From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Mar 25 12:57:46 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id MAA27016; Mon, 25 Mar 2002 12:57:46 -0500 (EST) Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2002 12:57:46 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200203251757.MAA27016@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #201 TELECOM Digest Mon, 25 Mar 2002 12:57:00 EST Volume 20 : Issue 201 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Tie Mod Key 16 Programming Information? (plus: Verizon sucks) (J Goggan) SMS for PSTN (Leonid) How Do I Judge the Quality of a Standard Phone Set? (Ran Chermesh) Re: Looking for Bell System Technical Journal (Mike Berger) Re: Wall Corded Telephone That Doesn't Use a Base (Don Saklad) Phone Book Cabinet Question (Barb) Re: Recourse For Very Slow T1 Installation? (JDS) Re: Erlang Calculator for the Palm (Rob Clark) How Long do Callers Wait on Hold? (Rob Clark) FCC Deals a Death Blow to Usenet ... and Nobody Noticed (Ken Abrams) Free Classes (Low Cost Certification) (abcsupport@wbcnet.net) Re: News Headlines - EU Getting Global Navigation System (G. Novosielski) News Headlines of Interest (Monty Solomon) So Much Junk Mail (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-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 630-841-7174 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@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 * * Judith Oppenheimer, President of ICB Inc. and purveyor of accurate * * 800 & Dot Com News, Intelligence, Analysis, and Consulting. * * http://ICBTollFree.com, http://1800TheExpert.com * * Views expressed herein should not be construed as representing * * views of Judith Oppenheimer or ICB Inc. * ************************************************************************* ICB Toll Free News. Contact information is not sold, rented or leased. Access to Premium (P) links requires upgrade to a paid subscription. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Only subscribers or registered users of ICB Toll Free News web site will be able to access all or some of the full text of URLs provided. LEGAL STUFF: TELECOM Digest (sm) is owned by Patrick Townson. Copyright 2000 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. 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: John Goggan Subject: Tie Mod Key 16 Programming Information? (plus: Verizon sucks) Date: Fri, 22 Mar 2002 15:10:02 GMT Organization: Journey Communications (journey.net) We have an old Tie Mod Key 16 system (with GTE phones) in use at our office. It has been programmed as we want it and fine for years. We share a wiring/phone closet with two other small businesses in our building. Two weeks ago, our phones suddenly went dead. We went down to check and, lo and behold, Verizon was in the closet mucking about. We informed them that our phones had just went dead and they immediately said "we didn't change anything!" As if it was a huge coincidence that they are playing in the closet and our phones died! heh. In any case, after some arguing, it turns out that they needed a 110v A/C outlet for their test equipment, so they "just unplugged this unused Mod Key system" (as they pointed to OUR previously working phone system). :) Well, after they plugged it back in, we were back -- except that the programming appears to have gone back to the defaults. The only real feature that we need is the ability to pick up a line when someone else is already on it (i.e. conference several people in the office to one outside line). By default, the system prevents this so that you don't accidentally pick up someone else's in-progress call. We want to switch it back to what we had. Anyone have the information handy on this system that can tell us how to set it so that the stations can pick up an in-use line? We might also be interested in buying the full programming manual if someone has one cheap. In either case though, we kind-of need the information for a planned conference call on Monday. :) So, even if you want to sell us the manual, if you could still email me the information on just that part beforehand, I would appreciate it. Thanks! - John Goggan... jgoggan@dcg.com ------------------------------ From: Leonid Subject: SMS for PSTN Date: Fri, 22 Mar 2002 21:15:34 +0200 Hi, I know there is ETSI standard (ES 201 912) which defines SMS communication for fixed phones in PSTN. According the standard I see that speech path should be established from the telephone to the SMS center. Maybe you can explain why it was done this way? Is it possible to establish speech path from the phone to the switch (e.g. DMS) and then transfer the SMS over CCS7 (over TCAP maybe using MAP)? Thanks, Leonid ------------------------------ From: chermesh@bgumail.bgu.ac.il (Ran Chermesh) Subject: How Do I Judge the Quality of a Standard Phone Set? Date: 22 Mar 2002 02:38:33 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Hi, The market is overfloaded with a variety of phones, some cheap, some expensive, some small, some big, some colored, some not. I'm looking for a set of criteria for a best buy. Which technical specifications should I consider? Which ignore? I tried to locate a source on this topic, but got nowhere. Can you help me? Ran ------------------------------ From: Mike Berger Subject: Re: Looking for Bell System Technical Journal Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2002 23:34:27 -0600 Organization: Shouting Ground Technologies, Inc. University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign Campus) Engineering Library used to have it (and may still). Pritam wrote: > Hi, can anybody tell me where can I find C. Clos, A Study of > Non-blocking Switching Networks, Bell System Tech. J., > vol.32, 1953. Thanks in advance. > > Pritam ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Wall Corded Telephone That Doesn't Use a Base From: Don Saklad Date: 22 Mar 2002 04:43:47 -0500 Thank you Jay! a. What exactly is widely available at Kmart? ... b. What's a tip? ... c. What's a butt in? ... ------------------------------ From: rlindsay@mergetel.com (Barb) Subject: Phone Book Cabinet Question Date: 21 Mar 2002 18:17:28 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ I am hoping someone out there can help me get some information on a phone book cabinet that I have. It is made by the Telephone Book Service LTD formerly the Trans Canada Distributors of Toronto Canada with a patent date of 1921. If any one can offer any information please email me at rlindsay@mergetel.com Thanks, Barb ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Recourse For Very Slow T1 Installation? From: JDS Organization: Prodigy Internet http://www.prodigy.com Date: Fri, 22 Mar 2002 19:35:11 GMT Ed M wrote in news:telecom20.194.11@telecom-digest.org: > Since December we have had a T1 on order from a relatively small LEC > in upstate NY (Frontier in Orange County NY) Although we are across > the road (in Verizon territory) from the area Frontier's CO serves > they are able to offer services in our area. > The installation is long overdue from the January date ... [snip] > complain to? This is getting ridiculous. Write to your public utilities commission and to the Federal Communications Commission. They grant these monopoly franchises, and they need to know how well the carrier is fulfilling its obligation to serve the public. Your LEC can tell you to whom you should write -- and your request will perhaps get them going. If you don't tell them, they won't know. ------------------------------ From: Rob Clark Subject: Re: Erlang Calculator for the Palm Date: Sat, 23 Mar 2002 13:47:49 +0800 Also ... checkout the Erlang-P product from http://www.erlang-software.com/ Erlang-P supports 6 different models (Erlang-B, Erlang-C, etc) and is a clone of the very popular and robust Erlang-G product. Cheers Rob Clark "Claire Pieterek" wrote in message news:telecom20.198.2@telecom-digest.org... > Regarding Alan E's inquiry about an Erlang traffic calculator for his Palm > device. > Try http://www.palmgear.com/software/showsoftware.cfm? > sid=32743320020319073642&prodID=39445 > L3's ErlangB is a highly specialized application, intended for telecom > network analysts, pbx resellers, call center operators, and voice > service providers. It implements the widely used telecommunications > circuit group sizing algorithm, Erlang-B, to predict how many circuits > will be necessary to carry a given duration of telephone calls. > PalmGear is the oldest and best archive of Palm software on the net. > I have no affiliation with PalmGear other than being a long time > satisfied customer! > Best, > Claire Pieterek > Senior Technical Editor > PalmPower Magazine > http://www.palmpower.com ------------------------------ From: Rob Clark Subject: How Long do Callers Wait on Hold? Date: Sat, 23 Mar 2002 13:57:03 +0800 My apologies if this question has been answered well before. Are there statistics, or rules-of-thumb, for determining a design goal for caller queues? For example ... if you had a call center, where typical conversation times with an agent was XXX seconds, then does anyone have any suggestions for how many callers drop off impatiently as a function of time? I guess people's internal 'impatient timer' is triggered at different times depending on what they are waiting for. eg. I would wait up to - 3 sec for a dial tone; - 3 mins for a conversation with an agent ... where I expected the conversation to take 3 mins; - 6 months to finalize a holiday booking for a 6month cruise on the Love Boat. Cheers, Rob Clark [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I think most business places operating a phone room keep records of lost calls, ie. calls in which the caller disconnects without speaking with a live agent. I know when I worked at Amoco Credit Card Center back in the 1960's-70's in the phone room one of my tasks as the midnight shift supervisor was to tally up the logs on this. We were getting about ten thousand calls per 24 hours, and there were little clickers mounted in the wall of my office which did various things. Most of the calls -- about 8000 -- came during the regular business day. Overnight we had about 1000 - 1500 calls from dealers getting credit authorizations. There were counters for each incoming line on the ACD, and a master counter for all lines totalled. There were counters for each agent position, and a counter for calls lost, where the caller disconnected without waiting for an answer. If the ratio of lost calls to total calls exceeded some small percentage of the total, there were procedures in place to increase the number of agents on a temporary basis by recruiting clerks from another part of the office. They did not really care how long someone had to wait, only if they hung up without waiting longer if necessary. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Ken Abrams Subject: FCC Deals a Death Blow to Usenet ... and Nobody Noticed Date: Sat, 23 Mar 2002 13:39:58 -0600 Or so it seems. It appears that the current "conservative" (oppressive and repressive) Federal Administration has dealt yet another back-door blow to freedom and liberty. Last week, the FCC voted to reclassify Internet Service Providers from Common Carrier status to Information Content Providers. While this was done under the guise of allowing the ISPs greater flexibility and to allow for more competition, there will likely be a more important (and probably not unintended) consequence of this ruling. Common Carriers (primarily phone companies) are exempt from liability for the content of the traffic they transmit. This was true for ISPs too but not anymore. Information Providers have no such exemption. They can be held liable for transmitting content that is illegal, even if "they" do not originate the content. This also leaves them open to harassment for transmitting content that the current Administration (Big Brother) finds objectionable, simply by claiming that it is illegal even if it isn't. One possible scenario (and a likely one as I see it): Ashchroft's henchmen contact an ISP(s) and say: "You have been transmitting illegal content in Usenet messages. We intend to prosecute you for that ... OR ... if you cooperate with us to help identify the individuals that originated the messages (without having to go through the cumbersome detail of obtaining a court order), we will agree not to prosecute you (the ISP). At this point, it appears to me that the ISP has 4 choices. 1) Fight. Not likely since that would cost BIG bucks. 2) Institute MASS censorship. Not likely since that would be a HUGE and costly undertaking. 3) Stop carrying Usenet. Possible. 4) Cooperate with the Feds. to identify and prosecute (and/or harass) individuals who post content that is "objectionable" or illegal. Unfortunately, I think this is the most likely possibility. Could it be that this was a "hidden agenda" for the ruling itself? If not, how long do you think it will take for the "idea police" to figure it out? Could this also apply to E-mail messages you send? Could it be that Orwell was right? ------------------------------ From: abcsupport@wbcnet.net Subject: Free Classes (Low Cost Certification) Organization: Prodigy Internet http://www.prodigy.com Date: Sun, 24 Mar 2002 20:22:06 GMT Check out ABC University's online computer training courseware. Get access to certification classes for 1 year for as low as $125.00 per year. Take Free classes http://www.wbcnet.net/signon1.htm Check out course catalog http://www.wbcnet.net/dpec/webpromo/catalog/contents.htm Visit ABC University: http://www.abc2learn.net ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 24 Mar 2002 18:52:22 -0500 From: Gary Novosielski Subject: Re: News Headlines - EU Getting Own Global Navigation System On Wed, 13 Mar 2002 19:14:26 -0500, Gail M. Hall wrote: > Well, I'm an "American" and think it's not a bad idea for the EU to > set up another navigational system. It would be easy for terrorists > to knock out one system, so a backup system would be a good idea. Well, unless terrorists have come a long, long way in just the past few weeks, that's a pretty silly statement. Just what do you imagine would be an "easy" way of knocking out a space-based triply-redundant system comprising more than a score of satellites? Slingshots? Homemade rockets? Scud missiles? The ground-based portions are located on military bases and other widely scattered and highly secure areas, many of which are no doubt secret. You'll recall that when the system was launched, the major adversary of the US was the USSR, and there was essentially no worry that even they, with all their military resources, would be able to "easily" knock out the system. Terrorists have no (zero) chance of knocking it out, even if they tried very, very hard. The necessity for a European system, completely independent of GPS, is that the US military can (and would) disable the system, or introduce intentional error into the signal, any time they like. There are very few Europeans foolish enough to trust them not to, and at just the wrong time. (Remember, throughout most of Europe, George W. Bush is still recognized as the same babbling moron he was a year ago.) For the same reason, the idea of the systems "talking" to each other would probably be rejected, or at least limited to non-essential communications that could be shut off quickly and unilaterally at the EU end. I'm not sure there would be any benefit to having them communicate in the first place, and the system would be far more secure from US tampering if they didn't talk at all. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Mar 2002 09:08:41 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: News Headlines of Interest Mobiles 'worse than drink-driving' Talking on a mobile phone while driving is more dangerous than being over the legal alcohol limit, according to research. Tests by scientists at the Transport Research Laboratory said drivers on mobiles had slower reaction times and stopping times than those under the influence of alcohol. And it said hands-free kits were almost as dangerous as hand-held phones. http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/newsid_1885000/1885775.stm High-speed wireless Net service launches By Ben Charny Staff Writer, CNET News.com March 22, 2002, 2:55 PM PT Another company is jumping into the Wi-Fi pool. Joltage launched Friday with plans to sell wireless high-speed Internet access on a national network made up of Wi-Fi, or 802.11b, wireless networks, Chief Executive Andrew Weinreich said Friday. http://news.com.com/2100-1033-867127.html Wireless connection Industry chiefs say 3G and WiFi may not be rivals but collaborators By Peter J. Howe, Globe Staff, 3/22/2002 ORLANDO, Fla. - Wireless phone companies pouring billions of dollars into ''third generation'' networks that offer high-speed Internet connections without the tether of a cable or phone line have been casting a wary eye on a cheap wireless broadband system popping up on college campuses, in hotel and airport lobbies, and even in Starbucks coffee shops around the nation. The cheap, short-range, but super-fast ''WiFi'' networks have been seen in some quarters as a potential threat to carriers' huge investment in third generation, or ''3G,'' wireless networks. Some people may decide, the thinking goes, they are happy enough with a fast wireless connection they can only use when sitting down and don't need to buy one they can use anywhere. But in forums and interviews at the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association convention here this week, executives of some companies involved in both 3G and WiFi said they think the two technologies may turn out not to be archrivals, but close collaborators offering unprecedented mobility and speed for people who want to stay connected to the Net. http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/081/business/Wireless_connection+.shtml Bleak future looms if you don't take a stand By Dan Gillmor Mercury News Technology Columnist This is a quiz about your future. It's about how you view some basic elements of the emerging Digital Age. 1. Do you care if a few giant companies control virtually all entertainment and information? 2. Do you care if they decide what kinds of technological innovations will reach the marketplace? 3. Would you be concerned if they used their power to compile detailed dossiers on everything you read, listen to, view and buy? 4. Would you find it acceptable if they could decide whether what you write and say could be seen and heard by others? Those are no longer theoretical questions. They are the direction in which America is hurtling. http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/2922052.htm Telecom, Tangled in Its Own Web By GRETCHEN MORGENSON Thanks to a star-quality cast, the Enron wreck has been riveting theater. Greedy executives concocting transactions to inflate company earnings, grasping Wall Street bankers eager to assist, pliant accountants and analysts looking the other way - Broadway's finest could not have come up with a better script. Yet while all eyes remain on Enron, a tragedy of identical plot but with far more damaging implications has been playing out on another stage. Unlike Enron's saga, this drama is not about a single, rogue company operating to enrich its executives. This tale is about an entire industry - telecommunications - that rose to a value of $2 trillion based on dubious promises by Wall Street and company executives of an explosive growth in demand for telecommunications services. When that demand failed to materialize, the companies were left with mountains of debt and little revenue. Now, securities regulators are examining transactions among some telecom companies - Global Crossing and Qwest Communications are two - that may have been designed to pad inadequate revenue. Last week, Congress, too, started an investigation of the telecom mess, looking at how certain companies accounted for the deals they struck with one another and whether employees in the companies' 401(k) plans were treated fairly. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/24/technology/24TELE.html The smart highway Over budget, behind schedule, the big brain would allow instant communication between controllers and drivers - if and when it works By Raphael Lewis, Globe Staff, 3/24/2002 When transportation planners first unveiled designs for a downtown Boston Expressway in 1930, they billed the elevated highway a ''central artery.'' But despite the blood vessel imagery, the steel-and-asphalt leviathan they soon created shared little with the frustrated humans who used it. When the new Central Artery fully opens in late 2004 or early 2005, the roadway will finally have a touch of humanity. Thanks to a $200-million-and-climbing investment in a so-called ''Intelligent Transportation System,'' the project will be endowed with an electronic brain, a central nervous system, lungs, eyes, nostrils, a sense of touch, even a voice. Called the Integrated Project Control System, or IPCS, the Central Artery's electronic monitoring mechanism will constitute the nation's largest, most sophisticated, and most expensive system, allowing highway operators and engineers to respond in real-time to collisions, car fires, and traffic jams, with plenty of help from computers that will do much of the thinking for them. http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/083/metro/The_smart_highway+.shtml ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Mar 2002 15:23:11 EST From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: So Much Junk Mail Today I sat down here at the computer for the first time in about 24 hours to begin working on an issue of the Digest. The first dozen messages were spam. Let me just take a poll of what all was here, and how many of these you are familiar with: There were three or four 'nigerian scams'. You know, where the King or some government official in Nigeria is looking for someone to help with disbursing some large sum of money. Then I got two or three core dumps (all huge, but I am reluctant to say record-setting in size). Two had a single line message saying 'this is a new game I wrote, and you will be my first player. Please enjoy. One of them said 'can you please read this and straighten it out, and show me where my error is?' I have had a few of those in the past, where they asked me to read over their 'work' and try to correct it. I have had the one about 'my new game and you will be the first player a few times also. I wonder if one person is sending all these out, or if there is some kind of source where people go to get these cute little one- liners to prepend to a huge core dump which they then mail out. I have to wonder also if there is some kind of virus buried deep inside the core dump which infects people's computers upon being opened and 'read'. I wonder why people send those core-dumps out? They couldn't really be serious about not knowing what it was and asking my advice could they? Or about writing a new game and wanting me to be the first player? I have to wonder if what I am actually getting in the mail are instances of people getting viruses in the mail and then their address book proceeds to send it out to everyone it can find. But because I only use a Unix text based mailing program here on lcs.mit.edu it does nothing to me, where it would proceed to infect someone with a Windows type computer. I have yet to actuzlly read through one of those dumps, to attempt to straighten it out or whatever. As soon as I open the mailer and see a piece of email consisting of six billion, three hundred million bytes and a subject line saying 'can you help me?' or 'my new game' I just immediatly zap it. I mean, exactly what is the purpose in sending those out, other than try and spread a virus somehow? Then there were four or five pieces of 'traditional' spam; the chances to become a millionaire in an hour by selling porn web sites or by selling scripts to manufacture still more spam. Then after that I had two of those things with subject lines which always seem to come from southeast Asia and you can't make anything out of them. Its not a thing where it is 'western' script in some other language, but rather a thing where the subject line looks like this #$@&%##@( like massis is trying to deal with Japanese, Korean or Chinese characters and can't do it. Then the message itself consists of HTML code in large quantities. After looking at a full *dozen* things in the mail like the above, I finally got some 'real' mail for the Digest, and it is all printed above. Every bit of it. More junk than real mail today. My main question is about the core-dumps and the patently silly requests to examine their work or play their new game. What is that stuff? PAT ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V20 #201 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Mar 25 21:24:00 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id VAA05903; Mon, 25 Mar 2002 21:24:00 -0500 (EST) Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2002 21:24:00 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200203260224.VAA05903@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #202 TELECOM Digest Mon, 25 Mar 2002 21:24:00 EST Volume 20 : Issue 202 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Telecom Update (Canada) #325, March 25, 2002 (Angus TeleManagement) NH Town Fights to Keep Its Only Pay Phone (The Old Bear) Re: So Much Junk Mail (hes@unity.ncsu.edu) Re: So Much Junk Mail (KimBrennan) Re: So Much Junk Mail (Mark Crispin) Re: So Much Junk Mail (S. Falke) Re: So Much Junk Mail (Gail M. Hall) 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-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 630-841-7174 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@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 * * Judith Oppenheimer, President of ICB Inc. and purveyor of accurate * * 800 & Dot Com News, Intelligence, Analysis, and Consulting. * * http://ICBTollFree.com, http://1800TheExpert.com * * Views expressed herein should not be construed as representing * * views of Judith Oppenheimer or ICB Inc. * ************************************************************************* ICB Toll Free News. Contact information is not sold, rented or leased. Access to Premium (P) links requires upgrade to a paid subscription. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Only subscribers or registered users of ICB Toll Free News web site will be able to access all or some of the full text of URLs provided. LEGAL STUFF: TELECOM Digest (sm) is owned by Patrick Townson. Copyright 2000 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. 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, 25 Mar 2002 14:07:18 -0500 From: Angus TeleManagement Subject: Telecom Update (Canada) #325, March 25, 2002 TELECOM UPDATE published weekly by Angus TeleManagement Group http://www.angustel.ca Number 325: March 25, 2002 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 ** GROUP TELECOM http://www.gt.ca ** LUCENT TECHNOLOGIES CANADA http://www.lucent.ca ** PRIMUS CANADA: http://www.primustel.ca ** Q9 NETWORKS: http://www.Q9.com ** TELUS: http://www.telus.com ** UNISPHERE NETWORKS: http://www.unispherenetworks.com IN THIS ISSUE: ** CRTC Orders Videotron to Defend Licence ** Teleglobe Outsources Backroom Operations ** Telus Buys Out Fibre Venture ** Bell Considers Higher-Speed DSL ** GT Panel Examines Financial Options ** Rogers AT&T to Offer Treo Communicator ** Rogers Boosts Wireless Stake ** Videotron Reports E-Mail Loss ** Sprint Plans DSL Internet Service ** Cellphone Users Worse Than Drunks ** UBS Elects New Board; Management Quits ** Bell to Launch Higher-Speed Wireless in Montreal ** Emergis Reports Revenue Fall ** CRTC Website Changes Face ** ISP Outsources to Telus ** Report Examines Foreign Ownership ** Minacs Revenue Up 53% ** Sales Down 60% at Fibre Testing Firm ** Correction -- Cisco SIP ** Meet Us at Call Centre Canada ** Angus "Convergence" Study Gets Around CRTC ORDERS VIDEOTRON TO DEFEND LICENCE: The CRTC has ordered Videotron and its cable affiliates to attend a public hearing on April 23, to show why the sale of its inside wire to Cablage QMI does not constitute a breach of its licence conditions and Broadcasting Regulations. The CRTC may issue a "mandatory order" for compliance, which would trigger court penalties if not obeyed. ** Several competitors have complained to the CRTC about the $5/month/subscriber fee that CQMI wants them to agree to (see Telecom Update #324). http://www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/ENG/Hearings/2002/n2002-3.htm TELEGLOBE OUTSOURCES BACKROOM OPERATIONS: In a move that it says will save US$15 million-$20 million a year, Teleglobe is outsourcing its network operations, technology, IS/IT, and real estate management functions to Bell Canada and CGI. One hundred employees will lose their jobs; 600 will be transferred to Bell and CGI. TELUS BUYS OUT FIBRE VENTURE: For what it calls a "nominal consideration," Telus Corporation has purchased all of Metromedia Fiber Network's minority interest in the joint-venture the two companies established two years ago to construct a fibre network in Toronto. ** New York-based MFN originally planned to install over 800 strands of dark fibre in Toronto. It recently announced that it may have to file for bankruptcy protection. BELL CONSIDERS HIGHER-SPEED DSL: A Bell Sympatico market survey says the company is considering offering "Sympatico Pro," a new service with 2.5 Mbps download speeds. It asks customers whether they would pay $59.95, $69.95, or $79.95 a month for the higher speed alone, and whether they would pay $64.95, $74.95, or $84.95 for higher speed bundled with firewall, anti-virus, and on-line storage services. GT PANEL EXAMINES FINANCIAL OPTIONS: Group Telecom has named a committee composed of its independent Directors to help the carrier seek "capital structure enhancements," with the aid of Morgan Stanley & Co. GT says it had $598 million in available liquidity at the end of 2001. ROGERS AT&T TO OFFER TREO COMMUNICATOR: Rogers AT&T Wireless says it will begin offering the Handspring Treo 180 Communicator to Canadian customers in April. The device, which offers Palm OS organizer, cellphone, and Short Message Service functions, will sell for $749.99 with a two-year contract, or $849.99 with a one-year plan. ** Rogers AT&T now offers the Sierra Wireless AirCard 750, a wireless modem for laptops and PDAs. ROGERS BOOSTS WIRELESS STAKE: Rogers Communications has agreed to pay $102 million in stock to investors in Rogers Wireless, increasing its stake in the cellco to 56% from 51%. VIDEOTRON REPORTS E-MAIL LOSS: Videotron says it lost between 10,000 and 12,500 e-mails addressed to its Internet customers last week because of network congestion and the impact of computer viruses. SPRINT PLANS DSL INTERNET SERVICE: According to the Toronto Star, Sprint Canada plans to offer DSL-based high-speed Internet access for small businesses and residences, beginning in Toronto by August. CELLPHONE USERS WORSE THAN DRUNKS: A new study, sponsored by Direct Line Motor Insurance in the U.K., concludes that drivers talking on cellphones have 30% slower reaction times and have more trouble stopping than drivers who are legally drunk. Handsfree phones were only marginally safer than handheld units. UBS ELECTS NEW BOARD; MANAGEMENT QUITS: Shareholders of Unique Broadband Systems have elected a slate of directors associated with founder Alec Dolgonos, who is currently the subject of a securities investigation. The company's entire senior management team resigned immediately after the March 18 meeting. BELL TO LAUNCH HIGHER-SPEED WIRELESS IN MONTREAL: Bell Mobility will begin offering 1XRTT wireless data service in the Greater Montreal area tomorrow. EMERGIS REPORTS REVENUE FALL: BCE Emergis stock prices fell 44% March 21 on news that expected first quarter one-time revenues "have not materialized." Projected net loss for the quarter: $25 million to $30 million. CRTC WEBSITE CHANGES FACE: The CRTC has redesigned and updated its website, with revised menu selections on the top and side navigation bars, new search options, and a site map. http://www.crtc.gc.ca. ISP OUTSOURCES TO TELUS: Internet Service Provider Inter.net Canada has agreed to outsource part of its network operations to Telus. The two-year deal is valued at "up to $13 million." REPORT EXAMINES FOREIGN OWNERSHIP: Montreal-based Lemay-Yates Associates has announced a 50-page report entitled "Foreign Ownership of the Canadian Telecommunications Industry." For more information go to http://www.lya.com. MINACS REVENUE UP 53%: Call centre outsourcer Minacs Worldwide had 2001 sales of $146 million, 53% more than in 2000. The net loss was $3.7 million, compared to a $2.3 million profit in 2000. SALES DOWN 60% AT FIBRE TESTING FIRM: Exfo Electro-Optical Engineering of Quebec City, which makes fibre-optic testing equipment, reports sales of $14.6 million for the quarter ended February 28, down from $36.3 million last year. CORRECTION -- CISCO SIP: Last week's Telecom Update item on Cisco's new SIP-based products was correct, but the headline wasn't. The products work with Cisco's wide area Voice over IP equipment, not a "Cisco PBX." MEET US AT CALL CENTRE CANADA: Advanstar's Call Centre and CRM show will be held Tuesday and Wednesday of this week at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. Angus TeleManagement Group and Angus Dortmans Associates will be in booth 222 -- we encourage Telecom Update readers to drop by and say hello. ANGUS "CONVERGENCE" STUDY GETS AROUND: Ian Angus's "Who Put the Con in Convergence," which originally appeared in the January issue of Telemanagement, has been republished by a U.S. telecom journal, Business Communications Review. ** Ian's analysis is now available on-line at the Angus website, along with 150 other articles from Telemanagement. Go to http://www.angustel.ca. ** To subscribe to Telemanagement, call 1-800-263-4415 ext 500 or go to http://www.angustel.ca/teleman/tm.html. ============================================================ 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: TelecomUpdate@add.postmastergeneral.com To stop receiving the e-mail edition, send an e-mail message to: TelecomUpdate@remove.postmastergeneral.com Sending e-mail to these addresses will automatically add or remove the sender's e-mail address from the list. Leave subject line and message area blank. =========================================================== COPYRIGHT AND CONDITIONS OF USE: All contents copyright 2002 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 500. 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, 25 Mar 2002 15:49:04 -0500 From: The Old Bear Subject: NH Town Fights to Keep Its Only Pay Phone Manchester Union Leader Monday, March 25, 2002 Acworth fights to keep its only pay phone ACWORTH, NEW HAMPSHIRE -- Residents are preparing to fight over the future of the town's only pay phone. In recent years, Verizon has pulled pay phones from more than 100 small towns across New England in an effort to save money and weed out phones that are not making a profit. When the news reached Acworth's 800 residents that their public telephone, situated in a booth outside the South Acworth Village Store, was about to be pulled, they began a petition to save it. Some people in the town say they rely on that phone for emergencies because cell phones and radios don't work in the area because of nearby hills. The closest other public telephone is eight miles away in Alstead. Erle Pierce, a Verizon spokesman, said the pay phone was to be removed because it was not making any money. "Pay phones are a very competitive business," he said. "If it doesn't make any money, it has to go." Rep. Jay Phinizy, D-Langdon, said he has heard many complaints about the decision and, pending a discussion with Verizon, he plans to contact the governor and state Office of Emergency Management. "We have had some problems in that area with the fire and rescue radios," said Phinizy. "They needed to use that pay phone because radios and cell phones do not work in that area. There is a valid need for a public telephone there." Acworth Police Chief Dave Webber said he has used that pay phone several times on official business, because police radios don't work in that area. He also said it is important for many residents. "If you have a situation in the middle of the night, sometimes you can't go knocking on your neighbor's door," Webber said. "At least, for now, you still have the pay phone. I'd really hate to see it go." And Chris Robbins, one of the directors of Women's Supportive Services in Claremont, said that the organization's crisis line has received calls for help from that pay phone. "That phone was instrumental in saving the life of one victim of domestic violence," said Robbins. "The victim had to travel two miles to use that phone to call for help. If it was not there, this woman would not have received the help." ------------------------------ From: hes@unity.ncsu.edu Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2002 13:17:57 EST Subject: Re: So Much Junk Mail Organization: North Carolina State University In article you write: > Today I sat down here at the computer for the first time in about 24 > hours to begin working on an issue of the Digest. The first dozen > messages were spam. Let me just take a poll of what all was here, and > how many of these you are familiar with: I get 20 - 50 pieces of UCE (unsolicited commercial e-mail) plus viruses, etc. a day. > There were three or four 'nigerian scams'. You know, where the King > or some government official in Nigeria is looking for someone to help > with disbursing some large sum of money. I usually get several of these each day. > Then I got two or three core dumps I think that these are actually viruses/worms. They are usually mime encoded, but the MIME headers (which you should get to right at the top of them) will give a file name. I bet that most of them will have an extension which says it is an executeable file. > (all huge, but I am reluctant to say > record-setting in size). Two had a single line message saying 'this is > a new game I wrote, and you will be my first player. Please enjoy. One > of them said 'can you please read this and straighten it out, and show > me where my error is?' I've not seen these yet -- but I've received many saying something like "I'm sending this to you for your advice" -- and that *is* a virus/worm. > ... I have to wonder also if there is some kind of virus buried deep > inside the core dump which infects people's computers upon being > opened and 'read'. Usually -- but it's not buried inside, the file is actually an executable (at least it is if you are running Microsoft Windows.) Best wishes, henry schaffer ------------------------------ From: kimbrennan@aol.comfrtz.com (KimBrennan) Date: 25 Mar 2002 19:02:21 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: So Much Junk Mail > The first dozen > messages were spam. Let me just take a poll of what all was here, and > how many of these you are familiar with: Gee, I envy you. Only a dozen "spams". I used to use my "kim@aol.com" email address. It now receives abot 350 pieces of spam (or misdirected) email a day. Since it is an AOL email address, I automatically forward all the email to their "spam fighting bot" tosspam@aol.com. It doesn't do anything as far as I can tell. It's a lost cause really. There are many technological ways to deal with SPAM. Most of them won't be implemented because of political reasons. SPAM, telemarketing and junk (snail) mail are all symptoms of the society (marketing driven) that we live in ... and are foisting on other countries. "I'm sorry, all my money is tied up in currency." W.C.Fields [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I am running filters, but those that I see (at least a dozen a day, although not usually a dozen in a row at the start of the mailing cycle) are the ones that managed to slip in anyway. I guess a lot of those guys are getting very tricky at learning how to get around filter-rules, etc. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2002 13:22:27 -0800 (PST) From: Mark Crispin Subject: Re: So Much Junk Mail Organization: Networks and Distributed Computing On Fri, 22 Mar 2002, TELECOM Digest Editor wrote: > My main question is about the core-dumps and the > patently silly requests to examine their work or play their new > game. What is that stuff? They are viri. The intent is to get you to run them on a Windows PC, so they can do their mischief. In some older versions of Outlook and Outlook Express, they run automatically so you don't even have to click on the virus to run it. The alleged source email address was culled from publicly-available mailing list archives. I was very amused to get one of these "from" an email address of a former co-worker on a system that hasn't existed for 13 years, having been shut down shortly after he and I each departed for greener pastures. -- Mark -- http://staff.washington.edu/mrc Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate. ------------------------------ From: s falke Subject: Re: So Much Junk Mail Organization: Prodigy Internet http://www.prodigy.com Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2002 21:54:34 GMT "TELECOM Digest Editor" wrote in message news:telecom20.201.14@telecom-digest.org: > Today I sat down here at the computer for the first time in about 24 > hours to begin working on an issue of the Digest. The first dozen > messages were spam. Let me just take a poll of what all was here, and > how many of these you are familiar with: Pat -- I seem to get a lot of one more type of junk mail -- Get-Rich-Quick promises if I will just buy a cdrom of 245-million 'clean' email addresses and become a spammer too. --s falke ------------------------------ From: Gail M. Hall Subject: For Pat - Re: So Much Junk Mail Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2002 19:11:22 -0500 Reply-To: gmhall@apk.net Hi Pat! On Fri, 22 Mar 2002 15:23:11 EST, in comp.dcom.telecom, you (TELECOM Digest Editor ) wrote: > Today I sat down here at the computer for the first time in about 24 > hours to begin working on an issue of the Digest. The first dozen > messages were spam. Let me just take a poll of what all was here, and > how many of these you are familiar with: Welcome back, Pat!! The amount of spam increased greatly during the time you were out of touch with us. Most of the ones you mentioned are familiar to me. I've been fortunate not to get any "core dumps" for a long time. (Keeping my fingers crossed!) Being a group moderator, you may be on more people's hate list than some of the rest of us quiet types. Being a list moderator, you are in a more awkward situation for filtering out spam, but depending on your reader you may still be able to do it to some extent. I use Fort Agent, and they have very good help and ways to setting up filters, most of them based on contents of various headers. Do you use software that can access procmail filters? If so, you might want to do a search on help for writing the procmail filters. You could redirect some of those messages to a "might be junk" folder and look at them when you have more time. That way you will end up with fewer messages to deal with right away. You might want to check out this site: http://www.cauce.org/about/resources.shtml > There were three or four 'nigerian scams'. You know, where the King > or some government official in Nigeria is looking for someone to help > with disbursing some large sum of money. Well known even by the FBI. Some of them appear to come from other countries as well as Nigeria. > Then I got two or three core dumps (all huge, but I am reluctant to say > record-setting in size). Two had a single line message saying 'this is > a new game I wrote, and you will be my first player. Please enjoy. A good way to get a virus or worm! I stay away from those! I got one a while back telling me to look at this "site" for the party pictures from last night or some such thing. The writer was depending on people not knowing the difference between a .com file and a dot-com web site. What I got was an attachment that was a .com (executable) file. It was a new virus that our virus catcher didn't know about. The next day the service updated and identified the file. Fortunately I know better than to launch executable files I get from sources I am not expecting them from. > One of them said 'can you please read this and straighten it out, and show > me where my error is?' I have had a few of those in the past, where > they asked me to read over their 'work' and try to correct it. I guess my writing is not as good as yours. I haven't got any asking me to correct their writing! > I have had the one about 'my new game and you will be the first > player a few > times also. I wonder if one person is sending all these out, or if there > is some kind of source where people go to get these cute little one- > liners to prepend to a huge core dump which they then mail out. I have > to wonder also if there is some kind of virus buried deep inside the > core dump which infects people's computers upon being opened and 'read'. > I wonder why people send those core-dumps out? They couldn't really > be serious about not knowing what it was and asking my advice could > they? They don't have enough chores to do at home! We need to go back to the days when kids have to feed the chickens and clean out the barns. ;-) > Or about writing a new game and wanting me to be the first > player? I have to wonder if what I am actually getting in the mail are > instances of people getting viruses in the mail and then their address > book proceeds to send it out to everyone it can find. But because I > only use a Unix text based mailing program here on lcs.mit.edu it > does nothing to me, where it would proceed to infect someone with a > Windows type computer. I have yet to actuzlly read through one of those > dumps, to attempt to straighten it out or whatever. As soon as I open > the mailer and see a piece of email consisting of six billion, three > hundred million bytes and a subject line saying 'can you help me?' > or 'my new game' I just immediatly zap it. Way to go! > I mean, exactly what is > the purpose in sending those out, other than try and spread a virus > somehow? Is this the modern equivalent of calling a bunch of numbers and asking if there is a road running past your house. When the person says yes, the kid says, you better go out and catch it! Then they hang up. No, on second thought, it's probably not really the same. Those old phone jokes were short and didn't take up a lot of the victims' time. Maybe they are similar to telemarketers. Most telemarketers know that most people aren't one bit interested in buying what they are selling, but they bother us anyway. > Then there were four or five pieces of 'traditional' spam; the chances > to become a millionaire in an hour by selling porn web sites or by > selling scripts to manufacture still more spam. My ISP has started filtering out domains that have open relays. Maybe you can get your service to do the same. MIT does have a reputation for being really laid back about what kind of abusers they tolerate, though. Still, I think they wouldn't want too many people who use their service to be the target of core dumps. That could constitue a form of denial of service if those dumps filled up their systems too fast, especially filling up mailboxes of innocent victims. > Then after that I had two of those things with subject lines which > always seem to come from southeast Asia and you can't make anything > out of them. Its not a thing where it is 'western' script in some > other language, but rather a thing where the subject line looks like > this #$@&%##@( like massis is trying to deal with Japanese, Korean or > Chinese characters and can't do it. I filter out some countries altogether, but as a moderator, you can't really do that. Still you could shove those into a temporary directory and deal with them after you have finished with your ordinary messages. > Then the message itself consists of HTML code in large quantities. I filter out all messages that contain only HTML and no plain text. Most of that is spam anyway. I see nothing wrong with a moderator making rules stating that messages should be in plain text. > After looking at a full *dozen* > things in the mail like the above, I finally got some 'real' mail for > the Digest, and it is all printed above. Every bit of it. More junk > than real mail today. I get the "Digest" via usenet, so all the messages appear individually. I don't know which of the messages appeared "above" and which came in another "digest." > My main question is about the core-dumps and the > patently silly requests to examine their work or play their new > game. What is that stuff? Junk! DELETE IT! If you think you are the target of harassment, then you may need to do some research by checking headers to see if there are any real ones (not forged) to see where the messages are coming from. Maybe some others who use MIT have had the same problems and can give you some advice. Do you have access to any of their local newsgroups? There are some general newsgroups out there that deal with abuse. If you have time (dream, dream!) you might find help in some of those, too. Gail from Ohio USA ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V20 #202 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Mar 25 22:56:04 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id WAA08139; Mon, 25 Mar 2002 22:56:04 -0500 (EST) Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2002 22:56:04 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200203260356.WAA08139@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #203 TELECOM Digest Mon, 25 Mar 2002 22:56:00 EST Volume 20 : Issue 203 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: FCC Deals a Death Blow to Usenet and Nobody Noticed (Jeremy Beal) Re: FCC Deals a Death Blow to Usenet and Nobody Noticed (Ross Oliver) Re: FCC Deals a Death Blow to Usenet and Nobody Noticed (Sbc-Msi) Re: FCC [allegedly] Deals a Death Blow to Usenet (Fred Goldstein) BSTJ On Line? (Looking for Bell System Technical Journal) (A. Seigman) Re: Wall Corded Telephone That Doesn't Use a Base (John R. Levine) Re: Wall Corded Telephone That Doesn't Use a Base (Don Saklad) Company Pitches Wireless Mesh Net For Congested Areas (Monty Solomon) Re: How Long do Callers Wait on Hold? (Robert Casey) Re: How Long do Callers Wait on Hold? (Gail M. Halll) 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-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. 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All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. 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: thejbeal@netscape.net (Jeremy Beal) Subject: Re: FCC Deals a Death Blow to Usenet ... and Nobody Noticed Date: 25 Mar 2002 16:07:16 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Ken Abrams wrote in message news:: Comments below ... > It appears that the current "conservative" (oppressive and repressive) > Federal Administration has dealt yet another back-door blow to freedom > and liberty. Last week, the FCC voted to reclassify Internet Service > Providers from Common Carrier status to Information Content Providers. > While this was done under the guise of allowing the ISPs greater > flexibility and to allow for more competition, there will likely be a > more important (and probably not unintended) consequence of this > ruling. > Common Carriers (primarily phone companies) are exempt from liability > for the content of the traffic they transmit. This was true for ISPs > too but not anymore. Information Providers have no such exemption. > They can be held liable for transmitting content that is illegal, even > if "they" do not originate the content. This also leaves them open to > harassment for transmitting content that the current Administration > (Big Brother) finds objectionable, simply by claiming that it is > illegal even if it isn't. A link of relevance is: http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Cable/News_Releases/2002/nrcb0201.html This is a serious problem -- possibly a back-door attempt to impose liability for transmitted content on the typical ISP. As you say, the consequences could be huge for the typical ISP -- especially considering that it is impossible for ISPs to police content in general. However, I'm not sure how much of this "Declaratory Ruling" is intended to address content censorship versus other regulatory issues separating internet service over cable from general cable service. However, there is mention made of constitutional issues, and there will be regulatory rules which have not yet been written (see below) To me, it's all just content over a wire. I can't see a good reason why the cable provider might be exempt from liability for transmitting, say, slanderous or libelous content over their "television" bandwidth, but not for transmission of similar content over their "internet" bandwidth. Then again, IMO they never should have deregulated the cable industry without removing the wire provider's control of the data content ... The FCC issued simultaneously with the "Declaratory Ruling" a "Notice of Proposed Rulemaking". This should have appeared in the Federal Register near March 14. One issue for the proposed rules is "The scope of the FCC's jurisdiction to regulate cable modem service, including whether there are any constitutional limitations on the exercise of that jurisdiction". This scope of jurisdiction is the heart of the matter. This is only a notice of proposed rulemaking by the FCC. In order to establish new regulatory rule, they will need to formalize a proposed rule, allow a reasonable period for comments on the proposed rule, then issue a final rule. It has been a while since I worked with the Federal Register, and I can't remember if comments are generally accepted in a NPR. If so, the time is NOW to make your comments. If not, then it is vitally important to make serious comments as soon as the proposed rule hits the Federal Register. There's still some time, but we need to raise awareness of this issue. Jeremy Beal ------------------------------ From: reo@roscoe.airaffair.com (Ross Oliver) Subject: Re: FCC Deals a Death Blow to Usenet ... and Nobody Noticed Date: 25 Mar 2002 23:21:51 GMT Organization: Concentric Internet Services On Sat, 23 Mar 2002 13:39:58 -0600, Ken Abrams wrote: > It appears that the current "conservative" (oppressive and repressive) > Federal Administration has dealt yet another back-door blow to freedom > and liberty. Last week, the FCC voted to reclassify Internet Service > Providers from Common Carrier status to Information Content Providers. The actual decision was a bit more subtle. On March 14, the FCC reclassified cable modem service from "common carrier" to "information service." The net effect is that cable companies cannot be forced to open their infrastructure to competing ISPs as telecommunications companies have been required to do. IMHO, this is bad for consumers because it strengthens the monopoly of cable companies both for broadband Internet services and cable television. Read the full FCC press release at: http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Cable/News_Releases/2002/nrcb0201.html Ross Oliver ------------------------------ From: Goodwin, Fred A Subject: Re: FCC Deals a Death Blow to Usenet ... and Nobody Noticed Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2002 12:16:30 -0600 Maybe nobody noticed the "deathblow" because the FCC action was nothing of the sort? ISPs were never classified as common carriers. Fred Goodwin, CMA Executive Director-Federal Regulatory SBC Telecommunications, Inc. 1401 I St NW, Suite 1100 Washington, DC 20005 202-326-8913 office 202-408-4809 fax fred.goodwin@sbc.com -----Original Message----- From: Ken Abrams Subject: FCC Deals a Death Blow to Usenet ... and Nobody Noticed Date: Sat, 23 Mar 2002 13:39:58 -0600 > Or so it seems. > It appears that the current "conservative" (oppressive and repressive) > Federal Administration has dealt yet another back-door blow to freedom > and liberty. Last week, the FCC voted to reclassify Internet Service > Providers from Common Carrier status to Information Content Providers. > While this was done under the guise of allowing the ISPs greater > flexibility and to allow for more competition, there will likely be a > more important (and probably not unintended) consequence of this > ruling. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2002 13:46:11 -0500 From: Fred Goldstein Subject: Re: FCC [Allegedly] Deals a Death Blow to Usenet ... and On Sat, 23 Mar 2002 13:39:58 -0600 Ken Abrams wrote, > It appears that the current "conservative" (oppressive and repressive) > Federal Administration has dealt yet another back-door blow to freedom > and liberty. Last week, the FCC voted to reclassify Internet Service > Providers from Common Carrier status to Information Content Providers. > While this was done under the guise of allowing the ISPs greater > flexibility and to allow for more competition, there will likely be a > more important (and probably not unintended) consequence of this > ruling. > Common Carriers (primarily phone companies) are exempt from liability > for the content of the traffic they transmit. This was true for ISPs > too but not anymore. Information Providers have no such exemption.... Utter hogwash, the whole note. ISPs have never been classified as Common Carriers. Had they been, then they would have been required (until recently) to file tariffs, among other onerous things. ISPs are and have always been information providers. The responsibilities of an ISP are spelled out in some laws, whose cite I can't remember. They have some protection for content that is similar to that afforded to common carriers, based on a reasonable statutory determination that they can't be held responsible for everything that passes by. Common carriers had that protection anyway, but ISPs have most of it and don't lose it. There are certain responsibilities; those don't change. The whole thread is ridiculous. ------------------------------ From: Anthony Siegman Subject: BSTJ On Line? (Looking for Bell System Technical Journal) Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2002 10:19:19 -0800 Organization: Stanford University The more researchy or academic types on this NG will know that the full publication runs of many major scientific and technical journals are now available in electronic form on line -- for example, every issue of Phys Rev is now available on line, starting from its inception back sometime before 1900. (Older issues are scanned PDF files.) Given the immense technical important of the Bell System Tech. Journal in earlier decades -- including classic pioneering papers on basic topics in physics and engineering including circuits, electronic devices, noise, information theory, statistics, radio astronomy, microwaves, as well as telephony -- its full publication run ought to be on line also. Anyone know if this is this case? And if not, anyone have any ideas on how it might be brought about? ------------------------------ Date: 25 Mar 2002 13:39:02 -0500 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: Wall Corded Telephone That Doesn't Use a Base Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > a. What exactly is widely available at Kmart? ... All sorts of stuff. There are K-Marts at Assembly Square in Somerville, on Western Ave in Brighton, and Mass Ave in Dorchester where you can check for yourself. The one in Dorchester is probably closest to the Boston Public Library. > b. What's a tip? ... One of the two wires that connect to a telephone, named after the tip of the plugs that operators used to use. > c. What's a butt in? ... It's when a telephone lineman clips his portable phone onto a pair of phone wires either to test them or to order a pizza. 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: Don Saklad Subject: Re: Wall Corded Telephone That Doesn't Use a Base Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2002 13:43:43 -0500 Thank you John R. Levine! ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2002 17:07:06 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Company pitches wireless mesh net for congested areas By Robert Keenan CommsDesign.com March 22, 2002 (6:03 p.m. EST) ORLANDO, Fla - Looking to change the way wireless networks are set up in congested environments, MeshNetworks Inc. (Maitland, Fla.) is pitching a methodology where any piece of equipment on a high-speed wireless network can serve as a network access point. The company is building IC technology and systems that will allow operators to set up ad hoc mesh networks in congested environments, according to Rick Rotondo, director of disruptive technology at MeshNetworks. The intent is to build a network that clients can connect to via routers, access points, or other client devices. http://www.commsdesign.com/story/OEG20020322S0099 ------------------------------ From: Robert Casey Subject: Re: How Long do Callers Wait on Hold? Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2002 14:48:51 -0500 Organization: wa2ise Rob Clark wrote: > I guess people's internal 'impatient timer' is triggered at different > times depending on what they are waiting for. What I really hate us when the music on hold is interrupted by what turns out not to be a live person picking up, but a recorded announcement saying "Your call is important to us, please continue to hold". Not that I was enjoying the music, but I get tired of these false sensations of finally getting through to a live person and not actually. ------------------------------ From: Gail M. Hall Subject: Re: How Long do Callers Wait on Hold? Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2002 19:11:25 -0500 Reply-To: gmhall@apk.net On Sat, 23 Mar 2002 13:57:03 +0800, in comp.dcom.telecom, you (Rob Clark ) wrote: > My apologies if this question has been answered well before. > Are there statistics, or rules-of-thumb, for determining a design goal > for caller queues? > For example ... if you had a call center, where typical conversation > times with an agent was XXX seconds, then does anyone have any > suggestions for how many callers drop off impatiently as a function of > time? I think the amount of time a person will wait depends a lot on the purpose of the call as well as whether the caller is calling from work or is a retired person calling from home. When I worked in an office, we were told never to keep people on hold for more than a minute or two. If we had to take longer to find the information, we were supposed to offer to call them back. I think similar rules should hold for those automated queues. My ideal would be if a person has to wait more than 10 minutes, a machine should offer to have a service person call them back. > I guess people's internal 'impatient timer' is triggered at different > times depending on what they are waiting for. I agree. > eg. > I would wait up to > - 3 sec for a dial tone; That sounds tolerable. > - 3 mins for a conversation with an agent ... where I expected the > conversation to take 3 mins; No more than 5 minutes of I expect the answer to be relatively short. > - 6 months to finalize a holiday booking for a 6month cruise on the Love > Boat. Never!! I think anything over 15 minutes is too long. They need to hire more reps or get more lines! > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I think most business places operating > a phone room keep records of lost calls, ie. calls in which the caller > disconnects without speaking with a live agent. I know when I worked > at Amoco Credit Card Center back in the 1960's-70's in the phone room > one of my tasks as the midnight shift supervisor was to tally up the > logs on this. We were getting about ten thousand calls per 24 hours, > and there were little clickers mounted in the wall of my office which > did various things. Most of the calls -- about 8000 -- came during the > regular business day. Overnight we had about 1000 - 1500 calls from > dealers getting credit authorizations. There were counters for each > incoming line on the ACD, and a master counter for all lines totalled. > There were counters for each agent position, and a counter for calls > lost, where the caller disconnected without waiting for an answer. If > the ratio of lost calls to total calls exceeded some small percentage > of the total, there were procedures in place to increase the number > of agents on a temporary basis by recruiting clerks from another part > of the office. They did not really care how long someone had to wait, > only if they hung up without waiting longer if necessary. PAT] I hate being left on hold for more than about 15 minutes. I think a system should click in to offer me a chance to give my number to a machine so a person can call me back. Keeping a lot of people on hold for longer than that uses up phone resources. The company needs to get more people to answer. Some call centers service more than one company. I know a person who works at such a service. I think she called it an "overflow" service. Her employer gets the calls when the main call center is full. She says they get information on their screen showing which company the person is calling, so she can call up the appropriate company on her screen and take their orders or answer their questions. I don't remember how many companies this company services, but it is definitely several. Gail from Ohio USA [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: When I was doing that kind of work, 15 minutes per call would have been outrageous. Twenty to thirty seconds per call was more realistic. In fact, when the carrier being used for our incoming toll-free calls advised that they would no longer be billing in six-second increments and all 800 calls would be one minute minimum, then our phone room supervisor WAS outraged. We would be wasting a half-minute on charges eight thousand times daily. Incoming calls were either 800 numbers, a few local Chicago area numbers, internal extensions calling us, or a few 'tie' lines, direct to dealers with a high rate of fraud who were obliged to call in *every last sale* without any floor limit at all. Customer presents plastic, those dealers picked up the red phone and waited for an answer. All the incoming lines, whether 800, local, extension to extension, 'tie' lines or whatever, came into the ACD then got tossed out to the work floor as available. A couple dealers on the south side just off of I-90 had those special phones without dials. Any charge slips they sent in without an approval code were automatically charged back with no questions asked, that's how bad their fraud level was. The phone room had all the oil companies in the old Standard Oil trust (Amoco, Exxon, Sohio, the California bunch whatever they were called) and Diner's Club cards. As I said above, a typical phone call lasted fifteen to twenty seconds, and went like this: (clerks merely waited to hear a 'click in their headset' and breathing on the other end of the line), then said: (our clerk)'Amoco/Diners'. the dealer then read the card number. (our clerk typed it in and asked) 'amount?' the dealer then read the amount. If the computer was able to resolve the matter, the clerk would simply read what the computer said, "Okay 23456" or "declined" and then she hit the release button on her console and a new call popped up right away in many/most cases. If the computer was unable to resolve the matter, the clerk would say 'hold for a credit representative' and after 'moving' the call into the credit reps queue, then disconnect herself and go on to the next call. Fifteen or twenty seconds per call that took no decision-making. The queue for the credit reps was the killer. You could sit there for a couple minutes while one of the reps was reviewing the screen, pulling the credit application from microfilm and reaching a decision. The clerks got all the traffic; the credit reps only had maybe a thousand or so calls per day of the total volume. That was thirty years ago. I understand now they use auto-voices to query the dealer, who inputs card number on touchtone, then the auto-voice tells the dealer what to do. No more clerks. And yet, even with calls that short, there were times there would be a dozen calls holding in the clerk's queue and no parking space in the credit rep's queue. That's when lights would flash, and the supervisor would get off his lazy ass in his cubicle and go over to the steno pool and microfilm operators and tell them to all go over to the stalls, take a headset and start taking calls. And when I started doing that work about forty years ago, they didn't even have *any computers at all*. Everything was in ledger books and everyone in the phone room walked around looking in all the hundreds of huge ledger books. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V20 #203 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Mar 26 01:49:47 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id BAA10859; Tue, 26 Mar 2002 01:49:47 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2002 01:49:47 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200203260649.BAA10859@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #204 TELECOM Digest Tue, 26 Mar 2002 01:50:00 EST Volume 20 : Issue 204 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson News Headlines of Interest (Monty Solomon) Re: News Headlines of Interest (Geoffrey Welsh) Re: So Much Junk Mail (Steven Lichter) Re: So Much Junk Mail (Mark Crispin) Donation of Junk Email Filter Software (Ross Oliver) My Filter Rules, etc (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-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 630-841-7174 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@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. 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All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. 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, 25 Mar 2002 21:51:48 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: News Headlines of Interest New services spur growth of public access Wi-Fi By BOB BREWIN (March 21, 2002) ORLANDO -- Public access wireless LAN service shared the center ring here at the annual Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association (CTIA) trade show with third generation mobile data, and one major carrier promised to deliver combined Wi-Fi/cellular services by early next year. Voicestream Wireless Corp. plans to offer a PC Card by early next year that will provide users access to both 40K bit/sec. mobile service over its nationwide General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) network as well as speeds of up to 11M bit/sec. over the 802.11b public access Wi-Fi network it acquired from bankrupt Mobilestar Network Corp. (Wi-Fi is another name for 802.11b and was coined by the industry trade group the Wireless Ethernet Compatability Alliance, or WECA) http://www.computerworld.com/storyba/0,4125,NAV47_STO69388,00.html Spammers Lose in Small-Claims Court By Gwendolyn Mariano Staff Writer, CNET News.com March 25, 2002, 4:50 PM PT Free-speech group Peacefire.org has won a legal round in its fight against unsolicited e-mail, invoking Washington state's anti-spam law. The King County District Court in Bellevue, Wash., on Monday granted Peacefire $1,000 in damages in each of three complaints filed by Peacefire Webmaster Bennett Haselton. The small-claims suit alleged that Red Moss Media, Paulann Allison and Richard Schueler sent unsolicited commercial messages to Haselton that bore deceptive information such as a forged return e-mail address or misleading subject line. http://news.com.com/2100-1023-868332.html FCC challenged on high-speed ISP ruling By Reuters March 25, 2002, 4:45 PM PT Verizon Communications, EarthLink and public-interest groups went to court Monday to challenge a decision by the Federal Communications Commission to insulate high-speed cable Internet service from extensive regulations. The FCC declared cable-modem service as an information service earlier this month, which means operators like AT&T Broadband and AOL Time Warner are not presently required to share their systems or provide open access for competing Internet services. That decision immediately elicited an outcry from public interest groups and Internet service providers that want the cable pipeline open so consumers can have a choice of Internet providers. http://news.com.com/2100-1033-868329.html ------------------------------ From: Geoffrey Welsh Subject: Re: News Headlines of Interest Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2002 22:00:58 -0500 Organization: Bell Sympatico Monty Solomon wrote in message news:telecom20.201.13@telecom-digest.org... > And it said hands-free kits were almost as dangerous as hand-held phones. ... which suggests to me that getting into a serious conversation, changing the radio station (or CD, or cassette), lighting a cigarette, reading a billboard, or even just getting 'into' a song might all pose significant safety risks ... but those are much tougher to crack down on than cellphone use. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: And notice if you will please, despite the various crackdowns we see on cellular use while driving, not a single word is ever said about ham radio operators or CB radio oper- ators who drive while using their radios. Which are more distracting? Nor are any complaints made about police officers who talk on their radios while engaged in high speed chases. But cellular phone oper- ators are fair game it appears. PAT] ------------------------------ From: stevenl11@aol.com (Steven Lichter) Date: 26 Mar 2002 03:16:26 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: So Much Junk Mail > My main question is about the core-dumps and the > patently silly requests to examine their work or play their new > game. What is that stuff? They should publish their home address so we can come by and KILL the SOBs Apple Elite II 909-359-5338. Home of GBBS/LLUCE, support for the Apple II 24 hours 2400/14.4. An OggNet Server. The only good spammer is a dead one!!! Have you hunted one down today? (c) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Which do you consider worse, Steve? A spammer or a virus-spreader who infects some unsuspecting user's computer while he is reading the spam mail which showed up? :) PAT] ------------------------------ From: Mark Crispin Subject: Re: So Much Junk Mail Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2002 19:24:58 -0800 Organization: Networks and Distributed Computing On 25 Mar 2002, KimBrennan wrote: > It's a lost cause really. There are many technological ways to deal > with SPAM. Most of them won't be implemented because of political > reasons. There is a simple way to bring an end to spam, one that has abundant precedent and legal weight, and wouldn't get in the way of any civil rights protections: TAX IT In 1934, the US government wanted to put an end to gangster use of machine guns, but that pesky Second Amendment to the US Constitution was in the way. The problem was neatly finessed by the National Firearms Act (NFA), which required that all privately-owned machine guns be registered (yes, we *do* have gun registration in the US, just not of "ordinary" guns) and that a tax be paid every time a machine gun was transferred to a new owner. The tax was set to the then-outrageous sum of $200, which doubled the cost of a Thompson submachine gun (which was already expensive at about 10 times the cost of an "ordinary" gun). Today, the tax is still $200, a small fraction of today's purchase prices; a beat-up Tommy gun with no special historical value is about $9800. Nevertheless, the NFA accomplished what it set out to do: it put an end to criminal use of machine guns yet still allowed legitimate (and wealthy!) collectors the right to own one and not affecting owners of ordinary guns at all. We can do the same thing to spam. 1) Narrowly define what is being taxed so that only spam is affected; it does NOT include personal email or non-spam business communications. This will require the most work. 2) Require that all spammers be registered, and pay for the privilege of being registered. 3) Require that each spam email message contain a verifiable electronic postage stamp that certifies payment of a $.05 per message per recipient spam tax. The recipient should be able to present the postage stamp to a government web site, funded by revenues from the spam tax, which will return the registration details of the spammer and the recipient email address. 4) Failure to register as a spammer is felony tax evasion, punishable by imprisonment and fines in addition to full payment of estimated tax evaded. 5) Falsification of the electronic postage stamp is an even more serious felony. 6) All revenues from the spam tax in excess of expenses (including operating the electronic postage stamp verification web site) to be credited to consumers in the form of rebates to telecommunications taxes (e.g. telephone taxes). The spam tax should not be an onerous burden to so-called "legitimate spammers." Microsoft et al can continue to send spam to their customers; $.05 is still cheaper than third-class mail. Thus, the Direct Marketing Association should have no quibble with what is, at most, a minor addition to their cost of doing business. It would, however, bankrupt the get-rich-quick, quack medicine, porn, etc. scumbag spammers. Even better, it would set the taxman on them, the one government entity that we can count upon to be aggressive in doing its job. > SPAM, telemarketing and junk (snail) mail are all symptoms of the > society (marketing driven) that we live in ... and are foisting on other > countries. At least half of the spam I get comes from Red China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, or South Korea, with Argentina and Brazil vying for the silver statue in the Hall of Shame. -- Mark -- http://staff.washington.edu/mrc Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2002 15:32:24 -0800 From: Ross Oliver Subject: Donation of junk email filter software Hello Patrick, I would like to offer a donation of my spam filter software to help with your junk mail problem. I sell the software as a commercial product, but I would be happy to provide a copy to you at no charge. If the packaged product is not suitable for your needs, perhaps I could customize a version for you. More information about the product is available at my web site, www.tech-mavens.com. Let me know if this is of any interest to you. Best regards, Ross Oliver reo@tech-mavens.com or reo@airaffair.com In comp.dcom.telecom, you wrote: > Today I sat down here at the computer for the first time in about 24 > hours to begin working on an issue of the Digest. The first dozen > messages were spam. Let me just take a poll of what all was here, and > how many of these you are familiar with: > There were three or four 'nigerian scams'. You know, where the King > or some government official in Nigeria is looking for someone to help > with disbursing some large sum of money. > Then I got two or three core dumps (all huge, but I am reluctant to say > record-setting in size). Two had a single line message saying 'this is > a new game I wrote, and you will be my first player. Please enjoy. One > of them said 'can you please read this and straighten it out, and show > me where my error is?' I have had a few of those in the past, where > they asked me to read over their 'work' and try to correct it. I have > had the one about 'my new game and you will be the first player a few > times also. I wonder if one person is sending all these out, or if there > is some kind of source where people go to get these cute little one- > liners to prepend to a huge core dump which they then mail out. I have > to wonder also if there is some kind of virus buried deep inside the > core dump which infects people's computers upon being opened and 'read'. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: My problem is, I would rather recieve a dozen pieces of humongous spam rather than risk missing a single piece of legitimate mail from a well-meaning user with a telecom comment or question. Unfortunatly, since filters are not human beings with brains and emotions and reasoning abilities, they will never reach the point they can assure me they will work as intended 100 percent. Look at the fuss in the past few years about porn filters and children and the internet. People just do not realize the harm that comes from filters intended to do good. Since we know that most legitimate messages can be written in fewer than 50 K bytes, I think a filter that tosses everything that large would be good, and one that dumps all messages totally in HTML would be good. And I do not intend to pick on the people from Nigeria, but they do seem to have an awful fraud over there, and spam. I sent you my office phone number in private mail and maybe we can talk about this sometime in the next couple days. And I hope readers here who want a good filter for spam will check out your work at tech-mavens.com My, won't the King of Nigeria be surprised to find out that we Americans are not as dumb or greedy as he expected. His spam always suggests that when the money gets here, we will be eager to dip into the pot ourselves on the way to passing it along. Well, maybe most Americans are as greedy as he thinks. Certainly a lot of my fellow Americans are almost as dumb as he needs to make his schemes work. But, as the famous comedian Jack Benny once said, referring to his friends, 'The dumber they are, the better I like them.' Maybe that's what spammers/scammers/viri spreaders think about us on the net also. In the next and final message for this issue, I am taking all of you on a tour through my filter rules, asking for your suggestions on improving them. After all, this isn't 1980 or even 1990 any longer. I need to junk most of these rules and come up with new ones. But put nothing in stone before asking me. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2002 00:28:26 EST From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: My Filter Rules, etc I will annotate these rules as we go along. Your suggestions for improvements will be welcome. # Basic rules to follow in sorting mail: # # 1: Daily logs of this filter's activity: if subject filterlog then save /u/ptownson/.elm/logs/log.%m.%d.%t My daily logs are mailed to me, this prevents them from going through the lcs system and my mail filter a second time. # 2-3. Email to/from Archives; to/from users: if from archives then save /u/ptownson/tel-archives.mail if to archives@ then execute /u/ptownson/infoserver/bin/process These rules pertain to the old archives<>email system I still run for people seeking to obtain archives files by email. Some people still prefer it over using the web pages. # 4-5: Prevent loops if possible. If we sent a receipt, "Receipt" is in the # subject so if we see it coming past again, dump it in the mailbox as is. if subject receipt then leave if to autoreply@ then save "/dev/null" Mail loops used to be a big problem. You write and my daemon answered you then your daemon answered me, and my daemon answered back, etc. That's why if your ORIGINAL message contained the word 'receipt' in the subject line you did not get a receipt from me, even though I did get your message. # 6-10: Do not send receipts in these cases: if from ptownson then leave if from ladd@ then leave if from @telecom-digest.org then leave if from wollman@ then leave if from massey then leave if from noahm@lcs.mit.edu then leave LCS administrative staff usually, writing me a note about something. They don't want reciepts, neither do I. # 12-28: Mail Daemon Handling if subject 'User unknown' then save "/u/ptownson/t-request" if subject 'Delivery Report' then save "/u/ptownson/bounced" if from smtp then save "/u/ptownson/bounced" if subject SMTPLINK then save "/u/ptownson/bounced" if from Mail_System then save "/u/ptownson/bounced" if from postm then save "/u/ptownson/bounced" if to post then leave if from daemon then save "/u/ptownson/bounced" if from bounce then save "u/ptownson/bounced" if from mmdf then save "/u/ptownson/bounced" if from network then save "/u/ptownson/bounced" if from uucp@ then save "/u/ptownson/bounced" if from mail@ then save "/u/ptownson/bounced" if from administrator then save "/u/ptownson/bounced" if from root@ then leave if from gateway then save "/u/ptownson/bounced" Users unknown are filed in a box where I would manipulate the name out of the mailing list. 'postm' allows for postmasters, postmistresses, etc. But there have been legitimate users in the past whose name was Emily Post, etc. And now and then, a root owner will write me for some kind of business. Mostly it all went in a bounced box where it would get zapped frequently. # 28-31: what mail is left over should be legitimate; ie, from a # real person. Either they wrote an article or admin request. # If they wrote to -request or subscribe, then send one type of # autoreply, and if apparently an article for the Digest, send # the other type. if to -request then execute /u/ptownson/.elm/requestreply if to subscri then execute /u/ptownson/.elm/requestreply if subject subscri then execute /u/ptownson/.elm/requestreply if subject cancel then execute /u/ptownson/.elm/requestreply I send two types of autoreplies. One is worded for people who have send what is suspected to be an article for publication. We'll get to that later. The other type of autoreply is for people who would ask to be added to or removed from the mailing list. Letters to telecom-request or with a subject line which includes the words (un)subscribe or cancel get the other kind. This is no longer used since subscription things now go to majordomo at John Levine's place. # 32-36: But if they posted it direct to comp.dcom.telecom and some local # site forwarded it here, sometimes there will be no 'To', and sometimes # there will be spurious blank lines in the header where they should not # be. We make an effort to repair that, and once the envelope is repaired # if possible, we send the new mail right back here to be filtered again. # I also get bcc'd and cc'd on other people's mail sometimes. if to feedback then save "u/ptownson/feedback" if to dmassey then leave if to dcom then execute /u/ptownson/.elm/fix.blankline if to editor@ then execute /u/ptownson/.elm/autoreply if not to ptownson then execute /u/ptownson/.elm/fix.apparently-to If an article for the Digest, send the autoreply. Massey's mail is forwarded to him separately. People who write to comp-dcom-telecom@ heir.site wind up here, but with extra blank lines unfortunatly. I will show you how I fix that. Mail with me as cc or bcc sometimes does not have my name in it, just as the Digest does not always have your name in the 'To' line. I try to deal with that also. #37: At this point we can issue the reply message for remaining mail always execute /u/ptownson/.elm/autoreply # The 'always' instruction always ends filtering. # Patrick Townson, November 5, 1991 # changes for eecs.nwu.edu made in 1992. # changes made for massis.lcs.mit.edu 11-8-95 # changes made for telecom-digest.org 04-13-97 # further changes and refinements made 08-26-97 # further changes for Tribute/Massey mail made 06-26-99 --------------------------------- Now these next scripts treat the odd pieces of mail which need more work, due to blank lines and no recipient but recieved 'apparently to' # #! /bin/sh # sed '1,/^$/{ # /^$/d # }' |/u/ptownson/.elm/autoreply Remove the # marks as needed at the far left side only. This takes mailing lists I am on and removes blank lines as needed then funnels the mail over to the autoreply mechanism. # #!/bin/sh # sed "1,/^$/{ # s/to:/To:/ # w /u/ptownson/.elm/tmp/bcchead.$$ # }" > /u/ptownson/.elm/tmp/bcc.$$ # trap "rm -f /u/ptownson/.elm/tmp/bcc*.$$" 0 1 2 3 15 # if grep '^To: ' /u/ptownson/.elm/tmp/bcchead.$$ > /dev/null # then : # elif grep '^Apparently-To: ' /u/ptownson/.elm/tmp/bcchead.$$ > /dev/# null # then sed '/./,/^$/{ # s/^Apparently-// # }' /u/ptownson/.elm/tmp/bcc.$$ | /usr/local/bin/filter -o /u/ptownson/.elm/filter-errs ; exit # fi # cat /u/ptownson/.elm/tmp/bcc.$$ | /usr/lib/sendmail \\ptownson # rm -f /u/ptownson/.elm/tmp/bcc.$$ # exit This script looks at mail where I am listed as a cc or bcc and corrects it for the Digest. Because I do not know if it is for the Digest or not I don't want to send a reciept, so I have to mail it back to my box. The first backslash with my name tells unix to mail it absolutely! to me, bypassing any .forward files and the backslash before that is needed to serve as a 'quote' for the next backslash. Love that Unix!! If I am not mistaken, I think a long-time reader, David Tamkin helped me with some of this. Just remember, if you ever want to write to some user directly and by-pass any filters or other steps he has in your way, write to him absolutely! by backslashing his name like this: some_user@his.site.com becomes \some_user@his.site.com and the backslash says ignore any .forward files you come across, just go for his mailbox. This is only guarenteed for Unix/Linux systems, and if *your* system requires you to quote the backslash in order to get it accepted as a backslash then do that also, i.e. \\. Obviously, .forward files serve a good purpose when people move to a different machine, etc and want their mail forwarded. So use the backslash only in cases where you know the .forward file is feeding into filter-rules pertaining to spam, etc. For instance, my .forward file here at massis.lcs.mit.edu looks like this: "| /usr/local/bin/filter -o /u/ptownson/.elm/filter-errs" That says pipe the mail to the elm filter on the local machine (massis) to the attention of ptownson and deal with any errors that elm can't handle. When the stream hits the filter it is dealt with as described above. Most of you know that 'telecom-digest.org' itself is simply an alias which points to massis, just as 'editor' points to ptownson when it gets here. Not too bad, I guess, for someone who suffered such extensive brain damage like I did following my brain aneurysm November 29, 1999, but I could never reconstruct all that today if I were just starting any Digest. Two months in a coma in Kansas Rehabilitation Hospital followed by another month or three in rehab and then a year or so in a nursing home ... but now days I get *so* tired from working at my computer. Spam is the last thing I need to see, but I sure do get it. Obviously, old scripts written in the early 1990's are not sufficient today. PAT ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V20 #204 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Mar 26 21:39:13 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id VAA29039; Tue, 26 Mar 2002 21:39:13 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2002 21:39:13 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200203270239.VAA29039@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #205 TELECOM Digest Tue, 26 Mar 2002 21:39:00 EST Volume 20 : Issue 205 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Nigeria Launches Web Site to Target E-Mail Scam (Jim Weiss) Nigeria Launches Web Site to Target E-Mail Scam (Robert A. Pierce) Mystery of Missing Text Messages (Monty Solomon) Web Radio's Last Stand (Monty Solomon) Re: News Headlines of Interest (Dominic Richens) Re: News Headlines of Interest (Bill Horne) Re: FCC Deals a Death Blow to Usenet ... and Nobody Noticed (Larry Finch) Re: FCC [Allegedly] Deals a Death Blow to Usenet ... and (Ken Abrams) Re: FCC Deals a Death Blow to Usenet ... and Nobody Noticed (Larry Finch) Re: FCC Deals a Death Blow to Usenet ... and Nobody Noticed (Jim Carlson) Telecom Questions From an Idiot (John McLeod) Re: Consolidation of Prefixes in Rural Part of 402 (Neb (George Rapp) Re: How Long do Callers Wait on Hold? (Andy Bender) Radio Shack Wall Corded Telephones That Don't Use Cradle Base (D. Saklad) 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-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 630-841-7174 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@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 * * Judith Oppenheimer, President of ICB Inc. and purveyor of accurate * * 800 & Dot Com News, Intelligence, Analysis, and Consulting. * * http://ICBTollFree.com, http://1800TheExpert.com * * Views expressed herein should not be construed as representing * * views of Judith Oppenheimer or ICB Inc. * ************************************************************************* ICB Toll Free News. Contact information is not sold, rented or leased. Access to Premium (P) links requires upgrade to a paid subscription. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Only subscribers or registered users of ICB Toll Free News web site will be able to access all or some of the full text of URLs provided. LEGAL STUFF: TELECOM Digest (sm) is owned by Patrick Townson. Copyright 2000 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. 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: NBJimWeiss@aol.com Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2002 12:32:48 EST Subject: Nigeria Launches Web Site to Target E-Mail Scam A Nigerian government Web site targets e-mail fraud scams that have been sweeping the world. http://computerworld.com/nlt/1%2C3590%2CNAV47_STO69562_NLTAM%2C00.html From the Offices of: Network Brokers, Inc. Providing Long Distance Services for Less Jim Weiss, nbjimweiss@aol.com 305-252-1822; Fax: 775-796-9973; Miami Fax: 305-252-1823; ------------------------------ From: Robert A. Pierce Subject: Nigeria Launches Web Site to Target E-Mail Scam Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2002 14:29:05 EST This article seems timely: Nigeria launches Web site to target e-mail scam A Nigerian government Web site targets e-mail fraud scams that have been sweeping the world. http://computerworld.com/nlt/1%2C3590%2CNAV47_STO69562_NLTAM%2C00.html (The site is at http://www.nigerianfraudwatch.org/) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2002 16:16:24 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Mystery of Missing Text Messages Ever "lost" a text message? Ever claimed not to have received one when you did? The fact is, text messages go missing. BBC News Online's technology correspondent Mark Ward investigates. Mobile phone text messages are the mayflies of technology. Like adults of the insect order Ephemoptera, they have a notoriously short lifespan, three days typically, and leave little evidence of their passing. And often their prospects for survival are as uncertain as mayflies that choose to dance on the surface of a well-stocked trout stream. The reason is that text messages are a victim of their own success. According to the GSM Association, the mobile phone industry's trade body, 30 billion a month are now being sent. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2002 16:21:59 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Web Radio's Last Stand Web radio's last stand A new ruling involving the Digital Millennium Copyright Act is set to wipe out independent online music stations. By Katharine Mieszkowski March 26, 2002 | SomaFM is the kind of Internet-only radio station that offers a true alternative to the mainstream fare on the offline dial. About 20,000 listeners a day tune in to the URL to groove to the streams of ambient down-tempo electronica. In the mix: the Chemical Brothers, Mama Gravy, old Moby and obscure new discoveries like the German band Electroslide. The San Francisco-based station, which began as a pirate radio operation in 1996 at the Burning Man festival, has been continuously broadcasting online for about two years. It runs completely on donations -- about $1,000 a month, plus some bandwidth -- from listeners. But a new ruling under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act threatens to change the playlist at SomaFM and other stations like it, if not actually shut them down altogether. http://salon.com/tech/feature/2002/03/26/web_radio/index.html ------------------------------ From: Dominic Richens Subject: Re: News Headlines of Interest Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2002 07:50:25 -0500 Organization: Nortel > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: ... But cellular phone oper- > ators are fair game it appears. PAT] ... because there are so many more of them that the danger is now statistically significant. Either there were not enough CB'ers out there to get a statistically relevant sample, or the portion of accidents caused by CB radio was so small it wasn't worth the $$ to regulate it. Now that 1 in 10 drivers has a yak-box glued to the side of their head and is only using half their brain to drive, it can be proved that it is a problem, hence it is worth the cost to regulate it. ...not that I'm saying it's fair, just realistic :-) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Of course, there wouldn't be any politics involved now, would there. In fact, at one point back in the early 1980's, nearly every motorist had a CB radio. I would say during the 1970's and 1980's *everyone* had a CB radio it seems. It was the Usenet of that era, and almost as wide a communications medium in those days as computers are today. No, of course there wouldn't any politics involved. Our government does not allow politics to interfere in good administration. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2002 09:33:10 -0500 From: Bill Horne Subject: Re: News Headlines of Interest > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: And notice if you will please, despite > the various crackdowns we see on cellular use while driving, not a > single word is ever said about ham radio operators or CB radio oper- > ators who drive while using their radios. Which are more distracting? > Nor are any complaints made about police officers who talk on their > radios while engaged in high speed chases. But cellular phone oper- > ators are fair game it appears. PAT] Pat, I think that's an unfair comparison. I can't speak about CB, but Ham operators are much better trained in mobile operating technique than cell phone users. The Amateur Radio examinations emphasize safety and responsibility: not only electrical and RF safety, but operating safety as well, including proper mobile operating technique. Moreover, Ham (and CB) communications are Half-Duplex, i.e., "Push-to-talk", where the person transmitting can't be interrupted. So, it's a fundamentally different paradigm than cellular use, where the driver may be easily distracted by interuptions from the other end of the line (or simply by the effort of listening for them). Don't forget that cell phones used in cars are often tucked under a shoulder, impeding movement, while Amateur equipment is almost always mounted beneath the dash, with a lightweight microphone that's easy to hold. Last, let's remember that cellular calls and Ham Radio conversations are, fundamentally, two very different things: a business call held on a cell phone, where money is at stake and the driver is concentrating on making a good impression, is far more distracting than the technical jargon, jokes, and traffic reports which Amateur operators trade to pass the time. In short, I think you're painting with too broad a brush. Bill Horne W1AC (Remove ".nouce" from my return address for direct replies.) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I am certainly glad to hear that like other areas in our government, there are no politics involved in this and that the decision to punish cellphone users was only made in our Best Interest. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Larry & Wanda Finch Subject: Re: FCC Deals a Death Blow to Usenet ... and Nobody Noticed Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2002 20:43:44 GMT Ken, I think it would be prudent to review the FCC's announcement and the NPRM before rushing to judgment. The press release is at http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Cable/News_Releases/2002/nrcb0201.html; there is a link there to the full 75 page text of the order. A quick read shows several differences between what you wrote and the actual FCC action. (I suspect you got it from news media, who are typically poor at interpreting what they read.) Most notably, It does not reclassify ISPs as "Information Content Providers." It classifies Cable Modem Service as an "Interstate Information Service" rather than a "Cable Service." There are big differences between "ISP" and "Cable Modem Service" and between "Information Content Provider" and "Interstate Information Service." Cable Modem Service was never classified as a Common Carrier; it was previously classified as a Cable Service. ISPs are not currently classified as Common Carriers. If they were Common Carriers they would be under the jurisdiction of the FCC, and they are not. Larry Ken Abrams wrote: > It appears that the current "conservative" (oppressive and repressive) > Federal Administration has dealt yet another back-door blow to freedom > and liberty. Last week, the FCC voted to reclassify Internet Service > Providers from Common Carrier status to Information Content Providers. > While this was done under the guise of allowing the ISPs greater > flexibility and to allow for more competition, there will likely be a > more important (and probably not unintended) consequence of this > ruling. Larry Finch ::finches@bellatlantic.net larry@prolifics.com ::LarryFinch@aol.com (whew!) N 40 53' 47" W 74 03' 56" ------------------------------ From: Ken Abrams Subject: Re: FCC [Allegedly] Deals a Death Blow to Usenet ... and Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2002 12:53:04 -0600 Fred Goldstein wrote in message: > On Sat, 23 Mar 2002 13:39:58 -0600 Ken Abrams > wrote, >> It appears that the current "conservative" (oppressive and repressive) >> Federal Administration has dealt yet another back-door blow to freedom >> and liberty. Last week, the FCC voted to reclassify Internet Service >> Providers from Common Carrier status to Information Content Providers. >> While this was done under the guise of allowing the ISPs greater >> flexibility and to allow for more competition, there will likely be a >> more important (and probably not unintended) consequence of this >> ruling. >> Common Carriers (primarily phone companies) are exempt from liability >> for the content of the traffic they transmit. This was true for ISPs >> too but not anymore. Information Providers have no such exemption.... > Utter hogwash, the whole note. Please, don't hold back Fred. Tell me what you really think! Try to come up with a few more offensive invectives. That one is pretty lame. > The responsibilities of an ISP are spelled out in some laws, whose > cite I can't remember. They have some protection for content that is > similar to that afforded to common carriers, based on a reasonable > statutory determination that they can't be held responsible for > everything that passes by. Common carriers had that protection > anyway, but ISPs have most of it and don't lose it. There are certain > responsibilities; those don't change. As you properly point out above, ISPs are not classified exactly the same as other "real" common carriers but their classification is, in many ways, similar. Seems like I remember them being referred to as an OCC (Other Common Carrier) but that may not be totally correct either. > The whole thread is ridiculous. Another link to what appears to be a good summary is: http://news.com.com/2100-1033-868329.html My original comments missed the mark by quite a bit it seems and others have given a link to the full text of the ruling but I hardly think that my comments qualify as "ridiculous". ------------------------------ From: Larry & Wanda Finch Subject: Re: FCC Deals a Death Blow to Usenet ... and Nobody Noticed Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2002 20:50:16 GMT Ross Oliver wrote: > On Sat, 23 Mar 2002 13:39:58 -0600, Ken Abrams > wrote: >> It appears that the current "conservative" (oppressive and repressive) >> Federal Administration has dealt yet another back-door blow to freedom >> and liberty. Last week, the FCC voted to reclassify Internet Service >> Providers from Common Carrier status to Information Content Providers. > The actual decision was a bit more subtle. On March 14, the FCC > reclassified cable modem service from "common carrier" to "information > service." The net effect is that cable companies cannot be forced to > open their infrastructure to competing ISPs as telecommunications > companies have been required to do. IMHO, this is bad for consumers > because it strengthens the monopoly of cable companies both for > broadband Internet services and cable television. > Actually, even that is incorrect. Cable modem service was reclassified from "cable service" to "interstate information service." It was never classified as "Common Carrier." > Read the full FCC press release at: > http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Cable/News_Releases/2002/nrcb0201.html Larry Finch ::finches@bellatlantic.net larry@prolifics.com ::LarryFinch@aol.com (whew!) N 40 53' 47" W 74 03' 56" ------------------------------ From: James Carlson Subject: Re: FCC Deals a Death Blow to Usenet ... and Nobody Noticed Date: 26 Mar 2002 08:35:31 -0500 Organization: Sun Microsystems Inc. - BDC reo@roscoe.airaffair.com (Ross Oliver) writes: > The actual decision was a bit more subtle. On March 14, the FCC > reclassified cable modem service from "common carrier" to "information > service." The net effect is that cable companies cannot be forced to > open their infrastructure to competing ISPs as telecommunications > companies have been required to do. IMHO, this is bad for consumers > because it strengthens the monopoly of cable companies both for > broadband Internet services and cable television. I'm a long-time cable Internet subscriber, and, in the interest of full disclosure, I'm *not* related in any way to any of the service providers -- either cable or otherwise. I'm just a customer. (And, in the interest of completeness, I can't and don't speak for my employer. This is my personal opinion. Got it?) I think this is a *wonderful* decision. The mechanisms used today to allow 'equal access' on DSL (IP over PPP over PPPoE over Ethernet over ATM) are technically hideous. Anything that avoids having my cable service damaged by the likes of PPPoE is a great boon. I think mandating a false sense of "competition" to the detriment of technical correctness is a bad path to follow. James Carlson, Solaris Networking SUN Microsystems / 1 Network Drive 71.234W Vox +1 781 442 2084 MS UBUR02-212 / Burlington MA 01803-2757 42.497N Fax +1 781 442 1677 ------------------------------ From: jmcleod@msjcorp.com (John McLeod) Subject: Telecom Questions From an Idiot Date: 26 Mar 2002 14:00:58 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Hi there, I've got a few questions regarding phone systems and whatnot. Where I work, we have an NEC phone system. All Dterm phones. My questions are: 1. what is centranet ? 2. What does an NEC Digital Remote Unit(DRU) do? Why have all the DRU units I have seen connect to a T1(DS1)? 3. Someone once told me that there is a DID line coming into our main facility for the phone system. What is a DID? Any light you can shed would be a great help. Thanks, [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: 'Centranet' *sounds to me*, when used in a telecom context, as though it is similar to the telco offering known as 'centrex', a service where telco is basically your company's PBX operator. The company PBX or switchboard is actually at telco's office. All your internal calls (through the PBX or PAX) are handled by telco. At least. that's what 'centrex' is, and I think 'centranet' is a similar offering. 'DID' refers to 'Direct Inward Dialing'. It is quite possible there are DID lines behind a centrex at your company. PAT] ------------------------------ From: George Rapp Subject: Re: Consolidation of Prefixes in Rural Part of 402 (Neb Date: 26 Mar 2002 10:57:22 -0600 Carl Moore wrote: > Old notes I looked at had, in area 402 in Nebraska: > 436 HUBBELL > 327 N. SABETHA > ("North Sabetha" apparently meaning an area just across the border > from an area served by exchange in Sabetha, Kansas) > But 436 and 327 appeared for addresses in Lincoln, and they do now > show up in www.thedirectory.org as LINCOLN. What little I can scrape > up for Hubbell showed usage of 324 prefix (Chester), so was 436 closed > down at Hubbell and subscribers who were on it merged into the 324 > prefix? I don't have a guess for what would have become of subscribers > on 327 at North Sabetha. I don't know where it came from, but the 402-436 exchange was appropriated by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, around 1988-89, for residential student phone numbers (dorm rooms, fraternity/sorority houses, etc.) Previously, all UN-L numbers were 402-472; after the "split", 402-472 was reserved for University offices and buildings. George Rapp (Columbus, OH) Home: gwr -- at -- novia.net Work: george.rapp -- at -- eds.com (or) george.rapp -- at -- dfas.mil "Stupidity is the only universal capital crime; the sentence is death. There is no appeal, and execution is carried out automatically and without pity." ------------------------------ From: abender@virtualhold.com (Andy Bender) Subject: Re: How Long do Callers Wait on Hold? Date: 26 Mar 2002 07:55:25 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ We all hate being left on hold for more than a few minutes. A system to offer a take the callers phone number and call them back at the same time they would have come off of hold to an agent is available. This saves money on the 800 toll charges, can reduce agent staffing requirements, and improves customer satisfaction. Check out Virtual Hold at http://virtualhold.com ------------------------------ Subject: Radio Shack Wall Corded Telephones That Don't Use Cradle Base From: Don Saklad Date: 26 Mar 2002 01:01:10 -0500 What other wall corded telephones without a cradle base are around that don't have this problem? Available from the Massachusetts Cambridge Boston Radio Shack stores, here're the wall cored telephones that don't use a cradle base Apollo Flip-Style Phone Mini Flip-Style Fashion Telephone [ http://www.radioshack.com/category.asp?catalog%5Fname=CTLG&category%5Fname=CTLG%5F001%5F001%5F009%5F000&Page=2 ] The Apollo Flip-Style Phone speaker wasn't loud enough to hear the person at the other end clearly. At high loudness setting of the 3 choices the sidetone was too loud defeating attempts to hear the person at the other end without pain. Sidetone feeds your voice to your ear through the same speaker that you listen to the person from the other end. Sidetone when set at the proper level gives you aural feedback about the connection quality. The Mini Flip-Style Phone is very tiny. It wouldn't stay in the crook of your neck during a conversation while reaching for a pen and paper. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V20 #205 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Mar 27 12:26:32 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id MAA11233; Wed, 27 Mar 2002 12:26:32 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 12:26:32 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200203271726.MAA11233@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #206 TELECOM Digest Wed, 27 Mar 2002 12:24:00 EST Volume 20 : Issue 206 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: So Much Junk Mail (Dave Garland) Re: So Much Junk Mail (Steven Lichter) Re: So Much Junk Mail (Barry Margolin) Re: So Much Junk Mail (Clarence Dold) Different PICC Verification Numbers? (Mike Pollock) T1 Incoming One-Way Audio Problems (Vidya Ramachandran) Re: Recourse For Very Slow T1 Installation? (Vidya Ramachandran) Re: How Long do Callers Wait on Hold? (John David Galt) Re: Rejecting "Unavailable" Phone Calls (pobox---@ix.netcom.com) Central Office Code Assignments (Babu Mengelepouti) Re: My Filter Rules, etc (Ron Bean) Re: FCC Deals a Deathblow to Usenet ... Nobody Noticed (Dave Anderson) Re: My Filter Rules, etc (Herb Stein) 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-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 630-841-7174 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@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 * * Judith Oppenheimer, President of ICB Inc. and purveyor of accurate * * 800 & Dot Com News, Intelligence, Analysis, and Consulting. * * http://ICBTollFree.com, http://1800TheExpert.com * * Views expressed herein should not be construed as representing * * views of Judith Oppenheimer or ICB Inc. * ************************************************************************* ICB Toll Free News. Contact information is not sold, rented or leased. Access to Premium (P) links requires upgrade to a paid subscription. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Only subscribers or registered users of ICB Toll Free News web site will be able to access all or some of the full text of URLs provided. LEGAL STUFF: TELECOM Digest (sm) is owned by Patrick Townson. Copyright 2000 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. 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: Dave Garland Subject: Re: So Much Junk Mail Organization: Wizard Information Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2002 00:01:27 -0600 It was a dark and stormy night when TELECOM Digest Editor wrote: > There were three or four 'nigerian scams'. You know, where the King > or some government official in Nigeria is looking for someone to help > with disbursing some large sum of money. Forward them with headers to 419.fcd@usss.treas.gov. The gentlemen who wear sunglasses even at night would like to talk to the King. (It's known as "the 419 scam".) Use a subject line of "no financial loss" (if you happened to lend the King a couple of thou to tide him over until you both cash out, you might indicate that in the subject line instead). [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But as was pointed out in the last issue of the Digest earlier tonight, the King has grown quite concerned about this fraud against him and his good name, so he has decided to resolve the matter by starting a web site telling his side of the story. PAT] ------------------------------ From: stevenl11@aol.com (Steven Lichter) Date: 26 Mar 2002 12:54:28 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: So Much Junk Mail Pat said: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Which do you consider worse, Steve? A > spammer or a virus-spreader who infects some unsuspecting user's > computer while he is reading the spam mail which showed up? :) PAT] About the same, but I have Macs so I don't have as much of a problem with Virus spreading. Maybe we should have the virus spreaders contact the spammers and infect them. Point of information, that Auto Dealer in Beaverton, Oregon, that kept spamming me has a bit of a problem with several states Attorney generals and now has another toll free number, I guess he must have gotten many calls again. Next time he spams me I'll publish his number on every hacker newsgroup. Another way to end the spam would be to bring legal action against the IPs that support it and companies; legal and large companies like Chase Bank which use spammers and don't seem to see anything wrong with using them. Hit them with a couple of billion dollar fines your life in prison with no chance of getting out and it will end now. Apple Elite II 909-359-5338. Home of GBBS/LLUCE, support for the Apple II 24 hours 2400/14.4. An OggNet Server. The only good spammer is a dead one!!! Have you hunted one down today? (c) ------------------------------ From: Barry Margolin Subject: Re: So Much Junk Mail Organization: Genuity, Woburn, MA Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2002 16:36:28 GMT In article , Mark Crispin wrote: > There is a simple way to bring an end to spam, one that has abundant > precedent and legal weight, and wouldn't get in the way of any civil > rights protections: > At least half of the spam I get comes from Red China, Taiwan, Hong > Kong, or South Korea, with Argentina and Brazil vying for the silver > statue in the Hall of Shame. Since so much of it comes from outside the country, how would your TAX IT solution address that? Also, most spam is difficult to trace to a source (since they want to avoid retaliation). How do you tax someone if you can't identify them? Barry Margolin, barmar@genuity.net Genuity, Woburn, 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: dold@80.usenet.us.com Subject: Re: So Much Junk Mail Date: 26 Mar 2002 17:20:43 GMT Organization: Wintercreek Data On Fri, 22 Mar 2002 15:23:11 EST, in comp.dcom.telecom, you (TELECOM Digest Editor ) wrote: >> There were three or four 'nigerian scams'. You know, where the King >> or some government official in Nigeria is looking for someone to help >> with disbursing some large sum of money. The Nigerian government is taking a look: http://www.computerworld.com/storyba/0,4125,NAV47_STO69562,00.html Clarence A Dold - dold@email.rahul.net - Pope Valley (Napa County) CA. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yes, the government officials there are very indignant that some Usenet hacker in the USA is ruining the good name of their King by trying to trick his fellow netters out of their hard-earned money. See the press reports in the prior issue of the Digest tonight. Listen, whoever is doing it, nigerian scams have been going on for at least forty years or more. In the old days, when I was working for the credit card center in Chicago, Diners Club just about got eaten alive by fraud from Nigeria. They had red flags out everywhere whenever a credit app came in from someone who appeared to have lived 'over there'. Let him get a piece of plastic in his hands and he would run up a million dollar bill without blinking before one of the sales authorizers could catch him and pull the card. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2002 13:57:55 PST From: Mike Pollock Subject: Different PICC Verification Numbers? I just switched my PICC to ZoneLD, http://www.zoneld.com , a Global Crossing reseller. [As a Winstar casualty, I'm trying not to let *that* worry me!] When I dial 1-700-555-4141 to verify my PICC, I expect to hear "Thanks for Choosing Global Crossing," as I had heard just prior to the change, when I was PICCed to UniTel, another Global Crossing Reseller. Instead, I get hung up on. It just clicks back to dial tone. I mentioned this to ZoneLD Customer Service, and instead of saying, "thanks for the heads up -- we'll fix it," they said, "Please dial 1-700-555-2550 instead." I've not been home to test that to see if it works, but I'm wondering: what's the significance of different resellers having different 700-555-XXXX numbers? I've noticed other resellers have their own, too. Thanks, Mike ------------------------------ From: mrvidya2001@yahoo.com (Vidya Ramachandran) Subject: T1 Incoming One-Way Audio Problems Date: 26 Mar 2002 18:17:53 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ I have recently installed a voice T1 for a small company. The local company is Focal and the long distance provider is Global Crossing. The firm is experiencing One-Way incoming audio problems meaning that if an outside party calls the receiver of the phone call can't hear them after three minutes and ultimately drops the call. It's very frustrating. I've given focal the call samples and they haven't been able to figure it out. Does anyone have experience with this and if so any guidance would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Vidya Ramachandran Outsourcing Specialist Telecom Services 202-463-4929 ------------------------------ From: mrvidya2001@yahoo.com (Vidya Ramachandran) Subject: Re: Recourse For Very Slow T1 Installation? Date: 26 Mar 2002 18:20:35 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ I'll get you up in running in no time and my rates are damn good. If you are interested give me a call: 202-463-4929 or 404-277-6267 ask for Vidya. JDS wrote in message news:: > Ed M wrote in > news:telecom20.194.11@telecom-digest.org: >> Since December we have had a T1 on order from a relatively small LEC >> in upstate NY (Frontier in Orange County NY) Although we are across >> the road (in Verizon territory) from the area Frontier's CO serves >> they are able to offer services in our area. >> The installation is long overdue from the January date ... >> complain to? This is getting ridiculous. > Write to your public utilities commission and to the Federal > Communications Commission. They grant these monopoly franchises, and > they need to know how well the carrier is fulfilling its obligation to > serve the public. Your LEC can tell you to whom you should write -- > and your request will perhaps get them going. If you don't tell them, > they won't know. ------------------------------ From: John David Galt Subject: Re: How Long do Callers Wait on Hold? Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2002 02:40:00 -0800 Organization: Diogenes the Cynic Hot-Tubbing Society Rob Clark wrote: > Are there statistics, or rules-of-thumb, for determining a design goal > for caller queues? The longest I'll wait is 10 minutes, and if even that much delay persists I'll find another company to do business with. Not having a human being I can call and talk to immediately is the height of insufferable arrogance on the part of any company, IMO. YMMV. ------------------------------ From: pobox---@ix.netcom.com Subject: Re: Rejecting "Unavailable" Phone Calls Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2002 15:20:47 -0500 Organization: MindSpring Enterprises Neil Williams wrote: > Of course telemarketers are the phone companies' best buddies. > First they sell your phone number to the telemarketers, plus they > sell phone service to them, then they sell caller ID and call > blocking/intercept/etc to you to block the problem the phone > company created in the first place. > Is your number unlisted? What I've discovered (and I have > four phone lines at home, so I have a little experience) is that > if you didn't specify it when you bought the line, then you're > SOL. Adding it later does very little. If you get unlisted from > the get-go, you will receive significantly fewer calls - you'll > probably still get a couple a week, though. > If you did have your line listed to begin with, try changing the > number and make sure it's unlisted. Changing your number is > cheap - I think it's under $10. > --Neil You have hit the nail on the head. I tried using "Call Intercept" from Verizon. This service "screened" all incoming numbers that were "Private" - "Blocked" - "Out of Area" or "Anonymous." The only problem was -- every night about 6:30 - until 9:30 pm the service went down, and it would not allow any callers to get through. I did miss a few important (not emergency) calls. I reported this matter to Verizon repair. One assistant didn't even know what "Call Intercept" even was! Another rep. said she could not call me back to test it because she didn't know HOW to block her call to me. And another rep. told me that -- due to FCC Regulations she could NOT call me back because it was after 9 pm and it was against the law! (Give me a break, please!) Finally -- one repair rep. did call and heard the recording that stated ... "try your call again later ..." After all of this nonsense, I finally called the Solutions Center at 800-870-0000 and received a weird recording that stated ......"due to an emergency we can not take your call ... but you can visit our website at ..." The next day I called back to complain and the rep. who answered said ... what emergency? We didn't have an emergency yesterday ..." I played her the tape of the recording and she asked "What do you need?" I quickly canceled the Call Intercept service because I knew there must have been a major software problem that could not be fixed anytime soon! I saved the "closed for emergency recording" to a .wav file and will send it to anyone who responds to this email address below. What a mess! (ken) respond to pobox-dc at ix dot netcom dot com. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 02:57:02 -0800 From: Babu Mengelepouti Organization: US Secret Service Subject: Central Office Code Assignments NANPA has released an Access database of Central Office codes in North America, including CLLIs and carrier names. It is available at http://www.nanpa.com/nanp1/AllCodes.zip. I've wanted something like this for many years, and this will prove to be an amazingly useful tool in resolving problems. Now if only there were a similarly public database for 800/888/877/866 numbers ... ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 09:32:43 -0600 From: Ron Bean Subject: Re: My Filter Rules, etc > Mail with me as cc or bcc sometimes > does not have my name in it, just as the Digest does not always have > your name in the 'To' line. I try to deal with that also. How much of this cc or bcc mail turns out to be legit? I've found that over 95% of the spam comes as bcc mail, so it might be worth sending that to a different mailbox where you can deal with it separately. This is so effective that I've discarded all my other filter rules, and just dump the bcc mail to /dev/null (after checking it against a list of known "From" addresses, such as mailing lists). Some spam gets past this, but not much. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 10:34:49 EST From: Dave Anderson To: telecom@telecom-digest.org Subject: Re: FCC Deals a Death Blow to Usenet ... and Nobody Noticed At 26 Mar 2002 08:35:31 -0500, James Carlson wrote: > reo@roscoe.airaffair.com (Ross Oliver) writes: >> The actual decision was a bit more subtle. On March 14, the FCC >> reclassified cable modem service from "common carrier" to "information >> service." The net effect is that cable companies cannot be forced to >> open their infrastructure to competing ISPs as telecommunications >> companies have been required to do. IMHO, this is bad for consumers >> because it strengthens the monopoly of cable companies both for >> broadband Internet services and cable television. > I think this is a *wonderful* decision. The mechanisms used today to > allow 'equal access' on DSL (IP over PPP over PPPoE over Ethernet over > ATM) are technically hideous. Anything that avoids having my cable > service damaged by the likes of PPPoE is a great boon. I certainly agree that PPPoE is an abortion which should be rooted out and destroyed (except perhaps in some special circumstances). However, it is *not* an intrinsic part of DSL (for example, my DSL line doesn't have it) -- IIRC it's pushed on their v/i/c/t/i/m/s/customers by many ILECs because it lets the ILEC get away with underprovisioning, but many (most?) CLECs don't use it. There's no technical reason (that I know of) why a cable company which was required to provide "equal access" would need to (or perhaps even could) force the equivalent of PPPoE on those competitive providers. Dave Anderson ------------------------------ From: Herb Stein Subject: Re: My Filter Rules, etc Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2002 16:23:30 -0600 ----- Original Message ----- From: TELECOM Digest Editor Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Sent: Monday, March 25, 2002 11:28 PM Subject: My Filter Rules, etc > I will annotate these rules as we go along. Your suggestions for > improvements will be welcome. <---snip---> > Not too bad, I guess, for someone who suffered such extensive brain > damage like I did following my brain aneurysm November 29, 1999, > but I could never reconstruct all that today if I were just starting > any Digest. Two months in a coma in Kansas Rehabilitation Hospital > followed by another month or three in rehab and then a year or so > in a nursing home ... but now days I get *so* tired from working > at my computer. Spam is the last thing I need to see, but I sure > do get it. Obviously, old scripts written in the early 1990's are > not sufficient today. > PAT It's very good to have you back and keep up the good work. The times are changing and I guess we "geezers" have to keep up. Herb Stein The Herb Stein Group www.herbstein.com herb@herbstein.com 314 952-4601 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: While that is true, that geezers like you and people like me need to keep up, it none the less galls me to see how the net has been taken over by idiots in the past couple years, ever since Al Gore invented it. Thanks for your kind words of encouragement however. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V20 #206 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Mar 27 23:33:03 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id XAA22113; Wed, 27 Mar 2002 23:33:03 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 23:33:03 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200203280433.XAA22113@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #207 TELECOM Digest Wed, 27 Mar 2002 23:30:00 EST Volume 20 : Issue 207 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson 50 Cent Pay Phones Coming to NYS (Daniel Salomon) Satellite TV in Europe (JT Thompson) Galileo Expert? (JT Thompson) Unicom Plans to Double CDMA Network Size in 2002 (Monty Solomon) Re: How Long do Callers Wait on Hold? (Rob Clark) Re: How Long do Callers Wait on Hold? (Herb Stein) Re: T1 Incoming One-Way Audio Problems (Jim Hopkins) Talking with Robot Agents (Leela) Re: So Much Junk Mail (KB7M) Re: So Much Junk Mail (Kim Brennan) Re: So Much Junk Mail (Mark Crispin) Re: My Filter Rules, etc (Marcus Didius Falco) Re: My Filter Rules, etc (Barry Margolin) Re: FCC [Allegedly] Deals a Death Blow to Usenet ... and (Jeremy Beal) Re: FCC Deals a Death Blow to Usenet ... Nobody Noticed (Stanley Cline) Re: Different PICC Verification Numbers? (Stanley Cline) Re: Central Office Code Assignments (David Green) So Many Phones, So Little Need (Monty Solomon) Wireless Design Conference 15-17th May, London (dave) 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-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 630-841-7174 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@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 * * Judith Oppenheimer, President of ICB Inc. and purveyor of accurate * * 800 & Dot Com News, Intelligence, Analysis, and Consulting. * * http://ICBTollFree.com, http://1800TheExpert.com * * Views expressed herein should not be construed as representing * * views of Judith Oppenheimer or ICB Inc. * ************************************************************************* ICB Toll Free News. Contact information is not sold, rented or leased. Access to Premium (P) links requires upgrade to a paid subscription. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Only subscribers or registered users of ICB Toll Free News web site will be able to access all or some of the full text of URLs provided. LEGAL STUFF: TELECOM Digest (sm) is owned by Patrick Townson. Copyright 2000 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. 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: danielksalomon@my-deja.com (Daniel Salomon) Subject: 50 Cent Pay Phones Coming to NYS Date: 26 Mar 2002 23:08:15 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Recently I've seen lots of Verizon pay phones popping up around the NYC metro area that claim that local calls cost 50 cents for unlimited time. When the price was raised in the other Verizon states (except Rhode Island) from 35 to 50 cents last summer, New York was supposed to stay at 25 cents since the rates were regulated by the state. So I called the operator from a pay phone and asked what was going on. She said that the rate increase was authorized on March 8, and that phones would start charging 50 cents once they updated their software. Is this true? Does anyone know why New York State would let us down like this after holding the line at 25 cents for so long? Do people who put in 50 cents today get anything for the extra quarter? Dan [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: When I was living in Chiago at the nursing home several months ago, one day all the Ameritech payphones had a new notice attached saying 'local calls now fifty cents; unlimited time'. I put in my fifty cents, and made a call, only to be cut off after 3 minutes. I found out later that 'local' in their definition meant eight miles or less. Prior to that, calls from Ameritech payphones had indeed been unlimited *anywhere* within the city, regardless of the distance. Calls to suburban points had been fifty cents for three minutes. The new rate of fifty cents plus the telco's definition of 'local' and 'unlimited' are sort of confusing. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 12:42:41 +0000 From: JT Thompson Subject: Satellite TV in Europe Is there anyone out there using a PC to access satellite TV in Europe? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I dunno about a PC, but I have a satellite dish on my roof pointed at 16.5 and get Cricket matches from England and other places. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 12:54:35 +0000 From: JT Thompson Subject: Galileo Expert? Who is the world expert on the new Galileo European satellite system? What are the best websites on it? ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2002 23:51:30 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Unicom Plans to Double CDMA Network Size in 2002 HONG KONG, March 27 (Reuters) - China United Telecommunications Corp, parent of Hong Kong -- listed China Unicom Ltd (HKSE:0762), said on Wednesday it is sticking with plans to double the capacity of its new CDMA standard cellular network to 30 million users by the end of 2002. http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=26622376 ------------------------------ From: Rob Clark Subject: Re: How Long do Callers Wait on Hold? Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 17:57:59 +0800 All, Appreciate the replies, and we all agree that we hate being on hold, and we should design systems with minimum delays. But, does anyone have any stats on the abandonment rate vs time on hold for real callers? Rob Clark Rob Clark wrote in message news:telecom20.201.9@telecom-digest.org: > Are there statistics, or rules-of-thumb, for determining a design goal > for caller queues? > For example ... if you had a call center, where typical conversation > times with an agent was XXX seconds, then does anyone have any > suggestions for how many callers drop off impatiently as a function of > time? > I guess people's internal 'impatient timer' is triggered at different > times depending on what they are waiting for. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I think most business places operating > a phone room keep records of lost calls, ie. calls in which the caller > disconnects without speaking with a live agent ... > ... They did not really care how long someone had to wait, > only if they hung up without waiting longer if necessary. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Herb Stein Subject: Re: How Long do Callers Wait on Hold? Organization: Giganews.Com - Premium News Outsourcing Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 23:57:23 GMT John David Galt wrote in message news:telecom20.206.8@telecom-digest.org: > Rob Clark wrote: >> Are there statistics, or rules-of-thumb, for determining a design goal >> for caller queues? > The longest I'll wait is 10 minutes, and if even that much delay > persists I'll find another company to do business with. Not having a > human being I can call and talk to immediately is the height of > insufferable arrogance on the part of any company, IMO. YMMV. We all have different tolerance to this crap. If I call Quickbooks (just an example), no biggie. If I call my ISP, I expect an IMMEDIATE answer. Herb Stein The Herb Stein Group www.herbstein.com herb@herbstein.com 314 952-4601 ------------------------------ From: Jim Hopkins Subject: Re: T1 Incoming One-Way Audio Problems Organization: Prodigy Internet http://www.prodigy.com Date: Thu, 28 Mar 2002 01:03:58 GMT Make sure your PBX is providing answer supervision. When your user answers the call you should see one of the signaling bits (A-bit I think) toggle. Vidya Ramachandran wrote in message news:telecom20.206.6@telecom-digest.org: > I have recently installed a voice T1 for a small company. The local > company is Focal and the long distance provider is Global Crossing. > The firm is experiencing One-Way incoming audio problems meaning that > if an outside party calls the receiver of the phone call can't hear > them after three minutes and ultimately drops the call. It's very > frustrating. I've given focal the call samples and they haven't been > able to figure it out. Does anyone have experience with this and if > so any guidance would be greatly appreciated. ------------------------------ From: lajavakom@yahoo.com.au (Leela) Subject: Talking With Robot Agents Date: 27 Mar 2002 17:26:57 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Dear All, I'm an student in Information Management and Systems. I had an experince asking for some information from my bank via phone. A robot agent answered me immediately that I had not to queue for a long time for live agent. I'm interested in an Interactive Voice Response system, which are increasingly used by especially call centers. However, I think it's not quite popular yet because there are strong points and weak points to both companies and customers. I'd like to hear any comments and recommendation on this technology. Maybe you've ever had an experince with this technology as well. Regard, Leela. ------------------------------ From: KB7M Subject: Re: So Much Junk Mail Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 09:56:47 -0700 There is one way to eliminate SPAM. Unfortunately, it requires the cooperation of EVERYONE. That is to make it a non-economically viable method of advertising. I NEVER EVER BUY ANYTHING from an UNSOLICITED source. This includes SPAM, TELEMARKETERS, and unsolicited snail-mail. If I want to buy something, I go looking for it. If I can determine that the company uses any form of unsolicited marketing, then I look elsewhere. If EVERYONE refused to buy, they would quickly go out of business, and good riddance. This would eliminate most SPAM and TELEMARKETING. The only reason that they do it is that they can make money that way. VOTE with your wallet! KimBrennan wrote in message news:telecom20.202.4@telecom-digest.org: >> The first dozen >> messages were spam. Let me just take a poll of what all was here, and >> how many of these you are familiar with: > Gee, I envy you. Only a dozen "spams". > I used to use my "kim@aol.com" email address. It now receives abot 350 > pieces of spam (or misdirected) email a day. Since it is an AOL email > address, I automatically forward all the email to their "spam fighting > bot" tosspam@aol.com. It doesn't do anything as far as I can tell. > It's a lost cause really. There are many technological ways to deal > with SPAM. Most of them won't be implemented because of political > reasons. > SPAM, telemarketing and junk (snail) mail are all symptoms of the > society (marketing driven) that we live in ... and are foisting on other > countries. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I am running filters, but those that > I see (at least a dozen a day, although not usually a dozen in a row > at the start of the mailing cycle) are the ones that managed to slip > in anyway. I guess a lot of those guys are getting very tricky at > learning how to get around filter-rules, etc. PAT] ------------------------------ From: kimbrennan@aol.comfrtz.com (KimBrennan) Date: 27 Mar 2002 22:33:26 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: So Much Junk Mail Barry Margolin bespeaks: > Also, most spam is difficult to trace to a source (since they want to > avoid retaliation). How do you tax someone if you can't identify > them? Therin lies the root issue. One of my suggestions is ... get the ISP's to start >ENFORCING< the guidelines for mail, such as, if mail coming in has incorrect headers, the mail gets bounced. This won't stop SPAM, but it is a first step towards identifying them. It is a political issue though, not a technical one. A lot of folks won't enforce the standards due to fear that some CEO's mother won't get her email, or that certain mailing lists will break. To me, the simple truth is, if they were following the standards before, they won't have a problem when the standards are enforced. If the big ISPs insist on enforcing the standards, then the smaller ones will have to follow suit or find themselves isolated and unable to get their mail through. The smaller ISPs will find it is less expensive to enforce the standards then allowing users to forge headers. I may be simplistic but I think this is the necessary first step for dealing with SPAM. "I'm sorry, all my money is tied up in currency." W.C. Fields ------------------------------ From: Mark Crispin Subject: Re: So Much Junk Mail Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 10:55:13 -0800 Organization: Networks and Distributed Computing On Tue, 26 Mar 2002, Barry Margolin wrote: > Since so much of it comes from outside the country, how would your TAX > IT solution address that? Most spam from outside the country advertises a domestic source. For truly foreign-origin spam, the resolution ultimately has to go through treaties. However, note that the taxing authorities of countries around the world are in remarkable accord when it comes to treaties that help them get their bite. Diplomatic hostility in other matters is irrelevant when it comes to the taxman's business; I think that the only country in the world that we don't have a set of tax treaties with is North Korea, and that's being worked. This is how the overseas tax shelters ultimately fail, as some dot-com millionaires are starting to discover. > Also, most spam is difficult to trace to a source (since they want to > avoid retaliation). How do you tax someone if you can't identify > them? The source of the spam may be difficult to trace, but the entity that benefits from the spam is not. -- Mark -- http://staff.washington.edu/mrc Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 17:18:30 -0500 From: Marcus Didius Falco Subject: Re: My Filter Rules, etc At 12:26 PM 3/27/2002, TELECOM Digest V20 #206 wrote: > Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 09:32:43 -0600 > From: Ron Bean > Subject: Re: My Filter Rules, etc >> Mail with me as cc or bcc sometimes >> does not have my name in it, just as the Digest does not always have >> your name in the 'To' line. I try to deal with that also. > How much of this cc or bcc mail turns out to be legit? If there's a news article or announcement that I'm submitting to the digest, it's likely to be of interest to some of my friends who don't subscribe for one reason or another. If I send a message to more than a couple of people I use BCC to keep the headers from getting long and ugly. > This is so effective that I've discarded all my other filter rules, > and just dump the bcc mail to /dev/null (after checking it against a > list of known "From" addresses, such as mailing lists). Some spam > gets past this, but not much. Probably also causes you to miss a lot of legitimate messages, but you know your correspondents. I also have used such a filter rule at one of my addresses, and find that the spammers increasingly send mail with my name in the "TO:" field, often with 10 or 20 others. But I can't simply write a filter that rejects mail with 20 names in the "TO:" field because some of my correspondents do send me mail with ugly headers containing the names of all their friends. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: As long as mail to this Digest is add- ressed TO: one of my names then you can do as you please with your cc and bcc. The reason none of you see each other in my headers is because I put you all in the bcc. I address the Digest FROM myself and TO myself; the other couple thousand or so of you go into the bcc. At least before John Levine took over the mailing aspects of the Digest I was doing it that way. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Barry Margolin Subject: Re: My Filter Rules, etc Organization: Genuity, Woburn, MA Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 20:01:45 GMT In article , Ron Bean wrote: > I've found that over 95% of the spam comes as bcc mail, so it might be > worth sending that to a different mailbox where you can deal with it > separately. > This is so effective that I've discarded all my other filter rules, > and just dump the bcc mail to /dev/null (after checking it against a > list of known "From" addresses, such as mailing lists). Some spam > gets past this, but not much. I hope you're not one of our customers (or if you are, we're in your known "From" list). We have lots of aliases that we use to reach our customers, and scripts that build the aliases from our contact databases. Barry Margolin, barmar@genuity.net Genuity, Woburn, 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. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: It would be impossible for me, or anyone who moderates a newsgroup to have a 'known From list.' I never know who is going to write me, and one of the reasons I am sort of 'laid back' (as someone accused LCS-MIT of being) regards filtering of mail is because I seriously would rather get a dozen pieces of junk spam rather than lose one serious piece of mail from a good netizen. You can't seem to have both it appears. PAT] ------------------------------ From: thejbeal@netscape.net (Jeremy Beal) Subject: Re: FCC [Allegedly] Deals a Death Blow to Usenet ... and Date: 27 Mar 2002 13:02:41 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Ken Abrams wrote in message news:: > Fred Goldstein wrote in message: >> The whole thread is ridiculous. > Another link to what appears to be a good summary is: > http://news.com.com/2100-1033-868329.html > My original comments missed the mark by quite a bit it seems and > others have > given a link to the full text of the ruling but I hardly think that my > comments qualify as "ridiculous". I tend to agree with you, Ken. I'm pretty sensitive to the constitutional issues of regulation, and sometimes a strong public reaction is necessary to protect freedoms. I would hope that the Supreme Court would have shot down the CDA regardless of public opinion, but who knows. I don't think that your concern is ridiculous, mainly because the FCC does appear to be possibly seeking to expand their regulatory domain to include enforcement of content regulation. (Or at least they have thought about it enough to indicate that they are considering rules which may have constitutional issues) The domain of regulatory agencies is written in shifting sand with changes in the executive branch, and can change pretty quickly. Different administrations bring people with different views. Very rarely, however, does it seem that a regulatory agency establishes a new area of authority which is later released by the agency. (See the FDA and tobacco - David Kessler spent years justifying expanding the grasp of the FDA to include control over tobacco sales, despite the fact that the FDA is focused on foods and medicinal drugs, and two separate agencies exist that are more suited to address the issues, the DEA and the ATF. The FDA will never let go of its newfound tobacco authority now.) If the FCC decides to take responsibility for enforcing content regulation, they'll be at it for a while ... ------------------------------ From: Stanley Cline Subject: Re: FCC Deals a Death Blow to Usenet ... and Nobody Noticed Date: 27 Mar 2002 20:10:03 GMT Organization: Catoosa Computing Services / Roamer1 Communications Reply-To: sc1@roamer1.org In article , James Carlson wrote: > I think this is a *wonderful* decision. The mechanisms used today to > allow 'equal access' on DSL (IP over PPP over PPPoE over Ethernet over > ATM) are technically hideous. Anything that avoids having my cable > service damaged by the likes of PPPoE is a great boon. PPPoE is absolutely *NOT* required for "competitive" DSL! DirecTV DSL uses ILEC DSL transport (DSLAMs, ATM VCs) in nearly all areas (they've just started using WorldCom/the old Rhythms "again" in some areas) and does NOT use PPPoE. The main reasons ISPs (ILEC and independent) use PPPoE are to conserve IP addresses and to provide a "dialup" experience for newbies (that reduces security concerns, etc.) PPPoE isn't needed for "open access" on cable either -- modem or NIC MAC authentication can take care of things. As an example, Earthlink customers on Time Warner cable do not use PPPoE, but they do get different IP addresses from customers of TWC Road Runner or other competitive ISPs. Stanley Cline -- sc1 at roamer1 dot org -- http://www.roamer1.org/ "Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today. There might be a law against it by that time." -/usr/games/fortune ------------------------------ From: Stanley Cline Subject: Re: Different PICC Verification Numbers? Date: 27 Mar 2002 20:22:03 GMT Organization: Catoosa Computing Services / Roamer1 Communications Reply-To: sc1@roamer1.org In article , Mike Pollock wrote: > I just switched my PICC to ZoneLD, http://www.zoneld.com , a Global > Crossing reseller. [As a Winstar casualty, I'm trying not to let > *that* worry me!] I just switched to ECG :) -- they use Qwest for the most part (in fact, my two toll-free numbers with ECG are RespOrg'd to Qwest; I assume the actual carrier is Qwest as well, but given some inconsistencies with caller ID I'm not so sure), but they asked me to re-PIC to Global Crossing for 1+. The email I got from them said that I might hear one of "Allnet", "Frontier", or "Global Crossing" (all names the carrier with CIC 0444 has used at one point or another) when dialing 1-700-555-4141/etc. > works, but I'm wondering: what's the significance of different > resellers having different 700-555-XXXX numbers? I've noticed other > resellers have their own, too. It just goes to a different recording, that's all. Excel, who has resold nearly everyone under the sun (since buying Telco Communications Group they seem to have moved everyone over to that network) and frequently moved customers from one underlying carrier to another, has done this for the longest time ... (1-700-555-0752) WorldCom (at least on the 0555/old WilTel network) got it right, though -- they now route 1-700-555-4141 and 1-NPA-700-4141 to different recordings based on who your reseller actually is. For example, I just switched from Capsule Communications, who has their own network in CA and most of the Northeast and resells WorldCom elsewhere; for the longest time calls to 1-700-555-4141/etc. went to "Thank you for using MCI WorldCom" but it eventually changed to "Thank you for using Capsule Communications". Customers of GTC Telecom (another WorldCom reseller) and others have repoted similar. Stanley Cline -- sc1 at roamer1 dot org -- http://www.roamer1.org/ "Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today. There might be a law against it by that time." -/usr/games/fortune ------------------------------ From: David Green Subject: Re: Central Office Code Assignments Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 10:38:15 -0800 Thanks, this is a great list. We do a lot of telco work and this will come in very handy. Thanks, David www.gbtechnologies.com Babu Mengelepouti wrote in message news:telecom20.206.10@telecom-digest.org... > NANPA has released an Access database of Central Office codes in North > America, including CLLIs and carrier names. It is available at > http://www.nanpa.com/nanp1/AllCodes.zip. I've wanted something like > this for many years, and this will prove to be an amazingly useful > tool in resolving problems. Now if only there were a similarly public > database for 800/888/877/866 numbers ... ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 15:00:00 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: So Many Phones, So Little Need By Elisa Batista 2:00 a.m. March 27, 2002 PST Even though sales were down last year, that didn't stop manufacturers from unleashing a dizzying array of new mobile phones at a recent industry conference in Florida. While analysts applauded new phones that are compatible with today's high-speed mobile data networks -- something they felt was long overdue -- they say the manufacturers are taking a big risk. http://www.wired.com/news/wireless/0,1382,51152,00.html ------------------------------ From: iwillseedeadraised@hotmail.com (dave) Subject: Wireless Design Conference 15-17th May, London Date: 27 Mar 2002 14:43:28 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Dear All, This message is to announce the coming Wireless Design Conference, 15-17th May in London - http://www.wirelessdesignconf.com. A 10% discount on the conference fee is available to folk booking through the Bluetoothweb community - for details see http://www.bluetoothweb.org/Member/WDCform.htm Conference Details: Wireless Design Conference 15-17th May 2002 Business Design Centre, London, UK Organised by United Business Media The conference will include over 85 technical papers with presentations from companies including Intel, Parthus Technologies, Silicon Laboratories and Radioscape. There will be 6 workshops & 2 short courses covering software radio, wireless networking, RF & optoelectronics packaging, MEMS, high linearity power amplifiers and broadband wireless access. The Wireless Design Conference covers several Bluetooth papers, including: Implementation of a single chip Bluetooth transceiver - Jan Craninckx: Alcatel Making Bluetooth IP accessible - Charles Sturman: TTPCom An Integrated Bluetooth and GPS Radio - Micí McCullagh: Parthus There will also be a seminar/workshop on the 17th May covering "Test Considerations for the Development of Bluetooth-enabled Products". See the program details - http://www.wirelessdesignconf.com/conference/programme.html Kind Regards, David Wireless Communities Manager www.dectweb.org www.bluetoothweb.org ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V20 #207 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Mar 28 20:22:53 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id UAA10333; Thu, 28 Mar 2002 20:22:53 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 28 Mar 2002 20:22:53 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200203290122.UAA10333@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #208 TELECOM Digest Thu, 28 Mar 2002 20:23:00 EST Volume 20 : Issue 208 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Siemens to 5ESS Switch Conversion (David Green) Wescom Hybrids (Scott Dorsey) Re: Central Office Code Assignments (Stratus) Re: Central Office Code Assignments (Clarence Dold) Re: Galileo Expert? (Clarence Dold) Re: My Filter Rules, etc (Ross Oliver) Re: So Much Junk Mail (Jeremy Beal) Re: So Much Junk Mail (Vince Mulhollon) Re: How Long do Callers Wait on Hold? (John Tombs) Re: FCC Deals a Death Blow to Usenet ... Nobody Noticed (Jeremy Beal) Re: Talking With Robot Agents (Gail M. Hall) Re: How Long do Callers Wait on Hold? (Jack Decker) Re: T1 Incoming One-Way Audio Problems (Jay Hennigan) Re: Nigeria Launches Web Site to Combat Fraud (Dale Neiburg) News Headlines of Interest (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-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 630-841-7174 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@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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Access to Premium (P) links requires upgrade to a paid subscription. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Only subscribers or registered users of ICB Toll Free News web site will be able to access all or some of the full text of URLs provided. LEGAL STUFF: TELECOM Digest (sm) is owned by Patrick Townson. Copyright 2000 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. 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: David Green Subject: Siemens to 5ESS Switch Conversion Date: Thu, 28 Mar 2002 08:41:52 -0800 Hello List, Our company does a lot of data bashing with switch translations and other data sources during cutovers, revenue assurance and other projects. We are looking at project to move/cutover some lines from Siemens switch to a 5ESS remote. My question since this our first time dealing with a Siemens switch how would I expect to extract working lines translations out of the switch. In a 5ESS we run scripts to pull the relations and write to tape; DMS100 we use the dumptab command to write tables to tape; GTD5 and DMS10 we capture the dn and other query's to a file from a screen capture; the 1AESS we use the backup tape and have a program to extract the information. With the Siemens can anybody tell me which process I would expect to use on this switch. Thanks, David Green System Analyst G & B Technologies Inc 661 948-5678 david@gbtechnologies.com www.gbtechnologies.com ------------------------------ From: kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) Subject: Wescom Hybrids Date: 28 Mar 2002 11:43:36 -0500 Organization: Former Users of Netcom Shell (1989-2000) Does anyone have documentation (schematics would do it) for Wescom hybrids 443-00 and 4413-00? Wescom seems to have evaporated. scott "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." ------------------------------ From: Stratus Subject: Re: Central Office Code Assignments Date: Thu, 28 Mar 2002 10:17:59 -0700 Organization: Stratus Computer (DE) Inc, Maynard MA, USA Where is there a list of the locations of the switches named in this database? David Green wrote in message news:telecom20.207.17@telecom-digest.org: > Thanks, this is a great list. We do a lot of telco work and this will > come in very handy. > Babu Mengelepouti wrote in message > news:telecom20.206.10@telecom-digest.org: >> NANPA has released an Access database of Central Office codes in North >> America, including CLLIs and carrier names. It is available at >> http://www.nanpa.com/nanp1/AllCodes.zip. I've wanted something like >> this for many years, and this will prove to be an amazingly useful >> tool in resolving problems. Now if only there were a similarly public >> database for 800/888/877/866 numbers. ------------------------------ From: dold@71.usenet.us.com Subject: Re: Central Office Code Assignments Date: 28 Mar 2002 18:19:35 GMT Organization: Wintercreek Data Babu Mengelepouti wrote: > NANPA has released an Access database of Central Office codes in North > America, including CLLIs and carrier names. It is available at > http://www.nanpa.com/nanp1/AllCodes.zip. I've wanted something like This is handy, but it doesn't recognize NPA-NXX-F splits. There are an increasing number of NPA-NXX sets around the country being split onto different switches. This might not matter, but ... 210-396 in San Antonio is spread across five switches, but at least they are all in the same city. In Maryland, there are some splits across actual city boundaries, although the "localities" are the same, for now. Clarence A Dold - dold@email.rahul.net - Pope Valley (Napa County) CA. ------------------------------ From: dold@77.usenet.us.com Subject: Re: Galileo Expert? Date: 28 Mar 2002 17:30:53 GMT Organization: Wintercreek Data JT Thompson wrote: > Who is the world expert on the new Galileo European satellite system? > What are the best websites on it? I'd stumble into the Usenet News Group sci.geo.satellite-nav. You'll find people that know everything about the technology hanging out in that group. Not much junk, similar in quality content to this group. Clarence A Dold - dold@email.rahul.net - Pope Valley (Napa County) CA. ------------------------------ From: reo@roscoe.airaffair.com (Ross Oliver) Subject: Re: My Filter Rules, etc Date: 28 Mar 2002 19:57:15 GMT Organization: Concentric Internet Services Barry Margolin wrote: >> This is so effective that I've discarded all my other filter rules, >> and just dump the bcc mail to /dev/null (after checking it against a >> list of known "From" addresses, such as mailing lists). Some spam >> gets past this, but not much. > I hope you're not one of our customers (or if you are, we're in your > known "From" list). We have lots of aliases that we use to reach our > customers, and scripts that build the aliases from our contact > databases. If you're going to do this, you have to do two things: 1) publish the aliases in advance, 2) stick to them. Almost every time my DSL provider sends (or tries to send) me an announcement, it is from a new and never-before-seen email address. This has become so annoying that I have come to assume announcements of any great significance will come with a postage stamp attached. The fact is filtering happens, so if you want your message to have the best chance of getting through, you had better account for it. Ross Oliver ------------------------------ From: thejbeal@netscape.net (Jeremy Beal) Subject: Re: So Much Junk Mail Date: 28 Mar 2002 14:59:06 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ spamcop.net will help you complain in the best way available about spam that you receive. They offer a spam-filtered email accounts at $30 annual, but they also allow you to create an account for reporting spam only, currently at no cost. They have processes which parse the headers in your spam and make serious efforts to trace back to the sender as far as possible. Usually the trail ends at an open mail relay, an SMTP server which has not been properly secured against abuse. Spamcop tracks open relays in conjunction with ORBZ and applies as much pressure as possible to get the relays secured. Unfortunately, new unsecured relays are generated as quickly as they are secured. Still, at least it makes some effort to close holes used by spammers. Agressive reporting of spam via spamcop seems to be resulting in a decrease in spam received. We'll see ... ------------------------------ Subject: Re: So Much Junk Mail From: Vince Mulhollon Date: Thu, 28 Mar 2002 08:06:37 -0600 >> From: KB7M >> Subject: Re: So Much Junk Mail >> Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 09:56:47 -0700 >> There is one way to eliminate SPAM. Unfortunately, it requires the >> cooperation of EVERYONE. That is to make it a non-economically viable >> method of advertising. I NEVER EVER BUY ANYTHING from an UNSOLICITED >> source. This includes SPAM, TELEMARKETERS, and unsolicited snail-mail. >> If I want to buy something, I go looking for it. If I can determine >> that the company uses any form of unsolicited marketing, then I look >> elsewhere. If EVERYONE refused to buy, they would quickly go out of >> business, and good riddance. This would eliminate most SPAM and >> TELEMARKETING. The only reason that they do it is that they can make >> money that way. VOTE with your wallet! It's a "supply side" problem not a "consumer side" problem. There's a difference between people whom hire spammers, and the spammers themselves. Most spammers hire-ers learn the hard way that spam doesn't make money, such as Pat's oft repeated story of the flower shop owner. The spammer senders make money off ignorant people by sending spam for them. Obviously they will do their best to encourage their ignorant customers to spam. The problem is as long as there is one moron in the world whom believes they could "make money fast" if they try spamming, and there is one anti-social tech whom will do the spamming for them, there will never be an end to the spam problem. In summary, as long as two stupid people exist in the entire world, there will be spam. It doesn't matter what the rest of the universe thinks of them. My personal solution, is that I've found SpamAssassin at : http://spamassassin.org is not only free, but 100% accurate in removing spam and only spam... ------------------------------ From: John Tombs Subject: Re: How Long do Callers Wait on Hold? Date: Thu, 28 Mar 2002 17:10:27 -0500 Organization: ECI Telecom Rob Clark wrote in message news:telecom20.207.5@telecom-digest.org: > But, does anyone have any stats on the abandonment rate vs time on > hold for real callers? Any serious call center will have such stats. We write and sell reporting applications with average/max wait time to answer, average/max wait time to abandon etc. etc. Call centers will adjust their staffing to achieve the desired wait time and abandonment rate, i.e. low for sales (profit center), higher for support (cost center)! Your difficulty would be getting hold of this information, which is of value to competitors. John Tombs Tadiran Telecom ------------------------------ From: thejbeal@netscape.net (Jeremy Beal) Subject: Re: FCC Deals a Death Blow to Usenet ... and Nobody Noticed Date: 28 Mar 2002 14:49:30 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Stanley Cline wrote in message news:: > PPPoE is absolutely *NOT* required for "competitive" DSL! DirecTV DSL > uses ILEC DSL transport (DSLAMs, ATM VCs) in nearly all areas (they've > just started using WorldCom/the old Rhythms "again" in some areas) and > does NOT use PPPoE. The main reasons ISPs (ILEC and independent) use > PPPoE are to conserve IP addresses and to provide a "dialup" experience > for newbies (that reduces security concerns, etc.) Fully agreed. At home I use a competitive ISP, everything runs over a bridged connection from a static IP with a permanent DNS hostname, TCP/IP over ATM. It works beautifully, and I wouldn't trade it for cable modem service with or without PPPoE or any other dial-up garbage. Nobody has ever convinced me that any additional layering does anything but make life more difficult. Jeremy Beal ------------------------------ From: Gail M. Hall Subject: Re: Talking With Robot Agents Date: Thu, 28 Mar 2002 17:52:07 -0500 Reply-To: gmhall@apk.net On 27 Mar 2002 17:26:57 -0800, in comp.dcom.telecom, you (lajavakom@yahoo.com.au (Leela)) wrote: > I'm an student in Information Management and Systems. I had an > experince asking for some information from my bank via phone. A robot > agent answered me immediately that I had not to queue for a long time > for live agent. I'm interested in an Interactive Voice Response > system, which are increasingly used by especially call centers. > However, I think it's not quite popular yet because there are strong > points and weak points to both companies and customers. I'd like to > hear any comments and recommendation on this technology. Maybe you've > ever had an experince with this technology as well. My biggest problem with robots is that if you are hard of hearing you can't get them to repeat what they said or get them to talk slower or louder. Often speaking more slowly is better than talking just louder. Which brings up the next worst problem: companies that hire reps that don't speak the language well. In my case it's English, but I suspect there are similar problems in places where French or Spanish are the language. No matter how many times I ask them to repeat what they are saying, some of them still talk too fast or too unclear for me to hear them. I suspect those companies are hiring off-shore people to handle their calling or answering but not screening them well enough for speaking clearly in the language they are supposed to be communicating in. I hate getting collect calls from those robot "operators" with the recording from the person giving their name. The recording never is loud enough for me to hear who is trying to call, so I always just refuse to accept the call. Gail from Ohio USA ------------------------------ From: Jack Decker Subject: Re: How Long do Callers Wait on Hold? Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 23:08:29 -0500 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com On 26 Mar 2002 07:55:25 -0800, abender@virtualhold.com (Andy Bender) wrote: > We all hate being left on hold for more than a few minutes. Very true. > A system to offer a take the callers phone number and call them back > at the same time they would have come off of hold to an agent is > available. This saves money on the 800 toll charges, can reduce agent > staffing requirements, and improves customer satisfaction. Not necessarily. What the people who use these systems forget is that there are a certain number of people who can't wait around for a call-back, or that may not be in a place where they can receive calls. For example, consider an employee at a company that can only make personal calls during an assigned break, and that dares not leave his/her employer's number for a call-back. Or, if the business that uses a system of this type deals with low-income people, they should remember that there are a certain number of people who may not have phones in their homes, and if they are using a pay phone (which may not accept incoming calls) or a neighbor's phone (where the neighbor may not want them hanging around for an hour or two, waiting for a return call), they may not be able to leave a number for a call-back. What really amazes me is when doctor's offices have these kinds of systems (especially if the doctor serves a low-income neighborhood). Does no one ever consider that it just might be an emergency, or that the person may be unconscious by the time the call-back arrives? (I know, you will say a person in that bad a shape should call 911, but again, if it's a low-income clinic the person may not have any hospitalization insurance and may try to call the doctor even if feeling faint, thinking it may not be that serious). If the system gives the caller a choice to continue to wait or be called back, that might be a little more acceptable (provided the customer really is called back promptly -- one reason a lot of people don't like these is because they leave their name and number and a couple days later they're still waiting for the call). But in my mind at least, any business that can't answer their phones (using a live person) within two or three minutes, except in exceptional circumstances, is telling me that they don't really give a d*mn about me or my business. Think about when you have called some company that you feel you just can't dump easily (a utility company, perhaps) and have been made to wait on hold for the better part of an hour. You really don't feel that good about doing business with that company (to put it mildly)! I'm not saying that there are no situations where a device of the kind you mentioned might be useful -- the unexpected situations that you just can't plan ahead for come to mind -- but I will guarantee you that any company that depends on the general public for their business and uses such a device to "reduce agent staffing requirements" is going to lose a certain amount of business. These reason is that there are always people who will think,"If you aren't ready to talk to me now, I'll find someone else who is." Resources for Michigan Telephone Users page: http://michigantelephone.workbench.net/ ------------------------------ From: jay@west.net (Jay Hennigan) Subject: Re: T1 Incoming One-Way Audio Problems Reply-To: jay@west.net Organization: Disgruntled Postal Workers Against Gun Control Date: Thu, 28 Mar 2002 05:50:31 GMT On 26 Mar 2002 18:17:53 -0800, Vidya Ramachandran wrote: > I have recently installed a voice T1 for a small company. The local > company is Focal and the long distance provider is Global Crossing. > The firm is experiencing One-Way incoming audio problems meaning that > if an outside party calls the receiver of the phone call can't hear > them after three minutes and ultimately drops the call. It's very > frustrating. I've given focal the call samples and they haven't been > able to figure it out. Does anyone have experience with this and if > so any guidance would be greatly appreciated. It sounds like your PBX equipment is not returning supervision when it connects the call, or the carrier isn't recognizing the seizure. In the "good old days" one could come off-hook very briefly to trip ringing, then go on-hook and provide local battery either with a capacitor and power source or high-value resistor, and have audio transmission in both directions. The call was treated as unanswered by the receiving switch, and thus was not billed, coins would return if called from a pay phone, etc. This type of setup was called a "black box" or "terminus" as opposed to the more well-known "blue box" and used to cheat the phone company. To stop these shenannigans, modern switching gear doesn't open the forward audio path (toward the called party) until it receives a signal that the line has been seized or answered. The reverse audio path (towards the caller) is open, so that the caller can hear ringing, busy signals, intercept recordings and the like. The signal that the call is answered is a loop closure on conventional lines, a ground on ground-start lines, battery reversal on DID lines, and setting the A and B bits on T-1 lines. It sounds as if your signalling of seizure isn't recognized by your carrier, and therefore the carrier isn't opening the forward audio path. Check the signaling type and options in your PBX vs. the provisioning from your carrier. Jay Hennigan - CCIE #7880 - Network Administration - jay@west.net NetLojix Communications, Inc. - http://www.netlojix.com/ WestNet: Connecting you to the planet. 805 884-6323 ------------------------------ From: Dale Neiburg Subject: Re: Nigeria Launches Web Site to Target E-Mail Scam Date: Thu, 28 Mar 2002 08:06:43 -0500 NBJimWeiss@aol.com wrote: > A Nigerian government Web site targets e-mail fraud scams that have > been sweeping the world. > http://computerworld.com/nlt/1%2C3590%2CNAV47_STO69562_NLTAM%2C00.html And I just got another copy of the scam, this time purporting to come from the widow of the late president of Zaire! Dale Neiburg ** NPR Satellite Operations ** 202-513-2640 "The radio is nothing but a conduit through which pre-fabricated din can flow into our homes." --Aldous Huxley, 1946 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I've had her a couple times myself. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 28 Mar 2002 15:48:47 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: News Headlines of Interest 3/28/02 Motorola's new phones get the red-carpet treatment Mar 28, 2002 12:06 PM By Ben Klayman CHICAGO, March 28 (Reuters) - Motorola Inc. (NYSE:MOT) is aiming to get the same brand buzz as its larger rival Nokia and is banking on fresh products and a new advertising campaign that includes red-carpet plugs from Oscar nominees. http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=26643938 Washington tunes in Critics accuse Clear Channel of shady radio deals and nasty concert business. Now the government is starting to pay attention. By Eric Boehlert March 27, 2002 | Clear Channel Communications, the country's largest radio broadcaster and the dominant player in the live entertainment concert business, is drawing fire from some Washington regulators. With holdings that include approximately 1,225 radio stations and 130 concert venues, the company in recent years has amassed unparalleled power in the music and entertainment industries. That power -- and what it means for the music business, as well as for Clear Channel competitors -- has been the topic of heated debate within the music industry for the last year. http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/2002/03/27/beltway/index.html ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V20 #208 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Apr 2 20:36:54 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id UAA04829; Tue, 2 Apr 2002 20:36:54 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 2 Apr 2002 20:36:54 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200204030136.UAA04829@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #209 TELECOM Digest Tue, 2 Apr 2002 20:37:00 EST Volume 20 : Issue 209 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Telecom Update (Canada) #326, April 1, 2002 (Angus TeleManagement) Re: Talking With Robot Agents (Robert Casey) Another Wrinkle on Spam: Fake Bounced Email (Robert Casey) Need Recommendations For Introductory Telecom Books, etc (Frank B Denman) Still Need a Manual For Voice Logic? (Mike) Re: My Filter Rules, etc (Ron Bean) Re: So Much Junk Mail (John David Galt) Example of a Core Dump: Celtic New Years Celebration (Patrick Townson) 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-copyrighted. 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Access to Premium (P) links requires upgrade to a paid subscription. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Only subscribers or registered users of ICB Toll Free News web site will be able to access all or some of the full text of URLs provided. LEGAL STUFF: TELECOM Digest (sm) is owned by Patrick Townson. Copyright 2000 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. 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. 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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: Mon, 01 Apr 2002 09:59:50 -0500 From: Angus TeleManagement Subject: Telecom Update (Canada) #326, April 1, 2002 ************************************************************ TELECOM UPDATE ************************************************************ published weekly by Angus TeleManagement Group http://www.angustel.ca Number 326: April 1, 2002 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 ** GROUP TELECOM http://www.gt.ca ** LUCENT TECHNOLOGIES CANADA http://www.lucent.ca ** PRIMUS CANADA: http://www.primustel.ca ** Q9 NETWORKS: http://www.Q9.com ** TELUS: http://www.telus.com ** UNISPHERE NETWORKS: http://www.unispherenetworks.com ************************************************************ IN THIS ISSUE: ** Videotron Acquires Stream Assets ** Microcell to Combine Companies ** 50% Want Ban on Cellphone Use by Drivers ** Mitel Signs Global Distributor ** Shaw to Lay Off 400 ** Telus Invests in Softswitch Developer ** U.S. Wireless Carriers Get $2.8 Billion Refund ** Avaya Offers IP Call Centre ** Sales Rise 39% at Cygnal ** Glentel Reaches Breakeven ** Forbes Confirmed as Aliant CEO ** Rogers AT&T Names CIO, Consumer VP ** Centrinity CEO Resigns ** Is It Time to Consider an IP-PBX? ============================================================ VIDEOTRON ACQUIRES STREAM ASSETS: A Toronto court has approved a bid by Videotron Telecom Ltd. to buy the assets of bankrupt carrier Stream Intelligent Networks. VTL now owns Stream's fibre networks in Toronto and Mississauga and its broadband wireless licences across Canada. (See Telecom Update #321, 322) MICROCELL TO COMBINE COMPANIES: Microcell Telecommunications Inc. says it will merge two wholly owned subsidiaries, Microcell Connexions Inc. and Microcell Solutions Inc, and eliminate the positions of President and Chief Operating Officer in both, as soon as regulatory approval is received. ** Connexions owns and operates Microcell's GSM network; Solutions sells Microcell's Fido service. 50% WANT BAN ON CELLPHONE USE BY DRIVERS: According to a new survey by the Traffic Injury Research Foundation, 66% of Canadians believe cellphone use by drivers is a serious or extremely serious problem, and 49.9% "strongly agree" that there should be a law banning it. Less than 10% are strongly opposed to a ban. ** The survey results can be considered accurate within 2.8%, 19 times out of 20. http://www.trafficinjuryresearch.com MITEL SIGNS GLOBAL DISTRIBUTOR: Damovo, a UK-based equipment supplier with 2,700 employees, has agreed to distribute Mitel's new 3100 and 3300 IP-based PBXs internationally. Damovo, which acquired 80% of Ericsson's enterprise sales operations in 2001, is headed by former Newbridge Networks CEO Pearse Flynn. SHAW TO LAY OFF 400: Shaw reports sales of $472 million and a net loss of $74.4 million for December-February. The cableco says it is reducing capital and promotional expenditure and will lay off 400 employees. ** Shaw says it will sell its cable properties in Florida and Texas by August. The U.S. systems, with 75,000 subscribers, were acquired when Shaw bought Moffat Communications in 2000. TELUS INVESTS IN SOFTSWITCH DEVELOPER: Telus Ventures has invested $3 million in Maryland-based Telica Inc., which is developing a software-based switch that Telus hopes to deploy in its network. U.S. WIRELESS CARRIERS GET $2.8 BILLION REFUND: The FCC has returned US$2.8 billion, 85% of the down payments made by Verizon Wireless and other carriers last year for legally disputed wireless licenses. The FCC says the carriers will still have to pay the full $16.3 billion they bid if the FCC wins a case that is now before the Supreme Court. AVAYA OFFERS IP CALL CENTRE: Avaya has released its IP Contact Center for Mid-Sized Businesses, designed for call centres with 20 to 50 agents. Suggested system price: US$150,000 to $225,000. SALES RISE 39% AT CYGNAL: Oshawa-based Cygnal Technologies reports 2001 sales of $141.8 million, up 39% from 2000. During 2001, Cygnal bought Lasertel Telecom, Saltel Electric, and West Technical Technologies; it also owns White Radio and Accord Communications. ** Cygnal has named Kieron Dowling, formerly of Alcatel, Celestica, and Nortel, President and COO. GLENTEL REACHES BREAKEVEN: Glentel, a Vancouver-based wireless provider, reports net income of $464,000 for October-December, compared to losses of $2.2 million for 2001 as a whole and $10.6 million for the previous year. Sales of $50.1 million in 2001 were 10% higher than the previous year. FORBES CONFIRMED AS ALIANT CEO: Jay Forbes, Acting CEO of Aliant since March 1, has been confirmed as the Atlantic telco's permanent President and CEO. ROGERS AT&T NAMES CIO, CONSUMER VP: Rogers AT&T Wireless has named Bruce Burgetz, previously CIO of Shoppers Drug Mart, as Senior Vice-President and CIO. John Boynton, formerly of Inquent Technologies, is now Rogers' VP Consumer Marketing. CENTRINITY CEO RESIGNS: Myles McGovern has resigned as CEO of Markham-based Centrinity, which makes unified messaging software. CFO Jane Mowat and COO John Myers will jointly fill the position until a new CEO is chosen. IS IT TIME TO CONSIDER AN IP-PBX? Every PBX maker now says that you should buy an IP-based system. Why have they changed? Should you agree? See our special report on the IP-PBX Revolution in the April issue of Telemanagement, available this week. Also in Telemanagement #194: ** Lis Angus interviews top Telus execs on the company's accelerating move into Ontario. ** Gerry Blackwell reviews the new breed of all-in-one wireless devices. ** Henry Dortmans discusses the challenges facing call centres in 2002. Single copies of Telemanagement #194 are $75 each -- call 905-686-5050 ext 500 and charge to Visa, American Express, or Mastercard. Save 49% with a 10-issue subscription -- go to http://www.angustel.ca/teleman/tm-sub.html. ============================================================ 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: TelecomUpdate@add.postmastergeneral.com To stop receiving the e-mail edition, send an e-mail message to: TelecomUpdate@remove.postmastergeneral.com Sending e-mail to these addresses will automatically add or remove the sender's e-mail address from the list. Leave subject line and message area blank. =========================================================== COPYRIGHT AND CONDITIONS OF USE: All contents copyright 2002 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 500. 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: Robert Casey Subject: Re: Talking With Robot Agents Date: Thu, 28 Mar 2002 21:17:12 -0500 Organization: wa2ise Ever hear the expression "Voice mail hell"? On some of these systems, you can go down what turns out to be a wrong path and get trapped with no way to escape except to hang up and start over again with a new call. Someone ought to connect a set of earphones to one of the outgoing lines to listen to callers saying dirty words in frustration being trapped in voice mail hell. That would tell you if the system is making customers happy or just pissing them off ... Still, for routine things it's faster and easier to deal with a computer system when you are familiar with the system and know that the option you need is there to punch up. And the humans are there to take care of the unusual stuff. I remember classmates at my university complaining about computerization of stuff like class registration and wanting to deal with humans instead. Well, for routine stuff computers are better, and if what you need is an exception, that's what humans are good at. Humans get bored by routine stuff and start making errors. Leela wrote: > I'm an student in Information Management and Systems. I had an > experince asking for some information from my bank via phone. A robot > agent answered me immediately that I had not to queue for a long time > for live agent. I'm interested in an Interactive Voice Response > system, which are increasingly used by especially call centers. > However, I think it's not quite popular yet because there are strong > points and weak points to both companies and customers. I'd like to > hear any comments and recommendation on this technology. Maybe you've > ever had an experince with this technology as well. > Some tasks I can do better on a web page. Like accessing my accounts at my bank. I can see the numbers on the screen better than having to listen to numbers read out on the phone and having to mentally keep track of if I'm hearing my checking account or savings or credit card balance. All that can be presented on the web page at the same time. Sure someone could hack that system, but they could hack the phone based one too. With the phone based system you could opt (usually) to talk to a live human, but after endless muzak on hold (BTW, I hate those false interruptions of the music just to hear a recording of "your call is important to us, please continue to hold" when I think I have finally reached a human and it turns out not to be). On the web, my ISP has a chat mode help desk. I can post a question and the guy at the help desk can send a reply to me while he is waiting for results for another customer's problem. Thus I don't have to wait for him to finish up the other customer's problem before he gets to me. And I can continue to surf the web or whatever (this assumes that I still have some functionality being logged in, like usenet server down but web server still up). Of course a customer will wait longer on hold if it's a toll free call. Or is at work calling on the boss's dime... ======================================= I'm having roast rabbit for Easter dinner. ------------------------------ From: Robert Casey Subject: Another Wrinkle on Spam: Fake Bounced Email Date: Thu, 28 Mar 2002 21:38:18 -0500 Organization: wa2ise Got this spam, looks like a virus attached to it (which I didn't open, and is not attached here (I cut and pasted the text of the message only below). Subject: Returned mail: Host unknown (Name server: home.com: no data known) Date: Thu, 28 Mar 2002 21:24:22 -0500 (EST) From: Mail Delivery Subsystem To: The original message was received at Thu, 28 Mar 2002 21:02:49 -0500 (EST) from logs-wp.proxy.aol.com [205.188.201.135] *** ATTENTION *** Your e-mail is being returned to you because there was a problem with its delivery. The address which was undeliverable is listed in the section labeled: "----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----". The reason your mail is being returned to you is listed in the section labeled: "----- Transcript of Session Follows -----". The line beginning with "<<<" describes the specific reason your e-mail could not be delivered. The next line contains a second error message which is a general translation for other e-mail servers. Please direct further questions regarding this message to your e-mail administrator. --AOL Postmaster ----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors ----- ----- Transcript of session follows ----- 550 ... Host unknown (Name server: home.com: no data known) Reporting-MTA: dns; rly-ip02.mx.aol.com Arrival-Date: Thu, 28 Mar 2002 21:02:49 -0500 (EST) Final-Recipient: RFC822; lsassm@home.com Action: failed Status: 5.1.2 Remote-MTA: DNS; home.com Last-Attempt-Date: Thu, 28 Mar 2002 21:24:22 -0500 (EST) Subject: A WinXP patch Date: Thu, 28 Mar 2002 13:35:01 -0500 (EST) From: wa2ise To: lsassm@home.com This is a WinXP patch I expect you would enjoy it. ------------------------------------------ Yeah, I'd trust a patch from an unknown source..... NOT! ------------------------------ From: Frank B Denman Subject: Need Recommendations for Introductory Telecom Books, etc Date: Fri, 29 Mar 2002 00:25:30 -0800 Organization: Northwest Link I'm looking at a possible job coordinating computer and telecom changes associated with office moves in a large hospital. I know project management and computer networking, so I'm ok with that part of it. But I need a fast introduction to phone systems. In addition to planning the moves, I would be responsible for confirming that systems were working properly after the changes. Would greatly appreciate any suggestions re books, manuals, web sites, etc. TIA Frank ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 29 Mar 2002 08:36:02 -0600 Subject: Still Need a Manual For Voice Logic? From: Mike I have one I might be able to fax you or make a copy of. I'd sure appreciate speaking with someone who uses one because I have many answers which are not in the manual. Mike DeSantis DeSantis Photography "Making Your Company Look Great In Pictures." mike@desantisphotography.com www.desantisphotography.com 573-875-5511/voice 573-875-5767/FAX 573-999-4663 (999-GONE)/cell ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 29 Mar 2002 09:46:28 -0600 From: Ron Bean Subject: Re: My Filter Rules, etc Barry Margolin writes: >> This is so effective that I've discarded all my other filter rules, >> and just dump the bcc mail to /dev/null (after checking it against a >> list of known "From" addresses, such as mailing lists). Some spam >> gets past this, but not much. > I hope you're not one of our customers (or if you are, we're in your > known "From" list). We have lots of aliases that we use to reach our > customers, and scripts that build the aliases from our contact > databases. Yes, if I were one of your customers, your domain would be on my list, so it wouldn't matter which alias you used (that is, anything ending in "genuity.net" would get through). I also scan procmail's log files periodically, so if I do miss something legit (which happens about once a year), at least I see the "From" and "Subject" lines. In that case I usually send a note saying "My spam filter ate your message, if it was important please resend, if not don't worry about it". Since most people keep copies of their outgoing email, they usually reply "It wasn't important but here's a copy of it anyway". > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: It would be impossible for me, or > anyone who moderates a newsgroup to have a 'known From list.' That's why I suggested sending it to a separate mailbox, where you could sort through it at your leisure, and not *have* to deal with it every time you read your mail. The spammers are getting a *little* smarter -- more spam gets through this than in the past -- but not a lot more. I don't think you'll ever filter all of it, but you can cut it down quite a bit. FWIW, some clever filter rules (for procmail) based on typical spam content can be found at: http://starbase.neosoft.com/~claird/comp.mail.misc/Craig_Johnston1 I tried some of these, but found that most of the spam was hitting the bcc filter first. I did get a few hits on some of them, so YMMV. Also see the "mail filtering FAQ"-- launchers at: http://www.ii.com/internet/faqs/launchers/mail/filtering-faq/ http://www.best.com/~ii/internet/faqs/launchers/mail/filtering-faq/ One other note: while the bcc filter is becoming slightly less effective than it used to be, filtering out all-HTML messages should be getting more effective. They used to include one line of text saying "This is an HTML message!" for those of us who have HTML disabled. But these days a large percentage of spam doesn't include any plain ASCII text at all. I don't know how many people send legitimate email with no plaintext. ------------------------------ From: John David Galt Subject: Re: So Much Junk Mail Date: Thu, 28 Mar 2002 18:25:13 -0800 Organization: Diogenes the Cynic Hot-Tubbing Society KB7M wrote: > There is one way to eliminate SPAM. Unfortunately, it requires the > cooperation of EVERYONE. That's why it can never happen. Newbies and the gullible will always be with us. Therefore legislation is needed. ------------------------------ Subject: Example of Core Dump I Got: CELTIC NEW YEARS CELEBRATION Received: from granger.mail.mindspring.net (207.69.200.148) by mail2.iecc.com with SMTP; 28 Mar 2002 21:11:59 -0500 Received: from dialup-63.208.89.32.dial1.miami1.level3.net ([63.208.89.32] helo=h8v7b7) by granger.mail.mindspring.net with smtp (Exim 3.33 #1) id 16qlqj-00015T-00 for editor@telecom-digest.org; Thu, 28 Mar 2002 21:10:41 -0500 From: "Bill Sansbury" To: editor@telecom-digest.org Subject: CELTIC NEW YEARS CELEBRATION date: Thu, 28 Mar 2002 21:15:51 -0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-MIMEOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4133.2400 X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4133.2400 Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="----32A14064_Outlook_Express_message_boundary" Content-Disposition: Multipart message Message-Id: Status: RO ------32A14064_Outlook_Express_message_boundary Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Disposition: message text Hi! How are you I send you this file in order to have your advice See you later Thanks ------32A14064_Outlook_Express_message_boundary Content-Type: application/mixed; name="CELTIC NEW YEARS CELEBRATION.doc.pif" Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64 Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="CELTIC NEW YEARS CELEBRATION.doc.pif" [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You'll see me later? You bet ... I'll see you in hell, you miserable S.O.B. You want my advice? Quit wasting your time and mine with this sort of garbage. You ask for *my* advice? Me, with my deseased, aneurysm-riddled brain? For the rest of you, I truncated the remaining 550,000 (five hundred fifty thousand) bytes of this petitioner's inquiry so save you all the grief I had with it. I saved the headers and the text part of the message so you all could get a good look at it. Everyday, these show up, asking me for advice. This is one of the smaller 'inquiries' I have received. What a wasted life some of these cretins have! PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V20 #209 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Apr 2 21:13:27 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id VAA06099; Tue, 2 Apr 2002 21:13:27 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 2 Apr 2002 21:13:27 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200204030213.VAA06099@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #210 TELECOM Digest Tue, 2 Apr 2002 21:11:00 EST Volume 20 : Issue 210 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson FCC to Vote on Phone-Number Crunch (Marcus Didius Falco) AOL as Proxy (Steve Kraus) Recommendation for 1U Rack Chassis (Brian C) Need Recommendations For Introductory Telecom Books, etc (Frank B Denman) Ericsson Cordless Phone Support Group (Nickolas) VoIP (Newbie) Question; IPCourier/IPShuttle (Robert Krten) CBX 500, GX 550, and B-STDX 9000, and Circuit Packs Available (Robertson) ICANN Considered Harmful (George Mitchell) Using a Cisco AS-5300 as a Non VoIP Voice Switch (Ramon F. Herrera) How to Ring Back (Don Saklad) Different PICC Verification Numbers? (Gary) How to Determine ISDN Protocol at Remote End? (Ramon F. Herrera) 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-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 630-841-7174 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@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 * * Judith Oppenheimer, President of ICB Inc. and purveyor of accurate * * 800 & Dot Com News, Intelligence, Analysis, and Consulting. * * http://ICBTollFree.com, http://1800TheExpert.com * * Views expressed herein should not be construed as representing * * views of Judith Oppenheimer or ICB Inc. * ************************************************************************* ICB Toll Free News. Contact information is not sold, rented or leased. Access to Premium (P) links requires upgrade to a paid subscription. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Only subscribers or registered users of ICB Toll Free News web site will be able to access all or some of the full text of URLs provided. LEGAL STUFF: TELECOM Digest (sm) is owned by Patrick Townson. Copyright 2000 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. 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, 30 Mar 2002 02:58:33 -0500 From: Marcus Didius Falco Subject: FCC to Vote on Phone-Number Crunch http://news.com.com/2100-1033-870832.html By Ben Charny Staff Writer, CNET News.com March 28, 2002, 12:55 PM PT Cell phones, fax machines and pagers are dialing through the country's supply of phone numbers. The Federal Communications Commission, aware of the dwindling supply of 10-digit phone numbers and complaints from customers forced to change numbers, has already given telecom carriers a November deadline for allowing cell phone customers to keep their phone numbers if they switch service providers. But carriers have balked at the cost, which they put at $1 billion for the industry, and the FCC has already granted several deadline extensions to allow the carriers to make more pressing changes. The FCC is due to vote any time on a petition from Verizon Wireless that the FCC drop the plan entirely or exempt Verizon from the program. Other carriers have filed papers supporting Verizon's petition. But proponents of the plan, who say keeping your phone number is a customer benefit that could increase competition among carriers by making it easier to switch, say Verizon and other carriers should not be granted further delays. Carriers say the industry is already competitive, with a high number of customers switching carriers even though they don't have the option of keeping their numbers. Although the carriers and the FCC have focused on the cost and competitiveness aspects of the debate, some backers say there's another reason to allow people to hold on to the same number: The pool of 10-digit phone numbers is shrinking. "Some say the end is coming sooner rather than later," said Frank Colaco, a senior area code relief planner for the North American Numbering Plan Administration (NANPA), which distributes phone numbers in North America. Quest for more numbers New U.S. government reports estimate that the United States, Canada, Guam, Bermuda and Trinidad will run out of 10-digit numbers by the year 2025. In the United States, most major cities have already gone through several area code additions, aggravating customers forced to change letterhead, business cards and billing records. And for some, simply losing the cachet of a particular area code, such as 212 for Manhattan, was enough to raise their hackles. The 310 area code in Los Angeles, as well as Raleigh, N.C.'s 919, are both expected to be exhausted by next year. New Mexico's 505, the state's only area code, will run out by 2004. The idea that the carriers could run out of numbers is tempered by the knowledge that carriers hold huge blocks of area codes in reserve and that there are working plans to improve technology such as the merging of Internet and telephone technologies to reduce the number of phone numbers needed to connect digital devices. But one industry organization has already drawn up a plan for a 12-digit future. Eight years in the making, a report by the Alliance For Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS) proposes adding an extra number to every new area code and dialing prefix. Instead of a telephone number like 415-555-1212, the number would be 4151-5555-1212. Adding the two digits would create a well of 640 billion more telephone numbers. But telephone companies would need at least 10 years of work to make the appropriate changes, according to the report. "Anything that relies on a telephone number would have to be changed to accept the additional digits," Colaco said. "You remember Y2K? That was big. This will be big." History has shown that even smaller changes to telephone numbers have caused problems for carriers. Several years ago area codes changed to include something other than a 1 or 0 as the second digit. Some companies discovered much of their equipment was hard coded to read only a 1 or 0 in that part of a telephone number, so they needed to buy new phone networks. But others say simply conserving the existing numbers is the best tactic. The industry should continue to keep using conservation measures that have been in place since 1998, such as rationing telephone numbers, said Lori Messing, director of numbering issues for telephone lobbyists the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association. To this end, the FCC has stepped in and told telecommunication carriers they won't be able to buy telephone numbers in blocks of 10,000 anymore. Instead, it will be blocks of 1,000. Messing said the industry supports the effort. "Anytime you have a report developed for eight years by the industry, people are going to take it seriously and look at it," Messing said of the ATIS report. "But we're in no danger of exhaust at this point." She said it would be better to rely on NANPA, which gets reports every six months from state public utility commissions and carriers about how many telephone numbers they need and have used. If an area code appears to be in danger of running out, NANPA becomes just like the Federal Emergency Management Agency. It takes charge and can, for example, "reclaim" unused phone numbers from carriers or lower the number of area codes it is willing to provide. ------------------------------ From: Steve Kraus Subject: AOL as Proxy Date: Fri, 29 Mar 2002 13:10:04 -0600 I keep an AOL account for continuity on one email address and some added web space to boot. I connect via other ISP's. Seems to me that I recall that if I looked at a web site that reports back my IP, that while using my regular browser would it would show my real IP but if I used the AOL IE browser it would report an AOL IP. In other words, the AOL IE did not go out to the net via my ISP winsock but rather connected back to the mother ship in Virginia and went out on the net from there. AOL is, of course, known for running huge proxy servers and I always kept this indirect access in mind if for some reason I'd rather a site see me as part of the great unwashed. Now I just tried it again and visiting a site via AOL and my true IP is reported back. I thought maybe it was a difference in versions but I tried it with an older one where I know the former case was true and it's the same there too. I know I can set up proxies if I wish but I'm really just curious if anyone else noticed this change. I guess I would have to use some port monitoring software to determine if AOL IE is now talking directly to web sites via my connection OR if it still goes through Virginia but they've done something so the actual IP is passed along to the site being visited. Good golly, you don't suppose people were doing bad things and hiding behind an AOL IP number, do you? ------------------------------ From: Brian C Subject: Recommendation for 1U Rack Chassis Organization: Prodigy Internet http://www.prodigy.com Date: Sat, 30 Mar 2002 06:59:14 GMT Hello, Can anyone recommend a budget brand and source of quality 1U rackmount PC chassis? We've been using BoomRack, but they are quite expensive (almost $300.00 with power supply). We need to build some budget web servers for an upcoming test product, and would love to use some of our exisiting computers in a 150.00 1U enclosure. Thanks, Brian C loungesong@yahoo.com ------------------------------ From: Frank B Denman Subject: Need Recommendations for Introductory Telecom Books, etc Date: Sat, 30 Mar 2002 00:54:48 -0800 Organization: Northwest Link I'm looking at a possible job coordinating computer and telecom changes associated with office moves in a large hospital. I know project management and computer networking, so I'm ok with that part of it. But I need a fast introduction to phone systems. In addition to planning the moves, I would be responsible for confirming that systems were working properly after the changes. Would greatly appreciate any suggestions re books, manuals, web sites, etc. TIA Frank ------------------------------ From: Nickolas Subject: Ericsson Cordless Phone Support Group Organization: http://.ca.msnusers.com/cybergenie Date: Sat, 30 Mar 2002 12:01:59 -0500 We formed a group for users and developers of the Ericsson DECT & Cygnion CyberGenie Cordless Home/Office products. http://ca.msnusers.com/Cybergenie ------------------------------ From: nospam89@parse.com (Robert Krten) Subject: VoIP (Newbie) Question; IPCourier/IPShuttle Date: Sat, 30 Mar 2002 23:39:28 GMT Organization: Magma Communications Ltd. Recently, I acquired some scrapped Nokia IPCourier and IPShuttle phones and boxes. These things wanted to be DHCP'd with an IP address, and that part of the configuration process worked fine. Now the IPCourier sez, "Connecting IPC Server..." and just sits there. Obviously, this is a totally newbie question -- what do I do next? Thanks in advance for any leads! Cheers, Robert Krten Email my initials at parse dot com. ------------------------------ From: trbear@comcast.net (Terry Robertson) Subject: CBX 500, GX 550, and B-STDX 9000, and Circuit Packs Available Date: 31 Mar 2002 00:14:44 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ I have invested a ton and have cornered the market on these hard to find ATM switches, and spare circuit packs. This is not a joke. The manufacturer, I understand, has many of these packs unavailable, but will manufacture them on demand only. Many packs new in box. All parts tested in lab prior to shipment and 100% guaranteed. Email me, trbear@comcast.net. Discounts available. Send parts request for a quote. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 31 Mar 2002 12:07:06 -0800 (PST) From: George Mitchell Subject: ICANN Considered Harmful A modest proposal: http://www.f-iw.org/ Subject: George for Benevolent Internet Dictator My platform: "You could do worse." ------------------------------ From: ramon@conexus.net (Ramon F Herrera) Subject: Using a Cisco AS-5300 as a Non VoIP Voice Switch Date: 31 Mar 2002 16:21:32 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ AS-5300 with 48 voice resources, 128 MB DRAM Cisco IOS Version 12.2(2)XB VCWare 9.19 with DSPWare 3.6.15 SCO OpenServer 5.0.6 Dialogic D/240SC-T1, System Release 2.0 for OpenServer Dialogic ISDN Package 4 (5ess, dms, ni2 and nt1) I have been working on a Cisco AS-5300, being used strictly as a POTS voice switch (i.e., no VoIP yet). The switch is connected to 2 upstream PRIs -one DMS from MCI and one 5ESS from AT&T. There are 2 devices downstream: an Avaya Definity PBX and an IVR D/240SC-T1 Dialogic board. The connection which is giving me trouble is the Cisco <--> Dialogic. In theory, I have 3 choices for protocol, but each one has some problem. Option (1): CAS T1 on the Cisco, CAS T1 on the Dialogic. I have created the Cisco configuration, but I don't know if the Cisco actually support it. The interface shows as down. Option (2): NI network side on the Cisco, NI-2 user side on the Dialogic This would be my prefered configuration, but calls don't last too long, they keep on getting dropped. Option (3): 5ESS user side on the Cisco, NT1 network side on the Dialogic This combination works, but not too reliably. Dialogic itself says not to use this firmware (nt1) on a production environment, it should be used only for testing. See config below. Any insight on this issue will be very much appreciated. Thanks, Ramon F. Herrera ! ! Last configuration change at 23:55:17 EST Sat Jan 26 2002 ! NVRAM config last updated at 23:55:18 EST Sat Jan 26 2002 ! version 12.2 no parser cache service timestamps debug datetime msec show-timezone service timestamps log datetime msec show-timezone service password-encryption ! hostname as5300 ! boot system flash logging rate-limit console 10 except errors enable secret 5 $1$xlU8$6xv/AfBWwzetPDvgDlUKc/ enable password 7 060F0B2E425A02170A00 ! ! ! resource-pool disable clock timezone EST -5 clock summer-time EDT recurring ! ip subnet-zero no ip source-route ip rcmd remote-username ramon ip domain-name somedomain.com ip name-server 1.2.3.4 ! no ip dhcp-client network-discovery isdn switch-type primary-dms100 isdn display layer2-status ! ! ! fax interface-type modem mta receive maximum-recipients 0 ! ! controller T1 0 description Corporate Worldcom MCI PRI (444) 555-1200 -> 1399 clock source line primary framing esf linecode b8zs pri-group timeslots 1-24 ! controller T1 1 description Lucent/Avaya Definity PBX clock source internal framing esf linecode b8zs pri-group timeslots 1-24 ! controller T1 2 description Incoming AT&T IVR PRI clock source line secondary 1 framing esf linecode b8zs pri-group timeslots 1-17,24 shutdown ! controller T1 3 description Dialogic Production IVR Board (D/240SC-T1) clock source internal framing esf linecode b8zs pri-group timeslots 1-24 ! ! interface Loopback0 no ip address shutdown ! interface Ethernet0 no ip address shutdown ! interface Serial0 no ip address shutdown fair-queue clockrate 2015232 ! interface Serial1 no ip address shutdown fair-queue clockrate 2015232 ! interface Serial2 no ip address shutdown fair-queue clockrate 2015232 ! interface Serial3 no ip address shutdown fair-queue clockrate 2015232 ! interface Serial0:23 description Corporate Worldcom MCI PRI (444) 555-1200 -> 1399 no ip address dialer-group 1 no snmp trap link-status isdn switch-type primary-dms100 isdn tei-negotiation first-call isdn incoming-voice modem isdn T321 0 isdn T306 30000 isdn T310 10000 no fair-queue no cdp enable ! interface Serial1:23 description Lucent/Avaya Definity PBX no ip address dialer-group 1 no snmp trap link-status isdn switch-type primary-ni isdn protocol-emulate network isdn tei-negotiation first-call isdn incoming-voice modem isdn T321 0 isdn T310 10000 no fair-queue no cdp enable ! interface Serial2:23 description Incoming AT&T IVR PRI no ip address no keepalive isdn switch-type primary-5ess isdn tei-negotiation first-call isdn incoming-voice modem isdn T321 0 no fair-queue no cdp enable shutdown ! interface Serial3:23 description Dialogic Production IVR Board (D/240SC-T1) no ip address dialer-group 3 no snmp trap link-status isdn switch-type primary-5ess isdn protocol-emulate user isdn tei-negotiation first-call isdn incoming-voice modem isdn T321 0 no fair-queue no cdp enable ! interface FastEthernet0 ip address 65.206.86.4 255.255.255.128 duplex full speed 100 ! ip classless ip route 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 65.206.86.1 no ip http server ! ! ! snmp-server engineID local 0000000902000001961F782A snmp-server community public RO snmp-server packetsize 2048 ! call rsvp-sync ! voice-port 0:D description Corporate Worldcom MCI PRI (444) 555-1200 -> 1399 echo-cancel coverage 32 ! voice-port 1:D description Lucent/Avaya Definity PBX echo-cancel coverage 32 ! voice-port 2:D description Incoming AT&T IVR PRI echo-cancel coverage 32 ! voice-port 3:D description Dialogic Production IVR Board (D/240SC-T1) echo-cancel coverage 32 ! ! mgcp profile default ! dial-peer voice 10 pots incoming called-number ^14445551[23].. direct-inward-dial port 0:D ! dial-peer voice 20 pots incoming called-number .T direct-inward-dial port 1:D ! dial-peer voice 1 pots destination-pattern ^1.......... no digit-strip port 0:D ! dial-peer voice 978 pots destination-pattern ^978....... no digit-strip port 0:D ! dial-peer voice 11 pots destination-pattern ^011T no digit-strip port 0:D ! dial-peer voice 411 pots destination-pattern ^411 no digit-strip port 0:D ! dial-peer voice 911 pots destination-pattern ^911 no digit-strip port 0:D ! dial-peer voice 900 pots destination-pattern ^0170 no digit-strip port 3:D ! dial-peer voice 256 pots destination-pattern ^6529 no digit-strip port 3:D ! dial-peer voice 266 pots destination-pattern ^4871 no digit-strip port 3:D ! dial-peer voice 877 pots destination-pattern ^863[0-2] no digit-strip port 3:D ! dial-peer voice 6300 pots destination-pattern ^491[7-9] no digit-strip port 3:D ! gateway ! ! line con 0 exec-timeout 90 0 password 7 070C2E724B110C16 line aux 0 line vty 0 4 password 7 096B41251D0019350A1801 login ! ntp clock-period 17180384 ntp server 4.2.2.2 ntp server 192.5.41.41 ntp server 192.5.41.40 ntp server 4.2.2.1 prefer end ------------------------------ Subject: How to Ring Back From: Don Saklad Date: 30 Mar 2002 03:32:18 -0500 Rather than troubling an operator, in Cambridge Massachusetts, what's the number for ringback? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Maybe someone in Cambridge knows a number which works for this purpose. I can tell you it varies from one exchange to another. There no longer is any uniform number for this purpose. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 01 Apr 2002 02:20:08 -0500 From: Gary Subject: Different PICC Verification Numbers? On Tue, 26 Mar 2002 13:57:55 PST, Mike Pollock wrote: > I just switched my PICC to ZoneLD, http://www.zoneld.com , a Global > Crossing reseller. [As a Winstar casualty, I'm trying not to let > *that* worry me!] > When I dial 1-700-555-4141 to verify my PICC, I expect to hear "Thanks > for Choosing Global Crossing," as I had heard just prior to the > change, when I was PICCed to UniTel, another Global Crossing > Reseller. Instead, I get hung up on. It just clicks back to dial tone. Yeah, there's something wrong with them. It was working okay, but about a week or two ago it just quit. (I use PNG, another GBLX reseller, and noticed the same thing. LD service continues properly.) > I mentioned this to ZoneLD Customer Service, and instead of saying, > "thanks for the heads up -- we'll fix it," they said, "Please dial > 1-700-555-2550 instead." I've not been home to test that to see if it > works, but I'm wondering: what's the significance of different > resellers having different 700-555-XXXX numbers? I've noticed other > resellers have their own, too. Well, it depends how you define "works". It says something like "Thanks for using Zone Telecom". Only problem is, I don't use Zone Telecom. So it doesn't seem to be verifying very much, other than that somebody gave you that number to dial. When I was buying telecom services a few years back, MCI had a "different" verification number to use for certain types of consolidated business accounts. They were never able to explain why they used a different number. =Gary ------------------------------ From: ramon@conexus.net (Ramon F Herrera) Subject: How to Determine ISDN Protocol at Remote End? Date: 1 Apr 2002 12:04:58 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ One of the biggest problems I have had in many years dealing with PRI circuits is something conceptually very simple: What ISDN protocols is being use by the telco at the remote side of my equipment? I have noticed that sometimes it doesn't _seem_ to matter very much: I can change from 5ESS to DMS on my side, and apparently everything works fine. I even remember one case in which my provider was colocated with us, and I had the luxury of asking the guy to change ISDN "flavors" back and forth until we found one that wordked reliably. Well, the best combination turned out to be a mismatched one: the telco switch was configured for DMS and our Cisco AS-5300 was configured for 5ESS. Go [con]figure ... It occurred to me that a very helpful tool would be to have a software utility which would open the ISDN port, query it, and report which ISDN is being spoken at the remote side. I have access to Cisco AS-5300s, Avaya Definity (which probably won't have the capability to perform the query), but I also have Dialogic boards, which can be programmed. I guess anoter solution would be to get some sort of hardware ISDN line tester or analyzer. I would like to hear about both software or hardware solutions to this query problem. TIA, Ramon F. Herrera ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V20 #210 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Apr 2 22:51:36 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id WAA08735; Tue, 2 Apr 2002 22:51:36 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 2 Apr 2002 22:51:36 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200204030351.WAA08735@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #211 TELECOM Digest Tue, 2 Apr 2002 22:51:00 EST Volume 20 : Issue 211 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson FCC Forces Ham Radio Operators to Use Windows (Marcus Didius Falco) Re: FCC [Allegedly] Deals a Death Blow to Usenet (Michael D. Sullivan) Re: My Filter Rules, etc (Denis Mcmahon) Re: How Long do Callers Wait on Hold? (Rob Clark) NHC Shareit Physical Layer Swith (M. Wiener) New Live Chat @www.telcosupport.net (Al Younker) Re: Local Calling Policy (was Re: Information Request) (Wes Leatherock) Re: The Latest Fad From Japan (Dr. Joel M. Hoffman) Re: Central Office Code Assignments (Clarence Dold) Re: Central Office Code Assignments (Wes Leatherock) Re: Seeking ITU Docs (Phil McKerracher) Caribbean Telecom Deregulation Status? (Jack Adams) Yasser Arafat Using Cell Phone (Carl Moore) Want to buy Lucent Excel E1 Cards & Switches Selling Cisco (R. Bazzarre) Another Wrinkle on Spam: Fake Bounced Email (Gary) DTMF Over Internet (Monad) Last Laugh! Joke of the Day (info@mind-over-fatter.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-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 630-841-7174 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@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 * * Judith Oppenheimer, President of ICB Inc. and purveyor of accurate * * 800 & Dot Com News, Intelligence, Analysis, and Consulting. * * http://ICBTollFree.com, http://1800TheExpert.com * * Views expressed herein should not be construed as representing * * views of Judith Oppenheimer or ICB Inc. * ************************************************************************* ICB Toll Free News. Contact information is not sold, rented or leased. Access to Premium (P) links requires upgrade to a paid subscription. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Only subscribers or registered users of ICB Toll Free News web site will be able to access all or some of the full text of URLs provided. LEGAL STUFF: TELECOM Digest (sm) is owned by Patrick Townson. Copyright 2000 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. 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, 01 Apr 2002 20:20:41 -0500 From: Marcus Didius Falco Subject: FCC Forces Ham Radio Operators to Use Windows * Original: FROM..... Dave Farber From: "Robert J. Berger" Organization: UltraDevices, Inc Date: Mon, 01 Apr 2002 14:57:01 -0800 Subject: FCC forces Ham radio operators to use Windows http://www.idg.net/go.cgi?id=659653 Applying for or renewing an amateur radio license? If you ain't using Microsoft Windows, fugetaboutit. Summary 'Linux? Step to the back of the bus, please. This section is reserved for Windows users only.' That's the message everyone but Microsoft Windows users get when they wish to do more than browse the FCC's Web site. Ironic that an agency bearing the name 'communications' does such a lousy job of it. (1,200 words) By Joe Barr (LinuxWorld) -- Early in January, I sent e-mail to each of the four FCC commissioners: Michael Powell, Kathleen Abernathy, Michael Copps, and Kevin Martin. Their names are displayed prominently on the FCC homepage (see Resources for the URL) so it seemed completely natural and fitting that I contact them about a problem on the FCC Web site. My complaint was that certain functionality on the site is not available to me because I use Linux instead of Windows. I never received a response from any commissioner. I first became aware of the problem last year when a friend of mine, a lawyer and Linux aficionado, sent me a copy of a letter he had mailed to FCC Chairman Michael Powell. The letter asked that the FCC stop the "wholly unnecessary and entirely unconscionable" practice of providing online license renewals for amateur radio licenses only to users of Windows. Like me, my friend never received a reply. Then I pretty much forgot about the issue. After all, it did not affect my daily life. Recently I began studying for a ham license. I mentioned that to another friend who happens to be a licensed amateur radio operator. That reminded her that she needed to report a recent change of address to the FCC. When she tried to do so from my desktop computer, the following pop-up window appeared in the browser: (pop up message not recieved here ... PAT) Ugly, isn't it? Not just the popup. Not just the message. I mean the fact that the FCC is helping Microsoft in its illegal practices to maintain its monopoly. Intentional or not, that's the result here. Moreover, it appears to have been in place since the ULS first went online. I found a newsgroup post from August of 1999 that said "I did notice one of the other FCC Web page popped up with a window saying 'This plug-in is only available for Windows 95/98'. I have no clue what the plug-in did." Whoever wrote the ULS applications, and thus far, I haven't been able to learn where it came from, or who currently maintains it, used JavaScript for the task. There is huge irony in this because JavaScript, like Java itself, was designed to provide interoperability across different platforms. To fashion a Windows-only JavaScript application requires either deliberate intent or myopic programmers. I asked some JavaScript experts how to create Windows-only code. Most opined it is the result of using Microsoft's ActiveX. If they are right, it means this site's functionality not only flies in the face of interoperability and open access to all, it's fundamentally insecure as well. In my e-mail to the commissioners I wrote, "The problem as reported to me -- and as confirmed by a friend this past weekend -- is that certain functionality on the FCC Web site is available only to Windows users. Specifically, the JavaScript or CGI used to allow Ham radio operators to update their licensing information online. This leaves Hams using Macintosh, Linux, OS/2, FreeBSD, OpenBSD and other operating systems out in the cold." I also asked the obvious question, "As the Internet, HTML, and Java are all about the interoperability of different types of computers and software platforms, how does it come about that a governmental agency implements a solution available only to a single platform?" I noted that since JavaScript works on many different platforms, making a JavaScript application "Windows only" seems to require deliberate intent. Mr. Barr calls Washington. After a week, and not a word in reply from any of the FCC commissioners, I took it to the next level: I picked up the phone and called the FCC. When I asked to speak to their media relations people, the operator asked what my call was about. When I said it was about functionality on the FCC Web site, they directed my call not to public relations, but to David Kitzmiller, the FCC Webmaster. Kitzmiller knew which corner of the bureaucracy to look in for answers, even though it didn't fall directly under his purview. He copied me on a portion of the e-mail he sent to the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau (WTB), who evidently is responsible for relations with the contractor providing the ULS services. His e-mail appeared to be aimed at the right people, asking that they do the right things to fix the problem. In addition, he asked that they update the site's help and support pages to explain the situation. He concluded it by saying "let me know what happens with this, since we get quite a few e-mails to webmaster@fcc.gov on this subject." That was January 15, 2002. For several weeks afterwards, I would query Kitzmiller for the latest status on the fix. Finally, I exhausted his patience. He told me on February 22 that he had been told by someone or something called "TPTB" at the WTB that the problem was bigger than they first thought. However, he went on to say that it would still be fixed. He quoted TPTB saying, "The FCC is in the process of revising the software and the revised software will work with Linux. The first application to be revised will be License Search later this month. Other ULS applications will follow." Here we are a month beyond the promised date for implementing the first fix, and it still isn't in place. Neither have the help/support pages been updated as Kitzmiller requested. Some active Ham friends of mine have suggested that the FCC site is in violation of Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, 1194.22, which defines access requirements for government Web sites among other things. I've asked the GSA this question directly, but have yet to receive a reply. Time for the soapbox. I can almost understand the buffoonery of the FCC commissioners. Colin Powell's son Michael and the others have other things to do than be concerned about ordinary citizens trying to avail themselves of ordinary services on their Web site. They certainly can't be held accountable if the FCC's Web site is "accidentally" helping Microsoft maintain its malignant monopoly. In fact, they can't even be counted on to answer their mail: paper or electronic. They are busy with other things. They have bigger fish to fry. Bigger fish like making sure the cable companies are unfettered by the regulations that bind their broadband competition at the Baby Bells. And defending themselves from the rash of lawsuits that action has spawned. Some of their bigger fish don't live in the corporate pond, but in the pond of public morality. Like the integrity (or lack thereof) of individual amateur radio operators. Like Kevin Mitnick, for example. Mitnick has held and used his Ham license for 25 years. The FCC blocked his recent application for renewal, and not on the basis of any misuse of the license, but because he was convicted of computer crime. Sagging as they must be under the weight of those awesome responsibilities, it's easy to see why I was pointed away from them and towards Kitzmiller. Speaking of Kitzmiller, I just received an update from him this morning. (Ed. Barr wrote this Friday, March 28, 2002.) Kitzmiller wrote that the License Search application is now "available." When I raced to the Web site to try it, the new "Linux friendly" version had yet to appear. It does sound as if it is on the way, however. Maybe folks who don't do Windows won't have to ride in the back of this bus for too much longer. About the author Joe Barr is a freelance journalist covering Linux, open source, and network security. His 'Open Source' column has been a regular feature of LinuxWorld.com since its inception. As far as we know, he is the only living journalist whose works have appeared both in phrack, the legendary underground zine, and IBM Personal Systems Magazine. Robert J. Berger UltraDevices, Inc. ------ End of Forwarded Message For archives see: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/ To reply use the address below: falco_marcus_didius yahoo.co.uk ------------------------------ From: Michael D. Sullivan Subject: Re: FCC [Allegedly] Deals a Death Blow to Usenet ... and Date: Sat, 30 Mar 2002 05:41:01 GMT Jeremy Beal wrote in message news:telecom20.207.14@telecom-digest.org: > Ken Abrams wrote in message > news:: >> Fred Goldstein wrote in message: >>> The whole thread is ridiculous. Quite right. The text below shows this. > I don't think that your concern is ridiculous, mainly because the > FCC does appear to be possibly seeking to expand their regulatory > domain to include enforcement of content regulation. (Or at least > they have thought about it enough to indicate that they are > considering rules which may have constitutional issues) The FCC has (quite rightly in my opinion) determined not that ISPs are information services providers -- it had done that long ago, and this was not a serious issue under debate -- but that an ISP that self-provisions its own telecommunications, such as a cable company, does not by virtue of doing so, become a provider of telecommunications service, which is a common carrier. The definition of "telecommunications service" is, in essence, a provider of telecommunications (1) to the public (2) for a charge. An ISP that self-provides its own telecommunications transport and does not make that transport otherwise available to the public for a charge is not offering a telecommunications service. All information services are, by statutory definition, provided via telecommunications, but not all are provided via a segregable, publicly sold, telecommunications service. By classifying cable modem ISPs (and, tentatively, LECs providing ISP service via DSL) as information service providers and not telecommunications carriers, the FCC has reduced, not increased, government intrusion and regulation in the Internet arena and has certainly not instituted some sort of content-based regulation. There is the possibility that cable modem ISPs might be subject to open access requirements at some point even though not telecommunications carriers. Still to be fleshed out: whether LECs providing DSL-based ISP service will still have to piece out the telecommunications they use into a telecommunications service for sale to the public and/or for resale (currently yes), whether this will affect the requirement that the LECs make DSL-capable lines or shared lines available as unbundled network elements or UNEs, etc. > The domain of regulatory agencies is written in shifting sand with > changes in the executive branch, and can change pretty quickly. > Different administrations bring people with different views. > Very rarely, however, does it seem that a regulatory agency > establishes a new area of authority which is later released by > the agency. Actually, this is pretty common when there is a change in administration. The courts can restrain this, by requiring a rational explanation for dramatic shifts, but their power is, ultimately, limited. > If the FCC decides to take responsibility for enforcing content > regulation, they'll be at it for a while ... I think the FCC knows this. They spent years attempting to come up with constitutional rules on "dial-a-porn," after much litigation on broadcast indecency. This is an issue that the FCC has typically tried to dodge when it can. ------------------------------ From: Denis Mcmahon Subject: Re: My Filter Rules, etc Date: Sat, 30 Mar 2002 07:20:32 +0000 Organization: E-Menu Ltd Reply-To: denisrt@pickaxe.demon.co.uk Pat wrote: > It would be impossible for me, or > anyone who moderates a newsgroup to have a 'known From list.' I never > know who is going to write me, and one of the reasons I am sort of > 'laid back' (as someone accused LCS-MIT of being) regards filtering > of mail is because I seriously would rather get a dozen pieces of junk > spam rather than lose one serious piece of mail from a good netizen. > You can't seem to have both it appears. Agreed, I have filtering by received header, and various subject and from criteria, but I still get maybe 2 pieces of spam a week that don't get put in the junk folder, and maybe 1 or 2 pieces of good mail that do. But it has got better as time has gone on, and I guess my success rate must be better than 99%, but as you say, I don't want to lose any good mail. So I just flit through the junk folder pressing next, and occasionally back up and move a mail to the good folder, and tweak a rule at the same time. Rgds, Denis McMahon / +44 7802 468949 / denis@pickaxe.demon.co.uk Top-posters, posters of adverts & binaries are scum. Killfile! Block [a.b.*.*] of any UC/BE relay. Posts > 100 lines ignored. sulfnbk is not a virus, see the symantec virus encyclopaedia! ------------------------------ From: Rob Clark Subject: Re: How Long do Callers Wait on Hold? Date: Mon, 1 Apr 2002 16:46:20 +0800 Anonymity assured !!! Folks - feel free to protect the innocent. Rob John Tombs wrote in message news:telecom20.208.9@telecom-digest.org... > Rob Clark wrote in message > news:telecom20.207.5@telecom-digest.org: >> But, does anyone have any stats on the abandonment rate vs time on >> hold for real callers? > Any serious call center will have such stats. We write and sell > reporting applications with average/max wait time to answer, > average/max wait time to abandon etc. etc. Call centers will adjust > their staffing to achieve the desired wait time and abandonment rate, > i.e. low for sales (profit center), higher for support (cost center)! > Your difficulty would be getting hold of this information, which > is of value to competitors. ------------------------------ From: mwiener@fuse.net (M. Wiener) Subject: NHC Shareit Physical Layer Switch Date: 1 Apr 2002 11:20:13 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Does anyone have any documentation on these old Muxlab switches? I am specifically working on the 2424B Ethernet version. I am trying to bring one back from the dead, but I am not having much luck. I have serial communications established. I have the VSSC software. But I can not get the software to communicate with the switch. Main question I have for now is the address setting. How should the address be set on the dip switch to communicate with the VCCS at address 1? Any help or pointers to other links would be appreciated. Mike ------------------------------ From: ayounker1@netscape.net (Al Younker) Subject: New Live Chat @www.telcosupport.net Date: 2 Apr 2002 10:34:31 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ www.telcosupport.net is pleased to now offer interactive chat. Using Netmeeting you can now access an engineer in real time. Why wait for answers ... get them now! From our site http://www.telcosupport.net click on the Live Chat button and select from any engineers on line. You can use text, voice or video to speak to an engineer. We hope you enjoy our web site and unique services and encourage you to visit often. Thank you, questions@telcosupport.net ------------------------------ From: wesrock@aol.com (Wes Leatherock) Date: 02 Apr 2002 18:57:29 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: Local Calling Policy (was Re: Information Request) > MMcKie99@aol.com wrote in : > The largest local calling area is probably Atlanta's, which reaches to > Alabama and basically incorporates the entire metro area, up to next > year's outer sprawl (which is very far). BellSouth and the Georgia > PUC decided, I guess, to have a basic monthly rate that is a bit > closer to full cost, without intra-metro tolls. I believe Oklahoma City's (and perhaps Tulsa's) is larger geographically than Atlanta's, but Atlanta's includes more EAAs. Wes Leatherock wesrock@aol.com wleathus@yahoo.com ------------------------------ Subject: Re: The Latest Fad From Japan Organization: Excelsior Computer Services From: joel@exc.com (Dr. Joel M. Hoffman) Date: Wed, 03 Apr 2002 01:37:13 GMT > They are called cellular phone ring detectors and sometime come packaged > [...] > AND THEY WORK. When ever a cell handset rings, it also sends a brief > transmission back to the cell site. These little gadgets have a small IC > and battery that detects that signal (or any other RF signal nearby!) > and causes some very bright subminiature leds to flash for a few > seconds. > Has nothing to do with what carrier or service you have. Surely it must depend on the TYPE of service you have. How does the chip distinguish between regular "I am here" messages and "the phone is ringing"? Doesn't this depend on the type of service? -Joel ------------------------------ From: dold@71.usenet.us.com Subject: Re: Central Office Code Assignments Date: 29 Mar 2002 17:49:42 GMT Organization: Wintercreek Data Stratus wrote: > Where is there a list of the locations of the switches named in this > database? >> Babu Mengelepouti wrote in message >> news:telecom20.206.10@telecom-digest.org: >>> http://www.nanpa.com/nanp1/AllCodes.zip. I've wanted something like Oh, no free ride there. ;-) The AllCodes list is a handy Access Database, made up of individual download text files that have been free for a while. You want the LERG, which costs money, to locate the switches. I think the full LERG is $800, the TPMDATA is $300. Lerg has lots of stuff, TPM is Terminating Point Master. < http://www.telcordia.com/products_services/trainfo/catalog.html > Clarence A Dold - dold@email.rahul.net - Pope Valley (Napa County) CA. ------------------------------ From: wesrock@aol.com (Wes Leatherock) Date: 02 Apr 2002 01:05:53 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: Central Office Code Assignments > Babu Mengelepouti wrote: >> NANPA has released an Access database of Central Office codes in North >> America, including CLLIs and carrier names. It is available at >> http://www.nanpa.com/nanp1/AllCodes.zip. I've wanted something like > This is handy, but it doesn't recognize NPA-NXX-F splits. There are > an increasing number of NPA-NXX sets around the country being split > onto different switches. This might not matter, but ... > 210-396 in San Antonio is spread across five switches, but at least > they are all in the same city. In Maryland, there are some splits > across actual city boundaries, although the "localities" are the same, > for now. I have read this several times, and I don't understand the question. Municipal boundaries rarely are coterminous with wire center boundaries, rate center or zone boundaries, or exchange boundaries. Wes Leatherock wesrock@aol.com wleathus@yahoo.com ------------------------------ From: Phil McKerracher Subject: Re: Seeking ITU Docs Date: Tue, 2 Apr 2002 11:51:18 +0100 samrat wrote in message news:telecom20.189.6@telecom-digest.org... > I am an individual enthusiast of telecom technology and and am > interested in downloading some itu specifications. Is there any way > that I can get free download facility of the documents or is there > anyone willing to share their copies with me? Limited quantities can be downloaded free for personal use from www.itu.int. Phil McKerracher www.mckerracher.org ------------------------------ From: Jack Adams Reply-To: jack.adams@ieee.org Subject: Caribbean Telecom Deregulation Status? Date: Tue, 02 Apr 2002 12:59:22 GMT Organization: AT&T Worldnet Has anyone heard any recent actions among the caribbean telecoms (nations) to deregulate their businesses? With the extremely high rates present in most countries to send traffic back to North America, it seems that egressing traffic (packetized voice for example) from those which are going to liberalize their infrastructure would make terrific sense as an arbitrage opportunity. John "Jack" Adams, IEEE Fellow jack.adams@ieee.org "God's job is to pass judgment on Bin Laden and company. The USMC's job is to make that meeting happen!" Tom Friedman (NYTimes 1/4/2002) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 2 Apr 2002 09:41:25 EST From: Carl Moore Subject: Yasser Arafat Using Cell Phone In the news stories I have heard about Israeli troops surrounding Yasser Arafat's office, I have heard that: - Arafat had contact with the outside world via cell phone; - it wasn't known how long the battery would last. ------------------------------ From: Russ Bazzarre Subject: Want to Buy Lucent Excel E1 Cards & Switches Selling Cisco Date: Tue, 2 Apr 2002 04:56:01 UTC Organization: Mailgate.ORG Server - http://www.Mailgate.ORG Anyone have used Lucent Excel E1 cards for sale? I want to buy them, will take 8E1 or 16E1 cards. Also need any EXS cards. I have for sale Cisco AS5300-VOIP-120A 4E1 $18,000 USD Also Cisco AS5300-VOIP-60 2 E1 $9,000 USD AS5350-VOIP 4E1 & 8E1 New AS5400-VOIP 16 E1 New call or email Russ Bazzarre russ@itxventures.com 954 924-1800 USA Florida Genex Communications ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 02 Apr 2002 20:57:33 -0500 From: Gary Subject: Another Wrinkle on Spam: Fake Bounced Email On Thu, 28 Mar 2002 21:38:18 -0500, Robert Casey wrote: > Got this spam, looks like a virus attached to it (which > I didn't open, and is not attached here (I cut and pasted > the text of the message only below). > Subject: > Returned mail: Host unknown (Name server: home.com: no data known) > Subject: > A WinXP patch > Date: > Thu, 28 Mar 2002 13:35:01 -0500 (EST) > From: > wa2ise > To: > lsassm@home.com > This is a WinXP patch > I expect you would enjoy it. > ------------------------------------------ > Yeah, I'd trust a patch from an unknown source..... NOT! Well, it may be a fake bounce and it may not. It is entirely consistent with your already being infected with one of the many e-mail viruses that sends itself to your entire address book. Some old addresses in the book may bounce, which is the only way many victims discover that they are infected. I'd advise you to look and see if that bounced home.com address is in your address book, or in any old messages in your outbox, and if it is, be very afraid. It would mean that you might actually have sent that message, and the bounce was not fake, but real. Gary ------------------------------ From: monad@super.net.pk (Monad) Subject: DTMF Over Internet Date: 31 Mar 2002 14:31:24 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Hello, I'm working on a project which is based on VOIP. I'm using netmeeting with gateway. When I dial the number the IVR system at server asks for the phone number which it will dial. But the problem is it recognizes DTMF sounds but when I dial the number, the DTMF goes to the server but it takes time and the connection between server and the dialer breaks. Can anyone help? That is, how can I manage to send DTMF without breaking the server client connection. ------------------------------ From: info@mind-over-fatter.com Subject: Lat Laugh! Joke of the Day Date: Tue, 2 Apr 2002 14:42:41 UTC Organization: WWW.US.INTER.NET Instant winner : A blonde goes into a restaurant and notices there's a "peel and win" sticker on her coffee cup. So she's peels it off and starts screaming, "I've won a motor home! I've won a motor home!" The waitress says, "That's impossible. The biggest prize is a free lunch." But the blonde keeps screaming, "I've won a motor home! I've won a motor home!" Finally the manager comes over and says, "Ma'am, I'm sorry, but you're mistaken. You couldn't possibly have won a motor home because we didn't have that as a prize!" The blonde says, "No it's not a mistake. I've won a motor home!" And she hands the ticket to the manager and he reads ... Scroll down ... (You're going to love this!) WIN A BAGEL Enjoy! Doug www.mind-over-fatter.com Use the power of your mind to increase your metabolism and burn off the fat! ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V20 #211 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Apr 3 13:46:37 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id NAA21588; Wed, 3 Apr 2002 13:46:37 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 3 Apr 2002 13:46:37 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200204031846.NAA21588@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #212 TELECOM Digest Wed, 3 Apr 2002 13:46:00 EST Volume 20 : Issue 212 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson News Headlines of Interest (Monty Solomon) Re: FCC to Vote on Phone-Number Crunch (Marcus Didius Falco) Re: FCC Deals a Death Blow to Usenet; Nobody Noticed (Koos van den Hout) Re: FCC Forces Ham Radio Operators to Use Windows (Larry Finch) Re: How to Determine ISDN Protocol at Remote End? (Phil McKerracher) Re: DTMF Over Internet (Al Younker) Re: Long Range Cordless Phone Wanted! (Dr. Joel M. Hoffman) Raspberries For BlackBerries? (itsamike@yahoo.com) Re: Yasser Arafat Using Cell Phone (Robert Casey) Solopoint? (James Gifford) Re: Another Wrinkle on Spam: Fake Bounced Email (Robert Casey) Another one for the Toll Free Spammer Directory (Steven Lichter) And Yet Even More Entries For the Business Directory (David B. Horvath Re: Example of Core Dump I Got: CELTIC NEW YEARS (Marcus Didius Falco) Re: Example of Core Dump I Got: CELTIC NEW YEARS (John R. Levine) Re: Example of Core Dump I Got: CELTIC NEW YEARS (Robert Bonomi) Re: So Much Junk Mail (Carl Moore) 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-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 630-841-7174 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@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 * * Judith Oppenheimer, President of ICB Inc. and purveyor of accurate * * 800 & Dot Com News, Intelligence, Analysis, and Consulting. * * http://ICBTollFree.com, http://1800TheExpert.com * * Views expressed herein should not be construed as representing * * views of Judith Oppenheimer or ICB Inc. * ************************************************************************* ICB Toll Free News. Contact information is not sold, rented or leased. Access to Premium (P) links requires upgrade to a paid subscription. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Only subscribers or registered users of ICB Toll Free News web site will be able to access all or some of the full text of URLs provided. LEGAL STUFF: TELECOM Digest (sm) is owned by Patrick Townson. Copyright 2000 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. 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, 31 Mar 2002 16:05:02 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: News Headlines of Interest Cable Television Turn Off Frustrated communities take TV into own hands By Robert Preer, Globe Correspondent, 3/29/2002 Escalating rates. Long waits on hold for customer service. Confusing changes in channel lineups. Local officials unhappy with cable television service in their communities have called public hearings, fined cable companies, and threatened not to renew licenses -- all with little effect. So now, some Massachusetts cities and towns have adopted another strategy: launching their own cable television systems as alternatives to the hometown monopolies. http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/088/metro/Cable_turnoff+.shtml --------------------------------- Phone number mix-up gives utility customers steamy offer By Associated Press, 3/27/2002 01:32 PITTSBURGH (AP) A utility company that offers its customers clean energy inadvertently referred Pennsylvania callers to a risque phone number. In letters sent to Green Mountain Energy Co.'s 93,000 local customers, the company misprinted its toll-free number, sending 200 people to a phone-sex service where a husky-voiced woman offered ''wild, one-on-one-adventures.'' ... Customers won't see their phone bills increase along with their electricity bills. The phone-sex line is a directory to other toll phone numbers. ... http://www.boston.com/dailynews/086/region/Phone_number_mix_up_gives_util:.shtml ------------------- Howling Mad Over Hollings' Bill By Brad King 2:00 a.m. March 28, 2002 PST Jim Dinda's apartment is a high-tech entertainment haven, but that could change if a bill that restricts how electronics devices work is passed into law. Dinda's DSL phone line connects his entire home entertainment network. His movies, music and personal files are stored on a Windows 2000 server. He uses his Dell computer for e-mailing and Web surfing. He's teaching himself programming using a Linux server. He built a Pentium 3 with a video card that links his VCR, DVD and TiVo. The final piece is a wireless base station that allows him to roam the house with an IBM ThinkPad laptop. http://www.wired.com/news/mp3/0,1285,51337,00.html --------------------------------- New V.92 Modems Improve Narrowband Surfing - Study By Michael Bartlett, Newsbytes SCOTTSDALE, ARIZONA, U.S.A., 29 Mar 2002, 5:15 AM CST The majority of Web connections in the United States are made via telephone lines, which means most surfers must choose between paying for a second line or not being able to receive phone calls during Internet sessions. According to a study by research firm In-Stat/MDR, new modem technology known as "V.92" soon will revolutionize the narrowband online experience. http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/175549.html ----------------------------- April 1, 2002 Will Ma Bell Be Taken Over by Offspring? By SETH SCHIESEL Will AT&T stand alone as a telecommunications company? Many industry executives say they believe that by the middle of next year, a big local phone company like SBC Communications or BellSouth will try to acquire what remains of AT&T. If AT&T's stock price remains anywhere near where it is today - $15.70 a share - such a deal appears almost inevitable. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/01/technology/ebusiness/01PLAC.html -------------------------- Verizon Wireless to expand new service in U.S. 1 Apr 2002, 11:58am ET CHICAGO, April 1 (Reuters) - Verizon Wireless, the nation's largest wireless operator, said Monday it will launch its advanced wireless service, capable of high-speed Internet connections, in Chicago, Pittsburgh and St. Louis on Tuesday. http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=26667617 -------------------------- Verizon Wireless to Launch Express Network, Significantly Boosting Speed Capability 1 Apr 2002, 07:00am ET CHICAGO, April 1 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Verizon Wireless will launch its high-speed data and voice Express Network throughout the Chicago area on April 2, 2002, giving customers significantly faster and more robust wireless capabilities. Verizon Wireless is the first and only U.S. wireless carrier to commercially introduce a sizable 1XRTT, 3G (third generation) network footprint. http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=26665212 ---------------------------- Verizon Wireless to Launch `3G' Technology in Florida; High-Speed Express Network to Make Wireless Internet Access, Email Faster and Easier 1 Apr 2002, 12:07pm ET BOCA RATON, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 1, 2002--Verizon Wireless today announced the launch of its high-speed wireless service in Florida, offering customers faster, easier wireless Internet access and email capabilities, as well as enhanced phone and streaming video quality. Verizon Wireless' Express Network is the U.S. industry's first commercially available, third-generation (3G) wireless network. It supports enterprise applications, promising to give companies with mobile employees new tools for increased productivity and efficiency. http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=26669394 ------------------------------------- California PUC Claims Jurisdiction Over DSL Services 04/01/02 Apr 1, 2002 02:52 PM (Newsbytes) SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 2002 APR 1 (NB) -- By Dick Kelsey, Newsbytes. The California Public Utilities Commission has claimed regulatory power over digital subscriber lines (DSL), the first time a state has claimed jurisdiction in DSL service matters, ISPs said today. http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=26671618 ----------------------------------- Verizon Wireless to allow intercarrier short messaging Most big carriers allow for service By Peter J. Howe, Globe Staff, 4/1/2002 In a key boost for adoption of ''short messaging services'' by US cellphone subscribers, Verizon Wireless, the country's biggest cellphone carrier, this week is committing to enabling its 29 million subscribers to send short messages to other carriers' customers. Verizon is the last of the big consumer-oriented wireless carriers to make a public commitment to allowing subscribers to send so-called SMS notes -- messages of up to 160 characters tapped out on the phone keypad -- to other carriers' customers just by entering their 10-digit phone number. http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/091/business/Verizon_Wireless_to_allow_intercarrier_short_messaging+.shtml ------------------------------- Handspring Treo 180 Review, Parts 2,3 http://danbricklin.com/log/treo180part2.htm http://danbricklin.com/log/treo180part3.htm ------------------------------ New Yorkers Will Use New Dialing Method for Calls Within Same Area Code - Required for All Calls Starting February 2003 - NEW YORK, April 2 /PRNewswire/ -- To comply with Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations, New York City residents and businesses will need to dial additional digits to call family and friends in their same area code by early next year. This change means that residents and businesses with a 212 telephone number, for example, who are calling another 212 number, must dial 1 plus 212 plus the seven-digit telephone number of the person or business they are trying to reach. Similarly, callers dialing within their own 646, 917, 718, or 347 area codes will have to dial 1 plus the area code plus the seven-digit telephone number to complete their call. http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=26688069 -------------------------------------- Stealth P2P network hides inside Kazaa By John Borland Staff Writer, CNET News.com April 1, 2002, 5:35 PM PT A California company has quietly attached its software to millions of downloads of the popular Kazaa file-trading program and plans to remotely "turn on" people's PCs, welding them into a new network of its own. Brilliant Digital Entertainment, a California-based digital advertising technology company, has been distributing its 3D ad technology along with the Kazaa software since late last fall. But in a federal securities filing Monday, the company revealed it also has been installing more ambitious technology that could turn every computer running Kazaa into a node in a new network controlled by Brilliant Digital. The company plans to wake up the millions of computers that have installed its software in as soon as four weeks. It plans to use the machines -- with their owners' permission -- to host and distribute other companies' content, such as advertising or music. Alternatively, it might borrow people's unused processing power to help with other companies' complicated computing tasks. http://news.com.com/2100-1023-873181.html ------------------------ The Dominoes Keep Falling In Telecom Mark Lewis, 04.02.02, 12:12 PM ET NEW YORK - The metro market was the last redoubt for telecom true believers. Now the Alamo is about to fall: Metromedia Fiber says it is in default on some loan agreements. If no restructuring deal can be reached with its creditors, the firm will become the latest -- and one of the largest--telecom upstarts to file for bankruptcy. If Metromedia winds up in bankruptcy court, it could soon be followed by Williams Communications, which announced yesterday that it had skipped an interest payment on some of its debt and suspended the dividend on its preferred stock. Williams said its creditors had agreed to extend the negotiating period until April 26. The Tulsa, Okla.-based firm also withdrew its performance guidance for 2002, and said that the loss it had reported earlier for 2001 would be more than doubled to account for the declining value of certain assets. ... http://www.forbes.com/home/2002/04/02/0402metromedia.html ------------------------------ Cincinnati Bell Makes IP Telephony Available to Broad Base of Businesses - Apr 3, 2002 10:01 AM (BusinessWire) 3Com's Networked Telephony Products Will Reduce Costs and Streamline Administration for Businesses Cincinnati Bell, a wholly owned subsidiary of Broadwing Inc. (NYSE:BRW), and 3Com Corporation (Nasdaq:COMS) today announced that Cincinnati Bell will offer 3Com(R) NBX(R) networked telephony products to its small and medium business customers as the standard solution for Internet Protocol (IP) telephony services. IP telephony combines a business' voice and data services together on one network, reducing costs by giving them only one network to manage. It also simplifies the expensive process of adding, moving or making changes to employees' workstations. http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=26703169 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 02 Apr 2002 22:33:45 -0500 From: Marcus Didius Falco Subject: Re: FCC to Vote on Phone-Number Crunch >Marcus Didius Falco wrote: > FCC to Vote on Phone-Number Crunch > http://news.com.com/2100-1033-870832.html > By Ben Charny > Staff Writer, CNET News.com > March 28, 2002, 12:55 PM PT > Cell phones, fax machines and pagers are dialing through the > country's supply of phone numbers. Oops! I should have noted that this is incorrect. The major cause of the shortage of numbers is the allocation of blocks of 10,000 numbers to every CLEC in every rate center. Few of them need as many as 1,000 in any rate center. The solution is to allocate numbers in blocks of 1,000 (states that have done this have been able to cancel some planned splits or overlays). A second solution would be to combine rate centers. Many metropolitan areas have dozens of rate centers, where only one or at most a few would be needed with more rational tariffs. (The number and location of rate centers is an artifact of the way manual switchboards were located over 70 years ago.) Or, as noted in the original article (see T-D 20-10, 4/2/02 at 9:13 pm), full local number portability would solve the problem, but the ILECs hate that because it would make it easier for customers to switch carriers. ------------------------------ From: Koos van den Hout Subject: Re: FCC Deals a Death Blow to Usenet ... and Nobody Noticed Date: 3 Apr 2002 08:57:54 GMT Organization: Van den Hout Creative Communications James Carlson wrote: > I think this is a *wonderful* decision. The mechanisms used today to > allow 'equal access' on DSL (IP over PPP over PPPoE over Ethernet over > ATM) are technically hideous. After having a cable-modem with PPPoE (casema) and now adsl with pptp (mxstream+xs4all) and using both from a Linux firewall without any problem I'd really like to know what the exact technical reasons are for the dislike of PPPoE. As a cable/dsl subscriber, I'd really dislike it if the operator offered standard IP over ethernet. That way, the cable-ethernet works as a broadcast medium (so you get to 'enjoy' the windows netbios broadcasts for example). Normally subscribers will not see each others outgoing traffic but a very determined person can find ways to tap into the traffic of neighbours using mac address spoofing (and the arp traffic will make those mac adresses visible). And authentication is much simpler: you set up a connection with username/password. The ISP knows who had which IP when. Koos van den Hout, PGP keyid RSA/1024 0xCA845CB5 via keyservers koos@kzdoos.xs4all.nl or DSS/1024 0xF0D7C263 Fax +31-30-2817051 Visit my site about books with reviews http://idefix.net/~koos/ http://www.virtualbookcase.com/ ------------------------------ From: Larry & Wanda Finch Subject: Re: FCC Forces Ham Radio Operators to Use Windows Date: Wed, 03 Apr 2002 16:15:25 GMT Marcus Didius Falco wrote: > For several weeks afterwards, I would query Kitzmiller for the latest > status on the fix. Finally, I exhausted his patience. He told me on > February 22 that he had been told by someone or something called > "TPTB" at the WTB that the problem was bigger than they first > thought. However, he went on to say that it would still be fixed. He > quoted TPTB saying, "The FCC is in the process of revising the > software and the revised software will work with Linux. The first > application to be revised will be License Search later this month. > Other ULS applications will follow." "TPTB" is bureaucratese for "The Powers That Be" Larry Finch ::finches@bellatlantic.net larry@prolifics.com ::LarryFinch@aol.com (whew!) ------------------------------ From: Phil McKerracher Subject: Re: How to Determine ISDN Protocol at Remote End? Date: Wed, 3 Apr 2002 12:40:28 +0100 Ramon F Herrera wrote in message news:telecom20.210.12@telecom-digest.org... > One of the biggest problems I have had in many years dealing with PRI > circuits is something conceptually very simple: What ISDN protocols is > being use by the telco at the remote side of my equipment? I have > noticed that sometimes it doesn't _seem_ to matter very much: I can > change from 5ESS to DMS on my side, and apparently everything works > fine. I even remember one case in which my provider was colocated > with us, and I had the luxury of asking the guy to change ISDN > "flavors" back and forth until we found one that wordked reliably. > Well, the best combination turned out to be a mismatched one: the > telco switch was configured for DMS and our Cisco AS-5300 was > configured for 5ESS. Go [con]figure ... > It occurred to me that a very helpful tool would be to have a software > utility which would open the ISDN port, query it, and report which > ISDN is being spoken at the remote side. I have access to Cisco > AS-5300s, Avaya Definity (which probably won't have the capability to > perform the query), but I also have Dialogic boards, which can be > programmed. > I guess anoter solution would be to get some sort of hardware ISDN > line tester or analyzer. I would like to hear about both software or > hardware solutions to this query problem. This problem is unique to North America -- you're supposed to phone your supplier and ask them, but of course you don't know who to phone when confronted with an unlabelled pair of wires. It *is* possible to sense the switch type and auto-configure (I've implemented it) but the Telcos hate it and won't sanction equipment that does this, presumably because alarms are raised at the switch if the "wrong" protocol is detected. The various flavours of "National ISDN" are an attempt to solve this, but it's not widely implemented. A classic failure of standardisation. Phil McKerracher www.mckerracher.org ------------------------------ From: ayounker1@netscape.net (Al Younker) Subject: Re: DTMF Over Internet Date: 3 Apr 2002 07:27:06 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Can you send all digits at the same time? ie number for voicemail + access code. There must be a setting in the gateway for this I would think. monad@super.net.pk (Monad) wrote in message news:... > I'm working on a project which is based on VOIP. I'm using netmeeting > with gateway. When I dial the number the IVR system at server asks for > the phone number which it will dial. But the problem is it recognizes > DTMF sounds but when I dial the number, the DTMF goes to the server > but it takes time and the connection between server and the dialer > breaks. Can anyone help? That is, how can I manage to send DTMF > without breaking the server client connection. ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Long Range Cordless Phone Wanted! Organization: Excelsior Computer Services From: joel@exc.com (Dr. Joel M. Hoffman) Date: Wed, 03 Apr 2002 15:36:26 GMT >> I am trying to source a cordless phone that I can use in the UK with a >> range exceeding 1/2 mile. Must be able to fit in a normal size pocket >> [...] > There are personal communicators available in the US that are pocket > sized and have a range of up to 2 miles. However, they cannot connect > to the telephone network. They are pretty cheap, too. I don't know Hmm. This raises a question. Why hasn't anyone put together a walkie-talkie and a phone to make a cheap phone that reaches a couple of miles? Joel [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I dunno. Would *you* want just anyone with a similar unit within two miles to be able to access your dial tone? I wouldn't care for that. Did you ever hear about 'cruising for dial tone' where guys drive around in their car with the handpiece of a cordless phone, parking in front of people's houses and 'borrowing' the person's dial tone to make a call (or two or three). With your walkie-talkie/phone combination, guys would not have to park in front of your house any longer. Just be within a mile or two would be good enough. That says nothing about snoopy people who just want to listen in and see what you are talking about on the phone. PAT] ------------------------------ From: itsamike@yahoo.com Date: Wed, 3 Apr 2002 08:12:43 PST Reply-To: itsamike@yahoo.com Subject: Raspberries For BlackBerries? They're handing out BlackBerries. I want one! =========================== Raspberries For BlackBerries? Devices' cost a school sore point By Nick Chiles STAFF WRITER April 3, 2002 Using school funds, Chancellor Harold Levy has acquired $300 pocket wireless-mail devices called BlackBerries for each of the city's 44 school superintendents. In addition, more than 100 central school board bureaucrats, including all seven board members and the chancellor himself, are packing the trendy gadgets. Costing more than $94,000 in all, including monthly user fees, the emergence of the communication devices is stirring criticism that it sends the wrong message in a year of severe belt-tightening across the school system. "While the chancellor is pleading poverty, he gives all the superintendents BlackBerries," scoffed a teacher, who asked not to be identified. "Half of them have no idea how to use them and have to talk to the tech people to teach them." The chancellor defended the extensive use of the BlackBerry in an interview. "It allows you to multitask," he said. "It's got all kinds of functionality -- a phone list, your schedule, an emergency list, an address book. It's quite an extraordinary tool." But when Newsday inquired further about the purchase, Levy spokeswoman Catie Marshall said at least 50 central school board officials would be stripped of their BlackBerries as soon as possible. Citing impending school budget cuts, Marshall said the devices will be returned to the manufacturer with the hope of obtaining a refund for the board. The Board of Education paid more than $43,000 for the BlackBerries and pays more than $51,000 a year in monthly service fees. Most were purchased during the school year. "Since we're now cutting budgets, we are cutting back everything we conceivably can. For those for whom having a BlackBerry is not essential, we're going to eliminate them," said Marshall. Levy has rarely missed a chance to decry what he calls the most disruptive school budget cuts in decades -- at least $686 million for the coming school year alone. Sept. 11 was another impetus for the purchases, he said, noting that the BlackBerry has become standard equipment for many government officials, including some members of Michael Bloomberg's mayoral administration. It works even when phones don't. "Because it's connected through the Internet," said Levy, "it's a particularly secure way of communicating throughout the districts and city. It also has the virtue of putting the superintendents in immediate contact with central and their schools." Levy said he uses his BlackBerry "all the time" and often can be seen peering down at the little gadget during school board meetings. He also requires his superintendents to keep the devices on 24 hours a day. Copyright (c) 2002, Newsday, Inc. This article originally appeared at: http://www.newsday.com/news/yahoo/ny-nyberr032652515apr03.story ------------------------------ From: Robert Casey Subject: Re: Yasser Arafat Using Cell Phone Date: Wed, 03 Apr 2002 00:34:34 -0500 Organization: wa2ise Carl Moore wrote: > In the news stories I have heard about Israeli troops surrounding > Yasser Arafat's office, I have heard that: > - Arafat had contact with the outside world via cell phone; > - it wasn't known how long the battery would last. On one of the TV network news shows (ABC, NBC or CBS) they showed footage of the Israelis knocking down telephone and/or power poles around Arafat's headquarters. Think the last footage of Arafat was in a dark room, with only TV news camera lights for lighting. So that likely means his power is out. I can understand the Israelis being pissed about suicide bombers, but the Israelis have seemed to me been treating for years the Palestinians like as if they were cockroaches or mice to be eliminated and totally suppressed. And are getting some "payback" Or maybe the USA is unusual in that we here get along as well as we do, compared to other places in the world. ------------------------------ From: James Gifford Subject: Solopoint? Date: Tue, 02 Apr 2002 21:41:40 -0800 Organization: Nitrosyncretic Press Reply-To: jgifford@surewest.not Does anyone know what happened to Solopoint? Their web site is gone and I can't find hide nor hair nor DSP of them. Are they a victim of the telecom implosion? | James Gifford - Nitrosyncretic Press | | http://www.nitrosyncretic.com for the Heinlein FAQ & more | | Tired of auto-spam... change "not" to "net" for replies | ------------------------------ From: Robert Casey Subject: Re: Another Wrinkle on Spam: Fake Bounced Email Date: Wed, 03 Apr 2002 00:43:12 -0500 Organization: wa2ise Gary wrote: > Well, it may be a fake bounce and it may not. It is entirely > consistent with your already being infected with one of the many > e-mail viruses that sends itself to your entire address book. Some > old addresses in the book may bounce, which is the only way many > victims discover that they are infected. > I'd advise you to look and see if that bounced home.com address is in > your address book, or in any old messages in your outbox, and if it > is, be very afraid. It would mean that you might actually have sent > that message, and the bounce was not fake, but real. My address books (Eudora and Netscape) are empty (I never used them, never put anything into them), and lsassm@home.com doesn't show in either sent (outbox) files. I'm running windows 98 if that makes a difference. Guess I better tell the MacAfee program to scan my system ... ------------------------------ From: StevenL11@aol.com Date: Fri, 29 Mar 2002 21:38:34 EST Subject: Another One For the Toll Free Spammer Directory For A Private Consultation: Call Toll Free: 1-877-620-9024 Monday - Friday (9am - 9pm EST) or CLICK HERE To Email Us Your Name, Phone Number And The Best Time To Call..... Our Warmest Regards. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 31 Mar 2002 12:39:23 -0500 From: dhorvath@cobs.com (David B. Horvath, CCP) Subject: And Yet Even More Entries For the Business Directory Do you need an "Affordable, High-end E-mail Marketing Solution"? then call > Warp 9 Inc. > http://www.warp9inc.com > (800) 508-9339 Universal Advertising Systems sends out a lot of Ad's. If you want to speak with them (to get off their lists for instance), you can call them "toll free at 1--8.8.8--605--2485 and give us your email address" David B. Horvath, CCP Consultant, Author, International Lecturer, Adjunct Professor Board Member: ICCP Educational Foundation, ICCP Test Council, and Philadelphia Association of Systems Administrators ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 02 Apr 2002 22:22:29 -0500 From: Marcus Didius Falco Subject: Re: Example of Core Dump I Got: CELTIC NEW YEARS CELEBRATION > Received: from granger.mail.mindspring.net (207.69.200.148) > by mail2.iecc.com with SMTP; 28 Mar 2002 21:11:59 -0500 > Received: from dialup-63.208.89.32.dial1.miami1.level3.net > ([63.208.89.32] helo=h8v7b7) > by granger.mail.mindspring.net with smtp (Exim 3.33 #1) > id 16qlqj-00015T-00 > for editor@telecom-digest.org; Thu, 28 Mar 2002 21:10:41 -0500 > From: "Bill Sansbury" > To: editor@telecom-digest.org > Subject: CELTIC NEW YEARS CELEBRATION > date: Thu, 28 Mar 2002 21:15:51 -0500 > MIME-Version: 1.0 > X-MIMEOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4133.2400 > X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4133.2400 > Content-Type: multipart/mixed; > boundary="----32A14064_Outlook_Express_message_boundary" > Content-Disposition: Multipart message > Message-Id: > Status: RO > > ------32A14064_Outlook_Express_message_boundary > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 > Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable > Content-Disposition: message text > Hi! How are you > I send you this file in order to have your advice AHA! This is a well-known virus. I've forgotten its name but it was big last summer. It sends one copy of a random file from the infected computer to everyone in the infected computer's OUtlook or Outlook express address book (under all versions of Windows). Sometimes you get an infected executable. Sometimes you get an infected text file (sometimes an infected CONFIDENTIAL text file). Blame people dumb enough to run Outlook, and dumb enough to run Windows without extensive and carefully updated virus protection. But it's not SPAM, and it's not malicious on the part of the person whose name is on the file (it is really malicious on the part of the person who wrote the virus, which actually brought some Email servers down when the virus first came out). Actually, I'm having to send this from my secondary ISP: my primary ISP blocked it at the SMTP server because if the "content" (presumably the line "I send you this file in order to have your advice," which is a well-known virus tag). > See you later Thanks > ------32A14064_Outlook_Express_message_boundary > Content-Type: application/mixed; name="CELTIC NEW YEARS CELEBRATION.doc.pif" > Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64 > Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="CELTIC NEW YEARS > CELEBRATION.doc.pif" > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You'll see me later? You bet ... I'll > see you in hell, you miserable S.O.B. You want my advice? Quit > wasting your time and mine with this sort of garbage. You ask for > *my* advice? Me, with my deseased, aneurysm-riddled brain? For the > rest of you, I truncated the remaining 550,000 (five hundred fifty > thousand) bytes of this petitioner's inquiry so save you all the grief > I had with it. I saved the headers and the text part of the message so > you all could get a good look at it. Everyday, these show up, asking > me for advice. This is one of the smaller 'inquiries' I have received. > What a wasted life some of these cretins have! PAT] Just a virus. The wasted life is on the part of the virus writer. To reply use the address below: falco_marcus_didius yahoo.co.uk ------------------------------ Date: 2 Apr 2002 23:43:04 -0500 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: Example of Core Dump I Got: CELTIC NEW YEARS CELEBRATION Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > Hi! How are you > I send you this file in order to have your advice > See you later Thanks This is a virus that infects Redmond Crudware(tm) mail programs and mails itself to everyone in your address book. The nominal sender is rarely aware of what's going on, although he often wonders why his PC is so slow and why the modem lights are flickering so much. 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 ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Example of Core Dump I Got: CELTIC NEW YEARS CELEBRATION From: robert@bonomi.invalid Organization: Not Much Date: Wed, 03 Apr 2002 05:34:09 GMT PAT, this is a *virus* that has infected their computer. They don't even -know- the mail is going out. There are half-a-dozen or so varients on the 'plain text', then it grabs a random 'real' file that exists on their machine, inserts the virus as the beginning of that file, uses the 'double extension' (".doc.pif") to conseal its real type from a Windoze user, and goes. if you can 'auto-wastebasket' anything that has an attachment with two periods in the 'filename', you'll find life a lot less stressful. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 3 Apr 2002 09:11:01 EST From: Carl Moore Subject: Re: So Much Junk Mail Was there an attachment to the message which had the following lines? > Hi! How are you > I send you this file in order to have your advice > See you later Thanks Those text lines were brought to my attention quite some time ago now as the Sircam virus, so I advise you **NOT** to open that attachment! In general, you need to be cautious about attachments from sources you don't know. Just this morning, I myself deleted yet another a message ("Hi! How are you..." as above) which had an attachment detected by virus- detection. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Was there an attachment? Was there? Was there! 550 M of attachment! Anything that size I automatically dump in the trash, even if it was a *sincere*, well-meaning person writing something for me to study. I wonder when things like that come in if it does any harm to the Unix box I am using at MIT? I can't help but wonder when the stream of something like that runs through my filter if the filter and/or storage space Unix uses to hold it gets infected somehow. You see, Carl, all my mail gets a preliminary exam as it comes in the door, long before I personally get around to reading it and manually rejecting it. I've got to try and figure out how to write a filter rule to put at the top of my rules (you all have seen the rules recently) which says 'if this mess coming in is more than about 20 K then reject it and return it to the sender'. A lot of folks do that to me, assuming the size of this Digest 'must mean' it is just junk spam mail or a virus. Any of you know how to write that? I know I am getting sick from the messes around here. Such a filter rule would eliminate several pieces of mail each week. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V20 #212 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Apr 4 14:24:52 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id OAA13388; Thu, 4 Apr 2002 14:24:52 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 4 Apr 2002 14:24:52 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200204041924.OAA13388@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #213 TELECOM Digest Thu, 4 Apr 2002 14:24:00 EST Volume 20 : Issue 213 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Example of Core Dump I Got: "core dumps" (John Shriver) Re: Example of Core Dump I Got: CELTIC NEW YEARS CELEBRATION (D Mcmahon) Re: Example of Core Dump I Got: CELTIC NEW YEARS CELEBRATION (Margolin) Re: Example of Core Dump I Got: CELTIC NEW YEARS CELEBRATION (D Gibson) Re: FCC to Vote on Phone-Number Crunch (Dave Close) FTC Goes After Spam And Scams (Marcus Didius Falco) Phone Bots and Spampaigns (Gail M. Hall) Cell Phones and Car Bombs (Judith Oppenheimer) Dialogic D/41B Voice Board (Matt) Telephone, Cable & Network Wiring in Houston (Richard) Re: How to Protect From Erroneous Toll-Free Usage? (extempore) Re: Mobile Telecoms / The Tortoise and the Hare (extempore) Re: How to Ring Back (Jim Van Nuland) Thanks, Telcosupport.com! (dmc) Re: Long Range Cordless Phone Wanted! (Scott Dorsey) New 'Easy 0' Service Speeds Calls to Key Verizon Services (M Solomon) Bluetooth Questions, Please Help (Vivian) 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-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 630-841-7174 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@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 * * Judith Oppenheimer, President of ICB Inc. and purveyor of accurate * * 800 & Dot Com News, Intelligence, Analysis, and Consulting. * * http://ICBTollFree.com, http://1800TheExpert.com * * Views expressed herein should not be construed as representing * * views of Judith Oppenheimer or ICB Inc. * ************************************************************************* ICB Toll Free News. Contact information is not sold, rented or leased. Access to Premium (P) links requires upgrade to a paid subscription. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Only subscribers or registered users of ICB Toll Free News web site will be able to access all or some of the full text of URLs provided. LEGAL STUFF: TELECOM Digest (sm) is owned by Patrick Townson. Copyright 2000 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. 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, 03 Apr 2002 12:01:18 -0500 From: John Shriver Organization: Sockeye Networks Subject: Re: Example of Core Dump I Got: "Core Dumps" I read the TELECOM Digest, but don't yet have things configured to be able to post with a false address so I won't get SPAM. (Posting even one message on any newsgroup essentially guarantees that said address will be harvested to send SPAM to!) So you can take this input with my name, but please don't post the e-mail address ... You got a "core dump" email containing this string: "I send you this file in order to have your advice." That is the signature of the SirCam worm. I did a web search and found a good article at http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,45476,00.html The fractured English in the text of a message is often a sign of a virus. Romanian is often the programmer's first language. So somebody caught that worm who has you in their Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express address book. The core dump is the binary of the worm, which is a program which will run when clicked on in Outlook, and then send this message to everyone in your online name and address book. It is also possible to write programs that will be run by Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express WITHOUT you clicking on them. They can be written to run when you read the message, and even when you preview it in the preview pane. Microsoft historically has made no distinctions betwen code and data, especially in Outlook. Every e-mail message is a program in the deluded author's eyes. They think this is good. I view it as a petri dish for virus breeding. ------------------------------ From: Denis Mcmahon Subject: Re: Example of Core Dump I Got: CELTIC NEW YEARS CELEBRATION Date: Wed, 03 Apr 2002 19:14:31 +0100 Organization: E-Menu Ltd Reply-To: denisrt@pickaxe.demon.co.uk John David Galt wrote: > Hi! How are you > I send you this file in order to have your advice > See you later Thanks Pat, this is a well known virus and the poor sod probably doesn't even know that it's sitting on his system sending chunks of his data (yep, it grabs a copy of one of his documents every time it sends itself out) in virus infested packets to other machines. It has it's own email engine and either an outlook address reader built in or may even intercept email addresses through the ip stack, can't remember which. Rgds, Denis McMahon / +44 7802 468949 / denis@pickaxe.demon.co.uk Top-posters, posters of adverts & binaries are scum. Killfile! Block [a.b.*.*] of any UC/BE relay. Posts > 100 lines ignored. sulfnbk is not a virus, see the symantec virus encyclopaedia! ------------------------------ From: Barry Margolin Subject: Re: Example of Core Dump I Got: CELTIC NEW YEARS CELEBRATION Organization: Genuity, Woburn, MA Date: Wed, 03 Apr 2002 19:09:15 GMT In article , John R. Levine wrote: > This is a virus that infects Redmond Crudware(tm) mail programs and > mails itself to everyone in your address book. The nominal sender is > rarely aware of what's going on, although he often wonders why his PC > is so slow and why the modem lights are flickering so much. What I'd like to know about this virus is why I get these things from people all over the Internet. Today I got one from someone in UAE; what am I doing in this random guy's address book? Barry Margolin, barmar@genuity.net Genuity, Woburn, 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. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: That was going to be my next question. So many people have written me and said in essence "He does not know he is doing it. Your name is in his address book. It gets sent out on its own, etc." Well good ... except like Barry, I have recieved so many from such unusual places. How am I in their address books? I will agree I do not and could not begin to remember everyone who has written to the Digest in the past 20 years, but still -- today alone, Thursday, I got *six* of those monsters. Two were 'can I have your advice', a couple were about 'my new game, you are the first player', and I think a couple others were assorted spam. Don't any of these people look at or review their *outgoing/sent* mail folders now and then to see what they have been doing? The six I received today were just the humongous spam, the outrageously-sized things. That does not include the 'more traditional' spam of recent years. I still get those also. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Daryl R Gibson Date: Wed, 3 Apr 2002 16:09:57 -0700 Subject: Re: Example of Core Dump I Got: CELTIC NEW YEARS CELEBRATION On 2 Apr 02, at 20:36, editor@telecom-digest.org wrote: (moderator's general curse at spammers deleted here.) Pat, this is behavior exhibited by the sircam worm. The worm picks up files (usually around 200K) and sends them along with a virus payload. It picks e-mail addresses out of Outlook addressbooks and browser cache, so the users whose name appears on the mail are: 1, unaware of the mail; and 2, one of your readers. I'm sure they'd appreciate a note to direct them to Symantec's website, which has a fix for the worm, but otherwise, just delete the things. If you want to allow your antivirus software to clean the files, you can get some pretty interesting documents, if you're a voyeur. 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 http://www.drgibson.com http://www.salesstar.com Personal Motivation and Positive Attitude [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Daryl, would it be okay to *return the mail to the sender* saying 'I wanted you to see what your computer is sending out on its own. I assume it was on its own, since only a rotten, fornicating, S.O.B. would send this on purpose. And I know you personally would not be asking my advice/asking me to play a new game (check which applies) and that only the computer would be asking my advice or wanting to play a game. Enjoy' Then Daryl, dump the whole mess back in their Outlook Express with the above as my text at the start of it. Maybe it would create a mail loop and start going through their address book a second or third time. Big humongous mail loop, going around and around. All email everywhere has to shut down while the mess gets sorted out. That's what I would call personal motivation to begin checking ALL your incoming and outgoing mail. PAT] ------------------------------ From: dave@compata.com (Dave Close) Subject: Re: FCC to Vote on Phone-Number Crunch Organization: Compata, Costa Mesa, California Date: Thu, 04 Apr 2002 05:59:23 GMT Marcus Didius Falco quotes Ben Charny: > Although the carriers and the FCC have focused on the cost and > competitiveness aspects of the debate, some backers say there's > another reason to allow people to hold on to the same number: The > pool of 10-digit phone numbers is shrinking. Actually, as I understand how number portability works, allowing it would /increase/ the number of numbers in use, not decrease it. That is because when a number is ported to a different carrier, a new number is actually assigned by the new carrier, and then the old number is transparently forwarded to the new number. Ergo, two numbers in use where there was previously only one. However, I doubt that the quantities involved would cause a serious problem. Dave Close, Compata, Costa Mesa CA dave@compata.com 1 714 434 7359 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 03 Apr 2002 20:52:16 -0500 From: Marcus Didius Falco Subject: FTC Goes After Spam And Scams It's a drop in the bucket, but it's a start! Edupage, April 3, 2002 FTC GOES AFTER SPAM AND SCAMS The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), working with six U.S. states and Canadian officials, is cracking down on operators of Internet scams, including those that commit deceptive advertising in spam e-mail. Spam has become a lucrative method for propagating frauds, allowing criminals to send many millions of solicitations to prospective victims. This enforcement group, started by the FTC two years ago, has begun legal proceedings against Internet crimes in 63 cases in recent months. Recent targets of the FTC include a pyramid scheme, a cancer treatment scam, and a mail-order CD business that settled charges of mail order fraud. San Jose Mercury News, 3 April 2002 http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/business/2989145.htm Plus some related good news: AOL WINS PORN SPAM CASE America Online has won a civil lawsuit against Netvision Audiotext, which AOL accused of sending pornographic spam to AOL customers. The victory means Netvision will pay AOL monetary damages but also must stop sending unsolicited e-mail to AOL accounts. AOL hopes that the case will establish a precedent for others to challenge spammers in court. Jason Catlett, president of Junkbusters, was pleased with the victory, but said there is still a long way to go to curb the amount of spam being sent. CNET, 3 April 2002 http://news.com.com/2100-1023-874664.html This is probably good news: CALIFORNIA PUC CLAIMS AUTHORITY OVER DSL SERVICE In response to a complaint filed by the California Internet Service Provider Association (CISPA), the California Public Utilities Commission (PUC) has asserted that it has jurisdiction over direct subscriber line (DSL) services. The complaint charged that Pacific Bell used its control of phone lines to favor some ISPs at the expense of other ISPs that are not affiliated with PacBell. This marks the first time a state agency has claimed authority over broadband access over local phone lines. CISPA argued that the control exerted by PacBell on the DSL market has led to a 90 percent share of the market for SBC Communications, which owns PacBell. Washington Post, 1 April 2002 http://www.washtech.com/news/regulation/15938-1.html And some very bad news: METROMEDIA THE NEXT BANKRUPTCY? Metromedia Fiber Network, one of the largest suppliers of optical network communication to urban areas, seems headed for bankruptcy after it missed an $8.1 million interest payment, putting it into default on more than $440 million in outstanding notes. Last month the company missed a $30 million interest payment to another creditor. Metromedia Fiber has 2.1 million miles of optical network, most of it in 29 large cities in the United States and Europe, and much of the capacity of that fiber is owned by companies including Verizon, Sprint, and SBC Communications. Many industry experts anticipated problems for Metromedia Fiber, saying that trouble was looming as long as nine months ago. If the company is unable to restructure its debt, it will be one of the largest telecommunications bankruptcies to date. New York Times, 2 April 2002 (registration req'd) http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/02/technology/02FIBE.html To reply use the address below: falco_marcus_didius yahoo.co.uk ------------------------------ From: Gail M. Hall Subject: Phone Bots and Spampaigns Date: Wed, 03 Apr 2002 18:32:31 -0500 Reply-To: gmhall@apk.net In the USA this is an election year. For a number of years we have been plagued by bots calling us to tell us to vote for whichever candidate whose campaign team was dumb enough to hire the bots to call us. Now I read in our local newspaper that some candidates have been dumb enough to fall for the marketers of spam. Some clever writer(s) coined "spampaign" for this. If you care about your favorite candidates not falling for this marketing hype, call or write them and tell them NOT to fall for using spam as a way of reaching their constituents. I don't have anything against a candidate having a web site and asking people who WANT to receive email from them to subscribe to their mailing lists. But some campaign managers may fall for using spammers instead. With USPS rates going up soon, they will probably look for less expensive ways to promote themselves. That's why I am asking people to warn their favorite candidates against using spam. I hang up on those electronic messages, even when they come from election campaigners. I will certainly zap spam that comes from them, too, and give that candidate marks down for being dumb enough to fall for using it. Gail from Ohio USA ------------------------------ From: Judith Oppenheimer Subject: Cell Phones and Car Bombs Date: Thu, 4 Apr 2002 09:57:25 -0500 "Gaza security chief Mohammed Dahlan ... An innovator, with a good scientific brain (if terrorism can be termed a science), it was Dahlan who first applied cellular telephones to triggering car bombs and explosive devices." See http://www.debka.com/, April 4 column, US and Israeli Special Forces Try to Head Off Arafat's Next Terror Offensive Judith Oppenheimer http://JudithOppenheimer.com http://ICBTollFreeNews.com 212 684-7210, 1 800 The Expert ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 04 Apr 2002 03:32:43 GMT From: Matt Subject: Dialogic D/41B Voice Board Organization: Optimum Online I am in possession of a Dialogic D/41B 4-port voice board. Does anyone have any manuals or drivers for this? Dialogic's (Intel's) website is less than helpful when it comes to "outdated" products. Thanks, Matt Bartlett Galaxy Creative Services www.galaxycs.com (631) 586-6865 matt@galaxycs.com ------------------------------ From: myphonejacks@netscape.net (Richard) Subject: Telephone, Cable & Network Wiring in Houston Date: 4 Apr 2002 08:28:30 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Visit www.myphonejacks.com We install telephone jacks, cable outlets and network wiring in your home or businesse and also pre-wire your new home. We offer the lowest prices at the highest quality of work in Houston and the surrounding areas. Call us today and we'll get it done for you, guaranteed. Richard - 832-277-0441 Rick - 832-419-0441 ------------------------------ From: extempore Subject: Re: How to Protect From Erroneous Toll-Free Usage? Organization: Alphabetical Date: Wed, 3 Apr 2002 13:09:42 -0500 Ross Oliver, with nothing better to do on 06 Mar 2002 00:53:42 GMT, spewed forth in message and told us all: > The only time I will look for an 800 > number is when calling large organizations like a bank where I might > be on hold for 10-20 minutes. I actually deal with non-urgent bank business in writing (which has the added advantage of creating a paper trail). And unless it's a company I know well, I'm loathe to use their toll-free number, or if I do, call from a payphone. It keeps me in control of my privacy (since *67 doesn't work on ANI) and has seriously cut down the number of telespammers I have to deal with. extempore ------------------------------ From: extempore Subject: Re: Mobile Telecoms / The Tortoise and the Hare Organization: Alphabetical Date: Wed, 3 Apr 2002 13:09:44 -0500 Monty Solomon, with nothing better to do on Wed, 20 Mar 2002 09:18:28 -0500, spewed forth in message and told us all: > So he was horrified to discover that in > America, text-messaging is almost impossible. Up here in the frozen north, tonight there was a news blurb that all Canadian wireless telcos have hooked up their systems, so that one can text from one carrier to another and vice-versa. Of course, given that a) most of my friends have AMPS service, and b) everyone I've known who has SMS has only received spam with it, it's hard to say if this will take off here. extempore ------------------------------ From: Jim Van Nuland Subject: Re: How to Ring Back Date: 4 Apr 2002 09:18:40 GMT Organization: Silicon Valley Public Access Link Don Saklad wrote: > Rather than troubling an operator, in Cambridge Massachusetts, what's > the number for ringback? Try dialing your own number, then hang up. This worked in mid-Wisconsin a few years ago. Jim Van Nuland, San Jose (California) Astronomical Association ------------------------------ From: daniel.mcrae@worldonline.cz (dmc) Subject: Thanks, Telcosupport.com! Date: 4 Apr 2002 01:40:14 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ A really appreciate your invaluable assistance over the past week. Waiting for my vendor support group was driving me insane! It's great to have another resource for problem resolution that doesn't cost a fortune and is sooooo fast! Keep up the good work. ------------------------------ From: kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) Subject: Re: Long Range Cordless Phone Wanted! Date: 3 Apr 2002 14:09:02 -0500 Organization: Former users of Netcom shell (1989-2000) Dr. Joel M. Hoffman wrote: >>> I am trying to source a cordless phone that I can use in the UK with a >>> range exceeding 1/2 mile. Must be able to fit in a normal size pocket >>> [...] >> There are personal communicators available in the US that are pocket >> sized and have a range of up to 2 miles. However, they cannot connect >> to the telephone network. They are pretty cheap, too. I don't know > Hmm. This raises a question. Why hasn't anyone put together a > walkie-talkie and a phone to make a cheap phone that reaches a couple > of miles? They have. You can get a nice trunking radio system from Motorola that can be connected to a telephone line for autopatching over the air. Licenses required, of course, and you can't use the itinerant frequencies. scott "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But I repeat what I said before: Do you really want your dial tone to be avalable to everyone in that radius? And hackers can easily break through any codes you keep on it. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 3 Apr 2002 14:50:55 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: New 'Easy 0' Service Speeds Calls to Key Verizon Services; BURLINGTON, Vt., April 3 /PRNewswire/ -- Beginning today, dialing "0" will provide Vermont callers with shortcuts to many of the Verizon services they frequently call. "Easy 0"(SM) gives customers access to a menu that instantly connects them at no additional charge to services they request from operators, including Verizon business offices, repair service, directory assistance and call-completion options. Easy 0 is now available to Verizon customers in New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C. http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=26704729 ------------------------------ From: Vivianweiliang@hotmail.com (Vivian) Subject: Bluetooth Questions, Please Help Date: 4 Apr 2002 03:07:16 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Hi! Does any one know where I can gain some market research charts/figures of Bluetooth technology? I am looking for some realistic figures and survey, for instance how much money that SIG has now invested on research and developing Bluetooth and what's the future market of Bluetooth technology. Many thanks, Vivian ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V20 #213 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Apr 5 00:21:05 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id AAA22843; Fri, 5 Apr 2002 00:21:05 -0500 (EST) Date: Fri, 5 Apr 2002 00:21:05 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200204050521.AAA22843@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #214 TELECOM Digest Fri, 5 Apr 2002 00:18:00 EST Volume 20 : Issue 214 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Seeking Advice From a Telcom Professional (Gregory Meadows) Re: Example of Core Dump I Got: CELTIC NEW YEARS CELEBRATION (D. Gibson) Re: Example of Core Dump I Got: CELTIC NEW YEARS CELEBRATION (D. Garland) SirCam Virus (Carl Moore) Re: FCC to Vote on Phone-Number Crunch (Fred Goldstein) Re: FCC to Vote on Phone-Number Crunch (Clarence Dold) Re: Long Range Cordless Phone Wanted! (John Schmerold) Local Number Portability (was re: FCC to Vote ...) (Mark J. Cuccia) Re: Central Office Code Assignments (John Schmerold) Re: Cell Phones and Car Bombs (Dave Garland) Re: Fall of the Pre-Paid Revolution (extempore) 718 or 516 for a Hospital (Carl Moore) Interested in IVR Information (Serious Technical Project Manager) Re: How to Determine ISDN Protocol at Remote End? (Rick Ellis) Public Service Announcement: ** FREE "FDNY' Stickers ** (StickerMan) 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-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 630-841-7174 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@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 * * Judith Oppenheimer, President of ICB Inc. and purveyor of accurate * * 800 & Dot Com News, Intelligence, Analysis, and Consulting. * * http://ICBTollFree.com, http://1800TheExpert.com * * Views expressed herein should not be construed as representing * * views of Judith Oppenheimer or ICB Inc. * ************************************************************************* ICB Toll Free News. Contact information is not sold, rented or leased. Access to Premium (P) links requires upgrade to a paid subscription. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Only subscribers or registered users of ICB Toll Free News web site will be able to access all or some of the full text of URLs provided. LEGAL STUFF: TELECOM Digest (sm) is owned by Patrick Townson. Copyright 2000 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. 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: Gregory Meadows Subject: Seeking Advice From a Telecom Professional Date: Thu, 4 Apr 2002 05:32:42 -0600 [TELECOM Moderator's Note: No, this is not one of those 'I need your advice' things we have talked about for a couple days. PAT] Hello Patrick, I'm currently in school and was presented with a business case by one of my instructors. Since 1995 the U.S. business long haul (LH) market has undergone considerable change. Once the core profit generator for major carriers, it now is considered a low margin service. Many IXCs and CLECs are attempting to bolster the earnings loss from business LH by bundling higher margin services with traditional voice. This is a major shift in the telecommunications market. He wants to know some of the reasons for this shift or change. I have come up with a few, but I need to know if I'm on target or not. I thank you in advance for your input to my response. Response: There are several reasons, which attributed to the decline of profit margins for U.S. companies that were in the long haul business. First, let start with the court decision in 1980s to decreed competition in the long distance telecommunications markets. The US wanted to aggressively break up monopolies and promote competition. These actions resulted in private capital flowing into the long-haul market and opened the market to resellers. Since 1984, rates have dropped 56 percent as a result of the competition from approximately 600 long-distance companies that are estimated to provide service today. And, most importantly, as a consequence of this decision, information infrastructure was built out -- that is the foundation upon which the Internet rests today. Another major reason for the decline in profit margin for long haul services is the birth of the World Wide Web (WWW) in 1992. The first audio and video multicasts were broadcasted over the Internet. As a result of the WWW, a technology spin off called Internet Protocol (IP) Telephony emerged. IP telephony embodies one way that the Internet makes possible the impossible through technological ingenuity. IP telephony bring the immediate benefit of expanded access to telephony and it offers users new services and expanded functions at lower prices. This is because the network underlying the Internet has the capability to integrated voice, data, and video. Another reason for the decline in profit margin for long haul providers is Congress decision to pass the 1996 Telecommunications Act, which required the FCC to develop 80 rule makings leading to increased competition is all aspects of telecommunications. Through Regional 271 approval, RBOCs including Bell South, SBC, Qwest and Verizon will gain considerable long distance market share over the traditional players. For instance, AT&T, a traditional IXC, is expected to decline in total market share from 40% in 2000, to less than 30% in 2006. In conclusion, there are several factors, which lead to a decrease in profit margins for long haul providers. Key regulatory decisions such as the break up of AT&T, which played a significant role in fostering competition in long haul markets and eliminating the monopolistic ways of the past. The 1996 Telecommunications Act, which provided for rule makings to increase competition in all aspect of telecommunications. And last, the advancement in technology, the birth of the World Wide Web, has played a key role in the decrease of profit margins for long haul providers. The WWW ability to broadcast audio and video over the Internet Protocol has opened up new ways for people and businesses to communicate. And last the use of IP Telephony, which rides on the Internet, will eventually gain more market share, thus creating a decline in profit margins for the once dominating long haul providers. As a part of the shifts in the industry, we will witness a consolidation of metro and long haul networks to provide end-to-end services. Carriers with hybrid products and diverse technology portfolios will be best suited to evolve into next-generation service providers. Thanks again! Gregory Meadows ------------------------------ From: Daryl R Gibson Date: Thu, 4 Apr 2002 17:18:20 -0700 Subject: Re: Example of Core Dump I Got: CELTIC NEW YEARS CELEBRATION >>Daryl Gibson wrote >> I'm sure they'd appreciate a note to direct them to Symantec's >> website, which has a fix for the worm, but otherwise, just delete the >> things. If you want to allow your antivirus software to clean the files, >> you can get some pretty interesting documents, if you're a voyeur. >> Daryl > Pat wrote > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Daryl, would it be okay to *return > the mail to the sender* saying 'I wanted you to see what your computer > is sending out on its own. I assume it was on its own, since only a > rotten, fornicating, S.O.B. would send this on purpose. And I know > you personally would not be asking my advice/asking me to play a new > game (check which applies) and that only the computer would be asking > my advice or wanting to play a game. Enjoy' Then Daryl, dump the whole > mess back in their Outlook Express with the above as my text at the > start of it. Maybe it would create a mail loop and start going through > their address book a second or third time. Big humongous mail loop, > going around and around. All email everywhere has to shut down while > the mess gets sorted out. That's what I would call personal > motivation to begin checking ALL your incoming and outgoing mail. PAT] Well, like most of the e-mail viruses being generated now, the Sircam virus has its own SMTP engine, so there is no outgoing mail being placed in the outbox. They seriously are unaware of it unless someone brings it to their attention. It'd seem, however, that since the people are most likely your readers, that sending the stuff back to them with an Irish curse would be counterproductive. Plus, you're right -- since the mail would come into Outlook Express, the virus would pick up the mail address again, and send another payload to you. I've received a number of these viruses from people who have perused one of my websites. Maybe you could send a request for money along with the heads up, since they are 1: your readers, and 2: receiving technical information from you. You might want to talk to MIT and see if they would put a virus filter on your mailbox. Sircam is so obvious that it's pretty easy to catch it from the message body alone -- or you could choose to filter out all attachments, since most of these viruses only come in as MIME attachments anyway. Anyway, Symantec has a good removal tool for Sircam, so it's not usually as much of a problem as it was last summer. 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 http://www.drgibson.com http://www.salesstar.com Personal Motivation and Positive Attitude ------------------------------ From: Dave Garland Subject: Example of Core Dump I Got: CELTIC NEW YEARS CELEBRATION Organization: Wizard Information Date: Thu, 04 Apr 2002 17:19:21 -0600 > what am I doing in this random guy's address book? I don't know about that particular worm, but some look for email addresses in more places than just the address book ... places like the browser cache, for example. > Don't any of these > people look at or review their *outgoing/sent* mail folders now and > then to see what they have been doing? Only because I can't remember what I've told people or whether I've sent a particular email or merely thought about it. Somebody with a better memory or more organized life might not need to. Dave ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 4 Apr 2002 14:45:21 EST From: Carl Moore Subject: SirCam Virus You have by now seen some other messages about the SirCam virus. That's the one which, besides the attachment, includes "I send you this file...". When email with that virus reaches me (usually con- taining between 200,000 and 300,000 characters), this is what happens: 1. one copy goes into Unix mail and is a bunch of harmless characters; 2. one copy goes to Lotus notes, where the virus-detection gets rid of the attachment, and said copy arrives shorn of the actual attach- ment, along with a separate mailing telling me that a virus has been found and that the sender is notified to clean their system. Some- one complained to me about getting such a clean-your-system notice (apparently the result of email with the SirCam virus coming from his system to me), and I figuratively threw up my hands, replying that the virus can indeed go to people you never heard of. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 04 Apr 2002 15:06:52 -0500 From: Fred Goldstein Subject: Re: FCC to Vote on Phone-Number Crunch On Thu, 04 Apr 2002 05:59:23 GMT dave@compata.com (Dave Close) said, > Actually, as I understand how number portability works, allowing it > would /increase/ the number of numbers in use, not decrease it. That > is because when a number is ported to a different carrier, a new > number is actually assigned by the new carrier, and then the old > number is transparently forwarded to the new number. Ergo, two numbers > in use where there was previously only one. However, I doubt that the > quantities involved would cause a serious problem. Happily for the network, your understanding is incorrect. The general rule for number portability is that the new carrier does not assign its own number. Instead, it simply programs the ported number into its own switch. Every switch has one number of its very own, in one prefix of its very own which needs no connection to any specific subscriber's rate center, called the Location Routing Number (LRN). The number portability database lists the LRN assigned to each number. So when the number's ported, the LRN is of the new switch, while the prefix code is "native" to the old switch but also allowable in the new switch. It's like the Internet. Names are not addresses. Phone numbers used to be addresses, like 128.33.252.119. Nowadays they're names, like telecom-digest.org. The LNP database is the equivalent of DNS. But the name (DN) and address (LRN) both use E.164 (numeric) format, so the distinction is not as obvious as with the Internet. ------------------------------ From: dold@95.usenet.us.com Subject: Re: FCC to Vote on Phone-Number Crunch Date: 4 Apr 2002 20:37:11 GMT Organization: Wintercreek Data Dave Close wrote: > Marcus Didius Falco quotes Ben Charny: >> Although the carriers and the FCC have focused on the cost and >> competitiveness aspects of the debate, some backers say there's >> another reason to allow people to hold on to the same number: The >> pool of 10-digit phone numbers is shrinking. > Actually, as I understand how number portability works, allowing it > would /increase/ the number of numbers in use, not decrease it. That > is because when a number is ported to a different carrier, a new > number is actually assigned by the new carrier, and then the old > number is transparently forwarded to the new number. Ergo, two numbers > in use where there was previously only one. However, I doubt that the > quantities involved would cause a serious problem. If I take a customer from another LEC, I handle the physical connection to that number. But because the NPA-NXX-F belongs to another carrier, any lookups for routing the number go to the original carrier. That is translated to point to my switch. There is only one phone number. Forwarding involves two phone numbers. >> The major cause of the shortage of numbers is the allocation of >> blocks of 10,000 numbers to every CLEC in every rate center. We certainly don't have blocks of 10,000 in every rate center. We do have blocks of 10,000 in some rate centers. Most of our customers retain some of their old phone numbers. Clarence A Dold - dold@email.rahul.net - Pope Valley (Napa County) CA. ------------------------------ From: John Schmerold Subject: Re: Long Range Cordless Phone Wanted! Organization: Prodigy Internet http://www.prodigy.com Date: Fri, 05 Apr 2002 04:21:24 GMT http://www.engeniustech.com is supposed to have a unit that goes five miles. I have not tried out a unit. Dr. Joel M. Hoffman wrote in message news:telecom20.212.7@telecom-digest.org: >>> I am trying to source a cordless phone that I can use in the UK with a >>> range exceeding 1/2 mile. Must be able to fit in a normal size pocket >>> [...] >> There are personal communicators available in the US that are pocket >> sized and have a range of up to 2 miles. However, they cannot connect >> to the telephone network. They are pretty cheap, too. I don't know > Hmm. This raises a question. Why hasn't anyone put together a > walkie-talkie and a phone to make a cheap phone that reaches a couple > of miles? > Joel > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I dunno. Would *you* want just anyone > with a similar unit within two miles to be able to access your dial > tone? I wouldn't care for that. Did you ever hear about 'cruising for > dial tone' where guys drive around in their car with the handpiece of > a cordless phone, parking in front of people's houses and 'borrowing' > the person's dial tone to make a call (or two or three). With your > walkie-talkie/phone combination, guys would not have to park in front > of your house any longer. Just be within a mile or two would be good > enough. That says nothing about snoopy people who just want to listen > in and see what you are talking about on the phone. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 4 Apr 2002 21:14:50 CST From: Mark J Cuccia Subject: Local Number Portability (was re: FCC to Vote ...) On Thu 4 Apr 2002, Dave Close wrote: > Actually, as I understand how number portability works, allowing it > would /increase/ the number of numbers in use, not decrease it. That > is because when a number is ported to a different carrier, a new number > is actually assigned by the new carrier, and then the old number is > transparently forwarded to the new number. Ergo, two numbers > in use where there was previously only one. Well, yes there are two POTS ten-digit NANP telephone numbers involved with porting, the original number which the calling party dials, and also the LRN (Location Routing Number) which is the number that actually forwards/routes the call to the ported-to central office switch. However, ALL numbers which have been ported-to the same "new" central office switch use the same LRN. This "default" number is an unassigned telephone number with an NPA-NXX c.o.code that is "traditionally" assigned to that (ported-to) central office switch. The "line-number" of an LRN is "usually" something like -1111 or -9999 or -1234 or -9876 or some other similar "easy" type of line-number. There is a section in the Telcordia-TRA LERG which lists the assigned LRN for each and every central office switch capable of handling ported-to customer's numbers. When a call is placed to a number that has been ported, there is usually an SS7-check in setting up the call. If the dialed number is indicated as having been ported, the LRN will be indicated in an SS7'd back message. This LRN will indicate which central-office switch to actually route to. When that actual destination switch is reached, the original dialed telephone number of the "ported" customer is delivered to that switch which then rings the actual circuit/line of that customer. So, while there are "two" ten-digit NANP POTS numbers involved, the actual "routing" or forwarding number is a single generic "default" number used for any/all porting to that ported-to central office switch, and not a unique one-to-one mapping based on any dialed number. And the telco industry is looking at (but it isn't finalized yet, as if anything in the telco is ever finalized) more efficient methods of number porting and number/code conservation. Presently, each potential provider of local telephone service needs to get a c.o. code (or at least a single "thousands" block) per rate center that they desire to provide service to. Rate center consolidation does help to reduce the number of rate centers that c.o.codes or thousands-blocks will need to be assignedd to. Also being studied is "unassigned-number-pooling", in which a c.o. code is *NOT* "default" assinged anymore to a carrier or switch, but *strictly* to a rate center. Any unassigned -xxxx line-number will be "up-for-grabs" to a LEC/CLEC in that rate center, on a first-come-first-served basis, similar to the way 800/888/etc. toll-free number portability is offered. It isn't yet in place, but it is being studied. Mark J. Cuccia New Orleans LA ------------------------------ From: John Schmerold Subject: Re: Central Office Code Assignments Organization: Prodigy Internet http://www.prodigy.com Date: Fri, 05 Apr 2002 03:51:57 GMT You can't be given enough "atta boys" for this treasure. Great reading! Babu Mengelepouti wrote in message news:telecom20.206.10@telecom-digest.org: > NANPA has released an Access database of Central Office codes in North > America, including CLLIs and carrier names. It is available at > http://www.nanpa.com/nanp1/AllCodes.zip. I've wanted something like > this for many years, and this will prove to be an amazingly useful > tool in resolving problems. Now if only there were a similarly public > database for 800/888/877/866 numbers ... ------------------------------ From: Dave Garland Subject: Re: Cell Phones and Car Bombs Organization: Wizard Information Date: Thu, 04 Apr 2002 17:38:59 -0600 It was a dark and stormy night when Judith Oppenheimer wrote: > "Gaza security chief Mohammed Dahlan ... An innovator, with a good > scientific brain (if terrorism can be termed a science), it was Dahlan > who first applied cellular telephones to triggering car bombs and > explosive devices." Let's not slight the Israelis, who seem to favor the boobytrapped cell or pay phone, where they can call and verify that the selected victim is on the line (and has his head right up against the earpiece) before triggering the charge. ------------------------------ From: extempore Subject: Re: Fall of the Pre-Paid Revolution Organization: Alphabetical Date: Wed, 3 Apr 2002 13:09:36 -0500 Mark Crispin, with nothing better to do on Mon, 11 Feb 2002 19:04:23 -0800, spewed forth in message and told us all: > On 10 Feb 2002, Jeff Frontz wrote: >> A lot of prepaid cellular is sold to 1) folks who don't make that >> many calls (they just want the phone in the glovebox in case they >> need to call AAA); 2) folks who are "credit challenged" (e.g., not >> credit worthy); or 3) folks who want to give a phone to someone but >> not have the user rack up a huge bill (e.g., parents giving a phone >> to children). > 4) People who own vacation property, and want a *local* phone number > there. Compared to the cost of connecting and disconnecting a > landline phone each year (or paying for months that the phone goes > unused), prepaid cellular looks quite attractive indeed. 5) People who move to a strange city, need a local number FAST, and don't know how long they're going to be living at any fixed address for the first couple of months. BTW, people in the Lower Mainland of BC really haven't grasped the concept of an overlay yet. I get strange looks when I give out my phone number (+1 778, Microcell/FIDO GSM), and IIRC, the seven-digit permissive dialing date expired months ago. (And Telus phones even replace the blank name field on CID as "BRIT COLUMBIA.") extempore ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 3 Apr 2002 16:18:15 EST From: Carl Moore Subject: 718 or 516 for a Hospital http://www.lij.edu/lij_homepage_directions.html lists three addresses pertaining to the Long Island Jewish Medical Center. The reason for this posting is that all three have telephone numbers with "718 or 516" for the area code! The prefix is 470, and in old area 212; it was in Bellerose in the borough of Queens, and I presume that is the present 718-470. I don't know about 516-470, though. ------------------------------ From: the_munching_buffalo@yahoo.com (Serious Technical Project Manager) Subject: Interested in IVR Information Date: 4 Apr 2002 07:48:33 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ I am interested in receiving information about effective IVR systems that can use e-payment modules and can share resources with a customized web solution that is not built by the same IVR solution provider. I am not interested in receiving every IVR company's solution, rather I am interested in hearing from those of you who have implemented IVR solutions or have researched them. I want to learn from your experiences. Companies can send me email once. If you bother me beyond that, since I use Yahoo, I will just send your subsequent emails to the Trash. Please respect this wish. Please excuse my email address. This is a serious inquiry, though the email address is a bit bizarre. I was given that name many years ago because I like to eat. Thanks in advance for all of your help. Please no viruses. ------------------------------ From: Rick Ellis Subject: Re: How to Determine ISDN Protocol at Remote End? Date: Thu, 04 Apr 2002 19:04:31 -0000 Organization: S.P.C.A.A. In article , Phil McKerracher wrote: > This problem is unique to North America -- you're supposed to > phone your supplier and ask them, but of course you don't know > who to phone when confronted with an unlabelled pair of wires. The problem I always had with asking the supplier is the supplier not giving me the right answer. All too often the problem was provisioning and the official answer couldn't be right until that was fixed. > It *is* possible to sense the switch type and auto-configure > (I've implemented it) but the Telcos hate it and won't sanction > equipment that does this, presumably because alarms are > raised at the switch if the "wrong" protocol is detected. It can also cause the switch to disable your lines. Then you have to get the supplier to tell the switch to take you out of maintenance. > The various flavours of "National ISDN" are an attempt to solve > this, but it's not widely implemented. A classic failure of > standardisation. Reading the ISO standards quickly shows one why this problem happened. Standardization works a lot better when the documents are written better. http://www.spinics.net/linux/ ------------------------------ From: StickerMan Subject: Public Service Announcement: ** FREE "FDNY' Stickers ** Reply-To: StickerMan Date: Fri, 05 Apr 2002 02:09:18 GMT Organization: RoadRunner - TampaBay I am offering one (1) *FREE* FDNY sticker to anyone who wants it. I created these in memory of the terrible attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City, USA. If interested, just stop by my website, see the image of the sticker, and place your order. LIMIT OF 1 STICKER PER REQUEST, PER ADDRESS! Thanks for looking! http://web.tampabay.rr.com/sticker/ THE STICKER SHOP [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Thank you for bringing this to our attention, Sticker Man. The reminder I have of September 11, 2001 is a poster saying 'Proud to be an American! We will not forget!' and below that, an American eagle wiping tears from his eyes. I got it from a printing company here in Independence who donated all the proceeds to the American Red Cross. By comparison to 9-11, so many other of the hateful things we encounter each day seem rather petty. The New York Fire Department were the real heroes wern't they. I invite readers to visit Sticker Man's shop. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V20 #214 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Apr 5 20:47:42 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id UAA10332; Fri, 5 Apr 2002 20:47:42 -0500 (EST) Date: Fri, 5 Apr 2002 20:47:42 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200204060147.UAA10332@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #215 TELECOM Digest Fri, 5 Apr 2002 22:43:00 EST Volume 20 : Issue 215 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Example of Core Dump I Got: CELTIC NEW YEARS CELEBRATION (D. Phelps) New Trick Telemarkters Are Using (Terry Knab) Answering Messages (Lynda Ray) Re: Phone Bots and Spampaigns (John David Galt) Re: Seeking Advice From a Telecom Professional (Bryan Hesters) Re: New 'Easy 0' Service Speeds Calls to Key Verizon Service (Weaverling) Wireless Carrier Access Billing (Bill Hartzer) Re: Want to Buy Lucent Excel E1 Cards & Switches Selling Cisco (Aaron) Re: Local Number Portability (was re: FCC to Vote ...) (Ed Ellers) Correction of Postal Addresses for Big Telecom Directories (jbc) Re: How to Protect From Erroneous Toll-Free Usage? (Pete Weiss) Interface for Long Range Cordless Phone Senao, Harvest (BAM) Judge Hits US Ban on 'Junk' Faxes (Monty Solomon) Use a Surplus Primestar Dish as an IEEE 802.11 Wireless (Monty Solomon) Dialogic Hardware Simulation (Adnan Qasim Khan) 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-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 630-841-7174 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@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. 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All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. 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: Dave Phelps Subject: Re: Example of Core Dump I Got: CELTIC NEW YEARS CELEBRATION Date: Thu, 4 Apr 2002 22:51:06 -0600 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Your email address isn't modified to prevent software from pulling your email out of your posts. Something like barmar (at) genuity (dot) net would probably help alot, but it's probably too late. Good thing you have a lot of bandwidth :-) [This followup was posted to comp.dcom.telecom and a copy was sent to the cited author.] In article , barmar@genuity.net says: > In article , > John R. Levine wrote: >> This is a virus that infects Redmond Crudware(tm) mail programs and >> mails itself to everyone in your address book. The nominal sender is >> rarely aware of what's going on, although he often wonders why his PC >> is so slow and why the modem lights are flickering so much. > What I'd like to know about this virus is why I get these things from > people all over the Internet. Today I got one from someone in UAE; > what am I doing in this random guy's address book? > Barry Margolin, barmar@genuity.net Genuity, Woburn, MA *** DON'T SEND > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: That was going to be my next question. > So many people have written me and said in essence "He does not know > he is doing it. Your name is in his address book. It gets sent out on > its own, etc." Well good ... except like Barry, I have recieved so > many from such unusual places. How am I in their address books? I > will agree I do not and could not begin to remember everyone who has > written to the Digest in the past 20 years, but still -- today alone, > Thursday, I got *six* of those monsters. Two were 'can I have your > advice', a couple were about 'my new game, you are the first player', > and I think a couple others were assorted spam. Don't any of these > people look at or review their *outgoing/sent* mail folders now and > then to see what they have been doing? The six I received today were > just the humongous spam, the outrageously-sized things. That does not > include the 'more traditional' spam of recent years. I still get > those also. PAT] Dave Phelps Phone Masters Ltd. deadspam=tippenring ------------------------------ From: tknab@nyx.net (Terry Knab) Subject: New Trick Telemarkters Are Using Organization: The Home Office Date: 5 Apr 2002 05:06:43 -0700 Has anyone see this come up on thier caller ID lately? 800-xxx-xxxx (some toll free number) and out of area? I sense some telemarketers are doing this to avoid things like privacy manager and such. Anyone got thoughts on how they do this? ------------------------------ From: Lynda Ray Subject: Answering Messages Date: Fri, 5 Apr 2002 17:12:47 -0700 Do you know where I can go on the internet to listen to phone messages that I might like to put on my own answering machine. Thanks, Lynda [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: On our website http://telecom-digest.org you might like to go to linkspage.html and check out "The Web Site You Have Dialed" by a lady (I believe) named Jennifer Martino. She has a collection of oddball recordings collected over the years, mostly from phone companies. PAT] ------------------------------ From: John David Galt Subject: Re: Phone Bots and Spampaigns Date: Fri, 05 Apr 2002 12:42:19 -0800 Organization: Diogenes the Cynic Hot-Tubbing Society Gail M. Hall wrote: > I hang up on those electronic messages, even when they come from > election campaigners. I will certainly zap spam that comes from them, > too, and give that candidate marks down for being dumb enough to fall > for using it. From a purely selfish/amoral point of view, spam makes sense for selling products, because some fraction of a percent of recipients will buy, and the spammer doesn't have to care about the fact that he's annoyed the rest of us. But spam from a candidate does not make sense that way, because a lot of those annoyed people (if they live in the candidate's district at all) will react by voting against him/her. But this doesn't necessarily mean that a candidate whose spam I get has made a mistake. It may actually mean that the spam was a dirty trick by one of his opponents. In which case the candidate will appreciate hearing about it, and may even be able to put the blame where it belongs in time to avoid losing those votes. So I always write back and let them know. ------------------------------ From: Bryan Hesters Subject: Re: Seeking Advice From a Telecom Professional Date: Fri, 5 Apr 2002 17:09:20 -0600 Organization: ClubCorp I think you're close, but keep in mind, he's asking you SINCE 1995. All your numbers and causes are well before that. I think he's targeting the 1995 act that forced the incumbent long haul providers who already had these MASSIVE networks built to share with the smaller CLEC's. Up until that point, all the big companies were struggling to expand their nationwide backbones and mesh their networks to get the most optimal coverage areas. After the 1995 act and the CLEC competition, the focus was then on acquiring other networks (The QWEST/USWEST merger, MCI /WORLDCOM, etc..) rather than taking the financial risk of building it themselves. Follow this link and see if that takes you in another direction. You also might want to proof-read your response before you submit it. http://www.clec-planet.com/forums/heleinjune14.html Gregory Meadows wrote in message news:telecom20.214.1@telecom-digest.org: > [TELECOM Moderator's Note: No, this is not one of those 'I need your > advice' things we have talked about for a couple days. PAT] > > Hello Patrick, > > I'm currently in school and was presented with a business case by one > of my instructors. Since 1995 the U.S. business long haul (LH) market > has undergone considerable change. Once the core profit generator for > major carriers, it now is considered a low margin service. Many IXCs > and CLECs are attempting to bolster the earnings loss from business LH > by bundling higher margin services with traditional voice. This is a > major shift in the telecommunications market. He wants to know some > of the reasons for this shift or change. > > I have come up with a few, but I need to know if I'm on target or not. > I thank you in advance for your input to my response. > Response: > There are several reasons, which attributed to the decline of profit > margins for U.S. companies that were in the long haul business. First, > let start with the court decision in 1980s to decreed competition in the > long distance telecommunications markets. The US wanted to aggressively > break up monopolies and promote competition. These actions resulted in > private capital flowing into the long-haul market and opened the market > to resellers. > Since 1984, rates have dropped 56 percent as a result of the competition > from approximately 600 long-distance companies that are estimated to > provide service today. And, most importantly, as a consequence of this > decision, information infrastructure was built out -- that is the > foundation upon which the Internet rests today. > Another major reason for the decline in profit margin for long haul > services is the birth of the World Wide Web (WWW) in 1992. The first > audio and video multicasts were broadcasted over the Internet. As a > result of the WWW, a technology spin off called Internet Protocol (IP) > Telephony emerged. > IP telephony embodies one way that the Internet makes possible the > impossible through technological ingenuity. IP telephony bring the > immediate benefit of expanded access to telephony and it offers users > new services and expanded functions at lower prices. This is because the > network underlying the Internet has the capability to integrated voice, > data, and video. > Another reason for the decline in profit margin for long haul providers > is Congress decision to pass the 1996 Telecommunications Act, which > required the FCC to develop 80 rule makings leading to increased > competition is all aspects of telecommunications. > Through Regional 271 approval, RBOCs including Bell South, SBC, Qwest > and Verizon will gain considerable long distance market share over the > traditional players. For instance, AT&T, a traditional IXC, is expected > to decline in total market share from 40% in 2000, to less than 30% in > 2006. > In conclusion, there are several factors, which lead to a decrease in > profit margins for long haul providers. Key regulatory decisions such > as the break up of AT&T, which played a significant role in fostering > competition in long haul markets and eliminating the monopolistic ways > of the past. The 1996 Telecommunications Act, which provided for rule > makings to increase competition in all aspect of telecommunications. > And last, the advancement in technology, the birth of the World Wide > Web, has played a key role in the decrease of profit margins for long > haul providers. The WWW ability to broadcast audio and video over the > Internet Protocol has opened up new ways for people and businesses to > communicate. And last the use of IP Telephony, which rides on the > Internet, will eventually gain more market share, thus creating a > decline in profit margins for the once dominating long haul providers. > As a part of the shifts in the industry, we will witness a consolidation > of metro and long haul networks to provide end-to-end services. > Carriers with hybrid products and diverse technology portfolios will be > best suited to evolve into next-generation service providers. ------------------------------ From: weave@hopi.dtcc.edu (Ken Weaverling) Subject: Re: New 'Easy 0' Service Speeds Calls to Key Verizon Services Date: 5 Apr 2002 23:59:45 GMT Organization: Delaware Technical and Community College In article , Monty Solomon wrote: > Easy 0 is now available to Verizon customers in New York, New > Jersey, Massachusetts, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, > Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C. > http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=26704729 The article also states ... "Patent protection for the company's Easy 0 system is pending." What an "inventive" idea. Dial a number, have an automated attendant speak out a menu of options, then press a key on your touchtone phone to get routed to correct area. I'm just so happy that our patent system is here to protect valuable "inventions" such as this. Without our patent system and the protections it provides, Verizon would have most likely never had the incentive to bring to market a groundbreaking invention like "Easy 0." Ken Weaverling (ken @ weaverling.org) WHOIS: KJW http://www.weaverling.org/ ------------------------------ From: bhartzer@cha-systems.com (Bill Hartzer) Subject: Wireless Carrier Access Billing Date: 5 Apr 2002 09:08:48 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ The FCC Docket Number 01-316 may allow wireless companies to bill for carrier access revenue. This means that wireless companies could bill long-distance carriers for each and every call that those carriers terminate on a wireless network. Some wireless companies have already begun to do this, but many long-distance providers have refused to pay the bills they have received. AT&T Corp. has taken the issue to the FCC, asking it to rule that wireless companies cannot collect carrier access revenue. The case is pending a Commission ruling scheduled for June 24, 2002. If the FCC rules that wireless companies can bill for access revenues, this opens up a potential new revenue stream for wireless carriers. However, there is a catch: It may not be cost-effective for wireless carriers to collect for access if their billing is not efficient. Should wireless companies be able to bill for access revenues? Bill Hartzer http://ipmediationsystem.com http://www.billing-mediation.com http://www.3g-mediation.com http://www.interconnectsettlements.com http://www.leastcostroute.com http://www.telecoms-fraud.com http://www.operationalsupportsystem.com http://www.carrieraccessbilling.com http://www.work-order-software.com http://www.outsideplantsoftware.com ------------------------------ From: aaronb@spamcop.net (Aaron) Subject: Re: Want to Buy Lucent Excel E1 Cards & Switches Selling Cisco Date: 5 Apr 2002 12:38:21 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Russ Bazzarre wrote in message news:: > Anyone have used Lucent Excel E1 cards for sale? I want to buy them, > will take 8E1 or 16E1 cards. Also need any EXS cards. > I have for sale Cisco AS5300-VOIP-120A 4E1 $18,000 USD > Also Cisco AS5300-VOIP-60 2 E1 $9,000 USD > AS5350-VOIP 4E1 & 8E1 New > AS5400-VOIP 16 E1 New > call or email > Russ Bazzarre > russ@itxventures.com > 954 924-1800 USA Florida > Genex Communications Do you know of any less expensive switches available for sale? Thanks, Aaron Bazar http://www.abclongdistance.com ------------------------------ From: Ed Ellers Subject: Re: Local Number Portability (was re: FCC to Vote ...) Date: Fri, 5 Apr 2002 00:28:50 -0500 Mark J Cuccia wrote: > "Presently, each potential provider of local telephone service needs > to get a c.o. code (or at least a single "thousands" block) per rate > center that they desire to provide service to. Rate center > consolidation does help to reduce the number of rate centers that > c.o.codes or thousands-blocks will need to be assigned to." Why can't an NXX or a thousands block be mirrored, at the CLEC's option, in more than one rate center? In other words, if a CLEC wants to serve both Mayfield and Bellport from a CO in Mayfield assigned the (311) 555-4xxx thousands block, why can't it arrange that that block can be dialed as a local call from the Bellport rate center as well, and so that its customers in either rate center can make local calls into both rate centers? Granted, they may have to pay some money for this capability, but it ought to be cheaper than a second block (which might well be physically located in the same CO anyway). ------------------------------ From: jbc Subject: Correction of Postal Addresses for Big Telecom Directories Date: Fri, 5 Apr 2002 10:02:06 +0200 Bonjour, I have a question regarding the possible solutions that I can have for daily updating the postal address informations available in big telecom directories. In France, we have some phone directories but with a high-level of bad addresses: more than 8% are NPAI (no people to this postal address!) Do you correct easily phone directory addresses? How it cost to you pro month, pro item, pro updates? All possible articles, files, documents, comments will be greatly appreciate! Regards, Jean-Bernard Condat, Chrystol B.P. 59, 93402 Saint-Ouen Cedex, France condat@chrystol.com, phone: +33607238628 ------------------------------ From: pete-weiss@psu.edu (Pete Weiss) Subject: Re: How to Protect From Erroneous Toll-Free Usage? Date: Fri, 05 Apr 2002 08:08:14 -0500 Organization: Penn State University -- Office of Administrative Systems On Wed, 3 Apr 2002 13:09:42 -0500, extempore wrote: > And unless it's a > company I know well, I'm loathe to use their toll-free number, or if I > do, call from a payphone. It keeps me in control of my privacy (since > *67 doesn't work on ANI) and has seriously cut down the number of > telespammers I have to deal with. In control of your privacy when working with a financial institution? Is that the same one that has your SSN? /Pete ------------------------------ From: BAM Subject: Interface for Long Range Cordless Phone Senao, Harvest Date: Fri, 5 Apr 2002 17:33:30 +0400 Organization: Odessa State Polytechnic University Use Interface with our handset of long range (up to 50km) cordless phone (Senao,Harvest) for recive fax, connect to Internet (through modem of PC up to 19200bps). http://www.geocities.com/senao_868/eindex.htm ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 5 Apr 2002 09:04:40 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Judge Hits US Ban on 'Junk' Faxes Judge hits US ban on 'junk' faxes Says federal law on such unsolicited ads is unconstitutional By Hiawatha Bray, Globe Staff, 4/2/2002 In a little-noticed case that could have major implications for users of fax machines, a federal judge in Missouri has ruled that a federal law banning unsolicited fax advertisements is unconstitutional. The ruling by US District Judge Stephen Limbaugh applies only to the eastern half of Missouri, and Missouri Attorney General Jeremiah ''Jay'' Nixon has vowed to appeal. http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/092/business/Judge_hits_US_ban_on_junk_faxes+.shtml ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 5 Apr 2002 11:39:02 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Use a Surplus Primestar Dish as an IEEE 802.11 Wireless Primestar was recently purchased by Direct TV who is phasing out all the Primestar equipment. This means that the dishes are being trashed, and are available for other uses such as the one I describe here. It is easy to make a surplus Primestar dish into a highly directional antenna for the very popular IEEE 802.11 wireless networking. The resulting antenna has about 22 db of gain, and is fed with 50 ohm coaxial cable. Usually LMR400 or 9913 low loss cable is used if the source is more than a few feet from the antenna. The range using two of these antennas with a line of sight path is around 10 miles at full bandwidth. I must stress the line of sight part though. Leaves really attenuate the signal. http://www.wwc.edu/~frohro/Airport/Primestar/Primestar.html ------------------------------ From: adnan938@yahoo.com (Adnan Qasim Khan) Subject: Dialogic Hardware Simulation Date: 4 Apr 2002 21:16:00 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ I'm developing a Dialogic based voice mail app. Is it possible to write and test software without having an actual dialogic board installed in the computer? Ideally I would like to install some kind of "dummy" driver pretending to be an actual dialogic board. Then use software to simulate the phone line, eg. ring, dialtones, etc. Adnan ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V20 #215 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat Apr 6 23:22:39 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id XAA00943; Sat, 6 Apr 2002 23:22:39 -0500 (EST) Date: Sat, 6 Apr 2002 23:22:39 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200204070422.XAA00943@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #216 TELECOM Digest Sat, 6 Apr 2002 23:20:00 EST Volume 20 : Issue 216 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Dialogic Hardware Simulation (Adnan Qasim Khan) Re: New Trick Telemarkters Are Using (Carl Navarro) Re: New Trick Telemarkters Are Using (Gail M. Hall) Re: Local Number Portability (was re: FCC to Vote ...) (Dave Close) Jennifer Martino's Web Site Not Working (John Stahl) News Headlines of Interest (Monty Solomon) Java: It's What's On The Cell Phone (Eric Friedebach) HDTV White Elephants (Marcus Didius Falco) Obituary: Comm Pioneer (and SF Writer) John Pierce (Marcus Didius Falco) More on ATTBI / Eudora / SSL and Semi-Open Relays (Marcus Didius Falco) Spring Ahead (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-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 630-841-7174 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@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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Access to Premium (P) links requires upgrade to a paid subscription. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Only subscribers or registered users of ICB Toll Free News web site will be able to access all or some of the full text of URLs provided. LEGAL STUFF: TELECOM Digest (sm) is owned by Patrick Townson. Copyright 2000 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. 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: adnan938@yahoo.com (Adnan Qasim Khan) Subject: Dialogic Hardware Simulation Date: 4 Apr 2002 21:16:00 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ I'm developing a Dialogic based voice mail app. Is it possible to write and test software without having an actual dialogic board installed in the computer? Ideally I would like to install some kind of "dummy" driver pretending to be an actual dialogic board. Then use software to simulate the phone line, eg. ring, dialtones, etc. Adnan ------------------------------ From: Carl Navarro Subject: Re: New Trick Telemarkters Are Using Date: Sat, 06 Apr 2002 07:01:44 -0500 Organization: Airnews.net! at Internet America On 5 Apr 2002 05:06:43 -0700, tknab@nyx.net (Terry Knab) wrote: > Has anyone see this come up on thier caller ID lately? > 800-xxx-xxxx (some toll free number) and out of area? > I sense some telemarketers are doing this to avoid things like privacy > manager and such. > Anyone got thoughts on how they do this? Maybe they have a PRI and properly programmed it? Carl Navarro [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But Carl, its impossible to have your PRI 'properly programmed' AND have 800-xxx-xxxx as the number. You see, *there is no such thing* as an OUTGOING 800 number. 800/888 etc are for INCOMING CALLS only. Your PRI is supposed to be your outgoing number, isn't it? For your outgoing calls, you would be on some more 'traditional' area code. If a number shows up on my caller ID box I would like to have it be the number that was calling me. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Gail M. Hall Subject: Re: New Trick Telemarkters Are Using Date: Sat, 06 Apr 2002 17:31:22 -0500 Reply-To: gmhall@apk.net On 5 Apr 2002 05:06:43 -0700, in comp.dcom.telecom, you (tknab@nyx.net (Terry Knab)) wrote: > Has anyone see this come up on thier caller ID lately? > 800-xxx-xxxx (some toll free number) and out of area? > I sense some telemarketers are doing this to avoid things like privacy > manager and such. > Anyone got thoughts on how they do this? I don't have caller ID on my phone, but in my opinion, if the number is a valid contact number for the company doing the calling, then I think that makes good sense. After all, if you did decide to call them back, wouldn't you prefer the number to be a valid contact number? After reading various comments in this group about the frequency of invalid number showing or incorrect numbers showing or no info available, etc., I have no real incentive to pay actual $$$ to subscribe to the caller ID "service" from my phone company. If the marketing company is not displaying their own number or the valid contact number for their clients such that some other innocent party gets their toll-free service charged, then that would be criminal theft, IMO. Gail from Ohio USA ------------------------------ From: dave@compata.com (Dave Close) Subject: Re: Local Number Portability (was re: FCC to Vote ...) Organization: Compata, Costa Mesa, California Date: Sat, 06 Apr 2002 18:59:51 GMT Ed Ellers writes: > Why can't an NXX or a thousands block be mirrored, at the CLEC's > option, in more than one rate center? Certainly, it could be mirrored technically, though there might be a need for some programming not now in place. The real problem is regulation. If one carrier were allowed to have a number block be present in multiple rate centers, it would be effectively consoli- dating rate centers, and that is something the regulators insist is their sole perogative. There has been some movement toward rate center consolidation recently, but nowhere near enough. I've written before, starting several years ago, that the distinction between "local" and "long distance" calls is an historical artifact, and is now purely artificial and should be eliminated. Most of the cell phone companies have realized this and now offer plans which treat all calls the same. It is only a matter of time until the wireline companies are forced to do the same. In fact, some are, though the prices I've seen are comparable to the cell plan prices, and thus far too high since they don't include any air time. The only logical rate center now is a national boundary. If it weren't for the absurd taxes most countries impose on telephone calls, even that limit might become obsolete. Telephones are no longer a luxury and should not be subject to any excise tax. I suspect that nationwide flat-rate telephone service in the US could be offered for about what most people pay for just local service today. To me, the desireability of wide-area flat-rate pricing is so strong that it is one of the major reasons for opposing any "toll alerting" schemes. Those schemes just inhibit the evolution of the system and condition people to accept the idea that some calls should cost more. I wrote: > Actually, as I understand how number portability works, allowing it > would /increase/ the number of numbers in use, not decrease it. That Mark J Cuccia responded: > So, while there are "two" ten-digit NANP POTS numbers involved, the > actual "routing" or forwarding number is a single generic "default" > number used for any/all porting to that ported-to central office > switch, and not a unique one-to-one mapping based on any dialed > number. Thanks to Mark and the others who corrected my understanding. I am pleased to know that things are more efficient than I thought. But the original post to which I was responding claimed that number portability would decrease the need for number assignments. While I was wrong that the need would increase, it still seems that it won't decrease. Dave Close, Compata, Costa Mesa CA "Politics is the business of getting dave@compata.com, +1 714 434 7359 power and privilege without dhclose@alumni.caltech.edu possessing merit." - P. J. O'Rourke ------------------------------ Date: 6 Apr 2002 09:32:04 -0500 From: John Stahl Subject: Jennifer Martino Bad Link Pat, The link on your site (Ref. Issue TELECOM Digest Fri, 5 Apr 2002 22:43:00 EST Volume 20 : Issue 215) for the subject, reports back that the link is NG. Perhaps she changed her site or something. Any suggestions? John Stahl Consultant - Telecommunications and Data Aljon Enterprises Endwell, NY USA URL: http://home.att.net/~aljon [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I removed the link to 'The Web Page You Have Dialed' earlier today. I do not know what happened to Jennifer and her web site. It had some good stuff. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 6 Apr 2002 00:53:27 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: News Headlines of Interest Motorola seeks to make its phones easier to use Apr 5, 2002 05:27 PM By Sinead Carew NEW YORK, April 4 (Reuters) - Motorola Inc.(NYSE:MOT) said it will introduce new wireless telephone screens designed to be as easy to use as those of Nokia Ab, Oy (HELS:NOK1V) (NYSE:NOK) and Samsung (KOREA:00830), making it simple for customers to switch brands without learning a whole new system. http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=26738894 ---------------- EchoStar Pulls Out of Satellite Net Access By Tiffany Kary Staff Writer, CNET News.com April 5, 2002, 3:10 PM PT EchoStar Communications is backing out of its satellite-based Internet access business in what many see as a tactic to pressure U.S. regulators to approve its proposed takeover of Hughes Electronics. The move could also paint EchoStar into a corner if the merger doesn't get approved. As of mid-April, EchoStar will stop accepting new customers for its Internet access service via satellite, a business done in joint venture with McLean, Va.-based StarBand Communications and Israel's Gilat Satellite Networks. The money-losing venture has managed to attract only 40,000 U.S. subscribers. http://news.com.com/2100-1033-877154.html ------------------- Communications Pioneer Pierce Dies Apr 5, 2002 07:11 PM (AP Online) By MATTHEW FORDAHL AP Technology Writer SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) - John Robinson Pierce, an electrical engineer who pioneered satellite communications and coined the word "transistor," has died. He was 92. Pierce, who died Tuesday in Sunnyvale, also was a musician and science fiction writer. He recorded some of the first synthesized music and wrote under the pen name J.J. Coupling. But he once said his greatest contribution took place in 1948 while he worked at Bell Laboratories, then the research arm of AT&T. Colleagues had invented a solid state device that amplified electrical signals. ... http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=26739950 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 6 Apr 2002 16:14:34 PST From: Eric Friedebach Reply-To: friedebach@yahoo.com Subject: Java: It's What's On The Cell Phone Anxious for a positive development, telcos push Web services By Christopher T. Heun, Information Week, April 1, 2002 At least in some eyes, all that the punch-drunk telco industry needs in order to recover is a set of exciting new services -- Web services, to be exact. Wireless phone carriers are working up enthusiasm for proposed wireless data services such as text messaging, E-mail, and video games due this year. Most of those services are being written in Java, with Microsoft's .Net a second choice for developers. .Net-enabled phones with a similar array of services are expected to be available before year's end. http://www.informationweek.com/story/IWK20020329S0031 Eric Friedebach ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 06 Apr 2002 15:40:33 -0500 From: Marcus Didius Falco Subject: HDTV White Elephants There was a big article in the business section of Friday's Washington Post about Chairman Powell of the FCC trying to jawbone the TV industry and the manufacturers to speed up the introduction of HDTV If the copy protection in the article below occurs, when word gets out, then the whole HDTV industry will just about die. * Original: FROM.... Dave Farber -----Original Message----- From: "Gregory Soo" < Date: Sat, 6 Apr 2002 12:08:19 Subject: HDTV white elephants John Dvorak (April 2 2002): http://www.pcmag.com/article/0,2997,s=1493&a=24658,00.asp ... It appears that the new copy-protection schemes being dreamed up by Hollywood will make every single HDTV set sold to date obsolete. And buyers of new sets are not being told about this situation in a dubious attempt to dump very expensive inventory. I'm sure those of you who spent $5,000 to $10,000 for what may become an albatross are going to love reading this. What happened was that the Hollywood folks, who are just freaked over the possibility that we'll be copying HDTV movies, have promoted copy protection that requires the decode circuit to be built into the display, not into the set-top box. This requires the set-top box to send a signal to a connector that new HDTV sets will have. If you're thinking of buying an HDTV, don't, unless it has this connector and circuit-whenever they are finalized. I suspect that this copy protection mechanism will be used for certain broadcasts, too, since there has been a lot of talk about copy-protecting DSS and other transmissions. The concept is that when copy protection is put within the circuitry of the display, you can't decode something with a set-top box and then grab the signal as it comes out of the box and before it gets to the screen. Meanwhile, the HDTV-promoting Consumer Electronics Association is going to eat crow if all the current HDTV sets turn out to be white elephants. I see no evidence that this mess will be resolved without a lot of burned consumers. All the Hollywood studios are belatedly demanding the new system. I suppose an expensive retrofit could be developed, but it probably won't be ... For archives see: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/ To reply use the address below: falco_marcus_didius yahoo.co.uk ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 06 Apr 2002 15:42:46 -0500 From: Marcus Didius Falco Subject: Obituary: Comm Pioneer (and SF Writer, musician) John Pierce * Original: FROM..... Dave Farber I had the privilege of knowing John djf Communications Pioneer Pierce Dies By MATTHEW FORDAHL AP Technology Writer April 5, 2002, 7:11 PM EST SAN JOSE, Calif. -- John Robinson Pierce, an electrical engineer who pioneered satellite communications and coined the word "transistor," has died. He was 92. Pierce, who died Tuesday in Sunnyvale, also was a musician and science fiction writer. He recorded some of the first synthesized music and wrote under the pen name J.J. Coupling. But he once said his greatest contribution took place in 1948 while he worked at Bell Laboratories, then the research arm of AT&T. Colleagues had invented a solid state device that amplified electrical signals. One of the inventors, Walter Brattain, knew of Pierce's ability with words and asked for advice for a name. He suggested it be called a transistor. "It was supposed to be the dual of the vacuum tube," he said in a PBS interview for the program "Transitorized!" "The vacuum tube had transconductance, so the transistor would have 'transresistance.' "And the name should fit in with the names of other devices, such as varistor and thermistor," he said. "And ... I suggested the name 'transistor.'" The name stuck and transistors would be used to develop everything from small radios to computers, ushering in the digital age. In 1954, Pierce said satellite communication would be possible by bouncing signals off an orbiting object, an idea first proposed by science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke in 1945. Pierce's ideas were proven in 1960 with the launch of Echo, a giant balloon that bounced phone calls across the country from the Bell Labs facility in Crawford Hill, N.J. In 1962, he played a key role in the development and launch of Telstar, the first active communications satellite. In addition to carrying phone traffic, it relayed the first live television images between the United States and Europe. Pierce won one of engineering's top awards, the Draper Prize, with fellow satellite pioneer Harold Rosen in 1995. Pierce retired from Bell Labs in 1971 as director of research in communications. He returned to his alma mater, the California Institute of Technology and its Jet Propulsion Laboratory, as an engineering professor. Later, he was a music professor at Stanford University and wrote books on theories of music and sound. He is survived by his wife, Brenda Woodard Pierce, as well as a son and daughter from a previous marriage. http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-obit-pierce0406apr05.sto ry?coll=sns%2Dap%2Dnationworld%2Dheadlines For archives see: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/ To reply use the address below: falco_marcus_didius yahoo.co.uk ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 06 Apr 2002 15:45:04 -0500 From: Marcus Didius Falco Subject: More on ATTBI / Eudora / SSL and Semi-Open Relays * Original: FROM..... Dave Farber - Forwarded Message From: Kai Lui Date: Sat, 06 Apr 2002 14:14:41 -0500 Subject: Re: IP: More on ATTBI / Eudora / SSL I'm catching up on old email so please excuse the tardiness of my comments. Verizon's SMTP blocking is NOT an anti-spam measure, as the company claims, but a way to force their users to switch domain hosts (Interland is their outsource partner). Once you switch, they allow you to use your own domain name in outgoing emails. Anyone can send an email through Verizon's smtp server so long as the reply address is in the verizon.net or bellatlantic.net domain, regardless of the validity of the account. (I just tried, and I'm not a Verizon customer). Any spammer can use this essentially open relay. Kai Lui Computer Consultant ------ End of Forwarded Message For archives see: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/ To reply use the address below: falco_marcus_didius yahoo.co.uk ------------------------------ From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Spring Ahead Date: Sat, 06 Apr 2002 23:00:00 Just a note to readers: As you read this issue of the Digest Saturday night or Sunday sometime, be certain that your clocks reflect the correct time. Set your clocks forward one hour if you are in most areas of the USA, and a few other countries as well, since Sunday at 2:00 AM (your local time) starts Daylight Saving Time. And what are the other two things you are supposed to do at clock change time each year? Well, for one, check the batteries in your smoke detectors and two, send your moderator a modest offering for the next year. Since I was not around last year to put out any Digests, and thus could not give you any nag-ware messages on same, we will just write last year off. However some of you have not remitted anything for at last two or three years or longer, and it would be a great help to me if you would do so at this time: (Amounts are your choice). TELECOM Digest / Post Office Box 50 / Independence, KS 67301. Oh and do not forget to check/change those batteries/clocks! Thanks. Patrick Townson ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V20 #216 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sun Apr 7 17:56:31 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id RAA15188; Sun, 7 Apr 2002 17:56:31 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sun, 7 Apr 2002 17:56:31 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200204072156.RAA15188@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #217 TELECOM Digest Sun, 7 Apr 2002 17:56:00 EDT Volume 20 : Issue 217 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: New Trick Telemarkters Are Using (Carl Navarro) Re: New Trick Telemarkters Are Using (Ken) Re: New Trick Telemarkters Are Using (Terry Knab) Re: Jennifer Martino Bad Link (Colin Sutton) Your Cell Phone Is Watching You (Monty Solomon) Re: Talking With Robot Agents (Leela) MCI Litigation (R.H. Townsend) Global Crossing Litigation (R.H.Townsend) Cringely on DSL or Sorry, Wrong Number (Why Telco Hates DSL) (M. Falco) Re: Local Number Portability (was re: FCC to Vote ...) (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-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 630-841-7174 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@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 * * Judith Oppenheimer, President of ICB Inc. and purveyor of accurate * * 800 & Dot Com News, Intelligence, Analysis, and Consulting. * * http://ICBTollFree.com, http://1800TheExpert.com * * Views expressed herein should not be construed as representing * * views of Judith Oppenheimer or ICB Inc. * ************************************************************************* ICB Toll Free News. Contact information is not sold, rented or leased. Access to Premium (P) links requires upgrade to a paid subscription. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Only subscribers or registered users of ICB Toll Free News web site will be able to access all or some of the full text of URLs provided. LEGAL STUFF: TELECOM Digest (sm) is owned by Patrick Townson. Copyright 2000 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. 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: Carl Navarro Subject: Re: New Trick Telemarkters Are Using Date: Sun, 07 Apr 2002 01:14:32 -0500 Organization: Airnews.net! at Internet America On Sat, 06 Apr 2002 07:01:44 -0500, Carl Navarro wrote: > On 5 Apr 2002 05:06:43 -0700, tknab@nyx.net (Terry Knab) wrote: >> Has anyone see this come up on thier caller ID lately? >> 800-xxx-xxxx (some toll free number) and out of area? >> I sense some telemarketers are doing this to avoid things like privacy >> manager and such. >> Anyone got thoughts on how they do this? > Maybe they have a PRI and properly programmed it? > Carl Navarro > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But Carl, its impossible to have your > PRI 'properly programmed' AND have 800-xxx-xxxx as the number. You > see, *there is no such thing* as an OUTGOING 800 number. 800/888 etc > are for INCOMING CALLS only. Your PRI is supposed to be your outgoing > number, isn't it? For your outgoing calls, you would be on some more > 'traditional' area code. If a number shows up on my caller ID box I > would like to have it be the number that was calling me. PAT] Well, not exactly true Pat. Verizon nee GTE has been doing that for years. If I call you on any of my lines, it reports the pilot number. Not really a bad thing to do, since it sure makes it easy for contact manager software and number recognition. An outbound PRI has no trunk number assigned to it in most cases, leaving you with the "out of area" or "unknown" report from the CID database. Which would you rather have, a return number to call, or "Unknown?" I'll take a number :-) Carl [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Given those two choices (unknown/out of area or a dummy callback number which at least gets to someone/something at the caller's premises), I suppose I would agree with you. Since non-geographic area codes are possible now, with ease, how about an 'area code' for telemarketers such as '666' and drop them all in there. PAT] ------------------------------ From: ken Subject: Re: New Trick Telemarkters Are Using Date: Sun, 7 Apr 2002 09:09:19 +0100 Organization: ntlworld News Service Terry Knab wrote in message news:telecom20.215.2@telecom-digest.org... > Has anyone see this come up on thier caller ID lately? > 800-xxx-xxxx (some toll free number) and out of area? > I sense some telemarketers are doing this to avoid things like privacy > manager and such. > Anyone got thoughts on how they do this? Not sure about N. America, but certainly in UK, it is possible to have "Presentation Numbers" sent to the called party. The PN can be a toll-free or other non-geographic number, but the regulator stipulates it must be "owned" by the subscriber, to prevent abuse. There are different types of PN -- some fixed in the subscriber's public exchange, others sent by its PBX (using ISDN). Many PBX systems can now assign PNs to specific extensions for outgoing calls. Properly used, it can be of benefit to both parties. There would be no point in making a return call to a main switchboard number (the default case where there is no PN), but where the PN points to a recording, or auto-attendant, the called parties can find out who called without bothering an operator. Of course, telemarketers can and do use it to defeat Anonymous Call Rejection, but they could do that with a geographic number anyway. ------------------------------ From: tknab@nyx.net (Terry Knab) Subject: Re: New Trick Telemarkters Are Using Organization: The Home Office Date: 7 Apr 2002 05:55:39 -0700 Gail M. Hall wrote: > I don't have caller ID on my phone, but in my opinion, if the number > is a valid contact number for the company doing the calling, then I > think that makes good sense. After all, if you did decide to call > them back, wouldn't you prefer the number to be a valid contact > number? I called one of thsoe numbers back (from a prepaid cell phone, which seems to be quite useful for this sort of thing) ... they were like 'if you missed our call, we'll call back, so hang up' ... or press 2 to enter your number and get off our call list. ------------------------------ From: Colin Sutton Subject: Re: Jennifer Martino Bad Link Date: Sun, 07 Apr 2002 13:23:31 GMT Organization: BigPond Internet Services (http://www.bigpond.net.au) Are these the messages, on http://heymoe.freeyellow.com/? Colin Sutton John Stahl wrote in message news:telecom20.216.5@telecom-digest.org: > Pat, > The link on your site (Ref. Issue TELECOM Digest Fri, 5 Apr 2002 22:43:00 > Volume 20 : Issue 215) for the subject, reports back that the link is NG. > Perhaps she changed her site or something. Any suggestions? > John Stahl > Consultant - Telecommunications and Data > Aljon Enterprises > Endwell, NY USA > URL: http://home.att.net/~aljon > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I removed the link to 'The Web Page > You Have Dialed' earlier today. I do not know what happened to > Jennifer and her web site. It had some good stuff. PAT] [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I have never before heard of 'heymoe. freeyellow'. Exactly what is it? PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 7 Apr 2002 10:46:30 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Your Cell Phone Is Watching You YOUR CELL PHONE IS WATCHING YOU Chris Kanaracus, Valley Advocate The tracking ability of cell phones will soon grow exponentially, as the FCC has ordered all new phones to be equipped with GPS tracking devices. http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12776 ------------------------------ From: lajavakom@yahoo.com.au (Leela) Subject: Re: Talking With Robot Agents Date: 7 Apr 2002 08:22:25 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Dear All, Thank you for all comments on this topic. I'd like to add more benefits about this. I read from articles and understood that if companies apply this technology, it will help operators or live agents answering simple questions. Then they can go for the complex question so it also reduce the time consuming for customers. I'd like to hear more comments on the advantages and disadvantages affecting both companies, which apply this technology and customers, who use it. ------------------------------ From: rht@allweb.com (R.H. Townsend) Subject: MCI Date: 7 Apr 2002 10:20:14 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ I believe that everyone in telemarketing is aware of the class action litigation involving MCI (listed on NYSE: MCI) I am involved in similar litigation with MCI, it's officers and subsidiaries. As or more importantly, if you are a former employee MCI, especially in the telemarketing sales area or public relations, news releases to the public, I need your help very badly. I really need to hear from you ASAP. . I need to hear your story. Please take a moment and call me, Robert Townsend, toll free at 1-800-308-7716, Ext 4007. Thank you for your cooperation. ------------------------------ From: rht@allweb.com (R.H. Townsend) Subject: Global Crossing Date: 7 Apr 2002 10:21:17 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ I believe that everyone in daytrading/long term investments, stock brokerage and securities dealings is aware of the litigation involving the dramatic drop in the value Global Crossings (listed on NYSE: GBLXQ) stock and it's subsequent Chapter 11 filing for reorganization, investigation by the FBI and SEC which has generated class action litigation. I am involved in similar litigation with Global Crossing it's officers and subsidiaries. I need your help very badly. If you were damaged by the restatement of the financial statements and earnings of Global Crossings , it's officers or subsidiaries I need to hear your story. As or more importantly, if you are a former employee of Global Crossings, especially in the financial, stock transactions area or public relations, news releases to the investing community or Sales the public, I really need to hear from you ASAP. Please take a moment and call me, Robert Townsend, toll free at 1-800-873-9657, Ext 4007. Thank you for your cooperation. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 06 Apr 2002 22:43:45 -0500 From: Marcus Didius Falco Subject: Cringely on DSL or Sorry, Wrong Number Why Your * Original: FROM..... Dave Farber http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20010222.html Sorry, Wrong Number (Why Your Phone Company Hates DSL) By Robert X. Cringely My next-door neighbor is an engineer who works for Cisco Systems doing something having to do with optical networking. Like me, he has been frustrated by the problems of rural Web surfing. But unlike me, he is honest about his situation. "I'm a bandwidth junky," he says. Give the man DSL and he'll want a T-1. Give him a T-1 and he'll lust for a T-3. And the truth is we are all that way. Everyone I know would like a faster Internet connection. That's the attraction of DSL, which is the fastest connection at a good price that most of us can get. Yet DSL is to many people a disappointment because it can be so hard to get in the first place and often hard to keep running. Both of these problems can be traced back to a source that isn't your ISP and probably isn't your DSL provider, either. The problem is your phone company. Avram Miller was not long ago a vice president of Intel charged with managing the company's $1 billion venture portfolio. Now he is out of Intel running his own Avram Miller Company doing much the same work. Avram lives in the next valley over from me in a rammed earth house on a hill above the Kenwood winery. Avram, too, is a bandwidth junky. Going further, he's a bandwidth junky with money. And that makes it especially frustrating that from his hilltop perch he can actually see, only a quarter mile away, the telephone company central office (CO) that serves his home, yet Avram Miller can't get DSL service. His phone company (Verizon) doesn't offer it from that CO and there is no other DSL provider in the building, either. And while this situation bugs the heck out of Avram Miller -- a guy who is pondering starting his own DSL company just to get DSL -- it doesn't bother the phone company at all. If anything, this is the outcome many phone companies prefer. To understand this phenomenon, you have to think about how the telecommunication business has changed in the last decade. In the beginning there was Ma Bell, and she was your phone company pretty much anywhere in America. Then, in 1983, AT&T tired of a long anti-trust fight with the government and proposed to end the case by splitting itself into many parts. AT&T would retain the long distance phone service -- where the real money was being made back then -- while local service would stay with a number of Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs). Judge Green said yes, and the current phone market was born. Years passed, and the RBOCs also began to lust for some of that lucrative long distance revenue. So they asked the Federal Communications Commission for the right to enter the long distance market. The price of entry was defined in the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which said that the RBOCs could enter the long distance business IF they would allow other companies to compete for local phone service and IF they would deploy "advanced network services," which means DSL. So the RBOCs -- your local phone company -- became ILEC's (Incumbant Local Exchange Carriers), and a new class of local phone companies was born called CLECs (Competitive Local Exchange Carriers). CLECs have rack space in the Central Office run by the ILEC. CLECs use the ILECs phone lines, too. But most CLECs don't do much voice service. Most of them just provide DSL. Covad, Northpoint, and Rhythms are all examples of CLECs that concentrate on DSL service. The ILECs have not generally been very kind to the CLECs, and give them as poor service as possible. They are, after all, competitors. But even worse, from the perspective of the ILECs, is the fact that their original reason for entering into this unholy alliance -- to be able to sell long distance service -- isn't, itself, the money maker it used to be. Long distance, which inspired not only the Telecom Reform Act of 1996 but also the AT&T breakup of 1983, is today a business with almost no profit. That's exactly why AT&T has spent over $100 billion to enter the mobile phone, cable TV, Internet, and local telephone markets -- their long distance business sucks. The decline of the long distance business has changed the competitive landscape for other services, too, as the ILECs adjust. And that adjustment is what this column is all about. Right now most CLEC and DSL stocks are in the toilet, which is exactly what the ILECs want. They want weak competitors and horror stories about broadband. Their plan has worked perfectly. Not that the ILECs have engineered our slowing economy, but this weakness among the CLECs mean there is no pressure for the ILECs to beef up their own broadband initiatives, so DSL doesn't make it to Kenwood. There is gear available that would allow DSL almost everywhere, but who wants to spend that kind of money? The CLECs can't because they're all on life support. The ILECs don't want to because it'll cut into profits. With no competitive pressure to do so, why bother? This is at the heart of why Verizon cancelled its purchase of Northpoint. It is why Northpoint is suing Verizon, and why some Verizon customers are suing over delayed DSL deployments. The ILECs actually WANT to delay DSL deployment. They don't want the technology to succeed too quickly because that would mean massive upgrades to field gear and cuts into profits. The only reason why any ILEC built out a DSL product line was because of competitive pressure from CLECs and that darned Telecommunications Act of 1996, which they wanted so much at the time but now hate. With long distance dead as a profit center, the CLECs have swooned and the ILECs are back at square one -- trying to boost profits by not spending money. Why upgrade when you can charge the same amount for use of a hundred year-old plant? It appears to me that the ILECs are for the most part treating their DSL service as a loss leader. They've priced it so low to compete with CLEC offerings that they cannot possibly make any money at it. This is why they are delaying customer installations. Why not hold that money-losing installation a few more months until all the DSL CLECs are dead, then raise prices? The ILECs have obviously learned something from Microsoft. This is all bad news for a nation of bandwidth junkies. It means DSL will get to your network later than expected and eventually cost more than expected. The saddest part of all is that this is a product that will revolutionize society, yet there are lots of people trying to stop that. For archives see: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/ To reply use the address below: falco_marcus_didius yahoo.co.uk ------------------------------ From: Ed Ellers Subject: Re: Local Number Portability (was re: FCC to Vote ...) Date: Sun, 7 Apr 2002 01:10:20 -0500 Dave Close wrote: > I suspect that nationwide flat-rate telephone service in the US could be > offered for about what most people pay for just local service today." Except that would destroy the interexchange carrier industry, aside from the "carriers' carriers" that actually operate large fiber networks, meaning that there would be a *lot* of yelling and screaming to Congress from those whose businesses would be destroyed in one fell swoop. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V20 #217 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Apr 8 14:11:12 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id OAA05737; Mon, 8 Apr 2002 14:11:12 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 8 Apr 2002 14:11:12 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200204081811.OAA05737@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #218 TELECOM Digest Mon, 8 Apr 2002 14:00:00 EDT Volume 20 : Issue 218 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Telecom Update (Canada) #327, April 8, 2002 (Angus TeleManagement) Alternative to Do Not Call Lists (Chris Williams) Re: HDTV White Elephants (Robert Casey) Headlines of Interest (Monty Solomon) Another Clueless E-Mail Spammer With a Toll Free Number (Steven Lichter) Re: Cringely on DSL or Sorry, Wrong Number Why Your (Herb Stein) Re: MCI, Global Crossing, and 4th-Grade Grammar (Null) 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-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 630-841-7174 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@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 * * Judith Oppenheimer, President of ICB Inc. and purveyor of accurate * * 800 & Dot Com News, Intelligence, Analysis, and Consulting. * * http://ICBTollFree.com, http://1800TheExpert.com * * Views expressed herein should not be construed as representing * * views of Judith Oppenheimer or ICB Inc. * ************************************************************************* ICB Toll Free News. Contact information is not sold, rented or leased. Access to Premium (P) links requires upgrade to a paid subscription. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Only subscribers or registered users of ICB Toll Free News web site will be able to access all or some of the full text of URLs provided. LEGAL STUFF: TELECOM Digest (sm) is owned by Patrick Townson. Copyright 2000 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. 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, 08 Apr 2002 10:53:43 -0400 From: Angus TeleManagement Subject: Telecom Update (Canada) #327, April 8, 2002 TELECOM UPDATE published weekly by Angus TeleManagement Group http://www.angustel.ca Number 327: April 8, 2002 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 ** GROUP TELECOM http://www.gt.ca ** LUCENT TECHNOLOGIES CANADA http://www.lucent.ca ** PRIMUS CANADA: http://www.primustel.ca ** Q9 NETWORKS: http://www.Q9.com ** TELUS: http://www.telus.com ** UNISPHERE NETWORKS: http://www.unispherenetworks.com ************************************************************ IN THIS ISSUE: ** Cellcos Launch Inter-Carrier Messaging ** Call-Net Debt Slashed ** Videotron Focuses on Business Telecom ** Quebecor Says BCE Funding of ExpressVu Unfair ** Price Cap Decision Delayed ** Nortel, Teleglobe Debt Gets Junk Rating ** Teleglobe Closes Sale of Excel ** RIM to License BlackBerry Technology ** BCE to Take Over Intrigna? ** AT&T Predicts Bigger Canadian Loss ** New York to Get 11-Digit Dialing ** BCE Emergis to Lay Off 550 ** On-Line Sales Up 43% in 2001 ** Bell Adds Minimum Fee to First Rate Plan ** Shaw, @Home Sue Each Other ** Onlinetel Readies VOIP Network ** CWTA Signs Partner for Fall Trade Show ** Exclusive -- Telus Execs Outline Ontario Strategy ============================================================ CELLCOS LAUNCH INTER-CARRIER MESSAGING: On April 2, Canada's four national cellular carriers launched the first multi-carrier wireless text messaging service in North America. Customers simply address their SMS text messages to the recipient wireless phone number, regardless of which carrier they use. (See Telecom Update #308) CALL-NET DEBT SLASHED: Call-Net has received the court's go-ahead to implement changes that will reduce the company's debt by $2 billion. On April 3, 97% of Call-Net's noteholders and 96% of its shareholders voted to approve the deal, under which current creditors will trade their bonds for 80% of the company's stock, plus cash and new bonds. (See Telecom Update #321) VIDEOTRON FOCUSES ON BUSINESS TELECOM: Now that it has purchased Stream's assets (see Telecom Update #326), Quebecor subsidiary Videotron Telecom says it is "back on track and back in the black." President Eugene Marquis says the company is now focused exclusively on business telecommunications services and will hire sales and marketing staff to support growth in the Toronto-Ottawa- Montreal corridor. QUEBECOR SAYS BCE FUNDING OF EXPRESSVU UNFAIR: In a letter to CRTC Chair Charles Dalfen, Quebecor CEO Pierre-Karl Peladeau accuses BCE of "a blatant form of cross- subsidization" of its ExpressVu subsidiary, which competes for broadcast subscribers against Quebecor-owned Videotron. PRICE CAP DECISION DELAYED: The CRTC says that its Price Cap decision, previously scheduled for April, will be released "on or before 31 May 2002." ** "ARC et al," a major consumer alliance that has participated in the price cap proceeding, has reiterated its support for a Call-Net/AT&T request that telco rates be made interim (see Telecom Update #313) so that the new price cap regime could be made retroactive when approved. NORTEL, TELEGLOBE DEBT GETS JUNK RATING: Moody's Investors Services has cut the rating of Nortel Networks and BCE Teleglobe senior unsecured debt three notches to Ba3, a junk grade. ** Nortel says the downgrade will not have a significant impact on its operations. Teleglobe will comment Wednesday. (See Telecom Update #324) TELEGLOBE CLOSES SALE OF EXCEL: BCE's Teleglobe unit has finalized the sale of Excel Communications to VarTec Telecom for proceeds of US$227.5 million in promissory notes. (See Telecom Update #297) RIM TO LICENSE BLACKBERRY TECHNOLOGY: Research In Motion plans to offer other manufacturers a "comprehensive hardware and software platform" enabling them to build BlackBerry-type devices. BlackBerry's custom-designed chip will also be made generally available by Analog Devices. BCE TO TAKE OVER INTRIGNA? Last December, BCE announced that it was negotiating with Manitoba Telecom Services to gain greater control over Bell Intrigna, the western CLEC they jointly own. An unconfirmed Globe & Mail report now says that BCE wants to trade part or all of its 20% share of MTS for full control of Intrigna, which it would then merge with Bell Nexxia. The deal may be completed this month. AT&T PREDICTS BIGGER CANADIAN LOSS: In its quarterly 10-K filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, AT&T Corp. says it expects AT&T Canada's current review of financial alternatives to "have a negative effect on the underlying value of AT&T Canada shares," and that this will result in "up to US$250 million in additional losses" on AT&T Corp's commitment to buy AT&T Canada shares next year. (See Telecom Update #324) NEW YORK TO GET 11-DIGIT DIALING: Effective February 1, 2003, all local calls in New York City, including those within the same Area Code, will require 11 digits -- 1 plus the Area Code plus the 7-digit local number. BCE EMERGIS TO LAY OFF 550: BCE Emergis says it will "streamline our service offering and cost structure," laying off 550 employees (20% of its total) and discontinuing non-core services. ON-LINE SALES UP 43% IN 2001: Statistics Canada says Canadian businesses received $10.4 billion in revenue from on-line sales in 2001, 78% from sales to other businesses. On-line sales were up 43.4% from 2000 but were still only 0.5% of total business revenue for the year. BELL ADDS MINIMUM FEE TO FIRST RATE PLAN: Starting in May, subscribers to Bell Canada's First Rate residential long distance plan will pay a minimum fee of $4.95 a month for up to 60 minutes of off-peak calls in Canada. SHAW, @HOME SUE EACH OTHER: @Home Corp. is suing Shaw Cablesystems for US$65 million for breach of contract. Shaw has countersued for $120 million, claiming that @Home stopped providing service. (See Telecom Update #323) ONLINETEL READIES VOIP NETWORK: Onlinetel, a unit of Toronto-based Eiger Technology, plans to activate a Voice Over IP network with points of presence in nine Canadian cities and New York by mid-May. http://www.onlinetel.com ** Eiger says public trading of its shares will begin next month. CWTA SIGNS PARTNER FOR FALL TRADE SHOW: The Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association has agreed to produce its fall conference and trade show jointly with Expo Comm Events. This fall's event, planned for November 5-7 in Toronto, is now called Expo Comm Canada Communications 2002. EXCLUSIVE -- TELUS EXECS OUTLINE ONTARIO STRATEGY: In the April issue of Telemanagement, three Telus executives describe the company's expansion strategy in Central Canada. ** Single copies of Telemanagement #194 are $75 each -- call 905-686-5050 ext 500 and charge to Visa, American Express, or Mastercard. Save 49% with a 10-issue subscription -- go to http://www.angustel.ca/teleman/tm-sub.html. ============================================================ 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: TelecomUpdate@add.postmastergeneral.com To stop receiving the e-mail edition, send an e-mail message to: TelecomUpdate@remove.postmastergeneral.com Sending e-mail to these addresses will automatically add or remove the sender's e-mail address from the list. 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If expert advice on the subject matter is required, the services of a competent professional should be obtained. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 07 Apr 2002 22:30:11 -0500 From: Chris Williams Subject: Alternative to Do Not Call Lists I don't know where the idea of the Do Not Call List first appeared, but it had to have been from people who didn't want it ever to have any realistic effect. There is so much work that you have to do if you really want it to work. You have to be put onto a ridiculous quantity of individual DNCLs, and then YOU have to track all the calls that you get to see whether a particular call is in violation. You catch one, and then you have to go to court. Why is all this work placed on the shoulders of the consumer? And then how long before you have to start the process all over again because your entry on a particular DNCL expired? It's absurd that WE have to do so much work to be left alone. Why has this become such a labor-intensive process? My personal feeling is that this whole DNCL concept is flawed and needs to be replaced by something that would actually work and not force people to pay for Caller ID or Anonymous Call Rejection or any of the other products and services marketed by your LEC and others; items that cost you both your money and your time. My proposal is to require all unsolicited marketing calls to be flagged by the caller's LEC or IXC, either by trunk or individual call, and for that indicator to become part of the call setup information. People not wishing to receive these types of calls can dial a *XX service code to tell the terminating switch to reject calls of this type. No work for the consumer other than to turn this service on once. The equipment does all the work as it should. Since it would be so unambiguous about which calls would be in violation, fines for telemarketers not having their calls flagged could be significantly greater, and, best of all, automatic. Using something like the *57 Call Trace function, fines could show up on the caller's bill the same way 900 numbers are billed. Are there any technical hurdles that couldn't be overcome, or are they all just political? Chris Williams ------------------------------ From: Robert Casey Subject: Re: HDTV White Elephants Date: Sun, 07 Apr 2002 18:01:58 -0400 Organization: wa2ise > The concept is that when copy protection is put within the circuitry > of the display, you can't decode something with a set-top box and then > grab the signal as it comes out of the box and before it gets to the > screen. If I take the back off the set, I'll be able to grab the signal just after it is converted from digital to analog by the DAC. Oh, I'd have to build some buffer circuits, but surely enough people on the various electronics newsgroups and web sites will tell how to do it. "I was a wrong number at the phone company" "The phone company's got your number!" ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 7 Apr 2002 22:36:08 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Headlines of Interest FCC official says "unthinkable" media deals possible Apr 7, 2002 03:21 PM By Jeremy Pelofsky LAS VEGAS, April 7 (Reuters) - Big mergers of media companies that were previously "unthinkable" may now pass regulatory muster to allow the industry to achieve efficiencies that could benefit the public, a top U.S. communications regulator said on Sunday. The Federal Communications Commission is facing a daunting task over the next several months of overhauling how it regulates ownership in the cable, broadcast and newspaper industries after many of its rules have come under fire from a federal appeals court. http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=26743436 'Crappy' WAP Bridging Gap By Elisa Batista 2:00 a.m. April 8, 2002 PDT As soon as they started getting thumb cramps and eyestrain from browsing the Web on their mobile phones, American consumers immediately shunned the so-called mobile Internet. The wireless application protocol -- WAP for short -- became a beacon for epithets. "WAP is crap" was a popular refrain. Some frustrated users said WAP stands for "what a pity." The "growing epidemic of WAPlash" struck fear into the hearts and minds of hopeful early adopters who wanted a scaled-down version of Web content on their cell phones. http://www.wired.com/news/wireless/0,1382,51516,00.html Motorola Shatters Industry Records for Cable Modem Service Scalability Apr 8, 2002 08:00 AM (PR Newswire) The Motorola BSR 64000 Connects Nearly 15,000 Cable Modem Customers -- Triple The Industry Average per Cable Modem Termination System (CMTS) HORSHAM, Pa., April 8 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Motorola, Inc. (NYSE:MOT) Broadband Communications Sector announced today that its customer, Cox Communications of Las Vegas, one of Cox's fastest growing regional cable television systems, has surpassed industry norms by supporting 14,700 cable modem customers on a single CMTS/router -- the Motorola Broadband Services Router (BSR) 64000. This quantity, which is approximately three times the number of cable modems typically reported to be connected to competitive cable modem termination systems (CMTS), demonstrates Motorola's technical leadership in building high-performance CMTS/routers. The BSR 64000's ability to support such large populations of cable modems has helped position it as one of the industry's leading CMTS/router platforms, selected by major networks around the world. http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=26747175 ------------------------------ From: stevenl11@aol.com (Steven Lichter) Date: 08 Apr 2002 01:43:52 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Another Clueless E-Mail Spammer With a Toll Free Number ... to teach this individual about the cost of owning an 800 number ... -----Original Message----- For A Private Consultation: Call Toll Free: 1-877-620-9024 Monday - Friday (9am - 9pm EST) Remember it is against the law to harrass anyone by telephone. Also you should use a payphone so that the operator can make a little money. Apple Elite II 909-359-5338. Home of GBBS/LLUCE, support for the Apple II 24 hours 2400/14.4. An OggNet Server. The only good spammer is a dead one!!! Have you hunted one down today? (c) Kill Spammers, Inc. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Steve, have you any idea what the nature of the consultation is to be about? Is it to instruct the caller on matters of making money fast; how to send massive spams for free on the net; or something more mundane like sex-talk? As I tell my chatters on America On Line and Yahoo Messenger each day, I don't do cyber; I don't do fone; and I don't send out naked pictures. And I don't get that many inquiries on making money fast or sending out spam. What does this one want to talk about? Any ideas? I guess readers will have to call 877-620-9024 and ask them what they want to chat about. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Herb Stein Subject: Re: Cringely on DSL or Sorry, Wrong Number Why Your Organization: Giganews.Com - Premium News Outsourcing Date: Mon, 08 Apr 2002 15:17:36 GMT Marcus Didius Falco wrote in message news:telecom20.217.9@telecom-digest.org: > * Original: FROM..... Dave Farber > http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20010222.html > Sorry, Wrong Number (Why Your Phone Company Hates DSL) > By Robert X. Cringely > My next-door neighbor is an engineer who works for Cisco Systems doing > something having to do with optical networking. Like me, he has been > frustrated by the problems of rural Web surfing. But unlike me, he is > honest about his situation. "I'm a bandwidth junky," he says. Give the > man DSL and he'll want a T-1. Give him a T-1 and he'll lust for a > T-3. And the truth is we are all that way. Everyone I know would like > a faster Internet connection. That's the attraction of DSL, which is > the fastest connection at a good price that most of us can get. Yet > DSL is to many people a disappointment because it can be so hard to > get in the first place and often hard to keep running. Both of these > problems can be traced back to a source that isn't your ISP and > probably isn't your DSL provider, either. The problem is your phone > company. > Avram Miller was not long ago a vice president of Intel charged with > managing the company's $1 billion venture portfolio. Now he is out of > Intel running his own Avram Miller Company doing much the same > work. Avram lives in the next valley over from me in a rammed earth > house on a hill above the Kenwood winery. Avram, too, is a bandwidth > junky. Going further, he's a bandwidth junky with money. And that > makes it especially frustrating that from his hilltop perch he can > actually see, only a quarter mile away, the telephone company central > office (CO) that serves his home, yet Avram Miller can't get DSL > service. His phone company (Verizon) doesn't offer it from that CO and > there is no other DSL provider in the building, either. And while this > situation bugs the heck out of Avram Miller -- a guy who is pondering > starting his own DSL company just to get DSL -- it doesn't bother the > phone company at all. If anything, this is the outcome many phone > companies prefer. > To understand this phenomenon, you have to think about how the > telecommunication business has changed in the last decade. In the > beginning there was Ma Bell, and she was your phone company pretty > much anywhere in America. Then, in 1983, AT&T tired of a long > anti-trust fight with the government and proposed to end the case by > splitting itself into many parts. > AT&T would retain the long distance phone service -- where the real > money was being made back then -- while local service would stay with > a number of Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs). Judge Green > said yes, and the current phone market was born. > Years passed, and the RBOCs also began to lust for some of that > lucrative long distance revenue. So they asked the Federal > Communications Commission for the right to enter the long distance > market. The price of entry was defined in the Telecommunications Act > of 1996, which said that the RBOCs could enter the long distance > business IF they would allow other companies to compete for local > phone service and IF they would deploy "advanced network services," > which means DSL. > For archives see: > http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/ Interesting article on why DSL is not as widespread as we might hope. At least here in the St. Louis, I'd guess that the competitive cable TV services (Charter Pipeline service in my area) rather than the CLECs are the main competition for SBCs DSL service. Herb Stein The Herb Stein Group www.herbstein.com herb@herbstein.com 314 952-4601 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Here in Independence, we have two local ISPs (one of which is actually locally owned by the Radio Shack guys) and the other one which used to be locally owned but is now owned by a conglomorate but with a local switch which they inherited but kept operating when they bought out the local guy). I think maybe that one is 'wired through' to their local office in Kansas City. Those of us 'lucky enough' to be within 15 thousand feet or so of the telephone building on Maple Street can get DSL, which means most folks in town, and the DSL identifies itself as Wichita, KS. The local cable service, Time-Warner, does not give cable modem service here in town, but they may start it 'some day'. In other words we do not get much choice. But, the DSL works pretty well. I've noticed that occassionally, the DSL connection simply refuses to go anywhere, and the DSL modem has to be reset, or the entire computer rebooted. I don't know why. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Null Subject: Re: MCI, Global Crossing, and 4th-Grade Grammar Date: Mon, 08 Apr 2002 02:25:34 GMT Organization: AT&T Worldnet R.H. Townsend wrote in message news:telecom20.217.7@telecom-digest.org: > ... I am involved in similar litigation with MCI, it's officers and > subsidiaries ... The word is "its". When picking over the dead husks of companies scavengers should at least have the decency to use correct grammar. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Probably, Null, you should blame me for being the indecent one. After all, I am the editor of this column and spend time each day going through adding and deleting things like commas, periods, 'question marks' and the like, and correcting some spelling now and then, although spelling is not my good point in life. I used to correct the Digest to the extent of the *Chicago Manual on Style* but I've stopped that since I no longer live in Chicago. That was today's ob-joke, or last laugh. I know that the word 'its' is an exception to the rule of adding 'apostrophe /s/' when making the word which follows a possession of the (pro)noun in front of it. For example, when describing a Note as the possession of the Editor, we are supposed to spell it 'E-D-I-T-O-R-apostrophe-S'. We do not do that in the case of the pronoun 'it' since that conflicts with the use of apostrophe-S when used for a contraction of 'it is'. When Mr. Townsend sent his correspondence to the Digest, he may or may not have known that fine point of English grammar, but I knew it. Trouble is, with my deseased brain, due to the aneurysm I was dealt as part of my hand, I don't always do as well on this Digest as I used to do in the past. I sometimes let things slide, such as not following the *Chicago Manual of Style* to the letter. But I did graduate from fourth grade, and can prove it. Another thing Editor has possession of are prerogatives; and one of Editor's prerogatives is to change subject lines as I wish, and to require writers to sign their names to what that they have written. I did not amend your subject line to read 'Last Laugh! Re: MCI, Global Crossing, et al' because I did not want to offend your sensibilities by making mock of your message, nor did I reject it for lack of name and email address, but I would appreciate it if in the future you would give a realname@address and ask me to remove it if you feel it is important. 'Null' isn't very creative is it? Anyway, don't blame Mr. Townsend, blame me. I should have caught it prior to printing. PAT ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V20 #218 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Apr 9 01:11:31 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id BAA19324; Tue, 9 Apr 2002 01:11:31 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 9 Apr 2002 01:11:31 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200204090511.BAA19324@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #219 TELECOM Digest Tue, 9 Apr 2002 01:11:00 EDT Volume 20 : Issue 219 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson ICB Toll Free News for 4/8/2002 (Judith Oppenheimer) Re: Alternative to Do Not Call Lists (Robert Krten) Re: FCC to Vote on Phone-Number Crunch (Scott D. Fybush) Re: HDTV White Elephants (Ed Ellers) Re: Another Clueless E-Mail Spammer With a Toll Free Number (S. Lichter) Re: Cringely on DSL or Sorry, Wrong Number Why Your (Barry Margolin) Re: Your Cell Phone Is Watching You (John Bartley) T1 / Laptop? Want to Web-Broadcast From Hotels (Mike Whalen) Re: Local Number Portability (was re: FCC to Vote ...) (Clarence Dold) Employment Opportunities: Telecom Careers (Jennifer Chamberlain) Re: MCI, Global Crossing, and 4th-Grade Grammar (Larry N. Osborne) 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-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 630-841-7174 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@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 * * Judith Oppenheimer, President of ICB Inc. and purveyor of accurate * * 800 & Dot Com News, Intelligence, Analysis, and Consulting. * * http://ICBTollFree.com, http://1800TheExpert.com * * Views expressed herein should not be construed as representing * * views of Judith Oppenheimer or ICB Inc. * ************************************************************************* ICB Toll Free News. Contact information is not sold, rented or leased. Access to Premium (P) links requires upgrade to a paid subscription. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Only subscribers or registered users of ICB Toll Free News web site will be able to access all or some of the full text of URLs provided. LEGAL STUFF: TELECOM Digest (sm) is owned by Patrick Townson. Copyright 2000 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. 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: Judith Oppenheimer Subject: ICB Toll Free News 4/8/2002 Date: Mon, 8 Apr 2002 22:37:32 -0400 http://ICBTollFreeNews.Com HEADS UP HEADLINES from ICB Toll Free News - Covering the Political, Legal and Marketing Arenas of 800, ENUM and Dot Com. CONTENTS FOR THE PERIOD ENDING APRIL 8, 2002 - IAB VERSUS VERISIGN, AKA WHAT'S THE ITU GOT TO DO WITH IT? - THE PAY PHONE PIRATES - ACM APPEALS TO ICANN TO SCALE DOWN - 800 SERVICE INTEGRITY REMAINS AN ACTIVE ENUM ISSUE - THE OTHER ALSC COMMENTS - THE END OF THE EXPERIMENT /=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= advertisement =-=-=-\ -- Lost and Stolen Number Retrieval -- ENUM Survival Strategies -- Crisis Resolution -- Vanity Number Issues, Guidance & Navigation -- Tollfree Number Traces -- Representation at SNAC, ENUM & ICANN Forums -- Strategic Leadership + Competitive Intelligence -- Custom Research Reports -- Custom Problem Solving: disputes, litigation support, RespOrg issues, etc. ICB Consultancy -- http://1800TheExpert.com \=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=.=/ Looking for the best 800 and long distance rates available today? Choose from multiple programs - Rates as low as 2.9 cents per minute, with no monthly minimums or hidden service charges! Click here: http://WhoSells800.com \=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=/ - WE SHOULD BE OVERCOMING ICANN BY LISTENING TO PAUL BARAN - NET HEAVYWEIGHTS: DEPOSE ICANN - PUBLIC FORUM LOCK DOWN - ICANN DIRECTOR SUES TO INSPECT BOOKS - GO FORTH AND MULTIPLY ____________________________________________________ ARTICLE ACCESS CODE LEGEND ICB Toll Free News offers two valuable service options: F = Free - News and Features articles P = Premium - Unlimited Site Access including all Articles and Documents. Registration information is not sold, leased or rented. *** For additional information about topics and stories, keyword search here: http://www.icbtollfree.com/Search.cfm. ____________________________________________________ P - IAB VERSUS VERISIGN, AKA WHAT'S THE ITU GOT TO DO WITH IT? RFC 2916 anticipated that ITU would take responsibility for determining the legitimacy and appropriateness of applicants for delegation of "country code"- level subdomains of the top-level ENUM domain. CONTINUED HERE: http://www.icbtollfree.com/article.cfm?articleId=5643 F - THE PAY PHONE PIRATES It appears that someone has created a "call center" of pay phones dialing toll free numbers solely for the purpose of collecting the dial- around compensation ... Using an automatic dialer hooked up to a bank of pay phones could make you a millionaire in less than a year. CONTINUED HERE: http://www.icbtollfree.com/article.cfm?articleId=5642 F - ACM APPEALS TO ICANN TO SCALE DOWN ... expresses concerns with the current state of Internet governance and the status of ICANN. CONTINUED HERE: http://www.icbtollfree.com/article.cfm?articleId=5641 P - 800 SERVICE INTEGRITY REMAINS AN ACTIVE ENUM ISSUE It is critical that certain controls and checks be inserted in the ENUM provisioning process to verify that the service integrity is maintained for non-geographic services to correlate with the non-geographic numbers being accessed, says Verizon. Conversely, AT&T and WorldCom seem to be abandoning their toll free customers, where ENUM is concerned. CONTINUED HERE: http://www.icbtollfree.com/article.cfm?articleId=5641 P - THE OTHER ALSC COMMENTS "The too much process argument we've heard is phony with respect to the pending question of at-large membership, the proposed at-large organization, at-large board seats, and even at-large elections, because the ALSC, at the specific request of the Board, completed its process on schedule and has recommended a practical, implementable action plan ... [ICANN management's proposal is] a declared intent of a palace coup d'etat from within ICANN." CONTINUED HERE: http://www.icbtollfree.com/article.cfm?articleId=5639 F - THE END OF THE EXPERIMENT "... it's surprising that ICANN has lasted," explained one industry insider, "The government agencies typically coordinate among themselves, and it was always dubious whether DoC even had the authority to do what it did with ICANN. I guess they will collectively pull the plug, unless the White House does it for them," he continued. CONTINUED HERE: http://www.icbtollfree.com/article.cfm?articleId=5638 ___________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________ EVERY 3.6 SECONDS SOMEONE DIES FROM HUNGER http://www.hungersite.com/ ___________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________ F - WE SHOULD BE OVERCOMING ICANN BY LISTENING TO PAUL BARAN "The Internet provides an instructive model for the future of telecommunications regulations. The Internet allows worldwide communications at a far lower cost than any alternative; serving data users inexpensively, and opening access to the world's information to a greater number of people than ever initially imagined." CONTINUED HERE: http://www.icbtollfree.com/article.cfm?articleId=5637 F - NET HEAVYWEIGHTS: DEPOSE ICANN David J. Farber, Peter G. Neumann, and Lauren Weinstein declare, "Wide consensus has already been achieved on at least one key point -- even by ICANN's current president -- ICANN is seriously broken. We agree, and we additionally assert that ICANN's history, structure, and behaviors strongly indicate that the most productive course would be for ICANN's role in Internet affairs to be discontinued." Immediately. CONTINUED HERE: http://www.icbtollfree.com/article.cfm?articleId=5635 F - PUBLIC FORUM LOCK DOWN In a week when Stuart Lynn branded it "a joke" and initiated action to free the Board from democratic accountability to the online community, ICANN closed down its most popular public forum, recipient of over 7,000 postings in recent months. CONTINUED HERE: http://www.icbtollfree.com/article.cfm?articleId=5636 F - ICANN DIRECTOR SUES TO INSPECT BOOKS Because ICANN is a non-profit California corporation, the organization must comply with a California statute giving any director of the corporation an "absolute right" to inspect and copy corporate records. "Directors, not management, have the ultimate responsibility and authority to oversee the operations of a corporation like ICANN," explained Auerbach's attorney James Tyre. "ICANN staff's arbitrary and changing policy regarding access to corporate records is not only disturbing, but unlawful in the state of California." CONTINUED HERE: http://www.icbtollfree.com/article.cfm?articleId=5633 F - GO FORTH AND MULTIPLY It has always been the case that the actual matters before the board are generated within the last few days. However, at this meeting that practice reached a new low -- the resolutions were not posted to the public at all and most were available to Directors only a few hours in advance. In fact some were made available only at the start of the meeting. One can not say that there was any time for quiet and deep consideration or for any consultation or discussion. Looming over this meeting was the specter of the President's "roadmap" to reform ICANN. Although that is just a discussion document, two of its large goals -- the eradication of public participation in ICANN and the elimination of the Independent Review Panel -- major reversals of years of ICANN policy - suddenly appeared among the resolutions and, as we saw, were adopted. CONTINUED HERE: http://www.icbtollfree.com/article.cfm?articleId=5634 ___________________________________________________ ABOUT ICB ICB HeadsUp Headlines is sent by request. Subscriptions to ICB HeadsUp Headlines are free to qualified applicants. Visit http://www.icbtollfree.com/reg.cfm?NextURL=Index.cfm to sign up. To unsubscribe mailto:editor@icbtollfree.com, subject: unsubscribe. (Unsubs are processed manually, approximately bi-weekly.) ___________________________________________________ ADVERTISING For information on advertising in ICB HeadsUp Headlines, mailto:editor@icbtollfree.com, subject: Headlines Advertising ____________________________________________________ Only subscribers or registered users of ICB Toll Free News web site will be able to access all or some of the full text of URLs provided. ____________________________________________________ Copyright 2002 ICB, Inc. All rights reserved. ____________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________ ------------------------------ From: nospam89@parse.com (Robert Krten) Subject: Re: Alternative to Do Not Call Lists Date: Tue, 09 Apr 2002 02:05:59 GMT Organization: Magma Communications Ltd. Chris Williams wrote: > I don't know where the idea of the Do Not Call List first appeared, > but it had to have been from people who didn't want it ever to have > any realistic effect. There is so much work that you have to do if you > really want it to work. You have to be put onto a ridiculous quantity Canadian Radio-Television Council (CRTC) states that if a customer asks to be put on a "Do Not Call" list then you *MUST* not call that customer for a year. There are probably other US style regulations, dunno ... > of individual DNCLs, and then YOU have to track all the calls that you > get to see whether a particular call is in violation. You catch one, Easy. Put it in your caller ID database, as a "DNC" number :-) > and then you have to go to court. Why is all this work placed on the Court? No, just call the CRTC and complain ... Then it's up to them. > shoulders of the consumer? And then how long before you have to start > the process all over again because your entry on a particular DNCL > expired? It's absurd that WE have to do so much work to be left alone. In Canada, one year. > Why has this become such a labor-intensive process? > My personal feeling is that this whole DNCL concept is flawed and > needs to be replaced by something that would actually work and not > force people to pay for Caller ID or Anonymous Call Rejection or any > of the other products and services marketed by your LEC and others; > items that cost you both your money and your time. It costs me time and money to answer the door for Jehovah's Witnesses and other annoying "spam". Perhaps your solution should apply to both? :-) > My proposal is to require all unsolicited marketing calls to be > flagged by the caller's LEC or IXC, either by trunk or individual > call, and for that indicator to become part of the call setup > information. People not wishing to receive these types of calls can So, as a business I'd have to register as a telemarketer? What if I don't? What if I do "sporadic" telemarketing? > dial a *XX service code to tell the terminating switch to reject calls > of this type. No work for the consumer other than to turn this service > on once. The equipment does all the work as it should. Since it would > be so unambiguous about which calls would be in violation, fines for > telemarketers not having their calls flagged could be significantly > greater, and, best of all, automatic. Using something like the *57 > Call Trace function, fines could show up on the caller's bill the same > way 900 numbers are billed. > Are there any technical hurdles that couldn't be overcome, or are they > all just political? Probably just political. Who's the phone company gonna listen to, you or someone who has 30 outgoing business lines? :-) Cheers, Robert Krten, PARSE Software Devices +1 613 599 8316. Realtime Systems Architecture, Books, Video-based and Instructor-led Training and Consulting at www.parse.com. Email my initials at parse dot com. ------------------------------ From: fybush@world.std.com (Scott D Fybush) Subject: Re: FCC to Vote on Phone-Number Crunch Date: Tue, 9 Apr 2002 02:13:41 GMT Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA Anecdotal evidence to the contrary, from Rochester NY: my parents were served by Rochester Tel/Frontier for decades, on 716-442-xxxx. They switched to Time Warner a few years back (admittedly before the advent of "full" portability), and were given a 716-785-xxxx number from Time Warner. But that number was unpublished - 442-xxxx kept appearing in the phone book, and dialing 442-xxxx reached them. Caller ID registered 785-xxxx, though, and trying to use busy-number redial only worked when you dialed the 785- number. About 18 months ago, this changed. They're still served by Time Warner, but the number registers as 442-xxxx on caller ID, busy redial works when you call 442-xxxx, and you can't dial them on the 785- number any more. -s ------------------------------ From: Ed Ellers Subject: Re: HDTV White Elephants Date: Mon, 8 Apr 2002 20:47:49 -0400 Robert Casey wrote: > If I take the back off the set, I'll be able to grab the signal just after > it is converted from digital to analog by the DAC. No, you'll be able to grab it as it comes out of a chip and goes into the RGB amplifiers that drive the CRT, by which time it will probably have been aperture corrected, meaning you'd have to undo the correction before recording. (The signal at that point will probably be at a level that varies with the picture control setting, too.) ------------------------------ From: stevenl11@aol.com (Steven Lichter) Date: 09 Apr 2002 01:15:19 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: Another Clueless E-Mail Spammer With a Toll Free Number I guess it got clipped. They offer a service to get out of dept, but must they spam everyone. I have 3 e-mail addresses, 2 that I don't use for anything and they get hundreds of junk e-mails a week. This posting one is blocked except for persons or groups on its lists. I called these people to complain and they really did not care, just another way to advertise for them. You will get a real person. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Steve, have you any idea what the > nature of the consultation is to be about? Is it to instruct the > caller on matters of making money fast; how to send massive spams > for free on the net; or something more mundane like sex-talk? As I > tell my chatters on America On Line and Yahoo Messenger each day, > I don't do cyber; I don't do fone; and I don't send out naked pictures. > And I don't get that many inquiries on making money fast or sending > out spam. What does this one want to talk about? Any ideas? I guess > readers will have to call 877-620-9024 and ask them what they want to > chat about. PAT] Apple Elite II 909-359-5338. Home of GBBS/LLUCE, support for the Apple II 24 hours 2400/14.4. An OggNet Server. The only good spammer is a dead one!!! Have you hunted one down today? (c) Kill Spammers, Inc. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: That part of your message never got here. So they want to talk to you about getting out of debt? Hmm, that's very noble of them. Especially since their phone bill next month may cause them to have to get a second or third mortgage on their own house, just to pay the phone bill. Call 877-620-9024 and give them some advice about keeping their phone bill under control. Remember, don't harass them, just point out the facts. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Barry Margolin Subject: Re: Cringely on DSL or Sorry, Wrong Number Why Your Organization: Genuity, Woburn, MA Date: Mon, 08 Apr 2002 15:46:53 GMT In article , Marcus Didius Falco wrote: > * Original: FROM..... Dave Farber > http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20010222.html > Sorry, Wrong Number (Why Your Phone Company Hates DSL) > By Robert X. Cringely > This is all bad news for a nation of bandwidth junkies. It means DSL > will get to your network later than expected and eventually cost more > than expected. The saddest part of all is that this is a product that > will revolutionize society, yet there are lots of people trying to > stop that. Except that DSL isn't the only broadband game in town -- there's also cable modems. This also requires cable companies to upgrade their plant, but they need to do that in order to offer digital cable (500 channels of crap instead of just 100 channels of crap), and cable modem services can ride along for free. Although the cable modem business isn't doing too well, either. Barry Margolin, barmar@genuity.net Genuity, Woburn, 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: Mon, 8 Apr 2002 08:58:35 PDT From: John Bartley Subject: Re: Your Cell Phone Is Watching You Monty Solomon wrote on Sun, 7 Apr 2002: > YOUR CELL PHONE IS WATCHING YOU > Chris Kanaracus, Valley Advocate > The tracking ability of cell phones will soon grow > exponentially, as the FCC has ordered all new phones > to be equipped with GPS tracking devices. > http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12776 Not true -- and alternet.org now becomes an unreliable source. The FCC requires celcos to provide locating for E911, but does not dictate that GPS be part of the solution! John E. Bartley, III - telcom admin, Portland OR, USA - Views are mine. http://www.viewreviews.com/vp.php?id=6 Review of SPH-i300 http://palmwireless.cjb.net Wireless FAQ for PalmOS(R) This post is quad-ROT13 encrypted. Reading it is a violation of the DMCA. You are granted to store this informationTM in your brain for private, not commercial use. Commercial use of this information whether in your brain or other bodily parts requires the express written consent of its license holders and property owners. ------------------------------ From: otakuvidiot@hotmail.com (Mike Whalen) Subject: T1 / Laptop? Want to Web-Broadcast From Hotels Date: 8 Apr 2002 09:15:38 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ A colleague's desktop machine has a PCI card in it that allows him to hook directly into a T1 line. (I don't know the make of a card.) He's hoping to find some sort of similar solution for a laptop/notebook. What's at issue here is he's attempting to webcast from various hotels around the world. All these hotels would have T1 on premises, but without the PCI card, he thinks he's out of luck. Is he? Does anyone know of something that would do this? Cheers, Mike ------------------------------ From: dold@69.usenet.us.com Subject: Re: Local Number Portability (was re: FCC to Vote ...) Date: 8 Apr 2002 16:36:34 GMT Organization: Wintercreek Data Dave Close wrote: > I've written before, starting several years ago, that the distinction > between "local" and "long distance" calls is an historical artifact, > and is now purely artificial and should be eliminated. Most of the That simply isn't true, mechanically. The cost of carrying calls on a CLECs own network is different from that needed to reach anything off net. I might agree that once you reach "LD", the rates needn't be different, but there still is a substantial mechanical difference between local service and LD service, and there always will be, as long as one is confined to a company's facilities, and the other requires traversal to a different company. The rates for LD could be used to subsidize... ;-) I won't even go there. Clarence A Dold - dold@email.rahul.net - Pope Valley (Napa County) CA. ------------------------------ From: jennifer@wenje.com (Jennifer Chamberlain) Subject: Employment Opportunity: Telecom Careers Date: 8 Apr 2002 10:36:24 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ We are exclusively engaged on behalf of Sprint Canada to find two Strategic Alliance Managers [Marketing Channel Managers] background of individuals should include: Voice and or Data Marketing and some experience in Sales would be very helpful. Can email a full job description to any interested parties, or if you have any suggestions regarding referrals, would be greatly appreciated. 905-887-0840, email: Jennifer@wenje.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 08 Apr 2002 20:08:42 GMT From: osborne@Hawaii.Edu (Larry N Osborne) Subject: Re: MCI, Global Crossing, and 4th-Grade Grammar Organization: University of Hawaii > The word is "its". When picking over the dead husks of companies > scavengers should at least have the decency to use correct grammar. Yeah, and there ought to be a comma after "companies" too ... > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note [...] > ... When Mr. Townsend > sent his correspondence to the Digest, he may or may not have known > that fine point of English grammar, but I knew it. Trouble is, with > my deseased brain, due to the aneurysm I was dealt as part of my hand, > I don't always do as well on this Digest as I used to do in the past. > I sometimes let things slide, such as not following the *Chicago > Manual of Style* to the letter. But I did graduate from fourth grade, > and can prove it. Pat, you've got more style than all of Chicago put together. Don't ever go away again. Larry N. Osborne, Ph.D. Dean, Information Services Chaminade University [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I have not lived in Chicago since around the start of 1999, when the Sheriff ran me out of town. I hope not to go back. I certainly do not miss the place. Thanks for your kind comments. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V20 #219 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Apr 10 01:17:43 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id BAA09282; Wed, 10 Apr 2002 01:17:43 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2002 01:17:43 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200204100517.BAA09282@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #220 TELECOM Digest Wed, 10 Apr 2002 01:15:00 EDT Volume 20 : Issue 220 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Federal vrs. State Laws on Telemarketers (john@pdj01.cinci.rr.com) FTTH and Broadband Internet in Japan (John De Hoog) CLECs and Others Ignoring Caller ID Privacy Bit (Interpage Network) New Breed Spam Filter Slashes Junk Email (Monty Solomon) Re: Local Number Portability (was Re: FCC to Vote ...) (John R. Levine) Re: HDTV White Elephants (Paul Wallich) Re: T1 / Laptop? Want to Web-Broadcast From Hotels (Jim Hopkins) Re: T1 / Laptop? Want to Web-Broadcast From Hotels (John R. Levine) Re: Talking With Robot Agents (Interpage Network Services Inc.) 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-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 630-841-7174 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@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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All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. 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: john@pdj01.cinci.rr.com Subject: Federal vrs. State Laws on Telemarketers Date: Tue, 09 Apr 2002 23:31:12 GMT Organization: Road Runner High Speed Online -- Northeast Ohio Just the other day I got a long message on my machine from a telemarketer, it was a pre-recorded message, and he left a local phone number. So I call him to complain, and have my number removed. He told he was in his rights to do everything he did, and that I had to send him a letter to put on his do not call list. I then did a little web searching, and sent him an e-mail, and he responed back. Now the question. Is he right? I don't think he is. I don't see anything that states that the FCC rules are for inter-state telemarketing only, thus the federal laws apply to everyone in this case. I've included the E-mail. My E-mail has been removed, and the one in the header is anti-spammed. From bspry@raduga.net Tue Apr 9 07:32:10 EDT 2002 From: Bill Spry To: References: <200204090023.UAA21357@pdj01.cinci.rr.com> Subject: Re: Telemarketing rules Date: Tue, 9 Apr 2002 07:22:24 -0400 Disposition-Notification-To: "Bill Spry" John, I know that these rules are very confusing. But you see, I do not fall under Federal rules (FCC) as I am not involved in Interstate Commerce. I do not do ANY business with anyone that resides in ANY community across ANY State lines. Therefore, I fall under the State Of Ohio law, not federal (FCC). Please see the following ... http://www.ag.state.oh.us/pressrel/telemrk.htm also see: http://www.simplesimon.com/resources/statelaws/statelaws.asp#Ohio I am a Christian business man that IS NOT doing an dishonest scamming agressive telemarketing campaign. I am a local guy that sells mulch at a much lower price than others in this area and I am trying to let everyone know. I have grown very tired of attitudes like yours. I do not hire anyone to do it for me, I do it myself. I don't harass people. I very willingly take names of my list as people request it. I am not a jerk, but my patience often grows thin when uninformed people approach me like you did. That is not the way to treat people. Why would I want to continue to call people who don't want to be bothered? As a business man I receive many computer generated calls on a daily basis. I just hang up. I don't like the calls either. But they don't bother me to the extent that I would harass the telemarketer. People have a right to make a living. I just don't understand. I am just way too busy to even care. It must be nice to have all of that time on your hands. You are right about it being your phone. I was wrong about suggesting you disconnect it. However, if you really want to protect your privacy as you claim, then change your phone number to an unlisted one. Most telemarketers don't call unlisted numbers. Furthermore, you might want to do a little more investigation next time, like I did. Get an attorney for straight answers, like I did. Enough said. I won't bother you again and I am sorry that I upset you so much. It was just a short 15 second call. William J. Spry Spry Lawn and Supply ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Monday, April 08, 2002 8:23 PM Subject: Telemarketing rules > Bill, > I thought I heard it all, but your comment that nothing you did was > against the law is just wrong. What an friendly attitude you have, > you stated that if I didn't want telemarketing calls, I should get > rid of my phone. My phone, house, car, and other things are for my > use, as I please, not yours. Also when I asked to be added to > your do not call list, you stated that I have to send it to you > writing. Again, you are wrong. Just to let you know it took me > about two minutes to find this on the FTC website. How to Reduce > Unwanted Telemarketing Calls Now. If the FTC decides to adopt the > proposal and implement a national "do not call" registry, it will be > months before it takes effect. However, there are steps you can take > right now to reduce the number of unwanted telemarketing calls that > you receive. > 1. Ask companies that call you to put you on their company-specific > "do not call" list. Existing regulations by both > the FTC and the FCC prohibit a telemarketer from calling you after > you have asked them to stop calling you. > Now, a few more minutes of work brings us to: > Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) of 1991 > http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/tcpa.html > The big part you should read is...... > Calls using artificial or prerecorded voice messages - including > those that do not use autodialers - may not be made to residential > telephone numbers except in the following cases: > emergency calls needed to ensure the consumer's health and safety; > calls for which you have given prior consent; > non-commercial calls; > calls which don't include any unsolicited advertisements; > calls by, or on behalf of, tax-exempt non-profit organizations; or > calls from entities with which you have an established business > relationship. > Your call was not an emergency, was commercial, I had not given you > prior consent, and I had no prior business relationship. So > in the long run, Bill, you lose. The FCC complaint number is 2855220. > Have a nice day. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I would not venture a guess as to whether or not federal law would apply if Bill's phone calls were *purely*, *absolutely* intrastate. If Bill could certify that his business was totally intrastate, then he may have a point about the various state laws *only* applying to his business practices. I think you might have done well to file a complaint not only with the FCC/FTC at a federal level but also with the appropriate state agencies for Ohio. I don't know which agency and whose rules would prevail, but that is what courts are for, to make decisions like that. Of course you did not -- I assume -- want to go to that much trouble and expense, which is probably what Bill was counting on also. Do you know the amount of money it would cost to subpoena Bill's telephone records, to find a single out of state call, and to fight with an attorney who was willing to do battle with you? Then of course your own attorney costs money while he and Bill's attorney schmooze around sitting in a bar cutting deals, etc, each of them grateful for the business you guys are giving them. I think I would have sent a cc: on that file to the various state commissions before going any further. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 09 Apr 2002 15:28:17 +0900 From: John De Hoog Subject: FTTH and Broadband Internet in Japan Perhaps some of you would be interested in learning about the status of broadband Internet services in Japan. For many years Japan lagged behind the U.S. in Internet services, two main reasons being the low penetration of personal computers and the high cost of metered telephone service. Recently, however, the situation has changed dramatically. In my neighborhood in suburban Tokyo, for example, I have a choice of always- on ISDN access, 1.5 Mbps or 8 Mbps DSL from several different providers, cable Internet, and 100 Mbps fiber-to-the-home service from at least three carriers. There is also a wireless access provider that has been advertising its services in this area. I recently had one of the FTTH services installed, replacing the rock-solid ADSL service I had been using for the past year, and now enjoy actual download and upload rates as high as 54 Mbps. Using software that is able to take full advantage of the speed by downloading on multiple streams, I'm able to download a couple of hours of music in just a minute or two. The cost for the access line, modem rental and provider charges comes to 6100 yen a month total (around US$45 at today's exchange rates). The number of DSL users in Japan has increased rapidly and now exceeds three million households. FTTH is still new, with around 20,000 users. Along with cable and ISDN unlimited service, the total number of Internet users with always-on connections now exceeds the number of dialup users. There are also active efforts to serve the growing broadband community with content services. This is where the carriers hope to recoup the investment they are making in broadband infrastructure. Looking at the offerings to date, though, I wonder if many of the content ideas will catch on. Installing fiber to the home is an expensive and delicate operation requiring a fairly high level of skill. A typical installation to one home, after the fiber has been strung in front of the house, takes about half a day. The fiber strands (one in each direction in the case of my provider) are fed into the house and snaked through the phone wire ducts to an outlet where the connection will be used. This part is relatively easy. The most time-consuming work takes place outside, as the fibers are cut into the main lines. Then on the user end they have to be threaded into the little unit that converts the optical signals to electrical signals for feeding to the router. (In a multi-family unit the line goes from the optical "modem" to a switching hub.) Whether any of these services manages to be profitable in the long run remains to be seen, but many large corporations are betting huge sums of money on the future of the broadband Internet in Japan. John De Hoog http://dehoog.org ------------------------------ From: Interpage Network Services Inc. Subject: CLECs and others Ignoring Caller ID Privacy bit Organization: www.interpage.net Date: Tue, 9 Apr 2002 03:17:36 -0400 Hello, I've recently come across a unified messaging provider which appears to be ignoring the privacy bit which is sent as part of the Caller ID (SS7?) protocol to tell the end office not to display a given caller's number. The provider uses both direct dial and toll-free (800, etc.) numbers. Although I have no problem (within the scope of this post) with grabbing ANI (although they grab the caller ID) on toll-frees, I do object to them grabbing the caller ID on local/LD calls when the calls are explicitly blocked. Thus, if you call a given direct-dial (non-800) account in this provider's block of numbers , and either have per-line blocking (all calls on the line are blocked) or use *67 per-use blocking, the called party is nevertheless able to both see a your number if the call is relayed to him, and/or listen to it as a voicemail header if the caller drops to voicemail or the call is unanswered and rings down to voicemail. I'll emphasize again that this is an apparently standard direct-dial number which is probably DIDed to the provider's switch; it is not an 800 or Feature Group B or anything-like-that sort of number. The numbers appear to be regular local numbers, where callers would have no idea that their number will be displayed despite their intention (explicit or otherwise) to block it. What rules, if any, govern what a provider must do with blocked Caller ID information? Is it required to keep this information private from the end user (the recipient of the call)? If so, would this be true for all cases, such as voicemail deposition, or just when the parties actually talk? What, for example, would prevent an unscrupulous operator (I'm not claiming at all that the aforementioned provider is in any way anything other than just careless in this case) from operating such a service where it can offer "unblockable" numbers to people so that unsuspecting callers will think they are maintaining privacy while in actuality their CID is being immediately displayed? Any information or pointers to references on this topic would be appreciated. Thanks in advance! Doug d1@interpage.net www.interpage.net ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 Apr 2002 08:48:02 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: New Breed Spam Filter Slashes Junk Email A new breed of spam-filtering technology that combines peer-to-peer communications with machine learning could intercept nearly all unwanted email, according to its creators. The new technology is code-named Folsom and its creators say that tests using it on email streams containing between 40 and 60 per cent unsolicited email reduced to the spam to "near zero". They add, unlike some other programs, it produces very few "false positives" that cause legitimate communications to be blocked. The technology harnesses network technology usually associated with file-sharing programs such as Napster to quickly and efficiently distribute signatures identifying spam. The machine learning component of the system automatically identifies new junk email by making a probabilistic judgement of the content of a message. http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992141 ------------------------------ Date: 9 Apr 2002 09:10:50 -0400 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: Local Number Portability (was re: FCC to Vote ...) Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA >> I've written before, starting several years ago, that the distinction >> between "local" and "long distance" calls is an historical artifact, >> and is now purely artificial and should be eliminated. Most of the > That simply isn't true, mechanically. The cost of carrying calls on a > CLECs own network is different from that needed to reach anything off > net. It may be different, but it can't be very different. All of the ILECs around here have EAS agreements with each other so that calls to neighboring towns don't cost anything, even though they're on different switches on different networks (and occasionally in different LATAs.) Calls are free even to a CLEC whose switch is 75 miles away, so long as the prefix you're dialing is assigned to your rate center or one of your EAS rate centers. It's hard for me to believe that the costs of going off-network are that high if they can routinely bundle them into local service rates. On the other hand, the per-minute and per-month access fees that IXCs pay still amount to a lot of real money. That's a big barrier to getting rid of LD charges. But on the third hand, our RBOC still charges 5 cents/minute (or more if you don't have enough sense to sign up for their rate plan) for calls that are outside the EAS area but still within the LATA. I figure that about 4.995 of the 5 cents is pure profit. There's no justification for that any more. 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: pw@panix.com (Paul Wallich) Subject: Re: HDTV White Elephants Date: Tue, 09 Apr 2002 11:57:45 -0400 Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC In article , Robert Casey wrote: >> The concept is that when copy protection is put within the circuitry >> of the display, you can't decode something with a set-top box and then >> grab the signal as it comes out of the box and before it gets to the >> screen. > If I take the back off the set, I'll be able to grab the signal just > after it is converted from digital to analog by the DAC. Oh, I'd have > to build some buffer circuits, but surely enough people on the various > electronics newsgroups and web sites will tell how to do it. I wouldn't bet on that conversion being much more useful than, say, pointing a camera at the screen -- among other things, there's no reason that the "analog signal" should be a single entity when there are threee separate electron guns (or a couple thousand row and column drivers) to control. Also figure that the analog levels may be specific to a particular model or even display unit. And of course remember that if your set notices it's been tampered with (impedance diagnostics etc) it can try and pass a signal back up to the head end to let the warranty service folks know ... a lot of this resembles the problems that the law has had in tapping digital phone equipment, and will probably be solved in the same way -- not by analog wizardry but by installing digital back doors. paul ------------------------------ From: Jim Hopkins Subject: Re: T1 / Laptop? Want to Web-Broadcast From Hotels Organization: Prodigy Internet http://www.prodigy.com Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2002 00:46:30 GMT An alternative if he can't find the card would be a PCMCIA ethernet card and a small router. I've seen some routers that are about the size of a laptop. Another box to shag around, but it would still beat shipping a desktop. To answer the original question, I've not seen such a thing. Jim Hopkins "A man's got to know his limitations." - Dirty Harry Mike Whalen wrote in message news:telecom20.219.8@telecom-digest.org... > A colleague's desktop machine has a PCI card in it that allows him to > hook directly into a T1 line. (I don't know the make of a card.) > He's hoping to find some sort of similar solution for a > laptop/notebook. ------------------------------ Date: 9 Apr 2002 23:08:32 -0400 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: T1 / Laptop? Want to Web-Broadcast From Hotels Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > A colleague's desktop machine has a PCI card in it that allows him to > hook directly into a T1 line. (I don't know the make of a card.) > He's hoping to find some sort of similar solution for a > laptop/notebook. I've surveyed the T1 card market pretty thoroughly, and the only ones I know that people use are ISA and PCI cards. The ones I know of are from SDL and ETinc. Poking around on the web, I see a PCMCIA adapter at http://www.sealevel.com/catalog/pcmciab.htm but it's not clear whether it'll run at T1 speeds. (The much slower 56k and 64k bit DDS lines use the same interface as T1.) > What's at issue here is he's attempting to webcast from various > hotels around the world. All these hotels would have T1 on premises, Really? I can't recall that I've ever been in a hotel with a T1 available, unless someone planned months ahead and got the T1 installed specifically for an event. If you're going to do that, you might as well send ahead a Cisco or other router with a T1 adapter. They're physically pretty small these days. And don't forget that someone has to provide the CSU/DSU (the modem-like thing) which is usually about the size of a laptop, too. 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: Interpage Network Services Inc. Subject: Re: Talking With Robot Agents Organization: www.interpage.net Date: Tue, 9 Apr 2002 02:57:51 -0400 Leela wrote in message news:telecom20.217.6@telecom-digest.org: > Dear All, > Thank you for all comments on this topic. > I'd like to add more benefits about this. I read from articles and > understood that if companies apply this technology, it will help > operators or live agents answering simple questions. Then they can go > for the complex question so it also reduce the time consuming for > customers. > I'd like to hear more comments on the advantages and disadvantages > affecting both companies, which apply this technology and customers, > who use it. Try using Sprint's "Claire -- The Virtual Customer Service Rep" -- you'll never want to utilize a "Robot Agent" again...Of course this IS Sprint PCS, so their humans aren't too much better! :) Regards, Doug d1@interpage.net www.interpage.net ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V20 #220 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Apr 11 13:20:19 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id NAA08515; Thu, 11 Apr 2002 13:20:19 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 13:20:19 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200204111720.NAA08515@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #221 TELECOM Digest Thu, 11 Apr 2002 13:20:00 EDT Volume 20 : Issue 221 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Federal vrs. State Laws on Telemarketers (Gail M. Hall) Re: Federal vrs. State Laws on Telemarketers (John R. Levine) Re: Federal vrs. State Laws on Telemarketers (John Meissen) Re: Federal vrs. State laws on Telemarketers (Ross McMicken) Re: Local Number Portability (was re: FCC to Vote ...) (Clarence Dold) Receiving Emergency Alert Messages via SMS/Email to Celfons (J. Bartley) Re: New Breed Spam Filter Slashes Junk Email (John R. Levine) CASwin with a G3si V6 (Mike) DSL Federal Universal Service Fund Surcharge (Fred Marshall) Question About Cell Phone Numbers (jen) Re: Phone Bots and Spampaigns (Robert Dover) Re: T1 / Laptop? Want to Web-Broadcast From Hotels (jss) Re: T1 / Laptop? Want to Web-Broadcast From Hotels (Mike Whalen) Any Negative Experiances With Allegiance Telecom (William Lee) Intelligent Spam Filter; Inmarsat (Marcus Didius Falco) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- FOR THE TIME BEING, opening announcements have been moved to the bottom of each issue. You're welcome. ------------------------------ From: Gail M. Hall Subject: Re: Federal vrs. State Laws on Telemarketers Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2002 02:29:57 -0400 Reply-To: gmhall@apk.net On Tue, 09 Apr 2002 23:31:12 GMT, in comp.dcom.telecom, you (john@pdj01.cinci.rr.com) wrote: > Just the other day I got a long message on my machine from a > telemarketer, it was a pre-recorded message, and he left a local phone > number. > So I call him to complain, and have my number removed. He told he was > in his rights to do everything he did, and that I had to send him a > letter to put on his do not call list. I then did a little web > searching, and sent him an e-mail, and he responed back. > Now the question. Is he right? I don't think he is. I don't know if he is right, but I would like to thank you very, very much for publicizing this man's response to your request not to call you and fill up your answering machine with his message. I'm sure there are plenty of other Ohioans who are happy to hear about this company so that we can be sure NOT to use his services and spread the word to our neighbors and friends that this person doesn't care ONE WHIT about people he is hoping to make his customers. If he is that rude to a prospective customer, think how he would treat you once he has your money in his hands. And as for him claiming to be a Christian, it is well known that some scammers use that claim to get the trust of Christians. Some will even join a church and work their scam on as many members as they can get away with. [snip] > I know that these rules are very confusing. But you see, I do not fall > under Federal rules (FCC) as I'm not involved in Interstate Commerce. I do > not do ANY business with anyone that resides in ANY community across ANY > State lines. Therefore, I fall under the State Of Ohio law, not federal > (FCC). Please see the following ... > http://www.ag.state.oh.us/pressrel/telemrk.htm > also see: > http://www.simplesimon.com/resources/statelaws/statelaws.asp#Ohio These might be interesting places to check, but let's face it. Companies get customers by being courteous and considerate more than they do by being rude and insensitive. > I am a Christian business man that IS NOT doing an dishonest scamming > agressive telemarketing campaign. Claiming that doesn't make it so. > I am not a jerk, but my patience often grows thin when uninformed > people approach me like you did. That is not the way to treat people. Neither is putting a recorded message on people's answering machines! > Why would I want to continue to call people who don't want to be > bothered? As a business man I receive many computer generated calls > on a daily basis. I just hang up. People can do that when they answer their own phone. But putting long messages on an answering machine does not allow that. That is why many places have laws prohibiting telemarketers from leaving messages on answering machines. > I don't like the calls either. > But they don't bother me to the extent that I would harass the > telemarketer. People have a right to make a living. I just don't > understand. I am just way too busy to even care. It must be nice to > have all of that time on your hands. He needs to be informed about how to sell. He's an ignorant jerk, IMO. > You are right about it being your phone. I was wrong about suggesting > you disconnect it. However, if you really want to protect your > privacy as you claim, then change your phone number to an unlisted > one. Most telemarketers don't call unlisted numbers. Furthermore, > you might want to do a little more investigation next time, like I > did. Get an attorney for straight answers, like I did. Enough said. > I won't bother you again and I am sorry that I upset you so much. It > was just a short 15 second call. > William J. Spry > Spry Lawn and Supply Remember that name! Don't use his services. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I would not venture a guess as to > whether or not federal law would apply if Bill's phone calls were > *purely*, *absolutely* intrastate. If Bill could certify that his > business was totally intrastate, then he may have a point about the > various state laws *only* applying to his business practices. I think > you might have done well to file a complaint not only with the FCC/FTC > at a federal level but also with the appropriate state agencies for > Ohio. I don't know which agency and whose rules would prevail, but > that is what courts are for, to make decisions like that. Of course > you did not -- I assume -- want to go to that much trouble and > expense, which is probably what Bill was counting on also. Do you > know the amount of money it would cost to subpoena Bill's telephone > records, to find a single out of state call, and to fight with an > attorney who was willing to do battle with you? Then of course your > own attorney costs money while he and Bill's attorney schmooze around > sitting in a bar cutting deals, etc, each of them grateful for the > business you guys are giving them. I think I would have sent a cc: on > that file to the various state commissions before going any further. > PAT] In Ohio, the attorney general's office has a consumer department that some people say is good about helping people handle consumer issues. Her department also publicizes scammers. I don't have that web site handy, but if you look in your phone book under the state government section, you'll find the number. It is a toll-free number. I wouldn't be surprised if Cincinnati also has a consumer affairs department that you could contact about this person's business practices. Gail from Ohio USA ------------------------------ Date: 10 Apr 2002 09:44:47 -0400 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: Federal vrs. State Laws on Telemarketers Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > I don't see anything that states that the FCC rules are for inter-state > telemarketing only, thus the federal laws apply to everyone in this case. You're right, he's wrong. The TCPA applies everywhere in the US, and people routinely win junk fax cases against local junkers. You can sue him for $500 in small claims court. The law allows the judge to triple the amount to $1500 if the violation was "wilful and knowing" which it clearly is here since he's said he's aware of the TCPA. Be prepared for a barrage of b*ll if you take him to court, as he tries to persuade the judge that state law overrides federal law or similar nonsense. 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: Except John, did you see the article posted here about a week or so ago by Monty Solomon in one of his news clips? In a couple places, the rules against unsolicited junk faxes have been declared unconstitutional. Not everywhere, only in the federal district where it was issued of course, but it is one of the 'slippery slopes' we need to know about. I did not think that commercial speech ever got the same latitude as political speech, but apparently it cannot be cut off entirely. Someone had been fined for sending out junk faxes, they protested it in court and won the case. PAT] ------------------------------ From: jmeissen@shell1.aracnet.com (John Meissen) Subject: Re: Federal vrs. State Laws on Telemarketers Date: 10 Apr 2002 17:17:40 GMT Organization: Aracnet Internet He's an idiot. He probably tries to avoid paying Federal taxes for the same reasons. The law he quotes does not include anything that would contradict the Federal law. It adds additional requirements of state registration to help avoid fraud. Some states, such as Oregon, have specific legislation which may take precedence. What he quotes does not. john- ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2002 19:39:53 -0500 From: Ross McMicken Subject: Re: Federal vrs. State Laws on Telemarketers On Tue, 09 Apr 2002 23:31:12 GMT, john@pdj01.cinci.rr.com wrote: > Just the other day I got a long message on my machine from a > telemarketer, it was a pre-recorded message, and he left a local phone > number. > So I call him to complain, and have my number removed. He told he was > in his rights to do everything he did, and that I had to send him a > letter to put on his do not call list. I then did a little web > searching, and sent him an e-mail, and he responed back. > Now the question. Is he right? I don't think he is. He's wrong. Anything involving the use of a telephone is considered interstate commerce, AFAIK. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Not true. Tolls on intra-state calls are regulated entirely by the individual states. Municipal phone rates/taxes are regulated by the local communities. No federal involvement. PAT] ------------------------------ From: dold@69.usenet.us.com Subject: Re: Local Number Portability (was re: FCC to Vote ...) Date: 10 Apr 2002 17:29:59 GMT Organization: Wintercreek Data John R. Levine wrote: >>> I've written before, starting several years ago, that the distinction >>> between "local" and "long distance" calls is an historical artifact, >>> and is now purely artificial and should be eliminated. Most of the >> That simply isn't true, mechanically. The cost of carrying calls on a >> CLECs own network is different from that needed to reach anything off >> net. > It may be different, but it can't be very different. All of the ILECs ... > On the other hand, the per-minute and per-month access fees that IXCs > pay still amount to a lot of real money. That's a big barrier to > getting rid of LD charges. The earlier post was specifically about LD. For intra-LATA toll, there is a great deal of difference between agreements amongst nearby ILECs that might have the same parent company, and the offers available to CLECs. Clarence A Dold - dold@email.rahul.net - Pope Valley (Napa County) CA. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2002 11:33:23 PDT From: John Bartley Subject: Receiving Emergency Alert Messages via SMS/Email to Celfons Set up instructions are described here http://208.184.24.125/rc202903.html General information is here http://208.184.24.125/ Used it for two months so far, spam free John E. Bartley, III - telcom admin, Portland OR, USA - Views are mine. http://www.viewreviews.com/vp.php?id=6 Review of SPH-i300 http://palmwireless.cjb.net Wireless FAQ for PalmOS(R) This post is quad-ROT13 encrypted. Reading it is a violation of the DMCA. You are granted to store this informationTM in your brain for private, not commercial use. Commercial use of this information whether in your brain or other bodily parts requires the express written consent of its license holders and property owners. ------------------------------ Date: 10 Apr 2002 09:41:47 -0400 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: New Breed Spam Filter Slashes Junk Email Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > A new breed of spam-filtering technology that combines peer-to-peer > communications with machine learning could intercept nearly all > unwanted email, according to its creators. It's not actually new, it's a commercialized version of Vipul's Razor which you can find at http://razor.sourceforge.net/. Razor is indeed supposed to work pretty well. It collect signatures of incoming spam to update a shared signature database which you can then use to do spam scoring and filtering. Folsom appears to be a version for people who prefer expensive buggy software from Redmond WA to reliable free software developed collaboratively over the net. 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: anonmike@hotmail.com (Mike) Subject: CASwin With a G3si V6 Date: 10 Apr 2002 13:24:15 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Hello, I have a G3si V6 and a CASwin PC. I have a DB9 to DB25 cable connecting the PC's Serial Port to the DCE port on the control cabinet. The PC is not getting any data. What do I need to do to make this work? Any help at all would be appreciated. Thanks, Mike P.S. I saw in the documentation that on a G3 it ALSO uses a TN726B and a TN553. I don't know if it NEEDS it or it can use it. I couldn't find much more information on it. ------------------------------ From: Fred Marshall Subject: DSL Federal Universal Service Fund Surcharge Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2002 16:36:48 -0700 Organization: CenturyTel Internet Services What is the status of something called: DSL Federal Universal Service Fund Surcharge? I see charges with this label added to my Centurytel DSL billing. I don't recall seeing such a surcharge with any other DSL ISP. Thanks. ------------------------------ From: jenweed@bigfoot.com (jen) Subject: Question About Cell Phone Numbers Date: 10 Apr 2002 17:18:44 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ I have a question about cell phones. I've had a contract with one company and the phone number is my primary business contact number. But I'm very disatisfied with the company's service. Is there any way to KEEP my same phone number w/ another company? Thanks in advance! ------------------------------ From: Robert Dover dover@nortelnetworks.com> Subject: Re: Phone Bots and Spampaigns Date: Mon, 8 Apr 2002 10:06:35 -0500 Organization: Nortel John David Galt wrote ... > From a purely selfish/amoral point of view, spam makes sense for selling > products, because some fraction of a percent of recipients will buy, and > the spammer doesn't have to care about the fact that he's annoyed the > rest of us. He should care ... I make it a habit of listening just long enough to find out who or what is calling and add them to my list of vendors that I'll never patronize. ------------------------------ From: jss Subject: Re: T1 / Laptop? Want to Web-Broadcast From Hotels Reply-To: onlyjunkmail@email.com Date: Tue, 09 Apr 2002 23:30:05 GMT Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net The T1 is just a wire that is connected to a CSU. The CSU needs to be configured depending on how the circuit is provisioned. I remember seeing somebody selling an internal CSU on a PCI card but not for a PCMCIA card. Because you have to pay for a T1 line, anywhere from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand dollars I do not think a hotel will have a T1 lying around that they don't use. My understanding he will need to have a CSU and a router in order for it to work. You could have the local telco install a T1 at the hotel for temporary use but it would cost a lot and take a long time to get it provisioned, Hope this helps. Jeff On 8 Apr 2002 09:15:38 -0700, otakuvidiot@hotmail.com (Mike Whalen) wrote: > A colleague's desktop machine has a PCI card in it that allows him to > hook directly into a T1 line. (I don't know the make of a card.) > He's hoping to find some sort of similar solution for a > laptop/notebook. > What's at issue here is he's attempting to webcast from various hotels > around the world. All these hotels would have T1 on premises, but > without the PCI card, he thinks he's out of luck. > Is he? Does anyone know of something that would do this? ------------------------------ From: otakuvidiot@hotmail.com (Mike Whalen) Subject: Re: T1 / Laptop? Want to Web-Broadcast From Hotels Date: 11 Apr 2002 07:05:49 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Hey John, > Poking around on the web, I see a PCMCIA adapter > at http://www.sealevel.com/catalog/pcmciab.htm but it's not clear > whether it'll run at T1 speeds. (The much slower 56k and 64k bit DDS > lines use the same interface as T1.) Looks nice. I'll see if I can get further information on it. >> What's at issue here is he's attempting to webcast from various >> hotels around the world. All these hotels would have T1 on premises, > Really? I can't recall that I've ever been in a hotel with a T1 > available, unless someone planned months ahead and got the T1 > installed specifically for an event. This sounded a little odd to me, too. I can certainly see a hotel providing a T1 for "data services," which would include Ethernet connectivity to the main meeting hall(s). > If you're going to do that, you > might as well send ahead a Cisco or other router with a T1 adapter. > They're physically pretty small these days. Thanks. I'll look into that. Do any Cisco model numbers come to mind? Cheers, Mike Whalen ------------------------------ From: wlee@livingbenefitsllc.com (William Lee) Subject: Any Negative Experiences With Allegiance Telecom Date: 11 Apr 2002 08:46:01 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ I am looking into switching from Kmart Corp dial tone to Allegiance Telecom, because of too many problems with Kmart Corp. If anyone has an opinion it would be appreciated. Thanks. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Why do you get your dial tone from a discount department store chain? Anyway, K-Mart went bankrupt recently and a couple hundred of their stores closed. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 00:12:17 -0400 From: Marcus Didius Falco Subject: Intelligent Spam Filter; Inmarsat NewsScan Daily, 10 April 2002 ("Above The Fold") INTELLIGENT SPAM FILTER A new spam-filtering technology code-named Folsom uses a combination of peer-to-peer communications and machine learning to intercept nearly all unwanted e-mail, according to its creators. The peer-to-peer part of the technology enables a user to identify a message as spam mail, which the program then assigns a "signature" based on its content. The signatures are sent to one of numerous distributed servers where they're automatically downloaded by other members of the network and used to block copies of the same message. The machine learning part of the equation targets new spam by looking at the words and phrases in previously identified spam messages and making a judgment about the new mail. The developers say in tests of e-mail streams containing 40% to 60% spam mail, Folsom managed to reduce the percentage to "near zero" with very few "false positives." "It's a very interesting concept," says a spokesman for the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email. "Spam is getting worse, both in terms of raw volume and percentage." (New Scientist 9 Apr 2002) http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992141 INMARSAT WANTS YOU TO SURF THE FRIENDLY SKIES Inmarsat, the British satellite communications firm, is launching a new service called Swift64, aimed at providing satellite bandwidth for in-flight Internet access and eventually, television. The service will offer data speeds of up to 64 kbps per second, equivalent to a terrestrial DSL connection. The service initially will be marketed to corporate jet owners, with commercial airliners added by year's end. Although Boeing and Seattle-based Tenzing Communications have already entered the nascent airborne Internet access market, Swift64 is the first such service to make use of antennas already installed on 4,000 commercial airliners and private jets that use Inmarsat for communications. Having the antennas already in place cuts the installation cost of an on-board, high-speed data system by as much as $250,000, says an Inmarsat marketing manager. (AP 9 Apr 2002) http://apnews.excite.com/article/20020409/D7IPL6581.html To reply use the address below: falco_marcus_didius yahoo.co.uk ------------------------------ 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. 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End of TELECOM Digest V20 #221 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Apr 12 01:55:14 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id BAA18487; Fri, 12 Apr 2002 01:55:14 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2002 01:55:14 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200204120555.BAA18487@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #222 TELECOM Digest Fri, 12 Apr 2002 01:54:00 EDT Volume 20 : Issue 222 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Federal vrs. State Laws on Telemarketers (Ed Ellers) Re: Federal vrs. State Laws on Telemarketers (robert@bonomi.invalid) Re: Federal vrs. State Laws on Telemarketers (keith) Re: Federal vrs. State Laws on Telemarketers (John R. Levine) Re: T1 / Laptop? Want to Web-Broadcast From Hotels (Mike Kuras) Re: T1 / Laptop? Want to Web-Broadcast From Hotels (John R. Levine) Re: Any Negative Experiences With Allegiance Telecom (Dalvenjah FoxFire) Re: Phone Bots and Spampaigns (Barry Margolin) Re: New Breed Spam Filter Slashes Junk Email (Jim Haynes) Re: Question About Cell Phone Numbers (Larry & Wanda Finch) Re: Question About Cell Phone Numbers (John R. Levine) Re: Receiving Emergency Alert Messages via SMS/Email to Celfons (Ellers) Repeat Call: Global Crossing and MCI Worldcom (R.H. Townsend) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ed Ellers Subject: Re: Federal vrs. State Laws on Telemarketers Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 16:49:51 -0400 PAT, the TELECOM Digest Editor, noted: > I would not venture a guess as to whether or not federal law would apply if > Bill's phone calls were *purely*, *absolutely* intrastate. If Bill could > certify that his business was totally intrastate, then he may have a point > about the various state laws *only* applying to his business practices. IIRC, there have been court rulings saying in effect that if your competitors are engaged in interstate commerce, then so are you. ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Federal vrs. State Laws on Telemarketers From: robert@bonomi.invalid Organization: Not Much Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 21:17:06 GMT In article , John R. Levine wrote: >> I don't see anything that states that the FCC rules are for inter-state >> telemarketing only, thus the federal laws apply to everyone in this case. > You're right, he's wrong. The TCPA applies everywhere in the US, and > people routinely win junk fax cases against local junkers. It isn't quite that simple. There are *two* sets of Federal rules that come into play, with regard to telemarketing. One is administered by the FCC, under 47 USC 227, also known as the TCPA (Telephone Consumer Protection Act), and *does* apply to *everybody*. Well, everybody who makes any phone calls using the 'public switched telephone network'. 47 USC 227 states expressly that state law is not pre-empted *ONLY*IF* the state law is stricter than the federal one. The *other* Federal rules are establised by the Federal Trade Commission (the FTC), and -those- rules *are* limited in scope to *inter-state* calls. [snip] > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Except John, did you see the article > posted here about a week or so ago by Monty Solomon in one of his news > clips? In a couple places, the rules against unsolicited junk faxes > have been declared unconstitutional. Not everywhere, only in the > federal district where it was issued of course, but it is one of the > 'slippery slopes' we need to know about. I did not think that commercial > speech ever got the same latitude as political speech, but apparently > it cannot be cut off entirely. Someone had been fined for sending out > junk faxes, they protested it in court and won the case. PAT] There has been *one* such holding, by that judge in a Fed. Dist. Ct. in Missouri. Methinks *everybody* should forward him _all_ the junk faxes they recieve. Give him a 'hands on' demonstration of why the law was passed in the first place. Nah, that would *not* be right. One should not fight abuse with abuse. Though the thought of doing so *is* gratifying. *MANY* other cases have held that the statute *is* valid. Even at the appelate level, although not in the Circuit that includes the "Missouri Mule". The prosecutor has vowed to appeal, and, in my not-so-expert opinion, the Dist. Ct. ruling is virtually *sure* to be overturned. ------------------------------ From: keith Subject: Re: Federal vrs. State Laws on Telemarketers Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 18:09:51 -0400 Organization: none whatsoever On the topic of telemarketers, any ideas on the kinds of rates they get on their long distance? You see, I've had it with these telemarketers. They call you and you are a greeted with a recording, I'm sure y'all have heard this one, "Hello, we have an important message for you but all of our representatives are busy, please hang on the line ..." I've had it with that crap to the point now I'll switch the phone over to speakerphone mode, and let the call sit there, until someone finally answers. After 30-40 minutes when someone comes on, 9 times out of 10 the person asks "how may I help you" ... at which point I tell the person I don't know, you called me, and then I hang up. My question, is this costing them money, and how much? I assume since it's likely they are calling long distance, and even at bulk rates, 30-60 minutes must add up -- especially when the result is a hangup/no sale. *Shrug* ... maybe it isn't costing them a whole lot of money, but I sure does feel good knowing at least I am increasing their phone bill, tying up one outbound line, and eventually tying up one phone drone. Oh and if I'm feeling especially vindictive and I do get a sales drone, I'll play along another 15-20 minutes to make them think they have a sale then at the last moment cut them off and say not interested and hang up :-) (And no, it doesn't tie up my phone since I have another landline as well as two cells.) ~k ------------------------------ Date: 11 Apr 2002 23:07:37 -0400 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: Federal vrs. State Laws on Telemarketers Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Except John, did you see the article > posted here about a week or so ago by Monty Solomon in one of his news > clips? In a couple places, the rules against unsolicited junk faxes > have been declared unconstitutional. Not everywhere, only in the > federal district where it was issued. Not even that, it was one trial court in Missouri with a crotchety old judge who's apparently Rush Limbaugh's cousin. All of the appellate decisions disagree with him, the plaintiff (the state of Mo.) is appealing, and nobody expects his decision to stand. 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: Kuras, Mike Subject: Re: T1 / Laptop? Want to Web-Broadcast From Hotels Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 16:18:30 -0400 It's extremely unlikely that your friend wants to connect a T1 directly to his laptop. As as been already suggested in this thread, CSU/DSU's are rather tricky pieces of equipment which still require a trained technician to bring online. It'd be difficult and cumbersome to go through that process at every hotel he visits. A much more likely scenario is that he merely needs a 10/100 PCMCIA Etherenet card and a 6 foot length of Cat-5 cable. Many hotels, especially those that are business-oriented, do indeed have high speed connectivity which is distributed to guests' rooms via standard Ethernet jacks. PCMCIA 'net cards sell for as low of $35 these days. He could plug into the wall jack and be online in seconds. PROBLEM: Your post reads as if he wants to broadcast *from* his hotel. If that's the case, he's going to encounter a great difficulty: no one will be able to reach him. It's more than likely that the hotel will assign him a private IP address, which is not directly reachable from the 'world.' It's trivial to surf the web with this setup, but much more difficult to serve content. The hotel's sysadmin would have to set up a special mapping at the network interface (firewall, router, whatever ...) that would send all incoming streaming requests to his laptop. The odds of that happening are very low. Good luck with it, mike ------------------------------ Date: 11 Apr 2002 23:04:19 -0400 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: T1 / Laptop? Want to Web-Broadcast From Hotels Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > This sounded a little odd to me, too. I can certainly see a hotel > providing a T1 for "data services," which would include Ethernet > connectivity to the main meeting hall(s). Well, sure, but any old Ethernet card will do. >> you might as well send ahead a Cisco or other router with a T1 adapter. > Do any Cisco model numbers come to mind? Better ask someone who uses Cisco equipment. My router is an old HP 200 MHz desktop with a T1 card running Unix. 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: Dalvenjah FoxFire Subject: Re: Any Negative Experiences With Allegiance Telecom Date: 11 Apr 2002 10:53:41 -0700 wlee == William Lee writes: > I am looking into switching from Kmart Corp dial tone to > Allegiance Telecom, because of too many problems with Kmart > Corp. If anyone has an opinion it would be appreciated. I've got a data T1 from them, not voice, but I've not had any problems with them; they're always quick to respond to trouble calls, and I've only once had a serious outage (which I suspect was due more to the ILEC thinking that my pair couldn't *possibly* have a T1 on it, so was OK to take for someone else's POTS ...) YMMV, but no bad experiences here. Dalvenjah FoxFire (aka Sven Nielsen) Fundamentalist Agnostic: "I don't Founder, the DALnet IRC Network know, and neither do you!" e-mail: dalvenjah _*at*_ dal _*dot*_net WWW: http://www.dal.net/~dalvenjah whois: SN90 Try DALnet! http://www.dal.net/ ------------------------------ From: Barry Margolin Subject: Re: Phone Bots and Spampaigns Organization: Genuity, Woburn, MA Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 17:54:47 GMT In article , > wrote: > John David Galt wrote ... >> From a purely selfish/amoral point of view, spam makes sense for selling >> products, because some fraction of a percent of recipients will buy, and >> the spammer doesn't have to care about the fact that he's annoyed the >> rest of us. > He should care ... I make it a habit of listening just long enough to > find out who or what is calling and add them to my list of vendors > that I'll never patronize. If that were common behavior, it would be a problem for vendors. But since people like you are a tiny minority, they don't have to worry about it. Most of us just hit Delete without reading enough to know who the vendor is, and I'm certainly not prepared to keep track of the thousands of companies that have ever sent me spam. As long as the number of new customers they bring in is more then the ones they alienate, it's a net win for them. It's quite possible that you were never going to patronize them in the first place, so they haven't lost anything when they lose you as a customer. Porn and MLM spam are good examples of this -- the people turned off by porn wouldn't have patronized the company in the first place, and people who know better than to join pyramid schemes were never going to be customers of MLM. Half the spam I get is in foreign languages, so I'm guessing they're advertising services in a different country. There's little harm in alienating non-potential customers, so they can only win. Barry Margolin, barmar@genuity.net Genuity, Woburn, 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 ------------------------------ Subject: Re: New Breed Spam Filter Slashes Junk Email Reply-To: jhaynes@alumni.uark.edu Organization: University of Arkansas Alumni From: haynes@alumni.uark.edu (Jim Haynes) Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 19:31:35 GMT The trouble with spam filtering in principle is that it doesn't cause the spammer any pain. The junk gets carried, clogging the networks and servers, and then goes into the bit bucket when it is almost at the point of delivery. What we really need is an airtight piece of software that can track the spam back to its source and send a complaint to the administrator there. ------------------------------ From: Larry & Wanda Finch Subject: Re: Question About Cell Phone Numbers Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 21:34:30 GMT jen wrote: > I have a question about cell phones. I've had a contract with one > company and the phone number is my primary business contact number. > But I'm very disatisfied with the company's service. Is there any way > to KEEP my same phone number w/ another company? > Thanks in advance! Not at this time. The FCC may eventually act on number portability, and this would be one of the benefits. The way I deal with this is to have a toll-free "follow me" number that I can program to ring where I am going to be. If I change my cell phone number all I have to do is reprogram it (which takes about 10 seconds via a web interface, or 30 by calling into the number's maintenance mode). The service has many other features, including the capability to try to reach me at up to 3 numbers simultaneously, voice mail, paging and FAX mailbox. If you would like to try this, I am very happy with my provider, MCE Teleservices. See http://www.mcepersonalreach.com/ Note: I have not connection with MCE other than as a customer. Larry Finch ::finches@bellatlantic.net larry@prolifics.com ::LarryFinch@aol.com (whew!) N 40 53' 47" W 74 03' 56" [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This sounds a great deal like the service I had for several years in Chicago. Almost identical, in fact. Can you make outgoint calls on yours also, and does it have 'virtual call waiting' and 'virtual three way calling'? Mine did. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: 11 Apr 2002 23:08:41 -0400 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: Question About Cell Phone Numbers Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > But I'm very disatisfied with the company's service. Is there any way > to KEEP my same phone number w/ another company? That's called Local Number Portability. It's not available for cell phones yet, but is supposed to be soon, which probably means next year. 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: Ed Ellers Subject: Re: Receiving Emergency Alert Messages via SMS/Email to Celfons Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 16:26:41 -0400 John Bartley wrote: > Set up instructions are described here > http://208.184.24.125/rc202903.html Ah, but how do you enter the phone number for SMS? I don't see that anywhere on their site. ------------------------------ From: rht@allweb.com (R.H. Townsend) Subject: Repeat Call Regards Global Crossing and MCI Worldcom Date: 11 Apr 2002 10:28:57 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ I believe that everyone in daytrading/long term investments, stock brokerage and securities dealings is aware of the litigation involving the dramatic drop in the value Global Crossings (listed on NYSE: GBLXQ) stock and it's subsequent Chapter 11 filing for reorganization, investigation by the FBI and SEC which has generated class action litigation. I am involved in similar litigation with Global Crossing it's officers and subsidiaries. I need your help very badly. If you were damaged by the restatement of the financial statements and earnings of Global Crossings , it's officers or subsidiaries I need to hear your story. As or more importantly, if you are a former employee of Global Crossings, especially in the financial, stock transactions area or public relations, news releases to the investing community or Sales the public, I really need to hear from you ASAP. Please take a moment and call me, Robert Townsend, toll free at 1-800-873-9657, Ext 4007. Thank you for your cooperation. Also, I believe that everyone in telemarketing is aware of the class action litigation involving MCI (listed on NYSE: MCI) I am involved in similar litigation with MCI it's officers and subsidiaries. As or more importantly, if you are a former employee MCI, especially in the telemarketing sales area or public relations, news releases to the public, I need your help very badly. I really need to hear from you ASAP. . I need to hear your story. Please take a moment and call me, Robert Townsend, toll free at 1-800-308-7716, Ext 4007. Thank you for your cooperation. ------------------------------ 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-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 630-841-7174 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@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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All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. 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. End of TELECOM Digest V20 #222 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sun Apr 14 19:24:13 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id TAA05704; Sun, 14 Apr 2002 19:24:13 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sun, 14 Apr 2002 19:24:13 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200204142324.TAA05704@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #223 TELECOM Digest Sun, 14 Apr 2002 19:22:00 EDT Volume 20 : Issue 223 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson SBC Opening Test Lab For Network Gear (SGT Properties LLC) Teltend SLC-5 Versions (Matt) Re: CASwin With a G3si V6 (Keith W) Re: Receiving Emergency Alert Messages via SMS/Email to Cell (Pete Weiss) Re: Receiving Emergency Alert Messages via SMS/Email to Cell (J Bartley) Nortel DMS Switch Page (Jose) Re: T1 / Laptop? Want to Web-Broadcast From Hotels (Mike Whalen) Re: New Breed Spam Filter Slashes Junk Email (H. Peter Anvin) LineJack Software for Single Line Gateway? (Skua) Re: Question About Cell Phone Numbers (Rob) Re: Question About Cell Phone Numbers (Herb Stein) Is "Call Waiting Caller ID" Different Than "Caller ID"? (John) Re: DSL Federal Universal Service Fund Surcharge (Herb Stein) Re: New Breed Spam Filter Slashes Junk Email (Dave Close) Re: Federal vrs. State Laws on Telemarketers (Ross McMicken) Re: Alternative to Do Not Call Lists (Rob) Re: Alternative to Do Not Call Lists (Tom Betz) Another Uninformed Toll Free Spammer!!!! (Steven Lichter) Re: Jennifer Martino Bad Link (Marty Cohn) Siemens Gigaset 2420 Handsets Compatible With 8825? (Pete Helme) Re: Local Number Portability (was Re: FCC to Vote ...) (John David Galt) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: sgtpropllc@yahoo.com (SGT Properties LLC) Subject: SBC Opening Test Lab for Network Gear Date: 12 Apr 2002 15:43:47 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ I've heard a rumor that SBC has opened up one of their network test labs for others to use to test gear -- does someone have some details on this which they can share? Thanks, David ------------------------------ From: Matt Subject: Teltend SLC-5 Versions Date: Sat, 13 Apr 2002 00:35:43 GMT Organization: Road Runner - Texas I'm trying to find documentation on the different versions of the Teltrend AUA293 SLC-5 cards. I've looked all over Lucents website, and all over the net, but can't find anything. I have two known versions that I am having problems with, and am trying to find out what changed in those versions. Any help or guidance is greatly appreciated. Thanks! ------------------------------ From: Keith W Subject: Re: CASwin With a G3si V6 Date: Sat, 13 Apr 2002 01:08:58 GMT Check the following: cha sys cdr (change system-paramters cdr) Make sure the Primary Output Ext = eia Mike wrote in message news:telecom20.221.8@telecom-digest.org... > Hello, > I have a G3si V6 and a CASwin PC. > I have a DB9 to DB25 cable connecting the PC's Serial Port to the DCE > port on the control cabinet. The PC is not getting any data. What do > I need to do to make this work? Any help at all would be appreciated. > I saw in the documentation that on a G3 it ALSO uses a TN726B and > a TN553. I don't know if it NEEDS it or it can use it. I couldn't > find much more information on it. ------------------------------ From: pete-weiss@psu.edu (Pete Weiss) Subject: Re: Receiving Emergency Alert Messages via SMS/Email to Celfons Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2002 09:39:44 -0400 Organization: Penn State University -- Office of Administrative Systems On Thu, 11 Apr 2002 16:26:41 -0400, Ed Ellers wrote: > John Bartley wrote: >> Set up instructions are described here >> http://208.184.24.125/rc202903.html > Ah, but how do you enter the phone number for SMS? I don't see that > anywhere on their site. My guess is to use your cellphone SMS email address. Here in ATTWS land, it is something like: 10d@MOBILE.ATT.COM Where 10d is your ten digit North American dialing plan telno. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: On *my* AT&T cell phone, the address concludes with 'att.net' rather than 'att.com'; but the 10D and 'mobile' part is the same, as in 10D@mobile.att.net .... PAT] ------------------------------ From: John Bartley Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2002 08:16:25 -0800 Subject: Re: Receiving Emergency Alert Messages via SMS/Email to Celfons While waiting on Thu, 11 Apr 2002 16:26:41 -0400 in da vastness of space to hitch a ride with Galen, Ed Ellers wrote: > John Bartley wrote: >> Set up instructions are described here >> http://208.184.24.125/rc202903.html > Ah, but how do you enter the phone number for > SMS? I don't see that anywhere on their site. Go to http://208.184.24.125/ select your state from the list at the left follow the instructions. Use the email equivalent (e.g., for 503-804-XXXX {ATTWS} enter <503804XXXX@mobile.att.net>) This is not the worst designed web page I've seen, but it appears they are working on it. Waaaay too busy. Please change my entry in your address book as follows: email: john@503bartley.com SMS: johnbartley@sprintpcs.com (100 char max, please) res: 503-BAR-TLEY (503.227.8539) ofc: 503.326.2231...147 cel: 503.358.6847 ------------------------------ From: jwxt@msn.com (Jose) Subject: NORTEL DMS switch page Date: 12 Apr 2002 07:11:54 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This arrived without any text. PAT] ------------------------------ From: otakuvidiot@hotmail.com (Mike Whalen) Subject: Re: T1 / Laptop? Want to Web-Broadcast From Hotels Date: 12 Apr 2002 07:23:53 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Hey Mike, Kuras, Mike wrote in message news:: > PROBLEM: Your post reads as if he wants to broadcast *from* his hotel. > If that's the case, he's going to encounter a great difficulty: no one > will be able to reach him. It's more than likely that the hotel will > assign him a private IP address, which is not directly reachable from > the 'world.' It's trivial to surf the web with this setup, but much > more difficult to serve content. I will talk to him a bit more about this, but certainly this type of set up has been done before. Granted there probably aren't that many hotels that _would_ do this, but I've certainly seen webcasts of events from hotels. I think it's more Marriot Wardman Park Hotel in Washington D.C., rather than the Motel 6 in Bugtussle, Mississippi. :-) Cheers, Mike ------------------------------ From: H. Peter Anvin Subject: Re: New Breed Spam Filter Slashes Junk Email Date: 12 Apr 2002 12:23:55 -0700 Organization: Transmeta Corporation, Santa Clara CA Followup to: By author: jhaynes@alumni.uark.edu In newsgroup: comp.dcom.telecom > The trouble with spam filtering in principle is that it doesn't cause > the spammer any pain. The junk gets carried, clogging the networks > and servers, and then goes into the bit bucket when it is almost at > the point of delivery. What we really need is an airtight piece of > software that can track the spam back to its source and send a > complaint to the administrator there. What we really need is sizable per-email fines that the spammers can be hit with. hpa at work, in private! "Unix gives you enough rope to shoot yourself in the foot." http://www.zytor.com/~hpa/puzzle.txt ------------------------------ Subject: LineJack Software for Single Line Gateway? From: Skua Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2002 21:43:21 GMT Organization: PenTeleData http://www.ptd.net Does anyone have software that would allow the use of the Quicknet Internet Line Jack as a single line gateway? I've been told that the original software that shipped with the Line Jack a few years ago actually had this capability; the new software from Quicknet only allows you to use THEIR hop-off points. Does anyone have the original old software for the Line Jack that actually allows you to create your own single line gateway? Example: I want to place a PC equipped with an Internet Line Jack in Florida. There it will be connected to the internet and to the telephone network. From my home in NJ I want to connect to the box I place in FL via IP ... obtain local area FL dial-tone and complete my call to my relatives in FL over the local telephone line. Effectively making my call from NJ to my relatives in FL for the cost of local phone sevice in FL. I was told by a Quicknet Rep that this was possible ... but only with the old versions of their software ... they no longer offer this capability. Unfortunately I purchased the Line Jack based on it's ability to do this ... only to find out after the fact that the software no longer provides this feature. Suggestions and observations are welcome. Thanks in advance. Skua skua_septemberANTI@SPAMhotmail.com ------------------------------ From: rob51166@yahoo.com (Rob) Subject: Re: Question About Cell Phone Numbers Date: 12 Apr 2002 02:21:36 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Larry & Wanda Finch wrote in message news:... > jen wrote: >> I have a question about cell phones. I've had a contract with one >> company and the phone number is my primary business contact number. >> But I'm very disatisfied with the company's service. Is there any way >> to KEEP my same phone number w/ another company? >> Thanks in advance! > Not at this time. The FCC may eventually act on number portability, > and this would be one of the benefits. The way I deal with this is to > have a toll-free "follow me" number that I can program to ring where I > am going to be. If I change my cell phone number all I have to do is > reprogram it (which takes about 10 seconds via a web interface, or 30 > by calling into the number's maintenance mode). > The service has many other features, including the capability to try > to reach me at up to 3 numbers simultaneously, voice mail, paging and > FAX mailbox. > If you would like to try this, I am very happy with my provider, MCE > Teleservices. See http://www.mcepersonalreach.com/ > Note: I have not connection with MCE other than as a customer. That's interesting, as we've had number portability for mobile cellular phones here in the UK for the past couple of years. Unlike in the US, however, our cellphone prefixes are different to our geographic area codes (geographic area codes start with either 01 or 02 while cell phone prefixes start with 07), but it's very common here for people to change from, say, Vodafone to Cellnet or Virgin or Orange or Genie etc ... and still keep the same number. NB: I have no connection with any of the above companies, other than as a customer of Vodafone. Rob ------------------------------ From: Herb Stein Subject: Re: Question About Cell Phone Numbers Organization: Giganews.Com - Premium News Outsourcing Date: Sat, 13 Apr 2002 21:44:27 GMT John R. Levine wrote in message news:telecom20.222.11@telecom-digest.org: >> But I'm very disatisfied with the company's service. Is there any way >> to KEEP my same phone number w/ another company? > That's called Local Number Portability. It's not available for cell > phones yet, but is supposed to be soon, which probably means next > year. Soon is a relative term. 11/24/2002 or some such. That's a long time live with shitty service. Herb Stein The Herb Stein Group www.herbstein.com herb@herbstein.com 314 952-4601 ------------------------------ From: johnfofawn@hotmail.com (John) Subject: Is "Call Waiting Caller ID" Different Than "Caller ID"? Date: 13 Apr 2002 16:01:54 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ If I buy a phone or modem and it doesn't specify that it supports "Call Waiting Caller ID" it probably doesn't support that feature, right? "Call Waiting Caller ID" is fairly new, right? So if I bought a modem that supports "Caller ID" a few years ago, it probably doesn't support "Call Waiting Caller ID", right? Do any of the cheap modems ($20) support "Call Waiting Caller ID"? I want my Linux box to log all my calls so I want a cheap modem connected to it for this purpose. I have a USR Sportster Voice/FAX 33.6 external that supports "Caller ID" that I can use, but it doesn't say it supports "Call Waiting Caller ID". Thanks, John ------------------------------ From: Herb Stein Subject: Re: DSL Federal Universal Service Fund Surcharge Organization: Giganews.Com - Premium News Outsourcing Date: Sun, 14 Apr 2002 02:09:33 GMT Fred Marshall wrote in message news:telecom20.221.9@telecom-digest.org... > What is the status of something called: DSL Federal Universal Service > Fund Surcharge? > I see charges with this label added to my Centurytel DSL billing. I > don't recall seeing such a surcharge with any other DSL ISP. > Thanks. I have no such charge on my SBC bill here in St. Louis. But My ADSL and home phone are all on one bill and the charge does show up elsewhere. Herb Stein The Herb Stein Group www.herbstein.com herb@herbstein.com 314-952-4601 ------------------------------ From: dave@compata.com (Dave Close) Subject: Re: New Breed Spam Filter Slashes Junk Email Organization: Compata, Costa Mesa, California Date: Sun, 14 Apr 2002 02:58:57 GMT haynes@alumni.uark.edu (Jim Haynes) writes: > What we really need is an airtight piece of > software that can track the spam back to its source and send a > complaint to the administrator there. Be careful what you wish for. Any such scheme would also completely eliminate anonymous email, such as may be used for many worthwhile causes (as well as some bogus ones). For example, you would no longer be able to report corruption anonymously, which you might do if you feared that an attributable report would result in harm to you. I hate spam as much as the next guy, but I'm opposed to any scheme which converts a reliable delivery mechanism into an unreliable one. I may need to add return-receipt-requested to all outgoing messages just to detect (but not circumvent) over-zealous silent filters. Of course, not all recipients would acknowledge delivery, and I'd get a lot of false failures. Still, that may be better than the false sense of success I get when my mail is not delivered and no rejection notice is received. We may need to do this more as a self-defense against the do-gooders looking out for our interests. No, I don't send spam by any conventional definition. I post to mailing lists and newsgroups, but otherwise I never send a single message to more than a handful of friends. However, when mailing list traffic is bounced as containing "unsafe" content because the sender included a PGP signature, I have no confidence in the ability of anyone to detect spam reliably. I'll dispose of the spam I receive all by myself. As an aside, it's certainly true that spam constitutes a large portion of the SMTP traffic on the net. However, another large component is the unnecessary use of multipart/alternative for all mail sent by certain user agents. Those who assert that we need to reduce traffic might want to campaign against the disease of uselessly bulky messages. Dave Close, Compata, Costa Mesa CA "Politics is the business of getting dave@compata.com, +1 714 434 7359 power and privilege without dhclose@alumni.caltech.edu possessing merit." - P. J. O'Rourke ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2002 05:19:18 -0500 From: Ross McMicken Subject: Re: Federal vrs. State Laws on Telemarketers On Wed, 10 Apr 2002 19:39:53 -0500, Ross McMicken wrote: >On Tue, 09 Apr 2002 23:31:12 GMT, john@pdj01.cinci.rr.com wrote: >> Just the other day I got a long message on my machine from a >> telemarketer, it was a pre-recorded message, and he left a local phone >> number. >> So I call him to complain, and have my number removed. He told he was >> in his rights to do everything he did, and that I had to send him a >> letter to put on his do not call list. I then did a little web >> searching, and sent him an e-mail, and he responed back. >> Now the question. Is he right? I don't think he is. > He's wrong. Anything involving the use of a telephone is considered > interstate commerce, AFAIK. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Not true. Tolls on intra-state calls > are regulated entirely by the individual states. Municipal phone > rates/taxes are regulated by the local communities. No federal > involvement. PAT] You are right Pat, I should have said that if you do business over the phone, and make one interstate call in the course of business, the Feds can get involved in your local activities. ------------------------------ From: rob51166@yahoo.com (Rob) Subject: Re: Alternative to Do Not Call Lists Date: 13 Apr 2002 08:34:30 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ I'm amazed that you don't have similar systems to the one which we have in the UK. In fact the are several: one's called the Telephone Preference Service, the other's the Fax preference Service and then there's the Mail Preference Service. All we have to do is register our phone numbers and addresses with these for free, and they then pass them on to the innumerable companies which are also registered with them. Of course, not all companies are registered, many unscrupulous ones aren't; but all you have to do if you receive a 'cold call' or junk mail is to mention the TPS/FPS/MPS and they'll soon end the call or stop sending you junk mail, knowing that if they don't they run the risk of a $5000/$7200 for each cold call they make or piece of junk mail that they send. Believe me, it works! ------------------------------ From: Tom Betz Subject: Re: Alternative to Do Not Call Lists Date: Sun, 14 Apr 2002 04:00:54 UTC Organization: XOme Quoth Chris Williams in news:telecom20.218.2@telecom- digest.org: > My personal feeling is that this whole DNCL concept is flawed and > needs to be replaced by something that would actually work I agree. The whole thing needs to be turned on its head. We need a national "Please Call Me" list. People who want to be called by telemarketers sign up for it, and they stay on it for ten years, unless they remove themselves from it. Any telemarketer who calls someone not on the national "Please Call Me" list would be subject to a $1,000 fine per call, and be prohibited from owning or using a telephone for six months. Any objections? ------------------------------ From: stevenl11@aol.com (Steven Lichter) Date: 14 Apr 2002 12:39:53 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Another uniformed Toll Free Spammer!!!! ... to teach this individual about the cost of owning an 800 number ... -----Original Message----- THERE IS A SOLUTION, DO NOT REPLACE YOUR CARTRIDGES . REFILL THEM WITH OUR HIGH QUALITY INKJET REFILL KIT. Never refilled before? Have questions? Need answers? Call us, toll FREE 1-866-718-1708 24 HOURS, 7 DAYS A WEEK. -------------------------------------------------- Remember it is against the law to harrass anyone by telephone. Also you should use a payphone so that the operator can make a little money. Apple Elite II 909-359-5338. Home of GBBS/LLUCE, support for the Apple II 24 hours 2400/14.4. An OggNet Server. The only good spammer is a dead one!!! Have you hunted one down today? (c) Kill Spammers, Inc. ------------------------------ From: Marty Cohn Subject: Re: Jennifer Martino Bad Link Organization: Prodigy Internet http://www.prodigy.com Date: Sun, 14 Apr 2002 18:30:45 GMT Basically, it's a subdomain of a crappy free webpage provider. I know because the page is mine. Back before Jennifer was on COTSE she had another site that she was taking down. She gave me the thumbs up to copy the recordings to save them from disappearing off the web. And so the "Reorder Tone" site was born. If I get the time, I'll convert the files from Realmedia to MP3s. I don't want to promote a sneaky company like Real. Marty > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I have never before heard of 'heymoe. > freeyellow'. Exactly what is it? PAT] ------------------------------ From: Pete Helme Subject: Siemens Gigaset 2420 Handsets Compatible With 8825? Organization: AT&T Broadband Date: Sun, 14 Apr 2002 18:41:00 GMT Are the handsets from the 2420 system compatible with the new 8825? ------------------------------ From: John David Galt Subject: Re: Local Number Portability (was re: FCC to Vote ...) Date: Sat, 13 Apr 2002 13:53:58 -0700 Organization: Diogenes the Cynic Hot-Tubbing Society dold@69.usenet.us.com wrote: > For intra-LATA toll, there is a great deal of difference between > agreements amongst nearby ILECs that might have the same parent > company, and the offers available to CLECs. Doesn't the ILEC's common-carrier status make this type of discrimination illegal? ------------------------------ 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-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 630-841-7174 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@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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End of TELECOM Digest V20 #223 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Apr 15 12:49:06 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id MAA19286; Mon, 15 Apr 2002 12:49:06 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2002 12:49:06 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200204151649.MAA19286@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #224 TELECOM Digest Mon, 15 Apr 2002 12:47:00 EDT Volume 20 : Issue 224 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Telecom Update (Canada) #328, April 15, 2002 (Angus TeleManagement) Re: CASwin With a G3si V6 (Glen Hoag) Re: CASwin With a G3si V6 (Mike) Re: LineJack Software for Single Line Gateway? (J3r3my L33) Re: Any Negative Experiences With Allegiance Telecom (Brent Laminack) Re: Another Uniformed Toll Free Spammer!!!! (Scott Dorsey) Another Clueless Spammer With a Toll Free Number (Steven Lichter) Re: New Breed Spam Filter Slashes Junk Email (Christopher Wolf) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2002 10:35:36 -0400 From: Angus TeleManagement Subject: Telecom Update (Canada) #328, April 15, 2002 TELECOM UPDATE published weekly by Angus TeleManagement Group http://www.angustel.ca Number 328: April 15, 2002 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 ** GROUP TELECOM http://www.gt.ca ** LUCENT TECHNOLOGIES CANADA http://www.lucent.ca ** PRIMUS CANADA: http://www.primustel.ca ** Q9 NETWORKS: http://www.Q9.com ** TELUS: http://www.telus.com ** UNISPHERE NETWORKS: http://www.unispherenetworks.com ************************************************************ IN THIS ISSUE: ** Western Deal Allows High-Payoff Exit for MTS ** Rogers Offers Voice-Equipped PDAs ** Telesat Offers High Speed Internet ** Microcell Launches Higher-Speed PC Card ** SaskTel Provides Lucent IP Video ** BCE Re-Examines Teleglobe ** Dial 1-800 for Telco Calling Card Calls ** CRTC Denies Contribution Deduction for Wireless Handsets ** Nortel Issues Sales Warning ** CRTC Overlooks a Call-Net Objection ** Commission Broadens LSP ID Conditions ** AT&T Wins Federal Contract ** CRTC Considers 1-900 Changes ** Telus Retires "Megalink" Brand ** Carriers Want Advance Release of Price Cap Decision ** CRTC Sets Timelines for Telecom Rulings ** Call-Net Reorganization Complete ** Operations Director Leaves Emergis ** Financial Reports Cogeco RIM ** IP -- the New Factor in PBX Decisions ============================================================ WESTERN DEAL ALLOWS HIGH-PAYOFF EXIT FOR MTS: Manitoba Telecom Services says that it will receive about $650 million if it exercises its option to sell its 40% of Bell West Inc. to Bell Canada in February 2004. Bell Canada President John Sheridan says Bell might sell its 22% stake in MTS to finance such a payout. ** As a result of the reorganization, former Bell Intrigna CEO Cheryl Barker is returning to MTS. She will become President and COO of MTS Communications on April 29. David Rourke, former EVP of MTS Communications, will become President and COO of MTS Advanced. ** Telecom Update was the first publication to report details on the Intrigna/Nexxia reorganization, in an Extra Edition on Thursday morning. (See Telecom Update #327a) ROGERS OFFERS VOICE-EQUIPPED PDAs: Rogers AT&T Wireless has begun selling RIM BlackBerry 5810 and Handspring Treo 180 devices. Both combine a personal organizer and a GSM cellphone. The BlackBerry unit offers Internet e-mail, while Treo has SMS messaging. Each is $749. TELESAT OFFERS HIGH SPEED INTERNET: Telesat says its new satellite-based High Speed Internet Service, introduced today in partnership with Virginia-based Spaceway Inc, is the first to offer "ADSL-type speeds" to businesses anywhere in the United States and Canada. MICROCELL LAUNCHES HIGHER-SPEED PC CARD: Microcell's Fido service now offers the Novatel Merlin G100 wireless PC card, a GPRS wireless modem that transmits at up to 56 Kbps. SASKTEL PROVIDES LUCENT IP VIDEO: SaskTel is the first carrier in North America to offer Lucent Technologies' Stinger platform for delivering IP video over DSL. BCE RE-EXAMINES TELEGLOBE: BCE says it is reviewing strategic alternatives for Teleglobe, including a reassessment of its ongoing funding and the possibility of restructuring its debt. BCE will reveal the impact of the review on its own financial situation when it releases its first quarter results on April 24. DIAL 1-800 FOR TELCO CALLING CARD CALLS: Since April 3, Bell and Telus have been blocking "0+" calls placed using each other's calling cards. To place calling card calls, Bell customers in Alberta and B.C. must dial 1-800-555-1111; Telus customers east of Alberta must dial 1-800-646-0000. CRTC DENIES CONTRIBUTION DEDUCTION FOR WIRELESS HANDSETS: In Telecom Decisions 2002-22 and 2002-23, the CRTC denies applications by Rogers and Telus to deduct part of their monthly wireless charges -- which they said should be considered payment for handsets -- from contribution-eligible revenues. http://www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/ENG/Decisions/2002/dt2002-22.htm http://www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/ENG/Decisions/2002/dt2002-23.htm NORTEL ISSUES SALES WARNING: Nortel Networks says its first- quarter financial report, due Thursday, will show sales of US$2.9 billion, 16% below the previous quarter. Nortel had earlier predicted a 10% sales decline. ** A syndicate of 27 banks agreed April 10 to grant Nortel a one-year US$1.175 billion line of credit. Nortel says that as of March 31 it had about $3 billion in cash reserves. CRTC OVERLOOKS A CALL-NET OBJECTION: On April 5, CRTC Telecom Order 2002-129 approved a Bell Canada filing for "Flex Bundles." The Order states "the Commission received no comments with respect to the application." However, the CRTC's website shows that Call-Net had objected to this filing on March 28. http://www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/ENG/Orders/2002/o2002-129.htm http://www.crtc.gc.ca/8740/eng/2002/b2-6659.htm COMMISSION BROADENS LSP ID CONDITIONS: In Telecom Decision 2002-21, the CRTC amends the grounds on which Bell may provide the identity of the local service provider associated with a given phone number to a law enforcement agency. http://www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/ENG/Decisions/2002/dt2002-21.htm AT&T WINS FEDERAL CONTRACT: AT&T Canada has won a four-and-a- half year, $7 million contract to provide a high-speed optical network linking four federal government data centres in the National Capital Region. CRTC CONSIDERS 1-900 CHANGES: Telecom Public Notice 2002-2 seeks public comment on proposed changes to the rules governing the billing and collection practices of 1-900 service providers, and more generally on improvements to protections for consumers who use such services. To participate, notify the Commission by April 22. ** Proposals include reducing the maximum charge for calls to gambling numbers from $25 to $5 and increasing the maximum charge for calls to "psychics" from $100 to $200. http://www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/ENG/Notices/2002/pt2002-2.htm TELUS RETIRES "MEGALINK" BRAND: Telus has dropped the brand name "Megalink" in favor of "ISDN-PRI Service." CARRIERS WANT ADVANCE RELEASE OF PRICE CAP DECISION: Bell Canada, Telus, Aliant, MTS, SaskTel, and AT&T Canada have asked the CRTC to allow interested parties to read the forthcoming Price Caps decision two hours before public release, so that they can understand and evaluate it before commenting publicly. CRTC SETS TIMELINES FOR TELECOM RULINGS: The CRTC has adopted standards for the time required to rule on various types of applications. The Commission will publish quarterly reports on its success in meeting these standards. http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/publications/reports/st2002_t.htm CALL-NET REORGANIZATION COMPLETE: Call-Net says that its restructuring, which changes its ownership and reduces its debt by $2 billion, is now complete. (See Telecom Update #321 and 327) OPERATIONS DIRECTOR LEAVES EMERGIS: Jacques Malo, President of BCE Emergis-Canada, has resigned; his interim replacement is COO Christien Trudeau. Terry Ham now leads a new Business Development group, and Alan Neely replaces him as head of BCE Emergis-USA. FINANCIAL REPORTS: ** Cogeco Cable sales for the three months ended February 28 were $111.2 million, 2.2% more than last year. Net income was $1.0 million. Compared with the previous quarter, Cogeco lost 13,270 cable customers and gained 19,183 high-speed Internet users. ** Research In Motion reports sales of $66.1 million for the three months ended March 2, 7% lower than the previous three months. Net loss: $8.6 million. On March 2 there were 321,000 BlackBerry subscribers. IP -- THE NEW FACTOR IN PBX DECISIONS: "IP telephony should definitely be part of your PBX decision process," say Ian Angus and John Riddell in the April issue of Telemanagement. Their special report, "The IP-PBX Revolution," weighs the advantages and drawbacks of enterprise IP telephony today. ** Single copies of Telemanagement #194 are $75 each: call 905-686-5050 ext 500 and charge to Visa, American Express, or Mastercard. Save 49% with a 10-issue subscription -- go to http://www.angustel.ca/teleman/tm-sub.html. ============================================================ 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: TelecomUpdate@add.postmastergeneral.com To stop receiving the e-mail edition, send an e-mail message to: TelecomUpdate@remove.postmastergeneral.com Sending e-mail to these addresses will automatically add or remove the sender's e-mail address from the list. Leave subject line and message area blank. =========================================================== COPYRIGHT AND CONDITIONS OF USE: All contents copyright 2002 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 500. 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. ============================================================ JOHN RIDDELL jriddell@angustel.ca Angus TeleManagement Group http://www.angustel.ca 8 Old Kingston Road Tel: 905-686-5050 x226 Ajax Ontario L1T 2Z7 Canada Fax: 905-686-2655 ------------------------------ From: Glen Hoag Subject: Re: CASwin With a G3si V6 Date: Sun, 14 Apr 2002 23:44:26 -0500 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com In article , Mike wrote: > Hello, > I have a G3si V6 and a CASwin PC. > I have a DB9 to DB25 cable connecting the PC's Serial Port to the DCE > port on the control cabinet. The PC is not getting any data. What do > I need to do to make this work? Any help at all would be appreciated. 1. Make sure you have the CDR data going out the DCE port. "change system-paramaters cdr" is the command to check it. Verify that the bit rate, parity and stop bits match what CASwin is expecting. Also, make sure that CASwin is looking on the right serial port. 2. Verify that your cable is the right flavor. There are DE9-to-DB25 cables wired for printers. If this is the type you have, you'll need a null modem cable in addition to the one you have. At minimum, this cable would swap 2 and 3, 4 and 5, 6 and 20, with 1 and 7 wired straight through. (this is on the DB 25 end) > P.S. I saw in the documentation that on a G3 it ALSO uses a TN726B and > a TN553. I don't know if it NEEDS it or it can use it. I couldn't > find much more information on it. You could send your CDR data through one of these cards, but you don't have to. The DCE port on the control cabinet is sufficient. ------------------------------ From: anonmike@hotmail.com (Mike) Subject: Re: CASwin With a G3si V6 Date: 15 Apr 2002 09:21:17 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ I have the EIA setting set. It's still not working. Thanks for trying. Keith W wrote in message news:: > Check the following: > cha sys cdr (change system-paramters cdr) > Make sure the Primary Output Ext = eia > Mike wrote in message > news:telecom20.221.8@telecom-digest.org... >> Hello, >> I have a G3si V6 and a CASwin PC. >> I have a DB9 to DB25 cable connecting the PC's Serial Port to the DCE >> port on the control cabinet. The PC is not getting any data. What do >> I need to do to make this work? Any help at all would be appreciated. ------------------------------ From: J3r3my L33 Subject: Re: LineJack Software for Single Line Gateway? Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2002 10:36:10 -0400 Organization: University of Maryland, Baltimore County Sorry, this is it: http://siphon.sourceforge.net/index.html Skua wrote in message news:telecom20.223.9@telecom-digest.org: > Does anyone have software that would allow the use of the Quicknet > Internet Line Jack as a single line gateway? > I've been told that the original software that shipped with the Line > Jack a few years ago actually had this capability; the new software > from Quicknet only allows you to use THEIR hop-off points. > Does anyone have the original old software for the Line Jack that > actually allows you to create your own single line gateway? ------------------------------ From: brent@cc.gatech.edu (Brent Laminack) Subject: Re: Any Negative Experiences With Allegiance Telecom Date: 15 Apr 2002 11:24:42 -0400 Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology > I am looking into switching from Kmart Corp dial tone to > Allegiance Telecom, because of too many problems with Kmart > Corp. If anyone has an opinion it would be appreciated. We have a customer that has a T1 with 12 voice channels and the rest as Internet access. They've had it for about 18 months with only one outage that I can remember. They've been very reliable as far as I can tell. Brent Laminack ------------------------------ From: kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) Subject: Re: Another Uniformed Toll Free Spammer!!!! Date: 15 Apr 2002 11:54:51 -0400 Organization: Former users of Netcom shell (1989-2000) In article , Steven Lichter wrote: > ... to teach this individual about the cost of owning an 800 number ... > -----Original Message----- > THERE IS A SOLUTION, DO NOT REPLACE YOUR CARTRIDGES . > REFILL THEM WITH OUR HIGH QUALITY INKJET REFILL KIT. > Never refilled before? Have questions? Need answers? > Call us, toll FREE 1-866-718-1708 24 HOURS, 7 DAYS A > WEEK. This is almost certainly Sam Khuri of Vortex Toner Supplies, who is currently under court order to stop his spamming. --scott "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." ------------------------------ From: stevenl11@aol.com (Steven Lichter) Date: 15 Apr 2002 12:00:36 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Another Clueless Spammer with a Toll Free Number ... To teach this individual about the cost of owning a Toll Free number ... -----Original Message----- Also, if you would like to speak with one of our representatives immediately, Please call 800-240-4644 (option 1). Before calling, Please have the information above available. Thank you for contacting Liberty Financial Services. ------------------------------ A postscript, I looked the domain up, total bogus information on it. Remember it is against the law to harrass anyone by telephone. Also you should use a payphone so that the operator can make a little money. Apple Elite II 909-359-5338. Home of GBBS/LLUCE, support for the Apple II 24 hours 2400/14.4. An OggNet Server. The only good spammer is a dead one!!! Have you hunted one down today? (c) Kill Spammers, Inc. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 14 Apr 2002 18:47:58 -0500 From: Christopher Wolf Organization: Texas Instruments Subject: Re: New Breed Spam Filter Slashes Junk Email > From: dave@compata.com (Dave Close) > Subject: Re: New Breed Spam Filter Slashes Junk Email > Organization: Compata, Costa Mesa, California > Date: Sun, 14 Apr 2002 02:58:57 GMT > haynes@alumni.uark.edu (Jim Haynes) writes: >> What we really need is an airtight piece of >> software that can track the spam back to its source and send a >> complaint to the administrator there. > Be careful what you wish for. Any such scheme would also completely > eliminate anonymous email, such as may be used for many worthwhile > causes (as well as some bogus ones). For example, you would no longer > be able to report corruption anonymously, which you might do if you > feared that an attributable report would result in harm to you. Not quite; In it's simplist form, *I* (as a person running this new software) would no longer received such reports, but I never do anyway. I could certainly still report stuff anonymously, and the only way I'd have to worry is if the receiver ran the same software. And if they did, it's pretty clear they don't want me contacting them anyway. If you send anonymous, and I say I don't want to read anonymous, what's the problem? > I hate spam as much as the next guy, but I'm opposed to any scheme > which converts a reliable delivery mechanism into an unreliable one. Correct me if I'm wrong, but email is not and has never been a guaranteed delivery protocol mechanism. It just happens to be really reliable (?) at the moment. If you really need to ensure your email is getting there, you need other mechanisms, like return receipts. > As an aside, it's certainly true that spam constitutes a large portion > of the SMTP traffic on the net. However, another large component is the > unnecessary use of multipart/alternative for all mail sent by certain > user agents. Those who assert that we need to reduce traffic might want > to campaign against the disease of uselessly bulky messages. Depends on your definition of unnecessary. I use text markups to make a point, but I want those with only text viewers (I have a lot of Unix friends) to still be able to read it, so one needs to send both types. My point may be only slightly decreased without the markup, but it might make all the difference for some readers. -W ------------------------------ 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-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 630-841-7174 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@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 * * Judith Oppenheimer, President of ICB Inc. and purveyor of accurate * * 800 & Dot Com News, Intelligence, Analysis, and Consulting. * * http://ICBTollFree.com, http://1800TheExpert.com * * Views expressed herein should not be construed as representing * * views of Judith Oppenheimer or ICB Inc. * ************************************************************************* ICB Toll Free News. Contact information is not sold, rented or leased. Access to Premium (P) links requires upgrade to a paid subscription. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Only subscribers or registered users of ICB Toll Free News web site will be able to access all or some of the full text of URLs provided. LEGAL STUFF: TELECOM Digest (sm) is owned by Patrick Townson. Copyright 2000 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. 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. End of TELECOM Digest V20 #224 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Apr 16 00:24:24 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id AAA00753; Tue, 16 Apr 2002 00:24:24 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 16 Apr 2002 00:24:24 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200204160424.AAA00753@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #225 TELECOM Digest Tue, 16 Apr 2002 00:24:00 EDT Volume 20 : Issue 225 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Call For Papers: Workshop: Discrete Algorithms; Mobile Computing (Fleury) Re: Local Number Portability (was re: FCC to Vote ...) (Clarence Dold) Re: Alternative to Do Not Call Lists (H. Peter Anvin) Disappointment With Featurefon.com (Richard Silverstein) In Need of Some Help (PuNkErX) My Line Service (+1 3 0 3 5 4 3 2 3 1 1) Re: Another Uniformed Toll Free Spammer!!!! (Dave Garland) Re: Jennifer Martino Bad Link (B. C. Leonard) Re: New Breed Spam Filter Slashes Junk Email (Anthony E. Siegman) In-Band Signaling - Legend (Matt) Re: Is "Call Waiting Caller ID" Different Than "Caller ID"? (Robt. Eden) NXX 178 (Madra Dubh) Last Laugh! Clueless Loanshark Telemarketer With Toll-Free (Mark Crispin) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Eric Fleury Subject: Call For Papers: Workshop on Discrete Algorithms; Mobile Computing Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2002 18:31:50 +0200 Organization: CISM (Universite Claude Bernard Lyon I et INSA Lyon) _____________________________ C A L L F O R P A P E R S ----------------------------- DIAL M for Mobility ___________________ 6th International Workshop on Discrete Algorithms and Methods for Mobile Computing and Communications September, 28, 2002 Atlanta, Georgia, USA (In conjunction with ACM MobiCom 2002) Sponsored by ACM Sigmobile (pending) http://dialm.insa-lyon.fr/ SCOPE Mobile computing and communications such as portable phones and Personal Digital Assistants will have an enormous impact on all of us over the next several decades. The introduction of mobility raises a number of new research questions. For many of them, approaches based on the continuous case are not satisfactory, and discrete models and algorithms are required in order to deal with real applications. The workshop DIAL M for Mobility is devoted to discrete algorithms and discrete modelling in the context of mobile and wireless computing and communications. It is intended to be a lively meeting, covering many of the algorithmic and discrete aspects of this field going from operations research to radio engineering problems. It aims, in particular, at fostering the cooperation among practitioners and theoreticians of the field. Following the success the first workshop held jointly with Mobicom 97 in Budapest, DIAL M for Mobility will be co-located with ACM/IEEE MobiCom 98 and will be composed of contributed and invited talks. TOPICS Papers are solicited in all research and applied areas related to mobile and wireless computing and communications where discrete algorithms and methods are used, including, but not limited to: * distributed algorithms * frequency allocation * location tracking * multihop packet radio networks * wireless networks * cryptography and security * error correcting codes * handover (handoff) * modelling * optimization * routing * satellite communication * scheduling * site allocation * synchronization * telecommunications PUBLICATION All contributions will be refereed by the Program Committee. All accepted papers will appear (7 to 10 pages each) in the workshop proceedings which will be published by ACM. SUBMISSION GUIDELINES The language of the conference is English. All submissions should be original and not currently under review by any other publication or conference. All papers will be reviewed by two or more reviewers. Accepted proposals will be published in the conference proceedings. It is expected that all accepted papers will be presented at the workshop. Papers should be full papers and be no longer than 5000 words (no more than 10 single-spaced pages). Submissions must include a cover page, containing the title, author name(s) and affiliation(s), the complete address (telephone, fax, email) of the corresponding author, and an abstract (max 150 words) followed by up to 5 keywords. Authors are requested to submit an electronic version (PDF or A4 Postscript format) of the paper. The PDF format is strongly recommended. All submissions will be handled electronically. You will submit your proposal via the WEB (http://dialm.insa-lyon.fr/) or E-MAIL (Eric.Fleury@inria.fr) if your web access is limited). Please review all these instructions before submitting your paper: * PDF format or * PostScript version 2 or later. * No longer than 10 pages. * Fits properly on "US Letter" size paper (8.5X11 inches) * Reference only Computer Modern or standard Adobe printer fonts * (i.e. Courier, Times, Roman, or Helvetica); other fonts may be used * but must be included in the PostScript file. IMPORTANT DATES * Submissions due: May 1, 2002 * Notification of acceptance: June 15, 2002 * Camera-ready papers due: July 15, 2002 * Workshop: September, 28, 2002 ORGANIZATION CONFERENCE CHAIRS Ric FLEURY CITI/INRIA Rhne-Alpes Domaine Scientifique de la Doua - INSA de Lyon Bt. Lonard de Vinci - 21 av. Jean Capelle F-69621 Villeurbanne Cedex France Work Phone: +33 472 434 421 Fax Number: +33 472 436 227 Email: Eric.Fleury@inria.fr Madhav MARATHE Los Alamos National Laboratory P.O. Box 1663 Los Alamos, NM 87545 USA Work Phone: +1 505 667 8010 Fax Number: +1 505 665 6474 Email: marathe@lanl.gov TECHNICAL PROGRAM COMMITTEE (to be confirmed) P. Agarwal, Duke University, USA A. Bar-Noy, AT&T Labs and Tel Aviv University, Israel M. Charikar, Princeton University, USA P. Crescenzi, U. Firenze, Italia B. Ducourthial, UTC, France M. Gerla, UCLA, USA P. Jacquet, INRIA, France S. Krumke, ZIB Berlin, Germany J-Y. Leboudec, EPFL, Switzerland G. R. Mateus, UFMG, Brasil M. Morvan, ENS-Lyon, France S. Naor, Technion, Israel D. Peleg, Weizmann Institute, Israel C. Phillips, Sandia National Laboratories, USA A. Richa, ASU, USA B. Schieber, IBM Watson, USA M. Steenstrup, BBN, USA A. Srinivasan, University of Maryland, USA P. Widmayer, ETH Zurich, Switzerland STEERING COMMITTEE Ian Akyildiz, Georgia Tech, USA Maurizio Bonuccelli, University of Pisa, Italy Afonso Ferreira, CNRS - I3S - INRIA - Sophia Antipolis, France Arunabha Sen, Arizona State University, USA. Eric FLEURY e-mail: Eric.Fleury@inria.fr CITI - INRIA http: www.loria.fr/~fleury Domaine Scientifique de la Doua - INSA-Lyon Tel: +33 472 436 421 Bt. Lonard de Vinci - 21, av.Jean Capelle Fax: +33 472 436 227 69621 Villeurbanne Cedex France Cel: +33 678 268 036 ------------------------------ From: dold@69.usenet.us.com Subject: Re: Local Number Portability (was re: FCC to Vote ...) Date: 15 Apr 2002 17:31:32 GMT Organization: Wintercreek Data John David Galt wrote: > dold@69.usenet.us.com wrote: >> For intra-LATA toll, there is a great deal of difference between >> agreements amongst nearby ILECs that might have the same parent >> company, and the offers available to CLECs. > Doesn't the ILEC's common-carrier status make this type of > discrimination illegal? Heaven's no! It just makes it more interesting. Keeping on top of what is allowed, what is negotiable, and actually completing those negotiations before something better is offered to the quicker folks who have already completed the cycle is the most competitive part of the "C" in CLEC. It used to be called "tariff shopping". Clarence A Dold - dold@email.rahul.net - Pope Valley (Napa County) CA. ------------------------------ From: H. Peter Anvin Subject: Re: Alternative to Do Not Call Lists Date: 15 Apr 2002 11:33:05 -0700 Organization: Transmeta Corporation, Santa Clara CA Followup to: By author: Tom Betz In newsgroup: comp.dcom.telecom > Quoth Chris Williams in news:telecom20.218.2@telecom- > digest.org: >> My personal feeling is that this whole DNCL concept is flawed and >> needs to be replaced by something that would actually work > I agree. > The whole thing needs to be turned on its head. > We need a national "Please Call Me" list. People who want to be called by > telemarketers sign up for it, they stay on it for ten years, unless they > remove themselves from it. > Any telemarketer who calls someone not on national "Please Call Me" list > would be subject to a $1,000 fine per call, and be prohibited from > owning or using a telephone for six months. > Any objections? Please see: http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/edcams/donotcall/ Today is the last day for comment. -hpa at work, in private! "Unix gives you enough rope to shoot yourself in the foot." http://www.zytor.com/~hpa/puzzle.txt ------------------------------ From: richards1052@attbi.com (Richard Silverstein) Subject: Disappointment With Featurefon.com Date: 15 Apr 2002 11:44:53 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Joseph Singer: I've signed up for local Seattle phone service with Featurefon as you suggested. Yes, their features and overall package are extraordinary, especially for the price. The installer came on Saturday and hooked us up. The problem is that by Sunday we weren't getting any incoming calls (outgoing was fine). Everyone calling received a busy signal. When I called customer service I got voice mail (no live person). I also sent an email to customer service. It's now Monday and they still only have voice mail on their customer service line. No one has called me back to fix this problem. Luckily, I used some of their technology to jerryrig a workaround: I call forwarded all of our calls to my cell phone so at least we can get calls on the cell phone. But that sort of defeats the purpose of having landline telephones in one's home doesn't it?? Atrocious customer service so far from Featurefon. They certainly need to work out some kinks. Richard On 11 Feb 2002 11:14:52 -0800, richards1052@attbi.com (Richard Silverstein) wrote: > I'm trying to identify any local phone companies which might be > competing with Qwest (yuck!) here in Seattle. Does anyone out there > know if any of the major local phone service companies operate here? Try: http://www.featurefon.com/ they offer service with many extra added services as part of the base charge for $19.95 per month. If you need to have ADSL though it's not an option. Personal replies are likely not read. Please reply in the newsgroup. ------------------------------ From: mackdaddy23@hotmail.com (PuNkErX) Subject: In Need of Some Help Date: 15 Apr 2002 12:14:34 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ I have a pretty simple question. I'm doing a report for my networking class, and I searched for my topic online, but couldn't really find anything. So what I'm wondering is if anyone can explain to me "bit oriented protocol"? I understand a little bit, but if anyone can point me in the right direction, or give me some info that'd be great. Thanks in advance. PuNkErX ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2002 13:34:26 -0600 From: Paul Migliorelli (+1 3 0 3 5 4 3 2 3 1 1) Subject: My Line Service Hi all. Several years ago, Call America offered 800 service utilizing the My Line package, with all kinds of features like programmable destinations, call waiting and screening and many others. Does anyone out there offer anything similar now days?? And what ever became of Call America?? Thanks. ------------------------------ From: Dave Garland Subject: Re: Another Uniformed Toll Free Spammer!!!! Organization: Wizard Information Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2002 16:04:07 -0500 It was a dark and stormy night when kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) wrote: > In article , > Steven Lichter wrote: > This is almost certainly Sam Khuri of Vortex Toner Supplies, who is > currently under court order to stop his spamming. I don't know if it is Sam (who used to do business as "Benchmark Print Supply") or not, but if it is, you can find contact info at http://www.bibliotech.net/spammer.html. Sam's court order provides a $1000 penalty for each piece of mail if he uses a bogus or obfusticated email address, fails to provide an opt-out, mails to someone who has opted out, or sells or distributes the address of an unwilling party. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 14 Apr 2002 20:50:07 -0500 From: B C Leonard Subject: Re: Jennifer Martino Bad Link Hello Pat: Jennifer had a baby about 4 years ago and that was why she lost interest in keeping the site. It reappeared on COTSE.com a year or so ago with some new recordings. I didn't know it disappeared again. My dumpy site is at heymoe.freeyellow.com . Attached are HTML links to the individual .rm files on the site. I just snagged reordertone.com - in a week or so the folks at cyberwings will set up the account there, but I'll keep the free site since there's really no downside to doing so. Good to hear from you in person, Brad Leonard (alias, Marty Cohn) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Brad sent along several curious recorded message numbers, which are listed below. Try any of them, and if you like them, then consider for a laugh forwarding your phone number to one of these now and then. Consider using 800-245-7508 on lines that have telemarketer activity. :) If anyone reading this does not know the purpose of one of these legitimate telco intercept numbers, please write and say *which number*, we will try to explain it. I can see much potential for mischief with some of these numbers when they are misused. PAT] 301-292-9908 Deposit 25 cents. 312-591-8301 Line is being checked for trouble. 312-591-9999 New number is 555-1212. 503-620-0042 Calling party on your own line. 503-620-0043 Called by party on your line. 503-620-0047 Your line is temporarily disconnected. 503-620-0048 Cannot process Custom Calling request. 503-620-0049 Your call cannot be completed as dialed. 503-620-0050 Heavy Volume, place call later. 503-620-0055 Hang up and try again. 503-620-0056 Call requires a coin deposit. 503-620-0059 All 911 lines are busy. 509-248-0014 The number is busy. 509-248-0015 You have canceled your request. Hang up now. 509-248-0016 The number was free, but is busy again. 509-248-0019 The number cannot be reached from your calling area. 509-248-0034 The last call has been traced. 509-248-0035 The number called cannot be reached. 509-248-0036 Your call was completed, but the party is not receiving calls. 509-248-0037 Call Forwarding and Selective Call Forwarding cannot be used at the same time. 509-248-0038 The number cannot be reached now. 509-248-0048 The number you called is blocked. 509-248-0091 Called party does not accept blocked calls. 509-457-0001 Call cannot be completed as dialed. 509-457-0002 You must first dial a 1. 509-457-0003 This call will be forwarded over private facilities. 509-457-0036 Last call cannot be traced. 509-457-0048 Call cannot be completed. Read instruction card. 509-457-0049 Call cannot be completed. Please call attendant. 509-457-0050 911 is not a working number for your area. 509-457-0051 All circuits are busy now. 541-967-0001 Long distance cannot be completed because of restrictions. 541-967-0006 Network difficulties. 541-967-0010 Business telephone experiencing trouble. 541-967-0027 Number of the last call is unavailable. 610-797-0014 Excuse me. Deposit 5 cents. 618-254-0000 Number not in service for incoming calls. 800-245-7508 You are not authorized to dial this number. (Cause some real paranoia!) 800-363-3343 You have reached the verification announcement. 800-368-3407 AT&T Easyreach 800. 800-664-0004 This phone is not currently in service. 800-922-0918 You have dialed an invalid number. 800-999-9976 Call cannot be completed as dialed. Check the number. 805-664-0019 Service you are requesting is not available. 815-469-9999 You have not deposited the correct amount. 888-999-9931 Your call did not go through. 888-999-9977 Number dialed is disconnected or no longer in service. 888-999-9990 800 number is no longer in service. 914-268-9940 Cannot place call because no long distance company selected. 914-359-9901 5ESS Switch, New York. 914-440-0005 You must first dial a 1 when dialing this number. 914-440-0017 Your Service has been interrupted. 914-440-0029 All circuits are busy now. 914-440-0030 This number has been disconnected as a result of a Federal Court Decision. Quite Unique. 914-440-0031 Due to telephone company facility trouble your call cannot be completed. 914-808-9901 5 ESS Announcement. 941-232-9901 ESS 100 Central Exchange ------------------------------ From: aes Subject: Re: New Breed Spam Filter Slashes Junk Email Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2002 15:28:44 -0700 Organization: Stanford University The problems with doing email spam filtering on one's own personal computer are that you still have to download all the stuff before you can filter it, and it's excessively difficult for a single individual to have to keep endlessly updating and revising the filters. ISPs or larger organizations that provide their own mail servers for larger numbers of employees or members may be able to afford more capabilities for providing enhanced and continually updated filtering against the worst of the spammers at the server level, before down-loading to their clients. These organizations could be assisted perhaps by central organizations that provide them with updated filtering lists. I can then envision individuals or organizations also setting up voluntary "Electronic Post Offices" (POs) that anyone can send email through for "stamping" and forwarding, sort of like the (former?) penet anonymizer service in Finland, except the EPO would charge the send a small fee for adding the electronic "stamp" (could be as low as a few pennies per msg, but enough to discourage mass mailers). Messages coming without accompanying or pre-arranged payment would be dumped or bounced. Individual mail servers or ISPs could then provide their clients with a customized email service whereby they would, at the individual client's request, only pass on to the client email that either came from an customized authorization list for each individual client (provided and updated by the individual client) or from a small set of trusted EPOs with which the server had a relationship. As a way of not totally blocking messages from new correspondents who were initially unknown to the client but may be acceptable, the local server, instead of ditching all unstamped or unauthorized email, could send auto-replys saying, "If you really want to get through to this recipient, you'll have to email again through one of the following EPOs". The prospective new correspondent could then, if they desired, resend the same message through one of the EPOs, perhaps having to pay a more substantial single-message fee to the EPO via credit card, or via the sender's own ISP. The message would then get through to the recipient, and the recipient could then, if desired, add this new correspondent to the recipient's authorization list on the recipient's server. Seems as if something like this could be done with server and EPO CPUs doing most of the work, without too many difficulties and with some effectiveness. Are there logical defects in a scheme like this? ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2002 23:18:21 GMT From: Matt Subject: In-Band Signaling - Legend Organization: Optimum Online Does anyone have the in band signaling codes that the Merlin Legend uses to communicate with a voicemail system and the format it is used in? Thanks. ------------------------------ From: Robert Eden Subject: Re: Is "Call Waiting Caller ID" Different Than "Caller ID"? Organization: Prodigy Internet http://www.prodigy.com Date: Tue, 16 Apr 2002 00:24:59 GMT John wrote in message news:telecom20.223.12@telecom-digest.org: > If I buy a phone or modem and it doesn't specify that it supports > "Call Waiting Caller ID" it probably doesn't support that feature, > right? I'm surprised I haven't seen an answer posted, so I'll give it a shot. If it doesn't list the feature, it probably won't do it. I also doubt any modems would support it. Most Call Waiting CLID boxes only work if you're talking on the phone with CW-CLID, because they detect a break in the current from the CO to start the monitoring for the CLID. I don't think a on-hook device could do this. Robert ------------------------------ From: Madra Dubh Subject: NXX 178 Reply-To: madradubh226@yahoo.com Date: Tue, 16 Apr 2002 01:18:21 GMT Organization: RoadRunner - West Please correct me if I am wrong, but would it be safe to say there are no NXXs below 200? Why would a carrier (who shall remain nameless) provide a Call Detail Record (CDR), either 1+ or Toll-Free with an originating or terminating NPA and an NXX of 178? Is this 'Plant Test'? I have seen other CDRs with an NXX of 055. Any ideas what that would be? Are these "Central Office Codes (COC)"?? ------------------------------ From: Mark Crispin Subject: Last Laugh! Clueless Loanshark Telemarketer With Toll-Free Number Organization: Pandamonium Reigns Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2002 17:52:50 GMT I was called at 10:09AM Pacific Time today by an automated telemarketer. This is in spite of the fact that my telephone service has No Solicitation. The recording, which was playing when I picked up the phone, instructed me to call back at 800-774-1130, and speak with Eric Williams. That number reaches a loanshark house called "Integrated Credit Solutions". I called them and demanded payment of $500 civil damages. I first got some receptionist, who transferred me to another receptionist, who offered to take my number off their list. I persisted in my demand for payment, and eventually got transferred to a voice mail. Since they didn't see fit to settle with me immediately, I filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission (1-877-FTC-HELP) and with the Federal Communications Commission (1-888-225-5322). Unlike the telephone company and the Washington State Attorney General's office, the feds actually seem to be interested in taking complaints. -- Mark -- http://panda.com/mrc Socialism: If you build it, they will leave. ------------------------------ 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-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 630-841-7174 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@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 * * Judith Oppenheimer, President of ICB Inc. and purveyor of accurate * * 800 & Dot Com News, Intelligence, Analysis, and Consulting. * * http://ICBTollFree.com, http://1800TheExpert.com * * Views expressed herein should not be construed as representing * * views of Judith Oppenheimer or ICB Inc. * ************************************************************************* ICB Toll Free News. Contact information is not sold, rented or leased. Access to Premium (P) links requires upgrade to a paid subscription. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Only subscribers or registered users of ICB Toll Free News web site will be able to access all or some of the full text of URLs provided. LEGAL STUFF: TELECOM Digest (sm) is owned by Patrick Townson. Copyright 2000 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. 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. End of TELECOM Digest V20 #225 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Apr 17 19:50:54 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id TAA07192; Wed, 17 Apr 2002 19:50:54 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 17 Apr 2002 19:50:54 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200204172350.TAA07192@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #226 TELECOM Digest Wed, 17 Apr 2002 19:49:00 EDT Volume 20 : Issue 226 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: In Need of Some Help (Reed) Re: In Need of Some Help (Tom Schmidt) Re: New Breed Spam Filter Slashes Junk Email (Denis Mcmahon) Re: New Breed Spam Filter Slashes Junk Email (Dave Close) Problem Using DEC SS7 (Sunderj Singh) Headsets (Dave Olive) Toll Free Number To Ring To Office, Home, or Cell (Ms. Gage) A New Telecom Community, if You Haven't Heard (Rick) Re: NORTEL DMS Switch Page (Rick) Re: Alternative to Do Not Call Lists (Steve Fleckenstein) Re: NXX 178 (MuJo) AT&T Wireless Introduces Mode (Monty Solomon) Local in Loudoun County (Fred Atkinson) Federal Court Rules Ban on "Junk Faxes" Violates 1st Amendment (Solomon) Re: Any Negative Experiences With Allegiance Telecom (Paul Erickson) Re: LineJack Software for Single Line Gateway? (Skua) Last Laugh! Some Idiot Assigned Phone Number to Fax Machine (Carl Moore) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Reed Subject: Re: In Need of Some Help Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2002 22:49:34 -0600 Organization: None Whatsoever Bit oriented protocols are those in which individual bits within a byte convey line discipline (control)information as opposed to the whole byte only. Examples are: HDLC, SDLC, X.25, Frame Relay. As opposed to byte-oriented, which uses whole characters for control codes, such as IBM BiSync, Burroughs Poll/Select, DEC DDCMP. --reed PuNkErX wrote: > I have a pretty simple question. I'm doing a report for my networking > class, and I searched for my topic online, but couldn't really find > anything. So what I'm wondering is if anyone can explain to me "bit > oriented protocol"? > I understand a little bit, but if anyone can point me in the right > direction, or give me some info that'd be great. ------------------------------ Reply-To: Tom Schmidt From: Tom Schmidt Subject: Re: In Need of Some Help Date: Tue, 16 Apr 2002 20:42:35 GMT PuNkErX wrote in message news:telecom20.225.5@telecom-digest.org: > I have a pretty simple question. I'm doing a report for my networking > class, and I searched for my topic online, but couldn't really find > anything. So what I'm wondering is if anyone can explain to me "bit > oriented protocol"? > I understand a little bit, but if anyone can point me in the right > direction, or give me some info that'd be great. Computers deal with data in "chunks" byte, word, long word. Since communication protocols are serial data can be manipulated at the bit level. From my handy dandy Newton's telcom dictionary: "A data link control protocol that uses special bit patterns to transfer controlling information." /Tom ------------------------------ From: Denis Mcmahon Subject: Re: New Breed Spam Filter Slashes Junk Email Date: Tue, 16 Apr 2002 15:54:00 +0100 Organization: E-Menu Ltd Reply-To: denisrt@pickaxe.demon.co.uk aes wrote: > Seems as if something like this could be done with server and EPO CPUs > doing most of the work, without too many difficulties and with some > effectiveness. Are there logical defects in a scheme like this? Yes, a big ISP bounces all the University of wherever acceptance emails as Spam. Other similar incidents, eg involving I think a UK National Telecomms Operator and ISP doing something similar recently. Rgds, Denis McMahon / +44 7802 468949 / denis@pickaxe.demon.co.uk sulfnbk is not a virus, see the symantec virus encyclopaedia! Now restocking killfile, new entrants welcome: trolls, spam, xpost cascades, OT ads, top posters & terminally clueless! ------------------------------ From: dave@compata.com (Dave Close) Subject: Re: New Breed Spam Filter Slashes Junk Email Organization: Compata, Costa Mesa, California Date: Wed, 17 Apr 2002 05:59:36 GMT aes writes: > ISPs or larger organizations that provide their own mail servers for > larger numbers of employees or members may be able to afford more > capabilities for providing enhanced and continually updated filtering > against the worst of the spammers at the server level, before > down-loading to their clients. I have no problem with an ISP filtering mail on behalf of a recipient - IF and ONLY IF the recipient has specifically requested such service. If this is done for any recipient who has not authorized it, it amounts to censorship. An implication of my rule is that only the destination ISP could possibly do the filtering. Heaven save us from do-gooders. > I can then envision individuals or organizations also setting up > voluntary "Electronic Post Offices" (POs) that anyone can send email > through for "stamping" and forwarding > Seems as if something like this could be done with server and EPO CPUs > doing most of the work, without too many difficulties and with some > effectiveness. Are there logical defects in a scheme like this? Technically, no. In reality, micropayment schemes have not been wildly successful. There are no signs I can see that this will change. Dave Close, Compata, Costa Mesa CA "Politics is the business of getting dave@compata.com, +1 714 434 7359 power and privilege without dhclose@alumni.caltech.edu possessing merit." - P. J. O'Rourke [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Regards an ISP making decisions on what is spam and what is not, etc, what do you think of the fact that both AOL and Yahoo sort their mail as a default condition, into boxes for 'junk mail' and more realistic stuff to/from real people. As far as I know, they do not kill any mail, but Yahoo at least stuffs the mail they choose into a 'bulkmail folder'. You can change that if you don't like the way they choose to sort mail by dropping out of the 'bulkmail folder' system. PAT] ------------------------------ From: sunder4friends@rediffmail.com (sunderj singh) Subject: Problem Using DEC SS7 Date: 17 Apr 2002 03:49:35 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ I am using DEC SS7 v3.1 protocol stack along with DEC ISUP. I have chosen monolithic configuration. The ss7 network has three signalling links one on each m/c. I am using TRU 64 4.0F operating system. Links are terminated on DNBE1-EL cards. Problem that has started is links go down quite frequently. When i see the status of MTP2 Data_link entity when a link is down, it says "Corrupted Instance". I do a ss7shutdown and start it again to bring the links up. Now the frequency of links going down has increased. Can this be due to load on the FEP as due to monolithic configuration. Both FEP and BEP are running on the same system. Devise a solution. ------------------------------ Subject: Headsets Date: Wed, 17 Apr 2002 09:51:09 -0500 From: Olive, Dave Patrick, I'm in a Master's program, currently taking a class in marketing. My team is trying to develop a new product, and we think a wireless headset for use with cell phones may have some potential. I've read about Bluetooth, but our product would interface with the phone itself, rather than be a phone. We're having difficulty finding out how many headsets are currently sold on an annual basis. Any ideas? I can't go out and purchase the studies that may tell us the information. Also, is it feasible to have an ear piece that has a small microphone, either sensing the vibration in a person's ear, recognizing words via vibration, or is it better to have a microphone closer to the person's mouth? We also don't know if there will be too much interference/ feedback in a wireless product used with a cell phone. Any ideas would be helpful. Thanks, e-mail: David.L.Olive@ue-corp.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I've had a cellular headset like that. A small foam-rubber thing fits in your ear. The 'microphone' is almost microscopic in size. You can barely see it. I really think the way it 'hears' what you are saying is by the bones rattling in your head or ear canal. I don't like it a lot. PAT] ------------------------------ From: answercenter@msn.com (Ms. Gage) Subject: Toll Free Number To Ring To Office, Home, or Cell... Date: 17 Apr 2002 10:30:29 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ SMART enough to ALWAYS know where to reach you and can transfer your calls to wherever you are: At Home! At Work! On the road to your Cell Phone! Or, ANYWHERE You Choose! Overview Answer Solutions is a revolutionary service that helps you control your communications. Unlike traditional calling, Answer Solutions all-in-one service gives you the freedom and convenience of using one number eliminating all other expensive devices. When you sign up with Answer Solutions 'toll free number service' you will be given your own personal or business toll free number which will ring to any 10 digit number(s) you specify (office, home, cell, pager, etc.). Almost everyone needs a toll free number! They were originally a valuable tool only used by the biggest corporations. Over the past few years, the costs have dropped so dramatically that toll free numbers are now well within reach of everyone. Despite the dramatic drop in cost of toll free numbers, the value has remained the same and today there is no excuse why every business or individual shouldn't have their own toll free number. Sign Up Today Calling (877)840-8661 or By Visiting Us At http://site.yahoo.com/calls247. Receive your toll free number the very same day ... [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But Ms. Gage, your spam-like message did not tell us what this service would cost per month. And although it comes {thisclose} to being spam, I made an editorial decision to treat it like an 'infomercial' and print it because we had this very topic recently in the Digest. So how much does it cost? Can I get a gen-you-wine 800 number, or only one the 877/866 variety? PAT] ------------------------------ From: rixride@hotmail.com (Rick) Subject: A New Telecom Community, if You Haven't Heard Date: 16 Apr 2002 19:51:28 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ A new community has been created, PBX INFO Check us out at http://www.pbxinfo.com Use the "Submit News" to Post info and articles to the site. (They must be your own.) This is a community based Site. No Pop up ads, No Strings and No Bull Shirt -r :) Sincerely, Rick Cruz Founder Pbxinfo.com ------------------------------ From: rixride@hotmail.com (Rick) Subject: Re: NORTEL DMS Switch Page Date: 16 Apr 2002 19:58:09 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ jwxt@msn.com (Jose) wrote in message news: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This arrived without any text. PAT] Are you looking for a link to one? If you are go here: http://www.pbxinfo.com > Web Links > Nortel >DMS Switching Site, There are also other relevant websites for Nortel techies there. Good Luck, Rick Pbxinfo.com ------------------------------ From: Steve Fleckenstein Subject: Re: Alternative to Do Not Call Lists Date: Tue, 16 Apr 2002 08:00:11 -0400 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Reply-To: "Steve Fleckenstein" My phone number is on a New York State Do Not Call List. The amount of telemarketers calling has been greatly reduced. What hasn't gone down are the amount of what the callers describe as "surveys" that want just a moment of my time, usually when I'm sitting down for the evening meal with the family. They claim survey takers are not hampered by do not call lists. Steve ------------------------------ From: MuJo Subject: Re: NXX 178 Date: Tue, 16 Apr 2002 11:03:04 -0400 Could be a Revenue Accounting Office (RAO) account that is being billed. I have an "RAO" calling card from my phone company (Bell Canada) and the NPA-NXX is 476-178. While Bell Canada actually calls these cards a "Ledger" card, it definitely is of the RAO variety. In RAO speak, my NPA 'IS' 476 (Toronto). But my PSTN NPA is 416 which is also for Toronto. Perhaps you might remember the days prior to cell phones where mobile phones were the norm for 'car phones' usually set aside for the more affluent types. Usually, mobile operators and systems used RAO area codes to identify an area. There are I'm sure other uses for RAO's, but this was my earliest recollection of it's use. I'm also sure that someone else can get into a long history of it, but I doubt you are looking for that. NXX's of codes starting with 0xx and 1xx are used strictly for billing purposes from what I understand. So while I don't have a physical phone line with an NXX of 178, I do have and separate account with Bell Canada with that NXX. Anybody can get one of these. Just call your operator or business office to arrange for one. It's simply like having a second calling card on another account. Hope that helped. Joel Madra Dubh wrote in message news:telecom20.225.12@telecom-digest.org: > Please correct me if I am wrong, but would it be safe to say there are > no NXXs below 200? > Why would a carrier (who shall remain nameless) provide a Call Detail > Record (CDR), either 1+ or Toll-Free with an originating or > terminating NPA and an NXX of 178? > Is this 'Plant Test'? > I have seen other CDRs with an NXX of 055. Any ideas what that would > be? > Are these "Central Office Codes (COC)"?? ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Apr 2002 12:35:04 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: AT&T Wireless Introduces mMode AT&T Wireless Introduces mMode(SM) Major new consumer offer gives people easy, fast access to communication, information, and entertainment services from the keypad of their wireless phone REDMOND, Wash., April 16 /PRNewswire/ -- AT&T Wireless (NYSE:AWE) today introduced a major new consumer offer, mMode, which gives people easy, fast access to a variety of communication, information, and entertainment services from the keypad of their wireless phone. The new offer is available today to millions of people in more than a dozen markets throughout the United States. Additional cities will be added throughout the year, the company said. For as little as $2.99 a month plus usage charges, mMode gives AT&T Wireless customers dozens of ways to stay connected to the people and things they care about. With mMode they can e-mail friends, check the latest news or sports scores, get driving directions, see if their flight is on time, or play a Kung Fu game, among many other possibilities. http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=26839888 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Apr 2002 12:22:06 CDT From: Fred Atkinson Subject: Local in Loudoun County I am attempting to negotiate with a paging company to get an access number that is local to the entire county (so anyone paging me from within the county willl not have to dial a '1' or pay a toll to page me). I have two different companies so far that have access numbers in Loudoun County, Virginia. One has them in Leesburg (the largest city in the county) and one has them in Hamilton Virginia (a smaller town just outside of Leesburg). Leesburg is not the center of the county, by the way. It is on the east side near the Potomac River (the river that separates Maryland and Virginia). Can anyone think of a way that I could determine if these numbers are dialable from anywhere (and I mean anywhere) within the county? Thanks, Fred Atkinson Leesburg, VA ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Apr 2002 13:05:00 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Federal Court Rules Ban on "Junk Faxes" Violates First Amendment http://www.politechbot.com/p-03394.html [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Monty, is this a re-issue of your earlier news report about the old geezer judge in Missouri who ruled in that one case a couple weeks ago, or is this a new instance? PAT] ------------------------------ From: Paul Erickson Subject: Re: Any Negative Experiences With Allegiance Telecom Date: Tue, 16 Apr 2002 14:40:09 -0400 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com I had a bad pre-sales experience with them. They provided a reference, which I called. The gentleman at this reference was very unhappy, had approx. the first month nothing but problems with his T1. He was actually considering litigation against Allegiance because of their alleged incompetence. This was voice and data service which was critical to his business. I expressed my concerns to the Allegiance sales rep, who obviously got blindsided by this bad reference. I was told by the salesman to call their chief network specialist (I forget the title, but it was "the man" who could allay any of my technical support fears to rest). I called and spoke to this guy on a speakerphone in a room with the sales guy and I think one other person (can you say "boiler room"?). He told me in summary about the usual "Tier 1" network, redundant this and reliable that. I could tell from the tone of the conversation that this was just an extended sales pitch to me. Now I called back my "reference" to ask a couple more questions and mentioned my network gurus name. It turns out the main "network specialist" I was referred to was in fact the sales manager for the local office. Sorry, but they lied to me, and their name is shit in my book. -- Paul William Lee wrote in message news:telecom20.221.14@telecom-digest.org: > I am looking into switching from Kmart Corp dial tone to Allegiance > Telecom, because of too many problems with Kmart Corp. If anyone has > an opinion it would be appreciated. ------------------------------ Subject: Re: LineJack Software for Single Line Gateway? From: Skua Date: Wed, 17 Apr 2002 21:44:19 GMT Organization: PenTeleData http://www.ptd.net J3r3my L33 wrote in news:telecom20.224.4 @telecom-digest.org: > http://siphon.sourceforge.net/index.html Thanks ... I'll check it out! -- Skua ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Apr 2002 16:06:23 EDT From: Carl Moore Subject: Last Laugh! Some Idiot Assigned Phone Number to Fax Machine Is there a frequently-asked question (FAQ) about this? I have received this: > Some idiot assigned our phone number to a fax machine. It rings > all day long so we don't answer it. We will watch for e-mails. along with this reply: > That happened to me once. If you haven't done so already, contact your > local phone company. Your phone company should know what you can do to send > a signal back to the fax machine that is calling you. The signal that you > send back tells the fax machine that the number it is trying to > reach is not a fax machine at all. You don't need a fax machine to > send this signal back. As I vaguely recall (from 5 years ago), it > involved pushing some buttons on the phone in a particular order when > the fax machine calls you ... something like that. My phone company > wouldn't guarantee that what it told me to do would work, because > there are so many different brands of fax machines out there. But it > did work, and right away! Good luck! [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This is an old story for long-time Digest readers, but for newer readers who have not heard the story before, the old First National Bank of Chicago (later, First Chicago Corporation, and still later Bank One, which applies now) had a fax machine misprogrammed like that. It was supposed to, about seven or eight each evening, dial up to a branch of the bank in a nearby suburb to fetch a report which was provided to a fax machine on that end at closing time each day. The one machine would poll the other one, and get the report. But because the machine was misprogrammed it proceeded to dial a private residential number **in Germany** at what was after midnight (German local time). It wouldn't just call once, of course, it had to repeat dial several times thinking it would eventually get through. It did that nightly for about a month, until the poor people in Germany who were getting hassled like this finally got the local telco -- I think it is called 'Bundespost' into the investigation. After a night or two, Bundespost traced it back the USA, and the AT&T people, acting for Bundespost, traced it back to Illinois Bell, as the Chicago area phone company was known in those days. Illinois Bell's inquiry to First National telling them to get their fax machine under control went unanswered. That in itself was not surprising, since large banking/financial corporations rarely if ever pay attention to their mail or what is asked of them. Finally, a rep of Illinois Bell had to go over to the bank and pay a personal visit with the bank's vice-president of Telecom and got him to go correct it in person. And then a month or so later, when the bank got its phone bill, there were of course several *hundred* international phone calls to Germany, all at night. The geniuses at the bank decided this had to 'obviously' be some kind of 'phone company screwup' and they initially refused to pay the bill. That's a true story from the late 1970's, and we all know that often times, truth is stranger than fiction. PAT] ------------------------------ 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-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 630-841-7174 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@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 * * Judith Oppenheimer, President of ICB Inc. and purveyor of accurate * * 800 & Dot Com News, Intelligence, Analysis, and Consulting. * * http://ICBTollFree.com, http://1800TheExpert.com * * Views expressed herein should not be construed as representing * * views of Judith Oppenheimer or ICB Inc. * ************************************************************************* ICB Toll Free News. Contact information is not sold, rented or leased. Access to Premium (P) links requires upgrade to a paid subscription. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Only subscribers or registered users of ICB Toll Free News web site will be able to access all or some of the full text of URLs provided. LEGAL STUFF: TELECOM Digest (sm) is owned by Patrick Townson. Copyright 2000 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. 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. End of TELECOM Digest V20 #226 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Apr 18 16:46:22 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id QAA24606; Thu, 18 Apr 2002 16:46:22 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 16:46:22 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200204182046.QAA24606@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #227 TELECOM Digest Thu, 18 Apr 2002 16:45:00 EDT Volume 20 : Issue 227 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: New Breed Spam Filter Slashes Junk Email (Dave Close) Re: New Breed Spam Filter Slashes Junk Email (John Meissen) Blackholing, was Re: New Breed Spam Filter Slashes Junk Email (Burstein) Cellular Number Portability (*Tower/Spectrum*) (Owen P. Epstein) Re: Toll Free Number To Ring To Office, Home, or Cell (Joseph Singer) Can The ITU Save ICANN? (Judith Oppenheimer) SIP Information (Owen P. Epstein) EBay Gets Tough on Discussion Boards (ptownson@telecom-digest.org) Re: Alternative to Do Not Call Lists (Stretch) Re: Alternative to Do Not Call Lists (Rich Greenberg) 3 NEC NEAX 2000 IVS-2 System For Sale (S. Scott) Change Local Service, Keep My Number? (John) Voicemail Signaling on Phone Lines (Mikegackst) Re: LineJack Software for Single Line Gateway? (G Herlein) Re: Clueless Loanshark Telemarketer (The National Folk Hero of the Net) Re: Federal Court Rules Ban on "Junk Faxes" Violates 1st Amend. (Stein) Re: Last Laugh! Some Idiot Assigned Phone Number to Fax (Steve Lichter) Re: Last Laugh! Some Idiot Assigned Phone Number to Fax (Gail M. Hall) Re: Last Laugh! Some Idiot Assigned Phone Number to (Ed Ellers) Email Address Creation Algorithm (Vapouriser) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: dave@compata.com (Dave Close) Subject: Re: New Breed Spam Filter Slashes Junk Email Organization: Compata, Costa Mesa, California Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 05:59:44 GMT I wrote: > I have no problem with an ISP filtering mail on behalf of a recipient > - IF and ONLY IF the recipient has specifically requested such > service. If this is done for any recipient who has not authorized it, > it amounts to censorship. An implication of my rule is that only the > destination ISP could possibly do the filtering. PAT [TELECOM Digest Editor] then asked: > Regards an ISP making decisions on what is spam and what is not, > etc, what do you think of the fact that both AOL and Yahoo sort their > mail as a default condition, into boxes for 'junk mail' and more > realistic stuff to/from real people. As far as I know, they do not > kill any mail, but Yahoo at least stuffs the mail they choose into a > 'bulkmail folder'. You can change that if you don't like the way they > choose to sort mail by dropping out of the 'bulkmail folder' system. I suppose that is exactly the sort of scheme which I would approve. Having accepted their terms of service, including the default use of the bulk mail folder, a customer can be said to have requested the filtering. Personally, I'd have no problem with them discarding the mail -- for their own customers -- if that were part of their terms of service. However, I would not choose to be one of their customers. IMO, only the originating and destination mail systems have any right to filter mail, and then only with clear notice to and approval by their users. In both cases, the sender or recipient has the option to choose a different system. Of course, any change to a system's terms of service should not occur without adequate notice. My complaint is with any intermediate mail system doing filtering. As I run my own mail server, there is no one other than myself who could filter my incoming mail in what I would regard as an ethical manner, once it has left the sending system. Dave Close, Compata, Costa Mesa CA "Politics is the business of getting dave@compata.com, +1 714 434 7359 power and privilege without dhclose@alumni.caltech.edu possessing merit." - P. J. O'Rourke ------------------------------ From: jmeissen@shell1.aracnet.com (John Meissen) Subject: Re: New Breed Spam Filter Slashes Junk Email Date: 18 Apr 2002 06:41:25 GMT Organization: Aracnet Internet In article , Dave Close wrote: > aes writes: >> ISPs or larger organizations that provide their own mail servers for >> larger numbers of employees or members may be able to afford more >> capabilities for providing enhanced and continually updated filtering >> against the worst of the spammers at the server level, before >> down-loading to their clients. > I have no problem with an ISP filtering mail on behalf of a recipient > - IF and ONLY IF the recipient has specifically requested such > service. If this is done for any recipient who has not authorized it, > it amounts to censorship. An implication of my rule is that only the > destination ISP could possibly do the filtering. Heaven save us from > do-gooders. My ISP does aggressive filtering, for which everyone I talk to is very thankful. :-) Unlike someone like AOL, I believe in this case the mail is simply refused. If it is legitimate email, it will bounce back to the sender and they will be aware that other measures must be taken to get a message through. The only way they would not know that their outgoing mail was blocked would be if they had misconfigured mail headers or if it was spam. There is bound to be "collateral damage", no filtering approach will be perfect. But email is =not= a guaranteed delivery mechanism, and one should never depend on it to be such. There are many reasons why mail might not be delivered, spam filtering is just the latest one. john- ------------------------------ From: dannyb@panix.com (danny burstein) Subject: Blackholing, was Re: New Breed Spam Filter Slashes Junk Email Date: 17 Apr 2002 20:06:29 -0400 Organization: "mostly unorganized" In Denis Mcmahon writes: > aes wrote: >> Seems as if something like this could be done with server and EPO CPUs >> doing most of the work, without too many difficulties and with some >> effectiveness. Are there logical defects in a scheme like this? > Yes, a big ISP bounces all the University of wherever acceptance > emails as Spam. Other similar incidents, eg involving I think a UK > National Telecomms Operator and ISP doing something similar recently. Akshually, that case you're referencing, where a BigName university located down the road from MIT sent out acceptance (and possibly rejection) notices by e-mail was handled even worse than that. If the e-mail had, indeed, been "bounced" back to the admissions office, this would have been a non issue. In fact, it would have been even better than the standard postal mail bounce since the non-delivery problem would have been noticed in minutes rather than days or weeks. What did happen here is that a certain "ISP" whose domain name is three letters, the first being "A", the third being "L", simply shitcanned all these notes. So they were never delivered. And there were no bounces. Hence a very big delay occurred and lots of people got very upset. Oh, this policy of theirs, where suspected spam (which often isn't) gets dumped into the bit bucket has hit many other folk. I believe our Esteemed Moderator ran into this himself a whole bunch of times. (This specific incident lead to a thread in "risks-digest", which is gatwayed to the usenet group comp.risks. There was even a note in there in which a rep from the isp made some interesting comments ... A search using the usual search engines on "Harvard e-mail spam AOL" will get you loads of cites. One to start with: http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/21.85.html#subj4 ) Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key dannyb@panix.com [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded] [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: There were a couple cases back in the 1990's where AOL just arbitrarily decided to toss out all the incoming mail for TELECOM Digest. Just so you understand, of the five hundred or so subscribers there, I do not send five hundred copies. I send only *one copy* with a control header listing all the names to get a copy. They then put the bologna in the meat slicer and as it slices off they pass it out to their subscribers. (ob last laugh). This was exactly the way it was done for MCI Mail also. When MCI Mail (and later AOL) found a bad name among the bunch, they would immediatly stop slicing the meat and return it all back to me, sometimes a hundred copies at a time. But eventually it got to where when AOL in their wisdom decided it was not bologna at all, but in fact it was spam - or so they thought -- then as Danny points out, they just started dumping it in the garbage without serving it at all. I did not find out anything about it for a month or so, until one day a reader at AOL sent me a note asking 'when are you going to resume publishing the Digest' (that on a very famous day when I had issued *ten* digests (count 'em!) all in one day to catch up on the mail which arrived after publication of a very controversial message on 'caller-ID' (remember the days when that topic used to stir up a lot of anxiety?) and I just about went postal on the spot. I found out it had been about a month since AOL had started dumping stuff. This was about the time the government was first attempting to have libraries use filters to keep porn out of the hands of Good Citizens and their children, etc. I found out from a government attorney arguing their case that (I am quoting him now) "our computer experts advised us that filters could be devised to do this successfully." When I asked him who was the 'expert computer person' the government had working for them, after some stalling he told me the name of some tech supervisor at AOL. The same one no doubt that was teaching them how to get rid of 'spam'. That was their computer expert -- God bless each and every one of them. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Owen P. Epstein Subject: Cellular Number Portability (*Tower/Spectrum*) Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 06:00:59 GMT What is the problem with switching cellular providers and keeping one's same cellular number ? Certainly it is not a tower or spectrum issue ? Thanks, Owen Epstein ------------------------------ From: Joseph Singer Subject: Re: Toll Free Number To Ring To Office, Home, or Cell ... Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 07:28:12 -0700 Organization: Drizzle Reply-To: joeofseattle@yahoo.com On 17 Apr 2002 10:30:29 -0700, answercenter@msn.com (Ms. Gage) wrote: > Almost everyone needs a toll free number! They were originally a > valuable tool only used by the biggest corporations. Over the past few > years, the costs have dropped so dramatically that toll free numbers > are now well within reach of everyone. Despite the dramatic drop in > cost of toll free numbers, the value has remained the same and today > there is no excuse why every business or individual shouldn't have > their own toll free number. The service sounds interesting, but is it really worth close to $200 per month? Considering that I can get toll-free service from Kall8 for a $1.00/month maintenance fee and 6 cents per minute for calls made to the number that rings to another number. Plus which Kall8 will forward my number to any international destination for reasonable rates (except of course to mobile phones.) Also, they have 800, 888, 877 and 866 numbers though they caution you that if you choose an 800 number the chance of having numbers come through with wrong number because of previous toll-free number ownership an 877 or 866 number is probably the better choice. You are also capable of temporarily disabling the number though you are still charged the monthly maintenance fee. Personal replies most likely will not be read. Please reply in the newsgroup [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Is $200 per month what you were quoted by Ms. Gage or another one of the phone room people there? That seems rather expensive to me. And did they tell you they would not forward an 800 number to a cellular phone? That's odd, because I have an 888 number set to ring on my cell phone, although considering my posture on toll free numbers and their possible abuse, I don't think I should publish it here. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Judith Oppenheimer Subject: Can the ITU Save ICANN? Date: Wed, 17 Apr 2002 19:51:36 -0400 "It is widely acknowledged that the ITU-T performs its tasks to the general satisfaction of industry, governments, and the public at large, using processes that are open, transparent, and ensure accountability to all stakeholders." I've heard otherwise; and am interested to hear what TELECOM Digest folks think, both about the ITU's assessment of itself, and this proposal to help ICANN. Read http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/tsb-director/itut-icann/ICANN%20Reform.doc. (Personal comments of Houlin Zhao, Director, TSB, ITU, 17 April 2002. Not an ITU agreed position.) Judith Oppenheimer http://JudithOppenheimer.com http://ICBTollFreeNews.com 212 684-7210, 1 800 The Expert [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: As we know, ITU has been and apparently continues to be a very big supporter of ICANN. PAT] ------------------------------ From: owen_epstein@bigfoot.com (Owen P. Epstein) Subject: SIP Information Date: 17 Apr 2002 16:06:01 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ An intelligent, software-driven solution, the SIP proxy server performs the following control and management functions: Assistance in call setup and tear down; Generation and logging of CDRs to the accounting server; Logging statistical and event information on a call-by-call basis; Registration and deregistration of gateways; Monitoring of gateways and back-end servers; Trap generation after component failure; Gateway management and load balancing. Comments ? Owen Epstein Call Center Consultant Telecom Consultant SS7 SIP ------------------------------ From: ptownson@sbcglobal.net Subject: eBay Gets Tough on Discussion Boards Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 11:02:34 -0700 eBay has apparently taken a hard-ball stance toward anyone who disagrees with their positions on subjects. The harder stance by the big auction site on sharing information sparks censorship complaints from its community. Do eBay members have a case? http://www.msnbc.com/modules/exports/ct_email.asp?/news/740477.asp ------------------------------ From: Stretch Subject: Re: Alternative to Do Not Call Lists Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 03:17:25 GMT Organization: Road Runner - Texas Steve Fleckenstein wrote: > My phone number is on a New York State Do Not Call List. > The amount of telemarketers calling has been greatly reduced. > What hasn't gone down are the amount of what the callers describe as > "surveys" that want just a moment of my time, usually when I'm sitting > down for the evening meal with the family. > They claim survey takers are not hampered by do not call lists. I've gotten a few of them, too. Depending on my mood, I either: A) Make them regret ever calling me, or, B) Take the survey. And lie. Creatively and extensively. ------------------------------ From: richgr@panix.com (Rich Greenberg) Subject: Re: Alternative to Do Not Call Lists Date: 18 Apr 2002 13:49:04 -0400 Organization: Organized? Me? In article , Steve Fleckenstein wrote: > My phone number is on a New York State Do Not Call List. > The amount of telemarketers calling has been greatly reduced. > What hasn't gone down are the amount of what the callers describe as > "surveys" that want just a moment of my time, usually when I'm sitting > down for the evening meal with the family. > They claim survey takers are not hampered by do not call lists. I have fun with these. I like to play with their heads. I start by asking how much I will be paid for taking the survey, and while they insist they won't pay I insist on getting paid until they hang up on me. Rich Greenberg Work: Rich.Greenberg atsign worldspan.com +1 770-563-6656 N6LRT Marietta, GA, USA Play: richgr atsign panix.com +1 770-321-6507 Eastern time zone. I speak for myself & my dogs only. VM'er since CP-67 Canines:Val(Chinook,CGC,TT), Red & Shasta(Husky,(RIP)) Owner:Chinook-L Atlanta Siberian Husky Rescue. www.panix.com/~richgr/ Asst Owner:Sibernet-L ------------------------------ From: sscott@qwestdm.com (sscott) Subject: 3 NEC NEAX 2000 IVS-2 System For Sale Date: 17 Apr 2002 15:23:36 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Give me a call at 720-932-7040 or email me at sscott@qwestdm.com if you interested! NEC NEAX 2000 IVS-2 SYSTEM: 2 ICS VS PIM-F (UA) 2 INTERNAL BATTERY 1 48 PORT SYSTEM SOFTWARE-2000 1 KEY KEEPER (FD) 1 LT PORTS (48 TO 128) SOFTWARE 1 PN-CP15 PROCESSOR 1 PN-4COTB ANALOG C.O. TRUNK CARD 2 SPN-24DTAA-C (AP) T-1 CARD 1 SPN-SCO1 DCH-C (AP) FOR ISDN/PRI 2 ADTRAN ACE CSU W/CABLES 2 PN-8LCAA ANALOG STATION CARD 9 PN-8DLCP DIGITAL STATION CARD 5 DTP-8-1 (BK) TELEPHONE 25 DTP-8D-1 (BK) TELEPHONE 10 DTP-16D-1 (BK) TELEPHONE 10 DTP-32D-1 (BK) TELEPHONE 1 DCU-80-1 (BK) CONSOLE 1 NF..AX MAIL AD-40 8-PORT VOICE MAIL 1 LEVEL 1 PC PLATFORM 1 OPTION DEALER REMOTE SOFTWARE 1 OPTION GAMMA TECH UTILITIES FOR OS2 NEC NEAX 2000 IVS-2 SYSTEM: 2 ICS VS PIM-F (UA) 2 INTERNAL BATTERY 1 48 PORT SYSTEM SOFTWARE-2000 1 KEY KEEPER (FD) 1 LT PORTS (48 TO 128) SOFTWARE 1 PNAGOTB ANALOG C.O. TRUNK CARD 2 SPN-24DTAA-C (AP) T-1 CARD 1 SPN-SCO1 DCH-C (AP) FOR ISDN/PRI 2 ADTRAN ACE CSU w/CABLES 2 PN-SLCAA ANALOG STATION CARD 8 PN-SOLCP DIGITAL STATION CARD 10 DTP-8-1 (BK) TELEPHONE 24 DTP-80-1 (BK) TELEPHONE 10 DTP-160-1 (BK) TELEPHONE 9 DTP-32D-1 (BK) TELEPHONE 1 DCU.60-1 (BK) CONSOLE 1 NEAX MAIL AD-40 &-PORT VOICE MAIL 1 LEVEL I PC PLATFORM 7 OPTION DEALER REMOTE SOFTWARE 1 OPTION GAMMA TECH UTILITIES FOR OS2 NEC NEAX 2000 IVS-2 SYSTEM: 1 ICS VS PIM-F (UA) 1 INTERNAL BATTERY 1 48 PORT SYSTEM SOFTWARE-2100 1 PN-CP15 PROCESSOR 1 PN-4COTS ANALOG C.O. TRUNK CARD 1 SPN-24PRTA-B (AP) FOR ISDN/PRI 1 ADTRAN ACE CSU w/CABLES 1 PN-SLCAA ANALOG STATION CARD 3 PN-8DLCP DIGITAL STATION CARD 20 CUSTOMER-PROVIDED NEC DIGITAL PHONES 1 NEAX MAIL AD-40 8-PORT VOICE MAIL 1 LEVEL 1 PC PLATFORM 1 OPTION DEALER REMOTE SOFTWARE 1 OPTION GAMMA TECH UTILITIES FOR OS2 ------------------------------ From: johnfofawn@hotmail.com (John) Subject: Change Local Service, Keep My Number? Date: 17 Apr 2002 17:17:37 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Hi, I have Verizon for local service right now. I want to switch to Cavalier because they are about $8 cheaper per month. I understand that I will be able to keep my number when I switch from Verizon to Cavalier. I've heard a rumor that if I want to switch back from Cavalier to Verizon I *WON'T* be able to keep my number, I'll have to get a new number. Could this be right? Why? Thanks, John ------------------------------ From: mikegackst@aol.com (Mikegackst) Date: 18 Apr 2002 01:44:00 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Voicemail Signaling on Phone Lines Can someone explain or point me to a website, that can answer what the signaling is, used on phone lines with voicemail. To turn on leds on phones or caller id boxs with the service. We are using Panasonic phones, with caller id and voicemail lamp, on a pbx, that supplies stutter dialtone and mwi ac voltage for mwi lamp. I have talked to Panasonic for help. They said to try different line modes on the phones. Otherwise it's not their problem. The Panasonic phones are kx-tc1713b. They are a household phone, purchased because they were cordless and had voicemail lamp. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks, Mike ------------------------------ From: gherlein@removethis.herlein.com Subject: Re: LineJack Software for Single Line Gateway? Organization: WebUseNet Corp. http://corp.webusenet.com Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 15:27:17 GMT Skua wrote: > Does anyone have software that would allow the use of the Quicknet > Internet Line Jack as a single line gateway? www.openh323.org Ironically, the company that does this open source work is owned by Quicknet. You want the pstngw program. Greg ------------------------------ From: colonel@monmouth.com (The National Folk Hero of the Net) Subject: Re: Clueless Loanshark Telemarketer Date: 18 Apr 2002 13:14:58 -0400 Organization: Kentucky Fried Fox In , mrc@Panda.COM wrote: > I was called at 10:09AM Pacific Time today by an automated > telemarketer. This is in spite of the fact that my telephone service > has No Solicitation. I don't know whether this has been discussed here, but I often get calls at home in which a recorded voice says "Sorry, wrong number" and hangs up. From a brief web search, I gather that some new telemarketing equipment leaves advertising messages *only* on answering machines. If it detects a live voice, it hangs up. This is apparently for evading some of the laws against telemarketing. But does it evade them? An unwanted cold call is not more welcome to me because it says "Sorry, wrong number" instead of "Refinance your mortgage." I would enjoy collecting damages from telemarketers that use this equipment. "To what do I owe the honor of this unexpected visit, Lord Ruthven . . . alias Lyford Pemberton!" H. C. Artmann, "Tom Parker, International Detective" Col. G. L. Sicherman home: colonel@mail.monmouth.com web: ------------------------------ From: Herb Stein Subject: Re: Federal Court Rules Ban on "Junk Faxes" Violates First Amendment Organization: Giganews.Com - Premium News Outsourcing Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 14:40:29 GMT Monty Solomon wrote in message news:telecom20.226.14@telecom-digest.org: > http://www.politechbot.com/p-03394.html > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Monty, is this a re-issue of your > earlier news report about the old geezer judge in Missouri who ruled > in that one case a couple weeks ago, or is this a new instance? PAT] Just a minor nit to pick. I think the "old geezer" (Stephen Limbaugh) is about our age:-) Herb Stein The Herb Stein Group www.herbstein.com herb@herbstein.com 314 952-4601 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yeah, but I don't claim to be a federal judge or know everything about anything in life. That's the difference. PAT] ------------------------------ From: stevenl11@aol.com (Steven Lichter) Date: 18 Apr 2002 01:50:24 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: Last Laugh! Some Idiot Assigned Phone Number to Fax Machine Some years ago long before the electronic cards to open CO doors and other companies that had automatic type locks where you would dial a number and the door would open. Most of the time they were just a local loop that would in GTE's case would act on a linefinder first selector and so on to a connector, where the ringing current would open the door. One of the switches in the train had a wiper that was off a point and when someone dialed the door number to get in, would ring a customers phone. This would happened at all times of the day and night. Most of the time, by the time the customer got to the phone the office door was open and no one knew. One day I came into the office and was a little slow putting the phone back on the hook. There was a woman yelling at me for calling her and hanging up all the time. I was really surprised since from what I know that loop was local and should not have gone out to a customers line. I had her hang on, got the office manager and told him what had happened, he did not believe me, but after getting on the phone just shook his head. The lock was shut off and a trouble ticket was opened, then the problem was found and fixed. From what I heard at the time it had been going on for at least five years. Apple Elite II 909-359-5338. Home of GBBS/LLUCE, support for the Apple II 24 hours 2400/14.4. An OggNet Server. The only good spammer is a dead one!!! Have you hunted one down today? (c) Kill Spammers, Inc. ------------------------------ From: Gail M. Hall Subject: Re: Last Laugh! Some Idiot Assigned Phone Number to Fax Machine Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 01:03:26 -0400 Reply-To: gmhall@apk.net On Wed, 17 Apr 2002 16:06:23 EDT, in comp.dcom.telecom, you (Carl Moore ) wrote: > Is there a frequently-asked question (FAQ) about this? > I have received this: >> Some idiot assigned our phone number to a fax machine. It rings >> all day long so we don't answer it. We will watch for e-mails. > along with this reply: >> That happened to me once. If you haven't done so already, contact your >> local phone company. Your phone company should know what to do to send >> a signal back to the fax machine that is calling you. The signal that you >> send back tells the fax machine that the number it is trying to >> reach is not a fax machine at all. How about one of those gizmos you can buy that sends the "disconnected" signal? ..... > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This is an old story for long-time > Digest readers, but for newer readers who have not heard the story > before, ... Thanks for repeating the story about the bank that misprogrammed its fax sending machine. It reminds me of the idiotic messages that some doctors and lawyers put in their faxed messages as disclaimers. It goes something like, "This is confidential information. If this message was sent to you in error, do not read it ..." and blah-blah-blah. "If this fax was sent to you in error, call ." I agree with the part providing a phone number to report any errors, but all that stuff about the confidentiality? That's a stretch. You'd think that people who send out CONFIDENTIAL messages would keep a log of what numbers are actually called and notice which ones are wrong. No matter what kind of legal-sounding mumbo-jumbo they put in the fax, a message sent somewhere not intended can be read and spread. You can't really trust the recipient to call back or destroy the message. They should just be more careful. One thing I have never really liked about using a fax machine is that I don't get any real feedback from the machine that I really got who I thought I was dialing the way I do when I log into some place with a modem, such as the old BBS systems or someone's private HOST using an old-style comm program like Procomm. When you call using a fax machine, you get that same fax sound from any fax machine that answers, but no real message about which fax machine you really got. A company that has a long list of numbers to send faxes to should keep a log with a special reports that *points* to numbers that don't answer or don't answer with a fax tone. The very *next* business day, someone should contact the company for the number that was not answered to determine if they have changed their setup and if they want to continue to be faxed. Since they do their faxing at night, the only repeat attempts should be done for those lines that were busy. If the machine is just out of paper, it's likely that no one will be in the office to put in more paper. If you decide to try again, have the fax wait an hour or more. By that time if the fax is just out of paper, the office people will have had a chance to put in more paper. I took my fax offline. I got just too many junk faxes. If someone wants to send me a fax, they can call ahead and tell me they want to send one. Then I'll plug in the fax and turn it on. As soon as I get their fax, I turn my fax off and unplug it. Peace at last! Gail from Ohio USA ------------------------------ From: Ed Ellers Subject: Re: Last Laugh! Some Idiot Assigned Phone Number to Fax Machine Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 10:51:05 -0400 PAT, the TELECOM Digest Editor, noted: > It did that nightly for about a month, until the poor people in Germany who > were getting hassled like this finally got the local telco -- I think it is > called 'Bundespost' -- into the investigation. The Deutsche Bundespost (German Federal Post) used to be the PTT in that country, but the telecom side was spun off several years ago as Deutsche Telekom -- which, incidentally, now owns VoiceStream. (ISTR some comments several years back saying that German hackers used to make jokes about the "Bundespest." :-) ------------------------------ From: vapouriser@hotmail.com (Vapouriser) Subject: Email Address Creation Algorithm Date: 18 Apr 2002 08:52:32 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Would it be a) legal and b) of any interest to anyone, to make source code available that can generate all possible email addresses and output them? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: How are you going to generate *all possible email addresses*? How many gazillions would that be? And all made out of vapor you say? What would you do with them once you had output them? The logical answer would be to mail them spam. Is that what you had in mind? PAT] ------------------------------ 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-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 630-841-7174 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@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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End of TELECOM Digest V20 #227 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Apr 19 21:44:53 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id VAA19067; Fri, 19 Apr 2002 21:44:53 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 19 Apr 2002 21:44:53 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200204200144.VAA19067@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #228 TELECOM Digest Fri, 19 Apr 2002 21:43:00 EDT Volume 20 : Issue 228 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: New Breed Spam Filter Slashes Junk Email (Mark Kramer) Re: New Breed Spam Filter Slashes Junk Email (Anthony Seigman) Re: Blackholing, was Re: New Breed Spam Filter Slashes Junk (S. Fraser) Re: Blackholing, was Re: New Breed Spam Filter Slashes Junk (T. Horsley) Re: eBay Gets Tough on Discussion Boards (James Gifford) Re: Toll Free Number To Ring To Office, Home, or Cell .. (Stanley Cline) Re: Toll Free Number To Ring To Office, Home, or Cell .. (Joseph Singer) Response To Your Reply About 800 Numbers (Ms. Gage) Re: Cellular Number Portability (*Tower/Spectr) (John R Levine) Voicemail and Distinctive Ring (ESJ) Re: Headsets (Charles P) Re: Is "Call Waiting Caller ID" Different Than "Caller ID"? (Tim) Re: Change Local Service, Keep My Number? (Carl Moore) AOL Struggles With Broadband Plan (Monty Solomon) Re: Last Laugh! Some Idiot Assigned Phone Number to Fax (G. Hlavenka) Re: Last Laugh! Some Idiot Assigned Phone Number to Fax (Greg Andrews) Re: Email Address Creation Algorithm (A User) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: c28f62@world.std.com (Mark Kramer) Subject: Re: New Breed Spam Filter Slashes Junk Email Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 21:39:24 GMT Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA In article , Dave Close wrote: > IMO, only the originating and destination mail systems have any right > to filter mail, and then only with clear notice to and approval by > their users. Which planet do you live on? Were any of your email to show up on any of the servers I run, none of it would be accepted. (Unless, of course, by some miracle it was actually destined for a user at one of my servers.) It's called "relaying", it's how spammers try to hide their true sources, it's an abuse of my resources, and it gets filtered out of the mail stream on every server I administer. > In both cases, the sender or recipient has the option to > choose a different system. Of course, any change to a system's terms > of service should not occur without adequate notice. Right. Here's your notice. ------------------------------ From: aes Subject: Re: New Breed Spam Filter Slashes Junk Email Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 21:34:37 -0700 Organization: Stanford University In article , jmeissen@shell1.aracnet.com (John Meissen) wrote: > If it is legitimate email, it will bounce back to the > sender and they will be aware that other measures must be taken > to get a message through. The suggestion of one or more commercially operated and *entirely voluntary* "electronic post offices" (EPOs) whose function is to put an electronic "stamp" of some sort on email and then forward it on to the intended recipient is intended to provide one possible "other measure" that a sender could take "to get a message through" as stated above. Suppose that as an email recipient I accept email only from (a) a list of authorized correspondents that I set up and maintain, or (b) mail that comes to me through a trusted EPO. Everything else gets bounced. (This filtering might be implemented by me, or by an ISP with my knowledge and consent.) Bounced message have a note attached saying, "If you really want to get through, you must send a message back *through this particular EPO*". Spammers will presumably not do this, because of cost. New correspondents who do want to get through to me can send back through the EPO (at their expense); and having received their initial message, if I elect to do so I can add them to my authorized list from then on. Payment arrangements for the EPO service (we might be talking something in the range of 50 cents or a dollar to send a one-shot message though) could be worked out in various ways: as a credit card charge, a charge to a phone company bill, or some of the bigger ISPs or nets might make volume arrangements with one or more EPOs and add the fees for EPO service to the monthly bills of those of their clients who use the EPO service. (Think of the small added charges that phone companies impose on customers who use Directory Service for more than some specified number of times per month.) ------------------------------ From: Simon Fraser Subject: Re: Blackholing, was Re: New Breed Spam Filter Slashes Junk Email Date: 19 Apr 2002 12:22:36 GMT Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy NY, USA The *Wall Street Journal* recently had a big article on AOL mail problems. It seems that Time Warner issued an edict that their executives use AOL mail for business. However, 10% of messages got dropped, causing general havoc, and proving that AOL is not reliable enough for serious use. email: TEE THREE ZERO ONE ZERO THREE AT comcast.net Please post replies. ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Blackholing, was Re: New Breed Spam Filter Slashes Junk Email From: Tom.Horsley@worldnet.att.net (Thomas A. Horsley) Organization: AT&T Worldnet Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 21:14:19 GMT Of course, as always, there is another side to the "bounce" or "drop on the floor" argument. Once upon a time, some kindly spammer decided to forge my email address in his headers for all the spam he was sending to msn, apparently using the invent names and tack @msn.com on the end of them approach. I got more or less 13,549,276,321 bounce messages (OK, maybe fewer than that, but it seemed like that many :-). I would have been perfectly happy if msn.com had just dropped them on the floor instead of sending them to me. I eventually wrote a perl script that just checked my POP server every couple of minuts and deleted anything with the headers that were obviously bounce messages. I had to let it run for about 2 days straight before things got back to relatively normal. (Of course, complaints to msn.com were apparently dropped on the floor :-). >>==>> The *Best* political site >>==+ email: Tom.Horsley@worldnet.att.net icbm: Delray Beach, FL | Free Software and Politics <<==+ ------------------------------ From: James Gifford Subject: Re: eBay Gets Tough on Discussion Boards Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 13:53:07 -0700 Organization: Nitrosyncretic Press Reply-To: jgifford@surewest.not ptownson@sbcglobal.net wrote: > eBay has apparently taken a hard-ball stance toward anyone who > disagrees with their positions on subjects. The harder stance by the > big auction site on sharing information sparks censorship complaints > from its community. Do eBay members have a case? > http://www.msnbc.com/modules/exports/ct_email.asp?/news/740477.asp This is stupid. As the article points out, eBay owns the bat, ball, glove and ballpark, and they can make any rules they want to. Anyone and everyone is free to set up an auction chat forum that covers all of the auction sites/services and is free from restrictions. | James Gifford - Nitrosyncretic Press | | http://www.nitrosyncretic.com for the Heinlein FAQ & more | | Tired of auto-spam... change "not" to "net" for replies | ------------------------------ From: Stanley Cline Subject: Re: Toll Free Number To Ring To Office, Home, or Cell ... Date: Fri, 19 Apr 2002 00:40:17 -0400 Organization: Catoosa Computing Services / Roamer1 Communications Reply-To: sc1@roamer1.org On Thu, 18 Apr 2002 07:28:12 -0700, Pat wrote: > rather expensive to me. And did they tell you they would not forward > an 800 number to a cellular phone? That's odd, because I have an 888 AIUI: - AT&T will not point a toll-free number at a cell phone (including AT&T Wireless phones before AT&T spun off ATTWS -- talk about the right hand not talking to the left) -- or to any number that is not "yours" (for which you aren't the customer of record) - most carriers that offer toll-free numbers with PINs (which you can't port to another carrier, either) on residential service won't point the number at anything except your home phone PICed to that carrier; even getting one pointed at a distinctive ring number on your home line can be difficult - some "discount" carriers refuse to point toll-free numbers at cell phones or any other number with a non-RBOC NPA-NXX (most that do this can't see numbers in RBOC NPA-NXXs ported to CLECs as they just screen by NPA-NXX) or whine about doing so, as the carrier I left last month did. Carriers that have no problems with pointing toll-free numbers to cell phones: the "TTI" division of WorldCom, ATN, Kall8, and most Qwest resellers (PNG, ECG, etc.) Stanley Cline -- sc1 at roamer1 dot org -- http://www.roamer1.org/ "Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today. There might be a law against it by that time." -/usr/games/fortune ------------------------------ From: Joseph Singer Subject: Re: Toll Free Number To Ring To Office, Home, or Cell ... Date: Fri, 19 Apr 2002 06:35:07 -0700 Organization: Drizzle Reply-To: joeofseattle@yahoo.com On Thu, 18 Apr 2002 07:28:12 -0700, Joseph Singer wrote: >> The service sounds interesting, but is it really worth close to $200 >> per month? Considering that I can get toll-free service from Kall8 >> for a $1.00/month maintenance fee and 6 cents >> per minute for calls made to the number that rings to another number. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Is $200 per month what you were quoted > by Ms. Gage or another one of the phone room people there? That seems > rather expensive to me. And did they tell you they would not forward > an 800 number to a cellular phone? I just visited the referenced web page and those are the numbers that were quoted on the pages. They didn't say anything about not forwading to a mobile phone. Personal replies most likely will not be read. Please reply in the newsgroup. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Apr 2002 14:41:18 PDT From: Ms. Gage Subject: Response To Your Reply Regarding 800 Numbers Pat, I do apologize for the inconvenience I may have caused you and the board regarding my 'toll free number' service; for I didn't mean any harm and definately don't want it to seem like I'm sending 'spam' messages. I should have been more specific with cost and other areas you questioned. I've answered your questions below and hope this gives you a better understanding. Thanks for posting your reply. Ms. Gage > So how much does it cost? The cost for a 'toll free number' is .15 cents p/min. at $10.95 monthly service fee per month. We charge only actual minutes, meaning that if your call lasted 15 mins. / 30 secs., you would only be charged for the 15 mins./not the 30 seconds. > Can I get a gen-you-wine 800 number, or only one of the 877/866 > variety? Answer Solutions is able to offer better rates than any major carriers, but we can only offer numbers that are available at the time of your call. We offer toll free numbers beginning in 877, 800, & 866. Answer Solutions Call Center & Toll Free Number Services Office Mon.-Sat. 8am-8pm: (877)840-8661 http://site.yahoo.com/calls247 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Personally, Ms. Gage, I don't think your rates are all that good. After being in this racket for many years, and based on some friendships I've established -- I'll grant you that counts for a lot -- I get rates for my personal 800's at around five or six cents per minute, with no monthly fees. I would never claim I could get those rates for people who ask for them, but for fifteen cents per minute and ten dollars per month, folks can get a toll-free number *and* voicemail on it *and* the ability to manipulate where the number terminates at a minute's notice *and* similar. For a few years here, I was selling (brokering actually) 800's with the above features for fifteen cents per minute with the above features. For an extra ten cents per minute (in other words, 25 cents total per minute) people not only got incoming toll free but they could use the 800 to make *outgoing* calls as well (dial your 800 number, enter your passcode, then dial an outgoing LD number to wherever. It worked great for calls from payphones and was less expensive than using a calling card. Oh, and you got 'virtual call waiting' and 'virtual three way calling' on your 800 number as well at no extra charge. We only had 800 in those days, none of the unsightly and distasteful 877/866 business. Even with my present 888 number, I am *finally* getting people aware that it is toll free like 800. So, Ms. Gage, if you were to add voicemail to your system maybe with T-3's inbound (a small desktop PC would work for that purpose) and *very rapid* turn around on where to terminate the numbers (if not done automatically by the users) and maybe real-time ANI as well, then you would have a bargain at $10.95 per month and 15 cents per minute. And rather than rounding down to full minutes, many/most carriers round-up to six seconds after the first 30 seconds per call. Well, good luck with your venture. PAT] ------------------------------ From: johnl@iecc.com (John R Levine) Subject: Re: Cellular Number Portability (*Tower/Spectr) Date: 18 Apr 2002 19:45:10 -0400 Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA In article , Owen P. Epstein wrote: > What is the problem with switching cellular providers and keeping > one's same cellular number ? > Certainly it is not a tower or spectrum issue ? No, it's a routing problem. When someone dials your phone number, the phone network looks at the area code and prefix to decide where to route it. Around here, for example, 607-279-XXXX goes to Cingular, and 607-227-XXXX goes to Verizon. To make numbers portable, the telcos have to set up a database listing what number's been ported where, and do a "database dip" to look up numbers on each call and route the call to the appropriate switch. This has all been implemented by landline telcos for over a year. I don't know if the extra delay for wireless is because there's extra technical issues (roaming, perhaps) or they just whined louder. Even when there's wireless portability, you still won't be able to port between landline and wireless. I don't know why not. 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: ESJ Subject: Voicemail and Distinctive Ring Date: Fri, 19 Apr 2002 15:24:07 GMT Organization: Road Runner High Speed Online -- Northeast Ohio My local telco is SBC/Ameritech. I would like to get Distinctive Ring (for a fax machine) on a line that also has telco-provided voicemail on it. Obviously, when the line is in use, I don't want fax callers to go to voicemail, but rather to receive a traditional busy signal. Ameritech tells me that this scenario is not possible; that if voicemail is on the line, then callers to EITHER number when the line is in use will go to voicemail. This doesn't seem like a reasonable restriction. Does anyone here have any experience or knowledge on this subject? Thanks. - Earl (To respond by e-mail, remove both 'x' from my e-mail address.) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: No, you cannot do it with voicemail supplied by the telco. They want to go one way or the other based on the condition of your *single* phone pair, regardless of how many numbers are attached to it. You would be better off getting an answering machine (remotely addressable if you want the voicemail features) along with distinctive ringing. Also, get one of the fax switches from Radio Shack. Have the telco line feed into the fax switch. From that, have the distinctive ringing line feed out one way to the fax machine; have the regular ringing line go out to the main phone. Have the fax machine answer the distinctive ringing line only. Have the side of the line which goes to the regular ringing phone go to the other phone and answering machine. You will have to split out the line into two directions on your side of the demarc based on the *types of ring* 'heard' by the Radio Shack box. A better solution might be to get an actual second phone pair from telco. Use your existing line with call-waiting and voicemail; use the second line to the fax only. Do not have the two lines hunt; leave it where the fax line goes to busy when it is in use; have the main line go to call-waiting and eventually voicemail. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Charles P Subject: Re: Headsets Date: Fri, 19 Apr 2002 18:06:25 GMT Been done already, but only on certain phones I think. A friend of mine has a GSM Ericsson phone with a bluetooth headset. It just sits in his ear and has a very small boom mic. I don't know who makes it. Charles Dave wrote in message news:telecom20.226.6@telecom-digest.org... > Patrick, > I'm in a Master's program, currently taking a class in marketing. My > team is trying to develop a new product, and we think a wireless > headset for use with cell phones may have some potential. I've read > about Bluetooth, but our product would interface with the phone > itself, rather than be a phone. We're having difficulty finding out > how many headsets are currently sold on an annual basis. Any ideas? I > can't go out and purchase the studies that may tell us the information. > Also, is it feasible to have an ear piece that has a small microphone, > either sensing the vibration in a person's ear, recognizing words via > vibration, or is it better to have a microphone closer to the person's > mouth? We also don't know if there will be too much interference/ > feedback in a wireless product used with a cell phone. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I've had a cellular headset like that. > A small foam-rubber thing fits in your ear. The 'microphone' is almost > microscopic in size. You can barely see it. I really think the way it > 'hears' what you are saying is by the bones rattling in your head or > ear canal. I don't like it a lot. PAT] ------------------------------ From: prince.timothy@broadband.att.com (Tim) Subject: Re: Is "Call Waiting Caller ID" Different Than "Caller ID"? Date: 19 Apr 2002 12:28:05 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Call Waiting - ID works differently than basic caller ID service. With Call Waiting - ID, there are two tones that are heard at the CPE. The first is the Subscriber Alert Signal tone. This is just your normal Call Waiting Beep (440hz for 330ms). The second tone is a CAS tone. This is a short 80ms DTMF tone of 2130+2750hz. This tone alerts the CPE that there is a call waiting. The CPE then mutes the handset and sends an acknowledgement tone to tell the switch that it is OK to send Caller ID information. The Name and Number are then displayed on the CPE and the CPE unmutes the handset. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Apr 2002 09:21:11 EDT From: Carl Moore Subject: Re: Change Local Service, Keep My Number? Before I write of my own situation, what prompted the comment about changing from Cavalier back to Verizon? My own local service is currently thru Cavalier, because it picked up (from Conectiv Communications, affiliated with my local electric supplier) the local-service plan which included northern Delaware, and I do have some traffic going from my phone into Delaware. This plan was made available in the Elkton and North East exchanges way up in the northeastern corner of Maryland, and the calling areas going back to C&P have no local service to Delaware, even from Elkton to Newark. In changing the local service from Verizon to Conectiv (and then having Cavalier pick it up) my number stayed the same, and I don't know what would become of my number if I changed back to Verizon. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Apr 2002 13:26:47 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: AOL Struggles With Broadband Plan Company rethinks key merger goal By Julia Angwin and Martin Peers THE WALL STREET JOURNAL AOL Time Warner Inc., whose online service is struggling to hold on to customers who want high-speed Internet access, is rethinking its cornerstone strategy of promoting such broadband access nationwide. The move calls into doubt one of the main goals of the merger that brought the Internet and media colossus into existence. http://www.msnbc.com/news/740919.asp ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 18:08:36 -0500 From: Gordon S. Hlavenka Organization: Crash Electronics, Inc. Subject: Re: Last Laugh! Some Idiot Assigned Phone Number to Fax Machine Gail M. Hall wrote: > I took my fax offline. I got just too many junk faxes. I signed up with the free fax-by-email service from efax (at the obvious URL). If you send a fax to 413-451-xxxx it shows up in my email. For a small fee you can get a fax number in your local area (I'm in 630). I've been using it for several years now. I was going through a roll of $$$$ fax paper every month, and throwing pretty much all of it directly in the trash; now I just hit "delete". OK, so all I did was turn fax spam into email spam, but at least I'm not killing trees for it any more. Efax provides a special reader app which allows you to view and print faxes. The reader serves up a banner ad before showing you your fax, but it's not too obnoxious and so far my account with efax has not resulted in my being deluged with "partner" spam. When I set up my efax account, I gave them a unique email address which forwards to my "real" inbox (which I don't give out to anyone). If their policy changes and I begin getting spam at that address I can just kill the address. Gordon S. Hlavenka O- nospam@crashelex.com ------------------------------ From: gerg@panix.com (Greg Andrews) Subject: Re: Last Laugh! Some Idiot Assigned Phone Number to Fax Machine Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 23:32:38 +0000 (UTC) Organization: I have a map of the United States that's actual size [Pat includes a story about a mis-programmed fax machine] I have a similar story. In the early 90s, I worked for a modem company located in Sunnyvale, California. I'd been there for a couple of years when something strange happened. Our managers came out of a meeting and asked everyone to review our telephone procedures very carefully. I was in tech support for our modem products, and we dialed out to customer sites all the time as part of our troubleshooting procedures. My manager asked us to check our modem and software configurations very carefully to see if it was possible that we were dialing the local emergency number (911) by mistake. The city emergency services people had contacted the company and complained that they were receiving a couple of calls from our site per week, and they were going to start charging us large fees for responding (as required by law) if we didn't stop it. The calls never had a person on the line, and usually occurred late at night. Everyone was asked to disconnect nonessential modems and fax machines from phone lines at the end of the day. Phone records were scrutinized, and the company's Internet link was taken down every night for a month. Then the concern seemed to fade away and we returned to business as usual. After a few weeks of waiting for someone to explain, I asked my manager about it. He snickered and told me what happened: The company sent one of their best salesmen to Hong Kong to set up an office in charge of all Far East sales. He was also responsible for a number of places outside Asia Minor, like Australia, India, and the Middle Eastern countries. Most of his communications with distributors in all these places were via fax. Since the international calling rates charged by his local telcos were much higher than US carriers, our company negotiated a deal where he would dial into the home office switch in the USA, enter a special code to get an outgoing dial tone, and dial internationally from there (011+country+city, etc.). The sporadic calls to the Sunnyvale emergency number were happening when the Hong Kong office was trying to send faxes to India. After dialing a long phone number to reach the USA, and a 6 or 7 digit security code, they would sometimes omit the US international prefix (011). They just started dialing the country and city codes. The country code for India is 91, and the city code for Delhi, where our distributor was, is 11. At the Pac Bell dial tone they were dialing 911... Oops! +++++ Greg Andrews +++ gerg@panix.com +++++ I have a map of the United States that's actual size -- Steven Wright ------------------------------ From: A User Subject: Re: Email Address Creation Algorithm Date: Fri, 19 Apr 2002 23:38:30 GMT Organization: BigPond Internet Services (http://www.bigpond.net.au) The ones aimed at hotmail seem to work well. No matter how obscure the address, hotmail recipients keep on getting them ... On 18 Apr 2002 08:52:32 -0700, vapouriser@hotmail.com (Vapouriser) wrote: > Would it be a) legal and b) of any interest to anyone, to make source > code available that can generate all possible email addresses and > output them? > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: How are you going to generate *all > possible email addresses*? How many gazillions would that be? And > all made out of vapor you say? What would you do with them once you > had output them? The logical answer would be to mail them spam. Is > that what you had in mind? PAT] ------------------------------ 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-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 630-841-7174 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@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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All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. 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. End of TELECOM Digest V20 #228 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Apr 25 00:35:46 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id AAA07908; Thu, 25 Apr 2002 00:35:46 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2002 00:35:46 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200204250435.AAA07908@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #229 TELECOM Digest Thu, 25 Apr 2002 00:33:00 EDT Volume 20 : Issue 229 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Telecom Update (Canada) EXTRA, April 24, 2002 (Angus TeleManagement) Re: Federal vrs. State Laws on Telemarketers (Joe Shields) Re: Blackholing, was Re: New Breed Spam Filter Slashes Junk (G. Wollman) Re: AOL Struggles With Broadband Plan (Garrett Wollman) Branded Network Messages (Sharmi Das) Re: LineJack Software for Single Line Gateway? (Skua) Re: Voicemail Signaling on Phone Lines (Sellcom Tech Support) News Story About Composer Using Mobile Ring Tones (Carl Moore) Re: Siemens Gigaset 2420 Handsets (Sellcom Tech Support) Software Bugs That Aren't Flaws (David Chessler) The Cost of Spam (David Chessler) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2002 10:23:34 -0400 From: Angus TeleManagement Subject: Telecom Update (Canada) EXTRA, April 24, 2002 *********************************************************** TELECOM UPDATE EXTRA!!! ** JEAN MONTY RESIGNS BCE ENDS LONG-TERM TELEGLOBE FUNDING TELEGLOBE FOR SALE *********************************************************** published weekly by Angus TeleManagement Group http://www.angustel.ca Number 329a: April 24, 2002 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 ** GROUP TELECOM http://www.gt.ca ** LUCENT TECHNOLOGIES CANADA http://www.lucent.ca ** PRIMUS CANADA: http://www.primustel.ca ** Q9 NETWORKS: http://www.Q9.com ** TELUS: http://www.telus.com ** UNISPHERE NETWORKS: http://www.unispherenetworks.com *********************************************************** JEAN MONTY RESIGNS BCE ENDS LONG-TERM TELEGLOBE FUNDING TELEGLOBE FOR SALE Jean Monty has resigned as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of BCE Inc, effective immediately. Michael Sabia has been named CEO; Board member Richard J. Currie is now non-executive Chairman. The announcement was made when BCE released its first quarter results this morning. BCE has ceased long-term funding for Teleglobe. BCE will provide week-to-week support, up to a maximum of US$125 million, to allow Teleglobe to continue customer service while it reviews its options. BCE faces a potential writedown of goodwill related to Teleglobe of C$7.5 to $8.5 Billion. Separately, Teleglobe announced that it has retained an investment banking firm to assist it in "pursuing a range of financial restructuring alternatives, potential partnerships, and business combinations." All BCE-related directors have resigned from Teleglobe's board. =========================================================== 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: TelecomUpdate@add.postmastergeneral.com To stop receiving the e-mail edition, send an e-mail message to: TelecomUpdate@remove.postmastergeneral.com Sending e-mail to these addresses will automatically add or remove the sender's e-mail address from the list. Leave subject line and message area blank. =========================================================== COPYRIGHT AND CONDITIONS OF USE: All contents copyright 2002 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 500. 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: Joe Shields Reply-To: antitele@obvious.texas.net Organization: TV2GO Subject: Re: Federal vrs. State Laws on Telemarketers Date: Sat, 20 Apr 2002 02:17:29 GMT I just read your post in comp.dcom.telecom. I apologize for taking so long to reply but only check in about once a week to the group. The TCPA and State v. Federal - the reply you got is a typical smokescreen; here's "the real skinny": "The legislation, WHICH COVERS BOTH INTRASTATE AND INTERSTATE unsolicited calls, will establish Federal guidelines that will fill the regulatory gap due to differences in Federal and State telemarketing regulations. This will give advertisers a single set of ground rules and prevent them from falling through the cracks between Federal and State statutes." (137 Cong.Rec. E793, Wednesday, March 6, 1991, Statement of Congressman Markey) "In Telephone Solicitations, Autodialed andArtificial or Prerecorded Voice Message Telephone Calls, and the Use of Facsimile Machines (8 FCC Rcd. 480), the FCC replied to the question: DOES THE FCC REGULATE AUTOMATED CALLS AND TELEPHONE SOLICITATIONS PLACED LOCALLY WITHIN MY STATE? Yes. FCC rules apply to in-state calls." "Through the TCPA and its enabling rules, 64 C.F.R. 64.1200, the Commission regulates the use of intrastate and interstate telephone networks for unsolicited advertisements by facsimile or by telephone utilizing live solicitation, autodialers. or prerecorded messages." Letter to the Honorable George A. Brescher, Circuit Court Judge, 17th Judicial Circuit from Jennifer Myers, Staff Attorney, Enforcement Division, Common Carrier Bureau, Federal Communications Commission in re: David E. Stone v. Bernard Grossman, Case No. 97-5611(25) The Federal District Court for the Western District of Texas: "The TCPA applies not only to interstate but also to intrastate telemarketing calls and faxes. To conclude otherwise would ignore the statutes conforming amendment, its language with respect to local calls, the FCC's administrative interpretations, and the clear legislative history." State of Texas v American Blast Fax, Inc., No. A 00 CA 085 SS (W.D. Tex., Feb. 8, 2001). And last but not least: FCC citations issued for INTRASTATE prerecorded calls: http://www.fcc.gov/eb/Orders/2001/eb01tc012.pdf http://www.fcc.gov/eb/Orders/2001/eb01tc065.pdf http://www.fcc.gov/eb/Orders/2002/eb02tc005.pdf http://www.fcc.gov/eb/Orders/2002/eb02tc008.pdf Hope this helps. Remove the "obvious" in my e-mail addy if you want to reply directly. Regards, P.S. Send the man a nice demand letter for $500,00 X every violation in the message i.e. prerecorded call without prior express consent or business relationship, no full name of caller, no name of entity represented, no telephone number or address of entity represented, no name of the entity initiating the prerecorded message and no telephone number or address of the entity initiating the prerecorded message. john@pdj01.cinci.rr.com wrote: > Just the other day I got a long message on my machine from a > telemarketer, it was a pre-recorded message, and he left a local phone > number. > So I call him to complain, and have my number removed. He told he was > in his rights to do everything he did, and that I had to send him a > letter to put on his do not call list. I then did a little web > searching, and sent him an e-mail, and he responed back. > Now the question. Is he right? I don't think he is. > I don't see anything that states that the FCC rules are for inter-state > telemarketing only, thus the federal laws apply to everyone in this case. > I've included the E-mail. My E-mail has been removed, and the one in > the header is anti-spammed. *-------------Joe Shields-------------* *-----Keep spam out of your inbox-----* *------- http://www.spamfree.org/ ----* *----------Texas State Resident-------* *---(include )---* ------------------------------ From: wollman@lcs.mit.edu (Garrett Wollman) Subject: Re: Blackholing, was Re: New Breed Spam Filter Slashes Junk Email Date: 20 Apr 2002 02:09:42 GMT Organization: MIT Laboratory for Computer Science In article , Thomas A. Horsley wrote: > Once upon a time, some kindly spammer decided to forge my email > address in his headers for all the spam he was This is becoming more and more common -- I just got a query about it from a user of mine. What has happened is this: anti-spam filters are getting smarter. It used to be that the spammer could simply generate `randomstring12345@aol.com' (for example) and use that as the forged sender address of their spewage. Now, many filters are able to consider the origin of the message, and will reject a message claiming to be from [AOL | Yahoo! Mail | MSN | whomever] if they didn't pass through the relevant service provider's servers on the way. This bites a small number of people who use one address while sending from another, but also traps a large quantity of spam. The way around this, obviously, is for the spamemrs to choose random addresses from their mailing-list (or for an Outlook virus to choose random addresses from its victims' address books), after filtering out the large ISPs -- so they use addresses which are likely to be valid, and unlikely to be verifiably invalid by anyone except the person whose address is being forged. Garrett A. Wollman | wollman@lcs.mit.edu | History starts with a consonant. Opinions not those of| MIT, LCS, CRS, or NSA| ------------------------------ From: wollman@lcs.mit.edu (Garrett Wollman) Subject: Re: AOL Struggles With Broadband Plan Date: 20 Apr 2002 02:13:26 GMT Organization: MIT Laboratory for Computer Science In article , Monty Solomon wrote: > Company rethinks key merger goal According to a Reuters story I saw today, the stock market effectively values the AOL business at close to nil. The same report claimed that there was talk about AOL-TW spinning this business, in the (perhaps vain) hope that the market would value AOL more highly if it were forced to sink or swim on its own merits. Garrett A. Wollman | wollman@lcs.mit.edu | History starts with a consonant. Opinions not those of| MIT, LCS, CRS, or NSA| ------------------------------ From: sharmi@avaya.com (Sharmi Das) Subject: Branded Network Messages Date: 23 Apr 2002 16:46:40 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ I am working in a project where I need to process audio network messages. Like, when somebody has a voice mail service from companies like Sprint, you may hear a branded audio message -- "This is Sprint Voice mail service. The party you have called is not available now. Please leave a message after the beep...". Or if you have AT&T long distance service, you will hear an audio message like -- "AT&T . It is 5pm now, the place where you have called ..." before connecting a call. Does anyone know of any audio-data-base where I can find different above mentioned network messages from different companies? If you happen to know any web-sites or telephone numbers from where we could access such audio files, then please let me know. I would highly appreciate your help. Thanking you, Sharmi Speech Processing Department, Avaya Labs. sharmi@avaya.com ------------------------------ Subject: Re: LineJack Software for Single Line Gateway? From: Skua Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2002 17:44:50 GMT Organization: PenTeleData http://www.ptd.net gherlein@removethis.herlein.com wrote in news:telecom20.227.14@telecom- digest.org: > Skua wrote: >> Does anyone have software that would allow the use of the Quicknet >> Internet Line Jack as a single line gateway? > www.openh323.org > Ironically, the company that does this open source work > is owned by Quicknet. > You want the pstngw program. Thank you Greg ... I'm messing with the various tools from the OpenH323 project ... I'm able to make IP based calls between clients on my local network without a problem. I've installed my LineJack and connected it to a phone line, I'm able to get dial tone through a handset that I've plugged into the LineJack. When I run the PSTNGW software I get messages stating either: "Listening on port 1720 No usable lines available" or "Listening on port 1720 error: cannot open ixj device" depending on the parameters I specify. BTW ... I'm attempting this on a Windows box ... I've got the latest downloads from OpenH323 and the most recent drivers available from QuickNet. Any suggestions wouold be appreciated. Skua ------------------------------ Reply-To: Sellcom Tech Support From: Sellcom Tech Support Subject: Re: Voicemail Signaling on Phone Lines Organization: http://www.sellcom.biz Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2002 06:50:11 GMT Mikegackst wrote in message news:telecom20.227.13@telecom-digest.org: > Can someone explain or point me to a website, that can answer what the > signaling is, used on phone lines with voicemail. To turn on leds on > phones or caller id boxs with the service. In my experience it was something that the phone company had to turn on. I finally got it turned on as a "repair" issue. Visual Call Waiting Indicator if my memory serves me well. It was not the default and had to be switched on by the phone co. It took me several phone calls. Now it has worked for a long time. Steve at SELLCOM http://www.sellcom.biz Discount multihandset cordless phones Panasonic Siemens EnGenius and more Authorized Twinhead notebooks Okidata printers ------------------------------ Subject: News Story About Composer Using Mobile Ring Tones From: Carl Moore Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2002 15:24:56 -0400 From WINS: "A British composer is planning a 'New Ring Cycle' -- a symphony composed from the ringing tones of 30 mobile phones." [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: That is absolutely amazing. I would be interested in hearing it if it is brought to the USA. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Sellcom Tech Support Subject: Re: Siemens Gigaset 2420 Handsets Compatible With 8825? Organization: http://www.sellcom.biz Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2002 06:40:16 GMT Pete Helme wrote in message news:telecom20.223.20@telecom-digest.org: > Are the handsets from the 2420 system compatible with the new 8825? Nope, sorry ... and now the 8800 handsets for the 8825 are backordered. Steve from SELLCOM http://www.sellcom.biz Discount multihandset cordless phones Panasonic Siemens EnGenius and more Authorized Twinhead notebooks Okidata printers ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2002 21:51:11 -0400 From: David Chessler Subject: Software Bugs That Aren't Flaws Edupage, April 22, 2002 SOFTWARE BUGS THAT AREN'T FLAWS A new privacy tool presented last week at the 12th Annual Conference of Computers, Freedom, and Privacy detects Web bugs. Web bugs are very small image files that are downloaded when users visit Web pages with the bugs. Bugs then send data about the computer, and sometimes about the user, back to their creators, often advertisers. One bug was found to have sent, among other pieces of data, the user's login name and password, his real first and last names, and the location of his house, apparently derived from a cookie that was on his computer. Bugnosis, the new tool to expose Web bugs, alerts users with a sound when it finds a bug. It then shows where the bug is on the screen, gives the Web address of the bug, and opens a box that lists the information being passed. Bugnosis was developed by researchers and support from Boston University, the University of Denver, and the Privacy Foundation. United Press International, 21 April 2002 http://www.nandotimes.com/technology/story/369905p-2979546c.html ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2002 21:44:46 -0400 From: David Chessler Subject: The Cost of Spam NewsScan Daily, 22 April 2002 ("Above The Fold") JUNK MAIL FALL-OUT The founder of the anti-spam SpamCon Foundation says that "spam is a theft of both my time and my money," and industry research groups bear him out: Ferris Research has concluded that the time lost to the task of deleting spam costs about $200 per in-box a year (and destined to go higher), and a Gartner Group study found that Internet service providers lose $1 million for every 7 million of its members, largely because spam drives customers away. Does the future look brighter for haters of unsolicited commercial e-mail messages? Not likely. The head of the anti-spam organization Spamcop.net says: "It's an arms race. Once you close down an avenue for the spammer, he just has more of an incentive to find new ones." (San Jose Mercury News 20 Apr 2002) http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/3108519.htm ------------------------------ 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-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. 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All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. 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. End of TELECOM Digest V20 #229 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Apr 25 12:42:50 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id MAA18357; Thu, 25 Apr 2002 12:42:50 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2002 12:42:50 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200204251642.MAA18357@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #230 TELECOM Digest Thu, 25 Apr 2002 12:42:00 EDT Volume 20 : Issue 230 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Telecom Update (Canada) #329, April 22, 2002 (Angus TeleManagement) Armey Urges Justice Dept: Approve Echostar/Directv (Marcus Didius Falco) Wireless Carriers Accused of Antitrust Violations (Marcus Didius Falco) News Headlines of Interest (Monty Solomon) Emfasyss or Vision Voicemail System? (Bob Sharp) Re: Email Address Creation Algorithm (Vapouriser) Troubles Kept me Off Line (TELECOM Digest Editor) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2002 11:01:28 -0400 From: Angus TeleManagement Subject: Telecom Update (Canada) #329, April 22, 2002 TELECOM UPDATE ************************************************************ published weekly by Angus TeleManagement Group http://www.angustel.ca Number 329: April 22, 2002 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 ** GROUP TELECOM http://www.gt.ca ** LUCENT TECHNOLOGIES CANADA http://www.lucent.ca ** PRIMUS CANADA: http://www.primustel.ca ** Q9 NETWORKS: http://www.Q9.com ** TELUS: http://www.telus.com ** UNISPHERE NETWORKS: http://www.unispherenetworks.com ************************************************************ IN THIS ISSUE: ** Videotron to Appear Before CRTC Tuesday ** Layoff Watch Nortel Lucent Ericsson ** Aliant Profits Up 39% ** BCE Pulls Ads From Quebecor ** Microcell Closes Development Unit ** Canoe.Ca Eliminates Editorial Staff ** Rogers AT&T Scores Subscriber Gains ** Bell -- Delay 10-Digit Dialing in 613/819 ** Emergis Buys E-Biller ** Teleglobe Bondholders Organize ** Videotron Union Calls Strike Vote ** Bell Offers Higher-Speed Sierra PC Card ** SBC Reports Sales Decline, Loss ** CRTC Deregulates International Private Lines ** Study Endorses Home Telehealth ** Q9 Offers Business Internet Package ** Cisco Provides High-Speed Wireless LAN Gear ** Sprint Invests $25 Million in Call-Net ** fSona Gets $10 Million From Ottawa ** Correction: Telesat ** Facing a Telecom Decision? ============================================================ VIDEOTRON TO APPEAR BEFORE CRTC TUESDAY: A CRTC public hearing on April 23 will consider whether Videotron's sale of its inside wire to sister Quebecor subsidiary Cablage QMI constitutes a breach of its licence conditions and Broadcasting Regulations. (see Telecom Update #325). LAYOFF WATCH: ** Nortel Networks is decreasing its work force to about 44,000, 4,000 fewer than its previously announced goal of 48,000. Nortel's first quarter sales were US$2.91 billion, down 49% from last year. The net loss of $841 Million included $530 million in one-time charges. ** Lucent Technologies says it will reduce its work force to 50,000 by year-end, 6,000 less than on March 31. Lucent reports first quarter revenue of US$3.52 billion, 1.4% more than the previous quarter but 40% less than the previous year. Net loss: $495 million. (See Telecom Update #317) ** Ericsson says it will eliminate 17,000 staff positions by the end of 2003, reducing its worldwide work force to about 65,000. "What we see is a prolonged, lower-demand situation," Ericsson says. ALIANT PROFITS UP 39%: Aliant's first quarter net income increased 39% over last year to $51.3 million. Sales rose 1% to $646 million. Higher wireless, satellite, and Internet sales balanced a 10.3% decline in revenue from local phone service, which Aliant says was caused by regulatory decisions. BCE PULLS ADS FROM QUEBECOR: BCE has canceled $10 million in advertising in Quebecor's newspapers and TV networks in response to "Quebecor's anti-competitive behaviour against Bell ExpressVu." (See Telecom Update #327) MICROCELL CLOSES DEVELOPMENT UNIT: Microcell Telecom has shut down its I5 subsidiary, which developed wireless Internet applications, and has laid off I5 President Francois-Charles Sirois and 17 other staffers. Microcell launched I5 in May 2000 with a $50 million investment. CANOE.CA ELIMINATES EDITORIAL STAFF: Quebecor's Netgraphe unit has laid off 67 workers, a third of its total, eliminating the editorial staff that provided original content for its Canoe Web portal. (See Telecom Update #314) ROGERS AT&T SCORES SUBSCRIBER GAINS: Rogers AT&T Wireless reports a net gain of 54,200 postpaid subscribers in the first quarter, compared to 21,400 last year. Including prepaid accounts, Rogers gained 65,000 subscribers, up 5%. Revenue rose 8% to $438 million; the net loss was $38 million, down 54%. ** Rogers Communications' sales rose 9%, to $995 million, and its net loss was reduced by a third, to $98 million. Rogers gained 21,200 Internet users and lost 18,400 cable subscribers. BELL -- DELAY 10-DIGIT DIALING IN 613/819: In November, the CRTC ordered the industry to introduce 10-digit dialing in 613 and 819 in 2004, and to overlay a new Area Code in 613 in 2008. Last week, citing new demand forecasts from the Canadian Numbering Administrator, Bell Canada proposed that the Relief Planning Committee ask the CRTC to delay the changes for approximately three years. EMERGIS BUYS E-BILLER: BCE Emergis has bought on-line biller e-Route Inc from six financial institutions for $26.4 million in cash and assumed debt. TELEGLOBE BONDHOLDERS ORGANIZE: Bondholders holding $500 million of Teleglobe debt have retained Bingham Dana, a Boston law firm, to consider legal action if BCE fails to back Teleglobe's debt. VIDEOTRON UNION CALLS STRIKE VOTE: The Executive Committee of the Canadian Union of Public Employees local representing 1,800 Videotron employees has unanimously rejected Videotron's contract offer and called for a strike vote. (See Telecom Update #323) BELL OFFERS HIGHER-SPEED SIERRA PC CARD: Bell Mobility now offers customers the AirCard 555 modem from Sierra Wireless, providing 60-80 Kbps data communication to laptop computers over Bell's 1XRTT network. Price: $499 on a two-year contract. SBC REPORTS SALES DECLINE, LOSS: U.S. telco SBC Communications, which owns 20% of Bell Canada, says it lost US$81 million in the first quarter. Revenue fell 6% to $10.5 billion. ** SBC has an option to sell its stake in Bell to BCE between July 1 and year-end for market value plus 25%. CRTC DEREGULATES INTERNATIONAL PRIVATE LINES: Telecom Decision 2002-24 extends previous deregulation of Teleglobe and Bell Alliance international private lines (see Telecom Update #317) to IPL services provided by all Canadian carriers. http://www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/ENG/Decisions/2002/dt2002-24.htm STUDY ENDORSES HOME TELEHEALTH: A pilot project involving 78 Halifax home-bound patients found that many nursing services could be delivered remotely, through video, audio, and data links, with "the same outcomes in terms of quality of life" as conventional home visits. The project was funded by March Networks and CANARIE. http://hth.marchnetworks.com/ Q9 OFFERS BUSINESS INTERNET PACKAGE: Toronto-based Q9 Networks, an Internet services outsourcer, now provides small and medium-sized businesses with the Managed Service Bundle, which includes a server, bandwidth burstable to 100 Mbps, and a 100% network availability guarantee. CISCO PROVIDES HIGH-SPEED WIRELESS LAN GEAR: Cisco Systems has launched the Aironet 1200 Series access point, which supports 802.11 wireless LANs at up to 54 Mbps. SPRINT INVESTS $25 MILLION IN CALL-NET: Sprint Corp. has invested $25 million in Call-Net non-voting shares, as agreed in Call-Net's recent restructuring. (See Telecom Update #327) fSONA GETS $10 MILLION FROM OTTAWA: fSona Communications, which makes Free Space Optical transmission equipment, has received a $10 million investment from Technology Partnerships Canada, a federal government agency. CORRECTION -- TELESAT: Last week's Telecom Update incorrectly identified the infrastructure supplier for Telesat's new High Speed Internet Service. The correct name is Spacenet Inc. FACING A TELECOM DECISION? Angus Dortmans Associates provides independent expertise in telecommunications, networking, and call centre management to business and public sector clients across Canada. ** "Angus Dortmans Associates has been instrumental in helping us to make the right business decisions." -- Janice Aavasalmi, Inco Ltd. ** "We rely on their extensive expertise to assist with operational and strategic planning." -- Thomas Oakes, McCarthy Tetrault To discuss how Angus Dortmans can help your organization to maximize its return on telecom investments, call Henry Dortmans at 1-800-263-4415 ext 300. ============================================================ 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: TelecomUpdate@add.postmastergeneral.com To stop receiving the e-mail edition, send an e-mail message to: TelecomUpdate@remove.postmastergeneral.com Sending e-mail to these addresses will automatically add or remove the sender's e-mail address from the list. Leave subject line and message area blank. =========================================================== COPYRIGHT AND CONDITIONS OF USE: All contents copyright 2002 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 500. 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, 22 Apr 2002 21:57:46 -0400 From: Marcus Didius Falco Subject: Armey Urges Justice Dept. To Approve Echostar/Directv CQ Daily Monitor Midday Update 4-22-02 ARMEY URGES JUSTICE DEPT. TO APPROVE ECHOSTAR/DIRECTV MERGER The pending merger of satellite television giants EchoStar Communications Corp. and Hughes Electronics Corp., owner of DirecTV, has gained its most powerful congressional endorsement to date from House Majority Leader Dick Armey, Texas. In a letter to Attorney General John Ashcroft, whose Justice Department is currently reviewing the merger, Armey wrote that he believes a combined EchoStar/DirecTV would result in a wider range of services to consumers. Armey added that he wanted to keep the "heavy foot of government off the necks" of the companies, and the deal would help them achieve a level playing field with cable and telephone firms that currently dominate the high-speed Internet market. Critics of the deal, including House Judiciary Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., R-Wis., contend it would give one company monopolistic control of the satellite television market. falco_marcus_didius yahoo.co.uk ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2002 21:27:40 -0400 From: Marcus Didius Falco Subject: Wireless Carriers Accused of Antitrust Violations * Orginal: FROM..... Dave Farber -----Original Message----- From: Bob Hinden Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2002 08:40:19 Subject: Wireless Carriers Accused of Antitrust Violations Dave, For IP. Bob From Slashdot: http://www.wirelessconsumers.org/whats_hot.html Wireless Carriers Accused of Antitrust Violations Posted by michael on Sunday April 21, @06:30PM from the pin-drop dept. phoneboy writes "From Wireless Consumers Alliance: A class-action lawsuit was filed on April 5 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on behalf of wireless consumers seeking to end the control of the handset market by wireless carriers. Read the Antitrust Complaint. While the complaint is fairly short and easy to understand, a summary is in order: The carriers basically dictate required features to handset manufacturers. Phones are tied to specific carriers and cannot be moved between carriers. Carriers refuse to allow handsets on their network they didn't approve. Handset manufacturers thus cannot sell handsets that aren't approved by carriers because carriers will not allow them to be used. All of this rises costs for the consumer, making it difficult and more expensive to switch carriers, and unfairly restrains trade for both handsets and cellular services. As someone who recently tried subscribing to AT&T's new GSM service with an unlocked GSM phone (they didn't allow me to "activate" the service unless I bought one of their phones), I'll be watching this case very closely." For archives see: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/ falco_marcus_didius yahoo.co.uk ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2002 01:51:44 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: News Headlines of Interest UPDATE 1-AOL spin-off? Possible but Wall St says unlikely - Apr 22, 2002 04:07 PM (updates, weaving in possible Cox deal, executive changes) By Reshma Kapadia NEW YORK, April 22 (Reuters) - AOL Time Warner Inc. (NYSE:AOL) shares have fallen to levels that have caused some on Wall Street to have visions of an AOL spin-off, but most believe such a move any time in the near future is unlikely. Shares of the world's largest Internet and media company have fallen to December 1998 lows that many analysts said value the AOL Internet unit at almost zero, leading some to mull "what if" scenarios for spinning off AOL. Even the mere thought of such a move suggests how much has changed since AOL agreed to buy Time Warner in January 2000. http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=26908149 AT&T Wireless rolls out new pricing plan - Apr 22, 2002 04:29 PM CHICAGO, April 22 (Reuters) - AT&T Wireless Services Inc. (NYSE:AWE), the nation's third-largest wireless telephone company, said on Monday it rolled out a new national pricing plan for its mobile service amid increasing competition in the industry. The new AT&T Wireless plan, called Wireless National Network, was unveiled over the weekend, with packages ranging from $34.99 for 300 daytime minutes, to $149.99 for 2,200 daytime minutes. All packages also include unlimited night and weekend minutes. The plan allows customers to use their cell phones at no extra charge nationwide as long as they stay on the AT&T Wireless TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access) network. Roaming outside of the network costs 69 cents a minute. http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=26908610 EarthLink First Quarter 2002 Earnings Conference Call Replay Information - Apr 22, 2002 06:25 PM (PR Newswire) - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=26910980 EarthLink Reports Continued Broadband Growth in First Quarter Results; Company Passes the Half Million Mark for High Speed Subscribers ATLANTA, April 22 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- EarthLink, Inc. (NASDAQ:ELNK) today announced its first quarter financial results for the three-month period ending March 31, 2002. EarthLink reported that revenues grew to $333.4 million in the first quarter, a 13 percent increase over the first quarter of 2001. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) were $6.5 million for the quarter, a $25.0 million improvement from the prior year first quarter. The net loss for the first quarter, excluding acquisition and merger related expenses, narrowed to a negative $19.0 million, or $(0.13) per share, compared to a negative $35.1 million for the first quarter 2001. The company also reported that it ended the quarter with approximately 4.9 million paying subscribers. "Once again, EarthLink has demonstrated its ability to generate strong broadband growth, as we crossed the half million mark for high-speed subscribers during the first quarter," said Garry Betty, EarthLink's chief executive officer. "In addition, we built on the success of our multiple ISP relationship with AOL Time Warner by announcing an agreement with AT&T Broadband to begin offering a competitive high-speed alternative to customers in Boston and Seattle later this year. Through its cable, DSL and satellite offerings, EarthLink has the largest national broadband footprint of any ISP in the country." http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=26908747 America Online Launches AOL E-mail And AOL Instant Messenger Service For AT&T Wireless mMODE - Apr 23, 2002 07:06 AM DULLES, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 23, 2002--America Online, Inc., the world's leading interactive services company, announced today the availability of AOL Mail and the AOL(R) Instant Messenger(TM) (AIM(R)) service for subscribers of AT&T Wireless new mMode(SM). By providing easy access to AOL Mail and instant messaging from mMode capable wireless phones, wireless consumers can communicate and stay informed whenever they are in mMode. http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=26914994 Who's on the Line When Call Waiting Beeps? Now, Verizon's Talking Call Waiting Will Tell You; New Service Available in Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont NEW YORK, April 23 /PRNewswire/ -- Consumers in Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont no longer need to wonder who's calling when they hear the Call Waiting beep on their phone line. With Verizon's new Talking Call Waiting service, they'll also hear the name of the caller. "Talking Call Waiting is another tool our customers can use to manage their calls, their time and their lives," said Anne Kraus-Keenan, Verizon's group manager of new product development. "Like Caller ID, Talking Call Waiting takes the mystery out of who's calling." The service is already available to Verizon customers in the New York City area, Massachusetts and New Jersey. Verizon plans to offer the service to several additional markets in the coming months. http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=26923727 Motorola Drives Rapid Smart Phone Development, Ports All Versions of Symbian OS LONDON, April 23 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Moving to speed the development of next-generation (2.5G and 3G) smart phones, Motorola's (NYSE:MOT) Semiconductor Products Sector today announced that its DragonBall(TM) MX1 microprocessor will port to all versions of the Symbian operating system (OS). The Symbian OS(TM) is an advanced, open-standard operating system specifically tailored to the emerging smart phone market and handset manufacturers' requirements for compact and rich functionality targeted to on-the-go mobile professionals. Motorola's support of the Symbian OS is expected to help customers shorten time to market in the design and development of wireless products that offer integrated data and voice services. The DragonBall MX1 offers advanced multimedia capabilities and is designed for building high-performance and cost-effective wireless products, such as smart phones, digital media audio players, handheld computers and other mobile data/voice products. Additionally, the DragonBall family is part of Motorola's Innovative Convergence(tm) wireless platform portfolio that delivers comprehensive solutions incorporating voice and data functionality. These platforms combine chipsets and proven protocol software with development tools, reference designs, and manufacturing and testing tools to create 2G-to-3G silicon-to-software solutions. http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=26914211 From washingtonpost.com Electrifying Broadband Making gains with power lines as a high-speed data conduit Lloyd Batzler Washington Techway Monday, April 22, 2002; 4:17 PM Traditional broadband service providers could be in for a real shock. Within two years, sellers of digital subscriber lines, cable-modem and satellite services will face a new heavyweight contender: electric utilities. If the rosiest predictions hold true. After years of research and development, a handful of technology companies report what one study calls "significant advances" in systems and software to move data, voice and video across existing electricity lines and transformers and into homes and small businesses at high speeds. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A29664-2002Apr22.html ------------------------------ From: Bob Sharp Subject: Emfasyss or Vision Voicemail System? Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2002 00:48:32 -0500 I'm looking for out of service EMFASYSS & Vision Voicemail systems. If you have one or know someone who does, please ask them to email me. These were sold by Voice Systems Technologies and some company based out of Boston. I wish to buy complete systems regardless of condition. Thanks, Bob ------------------------------ From: vapouriser@hotmail.com (Vapouriser) Subject: Re: Email Address Creation Algorithm Date: 22 Apr 2002 05:56:21 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: How are you going to generate *all > possible email addresses*? How many gazillions would that be? And > all made out of vapor you say? What would you do with them once you > had output them? The logical answer would be to mail them spam. Is > that what you had in mind? PAT] This is a discussion, right; no harm in that I hope. I have an algorithm, wrapped in a VB programme I made, that was originally designed to permit a Windows user to rename multiple files on disk, remembering that Windows can only handle the renaming of one file at a time. The interface graphically allows the user to set the proposed filename length, then decide on a character by character basis whether this is to be numeric or string, then to stipulate start and end parameters for the datatype (A-Z or 0-9), and optionally to set initial start and end values, all on a character positional basis. This programme then grabs the directories and their contents to which the user points, and applies the template to increment each time a file is renamed. You can use long filenaming convention or 8.3. You have control over every part of the name generation, including (redundantly) that of specifying fixed characters for each position (equivalent of just renaming a file manually) or setting no parameters, (in which case the programme generates them all automatically). My point is that this gives an unuseably massive 255 to the power 26 combinations, but, on the other hand, you can also stipulate values. So you could input a template like "J**N@MICRO****.COM" and it would generate for you every single email address at all .coms whose names had micro as their first five letters, and for each email user there whose name was four letters long, beginning with J and ending in N. The renaming programme could be easily redirected to produce email addresses, or any other string of data you like. Just like nuclear and other technologies, it can have a good and bad side. Information handling is all in the mind. Whenever people see large numbers they get spooked, but like many other things, just because its there, doesnt mean you have to use it. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2002 00:48:44 EDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Troubles Kept me Off Line As you may have noticed, there were no issues of the Digest between Friday and today. For some reason, massis.lcs.mit.edu shut down on Saturday morning, and stayed down until Monday evening. Then it got restarted, but no mail could get in or out for a day and a half. Finally, Wednesday afternoon sendmail got started again and I had a couple hundred new messages in the queue, of which a HUGE number were HUGE things with virii in them. I was told the presence of all the virii had no effect except to make the system go slower for a couple days, but I dunno. It was quite a mess to clean up, as usual. PAT ------------------------------ 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-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 630-841-7174 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@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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Access to Premium (P) links requires upgrade to a paid subscription. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Only subscribers or registered users of ICB Toll Free News web site will be able to access all or some of the full text of URLs provided. LEGAL STUFF: TELECOM Digest (sm) is owned by Patrick Townson. Copyright 2000 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. 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. End of TELECOM Digest V20 #230 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Apr 25 15:17:21 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id PAA21927; Thu, 25 Apr 2002 15:17:21 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2002 15:17:21 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200204251917.PAA21927@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #231 TELECOM Digest Thu, 25 Apr 2002 15:17:00 EDT Volume 20 : Issue 231 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Altigen CDR Format (Rafe) Yahoo Users: ACT NOW To Protect Privacy (MethvenLaw) Re: Voicemail and Distinctive Ring (Howard S. Wharton) War-Dialing Legality? (Bryan Hesters) VoIP at $15 a Pop (Eric De Mund) Outsourced Telecom Audits? (Brian Putnam) Re: Toll Free Number To Ring To Office, Home, or Cell ... (Ed Ellers) Explain This Payphone Trick (jl) Re: Recourse For Very Slow T1 Installation? (imo353) Re: Jennifer Martino Bad Link (av1d) DMS Wanted in Europe (Don't email me) Re: New Breed Spam Filter Slashes Junk Email (Simon Fraser) Another Automated Telemarketer With a Toll-Free-Number (Mark Crispin) International Collect and USA Direct (David Ellerstein) Pretty Cool Service (Dan Spelling) DTFM Code (mkl) Re: Clueless Loanshark Telemarketer (Mark Crispin) CCI or BMCGroup VM? (John Warne) Re: Last Laugh! Some Idiot Assigned Phone Number to Fax (John Schmerold) eFax (was Re: Last Laugh! Some Idiot Assigned...] (Reader) Re: Toll Free Number To Ring To Office, Home, or Cell... (TalkSwitch Rep) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Rafe <##rafe@fast.net> Subject: Altigen CDR Format Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2002 12:44:15 -0400 Greetings, I have recently inherited support for an Altigen 4.0 system. I am trying to parse through the system generated CDR records, but the CDR data format (listed in the manual) does not seem to line up with the records in the DBF file. Any help? Is a "ULONG" field eight characters long? My records are all 1115 characters long (if that helps) TIA, Rafe ------------------------------ From: MethvenLaw Subject: Yahoo Users Must Act Now to Protect Privacy Date: Sun, 21 Apr 2002 18:29:23 -0700 Reply-To: MethvenLaw THE METHVEN & ASSOCIATES NEWSLETTER www.MethvenLaw.com REGISTERED YAHOO USERS MUST ACT NOW TO PROTECT THEIR PRIVACY All right, this column really isn't about legal issues this time, but it IS about many folks' privacy -- and we wanted to warn you to take action now! DO YOU YAHOO? Yahoo has altered its privacy/marketing policies for registered Yahoo users. This includes people who are involved in Yahoo groups like the one the Entrepreneurs Resource Network uses for its question board. It also includes people who use Yahoo Shopping, Yahoo's e-mail system or other Yahoo services. In other words, if you have a Yahoo ID and password, this applies to you, even if you aren't using Yahoo for e-mail or to host a Web page. DEADLINE You may have already received an e-mail from Yahoo about this but you have to dig a bit to find the important part: Yahoo is re-setting its marketing preferences for its registered users so that they are all set to "yes" for various advertising pieces. You have until JUNE 15 to change this or be inundated with advertising e-mails coming through Yahoo. SIGNING IN To change your preferences, go to Yahoo's Marketing Preferences at: http://login.yahoo.com/config/login?.done=http%3a//subscribe.yahoo.com/showa ccount&.intl=us Alternatively, go to http://privacy.yahoo.com/privacy/us/ and then click on "Marketing Preferences" in the left-hand column. Either way, you'll need to then enter your Yahoo ID and password. If you can't remember, click on "Sign-in Help", then on "Look up Your Id And/or Password".) WHAT TO DO Once you're in, you'll need to scroll down and change approximately a dozen marketing items one by one from "yes" (where Yahoo has now reset them) to "no". Then, down at the bottom, be sure the boxes are checked for "Do not contact me via telephone" and "Do not contact me via telephone". Last, be sure to click on "Save Changes" at the bottom. If you have more than one Yahoo ID, you will need to check each of them using this method. Don't put this off: do it today! ******************************************* You are welcome to copy and distribute this newsletter, but the following information must be left on it: Methven & Associates, 2232 Sixth Street, Berkeley, CA 94710 phone: (510) 649-4019; fax: (510) 649-4024 e-mail: BMethven@MethvenLaw.com Web site: www.MethvenLaw.com Copyright 2002 Bruce E. Methven. All Rights Reserved. ******************************************* (If you do not want to receive this e-mail newsletter, please send a return e-mail to news@MethvenLaw.com with "Remove" as the subject. Also, if you think someone would LIKE this newsletter, please send us their e-mail address.) ------------------------------ From: Howard S Wharton Subject: Re: Voicemail and Distinctive Ring Date: Sat, 20 Apr 2002 12:26:13 -0400 Organization: University at Buffalo My carrier is Verizon. Like you, I'm using a distinctive ring number for my fax machine. When I had voicemail, Verizon was able to have it pick up only on my primary number and if the line was in use, calls to the distinctive number would receive a busy signal, while calls to the primary number got my voice mail. The only reason that I dropped voice mail was that my wife hated it. Howard S. Wharton Fire Safety Technician Occupational and Environmental Safety Services State University of New York at Buffalo ------------------------------ From: Bryan Hesters Subject: War-Dialing Legality? Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2002 10:18:37 -0500 Organization: ClubCorp I got a strange call from one of our receptionists today who complained that she is getting an unusual amount of "hang up" calls, and wanted to know if there was anything I could do about it. I explained to her that we don't have smart trunks and I couldn't really block the number for her. She asked what was causing it, and I told her that it was probably an advertising company or computer geek war-dialing for fax numbers or modem lines. She brought this to the attention of the CIO who was concerned about a security breech, and I explained to him that it was a fairly common thing and that we were confident in our security. His next question stumped me, though. Is there any law against war-dialing of this nature? Is it illegal? If so, what steps do you take to identify the caller and whom do you report that infraction too (US/Texas)? Bryan Hesters ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2002 12:02:15 PDT From: Eric De Mund Subject: VoIP at $15 a Pop Reply-To: Eric De Mund Organization: Ixian Systems, Inc. Pat, As seen on Slashdot. Forwarded FYI. http://slashdot.org/articles/02/04/24/0521214.shtml?tid=137 VoIP at $15 a Pop Posted by timothy[1] on Wednesday April 24, @08:02AM from the pop-pop-pop dept. AndersBrownworth[2] writes: "Creative has released what they are calling the VoIP Blaster[3], a $15 USB device (2 for $20) that lets you plug in a normal POTS type telephone and make Voice-over-IP calls to anyone on the Internet. Creative has some closed source software with it that they manage to sneak per call charges in with, but ignoring that one can install the open source fobbit[4] software and do point-to-point unmetered VoIP calls to anyone else with a G.723.1 codec VoIP phone. I just got off a NC to CA call placed from behind a firewall and the quality rocked. It sounded far better than a cell phone. The Fobbit software is fairly solid on FreeBSD and Windows with a couple bugs in the Linux port." This device has been out for a while now, with mixed reviews[5], at least with the included software, but it's nice to see this effort to turn off the meter. [] -- notes: 1. http://www.monkey.org/~timothy/ 2. http://www.anders.com/ 3. http://www.americas.creative.com/products/product.asp?Product=203 &MainCategory=7&Centric=&SearchSite=yes 4. http://www.fobbit.com/ 5. http://www.neoseeker.com/Hardware/Products/Creative_VoIP/user reviews.html Regards, Eric De Mund ------------------------------ From: putnam_brian@hotmail.com (Brian Putnam) Subject: Outsourced Telecom Audits? Date: 24 Apr 2002 20:29:47 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Because the majority of you have industry experience and are tasked with day-to-day management of your networks, I would like to ask you a few questions about outsourcing a telecom audit. I'm not interested in having consultants contact me directly. Questions: Has your company performed a detailed telecom audit? What was the percentage of your recovery? How many man-hours went into the project? Did you outsource the project? IT departments are primarily tasked with keeping the network running smoothly, not with processing thick stacks of invoices, and most accountants' wince at the prospect of digging through so much paperwork. Besides the professional reputation and experience of the auditor, why don't businesses outsource telco audits more often? If you have outsourced an telco audit, what type of outsourced telco audit did you use (a contingent or a project based audit)? I appreciate everyone who responds professionally. Again, I'm not interested in having consultants contact me directly. Thank you, Brian Putnam_brian@hotmail.com ------------------------------ From: Ed Ellers Subject: Re: Toll Free Number To Ring To Office, Home, or Cell ... Date: Sat, 20 Apr 2002 08:30:19 -0400 Stanley Cline wrote: > some "discount" carriers refuse to point toll-free numbers at cell > phones or any other number with a non-RBOC NPA-NXX (most that do > this can't see numbers in RBOC NPA-NXXs ported to CLECs as they just > screen by NPA-NXX) or whine about doing so, as the carrier I left > last month did." So what do customers of independent ILECs do? And for that matter, why should the IXC care what telco serves the number being pointed to, as long as the customer pays the bill? Has anyone heard a logical reason for this? ------------------------------ From: josheverett2000@hotmail.com (jl) Subject: Explain This Payphone Trick Date: 20 Apr 2002 14:27:11 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ What is the code that makes a payphone ring by itself??? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: First of all, payphones are no different than any other type of (wired) phone in this respect. Whatever code makes the phone on your desk ringback will also work on the corner payphone (assuming it is on the same exchange). The catch is, it seems to differ from one exchange to the next. Like the 'trick' which makes a telephone tell you its number, the trick which makes it ring itself is different in every exchange. The phone company likes to keep that information secret for very good reason. Too many people using those techniques cause a traffic jam in the telephone exchange office. Suppose we begin by you telling us what the area code and exchange (first three digits of the phone number) are in the town you live in. Someone may be able to respond with the dialing sequence you need to use in your town. Thank you for writing Josh, with this interesting question. I hope given all the details we will be able to provide you with an answer. PAT] ------------------------------ From: imo353 Subject: Re: Recourse For Very Slow T1 Installation? Date: Sun, 21 Apr 2002 15:50:55 GMT To Vidya, Aren't you the same individual who asked the question, below, in this newsgroup about what the main purpose of a T1 is? So how can you really help this guy? I suspect a call to the CLEC, and state PUC will yield better results. B. > Can anyone tell me what is the main purpose of using a T1. I > understand the 1.54 mb bandwidth for data and for voice it provides 24 > lines or channels or circuits whatever. Why particularly it is > imperative to have a T1, I came up with the following. > - Cheaper long distance rates; > - Avoid mulitiple long distance and local bills. > I need help here. Also my friend says he owns a T1 and has no use for > it. He used the T for incoming 900# and that business died, now he > has asked me if he should sell it or use it for other purposes. Can > it be possible to own a T1 vs leasing the T. He needs to implement a > system where inbound callers get routed to a mailbox and are required > to punch in a passcode for entry. Any assistance regarding these > matters on what we can do would be greatly appreciated. > Vidya Ramachandran > mrvidya2001@yahoo.com > "Vidya Ramachandran" wrote in message > news:telecom20.206.7@telecom-digest.org... > I'll get you up in running in no time and my rates are damn good. If > you are interested give me a call: 202-463-4929 or 404-277-6267 ask > for Vidya. > JDS wrote in message > news:: >> Ed M wrote in >> news:telecom20.194.11@telecom-digest.org: >>> Since December we have had a T1 on order from a relatively small LEC >>> in upstate NY (Frontier in Orange County NY) Although we are across >>> the road (in Verizon territory) from the area Frontier's CO serves >>> they are able to offer services in our area. >>> The installation is long overdue from the January date ... >>> complain to? This is getting ridiculous. >> Write to your public utilities commission and to the Federal >> Communications Commission. They grant these monopoly franchises, and >> they need to know how well the carrier is fulfilling its obligation to >> serve the public. Your LEC can tell you to whom you should write -- >> and your request will perhaps get them going. If you don't tell them, >> they won't know. ------------------------------ From: av1d@aol.comp.com (av1d) Date: 21 Apr 2002 03:32:31 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: Jennifer Martino Bad Link B C Leonard Heymoe@despammed.com wrote: > Hello Pat: > Jennifer had a baby about 4 years ago and that was why she lost > interest in keeping the site. It reappeared on COTSE.com a year or so > ago with some new recordings. I didn't know it disappeared again. I beg to differ. Jennifer's site was up until mid-February [updated frequently too, might I add] , when she mysteriously 'dissapeared' [her Net presence]. Up until a few weeks ago, there was a placeholder on her host, set by her host, asking where she was. Also apparently she cancelled her ISP, everything. If anyone has the real story, many people would like to know what truly happened to Jenn. av1d ------------------------------ From: nomailp@netscape.net (Don't email me) Subject: DMS Wanted in Europe Date: 20 Apr 2002 12:53:39 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Does anyone on this forum know of any companies who are looking to sell a DMS in Europe? We are looking for a 100E preferably. Please respond to me with contact details as well as switch location. Thank you. ------------------------------ From: Simon Fraser Subject: Re: New Breed Spam Filter Slashes Junk Email Date: 23 Apr 2002 13:55:26 GMT Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy NY, USA What about legitimate mailers who refuse to read replies to their messages? Examples include Southwest Airlines sending confirmations of eticket purchases, and various other large organizations that are too big to have to follow usual email practices. I would like to have an automated system mailing back to unknown senders to check, but I'd also like to use some of these businesses with antisocial email practices. Yes, I know I could add special case rules for the ones I know about, but this appears to be a growing general trend. email: TEE THREE ZERO ONE ZERO THREE AT comcast.net Please post replies. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well Simon, you know you can't save the whole world from its foolishness. I suggest starting your plan, and including in your confirming email a statement like this: "The unsent mail alleged to have been sent from your email address will be held in a queue here for (give period of time) after which time it will be (disgarded/returned to you/forwarded) based on your reply to this request. Please respond promptly." Have the holding queue timeout about a day or two later than promised in your note to allow for delays in their mail getting back. If your examination of the email at that point shows it has some obvious value then let your conscience be your guide as to delivery or not. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Mark Crispin Subject: Another Automated Telemarketer With a Toll-Free-Number Organization: Pandamonium Reigns Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2002 23:42:43 GMT One Set Piece, at 888-329-7577, located at 6220 Orange Blossom Trail Ste 320, Orlando, FL 32809, believes that it is exempt from the requirements of federal law (47 USC 227) and can call anyone at their home phone number even if they have No Solicitation service on the phone. They also don't believe that they have to pay $500 civil damages, and accuse people who demand such damages of "making a living by suing". -- Mark -- http://panda.com/mrc Socialism: If you build it, they will leave. ------------------------------ From: davide@faircall.com (David Ellerstein) Subject: International Collect and USA Direct Date: 22 Apr 2002 13:31:37 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ I was looking for call and revenue stats for the above mentioned subject. Wanted to know how many calls, in general originated from the UK, as well as the rest of Europe, specifically to the US, then the rest of the World. Also, if this was further broken down by pay phone and then all calls inclusive of pay phones. Thanks, David ------------------------------ From: broadband4you@yahoo.com (Dan Spelling) Subject: Pretty Cool Service Date: 22 Apr 2002 09:49:13 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ I ran across a pretty neat website that let's you shop like 25 service providers all at once for business bandwidth needs. I needed a T1 line, I used them, and about 12 providers got back to me. It's free to use, so that's why I'm posting it. http://www.broadbandbuyer.com Thanks, Dan [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But it is not YOUR web site, and you have no personal interest in seeing the hits go higher each day, right? PAT] ------------------------------ From: mkl Subject: DTFM Code Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2002 09:41:31 +0200 Organization: Internet Partners How to read DTFM code from wave file? ------------------------------ From: Mark Crispin Subject: Re: Clueless Loanshark Telemarketer Organization: Pandamonium Reigns Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2002 00:52:02 GMT On 18 Apr 2002, The National Folk Hero of the Net wrote: > I don't know whether this has been discussed here, but I often get > calls at home in which a recorded voice says "Sorry, wrong number" > and hangs up. > From a brief web search, I gather that some new telemarketing equipment > leaves advertising messages *only* on answering machines. If it detects > a live voice, it hangs up. This is apparently for evading some of the > laws against telemarketing. In fact, this is what "One Set Piece", the telesleaze operation at 888-329-7577 that called me today, claims. They claim that because they left their spam on my voice mail, they didn't break the law. However, they didn't leave a message on my voice mail. The call was answered by me, after first going through Qwest's No Solicitation service, ringing three times at my residence phone, and then being transferred to my cell phone. -- Mark -- http://panda.com/mrc Socialism: If you build it, they will leave. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2002 13:07:41 -0400 From: John Warne Subject: CCI or BMCGroup VM? Anyone out there using or selling voicemail units from Carmel Connection (CCI) or BMCGroup for the NorStar platform? Since both groups seem to be defunct, maybe we can swap service / programming information to get a few more years out of our investments. NOTE: Don't try to sell me a different system -- I'll put all sales messages on my "never buy anything from this jerk" list. John Warne warnejw@sbac.edu ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Apr 2002 22:44:46 -0500 From: John Schmerold Subject: Re: Last Laugh! Some Idiot Assigned Phone Number to Fax I used to use efax, now I use faxwave. It doesn't require the efax client. You read the fax with any TIFF viewer. > Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 18:08:36 -0500 > From: Gordon S. Hlavenka > Organization: Crash Electronics, Inc. > Subject: Re: Last Laugh! Some Idiot Assigned Phone Number to Fax Machine > Gail M. Hall wrote: >> I took my fax offline. I got just too many junk faxes. > I signed up with the free fax-by-email service from efax (at the > obvious URL). If you send a fax to 413-451-xxxx it shows up in my > email. For a small fee you can get a fax number in your local area > (I'm in 630). I've been using it for several years now. > I was going through a roll of $$$$ fax paper every month, and throwing > pretty much all of it directly in the trash; now I just hit "delete". > OK, so all I did was turn fax spam into email spam, but at least I'm > not killing trees for it any more. > Efax provides a special reader app which allows you to view and print > faxes. The reader serves up a banner ad before showing you your fax, > but it's not too obnoxious and so far my account with efax has not > resulted in my being deluged with "partner" spam. When I set up my > efax account, I gave them a unique email address which forwards to my > "real" inbox (which I don't give out to anyone). If their policy > changes and I begin getting spam at that address I can just kill the > address. > Gordon S. Hlavenka O- nospam@crashelex.com ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 20 Apr 2002 00:53:50 PDT From: User Subject: eFax (was Re: Last Laugh! Some Idiot Assigned ...) [ Pat, Please post this anonymously, if that's not against your TELECOM Digest policy. Thanks. ] From: Anonymous Subject: eFax [was: Re: Last Laugh! Some Idiot Assigned...] Gail M. Hall: > I took my fax offline. I got just too many junk faxes. Gordon S. Hlavenka: > I signed up with the free fax-by-email service from efax (at the > obvious URL). > Efax provides a special reader app which allows you to view and print > faxes. The reader serves up a banner ad before showing you your fax, > but it's not too obnoxious ... Even under Microsoft Windows, there's no need to use eFax's special reader app; if you indicate in your preferences that your operating system is "Other", eFax will simply email you vanilla TIFF files. I've been happily receiving 100% ad-free vanilla TIFF faxes in my inbox for the better part of two years now. Regards, Anonymous ------------------------------ From: webmaster@talkswitch.com (TalkSwitch Representative) Subject: Re: Toll Free Number To Ring To Office, Home, or Cell... Date: 23 Apr 2002 13:59:59 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Dear all: Perhaps this is spam too, as I am a representative of TalkSwitch Phone Systems. Our PBX phone system for $695 will do all that Answer Solution will do, in addition to auto attendants, voicemail, call transfer/forward and all the rest of the goodies http://www.talkswitch.com/pbx_phone_system.html Marc Rand Web Developer TalkSwitch Phone Systems webmaster@talkswitch_nospam.com answercenter@msn.com (Ms. Gage) wrote in message news:: > SMART enough to ALWAYS know where to reach you and can transfer your > calls to wherever you are: > At Home! At Work! On the road to your Cell Phone! Or, ANYWHERE You > Choose! > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But Ms. Gage, your spam-like message > did not tell us what this service would cost per month. And although > it comes {thisclose} to being spam, I made an editorial decision to > treat it like an 'infomercial' and print it because we had this very > topic recently in the Digest. So how much does it cost? Can I get a > gen-you-wine 800 number, or only one the 877/866 variety? PAT] [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: And ditto, Mr. Rand, your infomercial received and printed above. I think most folks in this newsgroup would appreciate a toll free number with the characteristics you and Ms. Gage propose to offer, but it does come close to being spam. PAT] ------------------------------ 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-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 630-841-7174 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@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 * * Judith Oppenheimer, President of ICB Inc. and purveyor of accurate * * 800 & Dot Com News, Intelligence, Analysis, and Consulting. * * http://ICBTollFree.com, http://1800TheExpert.com * * Views expressed herein should not be construed as representing * * views of Judith Oppenheimer or ICB Inc. * ************************************************************************* ICB Toll Free News. Contact information is not sold, rented or leased. Access to Premium (P) links requires upgrade to a paid subscription. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Only subscribers or registered users of ICB Toll Free News web site will be able to access all or some of the full text of URLs provided. LEGAL STUFF: TELECOM Digest (sm) is owned by Patrick Townson. Copyright 2000 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. 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. End of TELECOM Digest V20 #231 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Apr 26 20:17:17 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id UAA17219; Fri, 26 Apr 2002 20:17:17 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2002 20:17:17 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200204270017.UAA17219@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #232 TELECOM Digest Fri, 26 Apr 2002 20:13:00 EDT Volume 20 : Issue 232 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson CFP: DIALM 2002: Extended Deadline to May 12 (Eric Fleury) Quicknet Internet SwitchBoard Version 4.x? (Skua) News Headlines of Interest (Monty Solomon) Telephone Pole Distances (Carter Thomasson) Why Not Pay Less (John R. Levine) Spam With 800 # (Was: Bundle Special) (John Bartley) Re: Nigeria Launches Web Site to Target E-Mail Scam (Shalom Septimus) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Eric.Fleury@inria.fr Subject: CFP: DIALM 2002: Extended Deadline to May 12 Date: 26 Apr 2002 15:14:48 GMT Organization: CISM (Universite Claude Bernard Lyon I et INSA Lyon) The deadline for DIALM 2002 paper submission has been extended to May 12, 2002. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Please could you broadcast this message. Please Accept Our Sincere Apologies Should you Receive Multiple Copies of this CFP ----------------------------------------------------------------- _____________________________ F I N A L C A L L F O R P A P E R S *** DEADLINE EXTENDED TO MAY 12*** ----------------------------- DIAL M for Mobility ___________________ 6th International Workshop on Discrete Algorithms and Methods for Mobile Computing and Communications September, 28, 2002 Atlanta, Georgia, USA (In conjunction with ACM MobiCom 2002) Sponsored by ACM Sigmobile (pending) http://dialm.insa-lyon.fr/ SCOPE Mobile computing and communications such as portable phones and Personal Digital Assistants will have an enormous impact on all of us over the next several decades. The introduction of mobility raises a number of new research questions. For many of them, approaches based on the continuous case are not satisfactory, and discrete models and algorithms are required in order to deal with real applications. The workshop DIAL M for Mobility is devoted to discrete algorithms and discrete modelling in the context of mobile and wireless computing and communications. It is intended to be a lively meeting, covering many of the algorithmic and discrete aspects of this field going from operations research to radio engineering problems. It aims, in particular, at fostering the cooperation among practitioners and theoreticians of the field. Following the success the first workshop held jointly with Mobicom 97 in Budapest, DIAL M for Mobility will be co-located with ACM/IEEE MobiCom 98 and will be composed of contributed and invited talks. TOPICS Papers are solicited in all research and applied areas related to mobile and wireless computing and communications where discrete algorithms and methods are used, including, but not limited to: * distributed algorithms * frequency allocation * location tracking * multihop packet radio networks * wireless networks * cryptography and security * error correcting codes * handover (handoff) * modelling * optimization * routing * satellite communication * scheduling * site allocation * synchronization * telecommunications PUBLICATION All contributions will be refereed by the Program Committee. All accepted papers will appear (7 to 10 pages each) in the workshop proceedings which will be published by ACM. SUBMISSION GUIDELINES The language of the conference is English. All submissions should be original and not currently under review by any other publication or conference. All papers will be reviewed by two or more reviewers. Accepted proposals will be published in the conference proceedings. It is expected that all accepted papers will be presented at the workshop. Papers should be full papers and be no longer than 5000 words (no more than 10 single-spaced pages). Submissions must include a cover page, containing the title, author name(s) and affiliation(s), the complete address (telephone, fax, email) of the corresponding author, and an abstract (max 150 words) followed by up to 5 keywords. Authors are requested to submit an electronic version (PDF or A4 Postscript format) of the paper. The PDF format is strongly recommended. All submissions will be handled electronically. You will submit your proposal via the WEB (http://dialm.insa-lyon.fr/) or E-MAIL (Eric.Fleury@inria.fr) if your web access is limited). Please review all these instructions before submitting your paper: * PDF format or * PostScript version 2 or later. * No longer than 10 pages. * Fits properly on "US Letter" size paper (8.5X11 inches) * Reference only Computer Modern or standard Adobe printer fonts * (i.e. Courier, Times, Roman, or Helvetica); other fonts may be used * but must be included in the PostScript file. IMPORTANT DATES * Final Paper Submission Deadline: May 12, 2002 * Notification of acceptance: June 15, 2002 * Camera-ready papers due: July 15, 2002 * Workshop: September, 28, 2002 ORGANIZATION CONFERENCE CHAIRS Eric FLEURY CITI/INRIA Rhne-Alpes Domaine Scientifique de la Doua - INSA de Lyon Lonard de Vinci - 21 av. Jean Capelle F-69621 Villeurbanne Cedex France Work Phone: +33 472 434 421 Fax Number: +33 472 436 227 Email: Eric.Fleury@inria.fr Madhav MARATHE Los Alamos National Laboratory P.O. Box 1663 Los Alamos, NM 87545 USA Work Phone: +1 505 667 8010 Fax Number: +1 505 665 6474 Email: marathe@lanl.gov TECHNICAL PROGRAM COMMITTEE P. Agarwal, Duke University, USA A. Bar-Noy, CUNY -- Brooklyn College, USA P. Crescenzi, U. Firenze, Italia B. Ducourthial, UTC, France P. Jacquet, INRIA, France S. Krumke, ZIB Berlin, Germany J-Y. Leboudec, EPFL, Switzerland G. R. Mateus, UFMG, Brasil M. Morvan, ENS-Lyon, France S. Naor, Technion, Israel D. Peleg, Weizmann Institute, Israel C. Phillips, Sandia National Laboratories, USA A. Richa, ASU, USA B. Schieber, IBM Watson, USA M. Steenstrup, BBN, USA A. Srinivasan, University of Maryland, USA P. Widmayer, ETH Zurich, Switzerland STEERING COMMITTEE Ian Akyildiz, Georgia Tech, USA Maurizio Bonuccelli, University of Pisa, Italy Afonso Ferreira, CNRS - I3S - INRIA - Sophia Antipolis, France E. Lloyd, University of Delaware, USA Arunabha Sen, Arizona State University, USA. ------------------------------ Subject: Quicknet Internet SwitchBoard Version 4.x? From: Skua Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2002 19:05:17 GMT Organization: PenTeleData http://www.ptd.net Does anyone have a copy of the old versions of Quicknet's Internet SwitchBoard software? It's my understanding that as of version 5.0 they disabled support for the LINE jack on the card. Apparently earlier versions of the software allowed access to the LINE jack on the card so it could be used as a Single-Line-Gateway to the PSTN? Is this correct? Please let me know! Skua skua_september@NOSPAMhotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2002 02:20:37 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: News Headlines of Interest The Invisible Lightness of Beams Company promotes Internet access via laser beams that zap through windows. By ROY RIVENBURG TIMES STAFF WRITER April 19 2002 Look! Up in the sky, it's a ... well, actually, you can't see it. But it's there. A company called Terabeam recently landed in Los Angeles and announced plans to "send invisible light beams through the air downtown." Hoping to meet some UFO wackos, we trekked to a Wilshire Boulevard skyscraper and passed through a security checkpoint. Ascending to the 20th floor, we were greeted by humanoid creatures who--to our great disappointment--insisted they were from a Seattle suburb, not another galaxy. Even so, Terabeam is an odd enterprise. Founded five years ago by an eccentric inventor, the company delivers high-speed Internet access via laser beams zapped through office windows. It might sound like science fiction, but Terabeam is actually borrowing technology developed by the military during the Cold War, when submarines used blue-green lasers to chat with satellites. http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-000027771apr19.story Wireless Data Blaster Radio's oldest technology is providing a new way for portable electronics to transmit large quantities of data rapidly without wires By David G. Leeper With a crackling sound like that of frying eggs, an undulating thread of intense, blue-white light dances across the small space between the tips of two metal rods. Using his spark-gap transmitter, a mild-mannered 31-year-old physics professor demonstrates electromagnetic phenomena to students in a dimly lit classroom at the University of Karlsruhe in Germany. The year is 1887, and Heinrich Hertz is generating radio waves. Seven years later a young Italian named Guglielmo Marconi reads a journal article by Hertz while vacationing in the Alps and abruptly rushes home with a vision of a wireless telegraph in his head. Soon Marconi's own spark-gap transmitters are sending Morse-code pulse streams across his lab without wires. After boosting power and building much larger antennas, the radio pioneer eventually uses the device to transmit coded wireless signals across the Atlantic Ocean in 1901. Fast-forward a century, and researchers are once again beaming short electromagnetic pulses across their labs. But the technology has changed. Hertz's and Marconi's bulky coils and capacitors have been replaced by tiny integrated circuits and tunnel diodes. Likewise, the ragged and erratic spark streams emitted by early transmitters have now been refined into precisely timed sequences of specially shaped pulses lasting only a few hundred trillionths of a second each. And whereas Marconi's devices could convey the equivalent of about 10 bits of data per second, today's short-range, low-power descendant of the original spark-gap systems -- called ultrawideband (UWB) wireless technology -- can send more than 100 million bits of digital information in the same amount of time. http://www.sciam.com/2002/0502issue/0502leeper.html WorldCom targets Bells with plan Local service bundles long distance, other features at one price By Bruce Mohl, Globe Staff, 4/16/2002 Embattled WorldCom Inc. yesterday launched a bold counterattack against the nation's regional phone companies with a residential plan that offers unlimited calls anywhere in the United States plus five special calling features for $50 to $60 a month. Called the ''Neighborhood Complete from MCI,'' the plan targets moderately heavy users of phone services with a package of unlimited local and long-distance calling, voice mail, caller ID, call waiting, three-way calling, and speed dial. In the Name of Homeland Security, Telecom Firms Are Deluged With Subpoenas By MILES BENSON c.2002 Newhouse News Service WASHINGTON -- Operating under new powers to combat terrorism, law enforcement agencies are making unprecedented demands on the telecommunications industry to provide information on subscribers, company attorneys say. These companies and Internet service providers face an escalating barrage of subpoenas for subscriber lists, personal credit reports, financial information, routing patterns that reveal individual computer use, even customer photographs. Behind the rising pressure for the fullest use of new technology and surveillance is homeland security. As police and intelligence agencies seek to deter future terrorist threats, the government is testing the limits of the expanded authority Congress provided when it passed the Patriot Act with broad bipartisan support in October. http://www.newhouse.com/archive/story1a041002.html BT Group Plans 4,000-Node Public-Access Wi-Fi Net Rivals likely to roll out more networks By BOB BREWIN (April 15, 2002) BT Group PLC last week said it plans to install 4,000 public-access wireless LAN nodes designed to serve mobile enterprise users throughout the U.K. Analysts described the plan, expected to be completed in 2005, as one of the largest wireless LAN initiatives to date. Global mobile telecommunications access providers predicted that the BT launch will be followed by announcements of rival public-access wireless LAN networks in the U.K. that will be equal in scope. http://www.computerworld.com/storyba/0,4125,NAV47_STO70126,00.html Senate Fights for Small Cable Biz By Joanna Glasner 2:00 a.m. April 24, 2002 PDT Four months after announcing plans to combine their massive cable operations, executives of AT&T Broadband and Comcast faced a grilling on Capitol Hill regarding how the mega-merger will affect cable industry competition. In a U.S. Senate subcommittee hearing Tuesday, legislators considered placing conditions on the consummation of the proposed multibillion-dollar marriage in areas ranging from television programming to broadband service to cable set-top boxes. http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,52057,00.html Digital cable searches for a foothold Little new to watch, despite technology's promise By Sally Beatty THE WALL STREET JOURNAL April 24 - For years now, TV viewers have been hearing talk of the ballet channel, the water channel, the puppy channel - a cornucopia of choice, just around the corner. New technology promised to bring peoples' passions to them, no matter how narrow. And there would be a business model for it, too: Madison Avenue could target exactly the consumers it wanted. Or so the promise went. NOW THAT digital cable TV has arrived, with the capacity to carry hundreds of channels, the question is, will those promises finally be fulfilled? The answer is, not yet. While the channels are physically here, they are packed with the inevitable parade of pay-per-view movies and rehashed content. What's more, the channels themselves are often hard to find amid the clutter. And for all the hype, the business model is still struggling. http://www.msnbc.com/news/742816.asp NEWSMAKER-BCE's Monty takes fall as convergence dream fades - Apr 24, 2002 02:22 PM By Charles Grandmont MONTREAL, April 24 (Reuters) - Jean Monty relinquished his hold on BCE Inc. (TSE:BCE), Canada's largest telecommunications group, on Wednesday, his dream of turning a staid phone company into a powerhouse of the wired economy crashing about him. The 54-year-old chief executive abruptly announced his resignation during an analysts' meeting on Wednesday morning held to explain BCE's first-quarter results and the unraveling of the empire he had built. He handed the rest of the meeting, and his job, over to Michael Sabia, BCE's No. 2. His star started fading as the heat of the telecoms boom started to burn out. It was brightest in the late 1990s, when he rolled out ambitious expansion plans in the media and Internet universe. His boring old telephone company, Bell Canada -- which had a virtual monopoly in Canada's two most populous provinces, Ontario and Quebec -- needed high-speed access to the next millennium. http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=26942899 April 25, 2002 Bypassing the Carriers, a Burg Goes Broadband By PETER WAYNER CUMBERLAND, Md. -- DURING the Civil War, Cumberland built a fort on the hill overlooking the center of town as a bulwark against the Confederate forces just across the Potomac. Today, the city is trying to use the same high ground to strategic advantage in a different campaign: keeping pace with the Internet age. After years of waiting for the phone company, Verizon, to offer high-speed Internet service here, the local government wants to take on the job. And the hill above downtown, now the site of Fort Hill High School, has already proved to be an opportune spot for a crucial station relaying Internet traffic. The quandary facing Cumberland, population 21,000, and surrounding Allegany County is not unusual in rural America. Businesses and residents here in western Maryland, far from any urban center, are so scattered that upgrading the telephone system's copper wires to offer the high-speed data service known as D.S.L., or Digital Subscriber Line, is prohibitively expensive. High-capacity lines like T1's and DS3's are sometimes available, but at prices steeply higher than those offered in big cities and technology corridors. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/25/technology/circuits/25BROA.html Verizon Wireless and LG Mobile Phones Introduce Ultra-Lightweight High-Speed Data Phone Verizon Wireless VX1 Clamshell Handset Provides Seamless Access to the Express Network BEDMINSTER, N.J. and SAN DIEGO, April 25 /PRNewswire/ -- It's chic, it's cool and it's fast. The new Verizon Wireless VX1 by LG Mobile Phones allows users to access Verizon Wireless' high-speed Express Network with one of the smallest and lightest tri-mode digital phones on the market. The Verizon Wireless VX1 is the 3.8-ounce answer for those who want high-speed data access with high tech style. http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=26961920 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2002 13:55:20 -0400 From: Carter Thomasson Subject: Telephone Pole Distances A colleague mentioned that there was some system used by civil defense to indicate locations. He had no idea what the system was, but the numbers on the telephone poles in his county in the eastern part of the state had been changed. I started looking at telephone poles (discretely so as not to draw attention!) to see if I could learn the system. There is a six digit number on the poles. The first 3 digits seem to be the distance from the western end of the state, in thousands of feet. The second three numbers appear to be the distance from the southern part of the state in thousands of feet. Can this be true? The state he lives in is Maryland. I've been associated with phone companies for many years and have never heard this. Thanks, Carter Thomasson ------------------------------ Date: 25 Apr 2002 14:50:29 -0400 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Why Not Pay Less Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > The new AT&T Wireless plan, called Wireless National Network, was > unveiled over the weekend, with packages ranging from $34.99 for 300 > daytime minutes, to $149.99 for 2,200 daytime minutes. All packages > also include unlimited night and weekend minutes. > The plan allows customers to use their cell phones at no extra charge > nationwide as long as they stay on the AT&T Wireless TDMA (Time > Division Multiple Access) network. Roaming outside of the network > costs 69 cents a minute. Gee, that's, uh, a pretty lousy deal. Cingular charges me $29.99 for 250 daytime minutes or $39.99 for 350 minutes, up to $199.99 for 3000 minutes. All include an extra 3500 night and weekend minutes, and unlimited national roaming on anyone's system, Cingular or otherwise. Cingular is also TDMA, so their phones work the same places that AT&T's do. They also have the nice extra that you can change plans every month if your expected usage changes. (Once they even offered to change it retroactively, which was amazing.) 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: John_Bartley@orb.uscourts.gov Subject: Spam With 800 # (Was: Bundle Special) Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2002 12:07:43 -0700 What do we do to spammers? (SPAM below). --- Forwarded by John Bartley/ORB/09/USCOURTS on 04/23/02 12:10 PM ----- CALL 1-800-848-9935 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Oops, I accidentally erased the nice man's spam advertisement, except for the phone number. Sorry John, but I'm sure you understand. With my deseased brain since the aneurysm, I grow tired sitting at my keyboard erasing all the 'can I have your advice' and 'here is a new game for you to play' messages; sometimes I fall asleep and don't remove my hands from the keyboard until a few lines of a valuable message such as you sent in gets erased. Thank Goddess I woke up in time to save his phone number from the bit bucket. I guess some of the readers will have to work him over and see what he is about. I think when I opened my eyes briefly I saw where it had something to do with computer parts on sale. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Shalom Septimus Subject: Re: Nigeria Launches Web Site to Target E-Mail Scam Organization: Giganews.Com - Premium News Outsourcing Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2002 15:32:32 GMT On Thu, 28 Mar 2002 08:06:43 -0500, Dale Neiburg wrote: > And I just got another copy of the scam, this time purporting to come > from the widow of the late president of Zaire! >[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I've had her a couple times myself. PAT] The latest one, a few days ago, is supposed to be from the widow of the Minister of Finance of the Philippines. ObTelecom: This one asked the sucker to call her back at +873-762-692484. That's an Inmarsat number, and last I checked was something like $10/minute to call it. Some people have begun turning this around on the would-be scammers. One of the regulars in the anti-spam newsgroup {news.admin.net-abuse.email} has begun answering these, pretending to be "Lic. Inagada DaVida" (!), a Nigerian national living in Florida who runs a money-laundering scheme, telling them that *they* need to send *him* some advance cash before he'll do a deal with them, with a few veiled threats if they refuse. None have fallen for it yet, but you never know ... see http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=m4t39us59i3tj0joc0vep6sot8filb0bbv%404ax.com for the details. http://www.buddyweiserman.com/ has a whole multimedia presentation, including actual voicemail recordings left by another one of these scammers, allegedly a Prince from Sierra Leone. Mr "Weiserman" had this poor conman taking buses all over Africa looking for him. A similar example is at http://www.sickhumor.dk/Epost/Jose/index.html This one allegedly came from the son of a Major in the Angolan army. The interstitial text is in Danish, but the exchange of emails is in English, more or less. Hey, if you spam a company called "Sick Humour", I say you deserve whatever you get ... "419" is the section of the Nigerian criminal code that deals with this scam, which is why it's referred to as such; this hoax has been around for 20 years, and was originally spread by snail-mail. Shalom Septimus druggist @ pobox . com (don't use the hotmail return address, it's a spamtrap) ------------------------------ 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-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 630-841-7174 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@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 * * Judith Oppenheimer, President of ICB Inc. and purveyor of accurate * * 800 & Dot Com News, Intelligence, Analysis, and Consulting. * * http://ICBTollFree.com, http://1800TheExpert.com * * Views expressed herein should not be construed as representing * * views of Judith Oppenheimer or ICB Inc. * ************************************************************************* ICB Toll Free News. Contact information is not sold, rented or leased. Access to Premium (P) links requires upgrade to a paid subscription. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Only subscribers or registered users of ICB Toll Free News web site will be able to access all or some of the full text of URLs provided. LEGAL STUFF: TELECOM Digest (sm) is owned by Patrick Townson. Copyright 2000 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. 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. End of TELECOM Digest V20 #232 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Apr 26 21:44:00 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id VAA18602; Fri, 26 Apr 2002 21:44:00 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2002 21:44:00 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200204270144.VAA18602@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #233 TELECOM Digest Fri, 26 Apr 2002 21:40:00 EDT Volume 20 : Issue 233 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson The Neighborhood Local Dial Tone and Long Distance From MCI (Brad) Mexico Subsea Cable (TOLTECJPD) Ringback/Revertive; Other Tests (re: Explain Payphone Trick) (M. Cuccia) Answering Machine Query (Rich Greenberg) Re: Toll Free Number To Ring To Office, Home, or Cell (John R. Levine) Tariffs Library (Sean) Re: Is "Call Waiting Caller ID" Different Than "Caller ID"? (D Russell) Re: SIP Information (Owen P. Epstein) Re: War-Dialing Legality? (Sellcom Tech Support) Re: DTFM Code (Phil McKerracher) Re: DTFM Code (Banibrata Dutta) Re: Outsourced Telecom Audits? (Sean) Re: Altigen CDR Format (David Hassid) Re: eFax (was Re: Last Laugh! Some Idiot Assigned ...) (Jean B. Condat) Trademarking 800's (Judith Oppenheimer) Mobile Phone Operator Company Idea (Gareth) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: bradleyb127@hotmail.com (Brad) Subject: The Neighborhood Local Dial Tone and Long Distance From MCI Date: 25 Apr 2002 22:38:12 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Has anyone any opinions of the new service from MCI called "The Neighborhood" (www.theneighborhood.com) that provides you with local telephone service and unlimited long distance calls (all except internationall) regardless of day or time for around $50/month? It looks like a really good plan especially since it also includes local toll calls (calls to those friends and family that live just far enough away to be considered long distance but not that far away so your local phone company really screws you by the minute). Just hoping to get some feedback on this. If I decide to get the service I'll post my opinion here but would appreciate hearing from others too. Brad ------------------------------ From: TOLTECJPD@aol.com Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2002 21:45:20 EDT Subject: Mexico Subsea Cable Pat, We are in the oil business and have some equipment that is unique. Basically this is a tool that can lift 1,000 tons 19 feet in 6 minutes. It is used to pull heavy "casing" from oil wells. Someone told us that this would be a perfect tool to salvage subsea cable, as not only can it raise the cable but also pull it out of the sand and silt. We have been told that there exits an abandoned telephone cable running along the coast of Mexico laid by AT&T. Is there any information about this cable? What we are interested in is the composition and specifically any engineering information ... such as the tensile strenght ... fracture angles etc, etc. We have been told that the cable was salvaged on the American side, but left on the Mexican side due to political reasons. Any information or advise as to where I can get information, would be deeply appreciated. Best regards, John Dufour Toltech Equipment Co. Houston, Texas 281-450-0717 (mobile) toltecjpd@aol.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Could some of you readers with any experience with the old AT&T underseas cable things try and be of some help to Mr. Dufour? Thanks. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2002 15:05:55 CDT From: Mark J Cuccia Subject: Ringback/Revertive, Other Tests (re: Explain Payphone Trick) jl (josheverett2000@hotmail.com) wrote: > What is the code that makes a payphone ring by itself??? and moderator Pat replied: > First of all, payphones are no different than any other type of > (wired) phone in this respect. Whatever code makes the phone on your > desk ringback will also work on the corner payphone (assuming it is on > the same exchange). The only problem is now that so many payphones or other forms of public phones out there are now COCOTs or "COCOT-like", even many telco-owned and AT&T-owned coin/pay/public phones are "COCOT-like" now-a-days ... The store-and-forward internal chips might not recognize the dialed ring-back code for that c.o.code and/or c.o.switch as *valid* (much less "free"). Also, most "ring-back" or "revertive calling" codes require some form of switch-hook "flash" before hanging up. IF the COCOT allows you to dial the proper ringback/revertive code (whether charged at local or even toll rate, or in a rare instance, for free), If you try to "flash" on a COCOT, the internal store-forward and "control" chips will perform a complete (longer) ON-hook to the c.o.switch before going back off-hook. Even if the c.o.switch does accept this as a flash (rather than a complete on-hook with the subsequent off-hook giving brand new dialtone), the internal chips might return yet another internally generated "faux" dial tone. And then hanging up to receive a ring-back? Even if the central office switch is supplying power ringing back to the payphone, over a 'held-up' internal revertive trunk in the switch and 'held-up' loop, many COCOTs have their internal electronic chirping ringers turned off (if they even have ringers at all). While the central office switch has no problem with the code, the actual COCOT's internal chips won't necessarily allow it to be used by the end-user. Finally, many local c.o.switches these days don't even necessarily have any "traditional" active ringback/revertive calling codes nor ANAC (Automatic Number Announcement Circuit ... number-readback) codes. Some telcos these days might instead have special seven-digit "POTS" like numbers or 800/888/etc. which route to a touchtone-driven voice-menu automatic TEST system (maybe located at a centralized tandem rather than at the local switch), where you select the type of test you want to have done (ringback, ANI-readback, 1000-cycle milliwatt tone, reverse-battery, etc), and many of these "services" require a multi-digit passcode to be touchtoned in to perform whatever test is desired ... Mark J. Cuccia ------------------------------ From: richgr@panix.com (Rich Greenberg) Subject: Answering Machine Query Date: 25 Apr 2002 17:40:33 -0400 Organization: Organized? Me? My Panasonic 2 cassette answering machine is wearing out. I have been looking at the current crop of all electronic units, but can't seem to find one with the feature I would like. With the cassette machine I have several outgoing casettes that I swap in and out for the message of the moment. Is there any electronic machine that has several outgoing message slots that are switch selectable? I know of ones that have several incoming buckets, I don't need that ability. -- Rich Greenberg Work: Rich.Greenberg atsign worldspan.com +1 770-563-6656 N6LRT Marietta, GA, USA Play: richgr atsign panix.com +1 770-321-6507 Eastern time zone. I speak for myself & my dogs only. VM'er since CP-67 Canines:Val(Chinook,CGC,TT), Red & Shasta(Husky,(RIP)) Owner:Chinook-L Atlanta Siberian Husky Rescue. www.panix.com/~richgr/ Asst Owner:Sibernet-L ------------------------------ Date: 25 Apr 2002 18:24:34 -0400 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: Toll Free Number To Ring To Office, Home, or Cell ... Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA >> some "discount" carriers refuse to point toll-free numbers at cell >> phones or any other number with a non-RBOC NPA-NXX (most that do >> this can't see numbers in RBOC NPA-NXXs ported to CLECs as they just >> screen by NPA-NXX) or whine about doing so, as the carrier I left >> last month did." > So what do customers of independent ILECs do? We get 800 service just like anyone else. I've never had an IXC complain about pointing numbers at my phones or my sister's, even though we're both served by independents with NECA tariffs. My IXC charges 5 cpm, which is a pretty good rate for low-volume service. > And for that matter, why should the IXC care what telco serves the > number being pointed to, as long as the customer pays the bill? Has > anyone heard a logical reason for this? There's a sort of possible reason in that the per-minute access fees charged by NECA independents are considerably higher than they are for RBOCs. But in this case, I think the carriers are just being silly. What kind of per-minute access to CLECs get from IXCs, anyway? 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: lokes2@hotmail.com (Sean) Subject: Tariffs Library Date: 25 Apr 2002 16:24:48 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Does anyone know of a good tariff library? ------------------------------ From: Don Russell Subject: Re: Is "Call Waiting Caller ID" Different Than "Caller ID"? Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2002 06:09:44 GMT Organization: RoadRunner - West CWID is supported by the V.92 protocol. The "problem" I see in what you're trying to do is that the modem will only pick up the CWID info while it it is off hook. So, If you have broadband access to the 'net, and just want to use your modem to act as a call-logger (incoming calls only), it will only log "first calls", NOT calls coming in while you're already on the phone. I have a USR Courier V.Everything ... and I'm waiting fo the V.92 upgrade from their web site. I think what you really need is something like a telephony card like a Brooktrout or something like that. Don Russell John wrote in message news:telecom20.223.12@telecom-digest.org: > If I buy a phone or modem and it doesn't specify that it supports > "Call Waiting Caller ID" it probably doesn't support that feature, > right? > "Call Waiting Caller ID" is fairly new, right? So if I bought a modem > that supports "Caller ID" a few years ago, it probably doesn't support > "Call Waiting Caller ID", right? > Do any of the cheap modems ($20) support "Call Waiting Caller ID"? > I want my Linux box to log all my calls so I want a cheap modem > connected to it for this purpose. I have a USR Sportster Voice/FAX > 33.6 external that supports "Caller ID" that I can use, but it doesn't > say it supports "Call Waiting Caller ID". ------------------------------ From: owen_epstein@bigfoot.com (OWEN P EPSTEIN) Subject: Re: SIP Information Date: 25 Apr 2002 21:43:54 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ owen_epstein@bigfoot.com (Owen P. Epstein) wrote in message news:: > An intelligent, software-driven solution, the SIP proxy server > performs the following control and management functions: > Assistance in call setup and tear down; > Generation and logging of CDRs to the accounting server; > Logging statistical and event information on a call-by-call basis; > Registration and deregistration of gateways; > Monitoring of gateways and back-end servers; > Trap generation after component failure; > Gateway management and load balancing. I believe PSTN routing is quite different. Please advise. Regards, Owen P. Epstein ------------------------------ Reply-To: Sellcom Tech Support From: Sellcom Tech Support Subject: Re: War-Dialing Legality? Organization: http://www.sellcom.biz Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2002 23:09:27 GMT Bryan Hesters wrote in message news:telecom20.231.4@telecom-digest.org: > Is there any law against war-dialing of this nature? Is it illegal? > If so, what steps do you take to identify the caller and whom do you > report that infraction too (US/Texas)? OK, what is happening is that telemarketers dial a bunch of numbers to assure a connect. If someone answers, then the rest just get a dead line (an harassing hangup call) and get put back in the cue. They do it deliberately. People in that line of work should have something done to them so bad that I would not even talk about so horrible a thing. No one should ever buy anything from a telemarketer. It was happening here and I called the phone co. annoyance call bureau. The waitress was extremely nice and more frustrated than I that the legislature has seen fit to not make such activity illegal as she phrased it. But, she said that there was a place to write a letter to have your numbers taken off of calling lists and LO AND BEHOLD, she said she would send the letter so I gave her all of our numbers. I believe it is some direct marketing association that will honor "don't call requests" as they are grasping at anything to not get laws against them passed. Steve at SELLCOM http://www.sellcom.biz Discount multihandset cordless phones Panasonic Siemens EnGenius and more Authorized Twinhead notebooks Okidata printers Watchguard firewalls ------------------------------ From: Phil McKerracher Subject: Re: DTFM Code Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2002 12:06:05 +0100 mkl wrote in message news:telecom20.231.16@telecom-digest.org: > How to read DTFM code from wave file? If you mean DTMF, you need a FFT. Phil McKerracher www.mckerracher.org ------------------------------ From: bdutta@hotmail.com (Banibrata Dutta) Subject: Re: DTFM Code Date: 26 Apr 2002 09:57:17 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ mkl wrote in message news:: > How to read DTFM code from wave file? Not 100% sure, but you need to use a DTMF detection DSP algorithm, which actually takes the wavefile as input, matches it to the freq waveforms (using Fourier analysis I think) and comes up with the digits, of course taking the inter digit gap (min/max), min/max of tone time etc into consideration, which might be supplied by you. Check out sites of Texas Instruments, Zilog, Analog Devices for instance; you should find something out there. banibrata. ------------------------------ From: lokes2@hotmail.com (Sean) Subject: Re: Outsourced Telecom Audits? Date: 26 Apr 2002 14:10:44 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ I work in a Telecom Auditing Department. There are seven of us. We save $48 million a year. Give or take a couple mil. Granted we are a large corporation. Not only is it good to audit your current inventory and services but to negotiate better pricing. putnam_brian@hotmail.com (Brian Putnam) wrote in message news:: > Because the majority of you have industry experience and are tasked > with day-to-day management of your networks, I would like to ask you a > few questions about outsourcing a telecom audit. I'm not interested in > having consultants contact me directly. > Questions: > Has your company performed a detailed telecom audit? What was the > percentage of your recovery? How many man-hours went into the > project? Did you outsource the project? > IT departments are primarily tasked with keeping the network running > smoothly, not with processing thick stacks of invoices, and most > accountants' wince at the prospect of digging through so much > paperwork. Besides the professional reputation and experience of the > auditor, why don't businesses outsource telco audits more often? > If you have outsourced an telco audit, what type of outsourced telco > audit did you use (a contingent or a project based audit)? > I appreciate everyone who responds professionally. Again, I'm not > interested in having consultants contact me directly. ------------------------------ From: David Hassid Subject: Re: Altigen CDR Format Organization: Giganews.Com - Premium News Outsourcing Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2002 20:00:45 GMT Not sure if we are talking about the same thing, but the Altigen date fields I always see are the number of seconds since 12/31/1969 at 4:00 PM. I've always used this formula to convert to the correct date: DATEADD(ss, StartTime, '12/31/1969 4:00:00 PM') This has always worked for me, but Altigen has always told me this was wrong and that my clocks must be off so YMMV. Hassid Rafe <##rafe@fast.net> wrote in message news:telecom20.231.1@telecom-digest.org... > Greetings, > I have recently inherited support for an Altigen 4.0 system. I am > trying to parse through the system generated CDR records, but the CDR > data format (listed in the manual) does not seem to line up with the > records in the DBF file. Any help? Is a "ULONG" field eight > characters long? My records are all 1115 characters long (if that > helps) ------------------------------ From: jbc Subject: Re: eFax (was Re: Last Laught! Some Idiot Assigned ...) Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2002 08:28:34 +0200 Organization: Chrystol, B.P. 59, 93402 Saint-Ouen Cedex, France Dear Telecom Digest readers: I am the owner of the French and European trademark 'eFax' and I found very comic this eFax story. My service work as a free service and the user receive ad-free documents. Try my private eFax number. Regards, Jean-Bernard Condat CHRYSTOL B.P. 59, 93402 Saint-Ouen Cedex, France condat@chrystol.com fax: +33153013874 > Date: Sat, 20 Apr 2002 00:53:50 PDT > From: User > Subject: eFax (was Re: Last Laugh! Some Idiot Assigned ...) > Gail M. Hall: >> I took my fax offline. I got just too many junk faxes. > Gordon S. Hlavenka: >> I signed up with the free fax-by-email service from efax (at the >> obvious URL). >> Efax provides a special reader app which allows you to view and print >> faxes. The reader serves up a banner ad before showing you your fax, >> but it's not too obnoxious ... > Even under Microsoft Windows, there's no need to use eFax's special > reader app; if you indicate in your preferences that your operating > system is "Other", eFax will simply email you vanilla TIFF files. I've > been happily receiving 100% ad-free vanilla TIFF faxes in my inbox for > the better part of two years now. ------------------------------ Date: 26 Apr 2002 14:23:17 -0000 From: Judith Oppenheimer Subject: Trademarking 800's Reply-To: If you've had difficulty getting a federal trademark on a toll free number/vanity, please email me privately. Thank you, Judith Oppenheimer http://JudithOppenheimer.com http://ICBTollFreeNews.com 212 684-7210, 1 800 The Expert ------------------------------ From: everyperson@hotmail.com (Gareth) Subject: Mobile Phone Operator Company Idea Date: 26 Apr 2002 15:26:03 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ I have an idea for a mobile phone operator company. The company would be a virtual operator like Virgin Mobile in the UK (which is on T-Mobile (One2One)). It would benefit the larger user and would only be offered in pay monthly form, probably only direct debit, maybe credit card with an extra charge to the customer. It would be available to individuals and business. My key idea is that all the administration, advertising costs, employee pay, day to day business costs would, and profit would come from the monthly charge. I think the monthly charge would have to be quite high, probably around 30. Calls would be charged at the marginal rate. By this I mean what they actually cost. I am a bit rusty on this and it is hard to find information on it but I believe that telephone call charges between operators involve a connection charge, per minute charge, and a termination charge. The termination charges are in some instances ridiculously high, for instance around 35p peak rate on any from any one of the 4 UK networks. For consumers telecom companies charge consumers a per minute charge, sometimes with a minimum charge of 5p. They do this in order to simplify for the consumer. I think this is misguided as for many consumers and business costumers the system of charging between the telephone companies is fully comprehensible. I think the problem is with the system of per minute charges is that they are unfair to people making longer calls. Example Orange to Vodafone call. Orange customer is paying 35p minute. For a short call (say 1 minute) the customer gets a very good deal and Orange are possibly making a loss. However, for a 10 minute call Orange are making an enormous profit (think in percentage terms). Thus the present system discriminates unfairly against making longer calls. The other problem with the present system is that most operator (much more so mobile operators than fixed line operators) attempt to cover their fixed business costs (e.g. staff wages, business premises) through call costs. This is unfair against the larger user and unfairly subsidises small users. Fixed costs divided by total customers should the basic monthly charge for each customer (line rental if you want). Recovering fixed costs through call charge is unfair because fixed costs are the same each customer. Mobile phone companies do have methods of trying to make it cheaper for large users (line rental with free minutes, decreasing cost on some pre pay phones) but their systems seem seriously flawed and massively discriminate against their best customers; those that make have high air time use and those making long calls. Text messages are probably an even better example of the unfairness against large users. When a text message is sent the receiver's telephone company charges the sender's phone company around 2p (this has only been introduced quite recently in the UK I believe). The sender phone company charges the customer typically 10p. In this 10p there is 2p receiver phone company cost, airtime and telecom use (very little), then typically fixed cost recovering, and profit. I believe a fair price (for the consumer) of sending a UK text message to be 3p. This is what my company would charge. For telephone call charges I would propose charging the consumer the connection charge, per minute charge, and termination charge + perhaps 20% for airtime use and maybe a small percentage for profit. The amount I would charge for airtime use would obviously be dependent on what the network operator would charge my virtual network. As this is a virtual operator charges for somebody phoning one of its mobiles would probably be the same as phoning a phone from the network operator company. My virtual operator would presumably receive money from the network operator (the charge, per minute charge, and termination charge). After keeping some of this in order to pay the network operator for the airtime and also a small percentage for profit I would propose giving this money to the consumer (the owner of the phone that was called) through deductions from their monthly bill. As for phone subsidies I would not include them in the standard monthly charge. Instead I would include the option of sim card only, buying a phone, renting a phone for a monthly fee or lease purchase. Help lines for my virtual operator. This is a difficult one. I am inclined to think the best way of doing it is including the costs of running these in the monthly charge and then charging the user an airtime use only. Other phone companies copying my idea. Well obviously since it is such a great idea :) they will see the error of their ways and start copying me. It may well happen. However, my company is likely to have a significant first mover advantage, and is likely to have a very low cost base relative to most of its rivals. I would probably make it only possible to order online. Maybe by phone and shops later but I think there would be extra costs involved so these would be passed on to customers choosing these routes. Business costs would be substantially lower per phone than individuals and this would be passed on. Lower cost examples include only one bill, likely less advertising needed etc. Please feel free to email this or post it or whatever but please give me credit. Maybe I am rather over estimating the appeal of my idea to others. Probably :( If you want to contact me then my email is fbbx@yahoo.com Gareth Barr 26 April 2002 ------------------------------ 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. 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End of TELECOM Digest V20 #233 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat Apr 27 17:59:45 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id RAA03230; Sat, 27 Apr 2002 17:59:45 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sat, 27 Apr 2002 17:59:45 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200204272159.RAA03230@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #234 TELECOM Digest Sat, 27 Apr 2002 17:59:00 EDT Volume 20 : Issue 234 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: The Neighborhood Local Dial Tone and Long Distance-MCI (Linc Madison) Re: The Neighborhood Local Dial Tone and Long Distance-MCI (J. Singer) The Neighborhood All-in-One Service - was Re: News Headlines (Gail Hall) Re: Telephone Pole Distances (Herb Stein) RE: Telephone Pole Distances (Neal McLain) Re: DTFM Code (Robert Krten) Re: DTFM Code (spyke) Re: DTFM Code (Denis Mcmahon) US Senator Seeks to Force FCC Wireless Auction (Monty Solomon) Re: Answering Machine Query (Marcus Didius Falco) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Linc Madison Subject: Re: The Neighborhood Local Dial Tone and Long Distance From MCI Date: Sat, 27 Apr 2002 04:08:00 -0700 Organization: MindSpring Enterprises In article , Brad wrote: > Has anyone any opinions of the new service from MCI called "The > Neighborhood" (www.theneighborhood.com) that provides you with local > telephone service and unlimited long distance calls (all except > internationall) regardless of day or time for around $50/month? > It looks like a really good plan especially since it also includes > local toll calls (calls to those friends and family that live just > far enough away to be considered long distance but not that far away > so your local phone company really screws you by the minute). I haven't tried it yet, but I've seen the ads, and checked out the web site. They also offer a "lite" version, which is just the local service (with call waiting, caller ID, 3-way, and a couple of other features) for around $30/month, depending on what state you're in. On that one, you pay 7c/min for domestic long-distance, unless the other person is also a "Neighborhood" subscriber (i.e., MCI local service). Interestingly, I tried a few relatives' locations, and found that even a small town in rural Texas (served by SWBell) was in their service territory, although a suburb of Dallas (served by GTE/Verizon) is not. The biggest potential catch I can see is that the TV ads specify that the service includes all *VOICE* domestic long-distance calls. What they would do with, for instance, a long-distance fax call, I don't know. By the way, their web site requires Java. LincMad dot Com * North American Telephone Area Codes & Splits Preferred Reply Address: Telecom # LincMad * Com Unsolicited bulk e-mail will be reported to your admin or upstream. ------------------------------ From: Joseph Singer Subject: Re: The Neighborhood Local Dial Tone and Long Distance From MCI Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2002 21:10:18 -0700 Organization: Drizzle Reply-To: joeofseattle@yahoo.com On 25 Apr 2002 22:38:12 -0700, bradleyb127@hotmail.com (Brad) wrote: > Has anyone any opinions of the new service from MCI called "The > Neighborhood" (www.theneighborhood.com) that provides you with local > telephone service and unlimited long distance calls (all except > internationall) regardless of day or time for around $50/month? > It looks like a really good plan especially since it also includes > local toll calls (calls to those friends and family that live just far > enough away to be considered long distance but not that far away so > your local phone company really screws you by the minute). > Just hoping to get some feedback on this. If I decide to get the > service I'll post my opinion here but would appreciate hearing from > others too. If something goes wrong on your service MCI will blame the local telco and likewise the local telco will blame MCI. It could be a real PITA. Personal replies most likely will not be read. Please reply in the newsgroup [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: So what else is old? Several years ago, but since divestiture had gotten underway, AT&T had various calling plans and when the final bill showed up each month and the rates were not as AT&T promised, they likewise would blame the local telco for the problem, since the bellcos did all the billing for AT&T and others in those days. The local bellco of course would insist up and down that AT&T had not told them that YOU were on that new plan and refuse to adjust. AT&T would make the write off, seldom if ever asking questions, but you still had to talk to both companies and be on the phone several minutes with each in the process. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Gail M. Hall Subject: The Neighborhood All-in-One Service - was Re: News Headlines Date: Sat, 27 Apr 2002 01:19:50 -0400 Reply-To: gmhall@apk.net On Mon, 22 Apr 2002 02:20:37 -0400, in comp.dcom.telecom, you (Monty Solomon ) wrote -- er, quoted: > WorldCom targets Bells with plan > Local service bundles long distance, other features at one price > By Bruce Mohl, Globe Staff, 4/16/2002 > Embattled WorldCom Inc. yesterday launched a bold counterattack > against the nation's regional phone companies with a residential plan > that offers unlimited calls anywhere in the United States plus five > special calling features for $50 to $60 a month. > Called the ''Neighborhood Complete from MCI,'' the plan targets > moderately heavy users of phone services with a package of unlimited > local and long-distance calling, voice mail, caller ID, call waiting, > three-way calling, and speed dial. > They have been advertising this on our cable television stations (Adelphia Cable service) for a few weeks now. I was wondering how a company could provide both local and long-distance service when they won't let our local phone companies do it. I wonder how SBC feels about this. We are in SBC-land (we are in Ameritech, formerly Ohio Bell territory) and what happens if we are a subscriber to The Neighborhood service regarding repairs. Who comes out and repairs the wires when the squirrels chew them up again or a wind storm blows limbs on the lines and breaks them? The URL on the TV ads goes by pretty fast for me to see and remember it, but I think it is something like . Other than the TV ads I haven't seen anything much being said about this service in our area. Gail from Ohio USA [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Its not the LOCAL service they are trying to protect. LOCAL is a money loser. Its the LONG HAUL traffic they guard jealously. Anyone who wants local service is welcome to take a crack at it. But long distance is the cash cow, and when the long distance companies (mainly) tried to keep the bellcos out of the arena by getting them required to allow 'competion' knew that as a practical matter, there would never be, or not for a long time be any local competition. Now nearly 20 years later it is happening. Anyway, Gail, Southwestern Bell has been in long distance for several years now. They have to ask their local exchange customers POLITELY 'may we handle your LD traffic also, via our subsidiary company SBC' but of course the general public is very lethargic about it and just says 'Yeah, sure' when the customer service rep asks them for an okay to default their one-plus to SBC. You asked who handles repairs? No matter which company it is lodging the repair complaint in your behalf, it will continue to be the local exchange technicians who are there to do the job. Do you remember at the time of divestiture AT&T wanted the local telco outside repair/ installer people to have a special cap to wear and a special logo to wear on their shirts when it was an 'AT&T dispatch' instead of a local telco originated order. The man was supposed to come to your door and identify himself as 'from AT&T here to do repairs' rather than 'from Illinois Bell to do repairs'. I think that is still the case. Since it is still the same central office and same wire pairs, MCI or SBT or whoever, I imagine it will remain the same repair tech once they get through squabbling over whose fault it is. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Herb Stein Subject: Re: Telephone Pole Distances Organization: Giganews.Com - Premium News Outsourcing Date: Sat, 27 Apr 2002 02:24:07 GMT Carter Thomasson wrote in message news:telecom20.232.4@telecom-digest.org: > A colleague mentioned that there was some system used by civil > defense to indicate locations. He had no idea what the system was, > but the numbers on the telephone poles in his county in the eastern > part of the state had been changed. I started looking at telephone > poles (discretely so as not to draw attention!) to see if I could > learn the system. > > There is a six digit number on the poles. The first 3 digits seem > to be the distance from the western end of the state, in thousands of > feet. The second three numbers appear to be the distance from the > southern part of the state in thousands of feet. Can this be true? > The state he lives in is Maryland. I've been associated with phone > companies for many years and have never heard this. Carter- If it makes you feel any better, I've been in the phone business in Missouri for 30 years (Southwestern Bell) and never heard of such a system. Herb Stein The Herb Stein Group www.herbstein.com herb@herbstein.com 314 952-4601 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But utility poles do have identification numbers on them. Whether the electic utility or the phone utility (or maybe the cableco) put them there, I do not know but they all have something stenciled or painted on them. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2002 21:59:43 -0600 From: Neal McLain Reply-To: nmclain@annsgarden.com Organization: Ann's Garden Subject: Re: Telephone Pole Distances Carter Thomasson wrote: > A colleague mentioned that there was some system used by civil > defense to indicate locations. He had no idea what the system was, > but the numbers on the telephone poles in his county in the eastern > part of the state had been changed. I started looking at telephone > poles (discretely so as not to draw attention!) to see if I could > learn the system. Do you really mean "telephone pole" (a pole owned by a telephone utility and used exclusively to support telephone facilities)? Or do you mean, more generically, "utility pole"? Most poles in the United States are "joint utility poles," meaning they support the facilities of two or more utilities. The most common joint poles support some combination of electric power, telephone, and cable television facilities (see "JOINT POLE" in Newton's Telecom Dictionary, 16th, 17th, or 18th edition). But some utility poles also support street lights, traffic signals, pedestrian lighting, municipal communication facilities (fire alarm, police communications, etc.), private communications facilities, signs, and seasonal decorations. Most poles are owned by electric power utilities; some are owned by telephone utilities, and a small minority are owned by cable TV companies. Some poles are owned by municipalities, which collect rent from all pole occupants. Poles on federal land (especially military) are usually owned by the federal government. Typically, the pole owner determines the system for numbering its poles. There is no standard numbering system; each company determines its own system. In my experience, large power companies and large telephone companies number all poles they use, even if they don't own them (I've seen joint poles with two number tags -- phone's and power's -- one above the other). Cable TV companies rarely number poles; they just use the existing numbers. > There is a six digit number on the poles. The first 3 digits seem > to be the distance from the western end of the state, in thousands > of feet. The second three numbers appear to be the distance from > the southern part of the state in thousands of feet. Can this be > true? Yes, it could be true. I've never heard of such a system, but considering the variety of numbering systems currently in use, nothing would surprise me. Tying a pole number to its physical location certainly makes sense. A case in point: Wisconsin Power & Light Company identifies its poles by U.S. Public Lands Survey section number. A typical pole number is: WPL 12-10-1 25/27 which means the pole located in Town 12 North, Range 10 East, Section 1, and it's the 25th pole in pole line 27 within Section 1. But Wisconsin Electric Power uses an entirely different numbering system: their pole numbers begin with the year the pole was set. Thus, pole 71-12989 was set in 1971, and the 12989 is an arbitrary reference number. > The state he lives in is Maryland. I've been associated with phone > companies for many years and have never heard this. Maryland is not a public-land state, so it's safe to say that the poles you've been observing so discretely are not based on town-range-section. If you're "associated with phone companies," why not just ask the phone company's OSP department? Neal McLain nmclain@annsgarden.com ------------------------------ From: nospam88@parse.com (Robert Krten) Subject: Re: DTFM Code Date: Sat, 27 Apr 2002 13:53:18 GMT Organization: Magma Communications Ltd. Phil McKerracher wrote: > mkl wrote in message > news:telecom20.231.16@telecom-digest.org: >> How to read DTFM code from wave file? > If you mean DTMF, you need a FFT. Prolly means DTMF :-) I did it without an FFT; I simply tuned 8 filters and then detected thresholds on the filtered output. If anyone's interested in the source, I put up a free for non-commercial version at: http://www.parse.com/pub/misc/analyze_dtmf.tar.gz Note that this is an HTTP transfer, not an FTP transfer (firewall, long story), so you'll need to save the .tar.gz file from within your browser. Cheers, Robert Krten, PARSE Software Devices +1 613 599 8316. Realtime Systems Architecture, Books, Video-based and Instructor-led Training and Consulting at www.parse.com. Email my initials at parse dot com. ------------------------------ From: s_p_y_k_e@lycos.com (spyke) Subject: Re: DTFM Code Date: 27 Apr 2002 10:14:38 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ mkl wrote in message news:: > How to read DTFM code from wave file? Try CoolEdit 2000 from Syntrillium software. It can generate DTMF, and can do spectral and waveform analysis. If it doesn't have the DTMF decodes built in, then you can look at each tone in the wave file and do the analysis manually. http://www.syntrillium.com/cooledit/ ------------------------------ From: Denis Mcmahon Subject: Re: DTFM Code Date: Sat, 27 Apr 2002 05:42:03 +0100 Organization: E-Menu Ltd Reply-To: denisrt@pickaxe.demon.co.uk mkl wrote: >How to read DTFM code from wave file? If you want a few digits read from a single file, email it here. If you want lots of digits read from lots of files, look for an audio editor like cool edit that has an FFT function. I don't know if there's any s/w that will analyse a wave file into a text of detected dtmf digits. Rgds, Denis McMahon / +44 7802 468949 / denis@pickaxe.demon.co.uk sulfnbk is not a virus, see the symantec virus encyclopaedia! Now restocking killfile, new entrants welcome: trolls, spam, xpost cascades, OT ads, top posters & terminally clueless! ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 27 Apr 2002 02:29:58 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: US Senator Seeks to Force FCC Wireless Auction UPDATE 1-US senator seeks to force FCC wireless auction - Apr 26, 2002 06:31 PM (Reuters) (adds background in 10 paragraph, industry comment in 16-17.) By Jeremy Pelofsky WASHINGTON, April 26 (Reuters) - A battle is emerging in Congress over when the government must sell airwaves used by television broadcasters as Sen. Ted Stevens plans to introduce legislation next week that would force an auction to take place by September. Stevens, an Alaska Republican, plans to counter a measure introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives earlier this week that would delay indefinitely the Federal Communications Commission's scheduled June 19 sale, a congressional aide told Reuters on Friday. http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=26981293 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 27 Apr 2002 11:50:39 -0400 From: Marcus Didius Falco Subject: Re: Answering Machine Query richgr@panix.com (Rich Greenberg) wrote: > My Panasonic 2 cassette answering machine is wearing out. I have been > looking at the current crop of all electronic units, but can't seem to > find one with the feature I would like. > With the cassette machine I have several outgoing casettes that I swap > in and out for the message of the moment. Is there any electronic > machine that has several outgoing message slots that are switch > selectable? I know of ones that have several incoming buckets, I > don't need that ability. I have a Casio Phonemate model TA-150. Three outgoing messages, switch (button) selectable, or you can switch among two by timer. Total of about 30 minutes of memory. I've held messages for very long periods with no loss. Remote access is by 3-digit code, but is not as flexible as local access. You can only save or erase all messages, and you can't switch messages, or remotely-record the outgoing message. (All features I had on my last tape machine. Direct replies are unlikely to be read. To reply use the address: falco_marcus_didius yahoo.co.uk ------------------------------ 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'. 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End of TELECOM Digest V20 #234 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Apr 29 22:32:54 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id WAA12532; Mon, 29 Apr 2002 22:32:54 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2002 22:32:54 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200204300232.WAA12532@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #235 TELECOM Digest Mon, 29 Apr 2002 22:30:00 EDT Volume 20 : Issue 235 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: The Neighborhood Local Dial Tone and Long Distance MCI (Jack Decker) Re: The Neighborhood Local Dial Tone and Long Distance MCI (W Leatherock) Re: The Neighborhood Local Dial Tone and Long Distance MCI (Ed Ellers) Re: The Neighborhood Local Dial Tone and Long Distance MCI (Brad) Re: The Neighborhood Local Dial Tone and Long Distance MCI (Steve Hayes) Re: The Neighborhood All-in-One Service (Brandon Pemberton) Re: War-Dialing Legality? (Phil McKerracher) New FCC Regs For "911" Calls From Unregistered Cellphones (Dan Burstein) InfoWorld Editorial: Sue a Spammer Today (Jack Decker) Alcatel 7470/Newbridge 36170 Pin Assignment Requested (Alex Siu) Re: Yahoo Users Must Act Now to Protect Privacy (Phil Earnhardt) Phone Booths Still Exist! (Robert Casey) No Trademark on Your 800 Number? (Judith Oppenheimer) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jack Decker Subject: Re: The Neighborhood Local Dial Tone and Long Distance From MCI Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2002 03:42:09 -0400 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com On Sat, 27 Apr 2002 04:08:00 -0700, Linc Madison wrote: > The biggest potential catch I can see is that the TV ads specify that > the service includes all *VOICE* domestic long-distance calls. What > they would do with, for instance, a long-distance fax call, I don't > know. The MCI Service Agreement for "Neighborhood Complete" states: "Local plans are intended for residential voice service only. An additional monthly fee may be assessed for Internet or data use." From what I've heard from people here in Michigan, those on MCI's local service plans (not "The Neighborhood", but other MCI local service plans) have said they've had some difficulty getting MCI to recognize an ISP call as local, particularly if the ISP is served by another CLEC (as opposed to Ameritech). This seems to be (or at least was) a particular problem in the Lansing area (although not exclusively confined to there), and I think in at least some cases the problem is still ongoing. So that is not a good sign in this situation. In my opinion, if you plan to use your phone line to access a dial-up ISP, an MCI local service line subscribed to "Neighborhood Complete" may not turn out to be your best choice (unless you plan to also get a separate line from your ILEC for your modem, or for sending FAXes, and use the MCI line for voice only). You could always ask the MCI rep if you will get charged for such calls, but they may not know and may be tempted to take their best guess rather than tell you the don't know (since they will not be the one stuck with a bill of potentially several hundred dollars if they are wrong). This is one of those cases where I'd definitely try to "get it in writing" if they tell you that you won't be charged for calls to your ISP. This is something that MCI really ought to clarify because a lot of folks use their local phone lines to access local ISP's, even if only as a backup to their broadband service. By the way, someone commented that although voicemail is included in the package, you might not get a message waiting light or stutter dial tone in some areas (something to do with not having access to it because of the platform they use????). Many residential customers who've never had voicemail before won't even know to expect this. I have no idea if this is really the case everywhere, but it may be something to ask about if you plan on using the voicemail. And one more "by the way", for those that DO have broadband, has anyone ever tried to use the service provided by Vonage (http://www.vonage.com/)? This seems to provide most of what "The Neighborhood" does except that the service is provided via your broadband connection (but uses a hardware interface, so you use real phones and phone equipment). The disadvantages appear to be that your number for incoming calls will be in select areas of New York or New Jersey (a disadvantage if you don't live there and want a number that local folks can call without paying a toll charge), it's a VoIP service (so there might possibly be some sound quality issues, although I rather doubt they'd be significant), you can't use it to call your local 911 in an emergency, and they only accept a credit card for payment. But the advantages are that the price for unlimited calls within the U.S. is $39.99/month, and you can use it from anywhere you have a broadband connection (it MAY even work over something like an ISDN connection), which doubtless includes many places where MCI's local service isn't yet available). I just wonder if anyone has tried this alternative and if so, how well it has worked for them. Jack (My reply e-mail address is good only until the spammers start using it!) ------------------------------ From: wesrock@aol.com (Wes Leatherock) Date: 28 Apr 2002 00:55:02 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: The Neighborhood Local Dial Tone and Long Distance From MCI On Sat, 27 Apr 2002 04:08:00 -0700 Linc Madison worte: > In article , Brad > wrote: > Interestingly, I tried a few relatives' locations, and found that even > a small town in rural Texas (served by SWBell) was in their service > territory, although a suburb of Dallas (served by GTE/Verizon) is not. Many of the Dallas suburbs were served by GTE, which merged with Verizon. GTE had its headquarters in Irving, Texas, one of those suburbs. The former GTE areas are probably not required to provide access to competing local service providers. Wes Leatherock wesrock@aol.com wleathus@yahoo.com ------------------------------ From: Ed Ellers Subject: Re: The Neighborhood Local Dial Tone and Long Distance From MCI Date: Sat, 27 Apr 2002 22:40:58 -0400 Linc Madison wrote: > Interestingly, I tried a few relatives' locations, and found that even a > small town in rural Texas (served by SWBell) was in their service > territory, although a suburb of Dallas (served by GTE/Verizon) is not. Verizon may not be required to provide service to resellers in the former GTE territories outside the states served by its Bell companies, since (in those states) it's not an RBOC. > The biggest potential catch I can see is that the TV ads specify that the > service includes all *VOICE* domestic long-distance calls. What they would > do with, for instance, a long-distance fax call, I don't know. Dunno how they'd do anything different there, except by putting something on the line that would detect fax or modem tones. (According to https://www.mci.com/localsignup/jspHelp/benefitDescription.html#unlimited_ld they are not making any such distinction, but http://www.mci.com/mci_service_agreement/res_pdf/Nghborhd_Complete.pdf says that "(l)ocal plans are intended for residential voice service only. An additional monthly fee may be assessed for Internet or data use." So the jury is still out.) ------------------------------ From: bradleyb127@hotmail.com (Brad) Subject: Re: The Neighborhood Local Dial Tone and Long Distance From MCI Date: 28 Apr 2002 10:24:39 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Excellent point. But this is a new century - what could possibly go wrong with providing local phone service? I mean don't ILEC's and CLEC's now provide quality service and take responsibility for their actions? :) Brad > If something goes wrong on your service MCI will blame the local telco > and likewise the local telco will blame MCI. It could be a real PITA. ------------------------------ From: Steve Hayes Subject: Re: The Neighborhood Local Dial Tone and Long Distance-MCI Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2002 18:20:29 +0100 In TELECOM Digest V20 #234, Linc Madison commented on "The Neighborhood" service from MCI. This offers unlimited flat rate voice calls within the USA. Linc asked about the "voice" part and what would happen with fax calls, etc. I can't answer for MCI Worldcom but we have a similar package from BT here in the UK. For UKP18.50 (about US$26) per month including line rental, it offers unlimited off-peak (weekday evening and night and all weekend) UK wide calls. However, there are various restrictions including charging for calls over 60 minutes duration and excluding "non-voice" calls. Looking at the way that BT control this, it's obvious that they are mainly concerned to block ISP calls. Flat rate ISP access comes under other packages. Most ISP access numbers are "non-geographic" starting with 08: the unlimited calls are only to "geographic" numbers starting 01 or 02. However, some ISPs have geographic access numbers. BT have tried to compile a list of these and specifically exclude calls to numbers on that list. They monitor calling patterns and will add new numbers to the list if they look like ISP access numbers. Calls to numbers on the list are possible but are charged at normal per-minute rates. There have been some interesting results from this. Some people signed up for this plan and used it for remote access to office networks. After a while, BT spotted that this was happening and added the offending remote access numbers to the list. The callers then got a nasty shock when their next phone bill arrived with potentially UKP100's of charges for these calls. The more entertaining aspect was that the list of excluded numbers was available on the BT web site. Various hacker/cracker types found it very useful for finding networks to attack. BT have changed their website: you can enter a specific number and find out if it is on the list but you can't see the list itself any more. There are also restrictions concerning business use of the package. BT would take a dim view if you used it to make hundreds of spam phone calls, etc. However, apart from these limitations, there doesn't seem to be any technical monitoring on the call types - normal fax use and occasional modem connections to numbers not on the excluded list don't apparently cause any problems. My guess would be that MCI Worldcom will take a similar approach - it's just easier and safer for them to say "voice calls only" so you can't complain if they act against excessive non-voice use. Steve Hayes South Wales, UK ------------------------------ From: Brandon Pemberton Subject: Re: The Neighborhood All-in-One Service - was Re: News Headlines Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2002 00:00:51 GMT After being in the telecom market for quite a few years now I would have to say that Pat's thinking is totally backwards. It is the long haul market that is losing so much money. An easy way to see this is to take a look at the stocks of local vs long distance companies. While MCI, ATT, Quest, etc, are in the gutter the local markets are somewhat keeping a hold on profits. At 20 plus dollars a pop for local phone service and the only cost to maintain comes with the copper and the switch itself. With long haul you have billions in fiber and sonet systems to take care of. With so many people getting into the long haul market and the price of long distance going to around five cents and let's not forget the cell phone deals where you get free long distance the companies like MCI and ATT are doing their best to find a way to tap into the local markets to defer some of those losses. Where you can also see the comparison is to take a look at the job market. While many local service providers are still hiring, companies that are into the long distance (long haul) business are laying off workers in record number. Gail M. Hall wrote in message news:telecom20.234.3@telecom-digest.org: > On Mon, 22 Apr 2002 02:20:37 -0400, in comp.dcom.telecom, you (Monty > Solomon ) wrote -- er, quoted: >> WorldCom targets Bells with plan Local service bundles long >> distance, other features at one price. ------------------------------ From: Phil McKerracher Subject: Re: War-Dialing Legality? Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2002 12:18:12 +0100 "Sellcom Tech Support" wrote in message news:telecom20.233.9@telecom-digest.org: > ... No one should ever buy anything from a telemarketer. This is the real essence of the problem. The same with spam. If no-one bought anything from them there would be no point doing it. But many people seem to actually like receiving these calls and messages. :-( Phil McKerracher www.mckerracher.org ------------------------------ From: danny burstein Subject: New FCC Regs For "911" Calls From (Unregistered) Cellphones Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2002 18:29:42 -0400 Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC ... basically, FCC regs for the past few years have required cellular telcos to allow any (compatable) cellphone to make "911" calls through their system, even if the phone didn't have a user account. However, there were still a fair number of problems. One key issue was that these phone could not be called back by the 911 center. While that can't be easily resolved, the FCC ordered some steps to, at least, flag the calls so that the PSAP will immediately know the call is coming from one of these phones. ----------- FCC TAKES STEPS TO IMPROVE THE ABILITY OF PUBLIC SAFETY AGENCIES TO ASSIST WIRELESS CALLERS USING NON-SERVICE-INITIALIZED PHONES. News Release. News Media Contact: Meribeth McCarrick at (202) 418-0654 WTB. Contact Patrick Webre at (202) 418-7953 ------------------------------ From: Jack Decker Subject: InfoWorld Editorial: Sue a Spammer Today Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2002 03:45:41 -0400 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com [Begin excerpt:] "Although Austria, Denmark, Finland, Italy, and Germany have legislatively canned spam, Congress hasn't. That's why I'm so pleased to see that ordinary people are beating spammers by using a potent tool -- state laws. "This was brought home recently when I learned that my research director, Ben Livingston, had collected substantial fines from spammers and other human crud. ... Ben has so far received more than $2,500 on behalf of a small ISP for which he works part time. He sues spammers, junk faxers, and illegal automated telemarketers in small claims court, which is easy to do without a lawyer. His efforts have also reaped $5,600 still in the collection process." Full story at: http://www.infoworld.com/articles/op/xml/02/04/22/020422opwinman.xml Resources for Michigan Telephone Users page: http://michigantelephone.workbench.net/ ------------------------------ From: alexsiu@hkem.com (Alex Siu) Subject: Alcatel 7470/Newbridge 36170 Pin Assignment Requested. Date: 29 Apr 2002 10:37:04 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Dear all, I have searched the web in order to find some docs about how to connect a Alcatel 7470/Newbridge 36170 to a modem, such that I can dial through modem to remote access the node. But I couldn't find related information. Can anyone please send me the cable pin assignment information? Thanks in advance, Alex ------------------------------ From: Phil Earnhardt Subject: Re: Yahoo Users Must Act Now to Protect Privacy Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2002 00:29:22 -0600 On Sun, 21 Apr 2002 18:29:23 -0700, MethvenLaw wrote: > SIGNING IN > To change your preferences, go to Yahoo's Marketing Preferences at: > http://login.yahoo.com/config/login?.done=http%3a//subscribe.yahoo.com/showaccount&.intl=us > Alternatively, go to http://privacy.yahoo.com/privacy/us/ and then > click on "Marketing Preferences" in the left-hand column. > Either way, you'll need to then enter your Yahoo ID and password. If > you can't remember, click on "Sign-in Help", then on "Look up Your Id > And/or Password".) ... which doesn't work if you happened to enter an incorrect birthday or ZIP code when you originally applied for your account. AFAICT, the automated tool gives you no way to look up your account information unless you can give an exact match to the birthdate and ZIP code when you applied for the account. Apparently, Yahoo thinks that it's somehow "insecure" to send me the password for my account to my e-mail address. However, it's fine for them to change the preferences on an account that I can't access to start sending me all sorts junk of e-mail. The e-mail from Yahoo did provide a unique URL to disavow any knowledge of a particular account bound to an e-mail address. When I clicked "OK" on that, it says it will take "1 to 2 weeks to process". Damn spammers. phil ------------------------------ From: Robert Casey Subject: Phone Booths Still Exist! Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2002 15:17:20 -0400 Organization: wa2ise If you are ever on the Garden State Parkway in NJ near milemarker 157 southbound, you'll see three phone booths just off the shoulder. Reason I mention this is that I remember some discussions about phone booths being an extinct species. ------------------------------ From: Judith Oppenheimer Subject: No Trademark on Your Toll Free Number? Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2002 21:08:51 -0400 NeuStar's dot US policy could render invisible all but the most powerful 1-800 brands in the American domain name space. New York, NY April 28, 2002 (ICB TOLL FREE NEWS) NeuStar launched its dot US domain last week with the announcement that "More Americans Prefer .US to .COM For E-Mail and Websites, According to Harris Poll" (see http://www.neustar.com/pressroom/announcements/press_release.cfm?press_id=2 92 .) "For the first time," says the NeuStar press release, "U.S. individuals, businesses, organizations and government entities can obtain short, memorable e-mail and web addresses in .US, the official Internet Address for the United States." Well, make that some businesses, not all. Per the dot US FAQ (http://www.neustar.us/faqs/general.html), NeuStar is "reserving" -- holding for itself -- certain categories of domain names including all telephone numbers, particularly interesting in light of NeuStar's role as North American Numbering Plan administrator. (Asked if NeuStar planned to use this .us numbering database as a directory service, especially with ENUM on the horizon, we were told only that a directory service has not been discussed with the Department of Commerce, which has to approve all dot US policy.) In addition to specific reserved names (find list here: http://www.neustar.us/registrars/), all telephone numbers including toll-free numbers are reserved. ("Names are reserved to protect important local and national naming resources, reserve spaces within .US for future enhancement of the domain and protect technical internet interoperability. Policy changes relative to the reserved list are subject to Department of Commerce review and approval prior to implementation.") The FAQ continues, "Trademarks do not take precedence over reserved names with the exception of toll free numbers. Sunrise applications for trademarked toll free numbers will be honored assuming all other Sunrise requirements are met." ICB spoke with Ken Hansen, NeuStar's Business Development Director, about the NeuStar policy discrepancy between trademarked and non-trademarked toll free numbers. Trademark-registered toll free numbers could be verified in the trademark database during the automated registration process, whereas non-trademarked vanities, Ken said, "can't be verified and will lead to cybersquatting." But NeuStar didn't require 1-800 trademark owners to verify that they controlled the associated toll free number, a lapse that could lead to number hijacking. It is true that toll free numbers are not contained in the numbering database administered by NeuStar. But standard toll free number validation processes exist and have been routinely used industry-wide since the introduction of toll free number portability in 1993. .US domain registration requires U.S. citizenship or a U.S. business presence, eligibility it validates with the simple "I affirm that the information below is accurate." on the registration form. Why couldn't this method be used to validate toll free number assignment? Just as registrations that do not meet the eligibility requirements listed above will be revoked, invalid toll free registrations would be handled the same way. Visibility for all toll free number brands in the U.S. domain name space is important, particularly given the proliferation of toll free brands as company names. But the Patent and Trademark Office has typically held (see http://www.duanemorris.com/publications/pub508.html) that that a generic term for goods or services could not become a registrable mark when joined with a toll-free telephone area code, discouraging if not thwarting many companies who lack high-powered or corporate legal muscle. Because of this, NeuStar's trademark-only policy could render invisible all but the most powerful 1-800 brands -- an unwelcome black mark on America's new domain name space. Ultimately NeuStar's Hansen told ICB, "The intention is to get these names to the entities associated with the toll free number. The time and the process for doing so has not been determined." Stay tuned. (Hopefully not too much) time will tell. Copyright 2002 ICB, Inc. All rights reserved. Judith Oppenheimer http://JudithOppenheimer.com http://ICBTollFreeNews.com 212 684-7210, 1 800 The Expert ------------------------------ 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-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 620-870-9697 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@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 * * Judith Oppenheimer, President of ICB Inc. and purveyor of accurate * * 800 & Dot Com News, Intelligence, Analysis, and Consulting. * * http://ICBTollFree.com, http://1800TheExpert.com * * Views expressed herein should not be construed as representing * * views of Judith Oppenheimer or ICB Inc. * ************************************************************************* ICB Toll Free News. Contact information is not sold, rented or leased. Access to Premium (P) links requires upgrade to a paid subscription. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Only subscribers or registered users of ICB Toll Free News web site will be able to access all or some of the full text of URLs provided. LEGAL STUFF: TELECOM Digest (sm) is owned by Patrick Townson. Copyright 2000 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. 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. End of TELECOM Digest V20 #235 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Apr 30 17:53:54 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id RAA00167; Tue, 30 Apr 2002 17:53:54 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2002 17:53:54 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200204302153.RAA00167@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #236 TELECOM Digest Tue, 30 Apr 2002 17:54:00 EDT Volume 20 : Issue 236 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson UCB Toll Free News 4/29/2002 (Judith Oppenheimer) Headline News of Interest (Monty Solomon) Re: Yahoo Users Must Act Now to Protect Privacy (Matthew) A Problem With NTTacPlus (VaxenT) DS3 Rates in Verizon Territories (JJ) Telecom Check List Help Needed (Carrie) Re: Mobile Phone Operator Company Idea (Spyros Bartsocas) Ericsson CyberGenie 3.0 Software (Nickolas) Chips for Caller ID/CLID (heyuw) So Many INTERNET Phone Services! (intcpu) Re: Phone Booths Still Exist! (Joseph Singer) ESN (wael tabaz) More Businesses For Your Review (David B. Horvath) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Judith Oppenheimer Subject: ICB Toll Free News 4/29/2002 Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2002 21:53:36 -0400 http://ICBTollFreeNews.Com HEADS UP HEADLINES from ICB Toll Free News - Covering the Political, Legal and Marketing Arenas of 800, ENUM and Dot Com. CONTENTS FOR THE PERIOD ENDING APRIL 29, 2002 - THE INTERNET IS FOR EVERYONE. - HOW MANY PEOPLE DOES IT TAKE TO SCREW IN THE ICANN-REFORM LIGHTBULB? - VANITY 800'S MEET CALL TRACKING - NO TRADEMARK ON YOUR TOLL FREE NUMBER? - DOT US IS A MESS - JOBS.COM DRAWS $800,000 SALES PRICE - ONLY $35,000 TO PITCH ICANN FOR .ORG - SHOULD THE ITU SAVE ICANN? - ICANN REPLIES TO AUERBACH LAWSUIT /=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= advertisement =-=-=-\ -- Lost and Stolen Number Retrieval -- ENUM Survival Strategies -- Crisis Resolution -- Vanity Number Issues, Guidance & Navigation -- Tollfree Number Traces -- Representation at SNAC, ENUM & ICANN Forums -- Strategic Leadership + Competitive Intelligence -- Custom Research Reports -- Custom Problem Solving: disputes, litigation support, RespOrg issues, etc. ICB Consultancy -- http://1800TheExpert.com \=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=.=/ Looking for the best 800 and long distance rates available today? Choose from multiple programs - Rates as low as 2.9˘ per minute, with no monthly minimums or hidden service charges! Click here: http://WhoSells800.com \=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=/ - DOT RED-LIGHT-DISTRICT, NOT - DOT RED-LIGHT-DISTRICT - CAN THE ITU SAVE ICANN? - ITU WANTS TO 'HELP' ICANN - ICANN PETITIONED TO RECONSIDER RESOLUTION ABANDONING RECONSIDERATION - MANAGEMENT CHANGES AT 1-800-ATTORNEY - ICANN A REAL CESSPOOL, SAYS DYSON - DOT KIDS ON ROAD TO STAVE OFF CHILD PREDATORS - ICANN'S BID FOR INDEPENDENCE FROM THE U.S. ____________________________________________________ ARTICLE ACCESS CODE LEGEND ICB Toll Free News offers two valuable service options: F = Free - News and Features articles P = Premium - Unlimited Site Access including all Articles and Documents. Registration information is not sold, leased or rented. *** For additional information about topics and stories, keyword search here: http://www.icbtollfree.com/Search.cfm. ____________________________________________________ P - THE INTERNET IS FOR EVERYONE. "One of the things wrong with this picture is that the rhetoric of harmonization -- "make laws the same" -- is typically, in political debate, a proxy for "move the laws in my direction." CONTINUED HERE: http://www.icbtollfree.com/article.cfm?articleId=5662 P - HOW MANY PEOPLE DOES IT TAKE TO SCREW IN THE ICANN-REFORM LIGHTBULB? 30 million AARP members? 50 million CFA members? How about the Attorneys General and chief legal officers of all 50 states? CONTINUED HERE: http://www.icbtollfree.com/article.cfm?articleId=5661 P - VANITY 800'S MEET CALL TRACKING Combines access to a unique combination of memorable vanity 800 numbers along with a sophisticated call recording and advertising measurement platform. CONTINUED HERE: http://www.icbtollfree.com/article.cfm?articleId=5659 P - NO TRADEMARK ON YOUR TOLL FREE NUMBER? NeuStar's dot US policy could render invisible all but the most powerful 1-800 brands in the American domain name space. CONTINUED HERE: http://www.icbtollfree.com/article.cfm?articleId=5660 P - DOT US IS A MESS Barely launched and already mired in controversy. CONTINUED HERE: http://www.icbtollfree.com/article.cfm?articleId=5658 P - JOBS.COM DRAWS $800,000 SALES PRICE ... even though Jobs.com traffic represents a gain of less than 1 percent per month to its buyer. CONTINUED HERE: http://www.icbtollfree.com/article.cfm?articleId=5655 F - ONLY $35,000 TO PITCH ICANN FOR .ORG ... and a broadly reform-challenged ICANN makes useless but politically correct noise on At Large. CONTINUED HERE: http://www.icbtollfree.com/article.cfm?articleId=5657 F - SHOULD THE ITU SAVE ICANN? Industry visionary Einar Stefferud says, "The entire apparatus was (and still is) built around national interests, and largely controlled by governments. In the US, the delegation was organized and "managed" by the US State Department, which looked to the telephone companies for input and guidance on technical matters." CONTINUED HERE: http://www.icbtollfree.com/article.cfm?articleId=5652 F - ICANN REPLIES TO AUERBACH LAWSUIT LAME ... ICANN does not have knowledge or information sufficient to form a belief as to the truth of Auerbach's allegation that he is a member in good standing of the California State Bar, and on that basis, denies that allegation., AND LAMER ... ICANN admits that Auerbach was selected to become a member of ICANN's Board of Directors through a vote of Internet users as part of an experimental on-line voting process conducted in 2000. ICANN's case must be real weak. CONTINUED HERE: http://www.icbtollfree.com/article.cfm?articleId=5653 ___________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________ EVERY 3.6 SECONDS SOMEONE DIES FROM HUNGER http://www.hungersite.com/ ___________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________ F - DOT RED-LIGHT-DISTRICT, NOT IETF Internet Draft: Why .xxx domain is a very bad idea Even ignoring the philosophical and legal difficulties, there are substantial technical difficulties in attempting to impose content classification by domain names or IP addresses. CONTINUED HERE: http://www.icbtollfree.com/article.cfm?articleId=5654 F - DOT RED-LIGHT-DISTRICT A new bill introduced today by Senator Mary Landrieu(D-La.) would set up an Internet domain (such as .prn) for material harmful to minors and requires all websites containing such material to register on that domain name. Any websites currently on other domains (such as .com, .org, etc.) would be required to close down those sites and move to the new domain. CONTINUED HERE: http://www.icbtollfree.com/article.cfm?articleId=5651 F - CAN THE ITU SAVE ICANN? Houlin Zhao, Director, TSB, ITU, proposes why and how the ITU can "help" ICANN. Do you want the ITU to save ICANN? Should ICANN be saved at all? Send your comments to editor@icbtollfree.com. CONTINUED HERE: http://www.icbtollfree.com/article.cfm?articleId=5650 F - ITU WANTS TO 'HELP' ICANN One problem, though: access to ITU deliberations is restricted. The public is not invited to the table. Governments have the final say; large corporations can buy into the deliberations. The rest of us must depend on what ever we are given; rights we have not. CONTINUED HERE: http://www.icbtollfree.com/article.cfm?articleId=5647 F - ICANN PETITIONED TO RECONSIDER RESOLUTION ABANDONING RECONSIDERATION The Board's action, particularly Resolution 02.46, is inconsistent with responsibilities placed on ICANN by the MOU agreed to by ICANN and the Department of Commerce. CONTINUED HERE: http://www.icbtollfree.com/article.cfm?articleId=5649 P - MANAGEMENT CHANGES AT 1-800-ATTORNEY 1-800-ATTORNEY, Inc. is executing a business strategy that licenses its registered trademark and toll-free telephone number to consumer-oriented law firms across the nation. CONTINUED HERE: http://www.icbtollfree.com/article.cfm?articleId=5648 F - ICANN A REAL CESSPOOL, SAYS DYSON Esther Dyson says, "ICANN has become a real cesspool ... I only see juvenile behavior at ICANN." CONTINUED HERE: http://www.icbtollfree.com/article.cfm?articleId=5646 F - DOT KIDS ON ROAD TO STAVE OFF CHILD PREDATORS The U.S. House Energy Commerce Committee on Wednesday approved "The Dot Kids Implementation and Efficiency Act" after making some changes. CONTINUED HERE: http://www.icbtollfree.com/article.cfm?articleId=5645 F - ICANN'S BID FOR INDEPENDENCE FROM THE U.S. For the first time, ICANN proposes to strike a deal with a major set of players and not include a clause making that agreement assignable to any successor to ICANN chosen by the Department of Commerce. CONTINUED HERE: http://www.icbtollfree.com/article.cfm?articleId=5644 ___________________________________________________ ABOUT ICB ICB HeadsUp Headlines is sent by request. Subscriptions to ICB HeadsUp Headlines are free to qualified applicants. Visit http://www.icbtollfree.com/reg.cfm?NextURL=Index.cfm to sign up. To unsubscribe visit http://icbtollfree.com/account.cfm and uncheck the Mailing List Subscription box. ___________________________________________________ ADVERTISING For information on advertising in ICB HeadsUp Headlines, mailto:editor@icbtollfree.com, subject: Headlines Advertising ____________________________________________________ Only subscribers or registered users of ICB Toll Free News web site will be able to access all or some of the full text of URLs provided. ____________________________________________________ Copyright 2002 ICB, Inc. All rights reserved. ____________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________ ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2002 11:47:13 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: News Headlines of Interest FEATURE-Telecom companies lure Chinese in US back to China - Apr 28, 2002 11:25 AM (Reuters) By Wei Gu NEW YORK, April 28 (Reuters) - They are fighting for a piece of the largest cell phone market in the world -- China -- and they're looking for their foot soldiers 15,000 miles (24,000 km) away, among Chinese speakers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Finland's Nokia Corp. (NYSE:NOK), the world's top cell phone maker, Motorola Inc. (NYSE:MOT), the No. 2 manufacturer, and China's largest telecom company, Huawei Technology, were offering some 20 positions from marketing to engineering at a recent job fair organized by MIT's Chinese Student & Scholar Association, the first event of its kind at the college aimed at the Chinese. http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=26984172 A law to protect spyware Sen. Fritz Hollings is pushing a bill that supposedly safeguards online privacy -- but actually gives intrusive marketers a green light. By Chris Wenham April 26, 2002 | Outrage surged through users of the KaZaA file-sharing utility when they learned, early in April, that a new breed of spyware had been installed on their computers. KaZaA, probably the most popular heir to Napster's throne, was already well known for coming bundled with a wide variety of parasite programs that serve up advertisements, track Web-surfing activity, and otherwise cause mischief. But the newest arrival topped anything seen before in scope or ambition. A company called Brilliant Digital had surreptitiously installed software in computers running KaZaA. Once activated, the software would set up a distributed computing network, allowing Brilliant to hijack the resources of thousands of personal computers to serve the needs of its own customers. Brilliant's plan is to use the computer processing power generated by the network to serve technologically advanced advertisements and track how users react to those ads. http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2002/04/26/hollings_spyware/index.html Legal rulings put 'junk faxes' in limbo Courts in two areas issue differing opinions on law Associated Press Originally published April 28, 2002 ST. LOUIS - In some parts of the country, "junk faxes" are banned as an annoying, costly burden to the recipient. Not here. A Missouri federal judge ruled last month that unsolicited fax ads are constitutionally protected free speech. The ruling, by U.S. District Judge Stephen Limbaugh, has created a legal dichotomy that might fester until a higher court steps in to clarify the 11-year-old federal law. http://www.sunspot.net/news/nationworld/bal-te.fax28apr28.story Pacts with rivals sought to ease long-distance expansion By Deborah Solomon THE WALL STREET JOURNAL April 29 - Regulators in several states are investigating Qwest Communications International Inc. for striking secret deals with competitors who agreed not to oppose the Denver phone company's efforts to expand its long-distance business. http://www.msnbc.com/news/744982.asp ------------------------------ From: lb_centaur@yahoo.com (Matthew) Subject: Re: Yahoo Users Must Act Now to Protect Privacy Date: 30 Apr 2002 14:50:56 GMT Organization: California State University, Long Beach In article , pae@dim.com says... > ... which doesn't work if you happened to enter an incorrect birthday > or ZIP code when you originally applied for your account. AFAICT, the > automated tool gives you no way to look up your account information > unless you can give an exact match to the birthdate and ZIP code when > you applied for the account. > ...[original message edited for brevity --matthew 30-Apr-2002] > phil Gosh, that's awful. How much privacy would you be giving up by entering your correct work or home ZIP code? FWIW, I keep an index card with the passwords to all the websites I visit just to prevent this type of problem. matthew ------------------------------ From: moonerman100@yahoo.com (VaxenT) Subject: A Problem With NTTacPlus Date: 30 Apr 2002 08:41:22 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Hi there folks! I have a problem with NTTacPlus, I migrate it's data base from Access to MSSQL 2000 and now it works good, but it has a problem when a user that didn't exist in our users list dial and don't type any password (login with username that didn't exist and a clear password field), NTTacPlus let him/her to access!!! I'm really confused with this problem, is there anybody can help me please? Thank you, Davar ------------------------------ From: jjohnson@nedd.com (JJ) Subject: DS3 Rates in Verizon Territories Date: 30 Apr 2002 09:01:30 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Are you a buyer of DS3s in a Verizon territory? If so, what are you paying for UNE DS3s. What are the port rates, the distances, the loops and the IOF numbers. If it goest through a tandem, are you being charged for this in a different tariff or unit? Am looking to get all of the costs associated to compare another service. If you have info, please email me. Thanks, J Johnson ------------------------------ From: Carrie Subject: Telecom Check List Help Wanted Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2002 19:51:12 -0500 Can you put me in touch with anyone who may have a checklist they use when moving a facility? My Corp location will be moving in Nov/Dec time frame along with another branch of my company. We will both be moving into one site. I want to use a checklist to make sure I don't leave anything undone. Please help!! My email at work is cwolsfeld@hubgroup.com Thank you! Carrie ------------------------------ From: Spyros Bartsocas Subject: Re: Mobile Phone Operator Company Idea Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2002 14:21:15 +0300 Your idea might not be that new: Telestet in Greece has a plan where seconds in the first 120 seconds (0,44 eurocents/sec) have one rate, in the next 120 another (0,29 eurocents/sec) and from there one a third (0,15 eurocents/sec). They do not distinguish between the networks the call terminate (so I guess they make more money if the call terminates in their own network). These prices do not cover international calls. Spyros ------------------------------ From: godspeed1212@yahoo.com (Nickolas) Subject: Ericsson CyberGenie 3.0 Software Date: 29 Apr 2002 12:23:05 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ For those of you who need the software FOR FREE and dont want to be scammed by eBay sellers, I found this page to download it from: http://ca.msnusers.com/Cybergenie Enjoy! ------------------------------ From: heyuw@163.com (heyuw) Subject: Chips for Caller ID/CLID Date: 29 Apr 2002 20:09:32 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Which company produce ICs for Caller ID/CLID design? We want to buy the cheapest. ------------------------------ From: intcpu@surfy.net (intcpu) Subject: So Many INTERNET Phone Services! Date: 30 Apr 2002 01:52:23 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ I have been looking for a pc to phone service for a while, and find a site showing so many INTERNET phone services providers, some of them support video mail and voice conference and SMS. http://iphone.milescape.com ------------------------------ From: Joseph Singer Subject: Re: Phone Booths Still Exist! Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2002 07:44:13 -0700 Organization: Drizzle Reply-To: joeofseattle@yahoo.com On Sun, 28 Apr 2002 15:17:20 -0400, Robert Casey wrote: > If you are ever on the Garden State Parkway in NJ near milemarker 157 > southbound, you'll see three phone booths just off the shoulder. > Reason I mention this is that I remember some discussions about phone > booths being an extinct species. In Seattle, Washington at the University of Washington's Husky Union Building there's a whole row of real phone booths with a writing shelf and a place to sit. Must be 7 or 8 booths at that location. Personal replies most likely will not be read. Please reply in the newsgroup ------------------------------ From: wael tabaz Subject: ESN Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2002 14:45:34 +0000 I want known how can I convert (E451C7AC) code to (7d49f12945) code (E45762f3) to (Be1594af27) The code in EPROM is reading in example file. Thanks. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2002 12:28:21 -0400 From: dhorvath@cobs.com (David B. Horvath, CCP) Subject: More Businesses For Your Review And more places you will want to call! A Fortyfold Increase in ECommerce by 2005!! > CALL 1-888-316-9167 AND REQUEST YOUR FREE MATERIALS - - - - - - - - - - Time is short- don't waste it! to receive more information on upgrading your education. Or call 1-800-CHUBB-37 today. http://www.chubbinstitute.com/ - - - - - - - - - - - - - >Register a star as a Mother's day gift >International Star Registry >34523 Wilson Road, Ingleside, IL 60041 >1.800.282.3333 >847.546.5533 - - - - - - - - - Get your teeth brighter! Bright-Teeth.Com 2202 West Charleston Blvd. Las Vegas, NV 89102 1-866-296-4959 actually, using the domain name doesn't work, you have to go to 204.94.166.35 ********************************************************************** This spam may contain spam that is privileged, confidential and/or exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any disclosure, copying, distribution, or use of the spam contained herein (including any reliance thereon) is STRICTLY PROHIBITED. If you received this spam in error, please immediately contact the sender and destroy the spam in its entirety, whether in electronic or hard copy format. Thank you. ********************************************************************** GT TONER SUPPLIES Laser printer and computer supplies. 1-866-237-7397 - - - and - - - Heather Peters Easy Sales Leads 551 South Main St. Suite 14 Ukiah, CA. 95482 Work - (866) 841-9135 x4901 (this spam submitted by) David B. Horvath, CCP Consultant, Author, International Lecturer, Adjunct Professor Board Member: ICCP Educational Foundation, ICCP Test Council, and Philadelphia Association of Systems Administrators [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: And be sure to let these spammers know you saw their spam in TELECOM Digest and other places around the net and how much you appreciate their donations to the garbage dump which *used to be* Usenet and the Internet. For you younger guys who don't know it, back in the 1980's and 1990's there used to be a wonderful community here. Then back about 1993 or so, *they* decided to abandon the old ideas and routines and make this a great big advertising billboard. Who is 'they'? (Shrugs shoulders, with a very confused look on face.) I guess it was us cybersquatters, you know, regular citizens who refused to leave gracefully when asked to do so by the Acme Universal International Corporation. PAT] ------------------------------ 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-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 630-841-7174 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@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 * * Judith Oppenheimer, President of ICB Inc. and purveyor of accurate * * 800 & Dot Com News, Intelligence, Analysis, and Consulting. * * http://ICBTollFree.com, http://1800TheExpert.com * * Views expressed herein should not be construed as representing * * views of Judith Oppenheimer or ICB Inc. * ************************************************************************* ICB Toll Free News. Contact information is not sold, rented or leased. Access to Premium (P) links requires upgrade to a paid subscription. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Only subscribers or registered users of ICB Toll Free News web site will be able to access all or some of the full text of URLs provided. LEGAL STUFF: TELECOM Digest (sm) is owned by Patrick Townson. Copyright 2000 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. 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. End of TELECOM Digest V20 #236 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed May 1 21:54:01 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id VAA23883; Wed, 1 May 2002 21:54:01 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 21:54:01 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200205020154.VAA23883@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #237 TELECOM Digest Wed, 1 May 2002 21:51:00 EDT Volume 20 : Issue 237 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson [ISOC Announcement] Technology and the Law: CBDTPA (Anne Shroeder) Re: Yahoo Users Must Act Now to Protect Privacy (Phil Earnhardt) Re: Blackholing, was Re: New Breed Spam Filter (kadokev@chicagotribune) Chicago, Telecom, etc. (kadokev@chicagotribune.com) Converting CDR to ASCII (Adolf Bernd Treiner) WorldCom Concerns (Don Jensen) Seeking "Engineering and Operations in the Bell System"? (Bill Bradford) Bypassing Avaya Limitation (Route Request) (William Howell) Does Dialogic D/41E=D/41ESC? Help Appreciated (John Bartley) Re: War-Dialing Legality? (spyke) Computer Telephony Integration and IP Telephony (Owen P. Epstein) Re: Tariffs Library (Andrew Kauffman) Motorola V60c Field Test Mode (John R. Covert) Cellular Phone Forwarding (Chuck Till) Re: Telephone Pole Distances (Fritz M) Question About Large Dial Plan Numbering Schemes? (Greg Stooksberry) Re: DS3 Rates in Verizon Territories (Brandon Pemberton) Video Services See Need For Speed (Monty Solomon) AT&T Sparkletone for AT&T Unlimited (Monty Solomon) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Anne Shroeder Subject: [ISOC Announcement] Technology and the Law: CBDTPA Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 13:30:06 -0400 Reply-To: lance@isoc.org FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 1 May, 2002 Technology and the Law: CBDTPA Washington, DC -- The Internet Society strongly opposes attempts to impose governmental technology mandates that are designed to protect only the interests of copyright owners. A recent court decision in the Netherlands, on the one hand, and the introduction of proposed legislation in the United States, on the other, illustrate the principle involved. In the Netherlands, a court recognized that technology should be treated as neutral with respect to intellectual property rights. In the United States, however, the introduction of the "Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act " (S. 2048) (CBDTPA) by Senator Hollings illustrates the inevitable conclusion of technology mandates in law: a world where all digital media technology is either forbidden or compulsory. In the case involving KaZaA in the Netherlands, an appellate court ruled that the developers of file sharing technology were not liable for copyright infringement by people using the technology. By contrast, the United States CBDTPA grants veto power over new technologies to the special interest groups who have continually opposed innovation. Technology mandates are anti-consumer, treating all users as potential criminals and punishing everyone in advance for infringements that have not yet occurred but might in the future. They are inevitably used to strengthen copy-prevention ("digital rights management") technologies that give disproportionate power to vendors, stripping the user community of traditional fair-use rights. Further, technology mandates are anti-innovative. Legislation can stall the adoption of new designs by forcing lengthy one-sided "negotiations" with copyright interests. The result will likely be the adoption of anti-customer "features" or dilution of the effectiveness of new technologies. Companies subject to statutory design mandates will face expensive design requirements and lengthy design reviews. Competitors in countries that are exempt from technological restrictions will be given an unfair advantage. The resulting distortions of competitive export-import markets will affect both industry and consumers. Consumers demand innovation, and they will seek it from competitors in other countries, resulting in a loss to the local economy. Contact: David Maher Vice President, Public Policy Internet Society Tel: +1 312 876 8055 Fax: +1 312 876 7934 Email: dwmaher@attglobal.net About ISOC: he Internet Society is a non-profit, non-governmental, open membership organization whose worldwide individual and organization members make up a veritable "who's who" of the Internet industry. It provides leadership in technical and operational standards, policy issues, and education. ISOC hosts two annual Internet conferences , trains people from all over the world in networking technologies, conducts workshops for educators, and publishes an award-winning e-magazine, OnTheInternet. ISOC provides an international forum to address the most important economic, political, social, ethical and legal initiatives influencing the evolution of the Internet. This includes facilitating discussions on key policy decisions such as taxation, copyright protection, privacy and confidentiality, and initiatives towards self-governance of the Internet. ISOC created the Internet Societal Task Force as an on-going forum for discussion, debate, and development of position papers, white papers, and statements on Internet related societal issues. ISOC is the organizational home of the International Engineering Task Force, the Internet Architecture Board, the Internet Engineering Steering Group, and the Internet Research Task Force - the standards setting and research arms of the Internet community. These organizations operate in an environment of bottom-up consensus building made possible through the participation of thousands of people from throughout the world. *~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~* To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@www.isoc.org with UNSUBSCRIBE press in the body. [Leave the subject blank.] Please read our Terms of Use Agreement for all discussion lists: http://www.isoc.org/members/discuss/tou.shtml *~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~* ------------------------------ From: Phil Earnhardt Subject: Re: Yahoo Users Must Act Now to Protect Privacy Date: Wed, 01 May 2002 00:29:16 -0600 On 30 Apr 2002 14:50:56 GMT, lb_centaur@yahoo.com (Matthew) wrote: In article , pae@dim.com says ... >> ... which doesn't work if you happened to enter an incorrect birthday >> or ZIP code when you originally applied for your account. AFAICT, the >> automated tool gives you no way to look up your account information >> unless you can give an exact match to the birthdate and ZIP code when >> you applied for the account. >> ...[original message edited for brevity --matthew 30-Apr-2002] >> phil > Gosh, that's awful. How much privacy would you be giving up by > entering your correct work or home ZIP code? ... and birthdate. Why would any site need that information? What legitimate purposes would it be serving? How could it potentially be abused? With all due respect, I see no reason to provide those personal details. > FWIW, I keep an index > card with the passwords to all the websites I visit just to prevent > this type of problem. What if you made a typo when entering the information? What if the site had a subtle data corruption error and changed the data? For a site that has no e-commerce, there's an easy solution: if someone forgets their password, have a means to e-mail it to the address that the user associated to the account when he created it. Simple. Or have a button at the site which generates an e-mail with a dynamic URL that will allow the mailbox holder to TURN OFF the account immediately. There really is no risk to Yahoo! to provide such "lost account" services. If the creator of the account abandoned the e-mail address, they can't be delivered to the correct person in any case. In short, Yahoo! needs to ensure that all of the members of their lists have actually "opted in" to them. But it appears that Yahoo! really doesn't care about having an "opt-in" list:. They broke the cardinal rule of "opt-in": by default, all Yahoo! members will be signed up for those new mailing lists unless they go to the website and explicitly remove themselves from those lists. > Matthew Matthew, your advice is good (but I don't know what these "index cards" are ;-). My lesson: there ain't no such thing as "casually" signing up for any service on the Internet. phil ------------------------------ From: kadokev@chicagotribune.com Subject: Re: Blackholing, was Re: New Breed Spam Filter Slashes Junk Email Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 17:26:13 UTC Organization: The author does not speak for this organization. In article , Garrett Wollman wrote: > In article , > Thomas A. Horsley wrote: >> Once upon a time, some kindly spammer decided to forge my email >> address in his headers for all the spam he was > This is becoming more and more common -- I just got a query about it > from a user of mine. Doing this intentionally to direct complaints/attacks against an "innocent" third party is known as a "joe job" and is also becoming more common, often as a means of attacking anti-spam activists. > The way around this, obviously, is for the spamemrs to choose random > addresses from their mailing-list (or for an Outlook virus to choose > random addresses from its victims' address books), after filtering out > the large ISPs -- so they use addresses which are likely to be valid, > and unlikely to be verifiably invalid by anyone except the person > whose address is being forged. Another troublesome new tactic that I am starting to see is for incoming spam to be given a from address of either a bare username of "webm2aster", which usually causes the mail relay or target SMTP server to append it's own domain for the sender address, or messages are explicitly forged with the sender being a bogus username at the target domain (spam to foobar.com is sent with a from of "webm2aster@foobar.com"). Depending on the mail server configuration, this sort of thing can be particularly disruptive to a targeted server or relay host, due to the generation of bounces and double bounces. Kevin Kadow ------------------------------ Date: 1 May 2002 17:19:49 -0000 Subject: Chicago, Telecom, etc. From: kadokev@chicagotribune.com Organization: The author does not speak for this organization. Just wanted to drop a line, I've been out of the telecom field for a while and am just starting to get interested again due to certain events out of my control. (If you have a PGP key, I can relate the rest of the story, it is very much telecom-oriented, and you might have some advice.) As you can see from my originating address, I'm definitely no longer in any association with Ripco. I'm only just now starting to post to usenet primarily because I need this address to start getting lots and lots of spam mail, so we (Tribune) can better tune our anti-spam filters :-) Kevin "Former Ripco Internet Sysop" Kadow ------------------------------ From: Adolf Bernd Treiner Subject: Converting CDR to ASCII Reply-To: Treiner@abtsoft.m.uunet.de Date: Wed, 01 May 2002 08:54:07 +0000 Organization: Abtsoft Hi all, I'm searching for standard tools to convert CDR's (Call Detail Records) to ASCII format. I would prefer tools for UNIX environment (Perl, Shell tools). Any hint is welcome. Thanks in advance. Adolf Bernd Treiner D-80802 Danchen treiner@absoft.m.uunet.de ------------------------------ From: djensen@gcco.com (Don Jensen) Subject: WorldCom Concerns Date: 1 May 2002 10:59:40 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ I have been watching the recent performance/stock price of WorldCom and have been trying to determine what impact this might have on our company. They have taken a thorough beating lately in the stock market and this week saw the resignation of their CEO. I'm assuming that the services that we depend on (frame-relay) are quite profitable for WorldCom. Therefore, these profit centers would be carefully managed to protect them. Even if WorldCom were to be liquidated, which I don't think will happen, others would be interested in purchasing the profitable sectors of WorldCom. The problem is that companies who go through this level of turmoil, loose key personnel and ultimately suffer from poor management decisions. The "Baby and the Bathwater" analogy comes into play. This is not meant in any way to suggest that I am unhappy with WorldCom's current quality and service. I hope that they can resolve their current problems and that I may remain a satisfied customer. Any thoughts or insights, particularily from someone inside WorldCom, would be appreciated. Don ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 13:45:46 -0500 From: Bill Bradford Subject: Seeking "Engineering and Operations in the Bell System" I finally got a copy of this about a year ago off eBay, the 1977 version ... anybody know where I can get my hands on one of the newer (1996 is the last I know of) versions? Bill Bradford | "Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. mrbill@mrbill.net | Hate leads to using Windows for mission-critical Austin, TX | applications." -- What Yoda *meant* to say ------------------------------ From: wdhowell@hotmail.com (William Howell) Subject: Bypassing Avaya Limitation (Route Request) Date: 30 Apr 2002 11:13:54 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ When passing a Route Request to Cisco ICM there seems to be a limit of 16 Digits for the CED parameter per Route Request. Could anyone reccomend a way of possibly extending this or working around this limitation. Scenario: Through two (2) IVR Prompts we are collecting 20 Digits. If at all possible we would like to contain this to one call vector. Passing all 20 Digits to the ICM Peripheral Gateway for parsing prior to Route Reply. If this is not possible will sending two requests from the same call vector be feasible? Thank you for your any help you may have to share. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2002 14:30:06 PDT From: John Bartley Subject: Does Dialogic D/41E=D/41ESC? Help Appreciated Have an automated attendant system that's down. Installed 4 years ago, it uses the Dialogic D/41E ISA cards and AVT (now Captaris) Call Express 5.20r software in a Micron Millenia Mxe computer running NT4. Installing dealer is kaput and Captaris wants $750 just to send a tech to the scene. One of the two cards in this machine have failed.I can't find a new-in-a-box D/41E card, only used on eBay. I can only find the D/41ESC. Is the D/41ESC a plug-compatable replacement for the D/41ESC? Your kind assistance is appreciated. John E. Bartley, III - telcom admin, Portland OR, USA - Views are mine. http://www.viewreviews.com/vp.php?id=6 Review of SPH-i300 http://palmwireless.cjb.net Wireless FAQ for PalmOS(R) This post is quad-ROT13 encrypted. Reading it is a violation of the DMCA. You are granted to store this informationTM in your brain for private, not commercial use. Commercial use of this information whether in your brain or other bodily parts requires the express written consent of its license holders and property owners. ------------------------------ From: s_p_y_k_e@lycos.com (spyke) Subject: Re: War-Dialing Legality? Date: 30 Apr 2002 14:51:44 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Sellcom Tech Support wrote in message news:: > Bryan Hesters wrote in message > news:telecom20.231.4@telecom-digest.org: >> Is there any law against war-dialing of this nature? Is it illegal? >> If so, what steps do you take to identify the caller and whom do you >> report that infraction too (US/Texas)? > OK, what is happening is that telemarketers dial a bunch of numbers to > assure a connect. If someone answers, then the rest just get a dead > line (an harassing hangup call) and get put back in the cue. They do > it deliberately. People in that line of work should have something > done to them so bad that I would not even talk about so horrible a > thing. This is called a predictive dialer, and when they are tuned properly, they rarely ring a number without having an operator ready. However, they are FREQUENTLY not tuned properly. If you believe that a telemarketer is calling, simply have the receptionist greet callers with a salutation that is less than 2 seconds (actually I believe that it is closer to 1.7 seconds). If the receptionist says "Good afternoon" and then pauses for about 1 second, the telemarketing software will assume that a person has answered and try to put the receptionist through to telemarketer. Then you can ask to be put on their "do not call list." If your greeting is over the threshold, then the dialer assumes that it has reached an automated answering device, like voice mail or an ACD, and it drops the call immediately. ------------------------------ From: owen.epstein@opetelephony.com (OWEN P EPSTEIN) Subject: Computer Telphony Integration and IP Telephony and Call Center Date: 30 Apr 2002 19:58:28 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Tom, I have been managing Computer Telphony Integration (CTI) implementations for several years using Geotel, ICM, Genesys, T-Server, TLIB, TSERVER and thin client desktops. Hope this answers your question! Regards, Owen P. Epstein CRM Consulting/Telephony CTI 1998-Present: Define Call Center infrastructures from the ground-up that include Telecommunications and Telephony requirements, physical facility requirements, and all support functionality to assure smooth Call Center development and integration. Implemented 7 Generations IVRs for Speech conversion and Voice recognition on the Aspect/Generations/Voictek platform. Implemented and project managed gateway deployment between Geotel ICM and Generations IVR for graceful Pre-Route and Post-Route Connectivity. Project managed the deployment of a new Dual Redundant Geotel ICM platform for the Internal Revenue Service, to gain processor and HDS enhanced capacity and performance. CISCO Router Installation and Management. Systems Implementation Manager performing the following duties: Manage a team of between three-to-five persons that define Telephony specification documentation for customers; define the usability and functionality of Telephony buttons for a customer user interface and customer phoneset (Aspect, Nortel, Lucent, Rockwell); define the API integration points between Geotel CTI components and PegaSystems software; define implementation schedule for telephony integration at customer site; implement the PegaSystems telephony functionality in a development/staging/production environment. ------------------------------ From: Andrew Kauffman Subject: Re: Tariffs Library Organization: AT&T Broadband Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2002 22:45:20 GMT CCMI has paper, CD, and web access to tariffs, I think it is www.ccmi.com. Andy Kauffman Sean wrote in message news:telecom20.233.6@telecom-digest.org: > Does anyone know of a good tariff library? ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2002 19:30:23 EDT From: John R. Covert" Subject: Motorola V60c Field Test Mode As is "well known", the relatively new Motorola V60c CDMA Tri-Mode phone has a "Field Test" Mode which displays a couple of screenfuls of live information. It is enabled by entering "Menu 073887 *" and supplying the six-digit security code (000000 unless changed) at the prompt. Once enabled, it is toggled with "Menu ". The first screen looks like this right now on my phone: 128 63 1 19C466 464 138 0 IDL MR 87 N/A 00.00 1 0 28 0 6 I believe that "466" is the channel, and I know that "28" is the active system ID, but the rest is mostly a mystery. Would someone please post to the Digest a full explanation? I have a V60g Tri-Band phone on the way to me as well, and am curious if one of our readers knows whether it has a similar test mode and any details thereof. I also note with some annoyance that the "professional" (installed) car kit which I purchased with the V60g states that it works with all V60 phones, that Motorola told me that it works with both the V60c and V60g, and the portable one is documented on the Motorola web site for both, but that the web site does not list a car kit for the V60g and states that the one I bought is for the V60c and V60t. We'll find out soon what the real story is here. john ------------------------------ From: ctill@nc.rr.com (Chuck Till) Subject: Cellular Phone Forwarding Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2002 23:56:11 GMT Organization: Road Runner - NC Many if not most cellular providers in the U.S. (perhaps other countries) charge for call forwarding by the minute or count minutes of forwarded calls as if they were airtime. For strictly local forwarding -- that is, the called cellphone is not roaming and the number to be forwarded to is in the same rate center -- are there wireline-wireless settlements that would cause a cellular provider to be out of pocket? Do the cellular companies simply find strictly local fowarding too difficult to explain? Or, do they plan for the worst case that everybody roams nationwide and forwards their calls far away? ------------------------------ From: nospam@masoner.net (Fritz M) Subject: Re: Telephone Pole Distances Date: 1 May 2002 14:07:35 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Carter Thomasson wrote: > There is a six digit number on the poles. The first 3 digits seem > to be the distance from the western end of the state, in thousands of > feet. The second three numbers appear to be the distance from the > southern part of the state in thousands of feet. Can this be true? Can this be true? Of course. Is it? Drive to the soutwestern portion of the state and look for pole 000000 :-) When I was a drafter for TU Electric (electricy provider in Texas) in the mid-80's, poles and transformers had a six-digit identifier which gave their geographic location. I don't remember the meanings of the digits, but I seem to recall that it was derived from a coordinate system used by the U.S. military. RFM ------------------------------ From: gregs-news@idleaire.com (Greg Stooksberry) Subject: Question About Large Dial Plan Numbering Schemes? Date: 1 May 2002 15:02:41 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ We are about to roll-out what will be a very large Nationwide VOIP network with the possibility of having 600k+ private extensions. This will require a large range of numbers to meet our number scheme, which at the moment is 6-XXXXX(loc#)-XXXX(slot#). This scheme seems ill conceived to me now that we will be an IXC, possibly CLEC, in the near future to offer long distance services to our customers. My current train of thought is to make all extensions 1+10D numbers using the N11 special services range of area codes to create extensions like 1-211-XXX(loc#)-XXXX(slot#)(These extensions will never be directly dialable from the PSTN). This allows me to easily route extensions to specific regions(using H323 gatekeepers) while having plenty of numbers. My thought is to convert all numbers that transverse the WAN into 1+10D numbers for routing purposes Any thoughts or comments on this scheme? An examples of other large numbering schemes? ------------------------------ From: Brandon Pemberton Subject: Re: DS3 Rates in Verizon Territories Date: Thu, 02 May 2002 00:03:07 GMT JJ, where are you located? Verizon charges different rates in diffrent markets. JJ wrote in message news:telecom20.236.5@telecom-digest.org: > Are you a buyer of DS3s in a Verizon territory? If so, what are you > paying for UNE DS3s. What are the port rates, the distances, the > loops and the IOF numbers. If it goes through a tandem, are you > being charged for this in a different tariff or unit? > Am looking to get all of the costs associated to compare another > service. If you have info, please email me. > Thanks, > J Johnson ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 00:41:17 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Video Services See Need For Speed By Stefanie Olsen Staff Writer, CNET News.com April 29, 2002, 1:55 PM PT LOS ANGELES--The video-on-demand and Net access industries are engaged in a tug-of-war over broadband connections, sparking debates about when an Internet connection should be considered "high speed." Video-on-demand (VOD) companies need speedy Internet connections to keep their high-end services alive. But broadband providers increasingly are dropping speeds and prices to attract more subscribers. http://news.com.com/2100-1023-894468.html ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 15:18:37 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: AT&T Sparkletone for AT&T Unlimited AT&T unveils powerful new feature to enhance popular AT&T Unlimited offer - May 1, 2002 10:25 AM (BusinessWire) BASKING RIDGE, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 1, 2002--AT&T New technology automatically notifies subscribers when they've reached one of AT&T's 50 million customers. AT&T today announced a powerful new enhancement to its popular AT&T Unlimited offer that automatically informs subscribers when they have placed a call to another AT&T residential customer. The new "AT&T Sparkletone(sm)" enhancement will deliver an audible message announcing that the called party is an AT&T customer. "We've just made a very simple plan even simpler," said Betsy Bernard, president and CEO of AT&T Consumer. "All a customer has to do is dial and listen for the AT&T Sparkletone confirmation, which ensures they're receiving the best value in long distance calling. They can then talk for as long as they'd like and, of course, whenever they'd like." http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=27016044 ------------------------------ 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-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 630-841-7174 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@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 * * Judith Oppenheimer, President of ICB Inc. and purveyor of accurate * * 800 & Dot Com News, Intelligence, Analysis, and Consulting. * * http://ICBTollFree.com, http://1800TheExpert.com * * Views expressed herein should not be construed as representing * * views of Judith Oppenheimer or ICB Inc. * ************************************************************************* ICB Toll Free News. Contact information is not sold, rented or leased. Access to Premium (P) links requires upgrade to a paid subscription. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Only subscribers or registered users of ICB Toll Free News web site will be able to access all or some of the full text of URLs provided. LEGAL STUFF: TELECOM Digest (sm) is owned by Patrick Townson. Copyright 2000 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. 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. End of TELECOM Digest V20 #237 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu May 2 20:22:03 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id UAA15361; Thu, 2 May 2002 20:22:03 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 2 May 2002 20:22:03 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200205030022.UAA15361@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #238 TELECOM Digest Thu, 2 May 2002 20:20:00 EDT Volume 20 : Issue 238 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Ericssons CyberGenie Phone - Company up For Grabs! (Nickolas) Re: Cellular Phone Forwarding (John R. Levine) Re: Cellular Phone Forwarding (Michael D. Sullivan) Re: Cellular Phone Forwarding (Stanley Cline) John R. Pierce Obituary (Anthony E. Siegman) My Colleague Needs a Vendor (Judith Oppenheimer) Re: Telephone Pole Distances (Roy Smith) "Eng/Op'ns in Bell System", "Notes", AT&T Publications (Mark J. Cuccia) Re: "Eng/Op'ns in Bell System", "Notes", AT&T Publications (B. Bradford) Re: Tariffs Library (Fred Goodwin) Re: Question About Large Dial Plan Numbering Schemes? (Michael Sullivan) Re: Question About Large Dial Plan Numbering Schemes? (Dave Close) First of the Month Nagware Notice (TELECOM Digest Editor) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: godspeed1212@yahoo.com (Nickolas) Subject: Ericssons CyberGenie Phone - Company up For Grabs! Date: 1 May 2002 18:17:06 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Please check out the latest news at the group. http://ca.msnusers.com/Cybergenie Nick ------------------------------ Date: 1 May 2002 22:30:21 -0400 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: Cellular Phone Forwarding Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > For strictly local forwarding -- that is, the called cellphone is not > roaming and the number to be forwarded to is in the same rate > center -- are there wireline-wireless settlements that would cause a > cellular provider to be out of pocket? Yes. They probably still pay per minute reciprocal compensation on the connection to the ILEC. Rate centers don't matter, they usually have one switch per LATA and terminating a call anywhere in the LATA costs the same. For example, my phone has an Ithaca NY number, but the switch is 75 miles north in Syracuse, and cell customers all the way to the Canadian border more than 100 miles north of that are all on the same switch and all have local calling throughout the LATA. > Do the cellular companies simply find strictly local fowarding too > difficult to explain? Or, do they plan for the worst case that > everybody roams nationwide and forwards their calls far away? LD charges have gotten so low that I would expect that the LD charges are about the same as the recip comp charges, so it costs the same either way. Also, the definition of what's "local" is not always obvious. Around here, for example, the exchange boundaries don't match the town or county boundaries at all, and the LATA lines wander through the cornfields. So back when I had a cell plan where local calls cost less, there were calls to places in other counties in other LATAs that were still considered local because part of the exchange's territory was in a county in my cellular RSA. I don't blame them for getting away from fiddly rules like that. (On the other hand, then there's Verizon's "America's Choice" plan in which airtime on their network or one of an ill-defined set of partners is free in the package, airtime on everyone else's network is 65 cents a minute. Better hope your roam indicator works right.) 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: Michael D. Sullivan Subject: Re: Cellular Phone Forwarding Date: Thu, 02 May 2002 04:31:50 GMT In article , ctill@nc.rr.com says: > For strictly local forwarding -- that is, the called cellphone is not > roaming and the number to be forwarded to is in the same rate > center -- are there wireline-wireless settlements that would cause a > cellular provider to be out of pocket? When a wireless company forwards a call to a local wireline number, it has to pay the LEC's termination charge. It can't forward the call at no cost. Likewise, when it forwards a call to a long-distance number, it incurs toll charges (even if it is directly connected to a bulk LD provider, it ultimately has to pay terminating access as part of the rate it pays). Charging airtime for forwarding is undoubtedly done at a profit, but establishing a lower rate (or a free rate) for forwarding will open the doors to abuse. I was involved in a case a while back where a wireless company offered free forwarding within its service area, which was larger than the local wireline calling area. An inventive entrepreneur subscribed to a cellular number in one market, which it set to forward to another cellular number from the same carrier in an adjacent market (toll-free), which in turn was set to forward to a wireline number in that area. The entrepreneur then started selling landline interLATA toll between the first market and the second market, having its customers dial a PBX in market A, input a PIN and number, whereupon the PBX called the cellular number in market A, which was forwarded to the cellular number in market B, which was then forwarded to a PBX in market B, processed, and fed out to the landline network on a residential flat-rate line, to the desired number. This avoided using interLATA toll and took advantage of no-charge forwarding. The cellular phone numbers were used solely for call forwarding (no airtime). With a single pair of cellular numbers, a couple of residential landline numbers, and a couple of cheap PBXs or computers, the entrepreneur was able to sign up several thousand subscribers to his flat-rate toll-avoidance service at $5 or $10 a month. The cellular carrier, on the other hand, got paid about $30 per month and racked up thousands of dollars of termination charges and interLATA transport charges. The cellular carrier ultimately cut the guy off. When he complained to the state and FCC was told to go to heck. I think (hope!) the company has now instituted charges for call-forwarding. Mike Sullivan x y z ( a t ) c a m s u l ( d o t ) com ------------------------------ From: Stanley Cline Subject: Re: Cellular Phone Forwarding Date: Thu, 02 May 2002 00:55:27 -0400 Organization: Roamer1 Communications - Dunwoody, GA, USA Reply-To: sc1-news@roamer1.org On Tue, 30 Apr 2002 23:56:11 GMT, ctill@nc.rr.com (Chuck Till) wrote: > For strictly local forwarding -- that is, the called cellphone is not > roaming and the number to be forwarded to is in the same rate > center -- are there wireline-wireless settlements that would cause a > cellular provider to be out of pocket? Sure, some (just like calls between wireline LECs), but not such that justify 15-25c/min forwarding rates for local calls. > Do the cellular companies simply find strictly local fowarding too > difficult to explain? Or, do they plan for the worst case that > everybody roams nationwide and forwards their calls far away? On non-GSM carriers, roaming is *completely irrelevant* as when calls are forwarded, they are "pulled back" by the customer's "home" switch and rerouted from there. With GSM carriers, OTOH, forwarding (even to voicemail) is done by the VLR the customer is linked to at the time -- usually resulting in roaming airtime and LD charges. VoiceStream eats roaming/LD for calls forwarded to voicemail, etc. when a VoiceStream customer is on its network, but if you're roaming in Cingular or a non-US carrier you will be "overcharged" for such calls. The main justifications for charging for forwarded calls seem to be that carriers think customers will use wireless forwarding to circumvent local toll and long distance charges, especially since wireless local calling areas are almost always much, much larger than wireline local calling areas (many plans now include nationwide LD), and that "unlimited" forwarding eats up trunks better used by customers paying airtime. Still, charging for forwarding to numbers in the *local calling area* of the customer's wireless number is simply absurd, IMO. Stanley Cline -- sc1 at roamer1 dot org -- http://www.roamer1.org/ ... "Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today. There might be a law against it by that time." -/usr/games/fortune ------------------------------ From: aes Subject: John R. Pierce Obituary Date: Wed, 01 May 2002 21:57:52 -0700 Organization: Stanford University Older readers of this group may be saddened to hear that John R. Pierce died on April 2nd, aged 92. There's an obituary in the April 13th-19th issue of The Economist, though it focuses more on his science fiction writing than on his development of Telstar in the 1960s and his other accomplishments in telephony during his 35-year career at Bell Telephone Labs. ------------------------------ Date: 2 May 2002 16:07:42 -0000 From: Judith Oppenheimer Subject: My Colleague Needs a Vendor Reply-To: Judith Oppenheimer I got a colleague with a shared use program. Does area code routing with AT&T for about 100 customers throughout the US and Canada. He currently receives about 5000 calls a month. AT&T is charging him 7.5c/minute in one minute increments for the default calls and charging (and billing directly) his customers about 20 cents a minute for their calls or more. He wants to leave AT&T. Who wants his business? Please email me directly at joppenheimer@icbtollfree.com. Thanks, Judith Oppenheimer http://JudithOppenheimer.com http://ICBTollFreeNews.com 212 684-7210, 1 800 The Expert ------------------------------ From: Roy Smith Subject: Re: Telephone Pole Distances Date: Wed, 01 May 2002 22:17:12 -0400 Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC nospam@masoner.net (Fritz M) wrote: > I don't remember the meanings of the digits, but I seem to recall > that it was derived from a coordinate system used by the U.S. military. You're probably talking about UTM (http://www.nps.gov/prwi/readutm.htm). ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 21:44:14 -0500 (CDT) From: Mark J Cuccia Subject: "Eng/Op'ns in Bell System", "Notes", Other AT&T Publications Bill Bradford (mrbill@mrbill.net) wrote: > I finally got a copy of this about a year ago off eBay, the 1977 > version. Aybody know where I can get my hands on one of the newer > (1996 is the last I know of) versions? As far as I know, Bell Labs published "Engineering and Operations..." only twice -- the first edition in 1977/78, and the second edition "in preparation for divestiture" in 1982/83. Copies of the 2nd (1982/83) edition were still available from AT&T's publications sales/distribu- tion in Indiannapolis back in the (early) 1990's. I think that AT&T spun off its publications/documentation operations into Lucent in the mid-1990's. What you are probably thinking of for 1996 might be "Notes...", a publication of the "Bell System" which has had several title changes over the decades, and in more recent years has dramatically increased in price. It was originally called "Notes on Nationwide Operator Toll Dialing" in 1945/46. The 1955 edition was called "Notes on Nationwide Dialing". 1956, 1961, 1968, and 1975 editions were called "Notes on Distance Dialing". In 1980, it was called "Notes on the Network", and that title has become the more popular title even though it has since gone thru subsequent name changes with later editions. Through 1980's edition, it was published/distributed by AT&T, "The Bell System". In 1983, Telecom Canada (Stentor, but now dissolved) published their own revised edition called "Digital Network Notes". There was also a revised (US) 1983 edition published "jointly" by AT&T and the "Central Services Organization" (which was created out of the Bell System to "become" Bellcore), called "Notes on the BOC Intra-LATA Networks". Bell Communications Research (Bellcore) published under that title for a revised edition in 1986. Bellcore changed the title again in 1990/91 for the next edition called "BOC Notes on the LEC Networks". I think that's the title it still uses, with a revised 1994 edition and 1996 edition. I've mostly "lost track" of the history of its editions since then. *IF* the 1996 or possibly later edition is available, Telcordia (formerly Bellcore) would have info on availability, price, etc., see www.telcordia.com for further info. Note that the *price* of this publication has increased astronomically since the 1970's: The 1975 edition "Notes on Distance Dialing" was about $15.00 The 1980 edition "Notes on the Network" was something like $40.00 The 1983 and 1986 editions "Notes on the BOC Intra-LATA Networks" were priced by Bellcore at $150.00 Bellcore priced the 1990/91, 1994 and 1996 editions at about $400.00 or $500.00 I *think* that there was a 1997 revision of this publication, available from Bellcore / Telcordia, on CD-Rom, for $700.00 or $800.00. Finally, there is another related publication which (pre-divestiture and early post-divestiture) AT&T/Bell Labs had, a series called: "A History of Engineering and Science in the Bell System". There were several volumes in this series related to Bell Labs' involvement with various science/etc., disciplines. My favorite volume in this set is "Switching Technology, 1925-75", authored by Amos E. Joel (now retired) of Bell Labs. Though out of print for about ten years, it is similar and related to "Engineering and Operations ..." and "Notes ..." MJC ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 2 May 2002 01:11:55 -0500 From: Bill Bradford Subject: Re: "Eng/Op'ns in Bell System", "Notes", Other AT&T Publications On Wed, May 01, 2002 at 09:44:14PM -0500, Mark J Cuccia wrote: > As far as I know, Bell Labs published "Engineering and Operations..." > only twice -- the first edition in 1977/78, and the second edition "in > preparation for divestiture" in 1982/83. Copies of the 2nd (1982/83) > edition were still available from AT&T's publications sales/distribution > in Indiannapolis back in the (early) 1990's. I think that AT&T spun off > its publications/documentation operations into Lucent in the mid-1990's. Its the 2nd edition (82/83) that I'm looking for, then. Any pointers (AT&T publications department phone numbers, etc) would be appreciated. I got the '96 from an ebay auction description that I didn't win. Thanks. Bill Bradford | "Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. mrbill@mrbill.net | Hate leads to using Windows for mission-critical Austin, TX | applications." -- What Yoda *meant* to say ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Tariffs Library From: Fred Goodwin Organization: AT&T Worldnet Date: Thu, 02 May 2002 02:51:35 GMT Andrew Kauffman wrote in news:telecom20.237.12@telecom-digest.org: > CCMI has paper, CD, and web access to tariffs, I think it is > www.ccmi.com. > Sean wrote in message > news:telecom20.233.6@telecom-digest.org: >> Does anyone know of a good tariff library? The FCC allows public access to carrier tariffs via its Electronic Tariff Filing System: http://svartifoss2.fcc.gov/prod/ccb/etfs/ They're not terribly user-friendly, but you can browse and look for things called "base tariff filings". Hanlon's Razor: "Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity." Skeptic's Creed: "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." ------------------------------ From: Michael D. Sullivan Subject: Re: Question About Large Dial Plan Numbering Schemes? Date: Thu, 02 May 2002 04:59:34 GMT In article , gregs-news@idleaire.com says: > We are about to roll-out what will be a very large Nationwide VOIP > network with the possibility of having 600k+ private extensions. This > will require a large range of numbers to meet our number scheme, which > at the moment is 6-XXXXX(loc#)-XXXX(slot#). This scheme seems ill > conceived to me now that we will be an IXC, possibly CLEC, in the near > future to offer long distance services to our customers. When you say "private extensions" and yet say that you may be an IXC and/or a CLEC, I wonder what you mean. Do you want these numbers to be dialable in the NANP? If so, you will have to get blocks of numbers from NANPA. If not, as you suggest below, how will you comply with E911 requirements? > My current train of thought is to make all extensions 1+10D numbers > using the N11 special services range of area codes to create > extensions like 1-211-XXX(loc#)-XXXX(slot#)(These extensions will > never be directly dialable from the PSTN). This allows me to easily > route extensions to specific regions(using H323 gatekeepers) while > having plenty of numbers. My thought is to convert all numbers that > transverse the WAN into 1+10D numbers for routing purposes If the phones at these numbers will be capable of dialing into the PSTN, you need to consider how E911 calls will be handled. Currently, LECs have to route 911 calls to the appropriate public safety answering point (PSAP) and provide the PSAP with a callback number and location information. If this is a purely internal network, with no PSTN dialing capability, that may not be the case. For a purely internal network, why would you need to use 1+10D numbers, though? I won't even mention issues like TRS and CALEA, which raise similar issues. Much less the filings and fees that have to be submitted to the FCC. If you are going to be routing externally, using N11 codes as part of the numbering scheme probably is not a good idea. It sounds to me like there are a number of issues that you need to think about. You may need a telecommunications attorney, if you don't have one. (Feel free to contact me at my work email address, m s u l l i v a n ( a t ) w b k l a w ( d o t ) c o m ). > Any thoughts or comments on this scheme? An examples of other large > numbering schemes? ------------------------------ From: dave@compata.com (Dave Close) Subject: Re: Question About Large Dial Plan Numbering Schemes? Organization: Compata, Costa Mesa, California Date: Thu, 02 May 2002 06:00:44 GMT gregs-news@idleaire.com (Greg Stooksberry) writes: > My current train of thought is to make all extensions 1+10D numbers > using the N11 special services range of area codes to create > extensions like 1-211-XXX(loc#)-XXXX(slot#)(These extensions will > never be directly dialable from the PSTN). What you want is the telephony equivalent of the IETF's reservation of certain IP address blocks for private, non-routable use. I don't think the NANP has ever made provision for such a block of numbers. Using the N11 ranges might be a problem as more of those get assigned to useful local services. Rather than try to fit into the NANP numbering scheme, you might be better off to choose an unused country code. I think there actually are some of those reserved. Doing that would allow you to use any numbering plan that you wanted within the "country", not just 10d. Dave Close, Compata, Costa Mesa CA "Politics is the business of getting dave@compata.com, +1 714 434 7359 power and privilege without dhclose@alumni.caltech.edu possessing merit." - P. J. O'Rourke ------------------------------ From: ptownson@telecom-digest.org (Telecom Digest Editor) Subject: First of the Month Nagware Notice Date: Wed, 01 May 2002 18:00:00 Here it is the first of the month again, and time for a nagware message from the editor/publisher. If you can help with the costs of producing this Digest, your help will be greatly appreciated. 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End of TELECOM Digest V20 #238 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu May 2 22:27:50 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id WAA17098; Thu, 2 May 2002 22:27:50 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 2 May 2002 22:27:50 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200205030227.WAA17098@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #239 TELECOM Digest Thu, 2 May 2002 22:25:00 EDT Volume 20 : Issue 239 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Cingular Selling Features Broken; But Are They Really (Christopher Wolf) Re: Ringback/Revertive, Other Tests (was Re: Explain Payphone Trick) (jl) Re: Motorola V60c Field Test Mode (StealthMidget) Siemens Gigaset 8825 (pete) The Telesleaze Scammers Respond (Mark Crispin) McCain Statement on Missed DTV Deadline (Monty Solomon) Best Buy Closes Wireless Registers (Monty Solomon) Re: WorldCom Concerns (LARB0) Re: Yahoo Users Must Act Now to Protect Privacy (Kim Brennan) Re: Obituary for Comm Pioneer John Pierce (Ed Sharpe) Re: Alcatel 7170/Newbridge 36170 Pin Assignment Requested (Heath Doane) Last Laugh! Re: AT&T Sparkletone for AT&T Unlimited (Paul Erickson) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 02 May 2002 16:19:16 -0500 From: Christopher Wolf Organization: Texas Instruments Subject: Cingular Selling Features Known to be Broken; Are They Really? I purchased a new Nokia 3360 from Cingular Wireless in Houston, TX this past week, partially because the phone had the ability to easily send email to any address (in addition to the SMS capabilities to other phones). This service costs several dollars per month for a fixed number of messages sent and/or received. But after finding the service was misconfigured and spending several hours on the phone with customer support, they informed me the service is known to be broken! (It's not known why they didn't tell me this 3:59:00 earlier.) The problem? When sending email from the phone, the Cingular network sends the message with the wrong email address. Any attempts by the recipient to respond to the email result in a bounced/returned message to them with a "no such user" message from the Cingular mail server. According to tech support, this is broken for all of Houston, which amazes me. Furthermore, there is currently no-one assigned to this issue, and there is no scheduled completion date for a repair. (According to tech support, I should type additional text at the end of each message I send informing the recipient that they cannot respond to this email message and ask them to send their reponse to a different email address that will work.) This is not an issue with the phone, but rather with the (mis)configuration of the Cingular network. Is anyone out there in the Houston area capable of sending an email (not SMS) message and having it sent out with a legal email address that can be responded to? I'm trying to figure out if this is just a recent bug they've created and if it's possible to get this fixed. I can't believe they're selling a service which does not work for anyone; I really believe I just need to find the "right" technician to fix this, but have no idea how to get to them. Isn't this at least some sort of violation (FCC?) for selling a telecommunications feature and accepting payment for it when it's known not to work? -W ------------------------------ From: josheverett2000@hotmail.com (jl) Subject: Re: Ringback/Revertive, Other Tests (re: Explain Payphone Trick) Date: 2 May 2002 15:53:28 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ > Do you know the code to make the phone ring by itself in area code 626??? Mark J Cuccia wrote in message news:: > jl (josheverett2000@hotmail.com) wrote: >> What is the code that makes a payphone ring by itself??? > and moderator Pat replied: >> First of all, payphones are no different than any other type of >> (wired) phone in this respect. Whatever code makes the phone on your >> desk ringback will also work on the corner payphone (assuming it is on >> the same exchange). > The only problem is now that so many payphones or other forms of > public phones out there are now COCOTs or "COCOT-like", even many > telco-owned and AT&T-owned coin/pay/public phones are "COCOT-like" > now-a-days ... > Mark J. Cuccia ------------------------------ From: stealthmidget519@hotmail.com (StealthMidget) Subject: Re: Motorola V60c Field Test Mode Date: 2 May 2002 16:46:44 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ John R. Covert" wrote in message news:: > As is "well known", the relatively new Motorola V60c CDMA Tri-Mode > phone has a "Field Test" Mode which displays a couple of screenfuls > of live information. It is enabled by entering "Menu 073887 *" and > supplying the six-digit security code (000000 unless changed) at > the prompt. Once enabled, it is toggled with "Menu ". > The first screen looks like this right now on my phone: > > 128 63 1 19C466 > 464 138 0 IDL MR > 87 N/A 00.00 1 > 0 28 0 6 > I believe that "466" is the channel, and I know that "28" is the > active system ID, but the rest is mostly a mystery. Would someone > please post to the Digest a full explanation? > I have a V60g Tri-Band phone on the way to me as well, and am curious > if one of our readers knows whether it has a similar test mode and any > details thereof. > I also note with some annoyance that the "professional" (installed) > car kit which I purchased with the V60g states that it works with > all V60 phones, that Motorola told me that it works with both the > V60c and V60g, and the portable one is documented on the Motorola > web site for both, but that the web site does not list a car kit > for the V60g and states that the one I bought is for the V60c and > V60t. We'll find out soon what the real story is here. Hey John, I have a question ... I turned on field test mode, and turned the phone off and back on. Field test mode is still active, but it won't let me enter my unlock code. I know I would be at the "Enter Unlock Code" screen, even though I can't see it. I enter it, try pressing menu + right key, but it won't accept it. Suggestions? Currently, I'm locked out of my phone =\. Thanks in advance. Chris ------------------------------ From: pete Subject: Siemens Gigaset 8825 Organization: AT&T Broadband Date: Fri, 03 May 2002 00:12:01 GMT Well I picked up an 8825 system and so far I'm underwhelmed. the handsets click and pop like crazy. they seem to have substituted this for the dropout nature of the 2420. the interesting thing is the caller on the other end of the line doesn't hear the noises, so I guess that's an improvement over the 2420. (I've tried this with 4 different handsets and they all have the same problem) the range and sound clarity is far worse than my old Uniden 900 MHz DSS phone too. Now it could be fighting with the Apple Airport wireless 2.4 ghz network, the walls or maybe the computers that are turned on throughout the house, but I think part of the problem is the (unextendable) short antennas built into the handsets and the base. truly a shame since they improved upon the 2420 in other ways. ------------------------------ From: Mark Crispin Subject: The Telesleaze Scammers Respond Organization: Pandamonium Reigns Date: Thu, 02 May 2002 20:52:15 GMT I received two letters today, one from each of the Florida based telesleaze who called me at my residence phone with a prerecorded telephone solicitation in spite of the No Solicitation service on that phone. The first one was from Integrated Credit Solutions, which telespams their 800-774-1130 number and was recently fined $41,000 by the State of New York for their activities. They claim, and I quote "Because ICS markets on behalf of tax-exempt nonprofit organizations, ICS's use of prerecorded messages sent on behalf of tax exempt nonprofit organizations who offer their financial management services to the public is in full compliance of the TCPA." The second was from Gerald K. Burton who apparently is One Set Price's (which telespams their 888-329-7577 number) corporate lawyer. This letter threatened to sue me if I should have the temerity to seek to recover the $500 damages owed me under the TCPA. They claim, and I quote "at no time did you have a telephone conversation with anyone when your telephone number was dialed; only a message was left. Further, the telephone call was not for the purpose of encouraging someone to purchase property, goods, or services. It was merely an invitation to attend a free seminar." -- Mark -- http://panda.com/mrc Socialism: If you build it, they will leave. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Let's see, that's 888-329-7577 and 800-774-1130 which need special attention. And the shyster lawyer, Mr. Burton would have you believe that the invitation to the seminar was not for the purpose of *eventually* selling you something. It reminds me of these hopeless guys who go door to door with encyclo- pedia sales, and they won't ever admit they are selling anything, all they are doing is 'making a presentation' or 'conducting a survey'. The encyclopedia set will be free if you give your opinion and promise to buy the annual updates which over twenty years come out to more money than the entire encyclopedia set (which they are claim they are not selling.) Remember those guys when they used to go door to door making their pitches? By the way, if you said you did not want the annual updates to the encyclopedia, their response would be that now they 'were not certain you were the kind of person who should be trusted with this valuable set of books if you were not going to take care of it with annual updates,' etc. That lawyer sounds like a real loser himself doesn't he? Readers know what to do with 888-329-7577 and 800-774-1130. Add them to your business directories, of course. Above all, don't abuse them or harass their owners. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 2 May 2002 08:56:15 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: McCain Statement on Missed DTV Deadline Washington, DC -- Senator John McCain (R-AZ), Ranking Republican of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, today made the following statement on the Senate floor regarding the May 1, 2002, digital television transition deadline: "The date May 1st is significant in U.S. history for major technological achievements. On this day in 1935, the Boulder Dam, later renamed for President Herbert Hoover, was completed. On May 1, 1947, radar for commercial and private aircraft was first demonstrated. On May 1, 1844, Samuel Morse sent the first telegraphic message. Each of these achievements represented significant technological milestones that have greatly benefitted millions of Americans. http://mccain.senate.gov/dtvfloor02.htm ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 2 May 2002 09:05:15 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Best Buy Closes Wireless Registers Hackers say credit card data vulnerable; other retailers at risk By Bob Sullivan MSNBC May 1 - Think you are safe from the cryptic world of wireless computer hacking? Think again. Security researchers who study wireless networks have found another embarrassing information leak, this one involving well-known retail giants. Some stores use cash registers with wireless networks that beam data -- including credit card numbers -- to a central computer elsewhere in the store. But a hacker can sit in a store's parking lot and "listen in" to the data. Indeed, consumer electronics retailer Best Buy Co. shut off wireless cash registers at its stores Wednesday after being alerted to the potential problem, saying it was investigating the issue. http://www.msnbc.com/news/746380.asp ------------------------------ From: larb0@aol.com (LARB0) Date: 02 May 2002 13:49:10 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: WorldCom Concerns I would think you should be on the lookout for a deterioration of customer service. Not necessarily related strictly to their woes, cost cutting and consolidations can impact the number of support people as well as their quality. Plus, troubles like this can create a mass migration of talented people to other companies ... ------------------------------ From: kimbrennan@aol.comfrtz.com (KimBrennan) Date: 02 May 2002 16:50:10 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: Yahoo Users Must Act Now to Protect Privacy > There really is no risk to Yahoo! to provide such "lost account" > services. If the creator of the account abandoned the e-mail address, > they can't be delivered to the correct person in any case. > In short, Yahoo! needs to ensure that all of the members of their > lists have actually "opted in" to them. But it appears that Yahoo! > really doesn't care about having an "opt-in" list I'm going to partially disagree with you. Yahoo (and other companies) often times make no effort to even validate the email address submitted to them by new members. And the result is valid email address that become worthless because of 1) users who do not understand what their email address is, and 2) refusal of Yahoo (or other companies) to remove erroneous email addresses and block their usage in the future. I have the email address "kim@aol.com". All single name (and most 3 letter) email addresses at AOL are pretty much worthless as general purpose email addresses due to this problem. This problem can occur at other ISPs if they are selling enough to the mindless masses, er, consumers. MSN comes to mind. All groups not only need opt-in (real opt-in), but also validation of email addresses (and a way to block selected email addresses. "I'm sorry, all my money is tied up in currency." W.C.Fields ------------------------------ From: Ed Sharpe Reply-To: Ed Sharpe Subject: Re: Obituary: Comm Pioneer (and SF Writer, musician) John Pierce Organization: Coury House / SMECC To view some of the articles that John did for the museum go to http://www.smecc.org . Click on the links next to Pierce's picture. We will all miss him ... ed sharpe archivist for smecc ------------------------------ From: Heath Doane Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Alcatel 7470/Newbridge 36170 Pin Assignment Requested. Organization: Bell Sympatico Alex Siu wrote in message news:telecom20.235.10@telecom-digest.org: > Dear all, > I have searched the web in order to find some docs about how to > connect a Alcatel 7470/Newbridge 36170 to a modem, such that I can > dial through modem to remote access the node. But I couldn't find > related information. > Can anyone please send me the cable pin assignment information? It's not so much the cable as it is the modem ... First off; to which port on the '170 are you trying to connect? What I've done before, is connect (using a null modem cable) a USR courier to the RS-232 port of the CCIP. In the modem, you need to lock the port speed, overide DTR, and put the modem into auto-answer mode. Once that's all in place (usually takes me 3-4 times to get all the options right -- should be a simple matter of calling in, sending a few carriage returns, and logging in ... Good Luck, and remember - YMMV ... Heath ------------------------------ From: Paul Erickson Subject: Last Laugh! Re: AT&T Sparkletone for AT&T Unlimited Date: Thu, 2 May 2002 13:32:58 -0400 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com ROTFLMAO. Monty Solomon wrote in message news:telecom20.237.19@telecom-digest.org: > AT&T unveils powerful new feature to enhance popular AT&T > Unlimited offer > - May 1, 2002 10:25 AM (BusinessWire) > BASKING RIDGE, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 1, 2002--AT&T > New technology automatically notifies subscribers when they've > reached one of AT&T's 50 million customers. > AT&T today announced a powerful new enhancement to its popular AT&T > Unlimited offer that automatically informs subscribers when they have > placed a call to another AT&T residential customer. The new "AT&T > Sparkletone(sm)" enhancement will deliver an audible message > announcing that the called party is an AT&T customer. > "We've just made a very simple plan even simpler," said Betsy Bernard, > president and CEO of AT&T Consumer. "All a customer has to do is dial > and listen for the AT&T Sparkletone confirmation, which ensures > they're receiving the best value in long distance calling. They can > then talk for as long as they'd like and, of course, whenever they'd > like." > http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=27016044 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yeah that Betsy, she's a real riot isn't she. No matter that the audible announcement may interupt a modem transmission or a fax transmission or otherwise mess with a device that depends on ringing/busy/intercept tones/messages to do its thing. The important thing is that everyone be alerted to the fact that the called party is an AT&T customer. Hey Betsy, we *all* used to be AT&T customers in the old days; it was partly AT&T's arrogance which got them the axe back in the early 1980's. PAT] ------------------------------ 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-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 620-870-9697 Fax : 775-255-9970 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@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 * * Judith Oppenheimer, President of ICB Inc. and purveyor of accurate * * 800 & Dot Com News, Intelligence, Analysis, and Consulting. * * http://ICBTollFree.com, http://1800TheExpert.com * * Views expressed herein should not be construed as representing * * views of Judith Oppenheimer or ICB Inc. * ************************************************************************* ICB Toll Free News. Contact information is not sold, rented or leased. Access to Premium (P) links requires upgrade to a paid subscription. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Only subscribers or registered users of ICB Toll Free News web site will be able to access all or some of the full text of URLs provided. LEGAL STUFF: TELECOM Digest (sm) is owned by Patrick Townson. Copyright 2000 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. 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. End of TELECOM Digest V20 #239 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri May 3 14:15:29 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id OAA00105; Fri, 3 May 2002 14:15:29 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 14:15:29 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200205031815.OAA00105@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #240 TELECOM Digest Fri, 3 May 2002 14:13:00 EDT Volume 20 : Issue 240 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Best Way to Keep Children Safe on the Net (Patrick Townson) Re: Cellular Phone Forwarding (Brian Elfert) Re: Cellular Phone Forwarding (John R. Covert) Re: Tariffs Library (Michael D. Sullivan) As American as a Wireless U. (Monty Solomon) It's "Merge, Buy, or Die" in Telecom (Monty Solomon) Five Years in Jail For Mobile Phone Fraudsters (Ed Ellers) Re: Chicago, Telecom, etc. (Gail M. Hall) Re: Last Laugh! Re: AT&T Sparkletone for AT&T Unlimited (Jack Dominey) Re: Cingular Wireless Features Broken; Are They Really? (Tom Brown) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Patrick Townson Subject: Best Way to Keep Children Safe on the Net Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 11:34:59 -0500 There are so many stories in the media lately about children and sex things. One of the big things in recent years has been demands on librarians and schools to have filters on the Internet connection in the school, so that kids won't be able to see much of the net. We know the problems with that approach. There is no such thing as a computerized filter that will cover all the angles while not stepping on good, valid web sites/news, etc. Nothing takes the place of good human judgment. The most practical, and effecient solutions are ignored. People on both sides of this matter with axes to grind, for example, people who would allows no controls of any kind on the net want one thing; people like fundamentalist Christians who want massive controls on the net go the other way. None of them seem willing or interested in listening to suggestions from anyone else or ways to solve large chunks of the problem. **Nothing is ever going to protect a hundred percent of the children a hundred percent of the time.** Not these days, with our sophisticated communications setups, etc. But here are some things that would work for much of the problem: (You may close your eyes and plug your ears now rather than listen to reason if you wish). They are talking about so many new, different TLD's. Have a TLD called .lib for library or .k-12 for schools. If they insist, pass a law forbidding connection between any .lib or .k-12 identified site and any .xxx site. You must know what top level domain .xxx would be. Move all the schools that are in .org and .com and wherever into .k-12 or the new .lib domain. Have all the .xxx sites refuse connections to incoming calls from .k-12 and .lib What could be so difficult about that? Make all hard-core porn move out of .com and into .xxx The way .com is used now, it seems by many unsophisticated people, (and that inclues some school teachers, librarians, many parents, etc) treat .com as the default ending for all web sites. For instance, a few days ago here in Independence, some school kids went to the public library to do a report on the White House. They decided to see what the internet had about the White House. Well, whitehouse.com is not the place to look (laugh). The librarian went over the the terminals to see what the kids were doing and just about had a fit when she saw what whitehouse.com brought them. She was not a prude, but she said that sort of thing would cause hassles for the library if 'certain parents' found out the kids had seen it. The trouble is the kids had 'just assumed' .com went after the phrase 'whitehouse', since everything else on the web had .com after it that they looked at. Obviously moving all hard-core out of .com and into .xxx would deal with that, especially if schools and libraries did not as their practice, connect with .xxx, stopping their routers from going there or 'taking back' any connections they found had gotten there somehow. Does anyone know what objections have been raised to using .xxx or domains like .lib and .k-12 ?? Bear in mind, nothing works one hundred percent. We just hope it works better than the present system. I think there could also be a TLD such as .kid and parents could enroll their home computer in that if they wished. Another thing is there has to be more education, rather than flimsy software filters in place. Here is an article from the news ticker I run on my screen today I thought you might like. (Ticker runs across the screen, you click on the desired headline and a browser opens with the full story. > http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/176303.html > This news story referral is a service of WorldFlash Software, Inc. > http://www.worldflash.com It really gets tiresome listening to people (who think they know all about computers but really know almost nothing) talking about filters and freedom and all that when the solutions are much simpler to implement. Patrick Townson ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Cellular Phone Forwarding From: Brian Elfert Date: Fri, 03 May 2002 13:49:22 GMT johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) writes: > (On the other hand, then there's Verizon's "America's Choice" plan in > which airtime on their network or one of an ill-defined set of > partners is free in the package, airtime on everyone else's network is > 65 cents a minute. Better hope your roam indicator works right.) On a Verizon Wireless plan, the roam indicator comes on every time you leave your home area, even if you are in an area served by Verizon Wireless. I am a customer in Minneapolis/St. Paul. When I go to Chicago, the roam indicator is on even though the service is from Verizon Wireless. The roam indicator is fairly worthless for determining if you will pay for roaming for America's Choice. I have Regional Single Rate. I pay no roaming charges at all in 12 states. I was going to switch to America's Choice, but I checked closer and found that the rural areas where I need the free roaming were not covered. America's Choice is only good for someone who moves from one large metro area to another. Brian Elfert ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 10:56:21 EDT From: John R. Covert Subject: Re: Cellular Phone Forwarding > With GSM carriers, OTOH, forwarding (even to voicemail) is done by the > VLR the customer is linked to at the time That's not necessarily so. It is true of SOME conditional forwarding (busy/unreachable/no answer) but not of ALL of it. Some versions of the GSM software allow the VLR to communicate "busy" back to the home system, and some will even do so on "unreachable"; a few even on "no answer". In almost every case where the "unreachable" condition has lasted for a reasonable amount of time (or the phone was physically switched off while in a coverage area), the VLR will communicate that fact back to the home system, at which point the home system can take over. In almost every case of "call forward all calls" (GSM **21*), the information is immediately sent to the home system and all forwarding is done at home no matter where the subscriber is at the moment. /john ------------------------------ From: Michael D. Sullivan Subject: Re: Tariffs Library Date: Fri, 03 May 2002 02:30:58 GMT In article , fgoodwin@yahoo.com says: > Andrew Kauffman wrote in > news:telecom20.237.12@telecom-digest.org: >> Does anyone know of a good tariff library? > The FCC allows public access to carrier tariffs via its Electronic > Tariff Filing System: > http://svartifoss2.fcc.gov/prod/ccb/etfs/ > They're not terribly user-friendly, but you can browse and look for > things called "base tariff filings". Given that the FCC has detariffed essentially all domestic and international long-distance service, I don't think you will find much there that will be of use. I think the only tariffs that still need to be filed (or that are permitted to be filed) are access tariffs and dominant carrier international tariffs. I think that what the original poster is looking for is "tariffs" or "rate plans" for long-distance service. These have to be obtained from carriers' web sites, as a practical matter. There are commercial "tariff libraries" that compile this information, for use in PBX and LCR programming. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 01:18:58 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: As American as a Wireless U. CHICAGO -- At Washington's American University this fall, students will be able to check their grades, see if a class has been canceled or mix sunbathing with Web surfing on their laptop computers over a new first-of-its kind wireless network. The 10,000-student institution in the nation's capital said Wednesday it plans to become the first fully integrated wireless university by getting rid of telephone lines and installing a wireless system to handle voice, data and messaging. http://www.wired.com/news/wireless/0,1382,52234,00.html ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 01:37:36 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: It's "Merge, Buy, or Die" in Telecom SPECIAL REPORT: TELECOM'S NEW SHAPE It's "Merge, Buy, or Die" in Telecom Although even the strongest players carry enough debt to make them questionable suitors, sweeping consolidation seems inevitable The man with the cowboy boots is gone. Throughout a 17-year ride in the phone industry, Bernard Ebbers cultivated a rebel image with his penchant for Western wear and his iconoclastic take on the phone business. His revolution ended on Apr. 30, when he resigned as CEO of No. 2 long-distance carrier WorldCom (WCOM), a company he had built by acquisition from his original base as a rural long-distance reseller in Jackson, Miss. Ebbers' abrupt departure -- "this was something I hadn't planned for," says CEO-designate John Sidgmore, the former head of WorldCom's Internet unit -- if nothing else is an indication of the pressure-cooker atmosphere that's reshaping an entire industry. http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/may2002/tc2002051_9262.htm ------------------------------ From: Ed Ellers Subject: Five Years in Jail For Mobile Phone Fraudsters Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 01:56:41 -0400 By Richard Ford, Home Correspondent MOBILE phone thieves face five years in jail under emergency legislation being published today as part of the Government's clampdown on street crime. The Home Office will publish a short Bill making it an offence to reprogramme a mobile phone by putting a new identity number on a stolen handset, so that the manufacturers are unable to trace it. Anyone convicted of the offence could be sentenced to five years' imprisonment once the Bill becomes law - probably by the summer. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-285667,00.html ------------------------------ From: Gail M. Hall Subject: Re: Chicago, Telecom, etc. Date: Fri, 03 May 2002 04:08:19 -0400 Reply-To: gmhall@apk.net On 1 May 2002 17:19:49 -0000, in comp.dcom.telecom, you (kadokev@chicagotribune.com) wrote: > As you can see from my originating address, I'm definitely no longer > in any association with Ripco. I'm only just now starting to post to > usenet primarily because I need this address to start getting lots and > lots of spam mail, so we (Tribune) can better tune our anti-spam > filters :-) Good luck! I'm sure that I have received quite a bit of spam because I post to this group. Interestingly, the first address in the long list on the To line was no.email.address@telecom-digest.com. Obviously the spammer didn't do such a hot job of filtering out obviously spambot-proofing addresses. For anyone who didn't get this spam, the sender was shown as "Jamie Williams" . Whether Jamie is the true sender or a victim, I don't know. But the addresses did look like they were harvested from the Telecom Digest. The Trib couldn't afford to filter out all hotmail addresses, but I do, so that message ended up in my "May be Junk" folder. He did a lousy job of creating the message, too, so it isn't clear what he is selling or how to get there. No toll-free number to "investigate" his service or wares. Our local paper, the *Plain Dealer*, asks people writing legitimate letters to the paper to provide name, address and phone number in the email message. The paper also provides telephone numbers as well as email addresses for most of the writers at the ends of the articles they contribute to or write. I'm sure those writers get a lot of spam, too, but they probably feel they get more benefit from reader feedback than they are inconvenienced by spammers. I suspect they may have other email addresses for more serious business from within the Plain Dealer's own staff and contacts groups. I really appreciated that the paper provided a contact number for the "Events" person right after 9/11 when an event a family member was involved with had to be canceled and the PD events person hadn't got word from the event sponsor/coordinator. The PD person was able to call the event sponsor's toll-free number and verify the cancellation. That meant only a one-day delay in announcing the event cancellation. Gail from Ohio USA ------------------------------ From: Jack Dominey Subject: Re: Last Laugh! Re: AT&T Sparkletone for AT&T Unlimited Date: Fri, 03 May 2002 09:13:42 -0400 Organization: The Maynard G. Krebs Memorial Work(!?)station Reply-To: look@my.sig Monty Solomon wrote in message news:telecom20.237.19@telecom-digest.org: > The new "AT&T > Sparkletone(sm)" enhancement will deliver an audible message > announcing that the called party is an AT&T customer. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yeah that Betsy, she's a real riot > isn't she. No matter that the audible announcement may interupt a > modem transmission or a fax transmission or otherwise mess with a > device that depends on ringing/busy/intercept tones/messages to do > its thing. The important thing is that everyone be alerted to the > fact that the called party is an AT&T customer. Yo, Pat. You only get the tone if you're on AT&T Unlimited, in which case some people might consider it useful to know whether the call is being charged at 7 cents/min or 0 cents/min. It's possible that the tone might muck up a modem or fax machine -- although I hope the developers thought of that and worked around it -- but the vast majority of the users will be voice only. No calling plan will be perfect for everyone. Heck, I'm an AT&T employee, and I don't plan to use Unlimited. I don't make enough out-of-state calls to justify the twenty dollars a month. Jack Dominey jack_dominey (at) email (dot) com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Does the zero cents per minute rate apply for the caller as well as the recipient? If the caller is the person on the AT&T Unlimited Plan, he already knows what he is paying and not paying. What the recipient is on would not matter unless this plan is giving a free call in both directions. Is that how the plan works? If that's the case, that two Unlimited connections results in a free call at all times for both parties, then a friend and I could each get a modem and an AT&T Unlimited account and have a 24 hour per day coast to coast private circuit modem connection which I assure you would cost a lot more than the callers are paying under unlimited. How DOES this plan work exactly? PAT] ------------------------------ From: kibri@eudoramail.com (Tom Brown) Subject: Re: Cingular Selling Features Known to be Broken; Are They Really? Date: 3 May 2002 10:24:42 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Christopher Wolf wrote in message news:: > I purchased a new Nokia 3360 from Cingular Wireless in Houston, TX > this past week, partially because the phone had the ability to easily > send email to any address (in addition to the SMS capabilities to > other phones). This service costs several dollars per month for a > fixed number of messages sent and/or received. > But after finding the service was misconfigured and spending several > hours on the phone with customer support, they informed me the service > is known to be broken! (It's not known why they didn't tell me this > 3:59:00 earlier.) > The problem? When sending email from the phone, the Cingular network > sends the message with the wrong email address. Any attempts by the > recipient to respond to the email result in a bounced/returned message > to them with a "no such user" message from the Cingular mail server. > According to tech support, this is broken for all of Houston, which > amazes me. Furthermore, there is currently no-one assigned to this > issue, and there is no scheduled completion date for a repair. > (According to tech support, I should type additional text at the end > of each message I send informing the recipient that they cannot > respond to this email message and ask them to send their reponse to a > different email address that will work.) This is not an issue with > the phone, but rather with the (mis)configuration of the Cingular > network. > Is anyone out there in the Houston area capable of sending an email > (not SMS) message and having it sent out with a legal email address > that can be responded to? I'm trying to figure out if this is just a > recent bug they've created and if it's possible to get this fixed. I > can't believe they're selling a service which does not work for > anyone; I really believe I just need to find the "right" technician to > fix this, but have no idea how to get to them. > Isn't this at least some sort of violation (FCC?) for selling a > telecommunications feature and accepting payment for it when > it's known not to work? As A Cingluar Subscriber in San Francisco, I can tell you that here you are lucky if you get anything other than a all circuits busy announcement when you try to make a call. I shudder to think at doing e-mail with them. My Friend the problem is system wide, too many subscribers, careless management. if you can take the phone back and get another provider. SBC bought Pacific Bell, and Pac Bell Mobil (later wireless). Overall complaints have risen dramatically since they took over in California. The problem is SBC managemnet. If you can try another cell phone company that works. Tom [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: When this thread started here yesterday I got suspicious about my own phone. In addition to my AT&T Wireless phone which works fair, I also have a Cingular Wireless phone I bought here in Independence. I *have not* been able to get the email function working at all. Its a Nokia 5165 phone, identical to my AT&T phone, except that AT&T keep their's locked so you can't take it to any competitor and get it turned on with them instead. So I had to take an entirely new phone to get Cingluar/Cell One/Alltel which are the three carrier we get here in town. If I cannot get the email thing to work, or work correctly, I am going to take the phone back and get a refund. PAT] ------------------------------ 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-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 620-870-9796 Fax : 775-255-9970 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@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 * * Judith Oppenheimer, President of ICB Inc. and purveyor of accurate * * 800 & Dot Com News, Intelligence, Analysis, and Consulting. * * http://ICBTollFree.com, http://1800TheExpert.com * * Views expressed herein should not be construed as representing * * views of Judith Oppenheimer or ICB Inc. * ************************************************************************* ICB Toll Free News. Contact information is not sold, rented or leased. Access to Premium (P) links requires upgrade to a paid subscription. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Only subscribers or registered users of ICB Toll Free News web site will be able to access all or some of the full text of URLs provided. LEGAL STUFF: TELECOM Digest (sm) is owned by Patrick Townson. Copyright 2000 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. 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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. End of TELECOM Digest V20 #240 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat May 4 23:12:12 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id XAA29590; Sat, 4 May 2002 23:12:12 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sat, 4 May 2002 23:12:12 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200205050312.XAA29590@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #241 TELECOM Digest Sat, 4 May 2002 23:13:00 EDT Volume 20 : Issue 241 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Cingular Selling Features Known to be Broken; (John McHarry) Re: Cingular Selling Features Known to be Broken; (Paul Erickson) Re: AT&T "Sparkletone" for AT&T Unlimited (Mark J. Cuccia) Re: Last Laugh! Re: AT&T Sparkletone for AT&T Unlimited (John R. Levine) Re: Cellular Phone Forwarding (Michael D. Sullivan) Re: WorldCom Concerns (hogpilot) Re: Best Way to Keep Children Safe on the Net (Tom Schmidt) Re: Best Way to Keep Children Safe on the Net (Sellcom Tech Support) Re: Best Way to Keep Children Safe on the Net (Dave Garland) Employment Opportunity: CDMA Professional Needed (Michele Locke) Re: Tariffs Library (Andrew Kauffman) Re: Siemens Gigaset 8825 (Sellcom Tech Support) FCC Runs Afoul With Court on Internet Call Payment (Monty Solomon) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John McHarry Subject: Re: Cingular Selling Features Known to be Broken; Are They Really? Organization: Giganews.Com - Premium News Outsourcing Date: Sat, 04 May 2002 00:27:37 GMT Christopher Wolf wrote: > I purchased a new Nokia 3360 from Cingular Wireless in Houston, TX > this past week, partially because the phone had the ability to easily > send email to any address (in addition to the SMS capabilities to > other phones). This service costs several dollars per month for a > fixed number of messages sent and/or received. > But after finding the service was misconfigured and spending several > hours on the phone with customer support, they informed me the service > is known to be broken! (It's not known why they didn't tell me this > 3:59:00 earlier.) > The problem? When sending email from the phone, the Cingular network > sends the message with the wrong email address. Any attempts by the > recipient to respond to the email result in a bounced/returned message > to them with a "no such user" message from the Cingular mail server. > According to tech support, this is broken for all of Houston, which > amazes me. Furthermore, there is currently no-one assigned to this > issue, and there is no scheduled completion date for a repair. > (According to tech support, I should type additional text at the end > of each message I send informing the recipient that they cannot > respond to this email message and ask them to send their reponse to a > different email address that will work.) This is not an issue with > the phone, but rather with the (mis)configuration of the Cingular > network. Why don't you just take the pig back and demand a full refund? It was dead on arrival. ------------------------------ From: Paul Erickson Subject: Re: Cingular Selling Features Known to be Broken; Are They Really? Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 14:50:15 -0400 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com AT&T Wireless's email servers have been slow for at least the past two years and they don't seem to care. I have my web server monitor notify me when there is a connectivity problem and it date/timestamps the problem in the body of the email message. I routinely get these messages 12 hours later. I now rely on my Skytel pager for time-critical messages. The sad state of AT&T's mail servers is ironic with them pushing this new "mlife" marketing campaign crap. They can't even send a 200 character simple email message ONE WAY on a timely basis. Paul Tom Brown wrote in message news:telecom20.240.10@telecom-digest.org: > Christopher Wolf wrote in message > news:: >> I purchased a new Nokia 3360 from Cingular Wireless in Houston, TX >> this past week, partially because the phone had the ability to easily >> send email to any address (in addition to the SMS capabilities to >> other phones). This service costs several dollars per month for a >> fixed number of messages sent and/or received. >> But after finding the service was misconfigured and spending several >> hours on the phone with customer support, they informed me the service >> is known to be broken! (It's not known why they didn't tell me this >> 3:59:00 earlier.) >> The problem? When sending email from the phone, the Cingular network >> sends the message with the wrong email address. Any attempts by the >> recipient to respond to the email result in a bounced/returned message >> to them with a "no such user" message from the Cingular mail server. >> According to tech support, this is broken for all of Houston, which >> amazes me. Furthermore, there is currently no-one assigned to this >> issue, and there is no scheduled completion date for a repair. >> (According to tech support, I should type additional text at the end >> of each message I send informing the recipient that they cannot >> respond to this email message and ask them to send their reponse to a >> different email address that will work.) This is not an issue with >> the phone, but rather with the (mis)configuration of the Cingular >> network. >> Isn't this at least some sort of violation (FCC?) for selling a >> telecommunications feature and accepting payment for it when >> it's known not to work? > As A Cingluar Subscriber in San Francisco, I can tell you that here > you are lucky if you get anything other than a all circuits busy > announcement when you try to make a call. I shudder to think at doing > e-mail with them. My Friend the problem is system wide, too many > subscribers, careless management. if you can take the phone back and > get another provider. SBC bought Pacific Bell, and Pac Bell Mobil > (later wireless). Overall complaints have risen dramatically since > they took over in California. The problem is SBC managemnet. If you > can try another cell phone company that works. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: When this thread started here > yesterday I got suspicious about my own phone. In addition to my > AT&T Wireless phone which works fair, I also have a Cingular Wireless > phone I bought here in Independence. I *have not* been able to get > the email function working at all. Its a Nokia 5165 phone, identical > to my AT&T phone, except that AT&T keep their's locked so you can't > take it to any competitor and get it turned on with them instead. So > I had to take an entirely new phone to get Cingluar/Cell One/Alltel > which are the three carrier we get here in town. If I cannot get the > email thing to work, or work correctly, I am going to take the phone > back and get a refund. PAT] [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: My phone finally started working the way it should, but I got quite a run-around from Cingular Wireless and the local rep, who had given me the *wrong email address* for my phone. It was supposed to be *number*@mobile.mycingular.com. The local rep said to me originally it was *number*@mycincular.mobile.com. Note the /c/ in the middle instead of /g/ which she got wrong. Note the two parts of the name reversed in error. I told her my AT&T phone put the 'mobile' part first, the 'att' in the middle and it was a 'net' rather than a 'com'. I have since found that all cell phones offering email through the same (apparently) brokered carrier all do it the same way, namely number@mobile.cellconame.net, except that Cingular is in fact a 'com' instead of a 'net'. But the real laugh came when I called the *611 location for Cingular and asked them about it. The woman I talked to swore up and down there was no way to send email on a Nokia 5165 (same as the AT&T phone) and that I would have to buy a much more expensive phone. Then she decided I could *recieve* email sent from a computer but not from a phone. I then told her I had been cheated and would be taking the phone back for a full refund. Ever so nonchalantly she said, 'okay, they will probably give you a refund if you ask.' I knew that taking the phone back would be a huge hassle and told her so. They couldn't even find the phone number of the local store here I went to. When I kept on her case, she reverted to sing-song type answers; 'Yes' and 'No' with little tones in her voice. How I wish AT&T had stayed in this area. I can get AT&T from Tulsa, but that's ninety miles away, and it was precisely the reason I dropped them. They insist on holding you on certain towers until the signal gets *so bad* they have to let you go. Bad in their opinion that is; impossible in my opinion. Now I have the Cingular thing finally working. I dislike any company which puts 'my' in their service such as 'my cinglular'. At least Cingular has 620-870-xxxx which is local and toll free anywhere in the 620 area. I got something better in the deal at least. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 14:09:38 -0500 (CDT) From: Mark J Cuccia Subject: Re: AT&T "Sparkletone" for AT&T Unlimited Jack Dominey replied (to Pat): > You only get the tone if you're on AT&T Unlimited, in which case some > people might consider it useful to know whether the call is being > charged at 7 cents/min or 0 cents/min. It's possible that the tone might > muck up a modem or fax machine -- although I hope the developers thought > of that and worked around it -- but the vast majority of the users will > be voice only. No calling plan will be perfect for everyone. Heck, I'm > an AT&T employee, and I don't plan to use Unlimited. I don't make enough > out-of-state calls to justify the twenty dollars a month. and then Pat replied further: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Does the zero cents per minute rate apply > for the caller as well as the recipient? If the caller is the person on > the AT&T Unlimited Plan, he already knows what he is paying and not > paying. What the recipient is on would not matter unless this plan is > giving a free call in both directions. Is that how the plan works? PAT: The calling party gets "unlimted" (zero cents/min) on domestic (interstate only?) AT&T handled toll calls *ONLY IF* the called party is a *residential* account *with* AT&T as their LD "PIC". *IF* the called party is *NOT* a residential account (i.e., buisness, coin, etc) even though their LD-PIC might be AT&T, or if the called party happens to be residential but has someone else as their PIC (i.e., MCI-Worldcom, US-Sprint, etc), then the calling party who is on this "AT&T Unlimited" plan is going to be charged 7-c/min, 24/7. *THAT'S* why the "sparkle" jingle/branding is used. If you (the customer of AT&T Unlimited) calls an AT&T residential customer (REGARDLESS of what AT&T plan the called customer happens to have), the calling party hears the jingle and gets "free" (zero cents-per-min). But if the called party is *NOT* AT&T-residential, you don't hear a sparkle jingle/branding, and you will be charged 7-cpm (24/7). There are telephone numbers one might call, even for friends and acquaintences, but you don't necessarily know offhand if that is their home or work number. They might have AT&T on their residential number, which would allow the calling AT&T Unlimited customer a 0.0 c/min call. But if you call up that friend's work number (not realizing that it isn't the residential number), even if their work number is PIC'd to AT&T, the calling AT&T Unlimited customer is going to be charged 7-c/min. I doubt that most fax/modem/etc. auto-dialing devices are going to "choke" on a brief (one or two second) 'AT&T' sparkle-jingle/branding. It *MIGHT* happen with *SOME* fax/modem dialers but I think it would be rare. If you are calling a "data port", you still will hear a busy signal or ringing after the jingle plays its brief one-second tune -- heck, depending on how fast the receiving end answers, if this is a fax/data/modem call, you'll probably now be getting the modem tones, and thus a 2-way data connection for the fax/etc. will be established. BTW, AT&T's "sparkle" tone has been around for about ten years now on "OSPS" handled calls -- where you use AT&T's 00, 0+/01+ or 800- acceess for card and operator services. I have sent (personal) faxes from work, that are actually toll/LD calls, but used 800-CALL-ATT and billed them to my *own* personal AT&T card. I have had no problems with the fax machine "choking" on the AT&T branding/jingle, because I am manually placing a telephone call (with additional touchtone entry) *BEFORE* establishing the data service for the fax. A residential user on AT&T Unlimited who is trying to send a fax (to another AT&T residential number) would also be more likely to manually monitor their call. I too use AT&T for most all of my calling. But because most of my AT&T-handled toll calls are made during the day away from my home phone, I prefer to stay on the more beneficial (and grandfathered) AT&T Personal Network plan. This also helps on weekends, when I *am* at home, since I get 1000 mins per month of interstate domestic 1+ calls on this plan. With my calling patterns, I am getting a better deal from AT&T Personal Network, than I would be getting with AT&T Unlimited (or even with MCI's "Neighborhood"). Mark J. Cuccia ------------------------------ Date: 3 May 2002 18:09:21 -0400 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: Last Laugh! Re: AT&T Sparkletone for AT&T Unlimited Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > Yo, Pat. You only get the tone if you're on AT&T Unlimited, in which > case some people might consider it useful to know whether the call is > being charged at 7 cents/min or 0 cents/min. ... > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Does the zero cents per minute rate > apply for the caller as well as the recipient? If the caller is the > person on the AT&T Unlimited Plan, he already knows what he is paying > and not paying. Oh, no he doesn't. The "unlimited" plan is a customer retention gimmick, because it only applies to calls to other AT&T customers. (It's this year's version of the old MCI Friends and Family.) Without the tinkle, there's no reliable way to know which of the people you call are AT&T customers and which aren't until the bill comes. (You can ask, but you know how vague people are about "the phone company" and which phone company's bills they're paying.) Personally, I still like my plan from ECG that charges 4.9 cpm no matter who I call. I don't make anything like the 400 minutes per line per month of interlata calls you'd need to make that plan cost-effective. I have 250 minutes on my cell phone and I don't come close to using even that. 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: I am still waiting to find out what would happen if I (as 'unlimited' AT&T customer) and you (as a plain vanilla AT&T customer) called each other, linked two modems and computers together and then just left them hooked up forever. Would there never be another charge on my bill for calls? PAT] ------------------------------ From: Michael D. Sullivan Subject: Re: Cellular Phone Forwarding Date: Sat, 04 May 2002 03:45:29 GMT On Fri, 03 May 2002 13:49:22 GMT, belfert@visi.com wrote: > On a Verizon Wireless plan, the roam indicator comes on every time you > leave your home area, even if you are in an area served by Verizon > Wireless. I am a customer in Minneapolis/St. Paul. When I go to > Chicago, the roam indicator is on even though the service is from > Verizon Wireless. For the America's Choice plan, you have to have a tri-mode phone and update your phone's roaming list. This is accomplished by dialing *228 and then selecting "update roaming list", which is option 2. I believe that once you have done this, your roam indicator will tell you when you are in or out of the America's Choice areas. Michael D. Sullivan Bethesda, MD, USA (delete NOSPAM from address to mail me) ------------------------------ From: hogpilot Subject: Re: WorldCom Concerns Organization: WebUseNet Corp. http://corp.webusenet.com Date: Sat, 4 May 2002 03:03:41 -0700 Not much migrating going on in this sector's job market at this time. LARB0 wrote in message news:telecom20.239.8@telecom-digest.org: > I would think you should be on the lookout for a deterioration of > customer service. Not necessarily related strictly to their woes, cost > cutting and consolidations can impact the number of support people as > well as their quality. Plus, troubles like this can create a mass > migration of talented people to other companies ... ------------------------------ Reply-To: Tom Schmidt From: Tom Schmidt Subject: Re: Best Way to Keep Children Safe on the Net Date: Fri, 03 May 2002 19:30:07 GMT Patrick Townson wrote in message news:telecom20.240.1@telecom-digest.org: I'm not in favor of gettoizing content on the net. Who decides which content belongs where. Having kids ocassionally stumble on a porn site bothers me much less then hate sites. Why not block them. On second thought why not block anything the government doesn't want us to see. We are dealing with CIPA at our school. CIPA mandates schools install filters to qualify for E-rate finds. The school has no control over what the filter blocks, that is considered a trade secret by the vendor. Lots of legitimate sites get blocked by the filter. With all the problems we face in the world I find it hard to understand all the effort that goes into preventing people from seeing other people naked. /Tom [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I agree with you wholeheartedly. But the debate about kids and porn and child porn, etc is going to go on forever, and filters *just won't do the job* and in fact have proven to be detrimental to the net in many ways. Do you think we are also ghettoizing society or our neighborhoods by hanging a 'must be over 21' sign on the door of taverns? My suggestion was one way of hanging a 'no minors allowed' sign over the front door while letting the people inside continue to do as they wanted. PAT] ------------------------------ Reply-To: Sellcom Tech Support From: Sellcom Tech Support Subject: Re: Best Way to Keep Children Safe on the Net Organization: http://www.sellcom.biz Date: Fri, 03 May 2002 20:29:42 GMT Patrick Townson wrote in message news:telecom20.240.1@telecom-digest.org: > They are talking about so many new, different TLD's. Have a TLD called > .lib for library or .k-12 for schools. If they insist, pass a law > forbidding connection between any .lib or .k-12 identified site and > any .xxx site. You must know what top level domain .xxx would be. Move > all the schools that are in .org and .com and wherever into .k-12 or > the new .lib domain. Have all the .xxx sites refuse connections to > incoming calls from .k-12 and .lib What could be so difficult about > that? Make all hard-core porn move out of .com and into .xxx The Or get a Watchguard 700 or up with weblocker. Regards, Steve at SELLCOM http://www.sellcom.biz Discount multihandset cordless phones Panasonic Siemens EnGenius and more Authorized Twinhead notebooks Okidata printers Watchguard firewalls [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: My objection to any software solution or hardware solution is that the software (as sophisticated as it may be) and the hardware are never a replacement for the human brain. Now if a Watchguard was used with .xxx I think that would be okay. There is no one who can't interpret '.xxx' I don't think. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Dave Garland Subject: Re: Best Way to Keep Children Safe on the Net Organization: Wizard Information Date: Fri, 03 May 2002 22:22:00 -0500 It was a dark and stormy night when Patrick Townson wrote: > any .xxx site. You must know what top level domain .xxx would be. Move > all the schools that are in .org and .com and wherever into .k-12 or > the new .lib domain. Have all the .xxx sites refuse connections to > incoming calls from .k-12 and .lib A good solution, but doesn't go far enough. Create a "minor" domain (.k-12 would do, or .kid, whatever) and require ISPs provide it as well as the usual .com. Key which one is used to the login ("screen name"). A website (any website) could control what went back depending on the domain. Some (perhaps many) websites would choose to block all minor access, just to be safe. And if junior uses daddy's login, make daddy legally responsible and hold the website blameless. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: That is good, except you have to remember there will be those sysadmins who whine about the extra work it will put on them to key the user names to the domains, etc. PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Employment Opportunity: CDMA Professional Needed Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 15:34:17 -0400 From: Michele Locke Dear Sir/Madam My name is Michele Locke and I am currently working on a project that requires our immediate attention. Please review the following client profile (**see below) and should you be interested in this role, please email me back ASAP or call our 1-800 line (1-800-842-5907 ext 5443). Thank you in advance for your consideration. Michele Locke Resource Manager Ajilon Canada 10 Bay Street, 7th Floor Toronto, Ontario M5J 2R8 Tel: (416) 941-5443 Fax: (416) 366-2001 michele.locke@ajilon.ca Ajilon Canada Inc. Contract : Now to end of Sep 2002 in India. Location: India Rate: Open (please include daily including expenses) Profile: Job Description: Act as a consultant to the Client's team and the customer with the goal of achieving successful delivery of the solution, to meet the quality, cost and time goals. Identified as a domain expert and to assist project manager and the reliance lead in the relevant domain area. Good team player. Able to generate reports and papers in the relevant area expertise. Takes ownership of the quality of the delivery. Follow the processes stipulated in the Client's FocusPM methodology. Ultimate objective is to achieve customer satisfaction, and to ensure that the solution meet's end Client's requirements. Preferred Profile: Overall 8+ years of practical experience in designing and developing large-scale software applications. Out of this, 3-5 years experience in CDMA 2000-1X architecture including data services) management processes in a telco environment. Experience in a formal software development environment, with sound knowledge of software engineering practices. Good Knowledge of soft switch architecture and integration issues to IN platform for a mixed network is preferred. Good Exposure to OSS/BSS and System Integration concepts ** The person would need to be of a senior management consultant level. 1(i)A consultant who has a good understanding of CDMA 2000 (ii) Consultant who has been actively involved in CDMA deployment and is aware of the following interfaces: (a) A-Interface (CDMA 2001-A)(IOS) (b) Um-Interface IS-95A (c) B,D,C,E Interface IS-41D (d) Ai-Interface (CDMA 2001-A)(IOS) (e) OTAF- IS 683, IS 725 2. We are looking at people from the switch Vendor side (e.g. Nortel etc...) ------------------------------ From: Andrew Kauffman Subject: Re: Tariffs Library Organization: AT&T Broadband Date: Fri, 03 May 2002 19:44:59 GMT I was not aware of this site, it looks like it will be very cumbersome to go through this. But thank you anyway, I know I will waste many hours now. This site did not have AT&T, Sprint, WCom, or any IXC. Is there a site for IXC tariffs that you know of? BTW, the CCMI product that I used was actually a library. You could sort by carrier, and then on and on. AHK > The FCC allows public access to carrier tariffs via its Electronic > Tariff Filing System: > http://svartifoss2.fcc.gov/prod/ccb/etfs/ > They're not terribly user-friendly, but you can browse and look for > things called "base tariff filings". ------------------------------ Reply-To: Sellcom Tech Support From: Sellcom Tech Support Subject: Re: Siemens Gigaset 8825 Organization: http://www.sellcom.biz Date: Fri, 03 May 2002 20:26:35 GMT pete wrote in message news:telecom20.239.4@telecom-digest.org: > Well I picked up an 8825 system and so far I'm underwhelmed. the > handsets click and pop like crazy. they seem to have substituted this > for the dropout nature of the 2420. the interesting thing is the > caller on the other end of the line doesn't hear the noises, so I > guess that's an improvement over the 2420. (I've tried this with 4 > different handsets and they all have the same problem) the range and > sound clarity is far worse than my old Uniden 900 MHz DSS phone too. > Now it could be fighting with the Apple Airport wireless 2.4 ghz > network, the walls or maybe the computers that are turned on > throughout the house, but I think part of the problem is the > (unextendable) short antennas built into the handsets and the > base. truly a shame since they improved upon the 2420 in other ways. Oh come on now. I'm sure you are a wonderful person and all your friends like you, but let's be fair here. If you are knowingly running two devices on the 2.4Ghz range that are not designed to be compatible what would you expect? Now I do similar things, I have a Panasonic 420B unit mounted about a foot and a half away from a Siemens 2420 Gigaset. Would I be fair to trash either of those for the occasional clicking if we try to use both at the same time? IF, you turn off the other stuff and still have the problem, maybe your phone is defective. Call where you bought it or call Siemens at 888-777-0211 Steve at SELLCOM http://www.sellcom.biz Discount multihandset cordless phones Panasonic Siemens EnGenius and more Authorized Twinhead notebooks Okidata printers Watchguard firewalls ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 17:14:53 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: FCC Runs Afoul With Court on Internet Call Payment FCC runs afoul with court on Internet call payment - May 3, 2002 12:57 PM (Reuters) WASHINGTON, May 3 (Reuters) - The Federal Communications Commission on Friday lost yet another battle in the U.S. appeals court, this time for its efforts to reform how telephone carriers are compensated for consumers dialing up the Internet. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia said the FCC erred by using a particular statute to exclude calls to Internet service providers (ISPs) from the compensation regime in which carriers pay each other for carrying calls on each others' networks. http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=27039861 ------------------------------ 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-copyrighted. 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End of TELECOM Digest V20 #241 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon May 6 22:06:27 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id WAA04571; Mon, 6 May 2002 22:06:27 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 22:06:27 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200205070206.WAA04571@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #242 TELECOM Digest Mon, 6 May 2002 22:07:00 EDT Volume 20 : Issue 242 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Telecom Update (Canada) #331, May 6, 2002 (Angus TeleManagement) Fred Davis Speaks on Wed May 8 at ERN Networking Event (EntreSource) Follow-up (InfinityIC) Mini UHF Crimper (Mike) Ma Bell's Training Films On-Line (Shalom Septimus) Re: Cingular Selling Features Known to be Broken; (Mark Atwood) Re: Cingular Selling Features Known to be Broken; (Joseph Singer) Re: Cingular Selling Features Known to be Broken; (Chip G) Re: Best Way to Keep Children Safe on the Net (Herb Stein) Re: Best Way to Keep Children Safe on the Net (Ron Bean) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 06 May 2002 11:16:11 -0400 From: Angus TeleManagement Subject: Telecom Update (Canada) #331, May 6, 2002 ************************************************************ TELECOM UPDATE ************************************************************ published weekly by Angus TeleManagement Group http://www.angustel.ca Number 331: May 6, 2002 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 ** GROUP TELECOM http://www.gt.ca ** LUCENT TECHNOLOGIES CANADA http://www.lucent.ca ** PRIMUS CANADA: http://www.primustel.ca ** Q9 NETWORKS: http://www.Q9.com ** TELUS: http://www.telus.com ** UNISPHERE NETWORKS: http://www.unispherenetworks.com ************************************************************ IN THIS ISSUE: ** AT&T Canada Cuts Jobs, Capital Spending ** Ottawa Announces CA*net 4 Funding ** Telus Reduces Capital Expenditure ** Call-Net Cuts Losses in Half ** Newfoundland May Ban Cellphone Use by Drivers ** Telus Mobility to Launch National 1X in June ** Melissa Virus Maker Sentenced ** BCE Sued Over BCI Restructuring ** Telus Makes PBX Features Mobile ** More 10-Digit Local Dialing ** RFP for Numbering Administrator ** MTS, SaskTel Rebanding Challenge Denied ** 30% Have High-Speed Internet ** Rogers Has Half-Million High-Speed Customers ** Videotron Cable Employees Set to Strike ** MTS: Higher Sales, Lower Profits ** TeraGo Offers Broadband Internet in GTA ** Transfer of Teleglobe Staff Cancelled ** Unisphere Spins Off Voice Networking ** How to Confront the Spam Crisis ============================================================ AT&T CUTS JOBS, CAPITAL SPENDING: AT&T Canada says it will reduce its work force by 1,000, 19% of the total, by September, and cut its capital spending this year to $200- $220 million, down from $400 million in 2001. ** AT&T and its banking syndicate have amended their lending agreement. AT&T now has "confidence that its business plan is fully funded" through 2003. ** AT&T's first quarter sales were $384 million, down 1.1% from the previous year. Data revenues (including Internet and e-business) increased 3%. EBIDTA rose 21%, to $38 million. OTTAWA ANNOUNCES CA*NET 4 FUNDING: The Ministry of Industry and CANARIE have announced a $110 million funding agreement to build CA*net 4, a 10 Gbps national backbone network that is to be launched this fall. (See Telecom Update #330) http://www.canarie.ca TELUS REDUCES CAPITAL EXPENDITURE: Telus has reduced projected capital expenditure for 2002 to $1.8-2.0 billion, 23% to 31% less than last year. First quarter revenues were $1.70 billion, up 1.6%. EBITDA declined 4.6% to $589 million. Telus added a net 90,500 cellular and 52,000 high-speed Internet subscribers. Data revenue increased 28% to $341 million. CALL-NET CUTS LOSSES IN HALF: Call-Net Enterprises says that its net loss dropped to $91.8 million in the first quarter, 51% less than last year. Revenue of $201.8 million was 23% less than last year. NEWFOUNDLAND MAY BAN CELLPHONE USE BY DRIVERS: The Government of Newfoundland and Labrador has introduced an amendment to the Highway Traffic Act that would ban motorists from using handheld cellphones while driving. TELUS MOBILITY TO LAUNCH NATIONAL 1X IN JUNE: Telus Mobility says that next month it will launch 1XRTT higher-speed data service on its cellular network in major cities from Victoria to Halifax. MELISSA VIRUS MAKER SENTENCED: A U.S. court has sentenced David Smith, creator of the Melissa computer virus, to 20 months in prison for computer theft and sending a damaging computer program. Smith acknowledged that the virus, released in 1999, caused more than US$80 million damage. BCE SUED OVER BCI RESTRUCTURING: A group of BCI's former debtholders has launched a $250 million class-action suit against BCE for allegedly neglecting their interests in BCI's recent restructuring. (See Telecom Update #320) TELUS MAKES PBX FEATURES MOBILE: Telus Mobility's new Wireless Office service, based on technology developed by Ascendent Telecommunications, allows PCS or Mike users to place and receive calls as though they were directly connected to a corporate PBX. The first customer is Calgary- based TransAlta Corporation. MORE 10-DIGIT LOCAL DIALING: Starting July 20, Bell Canada customers in 519, 613, or 705 who make 7-digit local calls to the 905/289 area will hear a recording reminding them to dial the area code. Mandatory 10-digit dialing starts November 16. ** All other carriers made this change in June 2001. Bell delayed until the CRTC ordered it to comply. (See Telecom Update #310) RFP FOR NUMBERING ADMINISTRATOR: In August, the Canadian Numbering Administration Consortium will issue a Request for Proposals for a vendor to serve as Canadian Numbering Administrator from 2004 through 2008. To receive the RFP, notify CNAC by June 15 -- call Max Melnyk at 613-715-9888, or e-mail maxement@hotmail.com. MTS, SASKTEL REBANDING CHALLENGE DENIED: CRTC Telecom Decisions 2002-29 and 2002-30 reject claims by MTS and SaskTel that the Commission made errors in calculating the telcos' costs in last year's "rebanding decision," which also established their subsidy requirement. http://www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/ENG/Decisions/2002/dt2002-29.htm http://www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/ENG/Decisions/2002/dt2002-30.htm 30% HAVE HIGH-SPEED INTERNET: An Ipsos-Reid study released April 30 reports that 75% of Canadian adults now have access to the Internet. 63% can access the Internet from home, and nearly half of these have DSL or cable modem connection. (The sample, interviewed by phone in March, excluded those under 18 years old.) http://www.ipsos-reid.com/media/dsp_displaypr_us.cfm?id_to_view=1491 ROGERS HAS HALF-MILLION INTERNET CUSTOMERS: Rogers Cable signed up its 500,000th customer for Internet high-speed modem on March 31. VIDEOTRON CABLE EMPLOYEES SET TO STRIKE: About 2,200 cable employees have rejected Videotron's contract offer and plan to go on strike Tuesday. MTS: HIGHER SALES, LOWER PROFITS: Manitoba Telecom's first quarter revenues were $290 million, 24% more than last year. Net income declined 25% to $17.5 million. TERAGO OFFERS BROADBAND INTERNET IN GTA: TeraGo Networks now offers high-speed wireless Internet access in Markham and Richmond Hill, Ontario, using unlicensed spectrum. TeraGo says that 1.5 Mbps service, bursting to 10 Mbps, is priced 30%-50% below telco T-1 rates. TRANSFER OF TELEGLOBE STAFF CANCELLED: BCE has cancelled the transfer of 700 Teleglobe employees to Bell Canada that was announced before its decision to cut off long-term funding to Teleglobe. (See Telecom Update #325, 329) UNISPHERE SPINS OFF VOICE NETWORKING: Unisphere Networks is transferring its voice networking division to its parent company, Siemens, and will focus on its Internet router business. HOW TO CONFRONT THE SPAM CRISIS: A tidal wave of junk e-mail threatens to destroy the usefulness of e-mail for business. A special feature in the May issue of Telemanagement, available this week, proposes measures to bring the spam crisis under control. Also in Telemanagement #195: ** Is Your Data Network Ready for Voice? ** Community Networks Bring Broadband to Northern Ontario ** Why IP Telephony Lags in Call Centres Single copies of Telemanagement #194 are $75 each -- call 905-686-5050 ext 500 and charge to Visa, American Express, or Mastercard. Save 49% with a 10-issue subscription -- go to http://www.angustel.ca/teleman/tm-sub.html. ============================================================ 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: TelecomUpdate@add.postmastergeneral.com To stop receiving the e-mail edition, send an e-mail message to: TelecomUpdate@remove.postmastergeneral.com Sending e-mail to these addresses will automatically add or remove the sender's e-mail address from the list. Leave subject line and message area blank. =========================================================== COPYRIGHT AND CONDITIONS OF USE: All contents copyright 2002 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 500. 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: EntreSource Subject: Fred Davis Speaks on Wed May 8 at ERN Networking Event Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 09:39:34 -0700 Reply-To: EntreSource MAY EVENT WITH FRED DAVIS Networking, speaker, hors d'oeuvres, and no-host cocktails. Place: Spenger's Restaurant in Berkeley (directions below) Sponsor: The Entrepreneurs Resource Network www.EntreSource.org Date: Wednesday, May 8 Time: 6 to 8 pm; Introductions at 6:15 sharp. Cost: $20 covers lavish hors d'oeuvres, pay for your own drinks RSVP: No reservations needed. Non-members welcome! Please invite your friends and colleagues to attend! Attendees are encouraged to bring lots of business cards plus promotional materials to be set out on the tables! SPECIAL GUEST SPEAKER FOR MAY 8: FRED DAVIS! Fred Davis has been named "one of the most 100 influential leaders in the computer industry" by MicroTimes and one of the top international "100 computer people" by Eye-com in Japan. Besides his incredible knowledge and background, Fred is a vastly entertaining and enthusiastic speaker. Here is a partial list of his accomplishments: *Authored 13 computer books including the Windows Bible series *Co-founded Ziff-Davis' computer publishing division *Helped launch C/Net, Wired Magazine, The Computer Museum, The Computer Institute, Prosumer Media Corp. *Has appeared on CBS and ABC Evening News and NPR's All Things Considered *Past editor of MacUser, PC Magazine, PC Week *Consultant to Ask Jeeves, Spark Online *Columnist for Computer Life, Windows Magazine, Eye-Com *Quoted by the Wall St Journal, NY Times, US News & World Report, Dime magazine of Japan. Fred will give us his top marketing secrets. Fred@dig-it-now.com www.prosumer.tv/ SPENGER'S: OUR NEW PERMANENT HOME! Monthly networking events are now being held at Spenger's Restaurant in Berkeley on the second Wednesday of every month. And there is a lavish buffet of hors d' oeuvres and a no-host full bar. We must charge $20 per person admission fee to cover the cost of the food, room rental, bar set up, taxes, and gratuity. Please bring cash or a check made out to ERN. Mark your calendar for second Wednesdays! CO-SPONSORS Bay Area Regional Technology Alliance (BARTA) www.barta.org East Bay Small Business Development Center (EBSBDC), www.ebsbdc.org JUNE SPEAKER Bob Epstein will be our speaker for the June 12 event. Bob was a co-founder of Sybase. ENTREPRENEURS RESOURCE NETWORK The Entrepreneurs Resource Network is a nonprofit corporation providing resources, seminars and networking opportunities for entrepreneurs, startups and expanding businesses. For more information about us, see our Web site at www.EntreSource.org DIRECTIONS TO OUR VENUE: SPENGER'S Spenger's Restaurant is at the corner of University Avenue and Fourth Street, one block from the 580/80 freeway. Take the 580/80 freeway to Berkeley. Take the University exit and head east on University Avenue (toward the Berkeley Hills). Turn right at the first signal light onto Sixth Street. Turn right at the first block: Addison. Travel two blocks and turn right again at Fourth Street. Spenger's is ahead, just after the overpass. Park on the street for free. Parking in the lot is free for the first 1.5 hours. If this isn't clear, visit www.MapQuest.com and enter Spenger's address: 1919 Fourth Street, Berkeley. Spenger's was purchased by the same restaurant group that owns Kuleto's in San Francisco. They made minor renovations to the interior, keeping the charm of the old wood rooms with nautical decor. The menu was completely changed. No longer the home of deep fried prawns, the new Spenger's has a very upscale menu with fabulous food. Plan to stay for dinner with your new friends! ------------------------------ From: InfinityIC Subject: The Huge Amount of Spam Received Recently Date: Sat, 4 May 2002 19:13:21 -0700 Isn't it amazing the amount of emails that are received at home, at work now even at lunch? Hand held devices, cell phones with email, wireless laptops. How could any of us have imagined the magnitude of technology? Has anyone seen the amount of viruses flying around this week? Well, should you have received one this week or anytime ever not only are you on someone's bulk email list but you may now be on thousands of other lists too when these types of self replicating worm virus, sends itself to everyone in your address book. And their address book and so on, and so on. However, We do all have virus protection, don't we? Do you really think your friends or someone you thought it necessary to give your email address to would send something like this, a VIRUS to you on purpose? Well, the real question here is, "Whose dance card are they on?" There is a point here. Sure looked innocent enough. Here's a tip. Check to see where some of these emails really came from if you do not know the sender. See how deep some of these lists can go with email addresses. You could be quite surprised, maybe shocked. You can do this by right clicking your mouse on the emails you receive, then click options or properties, then click details. Scroll down and look for how many email addresses are now associated with YOUR email address. Be consistent and check all of your mails or if you would just like to learn more about the Internet and emails in general. You may be astonished at the results, which could vary based on the amount of emails you receive. But the stats are truly high whatever your current exposure. The Internet has come a long way with millions of people coming aboard every day, an all new breed will emerge and far from the skills we may have developed over the years? Are you ready for the "high-tech" kids? This is an age of computers in the classrooms, home computers, laptops, even the video games they play make them keener. Will you really be ready? These people will be relentless and even more determined to offer their multi-million dollar ideas and abilities to whoever has the desire or insight to review it. But we all have the same keys on our keyboards and the most important for unwanted emails of them all? DELETE. So you didn't ask, or have no interest? One click and it's gone. Move on. Who asked? We didn't. We only attempted to follow up with potential members who we offered a free trial membership to. What had amazed us the most was how, not only the people who cannot take the time to rewrite an email but just (click) forward it on. Well, Not quite all. Some do have the time, and by the amount of rambling in the emails we receive, we have concluded that some of you have a lot of extra time. They have the time to flame us, send hate mail, upteen hundreds of removals and also very easily find the time to send insulting, crude, lewd and what could be offensive replies (I have great sense of humor) which now sit in my email account. Now bear in mind that each of these emails has to be processed as a potential member. One who may have a real problem on our website or a question for a better understanding of what we could accomplish for them. So this is fair but it's a viscous circle. Did you know that most of these unsolicited emails you receive are from people who really do not know your email address at all? Isn't it funny when you unsubscribe or return an email with the word "remove" in the subject line you get even more garbage? Well, by returning these emails to the senders you consequently also confirmed your email address as a real working address. This now verified "working address" will indeed become a part of someone's bulk email list somewhere. Can you imagine just how deep a list like that could go, with how many thousands more, multiplied by any number? Extraordinary! Yes it is. Possible? You bet and these lists containing millions of email addresses are bought and sold everyday by the people that revolve around our entire lives. Your bank, your phone company, your supermarket, you name it. There is a list with your name on it and if they haven't gotten to yours yet, they will, guaranteed. But remember now, these same people who continue to create websites to help others, I for one, from the digital world where the office phones are quiet most of the day and only the clatter of the keyboards lets you know that there really are people in those cubicles and offices. Busy? Damn right I am as I'm sure you are as well, but the times changed quickly again. Sorry, most of you missed it. I did. But recovered creatively stronger. So I ask. For creating a service, (that only launched one month ago after being in development for over a year), should we be required to apologize for offering it to those who may have truly asked for information about it? Can we? Should we? No, we will not. Lets not be foolish. We are helping buyers and sellers locate computer chips and electronic components to and from a global market of electronic vendors everyday and these people are far from annoyed or hostile towards us. The rest of you? Well, if you just cannot find the "Delete" key, we'll continue to look forward to all those nice cards and letters from you too. Infinity Integrated Circuits http://www.InfinityIC.com support@InfinityIC.com Infinity Integrated Circuits PO Box 11964 Glendale, AZ 85318 USA Ph: 623-594-1706 Fx: 443-947-2442 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The amount of spam making the rounds and the number of virii has increased dramatically. In the past two weeks alone, the amount of garbage in my inbox is higher and worse than ever. Last Friday, for example, I had over two hundred virii in my inbox. Some days there are a half dozen right in a row. Today there were seven one after the other I think. I also get each day one or two stern notices about getting my computer cleaned out, usually from university sysadmins who got mail which had my name forged on it, and a virus enclosed within. It really is getting bad. PAT] ------------------------------ From: mike@oldmikey.com (Mike) Subject: Mini UHF Crimper Date: 4 May 2002 19:37:17 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Anyone know where I can buy a crimper for the 3 piece Mini UHF connectors like the ones that come with Motorola radios? It looks like a "Service Tool II" Thank You, Mike mike@oldmikey.com ------------------------------ From: Shalom Septimus Subject: Ma Bell's Training Films On-Line Reply-To: druggist@pobox.com Organization: Giganews.Com - Premium News Outsourcing Date: Sun, 05 May 2002 06:41:58 GMT Pat, I recently came across a URL for something called the "Internet Film Archive". This is a group of industrial films from the collection of the Prelinger Archive, "focus[ing] mainly on everyday life, culture, industry, and institutions in North America in the 20th century". They can be viewed online in real-video format, or downloaded. Among the titles are a number of telecom-related films, some for consumers, others for employees. In the first category would be "How to Use the Dial Phone", a seven-minute silent film made by the Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Co. in 1927. This film goes through the procedure of placing a call, beginning with looking up a number in the directory, then demonstrating dialing with a combination of animation and live action. Some of the captions I found interesting were "You have now dialed 3-6623. (Note: The dash (-) is not dialed.)" and "If the party you want to call is not listed in the directory, dial the numeral `8' for information." A few AT&T training films are also in there: "Operator Toll Dialing: Teamwork", "Operator Toll Dialing: Cord Signals" and "Operator Toll Dialing: Dialing", from 1949 or so. I note that they use a "dialing tool", essentially a rod with a knob on the end, rather than having the operator turn the dial with her finger. Other telecom-related titles: Mr. Bell (1947). This one is a half-hour dramatization of the invention of the telephone. (Note that it's a two-reeler, and you have to download each reel separately.) Telephone and Telegraph (1946), a vocational guidance film for people who might be interesting in working in the telecom industry. http://www.archive.org/movies/index.html Shalom Septimus (druggist@pobox.com) don't reply to "From:", it's a spamtrap. Use "Reply-To" instead. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Thanks very much for passing along this interesting archive reference. I trust readers will check it out closely, especially the younger guys who don't remember the old days of the Bell System, etc. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Mark Atwood Subject: Re: Cingular Selling Features Known to be Broken; Are They Really? Date: 05 May 2002 02:14:18 -0700 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Paul Erickson writes: > The sad state of AT&T's mail servers is ironic with them pushing this > new "mlife" marketing campaign crap. They can't even send a 200 > character simple email message ONE WAY on a timely basis. I am given to understand that most of the reason for the slowness is the spam filtering. The "big" MTAs on the net, like Worldnet's, Earthlink's, AOL's, and MSN's, are up to something like 90% of their incoming traffic being from spammers. Kill all the spammers (please!), and your email will probably be faster than your pager. Mark Atwood | Well done is better than well said. mra@pobox.com | http://www.pobox.com/~mra ------------------------------ From: Joseph Singer Subject: Re: Cingular Selling Features Known to be Broken; Are They Really? Date: Sun, 05 May 2002 07:07:47 -0700 Organization: Drizzle Reply-To: joeofseattle@yahoo.com On Fri, 3 May 2002 14:50:15 -0400, TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response to Paul Erickson : > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: My phone finally started working the > way it should, but I got quite a run-around from Cingular Wireless and > the local rep, who had given me the *wrong email address* for my phone. > It was supposed to be *number*@mobile.mycingular.com. The local rep > said to me originally it was *number*@mycincular.mobile.com. Note the > /c/ in the middle instead of /g/ which she got wrong. Note the two > parts of the name reversed in error. I told her my AT&T phone put the > 'mobile' part first, the 'att' in the middle and it was a 'net' rather > than a 'com'. I have since found that all cell phones offering email > through the same (apparently) brokered carrier all do it the same way, > namely number@mobile.cellconame.net, except that Cingular is in fact > a 'com' instead of a 'net'. Nope. They all don't do it that way. For VoiceStream it's 10-digit number@voicestream.net , for Fido it's 10-digit number@fido.ca > But the real laugh came when I called the *611 location for Cingular > and asked them about it. The woman I talked to swore up and down there > was no way to send email on a Nokia 5165 (same as the AT&T phone) and > that I would have to buy a much more expensive phone. Sounds like a rep who wasn't trained very well. They're in *all* the companies and not just Cingular. I've gotten those at VoiceStream as well. When you get a rep that just is clueless the best thing to do is to call again and hope you find a rep that knows their stuff. I have spoken to some reps who are very knowledgeable about things and also ones who don't have clue #1. Personal replies most likely will not be read. Please reply in newsgroup. ------------------------------ From: Chip G Subject: Re: Cingular Selling Features Known to be Broken; Are They Really? Organization: AT&T Broadband Date: Mon, 06 May 2002 04:29:05 GMT I have had similar troubles with untimely delivery of e-mail on the SprintPCS network for almost five years now (incoming to my phone only). I have called them repeatedly only to be assured that they are "aware" of the issue and "working" on it. Lately they have been telling me that it is because the phone I have is so old (about 5+ years). They recommend that I get a new phone and assure me that I will get timely delivery. I bought a new phone yesterday (even though I think their argument is so bogus). I figure I can always return it if it doesn't fix the problem. Paul Erickson wrote in message news:telecom20.241.2@telecom-digest.org: > AT&T Wireless's email servers have been slow for at least the past two > years and they don't seem to care. I have my web server monitor > notify me when there is a connectivity problem and it date/timestamps > the problem in the body of the email message. I routinely get these > messages 12 hours later. I now rely on my Skytel pager for > time-critical messages. > The sad state of AT&T's mail servers is ironic with them pushing this > new "mlife" marketing campaign crap. They can't even send a 200 > character simple email message ONE WAY on a timely basis. ------------------------------ From: Herb Stein Subject: Re: Best Way to Keep Children Safe on the Net Organization: Giganews.Com - Premium News Outsourcing Date: Sun, 05 May 2002 18:45:50 GMT Dave Garland wrote in message news:telecom20.241.9@telecom-digest.org: > It was a dark and stormy night when Patrick Townson > wrote: >> any .xxx site. You must know what top level domain .xxx would be. Move >> all the schools that are in .org and .com and wherever into .k-12 or >> the new .lib domain. Have all the .xxx sites refuse connections to >> incoming calls from .k-12 and .lib > A good solution, but doesn't go far enough. Create a "minor" domain > (.k-12 would do, or .kid, whatever) and require ISPs provide it as > well as the usual .com. Key which one is used to the login ("screen > name"). A website (any website) could control what went back > depending on the domain. Some (perhaps many) websites would choose to > block all minor access, just to be safe. > And if junior uses daddy's login, make daddy legally responsible and > hold the website blameless. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: That is good, except you have to > remember there will be those sysadmins who whine about the extra work > it will put on them to key the user names to the domains, etc. PAT] I think this sort of thing need to be thought through a little better. The parent or guardian must be the final arbiter of the content viewed by the minor. Rating systems won't work because they are necessarily voluntary. Restricting minors to a .k-12 TLD would seem to me to also restrict them from a vast wealth of information. Filters typically allow too much "restricted" content to pass or allow to little legitimate content to pass. Proprietary filters are worse than useless because the user has no way to evaluate what will be accepted and what will be rejected. I accept full responsibility for raising my children, teaching them values and in general creating good citizens out of them. I don't want or need the government's help. Nothing get better when the government "helps." We'll just get a lot of nuisance lawsuits because the parents abdicated their responsibilities and will sue someone when the restrictions don't work as they expected. Minors will gain access to so-called restricted content no matter what we do as parents. The forbidden fruit is always tempting. I never had a problem obtaining alcohol or cigarettes or Playboy magazine when I was a minor. I just had to work a little harder at it than my parents. Do we as a society truly believe our children are any less motivated or any less creative at working around limitations than we were? If so, we're delusional. Raise them properly and teach them respect for others and the difference between right and wrong. It isn't rocket science. When they experiment, explain the limitations and boundaries. It's nobody's fault but the parents, or the children themselves, when children run amok. And, please, let's not allow the government to help. Herb Stein The Herb Stein Group www.herbstein.com herb@herbstein.com 314 952-4601 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Your suggestion is also very good, Herb. But as I suggested the other day, the government is damned and detirmined to 'help', like it or not, and the best way for us to combat that is to do as little as possible while atempting to meet the spirit of the government rules. The government says and keep them as far apart as possible. Making a TLD or two devoted to kids and fixing it so .xxx (which I would use for the hardest of the hard-core, having been removed from .com) could not connect to those sites would eliminate *most* of the problems. Not all of the problems by any means, just large numbers of them. There is really no excuse, for example, to have a site like whitehouse.com in the .com domain as long as kids have always heard that .com is the default suffix for web addresses. Whitehouse.com content doesn't offend me for example, just the sneaky way that it was established knowing full-well that any number of school kids would wander in. As you pointed out, Herb, as a child, nothing prevented you from getting beer and cigarettes, and the same was true for me. But I did not think that a sign over the door of a tavern saying 'must be over 21' was hypocritcal. It was simply a notice of society's expectations. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 08:11:28 -0500 From: Ron Bean Subject: Re: Best Way to Keep Children Safe on the Net > They are talking about so many new, different TLD's. Have a TLD called > .lib for library or .k-12 for schools. If they insist, pass a law > forbidding connection between any .lib or .k-12 identified site and > any .xxx site. You must know what top level domain .xxx would be. The problem is that an IP address can have more than one domain name. But you could do the same thing with some kind of HTML tag on every page that identifies it as adult content. The porn sites would go along with it, but only if it guaranteed them freedom from government harassment. That means there would have to be very specific laws that say the site is legal if it has the tag, and a realistic expectation that they'd be shut down if it doesn't. This makes it a political problem rather than a technical one. With IPv6 and its huge address space, you could even designate one bit in the IP number to mean "adult content". This is such an obvious idea that I'm sure I'm not the first person to think of it. Keep in mind that some "porn filters" have been shown to block certain non-porn sites, so the people behind them might not be so enthusiastic about a system that *only* blocks porn. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: "Porn filters" are a huge waste of time and money. The only people who make money from them are the authors and proprietor's of services like that, and then only because government officials (bless every one of them!) think that will be the answer to the problem. And Mothers, of course, who hang on every word that government and police say as though it was Holy Writ. PAT] ------------------------------ 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-copyrighted. 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End of TELECOM Digest V20 #242 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue May 7 16:36:02 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id QAA20647; Tue, 7 May 2002 16:36:02 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 7 May 2002 16:36:02 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200205072036.QAA20647@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #243 TELECOM Digest Tue, 7 May 2002 16:32:00 EDT Volume 20 : Issue 243 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Growing Quirk on 5ESS (John Higdon) How do Calls go Through to Haiti? (Sid S.) Unusual Announcement on Phone (Rick Hofmann) Image of Videoconferencing (Kristen Carrozza) Re: Ma Bell's Training Films On-Line (Roy Smith) Re: Telecom Check List Help Wanted (NOSPAM) Re: Bypassing Avaya Limitation (Route Request) (Scott) Re: The Huge Amount of Spam Received Recently (Anthony E. Seigman) Re: The Huge Amount of Spam Received Recently (Gordon S. Hlavenka) Re: Altigen CDR Format (NOSPAM) Re: Yahoo Users Must Act Now to Protect Privacy (Kozlovia) Recent News Headlines of Interest (Monty Solomon) Re: Ma Bell's Training Films On-Line (Ed Ellers) Re: Kids, Porn and the Internet (Babu Mengelepouti) My 800 Bill Has Gotten Very Disgusting (biltrlok@lmi.net) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 06 May 2002 18:17:33 -0700 Subject: Growing Quirk on 5ESS From: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows I am running out of places to inquire about a problem I have been observing on 5ESS switches in California. None of my contacts at SBC/PacBell have a clue. 611 is useless. Odds are that someone in this forum has the answer! I'll describe the problem, and then I will relate all that is known about it via observation: During a conversation the parties are cut off for about two seconds. If a POTS line is involved, talk battery is removed for those two seconds. The other end hears a brief tone (that sounds like the CID wakeup tone) and silence, but without the battery loss. Here is what we know: Only certain lines are afflicted with it. Lines not so afflicted never experience the problem; lines with the problem experience it frequently. On those lines, it can happen several times during a short call, or not happen for days. It is random. It only happens on calls that terminate in different offices (local, intra, or interLATA). It can happen on POTS lines or PBX trunks (standard metallic or PRI). If it happens on a metallic trunk, the call is usually dropped completely due to the interruption of battery to the PBX switch. With regard to scope, we have only observed it in California, although it has been known to occur in phones all over the state. It can happen on incoming or outgoing calls. It has only been observed on POTS lines equipped with Caller-ID. (All PRI trunks have Caller-ID.) This phenomenon has nothing to do with call-waiting (and in fact has occurred on lines known to be not equipped for that feature). It is apparently happening with greater and greater frequency, as if some defective generic is making its way into more and more switches. If anyone knows what is going on here, I know a lot of folks who would be grateful to get the problem solved ... myself included! John Higdon | Email Address Valid | SF: +1 415 428-COWS +1 408 264 4115 | Silicon Valley, CA | FAX: +1 408 264 4407 http://www.anntec.com/realpoop.html [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Hello John, its good to see you posting messages here again. One clue: you said, "It only happens on calls that terminate in different offices." It sounds to me like it could be a problem with one or more interoffice trunks/circuits that are in trouble. A question for you: is there a certain time of day this occurs more than others? For example, mornings, afternoons, or late at night? If your answer to that is 'mostly late at night or early morning' then I have a place in mind for you to look. About 30-35 years ago, my Chicago phone was in the Hyde Park central office. About midnight most nights, I would call a friend **in a different central office** before going to bed. Time and again, on dialing his number I would encounter grief with a dead phone or a lot of noise on the line. If I hung up and dialed over I would still get it. But if I left the phone off hook, rattling and sreaming to itself because I wasn't listening to it any longer, and used my *second line* to make the same call it would go through okay. After we finished our conversation I would go back and listen to the first line, which was still sitting there screaming and rattling and hang it up also. A telephone repairman (that's what we used to call them -- not 'techs' like today) called me late one night with a request. The first selected trunk in a group of central office trunks was bad. Because it was used the most, it wore out faster I guess. The reason this never came up during the day was because phone traffic was a lot heavier. The repairman asked me to do this: when I encountered that problem again, call on his private number in the frames (he worked all night, which I guess they don't do that any longer, just as they don't have frames any longer) and keep the troubled line on hold while I told him personally about it. He said he would go in the frames and look for me there and trace it down. I did, and he went and found it and corrected it. I guess he busied out that trunk for awhile until he got it fixed. He said I was *always* seeing it all night because interoffice trunk traffic is very light all night. I was *always* landing on the first trunk in the group which was broken. If I had dialed my friend a hundred times at night, I would have gotten that trunk probably all hundred times. Keeping my one phone off hook forced my second call to move up the row another circuit. During the day, the traffic was so heavy there were almost constant seizures on the bad trunk. Someone would try to call (via that trunk) and have trouble. They would think not much about it, hang up and dial over. By that point, the bad trunk (being the first selected) had been seized by another caller who was now cursing the 'phone company' about it. The first caller of course got in on the second or subsequent trunk lines just fine. Now the second disgruntled patron would bang his phone down and dial again. Of course the instant he cleared there'd be another seizure from a third caller. Number two would get something else and get through okay. And on it would go, all day. No one ever had the problem enough to be noticed. On the other hand, me and my midnight calls got it time and time again, because I was not having to contend for using given circuits, I was on the same one over and over, unfortunatly. John, I do not know the circumstances there, of which EXCHANGES are in which offices or LATAs, etc. But I'll venture a reasonable guess that all affected parties are somehow getting routed through a central office on their calls that has a troubled circuit between exchanges/offices. Telco hasn't noticed it since no one has reported it (that is, no one they listen to like their own employees). You've probably got a couple screws loose somewhere that cause intermittent shorts on the line. Now and again for a second or two, they lose the battery on one line or another. Does that make any sense? PAT] ------------------------------ From: nysharan@yahoo.com (Sid S.) Subject: How do Calls Go Through to Haiti? Date: 5 May 2002 16:25:49 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Hello there, I am a newbie to this group and needed some information/URLs etc. for this question. How are calls to Haiti from the U.S. processed at this time? What is the technology used? Who do I contact so that I can get calls into Haiti? Is it easy to access the local phone network in Haiti? Also, how do calling cards to Haiti work? How are the calls to Haiti processed? Who are the market leaders etc? Thanks a lot, Sid ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 06 May 2002 19:24:19 -0700 From: Rick Hofmann - MICROSEARCH Subject: Unusual Announcement on the Phone Here's the scenario: A person phones a business he has called a number of times. After he enters the extension of the party he is trying to contact he hears the following recorded announcement, "This call is being traced. For additional information contact the operator." This is supposed to have happened on two separate occasions, and he was not calling from the same number both times. I have never heard of this type of announcement before, nor has anyone I have asked about it. I would appreciate any explanations for such an announcement. Thanks in advance for the help. Very truly yours, Rick Hofmann, CCO, CPP, PI16998 MICROSEARCH, LLC - Electronic Surveillance Detection - Counterespionage Post Office Box 2084 - Cypress, California 90630 714-952-3812 Fax: 714-209-0037 http://home.earthlink.net/~microsearch ------------------------------ From: Kristen Carrozza Subject: Image of Videoconferencing Wanted Date: Tue, 7 May 2002 09:48:11 -0500 I am an editor with Goodheart-Willcox, a publisher of technical textbooks. I am currently working on the revision of a book titled Contemporary Technology, and the author would like to use an image to which you may have access. We are interested in obtaining a picture of videoconferencing facilities and are requesting permission to use such an image. Please send me information regarding this, and if possible, send a hi-res, color image, preferably in PC format. I look forward to hearing from you. Thank you, Kristen Carrozza [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Readers, see what kind of images Kristen is seeking and maybe you can help her. Take care of all the legalities of copyright, etc when you talk to her. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Roy Smith Subject: Re: Ma Bell's Training Films On-Line Date: Tue, 07 May 2002 07:52:47 -0400 Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC Shalom Septimus wrote: > http://www.archive.org/movies/index.html Wow, I need to check that out. I can still remember being in the 2nd grade or so (1965?) and being trooped down to the school auditorium to watch a film on how to use the telephone. These days, kids in the 2nd grade are probably teaching their grandparents how a cell phone works :-) (Preston, if you're reading this, stop giggling). ------------------------------ From: NOSPAM Subject: Re: Telecom Check List Help Wanted Organization: Prodigy Internet http://www.prodigy.com Date: Tue, 07 May 2002 14:58:15 GMT I found this site very useful for moving offices: http://www.officemoved.com/tipsandguides.htm Carrie wrote in message news:telecom20.236.6@telecom-digest.org... > Can you put me in touch with anyone who may have a checklist they use > when moving a facility? My Corp location will be moving in Nov/Dec time > frame along with another branch of my company. We will both be moving > into one site. I want to use a checklist to make sure I don't leave > anything undone. Please help!! My email at work is > cwolsfeld@hubgroup.com ------------------------------ From: scottmorton98@yahoo.com (Scott) Subject: Re: Bypassing Avaya Limitation (Route Request) Date: 7 May 2002 08:58:10 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ If I am understanding your question correctly I think you can set between 1 and 24 digits to be sent by means of the Collect variable. ------------------------------ From: aes Subject: Re: The Huge Amount of Spam Received Recently Date: Mon, 06 May 2002 20:39:42 -0700 Organization: Stanford University In article , TELECOM Digest Editor noted in respnse to InfinityIC : > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The amount of spam making the rounds > and the number of virii has increased dramatically. In the past two > weeks alone, the amount of garbage in my inbox is higher and worse > than ever. .... It really is getting bad. PAT] Same here (not as bad quantitatively, but as bad relatively, and in recent rate of increase.) When will some entrepreneurial soul set up an "electronic post office" (EPO) which receives and forwards email messages, adding some kind of electronic "stamp" to the message, and charging the sender a small fee which can be paid by credit card charge or through a paid subscription paid for perhaps by cooperating ISPs. The mail servers in my organization and in other companies and universities and cooperating ISPs can then simply automatically dump or bounce any mail addressed to their clients that does not come from either pre-authorized senders on an authorization list maintained by each client, or through a trusted EPO. New senders not initally on my authorization list can always still reach me for an initial contact by paying a quarter, or maybe a buck, to get through to me the first time through an EPO (whose name can be found on my web page, or in my signature lines on news postings.) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 07 May 2002 09:35:17 -0500 From: Gordon S. Hlavenka Organization: Crash Electronics, Inc. Subject: Re: The Huge Amount of Spam Received Recently InfinityIC wrote: > Isn't it amazing the amount of emails that are received at home, at > work now even at lunch? > ... > So I ask. For creating a service, (that only launched one month ago > after being in development for over a year), should we be required to > apologize for offering it to those who may have truly asked for > information about it? Can we? Should we? No, we will not. Lets not be > foolish. > We are helping buyers and sellers locate computer chips and electronic > components ... > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The amount of spam making the rounds > and the number of virii has increased dramatically ... "May have truly asked about it" -- Pat, did you ask for this mailing? No? Neither did I, but I got a copy of it, too. As did other people I know. Which makes it the WORST kind of spam; it masquerades as a legitimate message, and it's long. So you actually waste a couple of minutes reading it before you get to the end and find out it's an advertisement. I hesitate to suggest this, since this particular spam will then waste even more of our time (as it's wasting mine even now :-) but read through it again. What *information* does it contain? None! Just fluff, like a slow-news-day piece in your local paper. Not until you get to the end and find contact information for the spammer. Notice they're clever enough to use a PO box and no 800 number... Gordon S. Hlavenka O- nospam@crashelex.com My hovercraft is full of eels. ------------------------------ From: NOSPAM Subject: Re: Altigen CDR Format Organization: Prodigy Internet http://www.prodigy.com Date: Tue, 07 May 2002 04:23:20 GMT A ULONG could be eight characters but it could be anything the database developer choose. You can send the file to telcomgr@access-networking.com for analysis. http://www.access-networking.com/telco_manager.htm Rafe <##rafe@fast.net> wrote in message news:telecom20.231.1@telecom-digest.org: > I have recently inherited support for an Altigen 4.0 system. I am > trying to parse through the system generated CDR records, but the CDR > data format (listed in the manual) does not seem to line up with the > records in the DBF file. Any help? Is a "ULONG" field eight > characters long? My records are all 1115 characters long (if that > helps) ------------------------------ From: gooja@post.com (Kozlovia) Subject: Re: Yahoo Users Must Act Now to Protect Privacy Date: 6 May 2002 22:23:17 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Yahoo somehow sells your zip codes. I used a slightly different PO zip for my new account. It is the only place I have used this zip code. Now I am listed at anybirthday.com with my DOB and that same zip code! So beware ... anything you give a website operation can and probably is sold to someone! So I have set all my yahoos Preferences to do not bother me including use of my phone number. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 22:47:55 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Recent News Headlines of Interest May 6, 2002 A Conversation With the Next Mogul of Cable TV By SETH SCHIESEL NEW ORLEANS, May 5 - Brian L. Roberts may be the least probable mogul. He wears a power suit, but is unprepossessing. He was born into wealth, but does not seem entitled. The stock of his company, Comcast, is down sharply this year. Yet Comcast, where Mr. Roberts, 42, is the president, is poised to become the nation's biggest cable television company and one of the world's most powerful media companies - assuming regulators approve its $47 billion stock deal for AT&T's cable business later this year. The cable industry, which gathers here this week for its annual convention, is a relatively mature business, but still a fairly robust one, too. Many of the biggest cable companies have reported strong quarterly results in recent weeks. Yet investors seem unconvinced. Cable stocks as a group are down this year, as investors fret that consumers are not buying new digital services as quickly as they had hoped and that satellite television will siphon off cable subscribers. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/06/business/media/06CABL.html US cable operators avoid regulatory heat-analysts - May 5, 2002 07:07 PM (Reuters) By Jeremy Pelofsky NEW ORLEANS, May 5 (Reuters) - As U.S. cable industry executives arrive in the hot, humid Louisiana bayou for their annual convention this week, the heat is likely only from the temperature and not from regulators, analysts said. Cable operators have scored key victories since they last gathered, including persuading a federal court to strike down a key ownership restriction as well as insulating their high-speed Internet services from having to share their systems. And just last week, the top 10 cable operators, including AT&T Broadband (NYSE:T) and AOL Time Warner Inc. (NYSE:AOL), moved out of the frying pan by accepting a challenge from the Federal Communications Commission to speed the move to digital television. http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=27047013 Commission authorises the purchase by TF1 of 25% of the capital of TPS, currently held by France Television and France Telecom. Brussels, 2 May 2002 Commission authorises the purchase by TF1 of 25% of the capital of TPS, currently held by France Television and France Telecom. The European Commission has given the green light to the purchase by the French television channel TF1 of the shares in the digital package of satellite television channels Television Par Satellite (TPS) held by France Television and France Telecom. This transaction will not result in the creation or strengthening of a dominant position on the relevant markets (pay TV, marketing of special-interest channels, acquisition of broadcasting rights) or any risk of anti-competitive coordination. It does not therefore raise any competition concerns. ------------------------------ From: Ed Ellers Subject: Re: Ma Bell's Training Films On-Line Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 23:20:52 -0400 Shalom Septimus wrote: > In the first category would be "How to Use the Dial Phone", a seven-minute > silent film made by the Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Co. in 1927. This > film goes through the procedure of placing a call beginning with looking up > a number in the directory, then demonstrating dialing with a combination of > animation and live action. Some of the captions I found interesting were > "You have now dialed 3-6623. (Note: The dash (-) is not dialed.)" and "If > the party you want to call is not listed in the directory, dial the numeral > `8' for information." That film is also notable because the dial telephones shown (102 candlesticks) had only (large) numerals, not letters, presumably because that area was too small to use exchange names. > A few AT&T training films are also in there: "Operator Toll Dialing: > Teamwork", "Operator Toll Dialing: Cord Signals" and "Operator Toll > Dialing", from 1949 or so. I note that they use a "dialing tool", > essentially a rod with a knob on the end, rather than having the operator > turn the dial with her finger. In some offices, yes. The "Dialing" film noted that other offices didn't use the dialing tool. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: When I worked for the University of Chicago phone room from 1958 to around 1962 or so, we had 'dialing tools' which fit over the eraser end of a pencil so we could dial with one end or flip it around and write a toll ticket with the end that had lead in it. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 06 May 2002 21:05:31 -0700 From: Babu Mengelepouti Organization: US Secret Service Subject: Re: Best Way to Keep Children Safe on the Net On Fri, 3 May 2002 11:34:59 -0500, Patrick Townson wrote: > There are so many stories in the media lately about children and sex > things. One of the big things in recent years has been demands on > librarians and schools to have filters on the Internet connection in > the school, so that kids won't be able to see much of the net. We > know the problems with that approach. There is no such thing as a > computerized filter that will cover all the angles while not stepping > on good, valid web sites/news, etc. Nothing takes the place of good > human judgment. > They are talking about so many new, different TLD's. Have a TLD called > .lib for library or .k-12 for schools. If they insist, pass a law > forbidding connection between any .lib or .k-12 identified site and > any .xxx site. You must know what top level domain .xxx would be. Move > all the schools that are in .org and .com and wherever into .k-12 or > the new .lib domain. Have all the .xxx sites refuse connections to > incoming calls from .k-12 and .lib What could be so difficult about > that? Make all hard-core porn move out of .com and into .xxx The > way .com is used now, it seems by many unsophisticated people, (and > that inclues some school teachers, librarians, many parents, etc) > treat .com as the default ending for all web sites. Pat, Great to see you back in the saddle again, and stirring the pot of controversy as before. There are some major problems with this approach. The first is that the .com TLD has, by virtue of allowing anyone to register into that space, become international in nature. Many Canadian companies register into .com rather than .ca, for example, and overseas domain registrars (such as joker.com) register into the .com space. So what if I'm a Canadian porn site, registered into the .com domain through a German domain registrar? The authority of the United States Government to boot me out of .com space is questionably legal at best. And even if it were successful, the authority of the United States Government to force a porn site out of an international TLD (such as .ca) and into an .xxx TLD is nonexistent. Additionally, what do you do about sites that contain what some people could legitimately consider porn along with other content? What if I'm a famous travel author, and along with my travel journals I also have explicit pictures of brothels and sex clubs on my Web site? What if these pictures are part of an article I wrote about the sex trade in Thailand? Would that be considered .xxx content, .com content, or something else? Or, another reasonable scenario, what about the guy with a personal Web site that contains some very personal pictures along with kid-safe content? I think there's a pretty simple solution. It's an adult world, and the Internet is an adult place. If you don't believe that your kids are mature enough to handle that reality, and you don't care to supervise them, then don't allow your kids online at all. Short of that, allow "kid-safe" Web sites to voluntarily register into a .kids TLD, which they could only do by agreeing to a set of "kid-safe" guidelines; I'll leave it to people more hysterical than me to figure out what those guidelines should be ... although I'll point out that graphic images of bleeding corpses from the Mideast oil wars are probably more disturbing to children than any pornographic images would be, and I don't see any filtering software blocking http://www.cnn.com. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But the use of .com internationally usually is done like this: somesite.com.uk or somesite.com.ca. And since the problem will not go away magically overnight by any single solution, therefore let's throw up our hands in resignation and do nothing at all. Do I interpret you correctly? Nothing is foolproof. Nothing works a hundred percent of the time in all cases. We begin by doing what we personally can do. We find solutions to problems a few steps at a time, then we try and refine these things as we go along. Tell me this: if the year was 1975 or 1980 and the suggestion was made to hook all, or a major portion of the homes in the USA with computers all wired together through a network, how many objections and reasons it couldn't be done would you have come up with? Plenty, probably. Now we are close enough to that goal and we see it is all trivial to finish the job. The problem won't come in the hardware aspects of it, everyone has a phone line, eventually the technology is going to allow it. The problems we have to overcome are the sheer numbers of people to deal with. I am not suggesting that when I snap my fingers all the problems with kids and porn sites will go away immediatly ... poof! It will take several years but as I said a couple days ago, begin by separating the hardest of the hardcore out of .com and into .xxx then next year or the year after refine the process a little more. Don't bother me with all the 'major problems' you see with this. Disallow connections to .xxx except on specific request. You want to be able to connect to an .xxx then your sysadmin has to allow it. Establish a .kid domain ot .k12 or whatever. Anyone who gets an account there cannot ever under any circumstances access an .xxx. Will that cure all the problems? No, of course not. Will it cure 25 percent or maybe 10 percent of the problem. Probably yes. Start simple. PAT] ------------------------------ From: biltrlok@lmi.net Date: Mon, 06 May 2002 09:18:03 -0700 Subject: My 800 Phone Bill Has Become Outrageous Pat -- I'm _SO_ glad to see you back in the saddle again! Someday I'd like to hear the whole story -- just imagining what may have happened makes my blood boil. I wonder if you might have a little advice for me. I have ATT's "starter line" 800 service, and have had for about 10 years. Their basic charge has gone up from $5 back then to $15, their latest rate increase. And ... it's gone up from ~10 min to (are you sitting down?) 60 min now! Also, they used to credit you for mis-dialed numbers (Glaxo-Welcome used to have a similar one, and I got hammered!), but they don't even do this any more. I paid my bill today, it was $28, and there was not even _one_ legitimate call to me on the bill! I'm semi-retired and my little business just barely keeps me going, so I can't afford this any more. I need to keep the number (it's an actual "800" one) for continuity for my old customers. Would you know of any resonably priced, reliable and long-lived 800 number service providers? Thanks a lot for listening, hope you might have an idea. Keep up the good work. Regards, Bill Turlock 925-247-0211 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You think your blood boiled? Mine did just that. On November 29, 1999 the pressure got so bad that night that I had a brain aneurysm. I was working for a client I was designing a web site for in Junction City, KS (Fort Riley, US Army, where I was a civilian contractor). After a quick explosion in my head which felt like my head had blown open, my friend there had the bright idea of dialing '911' to get the MP's over there in my office. The MP's got the medic and the ambulance, took me to the base hospital where it was detirmined the medics could do nothing for me and they told the MP's to load me back in the ambulance and take me to Topeka, which was a little more than a hundred miles east on I-70. They got me to Topeka about 11 pm, maybe midnight, and I promptly went into a comatose condition. I stayed in the coma for about two months, then spent a month following that in an 'emergency therapy' program across the street at Kansas Rehab. 'Emergency therapy' was merely intended to teach me how to do things like feed myself, clean myself after going to the bathroom, how to walk with my walking stick as far as the bathroom that they were teaching me how to use, etc. I was, you might say, a basket case. Those of you who called me there, thank you so much. Then I came back here to Independence after a three month side trip to Topeka and a three-hundred thousand dollar hospital bill. I am still dizzy frequently, walk with my cane, and survive somehow. Doctor says I need not expect to recover anytime soon. The brain damage was too severe. But I digress, please excuse me. Any readers with ideas on good and inexpensive 800 service, please contact Mr. Turlock with ideas, etc. Maybe Judith can help; she deals with 800's a great deal. Judith, anyone, reply to Mr. Turlock, please, but please, no spam. PAT] ------------------------------ 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-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 620-870-9697 Fax : 775-255-9970 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@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 * * Judith Oppenheimer, President of ICB Inc. and purveyor of accurate * * 800 & Dot Com News, Intelligence, Analysis, and Consulting. * * http://ICBTollFree.com, http://1800TheExpert.com * * Views expressed herein should not be construed as representing * * views of Judith Oppenheimer or ICB Inc. * ************************************************************************* ICB Toll Free News. Contact information is not sold, rented or leased. Access to Premium (P) links requires upgrade to a paid subscription. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Only subscribers or registered users of ICB Toll Free News web site will be able to access all or some of the full text of URLs provided. LEGAL STUFF: TELECOM Digest (sm) is owned by Patrick Townson. Copyright 2000 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. 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. End of TELECOM Digest V20 #243 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed May 8 16:17:01 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id QAA12809; Wed, 8 May 2002 16:17:01 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 16:17:01 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200205082017.QAA12809@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #244 TELECOM Digest Wed, 8 May 2002 16:15:00 EDT Volume 20 : Issue 244 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: The Huge Amount of Spam Received Recently (Mark Crispin) Re: The Huge Amount of Spam Received Recently (Gail M. Hall) Re: Tariffs Library (Andrew Kauffman) (Kathy Monson) Re: Best Way to Keep Children Safe on the Net (Justa Lurker) Legitimate Enhanced Cell Phone Antenna? (Tom Hansen) Re: The Neighborhood Local Dial Tone and Long Distance From MCI (Brad) Re: My 800 Phone Bill Has Become Outrageous (John R. Levine) Re: My 800 Phone Bill Has Become Outrageous (Dave Close) Re: Unusual Announcement on the Phone (Dale Farmer) Re: Growing Quirk on 5ESS (John Higdon) Re: How do Calls got Through to Haiti (Lou Jahn) Re: Image of Videoconferencing Wanted (NOSPAM) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Mark Crispin Subject: Re: The Huge Amount of Spam Received Recently Date: Tue, 7 May 2002 13:57:13 -0700 Organization: Networks and Distributed Computing On Mon, 6 May 2002, aes wrote: > When will some entrepreneurial soul set up an "electronic post office" > (EPO) which receives and forwards email messages, adding some kind of > electronic "stamp" to the message, and charging the sender a small fee > which can be paid by credit card charge or through a paid subscription > paid for perhaps by cooperating ISPs. I called for this a few years ago. There has to be some way to transfer the cost of spamming from the victim to the spammer. I think that the writing is on the wall for free email. It was a nice 30 years, but the underlying premise was that there was a benevolent dictator (ARPA, DCA, NSF) that would pull the plug on any abuser. We overthrew the dictatorship assuming that cooperative anarchy would result. We got anarchy all right, and a good lesson of why anarchy doesn't work. Not that government necessarily works much better. I don't know about other countries, but in the USA postal spammers get *huge* discounts on mailing costs. The US government's standard (and quite unconvincing) answer is that postal spammers have to be given these discounts or postal mail would be much more expensive. Most Americans would happily pay more for a postage stamp if postal spammers had to pay it too. -- Mark -- http://staff.washington.edu/mrc Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate. ------------------------------ From: Gail M. Hall Subject: Re: The Huge Amount of Spam Received Recently Date: Tue, 07 May 2002 19:14:58 -0400 Reply-To: gmhall@apk.net For someone talking about spam as a bad thing, it is interesting to me that this message from InfinityIC turned out to be my idea of spam. He is trying to sell something that as far as I can tell is not related to telecommunication. On Sat, 4 May 2002 19:13:21 -0700, in comp.dcom.telecom, you (InfinityIC ) wrote: [snip] Pat wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The amount of spam making the rounds > and the number of virii has increased dramatically. In the past two > weeks alone, the amount of garbage in my inbox is higher and worse > than ever. Last Friday, for example, I had over two hundred virii in > my inbox. Some days there are a half dozen right in a row. Today there > were seven one after the other I think. I also get each day one or two > stern notices about getting my computer cleaned out, usually from > university sysadmins who got mail which had my name forged on it, and > a virus enclosed within. It really is getting bad. PAT] Although spam and viruses/worms all end up in our E-mailboxes, I do see them as two separate problems just as "junk" mail in our postal mailboxes is a totally different problem the terrorist acts of putting pipe bombs in mailboxes and anthrax in mail. I'm learning a lot more about the filtering features in my mail/newsreader these days, and I have other processes to hopefully avoid the viruses and worms. It is interesting to me that the holes in Microsoft's mail and browser software has not been brought up as a problem by the US Justice Department. Even more surprising is that corporations continue to use the Microsoft products and have not sued them for damages caused by default settings in those products. It's true that Microsoft has in recent years posted patches and such to plug up security holes in their software. Most of us are lax about getting the updates, though. You mentioned opportunities for people to develop ways to fight these things, and many companies are doing that. Anti-virus software has been available since back in the 1980s. Now some companies and ISPs are installing virus scanning software or subscribing to virus scanning services that will squelch known viruses and worms before they get into employees' or ISP subscribers' mailboxes. With a reasonably affordable surcharge for such services, quite a few of us have subscribed to these services. As for all the spam in your telecom-digest.org mailbox, I think that eventually Telecom Digest may have to become a subscribers-only mailing list and automatically bounce mail from non-subscribers. I read the messages via the usenet comp.dcom.telecom newsgroup because my ISP as well as some others recommends that over subscribing to the mailing list if there is a choice. Pat, if the extra mail becomes way too much for you to deal with, I would certainly support a change in the rules for accepting posts to the list/group. I would subscribe to the list instead of reading via the comp.dcom.telecom newsgroup. That's what I did before I had access to usenet newsgroups. Spammers are getting more clever it seems. For every defense we users try to use, they figure out ways to overcome them. But I will not buy from a spammer any more than I want to buy from a telemarketer, especially the ones who use pre-recorded messages or the "live" ones who won't take "no" for an answer. I expect that as soon as postal rates go up in the US, we will see even more spam. Some day maybe they'll learn to target their advertising better, but that won't happen until it costs THEM more to advertise. Good luck! Gail from Ohio USA [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Like yourself, I am certain that spam will get worse and worse. Someplace the other day I read on the net that about *ninety percent* of all incoming mail through the largest ISPs (such as AOL for example) is spam. Only 10-15 percent of all email is what we would term 'legitimate'. Is that true? Regards virii, I think that will get worse also. I mentioned here that about 25-30 percent of all incoming mail each day is a virus. Over a weekend for example, if I don't check the telecom mailbox for a day at a time, there usually are 200 or more items of mail sent as virii. I sat here last night after getting an issue of the Digest out and watched the virii come in, about every 5-10 minutes, and as I would bash them out of the mailbox into the bit bucket, after another minute or two, still another would arrive. They were usually these 'Klez' things. I am reminded of the late sixties and early seventies when CB Radio was the Usenet of those days. Most of you probably were not around then, but we had channels which were mostly devoted to given discussion topics, people who served as moderators, or 'channel bosses' as they were sometimes called trying to keep order. Then a popular singer came along with a song which romanticized CB radios and truckers who used them to outwit the highway 'smokies' or patrol officers. That spelled the end of the CB radio discussion groups, civility and social order on the radio. Millions of people poured onto CB with its ease in use and relaxed regulations. Unscrupulous businesses sent the 1970's equivilent of spam by putting mobius loop (forever repeating) tapes on playback units on CB channels and taking entire channels out of service as a result for days at a time, with jingles and obnoxious speakers hawking their wares, over and over. I guess they had as much luck at selling their stuff as most spammers have today. And there were dirty old men trying to lure childen and teenagers into games of one kind or another (did you think porn sites and sex with kiddies was a thing that began with the modern use of the internet?) And then in 1980, an employee of Compuserve (it had just a year before that it had taken the name 'Compuserve'; do you remember what it used to be called???) invented a software program called 'CB Simulator', and the very first chat program for computers came to life. Executives at CIS laughed at him and said it was a waste of time and that no one would use it. 'Computer users want to call in and check their market portfolios and look at the online encyclopedia' was the response. 'We will try it for six months or so and see if anyone uses it.' Within a couple months or so, the CB Simulator program was paying the mortgage at Compuserve with tons of cash to spare. About that time more or less, all the spammers, preachers, commentators, moderators and assorted Dirty Old Men from the CB days started migrating to Compuserve if they could afford it. Do any of you remember when there was a huge discussion -- almost a civil war -- on the net about whether or not large private ISPs such as AOL, Compuserve, etc should be 'allowed' to participate on Internet? Do you remember when the 'Spam King' (as he called himself) vowed to take over the net entirely with his literature, etc? So much has happened around here in the past thirty or so years. Did anyone ever say the road to Hell would be an easy one, well traveled? We're gradually going to Hell on the net and its taken years to get this far. How many years ago was it I penned the statement that 'the Usenet is a cesspool'? I still think it is, and that the contagion has spread to other parts of the net as well. I continue to stand here holding my finger in the dike to keep it from moving in here as well, but it is very hard. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 07 May 2002 17:31:02 -0400 From: Kathy Monson Subject: Re: Tariffs Library (Andrew Kauffman) My company, Valucom, provides a telecom tariff library, rate guides well as rate databases and pricing tools. I would be happy to introduce you to our services and provide you with a free trial if your interested. Please email me directly at kmonson@valucom.com Sincerely, Kathy Monson Manager - National Accounts Valucom, Inc. 415 Church Street - Suite 204 Vienna, VA 22180 Phone (703) 255-0700 x312 Fax (703) 255-0709 ------------------------------ From: jlurker@bigfoot.com (Justa Lurker) Subject: Re: Best Way to Keep Children Safe on the Net Date: Tue, 07 May 2002 21:43:51 GMT It was Mon, 06 May 2002 21:05:31 -0700, and Patrick Townson wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But the use of .com internationally > usually is done like this: somesite.com.uk or somesite.com.ca. Sorry Pat, but there is a lot of international .com without the country after it. And there is nothing in international law that would prevent overseas companies from registering a site in .com, even if a .com+ country code exists. At best you would move the sites overseas - or at least the naming. > ... begin by separating the hardest of the hardcore out of .com > and into .xxx then next year or the year after refine the process > a little more. The FCC has set a base guideline by banning obscene content on radio and television. The obsenity laws within the US should attack porn where it is. Forget the medium and write legislation that covers it all. Write legislation that would keep anything onscene off of the "cover" (home page) and bury it in the site. Write legislation that REQUIRES the server to reject deep linking -- all referrers must be from the homepage, a content warning page, or directories of the same level of obscene content. But be careful in your definitions. Recognise that the current trends in porn: Domain names that are permitted to expire are often immediately registered as porn sites. Some registrars 'sell' domains out from under current holders to the highest bidder at expiration. Porn sites love to buy former kiddy sites (just as bad as the tobacco industry advertising to children). Not to mention lookalike and mis-spelled traps for popular sites. Do you believe that you won't have to drag these people kicking and screaming into any system that is set up? Starting a .kid domain is interesting, and a good way to opt in. But even with that don't expect that some kid won't work there way around it. Which brings us to the same solution that has worked for ages past: Parenting. Don't expect that miracle box connected to a DSL to be a better parent to children than the humans. Not saying that you don't have good ideas, but recognizing that no solution will be easy or complete in the open world we live in. JL [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I've said all along that EDUCATION was the proper place to begin. Note my original message on this last week referred to a link which talked about education rather than trying to filter. Now if we could get .kid and .xxx started and educate the *mothers* that nothing is perfect and that it will be several years, if ever, before all the kids get put in .kid and all the porn gets put in .xxx ... PAT] ------------------------------ From: rock_spambust_violin@yahoo.com (Tom Hansen) Subject: Legitimate Enhanced Cell Phone Antenna? Date: 7 May 2002 14:49:47 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ I have a Nokia 5165, and there are spots in my home where I just can't get a signal. I know that the antenna on my unit is replaceable. Are there LEGITIMATE replacement antennas that can improve reception? (I'm NOT TALKING those totally fake "cell phone antenna booster" things that are advertised on cable.) Any help/suggestions appreciated. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I have two Nokia 5165 phones and do not know how to 'replace the antenna'. I know Mike Sandman (mike@sandman.com) has a pretty good external antenna that stands in the corner on a pole and attaches externally to the Nokia antenna stub. He also knows the source for an external (rooftop or side of building) antenna that you point in the direction of the cell site which then comes on a cable to inside your building where a booster unit retransmits the signal to the cell phone's own antenna. Ask Mike what advice he would give on this. PAT] ------------------------------ From: bradleyb127@hotmail.com (Brad) Subject: Re: The Neighborhood Local Dial Tone and Long Distance From MCI Date: 7 May 2002 17:47:57 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Received this information today from MCI: "The Neighborhood calling plans are intended for residential voice service only. "Voice service" means you primarily use your phone line for voice calling; in other words, calling friends, family, businesses etc. This product is not intended for lines that are connected to the Internet for long periods of time. Periodically checking your e-mail, surfing the Internet or sending a fax is fine. The additional monthly fee is for customers who stay connected to the Internet in excess of 5,000 minutes a month for three months; however, very few of our customers stay connected long enough to be assessed the additional fee. If the 5,000 minutes per month for three months is exceeded, you could be assessed an additional monthly charge of $50.00 for Internet/data use, be disconnected, or be moved to a different product." ------------------------------ Date: 7 May 2002 20:54:28 -0400 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: My 800 Phone Bill Has Become Outrageous Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > Would you know of any resonably priced, reliable and long-lived 800 > number service providers? I get my dial-1 and 800 service from ECG, who resells Qwest LD, www.ecglongdistance.com. (If you live in Qwest territory, they have an affiliate who resells service from the company Qwest sold their in-area LD to, at the same price.) They charge 4.9 cpm inbound and outbound interstate. The prices on the web site are a little out of date, there's a 49 cent/mo charge for each toll free number, and a $4.95 monthly fee if your total bill is under $10. (I put all my LD on one bill, so getting up to $10 isn't a big deal.) I transferred 800 numbers from another provider without trouble. If your volume is lower than that, I used to use PEC Long Distance at pecld.net, 7.9 cpm with no minumum anything. I still have the account, the monthly bill is always zero. The underlying carrier has changed from time to time but the service was always fine. 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@compata.com (Dave Close) Subject: Re: My 800 Phone Bill Has Become Outrageous Organization: Compata, Costa Mesa, California Date: Wed, 08 May 2002 05:29:37 GMT biltrlok@lmi.net writes: > Would you know of any resonably priced, reliable and long-lived 800 number > service providers? You can try Sam's Club, if you're a member. Their deal is through TTI National, a WorldCom reseller. Last time I checked, they were charging about $2 per month and 5c or 6c per minute, a heck of a deal. They'll also transfer your existing number. However, I doubt they'll do much about credit for wrong numbers (incoming). Most of the 800 providers seem to think you should use a PIN arrangement if you're concerned about that cost. Dave Close, Compata, Costa Mesa CA "Politics is the business of getting dave@compata.com, +1 714 434 7359 power and privilege without dhclose@alumni.caltech.edu possessing merit." - P. J. O'Rourke ------------------------------ From: Dale Farmer Subject: Re: Unusual Announcement on the Phone Date: Tue, 07 May 2002 21:07:25 -0400 Organization: The new clue zoo Rick Hofmann - MICROSEARCH wrote: > Here's the scenario: A person phones a business he has called a > number of times. After he enters the extension of the party he is > trying to contact he hears the following recorded announcement, "This > call is being traced. For additional information contact the > operator." This is supposed to have happened on two separate > occasions, and he was not calling from the same number both times. > I have never heard of this type of announcement before, nor has > anyone I have asked about it. I would appreciate any explanations for > such an announcement. Thanks in advance for the help. Somebody is playing a prank, and rerecorded the answering recording. If they were really trying to trace the call, they would not warn the target. --Dale ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 07 May 2002 22:50:24 -0700 Subject: Re: Growing Quirk on 5ESS From: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows In article telecom20.243.1@telecom-digest.org, TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response to John Higdon: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: > One clue: you said, "It only happens on calls that terminate in > different offices." It sounds to me like it could be a problem with > one or more interoffice trunks/circuits that are in trouble. A > question for you: is there a certain time of day this occurs more > than others? For example, mornings, afternoons, or late at night? > If your answer to that is 'mostly late at night or early morning' > then I have a place in mind for you to look. I believe the scope of the problem is too broad to be one or even a group of inter-office trunks. It occurs on calls between San Jose and San Francisco, San Francisco and San Diego, San Jose and San Diego, calls across town in San Jose, calls between a Chicago cellphone (used in San Francisco) and San Jose ... and the problem appears to not be a respecter of time of day. It also only happens on certain lines. Non-afflicted lines are never interrupted. > John, I do not know the circumstances there, of which EXCHANGES are > in which offices or LATAs, etc. But I'll venture a reasonable guess > that all affected parties are somehow getting routed through a central > office on their calls that has a troubled circuit between > exchanges/offices. Telco hasn't noticed it since no one has reported > it (that is, no one they listen to like their own employees). You've > probably got a couple screws loose somewhere that cause intermittent > shorts on the line. Now and again for a second or two, they lose the > battery on one line or another. Does that make any sense? The only problem with that theory is the loss of battery on the subscriber loop, which is fully isolated from trunks (which amount to nothing more than DS0 slots on who-knows-what broadband circuits). Also, the loss of loop current supervision for two full seconds on an originating line would certainly disconnect the call ... but during this event it does not. After the two-second disconnection, the conversation can resume as if nothing has happened. My guess at this point is that it is occurring in the local CO switch. As each week goes by, it seems to happen from more and more locations. As I said before, it appears to be the result of some new generic in the switch. Unknown at this time is why it selects the individual lines that does to plague. I just got off the phone with a colleague who phoned from Oakland. We were interrupted twice. The running joke now is that this is some new ham-handed FBI call monitoring system! Only one line of mine (out of a dozen) has this problem. Problem is, it is my main listed number! John Higdon | Email Address Valid | SF: +1 415 428-COWS +1 408 264 4115 | Silicon Valley, CA | FAX: +1 408 264 4407 http://www.anntec.com/realpoop.html ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 09:06:02 -0400 From: Lou Jahn Subject: Re: How do Calls go Through to Haiti In response to nysharan@yahoo.com (Sid S.) who wrote to ask: How do Calls Go Through to Haiti? I can not answer all of your questions, but I did participate in a 1993 two week in depth study of Telecom Haiti (TCH). Here is what I remember as it might apply to your questions: > How are calls to Haiti from the U.S. processed at this time? In 1993, TCH had about 8-10 Nortel DMS-10s and two Alcatel Switches which were rather old. In fact the older members of our team loved listening to the chatter of the switchgear. It had a definite tempo of operation which you could hear while in the switch center. At that time both AT&T and MCI were processing international calls going into Haiti. In fact, most of TCH's revenue came from International settlements as Haiti family structure is very strong and therefore, the many Haitian's living in the US, Canada and England were a constant source of incoming calls and hence revenues. For calls to the US, TCH had Call America links in most hotels and the Airport. Thus, when I picked up the phone I was connected with an AT&T operator in Pittsburgh who took my credit card and processed the call. I was told they received less revenue using this approach, but what they got was 99% certain (meaning collectable) as it was billed in the US in US dollars. If the calls were processed in Haiti, the chances were they could not collect the money as local A/R was a huge problem. > What is the technology used? As I mentioned they seemed to have a good switching infrastructure, what impressed me was how well and reliable the DMS-10s were. For the most part they were not in air conditioned facilities and TCH had to create its own power grid service as the power service in Haiti was unreliable. In fact TCH mostly ran on their own AC Generators, with battery back-up to carry them over to public electric if they had a generator that failed (they had a huge fuel cost). Basically they ran in a reverse fashion on power than found in the US. > Who do I contact so that I can get calls into Haiti? Is it easy to access the local phone network in Haiti? Haiti does not have many "local phones". Most incoming calls on a personal level are handled in phone offices by TCH. If I wanted to contact John Doe, they would get my request to speak with John and send out a messenger to delivery a note scheduling the call (if it were a relative they would know to be in a specific office between say 9:00 to 10:00pm). Anyhow, the office has 10-12 telephone booths in them and when the operators get my incoming call they'd tell the recipient to go into booth number x and then send in the call. If a local caller had enough money and wanted to call the US (most business visitors used the call America links as we had US credit cards), they went into the office and prepaid for say 10 minutes and gave the operators the number. When the operator had the call set up, they called out a number and told you what booth to enter for your call. Remember in 1993 there was no prepaid calling cards. Hence, the 1993 operations may have changed by now as Haitian families abroad could mail prepaid cards back to Haiti and have the family use the Call America links for outbound calls. Also, 1993 was before cellular, I have no idea how cellular has been implemented in Haiti. So please take my comments as a measure of the service for 1993, if that helps okay, but be careful assuming it still full applies. > Also, how do calling cards to Haiti work? How are the calls to Haiti > processed? Who are the market leaders etc? See above as this was already discussed. While it sounds archaic, I was impressed with their telephone knowledge and how TCH management adapted to a very poor environment. TCH is professionally operated, seemed to be well trained and given their economic blight they had a good infrastructure. The Haitians were very polite and personally clean even though their country did not have enough trash trucks and places to take trash. Regards, Lou Jahn Info Partners Corp ------------------------------ From: NOSPAM Subject: Re: Image of Videoconferencing Wanted Organization: Prodigy Internet http://www.prodigy.com Date: Wed, 08 May 2002 13:16:39 GMT Check with Polycom, I am sure they would be glad to work with you. http://www.polycom.com/global.html Also, visit http://access-networking.com/telecom_resources.htm for additional telecom tips and resources. "Kristen Carrozza" wrote in message news:telecom20.243.4@telecom-digest.org... > I am an editor with Goodheart-Willcox, a publisher of technical > textbooks. I am currently working on the revision of a book titled > Contemporary Technology, and the author would like to use an image to > which you may have access. We are interested in obtaining a picture of > videoconferencing facilities and are requesting permission to use such > an image. Please send me information regarding this, and if possible, > send a hi-res, color image, preferably in PC format. I look forward to > hearing from you. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Readers, see what kind of images > Kristen is seeking and maybe you can help her. Take care of all > the legalities of copyright, etc when you talk to her. PAT] ------------------------------ 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-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 620-870-9697 Fax : 775-255-9970 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@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 * * Judith Oppenheimer, President of ICB Inc. and purveyor of accurate * * 800 & Dot Com News, Intelligence, Analysis, and Consulting. * * http://ICBTollFree.com, http://1800TheExpert.com * * Views expressed herein should not be construed as representing * * views of Judith Oppenheimer or ICB Inc. * ************************************************************************* ICB Toll Free News. Contact information is not sold, rented or leased. Access to Premium (P) links requires upgrade to a paid subscription. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Only subscribers or registered users of ICB Toll Free News web site will be able to access all or some of the full text of URLs provided. LEGAL STUFF: TELECOM Digest (sm) is owned by Patrick Townson. Copyright 2000 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. 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. End of TELECOM Digest V20 #244 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu May 9 00:44:07 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id AAA20944; Thu, 9 May 2002 00:44:07 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 00:44:07 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200205090444.AAA20944@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #245 TELECOM Digest Thu, 9 May 2002 00:43:00 EDT Volume 20 : Issue 245 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Payphone Surcharges from Non-Payphone Lines (Tom Williams) Re: The Huge Amount of Spam Received Recently (Barry Margolin) Re: Legitimate Enhanced Cell Phone Antenna? (John R. Levine) Another E-Mailing Spammer With a Toll Free Number!!!!! (Steven Lichter) Two Headlines of Interest From Recent News (Monty Solomon) Re: Siemens Gigaset 8825 (UsenetMeister) Re: Siemens Gigaset 8825 (Stretch) Cell Phone Discards Causing New Pollution Problems (The Old Bear) Nortel Centrex Phones (Mick Lynn) Telecom Jobs Available - Multiple Streams (Mary Collinas) Do You Have Any Issues With This ISP? (Anonymous User@telecom-digest.org) Getting Off of SPAM Mailing Lists (David B. Horvath, CCP) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tom Williams Subject: Payphone Surcharges from Non-Payphone Lines Date: Thu, 09 May 2002 02:09:13 GMT The FCC currently allows payphone operators to collect a payphone surcharge from the called party when a toll free number is dialed. I believe this FCC surcharge is about 24 cents per call, although most calling card companies charge customers in excess of the required amount. Is it legal for this surcharge to be collected when the call is made not from a payphone? I used to have a calling card with PNG. Suddenly they started charging this fee on just about every calling card call I made, and I never used a payphone. When I called them to inquire, they said that this "payphone" surcharge is collected when a call is made from schools, hospitals, businesses, military bases, etc. I explained that none of my calls were from payphones. Some of these surcharged calls were made from residences, and one was even from my home residential phone line, which used PNG for 1+ long distance! Naturally I complained, and they did remove the charges, although not readily. After this happened the next month they said that I would have to submit written documentation if this happened again. I explained that this wouldn't be necessary because I wouldn't be doing any further business with them and I terminated my account, which otherwise I was very satisfied with. Although clearly they had a problem with the residential lines, is it legal for companies to charge the payphone surcharge if the call originated from a non-payphone line, in a hospital or business, for example? This doesn't sound right, although I don't know the working in the tariffs. Even OneSuite says the following on their website: Q: What is the $0.55 surcharge on my call detail report? The FCC (Federal Communications Commission) allows companies that operate payphones to attach a surcharge for their services. Such "operator services" are typically accessed from the following: 1.Public payphones. 2.Hotel phones. 3.College dormitory phones. 4.Commercial phone line systems. Something doesn't sound right about that. If the call didn't originate from a Payphone, it shouldn't get a "Payphone" surcharge. A long-gone company named Atcall would play a warning to alert the caller that payphone surcharge was in effect BEFORE the call went through. Unfortunately nobody else does. Another question, what if more than one call is made from a calling card with a single dial to the access number? For example, a caller presses # or whatever after the first calling card call to call another number from a payphone without disconnecting. Would that new calling card call be subject to another surcharge? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The word 'payphone' is a misnomer in this case. It would have been better to refer to the charge as being applied in any case where a third person (motel/hotel/hospital, etc) maintains the phone system on behalf of users. Hospitals, after all are just hotels for sick people. Hotels/motels/hospitals/military bases/universities/etc -- anywhere with 'transient residents' who operate their own exchanges desire to be compensated for the use of their facilities and the catch is, there is no commission payable on toll free calls. So telco makes the recip- ient of the toll free call pay for it along with the traffic itself. The word 'payphone' is just a generic label for all the above. How do you know you did not get any incoming calls from payphones or other places in the above list? Normally hotels/motels/hospitals/university switchboards/military base switchboards all recieve a commission on their 'sent paid' and 'received collect' traffic. If you *received* those calls on an 800 number assigned to you then you have to pay the commission to those establishments. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Barry Margolin Subject: Re: The Huge Amount of Spam Received Recently Organization: Genuity, Woburn, MA Date: Wed, 08 May 2002 20:44:41 GMT In article , Mark Crispin wrote: > Not that government necessarily works much better. I don't know about > other countries, but in the USA postal spammers get *huge* discounts > on mailing costs. The US government's standard (and quite > unconvincing) answer is that postal spammers have to be given these > discounts or postal mail would be much more expensive. I believe that postal spammers have to do something to get these discounts, though. They have to presort their mail, effectively transfering work from the postal workers to the spammers, to justify bulk rates. > Most Americans would happily pay more for a postage stamp if postal > spammers had to pay it too. I doubt it. I dislike most analogies between postal spam and email spam, as I don't think the level of the problem is similar, nor are the economics. I receive 200-300 emails a day, and at least 50% of it is spam (and another 25% is internal company spam, but that's not an Internet problem). I suspect that the worst victims of postal spam probably only get a dozen or so pieces a day. Also, even disregarding postage, postal spam has per-unit costs: paper, printing, envelope stuffing, etc. Email spam is a clear-cut example of Tragedy of the Commons; the virtual world of the Internet has removed almost all the real unit costs, and most efforts to impose artificial costs tend to fail (it's been said that the Internet evolves to route around censorship, and I suspect this is also true of pricing). Barry Margolin, barmar@genuity.net Genuity, Woburn, 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: 8 May 2002 20:17:17 -0400 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: Legitimate Enhanced Cell Phone Antenna? Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA In article you write: > I have a Nokia 5165, and there are spots in my home where I just can't > get a signal. > I know that the antenna on my unit is replaceable. Are there > LEGITIMATE replacement antennas that can improve reception? Don't try to replace the antenna. You can get replacement antennas, but they're all just novelty items that flash when the phone rings. Since they're all the same size, they all offer the same so-so reception, and they're tricky to install. Turn the phone over, and you'll note a little round rubber plug. Pry that plug out with a fingernail or a pencil, and you'll find the phone's external antenna jack. If you poke around on the net, you'll find half-wave antennas with a cable that plug into the antenna jack. There's one at http://www.cellphoneshop.net/exanfornok51.html for $11, for example. This is a little unwieldy, but you can expect it to work. I have the car kit in my truck, connected to a regular glass-mount antenna, and I can see on the field strength meter that I gain about 5 db when I plug in the antenna. 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: stevenl11@aol.com (Steven Lichter) Date: 08 May 2002 02:25:42 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Another E-Mailing Spammer With a Toll Free Number!!!!! ... to teach this individual about the cost of owning an Toll Free number ... -----Original Message----- This will be the greatest business opportunity of your life. Call Brent Toll Free at 1-888-211-9369 24 hours ***************************************** Remember it is against the law to harrass anyone by telephone. Also you should use a payphone so that the operator can make a little money. Apple Elite II 909-359-5338. Home of GBBS/LLUCE, support for the Apple II 24 hours 2400/14.4. An OggNet Server. The only good spammer is a dead one!!! Have you hunted one down today? (c) Kill Spammers, Inc. A Hope You Roast In Hell Company. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 00:54:25 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Two Recent News Headline of Interest IBM report cites cell phone hacking risks By Robert Lemos Staff Writer, CNET News.com May 7, 2002, 4:45 PM PT IBM researchers released a report Tuesday showing that some cell phones' security cards could be cloned in minutes, letting hackers make calls and route charges to the cloning victim's account. The hacking technique studied by the researchers, known as a partitioning attack, analyzes power fluctuations in a phone's security identification module (SIM) card, allowing an attacker to divine the security codes stored inside. However, the technique only works on the first-generation of global system for mobile communications (GSM) phones and requires that the attacker have physical access to the phone for at least a minute or two. http://news.com.com/2100-1040-901920.html Courts bring criminal records online By Gwendolyn Mariano Staff Writer, CNET News.com May 7, 2002, 5:10 PM PT The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts said Tuesday it has selected 11 federal courts to provide Net access to criminal case files. As part of a pilot program adopted by the Judicial Conference of the United States, the principal policy-making body of the federal court system, the "pilot" courts will include one appellate court and 10 trial courts. Among them are the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and district courts for the Southern District of California, the District of Columbia, the Northern District of Illinois, and the District of Massachusetts. http://news.com.com/2100-1023-901964.html ------------------------------ From: UsenetMeister Subject: Re: Siemens Gigaset 8825 Date: Wed, 08 May 2002 16:06:21 GMT Sellcom Tech Support wrote in message news:telecom20.241.12@telecom-digest.org: > Oh come on now. I'm sure you are a wonderful person and all your > friends like you, but let's be fair here. If you are knowingly > running two devices on the 2.4Ghz range that are not designed to be > compatible what would you expect? Steve, Hold up a second here! I bought a Siemens 2420 from you about 2 years ago and am very happy with the setup. Last year, I got a Linksys WAP, which, of course, periodically interferes with the Siemens (though the FHSS Siemens vs. the DSS 802.11b don't clobber one another as much as one would expect). Anyway, since the Siemens 2400 predates 802.11b, I don't expect them to get along Anyway, Siemens just released this 8800 series stuff, and, of course, they market their own 802.11b gear. The idea that the 8800 does not interoperate with a dominant technology is absurd! Shame on Siemens if they haven't gotten this right. ------------------------------ From: Stretch Subject: Re: Siemens Gigaset 8825 Date: Thu, 09 May 2002 02:50:47 GMT Organization: Road Runner - Texas I can almost guarantee it is sharing the air (sounds better than "fighting with") the airport. Both operate in the 2.4 band. I have a Siemens base and 4 or 5 handsets here, and they get along fairly well with each other. But it is amusing to fire off a big file copy, and watch the bandwidth as you pick up an extension - it drops by perhaps 30%. I'm just impressed that half a dozen devices, all made by different manufacturers, can handshake so nicely. Do you have a microwave oven in the area? When my wife hits the "start" button on that, all bets are off for anything using 2.4 in the area. Interesting and related link: http://slashdot.org/articles/02/05/08/1432244.shtml?tid=126 Sellcom Tech Support wrote: > pete wrote in message > news:telecom20.239.4@telecom-digest.org: >> Well I picked up an 8825 system and so far I'm underwhelmed. the >> handsets click and pop like crazy. they seem to have substituted this >> for the dropout nature of the 2420. the interesting thing is the >> caller on the other end of the line doesn't hear the noises, so I >> guess that's an improvement over the 2420. (I've tried this with 4 >> different handsets and they all have the same problem) the range and >> sound clarity is far worse than my old Uniden 900 MHz DSS phone too. >> Now it could be fighting with the Apple Airport wireless 2.4 ghz >> network, the walls or maybe the computers that are turned on >> throughout the house, but I think part of the problem is the >> (unextendable) short antennas built into the handsets and the >> base. truly a shame since they improved upon the 2420 in other ways. > Oh come on now. I'm sure you are a wonderful person and all your > friends like you, but let's be fair here. If you are knowingly > running two devices on the 2.4Ghz range that are not designed to be > compatible what would you expect? > Now I do similar things, I have a Panasonic 420B unit mounted about a > foot and a half away from a Siemens 2420 Gigaset. Would I be fair to > trash either of those for the occasional clicking if we try to use > both at the same time? > IF, you turn off the other stuff and still have the problem, maybe > your phone is defective. Call where you bought it or call Siemens at > 888-777-0211 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 08 May 2002 13:44:56 -0400 From: The Old Bear Subject: Cell Phone Discards Causing New Pollution Problems As summarized by NewsScan: CELL PHONE DISCARDS CAUSING NEW POLLUTION PROBLEMS -------------------------------------------------- And you thought the biggest pollution problem emanating from cell phone users was their loud-mouthed users. It turns out that the rapid turnover in cell phone handsets is causing another kind of pollution problem, according to a study by Inform, which estimates that within the next three years Americans will discard about 130 million cell phones a year, creating 65,000 tons of trash. The study says the average cell phone is kept only 18 months and then is tossed into a closet or in a drawer and eventually carted out with the household trash. By 2005, the obsolete handsets lying around waiting to be thrown away could number about 500 million. Cell phones, along with pagers, pocket PCs and music players, pose special problems at landfills because of the toxic chemicals present in batteries and other components. The report urges the cell phone industry to develop "take-back" or recycling programs similar to the one available in Australia. source: AP (7 May 2002) http://apnews.excite.com/article/20020507/D7JC55HG1.html ------------------------------ From: mick lynn Subject: Nortel Centrex Phones Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 13:57:47 -0700 We are needing to buy approximately 1000 each used Nortel M5316 Centrex phones in tan (color). They can be used, defective or out of service as long as they are complete. We need these to complete a contract we have in the Northeast and Nortel has sold their Centrex line. It is a good way to turn excess inventory into cash. Thanks, Mick Lynn V 615 300 5384 F 615 595 9964 ------------------------------ From: mary_collinas600@hotmail.com (Mary Collinas) Subject: Telecom Jobs Available - Multiple Streams. Date: 8 May 2002 12:58:10 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Our Telecom client is looking for the following talent: - Telecom Engineers with PBX VOIP skills for sales Positions. - Director of sales to explore new markets. - Direct of Govt/Public sector sales. - PR Director to work with media promotions. Positions are available in Dallas, serveral locations in California, Chicago, and New York. The client will be opening up additional locations shortly but has not provided us the the details just yet. EMAIL ALL RESUMES TO MARY@USA-SOLUTIONS.COM ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 22:35:17 -0400 From: Anonymous User@telecom-digest.org Subject: Do You Have Any Issues With This ISP? PAT -- please post this anonymously. I report all SPAM (and viruses and fraud) that I get using abuse.net as a forwarder. I've recently started getting responses from one ISP (included below, I've DELETED much of the identifying information). I can understand requiring proof if I am contacting them about being hacked or a DoS attack from their domain (to pass on to law enforcement). But to require a paper copy of SPAM email is clearly designed to get people not to complain. Does anyone else share this concern? Should we be calling this ISP to complain about their practices? Following the traceroute chain, yipes.com seems to provide connectivity to these folks. >Return-Path: >Received: from beach.infolink.com ([64.251.1.194]) > by (8.11.6/8.9.3/DCANET) with ESMTP id g450wGk12328 > for ; Sat, 4 May 2002 >X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft Exchange V6.0.5762.3 >Content-Class: urn:content-classes:message >MIME-Version: 1.0 >Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Subject: Your E-Mail to Abuse@infolink.com >Date: Sat, 4 May 2002 >Message-ID: >X-MS-Has-Attach: >X-MS-TNEF-Correlator: >Thread-Topic: >thread-index: >From: "abuse.infolink.com" >To: >Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit >X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by id >X-UIDL: -Nn!!E3^"!G#o"!]G:"! > ************************************** > * This is an automated message * > * PLEASE DO NOT RESPOND VIA E-MAIL * > ************************************** > Thank you for your message to the Infolink Abuse Department. Your > message will be forwarded to the appropriate personnel for analysis. > All abuse complaints are handled in accordance with the relevant > Federal, State, and Local laws. > If you are reporting E-mail or News abuse, in order for us to process > your complaint, please send a hard copy (not e-mail) of the complaint, > any supporting evidence that may substantiate your claim, and your name > with all relevant contact information (including your name, company > name, address, telephone number, and e-mail address). Please forward > this to: > Infolink > 2400 E. Las Olas Blvd. > Fort Lauderdale, FL 33301 USA > ATTN: E-Mail Complaints > Please note that a complete copy of your complaint may be provided to > law enforcement officials. > Depending on the volume of complaints and the time involved in > investigating these issues, we may not be able to respond to your > complaint beyond this note. We apologize for any inconvenience this may > cause. Please be assured that we take your complaints very seriously. > If you are experiencing a denial-of-service attack, a break-in, or any > other type of active, currently ongoing security issue that requires > immediate attention, please contact our Customer Support Center at > 1-877-293-2095 (within the USA), or 1-305-324-1616 (outside the USA). > We are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to assist you. > Thank you for calling this matter to our attention, > Infolink Network Abuse Team NNN [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: My personal belief is they (by email abuse and News abuse) were talking about scams and frauds or threats against specific persons, etc). In those cases, hard copies are quite useful in the prosecution. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 22:35:18 -0400 From: dhorvath@cobs.com (David B. Horvath, CCP) Subject: Getting off of SPAM Mailing Lists We all hate to be on SPAM lists, since this organization is so nice as to give a number to call to get removed, you may want to take advantage of their offer. > REMOVAL INSTRUCTIONS: This message is sent in compliance with > the proposed BILL section 301, Paragraph (a) (2) (c) of S.1618. We > obtain our > list data from a variety of online sources, including opt-in lists. This > email is sent by a direct email marketing firm on our behalf, and if you > would rather not receive any further information from us, please href="mailto:remove8167@ahpcorp.com">CLICK HERE. In this way, you can > instantly “opt-out” from the list your email address was > obtained from, > whether this was an "opt-in" or otherwise. Please accept our > apologies if this message has reached you in error. Please allow 5-10 > business days for your email address to be removed from all lists in our > control. Meanwhile, simply delete any duplicate emails that you may > receive > and rest assured that your request to be taken off this list will be > honored. > If you have previously requested to be taken off this list and are still > receiving this message, you may call us at 1-(888) 817-9902, or write to: > Abuse Control Center, 7657 Winnetka Ave., Canoga Park, CA 91306 - David ------------------------------ 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-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 620-870-9697 Fax : 775-255-9970 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@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 * * Judith Oppenheimer, President of ICB Inc. and purveyor of accurate * * 800 & Dot Com News, Intelligence, Analysis, and Consulting. * * http://ICBTollFree.com, http://1800TheExpert.com * * Views expressed herein should not be construed as representing * * views of Judith Oppenheimer or ICB Inc. * ************************************************************************* ICB Toll Free News. Contact information is not sold, rented or leased. Access to Premium (P) links requires upgrade to a paid subscription. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Only subscribers or registered users of ICB Toll Free News web site will be able to access all or some of the full text of URLs provided. LEGAL STUFF: TELECOM Digest (sm) is owned by Patrick Townson. Copyright 2000 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. 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. End of TELECOM Digest V20 #245 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu May 9 17:29:49 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id RAA05638; Thu, 9 May 2002 17:29:49 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 17:29:49 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200205092129.RAA05638@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #246 TELECOM Digest Thu, 9 May 2002 17:29:00 EDT Volume 20 : Issue 246 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Payphone Surcharges from Non-Payphone Lines (Stanley Cline) Re: Payphone Surcharges from Non-Payphone Lines (John R. Levine) Why International Rates Are so Different? (Yuri Victorovich) Re: Legitimate Enhanced Cell Phone Antenna? (Tom Hansen) Re: My 800 Phone Bill Has Become Outrageous (John Stahl) Re: Talking With Robot Agents (Dr. Joel M. Hoffman) Re: Unusual Announcement on the Phone (Phil McKerracher) Re: Two Recent News Headline of Interest (Joseph Singer) Slammed! (Monty Solomon) For Sale: Tens of Millions of Unpopular Cellphones (Monty Solomon) My 800 Phone Bill Has Become Outrageous (John Higdon) Phone Won't Stop Ringing (google CS) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Stanley Cline Subject: Re: Payphone Surcharges from Non-Payphone Lines Date: Thu, 09 May 2002 01:57:24 -0400 Organization: Roamer1 Communications - Dunwoody, GA, USA Reply-To: sc1-news@roamer1.org On Thu, 09 May 2002 02:09:13 GMT, Tom Williams wrote: > Although clearly they had a problem with the residential lines, is it > legal for companies to charge the payphone surcharge if the call > originated from a non-payphone line, in a hospital or business, for > example? This doesn't sound right, although I don't know the working > in the tariffs. http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Common_Carrier/Orders/1996/fcc96439.txt > "65. More generally, as we stated in the Report and Order, "a > payphone is any telephone made available to the public on a > fee-per-call basis, independent of any commercial transaction, for the > purpose of making telephone calls, whether the telephone is > coin-operated or is activated either by calling collect or using a > calling card." We clarify that this definition of "payphone" excludes > from the compensation mechanism phones in hotel rooms, dormitory > rooms, or hospital rooms." IOW -- the only lines that are eligible for payphone compensation are true payphone (coin or coinless/Charge-A-Call, including "inmate" service[1]) lines -- PERIOD. Hotel and hospital room phones, dorm room phones on college PBX systems[2], etc. are *NOT* considered "payphones" by the FCC -- standard office PBXs *definitely* are not. That said, I did run across a hotel in the greater New Orleans area a couple of years ago that somehow linked their PBX to two payphones in the lobby such that the ANI for calls from the hotel PBX was that of the payphones. I travel extensively and stay in hotels at all price and quality levels and have never been charged any payphone surcharges from hotel room phones except for that one odd case, which because of other commitments at the time I didn't report to the Louisiana PSC or FCC. > Even OneSuite says the following on their website: I have asked OneSuite, BigZoo, and others who use that verbiage to *quit* doing so as it is *WRONG*. > Another question, what if more than one call is made from a calling > card with a single dial to the access number? For example, a caller > presses # or whatever after the first calling card call to call > another number from a payphone without disconnecting. Would that new > calling card call be subject to another surcharge? Yes. From that same FCC document: > We concluded in the Report and Order that, to comply with our statutory > mandate that "each and every completed intrastate and interstate call" > be compensated, "multiple sequential calls made through the use of a > payphone's '#' button should be counted as separate calls for > compensation purposes." [1] Don't even get me started on the inmate phone racket, including the situation regarding CLECs and inmate calls (most CLECs refuse to handle any third-party billing and don't adequately tell customers of the consequences.) [2] At some colleges students can get regular POTS lines from the local ILEC even when on campus, and others (in areas that don't have metered rates for "guest" trunks or that use CLECs) run the dorm phones and administrative phones off the same PBX and share trunks and don't separate ANI. Stanley Cline -- sc1 at roamer1 dot org -- http://www.roamer1.org/ "Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today. There might be a law against it by that time." -/usr/games/fortune ------------------------------ Date: 9 May 2002 10:26:30 -0400 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: Payphone Surcharges from Non-Payphone Lines Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > The FCC currently allows payphone operators to collect a payphone > surcharge from the called party when a toll free number is > dialed. Is it legal for this surcharge to be collected when the > call is made not from a payphone? I used to have a calling card > with PNG. ... Legal? Sure, PNG can charge you whatever they want. Honest, ethical, and moral? Well, no. Payphone owners get a 24 cent surcharge on "dial-around" calls to toll free, 0+, and 101XXXX numbers. Most long distance carriers mark this up somewhat, partly to compensate for calls that aren't completed, partly out of greed. You are correct that a payphone is a payphone. A hotel, hospital, or dorm line is not a payphone. LECs are required to keep track of what numbers are assigned to payphones and provide them to long distance carriers. If your carrier billed you for a payphone charge for calls from lines that aren't payphones, you correctly concluded that they overcharged you. From what I've heard about PNG, this isn't too surprising. Despite their low rates, I don't know anyone who's happy with their service. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The word 'payphone' is a misnomer in > this case. It would have been better to refer to the charge as being > applied in any case where a third person (motel/hotel/hospital, etc) That's not supposed to be the case. As far as the FCC is concerned, a pay phone is a pay phone, and a hotel phone or the like isn't. As I noted, overcharging for payphone charges is rampant. 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: yuri@tsoft.com (Yuri Victorovich) Subject: Why International Rates Are so Different? Date: 9 May 2002 06:27:56 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ I am just curious why it's such a great difference in international rates depending on the country? What are the reasons of higher rates: local taxes, limited switches, different calling volumes? Yuri. =============================================== By extracting ANY e-mail address from this page or by selling it or using it in any way except replying to this posing you agree to pay $10000 for moral damages. ------------------------------ From: rock_spambust_violin@yahoo.com (Tom Hansen) Subject: Re: Legitimate Enhanced Cell Phone Antenna? Date: 9 May 2002 00:22:20 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ rock_spambust_violin@yahoo.com (Tom Hansen) wrote in message news:: > I have a Nokia 5165, and there are spots in my home where I just can't > get a signal. > I know that the antenna on my unit is replaceable. Are there > LEGITIMATE replacement antennas that can improve reception? (I'm NOT > TALKING those totally fake "cell phone antenna booster" things that > are advertised on cable.) > Any help/suggestions appreciated. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I have two Nokia 5165 phones and do not > know how to 'replace the antenna'. I know Mike Sandman (mike@sandman.com) > has a pretty good external antenna that stands in the corner on a pole > and attaches externally to the Nokia antenna stub. He also knows the > source for an external (rooftop or side of building) antenna that you > point in the direction of the cell site which then comes on a cable to > inside your building where a booster unit retransmits the signal to > the cell phone's own antenna. Ask Mike what advice he would give on > this. PAT] See this URL: http://www.allwirelessproducts.com/html/antenna_install.htm It's on a site that sells novelty antennas like ones that flash when you get a call, etc. I was hoping there would be a replacement antenna that was actually designed for better reception. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 09 May 2002 06:48:04 -0400 From: John Stahl Subject: Re: My 800 Phone Bill Has Become Outrageous > Would you know of any resonably priced, reliable and long-lived 800 > number service providers? Here in the Northeast, I found a service called USA DataNet (www.usadatanet.com). They are headquartered in Syracuse, NY and have dial-in/dial-around service usable in most of the NE states from Virginia to Maine with quite a number of local POP's. They have a $0.99/10-minute minimum/unlimited calling plan and several others. I find that a flat-rate plan which I have with them at $0.049/minute, which covers calling anywhere in the USA is better for me. None of their plans have any monthly minimum charges (even if you only made one -- or none -- call in a month). I understand they have recently introduced an inward 800- service at a bit more per minute rate. The only potential inconvenience to some potential users may be that their system uses an out-bound dial-around system where you "register" your phone number (you can register several numbers to be recognized), use it to make a call by dialing into a local POP, then at the prompt, dialing the number (any number - INTERLATA, or INTRALATA) and get connected. On the road -- hotel, pay-phone (are there any left?), etc. -- you dial into a local POP, enter a PIN (since you are not using your "registered" phone number) and continue by dialing the number. I find it a great savings. John Stahl Aljon Enterprises Telecom/Data Consultants URL: http://home.att.net/~aljon ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Talking With Robot Agents Organization: Excelsior Computer Services From: joel@exc.com (Dr. Joel M. Hoffman) Date: Thu, 09 May 2002 00:57:59 GMT > With the phone based system you could opt (usually) to talk to a live > human, but after endless muzak on hold (BTW, I hate those false > interruptions of the music just to hear a recording of "your call is > important to us, please continue to hold" when I think I have finally > reached a human and it turns out not to be). I have to admit, that I still find myself thinking that as soon the song ends, someone will pick up ... I'm usually wrong. Joel ------------------------------ From: Phil McKerracher Subject: Re: Unusual Announcement on the Phone Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 12:41:32 +0100 Dale Farmer wrote in message news:telecom20.244.9@telecom-digest.org: > Rick Hofmann - MICROSEARCH wrote: >> Here's the scenario: A person phones a business he has called a >> number of times. After he enters the extension of the party he is >> trying to contact he hears the following recorded announcement, "This >> call is being traced. For additional information contact the >> operator." This is supposed to have happened on two separate >> occasions, and he was not calling from the same number both times. >> I have never heard of this type of announcement before, nor has >> anyone I have asked about it. I would appreciate any explanations for >> such an announcement. Thanks in advance for the help. > Somebody is playing a prank, and rerecorded the answering > recording. If they were really trying to trace the call, they would > not warn the target. Also there's no such thing as "being traced" these days -- it's either instant or impossible. Phil McKerracher www.mckerracher.org ------------------------------ From: Joseph Singer Subject: Re: Two Recent News Headline of Interest Date: Thu, 09 May 2002 06:03:32 -0700 Organization: Drizzle Reply-To: joeofseattle@yahoo.com On Wed, 8 May 2002 00:54:25 -0400, Monty Solomon wrote: > IBM report cites cell phone hacking risks > By Robert Lemos > Staff Writer, CNET News.com > May 7, 2002, 4:45 PM PT > IBM researchers released a report Tuesday showing that some cell > phones' security cards could be cloned in minutes, letting hackers > make calls and route charges to the cloning victim's account. > The hacking technique studied by the researchers, known as a > partitioning attack, analyzes power fluctuations in a phone's > security identification module (SIM) card, allowing an attacker to > divine the security codes stored inside. One wonders how much this writer actually knows about SIM cards or GSM phones. It's not the "Security Information Module", but rather Subscriber Information Module. Personal replies most likely will not be read. Please reply in the newsgroup ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 03:22:37 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Slammed! Telemarketing scammers are the price we pay for lower long-distance bills. Can we afford this kind of bargain? By Damien Cave May 8, 2002 | "I'm calling from MCI," said the telemarketer on the other end of the line. "We already provide you with long distance service and I'm just calling to let you know that as of next week, we'll also be providing you with local service. This means you'll get a single bill and be able to ... " I tried to stop him. I'm not one of those people who regard telemarketers as scum, but as a reporter who covers technology and business, this was just too obvious. Alarm bells began to sound. I raised my voice, he raised his, and suddenly I discovered I was shouting: insisting that MCI had no right to switch my service; that his call was just a sales pitch, a cheap attempt to trick me into giving permission for a change of service. http://salon.com/tech/feature/2002/05/08/slamming/index.html ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 09:47:14 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: For Sale: Tens of Millions of Unpopular Cellphones For sale: tens of millions of unpopular cellphones - May 9, 2002 06:57 AM (Reuters) By Lucas van Grinsven LONDON, May 9 (Reuters) - Tens of millions of new mobile phones trade on the secondary market every year because phone makers cannot make accurate forecasts of consumer demand, according to a British independent trader. In 2001 alone, some 30 percent of all phones produced could not be sold to consumers at the official price tag, because they were either too expensive or too simple and clunky or featured an unpopular design or the wrong colour. Stock imbalances, resulting from erroneous demand forecasts for the overall global market as well as for specific models, amounted to almost 80 million handsets in 2001 with a combined value of some $8 billion, according to market research by Mloop, an independent Internet-based trading point for cellphones. http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=27101778 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 09 May 2002 11:11:44 -0700 Subject: Re: My 800 Phone Bill Has Become Outrageous From: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows In article telecom20.243.15@telecom-digest.org, biltrlok@lmi.net wrote: > I wonder if you might have a little advice for me. I have ATT's > "starter line" 800 service, and have had for about 10 years. Their > basic charge has gone up from $5 back then to $15, their latest rate > increase. > And ... it's gone up from ~10 min to (are you sitting down?) 60 min > now! Also, they used to credit you for mis-dialed numbers > (Glaxo-Welcome used to have a similar one, and I got hammered!), but > they don't even do this any more. I paid my bill today, it was $28, > and there was not even _one_ legitimate call to me on the bill! Have you tried calling AT&T and negotiating? People tend to forget that telephone rates are no longer cast in stone by regulation. Telephone reps have considerable latitude when it comes to rates, especially if a customer is getting ready to walk. What you will probably find is that there is some other un-advertised plan that will give you what you had before, if not a better deal. On several occasions I have called AT&T and flat-out indicated that I thought the rates were out of line in a competitive market and that if there was not a better offer forthcoming, I would go to any of several competitors. In each and every instance, the person on the phone managed to come up with some plan that was heretofore unknown to me that saved my patronage. > Would you know of any resonably priced, reliable and long-lived 800 > number service providers? There are many, and this is why I think you can probably get what you are looking for from AT&T. If you can't, then walk. But the truth is that all phone companies (not just AT&T) try to get the maximum out of their customers. They raise the rates and figure that many, if not most people, will just bend over and pay. Those that don't get the deals. You need to let AT&T know that you are not a "lay down" when it comes to phone rates. Tell them you want competitive rates, or you will take your business to a company that will offer them to you. Funny, but after just a few calls to AT&T about rate increases, I don't seem to get them anymore. In fact, last year I got a flyer in the mail from AT&T announcing some rate increases. I called the company and was told, "You are not on any of those plans. Your rates will not go up." A little horse trading will get you the lowest rates ... even if you are not a major user. John Higdon | Email Address Valid | SF: +1 415 428-COWS +1 408 264 4115 | Silicon Valley, CA | FAX: +1 408 264 4407 http://www.anntec.com/realpoop.html ------------------------------ From: google@fasttrackmonkey.com (CS) Subject: Phone Won't Stop Ringing Date: 9 May 2002 13:38:21 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Hi all, Perhaps someone here can help me with this problem. I got a new phone line about one month ago, and since I've had it, it rings a little "half-ring" about once an hour. The ring is so short that caller-id doesn't register anything. *69 doesn't return anything either. I called Verizon, and they basically tried to sell me call-block (which they said might not work because the calling number may not register) or call intercept. They sent me to repair, and they verified that it wasn't the local switch doing it's periodic "line testing". I don't want to pay more money to fix what must be a simple problem ... Does anyone have any ideas short of changing my number? I'm not even convinced it's necessarily a real call, but some screw-up at the CO. I'm not aware of any services on my line that would cause this. It would be cool if voicemail could ring a little reminder, but the rep says nothing I have would account for this behaviour. Any ideas? It's maddening, especially at night! Thanks, CS ------------------------------ 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-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 620-870-9697 Fax : 775-255-9970 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@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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All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. 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. End of TELECOM Digest V20 #246 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri May 10 13:25:20 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id NAA23255; Fri, 10 May 2002 13:25:20 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 13:25:20 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200205101725.NAA23255@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #247 TELECOM Digest Fri, 10 May 2002 13:23:00 EDT Volume 20 : Issue 247 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: My 800 Phone Bill Has Become Outrageous (John R. Levine) Re: My 800 Phone Bill Has Become Outrageous (Joseph Singer) One Verizon Number for International Roaming (Prof. Shurajit Gopal) Re: Tariffs Library (Andrew Kauffman) (EM Handler) Re: Why International Rates Are so Different? (Tom Williams) Re: Why International Rates Are so Different? (John R. Levine) Re: Why International Rates Are so Different? (Linc Madison) Re: Payphone Surcharges from Non-Payphone Lines (Clarence Dold) Re: Payphone Surcharges from Non-Payphone Lines (Tom Williams) Re: Growing Quirk on 5ESS (Ken Abrams) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 9 May 2002 18:02:09 -0400 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: My 800 Phone Bill Has Become Outrageous Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > Here in the Northeast, I found a service called USA DataNet > (www.usadatanet.com). They are headquartered in Syracuse, NY and have > dial-in/dial-around service usable in most of the NE states from Virginia > to Maine with quite a number of local POP's. I use them too for outbound, they're fine for what they do. If you're a free local call to one of their POPs in the Northeast, their 4.9 cpm rate is hard to beat, and I don't know anyone else with a rate that good for intrastats calls in NY nor calls to Canda. It's also nice that you get the same rate via any of their POPs when you're travelling. They have calling cards via 800 access at 14.9 cpm and inbound 800 service, which was the original question, at 8.9 cpm which are OK but you can do better. They also have some odd plans for people who make long phone calls, 10 cpm with a maximum per call of 99 cents outbound in the northeast, $1.99 outbound elsewhere in the US and Canada, $3.99 inbound. Oh, and they pay signup bounties, with both the new and old customers getting a $1.99 credit. If you're interested, drop me a note and I'll give you my number to get the credit. Mercinarily, John Levine johnl@iecc.com Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies" Information Superhighwayman http://iecc.com/johnl Sewer Commissioner "I dropped the toothpaste", said Tom, crestfallenly. ------------------------------ From: Joseph Singer Subject: Re: My 800 Phone Bill Has Become Outrageous Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 08:34:18 -0700 Organization: Drizzle Reply-To: joeofseattle@yahoo.com On Thu, 09 May 2002 06:48:04 -0400, John Stahl wrote: > Here in the Northeast, I found a service called USA DataNet > (www.usadatanet.com). They are headquartered in Syracuse, NY and have > dial-in/dial-around service usable in most of the NE states from Virginia > to Maine with quite a number of local POP's. They have a $0.99/10-minute > minimum/unlimited calling plan and several others. The 99 cents for 10 minute deal is the same sort of trickery that Telecome USA (aka Worldcome) uses. If you are in the habit of making lots of calls over 10 minutes then it's an OK deal. Those one minute or 5 minute calls however are an extremely bad deal. > I find that a flat-rate plan which I have with them at $0.049/minute, > which covers calling anywhere in the USA is better for me. None of > their plans have any monthly minimum charges (even if you only made > one -- or none -- call in a month). My long distance service charges me 5 cents/minute for any interstate calls and there's no monthly minimums or monthly charges either. > I understand they have recently > introduced an inward 800- service at a bit more per minute rate. I have inward toll-free service and I pay 6 cents/minute. I don't think your plan shows any great savings when you're paying close to 50 cents/minute for the priviledge of calling at any time. I've found that http://abtolls.com has good comparisons on the real costs of calling with various long distance services. Personal replies most likely will not be read. Please reply in the newsgroup ------------------------------ From: Prof. Shurajit Gopal Subject: One Verizon Number for International Roaming Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 21:41:12 -0400 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Hello! Last week I had contacted one of your colleagues at 1-800-800-2062 and he gave me the Rentaphone / Vodaphone number 1-888-547-0640 and asked me to get in touch with them for my international roaming activation. I did so and got my SIM Card too (for the Motorola Timeport GSM Tri-band phone that I own) ... but with a UK number starting with "+44" and NOT my existing Verizon Number "864-414-1812" in the United States, as I see below in the following Press Release of Verizon Wireless! The following Verizon's media release says, I quote, "International Traveler allows customers to use their Verizon Wireless telephone number while traveling in more than 120 countries that use either Global Systems for Mobile (GSM) or Personal Digital Cellular (PDC) technology". This never happened to me! Will someone guide me with this matter? Sincerely, Shur Prof. Shurajit Gopal Department of Mass Communication North Greenville College PO Box 1892 Tigerville, SC 29688, USA Phone: 864-414-1812 Fax: 815-364-3365 E-mail: ShurGopal@AOL.COM Kenster wrote in message news:KviC8.1323$Q76.94710@newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net: Verizon Wireless Offers Global Solutions For International Corporations And Travelers Vodafone Partnership Provides Global Offerings to International Businesses Media Contact: Brenda Raney, brenda.raney@verizonwireless.com, 908-306-4834 May 6, 2002 - BEDMINSTER, NJ - Verizon Wireless, the nation's leading wireless service provider, is leveraging the worldwide reach of Vodafone, one of its parent companies, to introduce Global Services as part of its Business Solutions suite of products. Designed to help corporations simplify their global wireless solutions, the Global Services portfolio includes International Traveler and Global Account Management. International Traveler allows customers to use their Verizon Wireless telephone number while traveling in more than 120 countries that use either Global Systems for Mobile (GSM) or Personal Digital Cellular (PDC) technology. Global Account Management provides a single point of contact for a company's global wireless needs. "In our global world, as businesses continue to expand to international markets, employees are traveling overseas to meet clients, negotiate with vendors and manage relationships - a wireless phone is a necessity," said John Stratton, vice president and chief marketing officer of Verizon Wireless. "Our Vodafone relationship makes us unique in the marketplace because we can offer a strong international wireless solution to today's global corporations." Business professionals who sign up for International Traveler keep their Verizon Wireless telephone number whether they rent or purchase an international phone. International wireless handsets are provided through Verizon Wireless' relationship with Rent-a-Phone Ltd, a licensed Vodafone reseller. Customers can either rent a GSM or PDC phone for $2.99 per day or purchase a GSM phone for $149. A data capable model is available for $249. GSM and PDC phones operate on the wireless networks often found outside of the United States. Airtime rates, which include long distance, are $1.49 per minute for most countries and $2.49 for Russia, former USSR states, Kenya and Japan. Global Account Management leverages the unique relationship between Verizon Wireless and Vodafone to give multinational corporations a single point of contact to manage all their wireless needs. Global Account Management provides corporations with the necessary coordination for consistent application and effective use of wireless service throughout their global operation. The Verizon Wireless, Vodafone Global Account Management team can add value by managing and overseeing the installation, implementation and maintenance as well as provide the latest in wireless equipment. The Global Services portfolio is designed for large multinational companies that have a presence overseas or employees who travel internationally and need an end-to-end solution that addresses its wireless voice, data and international requirements. Companies can sign up for Verizon Wireless' Global Services suite of services by calling toll-free 1 866-VZW-BTOB (1 866-899-2862). ------------------------------ Reply-To: EM Handler From: EM Handler Subject: Re: Tariffs Library (Andrew Kauffman) Organization: Prodigy Internet http://www.prodigy.com Date: Thu, 09 May 2002 22:04:33 GMT Perhaps you should post your information with one of these more appropriate links: http://access-networking.com/telecom_resources.htm Kathy Monson wrote in message news:telecom20.244.3@telecom-digest.org: > My company, Valucom, provides a telecom tariff library, rate guides > well as rate databases and pricing tools. I would be happy to > introduce you to our services and provide you with a free trial if > your interested. ------------------------------ From: Tom Williams Organization: Telecom Subject: Re: Why International Rates Are so Different? Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 02:40:25 GMT Yuri Victorovich wrote: > I am just curious why it's such a great difference in international > rates depending on the country? What are the reasons of higher rates: > local taxes, limited switches, different calling volumes? Combination of all the above, but the most significant factor is most likely the fees charged by the country that receives the call. International calls are settled from the caller's company to the country or company that terminates the call. These international costs can vary greatly. In addition, there are the costs of getting the calls from here to there. From US to Europe, rates have been decreasing greatly. This is mainly due to a deluge of fiber optic cable running to Europe. Calls to UK and France are especially cheap right now, and can be had for under 10c a minute :) ------------------------------ Date: 9 May 2002 18:08:34 -0400 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: Why International Rates Are so Different? Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > I am just curious why it's such a great difference in international > rates depending on the country? What are the reasons of higher rates: > local taxes, limited switches, different calling volumes? Partly technology, mostly politics. For developed countries, the rates approximate the costs, which is why it now costs me less to call, say, the Orkney Islands in the North Sea off Scotland than it does to call Watkins Glen, 15 miles from here. Traditionally, international phone rates were negotiated between national government phone companies (or AT&T in the U.S.), with the two parties splitting the revenue via "settlements." For poor countries, that's still true, and I gather that for some of the countries in Africa, phone settlements are the largest source of foreign exchange, so they want the rates to be as high as possible. This is also why you find dial-a-porn numbers in places like Sao Tome off the coast of Africa and Guyana, since the telco splits the settlement revenue with the content providers, which are usually in the U.S. or Europe. 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: Linc Madison Subject: Re: Why International Rates Are so Different? Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 03:13:37 -0700 Organization: MindSpring Enterprises In article , Yuri Victorovich wrote: > I am just curious why it's such a great difference in international > rates depending on the country? What are the reasons of higher rates: > local taxes, limited switches, different calling volumes? "Settlements" is the answer. When you place a call to Country X, your telco has to pay the telco in Country X a pre-determined per-minute fee to complete the far end of the connection. There is a dramatic disparity in the settlements rates of different countries. It is gradually becoming more common to see different settlements rates for mobiles than for fixed-line numbers, and telcos are now more often charging you different rates for calls to mobiles as a result. The settlements are used by many less-developed countries to subsidize improvements in the infrastructure and/or to line the pockets of those in power. In many countries, the telco will also share the settlements payments with anyone who will generate traffic into the country -- thus the proliferation of sex chat lines and such things in obscure places. The system also shows the downside for small countries getting their own country codes. Back when Liechtenstein was still dialed as part of the Swiss telephone network, the rates were often the same for both countries. It just wasn't worth the trouble to special-case +41 75 at a different rate from the rest of +41. However, Liechtenstein is now on its own +423, and it now costs more to call Liechtenstein than to call Switzerland. LincMad dot Com * North American Telephone Area Codes & Splits Preferred Reply Address: Telecom # LincMad * Com Unsolicited bulk e-mail will be reported to your admin or upstream. ------------------------------ From: dold@12.usenet.us.com (Clarence Dold) Subject: Re: Payphone Surcharges from Non-Payphone Lines Date: 10 May 2002 00:43:02 GMT Organization: Wintercreek Data > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The word 'payphone' is a misnomer in > this case. It would have been better to refer to the charge as being > applied in any case where a third person (motel/hotel/hospital, etc) > maintains the phone system on behalf of users. Hospitals, after all > are just hotels for sick people. Are you sure about that, PAT? I hated having to deal with the PSCC when I was with an 800-carrier, because the law is so inane. But I digress ... Initially, the only way to identify a payphone call was through ANIII digits, and one of the digits was shared with various other places, like hospitals and prisons. But that was phased out, and all payphone operators were supposed to present the proper digits quite some time ago. I know it slipped a couple of times, but there should have been a cutoff date before now. < http://www.nanpa.com/number_resource_info/ani_ii_assignments.html > There used to be some questionable ones that should now present "70", I thought instead of the "07" that they used to present, but I could be wrong. When I wrote the code, there were a few that I scanned for, but I can't remember what they were. Billing against inappropriate codes is just a plain ripoff, unless PAT is right that other-than-payphone was deliberately included, and that would be a change from the law of two years ago. Clarence A Dold - dold@email.rahul.net - Pope Valley (Napa County) CA. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: All those places listed above shared a couple things in common in their handling of phone traffic: all the traffic came and went in and out of the institution through a PBX or 'switchboard' type setting. Outgoing traffic was never handled at 'direct dial rates' because there is special handling involved. Telco has to quote time and charges after each call in order to special-bill the individual extension user. Because of these extra steps and because of the institution's guarentee of payment to telco, the usual procedure is for telco to pay a small commission (ten to fifteen percent) of the billing back to the institution to cover the costs involved in the billing and maintaining of the telephone exchange on the premises. Telco pays commission on sent-paid and inbound-collect traffic. Where does 800 traffic fit into that? Well, it doesn't. That was the institutions' complaint. 'Where's ours,' they would say. But, as has been pointed out here in recent days, FCC did not agree with telco and the institutions that institutions should be treated as 'pay telephones' despite the fact that COCOTS (either privately owned or telco-owned) have *exactly* the same obligations to their customers. Install/bill/collect/maintain the premises around the equipment, etc. Telco even pays commissions to the proprietor of places where a telco-owned pay station is located. What makes motels/ hotels/hospitals/schools any different? They all have transients seeing phone service. FCC says no on 800 surcharges to all but the genuine payphone operator? Well that's news to me, but as was pointed out here yesterday, that's the new rules. PAT ------------------------------ From: Tom Williams Organization: Telecom Subject: Re: Payphone Surcharges from Non-Payphone Lines Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 02:30:02 GMT John R. Levine wrote: >> The FCC currently allows payphone operators to collect a payphone >> surcharge from the called party when a toll free number is >> dialed. Is it legal for this surcharge to be collected when the >> call is made not from a payphone? I used to have a calling card >> with PNG. ... > Legal? Sure, PNG can charge you whatever they want. Honest, ethical, > and moral? Well, no. They are a regulated company and can only charge what their tariffs expressly disclose. In addition, there was never any information given to the consumer to indicate that calls made from business lines, etc were subject to a "Payphone" surcharge. That having been said, their whole system was screwy because a calling card call made from my own residential line (that billed to PNG) was charged their "Payphone surcharge." > Payphone owners get a 24 cent surcharge on "dial-around" calls to toll > free, 0+, and 101XXXX numbers. Most long distance carriers mark this > up somewhat, partly to compensate for calls that aren't completed, > partly out of greed. Well even if they charged $5.00 for each payphone call, I wouldn't mind that much as long as I was made aware of that $5.00 so that I never used their calling card to pay such a ridiculous amount. > You are correct that a payphone is a payphone. A hotel, hospital, or > dorm line is not a payphone. LECs are required to keep track of what > numbers are assigned to payphones and provide them to long distance > carriers. If your carrier billed you for a payphone charge for calls > from lines that aren't payphones, you correctly concluded that they > overcharged you. > From what I've heard about PNG, this isn't too surprising. Despite > their low rates, I don't know anyone who's happy with their service. Yes, I was happy to get rid of them, although a few years ago they were on the cutting edge of low rates without fees. As their rates went down, though I noticed their USF magically and quietly went up. (The USF, now THERE is a rip-off ...) Now there are better companies out there, ecg, zoneld, etc. Pat wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The word 'payphone' is a misnomer in > this case. It would have been better to refer to the charge as being > applied in any case where a third person (motel/hotel/hospital, etc) > maintains the phone system on behalf of users. Hospitals, after all > are just hotels for sick people. > Hotels/motels/hospitals/military bases/universities/etc -- anywhere > with 'transient residents' who operate their own exchanges desire to > be compensated for the use of their facilities and the catch is, there > is no commission payable on toll free calls. So telco makes the recip- > ient of the toll free call pay for it along with the traffic itself. > The word 'payphone' is just a generic label for all the above. How > do you know you did not get any incoming calls from payphones or other > places in the above list? Normally hotels/motels/hospitals/university > switchboards/military base switchboards all recieve a commission on > their 'sent paid' and 'received collect' traffic. If you *received* > those calls on an 800 number assigned to you then you have to pay the > commission to those establishments. PAT] To clarify, my original post was referring to calling card calls with 800 access numbers, not calls terminating to 800 numbers themselves. As such, I knew exactly what lines I had made each call from. In fact, the origination numbers were listed on my bill, along with a star indicating the surcharge. I noticed that there was even a surcharge on a call made from my own residential line. Even they couldn't justify that, since the line billed to them, so they knew it wasn't a payphone. As far as I know only payphones are subject to payphone surcharges. I'm not sure how PNG would know what lines are owned by a business and what lines or residential. Calling card operators do however, have a method to detect when calls are placed from payphones. Does anyone know how they do this? Is there a master list of payphone numbers, or do they have some detection mechanism? (PNG did refund the bogus surcharges, but not without hassle. In addition, it took a while just to get to a person.) ------------------------------ From: Ken Abrams Subject: Re: Growing Quirk on 5ESS Organization: Insight Broadband Date: Thu, 09 May 2002 21:55:08 GMT John Higdon wrote in message > I am running out of places to inquire about a problem I have been > observing on 5ESS switches in California. None of my contacts at > SBC/PacBell have a clue. 611 is useless. Odds are that someone in this > forum has the answer! The big Telcos were pioneers of the "customer NO service" department. The people answering the phones (and their supervisors) have no CLUE what to do with anything out of the ordinary. That's why I left 10 years ago. You need to raise hell, nicely. Call and write the the state PUC (or equivalent). State the problem and emphasize that they seem to be incapable of reporting the problem to anybody who can really fix it. Then check the Telco's internet site or contact the SEC to get the CEO's office number. Call him/her. Letters are too easy to ignore. Then write a letter to the Editor of your local newspaper. Then call a big local radio station. Then call the news department of a big local TV station. There is a disturbing trend in industry to isolate the customers and treat them, as a whole, like a nuisance instead of a source of revenue. Unless and until "we" raise a lot of stink, this trend will continue. You have an opportunity to "fire a shot" in this war. Please do it and keep us posted. ------------------------------ 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. 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End of TELECOM Digest V20 #247 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri May 10 16:52:03 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id QAA27345; Fri, 10 May 2002 16:52:03 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 16:52:03 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200205102052.QAA27345@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #248 TELECOM Digest Fri, 10 May 2002 16:53:00 EDT Volume 20 : Issue 248 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Cellphone Number Portability? (Joey Lindstrom) Re: Nortel Centrex Phones (EM Handler) Technologies Enabling the Telecoms Industry (Burt Renolds) Re: Siemens Gigaset 8825 (Sellcom Tech Support) Payphone Fee Scams (Tom Williams) Re: The Huge Amount of Spam Received Recently (Anthony E. Seigman) Re: Payphone Surcharges from Non-Payphone Lines (Carl Navarro) Re: Payphone Surcharges from Non-Payphone Lines (John R. Levine) Re: Talking With Robot Agents (Alan Fowler) Receive/Transmit Problems With Nokia 5165 (Robert Cywinski) Re: Do You Have Any Issues With This ISP? (Daniel Ekenedillichukwu) Setting Modem String (Robert A. Fink, M. D.) Re: Why International Rates Are so Different? (Joseph Singer) Re: My 800 Phone Bill Has Become Outrageous (John R. Levine) Cable vs DSL for IP Telephony (Kal M) Re: NPA-NXX and LATA (Specifically, Laurel, MD) (Carl Moore) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 09 May 2002 15:56:30 -0600 From: Joey Lindstrom Subject: Cellphone Number Portability? Reply-To: joey@garynuman.info I seem to recall sometime in the past, a year or so ago, reading a few articles here in the Telecom Digest discussing the upcoming implementation of number portability between cellphone operators in Canada. I also seem to remember that this was supposed to be implemented sometime in 2001. I got disconnected from the Telecom Digest for a couple of months at the end of 2001, thus I missed any discussion of this that might have taken place then. My question: does this yet exist? The salesman here at the office would like to trash his crappy Rogers AT&T service and sign up for either Bell Mobility or Telus Mobility, but having to switch to another phone number would be irritating enough that he has so far put off making this decision. Has anyone out there actually switched their number to another cellphone provider? Any problems? Thanks! Joey Lindstrom ------------------------------ Reply-To: EM Handler From: EM Handler Subject: Re: Nortel Centrex Phones Organization: Prodigy Internet http://www.prodigy.com Date: Thu, 09 May 2002 22:01:39 GMT Here's a good source for Nortel M5316s -- http://www.intelevoice.com "mick lynn" wrote in message news:telecom20.245.9@telecom-digest.org: > We are needing to buy approximately 1000 each used Nortel M5316 > Centrex phones in tan (color). They can be used, defective or out of > service as long as they are complete. We need these to complete a > contract we have in the Northeast and Nortel has sold their Centrex > line. It is a good way to turn excess inventory into cash. > Mick Lynn > V 615 300 5384 > F 615 595 9964 ------------------------------ From: Burt Renolds Subject: Technologies Enabling the Telecoms Industry Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 00:41:26 +0100 Organization: Customer of PlusNet Could anybody give me some good resources for completing a presentation on technologies that enable the telecoms industry?? Burt ------------------------------ Reply-To: Sellcom Tech Support From: Sellcom Tech Support Subject: Re: Siemens Gigaset 8825 Organization: http://www.sellcom.biz Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 01:51:10 GMT UsenetMeister wrote in message news:telecom20.245.6@telecom-digest.org: > Anyway, Siemens just released this 8800 series stuff, and, of course, > they market their own 802.11b gear. The idea that the 8800 does not > interoperate with a dominant technology is absurd! Shame on Siemens > if they haven't gotten this right. Would you expect two 900mhz devices from different manufacturers to work in proximity to each other? Steve from SELLCOM http://www.sellcom.biz Discount multihandset cordless phones Panasonic Siemens EnGenius and more Authorized Twinhead notebooks Okidata printers Watchguard firewalls ------------------------------ From: Tom Williams Organization: Telecom Subject: Payphone Fee Scams Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 02:23:58 GMT A talk show radio show host started his program tonight by talking about an interesting payphone scam. It seems that some clever folks installed payphones in their houses. They then proceeded to call as many toll free 800 type numbers as possible, collecting the 24 cent fee from each. One guy racked up over $5,000,000! Now they're starting to be indicted. The host, Tom Martino http://www.troubleshooter.com was aware of the scam because he called the guy up to find out why he had made so many calls to Tom's 800 number. (For those who have never heard the show, it's one of the best of the problem solver type radio shows. Unlike everyone else, he encourages people to give the names of companies they're having problems with, and frequently calls them up on the show to get satisfaction. Not infrequently, the companies with shady business practices are telecom companies.) ------------------------------ From: aes Subject: Re: The Huge Amount of Spam Received Recently Date: Thu, 09 May 2002 19:52:58 -0700 Organization: Stanford University In article , Barry Margolin wrote: > I dislike most analogies between postal spam and email spam, as I > don't think the level of the problem is similar, nor are the > economics. I receive 200-300 emails a day, and at least 50% of it is > spam (and another 25% is internal company spam, but that's not an > Internet problem). I suspect that the worst victims of postal spam > probably only get a dozen or so pieces a day. Also, even disregarding > postage, postal spam has per-unit costs: paper, printing, envelope > stuffing, etc. Email spam is a clear-cut example of Tragedy of the > Commons; the virtual world of the Internet has removed almost all the > real unit costs, and most efforts to impose artificial costs tend to > fail (it's been said that the Internet evolves to route around > censorship, and I suspect this is also true of pricing). I'm in total agreement with this. Postal "spam" remains under control and is not a serious problem primarily because there are substantial costs to the sender (at least 20 or 30 cents per message sent), and secondarily because it's easily dealt with (i.e., disposed of on sight, when you're ready) by the recipient. Email spam has almost the reverse characteristics to this. I point out once again: Suppose profit-making "electronic post offices" that imposed a "postage charge" for forwarding a message were available, but didn't have to be used (i..e, no changes in the basic underlying current system). Anyone who chose to could then protect themselves from spam email by putting themselves behind a mail server that passed along only those messages that either (a) came from an authorization list established by the recipient in advance, or (b) came through a fee-charging post office. You could name the post office that was acceptable to you in your web site address or sig file. Any messages outside of that you'd never see. ------------------------------ From: Carl Navarro Subject: Re: Payphone Surcharges from Non-Payphone Lines Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 00:07:56 -0400 Organization: Airnews.net! at Internet America On 9 May 2002 10:26:30 -0400, johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) wrote: >> The FCC currently allows payphone operators to collect a payphone >> surcharge from the called party when a toll free number is >> dialed. Is it legal for this surcharge to be collected when the >> call is made not from a payphone? I used to have a calling card >> with PNG. ... We were in a situation where we ordered a COCOT line for a club. We have the payphone, but the rate table was hosed so we just stuck a single line set on the line. It appears to the operator as a Coin Line so that we can use the screening, but we give the users local calls for free. If you dial an 800 number, it will be subject to surcharge and, come to think of it, I don't recall EVER seeing any kind of rebate for calls :-). Carl Navarro ------------------------------ Date: 10 May 2002 14:09:38 -0400 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: Payphone Surcharges from Non-Payphone Lines Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA >> Legal? Sure, PNG can charge you whatever they want. Honest, ethical, >> and moral? Well, no. > They are a regulated company and can only charge what their tariffs > expressly disclose. That hasn't been true for many years. Non-dominant telcos don't file tariffs any more. > Calling card operators do however, have a method to detect when > calls are placed from payphones. Does anyone know how they do this? > Is there a master list of payphone numbers, or do they have some > detection mechanism? As someone else noted, the ANI information includes a pair of digits the describes the type of calling line. See http://www.nanpa.com/number_resource_info/ani_ii_assignments.html 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: amfowler@melbpc.org.au (Alan Fowler) Subject: Re: Talking With Robot Agents Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 10:24:53 GMT Organization: Whitethorn Software joel@exc.com (Dr. Joel M. Hoffman) wrote: >> With the phone based system you could opt (usually) to talk to a live >> human, but after endless muzak on hold (BTW, I hate those false >> interruptions of the music just to hear a recording of "your call is >> important to us, please continue to hold" when I think I have finally >> reached a human and it turns out not to be). > I have to admit, that I still find myself thinking that as soon the > song ends, someone will pick up ... I'm usually wrong. Joel, The solution to this problem is for the telco to debit the callers account one cent per second until a real person comes on the line, and credit the money to your account. Now all we have to do is persuade the regulatory bodies to implement the plan. Alan [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Maybe, or maybe not. I suspect a lot of companies would evaluate the cost of these 'penny per second' fines vrs. the cost of hiring/training more help, and would simply agree to begin budgeting the monthly cost of paying the fine into their cost of doing business. PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Receive/Transmit Problems With Nokia 5165 Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 08:19:19 -0400 From: Robert Cywinski > I have a Nokia 5165, and there are spots in my home where I just can't > get a signal. Is this a new issue with your phone or has this always been a problem? I have the same phone and started to have this problem. It almost seemed that the antenna wasn't there. I opened up the phone and out dropped the screw that holds the antenna plate to the circuit board. Yours may be backing out as well. It's an easy fix. Bob [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You know, Bob, that is a *brilliant* observation. Seriously. I'm going to look at my phones (two of the Nokia 5165's) this afternoon. One has excellent coverage (the new Cingular phone); the other (AT&T service out Chicago) has so-so coverage but seems to have gotten worse in the past few months. PAT] ------------------------------ From: akekcomm@hotmail.com (Ekenedillichukwu Daniel) Subject: Re: Do You Have Any Issues With This ISP? Date: 10 May 2002 07:50:39 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ I think people should be aware of the kind of emails been sent out and received theough the net. There is no way an ISP can restrict users from sending fraudulent emails. Basically the prospects of such mails depend on the end-user. I strongly beleive that ISPs should be left out of this and user should be given an awareness notice on such mails. Daniel Ekenedillichukwu ------------------------------ From: Robert A. Fink, M. D. Subject: Setting Modem String Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 08:14:54 -0700 Organization: Robert A. Fink, M. D., FACS, P. C. Reply-To: rafink@attglobal.net I am having difficulties with disconnects from my dialup connection at peak hours and have determined that my problem is likely a "pair-gain" switching which my telco activates at these times. This results in the degradation of my v.90 connections. It has been suggested that I try to connect at a lower level, such as v.34, and several modem strings have been suggested. I have not been able to discover, however, *where* to insert these strings. My modem is an internal Supra 56K PCI v.90 unit, and my operating system is WIN98. I have attempted to set up a new dialup connection in DUN, but it is not clear to me *where* I need t type in the modified modem string in order to force the modem to connect only at v.34 or lower. Many thanks for your input. Best, Bob Robert A. Fink, M.D., FACS, P. C. 2500 Milvia Street Suite 222 Berkeley, California 94704-2636 USA Telephone: 510-849-2555 FAX: 510-849-2557 "Ex Tristitia Virtus" [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Will someone with familiarity on these modem strings and Windows 98 please contact Dr. Fink. Thanks. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Joseph Singer Subject: Re: Why International Rates Are so Different? Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 08:37:29 -0700 Organization: Drizzle Reply-To: joeofseattle@yahoo.com On 9 May 2002 06:27:56 -0700, yuri@tsoft.com (Yuri Victorovich) wrote: > I am just curious why it's such a great difference in international > rates depending on the country? What are the reasons of higher rates: > local taxes, limited switches, different calling volumes? I'm guessing a lot of it has to do with traffic. There's lots of traffic to the UK and to western Europe and Hong Kong from the US so the rates tend to be lower. Calling to Saudia or some place in Africa is not likely to have the kind of traffic that would generate lots of funds and thus allow for a break in the rates. Personal replies most likely will not be read. Please reply in the newsgroup ------------------------------ Date: 10 May 2002 14:00:07 -0400 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: My 800 Phone Bill Has Become Outrageous Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > [ re USA Datanet ] > The 99 cents for 10 minute deal is the same sort of trickery that > Telecome USA (aka Worldcome) uses. If you are in the habit of making > lots of calls over 10 minutes then it's an OK deal. Those one minute > or 5 minute calls however are an extremely bad deal. No, it's 10 cpm up to the per-call maximum. A one minute call costs a dime, which isn't fabulous, but isn't a major ripoff like the Telecom USA plan is. USA Datanet is useful for intrastate, calls to Canada, and dialround from places other than your house. Since it's dialaround, the 99 cent plan is also handy when you know you're going to be making a long call. > I have inward toll-free service and I pay 6 cents/minute. Gee, I pay 4.9 cpm. > I don't think your plan shows any great savings when you're paying > close to 50 cents/minute for the priviledge of calling at any time. No, we're not. If you'd taken a quick look at www.usadatanet.com, you'd have known that. 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 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 19:13:48 GMT From: Kal M Subject: Cable vs DSL for IP telephony Organization: Optimum Online Hi, I have cable modem service and trying to do Voice over IP but it is not good. I wonder if DSL will provide better quality for this service. Thank you, KAM ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 15:45:10 EDT From: Carl Moore Subject: Re: NPA-NXX and LATA (Specifically, Laurel, MD) To comment about Laurel, MD: I got an email a few years back asking why there were Laurel prefixes in 301 and in 410. My answer is that there are different local-calling plans available from Laurel: "default" (on the pay phones which would be erected by the old local-monopoly phone co.) would be local to DC and at least some of the Maryland suburbs but not local to VA except for the Pentagon offices. Washington metro service -- two possibilities (differing in what points outside of Washington metro were also local): 1. Bowie-Glenn Dale service (a prefix in this category was 621, which showed up on those "Washington Metro" pay phones at BWI airport, whose "local" prefixes, 850 & 859, were on the Glen Burnie/Friendship exchange and had Baltimore metro service) 2. Berwyn service (a prefix in this category was 953) Baltimore metro service (i.e., "Waterloo service") on the 792 prefix. End of notes on local service available from Laurel; AFAIK, they're still correct even though they then split between 2 area codes. Rule of thumb in 301/410 split was that local to Baltimore went to 410, and local to Washington stayed in 301. So at Laurel, the Baltimore- metro stuff went to 410 and everything else stayed in 301. At BWI, those Washington-metro pay phones stayed in 301 and everything else went to 410. ------------------------------ 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-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 620-870-9697 Fax : 775-255-9970 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@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 * * Judith Oppenheimer, President of ICB Inc. and purveyor of accurate * * 800 & Dot Com News, Intelligence, Analysis, and Consulting. * * http://ICBTollFree.com, http://1800TheExpert.com * * Views expressed herein should not be construed as representing * * views of Judith Oppenheimer or ICB Inc. * ************************************************************************* ICB Toll Free News. Contact information is not sold, rented or leased. Access to Premium (P) links requires upgrade to a paid subscription. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Only subscribers or registered users of ICB Toll Free News web site will be able to access all or some of the full text of URLs provided. LEGAL STUFF: TELECOM Digest (sm) is owned by Patrick Townson. Copyright 2000 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. 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. End of TELECOM Digest V20 #248 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat May 11 17:58:53 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id RAA16857; Sat, 11 May 2002 17:58:53 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sat, 11 May 2002 17:58:53 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200205112158.RAA16857@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #249 TELECOM Digest Sat, 11 May 2002 17:59:00 EDT Volume 20 : Issue 249 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Cable vs DSL for IP Telephony (Barry Margolin) Re: Cable vs DSL for IP Telephony (Chip G) Re: Cable vs DSL for IP Telephony (NOSPAM) Re: Cable vs DSL for IP Telephony (Geoffrey Welsh) Re: Setting Modem String (Reed) Re: Setting Modem String (Chip Stein) Re: Payphone Fee Scams (John Higdon) Re: Payphone Fee Scams (Anthony E. Seigman) Re: Payphone Fee Scams (John Hines) Re: Payphone Fee Scams (Robert Casey) Re: Payphone Surcharges from Non-Payphone Lines (Stanley Cline) Re: The Huge Amount of Spam Received Recently (Wes Leatherock) Economics, was Re: Huge Amount of Spam Received Recently (Danny Burstein) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Barry Margolin Subject: Re: Cable vs DSL for IP Telephony Organization: Genuity, Woburn, MA Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 21:39:19 GMT In article , Kal M wrote: > I have cable modem service and trying to do Voice over IP but it is > not good. I wonder if DSL will provide better quality for this > service. VOIP requires high quality end-to-end. Changing from cable modem to DSL only changes the attributes of the last link in the chain. If that link is the problem, then changing could improve things. But for all you know, you'll be changing from a provider with a good backbone but congested subscriber links (since all the customers in a cable modem node are sharing its bandwidth), to a provider with a good subscriber link (since DSL connections are dedicated to just one customer) but a congested backbone. You would probably do best to find others in your area using the various DSL providers, and find out what kind of quality they get. Barry Margolin, barmar@genuity.net Genuity, Woburn, 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: Chip G Subject: Re: Cable vs DSL for IP telephony Organization: AT&T Broadband Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 21:45:27 GMT The keys to successful use of VoIP are many. In general, I think you will have the same experiences whether you are using DSL or cable modem. Some considerations: 1. Sufficient Bandwidth (my Cable Modem provides up to 1.5 Mbps but seems to generally actually come in at about 760 Kbps or so... plenty for any VoIP app... on the downstream side that is. On the upstream my ISP limits even cable modem to 128Kbps. This is definitely sufficient if I am running no other apps that require much bandwidth); 2. Adequate latency (generally on the order of under 250 ms is adequate, the lower the better); 3. Minimal lost packets (while e-mail and web traffic can be pretty forgiving, voice and video need reliable streams of data. That is why you generally see them implemented via UDP instead of TCP. If too many packets are lost, the conversation can become unintelligible. 4. Finally, to ensure quality of the voice traffic, you really need some form of Quality of Service (QoS) guarantee. This can be done by many methods. The general industry standard seems to be 802.1p/q and diffserv for most vendors and carriers (with the exception of Cisco... they have their own properitary method that is not compatible with most other vendor capabilities ... although I believe they can support 802.1p/q with their newer equipment). Clearly if you are going across the Internet, you will have no way to guarantee QoS end-to-end since currently it is not a required part of Internet transport. Therefore, you cannot reliably guarantee the quality of the voice experience. Having said that, my VoIP experiences have been just fine though... even over the Internet. I find AOL IM voice to be very good. Netmeeting voice is not nearly as good but it is still reasonably usable for general purposes. The best audio quality I have seen is from the Avaya IP Softphone. However, it requires an Avaya switch to connect with. It cannot be used with the Avaya endpoint as far as I know. Cisco's audio quality is also reasonably good as long as there is plenty of bandwidth on the network and no intensive file transfers going on... the same for any non-QoS capable network. Hope this helps, Chip Kal M wrote in message news:telecom20.248.15@telecom-digest.org... > I have cable modem service and trying to do Voice over IP but it is > not good. I wonder if DSL will provide better quality for this > service. ------------------------------ From: NOSPAM Subject: Re: Cable vs DSL for IP telephony Organization: Prodigy Internet http://www.prodigy.com Date: Sat, 11 May 2002 07:06:22 GMT What are you using for the DSP? What is the speed of your cable modem? I have been successful implementing VoIP with the following products and very little latency: http://ld.net/voip/?telcomgr Kal M wrote in message news:telecom20.248.15@telecom-digest.org... > I have cable modem service and trying to do Voice over IP but it is > not good. I wonder if DSL will provide better quality for this > service. ------------------------------ From: Geoffrey Welsh Subject: Re: Cable vs DSL for IP telephony Date: Sat, 11 May 2002 16:25:08 -0400 Organization: Bell Sympatico Kal M wrote in message news:telecom20.248.15@telecom-digest.org... > I have cable modem service and trying to do Voice over IP but it is > not good. I wonder if DSL will provide better quality for this > service. My limited experience with cable and DSL IP connectivity suggests that the technology itself (i.e., cable vs. DSL) is almost completely irrelevant -- assuming, of course, that the basic speed requirement is met -- and the quality of the service depends on the vendor's implementation, including device settings, oversubscription, IP connectivity, etc. However, my overall impression is that you're going to have problems implementing VOIP or any other latency or packet-loss sensitive application reliably over low-price broadband (including some vendor's 'business' cable service) because, when a vendor charges you a fraction of what businesses pay for comparable bandwidth, it tends to cut a lot of corners. Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.351 / Virus Database: 197 - Release Date: 19/04/2002 ------------------------------ From: Reed Subject: Re: Setting Modem String Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 20:34:57 -0600 Organization: None Whatsoever take a look at: http://www.vee90.net/init_where.html Robert, A., Fink, "M. D." wrote: > I am having difficulties with disconnects from my dialup connection at > peak hours and have determined that my problem is likely a "pair-gain" > switching which my telco activates at these times. This results in > the degradation of my v.90 connections. > It has been suggested that I try to connect at a lower level, such as > v.34, and several modem strings have been suggested. I have not been > able to discover, however, *where* to insert these strings. > My modem is an internal Supra 56K PCI v.90 unit, and my operating > system is WIN98. > I have attempted to set up a new dialup connection in DUN, but it is > not clear to me *where* I need t type in the modified modem string in > order to force the modem to connect only at v.34 or lower. > Many thanks for your input. ------------------------------ From: chip@chipanddebby.com (Chip Stein) Subject: Re: Setting Modem String Date: 10 May 2002 20:29:03 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Robert A. Fink, M. D. wrote in message news:: > I am having difficulties with disconnects from my dialup connection at > peak hours and have determined that my problem is likely a "pair-gain" > switching which my telco activates at these times. This results in > the degradation of my v.90 connections. > It has been suggested that I try to connect at a lower level, such as > v.34, and several modem strings have been suggested. I have not been > able to discover, however, *where* to insert these strings. > My modem is an internal Supra 56K PCI v.90 unit, and my operating > system is WIN98. > I have attempted to set up a new dialup connection in DUN, but it is > not clear to me *where* I need t type in the modified modem string in > order to force the modem to connect only at v.34 or lower. I'm on Nt right now but, there is a place under the DUN setup in Win 98 that says additional dialing information. look for that. under NT it says before dialing scripts. Or if there's room just put the AT commands in before the phone number like you would under linux. Hope this helps some. I'll look further. Chip ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 16:56:52 -0700 Subject: Re: Payphone Fee Scams From: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows In article telecom20.248.5@telecom-digest.org, Tom Williams wrote: > A talk show radio show host started his program tonight by talking > about an interesting payphone scam. It seems that some clever folks > installed payphones in their houses. They then proceeded to call as > many toll free 800 type numbers as possible, collecting the 24 cent > fee from each. One guy racked up over $5,000,000! Now they're > starting to be indicted. Some of the more brazen "payphone 800 callers" had recordings that said, "Thank you for answering our test call. Goodbye." This is the main reason that I started blocking payphones from any of my 800 numbers. But I also have worked with associates in setting up software traps that flag the incoming call log when such a signature is detected. These folks seemed to forget that folks with 800 numbers have a detailed accounting of calls made to them and it didn't take much to get investigators busy tracking down the scammers. Usage patterns on any payphone lines in question usually tell the story quite clearly. It is pretty hard to explain away 800-number calls that have obviously been war-dialed from what is supposed to be a payphone. John Higdon | Email Address Valid | SF: +1 415 428-COWS +1 408 264 4115 | Silicon Valley, CA | FAX: +1 408 264 4407 http://www.anntec.com/realpoop.html ------------------------------ From: aes Subject: Re: Payphone Fee Scams Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 17:37:19 -0700 Organization: Stanford University In article , Tom Williams wrote: > A talk show radio show host started his program tonight by talking > about an interesting payphone scam. It seems that some clever folks > installed payphones in their houses. They then proceeded to call as > many toll free 800 type numbers as possible, collecting the 24 cent > fee from each. One guy racked up over $5,000,000! Now they're > starting to be indicted. Why is this a "scam", exactly? I've long wondered if I could do this, and then sit around at odd hours dialing back to all the 800 numbers of all the b-----ds who send me spam faxes. Might be nasty -- but what rules does it violate? ------------------------------ From: John Hines Subject: Re: Payphone Fee Scams Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 18:37:02 -0500 Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com Reply-To: john@jhines.org Tom Williams wrote: > A talk show radio show host started his program tonight by talking > about an interesting payphone scam. It seems that some clever folks > installed payphones in their houses. They then proceeded to call as > many toll free 800 type numbers as possible, collecting the 24 cent > fee from each. One guy racked up over $5,000,000! Now they're > starting to be indicted. Now if he was calling spammers that have 800 numbers, he would be doing mankind a favor. So close, yet so far. ------------------------------ From: Robert Casey Subject: Re: Payphone Fee Scams Date: Sat, 11 May 2002 03:30:00 -0400 Organization: wa2ise Tom Williams wrote: > A talk show radio show host started his program tonight by talking > about an interesting payphone scam. It seems that some clever folks > installed payphones in their houses. They then proceeded to call as > many toll free 800 type numbers as possible, collecting the 24 cent > fee from each. One guy racked up over $5,000,000! Now they're > starting to be indicted. > The host, Tom Martino http://www.troubleshooter.com was aware of the > scam because he called the guy up to find out why he had made so many > calls to Tom's 800 number. Repeat calls was kinda dumb. One could have just had a computer war dial every possible 800, 888, 877, and 866 number just once or twice and collected the fee without any one toll free owner ever noticing anything unusual. Though the local phone company might be wondering what's going on. ------------------------------ From: Stanley Cline Subject: Re: Payphone Surcharges from Non-Payphone Lines Date: Sat, 11 May 2002 01:11:52 -0400 Organization: Roamer1 Communications - Dunwoody, GA, USA Reply-To: sc1-news@roamer1.org On 10 May 2002 00:43:02 GMT, Pat wrote: > places where a telco-owned pay station is located. What makes motels/ > hotels/hospitals/schools any different? They all have transients > seeking phone service. FCC says no on 800 surcharges to all but the My guess is that the FCC sees hotels, hospitals, and college dorms as providing phone service as a part of "accommodations" paid for by the person staying in the accommodations (or at least indirectly via their employer, parents, health insurer, etc.), and are already getting paid for operating the phones as part of room rates. In contrast, owners of "regular" payphones (not including semi-public service or other oddball situations where business owners actually pay [usually LEC payphone subidiaries -- most COCOT owners don't want this sort of business] for "low revenue" phones to be installed and operated) do not get paid at all except by revenue from phone calls. Before someone asks why inmate phone service doesn't fall into the same category as hotels, etc. -- my guess is that it's because a) All Us American Taxpayers, not the inmate, pays for their "room and board" and b) the "Inmate Phone Providers" are in bed with "correctional facility" administrators, who are in bed with legislators, etc. Stanley Cline -- sc1 at roamer1 dot org -- http://www.roamer1.org/ "Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today. There might be a law against it by that time." -/usr/games/fortune ------------------------------ From: wesrock@aol.com (Wes Leatherock) Date: 10 May 2002 23:33:06 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: The Huge Amount of Spam Received Recently On Wed, 08 May 2002 20:44:41 GMT Barry Margolin barmar@genuity.net wrote: > In article , Mark Crispin > wrote: > I believe that postal spammers have to do something to get these > discounts, though. They have to presort their mail, effectively > transfering work from the postal workers to the spammers, to justify > bulk rates. And the requirements are pretty rigorous, and expensive, too. >> Most Americans would happily pay more for a postage stamp if postal >> spammers had to pay it too. > I doubt it. So do I. Since bulk mail ("postal spam," as you call it) basically supports the Postal Service, first class mail (letters) would have to be much higher without the Postal Service revenue provided by the bulk mailers. Incidentally, the majority of first class mail today is not mailed with postage stamps, but with postage meters or permit indicia. Some bulk mailers use stamps (not first class stamps), because they feel the higher response rate justifies the cost of affixing postage stamps rather than the lower cost of metering the mail or imprinting the permit. Wes Leatherock wesrock@aol.com wleathus@yahoo.com ------------------------------ From: danny burstein Subject: Economics, was Re: Huge Amount of Spam Received Recently Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 23:48:49 +0000 (UTC) Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC In aes writes: [big snip] > I'm in total agreement with this. Postal "spam" remains under control > and is not a serious problem primarily because there are substantial > costs to the sender (at least 20 or 30 cents per message sent), and > secondarily because it's easily dealt with (i.e., disposed of on > sight, when you're ready) by the recipient. Email spam has almost the > reverse characteristics to this. > I point out once again: Suppose profit-making "electronic post > offices" that imposed a "postage charge" for forwarding a message were > available, but didn't have to be used (i..e, no changes in the basic > underlying current system). > Anyone who chose to could then protect themselves from spam email by > putting themselves behind a mail server that passed along only those > messages that either (a) came from an authorization list established > by the recipient in advance, or (b) came through a fee-charging post > office. You could name the post office that was acceptable to you in > your web site address or sig file. Any messages outside of that you'd > never see. A couple of points in this regard: First, many, many, people (and their ISPs -- often without the customers knowing it) are already shitcanning any e-mail that comes from locations that are spam friendly. For example, if you try sending from a ya*oo account, you'll probably find that 10% or more of your e-mail never gets to its destination. I personally take all e-mail from that place, as well as its brethren, and kick it into a spam box. I also filter out e-mail that asks me to reply to one of those addresses. Perhaps one piece in 50 is real. That sender, if I'm up to it, gets a note saying "sorry, if you want your note read by a human use a real ISP, not one whose business model assists spammers." Similarly, if ISPs and the gateways adopted a simple change in their pricing schemes, then spam would drop dramatically and it would be much easier to filter out the few remaining problems. Simply have a condition of the Terms of Service be something like the following (which would have to be legaleazed a bit, but whose concept is straightforward): Use of this ISP specifically authorizes the following: The ISP is contracted to be a correspondence agent of the customer. Any and all contacts the ISP engages in due to actions of the customer, including, but not limited to, responding to complaints about e-mail from the customer (including automated bounces) and/or web pages operated by the customer, etc. may be charged at the following rate: first five/week: free six through ten: $5 apiece 11 or more: $100 apiece And, a monthly (and yearly) cumulative accounting (so we don't run into customers just staying under the limit each and every week...): first ten/month: free 11 or more: $100 apiece first 15/year: free 16 or more: $100 apiece The ISP shall have the right, at any point, to determine the credit worthiness of the customer. If the ISP decides, at its sole discretion, that there is a danger that the customer will not promptly pay, the ISP may cut off all services to the customer until payment, along with an appropriate deposit, is made. As more and more ISPs adopted this pricing schedule (and stuck to it ...) it would soon be pretty simple to figure out who the good guys and the bad guys were. Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key dannyb@panix.com [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded] ------------------------------ 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-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 620-870-9697 Fax : 775-255-9970 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@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 * * Judith Oppenheimer, President of ICB Inc. and purveyor of accurate * * 800 & Dot Com News, Intelligence, Analysis, and Consulting. * * http://ICBTollFree.com, http://1800TheExpert.com * * Views expressed herein should not be construed as representing * * views of Judith Oppenheimer or ICB Inc. * ************************************************************************* ICB Toll Free News. Contact information is not sold, rented or leased. Access to Premium (P) links requires upgrade to a paid subscription. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Only subscribers or registered users of ICB Toll Free News web site will be able to access all or some of the full text of URLs provided. LEGAL STUFF: TELECOM Digest (sm) is owned by Patrick Townson. Copyright 2000 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. 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. End of TELECOM Digest V20 #249 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat May 11 22:28:15 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id WAA20215; Sat, 11 May 2002 22:28:15 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sat, 11 May 2002 22:28:15 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200205120228.WAA20215@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #250 TELECOM Digest Sat, 11 May 2002 22:28:00 EDT Volume 20 : Issue 250 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Technologies Enabling the Telecoms Industry (John McHarry) Radio Interference, was Re: Siemens Gigaset 8825 (Danny Burstein) Re: One Verizon Number for International Roaming (Larry & Wanda Finch) Identifying "Out of Area" Calls Using ANI? (memory@firstpobox.com) Re: Talking With Robot Agents (Alan Fowler) Re: Slammed! (Jay B) Re: Growing Quirk on 5ESS (Chuck Till) Need Help Toshiba PBX Perception (Ray) Re: Do You Have Any Issues With This ISP? (Geoffrey Welsh) Re: Economics, was Re: Huge Amount of Spam Received (Thomas A. Horsley) Re: Economics, was Re: Huge Amount of Spam Received Recently (NOSPAM) Area Code Splits Inspire Spam (Joey Lindstrom) Re: Cable vs DSL for IP Telephony (Garrett Wollman) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John McHarry Subject: Re: Technologies Enabling the Telecoms Industry Organization: Giganews.Com - Premium News Outsourcing Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 23:30:08 GMT Burt Renolds wrote: > Could anybody give me some good resources for completing a > presentation on technologies that enable the telecoms industry?? > Burt Bankruptcy? ------------------------------ From: danny burstein Subject: Radio Interference, was Re: Siemens Gigaset 8825 Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 23:26:24 +0000 (UTC) Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC In Sellcom Tech Support writes: > UsenetMeister wrote in message > news:telecom20.245.6@telecom-digest.org: >> Anyway, Siemens just released this 8800 series stuff, and, of course, >> they market their own 802.11b gear. The idea that the 8800 does not >> interoperate with a dominant technology is absurd! Shame on Siemens >> if they haven't gotten this right. > Would you expect two 900mhz devices from different manufacturers to > work in proximity to each other? Gee. I've got a $20 radio receiver that cheerfully separates about 50 separate broadcasters in a band that's so small the frequencies are measured in kilohertz, not megahertz. In other words, there's plenty of room in the "900 mhz" area. Two or more units could cheerfully co-exist (or not ...) depending on how they were designed, what they were supposed to be doing, and the phase of the moon. Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key dannyb@panix.com [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded] [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But Danny you need to remember there are some differences in the characteristics of radio waves at different frequencies. I am not an expert at that subject, but the way radio waves propogate and get picked up, etc are different when in a different frequency range. That may explain it a little. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Larry & Wanda Finch Subject: Re: One Verizon Number for International Roaming Date: Sat, 11 May 2002 00:46:54 GMT Prof. Shurajit Gopal wrote: > Last week I had contacted one of your colleagues at 1-800-800-2062 and > he gave me the Rentaphone / Vodaphone number 1-888-547-0640 and asked > me to get in touch with them for my international roaming activation. > I did so and got my SIM Card too (for the Motorola Timeport GSM > Tri-band phone that I own) ... but with a UK number starting with > "+44" and NOT my existing Verizon Number "864-414-1812" in the United > States, as I see below in the following Press Release of Verizon > Wireless! > > The following Verizon's media release says, I quote, "International > Traveler allows customers to use their Verizon Wireless telephone > number while traveling in more than 120 countries that use either > Global Systems for Mobile (GSM) or Personal Digital Cellular (PDC) > technology". This never happened to me! > > Will someone guide me with this matter? When I asked Verizon they said they didn't offer this service. So I got it from AT&T Wireless. It works well. Larry Finch N 40 53' 47" W 74 03' 56" ------------------------------ From: nemory@firstpobox.com (:) Subject: Identifying "Out of Area" Calls Using ANI? Date: 10 May 2002 20:00:25 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ I receive an annoying amount of "out of area" hang-up calls and I would like to identify the caller's number. So far I have done the following: Caller calls line A and is automatically forwarded to line B (which is associated with my 800 #). Unfortunately the ANI that gets recorded is the phone number of line A, not the orginal caller's number. Is there a way to forward a call so the original ANI stays in tact? Would a call diverter work? Are there any other ways to determine an "out of area" number without involving the telco? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: That happens to me also. When I am not at my desk, my desk (landline) phone does 'forward on busy/no answer' to my cell phone's 800 number. I wind up getting the number of my desk (landline) phone as the caller ID. When I do an immediate call forwarding (*72) from my desk to my cell phone then many times I get no ID at all, if the caller blocked it or was in an 'out of area' location. PAT] ------------------------------ From: amfowler@melbpc.org.au (Alan Fowler) Subject: Re: Talking With Robot Agents Date: Sat, 11 May 2002 07:23:42 GMT Organization: Whitethorn Software amfowler@melbpc.org.au (Alan Fowler) wrote: > joel@exc.com (Dr. Joel M. Hoffman) wrote: >>> With the phone based system you could opt (usually) to talk to a live >>> human, but after endless muzak on hold (BTW, I hate those false >>> interruptions of the music just to hear a recording of "your call is >>> important to us, please continue to hold" when I think I have finally >>> reached a human and it turns out not to be). >> I have to admit, that I still find myself thinking that as soon the >> song ends, someone will pick up ... I'm usually wrong. > Joel, > The solution to this problem is for the telco to debit the > callers account one cent per second until a real person comes on the > line, and credit the money to your account. I messed that up, didn't I. I should have said The solution to this problem is for the telco to debit the called party's account one cent per second until a real person comes on the line, and credit the money to your account. The next step would be to use a sliding scale - the longer you have to wait, the more you get per second. > Now all we have to do is persuade the regulatory bodies to > implement the plan. > Alan > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Maybe, or maybe not. I suspect a lot of > companies would evaluate the cost of these 'penny per second' fines > vrs. the cost of hiring/training more help, and would simply agree to > begin budgeting the monthly cost of paying the fine into their cost > of doing business. PAT] ------------------------------ From: jayb@aol.comzzz (Jay B) Date: 11 May 2002 07:28:02 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: Slammed! Nice response, but it may have been simpler to politely ask to be put on his do not call list and hang up ... Just kidding : ) Jay > Subject: Slammed! > From: Monty Solomon monty@roscom.com > Date: 5/9/02 2:22 AM Central Daylight Time > Telemarketing scammers are the price we pay for lower long-distance > bills. Can we afford this kind of bargain? > May 8, 2002 | "I'm calling from MCI," said the telemarketer on the > other end of the line. "We already provide you with long distance > service and I'm just calling to let you know that as of next week, > we'll also be providing you with local service. This means you'll get > a single bill and be able to ... " > I tried to stop him. I'm not one of those people who regard > telemarketers as scum, but as a reporter who covers technology and > business, this was just too obvious. Alarm bells began to sound. I > raised my voice, he raised his, and suddenly I discovered I was > shouting: insisting that MCI had no right to switch my service; that > his call was just a sales pitch, a cheap attempt to trick me into > giving permission for a change of service. > http://salon.com/tech/feature/2002/05/08/slamming/index.html [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yes, it would have been easier to tell him that, but sometimes you can't just take the easy way out. You have to let the person know what scum they and their employer are. PAT] ------------------------------ From: ctill@nc.rr.com (Chuck Till) Subject: Re: Growing Quirk on 5ESS Date: Sat, 11 May 2002 16:00:04 GMT Organization: Road Runner - NC I ran the data network for a university in the early 1980s. The network depended largely on leased circuits from Southern Bell. In the beginning, we knew the "test board" numbers in the CO and could speak directly with a CO tech to work the circuit faults we found. (We kept better records on which cable pairs carried which circuits than Southern Bell had.) Our techs were on a first-name basis with the CO techs, and every year or so we offered them a tour through our facility and they offered us a tour through the CO so everybody could understand the mutual problems. Around 1982, though, all the insider numbers that we had were disconnected, and Southern Bell instructed us to call a 411-like reporting service instead. Naturally the people we reported our private line problems to were clueless, and we lost touch with all the CO personnel thereafter ... and it began to take much longer to get things fixed. Such was progress. I'll bet some Southern Bell/BellSouth executive got promoted for doing it. ------------------------------ From: ray@setec.org (Ray) Subject: Need Help Toshiba PBX Perception Date: 11 May 2002 09:59:34 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ I have a Toshiba Perception PBX. I need help loging into the system to change system settings. Anyone out there with experience with this system please help me. ------------------------------ From: Geoffrey Welsh Subject: Re: Do You Have Any Issues With This ISP? Date: Sat, 11 May 2002 16:09:43 -0400 Organization: Bell Sympatico > Does anyone else share this concern? Should we be calling this ISP to > complain about their practices? A growing number of ISPs is turning a blind eye to spammers, or at least to unscrupulous mailing list operators. I use the SpamCop reporting system, which tries to 'anonymize' my report so that, if it is sent to or falls into the hands of the spammer, it isn't going to permit him to confirm that spam sent to my address is in fact read; many large ISPs and especially hosting companies are now refusing "munged" reports. This leads to the question of whether they are assisting the spammers in "listwashing" rather than addressing the root problem, namely that their customers are violating netiquette and, one assumes, the AUP/TOS that we expect ISPs to enforce. It is therefore hardly surprising that some ISPs are now requiring users to jump through hoops to file reports -- that way, they can claim to be acting on complaints while drastically reducing the cost of doing so. The entire situation is very sad indeed. Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.351 / Virus Database: 197 - Release Date: 19/04/2002 ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Economics, was Re: Huge Amount of Spam Received Recently From: tom.horsley@att.net (Thomas A. Horsley) Organization: AT&T Worldnet Date: Sat, 11 May 2002 22:20:43 GMT > As more and more ISPs adopted this pricing schedule (and stuck to > it ...) it would soon be pretty simple to figure out who the good guys > and the bad guys were. Actually, if spammers weren't hounded from ISP to ISP and temp account to temp account, it would be even easier to figure out who they are, since it would come from the same set of places all the time. Much like spam cross-postings in Usenet news. Once upon a time, it was simple to recognize spam in news groups because it was cross posted to a bazillion groups, then well meaning ISPs started banning excessive cross posting, so the spammers started posting multiple copies of the same article, thus increasing bandwidth wastage a bazillion times and making it much harder to automagically recognize spam by simply counting the number of groups in the newsgroups header. I have no objection to ISPs attempting to help solve the problem, but if we get much more of the kind of help we've been getting from ISPs, we'll never be able to find any legitimate mail or news in the flood :-). >>==>> The *Best* political site >>==+ email: Tom.Horsley@worldnet.att.net icbm: Delray Beach, FL | Free Software and Politics <<==+ ------------------------------ From: NOSPAM Subject: Re: Economics, was Re: Huge Amount of Spam Received Recently Organization: Prodigy Internet http://www.prodigy.com Date: Sat, 11 May 2002 22:45:58 GMT Once we stop UCE, we should all go after all of the businesses that send out millions of tons of paper to our US Post mail boxes which ultimately becomes millions of tons of paper in our land-fills and millions of dead trees in our forest. danny burstein wrote in message news:telecom20.249.13@telecom-digest.org: > In aes writes: > [big snip] >> I'm in total agreement with this. Postal "spam" remains under control >> and is not a serious problem primarily because there are substantial >> costs to the sender (at least 20 or 30 cents per message sent), and >> secondarily because it's easily dealt with (i.e., disposed of on >> sight, when you're ready) by the recipient. Email spam has almost the >> reverse characteristics to this. >> I point out once again: Suppose profit-making "electronic post >> offices" that imposed a "postage charge" for forwarding a message were >> available, but didn't have to be used (i..e, no changes in the basic >> underlying current system). >> Anyone who chose to could then protect themselves from spam email by >> putting themselves behind a mail server that passed along only those >> messages that either (a) came from an authorization list established >> by the recipient in advance, or (b) came through a fee-charging post >> office. You could name the post office that was acceptable to you in >> your web site address or sig file. Any messages outside of that you'd >> never see. > A couple of points in this regard: > > First, many, many, people (and their ISPs -- often without the > customers knowing it) are already shitcanning any e-mail that comes > from locations that are spam friendly. For example, if you try sending > from a ya*oo account, you'll probably find that 10% or more of your > e-mail never gets to its destination. > I personally take all e-mail from that place, as well as its brethren, > and kick it into a spam box. I also filter out e-mail that asks me to > reply to one of those addresses. ------------------------------ From: Joey Lindstrom Date: Sat, 11 May 2002 16:22:07 -0600 Reply-To: Joey Lindstrom Subject: Area Code Splits Inspire Spam I thought a few of you might get a kick out of this ... spam with *US* as the target audience. :-) Note carefully that they've thoughtfully provided a toll-free removal number. Be sure to call it frequently, to make darned sure they remove your address from their spambase. If you don't have time to do it from the office, stop at a payphone on your way home. :-) ==================BEGIN FORWARDED MESSAGE================== Telephone issues: area code correction Do you use a telephone? Do you call customers? Do you ever get wrong numbers? Over 271 million telephone numbers have changed area codes since 1990. Without regular correction, these changes have trashed every telephone and fax number list your company ever created or purchased. Did you know it is getting worse? The rate of area code splits is still accelerating. The hidden cost of ad hoc maintenance is increasing, and costing sales departments more business every day. If you were to discover a free White Paper, that defines the entire area code problem, and outlines all the in-house and out-of-house solutions, would you be interested to find out more? Click Here. Click Here REMOVAL INSTRUCTIONS: This message is sent in compliance with the proposed BILL section 301, Paragraph (a) (2) (c) of S.1618. We obtain our list data from a variety of online sources, including opt-in lists. This email is sent by a direct email marketing firm on our behalf, and if you would rather not receive any further information from us, please click here˙In this way, you can instantly "opt-out" from the list your email address was obtained from, whether this was an "opt-in" or otherwise. Please accept our apologies if this message has reached you in error. Please allow 5-10 business days for your email address to be removed from all lists in our control. Meanwhile, simply delete any duplicate emails that you may receive and rest assured that your request to be taken off this list will be honored. If you have previously requested to be taken off this list and are still receiving this message, you may call us at 1-(888) 817-9902, or write to us at: Abuse Control Center, 7657 Winnetka Ave., Canoga Park, CA 91306 ===================END FORWARDED MESSAGE=================== From the desk of Joey Lindstrom "Talk softly and carry a big stick." --Everything I Need To Know I Learned From Babylon 5 ------------------------------ From: wollman@khavrinen.lcs.mit.edu (Garrett Wollman) Subject: Re: Cable vs DSL for IP telephony Date: 11 May 2002 22:17:01 GMT Organization: MIT Laboratory for Computer Science In article , Chip G wrote: > 3. Minimal lost packets (while e-mail and web traffic can be pretty > forgiving, voice and video need reliable streams of data. That is why > you generally see them implemented via UDP instead of TCP. If too many > packets are lost, the conversation can become unintelligible. Actually, the reason multimedia applications are implemented on top of UDP is only tangentially related to packet loss. There are three reasons: 1) The technology was invented for multiparty communications; TCP is a unicast-only protocol (and in fact reliable, sequenced delivery of multicast data is still something of an open problem). 2) Codecs tend to be very sensitive to delay. If a voice or video frame is received more than a few clocks late, it's probably no longer useful. TCP will keep on trying to deliver the data in sequence, no matter how long it takes. (Humans are more tolerant of drop-outs than they are of long silences.) 3) TCP is designed for applications which are oblivious to the bandwidth of the channel they are operating over. It will adapt up or down as conditions warrant. Media applications need direct knowledge of network conditions in order to choose appropriate coding and decoding parameters; since they have to do this anyway, the End-to-End Principle says that it is pointless to use a lower layer which implements the same mechanisms. (Indeed, if the rate adaptation mechanisms are different, they might interfere with each other, resulting in worse service.) Garrett A. Wollman | wollman@lcs.mit.edu | History starts with a consonant. Opinions not those of| MIT, LCS, CRS, or NSA| ------------------------------ 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'. 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