shore Technologies JustTheNet Dialup Internet Access Cleveland, Akron, Canton, Geauga Co., Lake Co., Portage Co., Lorain Co., OH Nationwide Access coming soon! Watch this space for details or dial 1.888.480.4NET for more info! ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Sep 1999 11:04:35 -0700 From: Derek Balling Subject: Re: Mort?on Grove Housing (was OT Trivia: HU3-2700?) I've read this discussion with some mild interest and although this goes even farther off-topic for a Telecom newsletter, I have to raise the following issues: 1.) If you live in a hotel, you are NOT a resident. I don't care what some silly lawyer says, or what some law says. Who says that laws make sense? 2.) OK, so if the municipality decides to condemn and eminent-domain the property, they have to reimburse the property owner AND the tenants (let's assume for the moment that we'll consider them residents)? That makes no sense. The tenants are not out any property. Nothing they own is being removed from them, so why should the government have to subsidize anything for them? The hotel owner (or if was an apt. building, the landlord) got paid "fair market value" [in theory at least] for the property. You let people's leases expire and simply don't renew them. If you need to evict the person prior to lease expiry, most boilerplate leases actually have a clause included in them that lets the landlord out of the lease at no penalty (or minimal penalty) in the case of the government taking control of the property. Not a day goes by that I don't look at the way the laws of this country are being written and wonder to myself why we bothered 220-odd years ago ... D ------------------------------ From: Ed Ellers Subject: Re: Last Laugh! Getting Someone to Fix Your Phone Date: Fri, 17 Sep 1999 03:40:54 -0400 That reminded me of a story from way back when -- specifically in the 1920s -- about the time that the president of a major New York bank had trouble with a telephone in his office. (I say "a" telephone because that was the era of multiple telephone sets in many offices, before key systems.) The CEO called in his secretary and asked her to call for service. She asked him who she should ask for, and apparently he was very exasperated because he sarcastically told her to call the president of AT&T. An hour later, a workman was shown into the president's office. He dropped his toolbox on the carpet with a crash, the bank president looked up, and saw -- the president of AT&T, Walter S. Gifford, a personal friend of his! ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #413 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sun Sep 19 01:00:42 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id BAA07977; Sun, 19 Sep 1999 01:00:42 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sun, 19 Sep 1999 01:00:42 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199909190500.BAA07977@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #414 TELECOM Digest Sun, 19 Sep 99 01:00:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 414 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson RCR Article (Arthur Ross) Re: Rochelle Park CO Update 4:37PM (Alan Boritz) AT&T Wireless: No Service East Of The Hudson River (Alan Boritz) Re: Floyd is Gone But We've Got a Telecommunications Problem (J.F. Mezei) Intermittent Buzzing on Cordless Phone (dmastin@nntp8.atl.mindspring.net) Re: Cell Phone-Driving Ban (Steven J. Sobol) Re: Cell Phone-Driving Ban (David Scheidt) Electrolysis in Telephone Cables (Tim White) Re: Just Another Mass Killing in the USA is All ... (Rob Levandowski) Re: Just Another Mass Killing in the USA is All ... (John David Galt) Re: Just Another Mass Killing in the USA is All ... (Dave O'Shea) Re: Just Another Mass Killing in the USA is All ... (Lisa Hancock) Re: Doing Your Own In-House 411 (John Ledahl) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 17 Sep 1999 08:01:37 -0700 From: Arthur Ross Subject: RCR Article Pat - Not sure whether your readers would be interested in this, but it comes under the heading of "How I spent Labor Day weekend ..." Note that it is Copyrighted material of RCR. RCR September 9, 1999 NMT carriers may choose 3 standards By Lynnette Luna Nordic Mobile Telephone 450 MHz operators will by early October whether to push forward with three digital mobile-phone standards that include Code Division Multiple Access technology, which could give Interim Standard 95 technology its first entrance into Europe. The NMT MOU Digital Interest Group-an assembly of operators tasked with evaluating various digital technologies for the 450 MHz band-recommended last week at a plenary meeting in New York that NMT MOU members be allowed to choose from three digital technologies; CDMA, Global System for Mobile communications and Terrestrial Trunked Radio. The need for digital service is clear to many European NMT 450 operators. Subscriber bases are declining because these operators can't compete with their GSM counterparts by offering analog services. Analog networks and handsets have become uncompetitive. The DIG believes each technology has benefits for different operators. For instance, many NMT 450 carriers already operate GSM cellular and 1800 MHz systems and are likely to migrate their NMT 450 systems to GSM technology to leverage economies of scale and coverage. Others that don't operate GSM systems, primarily Eastern European and Russian operators, are taking a serious look at CDMA technology either for market differentiation or capacity reasons. Eastern Europe is the only region where NMT 450 usage is growing. Customers have significantly declined in Western Europe where customers prefer digital GSM services. According to U.K. research group EMC's World Cellular Database, almost 100,000 new customers signed up for NMT 450 service in Eastern Europe during the first half of this year, while more than 150,000 Western Europeans switched from NMT 450 to other systems. Sixty percent of the world's NMT 450 customers are based in Eastern Europe. Growth is most notable in Bulgaria, where one-third of all new NMT 450 subscribers signed up, and in Russia, which accounted for a further 30 percent. However, this is overshadowed by the 4.67 million new GSM subscribers in the region who have signed up since the beginning of the year, accounting for more than 95 percent of overall growth. An almost equally high percentage are GSM 900 users. This is why Westel Radio Telephone Ltd. in Hungary is interested in CDMA technology. ''It's very important because we need to compete with three GSM service providers,'' said Istvan Galfi, technical director of Westel. ''We have about 100,000 subscribers, and we are competing with analog ... We are a growing company, and if this goes well, we are going to continue growing in two more years. It's very important for us to introduce digital service in 2001.'' Romania's TeleMobil, which supports 20,000 customers, became successful selling analog service within the last eight months by repositioning itself as the most affordable service in the market, adding a sleeker, more attractive handset and implementing new call and billing centers. ''One of the biggest issues most operators in Eastern Europe are facing is the capacity issue,'' said Diwarker Singh, managing director and chief executive officer of TeleMobil. ''CDMA seems to be the ideal and preferred option in terms of technology and the capacity that it offers ... I firmly believe that CDMA will come in earlier than GSM 450. The issue that decides who goes for what will be the roaming issue.'' Lucent Technologies Inc. and Qualcomm Inc. have told the NMT MOU they are committed to making CDMA equipment for the 450 MHz band. Since operators have indicated their desire to Deploy digital service in the 2001 time frame, Lucent's plans include offering an IXRTT CDMA system capable of roaming with GSM mobile-phone networks. Qualcomm will provide the handsets. The Telecommunications Industry Association approved IXRTT, the first phase of cdma2000, in July. Other Eastern European and Russian NMT 450 operators have voiced interest in banding together to allow CDMA roaming. Nokia Corp. and L.M. Ericsson-the primary NMT 450 network suppliers throughout Europe-have said they support the European Telecommunications Standards Institute's work on a global standard for GSM technology in the 450 MHz band. ETSI earlier this year adopted the plan as a work item. Nokia Mobile Phones, however, said it has not ruled out manufacturing MT 450 handsets for the CDMA band. ''If operators choose to take this route, we will evaluate the opportunity,'' said Megan Matthews, spokeswoman for Nokia Mobile Phones. Motorola Inc. is backing TETRA technology, which the vendor already is deploying in other parts of Europe. Some NMT 450 operators believe TETRA handsets may be too expensive. While GSM technology is the mandated standard in Europe for mobile-phone networks, NMT 450 operators are in a unique position to introduce the technology there because they don't fall under the auspices of ETSI, and the EU doesn't control Eastern Europe. The NMT MOU historically has created its own analog standards. However, some NMT 450 operators never received permission from their telecommunications ministries to migrate to digital technology. Companies like Westel will have to convince the regulatory bodies to allow them to migrate to digital service and hope the ministry doesn't mandate a certain technology. Political obstacles to CDMA technology in Europe will depend on the country and regulators, said Singh. ''We are not part of the EU, and our license gives us the option to choose any digital technology,'' he said. ''That may not be true for other licensees.'' Lucent is hopeful recent headway made between U.S., European and other operators on the third-generation front will ease any political problems in introducing CDMA technology to Europe. The Operators Harmonization Group, an assembly of carriers from around the world, earlier this year reached consensus on 3G technology that calls for a family of CDMA standards. The agreement ended a standstill between European operators, who fought for a GSM network-based CDMA standard, and U.S. CDMA proponents, who wanted an IS-95-based standard. ''In light of the close cooperation that has occurred between Europe andthe U.S. through the OHG process, we feel positively that European ministries will be supportive of technologies that are consistent with OHG agreements,'' said David Poticny, vice president of wireless globalstrategy with Lucent. The Clinton administration, however, remains concerned about the EU's apparent unwillingness to open its 3G market to competing U.S. wireless technologies. Global Wireless reporter Paul Golden contributed to this article. Dr. Arthur H. M. Ross 2325 East Orangewood Avenue Phoenix, AZ 85020-4730 ------------------------------ From: aboritz@CYBERNEX.NET (Alan Boritz) Subject: Re: Rochelle Park CO Update 4:37PM Date: Sat, 18 Sep 1999 21:41:45 GMT Organization: Dyslexics UNTIE On Fri, 17 Sep 1999 16:39:25 -0400, in comp.dcom.telecom Joseph Wineburgh wrote: > As of right now the estimated recovery time for Rochelle Park is > tonight (no specific time given) as the entire building and > surrounding area is flooded and 7 feet deep water is in this building > as well as others like EDS and the surrounding streets. Sounds like a typical non-committal Bell Atlantic employee's line of bull. It's more than 24 hours later, and there's been no progress. All of Begen County (northeast corner of the state) is either without phone service, or still can't reach anyone outside their own central office. An interesting side-note, apparently Bell Atlantic told CBS news that the Rochelle Park central office outage is only affecting about 32,000 customers. They didn't bother to mention that the rocket scientists who put switching equipment on the first floor of a building next to a river, also eliminated all diversity and critical backup capability by forcing all toll and long distance traffic through this facility. As usual, Bell Atlantic is in no particular hurry to get things back to normal, and they won't let their customers know when to expect service. Presidential complaints seem to be the only incentive to get their engineers moving, but, of course, they'll have to in the form of letters, unless if we drive to New York to call the NJ PUC. ------------------------------ From: Alan Boritz Subject: AT&T Wireless: No Service East Of The Hudson River Date: Sat, 18 Sep 1999 18:08:10 -0400 No services at all, north of Hoboken, NJ, unless if you're near New York or a neighboring cellular company's coverage area. Northern NJ residents who don't have telephone service, also can't use their AT&T cellular phones, since they don't work either (AT&T Wireless is on the first floor of the Rochelle Park, NJ, central office that has all of northern NJ phones disabled). AT&T Wireless customer service says they have no idea when to expect service. One-rate customers, with locked dual-band phones are probably aware by now that they no longer have the ability to switch over to the wireline carrier in an emergency, as they could with conventional digital or analog cellphones. ------------------------------ From: J.F. Mezei Subject: Re: Floyd is Gone But We've Got a Telecommunications Problem Date: Sat, 18 Sep 1999 21:09:47 -0400 Also heard that a company that runs ATMs in the region had its data-centre/switch affected in Rochelle NJ. ------------------------------ From: dmastin@nntp8.atl.mindspring.net Subject: Intermittent Buzzing on Cordless Phone Date: Sun, 19 Sep 1999 00:18:20 GMT Organization: MindSpring Enterprises I have a digital BellSouth model (HAC) 3890Z cordless phone answering machine combo. After about 15 months use it has developed an intermittent buzzing. This does not seem to be related to battery charge. I get a fairly loud "bzzzzztp" every 15 to 45 seconds. The buzz lasts about one second. From the other end it sounds like an interruption in the conversation. I'm wondering if it is time to purchase a new phone. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. ------------------------------ From: sjsobol@JustThe.Net (Steven J Sobol) Subject: Re: Cell Phone-Driving Ban Date: 18 Sep 1999 20:53:59 GMT Organization: North Shore Technologies Corp. 888.480.4NET Craig Williamson says, > Also when you hold a cell phone to you head it > "feels" like a regular phone call and some people tune out everything > else when on the phone. I use a handsfree cell phone, but still > notice some distraction when using it. I keep it short due to this. Your mileage may vary, of course. :> I found the need to hold a phone to be a huge distraction until I got my current phone and handsfree kit. Now I can keep both hands on the wheel and both eyes on the road. My ST7760 is a flip, and I have it set to auto-answer when I open it. So the phone rings, I open it and answer the call without having to take my eyes off the road, and I talk. I hit the END button at the end of the call, again without taking my eyes off the road (I've memorized the location of the button in relation to other parts of the phone) and close the cover, and that's it. Having the handsfree kit has made a huge, *quantifiable* difference in the way I drive while talking on the phone. I won't talk while driving without using it, and indeed I usually put the earpiece on before I even start the car, and keep it on for the duration of the trip. North Shore Technologies JustTheNet Dialup Internet Access Cleveland, Akron, Canton, Geauga Co., Lake Co., Portage Co., Lorain Co., OH Nationwide Access coming soon! Watch this space for details or dial 1.888.480.4NET for more info! ------------------------------ From: David Scheidt Subject: Re: Cell Phone-Driving Ban Date: 19 Sep 1999 00:10:21 GMT Organization: EnterAct Corp. Leonid A. Broukhis wrote: > In article , Adam H. Kerman wrote: > Why don't they restrict listening to the radio as well, then? It is much easier to tune out the radio then it is someone on the telephone. A few weeks ago, I was driving somewhere I hadn't been before, looking for my turn. The radio news announcer gave a list of upcoming stories, one of which I was very interested in. Ten minutes later, I realized that I had just heard the last 15 seconds of the story. I had completely stopped paying attention to the radio, in favor of concentrating on driving. It is unlikely that you can do that with a cell phone. David Scheidt dscheidt@enteract.com I'm sorry, I've quite run out of Wittgenstein ObULs. -- D.M. Procida ------------------------------ From: twhite8611@aol.com (Tim White) Date: 19 Sep 1999 00:00:23 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Electrolysis in Telephone Cables What causes the electrolysis in telephone cables? Today I took the sheath off of three air-core cables that had been spliced in a buried ready access closure a number of years ago. The wire work in the closure was severely deteriorated. My assignment was to take off six to eight inches of sheath so we could have some good wire to work with during future repairs. All three of the cables had electrolysis on the aluminum sheath. That is; a white powdery substance was on the metal turnplate. What causes this deterioration of the sheath? Appreciate any answers. Thanks, Tim White ------------------------------ From: robl@macwhiz.com (Rob Levandowski) Subject: Re: Just Another Mass Killing in the USA is All ... Organization: MacWhiz Technologies Date: Thu, 16 Sep 1999 22:58:17 -0400 In article , TELECOM Digest Editor wrote: > all the blame this time around. These are happening about once a > month now, aren't they? I remember when they used to be years apart, > and were considered a horrible abberation. When Charles Whitman > stood in the bell and clock tower in Austin, Texas that afternoon > in the 1960's firing at the people below, no one in this country had > ever heard of such a thing happening before. Then it got to where > every year or two something similar would happen, then a couple times > every year, and now we have this kind of assault on our sensibilities > about once a month. Pat, The question is, are they really happening more often, or are they just being reported more widely and more loudly? There was a time when things like this, happening in small towns, would be hushed up. There was a time when the news was a lot less sensational when it came to tragedy. The telecommunications era has brought the world closer in many ways, but it also makes it harder to determine just what the good ol' days were really like. Before live satellite television, tragedies like this didn't necessarily make the 6 o'clock news the same night. They certainly weren't the subject of every newscast, news magazine show, tabloid news magazine show, entertainment tabloid news magazine show, talk show, news channel, court channel, weather channel, history channel, and related web site for hours or days on end. Let's face it: if you gave full credence to everything the news media crows as the next great threat to society, not only would it not be safe to ever leave your house, but you would be unable to eat almost anything, afraid to touch anything, scared of what you might be breathing, and definitely paranoid about ever meeting another human being ... I wonder if the death of eight people would've made the national news repeatedly throughout the day ten years ago. I think it would've been iffy; recent "mass murders" have made a hot button for the media to push. Today's mass murder was easy to "play up;" the re-opening of the Austin tower after so many years was tailor-made for the "day our country changed, wasn't it so innocent then" angle. (Weren't there mass murders and riots before 1960? What about the Chicago mob wars? What about the railroad robber-barons' reaction to strikes? What about the Old West, and bank and stagecoach robberies? What about slavery, and Little Big Horn, and any number of other ugly incidents in our country's history? Let's face it, America has *never* been *that* innocent.) What concerns me more about this phenomenon is that the focus is always on tools and laws, and not people. These things happen and immediately there are calls for new laws, which are similar to old laws, neither of which would address the problem. The focus is on guns, or bombs, or the Internet, or trenchcoats, or bell towers, or what have you... never on what was going through the murderer's mind to make them think it was a good idea to use whatever they had at hand to kill people. I don't think any gun control law would've prevented the Columbine tragedy ... but one perceptive person who saw a secluded, outcast child and did something constructive about it, could have. I hope that all the Digest readers will think about this, and look around them, and consider what injustices they've ignored lately that might drive someone insane. I encourage people to find constructive ways to speak out about these things, before it's too late. Rob Levandowski robl@macwhiz.com ------------------------------ From: John_David_Galt@acm.org (John David Galt) Subject: Re: Just Another Mass Killing in the USA is All ... Date: Fri, 17 Sep 1999 05:16:00 GMT Organization: Tomatoweb.com NewsReader Service Passed along FYI: Subject: CENTER-RIGHT, Issue 78, September 13, 1999 Date: Sun, 12 Sep 1999 17:12:33 -0400 From: Center Right To: darvon@halcyon.com, cright@flash.net CENTER-RIGHT, a free weeklyish e-newsletter of centrist, conservative, and libertarian ideas Issue 78, September 13, 1999 Over 2200 subscribers Check out (and link to) our Web site http://www.center-right.org/ PLEASE FEEL FREE TO FORWARD THIS to anyone you think might be interested. "Would We Care About Buford Furrow If He Hadn't Used a Gun?" by Jeff Jacoby, from the Boston Globe, Aug. 23, 1999 Media interest in Buford Furrow's Los Angeles atrocity has been massive. His Aug. 10 assault on a Jewish community center in Los Angeles -- which left five people wounded, three of them young boys -- was a national story from the moment it broke. Scores of newspapers and television stations rushed reporters to the scene. Countless articles and editorials have been written about it. Every angle of the story has been explored, from Furrow's mental health history to the impact the attacks have had on other Jewish facilities nationwide. Perhaps not coincidentally, Furrow's rampage has also served to advance two causes that are popular with much of the media and with the liberal elite whose views they so often reflect. One, of course, is gun control. Furrow fired 70 rounds from an Uzi submachine gun at the community center, then used a Glock pistol one hour later to kill Joseph Ileto, a mail carrier. A Toyota he hijacked and then abandoned was found with seven guns and a stockpile of ammunition. Coming as it did after a string of highly publicized shootings, Furrow's savagery was held out as further proof that the freedom to acquire guns must be curbed. "There are 192 million privately owned firearms in the United States," began the New York Times editorial on the events in Los Angeles. It went on to ask how many more such calamities it would take before Congress "stops babbling about the right to arms and does something serious about gun control." Innumerable media voices echoed the sentiment. Furrow's horrifying attack was also offered as evidence that Congress ought to pass a sweeping "hate crime" law, the better to prosecute violent criminals who target minorities. In this case, the criminal was a neo- Nazi who ranted about Jews and blacks. When he turned himself in, police said, he explained that "he was concerned about the decline of the white race and wanted to send a message to America by killing Jews." He characterized his encounter with Ileto, a Filipino- American, as an unplanned "target of opportunity" to kill a nonwhite. No federal hate crime law is needed to punish Furrow; everything he did is already illegal in California and prosecutors are sure to seek a harsh punishment. Still, it has become politically correct to demand a hate crime statute any time a bigot commits a heinous assault. On Aug. 12, President Clinton called for a new federal law as a matter of "common sense." Plenty of media voices have called for the same thing. Now, nobody has to apologize for paying attention when an evildoer opens fire on a group of children. But would the media be quite as interested in Buford Furrow if he wasn't, by their lights, a poster boy for gun control and hate-crime laws? Suppose, for instance, that the kids he tried to kill weren't in a Jewish institution but in a nonsectarian day-care center. Suppose he went after them not with an Uzi but with some other lethal weapon -- a 300-horsepower automobile, say. Absent the gun control and hate-crime hooks, would the press have covered his monstrous crime so avidly? We don't have to suppose. Less than four months ago, just such an enormity took place. The media scarcely blinked. On May 3, Steven Abrams drove past the Southcoast Early Childhood Learning Center in Costa Mesa, Calif., where 40 small children were frolicking noisily in the playground. Deciding, as he later told police, "to execute those children," he pulled a U-turn, headed back toward the playground, and floored the accelerator. The car -- a 1967 Cadillac sedan -- tore through the chain- link fence, sent the jungle-gym flying, and plowed into the crowd of children. It stopped only when it ran into a tree. Abrams was unhurt. But Sierra Soto, a 4-year-old who loved to dance ballet and play with her pet bunny Butterscotch, was dead, her body so mangled that the paramedics wouldn't let her mother see her. Brandon Wiener, a 3-year-old whose first word had been "vacuum" and who was never without his favorite teddy bear, was still alive when they got the car off him, but died that night in the hospital. Five-year-old Victoria Sherman suffered a fractured skull and a shattered pelvis. Nicholas McHardy, 2, was also badly injured. Two other children were hurt, and a teacher's aide was treated for multiple lacerations and cuts. Two dead, five injured -- Abrams's violence was far more grisly than Furrow's, and led to a grimmer body count. The sheer horror of the crime, if nothing else, should have attracted frenzied media attention. But it didn't involve guns, and it wasn't fueled by racial or ethnic bigotry, so it attracted almost none. On May 5, many papers around the country ran an Associated Press story on the Costa Mesa massacre. Perhaps half a dozen ran a follow-up, also from the AP, on May 9. And that was it. No drumbeat of daily coverage, no flood of editorials and opinion columns, no army of reporters flying out to see for themselves. The story was fully reported in California. It was virtually ignored everywhere else. Does a homicidal attack on toddlers only make it to the front page when the killer uses a gun? Is attempted mass murder only newsworthy when the victims belong to an official minority group? Perhaps the nation's editors and producers have a sound journalistic reason for paying so much attention to Buford Furrow when they had paid so little to Steven Abrams. Offhand, none comes to mind. * * * Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe. His e-mail address is jacoby@globe.com) ====================================================== CENTER-RIGHT is edited by Eugene Volokh, who teaches constitutional law, copyright law, and a seminar on firearms regulation at UCLA Law School (http://www.law.ucla.edu/faculty/volokh), and organized with the help of Terry Wynn and the Federalist Society (http://www.fed-soc.org/). Check out (and link to) our Web site, http://www.center-right.org/ To subscribe, send a message containing the text (NOT the subject line) SUBSCRIBE CENTER-RIGHT to submit@center-right.org To unsubscribe, send a message containing the text UNSUBSCRIBE CENTER-RIGHT to cancel@center-right.org To communicate with us about other things, send us a message at mail@center-right.org CENTER-RIGHT, a low-traffic, high-quality electronic newsletter of centrist, conservative, and libertarian ideas. ------------------------------ From: Dave O'Shea Subject: Re: Just Another Mass Killing in the USA is All ... Organization: snaip.net Date: Fri, 17 Sep 1999 14:15:02 GMT TELECOM Digest Editor wrote in message news:telecom19.409.1@telecom-digest.org: > So by now you all know the details; seven teenagers were killed and > seven others seriously injured in an attack on a church youth group > meeting at Wedgwood Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas. Yes. A shame. So what's new? > The gunman > then showed the courage of his convictions by using the gun on > himself. He also threw a pipe bomb into the sanctuary where the kids > were meeting. Maybe he wanted to make sure that the gun did not take > all the blame this time around. These are happening about once a > month now, aren't they? I remember when they used to be years apart, > and were considered a horrible abberation. When Charles Whitman > stood in the bell and clock tower in Austin, Texas that afternoon > in the 1960's firing at the people below, no one in this country had > ever heard of such a thing happening before. Then it got to where > every year or two something similar would happen, then a couple times > every year, and now we have this kind of assault on our sensibilities > about once a month. > Some of you took the British Broadcasting Corporation to task for > an announcer who began the story of the Jewish Day Care Center by > noting sort of ho-hum, 'another mass killing in the USA today ...' > by telling me that 'mass' means 'many' and 'killing' means, well ... > killing someone and that since no one had died, therefore by defin- > ition there had been no 'mass killing' that day. The reason they got slapped around is because they reported *emotion*, not *fact*. When I want high drama, I'll go flip on some drivel like "All My Children". I want *facts*, not *feelings*. Give me names, places, and what happened. If it's sad, I'll feel sad on my own without the help of Dan Rather. This is precisely why TV news is worse than useless. > I forwarded that > mail without any names to a contact of mine there who works in > their Internet service. While agreeing that the announcer had > spoken hastily based on a 'rip and read' note "Yes, I *did* lie, and yes you *did* catch me, but my intentions were oh so pure!" > If we attributed one more mass killing to the > USA this year than you have coming, I am sorry. "Than you have coming" is interestingly telling. Facts don't matter, do they? > "And I get told the BBC has 'a thing about gun control' > and tilts what the on-air staff will say to meet some > agenda of our own. Yes, that's obvious, as well as the unspoken assumption that Americans, as a group, are violent sociopaths. I'd settle for calling their reporting incompetent, weak, and unprofessional. Bias requires more talent, and has to be subtle to be useful. > Let me ask you this, when you Yankees > go around marking up synagogues and fire-bombing them > you don't take a gun along do you? Should one infer from the statement of a bigoted xenophobe that *all* Brits are as misinformed, prejudiced, and addle-brained? No, of course not. > When you struck a > match to all those Negro churches everywhere you went > two years ago you didn't have a gun did you? Uh ... Except that they found out it *wasn't* really happening - that fires *do* happen sometimes, and if you look at the numbers, you'll find they were no more common at one brand of religion than another, adjusting for age and type of structure. More stupidity and prejudice, but never mind ... > "You do not need to be concerned if BBC has something > to say about guns. Stuck with the asinine impression that we're all hiding from heavily-armed psychopaths who pass through the neighborhood on an hourly basis, why would you think we have the time? Thanks, but ... I'm more interested in finding the &%$#@ mosquito repellent than installing bulletproof windows. > If our on-air staff seems blaise or > disinterested in reporting 'another mass killing in the > USA today' it is because the mental pathology which > has overtaken so many of you Yankees So is their ineptitude at reporting the facts because of their ignorance? Or is their ignorance causing their ineptitude? I think you need to do a story on this ... "Flash! I have no idea what I'm talking about! Pictures at 10!" "Look what you made me do!"... Grow up. You are responsible for your actions. Not me. If your staff is lazy and incompetent, I'm not sure you can pin the blame on a couple of deranged freaks an ocean away. > has become apparent > to the whole world. Actually ... No, it hasn't. Our airports continue to overflow with tourists and business travelers from overseas who find the US an enjoyable and productive place to visit. Boatloads of Cubans continue to risk their lives to come to the US ... But strangely, few retirees from Palm Beach are making a break for Cuba. The US Immigration service reports up to 10,000 people illegally entering the country from Mexico on a given day. The Mexican police, however, report few, if any, overworked programmers from Austin crossing the Rio Grande. A truckload of illegals was stopped in Quebec -- trying to get to the US, not Canada. Guess they were confused. A quick web search finds close to 100 firms advertising help in immigrating to the US from the UK.. But only two offering the opposite. Why? I ran into a nice young lady from London a couple of months ago who was here to visit a company I do business with. She was fascinated by the differences in lifestyle here. We had a good laugh about what passes for "Historic" buildings here in Texas -- anything built before 1930, it seems. She was scared of our traffic (and I'm not sure she liked my demonstration of the "Houston Exit" -- driving across the dirt to get off a backed-up freeway) ... but she didn't ask once where to buy flak jackets. > One of you escapes from the mental > hygiene clinic, goes around killing a few people or > starting fires, and by the time of the next newscast > the rest of you have all forgotten about it and are > busy fighting about something else. We have close to a third of a billion people in this country. Just "natural causes" takes the lives of several thousand people every single day. These are sad events, but to infer a pattern is to admit to prejudice and ignorance. Surely those are not attributes one would want associated with a news organization? > You'll pardon me > if I suggest the violence, hatred and intolerance in > the home of the brave and the land of the free no > longer is news to anyone." If it's no longer news ... Then why are eight (count 'em) news networks running live coverage of it? > On their overnight Wednesday/early Thursday (US time) reports regards > Fort Worth, they did phrase things somewhat differently, saying that > 'there has been another act of violence in the United States just > about one hour ago. Hey, what's the body count from Mad Cow disease this month? Twenty or thirty thousand? Are there still enough people alive over there to keep basic services running? Does Rosie O'Donell qualify as a carrier? What about them royals? > A man went into a church in Texas with a pipebomb > and a gun. A young people's meeting was going on to discuss what they > had done at their Flagpole ceremony. Mandatory chuckle: Use "President" and "flagpole" in the same sentence without laughing. > The man cursed at them, mocked > their religion, threw his explosive at the group and then fired his > gun several times. We do not know how many at this point were killed > if any, but we are told he did then use the weapon to take his own > life.' Thus saving the taxpayers of Texas several million dollars. Shame he figured out that an atrocity like this is guaranteed fame, even if posthumous. We thank him for at least having the good taste to off himself. > (His use of the term 'Flagpole ceremony' was in error; around the > United States yesterday, many high school students observed what > was termed 'meet you at the pole' day, an informal gathering to > protest the violence they deal with frequently. Uhh ... actually the consensus is that it's a way to get around the requirement that a school not officially recognize or participate in religious functions. Where are you living that you have these frequent outbursts of violence? Here where I live, we're far more concerned about the lack of sidewalks on one of the busy roads that leads to the school. > Each school did > its own thing and teens involved with many church groups also > gathered at their school's flag pole as part of it.) No, it's important to keep clear that the schools themselves have no part in the observations. These are independent activities organized solely by the students. > A very fine ending to 'meet you at the pole' day, wasn't it? But > we here have more important things to discuss, like customer > service problems at MCI . So let's carry on. I'm convinced that our esteemed moderator is channeling Eeyore. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Let me respond to one point of yours: > where are you living that you have these frequent outbursts of > violence .... Well, I am *not* living in Chicago any longer, or anywhere close to it. Outbursts of violence in and around Chicago are very common, everyday occurrences. There are always two or sometimes three people violently murdered there each day; the total murders each year is around 700-800 persons. One year it hit 900-something, a bit short of a thousand, and it has been as low as in the 600's a couple years. Those are not natural deaths, those are violent murders. Assault and Battery, strong-arm robberies, etc typically number a few thousand each year; in other words only ten to fifteen each day. Normally once or twice in a year there will be some violent outburst involving the students in a school. Either some students will assault and kill one of the teachers, or maybe one of the teachers will beat up one of the students. It may be a case where a gang has taken over a school, or a situation where there is a sports event and the students from one school get into fights with the guys at the other school. Wholesale I mean, several dozen from each side with knives, chains, other weapons. Chicago is the town where a dozen judges of the Cook County Circuit Court First Municipal Division (ie. Chicago and a couple of suburbs) were sent to prison for accepting bribes, many of them involving serious felony cases; where three dozen other employees of the Court were found to have also accepted bribes for manipulating the files, etc. Its the town where the newspaper documented several dozen cases in great detail of persons sent to prison because prosecutors encouraged the police to lie and fabricate evidence, and the several instances in which the Supreme Court reversed the case based on prosecutorial misconduct. Its the quiet little community where 29 Catholic priests were found to have molested several hundred children in their respec- tive parishes over a number of years, with three of them taken to court for it and the other 26 or so just disappearing into the woodwork somewhere. It is the place where about thirty members of the city council have been sent to prison in the past dozen years. Chicago is the place where the Pacific Garden Mission houses about five hundred homeless people in its shelter on any given night and the mayor of Chicago feels it should be forced to close or relocate to somewhere else from its downtown location of 85 years because 'those bums are all offensive to the real estate developers two blocks west' ... the mayor who got out the vote for Clinton so that his brother could get a nice job in Washington where he pretends to know what he is talking about when he makes decisions involving Internet. Its the place where when a young mother is walking home from the store with her four year old son, she gets hit by a drunken driver as she crosses the street. The driver speeds away, and as she lays there severely injured unable to move, her four year old pleads "won't you please help my mommy?" and the way one person walking past helps mommy is to pick up her purse which is laying there and walk away with it. Another person chooses to help by picking up the sack of groceries which has gotten scattered and walks away with that. The little fellow says, "why are you taking my mommy's food? Please help her get up." Finally the ambulance shows up with police, etc. Her purse with identification, money, and housekeys are gone, as of course is her bag of groceries. That's Chicago, where I used to live, and where violent outbursts are a daily occurrence; as common as the sun rising in the morning, and where assaults go on constantly. I think many people living there must have cast-iron stomachs to see and willingly accept the things which happen there. I'm glad the only thing the folks in your community have to worry about are the condition of the sidewalks. In Chicago many people would be thrilled to be able to walk down a sidewalk in any condition without being assaulted or robbed or killed. PAT] ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: Just Another Mass Killing in the USA is All ... Date: 18 Sep 1999 03:48:09 GMT Organization: Net Access BBS What does this have to do with the telephone? Not a whole lot frankly, expect of pictures of LBJ solemly talking on the phone. But on this newsgroup we talk about society as well as the technology. In turbulent times, the Bell System, a rather conservative institution, tried to steer clear of it all (as did a lot of other organizations.) I recall cartoons showing a hippie protestor with a sign "DOWN WITH BIG CORPORATIONS" while taking refuge in a phone booth from a rainstorm. Back to your post ... > month now, aren't they? I remember when they used to be years apart, > and were considered a horrible abberation. When Charles Whitman > stood in the bell and clock tower in Austin, Texas that afternoon > in the 1960's firing at the people below, no one in this country had > ever heard of such a thing happening before. Pat, I'd like to disagree with your historical perspective. The {Philadelphia Inquirer} has been reproducing historic front pages every Sunday (eg "First Man in Space", "Man Walks on Moon", "Nixon Resigns", etc. What's interesting is not only the headline story, but the other front page news items about more every day things. Gruesome murders are nothing new. You've probably heard of the little girl in N.J. who was brutally raped and murdered by a sex pervert which led to "Megan's Law". Well, in the "First Man in Space" reprint, we learn of a man who committed exactly the same crime -- same reasons, same circumstances, in the same NJ town. Exactly 50 years ago, a well armed man, disgruntled about his neighbor's fence gate, walked around Camden NJ killing a score of people. (The Inquirer reprinted that headline, as well as a followup on the story.) My point is 50 years ago we had a mass murderer, just like today. [BTW, the man who did it, now old and frail, remains locked up in maximum security even though he was never tried for the crime due to mental illness. Efforts to move him to a less restrictive setting (no plans to release him) are vehmently fought by surviving family members who attend every hearing.] IMHO, "gruesome crime", the really viscious murders and utterly senseless assaults are pretty rare and the number hasn't changed very much. Some veterans from WW I, WW II, and Korean war came home disturbed and couldn't cope, just as some Gulf War and Vietnam veterans are troubled. Bank robberies are nothing new. What I think has changed for the worse is everyday street crime. I think urban crime really started to escalate in the late 1960s (1968 being a marking point). I think it was partly due to growth in illegal drug use, and partly due to decay in various elements of society (ie breakdown of the traditional family, frustration from unfulfilled higher expectations, loss of community structure--people moving around too much and not having roots, etc.) The growth in crime, especially in the older cities, led to flight of those people who could afford to leave and associated businesses to the suburbs, creating a viscious cycle of decay. I know it sounds cliche to blame 1960s liberalism for this, but it definitely must bear some of the responsibility for social decay. I remember well in those years a constant message of "stand up for YOUR rights!" and "do your own thing!", but no one talking about personal responsibilities. In the 1960s, the government was adding and expanded social programs at an incredible rate, but the liberal leaders screamed it was wholly inadequate and inspired turmoil and protest. Unfortunately, the prosecution of the war in Vietnam is largely at fault for creating a deep mistrust of the government. Unlike WW II, there were no clear goals or objectives of what we were trying to achieve or even why we were even there, and the government hurt things by an erratic strategy. Sadly, we know now that the protestors were right all along, and government officials (such as McNamera) knew at the start Vietnam was a no-win game. (McNamera's recent books, while utterly depressing, are informative.) I remember as a child not understanding how the United States was able to utterly beat both German AND Japan in WW II in four years, yet not be able to beat a tiny little backwater country in the same time span. That mistrust in government destroyed a key element of the social fabric. Nixon and Watergate didn't help that either. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: McNamera should be in prison, just like other criminals. He was responsible for killing thousands of young American guys. My fellow Chicagoan, John Wayne Gacy only killed fifty or so, and he got the death penalty. McNamera should not be allowed to publish any books either, or certainly not profit from them. Usually criminals are not allowed under the law to profit from books or movies that re-enact their crimes for public amusement. After the Vietnam war ended, McNamera and the others involved should have all been rounded up, given some sort of secret, mock trial in the middle of the night and put in prison for the rest of their lives. Tell me this Lisa, has he yet, in all the writing he has done since ever to apologize to the American people or the families of the dead soldiers in particular? I would doubt it. As you know, Chuck Colson and a couple others did spend time in prison. I just wish McNamera could have gone with them. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Sep 1999 17:03:00 -0700 From: John Ledahl Subject: Re: Doing Your Own In-House 411 To John Nagle, Having been a smug industry analyst myself in the past, it is easy to quickly recognize pomposity when I see it. John Nagle takes some half-truths about practices at a DOE Lab, throws in some headlines about unrelated activities, and condemns the work of 8500 people - most of whom are working on valuable, commercially-appealing computing and medical scientific innovation. And, yes - there is a legacy of bombs - both adminstrative and nuclear that continues to be addressed at the highest offices. Of course, the only thing more pretentious would be to ignore the original request because you really have nothing worthwhile to say. Way to go John! John Ledahl ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #414 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sun Sep 19 18:53:47 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id SAA06670; Sun, 19 Sep 1999 18:53:47 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sun, 19 Sep 1999 18:53:47 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199909192253.SAA06670@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #415 TELECOM Digest Sun, 19 Sep 99 18:53:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 415 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Spy's Lies and Shaw of the ITU (J. Baptista) Request for an Interview (ZZZPotato@aol.com) Re: Rochelle Park CO Update 4:37PM (Tony Pelliccio) Re: Rochelle Park CO Update 4:37PM (xgeo) Re: TCP/IP Protocol on RS232 Serial Port Between Two Computers? (B. Horne) US PBX Standards (Gary) Early Data Communications (L. Winson) Re: Question re: Portability of Numbers (Joseph Singer) More on Floyd's Aftermath in NJ (Richard E. Baum) Re: Stopping Unsolicited Fax Spam (Eli Mantel) Re: Slammed by Excel Telecom (Steven) Re: Administration Updates Encryption Export Policy (Peter Dubuque) Re: Enough is Enough (Tony Toews) Re: Our TELECOM Digest (James Bellaire) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 19 Sep 1999 14:49:44 -0400 From: J. Baptista Subject: Spy's Lies and Shaw of the ITU [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: On Sunday, September 19, a person who signed his mail 'J. Baptista' (email address shown above) chose to send out email to various names harvested from messages in prior issues of the Digest. I would like to stress that I *did not* authorize this mailing. Baptista not only sent me a copy of it for normal inclusion in the Digest, he picked out addresses he found in other messages. He *DID NOT* gain access to the Digest mailing list, he simply harvested names from public postings. I had previously told Mr. Baptista in some email correspondence that I would, as a final effort to conclude the ICANN pro/con thread here, print his rebuttal to Mr. Shaw's earlier message if he would simply send it to me. Apparently he did not feel that was sufficient, and so proceeded with his own mailing. Mr. Baptista's rebuttal message now follows as a conclusion to the ICANN thread, and readers's will please note that it does not necessarily reflect an 'official' viewpoint of this Digest or of myself. PAT] ------------------------------------- Hello: I am writing to you with respect to a number of allegations made by a Mr. Robert Shaw, an international civil servant with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), which sponsors and supports TELECOM Digest. On September 6th, 1999 Mr. Shaw made a number of false claims to the TELECOM Digest and to a number of newsgroups and persons which claimed Planet Communications & Computing Facility (PCCF) is an organization spying on behalf of and for the account of Network Solutions Inc, the dot.com registrar. We have filed Mr. Shaw's allegations at: http://www.pccf.net/correspondence/itu/telecom-digest-19990906.txt As a member of the TELECOM Digest I anticipate you saw this claim. We are contacting you to deny Mr. Shaw's allegations. Mr. Shaw has committed an act of libel and slander against us. Mr. Shaw has improperly used ITU resources to pursue his own personal campaign against us. This is conduct inappropriate of an international servant and violates the ITU Staff Rules and Regulations. Mr. Chuck Gomes, Vice President, Customer Programs of Network Solutions, has also denied Mr. Shaw's slander. A copy of Mr. Gomes communication is available at: http://www.pccf.net/correspondence/itu/nsi-reply-19990907.txt I would point out to you, that a review of Shaw's past activities shows he has for the past several years been making public statements to the press and mailing lists that slander people and companies, especially in North America. Our only offense against Mr. Shaw is in effectively blocking government attempts to take over internet governance via ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. I'm sorry Mr. Shaw, that's never going to happen. We will be making a formal complaint to the Secretary-General of the ITU and demanding that the near government organization institute an investigation and upon a finding, reprimand Shaw. In any case, Mr. Shaw conduct should cease immediately. I hope that by contacting you and setting the record straight you can help us in undoing this liability. We at Planet Communications & Computing Facility are not spies nor have we ever been involved in spying. Thank you for your time. Joe Baptista Planet Communication & Computing Facility baptista@pccf.net Public Access Internet Research Publisher 1 (212) 894-3704 ext. 1033 ------------------------------ From: ZZZPotato@aol.com Date: Sun, 19 Sep 1999 15:25:24 EDT Subject: Request for an Interview Hello, my name is Janet and I'm in 7th grade. I am doing a research project for my school and I would like to interview you through e-mail about how telephones work and how they have changed the world. Would you mind answering a few questions and reply ASAP? Please include your name and title when you reply. Thank you very much. 1) Can you please explain to me how the telephone works? 2) How are we able to talk to each other on the phone even though we are thousands of miles away? 3) How has the telephone changed the world and the way we live? 4) Would you consider the invention of the telephone a turning point in history? May I have your permission to use some quotes from our conversation in my project? Thank you for your cooperation. You have been a really big help. Also, your homepage is wonderful. I learned a lot about telephones and it's history. :-) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I sincerely hope at least one or two readers will take a few moments to answer Janet, and perhaps speak with her on the phone or at the least provide a detailed email response. I've also passed this along to David Massey who maintains the 'Tribute to the Telephone' section here. PAT] ------------------------------ From: nospam.tonypo1@nospam.home.com (Tony Pelliccio) Subject: Re: Rochelle Park CO Update 4:37PM Organization: Providence Network Partners Date: Sun, 19 Sep 1999 16:11:26 GMT In article , aboritz@CYBERNEX.NET says: > An interesting side-note, apparently Bell Atlantic told CBS news that > the Rochelle Park central office outage is only affecting about 32,000 > customers. They didn't bother to mention that the rocket scientists > who put switching equipment on the first floor of a building next to a > river, also eliminated all diversity and critical backup capability by > forcing all toll and long distance traffic through this facility. The main CO for Rhode Island is located about a half mile from me. The switching gear is all located on the 4th floor of the building. This makes sense for a local and toll switch to be isolated from a flood area. Other switches aren't so lucky although there are a few exceptions. The switch the handles Pawtucket is right near the Blackstone river and is on the first level. As you drive around you see many of the switches situated near water, and on the first floor. This is particularly true in the east bay area of Rhode Island. == Tony Pelliccio, KD1S formerly KD1NR == Trustee WE1RD ------------------------------ From: xgeo Subject: Re: Rochelle Park CO Update 4:37PM Date: Sun, 19 Sep 1999 10:00:33 -0500 Has anyone heard anything from MCI on this outage? My company has T-1s for Frame, Voice, and Internet all coming out of the MCI POP in West Orange. Three guesses how they are routed to our site in Clifton? All come through Rochelle Park. So we are Dead in the (pardon the pun) Water as far as Land Lines go. I have insult on top of injury as well. Guess who our wireless provider is in Northern New Jersey. AT&T Wireless? Alan Boritz wrote in message news:telecom19. 414.2@telecom-digest.org... > On Fri, 17 Sep 1999 16:39:25 -0400, in comp.dcom.telecom Joseph > Wineburgh wrote: >> As of right now the estimated recovery time for Rochelle Park is >> tonight (no specific time given) as the entire building and >> surrounding area is flooded and 7 feet deep water is in this building >> as well as others like EDS and the surrounding streets. > Sounds like a typical non-committal Bell Atlantic employee's line of > bull. It's more than 24 hours later, and there's been no progress. All > of Begen County (northeast corner of the state) is either without > phone service, or still can't reach anyone outside their own central > office. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 18 Sep 1999 22:36:27 -0400 From: Bill Horne Organization: Place Clue Here Subject: Re: TCP/IP Protocol on RS232 Serial Port Between Two Computers? Frank wrote: > Can I run TCP/IP protocol on RS232 serial port between two computers? Yes. You may use either the Point-To-Point Protocol (PPP) or the Serial Line Interface Protocol (SLIP). The details depend on your operating system: in windoze, choose the "direct cable connection" option in the Dial Up Networking section, and plug in a "null modem" cable. Assign yourself IP addresses such as 10.1.1.1 and 10.1.1.2. HTH Bill Horne (remove ".nouce" from username to reply. Sorry.) ------------------------------ From: garya@clear.net.nz (Gary) Subject: US PBX Standards Date: Sun, 19 Sep 1999 07:57:06 GMT Organization: Paradise Net Ltd. Customer Reply-To: garya@clear.net.nz Hi, I would like to know how some equipment between CO and a PBX communicates with the PBX. Are there some standards out there for the US? FCC? ANSI? I am interested in signalling, how it differs between loop start and ground start and where leg reversals are used etc ... Please email me at garya@clear.net.nz Thanks in advance, Gary ------------------------------ From: lwinson@bbs.cpcn.com (L. Winson) Subject: Early Data Communications Date: 19 Sep 1999 02:35:10 GMT Organization: The PACSIBM SIG BBS According to the book "Building IBM" by Emerson Pugh, an early effort of data communications was in 1940 when IBM and AT&T set aside business issues in the interest of national security to set up data links. The Army Air Corps approached IBM in 1940 seeing a machine that would read teletype paper tape and translate it to punch cards, so data could be sent over a telegraph line. The first set up was between Wright Field and the Pacific Overseas Air Service Command in Oakland CA. Following, many other US military organizations soon handled stock control at the depot level using accounting machines and an integrated system of teletype stock balance control procedures based on IBM equipment. Another IBM product for the war was Radiotypes, which used shortwave radio to transmit typewritten messages. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 18 Sep 1999 19:43:41 -0700 From: Joseph Singer Subject: Re: Question re: Portability of Numbers Patrick Peters wrote: > I work for a small business that's thinking about getting a "hundred" > number (like 345-6700) for our main business number. We're also > considering a number of local exchange carriers and we realize that we > might want to change carriers in the future. > If we change local carriers, would we have to change our phone number > as well? There's a "number portability charge" on my phone bill at > home every month, but I don't know if this is the kind of portability > they had in mind. First of all, if your carrier whether it's an ILEC (such as Southwestern Bell) or a CLEC (such as Electric Lightwave or whoever) will charge you a one time premium for either a "vanity" number (one that spells a certain thing) or a specific number such as XXX-3000 or XXX-3500.) That said, eventually within the next couple of years you will be able to switch your service from one company to another. This is called local number portability (LNP) and this is the charge that appears on your bill. The charges are only supposed to be on your bill for three or four years I believe after which the "cost" to implement this service will have been paid for. Bottom line is that if you choose an ILEC or a CLEC with a certain number you should be able to retain the number when going from one company to another. Even if it's not immediately available the company should have it possible that your service at one place will be forwarded to the other place until LNP is available in your area. Joseph Singer "thefoneguy" PO Box 23135, Seattle WA 98102 USA +1 206 405 2052 [voice mail] +1 206 493 0706 [FAX] ------------------------------ From: Richard E. Baum Date: Sun, 19 Sep 1999 00:22:09 -0400 Subject: More on Floyd's Aftermath in NJ Well, Bell Atlantic is in the process of drying out its Rochelle Park switching center, but nobody has any clue about when telephone service will be fully restored. The Bell Atlantic and AT&T reps interviewed on the local TV/Radio seem to not have any answer for that question. Bell Atlantic expects local service in the Rochelle Park area to be up in a day or so, but apparently the inter-office equipment was the hardest hit, and that will take longer to fix. It seems that local service (ie -- dialtone) for the towns immediately around the service will be restored within the next day or so. Unfortunately, most (all?) of Bergen and Hudson counties are still unable to call out of their local exchange, and those outside can not call in. The radio reports 10% of outbound calls are being completed. The only people in the area I've gotten any information from have had to drive out of the area to use pay phones in order to communicate. Cellular service is all hosed as well. This evening we were in NYC and on the way back we had no coverage at all with AT&T Wireless. The phone said "no service" from the George Washington Bridge to south of NJ Turnpike exit 13. That is several miles south of Newark Airport. There was no service on the way in either, but I only noticed this on the approach to the Lincoln Tunnel. Some links to info on the mess are: http://www.ba.com/ http://www.nj.com/page1/ledger/cf9dd5.html reb reb@lucent.com ------------------------------ Date: 19 Sep 1999 05:12:59 -0000 From: Eli Mantel Subject: Re: Stopping Unsolicited Fax Spam TELECOM Digest Editor wrote: > I suggest you follow the instructions given by other correspondents > in this issue and make your appropriate claim for $500 as they have > done or are doing. Nobody who wrote indicated they had personally collected on a claim for receiving unsolicited faxes. While there are certainly people who have collected based on the "do not call" rules, there are also cases where people went through the entire process only to have it eventually go to trial and be heard by a judge who evidently didn't care for the law, ruling for the plaintiff but awarding nominal damages (i.e. $1). Although the law requires the sender of an unsolicited fax to include a number to call or fax to in order to be removed from their list, my recollection is that they basically get one free strike. As far as being asked to be removed from their lists, this is of very limited value, because like junk email, the sender doesn't actually have a list, but is using the services of a junk fax service bureau. A number of times I have called up the company who paid to have the fax sent, and managed to speak to somebody who was seemingly responsible for having contracted with the junk fax service bureau. So far, I have not succeeded in getting removed from any "master list" that these junk fax companies us, which seems to be what it takes to really cut down on the junk faxes. If you can't do that, your fax number will just continue to be used to send you more faxes, and your efforts to be removed from other lists will have little or not effect. Eli Mantel ------------------------------ From: steven@primacomputer.com (Steven) Subject: Re: Slammed by Excel Telecom Date: Sat, 18 Sep 1999 17:18:10 +0800 Organization: Prima Computer Sorry, you way missed the point. >> it right, or legal. If they want to put other peoples bills on their >> bills then they are responsible for explaining them. I was not suggesting you spend the five minutes necessary to track down the address of a company that has to register their address with half a dozen government agencies in order to provide their service. You can simply send the registered letter the the people who are sending you the bill. Likewise when your muffler comes loose you do not need to track down the manufacture of the bolt that is loose and ask them to fix it, you can simply take it back to the dealer. Steven shadow@krypton.rain.com says: > steven@primacomputer.com (Steven) writes: >> The key to a lot of this is to not waste your (or their) time trying >> to resolve it on the phone. Send a registered letter saying you >> dispute the charges and watch the whole thing go away real quick. >> Spend an hour on hold and watch an hour get wasted away. Your choice. > I suggest you take a look at the long distance bill your local phone > company has included with your local bill. You will find the name of > the LD carrier, and a phone number. No address. > You *can't* send a registered letter to these outfits. Not without a > postal address. Which you don't get until things have escaleted to a > collection agency. ------------------------------ From: Peter Dubuque Subject: Re: Administration Updates Encryption Export Policy Date: 19 Sep 1999 16:45:54 GMT Organization: The Internet Access Company, Inc. Truman Boyes wrote: > On Thu, 16 Sep 1999, Monty Solomon wrote: >> Any encryption commodity or software of any key length can now be >> exported under a license exception (i.e., without a license) after a >> technical review, to commercial firms and other non-government end users >> in any country except for the seven state supporters of terrorism. > This is an excellent step in the right direction, but who are the seven > state supporters of terrorism? Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Sudan, North Korea and Cuba. Peter F. Dubuque - dubuque@tiac.net - Enemy of Reason(TM) O- ------------------------------ From: ttoews@telusplanet.net (Tony Toews) Subject: Re: Enough is Enough Organization: Me, organized? Not a chance. Date: Sun, 19 Sep 1999 19:37:16 GMT steve@sellcom.com (Steve Winter) wrote: >> Mind you, since these calls are to pick up fidonet email, they are >> usually only one minute calls. But it still adds up. > You might want to look at transx that does email and echomail via > email. www.multiboard.com I believe is their web site. Only if the other end supports transx as well. But yes, it is a good program. I use FNOS for FTP'ing my Fidonet netmail and echomail. And it works very well. On the other hand the current method of data xfer, using long distance, is working and quite reliably. Why spend all the effort into going to a new method if your time is worth something? For example I have one call a week to my RC. I'm an NC. I could've done that via FTP but to pay .10 cents for each call once a week wasn't worth my time to in setting up the events in Front Door, batch files and so on. Tony (Fidonet 1:3413/107) Tony Toews, Independent Computer Consultant Microsoft Access Links, Hints, Tips & Accounting Systems at http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm VolStar http://www.volstar.com Manage hundreds or thousands of volunteers for special events. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 19 Sep 1999 09:19:38 -0500 From: James Bellaire Subject: Re: Our TELECOM Digest At 09:20 PM 9/18/99 -0400, TELECOM Digest V19 I413 was published. (I apologize for the digest style response. It seems appropriate with so many points to comment on.) Bob Goudreau wrote: (Subject: PAT's Thai "Friend") > bellaire@tk.com (James Bellaire) wrote: >> And please, it is Mr. Poonsapya. Or Sermporn Poonsapya. >> Sermporn is the first name of your chosen advisary. > Actually, it's not obvious to me whether "Mr. Sermporn" or "Mr. > Poonsapya" is correct. Remember, Thailand is among the East > Asian cultures that use the form > of name-ordering, the opposite of the western practice. I'm basing it on the InterNIC records, which I hope he filed correctly. Also in that issue I wrote: > I doubt if this guy has any real work at NYNEX S&T. BTW the only two > domains registered to 'NYNEX S&T Asia' are his. The REAL NYNEX sites > are not using "kookiejar.net" and NSI for DNS servers. The IP number > 209.132.83.126 is owned by Simple Network Communications Inc. of San > Diego, CA. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I am sorry your original copy of the > above went astray; it was not on purpose. Your mention of simplenet > prompts me to say that they are good people. I do not think they > would have done this on purpose. PAT] The point being, if one does a whois on NYNEX, most of the sites found have nothing to do with the original NYNEX. I don't know what game he is up to, but your 'friend' could be just a individual user. And finally in that issue I wrote: > So are you right and he wrong when the net.crime is the same? > So I'll stick with my concentration -- Telecom Indiana - Telecom > Chicago - and Beyond. At least I know what I am talking about. Pick > a focus and do it well. The best advice for any aspiring webmaster. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I did not say 'I am right, he wrong' > regards his .gif files. You said that. I refuse to say either way. By posting them, your decision is clear. [snip] > Operator Pat to serve as a link back to my index.html ... I do not > want my visitors getting lost over there and not finding their way > back after all ... you see, Mr. Jim, as an international web site I > have to take a world view where telecom is concerned. I cannot just > limit myself to things going on in the USA. PAT] Pick a focus and do it well. I have links to David Leibold for the world, and three fine sites for the rest of the USA. I even have a link to massis, even though your java crashes my browser. I had a link there when it was still just a ftp:// URL. I was about to add the 'other' Telecom Digest to my page, just to have another international focus, but it appears that his site is down. (Since Sept 17, at 10:24am, his server time.) I'm not a link farmer -- I believe the links I have will get people to the right websites to find anything in the world. Why duplicate? Also johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) wrote: > To forestall further confusion, I've registered telecom-digest.net, > telecom-digest.com, and telecomdigest.org and pointed them to the same > place as telecom-digest.org. It appears that telecomdigest.com > belongs to a speculator, but it's completely inactive with no web or > mail service, so it hardly matters. Let me add my thanks to John Levine as well. It is one thing to complain about 'other digests' but another to actually DO something to prevent further problems. Thanks John! James Bellaire Telecom Somewhere [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Two points, both minor: Does anyone know to whom I would write (or the procedure) to obtain the domain name, telecom-digest.ks.us, in other words, Kansas in the US domain? The other thing is, although I do appreciate John Levine's hasty efforts to 'monopolize' telecom-digest against further intruders, I am not really enamored of a 'dot com' pointing to the existing web site. I do not think it reflects well on MIT or on my own work here. In that case, I think there should be an intermediate page which has a short message saying something like "You have made a very common error in URL addressing by typing 'com' where you should have typed 'org'. If you click below, you will be taken to the correct site." Or perhaps just fix it to automatically bring up the correct page a few seconds later. Just a thought. PAT ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #415 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Sep 20 00:08:32 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id AAA16803; Mon, 20 Sep 1999 00:08:32 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1999 00:08:32 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199909200408.AAA16803@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #416 TELECOM Digest Mon, 20 Sep 99 00:08:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 416 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Satellites May Come to Rescue For 911 Calls From Cell Phones (Tad Cook) Re: MCI Worldcom Residential Customer Service (ewvewv@my-deja.com) Re: TCP/IP Protocol on RS232 Serial Port Between Two Computers? (P Corlett) Re: Mor(t)on Grove Housing (Bill Levant) Re: Mor(t)on Grove Housing (Derek Balling) Re: Just Another Mass Killing in the USA is All ... (Eric Florack) A Note To Digest Readers About That Email (Joe Baptista) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. 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Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: tad@a42.com (Tad Cook) Subject: Satellites May Come to Rescue For 911 Calls From Cell Phones Date: Sun, 19 Sep 1999 14:58:10 PDT By Jon Van Chicago Tribune THE problem with using wireless phones to report emergencies is easily understood, but difficult to solve: Every day, public-safety officials around the nation receive tens of thousands of emergency phone calls from people using wireless phones, and many of them can't say exactly where to send help. Federal authorities have mandated that the industry find some way to trace the location of wireless-phone users so that when people dial 911 on cell phones to report an emergency, the calls will be routed to the appropriate public-safety dispatchers, who will know where to send the police, fire truck or ambulance, even if the callers don't have a clue as to their whereabouts. In a decision last week, the Federal Communications Commission agreed to let mobile-phone networks use satellite technology to locate callers in distress. Even without the FCC's edict to install technology by October 2001 to solve the 911 location problem, wireless-phone service providers would eagerly embrace such technology. Wireless-service operators expect it will enable them to market a whole new array of commercially attractive services, like helping customers find the nearest theater where a popular movie is playing. But right now, there is still no clear winner in a race among several competing ideas. Prototypes and field trials have yielded many successes in pinpointing the location of wireless-phone users, but even the best new technology has drawbacks. Perhaps the best all-around solution is to build new wireless phones that can track signals from global positioning satellites, which help pinpoint the user's whereabouts. This technology, called GPS, can locate someone within five yards in the best circumstances, researchers find. Unfortunately, GPS-based technologies won't help users of the 70 million-plus wireless phones already in use across the nation, which many consider a major drawback. "I think that while GPS will emerge as the eventual solution, you won't get GPS into handsets overnight," said Joe Hall, a Naperville, Ill.-based researcher with Lucent Technologies Inc. Although GPS may provide the ultimate solution, engineers expect that other plans will be implemented to find all the phones in use now. What is emerging is a smorgasbord of technologies with a host of small companies each pushing its favorite. At least three different technologies can enable wireless-phone systems to locate a handset making a 911 call. One technology takes advantage of the fact that several cellular-phone base stations in different locations may receive signals from the same handset. The base station nearest the phone user usually handles the call, but base stations farther away can get weaker signals from the same caller. Because the signal takes slightly longer to reach the stations farther away, it's possible to calculate differences in signal-time arrival. Existing cell-phone operating systems can be upgraded to collect and configure this information to produce an estimate of where the caller is relative to the three cell base stations monitoring the same signals. A second technology looks at the angle of arrival of the phone signals from the handset to at least two cell base stations in the system. This requires installing direction-sensitive antennas on the base-station towers and collecting angle-of-arrival information. Both of these approaches are prone to errors because radio signals bounce off many surfaces in their trips between transmitter and receiver. Instead of receiving just one clean signal, the receivers get several signals arriving at slightly different times from slightly different angles because of the multipath nature of radio waves, which can bounce off trees, buildings and the ground as they whiz around town. One location plan that seeks to capitalize on the multipath nature of radio signals produces a "fingerprint" for each signal received from a handset to locate a caller. This requires mapping urban areas to produce a detailed database of how signals bounce around as they travel through certain neighborhoods. Fingerprint technology makes many measurements of the signal received at a single cell-phone base station and then compares it to the database to produce an estimate of where the caller is. Accuracy limited Although these approaches can work with customers' existing phones, multipath problems are significant enough that the accuracy of these systems will always be limited. "Multipath is a big limitation," said Bob Richton, a Lucent researcher based in Whippany, N.J. "There's just no way around the fundamental science involved when you limit yourself to the ground-based infra- structure." Although multipath issues also affect signals from the global positioning satellites, they are much less of a problem. But there are other difficulties, such as a weak signal that may be hard to read inside buildings, as well as complex calculations required to convert signal information from several satellites into longitude and latitude on the ground. GPS-based location devices often take several minutes to gather information from several satellites before they can calculate a person's location, said Giovanni Vannucci, also a Lucent researcher in Whippany. "Taking a few minutes to get your location is fine when you're on a hike in the woods or sailing on the water, but that's unacceptable if you've just dialed 911 to report an auto accident," Vannucci said. At Lucent and at other companies, including Schaumburg, Ill.-based Motorola, engineers have developed ways to work around the inherent difficulties associated with GPS. For one thing, it makes sense to move as much GPS monitoring as possible into the wireless network infrastructure so that wireless handsets purchased by customers need as little GPS technology as possible. Most wireless phone GPS strategies use antennas that constantly monitor and plot the satellites as they sail across the sky. This information is fed into the wireless network so it is available at the instant the network receives a 911 call. Of course, the network already has a general idea where the caller is located because it knows which base station is handling the call. Using the most current GPS information, the network tells the handset where to look and when to expect the next signals beamed down from passing overhead satellites. This reduces the difficulty and time of the location problem tremendously. "If you send someone into a room of 50 people with the mission of finding three of them, it can take quite a while," said Lucent's Hall. "But if you give the man photographs of the three people he's looking for before he enters the room, he'll get the job done much faster. "We're using that same principle." There is some disagreement among industry people working on the wireless-location problem as to how difficult it will be to graft GPS technology into wireless handsets and the importance of the millions of legacy handsets in use now that won't be helped by the new technology. Dan Allen, chief executive of Seattle-based Integrated Data Communications Inc., is among the most optimistic about the GPS solution. His firm provides software that lets GPS-equipped phones communicate their position to the wireless network. Field tests suggest a high degree of accuracy, he said. Getting a bearing "We can tell what lane you're traveling in on the freeway and which direction you're going," Allen said. "We can even tell if you're on the freeway itself or on an overpass on underpass crossing the freeway. That's relevant because calls on the freeway go to the state highway patrol and other calls go to the city police." Allen said that some wireless handset-makers already have plans to begin including GPS tracking chips in their next models and that the equipment will only add about $10 to the costs of making the units. Because customers replace their wireless handsets so frequently, Allen said that older phones aren't a major problem. "At the end of 1998, there were 68 million cell phones in the U.S.," Allen said. "That total had grown by 14 million during the year, but the actual number of cell phones sold all year was more like 30 million. About half the phones sold were replacements. Once we start putting GPS technology in phones, you can expect that within 2 1/2 years, 90 percent of the customers will have phones equipped with this technology." At Motorola, the company that pioneered cell-phone technology and America's largest wireless phone handset manufacturer, the problems seem more complex than Allen suggests. Motorola engineers have developed prototype GPS products, but they haven't yet reduced the equipment to the size of a chip to be implanted inside a phone. Tom Walczak, director of the project, said adding GPS technology to cell phones will probably entail significant expense and take up enough room to affect the overall design of the phones. Motorola, Lucent and other industry players are working together to set technical standards so that various technologies that address the wireless-location problem can work together. ------------------------------ From: ewvewv@my-deja.com Subject: Re: MCI Worldcom Residential Customer Service Date: Sun, 19 Sep 1999 21:22:36 GMT Organization: Deja.com - Share what you know. Learn what you don't. In article , davidesan@my-deja. com wrote: > In article , ewvewv@my-deja.com > wrote: > > How much money are we talking about? If it is a small amount, how > about filing against MCI in small claims court? File for all costs -- > the overcharges, the mail, your time, your suffering. That could wake > them up. In this case, thousands of dollars, but the actual amount is uncertain because MCI refuses to tell me when they began charging our home telephone at commercial rates and what the rates were. They are persistently stonewalling every attempt at resolution. It's more than a small claims court issue, but according to my attorney, a stonewalling bureaucracy can easily run up the legal bills to make any victory a net loss. > Or find a disreputable lawyer who will work on a contingency fee. Sue > for $2 Million for suffering, pain, and annoyance. It sounds like you > have everything documented, and they will have no idea what hit them. > Bet they settle quickly. Attornies don't usually take cases like this on contingency. That's why I suggested that what we need is a massive class action suite. > Or step three. Contact a consumer group, like Ralph Nader. They > always are looking out for cases like this. Any suggested contacts? > We always read about these tails of woe with carriers. I examine each > phone bill for added costs, calls I did not make, anything out of the > ordinary. And yet in all these years I have not had one problem with > my phone bill. PAT -- you haven't done a survey in a while. How about > a satisfaction survey -- Who is your LD phone company, and how would > you rank them? The results might be useful for the group. ------------------------------ From: abuse@cabal.org.uk (Peter Corlett) Subject: Re: TCP/IP Protocol on RS232 Serial Port Between Two Computers? Date: 19 Sep 1999 21:24:26 GMT Frank wrote: > Can I run TCP/IP protocol on RS232 serial port between two computers? Yes, use PPP. It works just fine between two computers on a null-modem cable as it does across a dialup link. I've got several devices here that talk PPP but don't have Ethernet interfaces, so that's how they get hooked up. You've not given the whole story. What do you actually intend to do with this link? If it's to share a Internet connection, you'll probably find a few gotchas. ------------------------------ From: Wlevant@aol.com (Bill Levant) Date: Sun, 19 Sep 1999 10:07:13 EDT Subject: Re: Mor(t)on Grove Housing > 2.) OK, so if the municipality decides to condemn and eminent-domain > the property, they have to reimburse the property owner AND the > tenants (let's assume for the moment that we'll consider them > residents)? That makes no sense. The tenants are not out any > property. Nothing they own is being removed from them, so why should > the government have to subsidize anything for them? The hotel owner > (or if was an apt. building, the landlord) got paid "fair market > value" [in theory at least] for the property. You let people's leases > expire and simply don't renew them. Ah, but the remainder of the lease term is a property right (in Pennsylvania, at least) which can't be taken without payment of "just compensation". The value of this property right is the difference between the rent payable to the end of the term and the rent for a new lease of similar term in new quarters (called "bonus value"), perhaps plus relocation expenses. Now, in this specific case, with one-year leases that are simply allowed to expire without renewal, there probably *isn't* any bonus value. Imagine a situation, however, where a department store is under a long-term (~20 year) lease at a grossly below-market rent (when the lease was signed, the shopping center was a dump, but now it isn't). The "bonus value" of this lease could be enormous. Bill (Usual disclaimer : IAAL, but only in PA and NJ. This is not legal advice). [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Had there been a store or a wide variety of commercial enterprises at the location or decent housing, it would have all been a moot point ... read on. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 19 Sep 1999 07:49:57 -0700 From: Derek Balling Subject: Re: Mor(t)on Grove Housing At 10:07 AM 9/19/99 -0400, Wlevant@aol.com wrote: > Ah, but the remainder of the lease term is a property right (in > Pennsylvania, at least) which can't be taken without payment of "just > compensation". > The value of this property right is the difference between the rent > payable to the end of the term and the rent for a new lease of similar > term in new quarters (called "bonus value"), perhaps plus relocation > expenses. > Now, in this specific case, with one-year leases that are simply > allowed to expire without renewal, there probably *isn't* any bonus > value. Imagine a situation, however, where a department store is > under a long-term (~20 year) lease at a grossly below-market rent > (when the lease was signed, the shopping center was a dump, but now it > isn't). The "bonus value" of this lease could be enormous. Actually, in this case, you've got a bunch of people living in a hotel, where I doubt they have any leases at all. (Hotels work on a night to night basis, if you get weekly rates out of them, its a rarity in and of itself). Now, if the hotel-owner KNEW this was coming and intentionally signed long-term leases with the people living there, that's one thing. (although I wonder if that, in and of itself, would pose any legal snafu's) Ordinarily though, the hotel-residents would have nothing (to my untrained eye) to warrant them getting a dime. D [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Let me try to clarify things here a little for you and Bill Levant. It was *not* a hotel. It was a motel, and then largely by virtue of its name being the Admiral Oasis Motel. Motels operate in much the same way of course, but instead of a high- rise building in the middle of a city you more often than not have a one or two story building on the outskirts of town scattered over a larger land space. A (MO)tor ho(TEL) was a place built along the highway in days long before the interstate highway system was built in the late 1950's. Same purpose, just different kind of layout and more typically people would drive up to the place in cars and park in front rather than getting off the train from New York and having a cab drop them off at a similar place in the downtown area. Both had the same basic amenities. In the era of 40-45 years ago, motels were very busy places if they were located along a highway in or out of a city like Chicago. Prior to the Kennedy/Edens expressway (I-90 & I-94) on the north side of Chicago, the main road in and out of town to the north was Lincoln Avenue, and a bit further north, Waukegan Road. If you built a motel along one of those highways of the 1950's, you were assured of making a lot of money on day by day rentals. Older cars, remember, would go all of forty or fifty miles an hour, people had ridden all day and wanted a place to stay that night. A place like Admiral Oasis Motel with its elegant dining room, cocktail lounge and nightly entertain- ment was very popular with travelers. As you went further south because of the 'No Vacancy' sign in front, you'd reach Lincoln Avenue in Chicago with a half-dozen such establishments in a row, including the Spa Motel, and a couple others whose names I forget off hand, but there are still there in row. They were all filled, night after night, Big Bands, floor shows, dining, the works. All for the hordes of motorists looking for a place to stay overnight, a place they could (MO)tor up to and not have to go to downtown Chicago. Then President Eisenhower built the expressway system, and the first Mayor Daley expanded Orchard Field into a major aiport known as Ohare. And people would land at Ohare, take the expressway to downtown Chicago, do business (assuming their company had not opened a new conference area right there at Ohare), go back out the expressway to Ohare, and fly home, all in the same day. And there was no longer anyone to stay at the Admiral Oasis Motel, or any other motel on the roads which *used to be the highways* before the interstates all got built. They all became sort of like Bates Motel, thankfully without Norman Bates and his mother. Empty. But the owners still had the expenses. Oh, they soon closed off the elegant dining rooms where no one was eating any longer, and the 'cocktail lounge' would get leased out to someone else who ran it as kind of a third-class tavern with a few amusement games, etc. But they still had the front desk clerks, the maids and the building engineer or maintainence man to meet payroll on. And of course the switchboard was an expense. At Admiral Oasis, the switchboard was (312/708/847) YOrktown-7-4000 as long as anyone could remember. And you had the gas and electric utilities; guests who would run the air conditioning and heating in their room at the same time on a mild day in May when neither were needed. The original owner who had built the place had it for thirty years, finally paid off his mortgage and was starting to make some money on the place but he saw the future: building starting to need repair, cars going down the expressway instead, and times getting tougher. So he finds a young kid with stars in his eyes who thinks he is a hotshot real estate speculator and says, I will sell you the motel *on contact* ... just send my six grand every month to me at my new residence in Florida and you got yourself a motel. The above is generic. It was not just Admiral Oasis; there were hundreds of apartment buildings in Chicago which went the same way in the 1960's; the old guy who erected the place in the 1920's wanted out, some kid would buy it on contract, time and again. The old guy would go live in Florida or somewhere. That of course meant slicing a pie with already thin slices a bit more. Money which should have gone into maintainence and modernization was going in the form of a check to the old guy who was selling the building on contract to the new kid. And the new kid soon learned that unless he had a full house day after day, after he made his contract payment for the month there would be enough left over to meet payroll or pay the utilities, but no both. You always meet payroll, end of discussion. What you do is, you stall on the utilities. And since the place is getting more and more run down and you cannot get the tenants you would like, you start taking the tenants you can get. Then one day the kid defaults on his contract and someone new has become the landlord. Repeat the above paragraph four or five times over a ten year period. A building which had become seedy, but still decent for poorer tenants several years ago has now become mostly a dopehouse or a whorehouse, or both ... and a discreet little notice by the switch- board at YOrktown-7-4000 which previously had reminded the operator that, "if the social worker at Pacific Garden Mission calls looking for a room, tell him we do not have any vacacies" is replaced by one that says, "tell PGM the rate for their clients is $75 per week, in a room with a refrigerator." In the olden days when the house was full night after night with 1950-ish Mr. and Mrs. America why bother with weekly rentals. Now five days rent in advance gets you a week and four week's in advance (out of four and a third) gets you a month. Better to get rent in advance for twenty days out of the month and know how much money there will be. But because a day-to-day renter is *not* a tenant under Illinois law but a weekly or monthly person is, and because an innkeeper can easily evict someone but a landlord has a devil of a time legally evicting a tenant, the switchboard operator at YOrktown-7-4000 was instructed to tell all callers, we do not rent by the week, only by the day. If the caller persisted, for example saying he knew someone living there 'paying by the week' the switch- board was to tell him after he had paid daily rent for a few days he was welcome to go talk to the manager and 'see if something can be arranged'. That way if the newcomer intended to sell drugs to the general public from his room or sell other 'services' the desk clerks would get wise the first day and bounce him the next morning. So after about thirty years of being bypassed by the expressway, and having gone through a half-dozen or so contract-style landlords and in desparate need of maintainence, the Admiral Oasis Motel had reached the point its tenant population consisted of dope dealers, prostitutes renting by the hour, and a large number of very poor, but decent black people, some with families, some alone. While many paid rent by the week, quite a few paid by the day (but were there day after day) and some of those worked all day to raise the money to pay the rent that night. Those with a little extra money would leave a five or ten dollar deposit at the desk so they could use the phone in their room to make outgoing calls through the board instead of having to use a payphone. They got incoming calls at no charge. It got to the point that police were there almost every day about one thing or another. Village of Morton Grove said that about ninety percent of the calls for police service in the village were from the 9500 block of Waukegan Road. When the village decided to condemn the place and build a shopping mall, they used the same argument as Derek has done. Tenants had no property rights, only the landlord (whichever one it happened to be at the time). But the housing committee lawyer told the village it might win on that point or it might lose, but did they even want to have a federal judge looking at how a village of fifteen thousand people, all white, condemned the housing for poor black people and offered them nowhere else to live instead, defacto forcing them to move out of the village making it all white. Morton Grove agreed that might look odd, and since they had just spent five years in court fighting the landlord in order to get emminent domain, they were not in the mood to get a black eye spending another two or three years in court fighting a tenant's organization and arguing over whether the village was trying to get rid of all the black people. Thus the cash settlement with each tenant, which IMO was only fair. The decent people left there had no where at all to move in the village and had to go live in Chicago. The building officially closed on a Friday in September, 1998. The live-in employees (desk clerks, etc) had another few days in which to move out. A week or so later, Mr. Chung wanted me to find out for him if they were selling off the furniture, televisions, etc. So I called YOrktown-7-4000. A lady answered the phone, "Admiral Oasis Motel" ... I said to her, "Mr. Chung wants to know if ..." and she interuppted me angrily and said, "Tell Mr. Chung I do not have any vacancies! Mr. Chung should know we closed a week ago!" I told her he wanted to know if there was any furniture or TV sets left. I assured her that he knew they were now closed, and thanks by the way for a few of the tenants presumed to be among the better ones. She told me several other landlords had already been in that week and picked through the best of the television sets, the chairs and lamps in each room and that Salvation Army was coming to get the rest of it in a day or two for use in their shelter. I hope now you understand, Derek and Bill. Whether or not tenants have property rights is quite beside the point. The problem is an all white, upper middle class village forty years ago had a crown jewel of a motel where everyone in town ate dinner and had cocktails. Over a period of thirty years or so and a half-dozen landlords, it metamorphed into a dope house, a place where prostitutes rented rooms for two hours at a time, where social workers from the mission would call to find rooms for clients just released from a mental hospital, and lots of decent people, mostly black, who were quite poor and had no where else to go or they would have been long gone, but had lived there in some cases five or six years in their squallid little rooms. Admiral Oasis Motel was defacto the 'low income housing' for the village, regardless of how the people managed to come up with the money to stay there. And as the lawyer said to the village officials, you would not want others to get the wrong impression of what you were trying to do there would you? PAT] ------------------------------ From: Eric Florack Subject: Re: Just Another Mass Killing in the USA is All ... Date: Sun, 19 Sep 1999 11:59:06 -0400 Organization: Free File Farm BBS It is perhaps off topic, and forgive me Pat if it is. But forgive me, Pat if I find myself unable to NOT respond to the thread that's popped up regarding the shooing down in Texas last week. Two points: 1: We saw attacks against government, against other religious group centers, and against individuals labeled as hate crimes even when the shooter was apparently deranged as was the man in Texas. However; Given the government's reluctance to call the shootings in Texas a hate crime one wonders just what the qualifications are. Apparently shooting up a church full of White Christians constitutes a brand of hate which is below the notice of the government.. It seems logical to question the purpose of hate crimes legislation, given the enforcement of it. 2:That had only one ... Just one ... additional person in that church armed, (that is to say, had someone besides the criminal been armed) there'd be at least 5 more people alive today. It seems logical to question gun phobia on the basis of lives that have been lost because we possession abdicate firepower to the criminals and nuts of the work, to our own detriment. Of course, on the second point, I also find it interesting that nobody, (at least from what I've seen) had a cell phone on them to call for help, either. Eric Florack eflorack@servtech.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 19 Sep 1999 19:15:45 EDT From: Joe Baptista Subject: A Message to the Readers of the Digest [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I had some personal correspondence with Joe Baptista discussing netiquette and my unhappiness that he had 'harvested' names from the public messages here. The first part of his message is mainly to me, but you are welcome to see it, to help you put the whole matter of his mailing to you in perspective. PAT] ------------------------ Hello: I owe you an appology. Thank you very much for your email and the time it has taken you to write it. I appreciate your sincerity. Since we have joined the dns issue, we knew and expected that much of our queries would go unanswered. I appologize for putting you into that basket. Please let your users know our intentions were strictly honourable with respect to limiting our liability. I have no issue with the Telecom-Digest. I only ask that if you can publish our letter to the ITU Secretary General, I would welcome that opportunity, but certainly I'm not demanding it. I think we have made our position clear and again thank you for your prompt response. Kindest regards, Joe Baptista Planet Communication & Computing Facility baptista@pccf.net Public Access Internet Research Publisher 1 (212) 894-3704 ext. 1033 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Joe's apology is accepted by me. Those of you who received his direct mailing got it because he was uncertain if I would print it here. Now that it has been printed, let's get on to other things. This whole debate over ICANN is starting to over- whelm me. What concerns me most is that if ICANN, as poorly arranged as I see it now, fails, we *will* have some unwanted visitors, some undesirable strangers taking more and more control here. If ICANN succeeds on the other hand, it still seems to me that the internet has a bleak, and oppressive future. Anyway, enough for tonight. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #416 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Sep 20 01:19:12 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id BAA19271; Mon, 20 Sep 1999 01:19:12 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1999 01:19:12 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199909200519.BAA19271@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #417 TELECOM Digest Mon, 20 Sep 99 01:19:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 417 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Phone Outages (was Re: More on Floyd's Aftermath in NJ) (Danny Burstein) NJ Telecom Outage (Richard E. Baum) Toll-Free "Local" Numbers? (M. Levin) Re: California Area Code Split Legislation (AB 818) (Linc Madison) Re: TCP/IP Protocol on RS232 Serial Port Between Two Computers? (H Stein) Re: Stopping Unsolicited Fax Spam (Gary Breuckman) Re: Explaining Positions in Quite a Lucid Way (Anthony E.Siegman) Re: Satellites May Come to Rescue For 911 Calls From Cell Phones (JF Mezei) Re: Intermittent Buzzing on Cordless Phone (Steve Winter) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: dannyb@panix.com (Danny Burstein) Subject: Phone Outages (was Re: More on Floyd's Aftermath in NJ) Date: 19 Sep 1999 19:55:51 -0400 > Well, Bell Atlantic is in the process of drying out its Rochelle Park > switching center, but nobody has any clue about when telephone service > will be fully restored. I swung by there this (Sunday) afternoon, chatted with a whole bunch of folk both at the scene, and in the emergency response groups (fire/ems) nearby. So ... here's the situation along with some background: Rochelle Park is in NJ, about ten miles west of the NYC border. The easiest way to find it on a map is to look at the George Washington Bridge where it leaves Manhattan, follow NJ route 4 west to the intersection with NJ route 17, then move about 1 mile southeast. The Rochelle Park CO is not only used by BA for local calls, but is _the_ major site used for inter-CO routing for lots of northern NJ communities. And it's _also_ a primary switching center for inter-lata and transcontinental communications. (This is partly due to the AT&T historical practice of building their key switching centers just far enough outside the cities so that in case of nuclear war, they'd have a good chance of surviving. (More on this later). The current structure is a mix of the bomb-resistant buildings we all know and love, along with some newer, more traditional light-duty office stuff.) Oh, and to add to the disaster potential here, it's also the major AT&T wireless (at least the digital portion, don't know about the analog one) MTSO for northern NJ, NYC, and Western Ct. So ... the effects were multifold: a) the 100,000 or so subscribers in the physically local area served directly by the CO are completely dead in the water. No dial tone. Nada. Note that this includes all the emergency service folk in that area such as the fire departments, ambulance corps, etc. [1] b) "remote" offices (or, I guess, "huts" might be a better term) that were controlled by that CO are generally live, but are only allowing calls inside the very small area controlled by that switch. (There's a _lot_ of variance here depending on what's actually in that hut). (While the CO is off grid power, most other areas are ok.) c) Other full-sized central offices, including, for example, Jersey City, NJ, have full local service but CAN'T GET (or are severly limited) outside their own COs. For example, even though Jersey City is about 20 miles southeast of Rochelle Park, and is literally across the Hudson River from NYC, they _couldn't_ make calls to NYC. (At least not via AT&T default). Which means that roughly one million (yes, that's million) customers can't readily communicate beyond their local area. [2] d) Cellular service is kablooeied. As I mentioned above, AT&T (digital) wireless was completely dead throughout northern NJ, NYC, and western Ct. Omnipoint was dead in the immediate area, and was a bit spotty as you moved away from there to areas with alternate towers. Nextel, I'm told, did fine. I don't know about the others. (By the way, lower Manhattan is problemmatic with Omni. Seems that they use towers on the Jersey side of the Hudson ... If you're in range of one of the NY side towers you're ok.) e) lots and lots of computer services are knocked out. I couldn't tell whether the banks' systems were inthe flood zone, or whether it was a routing issue, but most ATMs and credit card merchant terminals are DOA throughout northern Jersey, and I've heards reports this is a nationwide issue. So ... what's being done about this? a) the CO is no longer under water, and they're in the process of drying things out. b) There's a _lot_ of equipment in trailers, lots of cable spools, and lots of generators outside the building. It looks like Rochelle Park is about to get some brand new #5ESSs. c) the folk _outside_ the area should get their inter-CO stuff back pretty soon. [2] d) people in the immediate area are getting spliced into the temporary switches. BA optimistically says this should be substantially done by Monday morning (the "frame" folk I spoke with weren't quite as optimistic, but they believed a good chunk would be ready by morning.) [1] The direct radios, including the repeaters, used by the emergency service folk are working fine. So they've placed a whole bunch of folk to sit in emergency vehicles throughout the area in case people need to call for help. These radios also reach over into the neighboring communities, so that, at least, isn't a problem. BTW, the Rochelle Park Police Dep't had to move their dispatch center to the fire dep't ... no major problems there. Oh, these are "traditional" radio systems rather than computer-controlled "trunking" units. I'd rather not think about problems the latter could cause. (Yes, they're supposed to have "failsoft" built into them. Yep.) [2] This part of the problem scares the shit out of me, and also annoys the hell out of me (wow, two expletives in one sentence...). While the loss of a CO will legitimately knock out the communications in the immediate area, it shouldn't take more than 15 minutes to reroute other stuff that was going through it. In the Good Old Days of AT&T [tm], they'd have a crew in their hardened bunker under Bedminster, NJ, carefully watching their War Room map projection. If, say, Chicago's 'green light' turned to 'red' after being nuked, the cigar crunchers would curse out the damn Russkies and hit the reroute switch, so calls from NYC to LA would go via Denver instead. And if NYC got hit, these folk would ride out the shockwave and hit the next switch, so that Boston - DC would go via Albany. While I'm saying that stuff half in jest, it's clear that we _don't_ have the backbone/redundancy/rerouting capability that used to be there. Again, losing the customers immediately surrounding that CO was pretty much unavoidable. But to lose anything outside that area for more than 15 minutes is absurd. Oh, for good measure, I walked over to the Rochelle Park railroad station about 1/2 mile away. There were lots of warning posts for underground cables ... _both_ by AT&T and MCI. No doubt these cables and fibers fed into that building ... and when they went dead, there was no (or very limited) dynamic rerouting. Sigh. Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key dannyb@panix.com [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded] ------------------------------ From: Richard E. Baum Date: Sun, 19 Sep 1999 21:37:03 -0400 Subject: NJ Telecom outage... Well, it seems that things are improving rapidly. I can now complete calls to Bergen and Hudson counties in NJ. More important, friends and relatives there can now call out! In addition, my data lines through the area have all come back up. At this time I still can not receive incoming calls on my AT&T cellphone, though. One interesting thing, a friend with a business in Bergen County tells me that he was able to place and receive international (non-NANP) calls during the same time that he was not able to call within the same town on a different exchange (ie he could communicate with Poland, Italy, etc. but not dial from 201-666 to 201-664). He told me the only times his telephone rang on Friday were calls from Europe. I'd be happy to hear from anyone who can explain that one. reb reb@lucent.com ------------------------------ From: mlevin@meadhall.com (M. Levin) Subject: Toll-Free "Local" Numbers? Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1999 00:06:41 GMT Organization: Deja.com - Share what you know. Learn what you don't. While sitting in the laundromat today, I saw a "for sale" flyer on the wall. On the bottom of the flyer it read, "Toll free pager number 781-601-xxxx." "Toll free," I asked myself? Incredulous, I picked up the payphone in the laundromat (a COCOT, no less!), which was located in the 617 area code (adjacent to 781). I tried the number, and, much to my chagrin, the call went through! So what gives? What sort of number is this? Is this some sort of FGB-type number? (Incidentally, the COCOT would not let me dial 950 numbers even if I gave it money first.) Thanks, ML ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 19 Sep 1999 18:27:58 -0700 From: Linc Madison Subject: Re: California Area Code Split Legislation (AB 818) In article , Steven Lichter wrote: > To me the overlay is a total waste of time and money, they should just > add an extra digit to the exchange and the number and get it over with, > they will have to do this shortly anyway. You clearly have no clue as to the cost of adding an extra digit to the exchange. As to having to do so "shortly," that depends on what you mean by "shortly." Assuming we get our act together on making the allocation of numbering blocks more efficient, we won't need an extra digit until at least 2020, and possibly decades later. That's a significant difference from doing it tomorrow. > This reminds me of a woman in Moreno Valley, California who would call > her son in Colton, and she claimed that she never had to dial a 1 > before his number; you see at that time the exchange was SATT ACCESS. > I got the trouble ticket since the complained about the toll charges > that she got when we converted to full SATT with a System 7 Director; > you see it was still step. I told her that she must have had to dial > the 1 before or she would have never gotten though. She still did not > think so, but what else could I tell her and the problem went back to > repair and to the business office. I never knew the outcome and really > did not care. Why not just go back to dialing a 1; that way you will > know it is a toll or L/D call. People in the 714 side of Huntington > Beach only had to dial 10 digits A/C and phone number to reach the old > 213 side of the city, but they had to dial 8 or 11 digits if they had > to pay for it. Maybe we should just go back to the Pony Express, but > then the PUC would say we would have to dial all 11 digits to get them > also. The Hell with that, just fix it for the next 50 years not for > the next 50 minutes; what do I know I only had to work on this stuff > for the last 30 plus years. Well, you certainly don't seem to have learned much in 30 years, because in fact you DON'T know very much about what you're talking about. As to this woman in Moreno Valley, when exactly and with what telephone company and under what tariff was anyone in California required to dial 1+7D instead of just 7D for HNPA toll calls? There have been some cases where that was true, but they are distinctly in the minority, even in GTE territory. That is why California now permits 7D on all HNPA calls (at least as soon as 310 reverts), but requires 1+10D on all FNPA calls. ------------------------------ From: herb@herbstein.com (Herb Stein) Subject: Re: TCP/IP Protocol on RS232 Serial Port Between Two Computers? Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1999 02:06:28 GMT The below is certainly one option. Do yourself a favor and buy two ethernet cards and do it right. Still need a crossover cable in the absence or a hub. In article , Bill Horne wrote: > Frank wrote: >> Can I run TCP/IP protocol on RS232 serial port between two computers? > Yes. You may use either the Point-To-Point Protocol (PPP) or the Serial > Line Interface Protocol (SLIP). The details depend on your operating > system: in windoze, choose the "direct cable connection" option in the > Dial Up Networking section, and plug in a "null modem" cable. Assign > yourself IP addresses such as 10.1.1.1 and 10.1.1.2. Herb Stein The Herb Stein Group www.herbstein.com herb@herbstein.com 314 215-3584 ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Stopping Unsolicited Fax Spam Organization: Puma's Lair From: puma@lair.catbox.com (Gary Breuckman) Date: 20 Sep 1999 02:55:02 GMT In article , Monty Solomon wrote: > The facsimile states that the poll was commissioned by: > 21st Century Fax Ltd > 1204 Third Avenue Suite 108 > NY NY 10021 > and states that they have a web site at http://www.pollresults.co.uk/ > Monty > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I suggest you follow the instructions > given by other correspondents in this issue and make your appropriate > claim for $500 as they have done or are doing. PAT] If these FAX transmissions are actually being sent from outside of the US, would there be any recourse? I'm sure someone sending a fax from the UK would not be liable for US regulations. puma@catbox.com ------------------------------ From: siegman@ee.stanford.edu (Anthony E. Siegman) Subject: Re: Explaining Positions in Quite a Lucid Way Date: Sun, 19 Sep 1999 19:58:34 -0700 Organization: Stanford University > I've been using email for 20 years. One thing I've noticed on many > committees I've belonged to is that email is not a very good medium > for forming concensus. It's fine for raising issues and having > low-bandwidth discussions, but when it comes time to hashing out the > final decisions, nothing beats a face to face meeting. I participated in a committee task recently (drafting a set of bylaws) which went beautifully without requiring face-to-face, as follows: * A draft version of the document was put on a web site with some software that numbered every paragraph (including headings) and allowed all (authorized) members of the committee to post comments below each paragraph. Everyone could see all the comments, which were accumulated for a week or so. * Then we set up a conference call of the 8 people involved, each with a speakerphone and a live connecton to the Internet site. The combination of "audio face to face" plus everyone looking at the same text allowed us to come to closure on each point very rapidly. This setup did not provide for some "master controller" to update the on-line text on the master site in real time, but it would seem that that could fairly easily be added. "Audio-to-audio" seems to be nearly as good as "face to face" (or maybe, if you can't do it with a group that's audio-interconnected, you may not be able to reach any better agreement face to face anyway). ------------------------------ From: J.F. Mezei Subject: Re: Satellites May Come to Rescue For 911 Calls From Cell Phones Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1999 00:23:27 -0400 Tad Cook wrote: > Unfortunately, GPS-based technologies won't help users of the 70 > million-plus wireless phones already in use across the nation, which > many consider a major drawback. And many would consider the added costs of having a GPS embedded in the phones to be a major drawback too. But more importantly, GPS only works with line of sight to at least three satellites that are positioned to provide a good geometry. (four satellites are minimum for a third fix (with altitude). So, turn on your phone in a building, and you won't get a fix. Also, GPS systems take about 30 seconds under ideal situations to get a fix. So, consider this situation: "emergency happens, person turns on phone, dials 911, and whatever position information sent will be the last position the phone got, perhaps a week before when the phone was last used. In an emergency, it is unlikely that the person would wait before the phone says "ok, you can now dial 911 because I have finally got a fix". [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I do not think it would broadcast a location from the last time the phone was used, nor would the person need to wait. When someone dialed 911 the phone would immediatly start detirmining its location, if it did not already know what it was. (That is to say, if it had not already been turned on for 30 seconds and oriented itself.) The person would be able to dial 911 immediatly. After all, in many cases the person might know perfectly well where he was located. In the event he was unable to say, he might still be describing the emergency while the 911 dispatcher's display would say something like "GPS attempting to locate", and within a few seconds of that point they'd have the information. I think the key would be having it programmed so that any call to the number designated as the emergency number in the phone would force the GPS to instantly start recycling and getting a fix, if, let's say it had not done so in the previous 15-20 seconds and it had not sensed any changes in those seconds just before the 911 call went out (in other words was not presently in the process of doing its thing at that time). PAT] ------------------------------ From: steve@sellcom.com (Steve Winter) Subject: Re: Intermittent Buzzing on Cordless Phone Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1999 00:59:14 -0400 Organization: WWW.SELLCOM.COM Reply-To: steve@sellcom.com dmastin@nntp8.atl.mindspring.net spake thusly and wrote: > I have a digital BellSouth model (HAC) 3890Z cordless phone answering > machine combo. After about 15 months use it has developed an > intermittent buzzing. This does not seem to be related to battery > charge. I get a fairly loud "bzzzzztp" every 15 to 45 seconds. The buzz > lasts about one second. From the other end it sounds like an > interruption in the conversation. I'm wondering if it is time to > purchase a new phone. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Might be time for a fresh phone. (Might want to plug in some cheap "regular" phone on the line and make sure it is nothing in your line and/or take your phone to a friend's house and see if it does it there too.) Have you recently added any equipment that could be causing the problem? Steve http://www.sellcom.com Cyclades Siemens EnGenius Zoom at discount prices. SSL Secure VISA/MC/AMEX Online ordering Listed at http://www.thepubliceye.com as SELLCOM New Brick Wall "non-MOV" surge protection ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #417 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Sep 20 14:50:07 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id OAA14778; Mon, 20 Sep 1999 14:50:07 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1999 14:50:07 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199909201850.OAA14778@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #418 TELECOM Digest Mon, 20 Sep 99 14:50:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 418 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Telecom Update (Canada) #200, September 20, 1999 (Angus TeleManagement) How Does BigZoo Make a Profit? (Babu Mengelepouti) Rochelle Park Tandem Back in Service at 10:00, 9/20 (Joseph Wineburgh) Re: Phone Outages (was Re: More on Floyd's Aftermath in NJ) (Eric Bohlman) Re: Rochelle Park CO Update 4:37PM (Alan Boritz) Re: Canada's Yak Plan and Canadian Telco System in General (Ray Mereniuk) Driving and Cell Phone Use (Raymond D. Mereniuk) Special Phone Plans Aren't For Everyone (Monty Solomon) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1999 11:54:26 -0400 From: Angus TeleManagement Subject: Telecom Update (Canada) #200, September 20, 1999 ************************************************************ TELECOM UPDATE Angus TeleManagement's Weekly Telecom Newsbulletin http://www.angustel.ca Number 200: September 20, 1999 Publication of Telecom Update is made possible by generous financial support from: AT&T Canada ...................... http://www.attcanada.com/ Bell Canada ............................ http://www.bell.ca/ Lucent Technologies .................. http://www.lucent.ca/ Sprint Canada .................. http://www.sprintcanada.ca/ Teleglobe Business Services........ http://www.teleglobe.ca/ Telus Communications.................. http://www.telus.com/ TigerTel Services ................. http://www.tigertel.com/ ************************************************************ IN THIS ISSUE: ** Executive Exodus at Telus ** Call-Net Proposes Alternative Plan ** Cablecos Told to Offer Internet Resale Within 90 Days ** Regional Cable, AOL Sign for Internet Access ** Internet Direct to Use Optel's DSL for High-Speed Access ** CRTC Refuses Wireless Number Portability ** Sprint Launches IP-Based VPN Service ** Cisco Unveils Voice-Data Architecture, Products ** CANARIE Offers New-Technology Funding ** AT&T Raises $886 Million ** Bell, TD Join for Electronic Billing ** Bell Offers Call Centers Web-Based Calling ** Norigen Announces Local Service Plan ** Minacs to Close Toronto Call Center ** QuebecTel Buys Business Systems Firm ** Colville's Term Extended at CRTC ** Barnes Takes Helm at Wireless Association ** Former Avon Executive Is New Excel CEO ** LD Rates Still in Free Fall ============================================================ EXECUTIVE EXODUS AT TELUS: Three top Telus executives have announced plans to leave the company: George Petty (President and CEO); George Addy (Executive VP and General Counsel); and Harry Truderung (Executive VP of Telus and President of Telus Mobility). The company will hold a teleconference for investors today. ** Two other members of Telus's eight-member executive team resigned in July. (See Telecom Update #193) CALL-NET PROPOSES ALTERNATIVE PLAN: In a proxy circular distributed last week (http://www.info.callnet.ca), Call-Net Enterprises urges shareholders to reject a proposal by dissident shareholders to oust six directors and sell the company. Call-Net proposes an expanded alliance with Sprint Corp. and sale of Call-Net's U.S. fiber network. Call-Net says that a dissident takeover would cause the company to default on $2.2 Billion in unsecured debt. ** The dissident shareholders, headed by Crescendo Partners, say they will issue their proxy statement this week. CABLECOS TOLD TO OFFER INTERNET RESALE WITHIN 90 DAYS: CRTC Telecom Decision 99-11 instructs cablecos to make their high- speed Internet services available by December 13, at a 25% discount, for resale by other Internet service providers. Resale must be allowed until the cablecos provide direct interconnect to ISPs at CRTC-approved rates. (See Telecom Update #191) http://www.crtc.gc.ca/internet/1999/8045/02/d99-11.htm REGIONAL CABLE, AOL SIGN FOR INTERNET ACCESS: AOL Canada will connect to the cable facilities of Regional Cablesystems to offer high-speed Internet access in the northern Ontario town of Sturgeon Falls. (See Telecom Update #180) INTERNET DIRECT TO USE OPTEL'S DSL FOR HIGH-SPEED ACCESS: Internet Direct will offer high-speed Internet access using DSL service from alternative local service provider Optel Communications. CRTC REFUSES WIRELESS NUMBER PORTABILITY: CRTC Telecom Decision 99-12 turns down a request by Microcell to order wireless service providers to participate in LNP by March 2000. The Commission said Microcell had not demonstrated any error in its previous ruling that only Local Exchange Carriers can use the local number portability database (see Telecom Update #165). http://www.crtc.gc.ca/internet/1999/8045/02/d99-12.htm SPRINT LAUNCHES IP VPN SERVICE: Sprint Canada has introduced Remote Access IP-Virtual Private Network, which offers businesses remote access over Sprint's IP network. CISCO UNVEILS VOICE-DATA ARCHITECTURE, PRODUCTS: Cisco Systems has announced a software PBX, two IP telephones, an IP-based Automatic Call Distributor, and two IP-telephony gateways, as part of its Architecture for Voice, Video, and Integrated Data (AVVID). The PBX, CallManager 2.4, comes preinstalled on Cisco's new Media Convergence Server 7830. http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/cc/cisco/mkt/iptel/prodlit/avvid_wp.htm CANARIE OFFERS NEW-TECHNOLOGY FUNDING: CANARIE's Learning Program is offering $25 Million in new funding for applications to aid education over broadband networks. In addition, applications are now being accepted for all three divisions of CANARIE's Advanced Network Applications, Services and Technologies (ANAST) funding program. http://www.canarie.ca AT&T RAISES $886 MILLION: AT&T Canada says it will raise $886 Million this month from the sale of Senior Notes. The funds raised will be used in part to refinance $500 Million in obligations acquired before AT&T's merger with MetroNet. (See Telecom Update #199) BELL, TD JOIN FOR ELECTRONIC BILLING: TD Bank has agreed to help Bell Canada deliver its bills electronically through E-route, an electronic bill presentment company owned by six Canadian banks. (See Telecom Update #186) BELL OFFERS CALL CENTERS WEB-BASED CALLING: Bell Canada's Advantage Web Live Voice allows call centers to offer Internet users online voice calls, using a Voice Over IP connection. NORIGEN ANNOUNCES LOCAL SERVICE PLAN: Norigen Communications says it will begin offering local telephone service, long distance, wireless, Internet access, and LAN-WAN connectivity in selected office buildings in Toronto in October, and in Calgary, Vancouver, and Montreal by year-end. MINACS TO CLOSE TORONTO CALL CENTER: Minacs Worldwide says it will close its downtown Toronto call center, with 300 full-time positions, as part of the restructuring following its purchase of Phonettix Intelecom. (See Telecom Update #191, 194) QUEBECTEL BUYS BUSINESS SYSTEMS FIRM: QuebecTel Group has reached an agreement to buy Groupe Fortune 1000, a Quebec City-based provider of accounting and other business systems. COLVILLE'S TERM EXTENDED AT CRTC: David Colville's term as a CRTC Commissioner has been extended by four years, to December 2003. He continues as Vice-Chairman, Telecommunications. BARNES TAKES HELM AT WIRELESS ASSOCIATION: Peter Barnes has been appointed President and CEO of the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association, effective November 15, replacing Roger Poirier. Barnes is currently AT&T Canada's VP Government and Regulatory Affairs. FORMER AVON EXECUTIVE IS NEW EXCEL CEO: Christina Gold, until last year an Executive VP at Avon Products, has been named Vice-Chairman and CEO of Excel Communications, a unit of Teleglobe. She replaces Kenny Troutt, who continues as Excel's Chairman. LD RATES STILL IN FREE FALL: Canadian telecom managers provide an inside look at the market for business long distance in the September issue of Telemanagement, and Henry Dortmans suggests "How to Profit from the Buyers' Market in Long Distance." ** Telemanagement #168 also continues its "Competitive Strategies" series with profiles of Teleglobe and Primus Canada. ** To subscribe to Telemanagement call 1-800-263-4415, ext 225, or visit http://www.angustel.ca. ============================================================ HOW TO SUBMIT ITEMS FOR TELECOM UPDATE E-MAIL: editors@angustel.ca FAX: 905-686-2655 MAIL: TELECOM UPDATE Angus TeleManagement Group 8 Old Kingston Road Ajax, Ontario Canada L1T 2Z7 =========================================================== HOW TO SUBSCRIBE (OR UNSUBSCRIBE) TELECOM UPDATE is provided in electronic form only. There are two formats available: 1. The fully-formatted edition is posted on the World Wide Web on the first business day of the week at http://www.angustel.ca 2. The e-mail edition is distributed free of charge. To subscribe, send an e-mail message to majordomo@angustel.ca. The text of the message should contain only the two words: subscribe update To stop receiving the e-mail edition, send an e-mail message to majordomo@angustel.ca. The text of the message should say only: unsubscribe update [Your e-mail address] =========================================================== COPYRIGHT AND DISCLAIMER: All contents copyright 1999 Angus TeleManagement Group Inc. All rights reserved. For further information, including permission to reprint or reproduce, please e-mail rosita@angustel.ca or phone 905-686-5050 ext 225. The information and data included has been obtained from sources which we believe to be reliable, but Angus TeleManagement makes no warranties or representations whatsoever regarding accuracy, completeness, or adequacy. Opinions expressed are based on interpretation of available information, and are subject to change. If expert advice on the subject matter is required, the services of a competent professional should be obtained. ============================================================ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1999 04:09:37 -0700 From: Babu Mengelepouti Reply-To: dialtone@vcn.bc.ca Organization: US Secret Service Subject: How Does BigZoo Make a Profit? Pat Townson wrote re BigZoo Prepaid Calling Cards: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I am not quite certain how they can > take in your call on an 800 number, and send it back out to wherever, > meet their own administrative expenses and make a profit all for > 3.9 cents per minute. I wonder if by chance some telco along the > way (either the one giving them inbound via 800) or the one giving > them the outbound, or maybe both) is getting stalled on payment. That > comes down to two cents per minute each direction which is awfully > cheap, even at the discounted rates telcos pay each other. In fact, > it is even less than that going to the involved telcos by the time > you factor in the discount taken by the credit card company and what- > ever they pay the office clerk/switch technician/webmaster for their > web site. I could almost see it happening if they handled only one > side of your call and assuming their 'employees' were actually > indentured servants, ie. slaves, but I just cannot make the math work > out the way you have described it, unless one or more parties to the > transaction is being left in the trick-bag unwittingly. > Why don't you think it through and tell me how you think it might > work with the price per minute as quoted. PAT] I think that it is conceivable for them to make a profit. a) They're making a decent profit on international calls. Wholesale Canada and UK long distance is running in the vicinity of 5-7 cents per minute, and they charge 9-10 cents per minute. Probably similar profit on other international calls; I notice that even though Mexico has several rate zones, for instance, they charge 33.6 cents per minute for most calls there. This is a substantial profit on calls to border cities. b) They bill in full-minute increments. c) They charge 55 cents for the payphone surcharge, while they actually only have to forward 26 cents per call to the payphone owner. That is 29 cents profit on each call originating from a payphone, and users of calling cards often use them from payphones. d) They apparently charge the payphone surcharge from anything that isn't a 1FB/1MB or 1FR/1MR, even if the phone isn't actually a payphone. Their FAQ is pretty vague about this, which indicates sleaze to me. That means 55 cents per call profit on such sleazily billed calls, which you can supposedly protest by filling out some online form or other but is probably never refunded (if the customer even bothers to ask for a refund). e) They are most probably using dedicated trunking for all inbound and outbound traffic; therefore they only pay access charges on the originating and terminating ends. This ends up being only slightly more expensive than 1+ or 101-xxxx+ access charges, even with tollfree dialup. f) There are *no* billing expenses whatsoever, since it's all online ordering. g) There are no collections or billing write-offs, since it's a prepaid service. Their credit card processing system is pretty good, it verifies billing name, address and expiration date (most don't) so fraud is greatly minimized. You can also get credit card transaction processing for very low fees; 17 cents per transaction flat for debit transactions and 10 cents plus 1.5% for credit card transactions isn't uncommon for high-volume accounts. Besides, traditional telcoes have to pay similar costs to process checks anyway, and lots of them prefer to bill your credit card instead because it's cheaper than processing a check! h) Some prepaid customers lose their PIN or don't use all of their time before it expires. Even if this rate is only 3% of customers, it's still 100% profit. I assume there is an expiration date on each card. i) For comparison: ClearChoice Communications is able to offer a flat 5 cents per minute (in my area, although this does vary by state so check before you dial!) using their 101-0636 carrier access code; they have a 3 minute minimum and bill in full minute increments after that. Their parent company, VarTec Telecommunications, is also offering the same rate with a 10 minute(!) minimum using their 101-0811 carrier access code. And of course MCI offers 5 cent Sundays. All three offer this rate with the added expense of billing, as well as the possibility of collections and write-offs from unpaid bills. They also seem to be making money doing it. So I strongly suspect that BigZoo Communications has found a way to make a razor-thin profit from their prepaid calling card business. ------------------------------ From: Joseph Wineburgh Reply-To: Subject: Rochelle Park Tandem back in Service at 10:00, 9/20 Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1999 13:51:56 -0400 The Latest ... Update as of 9/20 at 10:00 am: At this point in time my organization have been advised that the Rochelle Park Central Office is now at 100%. The tandem is operational and there are no longer any isolated Central Offices. --------------------------------- I do agree about the "typical non-committal Bell Atlantic employee's line of bull" scent of the first message, in that why deal with angry customers when you can get the weekend started! I call it the "get their hopes up" routine. Would like to clear up whether it was just 'power' equipment on the 1st floor, or if they actually (Bell) had the PBX stuff their as well. First report said PBX equipment was on the fourth floor, and that the batteries, generator and commercial power was on the 1st. AT&T WS still out (Morristown, NJ #). Playing "Thank you for calling AT&T WS. Due to the storm damage from Hurricane Floyd, we regret that all recorded greetings, passwords and incoming messages are no longer recoverable. We apologize for this and hope you understand, given the unusual severity of this storm. We are in the process of rebuilding this system, and hope to have voicemail service available within 72 hours. Please call your voice mailbox at that time for additional instructions." Times out with "Sorry you are having trouble, please try your call again later. Goodbye." Well lah-de-dah - It's not me that's having trouble! Interesting bit - Nokia 6160 in 'field-test' mode shows signal (a @ -113), but display says 'no service'. Phone does not complete calls, but rather shows "waiting for signal". Anyone know for sure if the towers are powered up or not? Omnipoint (Wayne, NJ #) inbound calling came back up sometime Friday PM/Saturday AM. I placed an in-state call Sat AM. This was after getting a BellAtl "All trunks busy", or similar message all day Thursday into Friday. Outbound never seemed to be affected. Still getting "All trunks busy" messages all day today from Bell & ATT due to overloaded trunks to/from NNJ. Probably be that way for the rest of the day today and maybe tomorrow as well ... #JOE ------------------------------ From: ebohlman@netcom.com (Eric Bohlman) Subject: Re: Phone Outages (was Re: More on Floyd's Aftermath in NJ) Date: 20 Sep 1999 06:58:45 GMT Organization: Netcom Danny Burstein (dannyb@panix.com) wrote: > [2] This part of the problem scares the shit out of me, and also annoys > the hell out of me (wow, two expletives in one sentence...). While the > loss of a CO will legitimately knock out the communications in the > immediate area, it shouldn't take more than 15 minutes to reroute other > stuff that was going through it. It seems like the Rochelle Park CO was playing the *exact* same role as the Hinsdale, IL CO did 11 years ago. Shouldn't somebody have learned a lesson since then? ------------------------------ From: aboritz@cybernex.net (Alan Boritz) Subject: Re: Rochelle Park CO Update 4:37PM Date: Sun, 19 Sep 1999 23:21:41 -0400 Organization: Dyslexics UNTIE In article , Joseph Wineburgh wrote: > As of right now the estimated recovery time for Rochelle Park is > tonight (no specific time given) as the entire building and > surrounding area is flooded and 7 feet deep water is in this building > as well as others like EDS and the surrounding streets. > Apparently -- though non confirmed -- a river retaining wall burst > causing flooding. Our building is elevated which makes this all the > more devastating. I am told that this is the first time a major flood > has happened in this area. Another interesting note on this foolish situation Bell Atlantic forced on us, it seems that 911 for all of Bergen County was knocked out, as well. It's comforting to know that a determined person could knock out the phones at every law enforcement agency in northern New Jersey by taking out one central office. Wow, thanks for doing a GREAT job. ------------------------------ From: Raymond D. Mereniuk Organization: FBN Technical Services Date: Sun, 19 Sep 1999 22:11:09 -0800 Subject: Re: Canada's Yak Plan and Canadian Telco System in General Jim Borynec wrote > Aw come on Ian, don't be so thin skinned. He clearly doesn't know you > from a hole in the ground. I'm sure he's not the only one. You are much kinder than I would have been! I know of Ian Angus and of his background. The more reason to question and doubt. Our leaders should be open to new ideas and criticism of the status quo without resorting to burning folks at the stake who question their authority. > Unfortunately, Canada's rural areas are likely to remain fairly > isolated. How will we as a society get them high speed hookups? > Do we hope for a technological miracle? I will take this bait! Good question! But, if the incumbent service provider is stumped for ideas, other than throwing more money in their direction, I figure maybe we should get someone else involved. Telco local loops aren't suitable for much other than voice, especially in rural areas. The Telcos knew five or six years ago that convergence was upon them and that some action on their part was required. They wanted the consumer to pay for their ability to make future profits and the regulatory folks said no. The writing was on the wall five or six years ago. Residential users would soon want high-speed data access and other services requiring broadband capabilities. The Telcos could have started laying fibre to residential users and had something in place today if only their investors had being willing to invest in the prospect of making future profits. I am sure if the Telcos had offered to invest their own money there would have been no condition of rate controls as common under the current regulated monopoly system. For rural areas if the Telcos don't have a clue maybe we should hand it off to another party. Maybe give a tax holiday to operators who install a broadband cable system suitable for voice, data, and entertainment purposes. Maybe data services over radio, or for more remote areas satellite. The point being, if the current accepted provider of service just wants more money with no promise of concrete results we should give someone else a shot. If no one else steps up to the challenge we should leave the carrot hanging waiting for the right opportunity with the right operator. Virtually, Raymond D. Mereniuk Raymond@fbn.bc.ca "The Physical Layer Experts" http://www.fbn.bc.ca/cable1.html ------------------------------ From: Raymond D. Mereniuk Organization: FBN Technical Services Date: Sun, 19 Sep 1999 22:37:00 -0800 Subject: Driving and Cell Phone Use At one time in my working life I spent 75 to 80% of my time on the phone. This was a few years ago and I used a tradtional telephone with a tradational handset. Most of the time I used my shoulder to keep the handset on my ear. I noticed it was difficult to keep my focus on anything not directly in front of me and it was difficult to do anything other than maybe write some notes. In recent years I have used a headset rather than a traditional handset. The difference is amazing, I can talk on the phone and have some focus on other activities. I figure there is a physiological problem with attempting to talk on the phone and use an arm or shoulder to hold the phone. General observation, bad driving is often caused by the driver attempting to balance a cell phone and drive. Very often I notice a driver being unresponsive to traffic conditions, erratic vehicular behavior, and just plain being an obstruction to other vehicles. On many occasions I manage to pass these vehicles and notice the driver has a cell phone against his ear. There really appears to be a relationship between bad driving and cell phone use. I am sure a certain percentage of cell phone users can talk on a cell phone and not be a traffic hazard but what about the folks that can't. Virtually, Raymond D. Mereniuk Raymond@fbn.bc.ca "Need Someone To Tell You What To Do?" FBN - The Consultants http://www.fbn.bc.ca/consultg.html ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1999 02:14:22 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Special Phone Plans Aren't For Everyone September 17, 1999 Special phone plans aren't for everyone Filed at 8:10 p.m. EDT By John Borland, CNET News.com Question: Where is a nickel equal to 17 cents? Answer: On your phone bill. Long distance telephone firms are engaged in a heated price war, with advertised rates dropping as low in some cases as 3 cents a minute. But these low rates can be deceiving, consumer advocates say. For the average person who spends about 100 minutes a month making long distance calls, the cost per minute for these plans could be triple the amounts advertised or even more, once hidden fees or charges are factored in. http://www.nytimes.com/cnet/CNET_0_4_121133_00.html [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: To read articles in the {New York Times} online, registration at their site is required. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #418 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Sep 20 15:58:23 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id PAA18279; Mon, 20 Sep 1999 15:58:23 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1999 15:58:23 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199909201958.PAA18279@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #419 TELECOM Digest Mon, 20 Sep 99 15:58:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 419 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: FCC Setting Technology Standard to Locate 911 Calls (Alan Boritz) Re: FCC Setting Technology Standard to Locate 911 Calls (Randolph Herber) Re: Toll-Free "Local" Numbers? (Jeremy Greene) Re: Toll-Free "Local" Numbers? (Fred Goldstein) Re: Satellites May Come to Rescue For 911 Calls From Cell Phones (J Nagle) AT&T Underground Facilities (John Warne) Re: Low Audio on U S West Privacy Plus (Kevin Stiles) Re: I Was a Victim of Fraud (Alan Boritz) Re: Stopping Unsolicited Fax Spam (John R. Levine) Re: Where Can I Find the Standard Frame Relay Source Code? (Jim Darroch) Re: How Low Can They Go? (Satch) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! 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Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: aboritz@cybernex.net (Alan Boritz) Subject: Re: FCC Setting Technology Standard to Locate 911 Calls Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1999 04:16:52 -0400 Organization: Dyslexics UNTIE In article , herber@dcdrjh.fnal. gov (Randolph J. Herber) wrote: > In article , Tad Cook > wrote: >> WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal regulators are taking the next steps toward >> ensuring that cell phone users who dial 911 automatically give >> emergency dispatchers a key piece of information: their location. >> Other carriers are leaning toward building the technology right into >> the phone handset. The phones then could be pinpointed by the Defense >> Department's Global Positioning System. > My first order reaction is 'fertilizer' --- in large quantities. > I have had several 'opportunities' to use a combination of 911 and GPS. > I have encountered accidents in rural areas when I had a GPS receiver > up and running in the car with me. 911 was available where I was at. > I called 911 and reported the accident. When I tried to give the > location using my GPS, I was told very strongly to stop the 'fertilizer' > and give a _proper_ address. I've got to give you credit for that one. Most people would be too embarassed to admit they called a 911 operator and told them something so foolish. > When I told them that I was not from the > local region (I was several hundred to a thousand miles from home) and > did not know the location addressing schemes, I was told to drive around > until I found a local resident with a _fixed_ address and have them > report the accident. This is hard to do in central Wyoming in I-80 > where the nearest village is 8 miles away or in the national forests > of northern Michigan, Wisconsin or Minnesota. And did you really think that a 911 facility in the boonies would have a super map software program at every operator's answering position? > Fortunately, in each case, I had known on what road or highway I was > and could determine the distance to a nearby town or village along > that road in a nearly straight line. They could translate that data > to something with which they could work. When the help arrived, they > reported surprise that it actually was, e.g., 7.98 miles from the center > of the named village, when that was the way I had described the location > (surprise, surprise). Surprise, surprise, that you have no idea what the coordinates are for the center of ANY village or city unless if you recorded a waypoint on the spot, or spotted the coordinates on a geological survey map, yourself. Use pre-programmed coordinates, such as those in the Garmin GPS's, and you may be directing help to the wrong town. > The 911 services need to be able to handle GPS coordinates _first_. > Then, they may demand that the GPS coordinates be supplied by the > cellular telephone services. When the time comes, GPS technology integrated into cellular phones should give some impressive location information, since coordinates for all cell sites in the US are known (or should be reasonably close). However, a lot of map data for US population areas continue to be innacurate. In the meantime, it's more important is for callers to use common sense when calling a 911 operator. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1999 13:39:55 CDT From: Randolph J. Herber Subject: Re: FCC Setting Technology Standard to Locate 911 Calls Reply-To: Randolph J. Herber The following header lines retained to affect attribution: > From: aboritz@cybernex.net (Alan Boritz) > To: editor@telecom-digest.org > Subject: Re: FCC Setting Technology Standard to Locate 911 Calls > Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1999 04:16:52 -0400 > Cc: herber@dcdrjh.fnal.gov (Randolph J. Herber) >> In article , herber@dcdrjh.fnal.gov >> (Randolph J. Herber) wrote: >> In article , Tad Cook >> wrote: >>> WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal regulators are taking the next steps toward >>> ensuring that cell phone users who dial 911 automatically give >>> emergency dispatchers a key piece of information: their location. >>> Other carriers are leaning toward building the technology right into >>> the phone handset. The phones then could be pinpointed by the Defense >>> Department's Global Positioning System. >> My first order reaction is 'fertilizer' --- in large quantities. >> I have had several 'opportunities' to use a combination of 911 and GPS. >> I have encountered accidents in rural areas when I had a GPS receiver >> up and running in the car with me. 911 was available where I was at. >> I called 911 and reported the accident. When I tried to give the >> location using my GPS, I was told very strongly to stop the 'fertilizer' >> and give a _proper_ address. > I've got to give you credit for that one. Most people would be too > embarassed to admit they called a 911 operator and told them something > so foolish. I did not and do not believe that it was or is foolish. I was offering that best address that I had. And, some of the Chicago area E911 services can handle the data -- they have appropriately gridded maps on the way and the operator either goes to the map or has a clerk do it. Yes, it causes a delay; but, it is a much smaller delay than having me locate a willing local, drive the local back to the accident so that the lcoal can determine the local address and call the information in in another separate call to 911 and have the two calls matched. >> When I told them that I was not from the >> local region (I was several hundred to a thousand miles from home) and >> did not know the location addressing schemes, I was told to drive around >> until I found a local resident with a _fixed_ address and have them >> report the accident. This is hard to do in central Wyoming in I-80 >> where the nearest village is 8 miles away or in the national forests >> of northern Michigan, Wisconsin or Minnesota. > And did you really think that a 911 facility in the boonies would have a > super map software program at every operator's answering position? No, see my comments above about appropriate maps on the wall. In a pinch, use aviation sectional maps from the FAA. Also, yes, I do expect that a 911 service have some capacity to handle translation of many kinds location information to whatever forms the emergency services need (including routing instructions for the fastest usable route to the reported location). They already do this translating fixed phone numbers to addresses (with errors at least as big as the problems as you refered to in the builtin maps of some GPS -- 400m), select an appropriate instance of the needed emergency service or services and route them to the location. And, this capacity does not have to be installed at every operator station; it would be sufficient that it be accessable at all stations. As an example, consumer grade Delorme mapping software (which would be sufficient to be helpful) is not expensive -- $40 per copy retail. >> Fortunately, in each case, I had known on what road or highway I was >> and could determine the distance to a nearby town or village along >> that road in a nearly straight line. They could translate that data >> to something with which they could work. When the help arrived, they >> reported surprise that it actually was, e.g., 7.98 miles from the center >> of the named village, when that was the way I had described the location >> (surprise, surprise). > Surprise, surprise, that you have no idea what the coordinates are > for the center of ANY village or city unless if you recorded a > waypoint on the spot, or spotted the coordinates on a geological > survey map, yourself. Use pre-programmed coordinates, such as those > in the Garmin GPS's, and you may be directing help to the wrong town. Not where I was at when I had this problem. The towns I used for references were quite small. The selected reference towns were the closest towns (villages) to the location. Even if the town reference points were on the 'wrong' side of town, that would cause at most a half mile error. And, remember, I did know what road or highway I was on or very near. It is not like the situation in the suburbs of Chicago. There the largest problem is not the street address. The largest problem is that the 911 service does not known the service boundaries or the city and town boundaries and there insists that the caller identify which jurisdiction the location is in. I feel that the 911 service should handle that translation as well as the translation which started this discussion. Presently I use a Garmin III+ with the local maps loaded from the Road and Recreation CDROM. In this situation, I can usually give a nearby cross-street and direction and approximate distance from that intersection. I have had no troubles with such addresses or a need to use lat./long. or UTM coordinates anywhere near Chicago. And, such addresses are also effective in the situation with which this discussion started. But, a Garmin III+ is a very upscale machine and many GPS owners do not have that capacity -- street level with names loaded maps. >> The 911 services need to be able to handle GPS coordinates _first_. >> Then, they may demand that the GPS coordinates be supplied by the >> cellular telephone services. > When the time comes, GPS technology integrated into cellular phones > should give some impressive location information, since coordinates > for all cell sites in the US are known (or should be reasonably > close). However, a lot of map data for US population areas continue > to be innacurate. In the meantime, it's more important is for callers > to use common sense when calling a 911 operator. GPS in the phones in not necessary in areas where the phones are detectable from at least three cell sites. Cpmparing signal strength can give locations to the 200m accuracy range. And, the result is a lat./long. or UTM like location which than needs to be translated to addressing and routing data. A little common sense indicates that many 911 services does have all the common sense they need to do their job properly. Randolph J. Herber, herber@dcdrjh.fnal.gov, +1 630 840 2966, CD/CDFTF PK-149F, Mail Stop 318, Fermilab, Kirk & Pine Rds., PO Box 500, Batavia, IL 60510-0500, USA. (Speaking for myself and not for US, US DOE, FNAL nor URA.) (Product, trade, or service marks herein belong to their respective owners.) ------------------------------ From: Jeremy Greene Subject: Re: Toll-Free "Local" Numbers? Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1999 04:40:33 -0400 Organization: EarthLink Network, Inc. M. Levin wrote in message news:telecom19.417.3@ telecom-digest.org: > While sitting in the laundromat today, I saw a "for sale" flyer on the > wall. On the bottom of the flyer it read, "Toll free pager number > 781-601-xxxx." "Toll free," I asked myself? > Incredulous, I picked up the payphone in the laundromat (a COCOT, no > less!), which was located in the 617 area code (adjacent to 781). I > tried the number, and, much to my chagrin, the call went through! > So what gives? What sort of number is this? Is this some sort of > FGB-type number? (Incidentally, the COCOT would not let me dial 950 > numbers even if I gave it money first.) 781-601-xxxx is registered to Bell Atlantic and is served out of the Burlington, Mass. CO. The NXX is registered for Feature Group 3A Paging. I believe this is an arrangement where the person dialing is not charged, as long as they are within the LATA. The paging provider pays a per-minute rate for the incoming calls. In Feature Group 3B, I think the calling party pays. I don't know what happens if a CLEC customer calls one of these numbers. The billing could get complicated. (Complicated enough that a company like TCG would screw up and bill you for the calls.) Apparently the COCOT owner allows free FG3A calls but not FGB (950) calls. Sloppy programming. Try the following random links for more info: http://www.ripuc.org/clerk/ica/ica2551.htm http://x35.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=105837591&CONTEXT=937816003.162267179&hitnu m=25 (An old post in the Telecom Digest) ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 19 Sep 1999 13:06:58 -0400 From: Fred Goldstein Subject: Re: Toll-Free "Local" Numbers? > While sitting in the laundromat today, I saw a "for sale" flyer on the > wall. On the bottom of the flyer it read, "Toll free pager number > 781-601-xxxx." "Toll free," I asked myself? Most likely, it's what The New England Telephone and Telegraph Company calls "feature group 2A". This is a tariffed "oddball" number, one that's treated for tariff purposes as adjacent/local to every rate center within the LATA. Cellular interconnection is by federal rule Oddball, so the fact that my "617" cell phone number is rated as "Saugus" (a place way out in 781) is meaningless. I'm not sure if pagers get this automatically or not; cellcos are treated as a special case of CLEC and do not pay Bell special rates for the privilege. Anybody else can get an oddball FG2A number if they pay enough for it -- the setup is something like $6000 and it requires T1 connections to every tandem in the LATA, plus a usage fee (I think it's down to about a half a cent per minute, but I may be wrong; I know it was about two cents a few years ago) for traffic in *either* direction. ------------------------------ From: nagle@netcom.com (John Nagle) Subject: Re: Satellites May Come to Rescue For 911 Calls From Cell Phones Date: 20 Sep 1999 18:25:08 GMT Organization: Netcom J.F. Mezei writes: > Tad Cook wrote: >> Unfortunately, GPS-based technologies won't help users of the 70 >> million-plus wireless phones already in use across the nation, which >> many consider a major drawback. > But more importantly, GPS only works with line of sight to at least > three satellites that are positioned to provide a good geometry. (four > satellites are minimum for a third fix (with altitude). So, turn on > your phone in a building, and you won't get a fix. That's the real problem. GPS has a very weak signal down from the satellites; you really do need line of sight. Even a car roof is enough to prevent GPS lockon. In-building GPS handheld performance is miserable. GPS isn't magic; it's just low-power radio. There are automotive emergency location systems that use GPS, but they have a decent antenna built into the vehicle. Schemes based on the cellular signal are more promising for handhelds. John Nagle ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1999 10:53:13 -0400 From: John Warne Subject: AT&T Underground Facilities TELECOM Digest readers may be interested in some of the things that were done for the government by AT&T during the Cold War to help assure governmental communications. See the following web sites for information on the L-4 carrier system and the underground AT&T facilities: http://www.shore.net/~mfoster/L4 and http://www.afn.org/~warnejw (includes a tour of the underground at Ellisville, FL) Any information readers have on other such AT&T facilities would be appreciated at Mark Foster's E-Mail or my E-Mail references on those web sites. And, anybody here know what the AT&T site outside Pittsboro, NC, is being used for these days? > In the Good Old Days of AT&T [tm], they'd have a crew in their hardened > bunker under Bedminster, NJ, carefully watching their War Room map > projection. If, say, Chicago's 'green light' turned to 'red' after being > nuked, the cigar crunchers would curse out the damn Russkies and hit the > reroute switch, so calls from NYC to LA would go via Denver instead. > And if NYC got hit, these folk would ride out the shockwave and hit the > next switch, so that Boston - DC would go via Albany. ------------------------------ From: stiles@lucent.com (Kevin Stiles) Subject: Re: Low Audio on U S West Privacy Plus Date: 20 Sep 1999 16:06:42 GMT Organization: Lucent Technologies, Denver CO I'm also connected to a 1AESS and also get low audio volume on the playback of the recorded name. In the last two weeks or so, it _seems_ to have improved. It is still somewhat low, but does seem better. paulmigs@chisp.net wrote: > I've been a very satisfied user of U S West's offering of Privacy > Plus, enhanced caller id service. I'm curious though, about the poor > audio quality of all parts of the system. That is, horribly low > audio, when callers announce their names (the recording should really > say, "at the tone shout loud"), also low audio on all calls that you > accept, and low audio when people decide to go through it and go for > the leave a message option. I'm told that the call hits our C O in > Table Mesa, goes and hits the intelligent peripheral, and then comes > in and out, looping through the office twice. Do you think cutting > over to a 5 E will improve the quality? Kevin Stiles kstiles@lucent.com ------------------------------ From: aboritz@cybernex.net (Alan Boritz) Subject: Re: I Was a Victim of Fraud Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1999 10:14:15 -0400 Organization: Dyslexics UNTIE In article , san96038@my-deja.com (Sandra Stephenson) wrote: > If you wouldn't mind, I'd like to ask you some questions also about my > Debit card. I'm at the end of my rope trying to find any one with > answers to my questions. > 1. My bank statement has been having duplicate charges with same time > and date. Plus there will be four or five charges with the same time > and date but different states. One night I stayed at three hotels in > two different states on the same night. I have been going crazy > because I know mine but lots of them are not and I have not lost my > card. I live in a small town and the bank manager knows me and that > these are not my charges. But, my bank has paid these and now I do all > the leg work to prove they're not mine. I don't even have a clue how > they got there let alone get them to refund my money. Now I am getting > NSF because of this. If the bank hasn't credited the fraudulent charges, you should close the account and let the bank figure out the rest. It would appear that although the bank manager knows you, he must know you as a sucker. > 2. I received in the mail at two different times an "Advice of Funds > Transfer" slip for $1000 mailed from my bank. With just one signature > on the line" Prepared By" and nothing on the line "Approved By" plus > no date or time. There is a check in the box 'telephone request'. But > I never requested over the phone to any one to transfer money from my > savings to my checking. This is how they paid themselves for my > NSF. This is turning out to be a nightmare. It seems every time I put > money in it is gone the next hour. And I'm not in Texas or Washington > at same time and date to at least enjoy it. It is inconceivable why you would allow this account to remain at this bank long enough to receive ANY transfer notices, with the fraudulent activity that continues on your checking account. > 3. I put $5000 in this account and just let it sit for three weeks on > the advice of the bank manager till we could get it to reconcile. > Plus at her advice I opened a new account at the same bank with $2000. > Well I'm sure you guessed it; they're both in the red with charges > adding up to over my head. She took money from my new account she said > to cover late checks that just came in on the old one that was just > cooling it's heels. Without me being told of her transferring it so I > bounced a check on this new account! She does not work at this bank > anymore I have been told so it is even a bigger mess. You made a HUGE mistake listening to a bank officer at a bank that continues to fraudulently drain funds from your account(s). They're a business, more ruthless than most, and will do practically anything to protect themselves when caught breaching their fiduciary responsibilities. This is one of the best reasons to NOT put all of your available funds with any one financial institution. You should immediately: 1. Transfer any retirement accounts to another bank (assuming the funds aren't already frozen). 2. Withdraw all available cash and close all accounts at this bank. 3. Do NOT give the bank a single piece of paper (like bank statements, cancelled checks, etc.) for which you don't have an original in your possession. Also, be careful to whom you give any original documen- tation. If your community is small enough, and bank officials have a personal relationship with law enforcement people having jurisdiction, they'll both try to bully you into making a financial settlement to avoid prosecution. Don't fall for any of it, don't sign anything, don't trust them, and don't give the bank a penny more than you already have. 4. Find competent counsel. You'll need it. As soon as the bank sees that you're no longer a sucker they'll charge you with anything they can think of. You need to counter with a lawsuit to recover your lost funds. 5. File a complaint with the local district attorney (with Counsel's advice) and charge the bank and bank manager (who just left) with fraud and request an investigation. 6. Don't EVER use a debit card in place of a credit card. It may look like a conventional credit card but it lacks all the protections of federal law that a credit card would have (like a $50 limit on all unauthorized transactions after giving notice to the card issuer). ------------------------------ Date: 20 Sep 1999 12:31:49 -0400 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: Stopping Unsolicited Fax Spam Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > Nobody who wrote indicated they had personally collected on a claim > for receiving unsolicited faxes. I personally know people who have, including against Sanford Wallace who took a wierd detour into junk fax after Cyberpromo died. I currently have a suit starting against a web hosting company in New Jersey who fax bombed addresses scraped from the WHOIS database, will advise on its progress. John R. Levine, IECC, POB 727, Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 387 6869 johnl@iecc.com, Village Trustee and Sewer Commissioner, http://iecc.com/johnl, Member, Provisional board, Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yes please, continue sending through updates as often as you can. Reports like that are very important so that people can see there is progress being made one place or another. Every small victory helps. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Jim Darroch Subject: Re: Where Can I Find the Standard Frame Relay Source Code? Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1999 10:36:00 +0100 Organization: Spider Software Limited Wulf Losee wrote: > Simon CaiMao wrote: >> I wonder where I can find the standard Frame Relay source code? Thanks >> in advance. > The source code for any Frame Relay implementation (for any given Frame > Relay switch) is the proprietary intellectual property of the switch > vendor, and it would not be publically available (with the possible > exception of very expensive licensing agreements). > The *standards* for Frame Relay, on the other hand (from which one could > develop the source code for a Frame Relay switching program), could > probably be obtained from the Frame Relay Forum (http://www.frforum.com/). > Also, perhaps there the ITU-T also has standards for Frame Relay? Anybody > know? Hi, The relevant standards published by the ITU (http://www.itu.int/) are ITU-T Q.922 and Q.933. ANSI (http://www.ansi.org/) also publish a set of standards - T1.617 and T1.618. As Wulf points out, the source for a Frame Relay implementation is a valuable commodity, which you aren't going to get for free from a switch vendor. There are, however, several companies who license such source -- one of which is Spider Software (see below for URL). Cheers, Jim Darroch Spider Software Limited Phone: +44 131 475 7014 8 John's Place Fax: +44 131 475 7001 Edinburgh EH6 7EL mailto:jimd@spider.com Scotland >< http://www.spider.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1999 13:28:19 GMT From: satch@concentric.nospam.net (Satch) Subject: Re: How Low Can They Go? Organization: SBC Internet Services Alledgedly monty@roscom.com (Monty Solomon) said on 14 Sep 1999 in the following: > The grandest prediction to be made about the looming bandwidth glut > is that phone calls will someday be offered free, thrown in as a kind > of bonus when you order data or Internet services. The more interesting prediction I saw a long time ago is that the concept of long-distance will disappear. You will still have toll and non-toll calling, but the toll calls will be billed at a flat rate no matter where you call. We are starting to see this in the CONUS. I expect this to spread to most of North America before 2005, perhaps much, much sooner as the long-distance telephone network goes packet instead of virtual connection. Free? I doubt it. The meter costs very, very little to implement, and the revenue recovered is worth the effort in the name of "fairness". Indeed, I wonder how much longer these fixed-rate surcharges are going to survive? _____ __/satch\____________________________________________________________ Satchell Evaluations, testing modems since 1984, 'Netting since 1971 "The only good mouse-trap is a hungry cat" ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #419 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Sep 20 16:46:17 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id QAA21021; Mon, 20 Sep 1999 16:46:17 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1999 16:46:17 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199909202046.QAA21021@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #420 TELECOM Digest Mon, 20 Sep 99 16:46:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 420 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Telcomine September 1999: Spotlight on Europe (Seema Dhawan) Bad News For NSI !! (Joseph Wineburgh) Re: TCP/IP on RS232 Lines (Adam Sampson) Re: I Was a Victim of Fraud (Jonathan Loo) Re: Phone Outages (was Re: More on Floyd's Aftermath) (Steven Lichter) Re: Just Another Mass Killing in the USA is All ... (John De Hoog) Re: Just Another Mass Killing in the USA is All ... (Joseph T. Adams) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Seema Dhawan Reply-To: seema@infozech.com Subject: Telcomine September 1999: Spotlight on Europe Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1999 14:22:41 +0530 Organization: ISPL [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This is just a summary. Each complete issue of Telecomine, with its European telecom news is on file in our archives at http://telecom-digest.org/archives/telcomine PAT] ************************************************** Telcomine brings to you the latest trends and developments in frontline IT Technologies. (http://www.infozech.com/telcomine.html) To subscribe mail to: nl@infozech.com To advertise mail to:telcomine@infozech.com *************************************************** *****TELCOMINE************************************* Wealth of Information about Telecommunications Volume 2, No 9, September 1999 IN THIS ISSUE Spotlight on Europe (This is a special issue on the fast 'IT' developments in Europe) 1.EUROPE PREPARES TO FACE AMERICAN IT THREAT WITH UK LEADING All eyes are turned to Europe as it wakes up to shake off the American Yoke in Information technology: SERVICES AND SOFTWARE: Europeans in millions are switching to new native Internet services replacing both the American services and software. EUROPEAN INFORMATION HIGHWAY: This is backed by huge plans to modernize the European information highway network with quantum leaps in bandwidth capacity. FIBER OPTIC CABLE NETWORK: For high bandwidth capacity the fiber optic cable network, now largely "dark", is to be enlarged and 'lit up' in parts. THE UPCOMING PHOTON REVOLUTION: It is now realized that the burgeoning bandwidth requirement can only be met by a fully 'lit' fiber optic global network, which offers infinite capacities. Today Europe has just about four million Km optical (dark) fiber lines against 80 million in north America. MOBILE-VIDEO-PHONE-COMPUTERS: Mobile-video- phone-computers are already growing faster in Europe than in America. SECURITY: European concerns about security of critical strategic and commercial information from American Internet controllers have spurred the rush for an independent European communications network. FINANCE: Finance is being poured into IT industries at an unprecedented rate. TALENT: Talent is being encouraged to take up IT as never before. Venture capital is available for the asking. RESTARTING FAILED COMPANIES: Failed companies are being encouraged to make a fresh start. Money is being readily provided to them even to those who have failed many times before. UK IN THE LEAD: Half the European venture capital investment is going into Britain with new Internet companies popping up at a pace second to the United States. Details at http://www.infozech.com/articles/sept199.shtml 2. EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT REPORT ACCUSES USA OF WIDESPREAD SPYING A European Parliament report published some time ago says that the United States National Security Agency has been spying on European citizens and companies for nearly a decade. Details at http://www.infozech.com/articles/sept299.shtml 3. EUROPE HEADING FOR STRONG FIBER-OPTIC NETWORK: BRITISH STUDY A prestigious British study, priced 4,300 Pounds (Approx. $7,000) is predicting a "dark" (optical) fiber revolution in Europe. Today Europe has about four million-fiber kilometers of optical fiber lines against nearly 80 million km in America. Details at http://www.infozech.com/articles/sept399.shtml 4. OPTICAL NETWORK OPTIONS FOR HIGH BANDWIDTH Knowing that there is no alternative to purchasing or leasing dark fiber, the vendor's next preference is to obtain point-to-point-managed bandwidth at STM1, STM4 or STM16, to supply high bandwidth connectivity, says the Philips Tarifica Study. Details at http://www.infozech.com/articles/sept499.shtml 5. OPTICAL FIBER REVOLUTION WILL SWEEP AWAY PRESENT TELECOM SYSTEMS Soon the demand for unlimited bandwidth, will be too overwhelming to be met by any electronic (or electron driven) channels. Photons, or light waves running in optical fiber with their unlimited capacity will provide the only answer. Details at http://www.infozech.com/articles/sept599.shtml 6. UK's FREESERVE JOLTS YAHOO, AOL, IN INTERNET MARKET Europe's Internet market never had it better. Lubricated by a huge new wave of venture capital, Europe's youngest and brightest professionals are leaving their American counterparts like Yahoo, AOL and Amazon.com behind in the race to win a stake in the European market. Details at http://www.infozech.com/articles/sept699.shtml 7 .BRITISH TELECOM TO COMPETE WITH USA's AMERITECH IN HUNGARY, CZECH The decision of British Telecom (BT) to embark on a major "investment push" into central Europe this year would bring it in direct competition to Ameritech of the USA and Deutsche Telekom of Germany for a stake in the Central European marketplace. Details at http://www.infozech.com/articles/sept799.shtml 8. EUROPE OPTS FOR CELL PHONES THAT CAN BROWSE INTERNET IN COLOR European carriers are planning to offer a technology called general packet radio service, or GPRS, which will allow people with newly equipped wireless phones to receive data fast enough to browse the Internet in full color. Apart from speed, the new services are designed to let customers stay connected all day long.Many companies plan to charge only for the data customers send or receive and not for each minute they are connected. Details at http://www.infozech.com/articles/sept899.shtml 9. INTERNET ROAD SHOWS ATTRACT VENTURE CAPITAL IN EUROPE L'Atelier, a technology research unit of French Bank, Paribas, has started Internet Road Shows - outings for small companies to connect with investors, business partners and the media to attract venture capital investment - through Net Economy Workshop (NEW) to raise money for many a cash starved start-up company in the fragmented European market. Details at http://www.infozech.com/articles/sept999.shtml 10. VENTURE CAPITALISTS FAVOR UK TELECOM FIRMS Venture Capitalists have put their strength behind United Kingdom, making it the hottest favorite amongst the European Nations for investment and second only to the USA in world importance. Clearly investors are playing favorites in Europe, though real opportunity also exists in European nations like Italy, France and Germany. Details at http://www.infozech.com/articles/sept1099.shtml 11. BRAIN DRAIN IN 'IT' SKILLS THREATENS LONDON'S PRE-EMINENCE AS A FINANCIAL CENTER In spite of a world class telecom infrastructure and leading edge IT skills brain drain to Europe is threatening to snatch away London's position as the main financial center, reports a new study published by the corporation of London. Details at http://www.infozech.com/articles/sept1199.shtml 12. DEUTSCHE TELEKOM TO SELL WORLD'S SECOND LARGEST CABLE NETWORK FOR RUNNING BROADBAND SERVICES In what is being called as one of the biggest events ever in the European cable industry, Deutsche Telekom is selling chunks its cable television network, the second largest in the world having more than 15 million cable subscribers, in the hope of converting it into a network capable of running broadband services like telecom calls, email and banking. Details at http://www.infozech.com/articles/sept1299.shtml 13. UNIVERSITY IN SCOTLAND CRACKS DOWN ON STUDENTS OVER INTERNET CHEATING In one of the biggest inquiries of its kind in Scotland, the Edinburg University has withheld the exam results of 90 computer science students who have been allegedly charged with using the Internet to cheat in examinations. Details at http://www.infozech.com/articles/sept1399.shtml 14. Y2K BUG WILL SERIOUSLY DAMAGE TELECOM BILLING: 'BILLING WORLD' The Y2K bug may seriously damage telecom billing, warns Rebecca Diamond in the prestigious magazine Billing World. With uneven preparedness for Y2K in the world, experts are finding it very difficult to predict how international settlements will be reconciled. Details at http://www.infozech.com/articles/sept1499.shtml 15. GLOBAL E-COMMERCE SAVINGS TO EQUAL FRENCH GDP- $1.25 TRILLION Latest study predicts that corporations in industrial nations will save up to $1.25 trillion- close to France's entire gross domestic product- doing business over the Internet. Details at http://www.infozech.com/articles/sept1599.shtml 16. INFOZECH'S E-COMMERCE TARGETED NEXT GENERATION EBILL 2:0 SOON Infozech, a premier telecom billing solutions and service provider, is soon coming out with eBill 2.0, it's next generation telecom billing product that will appreciably reduce the user's costs. Details at http://www.infozech.com/articles/sept1699.shtml 17.MAILBOX Give us more on cell phone Details at http://www.infozech.com/articles/sept1799.shtml ------------------------------ From: Joseph Wineburgh Reply-To: Subject: Bad News For NSI !! Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1999 15:14:31 -0400 New email woes from 2600.com: NEW INTERNIC EMAIL SECURITY HOLE 9/20/99 We have been alerted to a serious vulnerability on a free web-based e-mail service that has recently been launched by Network Solutions Inc., otherwise known as the Internic - the people responsible for registering nearly all .com, .net, and .org addresses. Anyone taking them up on their offer for "free web mail" on their www.networksolutions.com/ page is both vulnerable and capable of accessing ANY ACCOUNT on the following domains: dotexpress.com mymailbag.com nsimail.com dotcomnow.com Once you have registered an account on their system, you can change the name of your account to ANY OTHER ACCOUNT simply by entering this URL: http://mail.dotcomnow.com/signup/poll/newaccount?dlang=default NO PASSWORD IS REQUIRED. Simply replace newaccount with the name of the account you would like to access and you're in! While it's a trivial matter to guess user names, if you want a small list from the Internic's own database, simply type: whois '*@dotexpress.com' or any of the other domains they are currently running. According to the people who have alerted us of this vulnerability, NSI was informed of the security hole last week and failed to respond. We believe this may help motivate them. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Thanks very much for sharing with us. I know concerned readers here will want to verify that this dangerous situation still exists and then try to counsel NSI on possible ways to correct it. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 19 Sep 1999 20:37:38 +0100 From: Adam Sampson Subject: Re: TCP/IP on RS232 lines Reply-To: azz@gnu.org On Sat, Sep 18, 1999 at 04:35:07PM -0400, Frank wrote: > Can I run TCP/IP protocol on RS232 serial port between two computers? Yes. You use the same packet-encapsulation protocols that you might use over a dialup line: either SLIP or PPP. SLIP is simple and easy, perhaps better suited for fixed serial lines; PPP is featureful and flexible, supporting features like dynamic IP assignment, which is why it's pretty much replaced SLIP these days. On Linux, you use "slattach" to start SLIP connections, and "pppd" to start PPP connections (if you need to do complex negociation such as logging in, you can use "dip", which can handle both protocols); other Unices are similar. On Windows '95, '98 or NT, you'll need to play with "Dialup Networking" (which, as you can tell from the name, isn't designed to run over fixed lines, but as far as I recall, it's possible). On DOS or Windows 3.1, you'll need to find a PPP "packet driver" (there's a free one included with the Arachne DOS web browser at http://www.arachne.cz). On the Amiga, there's a SANA PPP driver on Aminet which works with AmiTCP and Miami. If you've only got access to a shell account on a Unix box, you can use the "slirp" SLIP emulator. Adam Sampson azz@gnu.org ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1999 15:53:10 -0400 (EDT) From: Jonathan Loo Subject: Re: I Was a Victim of Fraud First, read the deposit agreement you have with the bank. If they never gave you a copy of this agreement, then go to an attorney immediately (see step (2) (a) below). Steps of escalation: (1) With the bank: document everything, and tell nothing but the truth. Complain: (a) in writing to the bank's customer service center, by registered mail, return receipt requested; or (b) in person with the branch manager. (2) With the law: document everything. (a) Hire a private attorney. It may take a while to find a good one. Borrow from the library or buy if not in the library: Finding the Right Lawyer by Jay Foonberg. Be sure to establish a written fee agreement. This book states what the written fee agreement should contain. Once you have retained an attorney, tell the whole truth to your attorney, and don't say anything to anyone else without first discussing the matter with your attorney. This is by far the most effective and safe way to resolve this, but it is also expensive and time-consuming and will damage or destroy any personal friendship you may have with anyone who works at the bank. (b) Go to the local police station and file a report. This may take a while. Tell nothing but the truth. (c) Send a written complaint to your state attorney general (not the U. S. Attorney General). Tell nothing but the truth. Send it by registered mail, return receipt requested. In article you write: > 1. My bank statement has been having duplicate charges with same time > and date. Plus there will be four or five charges with the same time > and date but different states. One night I stayed at three hotels in > two different states on the same night. I have been going crazy > because I know mine but lots of them are not and I have not lost my > card. I live in a small town and the bank manager knows me and that > these are not my charges. But, my bank has paid these and now I do all > the leg work to prove they're not mine. I don't even have a clue how > they got there let alone get them to refund my money. Now I am getting > NSF because of this. ------------------------------ From: stevenl11@aol.comstuffit (Steven Lichter) Date: 20 Sep 1999 19:48:52 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: Phone Outages (was Re: More on Floyd's Aftermath in NJ) In article , ebohlman@netcom.com wrote: > It seems like the Rochelle Park CO was playing the *exact* same role > as the Hinsdale, IL CO did 11 years ago. Shouldn't somebody have > learned a lesson since then? In 1971 when GTE lost its Sylmar SXS switch to an earthquake, we were able to respond by getting access to the network via an operator in less then a week, and within 30 days almost complete dialing, though it took some months to completly restore everything you would think that in this day they could route to another switch for the tandam atleast, local service is another matter, you have to get to the main cables or frame for that. Apple Elite II 909-359-5338. Home of GBBS/LLUCE, support for the Apple II and Macintosh 24 hours 2400/14.4. OggNet Server. The only good spammer is a dead one, have you hunted one down today? (c) ------------------------------ From: John De Hoog Subject: Re: Just Another Mass Killing in the USA is All ... Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1999 16:16:05 +0900 Organization: Wonmug's World Eric Florack wrote, > That had only one ... Just one ... additional person in that church > armed, (that is to say, had someone besides the criminal been armed) > there'd be at least 5 more people alive today. > It seems logical to question gun phobia on the basis of lives that > have been lost because we possession abdicate firepower to the > criminals and nuts of the work, to our own detriment. Are you really saying people at a church meeting should have been armed? Interesting. In your country you argue that more people should be armed. But if everyone is armed, then *all* the kooks and nuts will have the firepower to carry out their fantasies. In most countries people argue that it makes more sense to arm no one. Here in Japan that's the case. Then the people who want to kill have to go to extraordinary lengths, such as building elaborate facilities for developing poisonous gas, or else they have to use more primitive arms such as knives, which are difficult to use in mass executions like you have over there so frequently. John De Hoog, Tokyo ------------------------------ From: Joseph T. Adams Subject: Re: Just Another Mass Killing in the USA is All ... Date: 20 Sep 1999 13:36:16 GMT Organization: Quality Data Division of JTAE Eric Florack wrote: > 1: We saw attacks against government, against other religious group > centers, and against individuals labeled as hate crimes even when the > shooter was apparently deranged as was the man in Texas. However; > Given the government's reluctance to call the shootings in Texas a > hate crime one wonders just what the qualifications are. Apparently > shooting up a church full of White Christians constitutes a brand of > hate which is below the notice of the government.. "Government" responses to these events are always politically motivated, even if the events themselves are not. > It seems logical to question the purpose of hate crimes legislation, > given the enforcement of it. The purpose of "hate crime" legislation is in part to provoke hatred against politically incorrect groups. It certainly achieves that goal. > 2:That had only one ... Just one ... additional person in that church > armed, (that is to say, had someone besides the criminal been armed) > there'd be at least 5 more people alive today. Probably true. There were no major school shootings, and certainly none of the current magnitude, until the "government" passed "laws" pretending to outlaw the possession of firearms within schools. From that point forward, it's been open season on every child in every public "school" in the country. The only people who could stop the murders are told they may not do so, and are sent to prison for decades if they are found to possess the only means by which they could. EVEN IF one accepts the very questionable premise that firearms in private hands are a bad thing, there certainly is no question that lawless thugs both inside and outside government are already very well-armed. In light of that, how can any sane person argue for the GOOD people - those who use firearms to prevent over 2 million violent crimes a year, while committing no crimes themselves - to lay down their arms first? And why are the "legislators" who vote for "gun control," knowing that it costs many more lives than it saves, not being put on trial for treason and/or murder? What exactly do they think is going to happen to them when the victims of their murderous actions find that they can never get justice from the "legal" system? The more "gun control" laws are passed, the more likely that my children or someone else I love will become victims. That is unacceptable. It will be stopped, and those responsible will be punished, by any means necessary. > It seems logical to question gun phobia on the basis of lives that > have been lost because we possession abdicate firepower to the > criminals and nuts of the work, to our own detriment. Politicians sadly are motivated by what is popular (among those who pay their bills). Not what is right. > Of course, on the second point, I also find it interesting that > nobody, (at least from what I've seen) had a cell phone on them to > call for help, either. Around here, at least, police never show up until *after* it is too late to prevent bloodshed. If a sizable percentage of law-abiding citizens were armed, however, criminals could not count on being able to act with impunity. (This includes corrupt police and government officials, as well as all other criminals.) Thus, the desire on the part of criminals both inside and outside of government to limit and eventually forbid honest and decent people from being able to defend themselves. Joe ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #420 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Sep 21 14:27:19 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id OAA08087; Tue, 21 Sep 1999 14:27:19 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 21 Sep 1999 14:27:19 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199909211827.OAA08087@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #421 TELECOM Digest Tue, 21 Sep 99 14:27:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 421 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Users of Wireless Phones Find Unexpected Benefits (Mike Pollock) IEEE Comm Mag Call for Papers - Telecommunications & Patents (K Klosterman) Armstrong Named to Telecommunications Advisory Committee (Monty Solomon) Re: Canada's Yak Plan and Canadian Telco System in General (Bill Levant) Re: Canada's Yak Plan and Canadian Telco System in General (Jim Borynec) Re: Toll-Free "Local" Numbers? (Joel B. Levin) Re: FCC Setting Technology Standard to Locate 911 Calls (andy_h3333) Re: Driving and Cell Phone Use (Joseph T. Adams) Re: California Area Code Split Legislation (AB 818) (Matthew Black) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Mike Pollock Subject: Users of Wireless Phones Find Unexpected Benefits Date: Tue, 21 Sep 1999 10:37:34 -0400 Organization: It's A Mike! http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/national/regional/ny-wireless-phones.h tml From The New York Times, September 21, 1999 Users of Wireless Phones Find Unexpected Benefits By NICK GOLDIN LIFTON, N.J. -- John Rubino has not been spending less time on the phone and he has not signed up with a new long-distance service, but he has watched the long-distance portion of his phone bill shrink to less than $10 a month. In fact, with a girlfriend in another New Jersey county, friends in Manhattan and parents in Westchester County, N.Y., Rubino, an executive with the St. Barnabas Health Care System in Livingston, N.J., has been making more toll calls than ever before. Rubino, like a growing number of wireless-phone users in the New York metropolitan region, has stumbled upon an unexpected benefit of the mobile phone he originally purchased to keep in touch while sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic: at night and on weekends, it doubles as a low-cost way of making many calls that rack up regional or long-distance toll charges on a wired phone. As the cost of wireless service has plummeted in the last year and as mobile phones have become increasingly common, many people are finding that going wireless can bring fundamental changes in the way they conduct their daily affairs. For one thing, it can mean dodging toll charges on their home phones by using their mobile phones to make calls across a wide swath of the metropolitan region at night and on weekends, when many wireless companies provide unlimited air time for a small monthly fee. In a nationwide survey of mobile phone users by the Yankee Group, a Boston-based consulting and marketing research firm, 2 percent of those questioned said that their wireless phone had become their only phone, a phenomenon industry analysts call "cutting the cord." In the survey conducted last April, 6 percent responded that wireless calling had replaced a significant percentage of their land-line calling. The study found that 43 percent of households in the United States use mobile phones. "Sometimes," said Rubino, "I'll grab my regular phone to call across the river into Manhattan or to my parents in Westchester and then say to myself, 'It's after 9, so use the cell phone.' " The only problem with his cost-saving plan, joked Rubino, who uses his A T & T mobile phone almost as much while sitting on his living-room couch as when he is on the go, is that sometimes he leaves his mobile phone in his car and he has to run outside to get it. "Even though I'm sitting on my couch relaxing," Rubino said, "it's still worth a trip out to the car." For a flat fee of about $10 a month, customers of A T & T Wireless and Bell Atlantic Mobile, the metropolitan region's two largest wireless-service providers, can make unlimited calls during off-peak hours -- between 9 P.M. and 7 A.M. on weekdays and all weekend long -- anywhere in their wireless home calling areas. Other area wireless carriers, including Sprint PCS and MCI Worldcom, offer similar unlimited off-peak calling plans. A wireless home calling area -- which in the metropolitan region generally encompasses most of New Jersey, southern New York State, including Long Island, and Fairfield County in Connecticut -- is far larger than the local calling area for traditional phone service. Local calling areas for wired phone service -- in which calls are not billed by the minute -- usually include only a few neighboring towns and never combine parts of different states. "This is an inherent advantage of wireless carriers," said Mark Lowenstein, senior vice president for global wireless research at the Yankee Group, "that they're able to exploit more and more because they have these larger calling areas." This cost-saving technique is especially popular among recent college graduates and young professionals who not only work long hours and make the bulk of their personal calls in the late evening and on weekends, but who also tend to talk for hours with friends who often live within their wireless home calling areas. "It's a no-brainer," said James Nessel of Manhattan, a 25-year-old assistant manager in the loan-trading department at Citigroup. Most of his friends and relatives live in areas of New York and New Jersey included in the wireless home calling area. Last month, for example, he made fewer than 15 minutes of long-distance calls on his home phone, compared with about two and a half hours of off-peak wireless calls. Karteek Bhavsar, who lives in Clifton, tells a similar story, recalling nightly phone calls to a girlfriend who lived outside his wired phone's local calling area but inside his wireless home calling area. "At one point, we were having two-hour conversations," he said. "With my cell phone's off-peak deal, those calls were free." Thomas Lee, a wireless technology analyst at Salomon Smith Barney in Manhattan, said using wireless phones to avoid land-line toll charges -- a practice industry analysts refer to as "stealth land-line replacement" -- is hardly restricted to the metropolitan region, though analysts do not know how many people are doing it nationwide. Officials from both Bell Atlantic and A T & T, which also provide toll service for conventional wired phones, said they had expected that customers might sign up for their unlimited off-peak wireless plans to avoid land-line toll charges but that they were not concerned that the practice would affect their land-line operations. Howard Waterman, a Bell Atlantic spokesman, said most wireless users buy mobile phones for the convenience and not with the goal of shaving charges off their home phone bills. And he doubted most people even realize the potential for saving money, he said. Some industry analysts agreed that this trend did not threaten the phone companies, pointing out that calls made beyond the wireless local calling area are still billed by the minute and that land-line use for Internet access and fax machines would continue to grow. And they said one factor propelling the widespread availability of flat-rate off-peak plans is the stiff competition for wireless customers. But Brenda Maxfield of the Personal Communication Industry Association, an international trade group based in Alexandria, Va., said that as more people use mobile phones during off-peak hours, the land-line business is affected. That is why some phone companies have begun to bundle wireless and home phone service in one package for one price. "That way," she said, "they don't risk losing customers to a wireless entity." Michael Masiuk, a compensation analyst at Merrill Lynch, has certainly seen the economic advantages of using his mobile phone. He makes hourlong calls every night from his apartment in Old Bridge, N.J., to his fiancee in Manhattan on the mobile phone that she gave him last Christmas. Masiuk, who commutes to work in Manhattan, rarely gets home before 9 P.M. So last winter, after watching her parents use their mobile phone at night and on weekends to avoid land-line toll charges, Masiuk's fiancee decided to buy him his own mobile phone. At first, Masiuk admitted, it seemed a bit odd using his mobile phone while sitting next to his home phone. But that feeling quickly wore off when he received his first phone bill after altering his calling habits. "It didn't seem peculiar anymore," he said. "It seemed like the intelligent thing to do." Copyright 1999 The New York Times Company ------------------------------ From: Kenna Klosterman Subject: IEEE Comm Mag Call for Papers - Telecommunications and Patents Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1999 17:05:48 -0400 Organization: NetReach InterNetNews Call for papers IEEE Communications Magazine feature topic on Patents and Telecommunications To appear in the July 2000 issue of IEEE Communications Magazine Intellectual property, and in particular, patents, are playing an increasingly important role in telecommunications, where system designers and service providers are actively seeking protection for novel systems, services and software. In addition, the incorporation of patented technology into standards creates a complex environment which allows manufacturers to recover their R&D costs but can impede adoption of standards, which can facilitate interoperability and increase technology adoption. The advent of the Internet, coupled with the ability to patent methods of doing business signifies important changes in the way intellectual property will be used in the future. Papers related to the following topics are requested: -Patents and the telecommunications industry -Patents and telecommunications standards -Patents and the Internet -Anti-trust laws in telecommunications -Other topics related to telecommunications and intellectual property Papers will be tutorial in nature and run in length from 3-5 pages. Schedule: -Proposals to Guest Editor: 1 December 1999 -Article acceptance and notification to authors: 7 January 2000 -Draft articles: 25 February 2000 -Reviews to authors: 17 March 2000 -Final articles to Guest Editor: 24 April 2000 Please send proposals of 1-2 pages in length describing the proposed article to the Guest Editor: Dr. Charles Eldering Telecom Partners Ltd. 900 Town Center New Britain, PA 18901 tel 215.340.6900 fax 215.340.0827 celdering@tpltd.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1999 22:00:11 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Armstrong Named to Telecommunications Advisory Committee http://www.pub.whitehouse.gov/uri-res/I2R?urn:pdi://oma.eop.gov.us/1999/9/20/8.text.1 THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary For Immediate Release September 17, 1999 PRESIDENT CLINTON NAMES C. MICHAEL ARMSTRONG AS A MEMBER OF THE PRESIDENT'S NATIONAL SECURITY TELECOMMUNICATIONS ADVISORY BOARD President Clinton today announced his intent to appoint C. Michael Armstrong as a member of the President's National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee. Mr. Armstrong was appointed Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of AT&T in November of 1997. Mr. Armstrong was previously at Hughes Electronics, where he had been Chairman and CEO for six years. Prior to his tenure at Hughes Electronics, Mr. Armstrong was with IBM for more than three decades. Mr. Armstrong began as a systems engineer and ended as Chairman of the Board of IBM World Trade Corporation. Mr. Armstrong received his B.S. in Business and Economics from Miami University of Ohio and completed the advanced management curriculum at Dartmouth Institute. He was awarded an honorary Doctor of Law degree from Pepperdine University. The President's National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee (NSTAC) provides the President with technical information and advice on national security telecommunications policy. ------------------------------ From: Wlevant@aol.com (Bill Levant) Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1999 18:12:03 EDT Subject: Re: Canada's Yak Plan and Canadian Telco System in General HEY! There aren't any yak (yaks?) in Canada! Why don't they call it the Caribou Plan? As in, "... call them up and show them that you Caribou them." Bill ------------------------------ From: Jim Borynec Subject: Re: Canada's Yak Plan and Canadian Telco System in General Reply-To: jborynec@agt.net Date: Tue, 21 Sep 1999 02:35:38 GMT Raymond D. Mereniuk wrote: >> Unfortunately, Canada's rural areas are likely to remain fairly >> isolated. How will we as a society get them high speed hookups? >> Do we hope for a technological miracle? > I will take this bait! Good question! But, if the incumbent service > provider is stumped for ideas, other than throwing more money in > their direction, I figure maybe we should get someone else involved. Sure, go ahead. The telecommunications field is a *lot* more open than it used to be. Problem is, all the *money* is in the cities. Even in Alberta, where the oil patch is willing to pay real $ for rural service, almost all of the money is in the cities. Telecommunications providers are not, in general, charities. New entrants will likely chase urban markets in favour of the relatively skinny rural markets. In the past, rural markets were more expensive than could reasonably be charged for. (My dad has a cabin at Jackfish Lake. It cost us $500 to install the phone. Problem is, it probably cost Telus around $20,000 to put in the line. It will be a few years before we pay it off (even at $35/month). Nowadays, cell service can provide cheaper rural service. I'm surprised that the regulator/telco's haven't worked a deal whereby *all* new rural customers get served by cellular. > The writing was on the wall five or six years ago. Residential users > would soon want high-speed data access and other services requiring > broadband capabilities. The Telcos could have started laying fibre to > residential users and had something in place today if only their > investors had being willing to invest in the prospect of making future > profits. I am sure if the Telcos had offered to invest their own > money there would have been no condition of rate controls as common > under the current regulated monopoly system. Ah yes, that word: invest. Unfortunately, the telco's shareholders are unlikely to stand for the massive, speculative investment that massive fibre builds to the rural areas would have entailed. Would *you* spend your money laying fibre to farmers that are going broke and moving to the cities? > For rural areas if the Telcos don't have a clue maybe we should hand > it off to another party. Maybe give a tax holiday to operators who > install a broadband cable system suitable for voice, data, and > entertainment purposes. Maybe data services over radio, or for more > remote areas satellite. The point being, if the current accepted > provider of service just wants more money with no promise of concrete > results we should give someone else a shot. If no one else steps up > to the challenge we should leave the carrot hanging waiting for the > right opportunity with the right operator. I've got no problem with that, except for "who's going to pay for these tax holidays, etc? To date, the goverment has been very reluctant to fund rural telecommunications out of general revenue, and the regulator has been introducing competition in areas which used to support rural telecommunications. I guess we really *do* have to hope for a technological miracle. j.b. ------------------------------ From: Joel B Levin Subject: Re: Toll-Free "Local" Numbers? Organization: On the desert Reply-To: levinjb@gte.net Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1999 22:21:14 GMT In , Fred Goldstein wrote: > Anybody else can get an oddball FG2A number if they pay enough for it > -- the setup is something like $6000 and it requires T1 connections to > every tandem in the LATA, plus a usage fee (I think it's down to about > a half a cent per minute, but I may be wrong; I know it was about two > cents a few years ago) for traffic in *either* direction. I had a pager good in New Hampshire once. The first clue that its number (a standard seven-digit number good anywhere in 603) was toll free was when I used it from a pay phone and got my dime back. I then discovered that I didn't even need to put in a coin to use it. /JBL ------------------------------ From: andy_h3333@my-deja.com Subject: Re: FCC Setting Technology Standard to Locate 911 Calls Date: Tue, 21 Sep 1999 01:18:17 GMT Organization: Deja.com - Share what you know. Learn what you don't. It is quite interesting (and perplexing) that this new FCC action is being touted as something that will increase public safety. Prior to this action the FCC required that all wireless 911 calls be located by October 1, 2001. With this ruling, that mandate has been removed. If one thinks that location of wireless 911 calls enhances public safety, how can this increase public safety? Privacy may be increased by this ruling. There is a vocal group of privacy advocates that regard any wireless location as anti-privacy. This ruling will prevent many wireless locations that otherwise would have happened. Carrier profits may increase. This ruling allows wireless carriers to defer costs that would otherwise have been required in the short run. Competition among vendors of wireless location systems will certainly increase. This ruling enables a 911 location solution that was simply not viable under the terms of the old mandate. But public safety? That goes down. Unless I'm missing something. In article , tad@ssc.com (Tad Cook) wrote: > WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal regulators are taking the next steps toward > ensuring that cell phone users who dial 911 automatically give > emergency dispatchers a key piece of information: their location. > The action by the Federal Communications Commission would set technology > standards for cellular companies to follow as they make 911 caller > location available in their phones. ------------------------------ From: Joseph T. Adams Subject: Re: Driving and Cell Phone Use Date: 21 Sep 1999 13:21:15 GMT Organization: Quality Data Division of JTAE Raymond D. Mereniuk wrote: > General observation, bad driving is often caused by the driver > attempting to balance a cell phone and drive. Very often I notice a > driver being unresponsive to traffic conditions, erratic vehicular > behavior, and just plain being an obstruction to other vehicles. On > many occasions I manage to pass these vehicles and notice the driver > has a cell phone against his ear. There really appears to be a > relationship between bad driving and cell phone use. I am sure a > certain percentage of cell phone users can talk on a cell phone and > not be a traffic hazard but what about the folks that can't. Whether cell-phone use while driving should be banned or not (I see valid points on both sides), there is no question that lawless and dangerous behavior should be deterred and if necessary penalized, regardless of whether it was caused by cell phone use or not. And that's precisely the problem. Traffic enforcement in North America is clearly and blatantly oriented toward revenue collection, NOT public safety. Dangerously bad drivers are seldom ticketed, while (otherwise?) good drivers who safely drive faster than posted limits - which are often artificially set too low for this very purpose - almost always are. Witness the behavior of city drivers when they spot a police vehicle. Most of them will brake hard with no regard for traffic behind or around them, sometimes causing accidents, especially in bad weather. Drivers who slow down quickly enough to avoid a radar lock NEVER get ticketed unless they cause an accident, and sometimes not even then. Drivers who simply let up on the gas, look behind them, and take the extra second or two to slow down *safely*, often are the ones who get nabbed. My conclusion is that not only many drivers, but many revenue^H^H police officers, behave in an utterly lawless fashion, with callous disregard for human life or for anything else other than their own convenience. And this is a frighteningly large percentage of drivers, including people who are probably perfectly sane, decent, and honest in ordinary life. (Ditto for police officers, most of whom are perfectly good people, except while wearing their badge.) I don't have any easy answers, and I'm not convinced that the system even can be changed. As for me I will continue to try to put safety first, to honor the *spirit* of the law (by never driving dangerously), to treat other drivers courteously, and to get where I'm going as quickly as is consistent with the above goals. That would be true whether I'm using a car phone or not, although currently I've avoided getting one precisely because any need for it that I might have is outweighed by the likelihood that it would negatively affect my driving. Joe ------------------------------ From: black@csulb.edu (Matthew Black) Subject: Re: California Area Code Split Legislation (AB 818) Date: 21 Sep 1999 14:35:56 GMT In article , LincMad001@telecom- digest.zzn.com says: [original message edited for brevity--matt 990921] > As to this woman in Moreno Valley, when exactly and with what telephone > company and under what tariff was anyone in California required to dial > 1+7D instead of just 7D for HNPA toll calls? There have been some > cases where that was true, but they are distinctly in the minority, > even in GTE territory. That is why California now permits 7D on all > HNPA calls (at least as soon as 310 reverts), but requires 1+10D on all > FNPA calls. I grew up in Long Beach CA, and still live there. My parents house is served by the GTE Lakewood C/O (Harrison-9) which I suspect is located at the intersection of Los Coyotes Diagonal and Spring Street. I distinctly remember having to dial "1" before a 7-digit toll call to the Los Angeles area. +-----------------------------(c) 1999 Matthew Black, all rights reserved-- matthew black | Opinions expressed herein belong to me and network & systems specialist | may not reflect those of my employer california state university | network services BH-180E | e-mail: black at csulb dot edu 1250 bellflower boulevard | PGP fingerprint: 6D 14 36 ED 5F 34 C4 B3 long beach, ca 90840 | E9 1E F3 CB E7 65 EE BC ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #421 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Sep 21 15:34:24 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id PAA11725; Tue, 21 Sep 1999 15:34:24 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 21 Sep 1999 15:34:24 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199909211934.PAA11725@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #422 TELECOM Digest Tue, 21 Sep 99 15:34:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 422 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: I Was a Victim of Fraud (John L. Meissen) Re: FCC Setting Technology Standard to Locate 911 Calls (Daryl R. Gibson) Is it Legal When They Say This?(Darryl Smith) Big Brother Is Your Friend (Monty Solomon) Re: Phone Outages (was Re: More on Floyd's Aftermath in NJ) (Gail M. Hall) Re: AT&T Underground Facilities (Art Kamlet) Re: Floyd is Gone But We've Got a Telecommunications Problem (Larry Finch) Re: Floyd/NJ Telecom Problems - More Info! (Larry Finch) Re: AT&T Wireless: No Service East Of The Hudson River (Larry Finch) Re: Rochelle Park Tandem back in Service at 10:00, 9/20 (Jeffrey Carpenter) Re: Troubleshooting Phone Problem (Michael Sullivan) Thank you! (ZZZPotato@aol.com) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Meissen, John L Subject: Re: I Was a Victim of Fraud Date: Tue, 21 Sep 1999 10:45:24 -0700 In article was written: > 6. Don't EVER use a debit card in place of a credit card. It may look > like a conventional credit card but it lacks all the protections of > federal law that a credit card would have (like a $50 limit on all > unauthorized transactions after giving notice to the card issuer). Not true. I spent a LOT of time investigating this a couple of years ago. Debit card transactions are subject to Federal laws limiting liability to $50, subject to certain conditions such as promptness of reporting, etc., just like credit cards. The major difference, however, is that with a credit card the bank is out the money until the issue has been investigated and resolved. With a debit card, YOU HAVE ALREADY LOST THE MONEY and the bank is under no obligation to replace it UNTIL the matter has been resolved in your favor. It is also up to the consumer to be aware of this limited liability and demand the legal protection. I have seen local instances of banks trying to mislead customers into believing they had no such protection. Because of this I also endorse the claim that you should NEVER use your debit card in the capacity of a credit transaction. Get a lawyer. Once the activity was reported as fraudulent the bank should have frozen the account and NEVER allowed any more funds transfers until the issue was resolved. Under no circumstances should they have required additional funds after that. Disclaimer: Any resemblance between the above views and those of my employer, my terminal, or the view out my window are purely coincidental. Any resemblance between the above and my own views is non-deterministic. The question of the existence of views in the absence of anyone to hold them is left as an exercise for the reader. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Sep 1999 12:25:03 -0600 From: Daryl R. Gibson Subject: Re: FCC Setting Technology Standard to Locate 911 Calls > When I told them that I was not from the > local region (I was several hundred to a thousand miles from home) and > did not know the location addressing schemes, I was told to drive around > until I found a local resident with a _fixed_ address and have them > report the accident. This is hard to do in central Wyoming in I-80 > where the nearest village is 8 miles away or in the national forests > of northern Michigan, Wisconsin or Minnesota. Best way to do such is to look for a milepost. In most states here in the West, (like I-80 in Wyoming), emergency organizations usually dispatch help to "milepost such and such, Interstate 80, Westbound". Exit numbers are, in many states, tied into the milepost system ... so Interstate 15, Exit 111 (Beaver, Utah North Exit) is 111 miles from the southmost entry into the state of Utah. On the Nevada desert, devoid of any real landmarks, I-15 Milepost 104 is 4 miles north of the Carp/Elgin exit (which itself is nothing more than an exit for a couple of towns some 60 miles away). California has mileposts on their freeways that are county-based, so there are a different set for each county, and each milepost has a number that makes sense to emergency personnel ... plus, in much of California, the markers are every quarter mile. Most larger highways have such mile markers in the three or four states that I normally drive. In-city highways aren't going to have them, of course, but then you usually have a better sense of where you are. ("Well, I'm by the Burger King down the road from the High School"). Certainly, it's not as technologically interesting as GPS, but it's still very useful, and for cell callers trying to help out, it's going to be a much better way of conveying such information than is latitude and longitude, at least for now. Plus, it's an easy way to get a handle on how much time it'll take you to get to the next exit ... ("Well, lemme see ... I'm going to exit 267, and I'm now at milepost 111 ... that means I've got 156 miles to go"). Daryl "As you ramble through life, brother, no matter what your goal, keep your eye upon the doughnut, and not upon the hole" --Dr. Murray Banks, quoting a menu ------------------------------ From: Darryl Smith Date: Tue, 21 Sep 1999 17:54:45 +1000 Subject: Is it Legal When They Say This? G'Day, I just got some spam advertizing 'WAREZ' (Pirate Software if you have never come across the term. Anyway the email had the following comment at the bottom: 'Under Bill S.1618 TITLE III passed by the 105th U.S. Congress this letter can not be considered SPAM as long as we include the way to be removed. To be removed from future mailings for free is simply by responding with "REMOVE" in the subject line. This will permanently remove you from all future mailing from us.' Is this true? I voted with my feet and forwarded all the email to piracy@microsoft.com :-) Darryl Smith, VK2TDS POBox 169 Ingleburn NSW 2565 Australia Mobile Number 0412 929 634 [+61 4 12 929 634 International] [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I do not think merely claiming something is not spam avoids the fact that it is spam. Anyone know about this? PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Sep 1999 00:17:32 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Big Brother Is Your Friend by Chris Gaither 9:15 a.m. 20.Sep.99.PDT BERKELEY, California -- The omnipresent cameras are coming, says science fiction writer David Brin. The question isn't when, but what they'll be pointing at. Surveillance cameras will be perched on every lamppost and windowsill, beaming the minutiae of daily life to police headquarters. Street crime will plummet, Brin says. http://www.wired.com/news/news/politics/story/21840.html An Email Bill for Employees by James Glave Michael Smyth didn't expect to get canned when he wrote in an email that his sales managers were "backstabbing bastards." The former Pillsbury operations manager had assumed his email -- in which he also referred to an upcoming company party as the "Jim Jones Koolaid affair" -- was private. It wasn't, and in 1996 a Pennsylvania court threw out his unlawful dismissal suit against the dough boy, ruling that Pillsbury's interest in preventing unprofessional comments outweighed any privacy rights Smyth may have had. A California bill, now sitting on the governor's desk, aims to make sure this won't happen again. http://www.wired.com/news/news/politics/story/21792.html updated 4:15 p.m. 20.Sep.99.PDT [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Neither of those scenarios qualify as 'Big Brother' events in my opinion. Very unpleasant, to be sure, but not Big Brother-ish. Here is why: In the case of the email, the employer owns the computer and the facilities. The employer also 'owns' your time that he is paying for each day. Therefore the employer has the right to supervise your work, and has the right to examine what is on the computer. You may say it is oppressive, and you are probably correct. But millions of Americans who work each day without benefit of private office or computer on their desk (for example in factories, clerks in stores, etc) will tell you it is not uncommon at all for the supervisor to review them and their work all day long. Why not the same for you who sit in offices with a computer and consume large parts of your day with Internet and email. Like it or leave it. Those are the new terms. In the case of public cameras, I would suggest that anything the human eye is legally entitled to observe and its owner act upon, a camera is legally entitled to observe. Note the key word here is 'legally'. A camera is just an extension of the human eye, in the same way a telephone is an extension of the human ear and the human mouth. If a policeman can stand on a corner throughout the day and look in various directions observing things, so can a camera which is connected to a human observer at the police depart- ment. To put it another way, if a policeman cannot legally use a camera to observe a public area and act on what he sees, and must be there to see it in person, then logically he should not legally be allowed to listen on a telephone as a citizen calls for help; he should be required to be within normal hearing range to accept calls for service as well as within normal eyesight range to observe a crime taking place. Again, very oppressive in nature, but I do not see how it could be found unconstitutional. Like with the email example, the key word is 'legally'. Just as your employer cannot investigate email or activities on your own computer and your own time through a private ISP, neither can a police officer peer inside your bedroom window late at night, nor can his camera be there in his place. To me, 'Big Brother' implies an encroachment on your privacy. You should have no expectation of same in public or in the workplace. Never have had any, and never should expect any. PAT] ------------------------------ From: gmhall@apk.net (Gail M. Hall) Subject: Re: Phone Outages (was Re: More on Floyd's Aftermath in NJ) Date: Tue, 21 Sep 1999 02:17:47 GMT Organization: APK Net The disasters resulting from Floyd show that we have more than Y2K to be concerned about. > The Rochelle Park CO is not only used by BA for local calls, but is > _the_ major site used for inter-CO routing for lots of northern NJ > communities. And it's _also_ a primary switching center for > inter-lata and transcontinental communications. This is one of the things that worries me about so many companies merging and becoming more deregulated. Here they are talking about deregulating electrical service so we can "shop" for electricity. But who will guarantee that the companies will have enough electricity and where extra power will come from in case of emergencies? Who is ultimately responsible for repairing lines after a wind storm? Here Ameritech is really pushing their cable television service with slews of ads via mail and by door-to-door reps going through our neighborhoods. But then we hear that they can't fix phone lines fast enough or have problems correcting service problems when businesses need more advanced services. I wish Ameritech would stick to phone service and improve that service instead of draining off money and talent to start up a cable television service. What happens if both phone service and television service go dead? It's a good thing we still have radio stations in a variety of locations and can have battery-operated radios to help us know what's going on when power and phones are dead! > Oh, and to add to the disaster potential here, it's also the major AT&T > wireless (at least the digital portion, don't know about the analog one) > MTSO for northern NJ, NYC, and Western Ct. It seems to me the wireless companies should get together and work out ways of helping each other when service goes out somewhere. Will wireless phone services help avoid this type of problem? Satellites do go dead from time to time, but if we put up back-up satellites, wouldn't that be some insurance? I live in northeast Ohio. It's interesting to note that the other night we started seeing messages on the TV channels that the 911 service was out in Beachwood. I don't remember who they said to call in emergencies. My husband was traveling in his car at that time, and he said the radio stations were also broadcasting such messages, even some messages about reports of problems in Beachwood. I wonder why they could divert those emergency calls to nearby communities. Would it be logical and workable for people to get CB radios to have at home for emergencies? Or would it be too likely that the radio channels would just get clogged? > [1] The direct radios, including the repeaters, used by the emergency > service folk are working fine. So they've placed a whole bunch of folk > to sit in emergency vehicles throughout the area in case people need > to call for help. These radios also reach over into the neighboring > communities, so that, at least, isn't a problem. BTW, the Rochelle > Park Police Dep't had to move their dispatch center to the fire dep't > ... no major problems there. This sounds like there are a bunch of people ready to help in this type of emergency. It's good to know we can resort to another technology when the phones go out! > Oh, these are "traditional" radio systems rather than computer-controlled > "trunking" units. I'd rather not think about problems the latter could > cause. (Yes, they're supposed to have "failsoft" built into them. Yep.) > [2] This part of the problem scares the shit out of me, and also annoys > the hell out of me (wow, two expletives in one sentence...). While the > loss of a CO will legitimately knock out the communications in the > immediate area, it shouldn't take more than 15 minutes to reroute other > stuff that was going through it. People have been worrying so much about Y2K that they forget to plan for storms and "ordinary" natural disasters, I think. > In the Good Old Days of AT&T [tm], they'd have a crew in their hardened > bunker under Bedminster, NJ, carefully watching their War Room map > projection. If, say, Chicago's 'green light' turned to 'red' after being > nuked, the cigar crunchers would curse out the damn Russkies and hit the > reroute switch, so calls from NYC to LA would go via Denver instead. Very interesting and colorful description. > And if NYC got hit, these folk would ride out the shockwave and hit the > next switch, so that Boston - DC would go via Albany. Can't we think about having companies work together to work out similar plans today? Or are we all too busy counting beans? > While I'm saying that stuff half in jest, it's clear that we _don't_ > have the backbone/redundancy/rerouting capability that used to be > there. Again, losing the customers immediately surrounding that CO was > pretty much unavoidable. But to lose anything outside that area for > more than 15 minutes is absurd. > Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key Yes! And when communications fail, fear and paranoia can come very quickly. Hmmm. I've been wondering where our emergency supplies of food and water should be kept. If it's in case of tornadoes, we should keep them in the basement. But if we are concerned about floods, then they should be kept in the attic. Well, I wonder if we should have part of them in the basement and part of them in the attic. Thanks for communicating! Gail M. Hall gmhall@apk.net ------------------------------ From: kamlet@infinet.com (Art Kamlet) Subject: Re: AT&T Underground Facilities Date: 20 Sep 1999 22:53:43 -0400 Organization: InfiNet Reply-To: kamlet@infinet.com >> In the Good Old Days of AT&T [tm], they'd have a crew in their hardened >> bunker under Bedminster, NJ, carefully watching their War Room map >> projection. If, say, Chicago's 'green light' turned to 'red' after being >> nuked, the cigar crunchers would curse out the damn Russkies and hit the >> reroute switch, so calls from NYC to LA would go via Denver instead. >> And if NYC got hit, these folk would ride out the shockwave and hit the >> next switch, so that Boston - DC would go via Albany. Sorry to disilussion you, but there was no hardened bunker in or under Bedminster NJ. There was a war room, and a great PR tour site called the Network Operations Center (AFAIK it is still there) in Bedminster. It was pictured in much glossy advertising, and a few years ago renamed something like the World Wide Intelligent Network Center. But the underground hardened AT&T site was in the hills near Netcong NJ, about 35 miles NW of Bedminster. You would enter from a small well-locked building, just large enough to allow people and frames to enter and be loaded into the multi-level area down below. From the outside you had no clue to the huge size of the underground equipment that was there. There were microwave antennas there as well as many underground duplicated links. And it had its own war room. In the late 1960s and early 70s, there was one small desk -- really small desk -- with a name plate reading "Mr. DeButts" -- referring to John DeButts, then president of AT&T, and the concept was if a nuclear bomb hit New York, he would come to Netcong to direct the nations communications systems. Anyway, the desk and the sign were really there, and the story is worth repeating :^) Art Kamlet Columbus, Ohio kamlet@infinet.com ------------------------------ From: Larry Finch Subject: Re: Floyd is Gone But We've Got a Telecommunications Problem Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1999 19:54:17 -0400 Organization: AT&T WorldNet Services Reply-To: LarryFinch@worldnet.att.net An EDS data center is across the street from the AT&T/Bell Atlantic building. It was not damaged, but it connects through the access tandem that was damaged. Larry "J.F. Mezei" wrote: > Also heard that a company that runs ATMs in the region had its > data-centre/switch affected in Rochelle NJ. Larry Finch ::LarryFinch@worldnet.att.net larry@prolifics.com ::LarryFinch@aol.com PDCLarry@aol.com ::(whew!) N 40 53' 47" W 74 03' 56" ------------------------------ From: Larry Finch Subject: Re: Floyd/NJ Telecom Problems - More Info! Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1999 20:20:55 -0400 Organization: AT&T WorldNet Services Reply-To: LarryFinch@worldnet.att.net My credentials: I live in Maywood, about a mile from the affected switching center in Rochelle Park, and I have visited the site several times in the past few days. I had no service at all between Thursday evening and Sunday night. I'm also a telecom consultant. The following was gleaned from various press reports. No one report had them all; it hasn't been big news (and it should be). The building is owned by AT&T, who leases part of it to Bell Atlantic. AT&T has wireless switches for three discontiguous service areas in the NY Metropolitan area located in the building. Bell Atlantic has the CO for the the local area in the building, along with an access tandem and some wireless switches also. Water started entering the building Thursday evening, first flooding the basement (presumably cable runs, batteries, and power distribution). The external power was shut down for safety reasons, and diesel generators were started. The generators ran out of fuel about four hours later (editorial comment: inexcusable!) Meanwhile, the water continued to rise, eventually reaching waist depth on the 1st floor, where the AT&T wireless switches were located. On Friday afternoon I bicycled over to look; water was being pumped out of the building, and crews were shoveling mud out of the first floor. I haven't been able to determine what else (if anything) was on the first floor. According to AT&T the wireless switches were totaled. The outage left 35,000 customers with no service (and no 911), and the loss of the access tandem left approximately one million customers with only local service. No numbers outside of their CO could be called. No 800 numbers. No ISP access. Cellular customers physically located in the areas mentioned in the previous post could not make or receive calls. The Interbank network in the area went down, so stores couldn't validate credit cards and would only take cash. Which you couldn't get because ATMs were down. I actually went to the bank and cashed a check! On Saturday AT&T brought in three switches in semi-trailers. I don't know what these were for. Additional equipment arrived Sunday, blocking Passaic Street (a main thoroughfare) which is now closed to all traffic and patrolled by the NJ National Guard. All streets that touch Passaic street are also closed. It looks from the outside as if they are building new switches in the middle of the street. On Sunday night I got one of my four lines back about 7:30 PM, a second an hour later, and all four by Monday morning. Cellular service also returned Monday morning. This had the makings of a major disaster, with no 911 service. We were just lucky. But the dearth of news was a real problem, also. A relative of one of my neighbors drove 200 miles to see if she was OK because she wasn't answering her phone. And it shouldn't have happened. The building was in a flood plain. It was flooded (but not as badly) in 1977. Yet no precautions were taken, and more equipment was centralized in it after 1977. The access tandem supports 40-odd COs. It was a bad idea to use the building in that location at all, a worse idea to have no defense against flooding (dikes and pumps, for example), colossal stupidity to collocate the wireless switches for two carriers AND an access tandem in the same location. The local congressman (Steve Rothman) has promised a Federal investigation. Larry "Richard E. Baum" wrote: > Earlier I sent you info on the telecom problems in NJ. I just found a > press release from AT&T explaining why their cellular coverage is down > that says (in part) this: > "As a result of flooding in a Rochelle Park, N.J., switching facility, > [cellular] service has been interrupted since late last night to > customers in Brooklyn, Upper Westchester, Rockland, and Putnam > Counties in New York, and Litchefield County in Connecticut, as well > as Bergan, Essex, Lower Passaic, and parts of Hudson and Union > Counties in New Jersey. Wireless service to Newark International > Airport is also impacted by these flood conditions." > In reality, I've found the outage to be a bit wider than what is claimed > here. In addition to the area described above, I can't reach mobile > customers in Manhattan or many other parts of NJ. > The full URL to the press release is: > http://www.att.com/press/item/0,1193,668,00.html Larry Finch ::LarryFinch@worldnet.att.net larry@prolifics.com ::LarryFinch@aol.com PDCLarry@aol.com ::(whew!) N 40 53' 47" W 74 03' 56" ------------------------------ From: Larry Finch Subject: Re: AT&T Wireless: No Service East Of The Hudson River Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1999 20:24:28 -0400 Organization: AT&T WorldNet Services Reply-To: LarryFinch@worldnet.att.net Actually, Bell Atlantic Mobile is out also. But they didn't announce it the way AT&T did. Larry Alan Boritz wrote: > No services at all, north of Hoboken, NJ, unless if you're near New > York or a neighboring cellular company's coverage area. Northern NJ > residents who don't have telephone service, also can't use their AT&T > cellular phones, since they don't work either (AT&T Wireless is on the > first floor of the Rochelle Park, NJ, central office that has all of > northern NJ phones disabled). AT&T Wireless customer service says they > have no idea when to expect service. One-rate customers, with locked > dual-band phones are probably aware by now that they no longer have > the ability to switch over to the wireline carrier in an emergency, as > they could with conventional digital or analog cellphones. Larry Finch ::LarryFinch@worldnet.att.net larry@prolifics.com ::LarryFinch@aol.com PDCLarry@aol.com ::(whew!) N 40 53' 47" W 74 03' 56" ------------------------------ From: Jeffrey J. Carpenter Subject: Re: Rochelle Park Tandem back in Service at 10:00, 9/20 Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1999 21:16:16 -0400 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com > Interesting bit - Nokia 6160 in 'field-test' mode shows signal (a @ > -113), but display says 'no service'. Phone does not complete calls, > but rather shows "waiting for signal". Anyone know for sure if the > towers are powered up or not? -113 dB is no service. In Pittsburgh, we had problems with voice mail notification taking from four hours to two days on AT&T wireless phones. After you received the message, you had to wait a similar length of time for the indicator light to go off. This has happened several times over the past two months, but this time, customer service blamed it on the New Jersey problems. Jeffrey J. Carpenter P.O. Box 471 Glenshaw, PA 15116-0471 Phone: +1 218 837-6000 Fax: +1 310 914-1716 Email: jjc@pobox.com Web: http://pobox.com/~jjc/ ------------------------------ From: Michael Sullivan Subject: Re: Troubleshooting Phone Problem Date: Tue, 21 Sep 1999 02:01:48 GMT Randy Broman asked about how to troubleshoot a home with a single PacBell line hardwired (no NID) to inside wiring with fifteen phones. Symptoms are no dial tone at the phones, busy to the outside world. > 1) What do the symptoms above indicate? Presumeably a handset off-hook > would cause this, but I checked all phones and that does not seem to be > the case. So ... would this indicate an open connection in the inside > wiring? The problem could be inside or outside. You need to isolate the two. Read on. > 2) The house does not have a network interface box. Instead, the > (two-wire) phone cable comes in thru a wall to an obviously old > interface device, which has a porcelean base screwed to the wall, and > two long thin tubes (resistors? capacitors? isolators?). External wiring > hooked to one end, internal wiring hooked to the other. I tried bridging > across it and that doesn't seem to work. I'm not sure what components the interface device has in it, but it is basically a primitive surge protector. I had one of these until recently. You need to see whether the problem is inside or outside. Disconnect the inside wires connected to the device. Test the voltage across the screws. If it's about 48 VDC, the problem is on the inside. If the voltage is much lower (like the 7.2 VDC you measured with the inside wiring attached, the problem is on the inside. If you get 48 VDC, try connecting a single phone known to be good to confirm that the outside line is okay -- you should get dial tone. If the problem is on the outside, call PacBell and tell them what you have just found -- and also ask them to replace the interface with a new NID. (You will need to use an RJ-11 plug to connect your inside wiring with this.) > Anyone know what this old interface device is? Can I replace it (with > what)? Can I obtain/install my own network interface box? Apart from the > extra wires and the features they support, is the old two-wire service > fundamentally different from current phone service technology? No, you can't replace it yourself. PacBell will undoubtedly replace it without extra charge if they have to make a site visit to get your inbound service working again. You might even consider having them come out and replace it if there's a charge for the visit to do so, since a new protector and NID will provide more reliable protection than a unit that is 30 or more years old. > 3) I looked at a book I have, which says I should see 48V DC across the > red and green wires (note I'm only using the red and green wires anyway > ... per two-wire service above. So I got out my MultiMeter and began > checking at each junction block, starting at the interface "device" > mentioned above. Well ... I may be misunderstanding the scale settings > on my MultiMeter, but I think I'm getting 7.2V across red and green at > each point. Does that make any sense? The 7.2 VDC reading shows that the circuit is closed at some point, either inside or outside. As discussed above, you need to find out which. If the problem is NOT outside (i.e., you get a 48 VDC reading), unplug all of your phones, computers, etc., and try reconnecting the wiring to the interface. If you still get 48 VDC, the closed circuit problem is not with the wiring, but with one or more of the phones. If the voltage drops, you need to fix your wiring. Otherwise, plug the phones in one at a time until the problem recurs, and you have found the source. Michael D. Sullivan, Bethesda, Md., USA avogadro@bellatlantic.net (also avogadro@well.com) ------------------------------ From: ZZZPotato@aol.com Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1999 23:26:16 EDT Subject: Thank You! Hi Patrick, You have been such a big help on my report. I have received so many responses that are all so helpful and I will definitely include each of them in my research. Thank you once again for all your help. Janet [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Readers may recall that Janet is a seventh-grade student in her school who was asked to write a report on how telephones work. If others of you would like to drop her a short note on some aspect of telephony, I am sure she would appreciate it, and you will help make her school report one of the best in her class. Thanks very much! PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #422 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Sep 21 23:41:26 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id XAA02323; Tue, 21 Sep 1999 23:41:26 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 21 Sep 1999 23:41:26 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199909220341.XAA02323@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #423 TELECOM Digest Tue, 21 Sep 99 23:41:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 423 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? (Jonathan Seder) Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? (John McHarry) Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? (Peter Dubuque) Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? (Joel B. Levin) Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? (Matt Simpson) Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? (Barry Margolin) Re: Users of Wireless Phones Find Unexpected Benefits (Steven J. Sobol) Telco Discounts Take Toll on Net Phones (Monty Solomon) Looking For 1A1/1A2 Info (DMC Joe) Making Broadband a Reality (David Dowdy) Jobs in Telecommunication (JOE B) New Fight Over Encryption Rules (Monty Solomon) Here's a Strange One! (Jack Decker) Historic European Emergency Numbers (JT Thompson) Re: California Area Code Split Legislation (AB 818) (Steven Lichter) T1 Emulation For Testing, Help!!! (ONG SoftWare) Sprint PCS Fraud (Babu Mengelepouti) Telephone Dry Cell Battery (Marc Meyer) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jonathan Seder Subject: Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? Date: Tue, 21 Sep 1999 17:12:19 -0700 Organization: SyntelSoft Inc > ... spam advertizing 'WAREZ'... at the bottom: > 'Under Bill S.1618 TITLE III passed by the 105th U.S. Congress this letter > can not be considered SPAM as long as we include the way to be removed. > To be removed from future mailings for free is simply by responding with > "REMOVE" in the subject line... See www.cauce.org/s1618_hr3888.html. S.1618 was passed by the Senate but died in conference. It was NOT passed by Congress and IS NOT LAW. I use "1618" as a condition for my spam filter, and you might as well, too. Typically, the "REMOVE" address just harvests good e-mail addresses for future mailings. You should report the message to the host of the remove address (i.e. "abuse@something.com"). "Spam" is always a violation of the Terms and Conditions of the spammer's ISP. It is usually illegal, too. See www.cauce.org for more info. Please, after reading the CAUCE pages and anything else you want, write to your senators and representatives in congress asking them to do something. ------------------------------ From: mcharry@erols.com (John McHarry) Subject: Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1999 00:57:16 GMT On Tue, 21 Sep 1999 17:54:45 +1000, Darryl Smith wrote: > G'Day, > I just got some spam advertizing 'WAREZ' (Pirate Software if you have > never come across the term. Anyway the email had the following comment > at the bottom: > 'Under Bill S.1618 TITLE III passed by the 105th U.S. Congress this letter > can not be considered SPAM as long as we include the way to be removed. > To be removed from future mailings for free is simply by responding with > "REMOVE" in the subject line. This will permanently remove you from all > future mailing from us.' > >I s this true? > I voted with my feet and forwarded all the email to > piracy@microsoft.com :-) A bill is not a law, only a proposed one. Nor would a US law have much effect in Oz. Put these scum in your kill file and do whatever thou wilst with them. ------------------------------ From: Peter Dubuque Subject: Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? Date: 21 Sep 1999 20:41:15 GMT Organization: The Internet Access Company, Inc. S.1618 doesn't actually define spam anywhere, so no, one can't use the bill's text to assert that spam is not really spam. I've seen a lot of spammers insert the magic phrase "Bill S.1618" into their messages, trying to use it to give them an air of legitimacy. At first it seemed like they were trying to show they could regulate themselves in an attempt to keep Uncle Sam from opening a can of whoop-ass on them. But I have never seen *anyone* adhere to S.1618 to the letter. When was the last time you saw a spammer include his real name and physical address? The bill requires them. When was the last time you saw a spammer use an email address that's either completely bogus or belongs to some third party? The bill forbids them. And in any case, S.1618 was never passed into law. It was approved by the Senate but died in the House when the 105th Congress ended its session. There is no requirement to comply with it and no penalty for violating it. And chances are, if you ask them to remove you, they'll do what they've always done ... flag your address as having been verified as valid, and send you more spam. Peter F. Dubuque - dubuque@tiac.net - Enemy of Reason(TM) O- ------------------------------ From: Joel B Levin Subject: Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? Organization: On the desert Reply-To: levinjb@gte.net Date: Tue, 21 Sep 1999 21:26:08 GMT In , Darryl Smith wrote: > 'Under Bill S.1618 TITLE III passed by the 105th U.S. Congress this letter > can not be considered SPAM as long as we include the way to be removed. > To be removed from future mailings for free is simply by responding with > "REMOVE" in the subject line. This will permanently remove you from all > future mailing from us.' > Is this true? No. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I do not think merely claiming > something is not spam avoids the fact that it is spam. Anyone > know about this? PAT] More than I want to. One of the abortive spam-enabling bills in the Senate (supposedly to regulate and control junk e-mail, but with the effect of legitimizing it, pretty much), this bill (and others like it) has been regularly quoted as the basis for making the spam 'permissible'. Never mind that it never became law (and the bill number expired last year too); never mind that in most cases even those spams which claim to be complying with the terms of that bill are not. It's just yet another attempt, and a fairly lame one, to try to pull some wool over the victims' eyes. Bottom line: there has been no law enacted which speaks one way or the other about spam or unsolicited bulk or commercial e-mail, and any claim that there is is just another sign of fraud. /JBL Nets: levin/at/bbn.com | "GO TO JAIL. Go directly to jail. Do not pass or jbl/at/levin.mv.com| Go. Do not collect $200." or levinjb/at/gte.net | ARS: KD1ON | -- Parker Brothers ------------------------------ From: Matt Simpson Subject: Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? Date: Tue, 21 Sep 1999 16:46:41 -0400 Organization: University of Kentucky Computing Services I took a look at S.1618 on the Library of Congress website http://thomas.loc.gov It seems that this bill was passed by the Senate, but not the House, so it would appear that it's not law yet. The bill also requires more that just removal instruction. It also specifies: (2) COVERED INFORMATION- The following information shall appear at the beginning of the body of an unsolicited commercial electronic mail message under paragraph (1): (A) The name, physical address, electronic mail address, and telephone number of the person who initiates transmission of the message. (B) The name, physical address, electronic mail address, and telephone number of the person who created the content of the message, if different from the information under subparagraph (A). (C) A statement that further transmissions of unsolicited commercial electronic mail to the recipient by the person who initiates transmission of the message may be stopped at no cost to the recipient by sending a reply to the originating electronic mail address with the word `remove' in the subject line. There's also some other stuff in there that I haven't digested yet, but I think this disclaimer that appears on a lot of SPAM isn't quite accurate. Matt Simpson -- Paris, KY At the end of your rope? Tie and knot and SWING! ------------------------------ From: Barry Margolin Subject: Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? Organization: GTE Internetworking, Cambridge, MA Date: Tue, 21 Sep 1999 19:39:43 GMT It's still spam, it's just not illegal; however, there wasn't a federal law against spam in the first place, so it wasn't illegal before, either. I believe that law specifies requirements on spam email, such as having a valid return address and inclusion of information about how to remove yourself from the list. However, this doesn't mean that we have to accept it willingly -- there are many activities that are legal, but still considered unacceptable (there's no law against calling your neighbor an idiot, but it's still not a nice thing to do). In my experience, I've seen plenty of spam that had notices like that but didn't seem to meet the requirements. They're obviously counting on people to simply believe what they read. Barry Margolin, barmar@bbnplanet.com GTE Internetworking, Powered by BBN, Burlington, MA *** DON'T SEND TECHNICAL QUESTIONS DIRECTLY TO ME, post them to newsgroups. Please DON'T copy followups to me -- I'll assume it wasn't posted to the group. ------------------------------ From: sjsobol@JustThe.Net (Steven J Sobol) Subject: Re: Users of Wireless Phones Find Unexpected Benefits Date: 22 Sep 1999 01:13:10 GMT Organization: North Shore Technologies Corp. 888.480.4NET On Tue, 21 Sep 1999 10:37:34 -0400, itsamike@yahoo.com, quoting a New York Times article, said: > Local calling areas for wired phone service -- in which calls are not > billed by the minute -- usually include only a few neighboring towns > and never combine parts of different states. Not true if the neighboring towns straddle a state or other governmental dividing line. For example, DC (AC 202) and southern Maryland (AC 301). (at least this was true in 1987, last time I stayed in DC for any length of time :) North Shore Technologies JustTheNet Dialup Internet Access Cleveland, Akron, Canton, Geauga Co., Lake Co., Portage Co., Lorain Co., OH Nationwide Access coming soon! Watch this space for details or dial 1.888.480.4NET for more info! ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Sep 1999 00:07:43 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Telco Discounts Take Toll on Net Phones By Corey Grice and Wylie Wong Staff Writers, CNET News.com September 17, 1999, 2:55 p.m. PT As long distance phone prices bottom out, the future for firms that offer low-cost services is anything but loud and clear. Domestic and international rates are dropping faster than ever, forcing computer-based telephone servicees to quickly develop new features to survive the competition. http://news.cnet.com/category/0-1004-200-121074.html ------------------------------ Reply-To: From: DMC Joe Subject: Looking For 1A1/1A2 Info Date: Tue, 21 Sep 1999 01:27:33 -0400 (written primarily to David Massey, regards our 'Tribute to the Telephone' pages at http://telecom-digest.org/tribute David, Well it looks as if I broke my all time record at how much time I spent at a single web-site. You've done a great job of keeping my total interest for over 90 minutes. I hit your site surfing for information on 1A2 key equipment infor- mation. Let me quickly bring you up to date on my search. I am a semi-retired broadcast engineer, During my early years in the business, mid 60's, I was exposed to Western Electric telephone equipment. The TV station I worked at had a 1A2 key phone system and I was always impressed with its design, construction and operation. Several years later I opened my own business and installed a 1A2 system that I acquired while I was at the TV station. The truth of the matter is that our New Jersey Bell repair person stored much of his spare equipment at the TV station because the building was centrally located in his work area. That same repair tech was hired on at the TV station and we became good friends. He was good enough to led me in the direction of some forgotten about key equipment. Several years later I opened a recording studio and guess what telephone equipment I installed. I'm sure it will come to no surprise to you that 30 years later I'm still using the same equipment for my current home based business. All I have left are two 20 button and one 10 button key sets connected to a Western Electric 28A1 power unit. I really enjoy having an indestructible phone system that I never worry about even during a severe electrical storm. The reason for my search, and maybe you can lead me in the right direction, is I would like to add an intercom line and add some other features. Any assistance you could give me would be greatly appreciated. Sincerely, Joe LoRe' DMC Joe / DeLorean Services / Web Site: ------------------------------ From: David Ddowdy Subject: Making Broadband a Reality Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1999 22:34:09 -0700 Every week I hear about efforts to bring more bandwidth to the Internet, such as installing DSL or Cable Modem services in highly select areas, usually those with high population densities. However, it seems to me that we're forgetting something in all of this; shouldn't a communications network be designed from the top down, rather than from the bottom up? Do our national backbone networks have the bandwidth to support such faster connections to individual users? If not, wouldn't it make sense to upgrade them to a more robust physical medium, such as fiber-optic cable? If we have "fatter pipes" downstream, but the upstream networks are unable to keep pace with them, isn't that like putting the proverbial "cart before the horse"? David Dowdy ------------------------------ From: JOE B Subject: Jobs in Telecommunication Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1999 22:46:09 +0100 Reply-To: techsupport@commstaff.com Please visit http://www.commstaff.com For the best in Telecommunication / Telecoms jobs in the UK and Europe there is no place but COMMSTAFF. It is a dedicated site for TELECOMMUNICATION jobs. Please visit http://www.commstaff.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Sep 1999 03:08:38 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: New Fight Over Encryption Rules By JERI CLAUSING New Fight Over Encryption Rules WASHINGTON -- Last week's surprise change in the Clinton Administration's encryption policy may finally close the long-standing debate over export controls. But civil libertarians are bracing for a renewed fight with law enforcement agencies over access to the keys that can unscramble private data and communications. The push by law enforcement for legal rights to so-called spare keys to encrypted communications is as old as the fight to lift export controls on the technology. But until now, technology companies, civil libertarians and a host of other groups have stood united against attempts to tie any easing of the export controls to easier access by law enforcement to scrambled data. http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/yr/mo/cyber/capital/21capital.html [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: When visiting the New York Times' website, user registration is required. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Sep 1999 15:01:12 -0400 From: Jack Decker Subject: Here's a Strange One! Pat, Someone wrote to me this morning asking how he could become a long distance reseller. Since I don't really keep that kind of information on hand, I suggested that (among other things) he might do well to post a query to the Telecom Digest, and gave him your e-mail address (editor@telecom-digest.org). In order to get the address into my e-mail, I did a cut-and-paste. Later on I was pasting what I thought was a URL into Netscape, but I guess I hadn't copied it properly first and by mistake pasted your e-mail address (which apparently was still in the Windows clipboard) into Netscape's address window, and hit the Enter key before I realized my mistake. Now, I expected it would either give me an error message, or just possibly fire up my e-mail program and paste the address into the "To:" line to create an outgoing e-mail. It did neither. What it DID do was what I found amazing. It took me directly to: http://hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/ I am still trying to figure out how it translated your e-mail address into your Web site address! Ah, the wonders of intelligent machines! Jack [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You had a copy of my index.html in your Netscape cache and Netscape had previously looked for 'telecom- digest.org' only to be told it really wanted massis.lcs.mit.edu/ telecom-archives. So it knew to look in the cache for your copy of my index.html ... now normally you would say something like go to http://massis.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives or you might say go to ftp massis.lcs.mit.edu/common/pub/telecom-archives/archives/ etc .. So it tried to find some protocol called 'editor@' and failing to find such a transport mechanism -- because none exists -- it decided to use its default of 'http'. It knew what to do with the right half of the entry, 'that means he wants to see Townson's web site and I just happen to have a copy here conveniently in cache to show him' and '... since I do not know what he is talking about with this editor@ thing, I'll just use http like I did the last time he wanted to see that trashy web site.' Understand now? As long as the browser address area has something that appears to be a URL -- and the computer knows what a URL is supposed to look like, it was taught that when the browser was first installed -- with some phrase, a dot, some other phrase, etc, then it will go to that location if it exists and attempt to put on some kind of display for you. You may notice if you have one of the newest Internet Explorer browsers it does the same thing basically. No matter if you say 'http' or not, or if you say 'com' on the end when you meant to say 'org', or you forgot the 'www' on the front it takes what you did give it within reason and goes off and fetches to the best of its ability what it thinks you want to see. Slap anything at all in the address line and it tries to deal with it, often times successfully, especially if it sees in the cache some similar words or phrases as part of a URL name that succeeded. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Sep 1999 20:36:49 +0000 From: JT Thompson Subject: Historic European Emergency Numbers Can anyone help me with an odd query -- and if you can, could you mail me directly, as the digest won't reach me till too late: What were the emergency phone numbers around Europe before Europe standardised to 112? Were they different from country to country? What were they in different countries? - JTT ------------------------------ From: stevenl11@aol.comstuffit (Steven Lichter) Date: 21 Sep 1999 22:16:04 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: Re: California Area Code Split Legislation (AB 818) In article , black@csulb.edu wrote: > I grew up in Long Beach CA, and still live there. My parents house is > served by the GTE Lakewood C/O (Harrison-9) which I suspect is located > at the intersection of Los Coyotes Diagonal and Spring Street. I > distinctly remember having to dial "1" before a 7-digit toll call to > the Los Angeles area. Looks like my little post has gained a life of its own and I was not even aware it was still going. I state it again, years ago, SXS days we had two kinds of SATT system, full SATT, which allowed the customer to pretty much dial anything they wanted, and except when you dialed a A/C you had no idea it would cost you extra unless you took the time to check or know that over a certain distance that would cost you -- but then again you could not always tell that. From the West San Fernando Valley to Santa Monica was free, but North Hollywood which was closer was a toll call. The other SATT system was access, that would require a 1 plus on anything out of your area, and you would almost know that would cost extra. One little side note; GTE had/has a CO that at the time was one of a kind, two area codes and two SATT systems, the 714 was access, 213 was full, when you called the other number you would only have to dial the A/C and the number, don't really remember how that worked; over 25 years since I worked there, but it was really a great training ground and we always had people coming into see that stange CO. But today you have offices that must have at least two and maybe more depending on the area they cover. Back to the woman, I heard she never did understand why, and the company took the charges off, but told her from then on she would have to pay toll charges on anything she dialed out of her area. By then we had done away with the access SATT, but then that is what caused her the problem, since she had claimed she never had to dial a 1 to call her son in Colton. I think Colton from Moreno Valley is local now, I know Redlands is, but years also even the West part of Riverside was toll for them and it gets stranger as you go South. Apple Elite II 909-359-5338. Home of GBBS/LLUCE, support for the Apple II and Macintosh 24 hours 2400/14.4. OggNet Server. The only good spammer is a dead one, have you hunted one down today? (c) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: For quite a long time in the Chicago area, until maybe fifteen or twenty years ago, we did not dial '1' for anything, local, long-distance or 'local toll'. Just dial the seven or ten digits. On the other hand, if you did dial '1' it did not matter, it seemed as though it was ignored. Likewise if you dialed '312' plus seven digits *while actually in Chicago* the call still went through, but it seemed to take a few seconds longer. I do not think anyone can say definitly what would happen years ago with the use or non-use of '1'. There were variations and exceptions to it everywhere. Then for a time, people in Chicago could dial anywhere without a '1' including Park Ridge/Des Plaines/Chicago-Newcastle which were served by Central Telephone Company (later, Centel) but people in those towns had to dial anything else in 312 except their own towns with a '1' first. All the central offices in Chicago and suburbs used ancient equipment in those days. PAT] ------------------------------ From: ref@ongsw.com (ONG SoftWare) Subject: T1 Emulation For Testing, Help!!! Date: 21 Sep 1999 22:44:54 GMT Organization: ONG SoftWare Reply-To: ref@ongsw.com Has anyone set up a T1 emulation using to machine with the Rhetorex RTNI-2T1 and the RDSP24000 boards using a T1 crossover cable??? You are suppose to be able to do it, but I have not been able to find any documentation on it or how to do it. Also does anyone know what the User and Network jumpers are for for each of the trunks??? Thanks. _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ ONG SoftWare - ref@ongsw.com -= Creators of Web Organizer for OS/2 =- HomePage: http://www.ongsw.com [The Complete OS/2 Links Page! ] http://www.ongsw.com/links/links.html _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Sep 1999 16:40:27 -0700 From: Babu Mengelepouti Reply-To: dialtone@vcn.bc.ca Organization: US Secret Service Subject: Sprint PCS Fraud Apparently, Sprint PCS has dissatisfied many customers, and one customer was so upset by Sprint's fraud, lies, and poor service that he established a website detailing numerous problems. It is located at http://www.theworst.com, and is a good reference for anyone considering service with Sprint PCS. [TELECOM Digest Editor's note: Thanks for passing this information along. I would also call readers' attention to another site they may find interesting, http://usworst.com which discusses in some- what frank detail the inner workings at US West. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Marc Meyer Subject: Telephone Dry Cell Battery Date: Tue, 21 Sep 1999 16:31:32 -0400 Hello David, (Massey, who manages http://telecom-digest.org/tribute ) I have a battery that was apparently once upon a time used for the telephone service in my house. The battery is gray in color and triangular in shape (when looking at it from the top). It is about eight inches tall and there are two spring terminals on the top of the battery (positive and negative) to which there are still wires attached. There is a nasty rat's nest of wires, so at this point I have no idea where the wires come from or go to. The battery is affixed to my basement wall right next to the telephone service terminal. The printing on the side of the battery casing is as follows: KS-6700 DRY BATTERY (4.5 VOLTS) DATE INSTALLED (blank) DATE OF MANUFACTURE JUN 23, 1962 FOR TELEPHONE SERVICE MADE IN U.S.A. MANUFACTURED BY UNION CARBIDE CONSUMER PRODUCTS COMPANY DIVISION OF UNION CARBIDE CORPORATION ...and in the middle of all this text is a BELL SYSTEM logo, around which are the words: AMERICAN TELEPHONE AND TELEGRAPH AND ASSOCIATED COMPANIES At your site I found that this particular logo was used from 1939 to 1964. My house was built in 1962, so I'm thinking the battery is original equipment. I called the local phone company inquiring about it, and they told me that it was (this is a direct quote), "probably for a Princess phone." So I did some more Internet research, and all of the information I found on Princess phones said that they came with a transformer, but I never once found a mention of a battery for them. I also found at your site http://hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/tribute/the_bell_system_tel ephone_story.html that early phones were voice powered, then wet battery, then dry battery, and then common battery -- which was dated to 1900. This makes me curious in that if the common battery was a technological breakthrough in 1900, why would my phone be powered by a dry cell? Do you know what this battery was used for? Does my phone system still need it (I'd think it would be dead by now)? Are there any collectors who would pay money to have such a thing? Would it be worthy of donation to a museum? Or should I just drop it in the recycle bin with spent 9-volt and D-cell batteries? Also, how is it affixed to the wall (in other words, how can I remove it)? It is in relatively good shape, with only two small rust spots. You have a very cool and thorough web site, and from reading your introduction it sounds like you know a thing or two about Bell System telephone stuff. I know I have lots of questions here; any answers or information would be greatly appreciated. Thank you, Marc Meyer ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #423 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Sep 22 01:46:06 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id BAA06706; Wed, 22 Sep 1999 01:46:06 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1999 01:46:06 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199909220546.BAA06706@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #424 TELECOM Digest Wed, 22 Sep 99 01:46:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 424 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Just Another Mass Killing in the USA is All ... (Jack Decker) Re: Just Another Mass Killing in the USA is All ... (Rob Levandowski) Re: Just Another Mass Killing in the USA is All ... (Joey Lindstrom) Re: Just Another Mass Killing in the USA is All ... (Lisa Hancock) Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? (Michael Spencer) Re: Users of Wireless Phones Find Unexpected Benefits (Lisa Hancock) Heh. Big Anti-Telecom-Digest Spam Promoting NSI (Thor Lancelot Simon) Re: Rochelle Park Tandem Back in Service at 10:00, 9/20 (Alan Boritz) Re: AT&T Wireless: No Service East Of The Hudson River (Alan Boritz) Re: Floyd/NJ Telecom Problems - More Info! (Alan Boritz) Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? (Paul Rubin) Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? (Steve Winter) Working Assets Long Distance? (David Wolff) Sermporn's Telecom Digest is Dead (TELECOM Digest Editor) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1999 23:50:43 -0400 From: Jack Decker Subject: Re: Just Another Mass Killing in the USA is All ... On Mon, 20 Sep 1999 16:16:05 +0900, John De Hoog wrote: > Are you really saying people at a church meeting should have been > armed? > Interesting. In your country you argue that more people should be > armed. But if everyone is armed, then *all* the kooks and nuts will > have the firepower to carry out their fantasies. > In most countries people argue that it makes more sense to arm no > one. Here in Japan that's the case. Then the people who want to kill > have to go to extraordinary lengths, such as building elaborate > facilities for developing poisonous gas, or else they have to use > more primitive arms such as knives, which are difficult to use in > mass executions like you have over there so frequently. I think that people who view this situation from other countries do not have the benefit of having the cultural context in which to properly frame this issue. I am probably a rarity because I am neither strongly pro-gun or anti1-gun. And, I can appreciate the arguments made on those from both sides of the issue. The problem is that, realistically viewed, there is no "right" answer that fits all situations. Consider the situation where you come around a corner late at night and see a car smashed into a tree. The engine compartment is crumpled, but the driver's door has been thrown open by the impact. There is gasoline leaking onto the ground, quite a bit judging by the smell, and you're not quite sure if you are seeing flashes of light coming from underneath the engine compartment. The engine is still running but there is smoke or steam pouring out from under the hood. The driver is unconscious and rather large, but if you unhook his seat belt, you could drag him to safety. For the sake of argument, we'll assume that you're neither a doctor, nor do you have much knowledge of when an explosive situation exists. We'll also assume you don't have a cell phone available, but there are houses a ways down the road where you might be able to summon help. Do you move the driver, perhaps with great potential for further injury, or do you leave him be and go try to summon help, taking the chance that there might not be anything more than a pile of ashes left by the time you get back. The problem with this type of situation is that you are being asked to predict the future outcome of your choice, when in fact the outcome could go either way. If you move the guy and he dies as a result of the injuries, and the car doesn't burn, then you made the wrong choice. But if he was physically okay, and you leave him in the car and it explodes in flames, you also made the wrong choice. That is exactly the problem with the gun control debate. There is no doubt that some people have purchased guns, and as a result have been able to defend their own lives or the lives of others. There is also no doubt that a few gun owners have used their guns irresponsibly. But in most cases, there is no way to know in advance what any individual will do. We already bar individuals with a history of criminal violence from buying guns legally, but the question is, do we deny all the law-abiding citizens the right to defend themselves simply because there are a few loose nuts running around that haven't yet appeared on the radar screen of law enforcement? In effect, you are once again trying to predict the future - will more people die if we take away all legal firearms, or will we actually save lives when (in theory) no one has firearms available? Now, you have to overlay onto that question the cultural context. First of all, there is the U.S. Constitution, which gives American citizens the right to own firearms. If you plainly read the Constitution, most of the reasons that citizens are denied firearms today are unconstitutional - but then the Constitution was written at a time when those who committed violent crimes, if they weren't shot dead on the spot, were in all likelihood hung within a short time. There were no endless appeals, there was no concept of having some civil libertarian type organization come to your defense and say you should be excused because you had bad parents or something. You murdered someone, you forfeited your own life. But nowadays, when violent criminals are often released back to the streets, the congress and the courts have decided that maybe it would be a good idea to try and keep firearms out of their hands, even if in some cases it does mean ignoring the letter of that pesky old constitution. And there is another problem here. You see, in the American old west (and now again today in many places), people could not always depend on local law enforcement to defend them. In the old west, the lawmen were simply outnumbered. But, in at least some of today's police forces, the concept of bravely defending citizens from armed criminals has all but vanished, and now the police often hole up in a safe place until the criminal runs out of ammunition, and the citizens can fend for themselves in the meantime (see footnote). So decent, law-abiding citizens feel the need to have firearms to defend themselves, since the police cannot be counted upon. But since the law often prohibits these honest folks from carrying their firearms with them in public places, they are forced to leave them at home when they go out, which means that if a criminal breaks in while they are not at home, he can steal the firearms and meanwhile the honest citizen is left defenseless out on the street. Now the criminal is armed, while the honest law-abiding citizen is defenseless outside his home. Yep, those laws forbidding criminals from acquiring weapons work real well... This situation has spawned a popular slogan (among gun enthusiasts, anyway) here in the United States: "When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns." Now you may think the solution is to simply have the government round up all the guns, melt them down, and then there will be none for criminals and no need of them for honest citizens. Well, there are a few problems with that plan. First of all, it would be so blatantly unconstitutional that even if congress were somehow persuaded to pass such a plan, it would quickly be nullified in the courts (unless all the judges can be convinced to totally ignore the constitution, in which case we're basically in the same situation as the old Soviet Union, where the constitution was basically worthless). Second, the military (including national guard, and other military style forces) are not going to give up their guns, nor are the police, so there will always be firearms manufactured. Third, our constitution also forbids random searches of homes, so many people would keep their guns even if technically illegal, and some percentage of those guns would fall into criminal hands. It would be decades, if not centuries, before all the existing guns could be found and destroyed. The history of the United States has shown that prohibition doesn't work very well here. For whatever reason, a not insignificant minority of U.S. citizens have always been willing to defy the government when it says that they can't have something. When there was a prohibition on alcohol, it wasn't that hard to find if you knew where to look (people made it in their bathtubs!). Now there is a "war on drugs", and any 14 year old in America can get pot (marijuana) if he really wants it, not to mention various other dangerous and illegal drugs. And none of _those_ things are seen as a constitutional right. If the government ever tries to ban guns, there are a lot of citizens who are going to have the attitude that it is the government that has become lawless, and that they are in the right to keep their guns even if the government doesn't agree - and there is no way we will ever build enough prisons to jail all those folks, virtually all of whom consider themselves decent, law-abiding, patriotic citizens, and defenders of the constitution. This, by the way, is one of those cultural context issues I mentioned. In many countries, especially those where the religious leaders of the country also run the government, the government's laws and edicts are pretty much accepted as the standard that defines what is morally right. In the United States, however, citizens almost feel it's their patriotic duty to actively oppose the government when they feel it is in the wrong (the civil rights protests of the 60's, and the VietNam war protests of the 70's were two examples). And there is nothing that can make the government "wrong" in the mind of the average citizen as when it violates its own laws, especially the constitution. Americans have a low tolerance for hypocrites - we want our government officials to live by the same rules they make for everyone else (granted that in recent times we are unfortunately being forced to lower our expectations, but we still have the desire that government officials act honorably, even when they often disappoint us). Finally, many Americans don't trust their government to do the right thing anymore. For people of my generation, this trust was badly damaged when we saw the willingness with which our government was willing to sacrifice the lives of young American men in VietNam in a no-win war. For those who came along later, the incidents at Waco and Ruby Ridge (use an Internet search server if you aren't familiar with these incidents) provided enough reason to doubt that our government always acts lawfully. We all hope those were isolated incidents, but the fact that no one was charged with murder after these incidents is in itself a real travesty of justice (it's that hypocrite thing I mentioned in the last paragraph - had a group of individuals NOT connected with the government caused the same level of death and destruction to a religious group's compound, or had shot and killed an unarmed woman standing on her front porch while holding her infant son in her arms, you can just imagine what they would have been charged with). Now, having said all that, I personally don't like guns much. It would probably make me a bit nervous if I knew that certain neighbors have guns. Further, I believe it is a terrible thing to kill another human being for any reason. As a matter of personal choice, I think it would be a lot easier to be shot and killed than to shoot someone else, even in self defense, and live the rest of my life knowing I had killed someone. But I still understand why some people feel that it is important to have guns for self-defense (and to defend their families), and why they also feel that it gives them some security (real or imagined) against a government that might become totally corrupt. As to the latter point, I personally would not want to try and match firepower with the government - no matter how many guns I might have, they have rockets and tanks. The folks at Waco were armed, for all the good it did them. But, this is not an issue that will be decided on facts and logic, especially given that there is a rather large industry built around selling guns and ammunition, which will make sure that everyone hears the pro-gun position. And in a country were we are incapable of outlawing known carcinogens if there is a big industry behind them (e.g., tobacco), there isn't a chance in the world that guns will ever be outlawed. As someone once said, "money is the mother's milk of politics", and our politicians know they are not going to get any contributions from the firearms industry or their supporters (including the millions of individual gun owners) if they vote to outlaw firearms. So in the end, the profit motive may outweigh any of the moral arguments pro or con. Politicians don't get a lot of money from the gun-control crowd, even though they are far more vocal at times (especially after some well-publicized incident involving a gun). I realize that by not taking a firm position on either side of the issue, I will probably get a few bricks thrown at me by both sides. But I have been trying for years to decide who is right, and in my mind, the best I can come up with is that there is no one answer that will not allow some deaths that wouldn't have otherwise occurred, and that there are honorable people on both sides of the issue, as well as people who have some semi-hidden agenda. Since I'm not able to predict the future, I can't say which side is right with absolute certainty. So I'm not going to condemn anyone for holding whatever view they may hold on this, and I would hope that they in turn would have the same generosity of spirit toward others who may not quite see eye-to-eye with them (is that too much to hope for?). Footnote: I don't mean to imply that there is no bravery left among the police, but on the other hand, it rather shocks me whenever police refuse to enter a building in which there may be people left dead and dying because of fear that there *might be* a bomb inside. I don't know all the circumstances, but I do recall that in both the Columbine High School incident and in the very recent Texas church shootings, police hesitated in entering the building due to fear of explosives inside, even though the killers were known to be already dead. What crosses my mind is the question of whether there were people inside who were still alive and could possibly have been saved had the police entered sooner, particularly since in neither case did a bomb actually explode after the fact. I realize it's easy to play "Monday morning quarterback" from the safety of one's home, but somehow I have the perception that in times gone by, it is far more likely that the police would have entered those buildings anyway, even at their own personal risk. Maybe it's unrealistic to expect the police to willingly assume a high degree of risk anymore, but if they aren't willing to, it bolsters the argument that the average citizen must now be more willing to protect themselves rather than relying on the police. Unfortunately, what I fear is really happening is that the police are less willing to protect citizens, but also less willing to let citizens defend themselves. The term "sitting ducks" comes to mind. Jack [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Persons wishing to reply should do so direct to Jack and not the Digest. Thanks. PAT] ------------------------------ From: robl@macwhiz.com (Rob Levandowski) Subject: Re: Just Another Mass Killing in the USA is All ... Organization: MacWhiz Technologies Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1999 17:45:56 -0400 In article , John De Hoog wrote: > Interesting. In your country you argue that more people should be > armed. But if everyone is armed, then *all* the kooks and nuts will > have the firepower to carry out their fantasies. Conversely, the kooks and nuts will find themselves being expeditiously removed from the gene pool should they attempt to act out their fantasies. And more sane criminals will think twice before attacking someone walking down a lonely street at night, because they might shoot back. Some states in the U.S. have an interesting twist on the "carry permit" laws that emphasize this idea. The twist is that you do not need a permit to carry a firearm, so long as you display it conspicuously. The theory is, any criminal stupid enough to mess with a man who is obviously carrying a firearm, deserves whatever may happen in the course of self-defense. (I am reminded of a Darwin Award, wherein the recipient had the bad idea to rob a gun store at gunpoint in broad daylight in a state with liberal carry laws, at a time when a marked police car was parked out front ... between the proprietor, the customers, and the officer, the situation was handled as one might expect.) For me, it is not that *everyone* should be armed, or that *no one* should be armed, but that every person who can demonstrate the appropriate responsibility and accountablity should be able to be armed if they so choose. Appropriate licensing, training, and checks are fine ... but removing the Right to Bear Arms goes totally against the grain of the history of the United States. This country was formed by armed insurrection, and one of the principles on which it was founded is that the freedoms of the people are guaranteed by the right of the people to rise up again should their freedoms be taken away. (Don't believe me? Read Jefferson's writings, or those of his contemporaries.) I wonder, of those who would support total elimination of guns in the United States, how many would also support mandatory warrantless wiretapping by Federal authorities to prevent crimes? To me, they're the same thing... both would require the nullification of part of the Bill of Rights, and both would take away an essential freedom that has been part of this country for over 200 years. Rob Levandowski robl@macwhiz.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Persons wishing to respond to Rob will please do so directly to him and not the Digest. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Joey Lindstrom Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1999 16:46:20 -0600 Reply-To: Joey Lindstrom Subject: Re: Just Another Mass Killing in the USA is All ... On Mon, 20 Sep 1999 16:46:17 -0400 (EDT), John De Hoog wrote: > Interesting. In your country you argue that more people should be > armed. But if everyone is armed, then *all* the kooks and nuts will > have the firepower to carry out their fantasies. Read Robert Heinlein's "Beyond This Horizon", a story set in a future world where EVERYBODY is armed. "An armed society is a polite society", and those who can't play nice will find out what Darwinian selection is all about. :-) From the messy desktop of Joey Lindstrom Email: Joey@GaryNumanFan.NU or joey@lindstrom.com Phone: +1 403 313-JOEY FAX: +1 413 643-0354 (yes, 413 not 403) Visit The NuServer! http://www.GaryNumanFan.NU Visit The Webb! http://webb.GaryNumanFan.NU Yesterday I saw a chicken crossing the road. I asked it why. It told me it was none of my business. --Steven Wright [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Persons wishing to reply to Joey will please do so directly to him and not to the Digest. PAT] ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: Just Another Mass Killing in the USA is All ... Date: 22 Sep 1999 03:38:41 GMT Organization: Net Access BBS Some responses to other posts ... I think Pat's points were well taken, except on McNamera's books. Yes, I agree about McNamera and many people feel exactly as you do. But his books ARE important, after all, they are a good glimpse into the real inner workings of government and how those horrible decisions got made and made again. Generally speaking, the REAL story about what happens in government behind closed doors only comes out long after the principals are long gone or real old. The American democracy, while a wonderful form of government, has a few limitations and problems. LBJ used to criticize Kennedy's boys, saying they couldn't get themselves elected dog catcher. LBJ was a seasoned veteran politician, and knew something about what voters wanted to hear in order to vote for someone. Let's face it, back in 1960 Nixon and Kennedy debated who would be stronger against communism -- heard today that debate would seem absurb and very warlike, but back then that's what the voters wanted to hear. If LBJ pulled out of Vietnam (as he should of), the Republicans would let him have it. They did just late in 1948 when the Communists took over China -- the Repubs made sure the Democrats got blamed for that and the Dems paid dearly in lost seats and unpopularity of Truman. But the truth was that the US was completely helpless in China. There was not a thing illegal with Nixon recording his office conversations, as he tried to claim, many presidents (including the beloved FDR) did it as well. But it outraged the country none the less and helped move public opinion badly against Nixon, well before we learned what he actually said. For a shrewd politician, Nixon forget it all. Regarding gun control: I have contradictory feelings. On the one hand, I don't think gun control laws will do any good at all. Criminals will either get guns illegally or find some way to beat the system. A mass murderer on the LIRR got his firepower perfectly legally, with the appropriate waiting periods, and he shot up a whole train. They got diesel fuel and fertilizer and it blew up a building -- how can you stop that? On the other hand, I don't like guns, and strongly disagree that arming everyone will prevent attacks. I understand that gun accidents claim a horrible number of people. Having a gun handy in a bitter argument allows for murder. I can throw my typewriter at you and might kill you, but realistically, it's a lot easier to do it with a gun. Some people actually claimed people at the Jewish center shot up should've been armed -- c'mon -- the victims were little kids -- a five year is gonna carry a pistol? (BTW, I wonder how the most seriously wounded little boy is doing?) I once walked in on someone trying to steal my car. I did what the cops teach -- I ran away. Now say I had a gun and drew it on the guy -- I could've captured him right? Wrong -- I'd be dead right now. What happened was, as I was running away, the thief's friends returned and picked him up. Had I been holding him, they would've came up on my rear and I would've got it. I didn't expect that. [BTW, I was lucky, the security bar prevented him from stealing my car and the break in damage was relatively minor.] I really think society has to take an HONEST look at what is causing so many people to be so ANGRY -- from 12 year old BOYS, angry enough to take other innocent lives. Is it simple mental illness? If so, is the mental health system doing it's job? Is it a hatred for the government -- if so, we need to look at what's going on. (It doesn't mean necessarily our system is wrong and needs changing, but we do have to understand what is frustrating people so much. Some of it may be very unpolitically correct, but we must be honest in our evaluations.) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Persons who wish to respond to Lisa will please do so direct to her and not the Digest. Thank you. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Sep 1999 22:02:21 -0400 (EDT) From: Michael Spencer Subject: Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? Darryl Smith wrote: > 'Under Bill S.1618 TITLE III passed by the 105th U.S. Congress this letter > can not be considered SPAM as long as we include the way to be removed. > To be removed from future mailings for free is simply by responding with > "REMOVE" in the subject line. This will permanently remove you from all > future mailing from us.' > Is this true? This blurb must be boilerplate in some popular spamware. Seen it word for word elsewhere. This has been discussed on news.admin.net-abuse.email, which would be the place to ask for a definitive answer. My recollection is that there was such a bill but that it wasn't passed. I'm not even sure that it ever came to a vote. In any event, there ain't no such law. Oft-repeated on nanae: Rule #1: Spammers lie. And a couple of nanae regulars have done careful experiments which determined that following the "remove" instructions will typically get your email address confirmed as a live one and included in spammers' lists. Mike ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: Users of Wireless Phones Find Unexpected Benefits Date: 22 Sep 1999 03:18:39 GMT Organization: Net Access BBS My own cellphone experience mirrors the article. I didn't expect it to, I just picked the plan with the lowest monthly cost they offered. It had high peak chg but big offpeak allowance. I discovered using the cellphone allowed me essentially free off peak regional calls that would otherwise be toll; plus the convenience of letting me yak on the phone while out taking a walk or sitting in the park. Further, my cellphone's long distance rates are lower than my wired phone. I do note that my cellphone does still charge me a 12c "landline" fee for every call. And I have to wait until after 9pm, which is sometimes too late to call people. Lastly, while sometimes my connections are great, sometimes they're not so great. I can see the advantages of digital phones, but they cost more. ------------------------------ From: tls@panix.com (Thor Lancelot Simon) Subject: Heh. Big Anti-Telecom-Digest Spam Promoting NSI Date: 20 Sep 1999 18:29:10 -0400 Organization: PANIX -- Public Access Networks Corp. Reply-To: tls@rek.tjls.com PAT, I was distressed, and then amused, to find the following gem of wisdom in my email inbox this morning. You see, I don't subscribe to Telecom Digest -- I read it in the Usenet newsgroup comp.dcom.telecom. The perpetrator of this spam appears to have culled out the names of all recent (frequent?) posters to comp.dcom.telecom and sent them this email, perhaps hoping they'd think that these people, with your blessing, obtained a comprehensive list of Telecom Digest subscribers. This particularly amuses me because I have very deliberately _not_ posted on the NSI/ICANN issue, despite the general and long-lived disgust with NSI that I think is pretty common among older Netizens who recall how well SRI used to do things, and recall NSI's tyrannical imposition of fees "to cover its cost" of providing domain services -- the fees that now represent millions of dollars of _pure profit_ that it's fighting tooth and nail, alongside whatever sleaze (e.g. domain speculators) it can drag in, to protect from any meaningful competition. Yet merely because I've posted to Telecom Digest at all, I've been treated to the following lovely missive. You've got to love to see someone attacked like this for simply doing his job -- and, frankly, however naive and ungainly the original domain-name reorganization effort was, that's all any ITU staffer involved with it was or is doing -- his job. Compare and contrast with the actions of sleaze like the one who spammed all the Telecom Digest poster to send me this collection of half-truths and other spewage. I know you've said you wouldn't run any more articles on the subject of domain-name reorganization, so I'm expressly _not_ offering an opinion on what ought to be done about that. I do hope, however, you will run this complaint (and evidence) that one party in that stupid brawl is actively spamming Telecom Digest posters -- spam of Telecom Digest contributors should be, I think, a legitimate subject for discussion in the Digest ... I'm also amused to find that the ever-so-august-and-trustworthy spammers at PCCF, like most spammers, have sent me yet another missive full of the typical incoherent nongramattical spewage I have lately begun to use as a first pass to detect spam -- I should probably write a software tool to take advantage of this. Actually, I think if I used software to toss, unread, any email containing errors like the "are not spy's" and "Mr. Shaw conduct" in the below, my daily email reading experience would be much richer -- perhaps I could render the net much as it was ten years ago, when I so enjoyed participating in it. Opinions? Thor Lancelot Simon tls@rek.tjls.com "And where do all these highways go, now that we are free?" [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The last half of this posting was the letter Baptista sent out to the names he harvested, and I have eliminated it here. No need for a second pass of it. Since we are seeing more and more of this kind of thing here, with people ripping off the names, I am wondering what the readers would think about the *total elimination* of writer's email addresses in the Digest. In other words, articles would say 'From: name' rather than saying as they do now 'From: name ' ... persons who expected a reply other than via the Digest would have the choice of putting a valid signature in the text itself. The other possibility is that since LCS/MIT operates an anonymous remail service, maybe I could hook into that somehow, and pipe all incoming mail for publication through that, getting an anonymous name attached to the article which would expire something like 72 hours later. So here you would see 'From: real name ' and this would allow the article to be taken in the proper context by seeing the author's name and allow a short period to write to them in response. The author would have the option of putting his real address in the text of the message as is done now. Ideas? PAT] ------------------------------ From: aboritz@CYBERNEX.NET (Alan Boritz) Subject: Re: Rochelle Park Tandem back in Service at 10:00, 9/20 Date: Tue, 21 Sep 1999 23:18:57 -0400 Organization: Dyslexics UNTIE In article , Jeffrey J. Carpenter wrote: >> Interesting bit - Nokia 6160 in 'field-test' mode shows signal (a @ >> -113), but display says 'no service'. Phone does not complete calls, >> but rather shows "waiting for signal". Anyone know for sure if the >> towers are powered up or not? > -113 dB is no service. > In Pittsburgh, we had problems with voice mail notification taking > from four hours to two days on AT&T wireless phones. After you > received the message, you had to wait a similar length of time for the > indicator light to go off. This has happened several times over the > past two months, but this time, customer service blamed it on the New > Jersey problems. It has nothing to do with the hurricane. AT&T Wireless has known about this particular problem for over a year but doesn't care to do anything about it. ------------------------------ From: aboritz@CYBERNEX.NET (Alan Boritz) Subject: Re: AT&T Wireless: No Service East Of The Hudson River Date: Tue, 21 Sep 1999 22:12:01 -0400 Organization: Dyslexics UNTIE In article , Larry Finch wrote: > Actually, Bell Atlantic Mobile is out also. But they didn't announce > it the way AT&T did. > Alan Boritz wrote: >> No services at all, north of Hoboken, NJ, unless if you're near New >> York or a neighboring cellular company's coverage area. Northern NJ >> residents who don't have telephone service, also can't use their AT&T >> cellular phones, since they don't work either (AT&T Wireless is on the >> first floor of the Rochelle Park, NJ, central office that has all of >> northern NJ phones disabled). AT&T Wireless customer service says they >> have no idea when to expect service. One-rate customers, with locked >> dual-band phones are probably aware by now that they no longer have >> the ability to switch over to the wireline carrier in an emergency, as >> they could with conventional digital or analog cellphones. AT&T didn't announce it at all. As of Saturday, customer service was giving out no information at all, and there was nothing at their web site. If I'm not mistaken, this forum was the only place you could read about it. Speaking of web sites, the State of New Jersey had nothing at all about Hurricane Floyd at their web site until late Saturday. Press releases about the state of emergency declared in advance of the hurricane were posted at the web site long after the fact. ------------------------------ From: aboritz@CYBERNEX.NET (Alan Boritz) Subject: Re: Floyd/NJ Telecom Problems - More Info! Date: Tue, 21 Sep 1999 22:30:16 -0400 Organization: Dyslexics UNTIE In article , Larry Finch wrote: > My credentials: I live in Maywood, about a mile from the affected > switching center in Rochelle Park, and I have visited the site several > times in the past few days. I had no service at all between Thursday > evening and Sunday night. I'm also a telecom consultant. The following > was gleaned from various press reports. No one report had them all; it > hasn't been big news (and it should be). > The building is owned by AT&T, who leases part of it to Bell > Atlantic. AT&T has wireless switches for three discontiguous service > areas in the NY Metropolitan area located in the building. Bell > Atlantic has the CO for the the local area in the building, along with > an access tandem and some wireless switches also. Water started > entering the building Thursday evening, first flooding the basement > (presumably cable runs, batteries, and power distribution). The > external power was shut down for safety reasons, and diesel generators > were started. The generators ran out of fuel about four hours later > (editorial comment: inexcusable!) That's not the only thing about this incident that's inexcusable. Bell Atlantic officials knew, at least at the moment when the utility power was cut, and the river was pouring into their Rochelle Park facility, that they had to notify Bergen County Emergency Management, in Hackensack, that they were shortly going to disable 911, and wipe out public access to all other law enforcement agencies in northern Bergen County. Which state or county official did Bell Atlantic contact to notify them of the situation, and when did they call them? Sometime after Bell Atlantic shut down the switch at the Rochelle Park facility, and Bergen County Emergency Management officials knew that 911 was down, and that none of the million or so residents of northern Bergen County could reach law enforcement agencies by telephone, what did County officials do within the 2-1/2 days that 911 was down, to get 911 working again? > On Sunday night I got one of my four lines back about 7:30 PM, a > second an hour later, and all four by Monday morning. Cellular service > also returned Monday morning. Although part of the system was brought back up, it was not placing inbound or outbound calls until this morning. No AT&T Wireless phones with 201 or 973 numbers could receive inbound phone calls or access voice mail from Thursday night until Tuesday morning. AT&T customers who were roaming in other markets found that either they couldn't use their phones at all, or they lost inbound, voicemail, and digital features (such as they are). ------------------------------ From: phr@netcom.com (Paul Rubin) Subject: Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? Date: 22 Sep 1999 04:01:26 GMT Organization: NETCOM / MindSpring Enterprises, Inc. In article , Darryl Smith wrote: > 'Under Bill S.1618 TITLE III passed by the 105th U.S. Congress ... Bill S.1618 never became law. US laws are made by a bill passing both the Senate and the House of Representatives, and then being signed by the President (subject to some exceptions that are irrelevant here). Bill S.1618 was passed by the Senate but not the House, so it went into the trash can. See http://www.cauce.org/s1618_hr3888.html for info. ------------------------------ From: steve@sellcom.com (Steve Winter) Subject: Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1999 01:15:11 -0400 Organization: WWW.SELLCOM.COM Reply-To: steve@sellcom.com Darryl Smith spake thusly and wrote: > Is this true? > I voted with my feet and forwarded all the email to > piracy@microsoft.com :-) I forwarded mine to the victimized postmasters with a cc to uce@ftc.gov Steve http://www.sellcom.com Cyclades Siemens EnGenius Zoom at discount prices. SSL Secure VISA/MC/AMEX Online ordering Listed at http://www.thepubliceye.com as SELLCOM New Brick Wall "non-MOV" surge protection ------------------------------ From: world!dwolff@uunet.uu.net (David Wolff) Subject: Working Assets Long Distance? Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1999 04:29:36 GMT Organization: The World, Public Access Internet, Brookline, MA Hi, Anyone have experience with Working Assets Long Distance? Good, bad, opinions? My typical LD calling is 2-4 hours a month, all within the USA. I'm annoyed that AT&T raises my per-minute rates without bothering to notify me in any way, so I'm considering going elsewhere. Thanks -- David Wolff Disclaimer: Hey! It's my opinion! Yesclaimer: Esperanto: four times easier to learn. Call (800) ESPERANTO or email info@esperanto-usa.org for free info and free lesson. "Capability is its own motivation." [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The last I heard, Working Assets was a not-for-profit company which donated its profits from long distance service to various charitable organizations. So the profits from your long distance calls go to help important causes. The last I heard also, they were re-selling Sprint, for better or for worse, but since ninety percent or more of the complaints about Sprint have to do with their ill-informed and oftentimes self-righteous service representatives and sales people, you would probably do okay with Working Assets since your customer service, etc would come through them instead. Let us know if you find anything different about them or if it does not work out for some reason. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1999 00:30:57 EDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Sermporn's Telecom Digest is Dead A contact today quoted someone at Bell Atlantic who did not want his email address or name used saying that they had been 'looking into the problem' of the 'other Telecom Digest' with their contacts in Thailand. Also today I received a message in email from Sermporn himself stating that 'to avoid further confusion, his web site was being discontinued, and he hoped that would bring the matter to an end. It appears at this writing that the site is in fact gone. I want to extend my sincerest thanks to the persons who had some role in causing this to happen, even though I do not know who you are in some cases. Patrick Townson ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #424 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Sep 22 16:21:12 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id QAA08725; Wed, 22 Sep 1999 16:21:12 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1999 16:21:12 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199909222021.QAA08725@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #425 TELECOM Digest Wed, 22 Sep 99 16:21:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 425 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson AOL Networking Versus Internet Networking Paradigm (J.F. Mezei) Review: "CNN Headline News by Email" (Rob Slade) Wiretapping - FAQ (snapmicrolink@my-deja.com) Water, Water, Everywhere (NC & NJ)! (John Warne) Re: Making Broadband a Reality (Barry Margolin) Re: I Was a Victim of Fraud (Louis Raphael) Re: Telephone Dry Cell Battery (Michael Muderick) Re: Making Broadband a Reality (Kevin DeMartino) Re: Here's a Strange One! (Derek Balling) Japanese J1 Specs? (Scott Whittle) Re: Heh. Big Anti-Telecom-Digest Spam Promoting NSI (Andrew Green) Re: Sermporn's Telecom Digest is Dead (Cortland Richmond) Hate Crimes (was Re: Just Another Mass Killing in the USA) (Tad Cook) It Makes You Think (A Tale of WW2) (Andrew Emmerson) Addition to the Business Directory (Gordon S. Hlavenka) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: J.F. Mezei Subject: AOL Networking Versus Internet Networking Paradigm Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1999 03:23:41 -0400 The whole structure of the internet was based on local networks being interconnected. Hence, intercity trunks were shared and this formed a cooperative worldwide network. Right? So, my local ISP doesn't really have to pay for worldwide infrastructure, it just pays for local phone lines and pays a share for the intercity/worldwide trunks that link it to the rest of the world, right? Now comes AOL/Compuserve. Do they still use their own private network trunks from each city to their central processing facility where there is a single connection to the internet? If so, is this really cost effective compared to having local internet connections? If AOL still uses its private network to bring all connections to its own central hub how does this become cost effective compared to reselling internet connection from a local ISP under the AOL brand-name with email/news servers still based at AOL's central facilities? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Considering that AOL's private network for several years now has been much larger than that of the entire internet for the first couple decades it was around, it may indeed be that AOL has gotten it tweaked just right so it is cost-effective for them. However, AOL and Compuserve both do something like you suggest in reference to other ISPs. AOL refers to it as BYOA, or Bring Your Own Access. An AOL member can use their service in a couple of ways. He can pay whatever they charge -- I think $21.95 per month -- and dial into their network. If the member prefers, he can choose any ISP desired, meaning someone in his local community in most cases, pay the ISP's rates and then use AOL at a huge discount over the monthly fee. I think it is less than ten dollars per month. The login screen in AOL software offers two choices, (1) dial in via AOL, with a large selection of numbers to choose from; you pick the one most advantageous to yourself in terms of location and speed or (2) what they term 'LAN' access, which really is not a 'local area network' as I would think of it, but rather, an ISP of your choice. If you choose 'LAN' access, then AOL uses your Windows dial-up networking defaults, latches to your chosen ISP then transfers the connection to itself over the ISP's facilities. All new users are defaulted to the AOL network, however the user can tell the billing department he is opting to use 'bring your own access'. He then starts getting billed by AOL at the much lower rate each month. If for some reason he chooses to use the AOL network from that point on (such as local ISP is down) he pays the lower rate *plus* I think it is a couple dollars per hour for the network. I have counseled several guys here at Fort Riley on this method of access. They join the Army, bring their PC and their AOL account (but of course!), plug it into the phone in their barracks room and use the nearest AOL dialup which is in a town fifteen miles away and a local toll charge from the Fort Riley exchange (785-239 and 785-784). A month later, the phone bill comes, and the local toll charges from Southwestern Bell (which provides local toll service for United Tel) frequently equal or exceed the $21.95 they also paid AOL. The AOL dialup is not that great or fast, so as a result the guys then get discouraged and decide to quit using the internet. To them of course 'AOL' = 'Internet' and who am I to argue. :) I explain to them that for ten dollars per month, payable a year in advance, a local ISP here in Junction City will give them unlimited access on a dialup which is local to their phone; another ten dollars going that way will give them their AOL service under the BYOA plan, and the end result will be that for a couple dollars per month less than what they were paying before now they have the entire internet (not just AOL) and freedom from local toll charges, plus a 'fast' 56 K connection. Most of them change over right away when they learn about that method, and I show them how to sign up with the ISP and help them configure Dial Up Networking on their PC. The above might be a system that other AOL'ers reading this might find useful as well. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Rob Slade Organization: Vancouver Institute for Research into User Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1999 08:02:21 -0800 Subject: Review: "CNN Headline News by Email", headlinenewsmail@CNN.COM Reply-To: rslade@sprint.ca MLCNNMLS.RVW 990820 "CNN Headline News by Email", headlinenewsmail@CNN.COM, 1998 - , ,free %A headlinenewsmail@CNN.COM %D 1998 - %I CNN %O free, http://CNN.com/EMAIL %P ~10 p. daily, including weekends %T "CNN Headline News by Email" While a fairly obvious come-on to get you to visit the CNN Website, this is a reasonably informative, though not always entirely convenient, summary of daily news events. There are one or two top stories, and then sections with four to six articles each on world news, US news, business, sport, politics, technology, and entertainment. Each entry in the main body of the message provides a headline, a sentence or two from the lead paragraph, and the URL of the article itself. Unlike other, similar, text based mailing lists, CNN does not ensure that the URLs are on a line by themselves to facilitate cut and paste functions between mail readers and browsers. However, the message does indent the headlines with angle brackets, which means that mail readers highlighting "quoted" text in email replies will also highlight the headlines. A rather lengthy header lists the headlines from the first five sections, some standard CNN Website offerings, and URLs for a few in-depth special features. I find that I now skip the header entirely. In the main body of the message, I read the headlines of the sections that interest me, and about a tenth of the introductory paragraphs. About once a month, an article is of sufficient interest to warrant a visit to the Website for the full article. Very often stories will be duplicated in more than one section. I also find that the section of greatest interest to me, technology, tends to run duplicated stories for two or three days, which is rather annoying. (I would far rather see one or two new technology stories each day than have to re-read old material.) This does not appear to be the practice in the other sections. Management of subscriptions is apparently done only through the Website at http://CNN.com/EMAIL. This mailing list is not up to the concise quality of "The Daily Brief" (cf. BKDLYBRF.RVW), but does provide a quick way to keep up on most of the news of the day. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1999 MLCNNMLS.RVW 990820 ====================== (quote inserted randomly by Pegasus Mailer) rslade@vcn.bc.ca rslade@sprint.ca slade@victoria.tc.ca p1@canada.com And the tubby beard went on. http://victoria.tc.ca/techrev or http://sun.soci.niu.edu/~rslade ------------------------------ From: snapmicrolink@my-deja.com Subject: Wiretapping - FAQ Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1999 15:13:30 GMT Organization: Deja.com - Share what you know. Learn what you don't. Hi, You're welcome to visit our faq on wiretapping and the solution we provide: http://www.microlink.co.il/fs_5.html Microlink is an Israeli company, leader in the design and development of the first enhanced service platform to offer voice and fax network encryption. Microlink has developed a state of the art, patent pending, technology that will enable any subscriber connected to the existing infrastructure to get full security. For any additional information, you can contact us through our website: http://www.microlink.co.il ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1999 09:07:21 -0400 From: John Warne Subject: Water, Water, Everywhere (NC & NJ)! The "big" guys also have phone troubles from water! As you may know, the President visited North Carolina to view the flood situation. Whenever AirForceOne flies, one communication link is through a series of sites at AT&T facilities contracted to the government (these are referred to as WBFM, CombatCiders, or GEP sites), linking AF1 to telephone lines. One of these sites is located near Goldsboro, NC. Radio traffic from a site in Maryland advised AF1 that the site in the area they were headed into was out of service. Seems there was water in the facility, and the river had not yet crested, so power was turned off to the comm equipment. ------------------------------ From: Barry Margolin Subject: Re: Making Broadband a Reality Organization: GTE Internetworking, Cambridge, MA Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1999 15:02:40 GMT In article , David Dowdy wrote: > Every week I hear about efforts to bring more bandwidth to the > Internet, such as installing DSL or Cable Modem services in highly > select areas, usually those with high population densities. However, > it seems to me that we're forgetting something in all of this; > shouldn't a communications network be designed from the top down, > rather than from the bottom up? Do our national backbone networks have > the bandwidth to support such faster connections to individual users? > If not, wouldn't it make sense to upgrade them to a more robust > physical medium, such as fiber-optic cable? If we have "fatter pipes" > downstream, but the upstream networks are unable to keep pace with > them, isn't that like putting the proverbial "cart before the horse"? Those of us who operate the national backbones have been upgrading our infrastructures to handle this. We're installing OC3 and OC12 backbone circuits on our network, and I think some have already started installing OC48 circuits. Our fiber will be able to take advantage of DWDM to multiply available bandwidth when we need it, and all the other tier-1 providers are presumably planning on the same thing. Barry Margolin, barmar@bbnplanet.com GTE Internetworking, Powered by BBN, Burlington, MA *** DON'T SEND TECHNICAL QUESTIONS DIRECTLY TO ME, post them to newsgroups. Please DON'T copy followups to me -- I'll assume it wasn't posted to the group. ------------------------------ From: Louis Raphael Subject: Re: I Was a Victim of Fraud Organization: Societe pour la promotion du petoncle vert Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1999 11:13:12 GMT Meissen, John L wrote: > It is also up to the consumer to be aware of this limited liability > and demand the legal protection. I have seen local instances of banks > trying to mislead customers into believing they had no such protection. In Quebec, the Consumer Protection Act limits card holders' liability to $50 (Canadian), regardless of whether they even reported the card stolen. Now, the interesting thing is that when you get a new card from National Bank (a Quebec-based bank, although what is relevant is the cardholder's province of residence, not the bank's) and call to verify it (it's a fraud-prevention system), they try to sell you insurance against this exact fraud for which you're not legally responsible ... and will pretty much admit that it's superfluous if you push them a little bit (unless you happen to think that paying fairly stiff premiums to protect against a potential loss of $50 isn't). At least, that was my experience when I last renewed my card. This, however, does *not* apply to bank cards ... another reason to favour credit over debit. Insurance companies do something similar, putting in a clause about non-payment in cases of suicide, even though the Civil Code states that an insurance company must pay even in cases of suicide, if the policyholder has held the policy for longer than two years - regardless of any clauses in the policyholder's agreement, which are null and void. But I'll bet that there are a number of people out there (especially in cases involving relatively little money) who never realize it and/or don't push it as far as getting it fixed, which is probably especially true considering that the suicide of a loved one isn't a pleasant event. Louis ------------------------------ From: Michael Muderick Subject: Re: Telephone Dry Cell Battery Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1999 13:13:18 EDT In all probablility, the battery was put in for some sort of intercom/interphone system and provided voltage for the talkpath. It could also have beenused for the signalling buzzers. This may be evident if you see more than the traditional three wire or four wire cables through the house. I don't know if they have any "collectors" value. But you can try on ebay, or maybe even in this group. ------------------------------ From: Kevin DeMartino Subject: Re: Making Broadband a Reality Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1999 13:19:53 -0400 David Dowdy wrote in V19 #423: > Every week I hear about efforts to bring more bandwidth to the > Internet, such as installing DSL or Cable Modem services in highly > select areas, usually those with high population densities. However, > it seems to me that we're forgetting something in all of this; > shouldn't a communications network be designed from the top down, > rather than from the bottom up? Do our national backbone networks have > the bandwidth to support such faster connections to individual users? > If not, wouldn't it make sense to upgrade them to a more robust > physical medium, such as fiber-optic cable? Although the backbone networks are being upgraded and there is a lot of unused ("dark") fiber in the backbones, additional upgrades will be required to accommodate broadband services. The reason that so much more attention is given to upgrading the local loop (or the last mile) is: that's where the problem lies. There are about 150 million subscriber access lines in the U.S. and about 15 thousand telephone central offices (COs), including end offices, tandem offices, toll offices, etc. That's a factor of 10000:1. With fiber capacities approaching 1 Tb/s (1000 Gb/s), it is feasible to carry all the broadband traffic between an end office and a tandem office on a single fiber. For example, if an end office has 10000 subscribers each operating at a data rate of 10 Mb/s, the total data rate is 100 Gb/s, which is less than the capacity of a single fiber. This implies that upgrading the backbone to handle broadband is a manageable problem. Until recently, broadband services have not been available to most subscribers. Telcos have been slow to upgrade subscriber lines to accommodate broadband service. However, now that the cable companies are moving in on the telcos' turf, the telcos are upgrading the local loops with digital subscriber line (DSL) technology. For the backbone to be able to support broadband services, additional upgrades of both transmission lines and switching equipment will be required. To upgrade the backbone networks to handle broadband is certainly not trivial or cheap, but it should be a lot easier and less expensive than upgrading all the subscriber access lines. (If anyone is interested in architectures for future backbone networks, I can e-mail you a paper that I have written.) Kevin DeMartino Dynamics Research Corporation ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1999 05:42:05 -0700 From: Derek Balling Subject: Re: Here's a Strange One! At 11:41 PM 9/21/99 -0400, you wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You had a copy of my index.html in > your Netscape cache and Netscape had previously looked for 'telecom- > digest.org' only to be told it really wanted massis.lcs.mit.edu/ > telecom-archives. So it knew to look in the cache for your copy of > my index.html ... Actually what REALLY happened is radically different. The browser interpreted it as user@domain authentication. For example, let's say you have an .htaccess file protecting a portion of your website to people who know the secret username/password combo of un:foo pw:bar. Most browsers (despite it violating the specs) allow you have a url: http://foo:bar@www.telecom-digest.org/private_dir/ Then, if you ever get an "Autentication Required" error, the browser will resend with that username and password. If you want to protect your password, you can still save yourself some typing by doing: http://foo@www.telecom-digest.org/private_dir/ Now you'll notice we're coming closer to what was pasted into the URL. :) The "/private_dir" portion is just for my example, and the "http://" is assumed by most browsers. What does that leave us with? foo@www.telecom-digest.org or if you like: editor@telecom-digest.org At which point it took him to the telecom-digest.org web site, ready to tell it "my username is 'editor'" if it was queried for authentication. Hope this clears it up. :) D ------------------------------ From: Scott Whittle Reply-To: scott@patton.com Organization: Patton Electronics Co. Subject: Japanese J1 Specs???? Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1999 09:16:23 -0400 Would someone explaing the differences between a Japanese J1 a US T1?? Thanks Scott Whittle scott@patton.com ------------------------------ From: Andrew Green Subject: Re: Heh. Big Anti-Telecom-Digest Spam Promoting NSI Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1999 09:45:15 -0500 > Compare and contrast with the actions of sleaze > like the one who spammed all the Telecom Digest > poster to send me this collection of half-truths and > other spewage. More to the point, I read their "denial" and also the assorted allegations and other material that they referenced in their message. It was interesting to note that Mr. Shaw had numerous quotes, cites and details in his allegations, yet the "rebuttal" spam was primarily a vague denial, addressed none of the points raised by Mr. Shaw, and simply offered a vague lawsuit threat for libel and slander. IANAL but I'd say this is not likely to occur, as it would put them on the spot to actually have to _answer_ Mr. Shaw's charges in the course of both trying to prove that they were false and trying to prove that Mr. Shaw knew them to be false. > [PAT notes:] I am wondering what the readers would think > about the *total elimination* of writer's email addresses in > the Digest. In other words, articles would say 'From: name' > rather than saying as they do now 'From: name ' > ... persons who expected a reply other than via the Digest > would have the choice of putting a valid signature in the text itself. I'm all in favor of that. This is the only medium I can think of where the means of directly contacting the participants are routinely in public view (unlike, say, newspapers, magazines, TV, radio), and it would be nice for that to be optional instead of by default. Andrew C. Green Datalogics, Inc. 101 N. Wacker, Ste. 1800 http://www.datalogics.com Chicago, IL 60606-7301 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1999 09:41:17 -0700 From: Cortland Richmond Organization: Alcatel Subject: Re: Sermporn's Telecom Digest is Dead Well, that conflict is resolved -- but it's too bad he couln't simply change his Web page's name. Heck, without offending you, Pat, he could have made the ORIGINAL AND UNEQUALLED Telecom Digest available via pointers to folks who'd never heard of it. And that would have been no bad thing. C'est la vie! Cortland [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I expect he will start something new soon using a different name; that's just my guess. I've been told that Thomas Bartlett of Bell Atlantic in Philadelphia had a lot to do with getting this resolved, and I want to thank him publicly for doing so. PAT] ------------------------------ From: tad@a42.com (Tad Cook) Subject: Hate Crimes (was Re: Just Another Mass Killing in the USA) Date: Tue, 21 Sep 1999 23:42:13 PDT John_David_Galt@acm.org (John David Galt) forwarded, from The Boston Globe: > No federal hate crime law is needed to punish Furrow; everything > he did is already illegal in California and prosecutors are sure to > seek a harsh punishment. Still, it has become politically correct to > demand a hate crime statute any time a bigot commits a heinous > assault. On Aug. 12, President Clinton called for a new federal law > as a matter of "common sense." Plenty of media voices have called for > the same thing. Society has passed hate crime laws to address crimes that are not just crimes against individuals, but are meant to send a message to a group ... a message of fear and intimidation. Furrow claimed that he intended the shooting as a "wake up call to America to kill Jews." Some people argue that people should be punished only for their actions, not for their motives. But in fact a murder charge is based upon intent. First degree murder requires pre-meditation. An arguement against federal hate crime statutes on first ammendment grounds was made in 1993, which the Supreme Court unanimously rejected. Forty-one states and the District of Columbia have hate crime laws, and they vary from place to place. Basically, it works like this. If you beat someone up or kill them because you hate them, this does not qualify for hate crime "sentencing enhancement." But if you rape, assault, commit arson, intimidate or damage property because of bias based upon perceived race, gender, national origin, disability, or national origin, then you qualify. It does not have to be against a minority. Blaming this on political correctness is ridiculous. In fact it has broad support. Tad Cook tad@ssc.com ------------------------------ From: midshires@cix.co.uk (Andrew Emmerson) Subject: It Makes You Think (A Tale of WW2) Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1999 18:31 +0100 (BST) Organization: CIX - Compulink Information eXchange Reply-To: midshires@cix.co.uk A friend of mine tells how his father was dropped by parachute into the occupied Netherlands during World War II to examine German radar equipment. Domiciled in Leyden with a Dutch resistance family, as they all sheltered in the cellar one night, he was asked: "Does your wife have a telephone at home?" When he answered yes, his hosts immediately arranged a phone call for him-something theoretically impossible as all undersea cables had been severed by the belligerents. Yet he did make that call, even though it was very brief; all he could say was that he was safe and couldn't disclose where he was. Apparently the Dutch resistance had re-connected one cable, unbeknown to the German occupiers. After liberation John's father was one of a party detailed to examine an underground German communications centre in Rotterdam. The visit to this telephone exchange was hindered by the darkness below ground. Although they had torches, they really could have done with proper illumination. They discovered a generator set and several minutes were spent trying to get this working but to no avail. This, they soon found out, was extremely fortunate. A few doors down the corridor they found a room stacked with several tons of Cordite-and neatly wired into the lightbulb socket was the detonator! Talk about booby traps! ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1999 11:33:24 -0500 From: Gordon S. Hlavenka Reply-To: nospam@crashelex.com Organization: Crash Electronics, Inc. Subject: Addition to the Business Directory Here's a tollfree number to call if you're interested in processing credit cards: 1-888-398-9858. The owners were kind enough to provide me with this contact information although I didn't even ask for it! The least I can do is return the favor by having them listed in the Telecom Digest Business Directory ... Gordon S. Hlavenka www.crashelex.com nospam@crashelex.com Grammar and spelling flames welcome. Yes, that's really my email address. Don't change it. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Thank you for your patronage of our business directory. Would you like to have a boldface listing or a regular listing? How about a quarter- or half-page advertisment to go with your listing? :) PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #425 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Sep 23 00:34:18 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id AAA27683; Thu, 23 Sep 1999 00:34:18 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1999 00:34:18 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199909230434.AAA27683@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #426 TELECOM Digest Thu, 23 Sep 99 00:34:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 426 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Working Assets Long Distance? (Anthony Argyriou) Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? (Joseph T. Adams) Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? (Mike Riddle) Re: MCI Worldcom Residential Customer Service (Alan Gore) Re: The Yak Plan (Bill Levant) Re: Using the Internet to Alleviate Poverty: www.netaid.org (A. Indiresan) Re: Telephone Dry Cell Battery (L. Winson) Re: AT&T Wireless: No Service East Of The Hudson River (Larry Finch) Business LD Spending (kborg@my-deja.com) Re: Phone Outages (was Re: More on Floyd's Aftermath in NJ) (Jonathan Loo) Re: Sprint PCS Fraud (John Nagle) Re: It Makes You Think (A Tale of WW2) (Stan U.) Re: California Area Code Split Legislation (AB 818) (Steven Lichter) Re: Big Brother Is Your Friend (tweek@netcom.com) Re: Floyd/NJ Telecom Problems - More Info! (Cortland Richmond) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Anthony Argyriou Subject: Re: Working Assets Long Distance? Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1999 18:11:34 -0700 Organization: Alpha Geotechnical Reply-To: anthony@alphageo.com world!dwolff@uunet.uu.net (David Wolff) wrote: > Anyone have experience with Working Assets Long Distance? > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The last I heard, Working Assets was > a not-for-profit company which donated its profits from long distance > service to various charitable organizations. So the profits from > your long distance calls go to help important causes. As can be inferred from the name, their causes have a decidedly leftist slant to them. Which is probably the main reason I don't use them. > The last I heard also, they were re-selling Sprint, for better or > for worse, Which is absolutely hilarious given SPRINT's origins with the Southern Pacific Railroad, and the SP's decidedly non-PC history. (Several clauses of the California Constitution are specifically aimed at SP.) > but since ninety percent or more of the complaints about Sprint have > to do with their ill-informed and oftentimes self-righteous service > representatives and sales people, you would probably do okay with > Working Assets since your customer service, etc would come through > them instead. Let us know if you find anything different about them > or if it does not work out for some reason. PAT] I have not heard any complaints about the technical quality of SPRINT, and had heard (from Linc Madison) that their LD line quality was generally superior to AT&T or MCI. That was many years ago, though. I have not heard any complaints about WALD from any of my friends who use them. Anthony Argyriou ------------------------------ From: Joseph T. Adams Subject: Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? Date: 22 Sep 1999 20:16:22 GMT Organization: Quality Data Division of JTAE Barry Margolin wrote: > It's still spam, it's just not illegal; however, there wasn't a > federal law against spam in the first place, so it wasn't illegal > before, either. I would have to take issue with this statement, at least as it applies to the United States, for several reasons. First and most fundamentally, spamming is theft, and theft is against the law in all parts of the United States. Even if there were no laws *specifically* outlawing spam, no such laws would be needed in order for it to be illegal. Second, there are in fact statutes that specifically outlaw spam in many jurisdictions. The validity of these laws is in dispute, insofar as they apply to inter-State commerce, which is one of the few areas in which the federal government does have legitimate authority and in which its authority supersedes that of the States pursuant to the Supremacy Clause. The existence of such laws, and the probability that they are enforceable at least to the extent that interstate commerce is not involved (e.g., if the spammer and spammee are in the same State), means that a blanket statement that spam is not illegal is false at least with respect to some States. The final issue is that neither the federal nor any State governments have any lawful power to *permit* Spam, pursuant to the fifth and fourteenth Amendments, which provide among other things that no person may be deprived of property without due process of law, and that all Citizens are entitled to equal protection under the law. Most State constitutions have similar provisions. It is therefore the duty of governments to enforce the laws against theft within their jurisdiction. The amount of the theft is absolutely irrelevant; embezzlement, which typically involves a large number of relatively small thefts (most of which may therefore go unnoticed), is a felony in all States AFAIK, and it is a crime that is extremely similar to, though less harmful than, spamming. The fact that there may not be a statute *specifically* definining spam to be theft, or otherwise illegal, also is irrelevant. It is covered by the laws against theft generally. To illustrate by example, there are probably no laws against siphoning antifreeze out of cars in most States. It is nonetheless illegal, not only as a theft, but possibly under other statutes as well, such as those against tampering with property or against rendering the property of any person into a dangerous state that could cause injury or loss of property. These statutes are intentionally broad, and cover many things that the framers of the statutes did not and could not foresee. While overly broad statutes are generally held by Courts to be invalid, these statutes are not. There would be utter chaos if every form of theft were acceptable except for those which had been expressly singled out and legislated against individually, and to my knowledge, no society in history has ever attempted to do so. So not only is it not correct to say that "spam is not illegal," it is probably exactly opposite of the truth. Spam is illegal in all parts of the United States, and probably in other jurisdictions with similar legal systems as well. Notes: (a) the above material is hereby expressly placed into the public domain; (b) the above material should not be construed as legal advice; and (c) I am not, thankfully, nor do I wish to be, a lawyer. :) Joe ------------------------------ From: Mike Riddle Subject: Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? Date: 22 Sep 1999 20:54:08 -0500 Organization: Solitary, Poor, Nasty, Brutish & Short Reply-To: mriddle@oasis.novia.net Darryl Smith wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I do not think merely claiming > something is not spam avoids the fact that it is spam. Anyone > know about this? PAT] The story goes around attributed to A. Lincoln about "how many legs would a dog have if you called the tail a leg?" Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it so. ------------------------------ From: agore@primenet.com (Alan Gore) Subject: Re: MCI Worldcom Residential Customer Service Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1999 01:58:45 GMT Organization: Software For PC's davidesan@my-deja.com wrote: > How much money are we talking about? If it is a small amount, how > about filing against MCI in small claims court? File for all costs -- > the overcharges, the mail, your time, your suffering. That could wake > them up. The problem I reported originated when I had my billing switched from cash to credit card payment. My last two months' MCI bills paid with cash were for somewhat over $300 each. When the credit card billing started up I found those same two months charged on the card, then one of the months charged a second time on the card from a separate division in Missouri, for a total extra charge of over $900. Since then MCI has been uncooperative in rather a strange way: when I call them about it they bring up my account, acknowledge right away that there was an error -- and then nothing happens. I call them up a few weeks later and I get the same result. > Or find a disreputable lawyer who will work on a contingency fee. Sue > for $2 Million for suffering, pain, and annoyance. It sounds like you > have everything documented, and they will have no idea what hit them. > Bet they settle quickly. I don't think a $900 case would interest any lawyer. I am currently pursuing my case through the credit card company. If they can't resolve it, I'll just go back to AT & T. This will cost more, but I know they have customer service if anything goes wrong. agore@primenet.com | "Giving money and power to the government Alan Gore | is like giving whiskey and car keys Software For PC's | to teenaged boys" - P. J. O'Rourke http://www.alangore.com ------------------------------ From: Wlevant@aol.com (Bill Levant) Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1999 22:21:18 EDT Subject: Re: The Yak Plan PAT : What the blazes is going on around here? I made an absolutely inexcusable pun in these very pages the other day, and no one -- NO ONE -- has yet taken me to task for it. I think the readers are slipping. Either that, or everyone's so worked up over this Second Amendment thread that they no longer caribou anything else. (sorry) Remember, it's JUST an amendment. Bill P.S. Even though your Southeast Asia bureau is out of business, you should still think about trademarking the digest's name. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Yak: Do me a favor Bill. Take care of the trademark thing and let me know how much I owe for it. Thanks. PAT ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Using the Internet to Alleviate Poverty: www.netaid.org Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1999 20:19:17 -0400 From: Atri Indiresan Hi Pat, > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I think this is an excellent idea, and > I am glad to pass it along to the readers here. You ought to consider > making a button which could be displayed on websites and would link to > NetAid. That is what the Hunger web site has done, and I have their > button on several of my pages. Many thanks for publishing my note on netaid.org. Following your suggestions, I contacted them regarding "NetAid buttons". These are now available at ads.netaid.org. I hope you will find them suitable. The Hunger web site is one of the beneficiaries of NetAid. > Good luck with yours, though! PAT] Thanks! Atri [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: So, readers with web sites who would like to include a link to NetAid should pick up a button as noted above. Large or small, your web site should have a pointer to this good service being started. PAT] ------------------------------ From: lwinson@bbs.cpcn.com (L Winson) Subject: Re: Telephone Dry Cell Battery Date: 22 Sep 1999 23:58:28 GMT Organization: The PACSIBM SIG BBS In broad terms, there are two types of telephone systems, defined by the power source. Originally, they used a "local battery" system, which meant every telephone had its own battery (usually a few dry cells) to power the voice circuit, and a hand cranked magneto to power the ringer. When a subscriber wanted to make a call, he'd crank the magneto. If there was a central switchboard, it'd cause a tiny metal "drop" to fall, alerting the operator to a call. (That's why in old movies, people would crank the phone to make a call.) In WW II, the field telephones used this type of system. The advantage of such a system was simplicity. The disadvantage was batteries at the subscriber's end had to be periodically replaced. (They may have also worked better when the phone is a considerable distance from the central office, as in rural lines or on railroads.) The newer system used today is known as "common battery". All power comes from the central office. To make a call, the subscriber simply lifts the phone from the hookswitch. A relay at the central office detects the off-hook and either alerts an operator or sends out a dial tone. When the call is completed, going onhook will again signal a relay at the central office. (IIRC, local battery required the callers "ring off" at the end of a call.) Local battery systems used in a great many places for many years. There are modern looking phones with a magneto built in for such service. Many railroad line phones were of this design. Regarding the original poster's question, I'm surprised the phone company would install a battery for anything at such a late date (1962) since it would require periodic replacement. But as someone suggested, it may have been for an intercom system. I wonder if perhaps a prior owner of the house made his own modification and got the battery somewhere. ------------------------------ From: Larry Finch Subject: Re: AT&T Wireless: No Service East Of The Hudson River Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1999 20:15:46 -0400 Organization: AT&T WorldNet Services Reply-To: LarryFinch@worldnet.att.net Alan Boritz wrote: > In article , Larry Finch > wrote: >> Actually, Bell Atlantic Mobile is out also. But they didn't announce >> it the way AT&T did. >> Alan Boritz wrote: > AT&T didn't announce it at all. As of Saturday, customer service was > giving out no information at all, and there was nothing at their web > site. If I'm not mistaken, this forum was the only place you could > read about it. I heard it on CBS Radio on Friday afternoon; they interviewed an AT&T Wireless representative. But that was the ONLY outage that was reported until Saturday. Larry Finch ::LarryFinch@worldnet.att.net larry@prolifics.com ::LarryFinch@aol.com PDCLarry@aol.com ::(whew!) N 40 53' 47" W 74 03' 56" ------------------------------ From: kborg@my-deja.com Subject: Business LD Spending Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1999 00:15:48 GMT Organization: Deja.com - Share what you know. Learn what you don't. Does anyone know how much the average small business spends in LD, per person per year? Also, how much of the total business market do small businesses account for (as opposed to middle and large)? Any sources or links for this kind of info would be as helpful as the answer itself (fyi I already tried the FCC). Cheers. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1999 20:17:59 EDT From: Jonathan D Loo Subject: Re: Phone Outages (was Re: More on Floyd's Aftermath in NJ) G. M. Hall wrote: > I live in northeast Ohio. It's interesting to note that the other > night we started seeing messages on the TV channels that the 911 > service was out in Beachwood. I don't remember who they said to call > in emergencies. My husband was traveling in his car at that time, and > he said the radio stations were also broadcasting such messages, even > some messages about reports of problems in Beachwood. I wonder why > they could divert those emergency calls to nearby communities. Ideally, if 911 went out, the police would increase patrols so that it will be easy to find a patrol car if there is an emergency. To prevent these problems, it is the responsibility of the state government to pay the local telephone company to install multiple redundant trunks and switches. Jonathan D Loo, P. O. Box 30533, Bethesda, Maryland 20824, U. S. A. jloo@polaris.umuc.edu / Save a life: learn first-aid and C. P. R. ------------------------------ From: nagle@netcom.com (John Nagle) Subject: Re: Sprint PCS Fraud Date: 22 Sep 1999 19:18:12 GMT Organization: Netcom Babu Mengelepouti writes: > Apparently, Sprint PCS has dissatisfied many customers, and one > customer was so upset by Sprint's fraud, lies, and poor service that > he established a website detailing numerous problems. It is located > at http://www.theworst.com, and is a good reference for anyone > considering service with Sprint PCS. Their big problem is poor coverage. It takes a huge number of cell sites to provide coverage in a band that's basically line of sight plus reflections. And Sprint just doesn't have them. There are many dead spots in their "coverage area". And not in obscure places, either. Coverage in Silicon Valley is spotty; parts of Palo Alto and Stanford are out of range, even though that's flat ground. In LA, I was suprised to find a dead spot near Melrose at the edge of Beverley Hills, probably one of the world's leading cell-phone use areas. Again, this is flat territory, with line of sight all the way to downtown LA and the Hollywood hills. Get further out, or into hilly territory, and it's totally dead, regardless of what the coverage maps say. It's really annoying to be able to see competing carrier's cell sites and still not get a signal. On a related note, Laurel Canyon Road in Malibu, a winding road in a canyon, has a phone-pole mounted cell site at every turn in the road, some only 200' apart. But there's no Sprint PCS service. On the other hand, it works fine where there's a nearby site. John Nagle ------------------------------ From: stanri@yahooREMOVETHISPART.com (Stan U.) Subject: Re: It Makes You Think (A Tale of WW2) Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1999 22:41:03 GMT Organization: @Home Network A call from Holland to the United States in the middle of WW2? And by cable ????? I always thought that the FIRST voice telephone cable from the states to Europe was around 1952-53. Prior to that all communications was by shortwave radio. Only cables existing were telegraph, and as I understand it, never could take voice communications. Am I wrong ?? On Wed, 22 Sep 1999 18:31 +0100 (BST), midshires@cix.co.uk (Andrew Emmerson) wrote: > When he answered yes, his hosts immediately arranged a phone > call for him-something theoretically impossible as all undersea cables > had been severed by the belligerents. Yet he did make that call, even > though it was very brief; all he could say was that he was safe and > couldn't disclose where he was. Like everyone else, I hate spam. To reply, remove the "REMOVETHISPART" from the email address. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I do not think that is true. I think there were underwater cables by then used for voice. The reason I say this is because one advertisement from AT&T which appeared at various times between 1942-45 talked about helping the military guys stay in touch with their families. The message showed the Bell System logo and in the middle, an operator at a switchboard. Symbols for electricity went in two directions. At the top of the page was a sailor, with a big smile on his face as he talks on the telephone. From him through the electrical path to the switchboard, the next electrical path and then at the bottom of the page a group of people. The people appear to be Mother, who is talking on the phone with tears in her eyes. Crowded next to her is Father, Little Brother, and Grandmother, all trying to hear and waiting their turn to have a chance for a couple words on the phone. The caption says, "AT&T and the Bell System are proud that the govern- ment trusts us with certain military secrets enabling us to provide telephone service between our boys overseas and their families. Our facilties are limited; each family is given an appointed time for a call. The operator will notify you in advance of your appointed time in order that your entire family can be present. When the call comes through, please respond promptly, and when the operator asks you to relinquish the line please do so immediatly. (then emphasized) "When you are speaking to your son or husband overseas, DO NOT press them for details. There are things they would love to tell you if only they were allowed to do so. Remember (in italics) {Loose lips sink ships. Don't cause our guys to get hurt because the enemy overheard your conversation, or make them say something that causes them to be disciplined by a superior officer}. We also stress that in order to provide you this telephone call, our operators have been entrusted with military secrets they need to know. Please do not question our operators or demand details about the call you recieve. Do not ask our operators to betray the trust that AT&T and the United States government have placed in them." PAT] ------------------------------ From: stevenl11@aol.comstuffit (Steven Lichter) Date: 22 Sep 1999 22:56:53 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: California Area Code Split Legislation (AB 818) In article , TELECOM Digest Editor noted: > without a '1' including Park Ridge/Des Plaines/Chicago-Newcastle > which were served by Central Telephone Company (later, Centel) but > people in those towns had to dial anything else in 312 except their > own towns with a '1' first. All the central offices in Chicago and > suburbs used ancient equipment in those days. PAT] That was the norm years ago, metro areas would not have to dial 1 at all and that includes out of their A/C, Full SATT, small towns had to dial a one as it was SATT Access, which in many cases ment the call would then be routed to a tandom in a larger town or city or Toll center. Apple Elite II 909-359-5338. Home of GBBS/LLUCE, support for the Apple II and Macintosh 24 hours 2400/14.4. OggNet Server. The only good spammer is a dead one, have you hunted one down today? (c) ------------------------------ From: tweek@netcom.com Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1999 08:34:10 -0700 Subject: Re: Big Brother Is Your Friend Organization: Our Lady of Perpetual Freedom > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Neither of those scenarios qualify as > 'Big Brother' events in my opinion. Very unpleasant, to be sure, but > not Big Brother-ish. Here is why: In the case of the email, the > employer owns the computer and the facilities. The employer also > 'owns' your time that he is paying for each day. Therefore the > employer has the right to supervise your work, and has the right to > examine what is on the computer. You may say it is oppressive, and > you are probably correct. Perhaps this fits more into the Big Brother scheme. A Campolindo High School student (Moraga, CA) created a web site on his own time which was not favorable towards his school. Overlooking the claimed fact that it was "libelous and slanderous" and there were perhaps several valid legal remedies to that concern, the principal of the high school, himself a target of the screed, suspended the student. http://camposux.iwarp.com/ no longer exists due to the ISP closing it down for violation of its own TOS. (It has an ISP created page citing possible reasons why the site was closed.) http://www.support.4mg.com/ is a new site put up by other Campo students in support of the original web site owner, and for the discussion of the situation. It was interesting reading some of those comments on there this morning. While I consider myself on the side of the students, it was somewhat sickening to read writings of some of the students in support of the sstudent ... filled with all sorts of blatent misspellings (and I'm not that picky)... on the other hand, I was sickened even more by the posts supporting the school's point of view and the "The school must protect the students at ALL times." I did see the leading edge of a Modest Proposal in one of the postings there, centering somewhere on the concept that if the school is required to protect all from some person who may be seen as offensive to some. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yes, that does indeed come much closer to Big Brother-ism since it was his own web page, using presumably his own personal account through a private ISP. I hope the ISP was explicit in their reason for closing his account and not vague in just presenting a pageful of several reasons 'they might have closed it.' If they were explicit, then the guy has a chance to refute the violation of TOS claims and/or offer to adjust the page accordingly. Or do they have one of these things in their TOS where they say, 'we have the right to close your account at any time and do not have to give any explanation or notice' ?? A lot of businesses like putting that in their contracts in order to weasel out of promises or deals without having to explain anything or risk getting sued. I assume you are aware that since the Columbine incident, high school students have had it rougher than ever before. Those who are 'different' or who stick to themselves or question authority in any way whatsoever are being dealt with quite harshly, as your example above demonstrates. Hopefully his parents are in a position financially to yank him out of that public (and therefore lowest possible common denominator) school and get him into a private school where the teachers and staff are more caring about individuals and their needs. Did you see the item in the papers Wednesday? It appears it happened once again, this time in Chicago. A student who had been expelled from Fenger High School returned to the school Tuesday afternoon with a gun and opened fire on a group of students as they left school. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1999 11:41:53 -0700 From: Cortland Richmond Organization: Alcatel Subject: Re: Floyd/NJ Telecom Problems - More Info! On Tue, 21 Sep 1999 22:30:16 -0400 Alan Boritz (aboritz@CYBERNEX.NET) wrote: >> That's not the only thing about this incident that's inexcusable. >> Bell Atlantic officials knew, at least at the moment when the utility >> power was cut, and the river was pouring into their Rochelle Park >> facility, that they had to notify Bergen County Emergency Management, in >> Hackensack, that they were shortly going to disable 911, and wipe >> out public access to all other law enforcement agencies in northern >> Bergen County. Which state or county official did Bell Atlantic contact >> to notify them of the situation, and when did they call them? >> Sometime after Bell Atlantic shut down the switch at the Rochelle Park >> facility, and Bergen County Emergency Management officials knew that >> 911 was down, and that none of the million or so residents of northern >> Bergen County could reach law enforcement agencies by telephone, what >> did County officials do within the 2-1/2 days that 911 was down, to >> get 911 working again? 911 and telephone outage is one of the things emergency organizations practice for. When 911 between police and fire went out in Irvine, CA we posted RACES (Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service) members from our club at major shopping centers, libraries, senior centers etc. and at each fire station, in orderfor citizens to contact public safety agencies. Later we particpated in an ad-hoc dispatch center at a central fire station. I have no doubt the local Emergency Services offices did respond to the outage and it may even have included the local ACS (successor to RACES) or other organizations. More information should become available about what happened and when, and who did what -- or didn't. Cortland ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #426 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Sep 23 14:17:03 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id OAA20666; Thu, 23 Sep 1999 14:17:03 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1999 14:17:03 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199909231817.OAA20666@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #427 TELECOM Digest Thu, 23 Sep 99 14:17:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 427 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: It Makes You Think (A Tale of WW2) (Philip Tait) Re: It Makes You Think (A Tale of WW2) (Bob Goudreau) Re: It Makes You Think (A Tale of WW2) (John Nagle) Re: It Makes You Think (A Tale of WW2) (Mark Brader) Re: AOL Networking Versus Internet Networking Paradigm (Louis Raphael) Re: AOL Networking Versus Internet Networking Paradigm (John R. Levine) Re: Users of Wireless Phones Find Unexpected Benefits (David Esan) Re: Users of Wireless Phones Find Unexpected Benefits (Dr. Joel M. Hoffman) Re: Looking For 1A1/1A2 Info (Alan Boritz) Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? (Peter Corlett) Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? (Barry Margolin) Re: How Does Bigzoo Make a Profit? (Ron Walter) Re: Swedish Teen on Trial For Linking to Music Files (Marcus AAkesson) Re: MCI Worldcom Residential Customer Service (Dr. Joel M. Hoffman) Re: Sprint Coverage (was Re: Sprint PCS Fraud) (Arthur Ross) Re: Telephone Dry Cell Battery, also W.W.II (Steve Hayes) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Philip Tait Subject: Re: It Makes You Think (A Tale of WW2) Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1999 09:34:52 -0700 Organization: AlliedSignal Engines & Systems - Phoenix, AZ I don't see anything in the message that implies the called party was in the United States -- it seems more reasonable to assume she was somewhere in the UK, judging from Andrew's E-mail address. When were the first cables laid under the North Sea? "Stan U." wrote: > A call from Holland to the United States in the middle of WW2? And by > cable ????? I always thought that the FIRST voice telephone cable > from the states to Europe was around 1952-53. Prior to that all > communications was by shortwave radio. > Only cables existing were telegraph, and as I understand it, never > could take voice communications. > Am I wrong ?? > On Wed, 22 Sep 1999 18:31 +0100 (BST), midshires@cix.co.uk (Andrew > Emmerson) wrote: >> When he answered yes, his hosts immediately arranged a phone >> call for him-something theoretically impossible as all undersea cables >> had been severed by the belligerents. Yet he did make that call, even >> though it was very brief; all he could say was that he was safe and >> couldn't disclose where he was. Philip J. Tait.....AlliedSignal Engines, Phoenix, Az.....pjt@phxase.allied.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1999 09:46:04 EDT From: Bob Goudreau Subject: Re: It Makes You Think (A Tale of WW2) stanri@yahooREMOVETHISPART.com (Stan U.) wrote: > A call from Holland to the United States in the middle of WW2? And by > cable ????? I always thought that the FIRST voice telephone cable > from the states to Europe was around 1952-53. Prior to that all > communications was by shortwave radio. > Only cables existing were telegraph, and as I understand it, never > could take voice communications. I note that Mr. Emmerson didn't specify the destination of the undersea call. However, since his email address ends in ".uk", I assumed that he was talking about a cable from England to the European mainland, which is a couple of orders of magnitude shorter than a trans-atlantic cable. > Am I wrong ?? Only in inferring that "undersea" = "trans-atlantic", I think :-). Bob Goudreau Data General Corporation goudreau@rtp.dg.com 62 Alexander Drive +1 919 248 6231 Research Triangle Park, NC 27709, USA ------------------------------ From: nagle@netcom.com (John Nagle) Subject: Re: It Makes You Think (A Tale of WW2) Date: 23 Sep 1999 07:06:24 GMT Organization: Netcom stanri@yahooREMOVETHISPART.com (Stan U.) writes: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I do not think that is true. I think > there were underwater cables by then used for voice. The reason I say > this is because one advertisement from AT&T which appeared at various > times between 1942-45 talked about helping the military guys stay in > touch with their families. The first transatlantic voice cable didn't go in until the 1950s. Telegraph cables were dumb wires, but voice required periodic amplifiers. The problem was developing an amplifier that could operate on the ocean bottom for decades. Long-life tubes were used. Earlier transatlantic links were full-duplex short-wave radio. I recall vaguely that the power used was 10KW, and a simple scrambler (the A4 system, a bank of filters with switchgear that interchanged a few audio bands with a new pattern every 15 seconds or so) was used. The Germans did figure out how to break the scrambler, using a simple sound spectrograph. John Nagle ------------------------------ From: msbrader@interlog.com (Mark Brader) Subject: Re: It Makes You Think (A Tale of WW2) Date: 23 Sep 1999 08:42:04 -0400 Organization: - Stan U. writes: > A call from Holland to the United States in the middle of WW2? Who said anything about the United States? Mark Brader | "We can get ideas even from a clever man." ... Toronto | "Yes, I think you can. Even ideas you should msbrader@interlog.com | have had yourselves." -- John Dickson Carr My text in this article is in the public domain. ------------------------------ From: Louis Raphael Subject: Re: AOL Networking Versus Internet Networking Paradigm Organization: Societe pour la promotion du petoncle vert Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1999 03:53:05 GMT Of course, they could just can the AOL, pay $10 a month, and probably get an all around better deal, at less than half the price ... Louis PAT answered: > I explain to them that for ten dollars per month, payable a year in > advance, a local ISP here in Junction City will give them unlimited > access on a dialup which is local to their phone; another ten dollars > going that way will give them their AOL service under the BYOA plan, > and the end result will be that for a couple dollars per month less > than what they were paying before now they have the entire internet > (not just AOL) and freedom from local toll charges, plus a 'fast' 56 K > connection. Most of them change over right away when they learn about > that method, and I show them how to sign up with the ISP and help them > configure Dial Up Networking on their PC. The above might be a system > that other AOL'ers reading this might find useful as well. PAT] A definition of employee loyalty: Not looking for your next job on company time. ------------------------------ Date: 23 Sep 1999 11:46:57 -0400 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: AOL Networking Versus Internet Networking Paradigm Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > Now comes AOL/Compuserve. Do they still use their own private network > trunks from each city to their central processing facility where there > is a single connection to the internet? If so, is this really cost > effective compared to having local internet connections? Some years ago AOL bought ANS, a medium sized Internet NSP that originally was the vendor that ran the NSFnet backbone, and used ANS for their long-haul service. More recently, as part of the deal that dismembered Compuserve, ANS became part of uunet/Worldcom at the same time that Compuserve's extensive network (arguably worth more than their online service) did. So at this point I expect that AOL buys their long haul network connections from uunet like many other ISPs, large and small. I don't know to what extent AOL uses dedicated dialup pools and to what extent they use uunet's rent-a-POP pools. John R. Levine, IECC, POB 727, Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 387 6869 johnl@iecc.com, Village Trustee and Sewer Commissioner, http://iecc.com/johnl, Member, Provisional board, Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail ------------------------------ From: davidesan@my-deja.com Subject: Re: Users of Wireless Phones Find Unexpected Benefits Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1999 14:54:48 GMT Organization: Deja.com - Share what you know. Learn what you don't. In article , sjsobol@JustThe.Net (Steven J Sobol) wrote: > On Tue, 21 Sep 1999 10:37:34 -0400, itsamike@yahoo.com, quoting a New > York Times article, said: >> Local calling areas for wired phone service -- in which calls are not >> billed by the minute -- usually include only a few neighboring towns >> and never combine parts of different states. > Not true if the neighboring towns straddle a state or other > governmental dividing line. For example, DC (AC 202) and southern > Maryland (AC 301). (at least this was true in 1987, last time I > stayed in DC for any length of time :) One thing I learned in working with local calling areas for the last 12 years is that one can't make broad statements about them. They tend to make no real sense. In some places, there are rules for local calling that contain some sort of logic. New York City, for example, has divided itself into seven zones, and costing is standardized between zones. The ZUM costing of California is based on mileages from the source, and one can draw neat little cirlces around the home city. Chicago has a bizarre but logical system based on 3 zones to which each of its 300 or so towns/cities/zones is assigned. You can find cross state locals in many places -- Chicago to Indiana, Illinois to Wisconsin, Kansas City (Kansas to Missouri and the reverse), Cincinnati to Kentucky and Indiana, and so on. You can also find bizarre local calling situations like here in upstate NY. The legislature ruled that if a certain percent of calls from a location was to another location, those calls should be made local. So we have local calls between the city and the town of Sodus, which has the summer homes for many of business people who work downtown. And yet, even though they are directly between downtown and Sodus, several of the suburbs are not local to Sodus, because they did not meet the local criteria. My wife taught school in Newark, NY, a long-distance call from our house. I called the cell company and discovered that they considered Newark to be in the local calling area. Needless to say, she called parents after 7 PM on the cellphone, when the costs were only 2 cents a minute. This was a connection fee between wireless and wired lines -- will this gouging never cease? David Esan Veramark Technologies desan@veramark.com ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Users of Wireless Phones Find Unexpected Benefits Organization: Excelsior Computer Services From: joel@exc.com (Dr. Joel M. Hoffman) Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1999 16:10:11 GMT In article , Lisa Hancock wrote: > My own cellphone experience mirrors the article. I didn't expect it > to, I just picked the plan with the lowest monthly cost they offered. > It had high peak chg but big offpeak allowance. I discovered using > the cellphone allowed me essentially free off peak regional calls that > would otherwise be toll; plus the convenience of letting me yak on the > phone while out taking a walk or sitting in the park. > Further, my cellphone's long distance rates are lower than my wired > phone. > I do note that my cellphone does still charge me a 12c "landline" fee > for every call. And I have to wait until after 9pm, which is > sometimes too late to call people. Lastly, while sometimes my > connections are great, sometimes they're not so great. I can see the > advantages of digital phones, but they cost more. ------------------------------ From: aboritz@CYBERNEX.NET (Alan Boritz) Subject: Re: Looking For 1A1/1A2 Info Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1999 22:24:05 -0400 Organization: Dyslexics UNTIE In article , DMC Joe wrote: > (written primarily to David Massey, regards our 'Tribute to the > Telephone' pages at http://telecom-digest.org/tribute > I hit your site surfing for information on 1A2 key equipment infor- > mation. Let me quickly bring you up to date on my search. I am a > semi-retired broadcast engineer, During my early years in the > business, mid 60's, I was exposed to Western Electric telephone > equipment. The TV station I worked at had a 1A2 key phone system and I > was always impressed with its design, construction and operation. They're impressive only when you don't have to use them every day to do your work. When your impressive, new, key system starts to age you soon find out why they're no longer in widespread use today. > Several years later I opened my own business and installed a 1A2 > system that I acquired while I was at the TV station. The truth of the > matter is that our New Jersey Bell repair person stored much of his > spare equipment at the TV station because the building was centrally > located in his work area. That same repair tech was hired on at the TV > station and we became good friends. He was good enough to led me in > the direction of some forgotten about key equipment. Several years > later I opened a recording studio and guess what telephone equipment I > installed. Although 1A2 equipment is strictly high maintenance, it's popular (though not by choice) at radio and TV stations because it's still the only contemporary key system that brings tip and ring directly to studio equipment. That permits hooking up hybrids and other toys to outside phone lines. Unfortunately, the matrixes in most low end switches and probably all contemporary electronic key systems are not of adequate quality to permit using that kind of equipment in any other configuration. > I'm sure it will come to no surprise to you that 30 years later I'm > still using the same equipment for my current home based business. All > I have left are two 20 button and one 10 button key sets connected to > a Western Electric 28A1 power unit. I really enjoy having an > indestructible phone system that I never worry about even during a > severe electrical storm. Stock up on extra plastic instrument parts. You'll be needing them when the plastic caps on your 20 button HIK set start popping off every time you put someone on hold or select another line. ------------------------------ From: abuse@cabal.org.uk (Peter Corlett) Subject: Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? Date: 22 Sep 1999 22:45:45 GMT Michael Spencer wrote: > And a couple of nanae regulars have done careful experiments which > determined that following the "remove" instructions will typically get > your email address confirmed as a live one and included in spammers' > lists. Is there any particular reason why, given that they probably don't even validate whether or not the address attempting a "remove" is in their database or now, somebody shouldn't concoct a Perl script to "remove" lots of bogus and undeliverable addresses? This way, their "validated" database becomes as polluted as their random one. Less valid addresses means more wasted effort for the spammer, and a better chance for ISPs' AIs to pick up on it before it affects too many people. I'd be happy to provide such a script if there is interest. Alas, my bandwidth is expensive, and I don't actually appear to have any recent examples of this sort of spam, so I'm not really in a position to do it myself. ------------------------------ From: Barry Margolin Subject: Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? Organization: GTE Internetworking, Cambridge, MA Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1999 17:30:45 GMT In article , Joseph T. Adams wrote: > Barry Margolin wrote: >> It's still spam, it's just not illegal; however, there wasn't a >> federal law against spam in the first place, so it wasn't illegal >> before, either. > I would have to take issue with this statement, at least as it applies > to the United States, for several reasons. > First and most fundamentally, spamming is theft, and theft is against > the law in all parts of the United States. Even if there were no laws > *specifically* outlawing spam, no such laws would be needed in order > for it to be illegal. Has anyone actually proved this in court? Who are the spammers stealing from and what are they stealing, disk space? Spammers are just sending email, so if they're stealing then so is every other email sender (you've never given me permission to send you email -- if I had sent this message to you directly, would I be guilty of theft?). They aren't really stealing disk space; you delete the message, and you've got your disk space back. > Second, there are in fact statutes that specifically outlaw spam in > many jurisdictions. The validity of these laws is in dispute, insofar That was why I specifically said "federal law". I know Washington State has an anti-spam law, and maybe a couple of other states do as well, but there's nothing specifically referring to spam in the federal statutes. > So not only is it not correct to say that "spam is not illegal," it is > probably exactly opposite of the truth. Spam is illegal in all parts > of the United States, and probably in other jurisdictions with similar > legal systems as well. If spam is already illegal because it's theft, why did these states need to enact these laws? Why haven't any spammers been thrown in jail for theft. I believe that most successful cases against spammers have been on issues of fraud and trademark infringement; spammers typically use fake email addresses, and the legitimate owner of the domain can be damaged if recipients think it came from them. It's not the spam itself that's illegal in these instances, it's the way the spammers send it and try to hide their identities. Barry Margolin, barmar@bbnplanet.com GTE Internetworking, Powered by BBN, Burlington, MA *** DON'T SEND TECHNICAL QUESTIONS DIRECTLY TO ME, post them to newsgroups. Please DON'T copy followups to me -- I'll assume it wasn't posted to the group. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1999 10:14:38 -0500 From: Ron Walter Organization: Capitol City Telephone, Inc. Subject: Re: How Does Bigzoo Make a Profit? It's not that hard really to make a profit. Most of these calling card vendors have no labor involved except in the distribution and marketing side of getting the cards out. They have automated switches that perform all of the functions with little or no maintenance or intervention needed. For a high volume, you can get T1 access for four cents per minute or better each way. So if cost is eight cents, how do they make money? Keep in mind the average long distance call is only three minutes, even on the calling cards. A lot of the 3.9 cards use two minute billing increments. 50 phone calls averaging fifty minutes each will actually end up being billed for around 200 minutes. Finally, add in the per call surcharges (the least I've seen is 35 cents, most 50-80 cents) and the unused minutes. I don't know the industry numbers of the unused minutes on these cards, but I'm sure that it's *much* higher than 3%. For example, I have four cards in my billfold that supposedly have five to eight minutes left on them. If I have eight minutes left, I can't use them because those eight minutes are worth about 31 cents, not enough to cover the 35 cent surcharge. So let's run the numbers. 3.9 cents per minute, 35 cents per minute surcharge, 35 cents payphone surcharge, two minute billing increments. If your calls average 3 minutes, you can make 11 calls on a $10 card at 86 cents per minute (from a payphone). You have 54 cents left after those 12 calls, not enough for the surcharges for another call. You got 33 minutes out of that $10 card. Their cost, at 26 cents payphone surcharge per call and 4 cents per minute each way comes to $5.50, plus maybe about a nickel for the cost of the card itself and 50 cents for taxes. (If none of the calls come from payphones, you can make 19 calls for a total of 57 minutes, their cost is now only $4.56 plus printing and taxes). A 40-50% profit margin with a lot of volume will cover a lot of marketing and administrative costs. ------------------------------ From: Marcus AAkesson Subject: Re: Swedish Teen on Trial For Linking to Music Files Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1999 13:10:59 +0200 Organization: Chalmers University of Technology On Mon, 13 Sep 1999 15:21 +0100 (BST), midshires@cix.co.uk (Andrew Emmerson) wrote: > This looks quite simple to me. If the guy is aware (or has any suspicion) > that some of these music files are pirated, then by posting links to them > he is aiding or abetting the commission of an illegal act. What act? > There can be > few legal reasons for downloading stolen or 'knocked off' files. > The same would apply to publishing links to any other site that condoned > or encouraged illegal activities. It is far from certain under Swedish law that it is illegal to download and use a copyrighted MP3. The general idea is that You are free to use anything you find, for personal use. (Broadcasting or such is of course completely different.) It's uploading that is a copyright violation, and they couldn't prove that. He was not charged with aiding or abetting, so that was never tried. He was aquitted by the district court. The case is under appeal to a higher court. After the ruling, the IFPI lawyer made a statement about the court not understanding the technology. /Marcus ------------------------------ Subject: Re: MCI Worldcom Residential Customer Service Organization: Excelsior Computer Services From: joel@exc.com (Dr. Joel M. Hoffman) Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1999 16:02:21 GMT In article , wrote: > I have to add my comments to the obvious desperation I see here over > trying to get fair treatment from MCI. Back in the beginning I > [...] > off. After waiting interminably to get through their telephone maze, > I found myself consistently being thrown back into the maze to start I just tried to call the "Customer Service" number on my billing statement, but I can only reach Delta Airlines (through whom I signed up to MCI, for the miles) that way. So I tried the billing number. I was asked to enter my home phone and zip code, which I did, only to be cut off. Three times. I finally got through by just not pressing anything. -Joel ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1999 09:49:40 -0700 From: Arthur Ross Subject: Re: Sprint Coverage (was Re: Sprint PCS Fraud) John Nagle wrote: > Their big problem is poor coverage. It takes a huge number of > cell sites to provide coverage in a band that's basically line of > sight plus reflections. And Sprint just doesn't have them. There are > many dead spots in their "coverage area". And not in obscure places, > either. Coverage in Silicon Valley is spotty; parts of Palo Alto and > Stanford are out of range, even though that's flat ground. In LA, I > was suprised to find a dead spot near Melrose at the edge of Beverley > Hills, probably one of the world's leading cell-phone use areas. > Again, this is flat territory, with line of sight all the way to > downtown LA and the Hollywood hills. Your story makes it sound so bad as to make me wonder if you have the cause right. Are you really talking about signal quality (the little bars on the phone display -- a combination of strength and error rate on the phones I'm familiar with)? Or is the problem system capacity? No coverage in the middle of Si Valley doesn't, on the face of it, sound like something any halfway self-respecting provider could be dumb enough to tolerate. A full-up system in those same areas would seem the more likely explanation. ... one would hope that some consciencious Sprint defense-person will rise to the occasion here & provide an authoritative explanation/excuse! My experience, BTW, with Sprint coverage in Manhattan (daughter's phone) has been rather good -- no complaints -- but then again I am rather favorably inclined toward the technology. -- Best -- Arthur ------------------------------ From: Steve Hayes Subject: Re: Telephone Dry Cell Battery, also W.W.II Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1999 10:17:44 +0100 Hi Pat and all, Marc Meyer's questions about an old telephone dry cell battery left in his house (TELECOM Digest V19 #423) and responses describing local and common battery systems reminded me of a payphone I once saw at a roadside rest area somewhere miles from anywhere in or near the Mojave Desert. There it was, complete with a crank and several dry cells in a little rack on the side of the booth. It's number was something like "Cactus City 1". I was tempted but couldn't think of anyone to call. Anyway, the surprising thing is that this was some time in the late sixties or early seventies. On a completely different topic, the story about the man calling his wife from occupied Holland during W.W.II (Andrew Emmerson, TELECOM Digest V19 #425). Those questioning the existence of transatlantic cables at the time don't seem to have spotted that Andrew's e-mail is a cix.co.uk address. The wife was presumably in the UK. What I wonder about this is how much the various operators involved in setting up the call (both Dutch and British) would have known about the reconnected cable and what instructions, if any, they had for connecting calls using it. You'll notice I always include my location with my signature. Steve Hayes South Wales, UK ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #427 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Sep 24 15:10:26 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id PAA06289; Fri, 24 Sep 1999 15:10:26 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 24 Sep 1999 15:10:26 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199909241910.PAA06289@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #428 TELECOM Digest Fri, 24 Sep 99 15:10:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 428 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson MCI WorldCom, Sprint Ponder a Merger as Talks Pick Up Speed (Mike Pollock) State Regulators Decide Charlotte Area Gets 10-D Dialing (Stan Schwartz) Multiplexing Internal Wiring (Eric Edwards) Floyd-Damaged Phone Service Restored In NJ, NY (Monty Solomon) AT&T Wireless Voicemail Down (Again) 9/24/1999 (Dr. Joel M. Hoffman) LD Rate History (Bruce Larrabee) Information Wanted on 'Billing College' (Michi Kaifu) CAN Protocol (Jose Ernesto Juan Vidal) Cannot Hang Up (Colonel G.L. Sicherman) For Sale: Acculink Bandwidth Controllers (Chris Petersen) Call Completion, Customer Service: LD and 10-10xxx (Pete Weiss) Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? (Kim Brennan) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! 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Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Mike Pollock Subject: MCI WorldCom, Sprint Ponder a Merger as Talks Pick Up Speed Date: Fri, 24 Sep 1999 11:19:27 -0400 Organization: It's A Mike! The Wall Street Journal, September 24, 1999 MCI WorldCom Inc. and Sprint Corp. have been holding talks about a merger that would combine the nation's second- and third-largest long-distance carriers, though significant obstacles remain that could scuttle a deal, according to people familiar with the matter. Purchasing Sprint would finally bring MCI WorldCom, based in Clinton, Miss., a nationwide wireless network and boost its heft as the global telecommunications industry rapidly consolidates. The talks are continuing. Sprint alone is valued at nearly $40 billion, and its highly regarded wireless business, which it separated into its distinct PCS tracking stock, is valued at about $33 billion. But MCI WorldCom has a far higher valuation: about $151 billion, topping even market leader AT&T Corp.'s $140 billion valuation. Though Sprint has held discussions with a handful of telecommunications heavyweights, negotiations with MCI WorldCom have picked up recently. People familiar with the situation said that both sides have discussed a financial structure for a deal in which MCI WorldCom would acquire Sprint's core business for stock. MCI WorldCom also would exchange Sprint's existing tracking stock for a new WorldCom tracking stock. Under that structure, WorldCom's earnings wouldn't be hurt by continued losses in the still-growing wireless business, much like Sprint has isolated its core long-distance business on its balance sheet. That said, any deal for the main business of Sprint, outside observers said, would likely use so-called purchase accounting, which could hurt reported per-share results. But it wouldn't necessarily hurt so-called cash earnings per share, a measurement that is increasingly being used by acquirers. MCI WorldCom's chief executive, Bernard J. Ebbers, who built the company through a string of 60 acquisitions, has repeatedly shunned deals that would dilute earnings for his shareholders. No deal is imminent, however, and the talks could still falter. Earlier this year, MCI WorldCom engaged in serious negotiations to acquire Nextel Communications Inc., a pure wireless concern. Those discussions fell apart over price. MCI WorldCom and Sprint, based in Westwood, Kan., declined to comment. A deal between No. 2 long-distance firm MCI WorldCom and No. 3 Sprint would surely attract close scrutiny by regulators. Together, the companies would hold about 30% of the U.S. consumer long-distance market; AT&T holds about 60%. Still, industry observers and one person familiar with the regulatory issues said a combination probably wouldn't be blocked outright by regulators. The companies would likely argue a merger wouldn't preclude competition from others. Indeed, the nation's long-distance market has hundreds of entrants and has been open to competition for more than a decade. And it is widely expected that regional Bell operating companies will soon get permission to enter the long-distance market as well. Another possible stumbling block is the long-simmering dispute between Sprint and its Global One partners, France Telecom SA and Deutsche Telekom AG. But even though Sprint has struggled recently with the venture, neither Deutsche Telekom nor France Telecom, which each own 10% of Sprint, could block a deal with MCI WorldCom, said people familiar with the matter. Deutsche Telecom has held talks about increasing its stake in Sprint or buying the company outright, but the German phone company's interest has waned in recent weeks. Indeed, under the current terms of Global One's structure, neither Deutsche Telekom nor France Telecom has first rights of refusal along with their Sprint stakes. If a potential merger partner would arise, both companies would be treated like any other shareholder. Sprint probably would need to shed its Internet-backbone business as part of the deal, because MCI WorldCom already has such a business -- its UUNet division, which handles Internet traffic for American Online Inc. and many of the nation's largest Internet providers. When WorldCom acquired MCI Communications Inc. for over $40 billion in late 1997, it sold MCI's Internet business to Britain's Cable & Wireless PLC. It was almost exactly two years ago, on Oct. 1, 1997, when Mr. Ebbers stunned the telecommunications industry by launching the unsolicited bid for MCI. At the time MCI had accepted an offer from British Telecommunications PLC. Now it appears that Mr. Ebbers is ready for his next mega-acquisition. And after earlier this year dismissing talk of an inevitable sale of his company, some say William Esrey, Sprint's chairman, has seemed to warm to the idea lately. Sprint is the only major long-distance company that has stood on the sidelines during the recent wave of telecommunications mergers. Though Sprint has a fast-growing wireless unit and has generally delivered solid financial results to its shareholders, it has been unable to boost its 10% share of the U.S. consumer long-distance market. A few weeks ago, some Wall Street analysts voiced concerns over pricing pressure in the company's core long-distance business. Sprint had 1998 revenue of $17.13 billion and net income in its core operations of $1.53 billion. The wireless unit has seen rapid growth and now boasts more than four million subscribers, but it had a 1998 operating loss of $2.39 billion, excluding a one-time charge. Mr. Ebbers, meanwhile, has been increasingly under pressure to acquire a wireless presence as the use of cellular phones explodes. But he has maintained that MCI WorldCom's business hasn't been hurt by its lack of wireless assets. --Nicole Harris and John R. Wilke contributed to this article. Copyright 1999 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1999 15:04:38 PDT From: Stan Schwartz Reply-To: stannc@noispam.yahoo.com Subject: State Regulators Decide Charlotte Area Gets 10-D Dialing 'The Charlotte Observer' 9:30 a.m. Wednesday, Sept. 15, 1999 http://www.charlotte.com/0915areacode.htm By DAVID BORAKS Staff Writer Dialing a local phone call in the 704 area will require 10 digits beginning next year under an area code change announced this morning by state regulators. The N.C. Utilities Commission adopted a telephone industry proposal to add a second area code in the 704 zone, which stretches from Shelby on the west to Albemarle on the east, and from Statesville in the north to Charlotte and the S.C. border. Instead of dividing the area in two as in the past, a second area code will be added with the same geographic boundaries as the current zone, a practice known as an "overlay." The commission said an overlay was preferable to splitting the zone again geographically, which would have required at least half of the customers in the current 704 zone to change area codes. The new area code is needed because of rapid growth in the number of local phone lines across the region as the region grows, more homes add second lines, and the number of computer modem and fax lines grows, among other reasons. With two area codes in the same territory, callers would have to dial 10 digits - the area code plus a seven-digit number - to reach their neighbors or a nearby business, even if that number is also in the same area code. But 10-digit local calls would continue to be charged at local rates. Existing phone customers would get to keep their current numbers, but new numbers would use the new area code. That number has yet to be assigned. In adopting the overlay, the commission accepted a proposal by state telephone industry officials. Their proposal marked a turnaround from two years ago when the majority of local phone companies in North Carolina opposed an overlay, instead arguing in favor of splitting the state's three area codes into six. In meetings that began last December, industry officials considered splitting the 704 zone again but this time decided against it. The utilities commission held a public hearing in Charlotte in April, but only a handful of speakers turned out, and only two - a pair of Iredell County officials - spoke against the idea of an overlay. Overlay area codes and 10-digit local phone dialing are becoming increasingly common nationwide as rapid growth in telecommunications use exhausts the available numbers in existing area codes. In many places, geographic area code zones have shrunk so small that splitting them again hasn't made sense to regulators. Ten-digit dialing is increasingly common nationwide and is a fact of life in many big cities, including Atlanta, Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Philadelphia. It is also being considered in numerous other cities. Under federal telecommunications rules, whenever an "overlay" is adopted, 10-digit dialing of all calls is required, regardless of whether the number being dialed has the same area code. "There becomes a limit to how far you can split a code down.'' BellSouth spokesman Clifton Metcalf said in March, when the overlay was first proposed. Atlanta-based BellSouth Corp. is the state's largest local phone company. ``You can theoretically keep dividing it, down to the city level if you want. But is that really the most efficient way to do it?'' Splitting the zone in two would likely result in haggling over where to draw the lines, he said. One rejected proposal would have split the zone in two by drawing a new area code boundary around most of Mecklenburg County. That would have left the remainder of the current 704 zone, including Statesville, Concord, Shelby and Monroe, in a separate zone. One of the two new zones would have had to change its area code. And that would have proved costly and confusing, forcing businesses to buy new stationery and other printed materials. And it wouldn't avoid the 10-digit dialing issue. Those accustomed to making calls from outside into Mecklenburg County, or vice versa, would still have to dial the area code first. Meanwhile, some N.C. residents are growing accustomed to 10-digit dialing, thanks to the three new area codes adopted two years ago. In several cases, local calls cross area-code boundaries, requiring dialing of the area code, too. The 704 area code is expected to run out of new prefixes - the first three digits of a local phone number - early 2001. ------------------------------ From: ese002@news9.exile.org (Eric Edwards) Subject: Multiplexing Internal Wiring Date: 23 Sep 1999 22:23:51 GMT Organization: Engineers in Exile I recently tried to get a Covad DSL line installed to my apartment. Unfortunately, the installer discovered that there were no free pairs available between the wiring closet and my residence. Covad's Telesurfer service is based on SDSL, so I can't multiplex voice and DSL. However, between my roommate and myself, we currently have two voice lines. The roommate has already nixed the idea of sharing a voice line so I'm looking for a way to bring both lines into the apartment on a single pair. I've heard of DAMLs which do exactly that but only in the context of telco hardware. Are consumer DAMLs available for reasonable prices? Another idea that has come to mind is ISDN. Convert the two POTS lines to ISDN B channels. To do that, I'm going to need an ISDN adapter with two POTS jacks. Does such a device exist at a plausible price? Another issue is billing. One of the reasons my room mate nixed the shared line idea was that he wanted long distance charges clearly separated. Would this happen with two ISDN channels? This is Pac Bell land, if that helps. Any other ideas I should consider? Real courtesy requires human effort and understanding. Never let your machine or your habit send courtesy copies. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1999 21:05:47 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Floyd-Damaged Phone Service Restored In NJ, NY * FLOYD-DAMAGED PHONE SERVICE RESTORED IN NJ, NY http://www.andovernews.com/cgi-bin/news_story.pl?44822/topstories ------------------------------ Subject: AT&T Wireless Voicemail Down (Again) 9/24/1999 Organization: Excelsior Computer Services From: joel@exc.com (Dr. Joel M. Hoffman) Date: Fri, 24 Sep 1999 16:06:19 GMT At least in the Boston area, AT&T wireless voice mail is down, yet again. Sigh. It seems to be down more than it's up. Joel ------------------------------ From: larb0@aol.com (Bruce Larrabee) Date: 23 Sep 1999 03:41:47 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: LD Rate History I have a friend that is doing a college paper on the history of long distance rates -- especially since Judge Greene's divestiture rulings in 1984. Does anyone have suggestions for internet locations/URLs where some history may be accessible? Thanks ... Bruce Larrabee larb0@aol.com ------------------------------ From: Michi Kaifu Subject: Information Wanted on 'Billing College' Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1999 22:14:00 -0700 I am looking for a short introductory course of billing operations. I have found "Billing College" located in Teaneck, NJ and in London, on the web (www.billingcollege.com, jupiterdata.com). The contents and client list posted on the web look pretty good, but due to my inexperience in this field, I have never heard of them. Have anyone had any experience with this company, or heard any reputation? Is there any alternative idea for the billing operation course? I need to attend one by the end of November or so. I appreciate any input. Michi Kaifu ENOTECH Consulting michi@pop.net ------------------------------ From: Jose Ernesto Juan Vidal Subject: CAN Protocol Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1999 12:30:02 +0200 Organization: Telefonica Transmision de Datos Hi, I'm a telecommunications student and I would like to get some information about CAN Protocol ... some books or Internet directions. I need this for doing my project. Thank you very much. ------------------------------ From: colonel@monmouth.com (Colonel G.L. Sicherman) Subject: Cannot Hang Up Date: 23 Sep 1999 13:34:07 -0400 Organization: Kentucky Fried Fox The home phone line I use for computer work sometimes loses carrier but does not hang up. I've tried telling the modem to go on hook, disconnecting the modem, and even disconnecting the wall plug. Nothing seems to work; the data connection remains. Plugging a phone in instead of the modem doesn't help either. Eventually the connection breaks and dial tone returns, sometimes only after several hours. A N.J. Bell technician suggested that static electricity was building up on the line. Can anybody recommend how to get rid of it? My house has a new-style demarc, but this line is one of two old lines that terminate at a block in the basement. I don't see anything amiss there. Nothing changes, But nothing's the same.... Dance and love, Eat and fight At the DISCO, Disco Delight! Bob Burden, "Flaming Carrot Comics" Col. G. L. Sicherman home: colonel@mail.monmouth.com work: sicherman@lucent.com web: [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I've never heard it described as 'static electricity building up on the line' before. Let's try to isolate exactly what is causing the problem. The next time it happens, to go the place in the basement where the wires come in to your home from telco. Lift off the wires on your side for just a few seconds and replace them. If the line has disconnected properly and dial tone is present, then it is probably your problem to deal with. On the other hand, if the connection for your data service is still up and running, then it would seem to be a problem that telco needs to correct at their end. Assuming the connection is still up after you have removed the wires at the demarc for just a couple seconds and replaced them: Does this happen on ALL data calls or just some data calls? Does it ever happen on any voice calls? If only on data calls, when it happens is it always to the same number? ie, the number you dial for your ISP? Does it happen every time you call that number, or just sometimes when you call that number? Is there a certain time of day it always happens? For instance it never happens on a call to that number in the day but quite frequently happens on calls during late night/early morning hours. Pinning down information like the above will be good when you talk to telco. It may be that telco has a piece of central office equipment which is flaky. It may be that you 'land' on that trunk or piece of equipment from time to time. If the only time you call a number in that exchange (via the interoffice trunks in question) is when you make a data call to the same number over and over, then the only time it happens is when you make a data call to be sure, but it has nothing to do with your data call. You could theoretically make a voice call to the ISP in his office and have the same problem occur. So first, let's detirmine if it is telco's problem or your problem. If after lifting the wire pair at the demarc in the middle of this problem it does not go away, it is telco's problem and let's then begin trying to give telco some clues for places to begin looking. If on the other hand, the problem always clears once you lift that wire pair at the demarc, then the problem is on your side. But based on what you are saying about explicitly telling the modem to hang up, and swapping out telephones, jack wiring and so forth, it seems to me far more likely telco has the problem, not you. Sometimes telco inter-office trunks can be a real pain to figure out. Here is an example: a number of years ago -- long before computers and modems -- I would call a friend during the day with no hassles at all. If I called him before going to bed, such as 1 or 2 AM, there was *always* a problem. After dialing, there would just be silence and the call would go nowhere. I could dial over and over, and get the same problem of dead silence after dialing. I finally figured out that if I dialed on one line, got dead silence, kept the line on hold and dialed on my second line, I 'dialed around' the trouble and got through okay. I finally reached someone at telco in what was called 'night plant'; the guys who hang around and work on stuff in the overnight hours. He told me the next time it happened to keep the line on hold and call him directly on my other line. He said 'what I will do is walk back in the frames and trace your call and see what it is.' (When I say 'frames' that tells you how long ago it was; no 'frames' for years now). He called me back later to explain. The 'first selected trunk' in a group of several going from my central office to the called central office had gone bad. During the daytime, with high levels of traffic between the COs it was rare that anyone would actually land on the 'first selected' and most likely 'hunt' to the next available instead. When a caller did in fact land on the 'first selected' after a couple seconds of hearing nothing the caller would abandon it and dial over. Instantly on his release of the equipment there would be another seizure by someone else, and that person would experience the same situation. Meanwhile the first caller would dial again, and get 'send-around' the trouble by virtue of the second caller now getting stalled there. Then the second caller would abandon, another seizure would follow instantly, etc. So no one person ever consistently had the trouble often enough to be able to isolate exactly what it was. Then I would come along late at night when there was no interoffice traffic and as a result I would *always* hit the 'first selected' and always have trouble. I've seen ISPs who had similar problems. One modem in a bank of several had gone sour. Maybe it just needed a total reset or maybe it needed replacement. Woe to the customer dialing into the bank of modems who would hit that one time and again. But even if the ISP is the culprit in this case with a modem or phone line which has gone bad out of a bank of several, you'd think telco would see you had dropped the connection and disconnect. This is what leads me to think telco is guilty here, with some supervisory equipment on the trunk -- either in your central office or the distant one perhaps) -- which is messed up, and they are not seeing you hang up or drop the connection, or they are not seeing the ISP do it, or whatever. So once you have absolutely assured it is NOT your problem -- let's not get egg on our face here -- by seeing the problem continue after doing a separation at the demarc, then being able to tell some more intelligent and willing to help person at repair service that it always happens when you call number X which is located in central office Z and that it never happens at (time of day) but always happens at (other time of day), etc you will be well on your way to a cure. Do you have any meaningful 'isolation statistics' as of yet, or a grasp on the conditions under which the problem occurs? PAT] ------------------------------ From: Chris Petersen Subject: For Sale: Acculink Bandwidth Controllers Date: 23 Sep 1999 18:43:24 GMT Organization: APK Net I've got four AT&T Acculink Bandwidth Controllers for sale. (2) MB-T1-ATT (2) MB+CSU/DSX-2P These are Ascend MultiBand Plus units OEM'd for AT&T Paradyne. Originally used to mux incoming T1s or PRIs into data pipes and video conferencing pipes, but can be used in any form of bandwidth-limiting or splitting applications. More details on these units can be found at Ascend's multiband page: http://www.ascend.com/products/226.html Some pertinent details for these particular units: - Ascend Multiband Plus OEM'd for AT&T Paradyne - Dynamic Bandwidth Limiter / Multiplexer - Built-in CSU/DSUs on both ports - Designed for use in splitting incoming leased lines into multiple channels, for uses like Video Conferencing & Data, etc. - Features T1/Nx56 in, single or dual v.35/RS-449/RS-422/X.21 output - Drop & insert capabilities - v.25bis support for Video Conferencing applications - Support still available through Lucent Technologies Interested? Make an offer. UCL Workstations, Servers & Networks Email: havoc@apk.net ------------------------------ From: pete-weiss@psu.edu (Pete Weiss) Subject: Call Completeion, Customer Service: LD and 10-10xxx Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1999 15:50:27 -0400 Organization: Penn State University -- Office of Administrative Systems I've been looking thru the TELECOM Digest archives and other assorted links and can find no URL that would summarize experiences with call completions and customer service through 10-10 or 2nd+ tier carriers. Of course I'm hearing the war-stories right here, right now, but this tends to be ancedotal and not historical. Does the FCC or other third-party maintain such? /Pete ------------------------------ From: kim@aol.com (Kim Brennan) Date: 23 Sep 1999 20:31:04 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? > You should report the message to the host of the remove address > (i.e. "abuse@something.com"). Reputable places seem to have abuse@domain as a valid (and monitored) email address. But this is not guaranteed. For all spam I send to root@domain and postmaster@domain as well (none of which is guaranteed to go to anything other than /dev/null.) I finally got a response from Preview Travel today (after three years of spamming). In their case, neither abuse@previewtravel.com, nor root@previewtravel.com is valid. Other similar awful organizations are Northwest Airlines (nwa.com), TrendMicro (trendmicro.com) Ancestry (or Familyroots ... ancestry.com) and HotelResNetwork.com I'm not yet (but getting there fast) desparate enough to look up these folks ISP and get them to clam up. Kim Brennan (kim@aol.com) Duo 2300c, PB 2400, VW Fox Wagon GL, Corrado SLC, Vanagon GL Syncro http://members.aol.com/kim Duo Info Page: http://members.aol.com/kim/computer/duo ?'s should include "Duo" in subject, else they'll be deleted unread. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #428 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Sep 24 15:58:25 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id PAA08716; Fri, 24 Sep 1999 15:58:25 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 24 Sep 1999 15:58:25 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199909241958.PAA08716@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #429 TELECOM Digest Fri, 24 Sep 99 15:58:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 429 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: It Makes You Think (A Tale of WW2) (Gregory Edwards) Re: It Makes You Think (A Tale of WW2) (David Esan) Re: It Makes You Think (A Tale of WW2) (Andrew Emmerson) Re: It Makes You Think (A Tale of WW2) (wdag@my-deja.com) Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? (Michael D. Adams) Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? (Brett Frankenberger) Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? (EclectiJim) Re: Sprint Coverage (was Re: Sprint PCS Fraud) (Mike Fox) Re: Sprint Coverage (was Re: Sprint PCS Fraud) (Marty Bose) Re: Sprint Coverage (was Re: Sprint PCS Fraud) (John Nagle) Re: How Does Bigzoo Make a Profit? (Terry Kennedy) Earthlink Expanding (Steve Winter) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 24 Sep 1999 05:32:54 -0700 From: Gregory Edwards Subject: Re: It Makes You Think (A Tale of WW2) Organization: CRL Dialup Internet Access Pat, I don't think that this story is likely to be true. I think that most, if not all, the agents dropped into Holland during WWII were captured by the Nazi throughout the whole war. Greg Edwards ------------------------------ From: davidesan@my-deja.com (David Esan) Subject: Re: It Makes You Think (A Tale of WW2) Date: Fri, 24 Sep 1999 13:58:57 GMT Organization: Deja.com - Before you buy. In article , stanri@yahoo REMOVETHISPART.com (Stan U.) wrote: > A call from Holland to the United States in the middle of WW2? And by > cable ????? I always thought that the FIRST voice telephone cable > from the states to Europe was around 1952-53. Prior to that all > communications was by shortwave radio. > On Wed, 22 Sep 1999 18:31 +0100 (BST), midshires@cix.co.uk (Andrew > Emmerson) wrote: Did anyone notice where Andrew was posting from? Cix.co.uk. UK as in United Kingdom, as in just a few dozen miles from Holland. David Esan Veramark Technologies desan@veramark.com ------------------------------ From: midshires@cix.co.uk (Andrew Emmerson) Subject: Re: It Makes You Think (A Tale of WW2) Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1999 21:54 +0100 (BST) Organization: CIX - Compulink Information eXchange Reply-To: midshires@cix.co.uk In article , stanri@yahoo REMOVETHISPART.com (Stan U.) wrote: > A call from Holland to the United States in the middle of WW2? Sorry, I didn't make it clear (and perhaps you didn't see the .uk in my e-mail address). No, the call was to England. There were plenty of undersea cables between Britain and the Netherlands but even so, the official story is that they were disconnected during war time. Andrew Emmerson ------------------------------ From: wdag@my-deja.com (W.D.A. Geary) Subject: Re: It Makes You Think (A Tale of WW2) Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1999 21:57:22 GMT Organization: Deja.com - Share what you know. Learn what you don't. If you look at the Email domain of the story poster (.uk), it might make a wee bit more sense. Remember, the Internet is _really_ worldwide. W.D.A.Geary Wardenclyffe Microtechnology Time flies like an arrow, but fruit flies like a banana. ------------------------------ From: Michael D. Adams Subject: Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1999 18:26:51 -0400 Organization: Triskele Reply-To: mda@removethis.triskele.com On Thu, 23 Sep 1999 17:30:45 GMT, Barry Margolin wrote: > Has anyone actually proved this in court? Who are the spammers > stealing from and what are they stealing, disk space? In my case, they steal: 1. Bandwidth. My ISP (AT&T@Home) has a daily upload limit. Yes that limit is high enough that I'm never likely to reach it, but each piece of spam I get only increases the chances of my reaching that limit, and having to go netless for the rest of the day. 2. Disk space, for reasons more or less identical to the bandwidth argument. 3. Time. It takes time for me to delete spam. With some of the more clever forms of spam, it also takes me time to even identify that it is spam. Admittedly, all those have values that are difficult to calculate. However, there is one more, more tangible aspect of this theft. 4. Toll charges, sometimes. Not everyone has local net access all the time. A few years ago, the net was a long distance phone call for me. Email and USENET spam infuriated me, because I had to *pay* to download it, as I did not have an effective way to differentiate the good from the bad before downloading. That fourth one no longer normally applies to me. However, I do travel sometimes for work. > Spammers are just sending email, so if they're stealing then so > is every other email sender (you've never given me permission to > send you email -- if I had sent this message to you directly, would I > be guilty of theft?). That brings to mind one other possible argument for spam being illegal without a specific law to address the blight: Remember the Communications Decency Act of a few years ago? It had *one* (and only one) redeeming quality. It made it a federal crime to knowingly harass a person via the net. I submit that knowingly trying to hide your identity when sending mass quantities of spam is prima facie evidence that you *know* that the email you're sending out is not desired by your recipients, and is therefore tantamount to harassment. <*,*> Michael D. Adams, ACAS / mda at triskele.com [`-'] W Hartford, CT (41d46m N, 72d44m W) -"-"- http://www.triskele.com ------------------------------ From: brettf@netcom.com (Brett Frankenberger) Subject: Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? Date: 24 Sep 1999 01:16:31 GMT Organization: rbfnet In article , Joseph T. Adams wrote: > Barry Margolin wrote: >> It's still spam, it's just not illegal; however, there wasn't a >> federal law against spam in the first place, so it wasn't illegal >> before, either. > First and most fundamentally, spamming is theft, and theft is against > the law in all parts of the United States. Even if there were no laws > *specifically* outlawing spam, no such laws would be needed in order > for it to be illegal. In the USA, theft is a crime. Please show me one successful criminal prosection against a spammer for such "theft". The fact is: A lot of anti-spammers think it's theft, but legally, it's no more theft than sending of junk mail. *Nothing was Taken* and *No service was stolen*. > Second, there are in fact statutes that specifically outlaw spam in > many jurisdictions. Do you have a cite? Most anti-spam laws that I've seen generally only outlaw much more narrowly defined practices, such as sending mail with forged From: lines. > It is therefore the duty of governments to enforce the laws against > theft within their jurisdiction. But Spam is "theft" only with a convenient definition. Why is it not theft to send junk mail, but theft to send Spam? You're going to proably offer some line about costs, but the reality is: The costs of junk mail are shared: mostly on the sender (he pays the postage, but partly on the receiver (who buys and installs the mailbox, and who pays higher postage due to the fact that the existance of junk mail increases the average distance that a given piece of mail travels, because more junkmail is send from way-far-away than non-junkmail.) The costs of Spam are also shared: The sender needs bandwidth and a computer, the receiver needs bandwidth and a computer -- the receiver ends up eating more of the cost because the spam sits longer on his computer (or his ISP's computer, but he's paying for that). So, to argue that because Spam shifts more of the costs towards the recipient that it somehow becomes theft is an argument that any court is unlikely to buy. Put your money where your mouth is: Go get a court order ordering a state or the federal government to prosecute criminally a spammer. I suspect that you'll find that the courts don't think there is any such duty. > The fact that there may not be a statute *specifically* definining > spam to be theft, or otherwise illegal, also is irrelevant. It is > covered by the laws against theft generally. To illustrate by > example, there are probably no laws against siphoning antifreeze out > of cars in most States. Taking antifreeze is theft because you are taking something I own. I previosuly had antifreeze, now I don't. When you spam me, what did I have before that I no longer have? (And how come when you send me a personal E-Mail that is not spam, that's not theft by the same logic. Especially if I didn't specifically ask you to send me the E-Mail.) Again: No court has ever ruled that Spam is criminal theft. You may have have a different opinion, but under the rule of law in the USoA, the courts get the last word. Another example: By your logic, violation copyright law could be considered theft, but, in fact, it's not. I can make all the pirated copies of software that I want, and they can't touch me for theft. That's why they created a separate law to cover copyright violation. > It is nonetheless illegal, not only as a > theft, but possibly under other statutes as well, such as those > against tampering with property or against rendering the property of > any person into a dangerous state that could cause injury or loss of > property. Can you come up with an interpretation that would cover spam but not cover junk mail or telephone solicitation or E-Mail that is not spam but what not specifically solicited? > So not only is it not correct to say that "spam is not illegal," it is > probably exactly opposite of the truth. Spam is illegal in all parts > of the United States, and probably in other jurisdictions with similar > legal systems as well. Then why hasn't the anti-spam movement been able to secure even a single successful criminal prosecution for spam? -- Brett ------------------------------ From: eclectijim@aol.comnsp (EclectiJim) Date: 24 Sep 1999 00:49:43 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? > (c) I am not, thankfully, nor do I wish to be, a lawyer. I think we could change that "thankfully" to "obviously" ... Big Brothers (Guv, Biz & Labor) are watching you ... ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1999 15:16:26 -0400 From: Mike Fox Organization: not organized! Subject: Re: Sprint Coverage (was Re: Sprint PCS Fraud) Arthur Ross wrote: > Or is the problem system capacity? > No coverage in the middle of Si Valley doesn't, on the face of it, > sound like something any halfway self-respecting provider could be > dumb enough to tolerate. A full-up system in those same areas would > seem the more likely explanation. Well, remember that Sprint PCS uses CDMA technology, which if you listen to the hype is supposed to have much more capacity and spectral efficiency than TDMA-based systems like GSM, etc. So if Sprint's system is full-up and their competitors aren't, then there's still something wrong here, either with the claims made for CDMA or with the way Sprint has implemented their network. > My experience, BTW, with Sprint coverage in Manhattan (daughter's > phone) has been rather good -- no complaints -- but then again I am > rather favorably inclined toward the technology. That doesn't surprise me, from what I've read on cellular and Sprint newsgroups, the quality of Sprint coverage varies wildly by market, with Southern California being one of the worst. Mike "We're not against ideas. We're against people spreading them." (General Augusto Pinochet of Chile) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1999 21:55:10 -0800 From: Marty Bose Subject: Re: Sprint Coverage (was Re: Sprint PCS Fraud) >> Their big problem is poor coverage. It takes a huge number of >> cell sites to provide coverage in a band that's basically line of >> sight plus reflections. And Sprint just doesn't have them. There are >> many dead spots in their "coverage area". And not in obscure places, >> either. Coverage in Silicon Valley is spotty; parts of Palo Alto and >> Stanford are out of range, even though that's flat ground. In LA, I >> was suprised to find a dead spot near Melrose at the edge of Beverley >> Hills, probably one of the world's leading cell-phone use areas. >> Again, this is flat territory, with line of sight all the way to >> downtown LA and the Hollywood hills. Not my territory, but I'll bet that the Beverly Hills types put up a big fight against more unsightly antennas. I do know that the San Francisco people sure did. > Your story makes it sound so bad as to make me wonder if you have the > cause right. Are you really talking about signal quality (the little > bars on the phone display -- a combination of strength and error rate > on the phones I'm familiar with)? Or is the problem system capacity? > No coverage in the middle of Si Valley doesn't, on the face of it, > sound like something any halfway self-respecting provider could be > dumb enough to tolerate. A full-up system in those same areas would > seem the more likely explanation. The problem is usually one of finding acceptable sites that will provide good coverage. Not surprisingly, the best sites are right in the middle of where the people are, but they don't want to see them! Capacity is cured by spending money, which while an uphill battle usually happens, because the sales guys can't risk having people complain about uncompleted calls. > ... one would hope that some consciencious Sprint defense-person will > rise to the occasion here & provide an authoritative explanation/excuse! Having been a Project Manager for the Sprint build-out in the greater Bay Area, I can tell you that you have no idea how pig-headed some jurisdictions can be about allowing cell sites to be built. This isn't to say they aren't justified in many cases, but when they try to apply rules developed for 800 mHz carriers to 1900 mHz ones, some truly poor coverage can result. Marty A relevant signature is an oxymoron. ------------------------------ From: nagle@netcom.com (John Nagle) Subject: Re: Sprint Coverage (was Re: Sprint PCS Fraud) Date: 24 Sep 1999 06:07:36 GMT Organization: Netcom Arthur Ross writes: > John Nagle wrote: >> Their big problem is poor coverage. It takes a huge number of >> cell sites to provide coverage in a band that's basically line of >> sight plus reflections. And Sprint just doesn't have them. There are >> many dead spots in their "coverage area". And not in obscure places, >> either. Coverage in Silicon Valley is spotty; parts of Palo Alto and >> Stanford are out of range, even though that's flat ground. In LA, I >> was suprised to find a dead spot near Melrose at the edge of Beverley >> Hills, probably one of the world's leading cell-phone use areas. >> Again, this is flat territory, with line of sight all the way to >> downtown LA and the Hollywood hills. > Your story makes it sound so bad as to make me wonder if you have the > cause right. Are you really talking about signal quality (the little > bars on the phone display -- a combination of strength and error rate > on the phones I'm familiar with)? Or is the problem system capacity? I'm talking about signal quality. The problem, I suspect, is trees. Gigahertz radio doesn't penetrate foliage well. Palo Alto has lots of trees. I get marginal reception at home, even though there's a 12-story building with a Sprint PCS site site one mile away. Also, for some reason, Sprint PCS coverage on the Stanford campus is spotty, even though other vendors have sizable cell sites on campus. Sprint claims total coverage east of Interstate 280 to the bay, so they should have the entire Stanford campus. They don't. Embarassingly, there are dead areas with line of sight to cell sites of other vendors. (The end of Electioneer Road, for example.) One totally dead area is right next to the KZSU antenna farm, where some other cellular vendors have sites. That site, though, is about 1000 feet from, and visible from, a large radio telescope, one of the world's larger steerable dishes. It may be that the radio telescope people didn't want a gigahertz spread-spectrum transmitter in the immediate neighborhood. Ordinary FM AMPS is easier to recognize and filter out. > No coverage in the middle of Si Valley doesn't, on the face of it, > sound like something any halfway self-respecting provider could be > dumb enough to tolerate. A full-up system in those same areas would > seem the more likely explanation. > ... one would hope that some consciencious Sprint defense-person will > rise to the occasion here & provide an authoritative > explanation/excuse! > My experience, BTW, with Sprint coverage in Manhattan (daughter's > phone) has been rather good -- no complaints -- but then again I am > rather favorably inclined toward the technology. Manhattan is the best case for spread-spectrum gigahertz radio. Lots of nice reflective buildings, few hills, few trees, and a population density so high that ample cell sites are justified. The great advantage of the spread-spectrum systems is that high cell site density works fine, unlike AMPS. John Nagle ------------------------------ From: Terry Kennedy Subject: Re: How Does Bigzoo Make a Profit? Organization: St. Peter's College, US Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1999 21:28:12 GMT Ron Walter writes: > It's not that hard really to make a profit. Most of these calling > card vendors have no labor involved except in the distribution and > marketing side of getting the cards out. They have automated switches > that perform all of the functions with little or no maintenance or > intervention needed. For a high volume, you can get T1 access for > four cents per minute or better each way. So if cost is eight cents, > how do they make money? Keep in mind the average long distance call > is only three minutes, even on the calling cards. I was chatting to a fellow who owns one of these calling card businesses (he's a few cabinets over from me in a major NYC colocation site). As we were in very different businesses, we talked openly about income/profit ratios and equipment costs. He tells me that his average month's income is in the $3M to $4M range and that his actual profit out of it is about $10K/ month. That's after paying his phone bills, equipment costs, and two customer service folks. Apparently his market is people calling to undeveloped/under-developed countries, and he winds up eating the terminating charges for un-connectable calls (apparently there's a high percentage of calls that just go dead once they get to countries like Nigeria, but he has to pay for the minutes he uses to get them there). I believe he said he was using AT&T as his main international carrier. I know he said he didn't charge his customers for uncompleted calls. So I suspect the amount of money you can make depends a lot on how badly you're willing to treat your customers, what countries you'll support calling to, and how long you can defer paying your bills. Terry Kennedy Operations Manager, Academic Computing terry@spcvxa.spc.edu St. Peter's College, Jersey City, NJ USA +1 201 915 9381 (voice) +1 201 435-3662 (FAX) ------------------------------ From: steve@sellcom.com (Steve Winter) Subject: Earthlink Expanding Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1999 19:06:48 -0400 Organization: WWW.SELLCOM.COM Reply-To: steve@sellcom.com Looks like Earthlink just swallowed Mindspring which just swallowed Netcom ... [insert classic aquatic dining image of big fish middle sized fish small fish etc ...] Steve http://www.sellcom.com Cyclades Siemens EnGenius Zoom at discount prices. SSL Secure VISA/MC/AMEX Online ordering Listed at http://www.thepubliceye.com as SELLCOM New Brick Wall "non-MOV" surge protection ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #429 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Sep 24 19:03:04 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id TAA15957; Fri, 24 Sep 1999 19:03:04 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 24 Sep 1999 19:03:04 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199909242303.TAA15957@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #430 TELECOM Digest Fri, 24 Sep 99 19:03:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 430 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Is the '.gif tax' Thing Starting All Over Again? (TELECOM Digest Editor) Apparently bigzoo.com is Out of Business (Babu Mengelepouti) 7D/10D in the Old Days (Ed Ellers) Re: Floyd/NJ Telecom Problems - More Info! (Joseph T. Adams) Re: Sermporn's Telecom Digest is Dead (Bruce Wilson) Re: Sprint PCS Fraud (Bruce Wilson) MCI/SPRINT Merger? (David Esan) Re: Stopping Unsolicited Fax Spam (John R. Levine) Microsoft GSM Files (Pat Noziska) Re: Working Assets Long Distance? (Jonathan Loo) Re: AOL Networking Versus Internet Networking Paradigm (Jonathan Loo) Re: AOL Networking Versus Internet Networking Paradigm (Barry Margolin) Re: AOL Networking Versus Internet Networking Paradigm (Steven J. Sobol) Last Laugh! [cough cough hack] Better Check That V-Mail System (Burstein) One More Laugh! Payphone Survives .45 (Mark Earle) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 24 Sep 1999 13:24:57 EDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Is the '.gif tax' Thing Starting All Over Again? On one of my occassional forages through the net a couple days ago I found an interesting item at http://www.TOURBUS.com that I thought readers would like to know about. If this is true, it is sure to generate a tremendous amount of ill will for Unisys, and second, it's just one more example of big corporations stomping all over net traditions, and third, I thought maybe you'd want to know about this in case you'd at least like to use some other graphics format besides .gif for any web sites you may maintain or plan on starting. I'm not changing any of my existing graphics on any of my web pages until someone makes a demand (the longer I wait, the more browsers will be compatible with .png), but I think any new graphics I may add will be in something other than .gif. I wonder if anyone will actually be stupid enough to pay Unisys when there are better graphics storage formats available. It appears that the .png format mentioned in the article is far more space-efficient than .gif anyway, I saw a 102,059 byte .gif shrink to a 65,509 byte .png in one test, and with a larger file, a 1,934,166 byte .gif shrank to 1,577,051 bytes when converted to .png. I had *thought* this was over and done with a few years ago when it first came up in discussions on Compuserve. Maybe not. You can see what you think. PAT ----------------------- Message-ID: Date: Tue, 7 Sep 1999 20:36:42 -0400 Reply-To: TOURBUS-Request@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Sender: The Internet TourBus - A virtual tour of cyberspace From: Bob Rankin Subject: TOURBUS - 07 Sep 99 - GIF Tax? To: TOURBUS@LISTSERV.AOL.COM / \ / \ / \ \___/ \___/ T h e I n t e r n e t T o u r B u s \___/ Free Greeting Cards, Polls and more fun at http://www.TOURBUS.com ! TODAY'S TOURBUS TOPIC: GIF Tax? Hi All! This past week, some Tourbus readers have been asking me if it's really true that some company wants to charge people a fee for using graphics on their websites. Hoax or true? ===================================== UNISYS WANTS YOUR MONEY - PART DEUX ===================================== If you've been on the Bus for a while, you'll remember my article "Bad Patents" (30 Aug 98) which described how technology companies are being awarded some pretty silly patents. In that story, I touched on the 1994 situation where UNISYS tried to extract a licensing fee from developers wanting to use the ubiquitous GIF graphics file format. A bit of background... Almost all images on web pages are in either JPEG or GIF format. And UNISYS owns the patent on the compression algorithm used by software packages that create GIF images. Five years ago when they saw the proliferation of GIFs on the burgeoning Web, the bean counters at UNISYS figured there was a big ol' pile of money to made by putting the squeeze on software developers who wanted to write programs that create or manipulate GIF images. To put it mildly, UNISYS was harshly criticized from all corners, and was forced to back down. They must have *just* finished wiping the egg off their corporate face, because they're at it again... One GIF - That'll be $5000, Please But this time, they're going after webmasters. As incredible as it sounds, UNISYS is demanding payment of $5000 if you use even one GIF image on your website that was created by an "unlicensed" program. Did somebody say McStupid? UNISYS has all but guaranteed itself a prominent place in the hall of fame of most-hated corporations. Hundreds of thousands of people will remember the nuisance UNISYS caused by forcing them to replace all their GIF images, and these same tech-savvy people will surely remember not to buy UNISYS products. And you SHOULD replace your GIFs - because nobody in their right mind would pay for the privilege of using outdated, patented technology when there are free alternatives that are even better. Unless you know for sure that all your GIFs were created by a UNISYS-licensed program, you should convert your images to JPEG format, or use the up and coming... PNG! PNG stands for Portable Network Graphics, and is a new image format that uses a powerful and free compression technique. Both Netscape and Explorer support the PNG format (pronounced "ping") in V4 and higher releases. And here's a nifty site that'll tell you everything you need to know about PNG files, including how to create and use them, and how to convert other files to PNG format. http://graphicswiz.com/png Unfortunately, PNG files cannot replace animated GIFs, but there is a MNG format that supports animation. Hopefully the MNG format will be supported soon in Netscape and Explorer. What Should I Do? If you don't have a web page and you never will, none of this applies to you. You can view patent-infringing GIF files all day long with your web browser of choice, and nobody will care. It's not likely that a UNISYS lawyer will come knocking if you're running a small site or personal web page. So the first option is to do nothing. If they DO contact you, that would be a perfect time to tell them that you've just decided to "upgrade" your site to the PNG format, and you'll be chucking all those obsolete GIFs anyway. It makes sense to start converting all your GIFs to PNG format, since PNG files are smaller and will make your site load faster. But if you can't live without GIFs, and you don't want to pay the $5000 GIF Tax, you can get a graphics program that is officially licensed and then re-save all your "illegal" GIFs. If your graphics software is made by Microsoft, Corel, Symantec, JASC, Adobe, Claris, or a handful of other companies, you can PROBABLY make legal GIFs. To see the official UNISYS press release, and a list of companies that are licensed to use the UNISYS patent, go to: http://corp2.unisys.com/LeadStory/lzw-license.html What about flaming UNISYS? My suggestion - don't bother. They are their own punishment. This GIF licensing decision will cost them millions in the long run. I like the advice of the folks who run the "Burn All GIFs" site: >> Switch to a non-patented graphics format, burn your GIFs to call >> attention to the fact that you're doing so, and avoid patent >> minefields in the future. To learn more about this issue, and exactly what the "Burn All GIFs" people are up to, you can visit: http://BurnAllGIFs.org Visit the TOURBUS Website! Don't forget we have over FOUR YEARS of archived TOURBUS issues available at the TOURBUS website. You'll also find the archives of "Tourbus en Espanol" dating back to March 1997, Free Greeting Cards, the Patrick's Face Poll, and Warp The Busdrivers. What could be more fun? :-) http://www.TOURBUS.com That's all for now - see you next time! --Bob Rankin =====================[ Tourbus Rider Information ]=================== The Internet Tourbus - U.S. Library of Congress ISSN #1094-2238 Copyright 1995-99, Rankin & Crispen - All rights reserved -------------------------------- [Back to PAT at telecom: So, you oldtimers who remember the big stink about this back in the early 1990's, please bring us all up to date. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 24 Sep 1999 12:28:19 -0700 From: Babu Mengelepouti Reply-To: dialtone@vcn.bc.ca Organization: US Secret Service Subject: Apparetnly bigzoo.com is Out of Business It would appear as though bigzoo.com may not have been making money after all. http://www.bigzoo.com/ has the following message posted as of yesterday: ---cut here--- 23 September 1999, 4:30pm PST Attention Valued Customer: Due to the tremendous growth which BigZoo.com has experienced over the past two months, we find ourselves in need of a major reconfiguration of our system. As a result, BigZoo.com is currently unable to process your calls. This is a temporary matter, and our technical staff is working feverishly to return our service to you. We understand how important our service can be to your daily lives, yet we ask for your patience as we work to restore our service to you, our loyal customers. We expect this process to be completed shortly. We will post notice of any status updates here, on our site. With apologies, BigZoo.com Tech Support ---cut here--- It will be interesting to see if the service comes back up. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yes, it will be interesting to see if they return to service anytime soon. A couple of you presented some interesting ideas on how they might have been making money while handing both the inbound via 800 and outbound side of long distance calls, all for 3.9 cents per minute, but it would seem things were not quite as well under control as they had hoped for. I suggested they might have been making money at the expense of someone else's money, ie. stalling their vendors, etc. Time will tell. I wonder how guys who gave them any money now go about getting back any left over funds in their account, or if it would be better just to forget about that part of it? PAT] ------------------------------ From: Ed Ellers Subject: 7D/10D In the Old Days Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1999 23:14:24 -0400 PAT, the TELECOM Digest Editor, noted in reply: > For quite a long time in the Chicago area, until maybe fifteen or > twenty years ago, we did not dial '1' for anything, local, long-distance > or 'local toll'. Just dial the seven or ten digits. Am I the only one who remembers that AT&T's original preferred plan for DDD was for all calls within an area code to be dialed with seven digits, and all calls between NPAs to be dialed with ten, without prepending anything? The 1+ scheme only came in when AT&T decided to develop the 0+ system for direct-dialing operator-assisted calls, even though that didn't go into actual use in most places until *long* after 1+ became the rule in most areas. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Since in those long ago days the prefixes in one area code *never* were duplicated in adjacent area codes (that is, Indiana's 219 area had 931,932,933 for example and these were deliberatly unused in Illinois' 312 area) it was even possible and quite common to have 'community dialing' across state lines without requiring a '1' or an area code to flag the call for going one way or another. They simply relied on the second digit dialed either being 0/1 or not being 0/1. If it was, then eight more digits were to follow. Then when they began using '1' only for area codes Illinois Bell stated its purpose as "this tells your local central office to give you a 'free ride' to the AT&T toll switcher on Canal Street in downtown Chicago, and your call is processed further from there." Where community dialing (i.e. seven digit) dialing across state lines was concerned, eventually Hammond, Indiana lost its ability to seven-digit Calumet City/Lansing/Burnham, Illinois and Whiting, Indiana lost its ability to seven-digit the Chicago-SouthChicago CO.` But, far north Antioch, Illinois retained its ability to seven- digit 'the other side of town' which was North Antioch, Wisconsin. The one day the 414 prefix for North Antioch showed up as a 312 prefix for Blue Island, Illinois, some distance south. The solution offered was the Antioch kept its seven digit arrangement with North Antioch, but had to dial '1' in front of anything else they wanted to call in their own 312 (and now 708). Antioch and North Antioch were peculiar; you could reach either of them doing 312 plus the number or 414 plus the number; ditto with directory assist- ance, whichever 'side' you called with 555-1212 would quote Antioch/ North Antioch with 'their' area code. That was all years ago. Much the same situation took place with Beloit, Wisconsin and South Beloit, Illinois which was (and still is) technically in 815. There was absolutely no rhyme nor reason for the use of '1' regards it meaning a toll-call or whatever. Maybe it did, and maybe it did not. All that could be said about it was that it served as a 'flag' for routing purposes, to enable traditional seven-digits to be used in communities where area code boundaries otherwise would have required ten digits. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Joseph T. Adams Subject: Re: Floyd/NJ Telecom Problems - More Info! Date: 24 Sep 1999 11:48:00 GMT Organization: Quality Data Division of JTAE Cortland Richmond wrote: > 911 and telephone outage is one of the things emergency organizations > practice for. When 911 between police and fire went out in Irvine, CA > we posted RACES (Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service) members from > our club at major shopping centers, libraries, senior centers etc. and > at each fire station, in orderfor citizens to contact public safety > agencies. Later we particpated in an ad-hoc dispatch center at a > central fire station. Is this standard practice throughout the country? And are people being made aware of this practice? I for one was not previously aware of it. Probably a good idea, but it would be an even better idea if people knew about it. For something like Y2K, for instance, panic, looting, etc. are likely to be more significant threats than the actual system failures themselves -- which are likely to be very short-lived -- and if people knew that emergency assistance would be as close as XYZ Shopping Center if necessary and that emergency personnel (including if necessary military, citizens' groups, etc.) would do their best to maintain safety and order during that time, they would be more likely to behave rationally. Joe ------------------------------ From: blw1540@aol.comxxnospam (Bruce Wilson) Date: 24 Sep 1999 11:49:12 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: Sermporn's Telecom Digest is Dead > A contact today quoted someone at Bell Atlantic who did not want his > email address or name used saying that they had been 'looking into > the problem' of the 'other Telecom Digest' with their contacts in > Thailand. Also today I received a message in email from Sermporn > himself stating that 'to avoid further confusion, his web site was > being discontinued, and he hoped that would bring the matter to an > end. It appears at this writing that the site is in fact gone. As of a few minutes ago, the only aspect of it that was gone was the default to the home page. (I.e., there's no index.html file.) Accessing the url gets you a "raw" directory; and selecting the appropriate html file gets you the home page display. Bruce Wilson [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: He renamed 'index.html' to 'index2.html' as a matter of fact in order to circumvent visiting browsers from just dropping in as before. Any directory lacking an 'index.html' will cause a visiting browser to just provide the directory itself and let you, the visitor decide what to do next. Personally, I think that poses some security risks. He is probably going to rebuild his site and present it in some other way. I certainly would never demand that all his pages be destroyed and his alias get cut off ... that would not be right either. I'd say give him some time to decide what he wants to do next with it. PAT] ------------------------------ From: blw1540@aol.comxxnospam (Bruce Wilson) Date: 24 Sep 1999 11:53:27 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: Sprint PCS Fraud > Apparently, Sprint PCS has dissatisfied many customers, and one > customer was so upset by Sprint's fraud, lies, and poor service that > he established a website detailing numerous problems. It is located > at http://www.theworst.com, and is a good reference for anyone > considering service with Sprint PCS. As of a few minutes ago, I got the message that this was an unknown host when I tried to access it, using the url above. >[TELECOM Digest Editor's note: Thanks for passing this information >along. I would also call readers' attention to another site they >may find interesting, http://usworst.com which discusses in some- >what frank detail the inner workings at US West. PAT] Why does usworst.com require one to sign up as a member before getting access to anything? Bruce Wilson [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: What I heard at one point, which may be true or not true, is that the site operated openly for quite some time. The proprietor or webmaster was subjected to some rather heavy and extreme pressure by US West to close it down. His claim was that US West was 'sending spies in to check out his site, pretending to be disgruntled employees of US West'. These 'spies' were then harvesting names and email addresses of his regular users and matching them up to personnell records, whence the employees discovered as users were getting fired. I get the impression a large part of the user base at usworst.com consists of employees of US West, some of whom have inside knowledge of certain aspects of the company's affairs which are, if they are to be believed, rather disgraceful. The usworst.com site was mentioned in a 'tutorial' given at another site which teaches big corporations how to 'fight back against netizens who slander them.' That site explains to corporate attornies how to 'uncover netizens who post slanderous attacks and then try to hide behind an obscure email name.' It teaches the attornies how to use services like Deja News to run author profiles; how to use 'finger' at sites where finger inquiries are accepted from off (their own) net and how to use the results of the fingering, author profiling, and services like switchboard.com or Sam Spade to 'find where the netizen is hiding at so you can silence or neutralize them however necessary ...' So apparently, the 'spies' from US West were going on usworst.com and after due diligence finding out which of their employees were being 'traitors' to the company. The tutorial mentioned above cited usworst.com as an example of 'a web site that a major corporation has tried without success to shut down for a long time.' According to the tutorial, 'it usually is easy to close down a web site which opposes your company's products or practices by using the techniques described to get a physical location for the netizen so that you can sue them or otherwise reason with the person responsible ...' but that usworst.com had been unusually persistent and difficult to get rid of'. At some point, usworst.com closed its doors to the public. Now if you wish to use it, the person who runs it puts you through a third-degree and investigates *you* to see if you are the innocent victim of US West you claim to be (in which case, welcome) or if you are trying to get access to the site in order to find out his sources for inside information about the company. I think he uses document-referrer to deny even a look at his passworded home page if he sees you coming from a US West corporate location. According to the tutorial for corporate attornies I mentioned, "most netizens will be very frightened when someone comes to their door and hands them legal service demanding that they cease and desist posting messages about your company on Usenet or on their web site. Most will stop immediatly or take down their web page. It is important that you make sure the netizen knows that *you know* their home address and perhaps even where they work, so there is no misunderstanding that you intend to stop them from defaming or harassing your company." I guess they really are starting to take notice of us, aren't they? PAT] ------------------------------ From: davidesan@my-deja.com (David Esan) Subject: MCI/SPRINT Merger? Date: Fri, 24 Sep 1999 11:55:51 GMT Organization: Deja.com - Before you buy. MCI and Sprint have had tenative merger talks. Details can be found at: www.cnnfn.com/1999/09/24/worldbiz/mci_sprint McSprint? David Esan Veramark Technologies desan@veramark.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 24 Sep 1999 10:19:45 EDT From: John R Levine Subject: Re: Stopping Unsolicited Fax Spam >> Nobody who wrote indicated they had personally collected on a claim >> for receiving unsolicited faxes. Visit http://www.junkfaxes.org/ which is a fine resource for people who want to sue junk faxers. It has lots of reports of people who've won or favorably settled junk fax suits. Regards, John Levine, johnl@iecc.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies", Information Superhighwayman wanna-be, http://iecc.com/johnl, Sewer Commissioner Finger for PGP key, f'print = 3A 5B D0 3F D9 A0 6A A4 2D AC 1E 9E A6 36 A3 47 ------------------------------ From: Pat Noziska Subject: Microsoft GSM Files Date: Fri, 24 Sep 1999 10:48:19 -0700 Organization: Aracnet Internet TO REPLY, REMOVE ALL UNDERSCORES (_) FROM MY EMAIL NAME....(NO SPAM) :-) .... this may be an FAQ, but I can't find info on it ... It appears that GSM frames in a Microsoft GSM 6.10 .WAV file is different than "garden variety" GSM frames ... for example, they do not appear to lead with a 0xD for a magic number, as I see in GSM frames coming from non-Microsoft GSM codecs ... and I don't see any particular leader or trailer bytes, as I see in GSM speech coming from USRobotics voice modems. Does this ring a bell for anyone? Am I misinterpreting the Microsoft GSM data (perhaps a byte-swapping problem)? Does anyone know where I can get information on the Microsoft GSM codec and whether it differs from code produced from other GSM codecs? My goal is to take raw GSM speech and package them into a Micro$oft GSM .WAV file. Thanks, Pat ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 24 Sep 1999 14:24:17 EDT From: Jonathan Loo Subject: Re: Working Assets Long Distance? In article was written: > As can be inferred from the name, their causes have a decidedly > leftist slant to them. Which is probably the main reason I don't use > them. True. I don't use them because I disagree with one of the causes they donate to. If I use them then I can "vote" but my "vote" is one against many. > I have not heard any complaints about the technical quality of SPRINT, > and had heard (from Linc Madison) that their LD line quality was > generally superior to AT&T or MCI. That was many years ago, though. A long time ago, I read somewhere -- on this Digest, maybe? -- that AT&T, MCI, and Sprint rent circuits from each other, so when you dial a long distance call, then any one of the three carriers may carry it, regardless of who you pay the bill to. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I do not know how true it is today, but for many years back in in the 1980's, AT&T and MCI were each other's largest customer. Despite trading with each other to the extent of millions of dollars per month in sales, they would fight with each other, sue each other, slander each other, etc. Remember that for many years prior to divestiture and for a few years after divestiture, AT&T was still the owner of all or most of the physical plant. I suppose for the first fifteen years of its existence, MCI mostly resold AT&T as did Sprint. Then for awhile Sprint mostly resold MCI until they got their own facilities in place. At the time of the huge fire at the Illinois Bell Hinsdale office in May, 1988, both MCI and Sprint cut deals with AT&T to handle its traffic congestion trying to get around Hinsdale to elsewhere. I think now in the past few years the 'circuits' are pretty carrier specific, and who you pay is who you get. It was sort of funny watching them at times in the 1980s because one day, either one of them which got offended would run and tattle to the FCC and point its finger at the other one as the cause of everything that was wrong in the world, and try to get the other one punished. Or they would continually get Judge Greene involved. But then maybe the next day they found they had a 'common concern' ie, a common enemy in the form of cableco or similar, and they were best of friends while telling the FCC something else. Now we do not see the Big Three constantly litigating with each other as they did in earlier times. I think we will see the MCI/Sprint merger take place and then in a few years a merger between MCI and AT&T. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 24 Sep 1999 14:30:58 EDT From: Jonathan Loo Subject: Re: AOL Networking Versus Internet Networking Paradigm Organization: University of Maryland University College I did traceroute from a local tier-1 ISP to one of aol's mailservers. The first node outside the local ISP was part of atdn.net which is registered to America Online. The rest of the hops were aol.com machines. From this I would conclude that AOL is a tier-1 provider. It is not necessarily wasteful to be a tier-1 provider. Being tier-1 allows you to optimize network reliability and utilization. ------------------------------ From: Barry Margolin Subject: Re: AOL Networking Versus Internet Networking Paradigm Organization: GTE Internetworking, Cambridge, MA Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1999 22:31:51 GMT In article , John R. Levine wrote: > So at this point I expect that AOL buys their long haul network > connections from uunet like many other ISPs, large and small. I don't > know to what extent AOL uses dedicated dialup pools and to what extent > they use uunet's rent-a-POP pools. AOL's dialup pools are their own. They contract with several vendors, including us, to install thousands of modems a month for them. Our deal with them allows us to use a portion of the phone lines for our own customers as well, although I think we're moving away from that because the capacity isn't enough for our needs. Barry Margolin, barmar@bbnplanet.com GTE Internetworking, Powered by BBN, Burlington, MA *** DON'T SEND TECHNICAL QUESTIONS DIRECTLY TO ME, post them to newsgroups. Please DON'T copy followups to me -- I'll assume it wasn't posted to the group. ------------------------------ From: sjsobol@JustThe.Net (Steven J Sobol) Subject: Re: AOL Networking Versus Internet Networking Paradigm Date: 24 Sep 1999 00:33:01 GMT Organization: North Shore Technologies Corp. 888.480.4NET On 23 Sep 1999 11:46:57 -0400, johnl@iecc.com allegedly said: > So at this point I expect that AOL buys their long haul network > connections from uunet like many other ISPs, large and small. I don't > know to what extent AOL uses dedicated dialup pools and to what extent > they use uunet's rent-a-POP pools. When I connect somewhere from an AOL account using their dialups the ip address always resolves to *.ipt.aol.com, and when I'm on services like IRC doing a /whois on an AOL member they are always logged on from *.ipt.aol.com, so I assume that most of AOL's dialups are dedicated. North Shore Technologies JustTheNet Dialup Internet Access Cleveland, Akron, Canton, Geauga Co., Lake Co., Portage Co., Lorain Co., OH Nationwide Access coming soon! Watch this space for details or dial 1.888.480.4NET for more info! ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 24 Sep 1999 16:10:11 EDT From: Danny Burstein Subject: Last Laugh! [cough cough hack] Better Check That V-mail System I don't know if this is a hack, someone else's sysetem that they're pretending belongs to B&W, or really their own. The msg was still up at 2 this afternoon, so who knows? Sure sounds like someone hacked B&W's voice-mail ... presumably they'll fix it shortly ... but if you get the spoof msg, it's well worth the attempt. There is an astonishing initial recording on the customer service line for Brown & Williamson, the tobacco company. Call 1-800-578-7453 and listen until it gives you the prompt to be connected elsewhere. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 24 Sep 1999 14:22:30 -0500 From: Mark Earle Subject: One More Laugh! Payphone Survives .45 TAMPA, Fla., Sept. 23 An 18-year-old convicted felon was jailed after he unloaded his .45-caliber Ruger semiautomatic pistol on a public telephone that apparently stole his change, police said. WILLIAM DEJESUS faces a slew of charges in connection with the incident, including criminal mischief to telephone equipment, public discharge of a firearm and being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm. Not only did DeJesus fail to get his 35 cents back, but the telephone remained in working order, investigators said. Six bullet-size indentations were visible on the phone Tuesday. Abbreviated for fair use. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #430 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat Sep 25 00:31:05 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id AAA28701; Sat, 25 Sep 1999 00:31:05 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sat, 25 Sep 1999 00:31:05 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199909250431.AAA28701@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #431 TELECOM Digest Sat, 25 Sep 99 00:31:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 431 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Next Generation Enterprises: Virtual Organizations (Algappan Subramania) Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? (Bob Peterson) Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? (Rob Levandowski) Re: Sprint Coverage (was Re: Sprint PCS Fraud) (John Palkovic) Anti-Spam Laws (was: Is it Legal When They Say This?) (Rob Levandowski) Complaining About Spam (John R. Levine) Re: Stopping Unsolicted Fax Spam (Dave O'Shea) ACLU To Battle New Mexico Online Censorship Laws (Monty Solomon) When You Assume ... (Ed Ellers) Re: LD Rate History (L. Winson) Re: CAN Protocol (Ron Young) Re: Is the '.gif tax' Thing Starting All Over Again? (Scot E. Wilcoxon) Re: Call Completeion, Customer Service: LD and 10-10xxx (Jonathan Loo) Re: Working Assets Long Distance? (Jonathan Loo) Re: One More Laugh! Payphone Survives .45 (Anthony Argyriou) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Algappan Subramania Subject: Next Generation Enterprises: Virtual Organizations Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1999 22:33:22 -0400 Organization: University at Buffalo Reply-To: as23@acsu.buffalo.edu Dear Colleague: Greetings. We wish to bring to your attention a timely and exciting conference on next generation enterprises that SUNY Buffalo and IEEE Computer Society will be jointly presenting on April 28-29, 2000. We invite you to come to Buffalo and participate in the conference. You are encouraged to submit papers to the conference. BELL ATLANTIC CORPORATION sponsors BEST PAPER AWARDS and BEST STUDENT PAPER AWARDS in the business, technical and integrative themes of the conference. Please do get in touch with us if you have any questions. Please visit the conference website for tracks and other information at: http://www.som.buffalo.edu/isinterface/AIWORC/ Best Regards, R. Ramesh & H.R. Rao (SUNY, Buffalo) & Gabriel Silberman (IBM, Toronto) General Co-Chairs: AIWoRC'00 ****************** CALL FOR PAPERS ****************** SUNY at Buffalo & IEEE Computer Society Present AIWoRC'00 : An Academia/Industry Working Conference on Research Challenges CONFERENCE THEME : Next Generation Enterprises: Virtual Organizations and Pervasive/Mobile Technologies DATE & VENUE : APRIL 28 - 29, 2000, BUFFALO, NY IN COOPERATION WITH : ACM (SIGMOBILE), INFORMS, Association for Information Systems (AIS), itech, and Information Systems Frontiers: A Journal of Research and Innovation (published by Kluwer) CORPORATE SPONSORS: Bell Atlantic, Sun Microsystems, Empire State Development, Delaware North and IBM Center for Advanced Studies, Canada CONFERENCE KEYNOTES: DR. PATRICK BERGMANS: Director, Xerox Research Centre, Europe and Professor of Computer Science, University of Gent, Belgium DR. PALLAB CHATTERJEE: Senior VP and CIO, Texas Instruments and Member, National Academy of Engineering DR. JOHN GAGE: Chief Science Officer, Sun Microsystems, and Panel Member National Academy of Sciences DR. KEVIN KAHN: Intel Fellow and Director Intel Architecture Labs CIO FORUM: Moderators: PROF. EPHRAIM MCLEAN (Professor of Information Systems and George E. Smith Eminent Scholar's Chair, Georgia State University) and PROF. RAJIV KISHORE (SUNY at Buffalo) Panelists: WILL PAPE (ex-CIO, Verifone), JOHN CHIAZZA (CIO, Kodak), MOLLY FINE (CIO, Delaware North) and others. IMPORTANT DATES: November 1, 1999: Submission of a brief abstract: This is a TARGET DATE December 1, 1999: Paper and tutorial submissions: This is a DEADLINE January 15, 2000: Author Notification February 15, 2000: Camera-ready copy SUBMISSIONS SHOULD BE SENT TO: Professor R. Ramesh General Co-Chair - AIWoRC'00 School of Management SUNY at Buffalo Buffalo, NY 14260 Phone: (716) 645-3245 Fax: (716) 645-6117 E-mail: rramesh@acsu.buffalo.edu ------------------------------ From: Bob Peterson Subject: Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? Organization: Zeitgeist Bulletin Board Reply-To: peterson@mail.zgnews.com Date: Fri, 24 Sep 1999 17:52:12 -0500 brettf@netcom.com (Brett Frankenberger) wrote: > In article , Joseph T. Adams > wrote: >> Barry Margolin wrote: >>> It's still spam, it's just not illegal; however, there wasn't a >>> federal law against spam in the first place, so it wasn't illegal >>> before, either. >> First and most fundamentally, spamming is theft, and theft is against >> the law in all parts of the United States. Even if there were no laws >> *specifically* outlawing spam, no such laws would be needed in order >> for it to be illegal. > In the USA, theft is a crime. Please show me one successful criminal > prosection against a spammer for such "theft". The fact is: A lot of > anti-spammers think it's theft, but legally, it's no more theft than > sending of junk mail. *Nothing was Taken* and *No service was stolen*. On the John Marshall Law School Web site you will find a collection of links (http://www.jmls.edu/cyber/index/spam.html) to pages both local and at other sites. The collected pages include anti-spam statues, court decisions, etc. In Typhoon, Inc. v. Kentech Enterprises, No. CV 97-6270 JSL (AIJx) (C.D. Cal. Sept. 30, 1997) (see http://www.jmls.edu/cyber/cases/typhoon2.html) the final judgment stipulates, among other things, that the defendants "...had its services stolen...", i.e., the defendants committed theft. This means a court agreed with the plaintiff's assertion that services were stolen. While this is a civil case rather than a criminal prosecution, it is a binding court decision and resulted in a $2,500 judgment payable by the defendants to the injured parties. As you no doubt know, in this country some crimes are typically dealt with in the civil courts, including restraining orders prohibiting continuation of criminial behavior. That a judgement is rendered in a civil action does not diminish the criminal nature of the act. And a financial settlement paid by the defendant to the plaintiff is no less painful to the defendant than a fine paid to the state. Bob Peterson BBS Dialup: 972 403 9406 to 53333 (V.34/X2/V.90) peterson@mail.zgnews.com BBS Telnet: bbs.zgnews.com Web: www.zgnews.com ------------------------------ From: robl@macwhiz.com (Rob Levandowski) Subject: Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? Organization: MacWhiz Technologies Date: Fri, 24 Sep 1999 17:22:12 -0400 In article , brettf@netcom.com (Brett Frankenberger) wrote: > Can you come up with an interpretation that would cover spam but not > cover junk mail or telephone solicitation or E-Mail that is not spam > but what not specifically solicited? It would be very easy to effectively outlaw spam. One would only need to modify 47 U.S.C. Sec. 227(b)(1)(C), which currently reads > (C) to use any telephone facsimile machine, computer, or > other device to send an unsolicited advertisement to a > telephone facsimile machine; or so that the second occurrance of the phrase "telephone facsimile machine" is followed by or electronic communications service where such advertisement must, by the nature of the system, reside in electronic storage until retrieved by the recipient; or similar language, and give the terms "electronic communications service" and "electronic storage" the same definitions they have in 47 U.S.C. Sec. 2510. The fact that fax "spam" has been effectively outlawed illustrates that it is conceivable to do the same with e-mail "spam." Rob Levandowski robl@macwhiz.com ------------------------------ From: John Palkovic Subject: Re: Sprint Coverage (was Re: Sprint PCS Fraud) Date: 24 Sep 1999 16:48:22 -0500 Organization: Bob's School of Quantum Mechanics Mike Fox writes: > Well, remember that Sprint PCS uses CDMA technology, which if you > listen to the hype is supposed to have much more capacity and > spectral efficiency than TDMA-based systems like GSM, etc. So if > Sprint's system is full-up and their competitors aren't, then > there's still something wrong here, either with the claims made for > CDMA or with the way Sprint has implemented their network. The capacity and spectral efficiency of IS95 CDMA are not hype, they are accepted technical facts. Why do you think so many of the established AMPs carriers have implemented CDMA overlays? According to GTE, CDMA capacity with 13 kbps vocoding is typically 6-8 times AMPS. This is observed in the field, not marketing "hype." John Lucent Technologies, Network Wireless Systems ------------------------------ From: robl@macwhiz.com (Rob Levandowski) Subject: Anti-Spam laws (was: Is it Legal When They Say This?) Organization: MacWhiz Technologies Date: Fri, 24 Sep 1999 17:04:58 -0400 In article , mda@removethis. triskele.com wrote: > That brings to mind one other possible argument for spam being illegal > without a specific law to address the blight: > Remember the Communications Decency Act of a few years ago? It had > *one* (and only one) redeeming quality. It made it a federal crime > to knowingly harass a person via the net. Residents of New York State are in luck here. To cite the Penal Code , > S 240.30 Aggravated harassment in the second degree. > A person is guilty of aggravated harassment in the second degree when, > with intent to harass, annoy, threaten or alarm another person, he or > she: > 1. Communicates, or causes a communication to be initiated by > mechanical or electronic means or otherwise, with a person, anonymously > or otherwise, by telephone, or by telegraph, mail or any other form of > written communication, in a manner likely to cause annoyance or alarm; > or > 2. Makes a telephone call, whether or not a conversation ensues, with > no purpose of legitimate communication; or > 3. Strikes, shoves, kicks, or otherwise subjects another person to > physical contact, or attempts or threatens to do the same because of the > race, color, religion or national origin of such person; or > 4. Commits the crime of harassment in the first degree and has > previously been convicted of the crime of harassment in the first degree > as defined by section 240.25 of this article within the preceding ten > years. > Aggravated harassment in the second degree is a class A misdemeanor. I include a notice about this law whenever I send a "spam complaint" out; it specifically states that I find unsolicited commerical e-mail to be annoying. I think that, if a person has been advised that doing something is annoying, and they do it again, they must intend to be annoying, right? In New York, a Class A Misdemeanor is punishable by up to a year in jail and/or a fine of up to $1,000 for real persons, or $5,000 for corporations, in this case. I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. However, I believe that any reasonable person reading this law can see how it applies to unsolicited e-mail. I've also found that it tends to encourage results when reporting spam -- aggravated harassment laws have been around a long time, and are known to have teeth, unlike any of the newer specific anti-spam laws. Rob Levandowski robl@macwhiz.com ------------------------------ Date: 24 Sep 1999 17:28:15 -0400 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Complaining About Spam Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > Reputable places seem to have abuse@domain as a valid (and monitored) > email address. But this is not guaranteed. For all spam I send to > root@domain and postmaster@domain as well (none of which is guaranteed > to go to anything other than /dev/null.) That's why I run abuse.net. It helps forward complaints to the best address for a domain. See http://www.abuse.net for details. John R. Levine, IECC, POB 727, Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 387 6869 johnl@iecc.com, Village Trustee and Sewer Commissioner, http://iecc.com/johnl, Member, Provisional board, Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail ------------------------------ From: Dave O'Shea Subject: Re: Stopping Unsolicted Fax Spam Organization: snaip.net Date: Fri, 24 Sep 1999 22:20:00 GMT Wulf Losee wrote in message news:telecom19.410.3@ telecom-digest.org: > It is my understanding that there are Federal statutes prohibiting > unsolicited marketing faxes. Is this true? Would anyone know the > appropriate statute? US Code Title 47, Section 227(b)(1)(C) > Also who would I report this problem to? The FCC: Federal Communications Commission Common Carrier Bureau Consumer Complaints Mail Stop 1600A2 Washington, D.C. 20554 > I have a > company that has been sending me numerous unsolicited faxes (Fax ID, > Inc.). They claim I can be taken off their list by dialing 1-800-965-5329 > to talk to one of their customer service reps, but all I get is voice > mail, and they haven't responded to my requests to be removed from list. They will not, if they're like all the other outfits. In fact, if you call to have them removed ... count on your phone number being captured for future use in telemarketing. Most of the faxes I get are from local businesses -- restaurants, doctors, real estate ... Some of them are businesses that I know and have dealt with. The ones I've called afterwards (in the course of "public education") seem to be universally surprised by the intensity of the negative reaction. To quote the manager of a restaurant here in Houston, "I've had my phone ringing off the hook with angry customers, some of them people I know, all threatening to sue me!" What will make junk faxing stop is to make it PAINFULLY clear to the businesses involved that junk faxing is roughly equivalent to passing gas in a business meeting. True, the truly crooked ones will keep going faxing get-(rich|skinny|beautiful)-fast schemes. I don't think anything short of summary execution will stop those creeps. (Not that I am advocating it! Well, okay, maybe just for the really special ones.) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1999 21:06:38 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: ACLU To Battle New Mexico Online Censorship Laws * ACLU TO BATTLE NEW MEXICO ONLINE CENSORSHIP LAWS http://www.andovernews.com/cgi-bin/news_story.pl?44823/topstories ------------------------------ From: Ed Ellers Subject: When You Assume ... Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1999 23:09:59 -0400 Bob Goudreau wrote: > I note that Mr. Emmerson didn't specify the destination of the > undersea call. However, since his email address ends in ".uk", I > assumed that he was talking about a cable from England to the European > mainland, which is a couple of orders of magnitude shorter than a > trans-(A)tlantic cable." I'd say that this sort of assumption is far too widespread on the net. I remember seeing a post from a guy in Ireland asking if the ATI All-In-Wonder card (combination video card and TV tuner) would receive both VHF and UHF channels, to which an American replied, in essence, "of course it does!" The problem there is the assumption that all countries handle TV frequency assignments in the same way that the U.S. does, with two VHF bands and a UHF band. It so happens that Ireland uses the same TV standard (the ITU-R classifies it as System I/PAL) as the United Kingdom, and the UK -- unlike most countries -- only uses the UHF band for TV nowadays. Ireland, however, *does* have VHF TV broadcasting in most parts of the country, so a TV or VCR -- or a PC TV tuner card -- designed for use in the UK often won't receive the two RTE channels. There are different situations even in the U.S. itself -- witness RadioShack's dubious practice of selling all-channel VHF/UHF outdoor antennas in places that have no VHF TV stations, even though UHF-only antennas (that RadioShack also offers) will do just as well in those areas for far less money. ------------------------------ From: lwinson@bbs.cpcn.com (L. Winson) Subject: Re: LD Rate History Date: 24 Sep 1999 23:22:53 GMT Organization: The PACSIBM SIG BBS > I have a friend that is doing a college paper on the history of long > distance rates -- especially since Judge Greene's divestiture rulings > in 1984. I don't know of any web sites, but the 'conventional wisdom' that all long distance rates went down since then is FALSE. Remember Judge Greene didn't bring about long distance competition, rather, long distance companies such as MCI and Sprint squeezed in on their own. Initially they set up in the high volume high profit markets -- taking the cream -- leaving the low volume low profit chaff to AT&T. Some rates have skyrocketed, such as cash (coin) calls from pay phones, and operator assisted rates. Before competition, consumers never had to worry about being scammed by telephone service, everything was closely regulated. Afterwards, fraud is a big problem, with phony companies issuing outright fraudulent billing charges and switching customers to high cost services. Consumers often now have to dial a string of digits. It is also extremely difficult to compare rates sensibly because different companies have so many plan variations and hidden costs. For example, many plans today have monthly minimums, OR, an ADDITIONAL monthly service charge. That is, one company may save you 1c a minute, but charge you $5 for the plan. You'd have to talk at least 501 minutes to make it worthwhile, and considerably longer to make any material savings. Many companies hook customers on a plan, then discontinue it without notice, leaving customers paying very high rates. Another problem short haul toll calls. Rates used to be graduated by mileage, so short haul calls (ie 10-100 miles) were very cheap. Now they are the same price as a call across the country, and that is MORE than they were before. ------------------------------ From: Ron Young Subject: Re: CAN Protocol Date: Fri, 24 Sep 1999 16:39:26 -0700 Organization: EarthLink Network, Inc. Jose Ernesto Juan Vidal wrote: > Hi, I'm a telecommunications student and I would like to get some > information about CAN Protocol ... some books or Internet directions. I > need this for doing my project. Thank you very much. As a start, you might want to take a look at: http://www.northstarlabs.com/rp2.htm "The CAN Communication Protocol", a Review Paper from North Star Laboratory. and http://www.omegas.co.uk/CAN/ Controller Area Network (CANbus) - an introduction to the serial communications bus. -ron- ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 24 Sep 1999 18:49:53 -0500 From: Scot E. Wilcoxon Organization: self Subject: Re: Is the '.gif tax' Thing Starting All Over Again? You may want to look at this for a UNISYS reply to the GIF situation: http://slashdot.org/articles/99/08/31/0143246.shtml ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 24 Sep 1999 20:33:07 EDT From: Jonathan Loo Subject: Re: Call Completeion, Customer Service: LD and 10-10xxx In article is written: > I've been looking thru the TELECOM Digest archives and other assorted > links and can find no URL that would summarize experiences with call > completions and customer service through 10-10 or 2nd+ tier carriers. > Of course I'm hearing the war-stories right here, right now, but this > tends to be ancedotal and not historical. > Does the FCC or other third-party maintain such? File a Freedom of Information Act request with FCC and ask for all the complaints that have been filed against a particular named carrier. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 24 Sep 1999 20:34:54 EDT From: Jonathan Loo Subject: Re: Working Assets Long Distance? In article the editor writes: > I think we will see the MCI/Sprint merger take place > and then in a few years a merger between MCI and AT&T. PAT AT&T will first buy all the regional Bells. *Then* it will merge with MCI. ------------------------------ From: Anthony Argyriou Subject: Re: One More Laugh! Payphone Survives .45 Date: Fri, 24 Sep 1999 17:13:09 -0700 Organization: Alpha Geotechnical Reply-To: anthony@alphageo.com Mark Earle wrote: > TAMPA, Fla., Sept. 23 An 18-year-old convicted felon was jailed after > he unloaded his .45-caliber Ruger semiautomatic pistol on a public > telephone that apparently stole his change, police said. > WILLIAM DEJESUS faces a slew of charges in connection with the > incident, including criminal mischief to telephone equipment, public > discharge of a firearm and being a convicted felon in possession of a > firearm. If it was not a Bell (RBOC) owned phone, I'd vote to acquit him. The COCOT makers are lucky that Ma Bell build pay phones to withstand World War III, or most of them wouldn't have a functional phone within three months. Here in California, PacBell is pretty good about crediting you for money stolen by malfunctioning phones, but the slime that run most COCOTs can't be trusted to install a properly-functioning phone, or to refund your money. Mr. DeJesus is apparently a criminal, but most reasonable, law-abiding people have felt the same way he did when faced with a COCOT-thief. He just took action. > Not only did DeJesus fail to get his 35 cents back, but the > telephone remained in working order, investigators said. Six > bullet-size indentations were visible on the phone Tuesday. Anthony Argyriou ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #431 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat Sep 25 02:37:19 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id CAA02357; Sat, 25 Sep 1999 02:37:19 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sat, 25 Sep 1999 02:37:19 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199909250637.CAA02357@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #432 TELECOM Digest Sat, 25 Sep 99 02:37:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 432 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Having no Long Distance Provider? (Linc Madison) Re: Is the '.gif tax' Thing Starting All Over Again? (Alan Boritz) Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? (Joseph Singer) Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? (Antilles Engineering, Ltd) Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? (Mark W. Schumann) Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? (Steven J. Sobol) Re: Off Topic: Drunk Drivers and Wasted Lives (Mark W. Schumann) Re: MCI Worldcom Residential Customer Service (ewvewv@my-deja.com) Re: MCI WorldCom, Sprint Ponder a Merger as Talks Pick Up Speed (S. Sobol) Re: MCI WorldCom, Sprint Ponder a Merger as Talks Pick Up Speed (JF Mezei) Re: Cannot Hang Up (Steven J Sobol) Re: It Makes You Think (A Tale of WW2) (B.L. Bodnar) Searchable Archive? (Patrick McCormick) Re: Apparetnly bigzoo.com is Out of Business (Stanley Cline) Re: Stopping Unsolicited Fax Spam (ewvewv@my-deja.com) Do ya WTB Lotsa Good, New, Modern, Useful Pieces For a Song? (steinway) Re: Last Laugh! [cough cough hack] Better Check That V-mail (JF Mezei) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 24 Sep 1999 18:35:30 -0700 From: Linc Madison Subject: Re: Having no Long Distance Provider? In article , wrote: > In article , shadow@krypton. > rain.com (Leonard Erickson) wrote: >> The $5 minimum almost certainly applies to 10-10-345 too. > There is no minimum whatsoever with 10-10-345. If you make a one > minute interstate call, you'll get billed 20 cents that month. (If > you make a one minute intra-state call in California, you'll be billed > 15 cents.) Plus the legitimate federal and local taxes, of course. > But no additional USF fees, no PICC fees, no "national access" fees, > no "federal reimbursement" fees, no minimums. You are correct that the $5 minimum does not apply. However, the USF fees *DO* now apply on *ALL* 101-xxxx carriers. Indeed, many 101-xxxx carriers are fraudulently billing far more than the actual cost of the USF contribution as "USF Charge"; Telco (101-0297, an otherwise reasonably reputable outfit) is particularly bad about this -- they billed me 63 cents USF charge in a month in which my total usage was 22 cents. Their actual USF contribution on my behalf was barely over a penny, so the remaining 62 cents was pure ill-gotten profit. ------------------------------ From: aboritz@CYBERNEX.NET (Alan Boritz) Subject: Re: Is the '.gif tax' Thing Starting All Over Again? Date: Sat, 25 Sep 1999 01:46:26 GMT Organization: Dyslexics UNTIE On Fri, 24 Sep 1999 13:24:57 EDT, in comp.dcom.telecom TELECOM Digest Editor wrote: > On one of my occassional forages through the net a couple days ago I > found an interesting item at http://www.TOURBUS.com that I thought > readers would like to know about. If this is true, it is sure to > generate a tremendous amount of ill will for Unisys, and second, it's > just one more example of big corporations stomping all over net > traditions, and third, I thought maybe you'd want to know about this > in case you'd at least like to use some other graphics format besides > .gif for any web sites you may maintain or plan on starting. > I had *thought* this was over and done with a few years ago when it > first came up in discussions on Compuserve. Maybe not. You can see > what you think. > To put it mildly, UNISYS was harshly criticized from all corners, > and was forced to back down. They must have *just* finished wiping > the egg off their corporate face, because they're at it again... > One GIF - That'll be $5000, Please > But this time, they're going after webmasters. As incredible as it > sounds, UNISYS is demanding payment of $5000 if you use even one GIF > image on your website that was created by an "unlicensed" program. > Did somebody say McStupid? Unless if someone installed "Second Voice" on my office computer, this is no urban legend. Unisys has a special web page dedicated to this issue: http://corp2.unisys.com/LeadStory/lzw-license.html They claim a licensing interest over all GIF, TIFF-LZW, PDF-LZW, or other LZW graphical formats used to operate a web site, and demand a payment of $5,000 to cover up to two web servers at any web site. It's all based on US patent no. 4558302, issued to Terry A. Welch, of (then) Sperry Corp. Time will tell whether or not this will be a clever business decision (since a patent owner has to defend his patent to retain his legal rights), or a monumentally stupid one. I think I'd be more inclined to believe the latter than the former. The last time these people to collect royalties from the (then) large LZW user base, it resulted in Jpeg becoming the new international compressed (and royalty-free) graphic standard. Just give us time to implement a similar solution for animated graphics and you won't see another GIF file, animated or not, ever. And whatever it will be, you won't find many people viewing them on a Unisys computer. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 24 Sep 1999 18:51:46 -0700 From: Joseph Singer Subject: Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? kim@aol.com (Kim Brennan) recently wrote: >> You should report the message to the host of the remove address >> (i.e. "abuse@something.com"). > Reputable places seem to have abuse@domain as a valid (and monitored) > email address. But this is not guaranteed. For all spam I send to > root@domain and postmaster@domain as well (none of which is guaranteed > to go to anything other than /dev/null.) > I finally got a response from Preview Travel today (after three years > of spamming). In their case, neither abuse@previewtravel.com, nor > root@previewtravel.com is valid. Other similar awful organizations are > Northwest Airlines (nwa.com), TrendMicro (trendmicro.com) Ancestry (or > Familyroots ... ancestry.com) and HotelResNetwork.com > I'm not yet (but getting there fast) desparate enough to look up these > folks ISP and get them to clam up. I've found at least a couple of resources to help me weed through some of the looking up if I really feel like it. One of the resources I use is abuse.net and specifically for looking up reporting addresses if you go to http://www.abuse.net/cgi-bin/list-abuse-addresses many domains will be listed as to where to send complaints of abuse. Another useful tool that I use is samspade.org http://www.samspade.org/ that in one field you can enter either an ip address or a domain name and it will do the lookup for you. Sam Spade also has other "investigative" tools that you can use including IP block, traceroute, DNS lookup etc. Joseph Singer "thefoneguy" PO Box 23135, Seattle WA 98102 USA +1 206 405 2052 [voice mail] +1 206 493 0706 [FAX] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 24 Sep 1999 22:12:23 -0400 From: Antilles Engineering, Ltd Subject: Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? On 24 Sep 1999 01:16:31 GMT, brettf@netcom.com (Brett Frankenberger) wrote: > So, to argue that because Spam shifts more of the costs towards the > recipient that it somehow becomes theft is an argument that any court > is unlikely to buy." It is theft, Mr. Frankenberger. Our firm has an "always on" email connection which we monitor 24x7. We monitor for incoming email from close to 700 international clients. We pride ourselves on customer service and we try to respond quickly enough so that if the client is still on line, our return email will reach them before they sign off. When an email comes in, a wav file is played. The staff person monitoring email may be doing database administration or file updates on another computer in the same room but when that wav file plays, they respond by getting over to the email monitor as quickly as possible and reading the email. This is disruptive to their other duties if the incoming email is spam and it costs my firm money for their time involved in false email alerts. Because of the diversity of FROM: and SUBJECT: lines, we can't build a filter that excludes spam but captures all client correspondence. I, frankly, believe that the spammer is stealing time that my employees could be using in more productive pursuits. I also view spam as a form of harassment and if you expand that a bit, explicit spam promoting porn is certainly a form of sexual harassment should the staff person find such emails objectionable. I believe that others have similar compelling situations where theft of time is an obvious result of spam. And if I ventured a guess why Congress doesn't get around to writing tough anti-spam laws, it's probably because of advertising industry "contributions" to our *worthy* congressmen. Douglas Terman Antilles Engineering, Ltd (802) 496 3812 Voice (802) 496 3814 Fax Antilles@AnteLink.com ------------------------------ From: catfood@apk.net (Mark W. Schumann) Subject: Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? Date: 24 Sep 1999 22:56:29 -0400 Organization: Akademia Pana Kleksa, Public Access Uni* Site In article , Michael D. Adams wrote: > 3. Time. It takes time for me to delete spam. With some of the more > clever forms of spam, it also takes me time to even identify that it > is spam. And then there are the messages you deleted because you assumed they were spam. And they weren't. (At that point we're getting into third-order effects and it's hard to hold anyone legally liable, but it's one more thing that spammers are causing.) ------------------------------ From: sjsobol@JustThe.Net (Steven J Sobol) Subject: Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? Date: 25 Sep 1999 01:29:50 GMT Organization: North Shore Technologies Corp. 888.480.4NET On 24 Sep 1999 01:16:31 GMT, brettf@netcom.com allegedly said: >> for it to be illegal. > In the USA, theft is a crime. Please show me one successful criminal > prosection against a spammer for such "theft". The fact is: A lot of > anti-spammers think it's theft, but legally, it's no more theft than > sending of junk mail. *Nothing was Taken* and *No service was stolen*. Ethically, I am among the anti-spammers that think it is theft. Ethically. Not legally. Legally, it *hasn't* been proven. Tresspass *has* - but not theft. North Shore Technologies JustTheNet Dialup Internet Access Cleveland, Akron, Canton, Geauga Co., Lake Co., Portage Co., Lorain Co., OH Nationwide Access coming soon! Watch this space for details or dial 1.888.480.4NET for more info! ------------------------------ From: catfood@apk.net (Mark W. Schumann) Subject: Re: Off Topic: Drunk Drivers and Wasted Lives Date: 24 Sep 1999 23:04:53 -0400 Organization: Akademia Pana Kleksa, Public Access Uni* Site In article , Steven J Sobol wrote: > Even the Bill of Rights says that rights are only guaranteed as long > as you don't infringe on someone else's rights in the process of > exercising yours. Where does it say that? ------------------------------ From: ewvewv@my-deja.com Subject: Re: MCI Worldcom Residential Customer Service Date: Sat, 25 Sep 1999 04:07:13 GMT Organization: Deja.com - Before you buy. It sounds like you only ran into an all-too-common technical problem. If you have a serious problem they don't want to deal with, like I do, even when you get through many of the operators get impatient and throw you back off deliberately. In article , joel@exc.com (Dr. Joel M. Hoffman) wrote: > In article , > wrote: >> I have to add my comments to the obvious desperation I see here over >> trying to get fair treatment from MCI. Back in the beginning I >> [...] >> off. After waiting interminably to get through their telephone maze, >> I found myself consistently being thrown back into the maze to start This sounds like something that is simple enough that it might be resolved through a complaint to the FCC. If they admit they made a mistake (which is unusual) it doesn't take much to argue your case. In article , agore@primenet.com (Alan Gore) wrote: > davidesan@my-deja.com wrote: >> How much money are we talking about? If it is a small amount, how >> about filing against MCI in small claims court? File for all costs >> the overcharges, the mail, your time, your suffering. That could wake >> them up. > The problem I reported originated when I had my billing switched from > cash to credit card payment. My last two months' MCI bills paid with > cash were for somewhat over $300 each. When the credit card billing > started up I found those same two months charged on the card, then one > of the months charged a second time on the card from a separate > division in Missouri, for a total extra charge of over $900. Since > then MCI has been uncooperative in rather a strange way: when I call > them about it they bring up my account, acknowledge right away that > there was an error -- and then nothing happens. I call them up a few > weeks later and I get the same result. > In some respects I REALLY miss Ma Bell. Sure, the prices weren't > phenomenal, but the business customer service was ALWAYS great. I agree with the general idea here -- I would rather pay more for quality service from an honest company than have to deal with a bunch of sharks like MCI -- which is looking for volume and market share no matter what. The best approach to contending with MCI is: don't. Change to another company before you have even more problems and find that they refuse to resolve it. In article , nospam.tonypo1@ nospam.home.com (Tony Pelliccio) wrote: > In article , ewvewv@my-deja.comp > says: >> Their "customer service", as it is euphemistically called, serves as a >> buffer insulating management from complaints. I found that if I had a >> problem beyond the most trivial, routine matter, they simply blow you >> off. After waiting interminably to get through their telephone maze, >> I found myself consistently being thrown back into the maze to start >> all over or put on indefinite "hold", only to eventually discover that >> patience and perseverance doesn't help because there is no way through >> the maze if you have a problem they don't want to deal with. ------------------------------ From: sjsobol@JustThe.Net (Steven J Sobol) Subject: Re: MCI WorldCom, Sprint Ponder a Merger as Talks Pick Up Speed Date: 25 Sep 1999 01:35:04 GMT Organization: North Shore Technologies Corp. 888.480.4NET On Fri, 24 Sep 1999 11:19:27 -0400, itsamike@yahoo.com allegedly said: > Purchasing Sprint would finally bring MCI WorldCom, based in Clinton, > Miss., a nationwide wireless network ... which is smaller than most other, more mature wireless networks, on which if you don't happen to be in a Sprint coverage area, you *must* roam analog on some other carrier. Sprint's claim to fame, that they've "built an all-digital, all-PCS network from the ground up" [as their commercials say] is both a blessing and a curse. MCI's purchase of SkyTel was smart. SkyTel has great coverage and a lot of unique products. Dunno 'bout Sprint. > Though Sprint has held discussions with a handful of telecommunications > heavyweights, negotiations with MCI WorldCom have picked up recently. So now Sprint customers can get the same crappy service MCI WorldCom customers already receive! WOOHOO~! > Mr. Ebbers, meanwhile, has been increasingly under pressure to acquire > a wireless presence as the use of cellular phones explodes. But he has > maintained that MCI WorldCom's business hasn't been hurt by its lack > of wireless assets. MCI has been reselling other wireless carriers. I can't see how that could be very profitable for them. North Shore Technologies JustTheNet Dialup Internet Access Cleveland, Akron, Canton, Geauga Co., Lake Co., Portage Co., Lorain Co., OH Nationwide Access coming soon! Watch this space for details or dial 1.888.480.4NET for more info! ------------------------------ From: JF Mezei Subject: Re: MCI WorldCom, Sprint Ponder a Merger as Talks Pick Up Speed Date: Sat, 25 Sep 1999 00:40:30 -0400 Interesting from the Canadian perspective: Currently, I beleive that Bell Canada has an affinity with MCI-Worldcomm. Sprint US owns about 25% of Sprint-Canada (Call-Net) and Call-Net said that they wanted a closer relationship with Sprint-USA. So, comes a merger of MCI and SPRINT. What happens to Bell Canada and Sprint Canada in terms of their relationship with a USA long distance carrier? ------------------------------ From: sjsobol@JustThe.Net (Steven J Sobol) Subject: Re: Cannot Hang Up Date: 25 Sep 1999 01:27:17 GMT Organization: North Shore Technologies Corp. 888.480.4NET On 23 Sep 1999 13:34:07 -0400, colonel@monmouth.com allegedly said: > The home phone line I use for computer work sometimes loses carrier > but does not hang up. Brand, model and speed of modem? It may very well be the modem. I had a Zoom 14.4 that refused to hang up. Nothing wrong with the phone line, and other modems worked just fine on the same line. North Shore Technologies JustTheNet Dialup Internet Access Cleveland, Akron, Canton, Geauga Co., Lake Co., Portage Co., Lorain Co., OH Nationwide Access coming soon! Watch this space for details or dial 1.888.480.4NET for more info! [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But I think he saidhe had tried other phones on the line and had even disconnected the jack without any results. PAT] ------------------------------ From: bohdan@ihgp4.ih.lucent.com (B.L. Bodnar Subject: Re: It Makes You Think (A Tale of WW2) Date: 25 Sep 1999 02:23:55 GMT Organization: Lucent Technologies In article , Gregory Edwards wrote: > I don't think that this story is likely to be true. I think that most, > if not all, the agents dropped into Holland during WWII were captured > by the Nazi throughout the whole war. This thread's becoming interesting, so I'll toss in some info I read in a book dealing with German espionage in WWII. I don't recall its title, but I do recall that it's in the Bell Labs Library. A secure cable was established between the White House and Winston Churchill's bunker in London. Bell Labs was contracted to design the secure communication link. This link was a spread-spectrum frequency-hopping system. It wasn't as secure as the United States government and English governments thought because the cable had a tap (capacitive, I suppose) put on -- courtesy of German engineers in the German Postal Authority and the German Navy! Not only that, but the engineers reverse-engineered the frequency hopping mechanism, thus allowing the eavesdroppers to miss, at most, a fraction of second of any conversations that were going on! For some reason the captured information never went too far in the Third Reich (I seem to recall that the German High Command's view was that this could not be valid information since the Abwehr wasn't involved). Anyway, if there's enough interest, drop me a line and, time permitting, I'll see if I can dig this book up and write up a synopsis. Thank you VERY much for an interesting historical thread! Cordially, Bohdan Bodnar bbodnar@lucent.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's note: Well I have the interest, and I suspect others do as well (because of the several responses in the thread to-date) so if yo will, please write that synopsis and present it here. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Patrick McCormick Subject: Searchable Archive? Date: Fri, 24 Sep 1999 19:40:47 -0700 Hi, Pat. Is there a searchable archive of the TELECOM Digest archives that are at hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu? I imagine I can use Altavista, but I was hoping for a Telecom-only search engine. Alternatively, is there a single large compressed archive file of the digests available so I could grep through them on my local machine? Thanks for any help, Patrick McCormick [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: There are various things you can do. http://telecom-digest.org/search This completely searches hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives including all back issues of the Digest and other files since 1981. This includes components such as 'Tribute to the Telephone', our online telephone museum which begins at http://telecom-digest.org/tribute and works downward. http://telecom-digest.org/archives/indices (or, alternatively) http://telecom-digest.org/archives/back.issues (where indices are linked) At this location, first see the files 'idx' which index the subject lines and author names for articles in the Digest only since 1989, in several *large* files of several thousand lines each. Each file covers three years each, 1989-90-91, 1992-93-94, 1995-96-97, 1998-99-2000. You can pull these files as a 'page' to your browser if desired, but it is a slow and tedious process. You might instead want to use anonymous ftp massis.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives/indices to get them. You can also search the above using my script 'Telecom Archives Email Information Service' as follows: 1) send email to tel-archives@telecom-digest.org the subject line does not matter. 2) In the *text* of the message put these commands flush with the left margin exactly as I show them here: REPLY yourname@email.address SEARCH "some search word or phrase" (rules of grep as installed SEARCH "some other phrase" on lcs.mit.edu apply) END By return email a few seconds or minutes later, you should get back a list of every line in the above indices which match 'search phrase' along with where they are located -- in which year and bundle of back issues -- at the location: http://telecom-digest.org/archives/back.issues/* (or) ftp massis.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives/back.issues/* where * is the year and volume number. If you are searching for something that took place in the last dozen or so issues try: http://telecom-digest.org/archives/back.issues/* where * is either 'telecom-recent' or 'recent.single.issues' A lot of the above including the master search, and the index both of the subject/author names and of the entire archives itself (file names only) have 'shortcuts' to them via links from the top page at http://telecom-digest.org where you can recieve overviews of the back issues area, the indexes, and certain of the more popular sub- directories in the archives. I hope this helps you. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Stanley Cline Subject: Re: Apparently bigzoo.com is Out of Business Date: Fri, 24 Sep 1999 22:46:22 -0400 Organization: by area code and prefix (NPA-NXX) Reply-To: sc1@roamer1.org On Fri, 24 Sep 1999 12:28:19 -0700, Babu Mengelepouti wrote: > It would appear as though bigzoo.com may not have been making money > after all. http://www.bigzoo.com/ has the following message posted as > of yesterday: Apparently it *was* temporary. As of 8 PM Eastern time 9/24, bigzoo's web page is back up as usual, and I can place calls. Stanley Cline -- sc1 at roamer1 dot org -- http://www.roamer1.org/ ------------------------------ From: ewvewv@my-deja.com Subject: Re: Stopping Unsolicited Fax Spam Date: Sat, 25 Sep 1999 04:34:56 GMT Organization: Deja.com - Before you buy. For residential FAX machines, the spammers do _not_ get one "free strike". The full penalty is supposed to apply for doing it at all. If you can collect on a few of them, it may ripple back to the junk operators. In article , Eli Mantel wrote: > TELECOM Digest Editor wrote: >> I suggest you follow the instructions given by other correspondents >> in this issue and make your appropriate claim for $500 as they have >> done or are doing. > Nobody who wrote indicated they had personally collected on a claim > for receiving unsolicited faxes. While there are certainly people who > have collected based on the "do not call" rules, there are also cases > where people went through the entire process only to have it > eventually go to trial and be heard by a judge who evidently didn't > care for the law, ruling for the plaintiff but awarding nominal > damages (i.e. $1). ------------------------------ From: steinway@newsguy.com Subject: Do Ya WTB Lotsa Good, New, Modern, Useful Pieces For a Song? Date: Sat, 25 Sep 1999 03:37:10 GMT Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com Gotta a little cable and a buncha regular and Cat5 jacks. Hubbel, Lucent, etc. Patch panels, 110 blocks and stands, cable mgmt stuff. Lots of handset cords, line cords, etc. Getting out of the business. This stuff is the result of cleaning out my truck, storeroom, etc. Much is unboxed, but still wrapped in unopened original plastic. Even better, it's been sorted! This stuff is worth at least $2K, But I'll sell you the whole lot for $500 to get it outa my storage. Lotsa good, new, modern, useful pieces-parts. Will sell as a lot, or individual items. attachment. Ask me for an Excel 97 file by email or phone me, 404-886-5180. Thanks, Andy ------------------------------ From: JF Mezei Subject: Re: Last Laugh! [cough cough hack] Better Check That V-mail System Date: Sat, 25 Sep 1999 00:38:00 -0400 Danny Burstein wrote: > There is an astonishing initial recording on the customer service line > for Brown & Williamson, the tobacco company. Call 1-800-578-7453 and > listen until it gives you the prompt to be connected elsewhere. It is not a spoof. I heard something about it on TV a day or two ago (either CNN or Canadian TV). It is a marketing ploy to keep people amused and show that the tobacco killers have a sense of humour. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #432 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sun Sep 26 15:01:21 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id PAA26837; Sun, 26 Sep 1999 15:01:21 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sun, 26 Sep 1999 15:01:21 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199909261901.PAA26837@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #433 TELECOM Digest Sun, 26 Sep 99 15:01:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 433 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson COCOTs vs. LEC Payphones (was Re: Payphone Survives .45) (Mark J. Cuccia) Re: CPUC Halts 310/424 Overlay, Reverses 1+10D Requirement (Rob McMillin) Re: It Makes You Think (A Tale of WW2) (Arthur Ross) Re: It Makes You Think (A Tale of WW2) (Gregory Edwards) Re: It Makes You Think (A Tale of WW2) (Andrew Emmerson) Re: It Makes You Think (A Tale of WW2) (Mark Brader) SBC Slapped With Penalty and Other Telecom News (Adam M. Gaffin) Re: Floyd/NJ Telecom Problems - More Info! (Alan Boritz) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 25 Sep 1999 21:45:47 CDT From: Mark J Cuccia Subject: COCOTs vs. LEC Payphones (was Re: Payphone Survives .45) Mark Earle (mearle@cmchouston.com) wrote: > TAMPA, Fla., Sept. 23 An 18-year-old convicted felon was jailed > after he unloaded his .45-caliber Ruger semiautomatic pistol on > a public telephone that apparently stole his change, police said. > WILLIAM DEJESUS faces a slew of charges in connection with the > incident [snip] > Not only did DeJesus fail to get his 35 cents back, but the telephone > remained in working order, investigators said. Six bullet-size > indentations were visible on the phone Tuesday. and Anthony Argyriou (anthony@alphageo.com) replied: > If it was not a Bell (RBOC) owned phone, I'd vote to acquit him. > The COCOT makers are lucky that Ma Bell build pay phones to withstand > World War III, or most of them wouldn't have a functional phone within > three months. Here in California, PacBell is pretty good about crediting > you for money stolen by malfunctioning phones, but the slime that run > most COCOTs can't be trusted to install a properly-functioning > phone, or to refund your money. > Mr. DeJesus is apparently a criminal, but most reasonable, law-abiding > people have felt the same way he did when faced with a COCOT-thief. He > just took action. I have to agree with you that most COCOTs are slime in the way that they work! The real problem is that the coin-control operations of most COCOTs is NOT handled by the telco central office or the "ACTS" (Automated Coin Toll Service) in a Local (LATA) telco's TOPS or OSPS or AT&T's OSPS. Most COCOTs have their own "chips" inside to determine rates, to "try" to determine answer/billing supervision (to keep or refund the deposit depending on a successful or failed call attempt), and to allow (or disallow) certain dialed code-strings/numbers/etc. Each and every "internal chip" payphone (COCOT) either has to be individually visited for updating the programing (and hardware) or else has to be individually called-up remotely (or call their central headquarters overnight) for program updating. That is, if the COCOT company chooses to keep up to date in "translations", etc. At least now that MOST local telcos can indicate an "off-hook" supervision from the far-end by reversing the loop to the originating line (COCOT, PBX, etc), if the COCOT has that type of programing, at least you should have a better chance of getting your deposit back on "non-suped" conditions (busy signals, intercepts, unanswered calls, etc). But that depends on whether or not the COCOT owning company chooses to install such supervision detection equipment in the phone, and also the local telco chooses to offer the loop-reversal condition to indicate off-hook supervisions. It was also asked whether the phone were a COCOT or an RBOC (Bell) payphone. The better question should have been whetehr or not it were a c.o.switch-controlled payphone or not ... The "Byline" for the original post is Tampa FL. That is GT&E territory! So even if the payphone wre LEC-owned, it would have been a GT&E phone, most likely one manufactured by Automatic Electric (once a subsidiary of GT&E, but I think they merged with Lucent now). But even if it were telco-owned, it still could have been "COCOT-like" in its internal operations. And being in Florida, even though "independent" territory, it still could have been a BellSouth owned piece of equipment! Many LECs are now switching over to "COCOT-like" payphones, and BellSouth is one of them. MOST BellSouth payphones within BellSouth's "traditional own" ratecenters are now COCOT-like. There are still a few here and there that are traditional central-office controlled over the coins, but most have gone to COCOT chips. I have an article in the archives on when this happened back three years ago! http://massis.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives/reports/bellsouth.cocots Other LECs, such as GTE and Sprint (formerly United and Centel) are putting in or switching-over, to COCOT-like payphones within their own traditional territory. But also, many LECs are putting in COCOT-like payphones in territories _NOT_ traditionally theirs! In "independent" territory across the south, you can find BellSouth COCOT-like payphones. It is also possible that "LEC-owned" COCOT-like telephones can be found in _EACH_OTHERS'_TERRITORIES_! i.e., an Ameritech-logo'd payphone in Bell Atlantic territory! Or a BellSouth-logo'd (COCOT-like) payphone in California! Things changed quite a bit with divestiture (1984), but even more so with the "Telecom Act" of 1996, including payphones! :-( _BUT_, on the "flip-side", many (most?) LECs also offer "central-office coin-control" (including LEC/AT&T "ACTS" in the TOPS/OSPS) to COCOT owning companies who request such "traditional" payphone coin-operation/interface for their phones! Since the LEC is providing it for their own payphones (except BellSouth for the most part), the LEC must also offer "traditional coin interface" as well to the COCOTs! Unfortunately, most COCOT companies seem to prefer their internal-chip formats which are sleazy and unpredictable! :-( mjc ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 25 Sep 1999 20:11:31 -0700 From: Rob McMillin Subject: Re: CPUC Halts 310/424 Overlay, Reverses 1+10D Requirement in 310 Organization: SBC Internet Services Linc Madison wrote: > On Wednesday, the FCC announced a decision allowing the CPUC to order > mandatory thousands-block pooling and other number conservation > measures. Today, 9/16, the CPUC announced that it was stopping the 424 > overlay on the 310 area code and reversing the mandatory 1+10D dialing > requirement that had been imposed in 310 in anticipation of the > overlay. > An initial pool of 160,000 numbers has been set aside for > thousands-block allocation. However, my understanding is that there > are something in the neighborhood of 300 pending requests for number > blocks. Also, there are about 11 rate centers (+/-, off the top of my > head) in 310, and you will still have the requirement that those > 160,000 numbers be allocated in chunks of 10,000 per rate center, even > if only 1,000 per operating company. > In short, today's decision looks an awful lot like a Band-Aid on a > bullet wound. Oh, yes, and you can thank -- in part -- the {Los Angeles Times} and its techno-ignoramus columnist, Robert Scheer, for this sorry state of affairs. We will suffer a great deal more from this kind of stupidity in the future: I heard nobody consider the affects that a no-overlay policy will have on area code splits. The Times editorials against the overlay have amounted to "let's pass a law making activity X illegal," one of their favorite pastimes on Spring St. The sad part is that it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see what the problem really is; it's just that they don't want to understand it. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 25 Sep 1999 08:34:11 -0700 From: Arthur Ross Subject: Re: It Makes You Think (A Tale of WW2) B.L. Bodnar wrote: > A secure cable was established between the White House and Winston > Churchill's bunker in London. Bell Labs was contracted to design the > secure communication link. This link was a spread-spectrum > frequency-hopping system. It wasn't as secure as the United States > government and English governments thought because the cable had a tap > (capacitive, I suppose) put on -- courtesy of German engineers in the > German Postal Authority and the German Navy! Not only that, but the > engineers reverse-engineered the frequency hopping mechanism, thus > allowing the eavesdroppers to miss, at most, a fraction of second of > any conversations that were going on! I recall an account of some kind of FH speech system between Washington & London (see D. Kahn, "Cryptology and the Origins of Spread Spectrum," IEEE Spectrum, vol. 21, no. 9, September, 1984). Don't recall anything about German intercepts of it, tho. Like the TD editor, I would like to hear more! -- Best -- Arthur ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 25 Sep 1999 08:56:30 -0700 From: Gregory Edwards Subject: Re: It Makes You Think (A Tale of WW2) Organization: CRL Dialup Internet Access (415) 347-6060 [Login: guest] The statment below about the intercept of Churchill and the White House is true (according to an IEEE article I read years ago), including the breaking of the frequency inversion coding of conversations by the germans. However one group in the US also broke the message (I forget who) by just listening to it over and over until their minds could sort out the frequency inversion (not true spread s) in their minds and understand it. Greg Edwards ------------------------------ From: midshires@cix.co.uk (Andrew Emmerson) Subject: Re: It Makes You Think (A Tale of WW2) Date: Sun, 26 Sep 1999 19:13 BST Organization: CIX - Compulink Information eXchange Reply-To: midshires@cix.co.uk > A secure cable was established between the White House and Winston > Churchill's bunker in London. Bell Labs was contracted to design the > secure communication link. This link was a spread-spectrum > frequency-hopping system. It was called SIGSALY, alias Green Hornet. I did a quick search on the WWW and found very little. Even the 'under construction site that I discovered and printed out the last time I searched has now disappeared. A ddefinitivetreatment of SIGSALY and the true extent of Hedy Lamarr's involvement in it is long overdue. Many books on wartime communications omit the subject altogether, so it must have been pretty secret at the time. The room that held the London terminal (in Churchill's Cabinet War Rooms in London) was disguised as Churchill's private lavatory (British English)/restroom (American English), complete with VACANT/ENGAGED sign/latch on the door. The whole place is a mmuseum today, all superbly restored. > It wasn't as secure as the United States government and English > governments thought because the cable had a tap (capacitive, I suppose) > put on -- courtesy of German engineers in the German Postal Authority and > the German Navy! Not only that, but the engineers reverse-engineered the > frequency hopping mechanism, thus allowing the eavesdroppers to miss, at > most, a fraction of second of any conversations that were going on! This I have never heard before but it's entirely plausible. The notion that the Germans were pig-ignorant during WW2 is a persistent but false one. I'm just waiting for the full story on how they decoded all out messages (we're so proud of how we read their traffic!). > For some reason the captured information never went too far in the > Third Reich (I seem to recall that the German High Command's view was > that this could not be valid information since the Abwehr wasn't > involved). It is very clear that there were many factions in the German high command, with a lot of in-fighting and favouritism. In this respect the Germans did make fools of themselves. In fact if Hitler and his cronies had stopped interfering and let the professionals get on with waging war, the result might have been very different. When you see what the Germans developed in GHZ-band radar, broadband cables, airborne television guidance (and UFOs if you believe that rot!), you have to realise they ccouldbe just as smart as we Allies were. > Anyway, if there's enough interest, drop me a line and, time > permitting, I'll see if I can dig this book up and write up a > synopsis. Please do. The longer these matters remain obscure, the greater the risk that newcomers will think they are just crazy fiction. Andrew Emmerson ------------------------------ From: msbrader@interlog.com (Mark Brader) Subject: Re: It Makes You Think (A Tale of WW2) Date: 25 Sep 1999 05:42:32 -0400 Organization: - Bohdan Bodnar writes: > A secure cable was established between the White House and Winston > Churchill's bunker in London. Bell Labs was contracted to design the > secure communication link. This link was a spread-spectrum > frequency-hopping system. It wasn't as secure as the United States > government and English governments thought because the cable had a tap > (capacitive, I suppose) put on -- courtesy of German engineers in the > German Postal Authority and the German Navy! Well, I have no comment on the rest, but the link was by radio, not cable. A quick web search for "sigsaly" turns up two descriptions: is part of an annotated bibliography on information hiding. It cites an article by D. Kahn -- that'd be David Kahn, author of "The Codebreakers" -- in the IEEE Spectrum for September 1984, "Cryptology and the origins of spread spectrum". The annotation reads: > This article describes SIGSALY, the first digital secure telephone, > which was used by Roosevelt and Churchill during the war. It used a > vocoder with 10 bands of 300 Hz, each sampled for amplitude every > 20mS; the digital signal was Vernam encrypted (though since the > samples had six levels, the arithmetic was modulo 6). The cables from > the scrambling equipment to the users were pressurised and alarmed. > Finally, the radio link used an early spread spectrum technique to > reduce the likelihood of interception or jamming. One of the inventors > of spread specturm was the actress Hedy Lamarr, who obtained a US > patent in 1941 on a frequency agile torpedo control system. The other reference was in a 1995 GAO (US government General Accounting Office) report called "Information Superhighway: An Overview of Technology Challenges", whose text is online at . A footnote reads: The power of the Clipper chip technology is highlighted by comparing it to earlier voice encryption devices. For example, in the early 1940s, the administration asked scientists at the Bell Telephone Laboratories to develop a telephone scrambler that would allow Winston Churchill and President Roosevelt to have secure conversations. Code named "Sigsaly," this transatlantic scrambler needed, at the London end, not only a five foot high intermediate scrambler cabinet, but also over 30 seven foot tall relay racks weighing eighty tons, 72 different radio frequencies, a large air-conditioned room, and 30 kW of energy to encipher one short conversation (The Cabinet War Rooms, Imperial War Museum, London, 1994). Mark Brader | "Howeb45 9 qad no5 und8ly diturvrd v7 7jis dince Toronto | 9 qas 8mtillihemt mot ikkfavpur4d 5esoyrdeful msbrader@interlog.com | abd fill if condif3nce on myd3lf." -- Cica My text in this article is in the public domain. ------------------------------ From: world!adamg@uunet.uu.net (Adam M Gaffin) Subject: SBC Slapped With Penalty and Other Telecom News Date: Sun, 26 Sep 1999 16:17:01 GMT Organization: The World Public Access Internet, Brookline, MA Here are telecom-related stories from this week's issue of Network World. If you haven't used Network World Fusion before, you'll have to register first to read them, but it's free. SBC slapped with penalty in Texas DSL competition case SBC Communications last week got slapped with an $845,000 penalty in Texas for not playing fair with two DSL service providers. The case documents the kind of foot-dragging that upstart carriers say they still face regularly from regional Bell operating companies. http://www.nwfusion.com/news/1999/0927sbc.html All in one access Old and new "integrated access" services only get you partway to a unified network. http://www.nwfusion.com/buzz99/buzzion.html Got the urge to converge? Technology advances and standards progress are pushing enterprise-level voice and data convergence ever closer to reality. http://www.nwfusion.com/buzz99/buzzcon.html Rhythms DSL is frame relay friendly Digital subscriber line may translate into lower frame relay prices, according to a new service from Rhythms NetConnections. http://www.nwfusion.com/news/1999/0927carrier.html AT&T takes down non-Y2K-compliant net http://www.nwfusion.com/archive/1999/76186_09-27-1999.html Bell Atlantic/Vodafone form wireless giant http://www.nwfusion.com/archive/1999/76492_09-27-1999.html Adam Gaffin Online Editor, Network World agaffin@nww.com / (508) 820-7433 ------------------------------ From: aboritz@CYBERNEX.NET (Alan Boritz) Subject: Re: Floyd/NJ Telecom Problems - More Info! Date: Sat, 25 Sep 1999 08:17:41 -0400 Organization: Dyslexics UNTIE In article , Cortland Richmond wrote: > On Tue, 21 Sep 1999 22:30:16 -0400 Alan Boritz (aboritz@CYBERNEX.NET) > wrote: >>> That's not the only thing about this incident that's inexcusable. >>> Bell Atlantic officials knew, at least at the moment when the utility >>> power was cut, and the river was pouring into their Rochelle Park >>> facility, that they had to notify Bergen County Emergency Management, in >>> Hackensack, that they were shortly going to disable 911, and wipe >>> out public access to all other law enforcement agencies in northern >>> Bergen County. Which state or county official did Bell Atlantic contact >>> to notify them of the situation, and when did they call them? >>> Sometime after Bell Atlantic shut down the switch at the Rochelle Park >>> facility, and Bergen County Emergency Management officials knew that >>> 911 was down, and that none of the million or so residents of northern >>> Bergen County could reach law enforcement agencies by telephone, what >>> did County officials do within the 2-1/2 days that 911 was down, to >>> get 911 working again? > 911 and telephone outage is one of the things emergency organizations > practice for. When 911 between police and fire went out in Irvine, CA > we posted RACES (Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service) members from > our club at major shopping centers, libraries, senior centers etc. and > at each fire station, in orderfor citizens to contact public safety > agencies. Later we particpated in an ad-hoc dispatch center at a > central fire station. > I have no doubt the local Emergency Services offices did respond to the > outage and it may even have included the local ACS (successor to RACES) > or other organizations. More information should become available about > what happened and when, and who did what -- or didn't. It didn't happen here. Most of the ham radio repeaters in northern NJ were up and available, but very little traffic except for hams asking each other if their phones were as screwed up as everyone else's. Hams did not play a major role in supplementing the non-functioning public switched telephone network this time. In article , Joseph T. Adams wrote: > Cortland Richmond wrote: >> 911 and telephone outage is one of the things emergency organizations >> practice for. When 911 between police and fire went out in Irvine, CA >> we posted RACES (Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service) members from >> our club at major shopping centers, libraries, senior centers etc. and >> at each fire station, in orderfor citizens to contact public safety >> agencies. Later we particpated in an ad-hoc dispatch center at a >> central fire station. > Is this standard practice throughout the country? And are people > being made aware of this practice? I for one was not previously aware > of it. Probably a good idea, but it would be an even better idea if > people knew about it. Radio Amateur Emergency Service (RACES) operates in some US cities, however it's not uniformly funded or managed. While there are some federal funds available for municipalities who organize them, it's not a lot, and it depends entirely upon volunteer licensed amateur radio operators. Unfortunately, with hams declining in number, and the lack of coordinators (for the municipalities) who can hold the hams' interest (with little or no reward), RACES is not a viable alternative. Where RACES exists, it's usually in smaller or more rural communities. Larger cities, like New York (where there wasn't a RACES program for at least 10 years) may have little or no activity. > For something like Y2K, for instance, panic, looting, etc. are likely > to be more significant threats than the actual system failures > themselves -- which are likely to be very short-lived -- and if people > knew that emergency assistance would be as close as XYZ Shopping > Center if necessary and that emergency personnel (including if > necessary military, citizens' groups, etc.) would do their best to > maintain safety and order during that time, they would be more likely > to behave rationally. It could be unless, of course, you find that the loonies are running the asylum. There's no need for this kind of Y2K disaster preparedness, since only the people who typically spread urban legends are perpetuating this one. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #433 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sun Sep 26 19:17:05 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id TAA06407; Sun, 26 Sep 1999 19:17:05 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sun, 26 Sep 1999 19:17:05 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199909262317.TAA06407@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #434 TELECOM Digest Sun, 26 Sep 99 19:17:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 434 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? (Steve Winter) Cellular Coverage in General (was Re: Sprint Coverage) (Joel M. Hoffman) Overseas Directory Information? (Dr. Joel M. Hoffman) Re: Intermittent Buzzing on Cordless Phone (dmastin) Re: Toll-Free "Local" Numbers? (Linc Madison) Re: Sermporn's Telecom Digest is Dead (Eric Bohlman) Re: Is the '.gif tax' Thing Starting All Over Again? (Juha Veijalainen) Re: Driving and Cell Phone Use (Adam H. Kerman) Re: AOL Networking Versus Internet Networking Paradigm (Joel M. Hoffman) Re: Can't Hang Up (Eliot Gelwan) Re: Big Brother Is Your Friend (Alan Boritz) Re: Big Brother Is Your Friend (Bill Newkirk) Another Interesting Email Address Harvesting Approach (Joey Lindstrom) Pat's Drastic Proposal (was: Heh. Big Anti-Telecom-Digest Spam) (A Kerman) Re: Last Laugh! [cough cough hack] Better Check That V-mail (Farmer) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: steve@sellcom.com (Steve Winter) Subject: Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? Date: Sat, 25 Sep 1999 01:05:18 -0400 Organization: WWW.SELLCOM.COM Reply-To: steve@sellcom.com kim@aol.com (Kim Brennan) spake thusly and wrote: > I'm not yet (but getting there fast) desparate enough to look up these > folks ISP and get them to clam up. Just do a traceroute to the source and see who their ISP is. Get a program like Network Toolbox http://www.jriver.com I usually just email the last IP to display a domain (the last one ahead of the destination). Steve http://www.sellcom.com Cyclades Siemens EnGenius Zoom at discount prices. SSL Secure VISA/MC/AMEX Online ordering Listed at http://www.thepubliceye.com as SELLCOM New Brick Wall "non-MOV" surge protection ------------------------------ Subject: Cellular Coverage in General (was Re: Sprint Coverage) Organization: Excelsior Computer Services From: joel@exc.com (Dr. Joel M. Hoffman) Date: Sat, 25 Sep 1999 13:18:11 GMT >> [Sprint's] big problem is poor coverage. It takes a huge number of >> cell sites to provide coverage in a band that's basically line of > Your story makes it sound so bad as to make me wonder if you have the > cause right. Are you really talking about signal quality (the little > bars on the phone display -- a combination of strength and error rate I've seen terrible coverage from all the major carriers. In Manhattan (!), both AT&T and BA have dead spots. Neither of them covers the entire trip along 95 from Boston to NY, even though it's one of the most well-travelled routes in the country. In some cases, the problem is not technological, but political -- i.e., lack of roaming agreements. With their dual digital/analogue plans, sometimes there's an an analogue cell nearby, but because of a lack of a roaming agreeement, the phone picks up on a digital signal that too weak to use. Other times, though, there's just no coverage at all. I think it's a major problem that we have so many companies working to install towers in the same places, with no one working to install towers where we really need them. This is the problem with "competition." What will happen is that we'll have our choice of a dozen different carriers, none of which will cover the entire US. In other countries, they have but one (or maybe two) carriers, but the whole country is covered. -Joel ------------------------------ Subject: Overseas Directory Information? Organization: Excelsior Computer Services From: joel@exc.com (Dr. Joel M. Hoffman) Date: Sat, 25 Sep 1999 13:48:18 GMT I just called AT&T to ask how much directory information for England is. $7.95!! In an era when a phone call from the US to England is only $0.10/min, why is directory information so expensive? Does anyone know of a (much) cheaper way? (And while we're at it, if someone has the number for SOAS in London, I'd appreciate it.) Thanks. -Joel [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I am really glad you raised this topic today. I just got my phone bill for last month and as a result of a call to directory assistance in Switzerland I was charged $7.94 by AT&T. The breakdown of the costs was like this: as a result of a call to '00' and a place called 'Natl DA' I was charged 99 cents. When 'Natl DA' then was unable to find the number desired in Switzer- land, I was transferred to '041-555-1212' and charged an additional $6.95 ... on this latter part of it, an actual operator in Zurich did pick up the call and speak with me. In addition to this, there was 81 cents in taxes on the above, divided between federal, state, county and local governments, making the total for the one minute call to obtain a telephone number in Switzerland $8.75. This was stated on the phone bill to be the 'standard, station to station rate'. This took place at 5:49 AM on September 1. Rather ridiculous, isn't it ... PAT] ------------------------------ From: dmastin@nntp9.atl.mindspring.net Subject: Re: Intermittent Buzzing on Cordless Phone Date: Sat, 25 Sep 1999 20:48:43 GMT Organization: MindSpring Enterprises This ameliorates the problem 95%. The phone has 25 channels. The phone was on channel 25. It is supposed to automatically scan for the best channel, but seemed stuck on 25. I scanned to 1 and now works much better. Strange. Thanks everyone! On Sun, 19 Sep 1999 00:18:20 GMT, dmastin@nntp8.atl.mindspring.net wrote: > I have a digital BellSouth model (HAC) 3890Z cordless phone answering > machine combo. After about 15 months use it has developed an > intermittent buzzing. This does not seem to be related to battery > charge. I get a fairly loud "bzzzzztp" every 15 to 45 seconds. The buzz > lasts about one second. From the other end it sounds like an > interruption in the conversation. I'm wondering if it is time to > purchase a new phone. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 25 Sep 1999 16:10:27 -0700 From: Linc Madison Subject: Re: Toll-Free "Local" Numbers? In article , Fred Goldstein wrote: >> While sitting in the laundromat today, I saw a "for sale" flyer on the >> wall. On the bottom of the flyer it read, "Toll free pager number >> 781-601-xxxx." "Toll free?" I asked myself. > Most likely, it's what The New England Telephone and Telegraph Company > calls "feature group 2A". This is a tariffed "oddball" number, one > that's treated for tariff purposes as adjacent/local to every rate > center within the LATA. > Cellular interconnection is by federal rule Oddball, so the fact that > my "617" cell phone number is rated as "Saugus" (a place way out in > 781) is meaningless. I'm not sure if pagers get this automatically or > not; cellcos are treated as a special case of CLEC and do not pay Bell > special rates for the privilege. It is not a federal rule. In fact, it is no longer true in California, as of earlier this year. If your cellphone is rated as Walnut Creek but you're calling from a San Francisco land line, it's a toll call. Pacific Bell forced this tariff change through the CPUC, in spite of its obvious ill effects on number conservation, since it dramatically increases the number of rate centers in which a wireless provider needs to hold blocks of numbers. The reverse direction, cellular to land line, is governed by the cellular company's tariffs, which generally include at least the LATA in the "airtime only" charging zone. ------------------------------ From: ebohlman@netcom.com (Eric Bohlman) Subject: Re: Sermporn's Telecom Digest is Dead Date: 26 Sep 1999 00:21:51 GMT Organization: Netcom TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response to Bruce Wilson (blw1540@aol.comxxnospam): > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: He renamed 'index.html' to 'index2.html' > as a matter of fact in order to circumvent visiting browsers from just > dropping in as before. Any directory lacking an 'index.html' will > cause a visiting browser to just provide the directory itself and > let you, the visitor decide what to do next. Personally, I think that > poses some security risks. He is probably going to rebuild his ... I know this sounds nitpicky, but this is a common misunderstanding. A *browser* by itself is incapable of displaying a directory listing. There's no way in HTTP to request a directory. Many Web *servers* are configured to create an HTML document containing a directory listing if they receive a partial URL path and there's no "default document" in the directory that path maps to. But this configuration detail can be changed so that the server sends out a 404 or something similar. ------------------------------ From: juhave@iobox.fi (Juha Veijalainen) Subject: Re: Is the '.gif tax' Thing Starting All Over Again? Organization: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?J=E4=E4karhuritarit?= Date: Sun, 26 Sep 1999 12:21:04 GMT In article , aboritz@CYBERNEX.NET says: > Unless if someone installed "Second Voice" on my office computer, this > is no urban legend. Unisys has a special web page dedicated to this > issue: http://corp2.unisys.com/LeadStory/lzw-license.html > They claim a licensing interest over all GIF, TIFF-LZW, PDF-LZW, or > other LZW graphical formats used to operate a web site, and demand a > payment of $5,000 to cover up to two web servers at any web site. It's > all based on US patent no. 4558302, issued to Terry A. Welch, of > (then) Sperry Corp. You forgot to mention a very important bit of information from the web- page you referred to. It says also: "Many Web site operators use commercially available software which creates GIF images offline which are then posted on their Web sites. Since most of this commercially available software is under license from Unisys for their use of the LZW patent, users of this software are probably covered as well for this use of GIF images on their Web sites." So, I've made a few modest attempts to create buttons etc. on my personal web pages. Latest piece of software I tried to experiment was from Microsoft. They've licensed LZW. I do not have to pay 5000 USD for the GIFs on my home page. Anyhow, the full text of the press release is at http://corp2.unisys.com/LeadStory/lzw-license.html Juha Veijalainen, Helsinki, Finland, http://www.iki.fi/juhave/ Some random words: bomb,steganography,cryptography,reindeer ** Mielipiteet omiani ** Opinions personal, facts suspect ** ------------------------------ From: Adam H. Kerman Subject: Re: Driving and Cell Phone Use Date: 25 Sep 1999 12:58:27 -0500 Organization: Chinet - Public Access since 82 Joseph T. Adams wrote: > And that's precisely the problem. Traffic enforcement in North > America is clearly and blatantly oriented toward revenue collection, > NOT public safety. Dangerously bad drivers are seldom ticketed, while > (otherwise?) good drivers who safely drive faster than posted limits - > which are often artificially set too low for this very purpose - > almost always are. Fascinating. When you are driving through a business or residential area or small town or rural area you'd never been to before, how did you happen to determine that the speed limit is too low? If you were a pedestrian or a motorist trying to enter from a side street, you'd think the speed limit was too high. In lawsuit-happy America, civil engineers design streets to standards that will keep motorists of low driving skills on the road if they travel at high speed. Then the traffic engineers make an attempt to balance the actual or expected land use along the road with the amount of congestion and set the speed limit accordingly. Ass-backwards, wouldn't you say? But that's what the manual says to do. What happens if you don't follow the manual? Your agency loses a personal injury suit because the plaintiff will successfully argue before the jury that you didn't design the road to the highest-possible standard. An idiot drives into an embankment or a bridge abutment. He sues. After all, the abutment jumped in front of his line of travel at a high rate of speed. Street lights and traffic poles are designed to break away in an attempt to preserve the life of a motorist who runs into them. This can be at the expense of a hapless pedestrian or another motorist or someone in a store. Take a look at a brand new parking lot and notice that the light standards are designed as break-aways. Just in case someone decides he must drive into one at 50 mph. A speed limit is nothing more than a pathetic attempt to overcome bad engineering. Should they be set at 40 mph through business areas? Probably not; it may be too high. Why? Most motorists only look ahead for congestion and occassionally, red lights. They never expect that pedestrians will cross or that traffic will enter from side streets. They can't understand why they simply can't drive as quickly as possible. If they drove more slowly, they'd have time to comprehend the usual hazards. Ideally, there'd never be speed limits posted. Instead, roads would be designed to intimidate errant drivers into watching for pedestrians and each other. Lanes would be narrower to make them uncomfortable driving above 20 mph in a business area. Crosswalks would be short so pedestrians can safely and easily get to the other side with as little conflict as possible. None of this would matter if drivers would simply pay attention. A couple of months ago, Stephen King, the popular novelist, was hit while walking his dogs on a rural highway. It was daylight, a dry day, and there was little traffic. The motorist, a neighbor, couldn't be bothered to pay attention. You are simply wrong to conclude that a speed limit is posted as a revenue collection measure. It is there because it must be there, a failed attempt to add a little safety to a bad road design, a design that encourages motorists to drive too fast and not watch for conflicts. Please obey it and expect and anticipate other hazards. The life you save could be that of an innocent bystander. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: However, it is quite true that many very small communities rely heavily on the revenue received from traffic citations and go so far as to deliberatly construct 'speed traps' and unusual (as in not traditionally seen by careful motorists) regulations within their community in an effort to trick the drivers passing through town. A motorist who is otherwise careful and tries to obey the rules finds a police officer jumping out at him from behind a bush or a billboard with a traffic citation for something in which there was no resulting accident and the facts fall into a sort of grey area. Then the motorist is given a choice: he can plead guilty to the offense and pay the fine then and there (at the local police station) or if he wishes to contest the matter he can put up a substantial bond, forfeit his driver's license and promise to return to court at some point in the future even though he may live in a destination a thousand miles away. Naturally, the motorist simply pleads guilty and pays the fine. The amount of the fine is kept low enough as a way of 'encouraging' the motorist to be done with the matter then and there, and the offense is conveniently forgotten about afterward with no record of it being forwarded to state authorities who issue licenses, etc. Lots and lots of small towns are notorious for this kind of thing when they see a car coming with a license plate from a distant state and realize the chance of any back-talk from the motorist is slight. PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Re: AOL Networking Versus Internet Networking Paradigm Organization: Excelsior Computer Services From: joel@exc.com (Dr. Joel M. Hoffman) Date: Sat, 25 Sep 1999 18:00:03 GMT > AOL's dialup pools are their own. They contract with several vendors, > including us, to install thousands of modems a month for them. Our Hmm. If this it true, using AOL in addition to the internet might be a good redundancy plan for inter-city connectivity. -Joel ------------------------------ From: Eliot Gelwan Subject: Re: Can't Hang Up Date: Sat, 25 Sep 1999 11:11:17 -0400 Organization: dis- Reply-To: emg@who.net On 23 Sep 1999 13:34:07 -0400, colonel@monmouth.com said: > The home phone line I use for computer work sometimes loses carrier > but does not hang up. My home system just recently developed this problem, right after I routed a new line up from the basement to install a new phone jack, so I thought I had created a short somewhere in the wiring process. After tearing down and redoing all my connections, without avail, it tuned out it was a faulty caller ID box on one of the phones. ...eliot (Eliot Gelwan) postal: 82 Perry Street, Brookline MA 02446-6907 email: emg@who.net http://world.std.com/~emg "The mind is its own place, and in itself, can make heaven of Hell, and a hell of Heaven." -- Milton [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This is something I overlooked before when I answered originally. If a caller ID box has batteries that have gotten bad, the phone line -- which frequently runs in series through the caller ID box -- will start getting flaky, with very low volume, etc. It would not suprise me if it also kept the phone off hook. PAT] ------------------------------ From: aboritz@CYBERNEX.NET (Alan Boritz) Subject: Re: Big Brother Is Your Friend Date: Sat, 25 Sep 1999 09:27:04 -0400 Organization: Dyslexics UNTIE In article , Monty Solomon wrote: > BERKELEY, California -- The omnipresent cameras are coming, says science > fiction writer David Brin. The question isn't when, but what they'll be > pointing at. > Surveillance cameras will be perched on every lamppost and windowsill, > beaming the minutiae of daily life to police headquarters. Street crime > will plummet, Brin says. > http://www.wired.com/news/news/politics/story/21840.html > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Neither of those scenarios qualify as > 'Big Brother' events in my opinion. Very unpleasant, to be sure, but > not Big Brother-ish. Here is why: In the case of the email, the > employer owns the computer and the facilities. The employer also > 'owns' your time that he is paying for each day. Therefore the > employer has the right to supervise your work, and has the right to > examine what is on the computer. No, Pat, that's not correct. It's only ONE legal opinion, but not the prevailing one. It's the same issue as wiretapping an employee's telephone coversation (third-party eavesdropping). There has been no Supreme Court decision on the issue, so there's no "law of the land" on this one. > In the case of public cameras, I would suggest that anything the > human eye is legally entitled to observe and its owner act upon, > a camera is legally entitled to observe. Note the key word here is > 'legally'. A camera is just an extension of the human eye, in the > same way a telephone is an extension of the human ear and the > human mouth. No, a cop can't play back accurate visual and/or aural representations of those things they see. There's a not so obvious problem when that "extension of the human eye" also records and plays back images of things that are NOT police business. A trained professional knows what is and isn't "police business" and will/should not make that mistake. One interpretation of comprehensive visual surveillance is search (even if not accomplished physically), and search without probable cause is generally illegal. Although few people would challenge the illegal search if it resulted in apprehension of someone who was caught committing a crime, however the municipality that falsely accuses someone of a crime on the basis of the illegal search deserves to get whacked in a way serious enough to ensure that they never do something like that again. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I have never yet heard of a court ruling saying that a person (company) which owned property (computer or telephone) was not entitled without question to examine his property anytime he wanted to do so. Anytime a court wishes to suggest that I as the owner of the company am required to take responsibility for what takes place with the company but that I am not allowed to have the tools with which to do so, ie. the ability to supervise the uses that are made of company resources, my response would be to *immediatly* close the doors, shut down the company and walk away from it. Anytime a court rules that I am required to meet my payroll obli- gations to you as an employee, but have no right to supervise your work and demand that it be done to my satisfaction is also the time I would close the company and walk away. Whoever heard of anything that ridiculous before? I do agree that because so many people seem to feel they should have the right to do as they please, when they please with property which does not belong to them, ie. company telephones and computers and that percentage of their time the company has 'purchased' each day, that any contracts with new employees and/or 'employee handbooks' should clearly state as follows: 1) Company computers are intended for company business; as managers for the company we reserve the right to examine the computer at any time. Since personal business of yours has no place on company computers, if it is not present you do not have to worry that we will see it. We will never deliberatly monitor your personal computer accounts with other internet service suppliers. 2) Ditto company telephones. Personal phone calls have no place on company phones. Company phones are subject to monitoring as part of our overall supervision of your work. We do *not* monitor your personal cellular phone or the pay phones located around the premises. Now anytime a judge somewhere wants to say I am not allowed to do (1) and (2) above, that is the day I would dismiss all employees subject to whatever legal or contractual obligations I had with them, hand the keys to the factory or office or whatever over to the court and say 'here judge, you run the place then; your unrealistic requirements have made it impossible for anyone else to run it.' Regards 'camera as an extension of the human eye' I will suggest that police officers in real time on the street also see a wide variety of things which they may not like but upon which they can take no action based on how it came into their line of sight. They cannot stop someone who is driving or walking simply because they observed them without probable cause. Police, like any other citizens are entitled to observe whatever they please. The line is drawn on whether or not they can take action on what they have seen if they had no probable cause in mind. A police officer is not required to shield his eyes when he walks past my home. If you feel it is wrong for a 'camera to be an extension of the human eye', allowing the eye to see things otherwise outside its natural range of site, do you also feel it is wrong to make the telephone 'an extension of the human ear and mouth' where police are concerned? If a police officer is not allowed to view the camera's presentation *of a public place* and discern, based on the law, what he is and is not allowed to take action on, then why should police officers be allowed to speak or listen via a telephone to citizens who want to speak with them? After all, citizens call police on the phone constantly with all sorts of crazy things to say about what they have seen and heard or participated in. Police are presumably, in theory, trained sufficiently to take an overview of what they are told by citizens who call them and deal with those things in some sort of lawful way. If a police officer must be required to 'see it with his own eyes' or act only because a citizen 'saw it with his own eyes' then why not also require the police to 'hear it with their own ears'? If they have to see and act in a face-to-face confrontation, then why not require them to listen and speak in the same way? The telephone has fixed things so that police officers do not have to be everywhere at once listening, why cannot cameras fix things so they do not have to be everywhere at once looking? There's that damn technology again, getting in the way, the technology that was supposed to make our lives so much easier. The key is, telephone or camera or computer: use them in a lawful way. Police *must* take an overview of it all and respond according to law or risk losing their case, same as in the past. As soon as any type of technology reaches through my bedroom window or intrudes anywhere that I have a *reasonable expectation of privacy* then we have Big Brother. When technology is used responsibly and lawfully in public, we do not have Big Brother. Oppressive, yes, the same as a police officer on every street corner would be oppressive in my opinion. But if you can have the one, logically you can have the other. It seems interesting to me, Alan, that you seem willing to override or abuse the property rights of an employer in order to protect his employees, but are not willing to overlook what you percieve as the abuse of the public while in public places in order to protect 'victims' from 'criminals'. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Bill Newkirk Subject: Re: Big Brother Is Your Friend Date: Sun, 26 Sep 1999 00:56:08 -0400 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com I highly recommend the book "Transparent Society" by Brin for at least getting a view of the possible outcomes of the camera-is-everywhere society. "Don't just take any beer, take a Shat's - Nature's Perfect Beer including your daily requirement of Fiber! Remember, Shat's may not be Number 1, but they'll always be Number 2! And for your non-alcoholic drinkers, try our Non-Alcoholic Brew, O'Stool's!" [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The book you recommend is a good example of the direction our society is headed. I recommend it also. But the fact remains that if millions of pairs of human eyes can observe and their owner's mouths talk to millions of pairs of police officer's ears and have action taken as a result, then there is no logical reason telephones and cameras cannot perform the same function in a lawful way. I think here we are just seeing still another chapter and verse in the long-running battle between our very human and quite inefficient ways of recording data and the computer's ability to record it all very nicely, efficiently, and without any guilt trips in the process of doing so. Years ago, when we lived under the 'security through obscurity' rule, we did not spend much time thinking about the information someone else might obtain on us simply because there was no effecient way of gathering it all and storing it. Now those have become quite trivial problems and the challenge has become how do we process it all. This new way of dealing with things began several years ago, and now it is starting to gouge us a little, isn't it? PAT] ------------------------------ From: Joey Lindstrom Date: Sat, 25 Sep 1999 05:40:02 -0600 Reply-To: Joey Lindstrom Subject: Another Interesting Email Address Harvesting Approach I caught this bit of spam in my mailbox today. The spammers, not noted for being overly intelligent, are nevertheless becoming more and more devious in their ongoing mission to harvest legitimate email addresses. I'm betting this one will work quite well, actually. ==================BEGIN FORWARDED MESSAGE================== >Return-Path: >Resent-Date: Fri, 24 Sep 1999 23:56:59 -0600 (Mountain Daylight Time) >Resent-From: mr.blufeel@gte.net >Resent-Message-Id: <199909250556.XAA00303@sinclair.garynumanfan.nu> >Received: from smtppop1.gte.net (smtppop1.gte.net [207.115.153.20]) > by mb3.mailbank.com (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id WAA11919 > for ; Fri, 24 Sep 1999 22:58:29 -0700 >Received: from computer (cdale-dialup17.midwest.net [208.235.2.27]) > by smtppop1.gte.net with SMTP > ; id AAA4836176 > Sat, 25 Sep 1999 00:56:22 -0500 (CDT) >Date: Sat, 25 Sep 1999 00:56:22 -0500 (CDT) >Message-Id: <199909250556.AAA4836176@smtppop1.gte.net> >From: Robert Valentine >To: Dear friend >Reply-To: mr.blufeel@gte.net >Subject: I need help or information please. >Mime-Version: 1.0 >Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit >Status: I am appealing to the public or any organization! I was recently charged with the possession and sale of a controlled substance. I am wondering if I am eligible for any programs that you might know of or Any organization that may be of help to my cause. To give you a little background on myself, I am A 29-year-old male Caucasian and I am currently enrolled in the SOUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY AT CARBONDALE Aviation flight and computer science undergraduate pro- grams in good standing, and have been since August of 1995. I have no criminal background either violent or non- Violent, including the sale of narcotics. This is my First offense. Also, I am not a user of drugs. I have admitted my guilt 100% and I am cooperating with local law enforcement. The prosecutor on my case is not willing to discuss any alternatives other than incarceration in the ILLINOIS DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS. I am being sentenced to 6 years in prison of which I, my family and friends consider to be excessive. Considering this is my first offense. I am willing to participate in any alternative programs ie..MILITARY, PEACECORPS, REDCROSS, INDENTURED SERVICE local or abroad. Any other programs other than incarceration in the ILLINOIS DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS. Some place where I will be productive to society! If you or anyone can help please contact me. If you need specifics or any other information please feel free to contact me as soon as possible, as time is very critical! Robert Valentine mr.blufeel@gte.net blufeel@hotmail.com Makanda, Jackson County, Illinois 62958 USA ===================END FORWARDED MESSAGE=================== From the messy desktop of Joey Lindstrom Email: Joey@GaryNumanFan.NU or joey@lindstrom.com Phone: +1 403 313-JOEY FAX: +1 413 643-0354 (yes, 413 not 403) Visit The NuServer! http://www.GaryNumanFan.NU Visit The Webb! http://webb.GaryNumanFan.NU I don't want to get off on a rant here, but as more and more aging Baby Boomers peer through their bifocals at the haggard Lance Henrickson face of their own mortality, one question seems to occur with numbing frequency, where do we go after last call at Bistro Earth? -- Dennis Miller [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I agree his approach is quite clever. You may have seen the similar one going around, where a woman (usually) states that she is the 'webmaster of an adult site'; that she is very new on the job, and needs help from other webmasters or netizens in general in learning how to set up her site properly. You are invited to write her and offer your assistance. Isn't all that nice! The spamemrs have learned that their worthless chain letters and questionable business opportunities are not an acceptable use of the net, so now they are harvesting via tried-and- true methods of getting responses: 1) netizen needs technical help with computer; (always a sure way to get lots of responses) 2) netizen is victim of injustice via laws or police, etc (also sure to interest many on the net) It is a shame that now when we would like to trust our natural reactions as part of a caring, sharing community and assist other netizens by offering solutions and trading information, we have to instead wonder if that is a scam also. I liken the spammers with their more sophisti- cated techniques or harvesting names with the guy who holds a gun at your head demanding money versus the jolly (but fake!) old Santa Claus at Christmas with his kettle and bell on the sidewalk. In Chicago a couple years ago, it seems that the real Salvation Army had a problem with a 'fake' Santa Claus replete with red kettle, the appropriate logo, etc setting up shop in a couple of malls and then absconding with the money he collected each day. He finally got caught of course, and the judge said how about we double your sentence under the guidelines, just as a way of saying thanks for taking still one more thing the public has learned to trust and abusing it so that people cannot be sure about that any longer either. So it should be with spammers who can't stick with their more crude approach of sticking some stupid email in our boxes each day and instead try to pretend like they are real netizens: when caught in the act, banish them from the net forever. No redemption possible. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Adam H. Kerman Subject: Pat's Drastic Proposal (was: Heh. Big Anti-Telecom-Digest Spam) Date: 25 Sep 1999 12:21:23 -0500 Organization: Chinet - Public Access since 82 > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The last half of this posting was > the letter Baptista sent out to the names he harvested, and I have > eliminated it here. No need for a second pass of it. Since we are > seeing more and more of this kind of thing here, with people ripping > off the names, I am wondering what the readers would think about the > *total elimination* of writer's email addresses in the Digest. In > other words, articles would say 'From: name' rather than saying as > they do now 'From: name ' ... persons who expected > a reply other than via the Digest would have the choice of putting > a valid signature in the text itself. > The other possibility is that since LCS/MIT operates an anonymous > remail service, maybe I could hook into that somehow, and pipe all > incoming mail for publication through that, getting an anonymous > name attached to the article which would expire something like 72 hours > later. So here you would see 'From: real name ' > and this would allow the article to be taken in the proper context > by seeing the author's name and allow a short period to write to > them in response. The author would have the option of putting his > real address in the text of the message as is done now. Ideas? PAT] I oppose these drastic suggestions. As long as the Digest is gated to a moderated news group, we should continue to operate under Usenet protocols. I support the long-standing protocol that all articles distributed via Usenet MUST have a valid mailbox in the From header. Those who post to Usenet with munged domains or mailboxes or both are in violation of the standard and wrong for doing so. There are so many tools available to filter spam, it is unreasonable to deliberately make more work for people who choose to reply in Mail. If you never want anyone to reply to your articles, you may use an address in From that points to /dev/null. The standard does not require you to read replies. Furthermore, I think it is unethical for a moderator to change the headers or body of an article any more than necessary to add the special headers that allow the article to pass through the moderation filter. I reject the idea of altering the article and substituting the remail address. In the spirit of Usenet, I choose to post articles with a From address of a mailbox that I actually read. I prefer to encourage lurkers on Usenet or mailing lists to be able to send Mail if they wish to send me something they think might be of interest to me but off topic in the news group or the mailing list. Or if they wish to say something that might get them in trouble with their colleages. Or even if they wish to flame me. I'll be damned if I'll let those who would send commercial messages or fraudulent schemes ruin my Usenet postings. I wasn't offended by the guy who sent the message. That's why my e-mail address is there. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I do not like doing those things either. Not only are they in opposition to what Usenet stands for and has traditionally represented, they also put a lot more work on me here. Nor do I wish to be in a position where anyone who wishes to respond to a poster in this Digest has to do so via me. Not only is that more work, but it is also unethical under many circumstances. I do not want anyone feeling that I somehow control in an unfair way the opinions or viewpoints which pass through here. And what happens to the person who is unable respond directly to the writer before the 72 hours the remail address is in effect expires? So I provide @telecom-digest.zzn.com as one alternative but there are problems with that also, and since I have no control over it I cannot modify it to serve the readers here as I would like. What I would like to do is replace @telecom-digest.zzn.com with a mail service I could adapt for each user's individual needs regarding spam control and privacy control, yet have it meet traditional Usenet standards as well. There is so much that needs to be done to make the Digest and the telecom website reach the standards I have set for it but I do not have the resources or ability to accomplish it. As a poet once said, 'oppressed am I by things undone; oh, that my dreams and deeds were one ...' PAT] ------------------------------ From: N.Californiafarmer@ranch.net Subject: Re: Last Laugh! [cough cough hack] Better Check That V-mail System Date: Sun, 26 Sep 1999 16:37:50 GMT Organization: the peoples republic of California On Fri, 24 Sep 1999 16:10:11 EDT, Danny Burstein wrote: > I don't know if this is a hack, someone else's sysetem that they're > pretending belongs to B&W, or really their own. > The msg was still up at 2 this afternoon, so who knows? > Sure sounds like someone hacked B&W's voice-mail ... presumably > they'll fix it shortly ... but if you get the spoof msg, it's well > worth the attempt. > There is an astonishing initial recording on the customer service line > for Brown & Williamson, the tobacco company. Call 1-800-578-7453 and > listen until it gives you the prompt to be connected elsewhere. It must be for real ... ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #434 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sun Sep 26 21:02:17 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id VAA10453; Sun, 26 Sep 1999 21:02:17 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sun, 26 Sep 1999 21:02:17 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199909270102.VAA10453@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #435 TELECOM Digest Sun, 26 Sep 99 21:02:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 435 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Telecom Digest Business Directory - September 1999 (Babu Mengelepouti) No Address on TELECOM Digest Posts? (Cortland Richmond) Re: Another "Illegal Link" (Bill Newkirk) Re: COCOTs vs. LEC Payphones (was Re: Payphone Survives) (Stanley Cline) PhoneTel (was Re: COCOTs vs. LEC Payphones (Steven J Sobol) Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? (Brian Elfert) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 25 Sep 1999 03:11:41 -0700 From: Babu Mengelepouti Reply-To: dialtone@vcn.bc.ca Organization: US Secret Service Subject: Telecom Digest Business Directory - September, 1999 > People often ask me what to do with these spammer's phone numbers. 1. Please know that every call to an 800# cost someone money. Since it is a free call to you ... guess who pays? There ya go. So ... if posted to a mail list of 1000 people, and even 100 call, the spammer gets to pay. So listen to the entire message when you call. Call from payphones, courtesy phones, etc. One call to each number from each phone you have access to. Any more than that is potential harassment and WE are law abiding citizens. Of course, some of these ask you to leave your name or number and they will get back to you. Be creative :) 2. There's probably a few of these type reverse lookup pages, with this one if they don't have the 1 800 number in their directory you can submit your own co. name details etc. Give them some believable disinformation and screw up the 1 800 no. The page says it takes a day or two for the listing to appear (I have yet to see my entries appear) When listing make sure all the options for giving out their info are ticked :> http://inter800.com/search.htm 3. The good old prank call/message. --------------------------------- [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Before presenting the entries in this edition of the business directory, I want to introduce you to the Merchant of the Month; this award is given by myself from time to time to spammers who particularly annoy me. So readers, please welcome Benchmark Supply: From: To: Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1999 03:59:33 Message-Id: <290.61095.46556@> Subject: laser printer toner advertisement Thank you for inquiring about our products. Following is is a current price list. [PAT: They must have me mistaken with someone else. I did not inquire about their products.] BENCHMARK SUPPLY 7540 BRIDGEGATE COURT ATLANTA GA 30350 ***LASER PRINTER TONER CARTRIDGES*** ***FAX AND COPIER TONER*** CHECK OUT OUR NEW CARTRIDGE PRICES : [PAT: Approximatly three hundred lines deleted. I hope no one is offended that I omit it here.] ****OUR ORDER LINE IS 770-399-0953 **** ****OUR CUSTOMER SERVICE LINE IS 800-586-0540**** ****OUR E-MAIL REMOVAL AND COMPLAINT LINE IS 888-532-7170**** ****PLACE YOUR ORDER AS FOLLOWS**** : BY PHONE 770-399-0953 BY FAX: 770-698-9700 BY MAIL: BENCHMARK PRINT SUPPLY 7540 BRIDGEGATE COURT ATLANTA GA 30350 NOTE NUMBER (1): PLEASE DO NOT CALL OUR ORDER LINE TO REMOVE YOUR E-MAIL ADDRESS OR COMPLAIN. OUR ORDER LINE IS NOT SETUP TO FORWARD YOUR E-MAIL ADDRESS REMOVAL REQUESTS OR PROCESS YOUR COMPLAINTS..IT WOULD BE A WASTED PHONE CALL.YOUR ADDRESS WOULD NOT BE REMOVED AND YOUR COMPLAINTS WOULD NOT BE HANDLED. * PLEASE CALL OUR TOLL FREE E-MAIL REMOVAL AND COMPLAINT LINE TO DO THAT. * [PAT: In other words, call 800-586-0540 and/or 888-532-7170.] NOTE NUMBER (2): OUR E-MAIL RETURN ADDRESS IS NOT SETUP TO ANSWER ANY QUESTIONS YOU MIGHT HAVE REGARDING OUR PRODUCTS. OUR E-MAIL RETURN ADDRESS IS ALSO NOT SETUP TO TAKE ANY ORDERS AT THIS TIME. PLEASE CALL THE ORDER LINE TO PLACE YOUR ORDER OR HAVE ANY QUESTIONS ANSWERED. OTHERWISE PLEASE CALL OUR CUSTOMER SERCICE LINE. NOTE NUMBER (3): OWNERS OF ANY OF THE DOMAINS THAT APPEAR IN THE HEADER OF THIS MESSAGE,ARE IN NO WAY ASSOCIATED WITH, PROMOTING, DISTRIBUTING OR ENDORSING ANY OF THE PRODUCTS ADVERTISED HEREIN AND ARE NOT LIABLE TO ANY CLAIMS THAT MAY ARISE THEREOF. THIS IS NOT SPAM !!!!!! [PAT: I am sure you will want to call this company and let them know of all the different email addresses under your control which need to be removed from their mailing lists. Now, let's review the latest issue of the Business Directory. You will probably want to print this out and keep a copy near your telephone, or perhaps put a copy in your desk at work.] =-= 08.04.99 financial status1-888-287-7609 08.03.99 make money 1-800-320-5578 08.02.99 make money 1-800-352-3288 Ext. 2300 07.31.99 male sex book 800-479-9955 07.31.99 remove 800-965-4885 07.27.99 net hosting 800-730-6761 07.27.99 no hang ups 1-888-546-5348 07.26.99 spy software 1-800-242-0363 Ext 2301 07.26.99 net hosting 1-877-352-2474 07.22.99 radio webcaster (800) 242-0363 ext.2491 07.21.99 bleh 1-800-409-8302 Ext. 7301 07.20.99 work from home 1-800-352-3288 Ext 2300 07.18.99 search engine (888) 892-7537 07.16.99 remove 1-888-595-5759 07.16.99 make money 800-573-9810 07.16.99 six figure income (877) 495-1506 07.16.99 web master wanted 1-888-801-1491 07.10.99 lose weight 1-800-378-4504 07.10.99 remove 1-800-409-8312 07.07.99 long distance 800-626-9573 07.07.99 meet women 1-800-HOT-BABES 07.07.99 home business 1-800-811-2141 #91543 07.07.99 email addy cd 1-800-242-0363 ext. 1226 07.07.99 outlook 2000 1-800-228-2095 07.06.99 office 2000 1.800.228.2095 06.30.99 email marketing 1-800-242-0363 ext. 1226 06.30.99 chinese aphrodisiac 888-399-3900 06.30.99 money fast 1-888-248-1529 06.29.99 wealth building 888-503-7141 06.29.99 remove 1-888-595-5759 06.29.99 get loans 1-877-757-3630 06.29.99 spam 1-888-584-3193 06.25.99 credit cards (800) 304-9268 06.24.99 psychic 1 800 592 7827 06.24.99 buy our HW! 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From: pbhy@msn.com 1-800-593-3645 From: loqaswe@pvtnet.cz 1-800-320-9895 Ext 7040 From: amscott@hamkk.fi 1-800-320-9895 Ext 7040 From: Call now (800)811-2141 800.226.0633 (second number) From: JVERDUCE@aol.com 1-800-350-9692 From: y2kreport@altavista.net 1-888-248-1529 From: hotbusiness@tu.koszalin.pl 1-800-322-6169 Ext. 1882 From: blueink8@hotpop.com 1-800-810-4330. improve sex performance/orgasm 800.929.3576 From: DOBBIE2ME@aol.com Call some of the following toll-free numbers and listen to what other people say about this business: *1-888-703-5389 (Gay Dietch almost didn't join) *1-888-269-7961 (Brenda Cook quit her job in 1 month) *1-888-446-6951 (Big Mac made $10,000 his first month) *1-888-731-3457 (Jeff Gardner makes $1,000/week) *1-888-256-4767 (Tim Nelson made $3500 his 1st week) *1-888-438-4005 (Paul & Deb made $2000 1st two weeks) *1-888-715-0642 (Steven F. made $50,000 in 12 months) Call the Top Secrets Information Hotline: *If you live in the US or Canada: *Call 1-800-811-2141 Code# 63128 ---------------------------------------- [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Please be sure to contact these fine businesses which have placed their messages on the internet in recent months. Let them know how much you appreciate having their messages in your favorite newsgroups, etc. Remember, each netizen helping out just a little will help science find a cure for spammers. DO NOT harass the above numbers or do anything illegal, but remember, they have on the net asked you to call them for details. Call as often as required until you have the details you need and you have have reported each and every email address (one at a time!) to be removed from their lists. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 26 Sep 1999 20:21:29 -0700 From: Cortland Richmond Organization: Alcatel Subject: No Address on TELECOM Digest Posts? Pat wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The last half of this posting was > the letter Baptista sent out to the names he harvested, and I have > eliminated it here. No need for a second pass of it. Since we are > seeing more and more of this kind of thing here, with people ripping > off the names, I am wondering what the readers would think about the > *total elimination* of writer's email addresses in the Digest. In > other words, articles would say 'From: name' rather than saying as > they do now 'From: name ' ... persons who expected > a reply other than via the Digest would have the choice of putting > a valid signature in the text itself. Pat, I don't expect personal replies to postings I've made to TELECOM Digest and I certainly don't want to be spammed as a result. My vote (if you're taking a vote) is, strip off the headers and just leave the names OR ... whatever is the least amount of work for YOU. You're the guy who has to DO stuff (and thanks for that!) so you should be the one to decide WHAT to do. Cortland ------------------------------ From: Bill Newkirk Subject: Re: Another "Illegal Link" Date: Sun, 26 Sep 1999 01:01:56 -0400 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com The Rose Polytechnic Institute (now Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology) official paper was "Institute Inklings.". At some time (probably around the late-1960s, there seemed to be a number of things that happened then to upset the apple cart as it were), a competing underground newspaper appeared called "The Thorn". The current newspaper is now "The Rose Thorn". > Web Site's Link to UA Newspaper Questioned - Robert DeWitt > TUSCALOOSA - It's not hard to find Campusrag.com's email address; just > look on almost any powerpole around campus. University of Alabama > officials want to find the people behind the address. > Small white signs with "See Campusrag.com" began showing up around campus > about a week ago. It's a web site targeting University of Alabama student > interests. Users provide much of the content. > S.P.A.M. - Stupid People's Advertising Method - it's not just for > snailmail anymore ... ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 26 Sep 1999 16:33:16 -0400 From: Stanley Cline Subject: Re: COCOTs vs. LEC Payphones (was Re: Payphone Survives .45) Mark J Cuccia wrote: > Each and every "internal chip" payphone (COCOT) either has to be > individually visited for updating the programing (and hardware) or > else has to be individually called-up remotely (or call their central > headquarters overnight) for program updating. That is, if the COCOT > company chooses to keep up to date in "translations", etc. Most of the larger "legitimate" companies such as ETS Payphones, PhoneTel, and DavelTel/CCI/TEI do, but many smaller sleazeballs don't. Here in Atlanta, I still run across payphones that now charge 35 cents but have NPAs and/or NXXs missing. I know at least two COCOT owners here that are VERY close to having his Georgia COCOT certificate revoked and/or being fined by the FCC because THEY WON'T FIX THEIR PHONES DESPITE COMPLAINTS TO THE COMPANIES AND TO THE PSC AND FCC -- calls to 888 and 877 toll-free numbers, including calling card access numbers (hence FCC jurisdiction), do not go through; calls to NPA 678 -- all of which is local from the phones in question -- are not completed; calls to Jasper and other areas in NPA 706 cost $3 instead of 35 cents (this is my main argument for moving Jasper etc. out of 706 into a future overlay NPA), etc. > is one of them. MOST BellSouth payphones within BellSouth's > "traditional own" ratecenters are now COCOT-like. There are still a > few here and there that are traditional central-office controlled over and those few are going away :( http://www.bellsouthcorp.com/proactive/documents/render/29282.vtml > Other LECs, such as GTE and Sprint (formerly United and Centel) are > putting in or switching-over, to COCOT-like payphones within their own > traditional territory. ... and Cincinnati Bell, and US West (the proliferation of Millennium phones), and various small independents ... > In "independent" territory across the south, you can find BellSouth > COCOT-like payphones. It is also possible that "LEC-owned" COCOT-like > telephones can be found in _EACH_OTHERS'_TERRITORIES_! i.e., an > Ameritech-logo'd payphone in Bell Atlantic territory! Or a > BellSouth-logo'd (COCOT-like) payphone in California! In addition to that, many independent LECs (particularly TDS Telecom, as well as many smaller independents such as Millington Telephone near Memphis) have gotten out of the payphone business completely, selling all their phones to COCOT companies! It's downright weird to see COCOTs sitting in front of telco COs, as is the case in Millington, or COCOTs with "TDS Telecom" markings, such as many around Knoxville :( > the COCOTs! Unfortunately, most COCOT companies seem to prefer their > internal-chip formats which are sleazy and unpredictable! :-( Out of all the payphones I've seen, I have run across only two or three "CO-controlled COCOTs" -- all between Atlanta and Macon. Stanley Cline -- sc1 at roamer1 dot org -- http://www.roamer1.org/ ------------------------------ From: sjsobol@JustThe.Net (Steven J Sobol) Subject: PhoneTel (was Re: COCOTs vs. LEC Payphones) Date: 26 Sep 1999 21:47:41 GMT Organization: North Shore Technologies Corp. 888.480.4NET On Sat, 25 Sep 1999 21:45:47 CDT, mcuccia@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu allegedly said: > I have to agree with you that most COCOTs are slime in the way that > they work! I won't use anything besides an Ameritech pay phone if I can get away with it. Now that I have a cell phone that I make heavy usage of, it's not too much of an issue anymore, but it used to be. > But also, many LECs are putting in COCOT-like payphones in territories > _NOT_ traditionally theirs! Like Cincinnati Bell's payphones outside Walgreens drugstores in Cleveland? (I don't know whether they're COCOT. I'd have to try one out. You mentioned phone companies putting payphones outside their normal territory, though. Cincinnati Bell's territory is three hundred miles southwest of Cleveland, in the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky area.) > providing it for their own payphones (except BellSouth for the most > part), the LEC must also offer "traditional coin interface" as well to > the COCOTs! Unfortunately, most COCOT companies seem to prefer their > internal-chip formats which are sleazy and unpredictable! :-( You mentioned translations somewhere. I have to share this story with you. PhoneTel Technologies, a local company -- at least they used to be local -- which has been a relatively large player in the pay phone industry - advertises calls for 25 cents per minute anywhere in the country. I used a PhoneTel phone in Richmond Heights, Ohio. AC 440, Prefix 460 Called the place I was living back then, in Cleveland Heights. AC 216, Prefix 397 ... And I was promptly asked to ensure that I had deposited 75 cents for the first three minutes! Apparently PhoneTel thinks that a call from this phone in Richmond Heights, which is served by two CO's and straddles the 440/216 split, to my house -- less than fifteen minutes away -- is long distance. I didn't test whether a call to a friend's house just across the street was charged LD rates, though. Her prefix was 381 and was in AC 216. I wonder if there are any PhoneTel phones in the area where I'm living now. I'm right on the Lake County border. All of Lake County is 440. My phone number is in 216, but from what I understand, my CO handles both area codes, routing calls for northeast Cuyahoga County and also for northwest Lake County. Hm. North Shore Technologies JustTheNet Dialup Internet Access Cleveland, Akron, Canton, Geauga Co., Lake Co., Portage Co., Lorain Co., OH Nationwide Access coming soon! Watch this space for details or dial 1.888.480.4NET for more info! ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? From: belfert@foshay.citilink.com (Brian Elfert) Date: Sun, 26 Sep 1999 22:01:30 GMT kim@aol.com (Kim Brennan) writes: > Reputable places seem to have abuse@domain as a valid (and monitored) > email address. But this is not guaranteed. For all spam I send to > root@domain and postmaster@domain as well (none of which is guaranteed > to go to anything other than /dev/null.) You can't assume all domains have a root mailbox. Many mail systems do not use Unix. Also, I don't see much use for an abuse mailbox for most domains. Obviously, ISPs and mailbox providers need them, but what use would alshobbies.com have for an abuse mailbox? > I finally got a response from Preview Travel today (after three years > of spamming). In their case, neither abuse@previewtravel.com, nor > root@previewtravel.com is valid. Other similar awful organizations are > Northwest Airlines (nwa.com), TrendMicro (trendmicro.com) Ancestry (or > Familyroots ... ancestry.com) and HotelResNetwork.com I can't comment on all these domains, but I only get mail from nwa.com because I'm registered with them, and didn't choose to not get the mail. I'll bet you've registered with both Preview Travel and NWA at some time, and probably hotelresnetwork too. Now, if they aren't removing you upon request, that's not right. I know NWA has an easy to remove your email address on the mail I get. I haven't seen any legitimate company use spam as a marketing tool for a long time. Don't get me wrong, I hate spam and wish it would all go away, but I'm also not going to spend all my time complaining to ISPs about it either. Some time just spend way too much time on Spam and get too angry about it. Brian [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: One way to combat spam is by reviewing and making use of the Business Directory I print here in the Digest from time to time. Long time readers see the listings I present and know what needs to be done. If each netizen makes only a small pledge to use the Business Directory whenever possible, it will help science find a cure for spamming. See the first item in this issue. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #435 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Sep 27 04:47:31 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id EAA26042; Mon, 27 Sep 1999 04:47:31 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1999 04:47:31 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199909270847.EAA26042@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #436 TELECOM Digest Mon, 27 Sep 99 04:47:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 436 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Having No Long Distance Provider? (quonk@my-deja.com) Re: No Address on TELECOM Digest Posts? (Derek Balling) Re: It Makes You Think (A Tale of WW2) (Peter Corlett) Re: Overseas Directory Information? (Withheld Adrian) Re: COCOTs vs. LEC Payphones (was Re: Payphone Survives) (Joseph Singer) Church Mulls Cell Tower in Cross (Mike Pollock) Re: Last Laugh! [cough cough hack] Better Check That V-mail (John) Re: Cellular Coverage in General (was Re: Sprint Coverage) (Tony Pelliccio) Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? (Jonathan Loo) Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? (Herb Stein) Re: Cannot Hang Up (Jonathan Loo) Re: Floyd/NJ Telecom Problems - More Info! (Cortland Richmond) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: quonk@my-deja.com Subject: Re: Having No Long Distance Provider? Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1999 04:13:41 GMT Organization: Deja.com - Before you buy. In article , Linc Madison wrote: > In article , > wrote: >> In article , shadow@krypton. >> rain.com (Leonard Erickson) wrote: >>> The $5 minimum almost certainly applies to 10-10-345 too. >> There is no minimum whatsoever with 10-10-345. If you make a one >> minute interstate call, you'll get billed 20 cents that month. (If >> you make a one minute intra-state call in California, you'll be billed >> 15 cents.) Plus the legitimate federal and local taxes, of course. >> But no additional USF fees, no PICC fees, no "national access" fees, >> no "federal reimbursement" fees, no minimums. > You are correct that the $5 minimum does not apply. However, the USF > fees *DO* now apply on *ALL* 101-xxxx carriers. > > Indeed, many 101-xxxx carriers are fraudulently billing far more than > the actual cost of the USF contribution as "USF Charge"; Telco > (101-0297, an otherwise reasonably reputable outfit) is particularly > bad about this -- they billed me 63 cents USF charge in a month in > which my total usage was 22 cents. Their actual USF contribution on my > behalf was barely over a penny, so the remaining 62 cents was pure > ill-gotten profit. Linc, The fact that 10-10-297 charged you a separate USF fee is not proof that all other 101xxx carriers also charge fees. It is true that all carriers must contribute towards the USF. But whether they make a separate line item charge and the amount of that line item charge is completely up to the carrier. Some carriers choose to include the entire cost of their service in their openly advertised rate and not add on surcharges after the fact. 10-10-345 is one of these carriers, as is 10-10-321 and 10-10-220. I stand by my statement that none of these carriers add on any extra fees beyond what they advertise, including the USF fees. I provided customer service numbers where you can talk to a live person 24 hours a day and verify this and I also base this on my own personal phone bills. Incidentally, while you may feel that you were overcharged when you used 10-10-297, the person who made a hundred dollars worth of calls that month and also paid only 69 cents probably feels they got a good deal. Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 26 Sep 1999 22:16:19 -0700 From: Derek Balling Subject: Re: No Address on TELECOM Digest Posts? At 09:02 PM 9/26/99 -0400, was wrote: > I don't expect personal replies to postings I've made to TELECOM > Digest and I certainly don't want to be spammed as a result. My vote > (if you're taking a vote) is, strip off the headers and just leave the > names OR ... whatever is the least amount of work for YOU. You're the > guy who has to DO stuff (and thanks for that!) so you should be the > one to decide WHAT to do. I would concur with this. I think, if Pat is willing and it isn't too much trouble, that the "eliminate e-mail addresses" route is a great idea. However, how will that work on the Usenet mirror (comp.dcom.telecom)? Will the addresses get stripped there as well? D [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: To oversimply things a little, all messages which go to c.d.t. are written by me. That is, however I tinker with things in this Digest, when the Digest is 'burst' into single messages for Usenet, whatever I put as the 'From:' is what c.d.t. uses. I am not sure how sites at various locations would respond to a lack of anything there at all. I would probably have to forge all the 'From:' lines so that everyone was @telecom-digest.org but then all the spam would come to me! :) As mail arrived in response to those names@telecom-digest.org it would go through my filter rules and a rule would say if not to [one of various names established for digest purposes, ie editor, ptownson, etc] then send to /dev/null but that could cause some important responses the person would want to see to get tossed out. Or I could tell it to scan through a list of real addresses and try to match it up and send it on to the person. This means the person would get the spam second-hand after it passed through me first. That would be some extra work I cannot handle, at least not for twenty dollars per year from the few people who feel like sending it. And it would be an extra burden on the mail at lcs.mit.edu ... I am really bewildered by all this; I honestly do not know what to do. Maybe its because it is 3:00 AM on Monday morning as I write this and I am tired. I would suggest if the spam as a result of name har- vesting here is a problem, you should get an @telecom-digest.zzn.com address and use that, then include your real address in the text of the message itself. I am really reluctant to remove email addresses in messages; it just is not fair to the readers who wish to reply to the original writers, etc. I do not know what the answer is. PAT] ------------------------------ From: abuse@cabal.org.uk (Peter Corlett) Subject: Re: It Makes You Think (A Tale of WW2) Date: 26 Sep 1999 21:39:54 GMT Mark Brader wrote: [...] >> This article describes SIGSALY, the first digital secure telephone, which >> was used by Roosevelt and Churchill during the war. It used a vocoder >> with 10 bands of 300 Hz, each sampled for amplitude every 20mS; the >> digital signal was Vernam encrypted (though since the samples had six >> levels, the arithmetic was modulo 6). [...] This sounds like the Vocoder system described on pages 245--247 of Andrew Hodges' biography of Alan Turing, entitled "Alan Turing, The Enigma". This book doesn't mention the name SIGSALY (perhaps that name wasn't declassified at time of printing, or it's another UK/US difference) but it does detail how it works. It strikes me that this book would also be of interest to people looking for information on WWII encryption and decryption, as well as detailing the life of a genius developing and cracking the systems. ------------------------------ From: 141@acr.wilkinsonsmith.com (Withheld Adrian) Subject: Re: Overseas Directory Information? Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1999 05:55:23 GMT Organization: www.wilkinsonsmith.com Limited Reply-To: 141@acr.wilkinsonsmith.com On Sat, 25 Sep 1999 13:48:18 GMT, joel@exc.com (Dr. Joel M. Hoffman) wrote: > I just called AT&T to ask how much directory information for England > is. $7.95!! In an era when a phone call from the US to England is > only $0.10/min, why is directory information so expensive? Does > anyone know of a (much) cheaper way? (And while we're at it, if > someone has the number for SOAS in London, I'd appreciate it.) The cheaper way is to visit http://www.thenewbt.bt.com/phonenetuk or via www.bt.com where the UK directory is finally on-line. SOAS has three voice and three fax numbers listed. ------------------------------ Reply-To: dov@oz.net Date: Sun, 26 Sep 1999 18:44:31 -0700 From: Joseph Singer Subject: Re: COCOTs vs. LEC Payphones (was Re: Payphone Survives .45) Sat, 25 Sep 1999 21:45:47 CDT Mark J Cuccia recently wrote: >> Not only did DeJesus fail to get his 35 cents back, but the telephone >> remained in working order, investigators said. Six bullet-size >> indentations were visible on the phone Tuesday. > and Anthony Argyriou (anthony@alphageo.com) replied: >> If it was not a Bell (RBOC) owned phone, I'd vote to acquit him. >> The COCOT makers are lucky that Ma Bell build pay phones to withstand >> World War III, or most of them wouldn't have a functional phone within >> three months. Well, I don't know if it's an "official" name for the big boxy coin phones, but I've heard them referred to as "fortress" phones both the kind made by Lucent/WECO/AT&T or the kinds made by other vendors specifically for COCOTS. Most people probably would not know the difference looking at a non ILEC (Bell) payphone, but there are subtle differences such as the Lucent/WECO phones have the armored handset cord coming out of the front of the instrument and the COCOTS have the armored handset cord coming from the left side of the instrument. Also the keypad is slightly different with the Lucent/WECO unit having more "rounded" keys on the keypad. Here in California, PacBell is pretty good about crediting >> you for money stolen by malfunctioning phones, but the slime that run >> most COCOTs can't be trusted to install a properly-functioning >> phone, or to refund your money. Here in USWest territory I have found that they are not good about refunding money for calls that did not complete. > But even if it were telco-owned, it still could have been "COCOT-like" > in its internal operations. And being in Florida, even though > "independent" territory, it still could have been a BellSouth owned > piece of equipment! USWest's "Fortress" phones are still CO controlled though the new Nortel "Millenium" smart phones use chips to determine what is local as well as rates for calls. Another interesting thing about the Millenium phones is that about four or five years ago USWest converted most of the public pay phones from the old fortress style pay phones to the new "smart" phones which take either major credit cards (Visa, Mastercard, etc.) but also could use prepaid "debit" style cards that had an internal chip very similar to what is used in card phones in Europe, Israel and other countries. I was told however, that USWest is *not* issuing any more of these pre-paid debit cards as it was found that their popularity was not strong enough for them to continue to issue the cards! This seems like a colossal waste of money to me! I'm sure that the Millenium instruments are not cheap and for USWest to replace all of their stock with these phones only to negate one of the benefits of the phones seems stupid to me. I'd say that part of the problem is that they didn't promote these new phones' capabilities to people so they never would buy phone cards. In most of the European cities it's rare to find a coin operated phone any more because people have gotten used to using the smart card phones. Joseph Singer "thefoneguy" PO Box 23135, Seattle WA 98102 USA +1 206 405 2052 [voice mail] +1 206 493 0706 [FAX] ------------------------------ From: Mike Pollock Subject: Church Mulls Cell Tower in Cross Date: Sun, 26 Sep 1999 21:52:42 -0400 Organization: It's A Mike! ALEXANDRIA. Va. (AP) -- A financially struggling church is considering a deal with Ma Bell: Allow AT&T to build a 130-foot-tall cross with a cellular phone tower concealed inside and First Christian Church will get $18,000 a year. "This could be a godsend, from our perspective," said the Rev. Tim Mabbott, the church pastor. The money would represent almost ten percent of the church's annual budget and help put the church back on solid footing. But for the church's neighbors, the proposed cross is a troubling sign of things to come. "We do not have anything against the church," said Michael Cassidy, who lives directly behind First Christian. "The church has been wonderful to this neighborhood. We believe in the church, but we don't believe in the encroachment of AT&T in a residential neighborhood." AT&T usually places cell phone equipment on existing buildings, but about 15 percent of the time that isn't possible, said Alexa E. Graf, a company spokeswoman. The company initially approached Alexandria's First Baptist Church, she said, but the Baptists were not interested in hiding the equipment in their steeple. "We are debating what we are going to do," Ms. Graf said. "If the community opposition stays as strong as it is right now, we are going to have to rethink our other options." That is not what Mabbott wants to hear. Three years ago, First Christian was on the verge of closing its doors. The church was running an annual deficit and the aging congregation considered selling its land to a neighboring retirement home. "This is a very valuable piece of property and there was some talk of selling it to raise money and moving out to an area with more young children and families," Mabbott said. "But we decided to give it another try." For longtime church member Betty Pratt, the debate over the cell tower boils down to common sense. "All the people who came up here the other day and were upset about this had cell phones," Ms. Pratt said. "I don't know where they think those signals are going to bounce off of. They have got to bounce off something. You know the tower has to go someplace and we might as well get the benefit of it." ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 26 Sep 1999 22:00:01 -0400 From: john Subject: Re: Last Laugh! [cough cough hack] Better Check That V-mail System I heard the guy responsible interviewed on NPR earlier this week. Yes, it's for real, and was created just to lighten things up a bit. Hear hear!!! John >> Sure sounds like someone hacked B&W's voice-mail ... presumably >> they'll fix it shortly ... but if you get the spoof msg, it's well >> worth the attempt. >> There is an astonishing initial recording on the customer service line >> for Brown & Williamson, the tobacco company. Call 1-800-578-7453 and >> listen until it gives you the prompt to be connected elsewhere. > It must be for real ... ------------------------------ From: nospam.tonypo1@nospam.home.com (Tony Pelliccio) Subject: Re: Cellular Coverage in General (was Re: Sprint Coverage) Organization: Providence Network Partners Date: Sun, 26 Sep 1999 23:54:13 GMT In article , joel@exc.com says: >>> [Sprint's] big problem is poor coverage. It takes a huge number of >>> cell sites to provide coverage in a band that's basically line of >> Your story makes it sound so bad as to make me wonder if you have the >> cause right. Are you really talking about signal quality (the little >> bars on the phone display -- a combination of strength and error rate > I've seen terrible coverage from all the major carriers. In Manhattan > (!), both AT&T and BA have dead spots. Neither of them covers the > entire trip along 95 from Boston to NY, even though it's one of the > most well-travelled routes in the country. In some cases, the problem > is not technological, but political -- i.e., lack of roaming > agreements. With their dual digital/analogue plans, sometimes there's > an an analogue cell nearby, but because of a lack of a roaming > agreeement, the phone picks up on a digital signal that too weak to > use. Other times, though, there's just no coverage at all. I generally travel I-95 from Manchester, NH to Waterford, CT and never lose coverage on my Omnipoint phone. Now if we could only eliminate the regular denials of service I'd be happy. == Tony Pelliccio, KD1S formerly KD1NR == Trustee WE1RD ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 26 Sep 1999 20:13:00 EDT From: Jonathan Loo Subject: Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? In article you write: > Other similar awful organizations are Northwest Airlines (nwa.com). Lots of people use spam to advertise Viagra and Viagra substitutes. Pfizer, which owns the trademark, seems not to want to handle complaints. Mail to the usual addresses bounce, and I did not find any contact information on their web site. In article was written: > ....who pays higher postage due to the fact that the existance of > junk mail increases the average distance that a given piece of mail > travels, because more junkmail is send from way-far-away than > non-junkmail.... I doubt this is true. If I recall correctly, each class of mail must pay for itself. Also, the postal service makes a profit from junk mail. But one thing that spammers say intrigues me: they point out that spam saves trees, since it isn't printed on paper. > Can you come up with an interpretation that would cover spam but not > cover junk mail or telephone solicitation or E-Mail that is not spam > but what not specifically solicited? In my personal opinion, telephone solicitation is even worse than spam. Telephone solicitation interrupts whatever I am doing, and forces me to spend time talking to someone who sometimes uses high pressure tactics. Furthermore, with spam, there is someone to complain to. Telephone solicitation can be done legally and even if done illegally it is extremely difficult to track down the culprit. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Remember to patronize the fine merchants who appeared in our Business Directory on Sunday. They want you to call them on their toll-free numbers to find out more about their offers. Science has not yet found a cure for spamming, but with the help of netizens everywhere who pledge to do their part, perhaps someday this scourge on the net will come to an end. (Background music, "You'll Never Walk Alone" with a picture of a pathetic-looking creep sitting at a computer typing in the latest Make Money Fast letter with a newsgroups line that goes on infinatum.) Or, as Smokey the Bear would say, 'only you can prevent spamming.' This message was a public service announcement brought to you by the Advertising Council and this website. PAT] ------------------------------ From: herb@herbstein.com (Herb Stein) Subject: Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1999 03:46:50 GMT Perhaps. But it is still theft of services. They stole bandwidth, which I pay $137 a month for on ISDN. Maybe I have a case? In article , sjsobol@JustThe.Net (Steven J Sobol) wrote: > On 24 Sep 1999 01:16:31 GMT, brettf@netcom.com allegedly said: >>> for it to be illegal. >> In the USA, theft is a crime. Please show me one successful criminal >> prosection against a spammer for such "theft". The fact is: A lot of >> anti-spammers think it's theft, but legally, it's no more theft than >> sending of junk mail. *Nothing was Taken* and *No service was stolen*. > Ethically, I am among the anti-spammers that think it is theft. > Ethically. Not legally. Legally, it *hasn't* been proven. > Tresspass *has* - but not theft. Herb Stein The Herb Stein Group www.herbstein.com herb@herbstein.com 314 215-3584 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Remember, a few phone calls each day help keep the spammers away. Dump all over their toll-free numbers and remind them what happened to Jeff Slaton ... poor Jeff! Is he around on the net any more at all? I think the day his phone bill from Southwestern Bell was delivered by Federal Express in a large cardboard box he just about died and went to spammer's heaven. And you can make it possible for others to meet the same fate. Please make your pledges today to eliminate spam on the net. Use our business directory to get started now. (Background music: "Somewhere, Over the Rainbow" with a picture of a delivery truck pulling up in front of a spam-hive; delivery person smiling as he carries a box marked 'AT&T Billing Department' to the hive and hands it over to the pathetic creature who answers the door. Caption on screen says, 'netizens made this gift possible'. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 26 Sep 1999 20:28:47 EDT From: Jonathan Loo Subject: Re: Cannot Hang Up I agree with Pat. Some comments: if the problem occurs at the network interface point after everything else in your house is disconnected from the network interface point, then I'd have two guesses: (1) something wrong in the central office, or (2) a short in the cable. As Pat said: Does this happen only on data calls? Only on calls to a certain phone number? Only at a certain time of day? Only after it rains? If it is weather-related, then it may be water in the cable. If your ISP has multiple phone numbers, then does it occur on all of them? I don't agree with the static electricity explanation. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Jonathan, I would say it sounds to me like some repair clerk at telco got a charge of static electricity to their brain. Would you agree with that? PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 26 Sep 1999 17:59:07 -0700 From: Cortland Richmond Organization: Alcatel Subject: Re: Floyd/NJ Telecom Problems - More Info! On 24 Sep 1999 11:48:00 GMT Joseph T. Adams (joe@apk.net) wrote (re stationing fire apparatus and Amateur Radio operators in public areas when 9-1-1 goes down): >> Is this standard practice throughout the country? And are >> people being made aware of this practice? I for one was not >> previously aware of it. Probably a good idea, but it would be >> an even better idea if people knew about it. Probably not. It seems to have been an initiative of local emergency preparedness officials. I believe, however, that dispersing fire engines is a common tactic to deal with widespread telephone problems, even if not mandated by FEMA or some other overarching authority. In Irvine we had a low-power AM radio (TIS station) to broadcast emergency messages and if the outage had continued, we would have gotten the word out via commercial TV and radio telling residents to listen there for further. On Sat, 25 Sep 1999 08:17:41 -0400 Alan Boritz (aboritz@CYBERNEX.NET) responded to my posting: > ... 911 and telephone outage is one of the things emergency > organizations > practice for. When 911 between police and fire went out in Irvine, CA > we posted RACES (Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service) members from > ... with: >> It didn't happen here. Most of the ham radio repeaters >> in northern NJ were up and available, but very little traffic >> except for hams asking each other if their phones were as >> screwed up as everyone else's. Hams did not play a major >> role in supplementing the non-functioning public switched >> telephone network this time. ... >> Radio Amateur Emergency Service (RACES) operates in >> some US cities, however it's not uniformly funded or managed. >> While there are some federal funds available for municipalities >> who organize them, it's not a lot, and it depends entirely upon >> volunteer licensed amateur radio operators. Unfortunately, with >> hams declining in number, and the lack of coordinators (for >> the municipalities) who can hold the hams' interest (with little or >> no reward), RACES is not a viable alternative. Where RACES exists, >> it's usually in smaller or more rural communities. Larger cities, >> like New York (where there wasn't a RACES program for at least >> 10 years) may have little or no activity. I'm sorry to hear that. We could have provided a valuable and visible public service when hardly anyone else was able to. No doubt questions will be asked of Section Emergency Coordinator's (NOTE: An American Radio Relay League local position) . In Texas, where SKYWARN is a REAL part of local emergency activities, you can be sure every city and county knows what hams can do and how to get us involved. The same is true in California, where we have to deal with earthquakes. wildfires and local flooding every couple of years somewhere. The Auxiliary Communications Service (ACS), in which I participate, for example, conducts weekly nets and monthly routine training, as well as requiring more specialized training for upgrade to more responsible positions. Our members are issued (here) County Emergency Services ID, and are treated, when called up, as if we were county employees (without pay but WITH Workman's Comp and liability insurance). Along with all of this goes inclusion in emergency planning as a flexible resource which can expand local capabilities at little or no cost to local government. What costs there are can be reimbursed by State and Federal monies, if the program meets their guidelines. But enough proselytizing. It's too bad NNJ hams didn't get a chance to show their mettle, and perhaps next time -- may it not come about! -- they will. Cortland KA5S ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #436 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Sep 28 02:12:06 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id CAA08376; Tue, 28 Sep 1999 02:12:06 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1999 02:12:06 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199909280612.CAA08376@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #437 TELECOM Digest Tue, 28 Sep 99 02:12:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 437 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Telecom Update (Canada) #201, September 27, 1999 (Angus TeleManagement) Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? (Gary Chatters) Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? (Steven J Sobol) Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? (Gary Chatters) Re: Having No Long Distance Provider? (Ed Ellers) Re: Having No Long Distance Provider? (Joel B. Levin) Re: LD Rate History (Linc Madison) Re: Overseas Directory Information? (Steven) Re: COCOTs vs. LEC Payphones (Steve Hayes) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1999 12:42:40 -0400 From: Angus TeleManagement Subject: Telecom Update (Canada) #201, September 27, 1999 ************************************************************ TELECOM UPDATE Angus TeleManagement's Weekly Telecom Newsbulletin http://www.angustel.ca Number 201: September 27, 1999 Publication of Telecom Update is made possible by generous financial support from: AT&T Canada ...................... http://www.attcanada.com/ Bell Canada ............................ http://www.bell.ca/ Lucent Technologies .................. http://www.lucent.ca/ Sprint Canada .................. http://www.sprintcanada.ca/ Teleglobe Business Services........ http://www.teleglobe.ca/ Telus Communications.................. http://www.telus.com/ TigerTel Services ................. http://www.tigertel.com/ ************************************************************ IN THIS ISSUE: ** Call-Net to Sell Stake in Microcell? ** Crescendo Rejects Call-Net Proposal ** MCI, Sprint Corp. Discuss Merger ** Canfield Replaces Petty as Telus CEO ** Lucent to Equip Telus Central Canada Network ** Eight More Exchanges Get Number Portability ** CRTC Supports Expanded Vancouver EAS, Rejects Rates ** Mock Spectrum Auction Scheduled ** SaskTel Proposes Transition to Federal Regulation ** ISPs Gain Access to Sudbury Cable Network ** Telus to Trial National Operator Service ** Optel Plans Public Offering ** MTT Reduces Megalink Rates ** CRTC Permits Pass-Through Traffic on Co-Located Equipment ** AOL, Star Choice Bundle Services ** Bell Directory Publishing Expands Into West ** RIM Sales Triple, Stock Price Slumps ** Excel Opens Montreal Call Center ** Newbridge Two Steps Closer to Stanford Acquisition ** Executive Appointments Group Telecom Microcell NBTel PSINet Canada ** Call Centre Seminar "Should Be Mandatory" ============================================================ CALL-NET TO SELL STAKE IN MICROCELL? Call-Net Enterprises says it is seeking a buyer for its 11% stake in Microcell Telecommunications, as part of the "Canadian-focused business plan" it has advanced to counter Crescendo Partners' takeover bid. (See Telecom Update #200) CRESCENDO REJECTS CALL-NET PROPOSALS: In a September 21 letter to shareholders, Crescendo Partners rejected the Call- Net plan, saying that Call-Net's current management is not capable of executing the plan "in an effective or profitable way." MCI, SPRINT CORP. DISCUSS MERGER: According to published reports, MCI WorldCom and Sprint Corp. are discussing terms for an MCI purchase of Sprint, the third-largest U.S. long distance provider. CANFIELD REPLACES PETTY AS TELUS CEO: The Board of BCT.Telus announced on September 22 that President and CEO George Petty was leaving Telus immediately. Longtime BC Tel executive and Telus Chairman Brian Canfield was named interim President and CEO; Board member Ron Triffo is now interim Chairman. LUCENT TO EQUIP TELUS CENTRAL CANADA NETWORK: Telus has chosen Lucent Technologies to supply switches and other equipment worth about $200 Million for Telus's network in Central Canada. Telus plans to offer services in Toronto, Sarnia, and Winnipeg in November, and in Ottawa, Kitchener- Waterloo, London, and Hamilton in early 2000. EIGHT MORE EXCHANGES GET NUMBER PORTABILITY: Local Number Portability will be available by October 15 in Burlington, Dundas, Galt, Guelph, Oshawa, Preston, Whitby, and the Hull portion of the Ottawa/Hull exchange. CRTC SUPPORTS EXPANDED VANCOUVER EAS, REJECTS RATES: CRTC Telecom Order 99-908 supports BC Tel's application to extend the Vancouver free local calling area to include 19 exchanges in the Greater Vancouver Region, but says the proposed rate increases are too high. The CRTC invites the telco to reapply with lower rates. Commissioner Stuart Langford dissented. http://www.crtc.gc.ca:80/internet/1999/8045/04/o99-0908.htm MOCK SPECTRUM AUCTION SCHEDULED: The 17 companies qualified to bid in Canada's first spectrum auction will get familiar with the auction software and procedures in a mock eight-round auction on October 5 and 6. The actual auction starts October 18. For schedule and further details, see the Industry Canada Web site. http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/SSG/sf01797e.html SASKTEL PROPOSES TRANSITION TO FEDERAL REGULATION: SaskTel, which comes under CRTC jurisdiction June 30, 2000, has asked the Commission for advance deregulation of its equipment, long distance, data and private line, Internet, and wireless services. SaskTel proposes to freeze local rates until December 31, 2001, and asks for a review of its regulatory environment during this time as part of the review of the price cap regime of the other major telcos. http://www.sasktel.com/news/index.html ISPs GAIN ACCESS TO SUDBURY CABLE NETWORK: Regional Cablesystems has opened its Sudbury-area cable network to access by three local Internet Service Providers, effective October 1. ** AOL Canada says it plans a national rollout of cable modem service to Regional's 250,000 subscribers across Canada. TELUS TO TRIAL NATIONAL OPERATOR SERVICE: Telus is conducting a two-month technological trial of National Operator Assistance Service and National Directory Assistance Service. The trial ends November 15. http://www.crtc.gc.ca:80/eng/proc_rep/telecom/1999/8648/t42-01.htm OPTEL PLANS PUBLIC OFFERING: OCI Communications, parent company of Toronto-based Competitive Local Exchange Carrier Optel Communications, has issued the prospectus for an Initial Public Offering of non-voting shares. MTT REDUCES MEGALINK RATES: CRTC Order 99-907 approves reductions in MTT's rates for Nova Scotia Megalink service. PRI signaling will be priced at $120/month; PSTN connections at $43/month. CRTC PERMITS PASS-THROUGH TRAFFIC ON CO-LOCATED EQUIPMENT: Responding to an August 1998 application by MetroNet, the CRTC has authorized interconnecting carriers to pass internal traffic through equipment co-located in telco Central Offices. http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/telecom/letter/l990924e.htm AOL, STAR CHOICE BUNDLE SERVICES: AOL Canada and Star Choice say they will offer a discount of about 10% to customers that sign up for both AOL's Internet access and Star Choice's premium satellite TV services. BELL DIRECTORY PUBLISHING EXPANDS INTO WEST: Bell ActiMedia, Bell Canada's directory publishing unit, plans to open offices in Western Canada, offering listings in local Yellow Pages directories and Internet portals. RIM SALES TRIPLE, STOCK PRICE SLUMPS: Waterloo-based Research In Motion sales for the quarter ended August 31 reached $28.7 Million, more than three times last year's level. However, reports of a drop in current Inter@ctive Pager sales have contributed to a 30% decline in RIM's stock price in recent weeks. ** RIM has signed PageNet Canada as the first distributor in Canada of its BlackBerry Internet device. RIM also now offers the radio modem found in its products to other wireless equipment makers. EXCEL OPENS MONTREAL CALL CENTER: Excel Telecommunications (Canada), a unit of Teleglobe, is establishing a call center in Montreal, which it says will grow to 284 positions within three years. NEWBRIDGE TWO STEPS CLOSER TO STANFORD ACQUISITION: Stanford Telecommunications has sold its defense-related business to ITT Industries and its telecom components unit to Intel. These divestments were required as a condition of Newbridge Networks' purchase of Stanford. (See Telecom Update #189) EXECUTIVE APPOINTMENTS: ** GT Group Telecom, a Vancouver-based Competitive Local Exchange Carrier, has named Daniel Milliard, formerly President of U.S. CLEC Adelphia Business Solutions, as its first CEO. ** Microcell has named Rajiv Pancholy, formerly head of a Nortel research facility, as President and Chief Operating Officer of its network unit, Microcell Connexions. ** NBTel's Chief Operating Officer, Jack Travis, has assumed the post of President. He replaces Gerry Pond, who continues as President of the IT and Emerging Business unit of NBTel's parent company, Aliant. ** PSINet Canada has a new President, James W. Blaisdell, formerly a US West executive assigned to the telco's joint ventures in Europe. (See Telecom Update #182) CALL CENTRE SEMINAR "SHOULD BE MANDATORY": Participants are giving rave reviews to Angus Dortmans' on-site seminar, "Essential Skills and Knowledge for Effective Incoming Call Centre Management," led by Henry Dortmans. Among recent comments: ** "Should be a mandatory course for all call centre managers and team leaders." ** "No matter how long you've been in the call centre business, there is something you can still learn by attending." ** "The most knowledgeable facilitator I have had the pleasure of being with. You really know your stuff!" For information, call 1-800-263-4415 ext 300 or go to Angus Dortmans Seminars at http://www.angustel.ca/ ============================================================ HOW TO SUBMIT ITEMS FOR TELECOM UPDATE E-MAIL: editors@angustel.ca FAX: 905-686-2655 MAIL: TELECOM UPDATE Angus TeleManagement Group 8 Old Kingston Road Ajax, Ontario Canada L1T 2Z7 =========================================================== HOW TO SUBSCRIBE (OR UNSUBSCRIBE) TELECOM UPDATE is provided in electronic form only. There are two formats available: 1. The fully-formatted edition is posted on the World Wide Web on the first business day of the week at http://www.angustel.ca 2. The e-mail edition is distributed free of charge. To subscribe, send an e-mail message to majordomo@angustel.ca. The text of the message should contain only the two words: subscribe update To stop receiving the e-mail edition, send an e-mail message to majordomo@angustel.ca. The text of the message should say only: unsubscribe update [Your e-mail address] =========================================================== COPYRIGHT AND DISCLAIMER: All contents copyright 1999 Angus TeleManagement Group Inc. All rights reserved. For further information, including permission to reprint or reproduce, please e-mail rosita@angustel.ca or phone 905-686-5050 ext 225. The information and data included has been obtained from sources which we believe to be reliable, but Angus TeleManagement makes no warranties or representations whatsoever regarding accuracy, completeness, or adequacy. Opinions expressed are based on interpretation of available information, and are subject to change. If expert advice on the subject matter is required, the services of a competent professional should be obtained. ============================================================ ------------------------------ From: gc@Radix.Net (Gary Chatters) Subject: Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? Date: 27 Sep 1999 19:06:51 -0400 Organization: RadixNet In article , Darryl Smith wrote: > 'Under Bill S.1618 TITLE III passed by the 105th U.S. Congress this letter > can not be considered SPAM as long as we include the way to be removed. > To be removed from future mailings for free is simply by responding with > "REMOVE" in the subject line. This will permanently remove you from all > future mailing from us.' > Is this true? It's still spam no matter what the US law says. I do wonder what the purpose of these 'boilerplate lies' is. I have gotten spam with even more outlandish lies such some saying that I got the spam because I am on an "opt-in" maillist and the worst one just a couple of days ago explicitly claiming that it was "not unsolicited". gc Addresses for the spammers :-) hostmaster@spambait.com abuse@spambait.com ------------------------------ From: sjsobol@JustThe.Net (Steven J Sobol) Subject: Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? Date: 28 Sep 1999 01:35:10 GMT Organization: North Shore Technologies Corp. 888.480.4NET > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Remember, a few phone calls each day > help keep the spammers away. Dump all over their toll-free numbers > and remind them what happened to Jeff Slaton ... poor Jeff! Is he > around on the net any more at all? I think the day his phone bill > from Southwestern Bell was delivered by Federal Express in a large > cardboard box he just about died and went to spammer's heaven. And > you can make it possible for others to meet the same fate. Please > make your pledges today to eliminate spam on the net. Use our > business directory to get started now. If you're going to call, call once. Do NOT call repeatedly. North Shore Technologies JustTheNet Dialup Internet Access Cleveland, Akron, Canton, Geauga Co., Lake Co., Portage Co., Lorain Co., OH Nationwide Access coming soon! Watch this space for details or dial 1.888.480.4NET for more info! [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: There is no rule you can only call one time. The rule is you cannot harrass in any of your calls, either your first one or your tenth one. Not everyone can catch all the information on the recording the first time and they need to listen to it again. After the first call you may need to call back to get more information about how to get started in the fine programs they offer. Then when you decide to ask them to remove your name from their list, that would require another call. If you have ten email addresses to be removed from the list, you might find it easier to call one time for each name you use. A system administrator might want to provide them with a list of several hundred names at that particular domain to be removed. You may call as often as necessary; that is why they provided a toll-free number for your convenience. Remember, although science has not yet found a cure for spamming, with the help of netizens everywhere, spammers can be trained to live productive lives as members of the net community. Make a pledge to help rehabilitate a spammer today. PAT] ------------------------------ From: gc@Radix.Net (Gary Chatters) Subject: Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? Date: 27 Sep 1999 18:55:21 -0400 Organization: RadixNet In article , Barry Margolin wrote: > Has anyone actually proved this in court? Who are the spammers > stealing from and what are they stealing, disk space? Spammers are > just sending email, so if they're stealing then so is every other > email sender (you've never given me permission to send you email -- if > I had sent this message to you directly, would I be guilty of theft?). > They aren't really stealing disk space; you delete the message, and > you've got your disk space back. Many spammers use third party relaying. In this scenario the spammer sends the message and a long list of e-mail addresses to the relay site which then does the work of sending the spam to the thousands of addresses in the spammers database. In general these sites don't intend to allow use of their mail agent for third party forwarding. It is a misconfiguration and one that is likely because it used to be the default for many systems. In numerous cases I have notified the administrator of the system and received back a reply saying something like: thanks for letting us know, the system has been reconfigured to prevent this in the future. So they didn't really intend for their computer to be a spam forwarder, especially if it is an edu or gov site forwarding commercial spam. I think it is reasonable to argue that these spammers are stealing computer services. So these spammers are not "just sending email". I just took a quick look at the headers on several recent pieces of spam and noted that about half used third party relay. gc ------------------------------ From: Ed Ellers Subject: Re: Having No Long Distance Provider? Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1999 04:52:32 -0400 wrote: > The fact that 10-10-297 charged you a separate USF fee is not proof > that all other 101xxx carriers also charge fees. It is true that all > carriers must contribute towards the USF. But whether they make a > separate line item charge and the amount of that line item charge is > completely up to the carrier." Very true. IMHO the charges ought to be passed on transparently. on the same basis on which they must be paid -- per-minute or per-month, as the case may be. ------------------------------ From: Joel B Levin Subject: Re: Having No Long Distance Provider? Organization: On the desert Reply-To: levinjb@gte.net Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1999 12:59:45 GMT In , quonk@my-deja.com wrote: > The fact that 10-10-297 charged you a separate USF fee is not proof > that all other 101xxx carriers also charge fees. ... > Incidentally, while you may feel that you were overcharged when you > used 10-10-297, the person who made a hundred dollars worth of calls > that month and also paid only 69 cents probably feels they got a good > deal. This is why when I see ads for these services on TV or in magazines I always squint real hard and try to read all the fine print that goes flashing by. The hidden costs are always spelled out (if the company is legit, otherwise you have a separate complaint you can make to appropriate agencies). I too have used 1010345 - in fact, I just took AT&T off two lines when I saw a $16+ charge for no calls. (They charge the $3/mo minimum quarterly, and there's the ususal fees on top of that.) Now I'm no-PIC on those lines. /JBL ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1999 21:56:53 -0700 From: Linc Madison Subject: Re: LD Rate History In article , L. Winson wrote: > Another problem short haul toll calls. Rates used to be graduated > by mileage, so short haul calls (ie 10-100 miles) were very cheap. > Now they are the same price as a call across the country, and that > is MORE than they were before. I have to disagree with this part. In-state short-haul rates were always high in many states (Texas, Rhode Island, California) up until a few years ago. A 50-mile call within Texas cost far more than a cross-country call. ------------------------------ From: steven@primacomputer.com (Steven) Subject: Re: Overseas Directory Information? Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1999 16:46:43 +0800 Organization: Prima Computer Many telcos have their directories available online. I seem to recall seeing a Swiss one around, but the link I haven't doesn't seem to be working right now. BT has one at http://www.thenewbt.bt.com/phonenetuk As for why it costs so much, that's simple. Each operator on each end had someone sitting there answering phones. There is the cost of the call, which is little. Of course there is the tax, subsidies for people who are visually disabled who need to use directory enquiries, etc. And of course the translator to translate from American into English. On top of that, you probably don't even use AT&T for your long distance so they would otherwise never see a penny for this, but they are being billed access/interconnect charges for handling your call. Not that I feel sorry for AT&T, but why shouldn't they make money on offering a service? One nice alternative I have seen is for the operator to offer to connect the call for you, and waive the enquiry charges if you agree. If the the AT&T marketing department can work this one out then that's their own fault. Steven joel@exc.com says ... > I just called AT&T to ask how much directory information for England > is. $7.95!! In an era when a phone call from the US to England is > only $0.10/min, why is directory information so expensive? Does > anyone know of a (much) cheaper way? (And while we're at it, if > someone has the number for SOAS in London, I'd appreciate it.) ------------------------------ From: Steve Hayes Subject: Re: COCOTs vs. LEC Payphones Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1999 11:42:18 +0100 H Pat and all, In TELECOM Digest V19, No. 433, Mark Cuccia wrote about problems with COCOT payphones, especially cases when they fail to refund money on unanswered calls. This was following on from the case of the man who shot up a payphone which had done just that. Mark suggested that the COCOT owners should use central office based coin control (ACTS/TOPS/OSPS) and that they were slime because they did not. As someone who earns a crust largely from working on the technical side of (US) COCOT phones, I feel that I must come to their defense. It is true that early COCOTs did not have reliable answer detection but newer ones are quite good and the improved quality of connections these days through digital COs and transmission means that there are fewer clicks and buzzes to confuse the answer detection. Of course many COCOTs use loop reversal for answer detection which is as reliable as anything else could be. On the other hand, the central office based coin control is wide open to fraud. I won't go into details -- there must be plenty elsewhere on the net. A COCOT owner who chooses to go down this road is very vulnerable to fraud and even to simple walkaways where the CO based control allows a user to speak for longer than they have paid for and they walk off without paying for the extra time. This wasn't a big problem in the old days with telco owned phones. Telco was only out of pocket for the actual cost of handling the fraudulent call which wasn't very much (and added to the rate base anyway). It's different when the COCOT owner has to pay real money to the telco with nothing in the coin box to cover it. Telco don't see any reason why they should spend their money to do something (prevent these frauds) which would reduce their own revenue. I expect that BellSouth have put their payphones into a separate operating unit which is finding itself paying for all the fraud just like any mom and pop COCOT business would have to. They will also see the advantages of abandoning CO coin control. In any case, one of the most likely causes of the man losing his money and his temper was that he called a number which was answered by a fax machine or modem. There are still lots of people who don't recognise answer tones from these. They hear the squealing noise and mutter "F***ing phone system", hang up and expect to get their money back. Of course the call has supervised and they are 35 cents poorer whether it was a COCOT or not. Steve Hayes South Wales, UK ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #437 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Sep 28 03:31:04 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id DAA10825; Tue, 28 Sep 1999 03:31:04 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1999 03:31:04 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199909280731.DAA10825@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #438 TELECOM Digest Tue, 28 Sep 99 03:31:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 438 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: It Makes You Think (A Tale of WW2) (Cortland Richmond) Re: It Makes You Think (A Tale of WW2) (John Nagle) Re: It Makes You Think (A Tale of WW2) (B.L. Bodnar) OPTEL Alternative LOCAL Service Company Charges For LOCAL Calls (J Willis) Re: Overseas Directory Information? (Darryl Smith) Phone Service Finally on the Way for Small Washington Town (Mike Pollock) Phones Out-Number Umbrellas in Lost-and-Found (The Old Bear) Re: Church Mulls Cell Tower in Cross (Jim Haynes) For Sale: AT&T Passageway Units (Dave Lugo) Re: Inexpensive T-1 Service on Tap From Start-up (net_buoy) ASR-33 In Calgary? (Keelan Lightfoot) Re: Having No Long Distance Provider? (Linc Madison) Re: Earthlink Expanding (Brent Laminack) Re: Multiplexing Internal Wiring (Jonathan Seder) What I Learned On My Summer Vacation (Monty Solomon) Help Me Name That Mystery Piece of Telecom Equipment (Alec Isaacson) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1999 14:43:46 -0700 From: Cortland Richmond Organization: Alcatel Subject: Re: It Makes You Think (A Tale of WW2) On Sun, 26 Sep 1999 19:13 BST, Andrew Emmerson (midshires@cix.co.uk) wrote: > It was called SIGSALY, alias Green Hornet. I did a quick search on the This may be the system General Patton Jr referred to when he said "It scrambles your words before you utter them." Cortland ------------------------------ From: nagle@netcom.com (John Nagle) Subject: Re: It Makes You Think (A Tale of WW2) Date: 27 Sep 1999 19:32:35 GMT Organization: Netcom bohdan@ihgp4.ih.lucent.com (B.L. Bodnar writes: > This thread's becoming interesting, so I'll toss in some info I read > in a book dealing with German espionage in WWII. I don't recall its > title, but I do recall that it's in the Bell Labs Library. > A secure cable was established between the White House and Winston > Churchill's bunker in London. Bell Labs was contracted to design the > secure communication link. This link was a spread-spectrum > frequency-hopping system. It wasn't as secure as the United States > government and English governments thought because the cable had a tap > (capacitive, I suppose) put on -- courtesy of German engineers in the > German Postal Authority and the German Navy! Not only that, but the > engineers reverse-engineered the frequency hopping mechanism, thus > allowing the eavesdroppers to miss, at most, a fraction of second of > any conversations that were going on! This account confuses two completely separate systems. Early in the war, the Western Electric A4 scrambler, in standard use for the radio link portion of transatlantic phone calls, was used. That unit consisted of a set of analog filter banks, used to disassemble the signal into several audio bands, which were then reassembled into different bands. The band-switching pattern changed every 15 seconds or so. This was cracked with a sound spectrograph, a device that produced a density graph of frequency vs time. In that format, it was obvious where the band breaks were, and it was possible to take the paper output of the sound spectrograph, cut it up along the band lines, and reassemble it with the bands reordered. The high-security SIGSALY system came later. It was a one time key digital encryption system built with 1940s technology; about a dozen racks of vacuum tubes and keys stored on phonograph records. This was used only for rare conversations between leaders across the Atlantic. John Nagle ------------------------------ From: bohdan@ihgp4.ih.lucent.com (B.L. Bodnar) Subject: Re: It Makes You Think (A Tale of WW2) Date: 27 Sep 1999 13:25:33 GMT Organization: Lucent Technologies I've deleted all the references to my text in order to get this silly posting software to work ... I apologize for the lack of clarity, but I have about 15 minutes before a meeting and I DO NOT have the time to get this stuff set up in a coherent manner. In article , Andrew Emmerson wrote: > It was called SIGSALY, alias Green Hornet. I did a quick search on the > WWW and found very little. Even the 'under construction site that I > discovered and printed out the last time I searched has now > disappeared. A ddefinitivetreatment of SIGSALY and the true extent of > Hedy Lamarr's involvement in it is long overdue. Many books on wartime > communications omit the subject altogether, so it must have been > pretty secret at the time. > The room that held the London terminal (in Churchill's Cabinet War > Rooms in London) was disguised as Churchill's private lavatory > (British English)/restroom (American English), complete with > VACANT/ENGAGED sign/latch on the door. The whole place is a > museum today, all superbly restored. > This I have never heard before but it's entirely plausible. The notion > that the Germans were pig-ignorant during WW2 is a persistent but false > one. I'm just waiting for the full story on how they decoded all out > messages (we're so proud of how we read their traffic!). I *like* these postings! I especially like the references. I guess it's time to see whether I can access the Bell Labs archives and read up on SIGSALY. I believe the following is the book I read which described this system: ti Game of the foxes; the untold story of German espionage in the United States and Great Britain during World War II au Farago, L. pu McKay 1971. 696p. su Espionage; World War, 1939 - 1945 I suspect that this book is out of print for a long time now. For the Lucent readers, a quick search shows that it's available in the Whippany library. I read it many years ago and was fascinated by the contents -- especially the triple agent stuff (Nazi spy goes to work for the FBI then continues to work for the Abwher -- and this isn't discovered until after WWII). Darn ... I'm beginning to like history! Cordially, Bohdan Bodnar bbodnar@lucent.com ------------------------------ From: Jim Willis Subject: OPTEL Alternative LOCAL Service Company Charges For LOCAL Calls Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1999 14:07:38 -0400 Whatever you saw in the USA in the break-up of Bell and competition, check this Canadian version. Alternative local service provider OPTEL. Pay one monthly fee (less than Bell as these are centrex lines) and everything ok until now, pay for line and get local calls to local area at no charge). Without warning on my bill starting Aug 11, 1999 charging for local calls. 1) Toll free number NOT working 1-888-393-5666 -intercept "CALL CAN NOT BE COMPLETED AS DIALED" -checked by Peggy 2) I have *ONE* identi-call (2 ring number) 705-720-2882 Optel is charging: OPTEL Feature $5.00 + taxes FEATURE CHARGES: $5.00 + taxes 5) Optel is charging for LOCAL calling, better check your internet lines and local calls, showing up as: BELL CHARGES $104.10, only four long distance calls should be charged for $1.24 as my main number and fax are Sprint. 4) Attempted call in regards to these and spent 10 minutes on hold LD to 416-586-0400. At this point I have written to the CRTC (government regulator) and email to OPTEL and I have not heard back yet. jwillis@drlogick.com Regular email: jwillis@drlogick.com PrintPost Barrie: jimwillis@envoy.ca If you have ICQ my ICQ# is 15686440 ------------------------------ From: Darryl Smith Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1999 18:40:27 +1000 Subject: Re: Overseas Directory Information? G'Day At least with Australia look at www.whitepages.com.au and www.yellowpages.com.au . That is far cheaper than ringing even Australia for Directory Assistance. BTW, the Australian Directory Assistance number is 013. I do not think this is dialable from outside. If you did I guess it would be +61 13, which would be one of the shortest numbers in the world. From the USA, IF IT IS VALID it would become 011 61 13, as short as the shortest numbers in the USA (Other than 411/911) Darryl Smith, VK2TDS POBox 169 Ingleburn NSW 2565 Australia Mobile Number 0412 929 634 [+61 4 12 929 634 International] [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: My experience has been that here in the USA it is sometimes possible to do 011-country code-555-1212 and reach the distant directory assistance. I do not think that is supposed to be something the public is able to do. Apparently after telco sees the 011-country code part the 555-1212 is picked up and translated in some way or another to whatever is used in the country. Or maybe in fact some countries see the 555-1212 coming to them and accept it as a signal from the USA to connect the incoming call to directory assistance. I think it is only supposed to work for telco operators and not the general public, and I cannot vouch that it does work in every single instance. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Mike Pollock Subject: Phone Service Finally on the Way for Small Washington Town Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1999 12:55:12 -0400 Organization: It's A Mike! Phones Coming to Libby Creek CARLTON, Wash. (AP) - Just in time for the new millennium, telephone service is coming to Libby Creek. "When the rest of the world is looking at speed and quantity, we're looking for a dial tone," said resident Joyce Campbell. "It's just so exciting, we're ready to break out the champagne." This week, the Washington State Utilities and Transportation Commission approved a proposal from CenturyTel to install phone lines to serve about 20 residents near Carlton in northcentral Washington's Methow Valley. The area was in a rare 'unclaimed territory,' meaning that no telephone company had responsibility for providing service. CenturyTel is proposing charging Libby Creek residents double its $12 per month basic rate for two years to cover the cost of setting up lines. If weather permits, phones could be ringing along Libby Creek as soon as this fall, the utility told the commission. A few people along the rural dirt road now have cellular telephones, but service is expensive and unreliable. One person gave up a cell phone after receiving a $600 bill, Campbell said. For many years, through rain, snow and shine, residents have shared a phone located in a neighbor's unheated barn just down the road -- even in times of emergencies. "We'd all write down our calls, and then argue over who was going to figure out the bill," Campbell said. Copyright 1999 Associated Press. All rights reserved. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1999 17:17:02 -0400 From: The Old Bear Subject: Phones Out-Number Umbrellas in Lost-and-Found As summarized in NewScan Daily (http://www.newsscan.com/): PHONES OUTNUMBER UMBRELLAS IN LOST-AND-FOUND -------------------------------------------- Londoners are leaving up to 45 mobile phones on buses and trains every day -- outnumbering the number of umbrellas left behind for the first time ever. According to Maureen Beaumont, manager of London Transport's lost property office, the number of handsets being turned in is up sharply: "It's just creeping up and up and up. It was just 30 a day a couple of months ago. Now we're up to 40 or 45 a day." This year so far, there are 4,000 abandoned phones waiting to be claimed, but because many users have insurance policies that replace their phones within a few days, most of the misplaced handsets are just left in the lost property office for the requisite six months. "After that we can sell them as a piece of hardware -- we just dispose of the sim card," says Beaumont. source: Financial Times (27 Sep 99) http://www.ft.com/hippocampus/q181aba.htm ******************************************************************* NewsScan Daily is underwritten by Arthur Andersen and IEEE Computer Society, world-class organizations making significant and sustained contributions to the effective management and appropriate use of information technology. To subscribe to NewsScan Daily, send an e-mail message to NewsScan@NewsScan.com with 'subscribe' in the subject line. ******************************************************************* ------------------------------ From: haynes@alumni.uark.edu (Jim Haynes) Subject: Re: Church Mulls Cell Tower in Cross Date: 27 Sep 1999 17:04:41 GMT Organization: University of Arkansas Alumni Reply-To: jhaynes@alumni.uark.edu There was a similar proposal here involving Southwestern Bell and a Lutheran church. It stirred up lots of neighborhood opposition, to the extent that SW Bell withdrew the proposal and the city enacted a tower ordinance. I believe SW Bell said they had already done something like that in Little Rock and were surprised by the opposition. The chickens are starting to come home to roost. When only a few people had cell phones there were only a few towers needed. As cell phone usage grows the basic design is for the cells to become smaller, hence more towers across the landscape. Everybody wants a cell phone, but nobody wants the towers. ------------------------------ From: Dave Lugo Subject: For Sale: AT&T Passageway Units Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1999 17:22:11 -0400 Organization: UUNET I have eight or so AT&T passageway units for sale. They interface a PC serial port with Merlin/Legend phone sets. The box lists Comcode 407214782 Please contact via email or phone (listed below) if interested. Thanks, ----------------------------------------------- Dave Lugo | dlugo@stk.com Systems/Network Admin. | http://www.stk.com Analytical Graphics Inc. | (610)578-1000 ----------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ From: net_buoy@usa-spam.com (net_buoy) Subject: Re: Inexpensive T-1 Service on Tap From Start-up Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1999 23:17:58 GMT Organization: @Home Network Monty Solomon stands accused of saying: > How about paying a flat $500 per month for a T-1, plus $1 per minute > of use instead? What a joke. Should I just lease the car, or pay by the mile? ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1999 19:37:40 -0700 Subject: ASR-33 In Calgary? From: Keelan Lightfoot I'm looking for someone that has a Teletype ASR-33 for sale in Calgary, Alberta. I am building a Z80 computer that operates basically the same as the MITS Altair 8800, but uses up more space (a 42" high x 20" wide x 24" deep enclosure), while using more modern components inside the cabinet. Input to the machine will be via toggle switches on the front panel, and a paper tape reader. The front panel will use incandescent lamps rather than LEDs, just for their 'look'. I need an ASR-33, or something similar (though it seems that the ASR-33 was the most used model for digital applications) to punch the paper tape that I will be feeding the computer. I live in Fernie, so going to Calgary would be no problem for me to pick up the equipment. Any help would be greatly appreciated. (I do remember the post from a while back about a few Teletype machines for sale somewhere in the US, but I couldn't afford to get a Teletype shipped from anywhere in the US, so I'll have to shop closer to home :) - Keelan Lightfoot ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1999 22:47:24 -0700 From: Linc Madison Subject: Re: Having No Long Distance Provider? In article , wrote: > Incidentally, while you may feel that you were overcharged when you > used 10-10-297, the person who made a hundred dollars worth of calls > that month and also paid only 69 cents probably feels they got a good > deal. I didn't say they charged a flat fee of 69 cents for the USF Charge. They charge a MINIMUM of 63 cents per month for the USF Charge. If you make $100 of calls, you'll pay a lot more than $0.63 in USF. I absolutely stand by my statement that it is consumer fraud for Telco to charge such a high minimum USF charge. There is no possible excuse for the practice, since it is utterly trivial to calculate the actual cost of the USF contribution. ------------------------------ From: brent@cc.gatech.edu (Brent Laminack) Subject: Re: Earthlink Expanding Date: 27 Sep 1999 10:42:11 -0400 Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology steve@sellcom.com (Steve Winter) writes: > Looks like Earthlink just swallowed Mindspring which just swallowed > Netcom ... Which swallowed which isn't clear. The combined company will be called Earthlink, but the headquarters will be at Mindspring's offices here in Atlanta. Charles Brewer, the Chairman of Mindspring, will now be the Chairman. The CEO of Earthlink will keep his post. The President of Mindspring will be the new President. Looks like all that carried over from Earthlink is the name and CEO. Brent Laminack (brent@cc.gatech.edu) ------------------------------ From: Jonathan Seder Subject: Re: Multiplexing Internal Wiring Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1999 08:37:13 -0700 Organization: SyntelSoft Inc > I recently tried to get a Covad DSL line installed to my apartment. > Unfortunately, the installer discovered that there were no free pairs > available between the wiring closet and my residence. Covad's > Telesurfer service is based on SDSL, so I can't multiplex voice and > DSL. Covad's relationship with ILECs doesn't permit them to share copper with your POTS service -- it's a logistical/legal/regulatory issue, not a technological one. Pacific Bell DSL is piggybacked on existing voice lines. Get your DSL from them. > two voice lines ... roommate nixed ... sharing a voice line > so I'm looking for a way to bring both lines into the apartment on a > single pair ... ISDN ... Do you both need to be able to talk at once, or do you just need different "numbers"? "Distinctive ring" would let know for whom a call is intended. ISDN is expensive, and in particular its usage charges make it impractical for most residential voice applications. Nevertheless, if you want it, you will find that many ISDN terminal adapters break out two analog jacks -- the Ascend Pipeline 15 and Motorola Bitsrfr Pro (probably available on eBay for $10) are two. ------------------------------ Reply-To: Monty Solomon From: Monty Solomon Subject: What I Learned On My Summer Vacation Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1999 13:42:28 -0400 What I Learned On My Summer Vacation by Stewart Alsop http://www.pathfinder.com/fortune/technology/alsop/1999/09/27/ ------------------------------ From: Alec Isaacson Subject: Help Me Name That Mystery Piece of Telecom Equipment Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1999 22:53:59 -0400 Pat, et. al.: I've been having problems getting good, high speed, modem connections when dialing out of my new house (the house is 40 years old - it's new to me :). I've spent some time tracing the wiring and I've found that, while the house has one of those "standard issue" grey demarc boxes on the outside, the phone wires themselves terminate in a nondescript grey box in my basement. (In other words, when I plug a known good phone into the RJ-11 jacks on the customer side of the grey demarc, I hear nothing, despite the fact that all my phones get dial tone). Before I call my local phone company and see if they'll move the incoming dial tone to the demarc, I'd like to make sure that I'm not going out of the frying pan and into the fire as it were. That's where I hope someone can help me ID this mysterious box ... The inside wiring in my house terminates in a grey box in my basement, which in turn has wires which go off to the utility pole. The box is about 6 inches square and about 3 inches deep. With the box's cover off, I see two tall silver tubular things with KS13486 and 7/14/69 stamped on them (the last looks like a date to me). They don't look to be capacitors to me, but I could be wrong. I also see three rows of screw terminals labeled 1-3, 4-6, and 7-9. Each row has three sets of two screws which look to be electrically connected and the entire set of terminals is duplicated (i.e. I have six rows total). Most of the screws have wires terminating on them. The baseplate of the entire box has 105A engraved on it and 1BKTU stamped on it in ink. Finally, the box has four square devices with clear plastic tops that have B1182=69K stamped on them. They look kind of like relays, but I haven't been able to get into them to see. My question is this: What is the box and what is its purpose? Could it be contributing to my slow connect speeds? If so, I'll press with my LEC to get my external wiring changed to the demarc. If not, I'll leave well enough alone. Thanks for all your help. If I can provide more information, please let me know. Alec Isaacson alec.isaacson@cai.com ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #438 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Sep 28 14:27:06 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id OAA03396; Tue, 28 Sep 1999 14:27:06 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1999 14:27:06 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199909281827.OAA03396@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #439 TELECOM Digest Tue, 28 Sep 99 14:27:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 439 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: No Address on TELECOM Digest Posts? (Peter Corlett) Re: No Address on TELECOM Digest Posts? (Jonathan Loo) Re: No Address on TELECOM Digest Posts? (Louis Raphael) Re: No Address on TELECOM Digest Posts? (John R. Levine) Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? (Paul Rubin) Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? (Joel B. Levin) Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? (Barry Margolin) Payment to Make LD Switch (Matt Bartlett) Re: LD Rate History (Russell Blau) Re: Last Laugh! [cough cough hack] Better Check That V-mail (Matt Simpson) Re: It Makes You Think (A Tale of WW2) (Mark Brader) Re: Church Mulls Cell Tower in Cross (Bill Ranck) Minutes Used on Secondary vs. Primary Lines (Baratunde Thurston) Drivers License Compact / Extortion Conspiracy (E. Cummings) Re: Overseas Directory Information? (Geoff Dyer) Re: Inexpensive T-1 Service on Tap From Start-up (Barry Margolin) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: abuse@cabal.org.uk (Peter Corlett) Subject: Re: No Address on TELECOM Digest Posts? Date: 27 Sep 1999 18:56:49 GMT Derek Balling wrote: [...] > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: To oversimply things a little, all messages > which go to c.d.t. are written by me. That is, however I tinker with > things in this Digest, when the Digest is 'burst' into single messages for > Usenet, whatever I put as the 'From:' is what c.d.t. uses. I am not sure > how sites at various locations would respond to a lack of anything there > at all. [...] In the light of these comments, I thought I'd try and combine the wonders of the null SMTP address from RFC821 with a loose interpretation of RFC1036 and offer a variant of From: Joe Random <> Unfortunately, it appears that my copy of INN doesn't wear this -- I get "441 From: address not in Internet syntax". Further investigation with variants of spamblocked and invalid addresses determined that my copy of INN decided that an address was valid iff the address had a dot somewhere after an at symbol. This gives a fair amount of scope -- <@b}.c> was quite acceptable to it. However, this isn't necessarily going to work for all newsservers -- I've used a sample of one, and this doesn't count all the cruddy ones out there that haven't heard of a RFC. So, in order to steal the work of many others, might I suggest this possibility from Grandson-of-1036: From Joe Random The random junk could be a MD5 hash of the original From: line, so that killfilters and anything that expects a 1:1 mapping of poster to email address would still work. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1999 18:58:52 EDT From: Jonathan Loo Subject: Re: No Address on TELECOM Digest Posts? In article you write: >> I don't expect personal replies to postings I've made to TELECOM >> Digest and I certainly don't want to be spammed as a result. Personal replies may be unwanted but it is certainly within a reader's right to give a personal reply. > I would probably have to forge all the 'From:' lines so that everyone > was @telecom-digest.org but then all the spam would come to me! :) As > mail arrived in response to those names@telecom-digest.org it would go > through my filter rules and a rule would say if not to [one of various > names established for digest purposes, ie editor, ptownson, etc] then > send to /dev/null but that could cause some important responses the > person would want to see to get tossed out. Or I could tell it to scan > through a list of real addresses and try to match it up and send it on > to the person. This means the person would get the spam second-hand > after it passed through me first. If someone mailed me @telecom-digest.org then I would like it either to be posted, or, if it is not-for-publication, then I would like to get it in my box. Or maybe I should get all of my mail. Don't send it to /dev/null even if it is spam. Mail to me that is spam but doesn't contain "not for publication" can be posted. If it gets sent to me then be sure to forward spam with full headers so that the appropriate complaints can be initiated. By the way jloo@nova.umuc.edu and jloo@polaris.umuc.edu will cease to exist in a short while. They are school addresses and I have already graduated :-) A nifty way to handle the From: line would be to create an e-mail box for everyone who contributes to the Digest, solely for receipt of digest-related mail. ------------------------------ From: Louis Raphael Subject: Re: No Address on TELECOM Digest Posts? Organization: Societe pour la promotion du petoncle vert Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1999 11:35:17 GMT PAT wrote: > I am really bewildered by all this; I honestly do not know what to do. > Maybe its because it is 3:00 AM on Monday morning as I write this > and I am tired. I would suggest if the spam as a result of name har- > vesting here is a problem, you should get an @telecom-digest.zzn.com > address and use that, then include your real address in the text of > the message itself. I am really reluctant to remove email addresses > in messages; it just is not fair to the readers who wish to reply to > the original writers, etc. I do not know what the answer is. PAT] I think that this is the best solution. Being as the Digest is gatewayed to Usenet, those posting to the Digest should consider it to be the same as posting to any other Usenet group, and should take appropriate precautions at the individual level if they feel it is necessary. BTW, it *is* possible to have an RFC-valid address that is so strange that it will confuse spammers ... using () comments, for example, which may *theoretically* be inserted anywhere in the address (see RFC 822 if you have any questions). My understanding is that: is a fully valid, RFC-compliant address for myself ... but most spamming software is written very shoddily, and doesn't know what to do with it (although better mail programs do). I've considered using this style, which would both stop (most) spam, and remain RFC-compliant, but I get so much spam anyway that it would make little difference at this point (procmail does, however). Louis A definition of employee loyalty: Not looking for your next job on company time. ------------------------------ Date: 27 Sep 1999 10:24:18 -0400 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: No Address on TELECOM Digest Posts? Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > I am really bewildered by all this; I honestly do not know what to do. Follow your instincts and ignore the selfish slobs who want to hide from spammers at the cost of screwing up usenet even more than it is now. There are plenty of places to get real addresses for people who don't want to use their main address on usenet. Using a forged address and expecting the rest of the world to guess your real address and re-edit messages is the same sort of cost-shifting nonsense that makes us hate spammers. Incidentally, as a routine anti-spam measure, all mail that passes through the system here that receives telecom-digest.org mail has to have a real domain in the envelope return address or it'll be rejected before it's delivered. John R. Levine, IECC, POB 727, Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 387 6869 johnl@iecc.com, Village Trustee and Sewer Commissioner, http://iecc.com/johnl, Member, Provisional board, Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail ------------------------------ From: phr@netcom.com (Paul Rubin) Subject: Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? Date: 28 Sep 1999 07:26:44 GMT Organization: NETCOM / MindSpring Enterprises, Inc. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: There is no rule you can only call one > time. The rule is you cannot harrass in any of your calls, either your > first one or your tenth one. Not everyone can catch all the information > on the recording the first time and they need to listen to it again. > After the first call you may need to call back to get more information > about how to get started in the fine programs they offer. Then when > you decide to ask them to remove your name from their list, that would > require another call. If you have ten email addresses to be removed from > the list, you might find it easier to call one time for each name you > use. A system administrator might want to provide them with a list of > several hundred names at that particular domain to be removed. You > may call as often as necessary; that is why they provided a toll-free > number for your convenience. ...] I really don't have time to make that many phone calls. Is there an automated program available that can do it for me? Thanks. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Certainly there are. And it is easy enough to write a small program which has your modem go off hook and make calls at certain times. But be careful, because you are coming close to harassment if you make repeated calls and then do not speak when the other party answers. Better to have a human element on yoru end involved in the process, to ask questions, and make comments. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Joel B Levin Subject: Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? Organization: On the desert Reply-To: levinjb@gte.net Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1999 07:58:05 GMT In by sjsobol@JustThe.Net (Steven J Sobol), PAT wrote: > Remember, although science has not yet found a cure for spamming, with > the help of netizens everywhere, spammers can be trained to live > productive lives as members of the net community. Make a pledge to help > rehabilitate a spammer today. PAT It may not be much good anyway. Lately a lot of spammers have been indicating in their spam that they have flat rate service, or you can call as often as you want and listen to their tapes as long as you want because it won't cost anyone anything. They may be blowing smoke. On the other hand, answering services some of the spammers use are said only to charge for contacts received and eat the costs of extra calls (which since they are bulk 800 number customers may be close to nil). Anyone know for sure? /JBL [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Many of them are blowing smoke, talking like there is no way you can hurt them, but they are feeling the pinch. I've never heard of such a thing as 'flat rate service' offered by a telco for an 800 number, have you? Why would they even bring up the type of phone service they have unless they were starting to notice a lot of garbage getting through to them? Why would some two-bit spam writer discuss his 'flat rate service' when major corporations have no such thing for their customer service departments? Some guy who sends out junk email gets better rates than, let's say, IBM or Amoco or a large national VISA franchisee on their 800 service? I don't think so. And if an answering service is working with a spammer, only charging for contacts and 'eating the rest' then the answering service has to be put down also. That simple. You as a netizen should not be concerned with *who* gets the phone bill, or how it gets pro-rationed among clients of an answering service. Your job is to keep those phone calls rolling in. If it becomes so unprofitable for an answering service to have spammers as customers, then they'll drop any 'flat rate' or 'only charge for contact' arrangement they have. Let the answering service get huge bills a couple months in a row where vast numbers of calls which went on for several minutes each cannot be attributed to any specific client -- yet they know it is because of the nature of their clients that they are getting hacked like that -- and they'll change their procedures. You can be assured that as long as you make those calls, *someone* is going to get a bill. Telco is not a charity. As long as someone gets a bill they cannot deal with, your message will have been del- ivered. Just as intense pressure on individual ISPs who were harboring spammers with email accounts got those email accounts cancelled, so will pressure on answering services which harbor spammers cause them to lose those services. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Barry Margolin Subject: Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? Organization: GTE Internetworking, Cambridge, MA Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1999 14:40:15 GMT In article , Gary Chatters wrote: > Many spammers use third party relaying. In this scenario the spammer > sends the message and a long list of e-mail addresses to the relay site > which then does the work of sending the spam to the thousands of > addresses in the spammers database. > In general these sites don't intend to allow use of their mail agent > for third party forwarding. It is a misconfiguration and one that > is likely because it used to be the default for many systems. I agree that unauthorized relaying is theft of services from the unwitting relay site. But I'm pretty sure that this is not what the poster who originally claimed that spam is theft was referring to. Many spammers don't use third party relays (they either run sendmail on their own system, or they use their ISP's mail relay, which they're legally allowed to do, although using it for spam may be a violation of the TOS that could result in termination of the account, but not criminal prosecution), and his followup posts indicate that he considers the spammer to have stolen something from *him* (disk space on his computer, ISP charges for download time, etc.). This is relevant because I presume it affects who can bring charges against the spammer: the recipient or the relay site. Barry Margolin, barmar@bbnplanet.com GTE Internetworking, Powered by BBN, Burlington, MA *** DON'T SEND TECHNICAL QUESTIONS DIRECTLY TO ME, post them to newsgroups. Please DON'T copy followups to me -- I'll assume it wasn't posted to the group. ------------------------------ From: Matt Subject: Payment to Make LD Switch Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1999 23:29:21 -0400 Organization: EarthLink Network, Inc. I recieved a check in the mail from AT&T for $50 if I switch my Long Distance and Local toll service to AT&T. Now, it says on the check where I should endorse it: By signing, cashing, and/or depositing this check I agree to switch my Residentail Long Distance to AT&T and if available in my area, I agree to switch my Local Toll Service to AT&T. I will take the affirmative steps required to make these changes. I authorize AT&T to switch these services, to notify my local telephone company of my desicion, and to unblock my carrier choise service protection to make these switches possible. I understand I may only have one carrier etc ... etc ... etc ... Right now I have no chosen carrier for LD or Local-Toll, and I have a block on them to make any changes. If I cash this check, can they legally unblock it? Thanks, Matt [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: As part of the deal you agreed to 'take affirmative steps required to make these changes', which means you agree to cooperate with AT&T, which means you will not give your local telco advice to the contary, ie. keeping a block on the line. They cannot legally unblock your line, but you will be in violation of the contract you signed with them (by signing and cashing the check) if you refuse to unblock it yourself. If this is one of those 'Pay to the Order of the Telephone Company' checks where you submit it with payment of your phone bill, you should note that your local telco *will* use that endorsement on the back as your authority to them to unblock the line in preparation for AT&T to take it over. So if you cash the check elsewhere, your line stays blocked and AT&T is unable to gain default status on it, will they sue you for being in violation of your contract with them? No, probably not. They'll write you once or twice and remind you of your obligation, then your name and phone number will go on the list of petty chiselers and deadbeats they keep as a reminder to themselves to not send you any more offers. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1999 06:29:06 -0700 From: Russell Blau Subject: Re: LD Rate History Organization: My Deja Email (http://www.my-deja.com:80) Bruce Larrabee (larb0@aol.com) wrote: > I have a friend that is doing a college paper on the > history of long distance rates -- especially since > Judge Greene's divestiture rulings in 1984. > Does anyone have suggestions for internet > locations/URLs where some history may be accessible? The FCC has a surprisingly good collection of price histories, as well as other statistical data, at http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Common_Carrier/Reports/FCC-State_Link/fcc-link.html I would start with "Trends in Telephone Service," but there are also other documents here that have other kinds of rate, revenue, and traffic information. Russ Blau ------------------------------ From: Matt Simpson Subject: Re: Last Laugh! [cough cough hack] Better Check That V-mail System Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1999 09:32:24 -0400 Organization: University of Kentucky Computing Services In article , Danny Burstein wrote: > There is an astonishing initial recording on the customer service line > for Brown & Williamson, the tobacco company. Call 1-800-578-7453 and > listen until it gives you the prompt to be connected elsewhere. That's not a hack ... it's legit. I read about it somewhere a couple of weeks ago. Matt Simpson -- Paris, KY At the end of your rope? Tie and knot and SWING! ------------------------------ From: msbrader@interlog.com (Mark Brader) Subject: Re: It Makes You Think (A Tale of WW2) Date: 28 Sep 1999 06:28:05 -0400 Organization: - John Nagle writes: > The high-security SIGSALY system came later. It was a one time > key digital encryption system built with 1940s technology; about a > dozen racks of vacuum tubes and keys stored on phonograph records. > This was used only for rare conversations between leaders across the > Atlantic. In email posted here by permission, Clive Feather adds: > I've dug out my notes of that Bletchley conference last year. They > say 30 standard 19" racks (each about 600 x 500 x 2000; 19" refers > to the spacing of the equipment mounting rails). Basically a 2400 bps > digitiser (which took up most of the racks) plus simple (XOR-with-key > level) encryption. He also explains how the one-time keys were protected: > At the end of the conversation the operator smashed the record. That'd do it! Mark Brader \"How diabolically clever: a straightforward message! Toronto \ Only a genius could have thought of that." msbrader@interlog.com\ -- Maxwell Smart (Agent 86) ------------------------------ From: (Bill Ranck) Subject: Re: Church Mulls Cell Tower in Cross Date: 28 Sep 1999 12:08:14 GMT Organization: Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia, USA Jim Haynes wrote: > The chickens are starting to come home to roost. When only a few > people had cell phones there were only a few towers needed. As cell > phone usage grows the basic design is for the cells to become smaller, > hence more towers across the landscape. Everybody wants a cell phone, > but nobody wants the towers. And the clear, obvious, technological solution to that is satellite based service. If someone can bring launch costs down to a reasonable level, or NIMBYism raises ground based costs too much, it will happen. I give it about five to ten years. ***************************************************************************** * Bill Ranck +1-540-231-3951 ranck@vt.edu * * Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, Computing Center * ***************************************************************************** ------------------------------ From: Baratunde Thurston Subject: Minutes Used on Secondary vs. Primary Lines Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1999 21:04:06 GMT Organization: Deja.com - Before you buy. I have spent hours looking through FCC and market research data but cannot find anyone who parses minutes of use (voice preferably) between primary and additional phone lines. Does anyone have any leads on this? Thanks, BRT ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1999 13:25:53 -0400 From: E. Cummings Subject: Drivers License Compact / Extortion Conspiracy A nationwide "Drivers License Compact" between states' DMV's ensures that if you ignore another state's traffic citation, they'll be able to have your home state suspend your license until you pay up. The entire system is computerized networked by a WAN to each DMV mainframe. For some reason, Massachusetts, Michigan, and Georgia are the only states that don't fully participate in this conspiracy of extortion. This was not a problem for drivers before state computers were extensively networked. "Suspension of a driver's license is more effective than a court order" for getting money out of people, says David Lewis, Deputy Registrar of the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles." An excellent article about abusive DMV practices can be found at: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.02/dmv.html At 07:17 PM 9/26/99 -0400, PAT wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: However, it is quite true that many > very small communities rely heavily on the revenue received from > traffic citations and go so far as to deliberatly construct 'speed > traps' and unusual (as in not traditionally seen by careful motorists) > regulations within their community in an effort to trick the drivers > passing through town. A motorist who is otherwise careful and tries > to obey the rules finds a police officer jumping out at him from > behind a bush or a billboard with a traffic citation for something > in which there was no resulting accident and the facts fall into a > sort of grey area. > Then the motorist is given a choice: he can plead guilty to the > offense and pay the fine then and there (at the local police station) > or if he wishes to contest the matter he can put up a substantial > bond, forfeit his driver's license and promise to return to court > at some point in the future even though he may live in a destination > a thousand miles away. Naturally, the motorist simply pleads guilty > and pays the fine. The amount of the fine is kept low enough as a > way of 'encouraging' the motorist to be done with the matter then > and there, and the offense is conveniently forgotten about afterward > with no record of it being forwarded to state authorities who issue > licenses, etc. Lots and lots of small towns are notorious for this > kind of thing when they see a car coming with a license plate from > a distant state and realize the chance of any back-talk from the > motorist is slight. PAT] ------------------------------ From: gldyer-nospam@geocities.com (Geoff Dyer) Subject: Re: Overseas Directory Information? Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1999 13:41:44 GMT On Mon, 27 Sep 1999 18:40:27 +1000, Darryl Smith wrote: > BTW, the Australian Directory > Assistance number is 013. I do not think this is dialable from > outside. If you did I guess it would be +61 13, which would be one of > the shortest numbers in the world. Both 013 (local DA) and 0175 (non-local national DA) are soon to be disconnected, replaced by the one national DA number 1223 (and various "premium" alternatives, mostly also in the 12 range). The old numbers were meant to have been pulled last year, but were extended because of delays in the official approval of 1223. (There was concern about misdialling between 1223 (and other services starting 122) and the GSM mobile emergency number 112. Presumably the level of misdials has been found to be "acceptable".) According to the ACA's Numbering Plan, none of the DA numbers is dialable from outside Australia. While on *that* subject, the Numbering Plan actually has a *mistake* concerning incoming international dialling of numbers starting 018 (the first-allocated number range for analogue AMPS mobiles). This range is meant to be dialable, except for the 01800 range, which is excluded to allow incoming international access to 1800 numbers. The Numbering Plan, however, shows the 01800 section as dialable from overseas, and the other 018 numbers as not dialable. This soon won't matter anyway; the entire analogue AMPS system shuts down in the major population centres at the end of this year, and in the rest of the country during 2000. Geoff (to e-mail me, remove any instances of "-nospam" from my address) ------------------------------ From: Barry Margolin Subject: Re: Inexpensive T-1 Service on Tap From Start-up Organization: GTE Internetworking, Cambridge, MA Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1999 14:44:11 GMT In article , Dr. Joel M. Hoffman wrote: >>> The T-1 biz is about to get very exciting as HDSL2 arrives. It's a >>> version of DSL that runs over a single pair but looks to each end like >>> a T1 or E1 so it's a "drop in" replacement for T1. Pricing should be >>> in line with other DSL services, more like $40/mo than $500. >> Much of what you're paying for is not the equipment or technology to >> geet the line to you. At least with US West, you're paying for a team >> of individuals that answer the phone right away in case of trouble. > I think you're also paying for the bandwidth. You pay for the ability > to dump all that data onto the internet. You pay that to the ISP in addition to the circuit charge that you pay to the telco. In article , Steve Winter wrote: > Monty Solomon spake thusly and wrote: >> PLEASANTON, CALIF. - Tired of paying mileage for T-1 lines? How about >> paying a flat $500 per month for a T-1, plus $1 per minute of use >> instead? > That is $1440 a day and I thought a T-1 was expensive at about $3000 > a month. > No offense, but that doesn't sound attractive. It might be attractive for a second T-1 intended only as a backup line. If the backup T-1 were used 40 minutes or less per month, it would be cheaper than the $3K flat-rate line. But I wonder what constitutes a "minute of use". Routers typically send keepalives every few seconds (every ten seconds on Ciscos) to verify that the circuit and remote router are up. Would this company consider the circuit to be used every minute because of this? That would cause the bill to shoot up to over $43K/month! Barry Margolin, barmar@bbnplanet.com GTE Internetworking, Powered by BBN, Burlington, MA *** DON'T SEND TECHNICAL QUESTIONS DIRECTLY TO ME, post them to newsgroups. Please DON'T copy followups to me -- I'll assume it wasn't posted to the group. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #439 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Sep 28 16:35:14 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id QAA09959; Tue, 28 Sep 1999 16:35:14 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1999 16:35:14 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199909282035.QAA09959@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #440 TELECOM Digest Tue, 28 Sep 99 16:35:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 440 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Free Services Available on Net (Don Benjamin) Phone Line Attached to Water Meter (FLMalan) New Legislation For Telcos? (Bill Ranck) Re: Overseas Directory Information? (David Charles) Employment Opportunity: Lucent Analyst (dtm1025@my-deja.com) Seeking Information on Railway Codeline Protocols (Gregory C. Currivan) Re: It Makes You Think (A Tale of WW2) (Randy Nichols) Hedy Lamarr's Role (was Re: It Makes You Think (A Tale of WW2) (A. Ross) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Don Benjamin Subject: Free Services Available on Net Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1999 08:01:27 -0500 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I received two or three copies of this on Monday, here at telecom. I noticed from the headers it had been sent to numerous newsgroups. Last night, I found a couple copies of it over at rec.radio.broadcasting, where I am filling in on a temporary basis. I dumped them all. Now today here at telecom I found another copy of it, but this time with a personal line to me saying, 'Thanks PAT, this is an ETHICAL press release.' Well, I dunno. The implication seems to be this is an almost-free ISP who also is advertising-free, with some domain name/routing services for the net. I'll chance printing it; you who choose to follow up on it can tell me if once again I made myself appear to be an idiot. I have no idea who these people are. PAT] ---------------------- Contact: Don Benjamin 847-274-4235 donbenjamin@divirsified-products.com Diversified Products International ********************************************************************** 09/09/1999 Press release. DPI offers $10.00 a month flat fee web page hosting ! ********************************************************************** Dear Friend, How does $10.00 a month flat fee web hosting sound ? No unreasonable space limitations, no hassles. Interested, than please read on ... THE INTERNET WAS MEANT TO BE FREE! And although we can't make it completely free now we can offer you the cheapest "non-banner, non-disk space restricted" hosting of all time anywhere ! If you really can not afford the fee or are a charity or non-profit we will still service you, you will not be turned down. Its time to quit getting ripped off by the so called network-hosting services. Most of these services do not even own their own class c domain, they have reverse lookups from bigger providers and limit your static IP address-ability. Some hosting services are hosts of hosts of hosts. Help us grow and acquire OC3 lines, be part of our close and honest family. 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Other company's free services include: * Free non com domain courtesy of http://www.uni.cc See sample at http://www.domain.uni.cc "The uni.cc is offering a great free domain name. No dns required." * Dial up service free courtesy of http://www.freei.net. "freei.net is offering terrific free dial up PPP accounts, email, chat, messaging" What a great company freei.net is offering Internet access the way it was meant to be: FREE. * Free space restricted hosting provided by http://www.freeservers.com freeservers.com is an incredible company, they have so many tools and services available for you at little to no cost its amazing. Any company that can offer so much and subsidize it completely through advertisers is just exceptional. You have to go there and see for yourself, the tools and services are tops. * Free fax services provided by http://www.efax.com efax.com is a great company, they allow you to receive faxes directly to your pc and provide you with a free fax telephone number. You can also send faxes for a small fee. For our larger customers we will be offering interactive dynamic web page content presentation, branding, opt-in mailing list services, virtual storefronts, ecommerce, marketing, database and ebusiness services. We are taking suggestions for fair rates and will be negotiating contracts with large ecommerce merchant and clearing service providers like Bank One. We currently are offering ebusiness service through our partner BagBoy who services large to small companies like JC Penney catalog and others. Our ebusiness, mail and marketing services and prices are unbeatable because we offer you PROVEN MEASURABLE RESULTS ! Because we want YOU involved in YOUR hosting service and value YOUR opinion we would welcome your suggestions for pricing for any of the above services or we have tried to make it convenient for those interested by setting up a pricing survey for your convenience at the following address: http://www.dbfree.uni.cc Pick survey.htm on menu. Email me if interested. Don Benjamin dpiinc@home.com or stop by and sign up at our temporary address: http://www.dbfree.uni.cc or feel free to call for further information or for any questions you may have. (847) 274-4235 ------------------------- [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well okay, Don, there's your press release. Since you say it is ethical and not spam, I've printed it. I will say you've included several good features which should be of service to netizens. If you, like so many others these days are just playing games, I'll let readers who investigate your offerings get back to me with reports, and they will be checking it out, believe me. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Fred L. Malan Subject: Phone Line Attached to Water Meter Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1999 10:29:29 -0400 Organization: Prodigy Internet Reply-To: FLMalan@Prodigy.net My water meter is connected to the telephone line and thus somehow reports my usage to headquarters. My assumption has always been that the meter periodically calls the water company. Something has been knocking me offline between 8:00 a.m. and 8:30 a.m. most any time I happen to be online at that time of day. Thinking that this might be caused by the water meter phoning home, I called the water company myself. After being knocked offline three times (they are breaking in some new telephone hardware or software), I got through to an actual human. This person assured me, against blistering cross examination, that it was the water company who called the meter, not the other way around. This is said to be done only once per month, in the wee hours of the morning. And somehow it is accomplished without ringing my telephone. And if I should be online when the call is placed, it will simply not go through, and I will not be knocked offline. Can anyone explain how this might work? Fred L. Malan o 610/644-1274 221 West King Street _ /-_ flmalan@prodigy.net Malvern, PA 19355-2440 . . . (_)>(_) flmalan@locke.ccil.org At MP 22 on the Main Line of the Pennsylvania Public Works. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I do not have any idea based on what you said about what causes the disconnects when online. However the water works is correct in what they told you about reading your meter. There is equipment in the telephone central office which is part of the process. It makes its way through all the water customers, going to each once a month. It tests your line for busy; if busy it comes back later. If not busy, it causes a change in voltage on the line which resembles a phone being taken off hook. This change in voltage makes your line 'appear to be busy' should someone call it at the same time. This equipment then reads the meter, records the data on its end, and exits from the line. The whole process takes about two seconds, and is is done between three and five in the morning. If you pick up your phone while it is happening, it also goes away and comes back later. It is really no different than the tests that telco does on phone lines during the same hours of the night. I do not think that is causing your other problem. PAT] ------------------------------ From: ranck@joesbar.cc.vt.edu (Bill Ranck) Subject: New Legislation For Telcos? Date: 28 Sep 1999 12:24:53 GMT Organization: Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia, USA US senator seen in a TV advertisement asking everyone to talk to their congressmen about local telephone monopolies. He claims there is some sort of "loophole" being proposed by rural phone companies that will prevent local competition for Internet connectivity. But, it's all very vague and doesn't reference a specific bill before congress. Does anyone know what that's about, and who is paying for the air time? I'm all in favor of competition where appropriate, but ads like this always make me wonder who's ox is being gored by whom; and somebody with enough money to buy national television ad time may not really need protecting from the big bad monopolies. ***************************************************************************** * Bill Ranck +1-540-231-3951 ranck@vt.edu * * Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, Computing Center * ***************************************************************************** ------------------------------ From: d_c_h@my-deja.com (David Charles) Subject: Re: Overseas Directory Information? Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1999 16:56:55 GMT Organization: Deja.com - Before you buy. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: My experience has been that here in > the USA it is sometimes possible to do 011-country code-555-1212 and > reach the distant directory assistance. I do not think that is > supposed to be something the public is able to do. Apparently after > telco sees the 011-country code part the 555-1212 is picked up and > translated in some way or another to whatever is used in the country. > Or maybe in fact some countries see the 555-1212 coming to them and > accept it as a signal from the USA to connect the incoming call to > directory assistance. I think it is only supposed to work for telco > operators and not the general public, and I cannot vouch that it does > work in every single instance. PAT] I think that it is very unlikely that this would work in general. In some countries the number that would be obtained would be a valid number (e.g. Ireland 55 is an allocated area code with five digit local numbers). Therefore either this number would either need to be left unallocated or calls to it from the USA would be mis-routed. In most European countries directory enquiries is accessed with a short code starting with 1 which would not map to any international number. Therefore if it is possible to ring it from other counties it would be necessary to use some special (unpublished) number. I think it is unlikely that any such numbers would be in the form of a normal number. A few years ago I tried ringing directory enquiries in New York from the UK. I found that ringing 00 1 212 555 1212 using BT reached an intercept, but with another carrier (I cannot remember which) it went through. I would guess that the carrier for which it worked routed the call to New York on their own network and then made a 'local' call to the dialed number. David Charles ------------------------------ From: dtm1025@my-deja.com Subject: Employment Opportunity: Lucent Analyst Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1999 15:41:18 GMT Organization: Deja.com - Before you buy. Can anyone suggest where I can find a certified Lucent Analyst for a great fulltime opportunity in San Francisco, CA? Please contact dtm1025@my-deja.com. Thanks! ------------------------------ From: greg36@ix.netcom.com (Gregory C. Currivan) Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1999 12:18:30 CDT Subject: Seeking Information on Railway Codeline Protocols Dear Patrick: I am trying to locate information on railway codeline protocols. This was a type of land line signaling used by train dispatchers to send commands from CTC machines to wayside site in the field. My real problem is that I am an internet klutz and have had some difficulty using your site. Any help would be appreciated. Gregory C. Currivan San Francisco [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I doubt you are an 'internet klutz'; its just that you and so many other people are still new at using it. Have patience; one of these days it will just all fall in place for you. What you are asking about isn't something the archives here has on file. By publishing your note here, perhaps some people with knowledge in the topic will see it and get in touch with you. PAT] ------------------------------ Reply-To: Randy Nichols From: Randy Nichols Subject: Re: It Makes You Think (A Tale of WW2) Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1999 13:08:21 -0400 Organization: COMSEC Solutions Hi ya'all: Let me add a little more to the story. It started with the A-3 unit. The Germans centered their intercept operations off the Dutch coast. They were able to intercept conversations between Churchill- Roosevelt, restore them from scrambled mode and pass on the tape recordings ultimately to Hitler. The Germans started their intercept apparatus with the Research Institute of The Deutsche Reichspost around 1933. The Research Institute studied the voice privacy methods of the German post office, which ran the nations telephone system. Kurt E. Vetterlein, an engineer in his late 20's, headed the effort to descramble the transatlantic radiotelephone communication between Great Britain and the United States. ATT used the A-3 to mask conversations on this line from being monitored from short-wave receivers. The A-3 was originally housed in a small room at 47 Walker St, NYC. All radiotelephone transmissions passed through it before being amplified for transmission overseas. [Similar to a firewall.] The Deutsche Reichspost also had an A-3. Having the hardware was not tantamount to cryptanalysis of the telecommunications. Vetterlein studied intercepted American messages near Bordeaux in occupied France. His team located at Deutche Reichpost on Ringstrasse in Berlin attacked the intercepts with oscilloscopes, spectrographs, filters and brains. By October 1940, his team had reconstructed the A-2's parameters -- the widths of subbands, division points, inversions and intersubstitutions, which changed 36 times every 12 minutes. The next challenge for Vetterlein was to automate the descrambling mode. The A-3 was capable of changing its enciphering pattern every 20 seconds in the 36 step cycle. Vetterlein moved some of his operations to Noordwijk on the coast of Netherlands to improve reception of intercepts. The Noordwijk team was able to pick up ground wave of the English transmitter and the back lobe of the beam to America. A key piece of equipment was a quartz stabilized watch that focused the descrambler unit to only a fraction second lost per day. Vetterlein's unit was called Forschungsstelle (Research Post) and originally reported to Wilhelm Ohnesorge, the postal master, who like any good politician promptly announced to Hitler that he was instrumental in the intercept of high-level communications. It was not long after that the Forschungstelle was staffed by 6 qualified interpreters, and support staff. Vetterlein's unit intercepted between 30-60 calls a day. They were open for business 24 x 7. It is interesting to note that intercepted calls were culled for intelligence, translated, and teleprinted on the spot to Berlin in German cipher. This degenerated into transferring the intercepts in English back to Berlin to the Reichssicherheitshauptant (Reich Security Administration) Department VI (foreign intelligence) headed by Walter Schellenberg who forwarded them to Hitler or the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW), the High command of the armed forces. The operation, in 1943, to a bunker in Valkenswaard in southeast Netherlands. In the fall of 1944, the unit retreated to Bavaria. The list of the names on the intercepts included Churchill, Roosevelt, Clark, Harriman, Crowley, Tout, Nowell, Eden. Churchill used the codename John Martin. Although the break was touted as spectacular, the intelligence culled was limited because the circuits operators constantly warned the speakers that the scrambler was insecure. Roosevelt and Churchill used the channel with less attention to security than other who used the line. It is my opinion, that since the Americans and English knew they were being listened to, that the operation was, in fact, one of counterintelligence. Except for a 29 July 1943 intercept that prompted the Germans to get troops into Italy, to deny the Allies the advantage of confusion with the non-Mussolini government, the Germans, specifically Vetterlein, felt that the "Take" did not amount to a lot. Vetterlein may not have been aware of the introduction of an improved scrambling device in late 1943 and which accounted for degeneration of intercept intelligence on that circuit. [Of several sources consulted, the "Hitler's Spies" by David Kahn, Macmillan, 1978 was most helpful. ] My best, Randy Nichols Professor, The George Washington University & President COMSEC Solutions, LLC Cryptographic / Anti-Virus / Biometric Countermeasures Visit our Website at: www.comsec-solutions.com 1-888-5-COMSEC 1-717-258-8316 fax 1-717-258-5693 tel [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Thank you for a most interesting presentation; one that helped make this current thread one of the best here in some time. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1999 03:11:20 -0700 From: Arthur Ross Subject: Hedy Lamarr's Role (was Re: It Makes You Think (A Tale of WW2) Andrew Emmerson wrote: > It was called SIGSALY, alias Green Hornet. I did a quick search on the > WWW and found very little. Even the 'under construction site that I > discovered and printed out the last time I searched has now > disappeared. A definitive treatment of SIGSALY and the true extent of > Hedy Lamarr's involvement in it is long overdue. Many books on wartime > communications omit the subject altogether, so it must have been > pretty secret at the time. Hedy Lamarr's involvement in it was zero. This is a well-known story. While she does indeed hold the first identifiable patent that contained the frequency-hopping spread spectrum concept, with the right reason for doing it, it had no effect on subsequent developments. They were probably dismissed at the time as kooks, and, IMHO, with some justification. There are some other recent accounts of the Hedy story from recent articles that you might be able to find. The Electronic Frontier Foundataion gave her an award a few years ago. Her son, Anthony Loder, who runs, of all things, a telephone store in LA, accepted the award for her. The IEEE was, as I understand it, approached, but declined due to the absence of any real effect on the technology. The fact that she also wrote a salacious autobiography back in the '60s, which got the Hollywood crowd mad at her, may have had something to do with the reluctance too (it is indeed awful -- names names, describes all sorts of activities that don't flatter the industry -- it's out of print, but I found a copy in a used book store). I believe Hedy is still around, living on her SAG pension somewhere if Florida, I'm told -- apparently all the movie money is gone, through some sort of soap opera evolution of her life. If you want to read the whole patent, you can order a copy of it from the USPTO for a few $. ... but it all does make a good story :-) ! -- Best -- Arthur (from Budapest) ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #440 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Sep 28 20:54:05 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id UAA20909; Tue, 28 Sep 1999 20:54:05 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1999 20:54:05 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199909290054.UAA20909@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #441 TELECOM Digest Tue, 28 Sep 99 20:54:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 441 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Having No Long Distance Provider? (quonk@my-deja.com) Re: Payment to Make LD Switch (Kim Heusel) Re: Inexpensive T-1 Service on Tap From Start-up (Steve Winter) Re: Earthlink Expanding (Steve Winter) Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? (Paul Rubin) Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? (Adam Sampson) Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? (John David Galt) Re: It Makes You Think (Adam Sampson) Re: Church Mulls Cell Tower in Cross (Hudson Leighton) Re: Church Mulls Cell Tower in Cross (Tony Pelliccio) Re: Re: No Address on TELECOM Digest Posts? (Steven Lichter) Re: New Legislation For Telcos? (Barry Margolin) Basic Telephone Diagram Wanted (Kathy Powell) Re: Driver's License Compact / Extortion Conspiracy (Tony Pelliccio) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: quonk@my-deja.com Subject: Re: Having No Long Distance Provider? Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1999 22:19:48 GMT Organization: Deja.com - Before you buy. In article , Linc Madison wrote: > In article , > wrote: >> Incidentally, while you may feel that you were overcharged when you >> used 10-10-297, the person who made a hundred dollars worth of calls >> that month and also paid only 69 cents probably feels they got a good >> deal. > I didn't say they charged a flat fee of 69 cents for the USF Charge. > They charge a MINIMUM of 63 cents per month for the USF Charge. If you > make $100 of calls, you'll pay a lot more than $0.63 in USF. > I absolutely stand by my statement that it is consumer fraud for Telco > to charge such a high minimum USF charge. There is no possible excuse > for the practice, since it is utterly trivial to calculate the actual > cost of the USF contribution. Until July 1, 1999, 10-10-297 had a 4.4% USF fee with no minimum. On July 1, 1999, they dropped the 4.4% fee and replaced it with a flat 63 fee for every month you used the service, regardless of how much you spent. Shortly thereafter they revised the USF fee up to a flat 69 cents per month. The fee is the same regardless of whether you spend 20 cents or a hundred dollars in a given month. You can verify this information at their web site: http://www.1010297.com/usf.html or you may call them and speak to a live person at 1-800-787-7887 as I just did. Incidentally, the same USF fees apply to 10-10-457 which is run by the same company. But a third dial-around, 10-10-399, also run by the same company, charges no additional USF fee. For those who are frustrated in keeping up with the fine print of all of these plans, there is an excellent site available at http://www.1010phonerates.com which is updated daily by a staff of volunteer fact checkers and includes details such as the ones I've given above. ------------------------------ From: lowellkim@aol.com (Kim Heusel) Date: 28 Sep 1999 22:18:10 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: Payment to Make LD Switch > So if you cash the check elsewhere, your line stays blocked and AT&T > is unable to gain default status on it, will they sue you for being > in violation of your contract with them? No, probably not. They'll > write you once or twice and remind you of your obligation, then your > name and phone number will go on the list of petty chiselers and > deadbeats they keep as a reminder to themselves to not send you any > more offers. PAT] But if you cash the check by writing something like "For Deposit Only" AT&T may not be able to have your service switched, but will start assessing a service charge on your line for your new "service" whether it has started or not. Even if your line is not unblocked, AT&T can have this charge added to your bill. It happened to me. ------------------------------ From: steve@sellcom.com (Steve Winter) Subject: Re: Inexpensive T-1 Service on Tap From Start-up Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1999 18:27:05 -0400 Organization: WWW.SELLCOM.COM Reply-To: steve@sellcom.com Barry Margolin spake thusly and wrote: > It might be attractive for a second T-1 intended only as a backup > line. If the backup T-1 were used 40 minutes or less per month, it > would be cheaper than the $3K flat-rate line. > But I wonder what constitutes a "minute of use". Routers typically > send keepalives every few seconds (every ten seconds on Ciscos) to > verify that the circuit and remote router are up. Would this company > consider the circuit to be used every minute because of this? That > would cause the bill to shoot up to over $43K/month! Wonder if they have lines priced "per ping"? ;O) Steve http://www.sellcom.com Cyclades Siemens EnGenius Zoom at discount prices. SSL Secure VISA/MC/AMEX Online ordering Listed at http://www.thepubliceye.com as SELLCOM New Brick Wall "non-MOV" surge protection ------------------------------ From: steve@sellcom.com (Steve Winter) Subject: Re: Earthlink Expanding Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1999 18:32:34 -0400 Organization: WWW.SELLCOM.COM Reply-To: steve@sellcom.com brent@cc.gatech.edu (Brent Laminack) spake thusly and wrote: > steve@sellcom.com (Steve Winter) writes: >> Looks like Earthlink just swallowed Mindspring which just swallowed >> Netcom ... > Which swallowed which isn't clear. The combined company will be called > Earthlink, but the headquarters will be at Mindspring's offices here > in Atlanta. Charles Brewer, the Chairman of Mindspring, will now be > the Chairman. The CEO of Earthlink will keep his post. The President > of Mindspring will be the new President. Looks like all that carried > over from Earthlink is the name and CEO. I have been advised that the fish scenario was inadequate since it was more like two fish of the same size, so possibly matrimony would be a better analogy ... but which one is the bride? :O) Steve http://www.sellcom.com Cyclades Siemens EnGenius Zoom at discount prices. SSL Secure VISA/MC/AMEX Online ordering Listed at http://www.thepubliceye.com as SELLCOM New Brick Wall "non-MOV" surge protection ------------------------------ From: phr@netcom.com (Paul Rubin) Subject: Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? Date: 28 Sep 1999 20:03:22 GMT Organization: NETCOM / MindSpring Enterprises, Inc. Paul Rubin wrote: > I really don't have time to make that many phone calls. Is there an > automated program available that can do it for me? Thanks. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Certainly there are. And it is easy > enough to write a small program which has your modem go off hook and > make calls at certain times. But be careful, because you are coming > close to harassment if you make repeated calls and then do not speak > when the other party answers. Better to have a human element on yoru > end involved in the process, to ask questions, and make comments. PAT] The ideal program would be connected to an email spam filter, so when spam came in, it would scan the contents for an 800 number, call the number without human intervention, and play a recorded message asking to be taken off the mailing list. It would not make repeated calls unless the same 800 number showed up in repeated spam messages. Maybe someday ... ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 26 Sep 1999 21:16:30 +0100 From: Adam Sampson Subject: Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? Reply-To: azz@gnu.org >> First and most fundamentally, spamming is theft [...] > [...] Who are the spammers stealing from and what are they stealing, disk > space? I'm starting to get fed up with Americans and their flatrate Internet access. In this country (the UK), we have to pay per minute for our phone calls, even if we don't pay our ISPs. Typically, I call at cheap rate, so I'm paying a bit more than a penny per minute (that's what, ~3c/min?). My junk mail folder, containing everything I've got since March 1998, is currently 294K. At 33k6, that's about a pound that the senders of this mail have stolen from me. Nothing I can sue them about, obviously, even if I factor in the few seconds it takes me to move each message to the folder when I receive it. > Spammers are just sending email, so if they're stealing then so is every > other email sender (you've never given me permission to send you email -- > if I had sent this message to you directly, would I be guilty of theft?). If I decided I didn't like it, then yes. The friends and mailing lists to whom I've explicitly given my address have my permission to send me mail, and could prove it in court should they need to. Other people don't, but I'm not going to "press charges", because I don't consider it a waste of my time. It's like having a postal address. I get a rather higher proportion of physical junk mail than I do email. Most of it goes straight in the recycling bin, but occasionally I get something that I'm interested in (say, a leaflet from my bank that I didn't specifically request but nonetheless interests me). Should I feel particularly set upon by the companies that send me junk mail, I have the right to complain about it. > Why haven't any spammers been thrown in jail for theft. Although I don't know of any spammers being prosecuted for theft, it used to be common practice to prosecute crackers for theft of electricity or similar offences. That's another thing they're stealing from me. > I believe that most successful cases against spammers have been on issues > of fraud and trademark infringement; spammers typically use fake email > addresses, and the legitimate owner of the domain can be damaged if > recipients think it came from them. It's not the spam itself that's > illegal in these instances, it's the way the spammers send it and try to > hide their identities. Correct, plus much spam promotes schemes such as MMF that are simply illegal in most parts of the world. On Sun, Sep 26, 1999 at 09:02:17PM -0400, editor@telecom-digest.org wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Before presenting the entries in > this edition of the business directory, I want to introduce you > to the Merchant of the Month; this award is given by myself from > time to time to spammers who particularly annoy me. So readers, > please welcome Benchmark Supply: > From: > To: > Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1999 03:59:33 > Message-Id: <290.61095.46556@> > Subject: laser printer toner advertisement I got this too. I guess they're harvesting addressess off the list. > * PLEASE CALL OUR TOLL FREE E-MAIL REMOVAL AND COMPLAINT LINE TO DO THAT. * > [PAT: In other words, call 800-586-0540 and/or 888-532-7170.] It's not toll-free in England, where I live -- it's international rate. > THIS IS NOT SPAM !!!!!! B*ks. > Subject: Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? > From: belfert@foshay.citilink.com (Brian Elfert) > You can't assume all domains have a root mailbox. Many mail systems > do not use Unix. Most have webmaster and postmaster; many have admin; companies often have sales, enquiries, info etc. I generally send to six or seven addresses when I complain. It's their problem. Adam Sampson azz@gnu.org ------------------------------ From: John_David_Galt@acm.org (John David Galt) Subject: Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1999 00:16:30 GMT Organization: Tomatoweb.com NewsReader Service Gary Chatters writes: >> Has anyone actually proved this in court? Who are the spammers >> stealing from and what are they stealing, disk space? Spammers are >> just sending email, so if they're stealing then so is every other >> email sender (you've never given me permission to send you email -- if >> I had sent this message to you directly, would I be guilty of theft?). >> They aren't really stealing disk space; you delete the message, and >> you've got your disk space back. > Many spammers use third party relaying. In this scenario the spammer > sends the message and a long list of e-mail addresses to the relay site > which then does the work of sending the spam to the thousands of > addresses in the spammers database. > > In general these sites don't intend to allow use of their mail agent > for third party forwarding. It is a misconfiguration and one that > is likely because it used to be the default for many systems. If a site doesn't intend to allow anyone and everyone to use it as a forwarding agent, they should certainly reconfigure their site to permit it. But in your 'theft' argument I see a contradiction with the recent thread on 'deep linking'. To wit: if a file's owner, by placing it in a public, web- accessible directory and making it world-readable, gives up the right to forbid others from linking to it and downloading it, then why doesn't a site owner, by setting "daemons" such as sendmail and nntp in a way that makes it possible for anyone to connect to them and use them, equally give up the right to forbid it? I'm not sure whether there is a legal doctrine that by enabling a type of access like these, you are granting permission for it; but it seems would make a lot of sense to pass a law creating such a doctrine if it doesn't exist. Just as the law now washes its hands of unwritten contracts involving large amounts of money via the "statute of frauds", on the grounds that writing them down is easy and avoids endless doubts and needless disputes, so it ought to tell computer owners "If you have a door, lock it before you come to us to complain about trespassers." John David Galt ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 26 Sep 1999 21:43:42 +0100 From: Adam Sampson Subject: Re: It Make You Think Reply-To: azz@gnu.org > A secure cable was established between the White House and Winston > Churchill's bunker in London. [...] It wasn't as secure as the United > States government and English governments thought because the cable had a > tap (capacitive, I suppose) put on [...] The cable terminated in the basement of a London department store, where most of the equipment was located; the handset and the end of the "codec" were (still are, actually) in the Cabinet War Rooms. I went round there about a month ago; they didn't mention this on the tour. I'd like to hear more about this. Adam Sampson azz@gnu.org ------------------------------ From: hudsonl@skypoint.com (Hudson Leighton) Subject: Re: Church Mulls Cell Tower in Cross Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1999 14:33:30 -0500 Organization: SkyPoint Communications, Inc. In article , (Bill Ranck) wrote: > Jim Haynes wrote: >> The chickens are starting to come home to roost. When only a few >> people had cell phones there were only a few towers needed. As cell >> phone usage grows the basic design is for the cells to become smaller, >> hence more towers across the landscape. Everybody wants a cell phone, >> but nobody wants the towers. > And the clear, obvious, technological solution to that is satellite > based service. If someone can bring launch costs down to a reasonable > level, or NIMBYism raises ground based costs too much, it will happen. > I give it about five to ten years. But they don't need to all be towers, I live near a watertower that is is encased inside a bricktower, a Cellphone company wanted to mount antennas on it, the local Tree-Huggers/NIMBYs went nuts, they distributed pictures of the watertower looking like a porkupine in heat, what we got after the dust settled was a bunch of little brown boxes spaced around the top of the brown brick watertower that you can't even see unless you know they are there. The Cellphone company got it's cellsite, the City got a rehab of a historic building on the Cellphone Company's dime. And we got a watertower that looks better than is has for a long time. I see lot's of "mini-cells" on office buildings, churches, schools, shopping malls. A friend's church got a major roof job out of putting a cell site inside! the belltower, and they get a nice check twice a year besides. http://www.skypoint.com/~hudsonl ------------------------------ From: nospam.tonypo1@nospam.home.com (Tony Pelliccio) Subject: Re: Church Mulls Cell Tower in Cross Organization: Providence Network Partners Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1999 23:37:29 GMT In article , haynes@alumni.uark.edu says: > The chickens are starting to come home to roost. When only a few > people had cell phones there were only a few towers needed. As cell > phone usage grows the basic design is for the cells to become smaller, > hence more towers across the landscape. Everybody wants a cell phone, > but nobody wants the towers. Actually they're hanging cell antennae from billboards, the side of buildings and some very well disguised towers. I could care less where they put them, so long as I have coverage. :) In article , ranck@joesbar.cc.vt.edu says: > And the clear, obvious, technological solution to that is satellite > based service. If someone can bring launch costs down to a reasonable > level, or NIMBYism raises ground based costs too much, it will happen. > I give it about five to ten years. Can you say Iridium? The problem with satellites lay in the fact that a weak signal has trouble penetrating buildings, cars, etc. They're fine for a fixed point system but not so good when you're moving around. Then there's the size of the Iridium phones -- while at the same time Motorola is introducing a new phone that's a little bit bigger than a tube of lipstick. Had the partners in the Iridium project thought about it they would have in place agreements with the terrestrial carriers. Oh well. == Tony Pelliccio, KD1S formerly KD1NR == Trustee WE1RD ------------------------------ From: stevenl11@aol.comstuffit (Steven Lichter) Date: 28 Sep 1999 20:26:48 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: Re: No Address on TELECOM Digest Posts? Mine seems to get through! In article , johnl@iecc.com wrote: > Incidentally, as a routine anti-spam measure, all mail that passes > through the system here that receives telecom-digest.org mail has to > have a real domain in the envelope return address or it'll be rejected > before it's delivered. Apple Elite II 909-359-5338. Home of GBBS/LLUCE, support for the Apple II and Macintosh 24 hours 2400/14.4. OggNet Server. The only good spammer is a dead one, have you hunted one down today? (c) ------------------------------ From: Barry Margolin Subject: Re: New Legislation For Telcos? Organization: GTE Internetworking, Cambridge, MA Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1999 20:55:42 GMT In article , Bill Ranck wrote: > US senator seen in a TV advertisement asking everyone to talk to their > congressmen about local telephone monopolies. He claims there is some > sort of "loophole" being proposed by rural phone companies that will > prevent local competition for Internet connectivity. But, it's all > very vague and doesn't reference a specific bill before congress. > Does anyone know what that's about, and who is paying for the air > time? A notice was sent around our company about this, since it could impact our ability to provide Internet service if the GTE/Bell Atlantic merger is consummated. Apparently the FCC is applying provisions of the 1996 Telecommunications Act, which were intended to regulate the entry of local phone companies into the long distance market, to local phone companies trying to offer advanced services over the Internet. The notice doesn't go into detail about what the FCC is doing. The bills that they want us to have our legislators vote for are: H.R. 2420, the "Internet Freedom and Broadband Deployment Act of 1999" H.R. 1685, the "Internet Growth and Development Act" H.R. 1686, the "Internet Freedom Act" S. 1043, the "Internet Regulatory Freedom Act" Our company has even implemented an intranet server we can use to automatically send faxes to our legislators (it's kind of strange that it sends a fax -- don't all the federal legislators have email addresses these days?). Barry Margolin, barmar@bbnplanet.com GTE Internetworking, Powered by BBN, Burlington, MA *** DON'T SEND TECHNICAL QUESTIONS DIRECTLY TO ME, post them to newsgroups. Please DON'T copy followups to me -- I'll assume it wasn't posted to the group. ------------------------------ Reply-To: Kathy Powell From: Kathy Powell Subject: Basic Telephone Diagram Wanted Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1999 15:58:52 -0700 Hi, I'm really impressed with your website. I'm working on a project to encourage middle school-aged girls to become interested in engineering. One of the projects I'm considering is to have them take apart a telephone, identify the major parts and their functions, and then reassemble the phone. However, I can't find a good diagram that identifies the major components of a phone. Some of you assembly diagrams i.d. the housing, cord, handset but that's about it; the wiring diagrams go into too much detail for our purposes. Do you have (or know of any) any generic diagrams of the major components? We'll just be working on donated phones, so it will need to be generic rather than brand specific. Thanks for any help, Kathy Powell ------------------------------ From: nospam.tonypo1@nospam.home.com (Tony Pelliccio) Subject: Re: Drivers License Compact / Extortion Conspiracy Organization: Providence Network Partners Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1999 23:48:45 GMT In article , bernies@netaxs.com says: > A nationwide "Drivers License Compact" between states' DMV's ensures > that if you ignore another state's traffic citation, they'll be able > to have your home state suspend your license until you pay up. The > entire system is computerized networked by a WAN to each DMV > mainframe. For some reason, Massachusetts, Michigan, and Georgia are > the only states that don't fully participate in this conspiracy of > extortion. This was not a problem for drivers before state computers > were extensively networked. I'd be interested to see if the Rhode Island DMV has allowed any hookups. A friend of mine implemented all new computers systems for the largest police department in the state and when they asked DMV for a hook-in they were denied. Last explanation I heard for this was the liability involved. Apparently the RI DMV has so much erroneous data that they're afraid to share it. Such is life in Rhode Island. So I strongly suspect we're not sharing data either. == Tony Pelliccio, KD1S formerly KD1NR == Trustee WE1RD ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #441 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Sep 29 05:37:06 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id FAA06124; Wed, 29 Sep 1999 05:37:06 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1999 05:37:06 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199909290937.FAA06124@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #442 TELECOM Digest Wed, 29 Sep 99 05:37:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 442 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Its All About Greed and the Net of the Future (TELECOM Digest Editor) Freelancers Win Online Copyright Database Ruling (James Ford) Re: Is the '.gif tax' Thing Starting All Over Again? (Walter Dnes) Re: No Address on TELECOM Digest Posts? (Derek J. Balling) Re: No Address on TELECOM Digest Posts? (Jack Decker) Don'tTakeMyDomainName.com (Judith Oppenheimer) Re: Where is the True Power? (Steven) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1999 03:36:18 EDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Its All About Greed and the Net of the Future This issue of the Digest is full of the most sickening collection of messages I have ever seen. Greed, pure greed, and nothing but greed. Let's face it, the internet for all intents and purposes is dead. It is totally useless for small individual netizens any longer. I do not know why we even bother any longer with things like Usenet or service-oriented web sites as they are totally meaningless, subject to being closed down on a whim under the new registration rules, and webmasters getting sued for keeping archives of things, thanks to the latest stupid ruling by ignorant judges. I am sorry I have even bothered over the years to put any work in to this web site at all, when you consider the way spammers have ripped off all the names they can find, at some locations comp.dcom.telecom is filled with trash no matter how fast I clean it out, and ICANN is not going to be satisfied until they have killed every single non- commercial website and given the more popular names away to their friends. I am getting to the point I hate even turning my computer on any longer and having to deal with all the crud that shows up. Read some of the messages in this issue and see if you don't feel just as disheartened as myself. PAT ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1999 23:17:07 CDT From: James Ford Subject: Freelancers Win Online Copyright Database Ruling (http://www.mercurycenter.com/svtech/news/breaking/merc/docs/007073.htm) NEW YORK -- In a copyright decision that establishes the new rules of the electronic road, a federal appeals court in New York ruled Monday that three major publishers cannot include the work of freelance contributors in electronic databases without the freelancers' permission. The unanimous ruling by the three-judge panel in the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a lower court ruling that had agreed with the arguments of New York Times Co., Newsday Inc. and Time Inc. Magazine Co. and their co-plaintiffs, University Microfilms International and Mead Data Central Corp., the former owner of the Lexis-Nexis databases. The publishers had argued that the electronic databases like Nexis were analogous to anthologies or other ``collective works'' that can be revised without the permission of the individual copyright holders. But the appeals panel held that ``the privilege afforded authors of collective works'' under existing law ``does not permit the publishers to license individually copyright works for inclusion in the electronic databases.'' The ruling comes as online publishing is exploding and as many publications are expanding and leaning on freelance contributors to supplement the work of their regular staff. It could force the companies to offer retroactive electronic-rights payments for everything from opinion pieces to full-length magazine pieces, and for photographs and graphics. Alternatively, it could force the publishers to pull any freelance work out of their databases covered by the ruling. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: So what happens to those of us who rely entirely on freelance contributors? Must I know go and seek permission from each writer before storing back issues of the Digest in the archives? What nonsense! PAT] ------------------------------ From: Walter Dnes Subject: Re: Is the '.gif tax' Thing Starting All Over Again? Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1999 01:40:37 -0400 On Sun, 26 Sep 1999 12:21:04 GMT, in comp.dcom.telecom juhave@iobox.fi (Juha Veijalainen)wrote: > "Many Web site operators use commercially available software > which creates GIF images offline which are then posted on their > Web sites. Since most of this commercially available software > is under license from Unisys for their use of the LZW patent, > users of this software are probably covered as well for this > use of GIF images on their Web sites." Obvious (to me, at least) question. *HOW WOULD UNISYS KNOW* whether or not someone is doing it? Is licenced software required to put in a "watermark" as a condition of the licence? I have Office 97, including MS Photo Editor. How can Unisys differentiate between a GIF saved by that program versus another program. Especially when the people who save their files "legally" set the date back to confuse the process? Walter Dnes procmail spamfilter http://www.interlog.com/~waltdnes/spamdunk/spamdunk.htm [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: They don't have to know. All they have to do is get their big-gun lawyers to start filing suits against any website that has a .gif on it. Force the webmaster to go bankrupt defending himself. An old established legal practice. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1999 16:31:18 -0700 From: Derek J. Balling Subject: Re: No Address on TELECOM Digest Posts? Replying to a number of people ... > From: abuse@cabal.org.uk (Peter Corlett) > Subject: Re: No Address on TELECOM Digest Posts? > Date: 27 Sep 1999 18:56:49 GMT > In the light of these comments, I thought I'd try and combine the > wonders of the null SMTP address from RFC821 with a loose > interpretation of RFC1036 and offer a variant of > From: Joe Random <> > Unfortunately, it appears that my copy of INN doesn't wear this -- I > get "441 From: address not in Internet syntax". Further investigation > with variants of spamblocked and invalid addresses determined that my > copy of INN decided that an address was valid iff the address had a > dot somewhere after an at symbol. This gives a fair amount of scope -- > <@b}.c> was quite acceptable to it. The <> address is reserved for bounce messages. Since a bounce would never go to Usenet, this is an acceptable complaint. > Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1999 18:58:52 EDT > From: Jonathan Loo > Subject: Re: No Address on TELECOM Digest Posts? > In article you write: >>> I don't expect personal replies to postings I've made to TELECOM >>> Digest and I certainly don't want to be spammed as a result. > Personal replies may be unwanted but it is certainly within a reader's > right to give a personal reply. Your right to reply is enumerated where? If you want to reply, you are free to reply in the forum I posted in, but for someone to assume they have some "right" to send me e-mail is incorrect in the extreme. > If someone mailed me @telecom-digest.org then I would like it either to be > posted, or, if it is not-for-publication, then I would like to get it in > my box. Or maybe I should get all of my mail. Don't send it to /dev/null > even if it is spam. This, of course, defeats the entire purpose of the proposal. > A nifty way to handle the From: line would be to create an e-mail box > for everyone who contributes to the Digest, solely for receipt of > digest-related mail. And for those of us who don't want to be harvested? Can we have ours directed to /dev/null? > From: Louis Raphael > Subject: Re: No Address on TELECOM Digest Posts? > Organization: Societe pour la promotion du petoncle vert > Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1999 11:35:17 GMT > I think that this is the best solution. Being as the Digest is > gatewayed to Usenet, those posting to the Digest should consider it to > be the same as posting to any other Usenet group, and should take > appropriate precautions at the individual level if they feel it is > necessary. Ah, so since, for YOUR convenience it is gateway'ed to Usenet, those of us who get it in digest form should suffer? > BTW, it *is* possible to have an RFC-valid address that is so strange > that it will confuse spammers ... using () comments, for example, which > may *theoretically* be inserted anywhere in the address (see RFC 822 > if you have any questions). My understanding is that: > > is a fully valid, RFC-compliant address for myself ... but most > spamming software is written very shoddily, and doesn't know what to > do with it (although better mail programs do). I'm a firm believer in myself. :) > Date: 27 Sep 1999 10:24:18 -0400 > From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) > Subject: Re: No Address on TELECOM Digest Posts? > Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > Follow your instincts and ignore the selfish slobs who want to hide > from spammers at the cost of screwing up usenet even more than it is > now. There are plenty of places to get real addresses for people who > don't want to use their main address on usenet. These Usenet flunkies are getting on my nerves. ;-) This is a digest which HAPPENS to be mirrored to Usenet. Maybe the real answer to the problem is to cease the gateway to comp.dcom.telecom, so that this is no longer a problem. Most of the spammers are coming from Usenet scraping anyway. How does altering/removing a From address "screw up usenet", John, I'm curious about this one. Does it somehow break INN servers all over the world. No, it breaks SPAMMERS. If my address is set to "abuse@localhost", the only people it will screw up is spammers (although not really, because they'll probably ignore it, but leastaways, I won't get e-mail from them because of it). > Using a forged address and expecting the rest of the world to guess > your real address and re-edit messages is the same sort of > cost-shifting nonsense that makes us hate spammers. I don't want people to guess my address. If I haven't given you my e-mail address, I don't want to hear from you. :) If you want to say something to me about something I wrote in a public forum with an altered address, do it there. > Incidentally, as a routine anti-spam measure, all mail that passes > through the system here that receives telecom-digest.org mail has to > have a real domain in the envelope return address or it'll be rejected > before it's delivered. We're talking about post-processing, e.g., when Pat creates the digest he would strip the addresses from the messages HE posts to the digest (and by extension, usenet). You would still see real addresses on the SMTP from envelope, but they would not make it through into the digest for publication. D [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Your idea of cutting Usenet off entirely has crossed my mind more than once lately. All I would have to do is change a couple lines in one script I use. Usenet is at least ninety percent garbage in recent years, and I do think that is where almost all the spammers come from. Even this moderated group comp.dcom.telecom is full of spam in some locations where they do not honor moderation status. I am thinking about unsetting the moderation flag totally on it, leaving it unmoderated and then just dropping it from my distribution. The spammers want it so bad, let them have it. It just seems too bad to me that when *years* ago on Usenet I preached about this same kind of problem and ways to solve it the prima-donnas who ran things in those days all accused me of being Adolf Hitler in the way I chose to run the newsgroup. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1999 17:57:58 -0400 From: Jack Decker Subject: Re: No Address on TELECOM Digest Posts? On 27 Sep 1999 10:24:18 -0400, johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) wrote: > Follow your instincts and ignore the selfish slobs who want to hide > from spammers at the cost of screwing up usenet even more than it is > now. There are plenty of places to get real addresses for people who > don't want to use their main address on usenet. Sure there are, but how would you know the difference between a "real" e-mail box that I actually check for mail, a "real" box that I simply ignore until the mail is purged by the system as old, and a "phony" address that appears to be real? I personally prefer it when someone uses an obviously phoney address, because then I do not waste my time writing to them, or an obviously munged address, because then I know that if I do write to them I will have to take maybe five extra seconds to remove a word or phrase from their e-mail address. I personally figure that if anyone wants to "cop an attitude" about having to delete the phrase ".REMOVE-THIS" from my e-mail address, it is HIGHLY likely that I don't want to hear from them anyway. > Using a forged address and expecting the rest of the world to guess > your real address and re-edit messages is the same sort of > cost-shifting nonsense that makes us hate spammers. Oh, give me a break. Who is "us"? Not me. It doesn't bother me at all to have to remove a few characters from someone's e-mail address on the extremely rare occasion that I send a personal e-mail reply. If you hate the fact that I modify my address a little, then by all means, feel free to refuse to e-mail me. Remember, I could simply use an e-mail address that goes nowhere, and then you could spend precious MINUTES writing me a message that I would never see at all. At least this way, you know how to get a message to me if it is important enough for you to do so. > Incidentally, as a routine anti-spam measure, all mail that passes > through the system here that receives telecom-digest.org mail has to > have a real domain in the envelope return address or it'll be rejected > before it's delivered. And I suppose you think I should care if you don't see my posts? As I have noted in a previous message, I am a very happy user of Brightmail's spam-filtering service (Brightmail is at http://www.brightmail.com/, for anyone not familiar with this service). Despite all the predictions of doom and gloom from the naysayers when this service was first offered, I have found that the service is very accurate and even a bit too conservative for my tastes (in other words, perhaps 20%-40% of the spam still gets through). They send me a report every so often showing me what they've filtered, and from the return addresses and subject lines it is readily apparent that it is all spam (but should they ever catch a "good" message by mistake, I can go to their web site and have it released to me for up to 30 days). But even so, I am willing to take the risk that once in a very great while they might accidentally catch a "good" message. You, on the other hand, are filtering known good messages, simply because you personally don't like the way the 'net is changing. You are well within your rights to do this, but it will not cause me to change my attitudes about protecting myself from spam to the best of my ability. And if you don't like my attitude, you should read what some of the relative newbies on the 'net are thinking. There is a guy on the net who I shall not name because to be honest, I don't much care for him - in my opinion he is one of the people who seems to think that the 'net was put here so he could make money, but he publishes an e-mail newsletter with a fairly wide circulation (unfortunate in my opinion because I sometimes think he does his readers a disservice, but I won't say any more than that, other than to note that I asked to be removed from his mailing list some time ago, and so far he has not complied). Anyway, a reader of his publication wrote to him and made the following comment: > I've two comments to make on your latest [name of publication deleted]. > First the signature article. You didn't mention that a > signature may be maximum 4 lines long, including any white > lines or '-----' lines. > Doing otherwise is still seen as against nettiquette by > a lot of web users, although (far too) long sigs are > widespread these days. Although I also have a too-long sig, > as you can see. But since there are only 4 visible, I think > I get away with it. > When using a good email program, the signature and the > sig will be separated from each other with a '--' (hyphen > hyphen). That makes the use of a line in the sig itself a >little less needed, although I know only "--" is a bit weak. > Good referrence: > http://www.ksu.edu/InfoTech/faq/sig.html including the > famous and hilarious advice from Emily Postnews. Now, here was a reader trying to be helpful and point out that there are certain conventions on the 'net. This is how the editor of the newsletter responded: > Re the sig-file issue, in my opinion today's Internet > is very different from the Internet which existed when many > of these "rules" were formulated. Nobody has updated the > rules because it's probably pointless right now - the net is > still evolving too quickly to lay down anything worthwhile. > > For example, we may well shortly see animated sigs. The > "we own the Internet" brigade would probably have a canary > at such a development - it's up to us far more numerous > recent users to educate them about the past tense. They may > have 'owned' the Internet, but not any more. > > The Internet is rapidly changing from a backwater > curiosity to a mainstream information and communication > medium. Whatever new rules evolve will be by the general > consent of the mainstream, they certainly will not be > imposed by the ancients of the medium. > > Which is not to say us blow-ins will get it right. Far > from it, I'm sure there will be some pretty horrible wrong > turns taken along the way. But that's how mainstream life in > general progresses anyway - think of all the heated debates > in society today. > > Personally, I tailor my sigs to be as concise as > possible - but I do not compromise the communication of > whatever message I'm conveying. It takes what it takes. > > For the moment we have to rely on peoples' good sense > [I know - heaven help us!] not to abuse the facility. > There's no point in rules which nobody knows and cares less > about. I was on the net more than 2 years before I came > across the conventions you mention. [If the author of the above happens to see this and objects to my use without proper credit - and I do claim that it falls within "fair use" guidelines, because it's only a small part of a newsletter that ran over 60K when it arrived in my e-mail, and I am using it for the purpose of illustration and commentary - I would imagine that if he replies, Pat will be happy to let the world know who he is, so that those who agree or disagree with him may personally contact him. However, he should probably first consider that he just may not want the readers of this Digest to know who he is!] Now personally, I am one of those who hates animated ANYTHING in my e-mail. When I read e-mail, I want to see plain text only, not hyperlinks to web sites, not "styled text", not color, not graphics, not anything other than plain text and plain text only. Unfortunately, the mail reader I use not only supports a lot of this junk, but in some cases doesn't even give me the option to turn it off. I run a separate "firewall" type program that denies my e-mail program any access to the net except for POP and STMP (specifically, it blocks any HTML access), so I don't see some of the more obnoxious stuff. I think the day I see an animated signature in my e-mail, I'm going to be looking for a new mail reader (maybe by then I'll be running Linux and I can use Pine). Anyway, this type of debate is as old as the "ranchers vs. farmers" in the old west (and probably long before that, back to nearly the time of Adam and Eve). The folks who have been around a while think that established traditions should be honored, and that the newcomers should learn how things have always been done and then do likewise. The newcomers (especially the ones who tend to still be "wet behind the ears", and goodness knows there's enough of them in the computer field) take the attitude that their opinions are just as good as anyone else's, and that they don't have to listen to the "old pharts" who are "trying to tell them what to do." And the ones with $$$ in their eyes seem to be the worst, they think that they can trample all over net traditions with impunity in pursuit of the almighty dollar. We can wish that things would return to the way that they were five or ten years ago, but the reality of the situation is that it's not going to happen that way. Therefore, I choose to adapt, and try to at least defend myself a bit against the crass commercial types that are trying to take over the Internet, and that includes using a spam-filtering service and munging my return address when posting to Usenet. I'm sorry if you find that offensive, but I find spam far more offensive than any scorn you may show toward me for using a munged "From:" line. Jack [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Jack, I wish you *had* named him in your letter, because I suspect there are some readers around here who would go stomp all over his crummy web site and knock him out of business for at least a few days. Like John Levine, I really do not approve of munging or omitting 'From:'. Even in a Digest-only situa- tion, it is not my place to keep people from corresponding privatly without having to use me as a middle man if they don't want to. An obvious munge is, as you point out, better than something which is completely (and not obviously) false, in terms of saving time for responders, etc. But why should it have to be done at all? What I do not understand are these people who sit around in their cutesy little abuse newsgroups complaining to each other about how terrible it is, and debating whether it is 'theft' or merely very distasteful, and whether spammers have First Amendment rights and all that kind of stuff when *what they should be doing* is working to put spammers out of the loop totally. When a spammer includes a phone number, *trash the number beyond further use*. When a spammer includes a remail address or PO Box, do what is needed to located the true street address and then *make personal visitation*. When cockroaches invade your home, what do you do, move your bed to the other side of the room hoping they do not find it, and then debate for the next five years on whether to use powder or spray? Well, that is what they do on the net in the abuse newsgroups. They debate whether or not the cockroaches are all that bad or not, and if they can put up some partition to keep them away, and is it better to munge addresses, falsify them or eliminate them totally, etc. How about instead of still one more filter rule passed around the net or still one more editing of the sendmail config this time we try trashing them out of existence by making it impossible for them to use 800 numbers, impossible to receive email, and afraid that netters might find out where they live. Makes better sense to me. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Judith Oppenheimer Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1999 19:47:00 EDT Subject: Don'tTakeMyDomainName.com > Dear Domain Name/Web Site Owner: > "Your domain name can be cancelled, revoked, deleted or > transferred at any time at our discretion." > Signed, > Every .com registrar. > ********* This is not maybe, or later. This is now. It's got nothing to do with trademark disputes or contested name disputes. Your trademark status does not exempt you. Agreements among ICANN, the U.S. Department of Commerce, and Network Solutions, Inc., have been placed at http://www.icann.org/agreements.htm. There is a public comment period which will end on October 29, 1999. A link for comments - http://www.icann.org/agreements.htm - is supposed to be available later today. "Any language, including the ICANN Registrar Accreditation Agreement clause J.7.i., that results in domain name seizure policies in registrar/registrant contracts, should be stricken immediately." Feel free to comment using use this suggested language. If you'd like more background information or documentation prior to commenting, email me at mailto:joppenheimer@icbtollfree.com, subject head Don'tTakeMyDomainName.com. Judith Oppenheimer, 1 800 The Expert, 212 684-7210 mailto:joppenheimer@icbtollfree.com Publisher of ICB Toll Free News: http://icbtollfree.com Publisher of WhoSells800.com: http://whosells800.com Moderator TOLLFREE-L: http://www.egroups.com/group/tollfree-l/info.html President of ICB Consultancy: http://JudithOppenheimer.com TOLLFREE-L is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Judith Oppenheimer, publisher of ICB Toll Free News (http://icbtollfree.com) & WhoSells800.com (http://whosells800.com), and President of ICB Toll Free Consultancy (http://800consulting.com). [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: So tell me Judith, has ICANN made a grab or power play for your domain name yet? How long do you think it will be before a telco somewhere decides they need 'tollfree' for the name of some commercial website they decide to operate and you lose it? Seriously people, you need to go look and READ CLOSELY the nightmarish contract that you get to sign the next time your domain name comes up for renewal. They mean business. The internet is not yours any longer. The contract is horrible, and is tilted entirely in favor of Big Business, the people that put ICANN in business and intend tokeep it there. PAT] ------------------------------ From: steven@primacomputer.com (Steven) Subject: Re: Where is the True Power? Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1999 10:33:33 +0800 Organization: Prima Computer Sorry, I have just read this phone book analogy one too many times. I understand that packets still route without the internic, but DNS has become a fundamental part of using the internet. If you want a serious analogy compare it to the part of the telephone switch that maps cable pairs to telephone numbers. People have already built new root servers and they have not been very successful. Perhaps Bill Gates could make one and pre configure windows/mac to use it, but others would have a bit harder time getting people to switch. To be perfectly honest I don't understand why everyone hasn't started their own TLDs. I like the idea of a root server revolt, but it doesn't seem it would work? The net result is it no matter how you slice it, it is going to be controlled more and more by business. This is inevitable. There is money to be made and business is going to go after it. The name of the company, and its policy are irrelevant to companies who lose millions of dollars each day to inflate their share prices. Ideally we would create an appropriately named .CON TLD for internet companies seeking an IPO and the rest of us would carry on as before, but that seems highly unlikely. Prying .COM from the jaws of the corporate alligator seems just as unlikely. One would be much more productive lobbying for a new, free, government subsisted TLD for non-commercial use, or at least the blessing to organize a non-profit one. I prefer to see the thing privatized, but not in the form of a franchised monopoly. You have a handful of companies who run the bulk of the backbone, let them run the NIC. They have the know how and are more interested in selling bandwidth then hype. Steven > This has been said many times before, but it bears repeating. All > this fuss about domain name policy, registrars, etc., is somewhat of a > red herring. > It's like saying that those who hold the true power over the nation's > phone system do so by virtue of the fact that they publish the phone > directories. > When push comes to shove, what really matters is whether my IP packet > will get forwarded properly from one router to another. > If things get bad enough and the domain registrars upset too many > people, new ones will spring up in their place. Systems will start > contacting new or additional root domain servers. In the worst case, > companies will start publishing their IP addresses together with their > domain names. Yes, it will be messy and inconvenient. > But if those who have control over the backbone and large ISP routers > start making choices about which packets they will or won't forward > (perhaps based on whether the source or destination is toeing the line > on their favorite domain policy) then all bets are off and things could > reach a state of true chaos very quickly. > Cheers, > Clive Dawson > Austin, TX [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: In her message, Judith suggests sending complaints to an address at the ICANN website. To my way of thinking, that would be a big waste of time. They are listening to no one and responding to no one at this point. If you write to complain, I think your domain name will be one of the first to get snatched, out of retaliation. If at this point you can find a registrar somewhere who is not beholden to that crowd, then use it and tell the rest of us where to find it also. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #442 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Sep 29 17:15:25 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id RAA29973; Wed, 29 Sep 1999 17:15:25 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1999 17:15:25 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199909292115.RAA29973@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #443 TELECOM Digest Wed, 29 Sep 99 17:15:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 443 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Church Mulls Cell Tower in Cross (John McHarry) Re: Church Mulls Cell Tower in Cross (James Gifford) Re: Payment to Make LD Switch (Matt Bartlett) Re: Payment to Make LD Switch (Steven J. Sobol) Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? (Rob Levandowski) Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? (Kim Brennan) Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? (Andrew Emmerson) Re: Is the '.gif tax' Thing Starting All Over Again? (Juha Veijalainen) Re: Sprint PCS Fraud (Scott Gordon) Re: Basic Telephone Diagram Wanted (L. Winson) Re: Seeking Information on Railway Codeline Protocols (John Nagle) Re: Seeking Information on Railway Codeline Protocols (Andrew Emmerson) Re: Phone Line Attached to Water Meter (Bruce Wilson) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: mcharry@erols.com (John McHarry) Subject: Re: Church Mulls Cell Tower in Cross Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1999 02:14:59 GMT On Sun, 26 Sep 1999 21:52:42 -0400, Mike Pollock wrote: > ALEXANDRIA. Va. (AP) -- A financially struggling church is considering > a deal with Ma Bell: Allow AT&T to build a 130-foot-tall cross with a > cellular phone tower concealed inside and First Christian Church will > get $18,000 a year ... The central tower of the National Cathedral is full of antennas. You can see them from the Peter and Paul towers, but not from the ground, AFAIK. The cathedral is on top of St. Alban's Hill, the highest point in DC. On Tue, 28 Sep 1999 14:33:30 -0500, hudsonl@skypoint.com (Hudson Leighton) wrote: > But they don't need to all be towers, I live near a watertower that is > is encased inside a bricktower, a Cellphone company wanted to mount > antennas on it, the local Tree-Huggers/NIMBYs went nuts, they > distributed pictures of the watertower looking like a porkupine in > heat, what we got after the dust settled was a bunch of little brown > boxes spaced around the top of the brown brick watertower that you > can't even see unless you know they are there. The Cellphone company > got it's cellsite, the City got a rehab of a historic building on the > Cellphone Company's dime. And we got a watertower that looks better > than is has for a long time. A quirky aside: The BT Tower in London is a listed property, which means it is governed by a bunch of rules on historic preservation. It is festooned with a lot of terrestial microwave dishes, which are no longer used. They cannot remove them because of the listing. ------------------------------ From: James Gifford Reply-To: gifford@nitrosyncretic.com Organization: Nitrosyncretic Press Subject: Re: Church Mulls Cell Tower in Cross Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1999 10:01:10 -0700 rich wrote: > Also schrieb ranck@joesbar.cc.vt.edu: >> And the clear, obvious, technological solution to that is satellite >> based service. > Even an LEO satellite is going to have an orbit of about 150 miles or > so. A cell is, IIRC, scant miles on a side. We have this already. It's called Iridium. They went broke trying to make it work. | James Gifford - Nitrosyncretic Press - gifford@nitrosyncretic.com | | See http://www.nitrosyncretic.com for the Robert Heinlein FAQ | | and information on "Robert A. Heinlein: A Reader's Companion" | ------------------------------ From: Matt Bartlett Subject: Re: Payment to Make LD Switch Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1999 22:27:28 -0400 Organization: EarthLink Network, Inc. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: As part of the deal you agreed to > 'take affirmative steps required to make these changes', which means > you agree to cooperate with AT&T, which means you will not give your > local telco advice to the contary, ie. keeping a block on the line. I'm not telling the phone company what to do, its been done for almost a year now. > They cannot legally unblock your line, but you will be in violation > of the contract you signed with them (by signing and cashing the > check) if you refuse to unblock it yourself. If this is one of those > 'Pay to the Order of the Telephone Company' checks where you submit > it with payment of your phone bill, you should note that your local > telco *will* use that endorsement on the back as your authority to > them to unblock the line in preparation for AT&T to take it over. > So if you cash the check elsewhere, your line stays blocked and AT&T > is unable to gain default status on it, will they sue you for being > in violation of your contract with them? No, probably not. They'll > write you once or twice and remind you of your obligation, then your > name and phone number will go on the list of petty chiselers and > deadbeats they keep as a reminder to themselves to not send you any > more offers. PAT] If they only would! I probably receive 3-4 LD offers from AT&T, Sprint, MCI, and Excel a week. This is for my *DATA* line. I have made one voice call from the line since I've had it, and that was to my other line to test it. I'll be glad to have AT&T switch it over, but after they do, I'm in no obligation to stay with them, correct? Excuse me Pat if I sound like a petty chiseler or a deadbeat. I consider it Spam. They "spam" me with junk mail about their offers, and instead of tying up their tollfree numbers over and over like you suggest, I'll just cash their check they offer. Matt [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Of course it is spam. But you mention one good loophole many people use. There is no minimum time to stay with them so after a month or two, or whenever you use up the fifty dollars in (what amounts to) free service they gave you, then switch it back to NONE and put a freeze on it again. Watch of course to make sure they do not try to continue adding monthly service charges, etc. Then the next time you get such an offer from them do it again. I have received reports from relatively small users of long distance who say that by properly applying the various free offers they get from one month to the next, they've been able to get virtually free long distance service for several months at a time. PAT] ------------------------------ From: sjsobol@JustThe.Net (Steven J Sobol) Subject: Re: Payment to Make LD Switch Date: 29 Sep 1999 03:18:47 GMT Organization: North Shore Technologies Corp. 888.480.4NET On 28 Sep 1999 22:18:10 GMT, lowellkim@aol.com allegedly said: > But if you cash the check by writing something like "For Deposit Only" > AT&T may not be able to have your service switched, but will start > assessing a service charge on your line for your new "service" whether > it has started or not. Even if your line is not unblocked, AT&T can > have this charge added to your bill. It happened to me. As it should. They're giving you money, and they expect something in return. And I can't see it being an illegal contract -- after all, you KNOW what happens when you sign and deposit the check, and you willingly do so (unless there's something I don't know about AT&T). In my opinion, AT&T is not wrong to do so. North Shore Technologies JustTheNet Dialup Internet Access Cleveland, Akron, Canton, Geauga Co., Lake Co., Portage Co., Lorain Co., OH Nationwide Access coming soon! [Watch this space for details or dial 1.888.480.4NET for more info! [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Here is an interesting kink however which has happened a few times: Person gets that offer and is not interested so they toss it in the trash. Someone else picking in the trash finds it. Without bothering to change the phone numbers referred to on the check, they just scribble some illegible name on the back of it and go cash it. Now they get the fifty dollars and you get your phone service switched to AT&T. Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to find out who forged your name to the check and convince AT&T that it was fraud. The lesson here is to always destroy -- not just toss out -- such documents. Trash pickers the world over are good at finding things in dumpsters. They're out partying with the fifty dollars while you, your local telco and AT&T are in a three-ring circus each blaming the other for slamming your phone line. Don't laugh! It has happened. Neither telco nor AT&T is going to bother hunting down the forgery, but you will spend plenty of time convincing the two of them that you had nothing to do with it. PAT] ------------------------------ From: robl@macwhiz.com (Rob Levandowski) Subject: Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? Organization: MacWhiz Technologies Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1999 10:29:20 -0400 In article , John_David_Galt@acm.org (John David Galt) wrote: > If a site doesn't intend to allow anyone and everyone to use it as a > forwarding agent, they should certainly reconfigure their site to permit > it. But in your 'theft' argument I see a contradiction with the recent > thread on 'deep linking'. To wit: if a file's owner, by placing it in > a public, web- accessible directory and making it world-readable, gives > up the right to forbid others from linking to it and downloading it, > then why doesn't a site owner, by setting "daemons" such as sendmail and > nntp in a way that makes it possible for anyone to connect to them and > use them, equally give up the right to forbid it? If you have a small statue on your front lawn, but you don't erect a barbed-wire electrified fence around your property, does that mean it's legal for a passerby to take the statue? After all, you put it out in public view with no "protection" from the public ... Well, what if the passerby says "It was just sitting out in the open, with no chain, not bolted down, no fence, so I *assumed* it must be OK to take it?" The deep-linking argument is a silly one, and hardly a basis for considering new legal precedent. Theft is taking someone else's property without authorization -- whether or not you have to defeat some access-protection method to do so. There is no assumption that permitting some access to property (even intellectual property) implies that the property is in the public domain. Witness shareware: it is available for free download, but it is not in the public domain. The author retains copyright and can control distribution and use of the software. Consider: Would the "well, the system let me do it, so it must have been OK" argument have worked for Cap'n Crunch and the other phreaks who found ways to make the phone system place free calls? As I recall, they got nailed on theft of service. (I Am Not A Lawyer...) Rob Levandowski robl@macwhiz.com ------------------------------ From: kim@aol.com (Kim Brennan) Date: 29 Sep 1999 17:12:20 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? Brian Elfert replies to my spam trials: > I can't comment on all these domains, but I only get mail from nwa.com > because I'm registered with them, and didn't choose to not get the mail. > I'll bet you've registered with both Preview Travel and NWA at some time, > and probably hotelresnetwork too. Nope. The problem is unknowing users register using my email address and these companies did not verify that was the correct email address for the registrats prior to sending me countless unwanted (and for me) unsolicited email. > Now, if they aren't removing you upon request, that's not right. I know > NWA has an easy to remove your email address on the mail I get. Many of the companies claim to have a remove process via their web page. I see no reason to go to a web page that I never visited in the first place, to get removed from a mailing list I didn't subscribe to. In NWA case, I was contacted in personal email by a rep that did get me removed from their list (although curiously the rep's email address was from a completely separate domain.) Apparently after having read the thread here (yea!) Kim Brennan (kim@aol.com) Duo 2300c, PB 2400, VW Fox Wagon GL, Corrado SLC, Vanagon GL Syncro http://members.aol.com/kim Duo Info Page: http://members.aol.com/kim/computer/duo ?'s should include "Duo" in subject, else they'll be deleted unread. ------------------------------ From: midshires@cix.co.uk (Andrew Emmerson) Subject: Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1999 12:33 +0100 (BST) Organization: CIX - Compulink Information eXchange Reply-To: midshires@cix.co.uk In article , azz@gnu.org (Adam Sampson) wrote: > B*ks. I'm reliably informed that this word (in its expanded form) is effectively unknown in the USA. Surprising but true! Andrew Emmerson. ------------------------------ From: juhave@iobox.fi (Juha Veijalainen) Subject: Re: Is the '.gif tax' Thing Starting All Over Again? Organization: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?J=E4=E4karhuritarit?= Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1999 17:02:14 GMT In article , waltdnes@interlog.com says: > On Sun, 26 Sep 1999 12:21:04 GMT, in comp.dcom.telecom juhave@iobox.fi > (Juha Veijalainen) wrote: >> "Many Web site operators use commercially available software >> which creates GIF images offline which are then posted on their >> Web sites. Since most of this commercially available software >> is under license from Unisys for their use of the LZW patent, >> users of this software are probably covered as well for this >> use of GIF images on their Web sites." > Obvious (to me, at least) question. *HOW WOULD UNISYS KNOW* whether > or not someone is doing it I've been wondering about that too. Also, a minute after my previous posting on this subject I read the press release again. I should have read it more carefully earlier. Now it seems to me that even my own home page might require a license! Though it is a personal home page and graphics have been created with a licensed program, my page _has an advertisement_! I use hitbox counter which inserts an ad on my page. I'm no lawyer, but the wording on the press release indicates that ads on web pages would mean that a LZW license should be paid! Of course commercial sites are probably targeted, but I just may have to either remove all buttons or change them to jpegs ... Fortunately I do not have any animations Juha Veijalainen, Helsinki, Finland, http://www.iki.fi/juhave/ Some random words: bomb,steganography,cryptography,reindeer ** Mielipiteet omiani ** Opinions personal, facts suspect ** ------------------------------ From: sgordon@sbbs.net (Scott Gordon) Subject: Re: Sprint PCS Fraud Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1999 00:01:54 -0500 Organization: Deja.com - Share what you know. Learn what you don't. Just tried the site myself, and it works, you can also check out http://www.sprintdealer.com Pat: Your comments are very interesting. Has anyone checked out the "legal" issues pertaining to running a site like this? Can the operator of usworst.com really be shut down? There must be some laws that protect those whom bring out the truth as newspapers do it everyday. We are starting to go through the same thing with Sprint PCS at www.sprintdealer.com -- so far there attempts to close us down have been unsuccessful though. Interested in any comments regarding these situations you have. Thanks! Scott > Subject: Re: Sprint PCS Fraud > Author: "Bruce Wilson" > Date: 9/24/99 11:53 AM > Apparently, Sprint PCS has dissatisfied many customers, and one > customer was so upset by Sprint's fraud, lies, and poor service that > he established a website detailing numerous problems. It is located > at http://www.theworst.com, and is a good reference for anyone > considering service with Sprint PCS. > As of a few minutes ago, I got the message that this was an unknown > host when I tried to access it, using the url above. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's note: Thanks for passing this information > along. I would also call readers' attention to another site they > may find interesting, http://usworst.com which discusses in some- > what frank detail the inner workings at US West. PAT] [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: It will be a lot easier for companies to get rid of web sites they consider undesirable over the next year or two as the new contracts for domain names are phased in. As you know if you have examined the agreement ICANN-authorized registrars (the only kind I know of who will be permitted to direct traffic) are making webmasters and ISPs sign, your site will operate purely at the pleasure of ICANN. They own your name, and you authorize them to take your name at anytime they feel you should no longer be allowed a presence here. If a company takes some offense at what you have said, since they are running ICANN -- average netizens have no say in it at all -- all they'll have to do is tell the registrar to get rid of you. As Vint Cerf has pointed out, it will be so much easier for big business to finish the transition here if they do not have a lot (his words) 'messy enforcement problems' to deal with. My term for that is 'Cerfing the Net', purging and purifying it to get rid of the 'undesirables' who keep hanging around. PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Basic Telephone Diagram Wanted Date: 29 Sep 1999 02:30:43 GMT Organization: The PACSIBM SIG BBS > I'm working on a project to encourage middle school-aged girls to become > interested in engineering. One of the projects I'm considering is to > have them take apart a telephone, identify the major parts and their > functions, and then reassemble the phone. When I was a kid I had a book called "Your Telephone and How it Works" that explained things in simple terms. If your students can get a hold of traditional "G" handsets (the kind most plain traditional phones used), they could easily hook them up to a 6 volt lantern battery and talk over them. The phones come apart to see the transmitter and receiver. When I was a kid we found this fascinating. The drawback to this is that the above is essentially obsolete today. It would be almost like demonstrating how vaccum tubes or a phonograph work and I suspect kids today wouldn't be so interested. Phones made today are generally on circuit cards. It might be more interesting and instructive if you could find some surplus old 8086 PCs and take them apart as you described. A real good book to look at these things at an elementary level is "Inside the IBM PC" by Peter Norton, *1986* edition. He gets into playing with the BIOS by simple programs entered in BASIC or DEBUG. Since the machines are expendable, you can dissect the various components and experiment in ways not practical on a brand new $2,000 unit. ------------------------------ From: nagle@netcom.com (John Nagle) Subject: Re: Seeking Information on Railway Codeline Protocols Date: 29 Sep 1999 05:55:41 GMT Organization: Netcom greg36@ix.netcom.com (Gregory C. Currivan) writes: > I am trying to locate information on railway codeline protocols. This > was a type of land line signaling used by train dispatchers to send > commands from CTC machines to wayside site in the field. Since you're in San Francisco, try the Mechanic's Institute, which is a private library you can join for about $70 per year. They have bound copies of all the major railroad engineering periodicals back to the late 1800s. Somewhere in there is probably more than you want to know about the subject. If you're just curious, try "http://www.trainweb.org/railwaytechnical/sigind.html". If you have a need to make something interoperate, General Railway Signal is now part of Alstom, at "www.alstom.com", and can probably sell you a converter box. John Nagle ------------------------------ From: midshires@cix.co.uk (Andrew Emmerson) Subject: Re: Seeking Information on Railway Codeline Protocols Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1999 12:33 +0100 BST Organization: CIX - Compulink Information eXchange Reply-To: midshires@cix.co.uk In article , greg36@ix.netcom.com (Gregory C. Currivan) wrote: > I am trying to locate information on railway codeline protocols. This > was a type of land line signaling used by train dispatchers to send > commands from CTC machines to wayside site in the field. Do you mean the selective calling telephone system made by Western Electric and its affiliates all round the world? This sent pulse trains to operate a kind of stepping relay at waystation telephones connected (in parallel) along a pair of wires that could be a couple of hundred miles long. The pulses were sent in groups and operated magnets that in turn advanced a small wheel into which were stuck pins according to that particular waystation's selcall code. At the end of the first pulse train, the break in current would allow all the wheels to return under control of a light spring _except_ in the wheel that had a pin at that position. Then again and again, so that you selected just one phone, after which a relay latched in that phone (only) and ringing current was applied to the line so as to ring that phone's bell. A non-stop train of the total number of pulses would drive the wheel straight to the end of its travel in each phone, and in this way you could send an 'all stations' call. This is a highly simplified explanation. I have four books describing the system and the shortest runs to nearly 90 pages! If this is not the system you meant, that's a shame but it might interest others. There have been many other selective calling systems for railway, traction and roadside motorway telephone systems. Some used heavy and light polarised DC current, positive and negative high-voltages to strike cold-cathode tubes and audio tones to activate tuned reeds. All are obsolete or obsolescent now, even here in backward England! Andrew Emmerson ------------------------------ From: blw1540@aol.comxxnospam (Bruce Wilson) Date: 29 Sep 1999 11:58:20 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: Phone Line Attached to Water Meter > Can anyone explain how this might work? Are you familiare with "distinctive" or "custom" ring service? It's like a throwback to party line days, when the individual subscribers on the line each had different ring patterns, but phones these days won't recognize and accept anything but a standard ring pattern, so only a device connected to the line that does will respond when a nonstandard ring's sent over the line. That's why the water company's device will respond when called by the water company but your phones don't ring. Bruce Wilson ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #443 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Sep 29 20:05:24 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id UAA06253; Wed, 29 Sep 1999 20:05:24 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1999 20:05:24 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199909300005.UAA06253@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #444 TELECOM Digest Wed, 29 Sep 99 20:05:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 444 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Domain Name Revocation Policies (Judith Oppenheimer) Re: Don'tTakeMyDomainName.com (Greg Skinner) Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? (Joel B Levin) Crystal PC's Anyone? (Len Conole) Source For StarTAC Connectors? (Kyler Laird) Re: Phone Line Attached to Water Meter (W.D.A. Geary) Re: Is the '.gif tax' Thing Starting All Over Again? (G. Randers-Pehrson) Re: No Address on TELECOM Digest Posts? (Adam H. Kerman) Re: No Address on TELECOM Digest Posts? (Greg Skinner) Re: No Address on TELECOM Digest Posts? (Garrett Wollman) Photo of the Most Critical Equipment at Rochelle Park (Danny Burstein) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1999 16:09:49 -0400 From: Judith Oppenheimer Organization: ICB Toll Free News / WhoSells800.com Subject: Domain Name Revocation Policies Most sites have already signed this -- the language resides in your existing domain name agreements with your registrar ... EXISTING REGISTRAR DOMAIN NAME REVOCATION POLICIES Network Solutions (NSI) http://www.networksolutions.com/legal/dispute-policy.html Revocation. The registrant agrees that Network Solutions shall have the right in its sole discretion to revoke, suspend, transfer or otherwise modify a domain name registration upon thirty (30) calendar days prior written notice, OR at such time as Network Solutions receives a properly authenticated order from a court of competent jurisdiction, or arbitration award, requiring the revocation, suspension, transfer or modification of the domain name registration. CORE - Council of Internet Registrars (global) http://www.corenic.org/dispute-policy/CORE-dispute-policy.htm Revocation. The registrant agrees that CORE shall have the right in its sole discretion to revoke, suspend, transfer or otherwise modify a domain name registration upon thirty (30) calendar days prior written notice, OR at such time as CORE receives a properly authenticated order from a court of competent jurisdiction, or arbitration award, requiring the revocation, suspension, transfer or modification of the domain name registration. Domain Bank http://ru.domainbank.net/reg_agreement.cfm Breach and Revocation. ... You also agree that Domain Bank shall have the right in its sole discretion to revoke, suspend, transfer or otherwise modify a domain name registration upon seven (7) calendar days prior written notice, OR ... A+Net/ABACUS America, Inc. (United States) dba Names4Ever http://www.names4ever.com/dp.html Revocation. The registrant agrees that A+Net shall have the right in its sole discretion to revoke, suspend, transfer or otherwise modify a domain name registration upon thirty (30) calendar days prior written notice, OR ... NameSecure http://www.namesecure.com/services/registration_agreement.cfm REVOCATION. ... You agree that we may, in our sole discretion, delete or transfer your domain name at any time. Register.com http://register.com/service-agreement.cgi?1|142560921 Breach and Revocation. You also agree that register.com shall have the right in its sole discretion to suspend, cancel, transfer or otherwise modify a domain name registration upon seven (7) calendar days prior written notice. And as pointed out by intellectual property attorney Carl Oppendahl, upon query you're likely to get a response such as that in NameSecure's FAQ: http://www.namesecure.com/services/dispute_policy_faqs.cfm which says: 6. What about this term in your Registration Agreement that 'you agree that we may, in our sole discretion, delete or transfer your domain name at any time'? We hope we will never have to use this term. It is in our Registration Agreement simply to enable us to take action if we find no other way to correct something that we feel needs correction. Now consider if you were signed up before all this started: http://www.networksolutions.com/legal/agreement.html D. Dispute Policy Changes or Modifications. Registrant agrees that NSI, in its sole discretion, may change or modify the Dispute Policy, incorporated by reference herein, at any time. Registrant agrees that Registrant's maintaining the registration of a domain name after changes or modifications to the Dispute Policy become effective constitutes Registrant's continued acceptance of these changes or modifications. Registrant agrees that if Registrant considers any such changes or modifications to be unacceptable, Registrant may request that the domain name be deleted from the domain name database. Judith Oppenheimer, 1 800 The Expert, 212 684-7210 mailto:joppenheimer@icbtollfree.com Publisher of ICB Toll Free News: http://icbtollfree.com Publisher of WhoSells800.com: http://whosells800.com Moderator TOLLFREE-L: http://www.egroups.com/group/tollfree-l/info.html President of ICB Consultancy: http://JudithOppenheimer.com: 800 # Acquisition Management, Lost 800 # Retrieval, Litigation Support, Regulatory Navigation, Correlating Trademark and Domain Name Issues. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Thank you again, Judith. Its nice to know that if anyone disagrees with the new policy that the registrars own all the names and can delete/reassign them at will, all they have to do is request that their site name be deleted from the data base. So webmasters, it would seem your choices are either shut up and take your chances that you do not offend any of the big players or their representative ICANN/ISOC by something you say or do at your site causing it to get taken away from you, or quit your presence now and tell them to delete your site from the database. Quite a choice, eh? Its the process we call 'Cerfing the Net' ... making the net properly business-like, without 'all the messy enforcement problems'. Oh, it is not as bad as it seems; why, for a mere donation of five hundred thousand dollars to Vint Cerf and Esther Dyson, you can have your way around here also. That's what MCI paid the last time around, and that seems like a fair amount. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1999 11:36:55 PDT From: Greg Skinner Subject: Re: Don'tTakeMyDomainName.com Pat Townson wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: So tell me Judith, has ICANN made a > grab or power play for your domain name yet? How long do you think > it will be before a telco somewhere decides they need 'tollfree' for > the name of some commercial website they decide to operate and you > lose it? > Seriously people, you need to go look and READ CLOSELY the nightmarish > contract that you get to sign the next time your domain name comes > up for renewal. They mean business. The internet is not yours any > longer. The contract is horrible, and is tilted entirely in favor of > Big Business, the people that put ICANN in business and intend tokeep > it there. PAT] But Pat, under what conditions would someone get to retain their domain name in ICANN's absence? Under NSI's "policy", if some business wanted Judith Oppeheimer's name, and they named NSI in the lawsuit, NSI would turn the domain off. Prior to NSI's existence, the only way she could have gotten her domain name is if someone in DARPA thought her use of the Internet fell under the AUPs that existed at the time. Had some telco challenged her use back then, there is no guarantee that they would have ruled in her favor. Most likely they would have deferred to existing law, which again, does not guarantee that she would have retained use of the name. It seems to me that a lot of the "freedom" that some people currently enjoy with regards to domain registrations exists largely because NSI wanted to build an empire and encouraged mass domain registrations to do so. gregbo gds at best.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You know, re-writing that section of their contract to say something like 'in the event some dispute arises over your use of the domain name, you agree to have the matter resolved in binding arbitration by an impartial panel of netizens' would go a long way toward easing the discomfort some of us are feeling. It would mean that some of us would have a chance in hell at least of surviving. But there can be no arbitration, binding or otherwise, because that leads to 'messy enforcement problems' and inhibits the total Cerfing of the Net which is required in order to completely turn things here over to big business. Does anyone know if they are claiming the same kind of authority over registrars (a) in other countries and (b) in the .us domain? If we register in .us for example, or in some other country will they still have the right to kick us out if IBM, MCI or some telco gets angry or greedy or both? PAT] ------------------------------ From: Joel B Levin Subject: Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? Organization: On the desert Reply-To: levinjb@gte.net Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1999 21:43:45 GMT In , midshires@cix.co.uk (Andrew Emmerson) wrote: > In article , azz@gnu.org (Adam > Sampson) wrote: >> B*ks. It's not unknown, but I don't think most of us ever think of using it. And you have a word of a sanguinary nature which has caused much uproar in times past that we here think nothing of. Eliza uttered it at Mrs. Higgins' at-home. I think you spell it B----y. /JBL ------------------------------ From: Len Conole Subject: Crystal PC's Anyone? Date: 29 Sep 1999 20:29:26 GMT Organization: AT&T WorldNet Services I need help. I have some Crystal Group Industrial PC's. These came from a fax company that is now out of business. I know they are worth about $3,000 each. I need to get them out of here for $1200.00 each. These are 5 slot units (model cs-500) that are commonly used as communications servers or gateways. If you can help me please call me at (978) 689-8760. Ask for Len. ------------------------------ From: laird@kybernetes.ecn.purdue.edu (Kyler Laird) Subject: Source For StarTAC connectors? Date: 29 Sep 1999 21:04:59 GMT Organization: Purdue University I'd like to make some devices for my StarTAC phones. To do so, I need to get some of the StarTAC connectors. As a start, I'd like to make a "Y cable" so that I can connect my modem *and* a power/ external antenna adapter. This means I need two sockets and one plug. I've been unable to find anything but repair parts for the StarTAC. I need full units. Any ideas? I'm tempted to just buy some new accessories and rip them apart, but I'd much prefer to simply buy the connectors. (I'm not even sure that accessories would have all of the pins connected.) Thank you. kyler ------------------------------ From: wdag@my-deja.com (W.D.A. Geary) Subject: Re: Phone Line Attached to Water Meter Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1999 14:23:39 GMT Organization: Deja.com - Before you buy. Try disconnecting the contraption during your time online and see if it makes a difference. It is possible that the meter-reader device "cheats" on telco standards, and that _some_ tone sequence during your telecom is fooling it into chiming in when you least desire it ... In article , FLMalan@Prodigy.net wrote: > My water meter is connected to the telephone line and thus somehow > reports my usage to headquarters. My assumption has always been that > the meter periodically calls the water company. > Something has been knocking me offline between 8:00 a.m. and 8:30 a.m. > most any time I happen to be online at that time of day. Thinking > that this might be caused by the water meter phoning home, I called > the water company myself. W.D.A.Geary Wardenclyffe Microtechnology Time flies like an arrow, but fruit flies like a banana. ------------------------------ From: Glenn Randers-Pehrson Subject: Re: Is the '.gif tax' Thing Starting All Over Again? Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1999 22:23:15 GMT Organization: Deja.com - Before you buy. In article , Walter Dnes wrote: > Obvious (to me, at least) question. *HOW WOULD UNI SYS KNOW* whether > or not someone is doing it? Is licenced software required to put in a > "watermark" as a condition of the licence? I have Office 97, > including MS Photo Editor. How can Uni sys differentiate between a GIF > saved by that program versus another program. Especially when the > people who save their files "legally" set the date back to confuse the > process? All they need to do is to look for a GIF comment that says GifBuilder (that's free software, whose author was apparently forced by U-NO-who to stop distributing it) or "built with DEMO copy of ..." or "built with UNREGISTERED copy of ...". A significant portion (about 30 of about 180 that I've examined lately) of the animated GIFs being distributed by the ad brokers have such comments in them. By the way, the Uni sys fee isn't limited to $5000 if the site is serving ads. Fortunately it's not so easy to write a web spider in COBOL to search for them ... Glenn Randers-Pehrson PNG/MNG Development Group [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Does anyone know the fate of us who use 'gif-stripper' type programs to get rid of all the comments inside of a .gif in order to make it load faster? I've done that with many of mine, which has improved the loading speed a lot. Will we somehow have to produce proof that the .gif was done the right way to start with? PAT] ------------------------------ From: Adam H. Kerman Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: No Address on TELECOM Digest Posts? Date: 29 Sep 1999 12:37:53 -0500 Organization: Chinet - Public Access since 82 Derek J. Balling wrote: >> Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1999 18:58:52 EDT >> From: Jonathan Loo [attribution deleted by Mr. Balling] >>> I don't expect personal replies to postings I've made to TELECOM >>> Digest and I certainly don't want to be spammed as a result. >> Personal replies may be unwanted but it is certainly within a reader's >> right to give a personal reply. > Your right to reply is enumerated where? If you want to reply, you are > free to reply in the forum I posted in, but for someone to assume they > have some "right" to send me e-mail is incorrect in the extreme. You seem to be going out of your way to misinterpret these comments. Anyone may send e-mail; we won't debate if this is a "right" with regard to spam. Clearly, a lurker on Usenet has a right to mail a reply only to the author of the original message in lieu of posting a followup on News or replying via the list-posting address, as the case may be. By various standards, it is mandatory to have a valid mailbox in a From header of a message on Mail or News. Therefore, someone reading that message, whether in Mail or News, has the right to expect that there is a valid mailbox in the From header. Nowhere is there a standard requiring the recipient of a message in Mail to read it, let alone reply to it. If you refuse to read personal replies sent to you in response to messages you write for News or mailing lists, that is your business. No standard prevents you from forwarding that mailbox to /dev/null. Nevertheless, it still must be a valid mailbox. Why are you wrong for refusing to follow these standards? Because Mail and News are shared resources that you don't pay for. The rules to comply with are fairly minimal, yet people like you complain constantly about how these rules create an imposition on you. It's not your network, but it is your choice: Comply or don't use the resources provided by other people. You don't have the moral high ground. ------------------------------ From: Greg Skinner Subject: Re: No Address on TELECOM Digest Posts? Organization: a user of Best Internet Communications, Inc. www.best.com Date: 29 Sep 1999 18:16:14 GMT > BTW, it *is* possible to have an RFC-valid address that is so strange > that it will confuse spammers ... using () comments, for example, which > may *theoretically* be inserted anywhere in the address (see RFC 822 > if you have any questions). My understanding is that: > > is a fully valid, RFC-compliant address for myself ... but most > spamming software is written very shoddily, and doesn't know what to > do with it (although better mail programs do). Interestingly enough, when I attempt to send mail (with sendmail) to myself with this syntax, the mail is delivered with the To: line rewritten as such: [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Unfortunatly his message ended at this point without his illustration being included. :( Dunno why. PAT] ------------------------------ From: wollman@lcs.mit.edu (Garrett Wollman) Subject: Re: No Address on TELECOM Digest Posts? Date: 29 Sep 1999 15:03:26 GMT Organization: MIT Laboratory for Computer Science In article , PAT wrote: > I am thinking about unsetting the moderation flag totally > on it, leaving it unmoderated That will never happen, for the same reason as some places will never set it correctly moderated. (And I can think of some people who would be happy to moderate comp.dcom.telecom in your place, and totally cut out the mailing-list troglodytes.) Most of the people whining about Usenet should instead be complaining to the vendors of their defective news-reading software (often mistakenly called a 'browser'). Those of us with modern news-reading software (which in most cases means it was written B.N. -- 'Before Netscape') have no difficulty at all in separating the wheat from the chaff, even on much-higher-volume newsgroups than this one. Garrett A. Wollman | O Siem / We are all family / O Siem / We're all the same wollman@lcs.mit.edu | O Siem / The fires of freedom Opinions not those of| Dance in the burning flame MIT, LCS, CRS, or NSA| - Susan Aglukark and Chad Irschick [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yeah, I bet you do know some people who would be perfectly happy to take it over. And the reason you have no difficulty separating 'the wheat from the chaff' in this newsgroup is because I do it for you. That is why I am on line six hours or more every day, so that you could use the earliest version of newsreading software available if you wanted and still avoid all or most spam. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1999 18:50:18 EDT From: Danny Burstein To: Danny Burstein Subject: Photo of the Most Critical Equipment at Rochelle Park An absolute necessity during the post-Floyd restoration ... 375k jpeg http://www.panix.com/~dannyb/kodak/floyd-01.jpg (Don't know if it was restricted to BA techs, or if others could use it ...) Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key dannyb@panix.com [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #444 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Sep 29 21:53:20 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id VAA11003; Wed, 29 Sep 1999 21:53:20 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1999 21:53:20 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199909300153.VAA11003@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #445 TELECOM Digest Wed, 29 Sep 99 21:53:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 445 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Drivers License Compact / Extortion Conspiracy (John B. Hines) Re: Drivers License Compact / Extortion Conspiracy (Steven J Sobol) Re: Drivers License Compact / Extortion Conspiracy (Steven) Re: Drivers License Compact / Extortion Conspiracy (Dana Paxson) Re: Where is the True Power? (Greg Skinner) Re: Where is the True Power? (Cortland Richmond) Re: Seeking Information on Railway Codeline Protocols (Bill Horne) Re: Phone Line Attached to Water Meter (Bruce Larrabee) Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? (Craig Williamson) EnGenius SN-900 Ultra - Conference Calling ?? (ken) Re: Its All About Greed and the Net of the Future (Satch) Re: Greed and Other Topics (James Bellaire) Re: Is the '.gif tax' Thing Starting All Over Again? (Mike Stockman) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: jhines@enteract.com (John B. Hines) Subject: Re: Drivers License Compact / Extortion Conspiracy Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1999 01:41:21 GMT Organization: US Citizen, disabled with MS, speaking solely for myself. E. Cummings wrote: > A nationwide "Drivers License Compact" between states' DMV's ensures > that if you ignore another state's traffic citation, they'll be able > to have your home state suspend your license until you pay up. The > entire system is computerized networked by a WAN to each DMV > mainframe. For some reason, Massachusetts, Michigan, and Georgia are > the only states that don't fully participate in this conspiracy of > extortion. This was not a problem for drivers before state computers > were extensively networked. It has been pointed out that in Illinois a driver can get "court supervision" for most traffic violations, one in every county in the state, and still have a clean driving record, and commendation from the state upon renewal. As long as you are willing to pay the fine, and maybe attend a useless class, the violation goes away in a year, and is never reported to the state, or where the insurance companies could pick up on it. ------------------------------ From: sjsobol@JustThe.Net (Steven J Sobol) Subject: Re: Drivers License Compact / Extortion Conspiracy Date: 29 Sep 1999 03:16:02 GMT Organization: North Shore Technologies Corp. 888.480.4NET On Tue, 28 Sep 1999 23:48:45 GMT, nospam.tonypo1@nospam.home.com allegedly said: > Last explanation I heard for this was the liability involved. Apparently > the RI DMV has so much erroneous data that they're afraid to share it. > Such is life in Rhode Island. So I strongly suspect we're not sharing > data either. From what I understand, neither does West Virginia. North Shore Technologies JustTheNet Dialup Internet Access Cleveland, Akron, Canton, Geauga Co., Lake Co., Portage Co., Lorain Co., OH Nationwide Access coming soon! Watch this space for details or dial 1.888.480.4NET for more info! ------------------------------ From: steven@primacomputer.com (Steven) Subject: Re: Drivers License Compact / Extortion Conspiracy Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1999 11:29:27 +0800 Organization: Prima Computer So long as they don't work this deal with other countries then anyone can continue to get a foreign license/international license, valid in the states, for a very modest fee. Steven bernies@netaxs.com says... > A nationwide "Drivers License Compact" between states' DMV's ensures > that if you ignore another state's traffic citation, they'll be able > to have your home state suspend your license until you pay up. The > entire system is computerized networked by a WAN to each DMV > mainframe. For some reason, Massachusetts, Michigan, and Georgia are > the only states that don't fully participate in this conspiracy of > extortion. This was not a problem for drivers before state computers > were extensively networked. > "Suspension of a driver's license is more effective than a court > order" for getting money out of people, says David Lewis, Deputy > Registrar of the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles." An > excellent article about abusive DMV practices can be found at: > http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.02/dmv.html ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1999 08:24:07 -0400 From: Dana Paxson Reply-To: dwpaxson@acm.org Organization: Dana Paxson Studio Subject: Re: Drivers License Compact / Extortion Conspiracy Pat, You noted: "... Lots and lots of small towns are notorious for this kind of thing when they see a car coming with a license plate from a distant state and realize the chance of any back-talk from the motorist is slight." You're right, except for one thing: the Internet. Check out: http://www.speedtrap.com and see how drivers have spelled out in great detail the speedtrap shenanigans in every state and even outside the U.S. With this, no need for backtalk; just pass on the facts to the world. I checked the data on Rochester, New York, (my home area) and found the same set of traps I've known about for years ... and a few I didn't. Dana W. Paxson dwpaxson@acm.org 716 654-6370 Reality boggles everything. That's why we've got denial. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Thanks for pointing out that very good site. Since I do not drive a car -- I don't know how to drive -- that site was interesting to me but not something I personally would study in detail as a motorist might do. I think it is too bad that police have nothing better to do than hide in bushes and give out tickets to guys for some minor infraction that is legal in the other 49 states, but illegal in that little town .. it almost reminds me of the way they handle arrests for having illegal drugs: police get to keep all the money, the drugs, the automobile and everything else. If illegal drugs are that bad for the community (I agree they are) then shouldn't the money and other things of value seized be given to drug rehab programs and drug education services? Ditto the money the police get in those speed trap things; the money should go to driver's edu- cation programs for teenagers instead of into their own coffers. Otherwise people get the impression there is just a lot of politics and greed involved. PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Where is the True Power? Organization: a user of Best Internet Communications, Inc. www.best.com From: gds@best.com (Greg Skinner) Date: 29 Sep 1999 17:36:46 GMT In article , Steven wrote: > People have already built new root servers and they have not been very > successful. Perhaps Bill Gates could make one and pre configure > windows/mac to use it, but others would have a bit harder time getting > people to switch. To be perfectly honest I don't understand why everyone > hasn't started their own TLDs. I like the idea of a root server revolt, > but it doesn't seem it would work? I have never really understood the ORSC approach to new TLDs. They have the technical knowledge and historical understanding of the Internet to do this. I believe they could pull this off if they made a concerted effort to document and promote their service to the Internet community. The previous efforts (AlterNIC, eDNS) failed in part because of the actions of people like Eugene Kashpureff. However, lack of money was also a factor, as was opposition from other Internet professionals to a split root. > One would be much more productive lobbying for a new, free, > government subsisted TLD for non-commercial use, or at least the > blessing to organize a non-profit one. I think this is an excellent idea. .org was originally set aside for that purpose, but NSI controls it now. They're not going to give it up; the USG is not going to pry it away from them. It's time to start from scratch. gregbo gds at best.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I do not think it would be that hard to operate a TLD if one had experienced technical people to assist with it. I do not think it would be that difficult to be a registrar either. Of course it has to be maintained in a completely non-political, not-for-profit way. It would require being fair and non-judgmental to all applicants. Again, experienced technical people would be very important as part of the process. I have thought a couple times that it would be something I would enjoy doing if I had the resources or the backing. I would certainly lend my name and abilities to something like that. I would not expect to starve in the process, but it could certainly be done for much less money than is charged now, and be a credit to the net community instead of the constant source of dissention and in-fighting it is now, as long as everyone knew it was maintained fairly, first-come, first-served, with a fairly constituted, impartial panel to resolve disputes, etc. And before some site could have its name taken away, it would require a very serious offense and an extensive effort at arbitrating the matter. So many of these people who say they want the net to 'govern itself' are simply looking for ways that they can be the governor, with a lot of power for themselves as well as a lot of money. And while I agree that if it were not for the presence of commercial entities here paying much of the bill things would be more expensive for the 'average' netizen thus big business should be perhaps slightly 'more equal' than some of the others, I would absolutely insist upon a 'netizen bill of rights' which would be strictly enforced. I do not see why such a registrar function should be so difficult to establish and maintain, if it were not for the overwhelming greed seen now. A registrar should not be making 'millions of dollars in profit'; it should be serving the net in a socially responsible way. Why is that so impossible to accomplish? PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1999 11:21:48 -0700 From: Cortland Richmond Organization: Alcatel Subject: Re: Where is the True Power? Pat, Seems to me, since this is an election year, one's Senators and Representatives would be a good place to write, especially if they're on a committee or subcommittee that can influence the course of legislation or regulations. Folks in Louisiana, for example, have a mighty friend -- if he chooses to be friendly -- in Billy Tauzen, who threatens the FCC and MEANS it. Massachusetts has Ed Markey. Naturally, they (and others) get a lot of money from the same folks who want to control how we talk to each other -- but all that money is in one service, to get re-elected, and if the VOTERS don't like 'em, the money will be irrelevant (except for retiring on). Ad astra per aspirin! Cortland PAT wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: In her message, Judith suggests sending > complaints to an address at the ICANN website. To my way of thinking, > that would be a big waste of time. They are listening to no one and > responding to no one at this point...] [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Sorry, I really do not like your idea. That takes it all back to politics and one set of big shots fighting with another set of big shots all to see who is going to get to push around netizens in their particular way of doing things. And anyway, the net is an international, world-wide thing. Why should people in other countries get stuck with what our politicians here decide to do? Why is it such an Impossible Dream to think in terms of a not-for- profit, unbiased registrar/root function for the net which while recognizing (a) the importance of business/commercial participation in the net and (b) the fact that the United States seems to predomin- ate the net in many respects would still restrain both via a 'bill of rights' for all participants which prohibited the most common abuses we see now. Why not a simple-language, easy to understand agreement that each customer of an ISP would recieve upon starting a new account, which outlined not only the 'bill of rights' but also the netizen's obligations and accountability to the overall community? Apparently it is more important for some people to be in a position of power and enormous wealth. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1999 06:56:31 -0400 From: Bill Horne Organization: Place Clue Here Subject: Re: Seeking Information on Railway Codeline Protocols Gregory C. Currivan wrote: > I am trying to locate information on railway codeline protocols. This > was a type of land line signaling used by train dispatchers to send > commands from CTC machines to wayside site in the field. Greg, Send your request to the Editor of "Dots and Dashes", which is the magazine published by the Morse Telegraph Club: most of the readers are old railway telegraphers. The email is dotndash at bmt.net. HTH. Bill Horne (remove ".nouce" from username to reply. Sorry.) ------------------------------ From: larb0@aol.com (Bruce Larrabee) Date: 29 Sep 1999 22:51:20 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: Phone Line Attached to Water Meter > That's why the water company's > device will respond when called by the water company but your phones > don't ring. Actually -- Pat's response was correct. I don't recall the exact acronym (MLT?), but alarm meter reading services use the telco's central office switch line test feature. BIL ------------------------------ From: Craig.Williamson@ColumbiaSC.NCR.COM (Craig Williamson) Subject: Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? Organization: NCR Date: Wed, 29 Sep 99 23:45:18 GMT In article , kim@aol.com (Kim Brennan) wrote: > Brian Elfert replies to my spam trials: >> Now, if they aren't removing you upon request, that's not right. I know >> NWA has an easy to remove your email address on the mail I get. > Many of the companies claim to have a remove process via their web > page. I see no reason to go to a web page that I never visited in the > first place, to get removed from a mailing list I didn't subscribe to. Even worse I have attempted to get removed from a list I didn't subscribe to only to find that site blocked by my company so I couldn't get off the list. So I didn't go there to sign up. "A Simpson on a T-shirt. I never -Craig Williamson thought I'd see the day." Craig.Williamson@ColumbiaSC.NCR.COM - Marge Simpson craig@toontown.ColumbiaSC.NCR.COM (home) The Simpsons [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: So on a temporary basis, get yourself a free, throw-away account at some ISP and use it to make the visits you need to make. PAT] ------------------------------ From: ken@postperfect.com (ken) Subject: EnGenius SN-900 Ultra - Conference Calling ?? Date: 29 Sep 1999 10:27:47 PDT Organization: Concentric Internet Services I am thinking of purchasing 900 Ultra. Reading manual and nowhere that I can find does it state that more than 1 handset can speak to the incoming call at any one time. In fact it mentions something about locking the other extensions out from that line. Is it my imagination or does this great looking sytem not allow more than one extension to handle a call. What if I want to conference 2 or 3 internal people with one outside line. Please tell me I missed something in the manual. Please say it isn't so ... Ken ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1999 09:03:40 PDT Subject: Re: Its All About Greed and the Net of the Future From: satch@concentric.net (Satch) Alledgedly ptownson@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) said on 29 Sep 1999 in the following: > Read some of the messages in this issue and see if you don't feel > just as disheartened as myself. Pat, Pat, Pat ... The Cloud IS the silver lining. The Internet and its culture used to be underground, not in the view of the people. Today, we have the Vice President claiming to be one of the inventors of the thing! The Internet has fulfilled its original goal: provide connectivity at low cost with high survivabiilty. As a person working on ARPAnet back in 1972 I can look at the end product with quite a bit of pride. What has happened is that the money boys have realized that there is money to be made in them there electrons, and so they are going after it. Think about the stages in business as described in _In Search of Excellence_: The Internet stopped existing as a Stage 1 "company" after Berners-Lee unleased the killer app for the 'Net; we've been a Stage 2 "company" for the past decade, growing by leaps and bounds. Now we are coming to the end of Stage 2, and the 'Net is transitioning into a mainstay. And remember what signals the change in stage? The old people leave, and the thrust of the organization changes. The Internet has been an oddity in that regard in that many of the old guard stuck around from the change from Stage 1 to Stage 2. However, I feel the major indicator was when BBN and the NSF left the forefront of APRAnet and Internet. So who will leave now? Just the people who made the Internet what it is today. I include you in that list of people, Pat. Note, too, that the innovators of yesterday are the business barons of today -- they have left not by walking but by changing careers. I just read some of the ICANN stuff and realized that it would be virtually impossible for me to participate in that organization. I don't have the cash to buy my way in, and I don't have the political clout to bully my way in. I'm not sure that I have the journalistic prestige to even report on what ICANN is doing any more. Remember when ISDN jokes changed to "I See Dollars Now"? ISDN changed from a joke itself to a viable means of digitally linking computer systems. Sure, it was late. Sure, it pales in comparison with cable modems and DSL. But it is still there, and still fills a need. So you have to make a decision. Do you change the way you do things to adapt to the change of the Internet to Stage 3? Do you try to fight it? Do you go on to something else? This IS depressing. _____ __/satch\____________________________________________________________ Satchell Evaluations, testing modems since 1984, 'Netting since 1971 "The only good mouse-trap is a hungry cat" ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1999 17:29:50 -0500 From: James Bellaire Subject: Re: Greed and Other Topics At 05:37 AM 9/29/99 -0400, Pat wrote: > Subject: Freelancers Win Online Copyright Database Ruling > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: So what happens to those of us who > rely entirely on freelance contributors? Must I know go and seek > permission from each writer before storing back issues of the Digest > in the archives? What nonsense! PAT] You could change your boilerplate at the beginning or the reply text for new messages to include a "warning" that releases copyright to you. > Subject: Re: No Address on TELECOM Digest Posts? I've stayed out of this one as other than this group I don't use a 'real name' in the From. I do put a valid remailer address in the Reply To in other usenet groups. A while back I needed to ask an anonymous question here and used a telecom-digest.zzn.com address. Now after just three or four posts I am getting identical spam to my real address and the zzn address. I still haven't got spam based on the Reply To lines. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Your idea of cutting Usenet off entirely > has crossed my mind more than once lately. So would news.groups find another moderator? Only you know what percentage of your posts are via Usenet or via the email Digest. > Subject: Re: Where is the True Power? > If you write to complain, I think your domain name will be one of > the first to get snatched, out of retaliation. My thought exactly. Although several individuals have already tried to submit fraudulent change forms. I'm glad they added passwords a few years back! > If at this point you can find a registrar somewhere who > is not beholden to that crowd, then use it and tell the rest of us > where to find it also. PAT] Probably hiding behind an honest politician. Seriously, I hope that we are blowing this all out of proportion and that the domain 'controllers' are not really trying to destroy 'our world'. They make a lot of money off of those contracts. As a customer of NSI they have certain responsibilities to uphold as well. There does need to be revocation procedures to get rid of misleading domains such as the ones used by porn sites. Names of famous explorers and common search strings that children use should not point to sex sites! Even if there is no trademark involved, the site should be relevant to it's name. If Telecom-Digest.ORG pointed to stories about WW2 and had absolutely no relevance to telecom it SHOULD be revolkable. Although this restriction is not enforced in 'meatspace' companies, where a company may not make or sell a product related to it's company name at all! James ------------------------------ From: Mike Stockman Subject: Re: Is the '.gif tax' Thing Starting All Over Again? Date: Thu, 30 Sep 1999 00:13:11 GMT Organization: @Home Network In article , Juha Veijalainen wrote: > Now it seems to me that even my own home page might require a license! > Though it is a personal home page and graphics have been created with a > licensed program, my page _has an advertisement_! Before this blown-out-of-proportion controversy goes any further, perhaps you'd like to look at an excellent article (opinion, but very clearly explained) by Jerry Kindall printed in a recent issue of TidBITS: http://www.tidbits.com/tb-issues/TidBITS-497.html#lnk3 I think Jerry's is one of the best voices of reason on this subject I've read, because he doesn't try to explain the license; he simply explains why it's nearly impossible for Unisys to do anything about it under U.S. law. The most salient part of the article is this: > In point of fact, Unisys could not claim a patent on the GIF file > format itself even if it wanted to - or for that matter on any file > format that contains LZW-compressed data. The patent covers the LZW > algorithm: the series of steps software (or an intrepid human being > with pencil and paper) must perform to compress data using the > technology. A GIF file, or any LZW-compressed data, does not embody > the LZW algorithm itself, only the results of the algorithm. Only > software can be in violation of a software patent. If Unisys attempted > to sue a Web site operator merely for including LZW-compressed files > on the site, the case would be thrown out of court; it's unsupportable > under current U.S. law. Hope this clears things up, and suppresses some panic. ----->Mike ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #445 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Sep 30 00:00:05 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id AAA16404; Thu, 30 Sep 1999 00:00:05 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 30 Sep 1999 00:00:05 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199909300400.AAA16404@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #446 TELECOM Digest Thu, 30 Sep 99 00:00:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 446 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson VP Announces Working Families to Gain Computer Benefits (Monty Solomon) IDs Are Live on ABCNews.com (Monty Solomon) Re: Don'tTakeMyDomainName.com (Greg Skinner) Re: Domain Name Revocation Policies (Greg Skinner) Re: Is the '.gif tax' Thing Starting All Over Again? (Andy McFadden) Re: Freelancers Win Online Copyright Database Ruling (David B. Horvath) May Your Net Connection Be as Fast as Mine (Monty Solomon) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! 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Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1999 20:42:48 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: VP Announces Working Families to Gain Computer Benefits http://www.pub.whitehouse.gov/uri-res/I2R?urn:pdi://oma.eop.gov.us/1999/9/29/6.text.1 THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Vice President For Immediate Release September 29, 1999 VICE PRESIDENT GORE ANNOUNCES NEW OPPORTUNITIES FOR WORKING FAMILIES TO GAIN INFORMATION AGE BENEFITS Washington, D.C. - Vice President Al Gore today announced $9.9 million in grants to help working families gain Information Age benefits by bringing computers and the Internet to community centers, public housing, and libraries. "Technology must be about opportunity for every American family and that means making technology available to every family for education, skills development -- even for young children just learning to read," said Vice President Al Gore. "The world is changing quickly and we must make sure those changes work for our families. Community Technology Centers will bring countless new opportunities to working families -- helping children and adults to help themselves." The Vice President urged the Congress to provide full funding for the Administration's request for $65 million for Community Technology Centers (CTC's). Last week, the House and Senate provided only $10 million, a cut of $55 million. Aimed at "narrowing the digital divide," the Community Technology Centers will be located near the working families who will use them -- in public housing facilities, community centers or libraries -- and will provide a range of services. For example, centers might provide: - Workforce development and employment information -- basic and advanced computer skills training, resume writing workshops, and online access to job databases. - Pre-school and family programs available at times when parents can bring young children to use age-appropriate software. Linked to other programs such as Head Start, family literacy or daycare providers without access to computers. - After-school activities that will provide structured opportunities for students to use software that offers homework help, academic enrichment, and exploration of the Internet. - Adult education -- individually, or in collaboration with existing programs, GED training, English as a Second Language (ESL) instruction, adult basic education, or post-secondary education classes using the latest learning technologies. "These awards will help parents and students, who don't have computers at home, link learning at school with learning anywhere through technology," U.S. Secretary Richard Riley said. "The Community Technology Centers bring the power of computers and information-age resources to those who have the greatest need." 40 grants will be awarded over the next three years. 26 were given to urban zones and 14 to rural areas. The Education Department's Office of Vocational and Adult Education received a total of 750 center applications from all 50 states for fiscal year 1999. The administration has requested $65 million for Community Technology Centers in fiscal year 2000, to support 300 additional grants, and the formation of up to 500 new centers to help more working families. Among the grantees are: Casa Grande Elementary School District 4 in Casa Grade, Arizona. The Central Arizona Community Technology Initiative (CACTI) will establish CTC's in three rural and Native American communities in Arizona. The centers will serve at-risk children, the working poor, and those without access to computers. Instructional technology will be used for academic enrichment, workforce development and GED completion. The Children's Aid Society, Harlem, New York City. The grant will be used to expand an existing center and build three new satellite centers. Serving the Harlem Empowerment Zone, the centers will work with Computers for Youth to increase home access, improve computer literacy among residents, and increase participant exposure to information technology careers through "Silicon Alley" mentors. DePaul University, Chicago. The award provides for the expansion of the existing Learning by Association Community Technology Center. In addition, it will create a new center in one of the most impoverished, mostly immigrant areas of Chicago's Humbolt Park. The center will provide assistance for adult education, after-school programming and small-business start-up assistance through connections with the Mayor's Office of Workforce Development. Following is a list of grantees and award amounts. More information is available at the CTC website, www.ed.gov/offices/OVAE/CTC. ### U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Community Technology Centers Program FY 99 Grant Award Abstracts Science Museum of Minnesota 30 East 10th Street St. Paul, Minnesota 55101-2265 Year 1 Award: $211,908 The project will expand STUDIO 3D (Digital, Design, and Development), an after-school outreach program providing computer access for adolescents and their families in low-income, inner-city areas of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Two new community technology centers will be created and STUDIO 3D will be made available on a mobile lab. Fairfield University Psychology Department North Beacon Road Fairfield, CT 06430-5195 Year 1 Award: $166,599 Fairfield University's ABCD Literacy Technology Training Center will provide computer, internet access, and training to low-income families in the Bridgeport, Connecticut Enterprise Community. Building on a collaborative partnership between the University and a non-profit agency, Action for Bridgeport Community Development, Inc. (ABCD), the project will create "satellite" computer centers in Head Start/School Readiness classrooms that enhance both the computer and "traditional" literacy of parents and children. Douglas-Cherokee Economic Authority P.O. Box 1218 Morristown, TN 37816-1218 Year 1 Award: $299,992 In an area recognized by the Appalachian Regional Commission as particularly "distressed," a Technical Education Center (ATEC) and three satellite centers will be developed. Serving an Enterprise Community, the centers will place a special emphasis on increasing the computer literacy of female head of households and other disadvantaged individuals. Casa Grande Elementary School District 4 1460 North Pinal Avenue Casa Grande, AZ 85222 Year 1 Award: $287,473 The Central Arizona Community Technology Initiative (CACTI) will establish Community Technology Centers in three rural and Native American communities of Arizona. The centers will serve at-risk children, the working poor, and those without access to computers. Instructional technology at the centers will be used for academic enrichment, workforce development, and GED completion. Students taking A+ certification classes will upgrade donated computers to give to families in need. United Way of Midlands 1800 Main Street P.O. Box 152 Columbia, SC 29202 Year 1 Award: $225,603 Fast Forward, a project of United Way of Midlands, will increase access to information technology for adults and children in the inner city of Columbia, South Carolina -- a designated federal Empowerment Zone (EZ). The community technology centers will offer after-school enrichment, adult education, and technical training. Midlands Technical College will teach courses at the centers leading to an Associate's Degree in Computer Science. Armory High School Sports Foundation 216 Ft. Washington Avenue New York, NY 10032-3704 Year 1 Award: $305,426 In the Washington Heights section of New York, a Community Technology Center will offer a complete schedule of computer skills building workshops, a technology-infused early language intervention curriculum for pre-school children, and a business applications class. The area to be served has a largely Dominican population with more than 50% of the families receiving AFDC. Charles A. Hayes Family Investment Center 626 W. Jackson Boulevard Chicago, IL 60615 Year 1 Award: $263,083 The Charles Hayes Family Investment Center will expand its current services in Chicago's Empowerment Zone by creating four new satellite centers. The Chicago Consortium for Higher Education will provide access to an interactive videoconference network run on dedicated T-1 lines. Blackfoot School District 55 270 E. Bridge Blackfoot, ID 83221 Year 1 Award: $300,000 A Family Technology Center (FTC) would be built to serve American Indian and Hispanic individuals in a low-income, rural area in southeastern Idaho. The Center would draw students and community members living on the Shoshone-Bannock Reservation and migrant farming community. The FTC would have a goal of increasing access to information technology and using the technology to improve academic achievement and job skills. Massachusetts Easter Seal Society, Inc. 484 Main Street Worcester, MA 01608 Year 1 Award: $192,129 The Easter Seals Assistive Technology Center, currently focusing on individuals with disabilities, would be expanded to serve the broader community. The center will provide after-school enrichment for students, adult education, and career development. Desert Sands Unified School District 47950 Dune Palms Road La Quinta, CA 92253 Year 1 Award: $192,755 Technology centers will be opened to provide opportunities for a largely Hispanic population in a rural Empowerment Zone plagued by illiteracy and high unemployment. Board of Education, Prince George's County Public Schools 14201 School Lane Upper Marlboro, MD 20772 Year 1 Award: $290,067 Focusing on Langley Park, with 700 elementary school children from 36 countries and speaking 21 different languages, a community technology center will provide after-school access and computer-based enrichment exercises in basic math and English. The Center would also serve adults who want to complete their GED, improve their English, or learn basic computer repair skills. Adults will upgrade older computers for donation to needy families. Harlem Center for Education 1 East 104th Street, Room 382 New York, NY 10029 Year 1 Award: $353,710 A new center will be created in East Harlem, a designated Empowerment Zone, to better prepare teachers to use technology and provide computer literacy courses to area residents. Services will also include adult education, after-school enrichment, and small business assistance. New York City Board of Education 433 West 123rd Street New York, NY 10027 Year 1 Award: $299,908 Community School District 5 in New York will create a Renaissance Community Technology Center. School-to-Work students will gain valuable work experience by reconditioning donated equipment, maintaining center computers, and providing technical support. Using the space of a Parent Literacy Center currently under renovation, the center will offer video-conferencing equipment for distance learning. Ganado Unified School District P.O. Box 1757 Ganado, AZ 86505 Year 1 Award: $279,340 Located in the Navajo Nation, and the Window Rock Enterprise Community, the Ganado Technology Center Project will focus on improving a school-based computer lab, with expanded service to the wider community. Project objectives include increasing student achievement, encouraging the participation of adults in information technology training, and increasing home-access to computers. Edudyne Foundation 2232 Salt Air Drive Santa Ana, CA 92705 Year 1 Award: $298,120 A community technology center program will be created in an economically distressed area. The center will help Spanish-speaking students, and their parents, to improve their English-language proficiency and computer literacy. With donations from local industry, home-ownership of computers will be increased. The Children's Aid Society 105 East 22nd Street New York, NY 10010-5413 Year 1 Award: $286,657 The Children's Aid Society will expand an existing center and build three new satellite centers. Serving the Harlem Empowerment Zone the centers will work with Computers for Youth to increase home access, improve computer literacy among residents, and increase participant exposure to information technology careers through "Silicon Alley" mentors. Mott Community College 1401 East Court Street Flint, MI 48503-2089 Year 1 Award: $177,813 Mott Community College is partnering with several community organizations to serve residents of the Flint Enterprise Community through the creation of three new centers, one of which focuses on serving those with disabilities. Mott Community College will serve as the hub site providing internet access, two-way audio/video conferencing, and technical support. Family Solutions 2100 Front Street Cuyahoga Falls, OH 44221 Year 1 Award: $298,400 Family Solutions, a United Way family service agency with a 78-year history, will develop two community technology centers. One will be located in the Akron Enterprise Community. The center will serve youth and adults who will learn to use information technology tools through digital photo imaging/editing, web page design, and graphic design. Peninsula College 1502 East Lauridsen Blvd. Port Angeles, WA 98362-6698 Year 1 Award: $200,000 Peninsula College, in partnership with four Native American Tribes and the Washington Employment Agency, will create a network of community technology centers serving disadvantaged individuals in the remote communities of the North Olympic Peninsula. Future Teachers of Chicago 513 W. 72nd Street Chicago, IL 60621 Year 1 Award: $300,000 Future Teachers of Chicago, City Colleges of Chicago, the Chicago Public Schools, and other partners plan to implement project LIFTT (Learning is Fun Through Technology). The LIFTT collaboration will establish computer learning centers in four Park District sites. College participants will gain hands-on teaching experience in the use of technology as they prepare to become inner-city teachers. YMCA of the East Bay 2230 Broadway Oakland, CA 94612 Year 1 Award: $298,999 In the San Francisco East Bay area, the "digital divide" is particularly pronounced with flourishing Information Technology companies existing near pockets of urban poverty. Targeting communities in West Oakland and South Richmond, a unique collaborative will develop four, linked community technology centers with a focus on after-school enrichment and job training for adults. Southeast Regional Resource Center 210 Ferry Way Suite 200 Juneau, AK 99801 Year 1 Award: $299,205 Two new community technology centers will be created in Juneau, an Enterprise Community, and Ketchikan, an economically distressed area. These centers will provide access to technology and related learning services. The Centers will be networked with educational institutions and social services agencies to better serve disadvantaged Southeast Alaskans. ASPIRA Association Inc. 1441 I Street NW, Suite 800 Washington, DC 20005 Year 1 Award: $299,769 ASPIRA will replicate their community technology center model, building four new centers in the mostly Latino, Empowerment Zone neighborhoods of Chicago, Philadelphia, Bridgeport, Connecticut and Carolina, Puerto Rico. Existing ASPIRA community centers will be expanded to include computer learning rooms with internet connected computers and educational software. Chicago Commons 915 N.Wolcott Avenue Chicago, IL 60622-4998 Year 1 Award: $297,242 Three new community technology centers will be created in Chicago Commons settlement houses, which are located in Chicago's Empowerment Zone and Enterprise Community. Each site will have a trainer working closely with settlement house staff to assist residents use information technology to improve their lives. Detroit International Stake Adult Housing Corporation 16631 Lahser Road Detroit, MI 48219 Year 1 Award: $75,880 The project will expand an existing Neighborhood Networks Computer Learning Center and a new center will be created serving Detroit's Empowerment Zone. Objectives of the project include improving the job skills of adults and enhancing the learning of students in the after-school hours. Seattle Public Library 100 4th Avenue Seattle, WA 98104 Year 1 Award: $300,000 A collaborative alliance has been created to expand the services and ensure the sustainability of seven existing community technology centers. The centers will serve low-income communities in Central and Southeast Seattle, part of a federally designated Enterprise Community. Capital Area Intermediate Unit 55 Miller Street Summerdale, PA 17093-0489 Year 1 Award: $205,508 In addition to building satellite centers in neighborhoods that are part of the Harrisburg Enterprise Community, the project will expand Career Cybercafe, where high-school students and other residents learn information technology skills, explore careers in technology, and are connected to e-mentors. Sinte Gleska University P.O. Box 490 Rosebud, SD 57570 Year 1 Award: $280,428 Sinte Gleska, one of the first tribal colleges and located in the Rosebud Sioux Reservation, will open computer learning rooms at four of their outreach extension centers. Project goals include open access to technology, increased information technology skills, and improved retention of high school and college students. Texas A&M Center for Housing and Urban Development College Station, TX 77843-3137 Year 1 Award: $223,216 Texas A & M will partner with numerous State and local agencies to open computer learning labs in nine existing community centers along the Texas-Mexico border. Project goals include increasing the educational level of residents, improving their job skills, and increasing access to technology. Delaware Technical & Community College 1832 N. DuPont Parkway Dover, Delaware 19901 Year 1 Award: $242,404 Delaware Technical and Community College will create a mobile community technology center that will serve distressed urban and rural communities. WHEELS (Working to Heighten Education and Employee Learning Skills) will be a custom designed vehicle capable of bringing directly to those who need it basic education, skills training, and access to computers. Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin P.O. Box 910 Keshena, WI 54135 Year 1 Award: $62,288 Three community learning centers will be created in outlying community facilities to implement a technology-based education program designed to improve high school retention and completion. Mercy Charities Housing 1028A Howard Street San Francisco, CA 94103 Year 1 Award: $200,000 Mercy Charities Housing, a non-profit dedicated to building affordable housing, will create NET (neighbors, education, and technology) centers in seven low-income housing developments. Leadership, Education, and Athletic Partnership, Inc. 31 Jefferson Street New Haven, CT 06511 Year 1 Award: $265,000 Leadership, Education, and Athletic Partnership, Inc. (LEAP) currently operates a network of five LEAP Computer Learning Centers. They will expand the learning services at these centers and build two additional centers. The project will focus on ensuring the long-term sustainability of the centers so that they become a permanent community resource, like schools or libraries. Des Moines Area Community College 2006 S. Ankeny Blvd. Ankeny, IA 50021-3003 Year 1 Award: $252,927 A large technology center will be established in the heart of the Des Moines Enterprise Community and in a satellite center nearby. In partnership with the State of Iowa Department of Workforce Development, Des Moines Area Community College will open centers that deliver educational technology to disadvantaged citizens in both urban and rural communities. 100 Black Men of Albany, New York Capital Region, Inc. 388 Clinton Avenue Albany, NY 12206 Year 1 Award: $296,942 The 100 Net 2000 project will expand the 100 Black Men of Technology Center to satellite centers in inner city neighborhoods. The project is using as a framework the Urban CyperSpace Initiative, of the Center for Urban Youth and Technology at the University of Albany, which focuses on infusing advanced multimedia and telecommunications technologies into under-served communities, using community technology centers to provide opportunities for community and workforce development. Community College of Southern Nevada 3200 E. Cheyenne Ave. North Las Vegas, NV 89030-4296 Year 1 Award: $195,871 In one of the most economically distressed neighborhoods of Las Vegas, the Community College of Southern Nevada Neighborhood Educational Center will add 2 computer classrooms with full internet access, online connections to distance learning, and educational software. Hudson County Community College 25 Journal Square Jersey City, NJ 07360 Year 1 Award: $299,563 The Hudson County Community College is forming a county-wide partnership to develop a far-reaching network of community technology access sites. Two core sites, one in Jersey City and the other in Union City, will ultimately be working with 8 satellite centers. DePaul University 1 East Jackson Blvd. Chicago, IL 60604-2287 Year 1 Award: $236,050 This project will expand the Learning by Association Community Technology Center at the West Town Association Site and create a new center in one of the most impoverished, mostly immigrant areas of Chicago, Humboldt Park. In addition to adult education and after-school programming, the centers will provide small-business start-up assistance through connections with the Mayor's Office of Workforce Development. Middle Rio Grande Development Foundation P.O. Box 1199 Carrizo Springs, TX 78834 Year 1 Award: $197,926 The FUTURO project, focusing on a five county area and rural Enterprise Community, will develop five new Technology Centers, open during the after-school hours, evenings, and on weekends. Activities include a pre-school reading enhancement program, interactive videoconferencing for small business development, and webpage design. Fairnet, Inc. 1215 Cowles Street Fairbanks, AK 99701 Year 1 Award: $141,799 FairNet (Electronic Community Network), the Literacy Council of Alaska, the Fairbanks Native Association, the University of Alaska at Fairbanks, and other partners have joined forces to develop three new community technology centers and a mobile center to serve low-income neighborhoods. All centers emphasize public access, open lab time, and elder services. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1999 20:49:32 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: IDs Are Live on ABCNews.com http://www.thestandard.com/articles/mediagrok_display/0,1185,6642,00.html "Get the buzz from Sam Donaldson," ABC trumpets in ads for its first Internet news broadcast. "Live. Only on the Web." As it turns out, Donaldson isn't the only one live on the Web. According to a report from AP, viewers who e-mail messages to Donaldson and his guests are getting a lot more exposure than they bargained for. Chatters who posted comments on the news program's Web site following Monday's debut show had their four-digit Internet address posted, too. That address is an ID that anyone can use to track down real-world identities. Take "Mark from DC." He wondered when Monday's program guest, FCC Chairman William Kennard, would take a greater role in bridging the digital economic divide: "When will the telecommunications industries begin addressing the increasing gulf in the inaccessibility of the Web to [the] poor?" Using the 4-digit IP address that ABCNews.com published, AP was able to identify him as a Justice Department employee. ABC's posted privacy policy warns viewers that some chat boards "may display IP [Internet protocol] addresses along with the message poster's name and message," according to AP. But privacy advocates called it intrusive. "It looks like a bit of cluelessness that should be fixed," said Jason Catlett of the New Jersey-based privacy group Junkbusters. "There's no reason to [publish the number], and a number of reasons not to do it." Forget Walter Cronkite, Try Max Headroom http://www.thestandard.com/articles/display/0,1449,6580,00.html?02 ABC Online Chat Posts Information That IDs Viewers (AP) http://www.latimes.com/HOME/BUSINESS/t000087264.html ------------------------------ From: gds@nospam.best.com (Greg Skinner) Subject: Re: Don'tTakeMyDomainName.com Organization: a user of Best Internet Communications, Inc. www.best.com Date: 30 Sep 1999 00:58:01 GMT In article , Pat Townson wrote (comments on my last message): > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You know, re-writing that section of > their contract to say something like 'in the event some dispute arises > over your use of the domain name, you agree to have the matter > resolved in binding arbitration by an impartial panel of netizens' > would go a long way toward easing the discomfort some of us are > feeling. No offense to anyone, but a problem here is that "an impartial panel of netizens" does not constitute a (recognized) legal authority to decide the use of a domain name. (Imagine, for example, if such a panel decided that telecom-digest.org should go to an online magazine of some sort.) > It would mean that some of us would have a chance in hell > at least of surviving. But there can be no arbitration, binding or > otherwise, because that leads to 'messy enforcement problems' and > inhibits the total Cerfing of the Net which is required in order > to completely turn things here over to big business. This is in general a messy situation. One possible future for domain name registration is that it be established in a manner similar to music copyright. Individuals need only self-copyright their works. However, legal protection is much better assured through formal registration of the copyright. Perhaps domain registrants (all of them, not just companies) will start to register trade or service marks in conjunction with registrations. Or perhaps a new type of "cybermark" may be created that establishes the right to offer certain types of information electronically as it is identified by some set of names (including but not necessarily limited to domain names). > Does anyone know if they are claiming the same kind of authority over > registrars (a) in other countries and (b) in the .us domain? If we > register in .us for example, or in some other country will they still > have the right to kick us out if IBM, MCI or some telco gets angry > or greedy or both? PAT] ICANN does not have any authority over the non-NSI TLDs as far as I know. You would have to check with each individual country to find out what their policies are. BTW, in my previous message which was lost, the rewritten syntax of my To: line was , which also appeared in the header of my previous message. gregbo gds at best.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Why do you say 'an impartial panel of netizens' would not be competent to decide such a thing? In the first place, I did not describe the individual members. You could have two attornies, three business people, five people representing other nations and three others from the USA for all I care, as long as it was a broadly-based coalition of netizens. And I was not talking about matters which had gone to court. I would require that before going to court you first attempt to arbitrate it through the panel. If you chose to go to court first and sue the registrar, then the registrar would call together the impartial panel mentioned above and based on its advice detirmine the posture the registrar should assume in the matter: if the registrar should (a) reach some agree- ment with the plaintiff's attorney, (b) request that it go legal for a court to decide, (c) appeal the court's ruling, etc. The registrar would not automatically obey any court ruling without first detirmining if it was the desire of the panel -- let's call them the Board of Governors -- to give in, fight, appeal, etc and the registrar would act accordingly. The registrar at all times would serve only as a tool of the entire net. If the net in essence told the registrar do not give in to that loud-mouthed, obnoxious, blustering attorney, then the registrar's position to the attorney would be 'okay, so sue me.' You do not have to stop what you are doing or change your procedures just because someone hands you a 'cease and desist' order or gets a court order to make you change one thing or another. You can tell them on the spot you intend to appeal for relief from the order. Then the registrar convenes the governors or the panel and asks what they want done about it. Obviously, at some point or another if the case is lost (or if the impartial panel which supervises the registrar instructs the registrar to stipulate or concede the matter) then whatever will be, will be. But first I would strongly encourage that arbitration take place. You see, I believe the registrar ought to an impartial advocate for the net, attempting to serve the net rather than the way it is now, where the net is expected to sing to whatever tune the registrar comes up with in the process of lining his own pockets. And yes, any simple-language contract I as registrar had with a webmaster would include a statement that 'in the event the registrar is sued and demand is made to remove your name, then following deliberation by the registrar and the panel, if the regis- trar elects to not appeal the court's decision, your name will be revoked. But the way it went last year, I understand that on about 900 occass- ions, companies came along pressuring the registrar to revoke a name someone was using and the registrar did so without any question or argument at all. That's not right. America OnLine should not be able to just walk in and tell the registrar to disconnect a lady who was using an acronym which was close to their own because they wanted it instead. The registrar should have an ethical responsibility to his existing clients, but you could never tell it by looking at how NSI operates. The registrar should be in a position to tell America OnLine (for example) 'back off and quit breathing on me so heavily. The panel will take it under advisement and you will be notified in the next few days if you'll need to litigate or not.' You asked me if I would want 'a panel' deciding what to do with the name 'telecom-digest.org'. If they were fair and impartial in their decision making then I would live with it. But you see, 'fair' and 'impartial' are not two words that are even in the vocabulary of ICANN that I can tell. They are beholden to too many corporate interests right from the start. I feel that average netizens should have an advocate as well. PAT] ------------------------------ From: gds@nospam.best.com (Greg Skinner) Subject: Re: Domain Name Revocation Policies Organization: a user of Best Internet Communications, Inc. www.best.com Date: 30 Sep 1999 01:32:00 GMT In article , Pat Townson wrote commentary on Judith Oppenheimer's post in : > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Thank you again, Judith. Its nice to > know that if anyone disagrees with the new policy that the registrars > own all the names and can delete/reassign them at will, all they > have to do is request that their site name be deleted from the data > base. So webmasters, it would seem your choices are either shut up > and take your chances that you do not offend any of the big players > or their representative ICANN/ISOC by something you say or do at your > site causing it to get taken away from you, or quit your presence > now and tell them to delete your site from the database. [...] In all fairness, this predates ICANN and has nothing to do with ISOC. (As a registrant, ISOC itself is bound by these agreements.) This is standard business procedure. Let's face it; domain name registration *is* a business, and thus they have to adhere to established business practices. These practices serve to protect them as well (e.g., if some registrant breaks a law, and a court orders them to delete the name, this supersedes any "rights" the registrant might have). gregbo gds at best.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Under the registrar method I propose, if a registrant breaks a law, that would most likely be apparent to the impartial panel, who would instruct the registrar to stipulate in the matter and accept the court's order with no further appeal. In all probability it would never even go to court if the person or company complaining about the violation had brought it first to the panel's attention, because it would be dealt with at that level. I am only trying to say that any decision to revoke a domain name should not be a unilateral one by the registrar alone, but should be done after arbitration by representatives of the overall net (my impartial panel) whenever possible, and that the registrar's first allegiance should be to the net rather than to lining his own pockets. Even ICANN makes a pretense (but little more than that) at arbitration (seeing as how they like to avoid all those 'messy enforcement problems') but their arbitrators are all their friends, and I see a problem with that. Are you really suggesting that out of all the people on the net today that not a single one could function impartially as a registrar holding root in trust and follow instructions given by a panel of arbitrators or governors? Not a single one could do it without getting greedy or making one power play after another? Are you saying there are not a dozen or fifteen or twenty people on the net with the legal and/or technical expertise to advise and supervise the registrar without having their own axe to grind in the process? How odd ... Not a single one without an agenda of his own, eh ... or waiting for a chance to get his hands in the treasury. You see, your mistake I think is in saying 'all businesses do it'. The internet registrar should not be a 'business' or a for-profit activity. It should be a utility function for the net, no more, no less, serving first of all the people who paid for it, i.e. netizens, ISP's etc. PAT] ------------------------------ From: fadden@netcom.com (Andy McFadden) Subject: Re: Is the '.gif tax' Thing Starting All Over Again? Date: 30 Sep 1999 01:40:27 GMT Organization: Lipless Rattling Crankbait In article , Glenn Randers-Pehrson wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Does anyone know the fate of us who > use 'gif-stripper' type programs to get rid of all the comments > inside of a .gif in order to make it load faster? I've done that > with many of mine, which has improved the loading speed a lot. Will > we somehow have to produce proof that the .gif was done the right > way to start with? PAT] I guess that depends on whether your "gif-stripper" was licensed by Unisys. This would only be important if the stripper is optimizing the compressed output, and not just removing extraneous headers or palette junk. Wouldn't Unisys need to prove that you created the image? It can't be enough to simply have the images on a web page. The "crime", such as it is, would be to compress a graphic with an unlicensed implementation of LZW. If somebody else created the GIF images on my site, *they* should be liable, not me. I suppose you could make a case as if it were possession of stolen property, but it's an awfully big leap to go after the end users of patent-violating products rather than the product developers themselves. I believe the patent was awarded in 1985. If it expires after 17 years, they've only got a couple of years left. Perhaps this is a last-ditch effort to squeeze money out before the well dries up? Send mail to fadden@netcom.com (Andy McFadden) CD-Recordable FAQ - http://www.fadden.com/cdrfaq/ (a/k/a www.spies.com/~fadden) Fight Internet Spam - http://spam.abuse.net/spam/ & news.admin.net-abuse.email ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1999 21:22:14 EDT From: dhorvath@cobs.com (David B. Horvath, CCP) Subject: Re: Freelancers Win Online Copyright Database Ruling PAT wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: So what happens to those of us who > rely entirely on freelance contributors? Must I know go and seek > permission from each writer before storing back issues of the Digest > in the archives? What nonsense! PAT] I'm a member of one of the organizations that helped with this law suit: The Authors Guild (www.authorsguild.org). I've done some technical book writing and found the group interesting. They've also helped me out with some contract stuff for free. The problem is that authors wrote articles for magazines/newspapers that included "one-time print media" (i.e., *this* issue of Harpers'). The publishers then went out and put the articles on databases or CD-ROM without paying royalties to the authors. One-time is different from multi-use (otherwise the publisher could pay the writer for it once and use the same article in many different magazines -- or publish a book of them). Most contracts today cover the electronic media. The court case only covered a specified time period (after 1978 and until the mid-1990's). There is an implied "multi-use" license when one submits to an e-journal. When I write this to you PAT, I know that you may publish it (unless I ask you not to). I also know that the digest is forwarded out to many readers, gatewayed to comp.dcom.telecom, and archived on the web site. If you decided to publish a book ("best of ..." or "all you wanted to know about ..."), you might have to get specific permision from me. I saw a book on amazon.com based on material posted to www.myfirsttime.com. If you try to post to that site, you get the following licensing agreement: The person making this submission on the "First Time" web site hereby grants to First Time Entertainment the non-exclusive right to reproduce the submitted material in printed form or by any other medium either now know or hereinafter devised. The person making this submission acknowledges and agrees that he or she grants this non-exclusive right and foregoes any payment or compensation for the submitted material. I Agree ------------------------------------------------------------------------ I have read and understand the above and agree to grant to First Time Entertainment the right to use my submitted material which follows. I also agree that the above terms and conditions constitute the sole and entire agreement between myself and First Time Entertainment as to any agreements initiated through the "First Time" web site and grant to First Time Entertainment non-exclusive use of such submitted material. Note that the permission to reproduce includes print and any other medium now or in the future. Each page on the site claims copyright of the contents. Not compilation copyright -- full copyright. So just don't go and publish a book of our stuff :-) I'm not a lawyer. I go to specialists when I need them! David B. Horvath, CCP dhorvath@cobs.com Consultant, Author, International Lecturer, Adjunct Professor (also: dhorvath@arcnow.com, dhorvath@dca.net, davidh@decus.ca, and many other places) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1999 21:38:34 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: May Your Net Connection Be as Fast as Mine Stewart Alsop How fast is fast? As we move to the much hoo-hahed world of broadband, this is a big question -- how much speed is enough for the Internet connections of the future? So far no one has a good answer. I moderated a panel of network executives at the Tech Museum in San Jose recently, and let me tell you -- even the cognoscenti can't agree about what is adequate speed. http://www.pathfinder.com/fortune/technology/alsop/1999/10/11/index.html ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #446 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Oct 1 04:23:06 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id EAA10605; Fri, 1 Oct 1999 04:23:06 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 1 Oct 1999 04:23:06 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199910010823.EAA10605@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #447 TELECOM Digest Fri, 1 Oct 99 04:23:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 447 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Bill Pfieffer Memorial Site (TELECOM Digest Editor) Re: It Make You Think (Andrew Emmerson) Re: Freelancers Win Online Copyright Database Ruling (Bob Goudreau) Re: Phone Line Attached to Water Meter (Steve Uhrig) Re: Phone Line Attached to Water Meter (Brian Elfert) Re: No Address on TELECOM Digest Posts? (Derek Balling) Re: Is the '.gif tax' Thing Starting All Over Again? (Michael G. Koerner) Re: New Legislation For Telcos? (Fred Goldstein) Re: Domain Name Revocation Policies (Louis Raphael) Re: Domain Name Revocation Policies (Steven J. Sobol) Re: Domain Name Revocation Policies (Greg Skinner) Re: Don'tTakeMyDomainName.com (Mark W. Schumann) Re: Don'tTakeMyDomainName.com (Greg Skinner) Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? (Brian Elfert) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 1 Oct 1999 02:08:10 EDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Bill Pfieffer Memorial Site First, I probably should apologize for not putting in quite as much time as usual on telecom the past few days, but as many of you know I have been substituting at the Airwaves Radio Journal/rec.radio.broadcasting newsgroup as well following the passing of Bill Pfieffer on September 1. I was also asked by Bill's financee Cindy Freeman to put together a page with a netcast of the memorial service held on September 16 at Stanton United Methodist Church, Stanton, MN. So for the past few days I've been giving that some thought and working on that site also. I expect to have the memorial site open by this weekend, and will give the address here and in other newsgroups when it has passed a sort of 'final inspection'. It will include a one hour, eighteen minute audio presentation of the memorial service which includes a sermon, some music, and remembrances by friends of Bill Pfieffer who were present. So please pardon me if this Digest has been a bit skimpy in recent days; there are only 27 hours in a day. Things may get back to normal soon and they may find a full time moderator for the newsgroup and mailing list at r.r.b. PAT ------------------------------ From: midshires@cix.co.uk (Andrew Emmerson) Subject: Re: It Make You Think Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1999 12:33 BST Organization: CIX - Compulink Information eXchange Reply-To: midshires@cix.co.uk In article , azz@gnu.org (Adam Sampson) wrote: > the handset and the end of the "codec" > were (still are, actually) in the Cabinet War Rooms I was pleasantly surprised when I saw this. I later learned that 99 per cent of the telephones on view were provided by British Telecom from their museum stores, so the American 300 set on display may not be the original one. Shame but it's a great display whatever its provenance. Andrew Emmerson ------------------------------ From: Bob Goudreau Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1999 10:43 EDT Subject: Re: Freelancers Win Online Copyright Database Ruling > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: So what happens to those of us who > rely entirely on freelance contributors? Must I know go and seek > permission from each writer before storing back issues of the Digest > in the archives? What nonsense! PAT] Pat, I don't think you "rely ... on freelance contributors" in any way relevant to the court decision. Your Digest's model seems more like the Letters to the Editor section of a periodical, in the sense that the writers voluntarily submit something for you to publish (or not) as you see fit, with no compensation or royalties involved. The articles are free to you, but this is not the same as "freelance", which dictionary.com defines as "a writer or artist who sells services to different employers without a long-term contract with any of them". The court ruling actually looks like a bit of a victory for underdog writers who weren't getting any royalties on what was essentially a republishing (without their permission) of works that they had previously sold to another publication. Bob Goudreau Data General Corporation goudreau@rtp.dg.com 62 Alexander Drive +1 919 248 6231 Research Triangle Park, NC 27709, USA ------------------------------ From: Steve Uhrig Subject: Re: Phone Line Attached to Water Meter Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1999 18:01:24 -0400 Organization: bright.net Ohio Bruce Wilson wrote: >> Can anyone explain how this might work? > Are you familiare with "distinctive" or "custom" ring service? It's > like a throwback to party line days, when the individual subscribers > on the line each had different ring patterns, but phones these days > won't recognize and accept anything but a standard ring pattern, so > only a device connected to the line that does will respond when a > nonstandard ring's sent over the line. That's why the water company's > device will respond when called by the water company but your phones > don't ring. All phones currently produced will respond to distinctive ringing. They may not repeat the pattern perfectly, but they will ring. Besides only the customer can request distinctive ring. The water department can't have it put on anyone's line. ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Phone Line Attached to Water Meter From: belfert@foshay.citilink.com (Brian Elfert) Date: Thu, 30 Sep 1999 17:02:59 GMT blw1540@aol.comxxnospam (Bruce Wilson) writes: >> Can anyone explain how this might work? > Are you familiare with "distinctive" or "custom" ring service? It's > like a throwback to party line days, when the individual subscribers > on the line each had different ring patterns, but phones these days > won't recognize and accept anything but a standard ring pattern, so > only a device connected to the line that does will respond when a > nonstandard ring's sent over the line. That's why the water company's > device will respond when called by the water company but your phones > don't ring. When I had distinctive ring, all my phones rang every time a call came in on any of the phone numbers. One number gave the standard ring, and the other gave a double ring. I just had standard phones, and they all rang on both rings. I don't think your theory flies. Brian ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1999 22:08:37 -0700 From: Derek Balling Subject: Re: No Address on TELECOM Digest Posts? Replies to two people: From: Adam H. Kerman > Derek J. Balling wrote: >> Your right to reply is enumerated where? If you want to reply, you are >> free to reply in the forum I posted in, but for someone to assume they >> have some "right" to send me e-mail is incorrect in the extreme. > You seem to be going out of your way to misinterpret these comments. No, not at all, actually. > Anyone may send e-mail; we won't debate if this is a "right" with > regard to spam. Clearly, a lurker on Usenet has a right to mail a > reply only to the author of the original message in lieu of posting a > followup on News or replying via the list-posting address, as the case > may be. No. If you say that a Usenet lurker has a right but a spammer does not, then you are discriminating. There IS no right. Point me to the law of the land that enumerates this "right" to send me an e-mail. > By various standards, it is mandatory to have a valid mailbox in a > From header of a message on Mail or News. Therefore, someone reading > that message, whether in Mail or News, has the right to expect that > there is a valid mailbox in the From header. It is mandatory to have an address which passes the specifications of RFC822 and RFC823. Whether that address is actually valid is actually required nowhere. > Nowhere is there a standard requiring the recipient of a message in > Mail to read it, let alone reply to it. If you refuse to read personal > replies sent to you in response to messages you write for News or > mailing lists, that is your business. No standard prevents you from > forwarding that mailbox to /dev/null. No standard also requires me to, by very nature of posting an opinion to a public forum, to be also forced to accept e-mail, possibly paying for the mere privilege of receiving it without regard as to whether it is read or deleted. > Nevertheless, it still must be a valid mailbox. Kindly show me the RFC that requires the mailbox be valid. > Why are you wrong for refusing to follow these standards? Because Mail > and News are shared resources that you don't pay for. The rules to > comply with are fairly minimal, yet people like you complain > constantly about how these rules create an imposition on you. What rules? Show me the rules. The RFC's are, for this purpose, "the law of the land", and I have yet to find one that explicitly states that I must use a functional e-mail address. All I have to use is one which complies with the standard, not one that is accurate. From: G. Wollman > That will never happen, for the same reason as some places will never > set it correctly moderated. (And I can think of some people who would > be happy to moderate comp.dcom.telecom in your place, and totally cut > out the mailing-list troglodytes.) Who cares? The only function c.d.t. shows these days is a way to broadcast e-mail addresses into a convenient form that spammers can harvest from. > Most of the people whining about Usenet should instead be complaining > to the vendors of their defective news-reading software (often > mistakenly called a 'browser'). Those of us with modern > news-reading software (which in most cases means it was written > B.N. -- 'Before Netscape') have no difficulty at all in separating > the wheat from the chaff, even on much-higher-volume newsgroups than > this one. We're not talking about wheat from chaff on Usenet. We're talking about people getting their e-mail addresses harvested from Usenet and then flooded with spam because of it. ------------------------------ From: Michael G. Koerner Subject: Re: Is the '.gif tax' Thing Starting All Over Again? Date: Thu, 30 Sep 1999 01:33:54 -0500 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Glenn Randers-Pehrson wrote: > In article , Walter Dnes > wrote: >> Obvious (to me, at least) question. *HOW WOULD UNI SYS KNOW* whether >> or not someone is doing it? Is licenced software required to put in a >> "watermark" as a condition of the licence? I have Office 97, >> including MS Photo Editor. How can Uni sys differentiate between a GIF >> saved by that program versus another program. Especially when the >> people who save their files "legally" set the date back to confuse the >> process? > All they need to do is to look for a GIF comment that says GifBuilder > (that's free software, whose author was apparently forced by U-NO-who > to stop distributing it) or "built with DEMO copy of ..." or "built > with UNREGISTERED copy of ...". Interesting, in that the Macintosh version of 'GifBuilder 0.5' is still as downloadable as ever from the usual sources. Regards, Michael G. Koerner Appleton, WI ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1999 22:41:57 -0400 From: Fred Goldstein Subject: Re: New Legislation For Telcos? At 08:54 PM 9/28/1999 -0400, Barry Margolin wrote: >> US senator seen in a TV advertisement asking everyone to talk to their >> congressmen about local telephone monopolies. He claims there is some >> sort of "loophole" being proposed by rural phone companies that will >> prevent local competition for Internet connectivity. But, it's all >> very vague and doesn't reference a specific bill before congress. >> Does anyone know what that's about, and who is paying for the air >> time? > A notice was sent around our company about this, since it could impact > our ability to provide Internet service if the GTE/Bell Atlantic > merger is consummated. > Apparently the FCC is applying provisions of the 1996 Telecommunications > Act, which were intended to regulate the entry of local phone > companies into the long distance market, to local phone companies > trying to offer advanced services over the Internet. The notice > doesn't go into detail about what the FCC is doing. That's revisionist history at its very worst. The plain fact of the matter is that the 1982 MFJ prohibited the Bells from *any* inter-LATA activity (as of 1/1/84). An exception was quickly made for purely-administrative traffic (e.g., they could carry their own office calls across LATA boundaries on their own fibers, but NO customer traffic of ANY kind). Another exception that has always been there applies to *local* calls tariffed as such; there are also a few "corridor exceptions". But when we at Digital Equipment Corp. hired NYNEX to be general contractor for our private fiber optic network, they could help build the Massachusetts segments and the New Hampshire segments, but the little hops across the LATA boundary were handled by the subcontractor (who did all the work anyway) with no NYNEX involvement. Even that would have been prohibited inter-LATA work. The 1996 Telecom Act exempted wireless (cellular/PCS), so Bell Atlantic Mobile and SBC Cellular One can carry inter-LATA traffic. Before then, roaming had to use weird intercarrier arrangements, which made it especially hard. There was never, ever, any exemption for data or "advanced services". BellAtlantic.net from day one (well before 1996) had users specify a "global service provider" to carry Internet traffic across LATA boundaries. Yes, this was a required case of "equal access", with an Internet backbone provider wearing the IXC hat, though in many places there was only one choice. (Sometimes it was AGIS, sometimes somebody I never heard of elsewhere.) Web hosting, local dial-ins and other such services do not count as inter-LATA, since somebody else does the actual haulage. Bell is already in those businesses. Alas, the late lamented BBN Corp. was an Internet backbone provider, one of the handful of Tier 1 backbone ISPs. GTE, as a non-Bell, could own it freely; GTE even kicked in IRUs on 24 strands of Qwest fiber, giving the Internet backbone enough long-haul bandwidth to be competitive. But if Bell gets ownership of GTE and hasn't gotten its Section 271 approvals (to offer LD) in the major states, then the ISP backbone business is sunk. The FCC has *zero* right to waive this; AT&T's and MCIW's lawyers are no doubt licking their chops at the thought of any attempt to get a "waiver". So Bell has gone to Congress to try to get Section 271 (the clause of the Telecom Act that determines when the inter-LATA restrictions are lifted; it requires that *all 14* points of a 14-point checklist be met, state by state) overturned. > The bills that they want us to have our legislators vote for are: > H.R. 2420, the "Internet Freedom and Broadband Deployment Act of 1999" > H.R. 1685, the "Internet Growth and Development Act" > H.R. 1686, the "Internet Freedom Act" > S. 1043, the "Internet Regulatory Freedom Act" Even Goodlatte & Boucher's (I think HR 1686 is the "AOL bill"), that calls for open cable access to non-cable-affiliated ISPs, contains a Title 2 that essentially cancels Section 271. (Technically, under that bill the IXC will have to route the inter-LATA voice backbone using ATM circuit emulation rather than traditional SONET muxing; this is technically trivial and invisible to callers.) Bells get to enter LD without opening up their local networks to competition. As a CLEC-startup consultant (among other things), I have seen hair-raising shenanigans by some Bells (Titanic and Taco among them) trying to prevent CLEC market entry. They don't want to play by the rules; they want to make new rules that give back their protected status. > Our company has even implemented an intranet server we can use to > automatically send faxes to our legislators (it's kind of strange that > it sends a fax -- don't all the federal legislators have email > addresses these days?). Given Bell Titanic's attitude towards the Internet (they love it the way Indonesia loves an independent East Timor), GTE Internetworking employees should be praying for these bills to fail, and for somebody in charge to get some common sense and sell off Internetworking before Bell gets it. Lordy knows ISP stock valuations are a lot higher now than they were when BBN sold out. But a shut-down backbone ISP is a much less valuable property. On the other hand, a merger of Bell Atlantic Mobile, GTE Wireless and Vodaphone Airtouch makes sense for all sides combined. The rest of the proposed anschluss is dumber than rocks. ------------------------------ From: Louis RAPHAEL Subject: Re: Domain Name Revocation Policies Organization: Societe pour la promotion du petoncle vert Date: Thu, 30 Sep 1999 04:41:50 GMT Judith Oppenheimer wrote: > NameSecure ^^^^^^ - no comment! > http://www.namesecure.com/services/registration_agreement.cfm I think I will suggest to the people whose domains I have helped set up that they move to .CA. Louis ------------------------------ From: sjsobol@JustThe.Net (Steven J Sobol) Subject: Re: Domain Name Revocation Policies Date: 30 Sep 1999 05:59:15 GMT Organization: North Shore Technologies Corp. 888.480.4NET On Wed, 29 Sep 1999 16:09:49 -0400, joppenheimer@icbtollfree.com allegedly said: > Most sites have already signed this -- the language resides in your > existing domain name agreements with your registrar ... > EXISTING REGISTRAR DOMAIN NAME REVOCATION POLICIES > Network Solutions (NSI) > http://www.networksolutions.com/legal/dispute-policy.html > Revocation. The registrant agrees that Network Solutions shall have > the right in its sole discretion to revoke, suspend, transfer or > otherwise modify a domain name registration upon thirty (30) calendar > days prior written notice Anyone smell a rat? Hm. Big Company, Inc. says "I want Small Corp's domain." NetSol gives it to them. I believe it's happened before. North Shore Technologies JustTheNet Dialup Internet Access Cleveland, Akron, Canton, Geauga Co., Lake Co., Portage Co., Lorain Co., OH Nationwide Access coming soon! Watch this space for details or dial 1.888.480.4NET for more info! ------------------------------ From: gds@nospam.best.com (Greg Skinner) Subject: Re: Domain Name Revocation Policies Organization: a user of Best Internet Communications, Inc. www.best.com Date: 30 Sep 1999 20:09:38 GMT In article , Pat Townson wrote (in response to me): > Are you really suggesting that out of all the people on the net today > that not a single one could function impartially as a registrar > holding root in trust and follow instructions given by a panel of > arbitrators or governors? No. That is not the point. See my previous message, in which I stated that the courts seem to be doing a proper job of distinguishing betweeen cybersquatters and those who happen to register a name desired by a business. > You see, your mistake I think is in saying 'all businesses do > it'. The internet registrar should not be a 'business' or a > for-profit activity. It should be a utility function for the net, no > more, no less, serving first of all the people who paid for it, > i.e. netizens, ISP's etc. PAT] But Pat, it IS a business. Even if it was not-for-profit, it would still be expected to adhere to standard business practices. gds at best.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Unfortunatly, no, the judges are not doing a very good job of governing the internet. They are doing a lousy job of it in fact. Many of them have no idea how it works at all. And regards 'standard business practices' those practices do not ethically include contract language which says, 'we have the right to do as we please and you must go along with it.' Maybe the contracts you write in your business say that, but I believe it is unethical for one party in the contract to be able to exert that much power over the other party. In any 'business' I ran, I would *never* include something in a contract which said to my customer, 'you do as we say, we do as we please, dueces wild, whatever we decide is how it goes ....' which apparently is what you think good business should be doing. I would always offer my customers a chance to arbitrate a dispute. If you would not allow your customer to change the terms of the contract unannounced or completely repudiate his obligations then why should you have that right? If that is what being in business is about, then I am glad I am not in business. PAT] ------------------------------ From: catfood@apk.net (Mark W. Schumann) Subject: Re: Don'tTakeMyDomainName.com Date: 30 Sep 1999 12:02:06 -0400 Organization: Akademia Pana Kleksa, Public Access Uni* Site In article , PAT wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You know, re-writing that section of > their contract to say something like 'in the event some dispute arises > over your use of the domain name, you agree to have the matter > resolved in binding arbitration by an impartial panel of netizens' > would go a long way toward easing the discomfort some of us are > feeling. It would mean that some of us would have a chance in hell > at least of surviving. But there can be no arbitration, binding or > otherwise, because that leads to 'messy enforcement problems' and > inhibits the total Cerfing of the Net which is required in order > to completely turn things here over to big business. It would seem to me that all "someone" needs to do is to open up a second-level domain with rules more to your (our) liking. Something like ML.ORG used to be, but with a reasonable user fee to keep the second-level server in business. ICANN only controls COM, NET, and ORG, and one level down. They can't tell you what to do with a third-level domain name. To wit: telecom-digest.example.net apk.example.net oppenheimer.example.net DNS is just one small part of the Internet. The root servers are only a very small part of DNS. Unless you are obsessed with COM, NET, and ORG, this is no big deal. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Believe me, if I had the resources or backing I would become a registrar in an instant. And if the fee charged for registrations left me with millions of dollars, as it seems to have done for some companies, I would earmark that money to be used for legal fees in defense of netizens whose rights were being trampled on, for technical research in ways the net might be improved and made more secure, and if any money was left over I would rebate it back on a pro-rated basis to be applied against the next year's fees, etc. Or maybe I would issue grants to different moderated newsgroups, etc to help fund them. It seems very strange to me that NSI is alleged to have made how many ever millions of dollars from this function, yet not a nickle of it has been spent to improve the net or defend the net legally when needed. Greg Skinner may seem to think that being 'business-like' means taking your client's money and handing them a contract which says you reserve the right to stick a knife in their back when (a) a better- paying client comes along or (b) you have your own back up against the wall and are too cheap to hire an attorney to defend the client you are supposedly working for, but that is not my plan at all. PAT] ------------------------------ From: gds@nospam.best.com (Greg Skinner) Subject: Re: Don'tTakeMyDomainName.com Organization: a user of Best Internet Communications, Inc. www.best.com Date: 30 Sep 1999 19:40:25 GMT In article , Pat Townson wrote (in response to me): > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Why do you say 'an impartial panel of > netizens' would not be competent to decide such a thing? In the > first place, I did not describe the individual members. You could have > two attornies, three business people, five people representing other > nations and three others from the USA for all I care, as long as > it was a broadly-based coalition of netizens. And I was not talking > about matters which had gone to court. I would require that before > going to court you first attempt to arbitrate it through the panel. If you recall, I wrote earlier: >> No offense to anyone, but a problem here is that "an impartial panel >> of netizens" does not constitute a (recognized) legal authority to >> decide the use of a domain name. (Imagine, for example, if such a >> panel decided that telecom-digest.org should go to an online magazine >> of some sort.) I made absolutely no mention of the competence of an arbitration panel. Competence is not the issue. Whether they are legally recognized is. Who would determine who this panel would be? What criteria would decide how they are chosen? In what way would this be any better than how the ICANN board was chosen, for example? Ironically, the WIPO recommendations to ICANN include arbitration. Many netizens opposed this on the grounds that the court system is perfectly capable of handling such situations. Lawyers argued that a court is unlikely to reverse the decision of an arbitration procedure, which would leave individuals and small businesses in no better shape than if there was no arbitration. The courts have so far ruled primarily in the favor of the "little guy", when presented with the evidence that their registration did indeed *not* violate any trade or service mark. > But the way it went last year, I understand that on about 900 occass- > ions, companies came along pressuring the registrar to revoke a > name someone was using and the registrar did so without any question > or argument at all. That's not right. America OnLine should not be > able to just walk in and tell the registrar to disconnect a lady who > was using an acronym which was close to their own because they > wanted it instead. The registrar should have an ethical responsibility > to his existing clients, but you could never tell it by looking at > how NSI operates. The registrar should be in a position to tell > America OnLine (for example) 'back off and quit breathing on me so > heavily. The panel will take it under advisement and you will be > notified in the next few days if you'll need to litigate or not.' Fine. You have a quibble with NSI's policies. Join the club. Lots of people opposed NSI for this reason, among others. However this has nothing to do with ICANN. This policy has been in effect long before ICANN showed up. Blame the NTIA, or DoC, or Al Gore. (Remember this next year at election day.) gds at best.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You ask how the arbitration panel -- which would supervise the registar -- would be selected. First of all, I would not go get a bunch of my personal friends to do it the way that Vint Cert and Esther Dyson have done. I would virtually rule out anyone who subscribes here for example, mainly to avoid any conflict of interest. I would handle it the way that newsgroups were established on Usenet in the past; through net-wide voting. Here are the names of two dozen people who wish to be arbitrators. You get twelve votes. Cast them in any order you wish for those persons. I would require that at least three or four of the nominees be attornies with experience in copyright/patent and or trademark law. I would require that three or four of the nominees be very experienced system administrators who were competent in technical matters involving the net. I would want to see two or three of the nominees be representative of business interests, and two or three representing the TLDs of other countries. Three or four should be experienced webmasters at non-commercial, privately owned sites. Two or three should be people who have traditionally attended to Usenet matters in the past such as (for example) David Lawrence or Gene Spafford. Vote for any twelve you feel like. They become the arbitrators or 'Board of Governors' or whatever you want to call them. Every two or three years vote to retain them or replace them. As a separate matter, elect a registrar whose term varies by a year or two from that of the arbitrators so they do not all come and go at once, or get too cozy. The arbitrators supervise and/or instruct the registrar. The regis- trar can admit any domain name he pleases. He can deny admission to any name he pleases except that denied applicants can appeal to the arbitrators if they wish. If the registrar wishes to disconnect a domain name *once it has already been established* it must be automatically appealed to the arbitrators. If the registrar is served legally some reason, for example a cease and desist or a search warrant for his records, etc it will be given to the arbi- trators who will then instruct the registrar to either attempt to squash the service or the warrant, appeal the judgment of the court, or perhaps conversely, to stipulate in the matter and co- operate. Of the millions of dollars the registrar collects in fees each year, the money will be used to pay his salary and the salary of the arbitrators as detirmined by the net in voting; what should the salaries be? Some money will of course be allocated for legal fees in defending the decisions of the arbitrators. Some money will be used to support research regarding ways to improve the net. The registrar would NOT be allowed to tell some guy with a web page that his name can be taken away at any time with no notice, and that he really does not own it to start with. And do not tell me me how ICANN is going to be any better. Their idea of 'arbitration' is to get a bunch of their cronies together at a secret meeting in Santiago where they whisper in one another's ears and squander the treasury sitting in high-priced saloons. I am talking about *real* net representation, *real* arbitration, and *real* attempts at self-governance, not just a bunch of cronies out Cerfing the Net to appease the big corporations paying the bills for them. PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? From: belfert@foshay.citilink.com (Brian Elfert) Date: Thu, 30 Sep 1999 16:46:28 GMT kim@aol.com (Kim Brennan) writes: > Nope. The problem is unknowing users register using my email address > and these companies did not verify that was the correct email address > for the registrats prior to sending me countless unwanted (and for me) > unsolicited email. You didn't mention earlier that the mail was the result of forgeries or mistakes by others. These companies should probably be sending a confirming email, like most real mailing lists do these days. > Many of the companies claim to have a remove process via their web > page. I see no reason to go to a web page that I never visited in the > first place, to get removed from a mailing list I didn't subscribe to. At least they offer a real remove option, unlike 99.9% of the spam I get daily. It's not the site's fault that you have a common name at the world's largest online service. > In NWA case, I was contacted in personal email by a rep that did get > me removed from their list (although curiously the rep's email address > was from a completely separate domain.) Apparently after having read > the thread here (yea!) In many/most cases, these companies hire outside firms to send these emails, as managing a large email list is not the sending firms business. Brian ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #447 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Oct 1 05:09:43 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id FAA12205; Fri, 1 Oct 1999 05:09:43 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 1 Oct 1999 05:09:43 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199910010909.FAA12205@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #448 TELECOM Digest Fri, 1 Oct 99 05:09:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 448 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson AT&T's 500/700 Service and Their 700 Numbers Overall (Mark J Cuccia) Unlimited Toll-Free Voice Mail (digitcom_net@yahoo.net) Net Stalking (Tad Cook) October 1999 Scientific American Report: High Speed Net (Devereaux-Weber) Re: Drivers License Compact / Extortion Conspiracy (Andrew Green) Re: Drivers License Compact / Extortion Conspiracy (Cortland Richmond) Re: Drivers License Compact / Extortion Conspiracy (Adam H. Kerman) Re: May Your Net Connection Be as Fast as Mine (Jack Decker) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. 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Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 30 Sep 1999 17:33:56 CDT From: Mark J Cuccia Reply-To: Mark J Cuccia Subject: AT&T's 500/700 Service and Their 700 Numbers Overall It has been reported over the past few months that AT&T intends on discontinuing their "True Connections" or "Easy Reach" Service which used their 500-NXX codes for "follow-me one-numbers". AT&T had actually begun this service PRIOR to the 1994 introduction of "special area code" 500, using their own internal assignments of another "special area code", 700. Most of us are aware that SAC 700 is for EACH AND EVERY inTER-LATA carrier to do with whatever they want in the use and assignments of 700-NXX codes and 700-NXX-xxxx line-numbers, EXCEPT that 700-555-4141 (or with many, but NOT ALL carriers, 700-555-xxxx, i.e. _ANY_ -xxxx line-number on 700-555) be used for "primary inTER-LATA carrier verification/validation/identification". And, to use a particular 700 service/function provided by a carrier _OTHER_ than your primary inTER-LATA carrier, if you try to simply dial 1+ or 0+ and then that 700 number without dialing a 101-XXXX+ CAC first, you'll use your PRIMARY inTER-LATA carrier for THEIR use (if they have one) for that 700 number. So, if someone _OTHER_ than AT&T is your inTER-LATA "PIC", as well as having "no-PIC", to use AT&T's "Alliance Teleconferencing" service, you'll have to FIRST dial 101-0288+ and THEN dial 0-700-456-xxxx. (AT&T has special 'thousands' groups to identify a voice conference vs. a data conference vs. a visual/graphics conference/broadcast function on Alliance; Also, the last digit can be used to identify the particular AT&T Conference Bridge that you desire to reach, or else to route via your own 'default' homing AT&T Conference Bridge). AT&T was using various 700-NXX codes within their network to provide "Easy Reach" or "True Connections", which meant that you MUST use AT&T to reach such numbers in the dialing string - i.e., to call an AT&T provided ER/TC number using AT&T's 700's, you either had to have AT&T as your primary inTER-LATA carrier, or else dial 101-0288+ first. OR, to bill-to-card (AT&T-issued cards, and MOST NANP-based local telco issued cards), you could also access AT&T with 800-CALL-ATT, or other AT&T Operator/Card Platform 800- access numbers. Well, with the discontinuance of AT&T's "Easy Reach" and "True Connections" 500 service, also being discontinued are the previous AT&T ER/TC service 700 numbers! And it also seems that AT&T might be "getting away" from 700 in general as well for some other AT&T functions provided on their own use of 700. About a month ago or so, trying to use AT&T to reach 700-555-4141 (or for that matter, any 700-555-xxxx via the AT&T network), whether 1+ or via the OSPS (0+ or 800- dialup) the call attempt would FAIL! After a few days, it was working again, but there are two different versions of "validation recordings" on AT&T's use of 700-555-. Using the 'standard' 700-555-4141 on AT&T now gives a "new" version of the validation recording that you've reached AT&T. Using virtually any _OTHER_ 700-555-xxxx number on AT&T still gives the "earlier" version of the validation recording. However, I have been informed that Alliance Teleconferencing is going to change from using an (AT&T) 700 number, too! If you call (101-0288)+0+700-456-100X from a "non-restricted" type of line (i.e., call from a non-coin, non-PBX, non-cellular, etc. type of line) you get a recording that the access to Alliance Teleconferencing is changing to a _NEW_ (toll-free) number, 888-828-8278. There are also other AT&T 700-45X codes used for AT&T's Alliance Teleconferencing, in a "meet-me" arrangement for pre-arranged teleconferences. I wonder if some other things AT&T uses 700 (on their network) for are either going to be discontinued or change to non-700 access... There _HAD_ been a 700 number to reach an AT&T operator to "book" a call to Cuba, for a while ... but now one can _DIAL_ to Cuba from the US (although there have been some political and technical glitches from time-to-time)... but the access to the Operator for Cuba used (10-288 / 101-0288)+1-700-460-1000. There are also some "data" services (switched-56, switched-64, switched-384, ISDN-PRI) that used some 700-NXX ranges on AT&T, such as the 700-56X and the 700-73X code ranges. I've even read that there is some special function related to Comsat, using AT&T's use of 700 on the 700-33X range, but I don't really know what it is... I don't know if THESE AT&T uses of their 700-NXX codes are going to still be retained or if they are also changing or being discontinued. MARK_J._CUCCIA__PHONE/WRITE/WIRE/CABLE:__HOME:__(USA)__Tel:_CHestnut-1-2497 WORK:__mcuccia@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu|4710-Wright-Road|__(+1-504-241-2497) Tel:UNiversity-5-5954(+1-504-865-5954)|New-Orleans-28__|fwds-on-no-answr-to Fax:UNiversity-5-5917(+1-504-865-5917)|Louisiana(70128)|cellular/voicemail- ------------------------------ From: digitcom_net@yahoo.net Subject: Unlimited Toll-Free Voice Mail Date: Thu, 30 Sep 1999 17:21:16 -0400 As low as $31.95 per month for an 877 Number! PRIVATE TOLL-FREE NUMBER Each voice mail number is assigned a unique dedicated toll-free number. There are no shared lines. 3 MINUTE GREETING You may record a greeting up to 3 minutes in length. 3 MINUTE MESSAGES Capable of storing 3 minute incoming messages. 100 MESSAGE STORAGE CAPACITY Large storage capacity for saving your important messages. For more info and to sign up, visit our website at: http://www.digitcom.net/ [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I wonder if they begin getting hit for thousands of dollars in charges on any one or more toll-free numbers which are being used by spammers how long they will continue to offer the service for $31.95 per month? Imagine a spammer getting his 100 message allotment used up day after day by people who each leave three full minutes of garbage in his box. That $31.95 won't last very long will it? PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Net Stalking Date: Thu, 30 Sep 1999 17:31:45 PDT From: tad@ssc.com (Tad Cook) Here is what happened to one woman who tried to fight spam: Anti-Cyberstalking Laws Mulled By CASSANDRA BURRELL Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) _ Complaining about an ad from a literary agency brought writer Jayne Hitchcock more than three years of harassment, phone calls from strange men wanting to share their sexual fantasies and regular trips to a psychotherapist. Hitchcock told a House subcommittee she was a victim of "cyberstalkers" who used the Internet to strike back at her after she complained to the New York state attorney general about a literary agency that appeared to be a fraud. She asked Congress to pass a bill that would strengthen federal laws designed to fight all types of stalking that involves crossing state lines. "We can't let this kind of abuse continue," Hitchcock told the House Judiciary Committee's crime subcommittee. "I felt like someone had broken into my house, touched all of my things, didn't take anything and left. I felt violated and scared for my life." The bill, introduced by Rep. Sue Kelley, R-N.Y., would: _Broaden the current federal definition of stalking to include harassment by e-mail, telephone or any other form of interstate communications. _Allow authorities to prosecute stalkers for threatening behavior even if there has been no explicit threat. _Mark it harder for suspects to be released on bail. _Toughen sentences for defendants with a previous conviction for a violent crime against the same victim. "Recent research has shown that more than 1 million women and more than 370,000 men are stalked every year," Kelly said. "About 59 percent of women victims are stalked by spouses, former spouses, live-in partners or dates." Hitchcock said her harassment began after she became suspicious when the literary agency asked her for a $75 fee to read her work. Legitimate literary agents don't ask for such fees, she said. After the New York attorney general's office opened an investigation, Hitchcock said her cyberstalkers "e-mail bombed" her, sending hundreds of e-mail messages. Next, they posted forged messages in Internet discussion groups over her name. One of them invited people worldwide to call or mail her their sexual fantasies to help her write a book. It included her real telephone number and home address in Crofton, Md. "I began receiving 25 to 30 phone calls a day from as far away as Germany," she said. "That's the point where I decided I had to call police and ask for help." Law enforcement was either unable to unwilling to help, however, she said. Friends who knew how to track the origin of e-mail traced the messages back to three people who apparently were connected to the literary agency, Hitchcock said. After filing a $10 million civil suit against the three, her lawyer received a death threat, neighbors received phone calls from people asking for information on her and complaints accusing Hitchcock of stalking were filed with the Maryland attorney general's office, the FBI and Maryland state police. "It got so bad I had to see a psychotherapist to deal with my fears and paranoia, and finally my husband and I moved to New England," she said. The suit is still pending, Hitchcock said, and less than a month ago, she received as many as a dozen hang-up calls at a day at her current home for two straight weeks. Earlier in the day, advocates for abused women asked Congress to renew the Violence Against Women Act, a 1994 law that set aside federal money to fight domestic violence. "There is no question that (the law) is making a difference," said Bonnie Campbell, director of the Justice Department's Violence Against Women Office. "Communities across the country and all levels of government are creating coordinated, community-wide responses and are setting up the infrastructure needed to improve our response to violence against women," she said. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 30 Sep 1999 22:38:40 -0500 From: David Devereaux-Weber Subject: October 1999 Scientific American Report on High Speed Internet The October 1999 issue of Scientific American has a special report on High Speed Internet Access for the Home. It appears to be a fair and wide ranging. I do not see a reference to the open cable initiative, but the coverage of five alternatives does seem to speak to the fear of monopoly of broadband access to the home by the cable industry. The report covers five major technologies, including cable modems, DSL, Fiber to the Home, satellite communications and LMDS Broadband Wireless. If you are not already a subscriber to Scientific American, go out and buy this one at the newsstand. Order reprints from the publisher. Buy copies for your local and state regulators. Buy copies for your manager and government relations people. (You can also see it on the web at .) David Devereaux-Weber, P.E Network Engineer Division of Information Technology The University of Wisconsin-Madison djdevere@facstaff.wisc.edu http://cable.doit.wisc.edu ------------------------------ From: Andrew Green Subject: Re: Drivers License Compact / Extortion Conspiracy Date: Thu, 30 Sep 1999 10:24:40 -0500 bernies@netaxs.com writes... > A nationwide "Drivers License Compact" between states' DMV's > ensures that if you ignore another state's traffic citation, they'll be > able to have your home state suspend your license until you pay up. > The entire system is computerized networked by a WAN to each DMV > mainframe. For some reason, Massachusetts, Michigan, and Georgia are > the only states that don't fully participate in this conspiracy of > extortion. I find this argument misdirected. It _is_ true that there are abusive small towns running speed traps. (Car & Driver magazine a few years back had a great tale from a reader who put his speeding-fine payment in the mailbox under the supervision of the local gendarme so that he could leave town ... but once the cop was out of sight he drove back around the block to the mailbox and retrieved his envelope, which he'd actually stuck to the flap of the mailbox with chewing gum.) And believe me, I'm not a self-appointed enforcer of the speed limit either. ("Slower traffic keep right" should be signposted on all major expressways.) But driving _is_ a privilege, hackneyed slogan or not, and if some bozo is running around the country scoring multiple violations (yes, multiple real ones, not an occasional 10-mph-over from the town of East Peachfuzz), I want him off the road, and that includes not simply stepping over the border to get a fresh start with another license. Anyway, look at the flipside: Some moron goes roaring through your town, gets stopped for it (justifiably; remember this is _your_ town and you saw it's a genuine violation), but makes an eventual clean getaway just because he's got out-of-state plates? steven@primacomputer.com (Steven) writes: > So long as they don't work this deal with other countries then > anyone can continue to get a foreign license/international > license, valid in the states, for a very modest fee. The International Driving Permit is not valid in the country of issue ... although there are certain sleazeball websites out there that offer to get you one from other countries such as Nicaragua, which in theory would give you license to roam the U.S. Realistically, I don't think I'd want to try explaining an IDP to the same East Peachfuzz cop who just pulled me over for disobeying their hidden speed limit sign. :-) Andrew C. Green Datalogics, Inc. 101 N. Wacker, Ste. 1800 http://www.datalogics.com Chicago, IL 60606-7301 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 30 Sep 1999 10:11:20 -0700 From: Cortland Richmond Organization: Alcatel Subject: Re: Drivers License Compact / Extortion Conspiracy An International Driver's License is NOT valid in one's own country. Cortland ------------------------------ From: Adam H. Kerman Subject: Re: Drivers License Compact / Extortion Conspiracy Date: 30 Sep 1999 13:29:26 -0500 Organization: Chinet - Public Access since 82 Steven wrote: > So long as they don't work this deal with other countries then anyone > can continue to get a foreign license/international license, valid in > the states, for a very modest fee. Don't try this at home. Rather, don't try this in the place in which you live. Generally, if you are a permanent resident (regardless of whether or not you are a citizen), you must obtain driving privileges through the local jurisdiction. By the treaty that created the international license, it isn't valid at home. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 01 Oct 1999 01:36:18 -0400 From: Jack Decker Subject: Re: May Your Net Connection Be as Fast as Mine On Thu, 30 Sep 1999 20:25:27 -0700, jbaker@halcyon.com (James Baker) wrote: > My 2 cents worth (not in the article): We each need a fiber to our home > or office. This will require costly infrastructure improvements (union > guys with heavy equipment). Today's fiber is likely to be sufficient to > meet our needs for decades to come. So let's dig up the streets now and > get it over with. Well here is a thought for you. Suppose that the government were to pass a law saying that as of a certain date, no more copper or aluminum wire could be buried or strung overhead in public rights-of-way by any utility company EXCEPT for three purposes: 1) Electrical power transmission; 2) Grounding; 3) Tracing of non-metallic utilities (such as the wire they bury along with non-metallic natural gas lines so that utility tracing services can find the mains); 4) EMERGENCY repairs of existing circuits (for example, a backhoe takes out a chunk of metallic cable, they'd be able to replace it with cable to get people back in service quickly). But if these repairs involve digging more than a certain length of trench, or require completely crossing a roadway, there would be a requirement to lay fiber (or at least conduit for fiber) before closing the trench. Specifically EXCLUDED would be any communications-related use. This could be justified three ways: First, as a public policy decision, since fiber-optic cable has much more capacity than copper cable. Second, as a matter of conservation of resources - copper is expensive and copper mining and smelting leaves toxic byproducts. Third is safety considerations - simply put, lightning doesn't travel down glass very well, and if a high voltage power line happens to fall across a fiber optic cable, those served by the fiber will never know the difference (unless the fiber completely breaks). So we say, as of a certain date, no utility may place new copper or aluminum wire for any communications purpose across any public thoroughfare, and if existing copper is replaced for any reason (other than in certain emergency situations), it must be replaced with fiber. In cases where there would be an "isolated" fiber strand, then you may put in a conduit and run temporary copper AND fiber, but as soon as the fiber can be connected to fiber back to the headend or central office, the copper must be pulled out of the conduit and only the fiber used. But in any case, you must bury the fiber. If you have to do an emergency repair of any cable that involves digging up more than perhaps a few feet, or if you have to completely cross a street, you are required to run a length of fiber. Simply put, in most cases it would not be legal to run any NEW metallic circuits, and if while repairing existing outside plant you had to dig a trench for any reason, you'd be required to lay fiber, or at least a conduit through which fiber could be easily pulled at a future date. Then you say that by another date, farther into the future perhaps, all existing copper wire that can be easily accessed without tearing up streets or sidewalks (on poles, in underground tunnels and conduits -- basically anything that's not directly buried in the ground) must be replaced with fiber. Okay, so it's not a full replacement all at once, but the point is that at least it would start us down the road toward replacing all metallic wire with fiber, instead of just letting phone and cable companies keep on installing new copper lines (=old technology) for years to come. I suppose the phone and cable companies would really hate the idea at first, but after a few years when they are forced to go to fiber anyway, they would appreciate the fact that a certain percentage of their plant is already fiber (or fiber-ready). Just a thought. Jack (make the obvious modification to my e-mail address to reply via private e-mail) ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #448 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sun Oct 3 01:50:04 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id BAA25723; Sun, 3 Oct 1999 01:50:04 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sun, 3 Oct 1999 01:50:04 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199910030550.BAA25723@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #449 TELECOM Digest Sun, 3 Oct 99 01:50:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 449 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Further on AT&T Alliance Teleconferencing 700-456- (Mark J. Cuccia) Penna PUC Examiner Rejects Bell-GTE Merger (L. Winson) The Bad Witch ICANN (Judith Oppenheimer) Bell Atlantic Files For Long-Distance Approval (Monty Solomon) Need Suggestions for Digital Padding (Larry Lang) May Your Net Connection Be as Fast as Mine (Kevin DeMartino) British Doctor's Death Linked to PCS Coverage Gaps (Ed Ellers) Between a Rock and a Hard Place on Encryption Key Demands (Paul Robinson) 9th Circuit Set to Review Encryption Case En Banc (Monty Solomon) 4th Year Project Help (mmakrzem@my-deja.com) Re: Church Mulls Cell Tower in Cross (Bill Ranck) Re: Multiplexing Internal Wiring (Linc Madison) Re: Electrolysis in Telephone Cables (Leonard Erickson) Re: Is the '.gif tax' Thing Starting All Over Again? (Steve Winter) Help Needed With Old Phone (Peggy Cannon) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 02 Oct 1999 14:09:47 -0500 From: Mark J. Cuccia Subject: Further on AT&T Alliance Teleconferencing 700-456- All of these numbers _must_ be prefixed with 101-0288+ first if AT&T is _NOT_ your primary inTER-LATA carrier, or you have "no-PIC" for inTER-LATA ... 0-700-456-1000 attempts to route to the "default" conference bridge that you "home" on. If you "home" on Chicago or Dallas for the AT&T Alliance Conference Bridge, dialing this 700-456-1000 'default' number will give you the message about the change in Alliance, as mentioned in the earlier post on AT&T's 700 SAC-NPA. 0-700-456-1001 seems to still route to the Reno NV bridge (back in the 1980's, the bridge on -1001 was in southern CA). 0-700-456-1003 seems to still route to the White Plains NY bridge. 0-700-456-1002 (previously the Chicago IL bridge) and 0-700-456-1004 (previously the Dallas TX bridge) presently seem to go to "busy". If your "default homing" would be on the Reno NV or White Plains NY bridge, I only _assume_ that 0-700-456-1000 will still go to that Alliance Conference bridge as previously. But I guess that AT&T will eventually put the "change" announcements on these bridges soon. Incidently, dialing an AT&T-handled 500-NXX-xxxx number as a _0+_ call will first get an announcement that the service will be discontinued, and then give you the opportunity to connect to that number with a calling-card or a pre-arranged "PIN". However, when using _1+_, you still through to the number with no "pending discontinuance" announcement. As for the AT&T 500-NXX's, if AT&T is _NOT_ your primary inTER-LATA carrier (and you are also calling from a POTS non-restricted line or phone), 1+ or 0+ is _NOT_ prececded by a 101-XXXX+ code. The 500-NXX code is supposed to identify the carrier for the local telco to hand the call off to. MARK_J._CUCCIA__PHONE/WRITE/WIRE/CABLE:__HOME:__(USA)__Tel:_CHestnut-1-2497 WORK:__mcuccia@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu|4710-Wright-Road|__(+1-504-241-2497) Tel:UNiversity-5-5954(+1-504-865-5954)|New-Orleans-28__|fwds-on-no-answr-to Fax:UNiversity-5-5917(+1-504-865-5917)|Louisiana(70128)|cellular/voicemail- ------------------------------ From: lwinson@bbs.cpcn.com (L. Winson) Subject: Penna PUC Examiner Rejects Bell-GTE Merger Date: 2 Oct 1999 16:43:18 GMT Organization: The PACSIBM SIG BBS The Phila Inquirer reported on 10/1 that an examiner for the Penna PUC rejected the mergeer of Bell Atlantic and GTE because it would neither boost competition nor reduce phone rates. He wrote, the Bell Alantic GTE merger is a model of "vague and meaningless generalities" While the merger was approved in 30 other states, it was also rejected in Virigina and Kentucky. [The full article can be found on the Inqr's web page, www.phillynews.com I presume people will submit press clippings, but I'm interested in personal opinion of this event.] IMHO, I fail to see the benefits to consumers of such a mega merger. There may be some savings for GTE, especially in isolated service territories that might be better served by neighboring forces of Bell Atlantic. But I don't see how Bell customers would benefit. Huge mergers have been a trend of US business for a number of years now. Not all of them have worked out very well. In many cases, the new company became too unweildy to run and customer service suffered badly. A recent example is the takeover of part of Conrail by Norfolk Southern railroad -- NS is now having a lot of trouble with the combined system. (Partner CSX is also having some troubles.) It wasn't long ago that another railroad merger, UP and SP, had severe troubles. And of course, we shouldn't forget the lessons of the Penn Central or Continental Airlines. In Philadelphia, First Union bank's takeover of Corestates caused a lot of troubles. Are there benefits of these kinds of mergers that I'm not seeing? And of course the biggest question is why did we break up the Bell System in the first place, if it is only going to merger itself back together? I note one of the touted merger benefits is to provide a "single source for wireless, landline phone, long distance, etc." I thought the whole point of divesture was to provide SEPARATE providers for those services. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 02 Oct 1999 09:13:23 -0400 From: Judith Oppenheimer Organization: ICB Toll Free News / WhoSells800.com Subject: The Bad Witch ICANN gds@nospam.best.com (Greg Skinner) wrote: > Fine. You have a quibble with NSI's policies. Join the club. Lots > of people opposed NSI for this reason, among others. However this has > nothing to do with ICANN. This policy has been in effect long before > ICANN showed up. Blame the NTIA, or DoC, or Al Gore. (Remember this > next year at election day.) ICANN was supposed to remedy the evils of NSI, not propagate it. ... Once upon a time a domain name was a secure piece of virtual real estate that you could confidently build a business on ... And the people were happy. Then Network Solutions sought to shore up its assertion of list ownership by adding revocation to its domain name contract: Network Solutions (NSI) http://www.networksolutions.com/legal/dispute-policy.html Revocation. The registrant agrees that Network Solutions shall have the right in its sole discretion to revoke, suspend, transfer or otherwise modify a domain name registration upon thirty (30) calendar days prior written notice ... And the people were sad. Then the Good Witch ICANN waved her magic wand and said, "I will bring competition to the land, and Network Solutions will rule no more ..." And the people were hopeful. Then the Proclamation of Competition was issued, the people were aghast! Instead of competition with Network Solutions, they found copulation with Network Solutions! For how else could the bad seed of revocation have spread, and multiplied! CORE - Council of Internet Registrars (global) http://www.corenic.org/dispute-policy/CORE-dispute-policy.htm Revocation. The registrant agrees that CORE shall have the right in its sole discretion to revoke, suspend, transfer or otherwise modify a domain name registration upon thirty (30) calendar days prior written notice ... Domain Bank http://ru.domainbank.net/reg_agreement.cfm Breach and Revocation. ... You also agree that Domain Bank shall have the right in its sole discretion to revoke, suspend, transfer or otherwise modify a domain name registration upon seven (7) calendar days prior written notice, OR ... Register.com http://register.com/service-agreement.cgi?1|142560921 Breach and Revocation. You also agree that register.com shall have the right in its sole discretion to suspend, cancel, transfer or otherwise modify a domain name registration upon seven (7) calendar days prior written notice. A+Net/ABACUS America, Inc. (United States) dba Names4Ever http://www.names4ever.com/dp.html Revocation. The registrant agrees that A+Net shall have the right in its sole discretion to revoke, suspend, transfer or otherwise modify a domain name registration upon thirty (30) calendar days prior written notice, OR ... NameSecure http://www.namesecure.com/services/registration_agreement.cfm REVOCATION. ... You agree that we may, in our sole discretion, delete or transfer your domain name at any time. The people read and they read, and they said, "CORE offers no sound council ... Domain Bank is no safe depository ... Register.com looks more like rip-off.com, and NameSecure and Names4Ever are neither!" How did this come to pass, they asked? The people dug and they dug, and they found that the Witch ICAAN said it must be so!* The people were fooled! The 'Good' Witch ICANN, was the 'Bad' Witch ICANN in sparkly clothes and a bad weave! Now the people are sad, and angry too. And have decreed that a house must fall upon the Bad Witch ICANN's head! And their domain names returned to their safekeeping at once, so the world can be free and happy, once more. The end. *Paragraph 3 of the PROPOSED Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy http://www.icann.org/udrp/udrp-policy-29sept99.htm says, "We may also cancel, transfer or otherwise make changes to a domain name registration in accordance with the terms of your Registration Agreement or other legal requirements." Paragraph 7 says it again: "Maintaining the Status Quo. We will not cancel, transfer, activate, deactivate, or otherwise change the status of any domain name registration under this Policy except as provided in Paragraph 3 above." Note that while the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy is not yet passed, the contract language is already in place, mandated by ICANN's Registrar Accreditation Policy: "Business Dealings, Including with SLD Holders: The SLD holder shall agree that its registration of the SLD name shall be subject to suspension, cancellation, or transfer by any ICANN procedure, or by any registrar or registry administrator procedure approved by an ICANN-adopted policy, (1) to correct mistakes by Registrar or the registry administrator in registering the name or (2) for the resolution of disputes concerning the SLD name." ***By entering into the Registrar Accreditation contracts, ICANN is going around the entire process of public discussion, public comment, consensus decision-making.*** Quite slick, don't you think? Judith Oppenheimer, 1 800 The Expert, 212 684-7210 mailto:joppenheimer@icbtollfree.com Publisher of ICB Toll Free News: http://icbtollfree.com Publisher of WhoSells800.com: http://whosells800.com Moderator TOLLFREE-L: http://www.egroups.com/group/tollfree-l/info.html President of ICB Consultancy: http://JudithOppenheimer.com ------------------------------ Reply-To: Monty Solomon From: Monty Solomon Subject: Bell Atlantic Files For Long-Distance Approval Date: Sat, 02 Oct 1999 18:06:41 -0400 Analysts are heading to the betting windows and placing their money on Bell Atlantic after the giant carrier today filed at the Federal Communications Commission for long-distance authority in New York. http://www.nwfusion.com/news/1999/0929longbell.html ------------------------------ From: llang@No_Spam.eng.paradyne.com (Larry Lang) Subject: Need Suggestions for Digital Padding Date: Sat, 02 Oct 1999 16:03:06 GMT Organization: Paradyne Corp To get right to the point, I am looking for a device that would go in series with a T1 link and will allow me to inject digital padding into the stream. I am in a lab environment and have a "Class 5" CO simulator but it cannot be programmed to provide loss. The T1 streams I am dealing with come from a DSLAM and run to the switch. This is a voice system and the end to end loss is only 6db which is provided by the endpoint units. I need to be able to add at least another 6db as would be done in a real switch. Using analog padding is not optional. I know the Ameritec AM7 CO simulator is capable of providing 0-12 db of loss on their T1 cards. The vendor of the simulator I have says they cannot add it as a feature. If anyone has any ideas, please e-mail me offline. Remove the "No_Spam " from my address. Thanks in advance! Larry Lang ------------------------------ From: Kevin DeMartino Subject: May Your Net Connection Be as Fast as Mine Date: Sat, 02 Oct 1999 13:47:06 -0400 In V19 #446, Monty Solomon quotes Stewart Alsop: > How fast is fast? As we move to the much hoo-hahed world of broadband, > this is a big question -- how much speed is enough for the Internet > connections of the future? So far no one has a good answer. I moderated > a panel of network executives at the Tech Museum in San Jose recently, > and let me tell you -- even the cognoscenti can't agree about what is > adequate speed. > http://www.pathfinder.com/fortune/technology/alsop/1999/10/11/index.html What is an adequate speed for an Internet connection? It depends on what you're looking for. Required data rates for various applications are listed below: - Audio streaming (MP3) 32-128 Kb/s - MPEG-1 video streaming (VCR quality) 1.5 Mb/s - MPEG-2 video streaming (high quality) 4-6 Mb/s - High definition TV (HDTV) 20-30 Mb/s Asymmetric DSL (ADSL) could support MPEG-1 video over most existing subscriber access lines in the U.S. or MPEG-2 over about half the subscriber lines. To accommodate HDTV, fiber must be run to the subscribers' neighborhood. Hybrid fiber-coax (HFC) systems could support simultaneously video streams for a limited number of subscribers in a particular area. MPEG-4 is the ISO/IEC standard for multimedia. MPEG-4 was designed to accommodate a wide variety of multimedia applications encompassing a wide range of data rates. It would be possible to design an MPEG-4 compliant application that required data rates far in excess of the 20-30 Mb/s required for HDTV. It would also be possible to design applications that could be accommodated by ADSL. MPEG-4 provides enough flexibility so that applications and their associated data rates can be tailored to fit within available capacities. So if you need to be the first kid on your block with the hottest new application, then as of today you need a connection that provides several Mb/s, which you can get with a cable modem or ADSL in some places. In several years, you will need to upgrade to a connection that provides tens of Mb/s. Eventually, when fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) becomes available (my guess is 10-20 years), you will need a 155 Mb/s (OC-3 or STM-1) connection. Kevin DeMartino Dynamics Research Corporation ------------------------------ From: Ed Ellers Subject: British Doctor's Death Linked to PCS Coverage Gaps Date: Sat, 2 Oct 1999 20:13:58 -0400 From BBC News Online: "An inquest in west Wales has heard a woman who bled to death at her isolated cottage was unable to summon help because of poor reception on her mobile phone. "Alison Bell, a 36-year-old surgeon from west London, cut her leg badly after falling from a step ladder while working on renovations at her family's cottage near Fishguard. "The hearing in Milford Haven was told that Dr. Alison Jane Graham Bell, who was based in London, would have survived the freak accident if help had arrived quickly." http://news2.thls.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/wales/newsid%5F461000/461724.stm ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 2 Oct 1999 17:45:01 EDT Subject: Between a Rock and a Hard Place on Encryption Key Demands From: Paul Robinson UK-Based Silicon.com reported how a potential law in the UK requiring that persons give up an encryption key to the government could cause people to be caught in a situation where they could be subject to imprisonment unless they can prove something that cannot be proven. The whole thing shocked me, and I thought that such a thing could appear almost anywhere, if the laws were written badly enough: From 'Breakfast with Frost' to porridge in Pentonville? Jack Straw could end up in a spot of legal bother if certain controversial bits of legislation aren't redrafted in the near future. Campaigning group Stand.org sent Straw an email this week, at the bottom of which was some encrypted text. If you had the right key, you'd know that this was a confession of a crime. Stand.org informed the Metropolitan Police that Mr. Straw was in possession of the confession. Because the words had been scrambled, Mr Straw was of course unable to read the words himself. But the key was created in Mr. Straw's name and registered on international public key servers. The police could demand that Straw supply them with the key. And here's the punchline: failure to do so could land him in jail for two years under the terms of the Electronic Communications Bill. As Stand.org's letter to the Home Secretary continued, "The fact that you don't possess this key won't help you unless you can prove that you don't have it. I wish you well in proving that it isn't hidden away on a disk in your secretary's home, or squirreled away on the Internet somewhere. We might have sent it to you last week; but according to the Bill, the police won't have to prove you ever had it at all. "Even if you can prove that you don't have it you would STILL be liable for imprisonment unless you give information to the police that enables them to decrypt the key. Unfortunately for you this is impossible, because we've destroyed all copies ofthe key in our possession. "If the police ask you keep the demand to hand over the key secret, telling anyone would render you liable to five years in jail. "So you couldn't complain - or explain your predicament - to the PM or Home Secretary, to the Chief Whip or a journalist, or even to another policeman." Fortunately for Straw, this scenario is only theoretical, as the Bill is not yet law. And I'd imagine parliament will now be encouraged to amend the legislation - yet again. After all, 'guilty until proven innocent' has a distinctly uncomfortable ring to it. The government, as new e-minister Patricia Hewett is wont to crow about, listened over the key escrow issue, so the necessary amendments will probably be made this time as well. Word of advise next time round: look up the word 'consultation' in the dictionary before attempting to draft any Bill affecting the IT sector. ------------------------------ Subject: 9th Circuit Set to Review Encryption Case En Banc Date: Sat, 2 Oct 1999 20:50:46 -0400 From: Monty Solomon The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals threw the status of encrypted technology on the Internet into limbo on Thursday. The court ordered that a three-judge opinion in Bernstein v. U.S. Department of Justice, 176 F.3d 1132, be reconsidered by the court en banc. In May, the panel held by a 2-1 vote that computer source code is speech protected by the First Amendment, and thus can be posted on the Internet without government approval. http://www.lawnewsnetwork.com/stories/A6794-1999Sep30.html ------------------------------ From: mmakrzem@my-deja.com Subject: 4th Year Project Help Date: Sat, 02 Oct 1999 13:48:50 GMT Organization: Deja.com - Before you buy. Hi, I'm an Electrical Engineering student at the University of Waterloo. As a fourth year project I would like to design a tracking system to find objects. I envision a system with a transmitter and receiver, where the receiver can gather the distance and direction of the transmitter from the receiver. Can anyone here help me get started. I haven't had any Radio theory courses in school yet so I'm pretty blind in the RF phenomenon. I will have about eight months to design and build the project with the help of three other students. Marek Class of 2001 "Watt the Flux" University of Waterloo ------------------------------ From: Bill Ranck Subject: Re: Church Mulls Cell Tower in Cross Date: 02 Oct 1999 13:28:46 GMT Organization: Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia, USA James Gifford wrote: > rich wrote: >> Also schrieb ranck@joesbar.cc.vt.edu: >>> And the clear, obvious, technological solution to that is satellite >>> based service. >> Even an LEO satellite is going to have an orbit of about 150 miles or >> so. A cell is, IIRC, scant miles on a side. > We have this already. It's called Iridium. They went broke trying to > make it work. Iridium has some economic/financial problems, true. But that does not mean the entire concept is unworkable. As I said in my original post on this topic, the econimics of launching satellites and/or the economics of ground based cell sites will have to change. There are some low cost launch methods under development today that could tilt the balance in favor of satellites in a few years. The NIMBYs will continue to put up road blocks, thus raising the cost of ground based cell sites. Personally, I think Iridium needed to lower the cost of their service to attract a large enough user base to make technological development more worthwhile. I am not familiar enough with their business model to know if that was feasible, but I believe that at some point the economics of the situation will make it feasible. And, yes, there are some technological problems that need to be solved, so maybe it won't ever happen. I said 5 to 10 years in my first post, I'll stick to that prediction. ***************************************************************************** * Bill Ranck +1-540-231-3951 ranck@vt.edu * * Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, Computing Center * ***************************************************************************** ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 02 Oct 1999 19:24:03 -0700 From: Linc Madison Subject: Re: Multiplexing Internal Wiring In article , Jonathan Seder wrote: > Do you both need to be able to talk at once, or do you just need > different "numbers"? "Distinctive ring" would let know for whom a > call is intended. Not in California, it wouldn't. The service is not tariffed or offered, probably because of concerns over exacerbating the already horrific numbering crunch. Maybe after we get settled into thousands-block pooling and other conservation measures, we might be able to get distinctive ringing. ------------------------------ From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson) Subject: Re: Electrolysis in Telephone Cables Date: Sat, 02 Oct 1999 05:45:12 PST Organization: Shadownet twhite8611@aol.com (Tim White) writes: > What causes the electrolysis in telephone cables? > Today I took the sheath off of three air-core cables that had been > spliced in a buried ready access closure a number of years ago. The > wire work in the closure was severely deteriorated. My assignment was > to take off six to eight inches of sheath so we could have some good > wire to work with during future repairs. All three of the cables had > electrolysis on the aluminum sheath. That is; a white powdery > substance was on the metal turnplate. What causes this deterioration > of the sheath? Aluminum is actually a *very* reactive metal. It will react with water quite readily, producing hydrogen gas and aluminum oxide. It's almost as reactive as magnesium. The trick is that aluminum oxide is a *very* tough and non-reactive material. It's essentially sapphire. But, a strong base solution will dissolve the oxide, leaving the bare metal exposed to the water. In the case of the cables, you probably have a bit of residual moisture, and the presence of another metal. So you have a battery. And the aluminum becomes the sacrifical anode. Heck, given the right sort of mechanical vibration or temperature cycling, you could continue to get raw aluminum exposed to air, where it reacts with the oxygen. Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow) shadow@krypton.rain.com <--preferred leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com <--last resort ------------------------------ From: steve@sellcom.com (Steve Winter) Subject: Re: Is the '.gif tax' Thing Starting All Over Again? Date: Sat, 02 Oct 1999 21:09:53 -0400 Organization: WWW.SELLCOM.COM Reply-To: steve@sellcom.com Glenn Randers-Pehrson spake thusly and wrote: > All they need to do is to look for a GIF comment that says GifBuilder > (that's free software, whose author was apparently forced by U-NO-who > to stop distributing it) or "built with DEMO copy of ..." or "built > with UNREGISTERED copy of ...". What about the US flag at www.whitehouse.gov that was created with unregistered shareware? ;O) Steve http://www.sellcom.com Cyclades Siemens EnGenius Zoom at discount prices. SSL Secure VISA/MC/AMEX Online ordering Listed at http://www.thepubliceye.com as SELLCOM New Brick Wall "non-MOV" surge protection [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: If the Justice Department can rip off a small software company by purchasing one copy of a legal database and then place pirated copies on all its work stations -- getting sued in the process but stalling so long it never gets to court, and if the same Justice Department can be the defendant in a class action suit filed by several hundred of its employees who claim their supervisors instructed them to forge and falsify department payroll records and if the same Justice Department has an agency under its supervision called the FBI which may, in our lifetime, God willing, eventually get around to honestly admitting what really happened in Waco, then what makes you think the White House gives a Tinker's Dam about some itty-bitty little flag on their web site? Heck, they don't even care about the real one from which the little one was designed and what it stands for; why bother legalizing their use of the design on their web site? The last time some 12-year old hacker broke into the White House web site, didn't flag.gif get replaced by swastika.gif or was that at some other government agency? PAT] ------------------------------ From: Peggy Cannon Subject: Help Needed With Old Phone Date: Sat, 2 Oct 1999 11:05:14 -0400 Hello Patrick, sorry to bother you, however, I have an old phone from my step father when he died and I have a few questions. Unfortunately, I'm not even sure where to look for answers. My questions are, how old is the phone and can I get it to work with my current phone configuration. I know nothing about phones. On the bottom of this phone it says Monophone and Automatic<>Electric. It's an old rotary black phone that has a lock for the handle. I suppose my description shows you how much I really don't know. It also has the original cable, with yellow, green and red wires. Can you help me? Thank you, Peggy Cannon [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I will trust that some of our readers who are familiar with Automatic Electric from the long-ago days will write you to get more specifics and offer advice. I can tell you that *probably* the red/green wires, if attached to the same colors at your current junction box will give you dial tone. The yellow wire served as a 'ground' from the days when it was thought necessary or advisable to have one. You can probably let it remain loose, taped out of the way. If red/green from the phone to red/green in the phone wiring at your home does produce a dial tone, you may find the phone none the less makes quite a bit of noise which your ears won't like. That is, going on/off hook may cause a loud popping noise in the earpiece, dialing a number may cause the earpiece to crackle and pop as you dial, or it may cause the bell inside the phone to 'jingle' as the dial is returning to its normal position. If I am correct, older Automatic Electric phones differed from Bell (Western Electric) phones in at least one obvious way: with Bell/WECO the finger stop was mounted firmly at about the four o'clock position and the dial was thin, black metal. With AECO, the finger stop was closer to the five o'clock position and itself would slide down a bit to nearly the six o'clock position when your finger pressed against it. I believe also the dial was a silver color and it was made of thicker (in depth) metal. If you get dial tone after wiring it in the line, it is possible the modern phone system may understand the pulsing it gets when you dial a number. No guarentees as to how it will sound to people when you talk on it or how well you will hear them. First let's find out if it works at al by attaching it to the phone wires as described at the junction box in your home. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #449 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sun Oct 3 03:43:09 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id DAA29589; Sun, 3 Oct 1999 03:43:09 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sun, 3 Oct 1999 03:43:09 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199910030743.DAA29589@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #450 TELECOM Digest Sun, 3 Oct 99 03:43:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 450 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: October 1999 Scientific American Report on High Speed (Julian Thomas) Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? (Kim Brennan) Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? (Leonard Erickson) Re: It Makes You Think (A Tale of WW2) (Leonard Erickson) Some 724 Area Details (Carl Moore) Re: Phone Line Attached to Water Meter (Bruce Wilson) Information Needed About Micro of Siemens (Jose Ernesto Juan Vidal) Re: Toll-Free "Local" Numbers? (mlevin@meadhall.com) Telecom Industry Question For You (Henry H. Lin) Re: EnGenius SN-900 Ultra - Conference Calling?? (Steve Winter) Re: No Address on TELECOM Digest Posts? (Adam H. Kerman) Re: No Address on TELECOM Digest Posts? (Garrett Wollman) Re: Help Me Name That Mystery Piece of Telecom Equipment (Ken Elgart) "Hidden" Antennas (was: Church Mulls Cell Tower in Cross) (John Warne) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: jata@aepiax.net (Julian Thomas) Subject: Re: October 1999 Scientific American Report on High Speed Internet Date: Sat, 02 Oct 1999 15:57:07 GMT In , on 09/30/99 at 10:38 PM, David Devereaux-Weber said: > The October 1999 issue of Scientific American has a special report on > High Speed Internet Access for the Home. It appears to be a fair and > wide ranging. But unfortunately flawed -- an excerpt from the lead article states: A much faster service known as T1 was initially developed for bringing multiple voice connections to a business; it can carry data at 1.544 Mbps, and some small businesses and even home offices have begun using it for data access. Still, T1 has traditionally been priced for commercial voice access, which is much more costly and more than most people can afford for data access. Er -- I think that the BSTJ article written by the father of T1 (Dixon Penick of Bell Labs at the time) will show that T1 was initially developed for multiplexing voice channels between central offices. Julian Thomas: jt . epix @ net http://home.epix.net/~jt remove letter a for email (or switch . and @) Boardmember of POSSI.org - Phoenix OS/2 Society, Inc http://www.possi.org In the beautiful Finger Lakes Wine Country of New York State! A flying saucer results when a nudist spills his coffee. ------------------------------ From: kim@aol.com (Kim Brennan) Date: 02 Oct 1999 17:19:40 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? Brian Elfert replies: > You didn't mention earlier that the mail was the result of forgeries > or mistakes by others. In a different thread (some time ago), I had. > At least they offer a real remove option, unlike 99.9% of the spam I get > daily. It's not the site's fault that you have a common name at the > world's largest online service. No, but since a "common name" is possible at ANY isp or domain, the list admin's should confirm the email address before passing the address into the list. I still get a fair amount of unsolicited spam that is NOT the result of someone else signing my address up. My vigorous efforts over the last month has managed to trim the erroneous and spam mail from 200+ down to less than 100 a day. A victory of sorts. The one's I love are the folks who respond something to the effect of ">I< didn't send you any mail, I'm going to take it up with >insert ISP< right now." AND then proceed to send erroneously addressed email again. 2nd favorite is when I've flamed them, and they say they will take it up with AOL about my flaming them. Since I keep documentation of all mail I have sent, I'm looking forward to time when the AOL folks contact me (still hasn't happened). Most recently I had sent (brusk, but concise) mail saying that person had sent mail to the wrong address (in five separate emails). THEN I flamed the person. Suddenly, they are all interested in contacting AOL about my rudeness. Despite their rudeness in imposing their personal life into my email box. Two days later they again sent erroneously addressed email to me. AOL's filtering implimentations are insufficient for a "common name" address such as mine. Kim Brennan (kim@aol.com) Duo 2300c, PB 2400, VW Fox Wagon GL, Corrado SLC, Vanagon GL Syncro http://members.aol.com/kim Duo Info Page: http://members.aol.com/kim/computer/duo ?'s should include "Duo" in subject, else they'll be deleted unread. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Instead of going to the trouble, why don't you just write a small, generic reply to go out in every case which simply says, "The address you used, ** kim@aol.com ** for the letter attached below is an incorrect address for the person you are trying to reach. Please check your correspondent's email address, and send your letter again addressed correctly. REPEAT: ** kim@aol.com ** is not the person you are seeking. If your problem continues, please request assistance from AOL customer service. No help available at this address. Thank you." DO NOT sign the letter or go into any explanations. Just keep it in a file somewhere, and each time you go through your mail and get a misaddressed letter, forward it back with your generic reply added to the top of it. Maybe fix yourself a little script so it happens in two seconds. Click, click, click, be done with it. If the same person writes you ten ten times, they get the same answer back ten times. If you write back, they are going to write you again. If they see it is signed 'kim@aol.com' then they won't understand how it is an improper address. Tell them you are going to report them and their answer will be they will report you instead. So just make a little script, pipe the mail through it, click click, be done with it. Be sure and return their letter to them. PAT] ------------------------------ From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson) Subject: Re: Is it Legal When They Say This? Date: Sat, 02 Oct 1999 06:10:36 PST Organization: Shadownet Barry Margolin writes: > In article , Joseph T. Adams > wrote: >> Second, there are in fact statutes that specifically outlaw spam in >> many jurisdictions. The validity of these laws is in dispute, insofar > That was why I specifically said "federal law". I know Washington > State has an anti-spam law, and maybe a couple of other states do as > well, but there's nothing specifically referring to spam in the > federal statutes. Maybe not, but I *distinctly* recall a federal law passed about ten years back making it illegal to obtain access to or use of a computer by using a bogus id. I'd say that any spam with a bogus return address or that uses a bogus account name on a real system is arguably in violation of this law. And as I recall, that makes it a *felony*. Anybody recall the law I'm thinking of? I'd *really* like to see someone convince a US Attorney's office to file charges against some of the more prevalent spammers under this law. Spam would be *far* more tolerable if the return addresses had to be real. Because we could block them. Or express our displeasure. > If spam is already illegal because it's theft, why did these states > need to enact these laws? To show that they are doing something. It'd be *far* from the last time that legislators passed a law regarding something already adequately covered by existing laws. > I believe that most successful cases against spammers > have been on issues of fraud and trademark infringement; spammers > typically use fake email addresses, and the legitimate owner of the > domain can be damaged if recipients think it came from them. It's not > the spam itself that's illegal in these instances, it's the way the > spammers send it and try to hide their identities. See my comments above. If you could get the authorities to press the charges, you could impose some *real* penalties on spammers using false addresses. Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow) shadow@krypton.rain.com <--preferred leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com <--last resort ------------------------------ From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson) Subject: Re: It Makes You Think (A Tale of WW2) Date: Sat, 02 Oct 1999 06:22:00 PST Organization: Shadownet nagle@netcom.com (John Nagle) writes: > stanri@yahooREMOVETHISPART.com (Stan U.) writes: >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I do not think that is true. I think >> there were underwater cables by then used for voice. The reason I say >> this is because one advertisement from AT&T which appeared at various >> times between 1942-45 talked about helping the military guys stay in >> touch with their families. > The first transatlantic voice cable didn't go in until the 1950s. > Telegraph cables were dumb wires, but voice required periodic > amplifiers. The problem was developing an amplifier that could > operate on the ocean bottom for decades. Long-life tubes were used. > Earlier transatlantic links were full-duplex short-wave radio. I > recall vaguely that the power used was 10KW, and a simple scrambler > (the A4 system, a bank of filters with switchgear that interchanged a > few audio bands with a new pattern every 15 seconds or so) was used. > The Germans did figure out how to break the scrambler, using a simple > sound spectrograph. Actually, the earliest system used simple frequency inversion. Churchill and Roosevelt used it quite a bit before it was replaced with the above system. One interesting detail was that the the people working with the system "learned" to understand the inverted speech! The human brain has a surprising capacity for unscrambling some types of "scrambled" input. This would have given security types nightmares, except they didn't hear about it until after the new system was in use. Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow) shadow@krypton.rain.com <--preferred leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com <--last resort ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 02 Oct 1999 15:20:29 EDT From: Carl Moore Subject: Some 724 Area Details I was in Pittsburgh a week ago, and notice this about old area 412: The airport (pay phones I saw had prefixes 299 and 472) is in 412 area, but Imperial (695 prefix and apparently a neighboring exchange w/r to the airport) is in 724 area. Before the 412/724 split, 412-area prefixes were broken down like this: 1. Pittsburgh 2. suburbs 3. outside Pittsburgh & suburbs (breakdown is like 215 was before 215/610 split, with Philadelphia in place of Pittsburgh) 724 area got Irwin, which is part of "suburbs", and all places "outside Pittsburgh and suburbs", so except for some boundary "noise" it has all of Westmoreland County. Pittsburgh and all other suburbs stayed in 412. Irwin is in Westmoreland County (and zipcode 15642), even though the phone prefix was part of "suburbs". I was able to make local calls in 412 just as 7D. ------------------------------ From: blw1540@aol.comxxnospam (Bruce Wilson) Date: 02 Oct 1999 10:50:30 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: Phone Line Attached to Water Meter > All phones currently produced will respond to distinctive > ringing. They may not repeat the pattern perfectly, but they will > ring. Besides only the customer can request distinctive ring. The > water department can't have it put on anyone's line. My only direct experience with one of these setups was when it was installed at my dad's house; and it may be he had to sign something in conjunction with that. I know we were told the water company initiated the call to the box and that we wouldn't be aware of it happening when it did. The only way I could see that working would be if some form of distinctive ring, to which the phones or other connected devices wouldn't respond, were used. Bruce Wilson ------------------------------ From: Jose Ernesto Juan Vidal Subject: Information Wanted About Micro of Siemens Date: Sat, 2 Oct 1999 20:46:24 +0200 Organization: Telefonica Transmision de Datos Hi, I'm an Telecomunications student and I need some information about a micro of Siemens for my final project, it's called nanoModul-164 and it is neccessary for my project. I would like that if you know some information about it, you send me something. Thank you again and see you soon. ------------------------------ From: mlevin@meadhall.com Subject: Re: Toll-Free "Local" Numbers? Date: Sat, 02 Oct 1999 16:41:15 GMT Organization: Deja.com - Before you buy. Interesting. I have known for some time (actually, a friend of mine discovered this) that she can call my 617 area Bell Atlantic Mobile cell phone from any 617 or 781 area Bell Atlantic payphone for free. Don't know about COCOTs though. ------------------------------ From: Henry H. Lin Subject: Telecom Industry Question For You Date: Sat, 2 Oct 1999 22:25:31 -0400 Dear Editor, Do you know of any web sites, magazines, or resources where I can go, if I am interested in acquiring telecom companies? Any help or insight would be greatly appreciated! Henry Lin ------------------------------ From: steve@sellcom.com (Steve Winter) Subject: Re: EnGenius SN-900 Ultra - Conference Calling ?? Date: Sat, 02 Oct 1999 21:15:26 -0400 Organization: WWW.SELLCOM.COM Reply-To: steve@sellcom.com ken@postperfect.com (ken) spake thusly and wrote: > I am thinking of purchasing 900 Ultra. Reading manual and nowhere > that I can find does it state that more than one handset can speak to > the incoming call at any one time. In fact it mentions something > about locking the other extensions out from that line. Is it my > imagination or does this great looking sytem not allow more than one > extension to handle a call. What if I want to conference 2 or 3 > internal people with one outside line. Please tell me I missed > something in the manual. Please say it isn't so ... Some days you're the windshield; some days you're the bug. It can be done, but it is stupid, by putting more than one base unit on the same line. Think of it as version 1 of a brand new thing. We really can get dialtone a half a mile away. Steve http://www.sellcom.com Cyclades Siemens EnGenius Zoom at discount prices. SSL Secure VISA/MC/AMEX Online ordering Listed at http://www.thepubliceye.com as SELLCOM New Brick Wall "non-MOV" surge protection ------------------------------ From: Adam H. Kerman Subject: Re: No Address on TELECOM Digest Posts? Date: 2 Oct 1999 11:27:30 -0500 Organization: Chinet - Public Access since 82 Derek Balling wrote: > Adam H. Kerman wrote: >> Derek J. Balling wrote: >>> Your right to reply is enumerated where? If you want to reply, you are >>> free to reply in the forum I posted in, but for someone to assume they >>> have some "right" to send me e-mail is incorrect in the extreme. >> You seem to be going out of your way to misinterpret these comments. > No, not at all, actually. >> Anyone may send e-mail; we won't debate if this is a "right" with >> regard to spam. Clearly, a lurker on Usenet has a right to mail a >> reply only to the author of the original message in lieu of posting a >> followup on News or replying via the list-posting address, as the case >> may be. > No. If you say that a Usenet lurker has a right but a spammer does > not, then you are discriminating. There IS no right. Point me to the > law of the land that enumerates this "right" to send me an e-mail. Gee. I said I didn't want to discuss spammers' rights. No right enumerated in statute? The right of your heart to continue beating, the right to breathe isn't enumerated either. Let's call it a natural right. If you have access to e-mail AND you follow the rules AND you know of an authentic mailbox, you may send Mail. Even a spammer may send Mail; they simply neglect to follow the rules, such as authentication, terms of service of their bandwidth providers, the rules of networks they connect with, and so on. Perhaps a spammer even has a natural right to use Mail as long as he is properly identified. He can send messages; he doesn't have the right to expect that other networks will receive it. >> By various standards, it is mandatory to have a valid mailbox in a >> From header of a message on Mail or News. Therefore, someone reading >> that message, whether in Mail or News, has the right to expect that >> there is a valid mailbox in the From header. > It is mandatory to have an address which passes the specifications of > RFC822 and RFC823. Whether that address is actually valid is actually > required nowhere. I don't see that RFC823 is applicable. But here's a citation from RFC822: RFC # 822 STANDARD FOR THE FORMAT OF ARPA INTERNET TEXT MESSAGES 4. MESSAGE SPECIFICATION 4.1. SYNTAX authentic = "From" ":" mailbox ; Single author / ( "Sender" ":" mailbox ; Actual submittor "From" ":" 1#mailbox) ; Multiple authors ; or not sender 4.4. ORIGINATOR FIELDS The standard allows only a subset of the combinations possi- ble with the From, Sender, Reply-To, Resent-From, Resent-Sender, and Resent-Reply-To fields. The limitation is intentional. 4.4.1. FROM / RESENT-FROM This field contains the identity of the person(s) who wished this message to be sent. The message-creation process should default this field to be a single, authenticated machine address, indicating the AGENT (person, system or process) entering the message. If this is not done, the "Sender" field MUST be present. If the "From" field IS defaulted this way, the "Sender" field is optional and is redundant with the "From" field. In all cases, addresses in the "From" field must be machine-usable (addr-specs) and may not contain named lists (groups). 4.4.2. SENDER / RESENT-SENDER This field contains the authenticated identity of the AGENT (person, system or process) that sends the message. It is intended for use when the sender is not the author of the mes- sage, or to indicate who among a group of authors actually sent the message. If the contents of the "Sender" field would be completely redundant with the "From" field, then the "Sender" field need not be present and its use is discouraged (though still legal). In particular, the "Sender" field MUST be present if it is NOT the same as the "From" Field. The Sender mailbox specification includes a word sequence which must correspond to a specific agent (i.e., a human user or a computer program) rather than a standard address. This indicates the expectation that the field will identify the single AGENT (person, system, or process) responsible for sending the mail and not simply include the name of a mailbox from which the mail was sent. For example in the case of a shared login name, the name, by itself, would not be adequate. The local-part address unit, which refers to this agent, is expected to be a computer system term, and not (for example) a generalized person reference which can be used outside the network text message context. Since the critical function served by the "Sender" field is identification of the agent responsible for sending mail and since computer programs cannot be held accountable for their behavior, it is strongly recommended that when a computer pro- gram generates a message, the HUMAN who is responsible for that program be referenced as part of the "Sender" field mail- box specification. The standard makes use of the words "authentic" with the From header, to identify a single author, and with the Sender header, to identify the actual submitter. Furthermore, unambiguous language refers to From, such as "contains the identity", "authenticated machine address", etc., and similar language applies to Sender. >> Nowhere is there a standard requiring the recipient of a message in >> Mail to read it, let alone reply to it. If you refuse to read personal >> replies sent to you in response to messages you write for News or >> mailing lists, that is your business. No standard prevents you from >> forwarding that mailbox to /dev/null. > No standard also requires me to, by very nature of posting an opinion > to a public forum, to be also forced to accept e-mail, possibly paying > for the mere privilege of receiving it without regard as to whether it > is read or deleted. At the time you are sending the message, a valid mailbox must appear in the From header. There is no ambiguity on that point. >> Why are you wrong for refusing to follow these standards? Because Mail >> and News are shared resources that you don't pay for. The rules to >> comply with are fairly minimal, yet people like you complain >> constantly about how these rules create an imposition on you. > What rules? Show me the rules. The RFC's are, for this purpose, "the > law of the land", and I have yet to find one that explicitly states > that I must use a functional e-mail address. All I have to use is one > which complies with the standard, not one that is accurate. A nonexistent e-mail address in the From header is nonstandard. Your interpretation is not supported by the clear languange of the standard. ------------------------------ From: wollman@lcs.mit.edu (Garrett Wollman) Subject: Re: No Address on TELECOM Digest Posts? Date: 2 Oct 1999 17:25:27 GMT Organization: MIT Laboratory for Computer Science In article , Derek Balling wrote: > We're not talking about wheat from chaff on Usenet. We're talking about > people getting their e-mail addresses harvested from Usenet and then > flooded with spam because of it. So fix the spammers, or learn to live with it. I've been posting to Usenet regularly for the past decade, but the amount of spam I received which is traceable to Usenet is next to nil. (Hint: the vast majority comes from poorly-secured mailing-lists.) Garrett A. Wollman | O Siem / We are all family / O Siem / We're all the same wollman@lcs.mit.edu | O Siem / The fires of freedom Opinions not those of| Dance in the burning flame MIT, LCS, CRS, or NSA| - Susan Aglukark and Chad Irschick [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Poorly-secured mailing-lists? Well I hope you were not looking at me when you said that. I think I take excellent precautions with my list. But I cannot help it if someone subscribes who secretly is a spammer then when the Digest reaches them each day it just gets piped through a script which plucks out all the 'From:' lines and adds them to a file somewhere. PAT] ------------------------------ From: elgart@netdepot.com (Ken Elgart) Subject: Re: Help Me Name That Mystery Piece of Telecom Equipment Date: Sat, 02 Oct 1999 16:44:42 -0400 In article , Alec Isaacson wrote: > The inside wiring in my house terminates in a grey box in my basement, > which in turn has wires which go off to the utility pole. The box is > about 6 inches square and about 3 inches deep. With the box's cover > off, I see two tall silver tubular things with KS13486 and 7/14/69 > stamped on them (the last looks like a date to me). They don't look > to be capacitors to me, but I could be wrong. > I also see three rows of screw terminals labeled 1-3, 4-6, and 7-9. > Each row has three sets of two screws which look to be electrically > connected and the entire set of terminals is duplicated (i.e. I have > six rows total). Most of the screws have wires terminating on them. > The baseplate of the entire box has 105A engraved on it and 1BKTU > stamped on it in ink. > Finally, the box has four square devices with clear plastic tops that > have B1182=69K stamped on them. They look kind of like relays, but I > haven't been able to get into them to see. > My question is this: What is the box and what is its purpose? Could > it be contributing to my slow connect speeds? If so, I'll press with > my LEC to get my external wiring changed to the demarc. If not, I'll > leave well enough alone. What you have are two 1B Key Telephone Units in a 105A Apparatus Box. These were used (as part of the 1A key telephone system which was replaced by 1A1 which was in turn replaced by 1A2) to provide the hold feature for one line each. The device marked KS13486 is a 60 microfarad non-polarized electrolytic capacitor and, yes, 7-14-69 is the manufacture date. The devices marked B1182=69K are relays made at Kearney, NJ during the 2nd quarter of 1969. However only 2 of the relays should be type B1182, the others should be marked with a B followed by a different number. If you're interested I can furnish a schematic showing how they were connected. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 02 Oct 1999 08:02:47 -0400 From: John Warne Subject: "Hidden" Antennas (was: Church Mulls Cell Tower in Cross) I was driving through NJ last winter on December 24th. There's a cell tower and antenna array beside one of the Interstates that is supposed to look like a tree. Brown trunk and branches and really green leaves in a grove of other trees. 'Course, in late December, the other trees had no leaves and the trunks and branches were 'winter' brown. Maybe in summer, I guess. -30- ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #450 ******************************