From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Jul 1 22:27:29 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id WAA15157; Mon, 1 Jul 2002 22:27:29 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 1 Jul 2002 22:27:29 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200207020227.WAA15157@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #301 TELECOM Digest Mon, 1 Jul 2002 22:27:00 EDT Volume 20 : Issue 301 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson MCI: Huber: Washington Created WorldCom (Marcus Didius Falco) Re: Problems With Siemens Gigaset 2420 (Andrew Kauffman) Re: Worldwide Dialing Rules (Burkitt-Gray Alan) Re: Worldwide Dialing Rules (Colum Mylod) Re: Worldwide Dialing Rules (Owain) Re: Truth or Fiction? Telemarketing Call Saves Man's Life (P McKerracher) Re: Need Registrar Recommendations (Scott D Fybush) Phone Jack Wire Colors (Chris Farmer) Re: MCI: The Rise and Fall of the Ebbers Empire (Ed Ellers) Re: SBC Ameritech Announces $26 Million Savings (Michael W. Gardiner) Seeking Info on Cascade/Lucent STDX 3000/6000 Frame Relay (Jswa N'Born) Another Shareware Day (TELECOM Digest Editor) All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. WE DO NOT PERMIT NAME/EMAIL ADDRESS HARVESTING FROM THIS JOURNAL. 'SALTED' EMAIL ADDRESSES APPEAR HEREIN TO VERIFY THIS. YOU GET SUED IN SMALL CLAIMS COURT IF YOU GET CAUGHT SPAMMING OR SENDING VIRUSES. DON'T DO IT. See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 01 Jul 2002 13:11:03 -0400 From: Marcus Didius Falco Subject: MCI: Huber: Washington Created WorldCom I rarely find myself in agreement with Peter Huber, and I don't this time. In particular, he says that the 5 years from 1996 to 2001 were characterized by competition in local service. I think the record will show that there was very little or no effective competition. There were a lot of firms entering the market, but in most places they attained very little market share. On the other hand, if he wants to argue that much of the competition in telecommunications is an artifact of government policy, he's right. The FCC nurtured IXC competition in the 1970s, and by the early 80s it was apparent that the biggest cost-advantage MCI and Sprint had was due to their taking low-cost and inferior "line side" (Feature Groups A and B) connection to the Bell Operating Companies. However, this was not their only advantage, and it did appear that, because their networks were newer, they could effectively compete. AT&T's market share did drop substantially and steadily, at a rate of roughly 2 1/2 percentage points per year, from 1982, and there is no evidence (or none yet) that this decline has stopped. It was always suspected that there was room for only 3 or 4 facilities-based carriers in the industry. USITA had prepared a study about 1982 that reached that conclusion, and I've never seen it rebutted, nor any alternative studies. Thus, the extensive entry into the fiber-optic market in the late 1990s was always somewhat suspect: a consolidation was likely. But Worldcom, as the second-largest IXC, should have survived. If it doesn't, it will be because of financial mismanagement. And the case for allowing the mergers of the BOCs has NEVER been made. (Reading the FCC orders it is clear from the evidence that the mergers would REDUCE competition, and that the FCC's conditions on the mergers were only temporary palliatives; the long-term market structure would be less competitive.) So government created the competition in the 1970s and destroyed it in the 1990s. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 never had a chance to promote local competition because it was trying to artificially promote competition in a market that had never shown much sign of being competitive. In the 1980s the BOCs were complaining of "Bypass," a then-current word for local competition. But, by the late 1980s it became clear that Bypass occurred only in limited local situtations, and was not a general or common situation (and was often the result of antiquated tariffs or compensation rules, particularly "access charges"). Indeed, by promoting mergers, including mergers * Original: FROM..... John McMullen From the Wall Street Journal -- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1025471740276914640,00.html?mod=opinion%5Fmain%5Fcommentaries Washington Created WorldCom By PETER HUBER With WorldCom facing criminal fraud charges for a $3.9 billion bit of accounting trickery it confessed to last week, the knives are out for its corporate executives. But before the story runs away with us, let's remember where fictitious accounting got its start: in Washington. WorldCom was created by regulators who did exactly what WorldCom now confesses to have done, only more so. The private sector's accountants sometimes miss fraudulent bookkeeping; The government's institutionalize it. Government Accountants WorldCom took today's expenses, and treated them as tomorrow's. At issue is money WorldCom paid to local phone companies to help carry its customers' calls. There doesn't seem to be much doubt that those bills were misallocated -- when you pay for a cab ride at the end of the trip you aren't buying a durable asset, you're settling a debt for service rendered. But neither WorldCom nor the local carrier decides who owes who or how much -- those charges are decided by the Federal Communications Commission. Much of the telecom industry's current woe can be traced to government accountants who set interconnection tariffs at levels completely divorced from economic reality. For the first 20 years of MCI's existence, FCC policy was to jigger the tariffs to favor MCI, Sprint, and other smaller competitors over AT&T. For good measure, the commission also suppressed price wars, with rules that forced AT&T to keep its rates higher than it wanted to. This allowed the long-distance upstarts to multiply and prosper. They set their own prices just below AT&T's, and built out their networks. It was this system that kept the competitive balloon aloft from the 1970s -- when MCI got into the mainstream long-distance business -- until 1997, when the then-$20 billion company agreed to merge into the $7 billion WorldCom. The year before, Congress had handed the FCC sweeping new authority to force local carriers to lease parts of their networks to local competitors. The commission's engineers itemized what the parts would be -- local wiring, switching, trunk lines, and so forth -- and set a price. They could have based the price on historical reality -- what it had actually cost a phone company to build the element it was now required to lease. But they chose instead to base it on what it would theoretically cost to build the network going forward. They took yesterday's capital outlays, in other words, and treated them as tomorrow's. In an industry where technology is evolving fast, this made a huge, ultimately ruinous, difference. Government accountants' idea was to make it cheaper for competitors to enter local markets. And the bargain-basement way to do that was to let new competitors piggyback on an existing network, at a price below what it had cost to build it. The regulators had been directed to deliver competition, and presto, creative accounting let them show a quick profit on their political books. The scheme worked in long-distance markets in the 1970s and '80s, and it worked in local markets for five years or so after the enactment of the 1996 Telecom Act. In the end, it worked too well. The incumbents lost heavily, as they leased out more of their networks at tomorrow's theoretical prices, rather than at yesterday's actual costs. Local markets were crowded with new entrants who hadn't built much, if anything, in the way of new facilities, but who were vying to deliver more local traffic, and high-speed data traffic, to long-distance networks. The craftiest of the new entrants even found ways to get the incumbent carriers to pay them, under an obscure but lucrative set of "reciprocal compensation" tariffs. They so perfectly matched their services to the accounting rules that they could generate revenues by placing phone calls to themselves. Lo and behold, prices dropped and traffic volume rose fast. Internet Service Providers (ISPs) contracted with intermediate players like broadband providers Covad and Northpoint, who contracted in turn with backbone Internet carriers like WorldCom. Long-distance carriers deployed vast amounts of new fiber to carry the new traffic, as well as all the additional traffic that was bound to come. It couldn't last, and it didn't. By making entry artificially cheap for everyone else, regulators attracted hordes of naive, spendthrift competitors, which made competition unprofitable for all. Before long, many of the new ISPs stopped paying their bills. They knew all the regulatory accounting angles, it turned out, but they didn't know how to build a network or provide service to a paying customer. When some ISPs folded, it ruined Covad and Northpoint, one tier up in the food chain. That, in turn, cut into the revenues of companies at the top of the pyramid, like WorldCom, just when those carriers were facing a massive glut of competitive long-distance capacity. Companies like Global Crossing had figured -- incorrectly, this time -- that they could do to WorldCom what MCI had done two decades earlier to AT&T. Now the litigators are taking charge. Most of the bankrupt competitors have only one asset left: a lawsuit against the incumbent carriers, whom they now blame for sabotaging the entire regulatory scheme. Disappointed investors file class actions against the bankrupt competitors. A federal appellate court recently ruled that the customers of failing competitors may also sue the incumbent carriers directly, so all the tangled details of yesterday-and-tomorrow accounting rules are now fodder for treble-damage class actions too. The rules are stupefyingly opaque, however, which may perhaps explain why the Supreme Court declined to try to rewrite them earlier this year. The whole mess will take years to untangle. Conjuring Competition WorldCom had more in common with Enron than Arthur Andersen. In telecom markets, as in electricity markets, regulators concluded they could conjure competition out of thin air by taking control of a sprawling network of wires, switches, and nodes, and setting up schemes to determine who would pay how much to move freight over it. But public networks are huge, long-lived capital assets, and their underlying economics are very complicated. Set interconnection prices too high, and nobody interconnects at all. Set them too low, and you get so much interconnection it proves ruinous all around. There will be sonorous speeches in Washington for months to come, informing us that more regulation is needed to prevent another WorldCom. But we might have been spared the WorldCom debacle, and many smaller ones like it, if the authorities had been more willing to let market forces control the evolution of competition, and less eager to enlist creative accountants to speed the process along. Mr. Huber, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, is a Washington lawyer who represents Bell companies and other telecom concerns. "When you come to the fork in the road, take it" - L.P. Berra "Always make new mistakes" -- Esther Dyson "Be precise in the use of words and expect precision from others" - Pierre Abelard John F. McMullen johnmac@acm.org ICQ: 4368412 Fax: (603) 288-8440 johnmac@cyberspace.org http://www.westnet.com/~observer Direct replies are unlikely to be read. To reply use the address below: falco_marcus_didius yahoo.co.uk ------------------------------ From: Andrew Kauffman Subject: Re: Problems With Siemens Gigaset 2420 Organization: AT&T Broadband Date: Mon, 01 Jul 2002 16:21:19 GMT I also have a 2420 and I also am experiencing this same problem, but only on one handset. The system can have up to 8, and we have 3. I am suspecting that it is just the handset failing. Andrew Kauffman Telecommunications Consultant www.ahk.com Doug Rosenberg wrote in message news:telecom20.293.5@telecom-digest.org: > I have an older-model Siemens Gigaset 2420 with three handsets. For > years, the system worked fine: I was happy with the range, sound > quality, etc. Over the past several months, however, the signal has > begun to break up at random times, and callers sound like they are > under water, then it returns to normal. This does not seem related to > distance from the base, interference from other equipment, weak > batteries, or anything else I can think of. True, the system is > getting old, but I would have thought that a part would fail all at > once, not gradually deteriorate. Have others had this problem? Any > ideas on what's causing it or how to fix it? Also, if I buy a > "refurbished" phone (or the newer version 2420), will the same > problems emerge, or have they been addressed? What about a brand new > 8825? ------------------------------ From: Alan Burkitt-Gray Subject: Re: Worldwide Dialing Rules Date: Mon, 1 Jul 2002 10:41:15 +0100 PaulCoxwell@aol.com wrote: > I believe they have recently changed the system to require 10-digit > dialing of all calls, including local. (Not sure of the rationale > behind this move, if indeed it is true.) The 08 prefix is now for > "numero vert" (toll-free) numbers which were previously allocated 05. True. It was 1998 I think, and all calls have to be dialled as 10 digits starting 0. The rationale is that callers can use carrier selection digits before the 10 digits. Preferred carriers have single figures; others use the format 16XY. (There's a link on http://www.art-telecom.fr/eng/index.htm) And 08 is for all non-geographic fixed numbers, not just toll free -- which is 0800. For example, SNCF, the rail company's information number is 08 91 67 68 69, which is charged at EUR0.23 a minute. > I believe that in most cases the first 2 digits gave the number of the > "departement" (like counties), although I don't know when all numbers were > made up to 8 digits. Unfortunately it wasn't as simple as that. There might have been one or two departments that matched the area code, but not in general. They were all made up to eight digits in late 1984 -- in the regions by adding the two-digit area code to the six-digit local number, in urban Paris by adding 4 to the seven-digital local number and in suburban Paris by adding 6 to the seven-digit local number. > To call from Paris to elsewhere in France, you had to dial 16, wait > for second dial tone, then the 8-digit number. To call into Paris > from elsewhere, you dialed 16, wait for second dial tone, then dial > 1 plus the number. I'd be interested in finding out when this system > was introduced and how long-distance service developed in France > over the years. I've not been able to track down detailed > information on this. It was around since at least the early 1970s, when I first visited Paris; I'd guess it dates back to the 1950s or whenever long-distance dialling was introduced. I should think the key factor in this was the dreadful phone system the French had then. There used to be a saying, around the mid 1970s, that half the population of Paris was waiting for a phone line to be installed, while the other half was waiting for a dial tone. The fact you had to wait for a second dial tone for long distance meant you could just give up after dialling the 16 access code -- much quicker than not getting through after dialling all the digits. The same applied for international: you had to wait for a second tone after the 19 access code before dialling the country code and the rest of the number. Even as late as 1982 I remember getting appalling connections from Paris to London. Alan Burkitt-Gray Editor, Global Telecoms Business Euromoney Institutional Investor plc, Nestor House, Playhouse Yard, London EC4V 5EX, UK tel +44 20 7779 8518 fax +44 20 7779 8492 e-mail aburkitt@euromoneyplc.com www.globaltelecomsbusiness.com ------------------------------ From: Colum Mylod Subject: Re: Worldwide Dialing Rules Date: Mon, 01 Jul 2002 11:51:48 +0100 Organization: Me own Reply-To: cmylod-deleteme@bigfoot.com On Sun, 30 Jun 2002 01:17:58 -0700, Linc Madison wrote: > In article , Denis Mcmahon > wrote: >> France certainly had local as well as National dialling as recently as >> 1998. It just had 5 very big geographic code areas 01 .. 05, a single >> code for mobile 06, and afaik 07, 08 nd 09 were allocated to varying >> special codes. 00 was Intl like most of the rest of the EC. >> If you were in eg the Paris area (01) dialling another Paris area code >> you did not need the 01 prefix. >> I'm not aware of any subsequent changes .... > 1998 is about when the change was put into place. You now must dial the > full national number on all calls within France. For example, dialing > within the Paris region, you must dial 01 xx xx xx xx. That was true until carrier choice came in, but this default format 0 ... satisfies 2 "needs": help out the state telcom France Telecom while at the same time appear to satisfy the competition people of the European Union by allowing choice of carrier. In fact the French system is *9* digits national numbering, but with a compulsory 1or 7 (IIRC) carrier code, yes either a single carrier code 0, 2-9 or 16xxxx0 followed by the 9 digit national number, no shorter local numbering. So if you chose to route the call over France Telecom it's 0 1 2345 6789 but over Omnipoint (IIRC) it's 5 1 2345 6789, and for one of the telcos which did not stump up a lot of francs for the 1 digit code it would be 16 abcd 0 1 2345 6789. But, as I've written above, everyone writes it 01.23.45.67.89 and favours FT (except possibly if the call is made on a mobile?). Such a scheme is a typical French fudge to appear open but in fact to keep the benefits of inertia to the state telco. Always gotta take care of your own in this world ... Headers spam-proofed. Use cmylod at bigfoot . com ------------------------------ From: spuorgelgoog@gowanhill.com (Owain) Subject: Re: Worldwide Dialing Rules Date: 1 Jul 2002 13:58:52 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ RyanHope@mail.alum.rpi.edu (Ryan Hope) wrote in message news:: > Is there place that I could get a list of dialing rules for everywhere > in the world? I've done a fair amout of reasearch, and believe the > answer to be no. But just to be thorough, I thought I'd try asking > here as well. Merriam Webster's Guide to International Business Communications by Toby D Atkinson (ISBN 0-87779-028-0) has this type of information for phones, postal addresses, etc. But my copy is 1994 and many countries will have updated their numbering systems since then. You may find links to international telecoms regulators and numbering schemes from eg www.oftel.gov.uk Owain ------------------------------ From: Phil McKerracher Subject: Re: Truth or Fiction? Telemarketing Call Saves Man's Life Date: Mon, 1 Jul 2002 12:23:01 +0100 Mark Brader wrote in message news:telecom20.299.8@telecom-digest.org: > CNN is reporting (URL below) that last month one Leonardo Diaz of > Colombia, stranded on a mountain in the Andes, tried to call for > help on his cellphone only to find that he was out of prepaid minutes. > But he avoided death by hypothermia when the phone company, Bellsouth, > phoned him to ask if he wanted to buy more minutes ... Looks like a myth, because a) Most cellphones can make emergency calls even if out of prepaid minutes; b) It's unlikely reception would extend that far up a mountain; and c) Freezing a battery doesn't revive it - on the contrary, warming it does. (Cooling reduces the discharge rate and thus extends shelf life, but doesn't revive in any way and freezing would actually destroy it.) Phil McKerracher www.mckerracher.org [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Like yourself, I found it rather incredible. I thought we were seeing the beginning of an 'urban legend'. I still feel that way. We can probably prove it before it gets too far out of hand. We need to deal with your (a), (b) and (c) points above. In reference to (a) can we show whether or not BellSouth either routinely or by arrangement services Colombia (such as roaming) or if the telecom authority accepts inbound cell calls from wherever BellSouth is located. Where is the nearest cell tower to the place the gentleman was located? Does the telecom authority there permit calls to emergency numbers from cellphones on a 'free' (or rather, charge to called party) basis? Who was the prepaid carrier? BellSouth? Most carriers offering prepaid service don't go out of their way to move in on the territory of other carriers. For that matter, most carriers offering prepaid service don't bother to call and solicit more business. AT&T for example, will sell the time; but they don't have anyone out there pushing the business deliberatly. Alltel is the same way. You find out the balance on the account with *369, and pay via any agent, using a credit card or cash. When the money is gone, that's it. BellSouth is different? Regards (b), how many miles away was the nearest cell tower? Regards (c), what was the condition of the battery on his phone? So maybe you or someone will find out a few things: How does the 'host' cellphone company (telecom authority or whoever) in Colombia deal with prepaid cellphones that are out of money regards emergency calls? Who notifies the customer he is out of money? The local operator or the phone itself, or? Ask the same host down there if they are in fact agents for BellSouth regards collection of money, etc. Let's try to nip this one in the bud, please, before it gets out of control. Don't just accept what the talking heads at CNN tell you, or their newspaper, etc. I will gather up articles from those of you who care to work on this and research it, etc ... and print them all in a batch in a few days. Use the title 'Truth or Fiction'. PAT] ------------------------------ From: fybush@world.std.com (Scott D Fybush) Subject: Re: Need Registrar Recommendations Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA Date: Sun, 30 Jun 2002 23:13:47 GMT johnl@iecc.com (John R Levine) writes: > I like OpenSRS/Tucows, who only sell through resellers. And I like pairnic.net, which is an OpenSRS/Tucows reseller. I also get my Web server service from their parent company, PAIR Networks (pair.com). Reasonable pricing, decent service. (No affiliation beyond being a satisfied customer...) -s ------------------------------ From: FarmerC@health.missouri.edu (Chris Farmer) Subject: Phone Jack Wire Colors Date: 30 Jun 2002 16:48:23 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ I'm trying to replace a phone jack in our bedroom. I've having a hard time matching up the wires and doing a lot of reading on the net hasn't helped me yet. The colors of the jack are red, green, black, and yellow The wall wires are blue, orange, white, and white/blue. I thought I was only supposed to use the red/green connections on the new jack and I tried blue & orange to red and white/blue & white to green among many other combos and none seem to give me a dial tone. Can anyone help with the correct connection? Thanks, Please feel free to email me at my address. Chris [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Indeed, to be standard, the colors on YOUR side of the jack should be red/green if you are only working with one phone/one pair. Tell me this: is there ANY working phone in the house on that pair? Trace from it. Remove the cover plate at that point and see what colors (incoming) work at that point, and try those two wires with the red/green at the new location. If there is no working phone working on any pair there, then try 'tying down' the red wire from the phone with the blue wire on the pair, and the green wire from the phone with the white wire on the pair. You see, other than green/red as a pair, and yellow/black as a pair, the third pair was usually white/blue, NOT 'white and blue striped'. Orange was used as part of the hold key on a six-button/five-line phone. Have you looked at all at any of the working lines in your home? PAT] ------------------------------ From: Ed Ellers Subject: Re: MCI: The Rise and Fall of the Ebbers Empire Date: Sun, 30 Jun 2002 21:29:52 -0400 Fred Goldstein wrote: > There was good logic to this: The telephone network had been > considered a "natural monopoly", but that really didn't apply to > everything. Certainly it didn't apply to manufacturing, hence the > original antitrust suit (United States vs. Western Electric). There > were competing manufacturers; they just couldn't sell to the 82% of > the market that was Bell companies!" Sure they could, when they offered a better product than Western Electric could come up with, or filled a niche that WECo didn't consider worthwhile (such as color monitors or audio diplexers for Long Lines' television transmission service). And don't forget that, since 1956, Western Electric had been prohibited from selling to U.S. customers outside the Bell System (they could still compete for Federal contracts) and had been required to license its patents and designs to all comers. > Indeed AT&T's old agenda, which has nothing to do with today's > residual AT&T and which now the Bells', has resulted in anomalies > like 30-mile intrastate toll calls that cost more than transpacific > international calls. You can blame the state regulators for a lot of that. ------------------------------ From: mwg@mail.msen.com (Michael W. Gardiner) Subject: Re: SBC Ameritech Announces $26 Million Savings Date: Mon, 01 Jul 2002 03:29:57 -0000 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Jack (unspammable-4719@workbench.net) wrote: > DETROIT--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 11, 2002-- > Majority of Michigan customers will be converted to unlimited local > service; prices reduced by up to 30 percent {deletia} > "Customers don't have to lift a finger. We are automatically > providing greater value and flexibility to their services. For many > others, we are just simply lowering their price," Steve Dimmitt, vice > president of marketing for SBC Ameritech. "We've seen unprecedented > demand for unlimited local and local toll services and we are Unprecedented demand? I've been waiting decades for calling plans that cost less than driving to visit the people I'd like to call. More like "long-ignored demand." > responding quickly to meet our customers' needs. These aren't short- > term, quick-grab promotions; this is to demonstrate we value our > existing customers and want them to know it." This is not surprising to me, I didn't think they'd be able to keep thier old plans once the re-sellers got going. > These changes are supposed to take place on June 17 for existing > Ameritech customers. I don't think anyone here in Michigan quite > knows what to make of this - it seems to be such atypical behavior for > Ameritech. After I put this out on the MI-Telecom mailing list, one > person sent me an e-mail that said, "That thunking sound you hear is > my jaw hitting the floor. The silence afterward is my waiting for the > other shoe to drop." Am I the only person in Michigan who noticed many resellers putting out plans that made continued use of SBC an act of insanity? > It is interesting to me that Ameritech is offering a plan that offers > "Unlimited local toll/zone calling" for $49.95 per month. Compare For rather less than that, I got a plan from TalkAmerica (formarly Talk.com) that gave me a reasonable LD rate (which I almost never use) and the unlimited local/local toll combinations. I'm, actually paying $10 more for two lines combined than I did before, but I was getting so little use out of them I was considering having the lines pulled in favor of using my cell phone for the local toll range on an unlimited off-peak plan. Under TalkAmerica, I get these nice detailed bills of calls to local toll range friends with all these lovely zeroes after them. Even now, after the date of the announcement given above, SBC is trying to get me to return to them under plans that are downright funny, they are so useless. I don't see that SBC had any choice at all. While some of thier 'competitors' were offering plans directly from SBCs book, with nothing more than a change of name, others were making serious changes. I do so little long distance that it is cheaper to pay LD charges than to get an integrated plan from some of the re-sellers because of the loaded rate. > Ameritech plan there is probably no such restriction. As part of that > deal, MCI gives you Voicemail, which Ameritech doesn't, but Ameritech > gives you Line-Backer, which MCI doesn't. Both plans give you Caller > ID and a few other "custom calling" features. And neither company has > exactly a sterling reputation with regard to customer service and lack TalkAmerica includeed everything except line-backer and privacy mangler in the base rate. I had several features turned off that I didn't need, although I can't test if one of them is off as I regard it as a misfeature anyway and have no display for it. > of billing errors. So, there is no clear-cut winner here, but this > puts Ameritech back in the running - particularly for Detroit area > customers who probably pay nearly $50 a month as is, and who can > divest themselves of the hated toll and zone call charges by opting > for the unlimited local toll/zone calling plan. And there was much rejoicing ... On-line bill review is another feature I like, I can hit the web site and review my calls less than 4 hours later. > I just find this an interesting, albeit somewhat perplexing move on > Ameritech's part! Nothing perplexing about it. Once people see the better deals available from the re-sellers SBC becomes one VERY hot rock. ------------------------------ From: Jswa N'Born Subject: Seeking info on Cascade/Lucent STDX 3000/6000 Frame Relay Switch Organization: AT&T Broadband Date: Mon, 01 Jul 2002 19:54:09 GMT I currently bought an old Cascade STDX 3000 frame relay switch. It is in good working order, but I do not have the control software to change the configuration. The control software is called CascadeView or cascview and uses the SNMP protocol to monitor the status of the switch as well as configure the various cards. Does anyone know where I can find a copy of the software? If not, can you point me to a more appropriate newsgroup or web site. Thanks for your help, Jswa ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 30 Jun 2002 16:22:15 EDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Another Shareware Day I again need financial help this month (what else is old?). At the end of each month I present this 'nagware' request for assistance from the folks who read, enjoy and are benifited by this Digest. If you are able to help -- and twenty <> fifty dollars per reader/year is considered quite appropriate and generous -- then I cordially invite your participation. 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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 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 775-306-8390 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. --------------------------------------------------------------- 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 #301 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Jul 2 15:32:28 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id PAA19603; Tue, 2 Jul 2002 15:32:28 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 2 Jul 2002 15:32:28 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200207021932.PAA19603@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #302 TELECOM Digest Tue, 2 Jul 2002 15:30:00 EDT Volume 20 : Issue 302 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Why ICANN Can't (Judith Oppenheimer) Re: Phone Jack Wire Colors (Carl Navarro) Re: Phone Jack Wire Colors (Herb Stein) Re: MCI: The Rise and Fall of the Ebbers Empire (Marcus Didius Falco) Re: MCI: Worldcom's Businees Customer List Available? (V. Ramachandran) Re: Problems With Siemens Gigaset 2420 (Ian) Re: Worldwide Dialing Rules (puntomaupunto_at_tin.it@example.invalid) Worldcom Service Interruptions Due to Bankruptcy (Vidya Ramachandran) Help Needed - Verizon Payphone Rates and Alternatives (Ted Klugman) Wonderful Companies That Deserve Your Business (David B. Horvath, CCP) Another Listing For the Toll Free Spammers Directory (Steven Lichter) Hack Attack Monday at Midnight (TELECOM Digest Editor) Re: Another Shareware Day (Pete Romfh) All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. WE DO NOT PERMIT NAME/EMAIL ADDRESS HARVESTING FROM THIS JOURNAL. 'SALTED' EMAIL ADDRESSES APPEAR HEREIN TO VERIFY THIS. YOU GET SUED IN SMALL CLAIMS COURT IF YOU GET CAUGHT SPAMMING OR SENDING VIRUSES. DON'T DO IT. See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Judith Oppenheimer Subject: Why ICANN Can't Date: Tue, 2 Jul 2002 13:34:49 -0400 In an editorial in today's IEEE Spectrum Online, Milton Mueller of Syracuse University tells us "Why ICANN Can't: By regarding itself as a technical priesthood, this Internet naming body has failed as an international policymaking institution." ICANN's contracts with the Department of Commerce give it regulatory authority similar to that of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, which few people would argue is a purely technical body. ICANN puts price caps on the cost of registering a domain name, and controls the supply of those names by accepting or rejecting applications for top-level domains (.com, .net, and the like). It imposes technical standards on the domain-name registration industry, for example, for methods of sharing access to registration databases. It fosters and limits certain kinds of competition, by, for example, determining which companies get certain kinds of business such as those involving the registering of names. It also decides which businesses must divest themselves of existing enterprises. It strengthens or weakens the scope of intellectual property rights by setting up the rules by which officials must resolve trademark conflicts over domain names. It routinely affects consumers of domain name registration services, by deciding which companies to accredit to register names and interact with consumers. Finally, it can even strengthen or undermine personal privacy rights: it determines what information about domain-name holders is released for all to see on the Internet. Read the full article here: http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/WEBONLY/resource/jul02/speak2.html. Judith Oppenheimer http://JudithOppenheimer.com http://ICBTollFreeNews.com 212 684-7210, 1 800 The Expert Visit 1-800 AFTA, http://www.1800afta.org ------------------------------ From: Carl Navarro Subject: Re: Phone Jack Wire Colors Reply-To: cnavarro@wcnet.org Date: Tue, 02 Jul 2002 09:37:26 GMT Organization: Road Runner High Speed Online -- Northeast Ohio On 30 Jun 2002 16:48:23 -0700, FarmerC@health.missouri.edu (Chris Farmer) wrote: > I'm trying to replace a phone jack in our bedroom. I've having a hard > time matching up the wires and doing a lot of reading on the net > hasn't helped me yet. > The colors of the jack are red, green, black, and yellow > The wall wires are blue, orange, white, and white/blue. > I thought I was only supposed to use the red/green connections on the > new jack and I tried blue & orange to red and white/blue & white to > green among many other combos and none seem to give me a dial tone. > Can anyone help with the correct connection? Correct won't help you much if whoever did the work didn't follow the code. If you carefully inspect the wires, you'll find that the one you think is white is really white with an orange (O.K. maybe faded) stripe. In America, the standard color code is White/Blue goes to Green, Blue/White goes to Red, White/Orange to Black, and Orange/White to Yellow. On single line, you only care about the Green and Red. So, absolutely, if it is wired correctly, take the White/Blue and put it down on the green terminal. now touch the 3 wires to the red terminal one at a time and listen for dial tone. If you don't get it, go back to the last working jack and look at the color code they used. Needless to say, you could have done this 12 times or 7 times if polarity doesn't matter and you would have solved this problem. Carl Navarro Of course there's always the part about this jack might NEVER have worked ... > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Indeed, to be standard, the colors on > YOUR side of the jack should be red/green if you are only working with > one phone/one pair. Tell me this: is there ANY working phone in the > house on that pair? Trace from it. Remove the cover plate at that > point and see what colors (incoming) work at that point, and try those > two wires with the red/green at the new location. If there is no > working phone working on any pair there, then try 'tying down' the > red wire from the phone with the blue wire on the pair, and the > green wire from the phone with the white wire on the pair. You see, > other than green/red as a pair, and yellow/black as a pair, the third > pair was usually white/blue, NOT 'white and blue striped'. Orange was > used as part of the hold key on a six-button/five-line phone. Have > you looked at all at any of the working lines in your home? PAT] ------------------------------ From: Herb Stein Subject: Re: Phone Jack Wire Colors Organization: Giganews.Com - Premium News Outsourcing Date: Tue, 02 Jul 2002 14:00:29 GMT Chris Farmer wrote in message news:telecom20.301.8@telecom-digest.org: > I'm trying to replace a phone jack in our bedroom. I've having a hard > time matching up the wires and doing a lot of reading on the net > hasn't helped me yet. > The colors of the jack are red, green, black, and yellow > The wall wires are blue, orange, white, and white/blue. > I thought I was only supposed to use the red/green connections on the > new jack and I tried blue & orange to red and white/blue & white to > green among many other combos and none seem to give me a dial tone. 6 Pin Jacks Pin Assignment Pair Color Old Color 1 Tip Pair 3 3 White/Green - 2 Tip Pair 2 2 White/Orange Black 3 Ring Pair 1 1 Blue/White Red 4 Tip Pair 1 1 White/Blue Green 5 Ring Pair 2 2 Orange/White Yellow 6 Ring Pair 3 3 Green/White - If this chart doesn't look right, go to http://www.herbstein.com/rj-11.html Herb Stein The Herb Stein Group www.herbstein.com herb@herbstein.com 314 952-4601 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 02 Jul 2002 11:47:30 -0400 From: Marcus Didius Falco Subject: Re: MCI: The Rise and Fall of the Ebbers Empire Ed Ellers wrote: > Fred Goldstein wrote: >> There was good logic to this: The telephone network had been >> considered a "natural monopoly", but that really didn't apply to >> everything. Certainly it didn't apply to manufacturing, hence the >> original antitrust suit (United States vs. Western Electric). There >> were competing manufacturers; they just couldn't sell to the 82% of >> the market that was Bell companies!" > Sure they could, when they offered a better product than Western > Electric could come up with, or filled a niche that WECo didn't > consider worthwhile (such as color monitors or audio diplexers for > Long Lines' television transmission service). And don't forget that, > since 1956, Western Electric had been prohibited from selling to > U.S. customers outside the Bell System (they could still compete for > Federal contracts) and had been required to license its patents and > designs to all comers. Actually, they could sell to independents. They could not sell anything they did not also sell to the Bell System. Usually they sold through Greybar Electric. However, most of the larger independents had their own captive suppliers. GTE had Automatic Electric, for example. Thus, there was very little that WECo sold that the independents couldn't get elsewhere, and, as a matter of Bell System policy, they encouraged the independents to buy elsewhere. (They didn't want a total monopoly on equipment supply -- that might attract attention of the antitrust people, which happened anyway.) So if an independent needed a toll switch (No. 4 Crossbar, 4-wire), they sold it. (I think they sold very few but did sell a couple. I think Rochester, NY bought one, and they were one of the two large independent independents in those days. Lincoln, Nebraska was the other.) >> Indeed AT&T's old agenda, which has nothing to do with today's >> residual AT&T and which now the Bells', has resulted in anomalies >> like 30-mile intrastate toll calls that cost more than transpacific >> international calls. > You can blame the state regulators for a lot of that. Actually, it's also an artifact of toll separations, and the way costing was done. Most of the revisions to toll separations between 1948 and 1972 were to reduce the toll rate disparity by loading more of the costs onto toll. Since 1983 the FCC has been going the other way, de-loading toll (lowering access charges). The result is that interstate toll gets cheaper and the "state" revenue requirement rises. The states can try recover that from state toll, or from local basic service. Toll is still considered to be discretionary, so they try to recover as much as possible from state toll (or state access charges). Direct replies are unlikely to be read. To reply use the address below: falco_marcus_didius yahoo.co.uk ------------------------------ From: mrvidya2001@yahoo.com (Vidya Ramachandran) Subject: Re: MCI: Worldcom's Businees Customer List Available? Date: 1 Jul 2002 20:55:25 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ That goes for me as well. I would love to get my hands on a customer list. V Dave Phelps wrote in message news:: > In article , likeatruck2002 > @yahoo.com says: >> Anyone know where to obtain a copy of Worldcom's BUSINESS Customer list? > LOL. Ebay. Maybe they will auction it to raise some working capital. > Dave Phelps > Phone Masters Ltd. > deadspam=tippenring > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Maybe I could get a copy and sell it to > raise revenue for this Digest. :) PAT] ------------------------------ From: ian@jardine.net (Ian) Subject: Re: Problems With Siemens Gigaset 2420 Date: 1 Jul 2002 14:03:54 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Try giving Siemens a call. I just got an out of warranty "refurbished" unit from them for $95.00 (included a handset as well) and found them responsive to issues. ------------------------------ From: puntomaupunto_at_tin.it@example.invalid Subject: Re: Worldwide Dialing Rules Organization: you are kidding, right? Date: Tue, 02 Jul 2002 08:06:30 GMT Alan Burkitt-Gray scripsit: > Italy's a case in point. For the past few years, you have always to > dial the whole number even when it's local and you have the same area > code. At least officially, we don't have anymore the concept of "area code": White Pages show the numbers all stuck together. And even when there were area codes, we have real-local numbers and not-so-local ones, where you did not add the area code but paid more than a local call. ciao, .mau. Per soli italiani: http://xmau.com/ ------------------------------ From: mrvidya2001@yahoo.com (Vidya Ramachandran) Subject: MCI: Worldcom Service Interruptions Due to Bankruptcy Date: 1 Jul 2002 20:53:32 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ As everyone knows, Worldcom with the UUnet backbone and MCI long distance services a large share of the business and residential markets. With the recent chaos, I'm surprised no article has mentioned anything about possible service interuptions. You have to wonder with everyone shitting their pants wondering when they are to be let go that the customers will eventually suffer. If I rely on Worldcom and MCI for my mission critical communications, don't you think the shakedown might affect my service. Any thoughts from you seasoned experts are most welcome. Vidya [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I've only been through one slightly similar scenario. In 1973, Amoco got real itchy, real nervous about 'conditions' in big cities and decided to split their credit card office into two parts instead of one, with neither of the two parts to be located (any longer) in Chicago. Part would be in Raleigh, NC and the other part would be around Des Moines, IA. They were just starting to automate (computerize) the credit card office from manual processing of eleven million customer accounts; managment had seen the horrible fiasco at Diners Club's offices when they were in New York City and how several hundred clerical workers had gone on a rampage upon hearing they were out of a job causing a write off of several million dollars in uncollected recievable media destroyed by the workers which Diners was never able to successfully reconstruct. The management of Amoco was frankly, frightened to death of the workers, mostly dissatisfied lower/middle level clerks and customer service people. Management did the honorable thing, and gave TWO YEARS NOTICE of their intention to close the office, but it was quite obvious they felt they could get quality help a lot cheaper picking through the farmer's wives and daughters in a small town, rather than dealing with racial and other tensions in a large city constantly on the verge of an explosion after the tumultuous sixties. Still people began to fly the coop, to avoid the rush to the unemployment office line, and the last year of the two was pretty awful working there. The last six or seven months were pure hell. All sorts of weird people were working there as temps, no idea at all what their job was or how to do it. They knew the computerization would be finished in Des Moines and that none of them (the couple thousand temps still hanging around in Chicago drawing a paycheck for doing little knowledgeable work) would be moving to Iowa. You can imagine the results. Customers were the last thing any of them worried about, despite the fact that they were well paid, treated honorably in the closing months of the Chicago credit card operation, etc. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 02 Jul 2002 06:54:17 -0400 From: Ted Klugman Subject: Help Needed - Verizon Payphone Rates & Alternatives Organization: Klugman Enterprises My old college fraternity (in Beautiful Downtown Newark, NJ) has a standard Verizon payphone. Back when I was an active member about 10 years ago, I recall the monthly phone bill being about $40/month. Pricey, but we figured that the utility of having an in-house payphone available for public use was worth the expense. I found out recently that Verizon has steadily been raising their rates, and this month the price has gone up to a whopping $75/month. The consensus is that at this price, it's not necessarily worth the expense. But what are the alternatives? What I can think of -- 1. A regular "business" phone line with severe restrictions (no long-distance, no 900's, no third-party, no collect, etc etc etc) 2. A COCOT. 3. A COCOT that is provided by a third-party. For #2 and #3, how can we go about researching these alternatives? That is, how can I find companies that provide these services? One of the big stumbling blocks here is that whatever alternative we choose, we will insist that we keep the same phone number. Your suggestions are greatly appreciated. Thanks! ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 1 Jul 2002 21:31:33 -0400 From: dhorvath@cobs.com (David B. Horvath, CCP) Subject: Wonderful Companies That Deserve Your Business Some of these may be duplicates that I've reported before -- only because I've gotten yet *another* advertisement from them. - David - - - start of list - - - Sharp Systems of America (yes, *that* Sharp): (800) BE-SHARP - - - Millions of USA Businesses on CD: Call us to place the order, or complete the form below, print and fax the form, or mail it to the address below. Call 1-888-594-8155, VIA FAX: 603-258-6111, OR MAIL TO: WMC (Wave Master Consultants, Po.Bx. 269, Shiocton Wi.54170 - - - Asset and background checks (AmericaFind): "Toll Free at 1 888 729 8976 and PROTECT YOURSELF." - - - Getting off SPAM lists: If you have previously requested to be taken off this list and are still receiving this advertisement, you may call us at 1-(888) 817-9902, or write to: Abuse Control Center, 7657 Winnetka Ave., Suite 245, Canoga Park, CA - - - Getting off another SPAM list: If you have previously unsubscribed and are still receiving this message, you may email our Abuse Control Center, or call 1-888-763-2497, or write us at: NoSpam, 6484 Coral Way, Miami, FL, 33155". - - - Chubb Institute: Click here to receive more information on upgrading your education. Or call 1-800-CHUBB-37 today. - - - end of list - - - [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Remember guys, USE these numbers, don't ABUSE them. Maybe you can use the COCOT that Ted Klugman (message next to this one) is going to install in his fraternity house so they'll get a good start at profit on it. PAT] ------------------------------ From: stevenl11@aol.com (Steven Lichter) Date: 02 Jul 2002 03:20:39 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Another Listing For the Toll Free Spammers Directory ...to teach this individual about the cost of owning an Toll Free number... -----Original Message----- Call now 1-800-307-7128 and talk to our friendly consultants 24 hours, seven days a week. Ask how can receive a free months supply. Bloussant - The all-natural breast enhancement - gradually augment the size and shape of your breasts using a formula that promotes a healthy transformation. With Bloussant breast enhancement, adding inches to your bust is now a less expensive to costly surgery. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Remember it is against the law to harrass anyone 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: Tue, 2 Jul 2002 12:43:58 EDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Hack Attack Monday Midnight Just as an aside, purely coincidence, but Monday night midnight, my Windows XP computer and network got a severe hacking. I was sitting here right on line and watched it happen. He came in with *my* Yahoo Messenger, put up a link several times he asked me to click on, which was entitled 'free porn, click here to get yours'. A couple times he sent a URL 'http://192.168.1.100:8080' which of course is my Linksys router/firewall address and 8080 is a port that addreses the Linksys. I IMMEDIATLY reached over and pulled the network plug and took myself off line when I saw that stuff coming through in my name, addressed to me, sent by 'me' etc. I got Eric on the phone right away and told him what I had seen. He said it did not sound good at all, and told me to run the PC-cillin scan program on all files on the XP, all sixty-one thousand of them. Sure enough, three viruses had been installed, the most serious being 'worm_apl' had been installed on the hard drive to tamper with d:\windows32\explore it also installed in a nearby directory index.html and psecure20x ... cgi-bin etc ... I had to reinstall a pristine copy of EXPLORE because PC-cillin had been unable/unwilling to quarentine/repair/clean that file. It did properly quarentine (and later smash) the index.html and psecure20x files the virus had created. Once that new, pristine copy of EXPLORE was installed, expanded, etc from the XP CD rom, everything looked to be okay but Eric said run the scan again, and that time all was clean. I had to go back and rebuild the router/firewall to put all the conditions we wanted back in it and got the entire network back on line in a little over 3 hours, at 3:15 AM Tuesday morning. Eric found the newest version of Ymsgr, build 1067 I think and we yanked the old one out, smashed it up and installed the newest one, which I am told was Yahoo's answer to the problem a month or so ago when *they* first discovered an abusive user could 'overrun' the buffers and cause that to happen. I am still not real sure about what it was, but it was blamed (by Eric) on the earlier version of ymsgr. You might want to check your copy and make sure it is 1067 or later. It was quite a late, overnight session I had. I just thought you might like hearing about it. Patrick Townson ------------------------------ From: Pete Romfh Subject: Re: Another Shareware Day Date: Tue, 2 Jul 2002 06:49:57 -0500 TELECOM Digest Editor wrote: === you know what you said ===== Glad to help out. I'm always grabbing some little industry tidbit and sharing it in staff meeting our with the Directors. They always marvel at how I find time to be so well read on current issues. I'm not telling them my secret. =;> Patrick is correct. This is a useful service to many of us. It's like a specialized version of your public radio station (a US analogy). You can listen for free if you want, but someone has to help pay for the expenses of the "volunteers", and keeping the "transmitters" on-line. Or, possibly, somewhat similar to a house of worship. Anyone can enter and attend the services but someone has to pay the electric bill. OK, that's my $0.02 worth. Thanks for the use of your soap box. Pete Romfh, Telecom Geek & Amateur Gourmet. promfh at texas dot net [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You're welcome to the use of the soap box. Leave your two cents in the collection pot when it comes past, thanks. But now I really have to quit talking about this subject; I dislike doing it at all but finally settled on the start of each month as the time to do it, and I have done it this month. We will talk about it again the start of August. Thanks one and all. 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 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 775-306-8390 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. --------------------------------------------------------------- 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 #302 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Jul 3 21:13:39 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id VAA25806; Wed, 3 Jul 2002 21:13:39 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 3 Jul 2002 21:13:39 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200207040113.VAA25806@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #303 TELECOM Digest Wed, 3 Jul 2002 21:13:00 EDT Volume 20 : Issue 303 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson ICB HeadsUp Headlines 7/2/2002 (Judith Oppenheimer) ACD Reporting Software For Mitel SX-200d? (Jay Hennigan) Securities & Exchange Commissioners Appointed by President (gryb@icl.net) Re: TeleZapper? (Fritz Whittington) Calif. PUC Probes Cingular Wireless Complaints (Monty Solomon) Dialing in Italy (was Re: Worldwide Dialing Rules) (Linc Madison) Dialing in Italy (was Re: Worldwide Dialing Rules) (puntomaupunto_at_tin) Vulnerabilities in (pre version 5,0,0,1066) Yahoo! Messenger (E De Mund) Norcom 1A3 (AgentX) Deja Vu: Designing Room to Block Incoming Cell Calls (Carl Moore) Re: So What Was Calling Me Anyway? (Fritz Whittington) All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. WE DO NOT PERMIT NAME/EMAIL ADDRESS HARVESTING FROM THIS JOURNAL. 'SALTED' EMAIL ADDRESSES APPEAR HEREIN TO VERIFY THIS. YOU GET SUED IN SMALL CLAIMS COURT IF YOU GET CAUGHT SPAMMING OR SENDING VIRUSES. DON'T DO IT. See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Judith Oppenheimer Subject: ICB HeadsUp Headlines 7/2/2002 Date: Tue, 2 Jul 2002 23:33:33 -0400 ICB HEADS UP HEADLINES for the period ending July 2, 2002 from http://ICBTollFreeNews.com - Covering the Political, Legal and Marketing Arenas of 800, ENUM and Dot Com. JULY 4TH SALE -- SUBSCRIBE TO ICB PREMIUM FOR ONLY $199! (regular price is $549 - save $350!) Get unlimited access to exclusive behind-the-scenes info, ICB's Regulatory Reading Room, Law Library, Research Review, and more! SALE ENDS JULY 12TH - ACT NOW! http://www.icbtollfree.com/order.cfm 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. ICB RECOMMENDS ... 'Ruling the Root: Internet Governance and the Taming of Cyberspace' by Milton Mueller, explains how control of the root is being leveraged to control the Internet itself in such key areas as trademark and copyright protection, surveillance of users, content regulation, and regulation of the domain name supply industry. 'Buy this book. Buy a few extra copies, and send them to your national government officials responsible for ICANN policy. In addition to a good, concise explanation of the basics of the DNS, it provides the best single history of the politics of the DNS wars to be found between hard covers. Even veterans of the DNS wars will find it useful to explain the bits they missed, and as the key reference work.' ... ICANNWatch http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0262134128/qid=1024593481/sr=8-1/icb tollfreene-20 1-800 AFTA (http://www.1800afta.org) Creating a positive marketing and regulatory environment for service providers of 800 numbers and service, and their business customers. F - WHY ICANN CAN'T By regarding itself as a technical priesthood, this Internet naming body has failed as an international policymaking institution, yet ICANN's management has enmeshed itself in the worst sort of politics, a politics of arbitrary and unstable procedures, bureaucratic fiat, cronyism, and secret deals. CONTINUED HERE: http://www.icbtollfree.com/article.cfm?articleId=5720 F - ICANN'S RACKING UP BROWNIE POINTS - NOT Two years ago Damien Cave was a well-intentioned reporter spinning ICANN PR in the New Republic. Today, his article interviewing John Gilmore in the current issue of Salon is testament to how ICANN's aberrant conduct can enlighten even the most ardent (now-former) ICANN supporter. CONTINUED HERE: http://www.icbtollfree.com/article.cfm?articleId=5721 P - 800 SYSTEM-WIDE SEARCH? Or one RespOrg's oversight? "Recent review of SMS/800 system's operational efficiencies has revealed that your company may be in violation of the FCC's rules and regulations with regard to toll free service." The letter is dated June 28th, you've got till the end of the month to remedy the situation - and you received it today, July 2nd. Might this be you? CONTINUED HERE: http://www.icbtollfree.com/article.cfm?articleId=5723 F - FIXING DNS - HOW TO BREAK UP ICANN "Not many are happy with ICANN, even though it's had good people work on the problem. The problem is hard, and the hardest part about it is that many powerful special interests want the DNS to run their way. The DNS has become the white pages of the internet, and as the internet became dominant, it's become the white pages of the global economy. No surprise that powerful special interests have sprung up." Fascinating essay by Brad Templeton. CONTINUED HERE: http://www.icbtollfree.com/article.cfm?articleId=5719 F - REFORM PLAN FALLS FAR SHORT ... remains fatally flawed in critical areas. CONTINUED HERE: http://www.icbtollfree.com/article.cfm?articleId=5718 P - NEW TOLL FREE STUDY RELEASED We wanted to quantify how people retain numeric, hybrid, and vanity numbers in a real world, advertising context. This is the first study that specifically examines these questions, and the findings are of considerable interest to anyone using vanity and toll-free numbers as direct response tools." CONTINUED HERE: http://www.icbtollfree.com/article.cfm?articleId=5717 P - FRAUD CHARGES FILED AGAINST WORLDCOM The Justice Department said it would explore potential criminal charges against WorldCom and its senior-level executives ... The SEC also is seeking to bar certain WorldCom executives from ever serving as directors or officers of a publicly traded company and force them to disgorge any profits from stock sales. One prominent senior Worldcom exec is ICANN Chairman Vint Cerf. There is talk not-so-privately of antitrust lawsuits being considered against ICANN. Will Justice make the connection and look its way? CONTINUED HERE: http://www.icbtollfree.com/article.cfm?articleId=5716 F - BUCHAREST DIARY "ICANN looks more and more like a cartel, or a quasi-government that seeks taxes and unwanted supervision of a cartel... The problem is so obvious that ICANN is being warned that it can face antitrust law suits, an issue Joe Sims is advising the ICANN board on, I was told." CONTINUED HERE: http://www.icbtollfree.com/article.cfm?articleId=5715 /=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= advertisement =-=-=-\ Are you a multi-site company with a great toll free vanity number but NO locator service marketing support? mailto:sales@800management.com , subject: Put my number to work! \=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=.=/ -- 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 \=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=/ F - WORLDCOM'S DOWN -- AND CERF'S UP To ears deafened and eyes blinded by the bad habits of the American media, the fact that ICANN and WorldCom have Cerf in common might seem at worst somehow vaguely unfortunate. Well, it ain't necessarily so. CONTINUED HERE: http://www.icbtollfree.com/article.cfm?articleId=5714 F - CENTR REVEALS THREAT TO INTERNET STABILITY The Council of European National Top-Level Domain Registries (CENTR) revealed today that in the first real operational emergency that actually threatened the stability of the Internet to a substantive scale, ICANN has reacted entirely inappropriately ... The way this matter was [mis]handled is a textbook example of why there is huge concern within the ccTLD community over ICANN's involvement in both policy and administrative matters. CONTINUED HERE: http://www.icbtollfree.com/article.cfm?articleId=5713 F - YOUR INTERNET GOVERNMENT [IN]ACTION This report by two directors of the Center for Information Technology and Dispute Resolution looks at ICANN's pitiful performance record with and "Blueprint for Reform" plans for, its own Request for Reconsideration process. CONTINUED HERE: http://www.icbtollfree.com/article.cfm?articleId=5712 F - GAC GETS INTRODUCED TO THE "REFORMED" ICANN ICANN pres Stuart Lynn expected that his Blueprint for Reform would be adopted by the Board at the end of the week in Bucharest. However did he know. CONTINUED HERE: http://www.icbtollfree.com/article.cfm?articleId=5711 F - ICANN MOU EXTENSION SHOULD BE EARNED Reps W.J. "Billy" Tauzin, John D. Dingell, Fred Upton, and Edward J. Markey to DoC: "After monitoring ICANN's activities for the last four years, we strongly believe that the Department should only authorize a short-term renewal of the MOU unless and until ICANN can show that reforms, necessary to limit its authority and provide for accountability and transparency, have been implemented." CONTINUED HERE: http://www.icbtollfree.com/article.cfm?articleId=5710 F - ALWAYS MAKE NEW MISTAKES ... says former ICANN BoD Chair Esther Dyson. Is ICANN's "reform" plan making new mistakes, or institutionalizing old ones? Click here to read an excellent tongue-in-cheek, boldly factual powerpoint presentation ("Lessons Learned from The ICANN Process) given by Michael Froomkin at The Public Voice In Internet Policy Making conference. CONTINUED HERE: http://www.icbtollfree.com/article.cfm?articleId=5709 F - TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION !! ICANN now plans to tax domain names to fund its operations. At the same time, ICANN will not resume public elections - Directors will be chosen by an ICANN "nominating committee". And it wants this plan approved at its meeting in Bucharest next week: "It is time to close this debate. ICANN must now move forward with dispatch." CONTINUED HERE: http://www.icbtollfree.com/article.cfm?articleId=5708 EVERY 3.6 SECONDS SOMEONE DIES FROM HUNGER http://www.hungersite.com/ 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 register. To unsubscribe visit http://www.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. ____________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________ ------------------------------ From: jay@west.net (Jay Hennigan) Subject: ACD Reporting Software For Mitel SX-200d? Organization: Disgruntled Postal Workers Against Gun Control Date: Tue, 02 Jul 2002 23:31:01 GMT We're running a small call center (inbound only, help desk) using a Mitel SX-200 Digital Generic 1005 ACD. I'm looking for an add-on software package to give us better reporting than we get from the Mitel. Essentially something to analyze ACD-SMDR and give us reports on call times, agent average talk time, etc. It seems like everything out there is designed for a huge mega-boiler room (and priced accordingly). Anyone have some suggestions or recommentations? It would be too mich to hope for, but so much better if this exists in an open source or Linux environment. 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: gryb@adams.icl.net Subject: Securities and Exchange Commissioners Appointed by President Date: Tue, 02 Jul 2002 20:49:31 -0400 Securities and Exchange Commissioners are appointed by the President http://www.tylwythteg.com/enemies/Bush/bush8.html Prayer for democracy: God help the disenfranchised when Election Day arrives. ------------------------------ From: Fritz Whittington Reply-To: f.whittington@att.net Organization: Only on odd Tuesdays Subject: Re: TeleZapper? Date: Wed, 03 Jul 2002 16:46:06 GMT Wes Leatherock wrote: > On Sat, 22 Jun 2002 01:36:49 GMT Stretch > [ ... ] >> ... Ignoring any call with "out of >> area", > If I had done that, I would have missed a call from the > agricultural extension center telling me what to do to save my hedge > (I had sent them a sample of the damage under the program where they > make tests on it and advise remedial action). > I also would miss calls from my bank, some of them in reply to > requests for information I wanted, and calls from various other > companies and acquaintances, not connected with telemarketing > companies, who called from their employers' phone system that doesn't > transmit caller ID. SWBT offers "Privacy Manager", and calls with no caller ID are intercepted by an operator similar to making a collect call. The caller can record their name, then they get put on hold while the Privacy Manager calls me (with that name showing up in the CID), and ofers to let me punch "1" to hear the name. I can then punch "1" to accept the call or "2" to reject it. Works great. Fritz Whittington TI Alum - http://www.tialumni.org ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 3 Jul 2002 18:08:07 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Calif. PUC Probes Cingular Wireless Complaints - Jul 3, 2002 04:13 PM (Reuters) SAN FRANCISCO, July 3 (Reuters) - California regulators are investigating Cingular Wireless, the second-largest U.S. wireless telephone company, after receiving thousands of consumer complaints about shoddy service and cancellation fees. In its order for the probe, the state Public Utilities Commission said Cingular's system appeared "fundamentally unfair to consumers." Complaints focused on limited phone coverage areas; frequently disconnected, or "dropped," calls; misleading advertising; and a termination fee of $150 or more to cancel service early, the order said. The commission, which regulates the telecommunications industry in California, said it has received more than 4,700 complaints about Cingular's operations in the state since 1999. http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=27700785 ------------------------------ From: Linc Madison Subject: Dialing in Italy (was Re: Worldwide Dialing Rules) Date: Wed, 03 Jul 2002 01:18:21 -0700 Organization: LincMad.com Consulting Reply-To: Telecom@LincMad.com In article , wrote: > At least officially, we [Italy] don't have anymore the concept of > "area code": White Pages show the numbers all stuck together. What ever happened to the plan to replace the leading 0 on fixed (wireline) numbers with a leading 4 (for example, numbers in Rome were to become +39 46 instead of +39 06)? There was even a date in 2001 that the change was supposed to be final, but then it seemed to just not happen. www dot LincMad dot com / Telecom at LincMad dot com Linc Madison * San Francisco, California ------------------------------ From: puntomaupunto_at_tin.it@example.invalid Subject: Dialing in Italy (was Re: Worldwide Dialing Rules) Organization: you are kidding, right? Date: Wed, 03 Jul 2002 08:39:16 GMT Linc Madison scripsit: : What ever happened to the plan to replace the leading 0 on fixed : (wireline) numbers with a leading 4 (for example, numbers in Rome were : to become +39 46 instead of +39 06)? They eventually decided that it would have been too much of a mess for us stupid customers. So, leading 0 remains for wireline numbers, and leading 4 is used for services tied to a single carrier, either wireline or mobile. For example, 4040 is the number to access personal answering machine from a Wind mobile phone, while 4919 is the same for TIM. With Telecom Italia, dialing 400 let us know the last number who called us. Numbers starting with 7 and 8 are non-geographic. I did not get the difference yet: 702xxxxxx are "internet numbers" billed as local calls, but 848-8xxxxx are billed in the same way. On the other hand, 709xxxxxx and 899xxxxxx are both "premium numbers" with an high cost per minute. (toll-free numbers are 800-xxxxxx and 803xxx) ciao, .mau. Per soli italiani: http://xmau.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 2 Jul 2002 13:11:05 PDT From: Eric De Mund Subject: Vulnerabilities in (Pre Version 5,0,0,1066) Yahoo! Messenger Reply-To: Eric De Mund Organization: Ixian Systems, Inc. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: A couple days ago I told of the mess I got into here with a virus which was deliberatly shipped to me over the net while I was using Yahoo Messenger late Monday night. I sat here and watched as messages, sent in my name, gave links to 'free porn; click here' were sent out. I *immediatly* yanked the DSL connection and unplugged the Linksys router. I spoke to Eric De Mund rather extensively that night (about two hours in total) and he helped me sort through the mess. Indeed, we found I had just a few minutes earlier gotten my IEXPLORER infected with some nasty virus. Normally PC-cillin 'quarentines' files that are infected, but it was unable/unwilling to do that with IEXPLORER. We found a new, pristine copy of IEXPLORER and got the virus out with little or no damage. Eric thinks the virus came in through ymsgr, and had me destroy the old version of it and install a new version in the process. Here below is his letter to the Digest on it. PAT] Pat, Here are some links re Yahoo! Messenger that folks might find useful: Yahoo! Messenger contains a buffer overflow in the URI handler http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/137115 Yahoo! Messenger "addview" function allows for the automatic execution of malicious script contained in web pages http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/172315 In both cases, the recommendation is to upgrade to version 5,0,0,1066: Yahoo! Messenger 5,0,0,1066 [2002.05.31] http://messenger.yahoo.com/messenger/download/ http://download.yahoo.com/dl/installs/ymsgr/ymsgr_1066.exe Regards, Eric De Mund | Ixian Systems, Inc. | 53 49 B2 23 AF 6C 20 81 http://www.ixian.com/ead/ | Mountain View, CA | ED DD 4C 81 AA C9 D1 A5 ------------------------------ From: AgentX Subject: Norcom 1A3 Date: Tue, 2 Jul 2002 14:51:29 -0400 Does anyone know the approximate value of a Norcom 1A3? Thanks. ------------------------------ Subject: Deja Vu: Designing Room to Block Incoming Cell Calls From: Carl Moore Date: Wed, 3 Jul 2002 10:56:17 -0400 KYW news-radio in Philadelphia has item "Cell Phones Off? Some Venues May Get Tough". It refers to New Scientist magazine and talks about possible design of rooms to block incoming cell calls, to enforce the courtesy of cell phone being off during, say, a theatre event. ------------------------------ From: Fritz Whittington Reply-To: f.whittington@att.net Organization: Only on odd Tuesdays Subject: Re: So What Was Calling Me Anyway? Date: Wed, 03 Jul 2002 16:35:02 GMT Gail M. Hall wrote: > Right now I have my voice mail OGM set to give the phone number only, > not my name. I thought that if I had the message give out my name, > any miscreants could then put together two pieces of information, > whereas this way they have only my number which apparently they > already had because that's what they called. They may have mis-dialed and got a wrong number. > I'd be interested in opinions about what outgoing message you all feel > is safest but still helpful to legit callers. > Gail from Ohio USA "Legit" callers shouldn't need any help. I had recorded on my old machine just "Hello. Please leave a message at the tone." When I had to buy a new machine, I was somewhat surprised that the pre-supplied default OGM was word-for-word the same. Not my voice of course, but they did use a male with a *big* voice. I like it because the only info it reveals is that you have an answering machine. I just think it makes good security sense, especially for females living alone, to have a male voice on the OGM. Fritz Whittington TI Alum - http://www.tialumni.org [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: For your reading pleasure over the Independence Day holiday, I have a special issue coming out to you which does a critique on George Gilder. Although some readers here do like George's writing and work, a few are not quite so enamored of 'King George'. This special issue is one of those ... I like to be fair to everyone around here. It will be in distribution sometime late Wednesday evening. 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 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 775-306-8390 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. --------------------------------------------------------------- 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 #303 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Jul 3 22:16:33 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id WAA26396; Wed, 3 Jul 2002 22:16:33 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 3 Jul 2002 22:16:33 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200207040216.WAA26396@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #304 TELECOM Digest Wed, 3 Jul 2002 22:15:00 EDT Volume 20 : Issue 304 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Independence Day Special Issue The Madness of King George (Gilder) (Wired Mag) (Marcus Didius Falco) All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. WE DO NOT PERMIT NAME/EMAIL ADDRESS HARVESTING FROM THIS JOURNAL. 'SALTED' EMAIL ADDRESSES APPEAR HEREIN TO VERIFY THIS. YOU GET SUED IN SMALL CLAIMS COURT IF YOU GET CAUGHT SPAMMING OR SENDING VIRUSES. DON'T DO IT. See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 03 Jul 2002 01:08:04 -0400 From: Marcus Didius Falco Subject: The Madness of King George (Gilder) (Wired Mag) * Original: FROM..... John McMullen From Wired -- http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.07/gilder_pr.html The Madness of King George George Gilder listened to the technology, and became guru of the telecosm. The markets listened to his newsletter, and followed him into the Global Crossing abyss, yet he's never stopped believing. By Gary Rivlin The lunch plates were cleared long ago, and the waitress gazes vacantly out over an otherwise empty dining room. But George Gilder, his legs propped on a nearby chair, seems rooted in place, not quite ready to leave. We're lingering at a restaurant down the street from his office in Great Barrington, a hamlet set along a rural highway that winds through the southern tip of the Berkshires in western Massachusetts. Here, one of the tech world's more famous -- and controversial -- prophets is contemplating how he could have been so right over the past half-dozen years and yet seen everything turn out so terribly wrong. A look of anguish clouds his face. "I knew that it was going to crash, I really did," Gilder says, looking out a window on to Main Street. Since 1996, he has published the Gilder Technology Report, a monthly newsletter that in its heyday was arguably the most influential tout sheet on Wall Street. He glances my way and notices my arched eyebrows. I had plowed through several years' worth of issues, and while I read page after page of praise for a lengthy list of seemingly promising telecommunications companies, I saw nary a hint of warning in anticipation of the Nasdaq's March 2000 tumble and the financial tumult that followed. He adds quickly, "I told people in early 2000 they should sell half their shares in these companies." Then he says, in a tone of self-rebuke: "I didn't say it often. I didn't put it in a newsletter." He made the recommendation to sell, he admits, only within the limited confines of the Telecosm Lounge, his online salon for newsletter subscribers. He fumbles for words, starting one sentence, then another, before growing uncharacteristically silent and staring off into the distance. For a moment, he seems to be imagining what might have been if things had turned out differently. Gilder, 62, is the author of a dozen books; he has been shouted down by feminists on The Dick Cavett Show in the 1970s, faced off with Dan Rather over trickle-down economics on 60 Minutes in the 1980s, and debated the future of technology with the likes of Andy Grove and Bob Metcalfe in the 1990s. Now many of his partisans are calling for the tar and feathers. He starts another sentence, and again cuts himself off. Suddenly he squares his body, turns to me, and expels a slight, disbelieving laugh. "When you're up there surfing," he says, "the beach looks beautiful. You never think about what the sand in your face might feel like until after you've crashed." For a short stretch during the late 1990s, Gilder's newsletter made him a very wealthy man. Anyone taking a cursory look at it might wonder why. Every issue is densely freighted with talk of lambdas, petahertz, and erbium-doped fiber amplifiers. The eighth and final page, however, explains how so geeky a publication attained, at its zenith, an annual subscription base of $20 million. It's on the back page that Gilder lists the stocks he has dubbed "telecosmic" -- companies that have most faithfully and fully embraced the "ascendant" telecom technologies in which he believes so wholly and deeply. "For a few years in row there, I was the best stock picker in the world," Gilder says ruefully. "But last year you could say" -- here, for emphasis, he repeats each word as a sentence unto itself -- "I. Was. The. Worst." Most of the companies listed have lost at least 90 percent of their value over the past two years, if they're even in business anymore. None exemplifies Gilder's rise and fall more than Global Crossing, which filed for bankruptcy -- the fourth-largest ever -- in January. Even in a portfolio of flops, the scope and depth of this particular debacle stands out. "It will change the world economy," Gilder wrote a few years ago about the company. After reading its master plan, which called for the laying of fiber-optic cables across the world's oceans and between its great cities, Gilder proclaimed that for 10 years he had been searching for a business this audacious and awe-inspiring. He declared Global Crossing his favorite stock, and staked his financial future on it. While he avoided investing in practically every company he wrote about because of the potential for charges of conflict of interest, this was a notable exception. "Global Crossing going bankrupt?" Gilder asks, a look of disbelief on his face. "I would've been willing to bet my house against it." In effect he did. Just a few years ago, he was the toast of Wall Street and commanded as much as $100,000 per speech. Now, he confesses, he's broke and has a lien against his home. During a period when blind optimism got the better of so many, no one was more blithely optimistic about our wired future than Gilder. Beginning in the mid-'90s, he advanced the argument that the businesses which most aggressively embrace fiber optics, wireless communication, and other telecommunications breakthroughs would soar in the meteoric fashion of an Intel. It was Gilder, as much as anyone, who helped trigger the hundreds of billions of dollars invested to create competing fiber networks. Then everything imploded, and company after company went under. The telecom sector proved to be an even greater financial debacle than the dotcoms. Yet he's still convinced he was dead-on right in most of his prognostications. And the damn of it may be that Gilder has a point. In addition to being famously optimistic, Gilder is also a contrarian. In the mid-1990s -while the rest of the world was grousing about the slowness with which images and large packets moved over the network, and some very smart people fretted that the Internet would collapse under its own weight -- Gilder was already talking about the coming age of network abundance. And being Gilder, he didn't stop there. He vividly imagined a "new epoch of spirit and faith" in which all of us would live in the "majestic cumulative power, truth, and transcendence of contemporary science and wealth." He also coined the term telecosm to describe the merging of newer technologies, especially fiber optics, with existing telecommunications systems. Gilder first spied the revolutionary potential of fiber optics at the start of the 1990s, when he shared a conference podium with Will Hicks, one of the field's luminaries. Hicks had predicted that fiber-optic cable, if it were made thin enough, could transmit bolts of light like photons shooting out of a ray gun. Gilder recalls the moment as one of the rare times he encountered someone even more Panglossian than himself. "I had always taken it for granted," he would later write, "that in any assemblage of pundits, I would be the most cornucopian -- the most hyperbolically assured that silicon could save the world." The predictions Gilder has made in the intervening decade suggest that he vowed to never again permit anyone else to convey a vision of the world more exuberant than his own. In 1996 he foresaw that, because of broadband's potential to deliver online learning, within five years "the most deprived ghetto child in the most benighted project will gain educational opportunities exceeding those of today's suburban preppy." It was a preposterous assertion, and hardly the only one that seems absurd in the harsh fluorescent light of the morning. He also claimed that the Web would soon bring on the quick death of both the US Postal Service and television. But none of this rendered Gilder's optimism any less contagious given the light-headed exhilaration of the times. Yet to dismiss Gilder as just another poster boy for the reckless optimism of the late '90s would be a mistake, for the technical analysis undergirding even his more utopian flights of fancy was prescient. Forget terms like megabits, gigabits, or even terabits when describing the flow of data over the Internet. Soon enough, we'll be measuring things in petabits, or 1 quadrillion (1,000 trillion) bits, because of fiber optics -- information traveling via photons flying over strands of glass fiber. The only question is whether we'll see this day as quickly as Gilder imagines. He asserts that by 2004, networks of glass superhighways will deliver 8 petabits per second over optical cables. "I listen very closely to what George says, and then automatically add five years," says Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who first encountered Gilder in the early 1990s when Schmidt was Sun's CTO. The potential of fiber optics is indeed staggering, though not entirely without precedent, and therein lies Gilder's greatest contribution to the field. He opened minds to the technology by drawing on his understanding of past innovation; Moore's law accurately anticipated that the density of transistors on a computer chip would double every 18 months. Gilder decided to make a prediction of his own, and in 1998 he unveiled an axiom he dubbed the law of the telecosm: The world's total supply of bandwidth will double roughly every four months -- or more than four times faster than the rate of advances in computer horsepower. Has it panned out? Yes and no. By mid-2000, Gilder had already recalculated his theorem (and immodestly renamed it in his honor): Bandwidth would double every six months. Gilder notes that several years passed before Moore's law revved up to its mind-bending pace. Then he shifts into deep geek mode, rattling off arcana from a recent newsletter in which he compares a fiber-based telecommunications system available in 1995 with one the Columbia, Maryland-based Corvis is selling today. Corvis now offers a 280-wavelength system, compared with a 4-wavelength version available in 1995. Whereas seven years ago each wavelength could transmit data at a rate of 620 megabits per second, each can now transmit 10 gigabits of information per second, which means today's system is 16 times faster. There's been a sixfold increase in the number of fibers that can be jacketed in each cable, and today an impulse needs to be regenerated only every 2,000 miles, compared with every 300 miles back in 1995. By Gilder's calculations, that represents an 11,000-fold advance in just over six years - which indeed works out to a doubling roughly every six months or so. Eric Schmidt calculates that bandwidth has been doubling more like every 12 months (an estimate confirmed by Probe Research, which has been studying Internet traffic since 1997). But to him, that hardly detracts from Gilder's overall point. "As far as I know, George was the first to see that infinite bandwidth was going to have a similar kind of impact on our world as the microprocessor," he says. "And on that fundamental point, he's been proven absolutely right." Time has also proven Gilder fundamentally correct about other, less-sweeping technological prophecies. Throughout the last decade, Gilder has been associated most closely with two highly technical debates. One concerns wave-division multiplexing, a means of increasing bandwidth over a fiber-optic network by transmitting multiple signals simultaneously. If not for WDM, Gilder argues, it would cost the telecom industry trillions more dollars in capital expenditures on less-efficient equipment to accommodate Internet traffic. For years, the telco establishment resisted WDM, but eventually even the most bottom line-minded firms embraced it. Gilder has also been a proponent of code division multiple access, which he maintains is a more efficient and elegant way to split the wireless spectrum. "Gilder has won that argument," says Probe's Hilary Mine, an analyst specializing in telecommunications. CDMA is now a core technology in one-third of US cell phones. "I think the guy has been a real visionary," says CNET founder Halsey Minor, who has been reading Gilder since the early 1990s. "He, more than anybody else, woke us up to this coming explosion in telecom. He wasn't right about everything, but he was right about a lot." "My miscalculations were the commercial effect of this revolution, especially as I chose particular companies that were spearheads," Gilder says. "The companies did function as spears, but spears often break." The technologies, he says, lived up to their promise even as the market for them collapsed. "The investment part didn't pan out entirely, particularly for the infrastructure players, but the expansion of traffic is real, and the contribution of optics to enable the expansion of traffic is real," he contends. He knows he shouldn't utter the next line, but the congenitally candid Gilder seems incapable of biting his tongue. "My subscribers hate when I say things like this, but I think we'll look back on the current period as a fairly trivial event." To buttress his point, Gilder draws a parallel to the tech collapse of the mid-1980s, which compelled some to proclaim the death of the PC era. "We've seen this kind of thing happen over and over again through the history of enterprise," he says. "It's enormously disappointing for the visionaries, yet it's not the visionaries but the people who inherit the infrastructure they've built who typically prosper from it." It's that final line, of course, that is likely to infuriate the habitus of the Telecosm Lounge. One can anticipate the postings of these people, some of whom have lost millions by following Gilder's investment advice. The only question is whether it will be Networkbull, Optionbob, or someone else who writes, "Nice of you tell us that now, George!" Gilder is a son of the Berkshires who lives in the red farmhouse in which he grew up. A true New England WASP, he has the vocabulary of an Oxford scholar and the carriage of an aristocrat. There's a jaunty, patrician manner in the way he walks, shoulders high and back, chin thrust forward as if he learned to hold his head by watching clips of FDR. He has bright blue eyes and a broad smile that sits slightly off-kilter on his face, and his hair hovers crazily, as if trapped in an electromagnetic experiment. He generally exudes an aura of unkempt disarray; in our two days together he wore the same outfit and seemed oblivious to the penny-sized splotch of whiskers on his chin. One of Gilder's great-grandfathers was Louis Comfort Tiffany, the glassmaker; another was the editor of Century magazine and a friend of Theodore Roosevelt's. As Gilder describes it, he grew up "shabby gentry." Today, friends describe him as singularly uninterested in earthly possessions. One colleague jokingly says that Gilder is so true to his hills Yankee roots "he has furniture in his living room that even Goodwill wouldn't take." His father, Richard Gilder, a writer, was killed during World War II; however, Richard's college roommate, David Rockefeller, made sure that George secured spots at Exeter Academy and Harvard. Gilder was expelled from the latter during his freshman year for poor grades but readmitted after a short stint in the Marines, and he graduated in 1962 with a BA in government. Through most of his twenties and thirties, Gilder toiled as a freelance writer, reasonably successful but constantly broke. His first two books, Sexual Suicide and Naked Nomads, might best be described as antigay, antiwelfare, antifeminist screeds in which he argues that equal pay between the sexes is in fact antifamily. They won him notoriety among feminists but little in the way of royalties. Gilder's breakthrough proved to be his fifth book, Wealth and Poverty, published in 1981. Released shortly into Ronald Reagan's tenure, it hailed the entrepreneurial spirit as the most effective cure for poverty, thereby securing Gilder's place as one of the new president's supply-side gurus. The volume sold more than 1 million copies, and the 41-year-old Gilder found himself suddenly rich and famous. Yet it was precisely at that point, despite having a wife and two kids (they'd eventually have four) and no background in the hard sciences, that he decided to chuck his career as a political gadfly and teach himself physics. How does he explain a choice that seems at once preposterous and prescient? Peering into the future, he imagined a restless life tilling the same tired soil yet never quite matching the success of Wealth and Poverty. Another factor, of course, was that he could suddenly afford the folly of a whim. Gilder's decision didn't arrive entirely from out of the blue. He'd devoted a whole chapter of Wealth and Poverty to the semiconductor industry (though he now confesses that his views were based almost solely on an article he had read in Time). The parsimonious Gilder seemed enchanted by the fact that silicon was really nothing but sand, so readily abundant a raw material. He was friends with National Semiconductor board chair Peter Sprague, who had mentioned to Gilder that they soon would "put scores of transistors not on the head but the point of a pin." Above his bed at home, Gilder has a famous Blake quotation about seeing all the world in a single grain of sand. "I loved the idea that the computer was a world in a grain of sand," he says. Over the next five years, he split time between coasts, studying at Caltech under the eminent physicist Carver Mead, who became his mentor and sage. Gilder took classes when possible but mainly studied on his own. He hired a tutor to teach him calculus so that he could better understand physics. In all, he figures he read "hundreds of books," most of them textbooks, to learn the sciences of the microprocessor. The years of self-banishment served him well. His resulting work, Microcosm, published in 1989, influenced a generation of people, including former FCC chair Reed Hundt. "Microcosm is a great visionary document," Hundt says. "It helped change my thinking." If anything, Gilder's next book, Life After Television, published in 1990, proved even more prophetic. A strong anti-TV bias prompted Gilder to predict its imminent demise at the hands of the PC - but he also spotted the potential for convergence between the tube and the microchip and, before Tim Berners-Lee had conceived of the World Wide Web, wrote about "a crystalline web of glass and light." "Listen to the technology," Carver Mead had counseled his disciple. And fiber optics seemed the perfect subject matter for the fervently ascetic Gilder. Photons and light waves, of course, are weightless and ephemeral, the very embodiment of a nonmaterial world. There's a cosmic perfection in a technology that can move libraries' worth of information around the globe at the speed of light. "Listen to the technology" - it had proved an invaluable mantra as Gilder delved more deeply into the science of light and electromagnetic particles. By the mid-1990s, however, it was hard not to listen also to the sound of money. The Gilder Technology Report wasn't Gilder's idea so much as it was a notion planted in his head by two money managers overseeing some of his financial planning. Late in 1995, Chuck Frank and David Minor proposed that the three go into business together. By that point Gilder was writing regularly for Forbes and its technology supplement, Forbes ASAP. (He also did occasional pieces for this magazine and is still a contributing writer.) Frank and Minor proposed that Gilder's writing be repackaged as research, which they in turn would sell to investment banks, but that idea proved a bust when almost no banks expressed interest. As an alternative, Gilder suggested a monthly newsletter. He contacted his friend Steve Forbes, and a deal was struck between Forbes Publishing and the newly formed Gilder Technology Group: Gilder would write the report; Forbes would handle the publishing, marketing, and distribution; and the two companies would split the proceeds. The newsletter was launched in mid-1996 with an initial run of 8,000. The primary audience was networking techies drawn to its data-rich charts and, of course, to Gilder's unique and passionate take on new technologies. In the fall of 1997, about 350 people paid $4,000 apiece to attend his first Telecosm conference, a two-day affair at the Ritz-Carlton near Palm Springs, California. For Gilder that would've been enough. Even with a modest circulation of 10,000, the newsletter, which cost subscribers $295 a year, was netting millions of dollars in revenue, and the conference contributed hundreds of thousands more to the company coffers. He was also taking in around $50,000 per speech, a few times a month. He had more than enough to keep himself busy: columns, articles, and another book that was several years overdue. A modestly successful business, however, wasn't good enough, especially given the overheated times and the ambitions of at least one of his partners. Inside Gilder's circle, people refer to it simply as "the list" - the companies Gilder has singled out as worthy of an investor's interest. Gilder says he can't recall exactly how it was decided that they'd include fewer charts so the list could run on the report's final page, but the impact of that decision is plain to him. "Ultimately, I was now publishing an investment newsletter," he says. In 1997, Rich Karlgaard, then the publisher of Forbes ASAP, wrote the first of several columns praising Gilder for his stock-picking prowess. "Nobody ... can spot a gigadollar sure thing in a queue of photons" like Gilder, wrote Karlgaard, who is now the publisher of Forbes. He included a toll-free number for potential subscribers but failed to reveal the magazine's stake in the enterprise he was touting. Gilder hardly played the hapless bystander. He began slipping stock tips into his articles. In one for Forbes in 1999, for instance, he advised those wanting to "make a killing over the next five years" to buy shares in either Globalstar ("a supreme telecosmic play") or the Loral Corp. (Globalstar declared bankruptcy this past February, and shares in Loral are down 88 percent since Gilder's recommendation.) In another piece, published in 1997, Gilder suggested that readers short Microsoft. (An investor who took Gilder's advice and shorted $10,000 of Microsoft stock would have lost as much as $25,000, depending on when he or she decided to sell.) Gilder also gushed over the stock market potential of a litany of companies that have either gone bankrupt or are trading at a fraction of their 1999 share price. Gilder's list performed well in 1998, but his portfolio's 1999 performance was unreal. "I had six of the top nine stocks on the S&P, and four of the top eight on the Nasdaq," he boasts. A Karlgaard column, written just as the Nasdaq was in the early paroxysms of its great fall, noted that Gilder's basket of stock picks had racked up ("Is your blood pressure in check?") a 247 percent return in the prior 10 months. "Grow rich on the coming technology revolution," blared the promotional materials Forbes Publishing mailed out soliciting subscriptions to Gilder's newsletter. At its apogee, at the end of 2000, it had more than 70,000 paying subscribers, representing $20 million in revenue. The Gilder Technology Report represented only one, albeit large, piece of the growing empire. Gilder started hiring people to write additional newsletters on niche topics such as online storage, and the annual Telecosm conference gave birth to several regional Telecosms. The company also added a series of investment conferences to the calendar - six in 2000. Each brought in another million dollars, according to Gilder. He moved his burgeoning company into an 8,000-square-foot office in Great Barrington that had taken the better part of a year to refurbish in order to accommodate a staff of two dozen. Meanwhile, Gilder's partners were anything but satisfied. When Frank proposed a hedge fund, Gilder said no, despite the enormous fees such an enterprise would have earned investing money on behalf of rich individuals; he felt it would ensnare them in too many conflicts of interest. Similarly, he said no to a Telecosm venture fund and other lucrative-sounding schemes. "Because the company was started with the expectations of doing these things, my repulsion was seen, understandably, as a betrayal," says Gilder. (Minor generally confirmed Gilder's recollections; Frank did not respond to several messages left on his cell phone.) So in March of 2000, at the market's peak, he bought out his partners and started over as Gilder Publishing LLC. "I thought we'd go public," he says. "Merrill Lynch and Hambrecht were competing to be underwriters. There was talk of a $200 million valuation. I thought we were rich. What was $8.5 million for me to buy out my partners?" At around that time, he also decided to spend $2.5 million on The American Spectator, a money-losing conservative political journal. "Effectively we let $11 million walk out the door at precisely the worst time, just as we were about to go off a cliff." All the while, Gilder was feeling haunted by the immense responsibility. "In retrospect, it's obvious that I should've subtly said, 'Hey, things have gotten out of hand at JDS Uniphase, and it's not worth what you'd have to pay for it,'" he says. Each month, he thought about providing a warning to his subscribers, and he decided against it every time. He had witnessed firsthand what others had dubbed the "Gilder effect": the steep spike in a stock after he added that company to his list. It wasn't unheard of for the price of a stock to jump by more than 50 percent within an hour of a newsletter's release. "If I had said, 'Hey, this is a top, you should all sell,' it would've been a cataclysmic event," he says. "I'd think about telling people that they should sell half their holdings, and each time I'd conclude that my subscribers would be enraged. I also wondered what I'd precipitate if I did it." Fully 50 percent of his readers had signed up for the report at what Gilder now calls the "hysterical peak" of the market. "Half of my subscribers would have been eternally grateful [for a warning], but the other half -- the new ones -- would've been enraged because they had just come in," he says. "It was quite terrifying. I really didn't know what to do." In the end he did nothing. And soon enough, he had an entirely new set of distractions to fret over. "In the past, we'd sell out our investor conferences within two weeks," Gilder says. "But in 2001, we sent out the same literature and the same invitations, and five or seven people signed up." He lost the deposits that were placed to reserve hotel space for the gatherings. Newsletter renewal rates plummeted. A huge tax bill came due. By spring 2002, he'd laid off nearly half of his staff. "You can be just fabulously flush one moment, and then the next, you can't make that last million-dollar payment to your partners, and there's suddenly a lien on your house," he says. Gilder, who had always cast the entrepreneur in the most flattering of light, had been granted a far more intimate, less appealing glimpse of life inside a startup. Any analysis of where Gilder went wrong has to begin with his near-evangelical faith in J-curves and the perfectibility of humankind. The notion of a new economy that created its own set of rules represented no great leap for this man who was inclined to see history as the determined march from savage to enlightened being. Likewise, the rocketing success on Wall Street of companies staking their future on a transcendent technology such as fiber optics confirmed everything he had come to believe in over his lifetime. "The bull market fit George's broad vision quite nicely," says Spencer Reiss, editor of The American Spectator (and a longtime Wired contributor). For years Gilder had been perceived as a wild-eyed prophet yelling into the wind. Suddenly he was endorsed by the masses. "For George this wasn't about money, but ultimately a vindication of his thinking," Reiss adds. Gilder embraces new technologies with the fervor of a missionary. Rather than declare Java an interesting new programming language worthy of adoption, he trumpeted it in 1995 as if it were the Second Coming - and now admits that he greatly overestimated its short-term impact. It wasn't enough that he spied the remarkable impact of fiber optics before anyone else, nor was he satisfied predicting that bandwidth would replace computing power as the driving force of technological innovation. Gilder dedicates the last several chapters of Telecosm to celebrating the "transfiguration" of society that will surely follow once we cast off the "copper cages" of existing technologies. In Gilder's broadband utopia, we will no longer be bothered by telemarketers, time-wasting advertisements, or onerous government forms. We'll overthrow the tyranny of mass media, advance world peace, and generally find ourselves enjoying an era marked by an abundance of leisure time. "If there was no George Gilder, the venture capitalists and investment bankers would've invented one," says Fred Hickey, editor of a newsletter called the High-Tech Strategist. "They needed some kind of pied piper to put the words on paper to justify the insanity of paying any price for anything that offered any kind of technical promise." To Gilder's critics, he ignores the real workings of the telecosm. Indeed, despite a past steeped in economic policy issues, Gilder consistently downplayed the enormous impact of regulation. "There's no way you do telecom work without factoring in the regulatory piece," says Gary Arlen, president of Arlen Communications and a telecom analyst who has been following the industry for 20 years. "He was either naive or just refused to factor that into the mix." Gilder had taken economics courses at Harvard, but they hardly taught him the gimlet-eyed analytics or understanding of business fundamentals that are crucial to success as a stock picker. One of Gilder's bedrock beliefs is that we have left behind the era of the microcosm - a time marked by an abundance of transistors and a scarcity of bandwidth - and entered the era of the telecosm, in which bandwidth is abundant and transistors scarce, given a migration to ever-smaller devices. "That argument is generally true," says Google's Schmidt. "The error George made is to assume that the economics of surplus are positive for investors, when in fact surplus means cutthroat price competition, over-provisioning, and all the things we're seeing happen in the telecom sector." "The realities of business play only a cameo role in George's theories," says Howard Anderson, founder of the Yankee Group and a part-time professor at MIT, who has observed the telecom industry for more than three decades. "His thought was 'Build it and they will come.'" When Global Crossing floated billions of dollars' worth of junk bonds to build out its worldwide fiber network, Gilder celebrated the decision as bold and visionary. He blames Global Crossing's bankruptcy, and the bankruptcies suffered by more than a dozen large telecom companies, on both a "deflationary environment hugely hostile to debtors" and Alan Greenspan's boom-time "obsession" with raising interest rates to tamp down the stock market. Gilder refuses to acknowledge that the company's main problem was a lack of demand, and when pressed on the point tends to provide a history lesson about the heroic role junk bonds played in the success of companies such as MCI and McCaw Cellular Communications. "In a different environment, these companies would have survived and thrived," Gilder insists. "With no advance warning, the financial climate suddenly became very, very hostile to debtors." Still, he allows, "I led a whole bunch of credulous people to finance this huge buildout of fiber." And ultimately he blames himself for all those hundreds of millions of dollars investors lost based on his predictions. "I accepted the laurels when they were being offered," Gilder says. "Now I really have to eat crow and not skulk off to the corner and claim 'I'm just a technologist.'" Gilder was in Silicon Valley when the news came, at the end of January, that Global Crossing had filed for bankruptcy protection. In the Telecosm Lounge, people were in shock. Gilder had stuck by the company even as share prices fell; if anything, he supported the stock more fervently. "Your current qualms will seem insignificant," he had declared midway through 2001, in response to frightened investors. Upon hearing the official news that their shares in Global Crossing were indeed worthless, some posters were philosophical. A few were angry, like the man who asked Gilder, "Are you a villain or just naive?" But mainly people seemed annoyed that for days their high priest remained silent despite their suffering. One loyalist even sought investment advice: "All I ask is for you to give us one stock right now which will offer the greatest upside potential with the least amount of risk to make up for Global Crossing," wrote a poster named Phil. A different kind of man, feeling chastened after a disaster of such magnitude, would have declined. By then a full 50 percent of his subscribers had fled the Gilder Technology Report, and there had been similar circulation drops at his four other newsletters. His list of telecosmic stocks had lost 75 percent of their value since the start of 2000. He'd lost his own fortune. Yet, incredibly, when Gilder finally appeared in the Telecosm Lounge nine days later, he had an answer for Phil: "I would buy National Semiconductor." So what has Gilder learned from his flirtation with imponderable riches? Everything and nothing. He expresses relief that he can return to what he knows best, studying the inner workings of cutting-edge technology. He expresses deep regret for the role he played in the telecom crash. But Gilder is first and foremost a man of faith. He continues to add new companies to his list, and he still tries to predict the future. "My view is that all this stuff is going to come back very rapidly," he says, citing the wisdom that results from "being old enough to have lived through many cycles." Science can now place 280 wavelengths on a single fiber and transmit data at a rate of 10 gigabits per second. Soon we'll be measuring the flow in petabits. All of the world's knowledge is near-instantly available. Ghetto kids will have access to the same information as rich preppies. Government can't help but come to its senses. A recovery - nay, the next boom! - is just around the corner. That, at least, is what the technology is telling him. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gary Rivlin is the author of several books, including The Godfather of Silicon Valley. Copyright 1993-2002 The Cond Nast Publications Inc. "When you come to the fork in the road, take it" - L.P. Berra "Always make new mistakes" -- Esther Dyson "Be precise in the use of words and expect precision from others" - Pierre Abelard John F. McMullen http://www.westnet.com/~observer Direct replies are unlikely to be read. 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 #304 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Jul 5 17:50:32 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id RAA05364; Fri, 5 Jul 2002 17:50:32 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 5 Jul 2002 17:50:32 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200207052150.RAA05364@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #305 TELECOM Digest Fri, 5 Jul 2002 17:50:00 EDT Volume 20 : Issue 305 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Ring Tones For Motorola T193 (Alejandro Lengua) Looking For Telephone System (David F. Strohl) Re: Help Needed - Verizon Payphone Rates & Alternatives (Herb Stein) Re: Norcom 1A3 (Dave Phelps) Re: Truth or Fiction? Telemarketing Call Saves Man's Life (Matt Simpson) Re: Truth or Fiction? Telemarketing Call Saves Man's Life (Bob Goudrea) Re: Truth or Fiction? Telemarketing Call Saves Man's Life (s falke) Re: TeleZapper? (Alan Burkitt-Gray) Public Invited To Review Draft Strategic Plan (Marcus Didius Falco) All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. WE DO NOT PERMIT NAME/EMAIL ADDRESS HARVESTING FROM THIS JOURNAL. 'SALTED' EMAIL ADDRESSES APPEAR HEREIN TO VERIFY THIS. YOU GET SUED IN SMALL CLAIMS COURT IF YOU GET CAUGHT SPAMMING OR SENDING VIRUSES. DON'T DO IT. See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: alengua@virtual-orbis.com (Alejandro Lengua) Subject: Ring tones for Motorola T193 Date: 5 Jul 2002 10:31:40 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Are the ring tones for this phone the same that for Nokia ? ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 04 Jul 2002 09:31:45 -0400 From: David F. Strohl Subject: Looking For Telephone System To Whom It May Concern: I am currently looking for some equipment for my Panasonic VA-412 Key System (Analog). Do you carry parts for this system, or if not, do you know who might? The search for these phones is turning into a crusade. I do know that Austin Telecom does sell them, but I feel that their prices are a bit over the top. Thank you, David F. Strohl PS: Hope you had a great 4th of July! ------------------------------ From: Herb Stein Subject: Re: Help Needed - Verizon Payphone Rates & Alternatives Organization: Giganews.Com - Premium News Outsourcing Date: Thu, 04 Jul 2002 02:01:45 GMT Ted Klugman wrote in message news:telecom20.302.9@telecom-digest.org: > My old college fraternity (in Beautiful Downtown Newark, NJ) has a > standard Verizon payphone. Back when I was an active member about 10 > years ago, I recall the monthly phone bill being about $40/month. > Pricey, but we figured that the utility of having an in-house payphone > available for public use was worth the expense. > I found out recently that Verizon has steadily been raising their > rates, and this month the price has gone up to a whopping $75/month. > The consensus is that at this price, it's not necessarily worth the > expense. But what are the alternatives? > What I can think of -- > 1. A regular "business" phone line with severe restrictions (no > long-distance, no 900's, no third-party, no collect, etc etc etc) > 2. A COCOT. > 3. A COCOT that is provided by a third-party. > For #2 and #3, how can we go about researching these alternatives? > That is, how can I find companies that provide these services? > One of the big stumbling blocks here is that whatever alternative we > choose, we will insist that we keep the same phone number. > Your suggestions are greatly appreciated. Thanks! Check out http://www.payphoneproducts.com/products_ct.shtml I'm not a customer yet, but am tempted. Herb Stein The Herb Stein Group www.herbstein.com herb@herbstein.com 314 952-4601 ------------------------------ From: Dave Phelps Subject: Re: Norcom 1A3 Date: Thu, 4 Jul 2002 01:16:14 -0500 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com I'd estimate it a bit less than the cost of a boat anchor. In article , agentx@preferred.com says: > Does anyone know the approximate value of a Norcom 1A3? Dave Phelps Phone Masters Ltd. deadspam=tippenring ------------------------------ From: Matt Simpson Subject: Re: Truth or Fiction? Telemarketing Call Saves Man's Life Date: Tue, 02 Jul 2002 11:23:49 -0400 Organization: None Whatsoever It's being discussed extensively on slashdot. http://slashdot.org/articles/02/06/29/0336200.shtml?tid=133 A lot of people pointing out reasons why it sounds bogus, but I didn't see anything yet that definitely proved there's no way it could possibly have happened. Matt Simpson - Tatertown, KY http://jmatt.net/ ------------------------------ From: Bob Goudreau Subject: Re: Truth or Fiction? Telemarketing Call Saves Man's Life Date: Tue, 2 Jul 2002 00:18:08 -0400 PAT asked for followups about this story. Some points: 1) While the link cited was from CNN.com, the story on that site was clearly cited as coming from Reuters, the respected international news agency. Not an automatic mark of validity, mind you, but Reuters does have a pretty good reputation generally, so I would not dismiss the story out of hand. 2) There have been a number of remarks centered on the mistaken notion that this must have have been a US-market mobile phone roaming in Colombia, with a Colombian "host" telco involved in handling the call. However, BellSouth has had a presence in several Latin American markets for several years now (see www.bellsouth.com.co), so we have no reason to believe that the phone in question was anything other than a domestic (to Colombia) prepaid mobile. 3) Others are skeptical that there would have been cell coverage on the mountain. However, my impression is that line-of-sight transmission from a high place generally leads to good signal coverage; it's being stuck down in the radio shadow of a canyon (urban or natural) or valley that causes signal loss. The cited elevation of 12,500 feet is not hugely higher than some of Colombia's major cities, such as Bogota (8000+ feet elevation). 4) It has been pointed out that, at least in the US and Europe, all mobile phones can call emergency numbers (911, 999, 112, etc.) even if their accounts are otherwise in arrears. However, the story in question concerns a Colombian phone, in Colombia; US and European laws do not apply. Even if emergency calls are freely available, perhaps this fact is not well-known in Colombia, or was not known to Mr. Diaz (the hiker in question). Even if it was known to him, the standard GSM emergency number (112) may not be well known to Colombians. (I have no idea what the standar landline emergency number, if any, is in Colombia.) I'd still like to see some followup media reports, but I am not yet inclined to reflexively dismiss this story as fiction. Bob Goudreau Cary, NC ------------------------------ From: s falke Subject: Re: Truth or Fiction? Telemarketing Call Saves Man's Life Organization: Prodigy Internet http://www.prodigy.com Date: Tue, 02 Jul 2002 04:22:21 GMT One might birddog snopes.com for awhile. Only one cellphone report right now: http://www.snopes.com/autos/hazards/gasvapor.htm [Snopes seems to make an effort to be reliable and current.] --s falke Phil McKerracher wrote in message news:telecom20.301.6@telecom-digest.org: > Mark Brader wrote in message > news:telecom20.299.8@telecom-digest.org: >> CNN is reporting (URL below) that last month one Leonardo Diaz of >> Colombia, stranded on a mountain in the Andes, tried to call for >> help on his cellphone only to find that he was out of prepaid minutes. >> But he avoided death by hypothermia when the phone company, Bellsouth, >> phoned him to ask if he wanted to buy more minutes ... > ex.html> > Looks like a myth, because > a) Most cellphones can make emergency calls even if out of prepaid minutes; > b) It's unlikely reception would extend that far up a mountain; and > c) Freezing a battery doesn't revive it - on the contrary, warming it > does. (Cooling reduces the discharge rate and thus > extends shelf life, but doesn't revive in any way and freezing would > actually destroy it.) > Phil McKerracher > www.mckerracher.org > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Like yourself, I found it rather > incredible. I thought we were seeing the beginning of an 'urban > legend'. I still feel that way. We can probably prove it before it > gets too far out of hand. We need to deal with your (a), (b) and (c) > points above. In reference to (a) can we show whether or not BellSouth > either routinely or by arrangement services Colombia (such as roaming) > or if the telecom authority accepts inbound cell calls from wherever > BellSouth is located. Where is the nearest cell tower to the place the > gentleman was located? Does the telecom authority there permit calls > to emergency numbers from cellphones on a 'free' (or rather, charge to > called party) basis? Who was the prepaid carrier? BellSouth? Most > carriers offering prepaid service don't go out of their way to move in > on the territory of other carriers. For that matter, most carriers > offering prepaid service don't bother to call and solicit more > business. AT&T for example, will sell the time; but they don't have > anyone out there pushing the business deliberatly. Alltel is the same > way. You find out the balance on the account with *369, and pay via > any agent, using a credit card or cash. When the money is gone, that's > it. BellSouth is different? > > Regards (b), how many miles away was the nearest cell tower? Regards > (c), what was the condition of the battery on his phone? > > So maybe you or someone will find out a few things: How does the > 'host' cellphone company (telecom authority or whoever) in Colombia > deal with prepaid cellphones that are out of money regards emergency > calls? Who notifies the customer he is out of money? The local > operator or the phone itself, or? Ask the same host down there if > they are in fact agents for BellSouth regards collection of money, > etc. > Let's try to nip this one in the bud, please, before it gets out of > control. Don't just accept what the talking heads at CNN tell you, or > their newspaper, etc. I will gather up articles from those of you who > care to work on this and research it, etc ... and print them all in a > batch in a few days. Use the title 'Truth or Fiction'. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Alan Burkitt-Gray Subject: Re: TeleZapper? Date: Thu, 4 Jul 2002 11:00:40 +0100 Fritz Whittington wrote: > SWBT offers "Privacy Manager", and calls with no > caller ID are intercepted by an operator similar to making a collect call. > The caller can record their name, then they get put on hold while the > Privacy Manager calls me (with that name showing up in the CID), and ofers > to let me punch "1" to hear the name. I can then punch "1" to accept the > call or "2" to reject it. Works great. It's only a phone call, for goodness' sake, not an attempted assault. Alan Burkitt-Gray Editor, Global Telecoms Business Euromoney Institutional Investor plc, Nestor House, Playhouse Yard, London EC4V 5EX, UK tel +44 20 7779 8518 fax +44 20 7779 8492 e-mail aburkitt@euromoneyplc.com www.globaltelecomsbusiness.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 03 Jul 2002 20:36:11 -0400 From: Marcus Didius Falco Subject: Public Invited to Review Draft Strategic Plan PUBLIC INVITED TO REVIEW DRAFT STRATEGIC PLAN The Federal Communications Commission announced today that the public is welcome to review and comment on a draft of its revised strategic plan for 2003-2008. The FCC is revising its strategic plan at this time in compliance with the requirements of the Government Performance and Results Act. Comments are due by August 2, 2002. [SOURCE: FCC] For archives see: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/ Direct replies are unlikely to be read. 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. 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 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 775-306-8390 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: mirror.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. --------------------------------------------------------------- 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 #305 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sun Jul 7 21:12:57 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id VAA15912; Sun, 7 Jul 2002 21:12:57 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sun, 7 Jul 2002 21:12:57 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200207080112.VAA15912@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #306 TELECOM Digest Sun, 7 Jul 2002 21:12:00 EDT Volume 20 : Issue 306 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: TeleZapper? (James Gifford) Re: TeleZapper? (John Higdon) Re: TeleZapper? (Fritz Whittington) Design Problem (Mohammad Ehsanul Kabir) How to Find Cellular Telephone Companies (Don Saklad) Re: Truth or Fiction? Telemarketing Call Saves Man's Life (Marcus Jervis) Line Monitoring IC (Fathy Samaha) Re: Huber: Washington Created WorldCom (Steve Brack) Allegiance Telecom (Charles Fields) Re: MCI: The Rise and Fall of the Ebbers Empire (Wes Leatherock) How Exactly is *This* Going to Work? (null) All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. WE DO NOT PERMIT NAME/EMAIL ADDRESS HARVESTING FROM THIS JOURNAL. 'SALTED' EMAIL ADDRESSES APPEAR HEREIN TO VERIFY THIS. YOU GET SUED IN SMALL CLAIMS COURT IF YOU GET CAUGHT SPAMMING OR SENDING VIRUSES. DON'T DO IT. See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James Gifford Subject: Re: TeleZapper? Date: Sat, 06 Jul 2002 15:28:44 -0700 Organization: Nitrosyncretic Press Alan Burkitt-Gray wrote: > It's only a phone call, for goodness' sake, not an attempted assault. Sez you. I take it some portion of your business is based on telemarketing? Those of us who are in an income bracket to have long-term stability of address and phone number and cannot avoid leaving a "consumer footprint" in high-profit areas eventually end up on a staggering number of telemarketing lists. My phone system fields at least ten calls a day on three lines that either prove to be telemarketers or certainly act like ones. I do regard this as an assault on my peace and privacy -- free speech issues aside, they have no damned right to barge into my house and hassle me. If they collectively were polite and in some form ASKED me if I wanted to hear a sales pitch, it might be one thing, but they have decades of finely-honed experience behind each pitch and you are lucky if you can get a word in within the first three minutes. The alternative is to be rude, shout them down with some form of "Thank you, not interested," and hang up to wait for the next attack. I really don't like being rude unnecessarily - if nothing else, it's mildly disruptive to a working or concentrating mood. So yes, any tool, technique, technology or psychic power that keeps these bozos from barging into my house, my phone, my ear, my brain and my mood is a very worthwhile thing. Personally, I'd like to have a system that makes the handset or headset of any uninvited caller melt down. | James Gifford - Nitrosyncretic Press | | http://www.nitrosyncretic.com for the Heinlein FAQ & more | ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 05 Jul 2002 15:28:45 -0700 Subject: Re: TeleZapper? From: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows In article telecom20.305.8@telecom-digest.org, Alan Burkitt-Gray wrote: > Fritz Whittington wrote: >> SWBT offers "Privacy Manager", and calls with no >> caller ID are intercepted by an operator similar to making a collect call. >> The caller can record their name, then they get put on hold while the >> Privacy Manager calls me (with that name showing up in the CID), and ofers >> to let me punch "1" to hear the name. I can then punch "1" to accept the >> call or "2" to reject it. Works great. > It's only a phone call, for goodness' sake, not an attempted assault. Actually, what Privacy Manager eliminates are the following: 1. Mysterious "one-ring" calls that show no CID; 2. Mysterious "hang-up" calls that show no CID, but ring until you answer; 3. Calls from a fax modem that have no CID and just beep in your ear. In each of these situations, there is no way to even politely tell the caller that he is not reaching his intended destination. Everyone I have talked to about Privacy Manager hails it as welcome relieve from random phone ringing related to one of the above situations. There is nothing more annoying than to run to the phone only to have the connection drop the moment you answer, or have a CNG tone in your ear from a fax modem. One can hang up on a junk caller or tell him to add the number to a "do not call" list, but when one's peace is disturbed day and night by mysterious phantom calls, more aggressive action is required. Privacy Manager is quite effective at doing that. John Higdon | Email Address Valid | SF: +1 415 428-COWS +1 408 264 4115 | AIM: plodder5 | FAX: +1 408 264 4407 ------------------------------ From: Fritz Whittington Reply-To: f.whittington@att.net Organization: Only on odd Tuesdays Subject: Re: TeleZapper? Date: Sat, 06 Jul 2002 18:14:38 GMT Alan Burkitt-Gray wrote: > Fritz Whittington wrote: >> SWBT offers "Privacy Manager", and calls with no >> caller ID are intercepted by an operator similar to making a collect call. >> The caller can record their name, then they get put on hold while the >> Privacy Manager calls me (with that name showing on the CID), and offers >> to let me punch "1" to hear the name. I can then punch "1" to accept the >> call or "2" to reject it. Works great. > It's only a phone call, for goodness' sake, not an attempted assault. > Alan Burkitt-Gray > Editor, Global Telecoms Business > e-mail aburkitt@euromoneyplc.com I beg your pardon! Perhaps you have not been exposed to this sort of assault on your privacy in the UK. When I retired and had some more time to spend at home during the day, I noticed that I was getting 7 calls every day Monday through Friday, each call almost exactly 1 hour apart, from a line with no CID available. Whether I answered or the answering machine answered, there was no audio from the distant end and an almost immediate disconnect. So quick in fact, that the answering machine didn't even record the call as a hang-up-no-message. This is not the pattern of the typical telemarketing call. (I know, I got plenty of those, too.) I set up a FAX modem to answer the line thinking it was from a misguided FAX machine. Nope. I kept hoping the problem would correct itself. After six months of this, I called the local phone company to see if there was some way to help identify the caller. They said they couldn't help, for various reasons not germane here. I complained to the state PUC about the phone company not helping, but their investigation supported the phone company's opinion that a trace was not feasible. However, the PUC investigator mentioned that Privacy Manager might be a solution, and it has been. Of course, the machinery that's doing this will never leave a recorded name, so Privacy Manager never passes the call on to me either. Peace, it's wonderful. On July 1, the Texas "NO-CALL-LIST" law went into effect. Before that, my CID box maxed out with 99 calls covering only 2 and a fraction days. Now, we get 4-10 calls a day, and when the phone rings, I can be pretty certain it's from family, friends, or a legitimate business call. Fritz Whittington TI Alum - http://www.tialumni.org ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 08 Jul 2002 03:22:00 +0600 From: Mohammad Ehsanul Kabir Subject: Design Problem Hi, Would you help me in designing the following minute minder: The circuit alerts the phone caller about the duration of call time. That means the circuit detects when the callee receives the phone and then counting the time and gives a bip after a certain intervel that is adjustable. Regards, EK ------------------------------ Subject: How to Find Cellular Telephone Companies From: Don Saklad Date: 07 Jul 2002 17:49:13 -0400 1. What cellular telephone companies services coverage include Western New York State, Erie County? ... 2. Generally, how can all the cellular telephone companies that offer services and coverage for any particular location be looked up? ------------------------------ From: Marcus Jervis Subject: Re: Truth or Fiction? Telemarketing Call Saves Man's Life Date: Fri, 05 Jul 2002 22:48:08 +0000 Bob Goudreau wrote: > While the link cited was from CNN.com, the story on that site was > clearly cited as coming from Reuters, the respected international > news agency. Not an automatic mark of validity, mind you, but > Reuters does have a pretty good reputation generally, so I would > not dismiss the story out of hand. I've had some correspondence with Jan Harold Brunvand, the folklorist probably most responsible for the public's knowledge of urban legends. (He wrote The Vanishing Hitchhiker, The Mexican Pet, The Baby Train, and several other books on contemporary folklore.) He told me on more than one occasion that he sees lots of obvious urban legends and folklore reported as fact by Reuters, I think more than all the other news agencies combined. Some of the stories can't be verified or disproven, but they have enough similar elements to other folktales that folklorists recognize them immediately as appocryphal or false. Here are some examples: http://www.snopes.com/critters/edibles/tourist.htm http://www.snopes.com/music/artists/clapton.htm I know of several toilet related folktales reported by Reuters, including these: http://www.snopes.com/travel/airline/toilet.htm http://www.snopes.com/spoons/legends/toilet.htm ------------------------------ Reply-To: From: Fathy Samaha Subject: Line Monitoring IC Date: Sat, 6 Jul 2002 03:44:02 +0300 Hi, I am seeking a component IC, which can only monitor the local phone line, and report the following status: 1. Ringing . 2. DTMF detection and decoding it, and give the dialed no. 3. the Ring back signal, or the other party is ringing. 4. the other party hook off the phone . May you help please in figuring out this component , Best Regards, Fathy Samaha, Electrical Engineer IIS Co. Cairo, Egypt . Tel/Fax : ++(20) 2 475 0454 ------------------------------ From: Steve Brack Subject: Re: Huber: Washington Created WorldCom Organization: Society for the Preservation of Steve Brack Date: Sat, 06 Jul 2002 02:02:22 GMT I didn't catch who said it, but a commentator on NPR described MCI as being a "lobbying firm with an antenna on top of the building." I think the description's apt, considering goings on from the MFJ all the way to the Worldcom takeover and even the Worldcom "implosion." Steve Brack Marcus Didius Falco wrote in message news:telecom20.301.1@telecom-digest.org: > I rarely find myself in agreement with Peter Huber, and I don't this > time. In particular, he says that the 5 years from 1996 to 2001 were > characterized by competition in local service. I think the record will > show that there was very little or no effective competition. There > were a lot of firms entering the market, but in most places they > attained very little market share. > On the other hand, if he wants to argue that much of the competition > in telecommunications is an artifact of government policy, he's > right. The FCC nurtured IXC competition in the 1970s, and by the early > 80s it was apparent that the biggest cost-advantage MCI and Sprint had > was due to their taking low-cost and inferior "line side" (Feature > Groups A and B) connection to the Bell Operating Companies. However, > this was not their only advantage, and it did appear that, because > their networks were newer, they could effectively compete. AT&T's > market share did drop substantially and steadily, at a rate of roughly > 2 1/2 percentage points per year, from 1982, and there is no evidence > (or none yet) that this decline has stopped. > It was always suspected that there was room for only 3 or 4 > facilities-based carriers in the industry. USITA had prepared a study > about 1982 that reached that conclusion, and I've never seen it > rebutted, nor any alternative studies. Thus, the extensive entry into > the fiber-optic market in the late 1990s was always somewhat suspect: > a consolidation was likely. > But Worldcom, as the second-largest IXC, should have survived. If it > doesn't, it will be because of financial mismanagement. And the case > for allowing the mergers of the BOCs has NEVER been made. (Reading the > FCC orders it is clear from the evidence that the mergers would REDUCE > competition, and that the FCC's conditions on the mergers were only > temporary palliatives; the long-term market structure would be less > competitive.) > So government created the competition in the 1970s and destroyed it in > the 1990s. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 never had a chance to > promote local competition because it was trying to artificially > promote competition in a market that had never shown much sign of > being competitive. In the 1980s the BOCs were complaining of "Bypass," > a then-current word for local competition. But, by the late 1980s it > became clear that Bypass occurred only in limited local situtations, > and was not a general or common situation (and was often the result of > antiquated tariffs or compensation rules, particularly "access > charges"). Indeed, by promoting mergers, including mergers http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1025471740276914640,00.html?mod=opinion%5 Fmain%5Fcommentaries [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I do not think MCI deserved to live. They began their life with fraud and deceit, both with their contacts in telecom -- at that time in the late 1960's, Illinois Bell and AT&T -- and with the retail public they conned into subscribing to their service. MCI and WorldCom are like two peas in a pod; they deserve each other. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Charles Fields Subject: Allegiance Telecom Date: Sat, 6 Jul 2002 10:37:44 -0400 I hope you didn't go with them. I was promised the "moon" and received nothing but problems. My T1 line would not "ping" with my business network system even though the company was given all of the requirements prior to installation. I told them of my problem and told them to take their equipment out of my office and to "release" my lines back to my previous carriers. I was given a 90 day trial and if not satisfied everything would be as it once was. Well I am now approaching, in my business, 2 weeks without phone service. Allegiance turned off my phones. Bell South is trying to help me out but it looks like I am in deep trouble. I am going to get an attorney as this has cost me business and many other problems. Victoria Ann Fields Boca Raton, Florida ------------------------------ From: wesrock@aol.com (Wes Leatherock) Date: 06 Jul 2002 23:43:56 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: MCI: The Rise and Fall of the Ebbers Empire Tue, 02 Jul 2002 11:47:30 -0400 Marcus Didius Falco marcus_d_falco@yahoo.com wrote: > Ed Ellers wrote: >> Fred Goldstein wrote: [ ... ] >> Sure they could, when they offered a better product than Western >> Electric could come up with, or filled a niche that WECo didn't >> consider worthwhile (such as color monitors or audio diplexers for >> Long Lines' television transmission service). Southwestern Bell, and I imagine other Bell companies, started buying quite a few Nortel ESS switches rather than WECo 5ESS. > So if an independent needed a toll switch (No. 4 Crossbar, 4-wire), > they sold it. (I think they sold very few but did sell a couple. > I think Rochester, NY bought one, and they were one of the two > large independent independents in those days. Lincoln, Nebraska > was the other.) I believe another was Tampa, Florida, which was another large independent before being acquired by General Telephone. >>> Indeed AT&T's old agenda, which has nothing to do with today's >>> residual AT&T and which now the Bells', has resulted in anomalies >>> like 30-mile intrastate toll calls that cost more than transpacific >>> international calls. >> You can blame the state regulators for a lot of that. > Actually, it's also an artifact of toll separations, and the way > costing was done. Most of the revisions to toll separations between > 1948 and 1972 were to reduce the toll rate disparity by loading more > of the costs onto toll. State regulators, probably since the time regulation came into existence, have been almost unanimous in wanting to keep local exchange service costs low. and having only local service rates and intrastate toll rates under their jurisdiction, intentionally put as much as possible into intrastate toll vis-a-vis local service. Even in much earlier days, the disparity was significant. From Dallas it cost more to call El Paso than Phoenix. Wes Leatherock wesrock@aol.com wleathus@yahoo.com ------------------------------ From: "Null" Subject: How Exactly is *This* Going to Work? Date: Mon, 08 Jul 2002 00:52:05 GMT Organization: AT&T Worldnet IDT paying $5 Billion for Worldcom's data business? From what I read they are going to start with a payment of $800 Million of IDT stock. IDT's total market cap is $1.4 Billion. So IDT buys Worldcom and the owners of Worldcom now own most of IDT? Then two annual payments of $1.4 Billion. IDT's annual cash flow is about $500 Million in a good year, which the previous was most definitely not. Anybody who can see how this computes please feel free to post a response. ------------------------------ 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 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 775-306-8390 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: mirror.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. --------------------------------------------------------------- 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 #306 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Jul 8 12:25:48 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id MAA19510; Mon, 8 Jul 2002 12:25:48 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 8 Jul 2002 12:25:48 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200207081625.MAA19510@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #307 TELECOM Digest Mon, 8 Jul 2002 12:25:00 EDT Volume 20 : Issue 307 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: How Exactly is *This* Going to Work? (Fred Goldstein) Re: How Exactly is *This* Going to Work? (Dana) Any Step or Crossbar systems left? (Diamond Dave) Non-Dialable Toll Points (Toll Stations) (Diamond Dave) Re: How to Find Cellular Telephone Companies (Bill Berbenich) Re: How to Find Cellular Telephone Companies (John Stahl) Re: MCI: The Rise and Fall of the Ebbers Empire (Ed Ellers) Re: MCI: The Rise and Fall of the Ebbers Empire (Fred Goldstein) Re: Truth or Fiction? Telemarketing Call Saves Man's Life (P McKerracher) Re: TeleZapper? (John David Galt) Ameritech Pay Phones in Ohio (Diamond Dave) ATT Merlin and Dialogic Card? (Neil) All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. WE DO NOT PERMIT NAME/EMAIL ADDRESS HARVESTING FROM THIS JOURNAL. 'SALTED' EMAIL ADDRESSES APPEAR HEREIN TO VERIFY THIS. YOU GET SUED IN SMALL CLAIMS COURT IF YOU GET CAUGHT SPAMMING OR SENDING VIRUSES. DON'T DO IT. See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Re: How Exactly is *This* Going to Work? From: fgoldstein@wn.DO-NOT-SPAM-ME.net (Fred Goldstein) Organization: AT&T Broadband Date: Mon, 08 Jul 2002 02:52:00 GMT null@null.com (Null) wrote in : > IDT paying $5 Billion for Worldcom's data business? From what I read > they are going to start with a payment of $800 Million of IDT stock. > IDT's total market cap is $1.4 Billion. So IDT buys Worldcom and the > owners of Worldcom now own most of IDT? Then two annual payments of > $1.4 Billion. IDT's annual cash flow is about $500 Million in a good > year, which the previous was most definitely not. Anybody who can see > how this computes please feel free to post a response. Just to be picky, it's not the data business they're after. I think it's MCI (consumer/small business accounts) plus Brooks Fiber plus MFS (two fiber-rich CLEC/CAPs). MFS had owned UUNET before WCOM bought it, but I think UUNET is not on the table -- Sidgemore, WCOM's new chief, came with UUNET. But your main point stands. This deal would require rather creative accounting. But then the irony is sweet -- isn't that what WCOM was about, at least at the end? And Bernie's whole modus operandi was to buy up companies larger than his own, paying with new stock (at face value) and then funding it with the acquired companies' cash flow. Such "PacMan mergers" included Wiltel, which made WCOM a real player in the LD transmission biz, and MCI itself. Howard Jonas of IDT may just be flaunting WCOM's old tricks back at them. The previous owners of IDT may end up with a minority share of the merged stock, but if Howard "pulls a Bernie", this won't matter; he'll manage to assimilate it and take full control, the shareholders' loyalty switching. Or in this case, maybe it's the bondholders, since the shares nowadays are, well, little more than wallpaper. Fred R. Goldstein k1io fgoldstein"at" wn.net These are my own opinions. You expect anyone else to agree? ------------------------------ From: Dana Subject: Re: How Exactly is *This* Going to Work? Date: Sun, 7 Jul 2002 20:14:45 -0800 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Because of their faith in the failed dogma of socialism, Democrats for years now have had nothing to peddle to voters but fear, helplessness and class envy. They have become a lie waiting to happen. Null wrote in message news:telecom20.306.11@telecom-digest.org: > IDT paying $5 Billion for Worldcom's data business? From what I read > they are going to start with a payment of $800 Million of IDT stock. > IDT's total market cap is $1.4 Billion. So IDT buys Worldcom and the > owners of Worldcom now own most of IDT? Then two annual payments of > $1.4 Billion. IDT's annual cash flow is about $500 Million in a good > year, which the previous was most definitely not. Anybody who can see > how this computes please feel free to post a response. Reread the deal and it should become clear. http://www.nando.net/technology/story/458117p-3666435c.html Under the offer, WorldCom would receive $800 million in IDT stock as soon as an agreement is reached, then would receive the cash flow generated by the businesses after six months, estimated at $800 million to $900 million, and in each of the two years after that. IDT estimates the final two payments would be about $1.7 billion each, but could be higher if the businesses grow. ------------------------------ From: Diamond Dave Subject: Any Step or Crossbar Systems Left? Organization: The BBS Corner / Diamond Mine On-Line Date: Mon, 08 Jul 2002 01:06:11 GMT In North America (US and Canada), are there any step by step systems left? And for that matter, any crossbar systems? The only step by step system that I'm aware of is Abitibi Canyon in Ontario, Canada - (705) 334 prefix. One of the last remaining step systems was in Nates, Quebec - (819) 547 prefix. This became a Nortel DMS-10 in June 2002. There is rumor there is still one in Detour Lake, ON - but as of last check it seems to be an "abandoned" prefix. It was for a coal mine in a rural section of Ontario. The coal mine closed in 1999, and I'm assuming the switch was shut down in Fall of 2001 from what I've been able to determine. But if anyone knows of any more, please let me know! P.S. If you're nostalgic for the old sounds of Steps, Panels and Crossbarss - check out Phone Trips at http://www.wideweb.com/phonetrips Or, I have a few of these old sounds at my Telephone World website at http://www.dmine.com/phworld Dave Perussel Webmaster - Telephone World ------------------------------ From: Diamond Dave Subject: Non-Dialable Toll Points (Toll Stations) Organization: The BBS Corner / Diamond Mine On-Line Date: Mon, 08 Jul 2002 01:08:41 GMT Does anyone know if there are any non-dialable toll points (aka "Toll Stations") left in the US or Canada? I have done some research in the TELECOM Digest archives and read about the non-dialable toll points. I'm sure that most of these are gone and are now dialable like most other phones on a 7 or 10 digit basis. If anyone knows of any, please let me know! Thanks! Dave Perussel Webmaster - Telephone World http://www.dmine.com/phworld ------------------------------ From: Bill Berbenich Subject: Re: How to Find Cellular Telephone Companies Date: Sun, 7 Jul 2002 23:49:33 -0400 Pick up a local newspaper and there are probably ads galore for the local cell companies. Bill ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 08 Jul 2002 08:46:54 -0400 From: John Stahl Subject: Re: How to Find Cellular Telephone Companies On 7 July, Don asked: Subject: How to Find Cellular Telephone Companies Going to his second question, first: > 2. Generally, how can all the cellular telephone companies that offer > services and coverage for any particular location be looked up? Though there are some "national" carriers like Sprint, AT&T, etc., I did a search on Yahoo using the search phrase: "Cellular Services" which gave a whole bunch of potential Internet sites to visit to check service availability. Examples of what Yahoo returned: http://www.lowermybills.com a site which purports to give lowest prices in zip code search. http://www.cellular-phone-cell-service-plan-comparison.com another site which compares plans. None of the listings found on Yahoo seem to just give just a list of who the carriers (A and B) are which have licence to cover a particular area. There is a listing on the FCC site: (http://wireless.fcc.gov/services/cellular/operations/findingaserviceprovider.html#areacarriers) which gives you a way to find who offers service in any particular area. But be aware that now days since there are also national cellular carriers and national PCS carriers, so consequently there is much overlap. I live/work within NY state, so I have used several of the major carriers who offer good coverage based on personal experience (check out their coverage maps available at their web site - example: http://www.verizonwireless.com and http://www.attws.com) in the western portion of NY state. > 1. What cellular telephone companies services coverage include > Western New York State, Erie County? ... I currently use Verizon Wireless who offers not only a local but a regional and also a national plan which rivals (and presently surpasses in price, coverage area and plans) most other of the major national carriers for coverage area. But be aware that most all wireless carriers have "holes" in their coverage areas caused by the effects of the topography or their anticipated coverage which I'm sure you will find when you sign up for one or another services. Hope this helps a little. John Stahl Aljon Enterprises Telecom and Data Consultant URL: http://www.home.att.net/~aljon ------------------------------ From: Ed Ellers Subject: Re: MCI: The Rise and Fall of the Ebbers Empire Date: Mon, 8 Jul 2002 02:30:06 -0400 Wes Leatherock wrote: > Southwestern Bell, and I imagine other Bell companies, started > buying quite a few Nortel ESS switches rather than WECo 5ESS." I believe South Central Bell was the first BOC to buy a Nortel DMS switch; AFAIK this was provoked by delays in delivering the first 5ESS systems. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 07 Jul 2002 03:03:07 GMT From: Fred Goldstein Subject: Re: MCI: The Rise and Fall of the Ebbers Empire Organization: AT&T Broadband Marcus Didius Falco wrote: > From National Review -- > The Rise and Fall of the Ebbers Empire > How it crumbled. > By John C. Wohlstetter > Regulators could still scramble the picture by trying to get the Bells to > rescue WorldCom, setting a precedent for an AT&T bailout. Such "lemon > socialism" could preclude consumers from realizing the full benefit of > falling long-distance prices. However, the edifice elaborately constructed > 20 years ago by William Baxter on a hunch, has crumbled. No other country > followed Baxter's lead, and no other country has such a mess in its > long-distance market. > John C. Wohlstetter is a senior fellow at the Seattle-based Discovery > Institute. What rot! It is, of course, expected of the National Review to troll the right wing for provocative articles; that does not mean that their trolls should go uncontested. In this case, they have turned to the creationist club that also brings us Gilder's pseudo-technical fantasies, and come up with new mythology. Wohlstetter is an old Contel guy ("ex-Con", they call themselves) from the time when Contel's CEO was Charles Wohlstetter; I suspect a familial relationship. To be sure, the Worldcon debacle is a serious one. But to pin it on Baxter is, well, amazing. The AT&T divestiture was a good idea, if imperfectly executed; it was also in large part AT&T's idea. Justice had sued them to spin off Western Electric (now Lucent), an idea that they realized was a good one about 15 years later. AT&T, however, looked at its own distorted books and determined that local was less profitable. So they spun that off, keeping LD and manufacturing together. There was good logic to this: The telephone network had been considered a "natural monopoly", but that really didn't apply to everything. Certainly it didn't apply to manufacturing, hence the original antitrust suit (United States vs. Western Electric). There were competing manufacturers; they just couldn't sell to the 82% of the market that was Bell companies! AT&T and Justice agreed, in the MFJ, that Long Distance wasn't a natural monopoly either, while local telephony was. The existence of MCI was evidence that LD competition was practical. John Wohlstetter does make a good point that fiber optics make parallel networks less economical than microwave. "Natural monopoly" occurs when economies of scale deter new entry because incremental costs to an existing provider are lower than unit costs of a new entrant. That describes fiber optics more than microwave. But it doesn't describe the way long distance companies operated, or the way the industry developed post divestiture. The natural monopoly effect of fiber on LD was simply not significant at the time. The old AT&T had been structured as a slow-moving regulated monopoly, with little sense of market, and little reason to stimulate demand. MCI changed the culture of telecommunications. By creating competition, prices began to move down towards costs. New applications could occur. LD calls went from being luxuries to being routine. 800 numbers became widely affordable. And the consumer-accessible Internet became practical. None of that was in AT&T's original monopoly agenda, which Wohlstetter seems to pine for. Indeed AT&T's old agenda, which has nothing to do with today's residual AT&T and which now the Bells', has resulted in anomalies like 30-mile intrastate toll calls that cost more than transpacific international calls. What was right about the 1984 divestiture was that it separated the remaining "natural monopoly", intraLATA, from the competitive marketplace. That prevented *tying*, the monopolist's instinctive urge to leverage its monopoly to force purchase of its competitive offering. With AT&T and the Bells separate, there was no tying between monopoly local and competitive LD. Positive economies of scale in fiber optic were not harmful. Indeed the existence of multiple fiber operators led to a lively wholesale bandwidth market, allowing many non-fiber-owning companies to market LD services. That's where many creative calling cards, 800 plans, etc., come from. A fiber monopoly wouldn't sell to its competitors, but with AT&T, MCI and Sprint all trenching away, they took wholesale customers too, lest their competition supply them instead. And while Wohlstetter pines for a return to vertically integrated telcos with monopolies in their home regions, he is asking for a worst-case scenario that would do unimaginable harm to an already weak domestic economy. The more obvious solution for today is to reexamine the boundary between "natural monopoly" and competitive markets. It seems clear, given the low cost of modern switching, that the natural monopoly is limited today to intraLATA transmission and related outside plant. ILECs are instead tying their often overpriced switched services to their natural-monopoly local loops, and preventing competitors from getting equal access to the loop. What's needed is a second breakup of the LECs, with the wire centers and wires going to strictly regulated loopcos, while the switches and customer base go to loosely regulated service-cos. Those service-cos would then get equal access to the loop with the CLECs. Today's structural integration is leading to a threat of content control by the loop owners. The ILECs want their DSL services, for instance, removed from common carrier status, so that independent ISPs couldn't use it any more. Re-divestiture is a far superior solution that would lead to real economies, and let broadband flourish the way consumers want it -- because consumers would then get a choice. Fred Goldstein k1io fgoldstein "at" wn "dot" net ------------------------------ From: Phil McKerracher Subject: Re: Truth or Fiction? Telemarketing Call Saves Man's Life Date: Mon, 8 Jul 2002 11:37:45 +0100 Matt Simpson wrote in message news:telecom20.305.5@telecom-digest.org: > It's being discussed extensively on slashdot. > http://slashdot.org/articles/02/06/29/0336200.shtml?tid=133 > A lot of people pointing out reasons why it sounds bogus, but I didn't > see anything yet that definitely proved there's no way it could > possibly have happened. That's precisely the problem. It's not impossible, and it's a good story, so we suspend our disbelief and spread the story as if it were true. This is dangerous! Such thinking causes people to buy lottery tickets they can't afford or believe they have been abducted by aliens and so on. It ruins lives. If it's unlikely we should treat it as such. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. Bob Goudreau wrote in message news:telecom20.305.6@telecom-digest.org... > PAT asked for followups about this story. > Some points: > 1) While the link cited was from CNN.com, the story on that site was > clearly cited as coming from Reuters, the respected international > news agency. Not an automatic mark of validity... Indeed. > 3) Others are skeptical that there would have been cell coverage on > the mountain. However, my impression is that line-of-sight > transmission from a high place generally leads to good signal > coverage... It's not the height that makes it unlikely, it's distance from the basestation. It's quite possible the remoteness of the location has been exaggerated, but it sounds suspicious. > 4) It has been pointed out that, at least in the US and Europe, all > mobile phones can call emergency numbers (911, 999, 112, etc.) > even if their accounts are otherwise in arrears. However, the > story in question concerns a Colombian phone... It seems likely that a Colombian phone (and network) would come from one of the major manufacturers and therefore this feature would be there by default. It seems unlikely that it would be disabled. > ...perhaps this fact is not well-known in > Colombia, or was not known to Mr. Diaz (the hiker in question)... I admit this is likely, although you would think imminent death might have concentrated his mind a little... > I'd still like to see some followup media reports, but I am not yet > inclined to reflexively dismiss this story as fiction. I'm even less inclined to reflexively accept it! Phil McKerracher www.mckerracher.org ------------------------------ From: John David Galt Subject: Re: TeleZapper? Date: Mon, 08 Jul 2002 06:39:14 -0700 Organization: Diogenes the Cynic Hot-Tubbing Society Fritz Whittington wrote: > I beg your pardon! Perhaps you have not been exposed to this sort of > assault on your privacy in the UK. When I retired and had some more > time to spend at home during the day, I noticed that I was getting 7 > calls every day Monday through Friday, each call almost exactly 1 hour > apart, from a line with no CID available. Whether I answered or the > answering machine answered, there was no audio from the distant end > and an almost immediate disconnect. So quick in fact, that the > answering machine didn't even record the call as a hang-up-no-message. Many telemarketing software systems do this to "verify your number" before putting it on a list to be called. I agree that the practice should be illegal. Not only is it annoying, it's frightening because you don't know if it's a would-be burglar checking to see if you're home. > This is not the pattern of the typical telemarketing call. (I know, I > got plenty of those, too.) I set up a FAX modem to answer the line > thinking it was from a misguided FAX machine. Nope. I kept hoping > the problem would correct itself. After six months of this, I called > the local phone company to see if there was some way to help identify > the caller. Just as distributed-denial-of-service attacks on the Internet can only be stopped by having all ISPs verify that the source address of each packet sent by their users is one of their addresses, so telemarketing and crank calls can only be stopped by requiring each LEC to insist on generating valid caller ID on every call from their networks, if the caller's exchange or PBX fails to supply it. This ought to be required by regulators. > They said they couldn't help, for various reasons not germane here. Phone companies will always side with the telemarketers. They don't care if you can even sleep, as long as they get paid for lots of calls. > Peace, it's wonderful. On July 1, the Texas "NO-CALL-LIST" law went > into effect. As with internet spam, "Do Not Call" lists are an inadequate band-aid solution. The law should require "opt-in", and not allow any business to make "opting in" a condition of doing business with them. ------------------------------ From: Diamond Dave Subject: Ameritech Pay Phones in Ohio Organization: The BBS Corner / Diamond Mine On-Line Date: Mon, 08 Jul 2002 01:11:37 GMT I recently went on a short vacation in eastern Ohio over the 4th of July weekend. I had figured that the Ameritech/SBC pay phones would be 50 cents like most other Baby Bell or incumbent LEC pay phones. Or at the very least, they would be 35 cents. But to my surprise, I found that they are still 25 cents per call and untimed. Is this due to regulation by the Ohio state government, or is Ameritech/SBC seeing the light and finding that having pay phones at 50 cents they were not being used at all? If anyone knows, please let me know! Thanks! Dave Perussel Webmaster - Telephone World http://www.dmine.com/phworld ------------------------------ From: Neil Subject: ATT Merlin and Dialogic card? Date: Mon, 8 Jul 2002 00:14:39 -0400 Organization: M-nospam-Logics Is there a way to interconnect an IVR program using a D/41D or Proline/2v Dialogic card with a Merlin phone system (model 820), so that the aDialogic card could provide call-forwarding to various extensions served by the Merlin box? At present, the Dialogic card is connected "upstream" from the telephone system, to allow it direct access to the CO lines, but of course it has no way to pass calls on to Merlin extensions. I gather from searching Google that there is/was an adapter (GPA) to connect modems to Merlin desksets, so perhaps someone has worked out something along those lines? Neil ------------------------------ 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 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 775-306-8390 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: mirror.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. --------------------------------------------------------------- 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 #307 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Jul 9 12:39:18 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id MAA25196; Tue, 9 Jul 2002 12:39:18 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 9 Jul 2002 12:39:18 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200207091639.MAA25196@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #308 TELECOM Digest Tue, 9 Jul 2002 12:39:00 EDT Volume 20 : Issue 308 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson The Emerson Switchboard (Robert Dover) WorldCom Ebbers and Sullivan Expected to Refuse to Testify (gryb@adams) Telecom Sector May Find Past Is Its (Marcus Didius Falco) Re: MCI: The Rise and Fall of the Ebbers Empire (Marcus Didius Falco) How Do I Splice an RJ-11 Onto an Old Phone Line? (Malcolm Ferguson) Re: TeleZapper? (AES) How to Prevent $$ Incoming Voicemail Charges From Harassers?? (St. John) Telecom Job Losses May Top Last Year's Record (Marcus Didius Falco) Satellite Celebrates Telstar 1 Fortieth Anniversary (Steve Fleckenstein) 970 Prefix in 212,718,516,914 (Carl Moore) Re: Non-Dialable Toll Points (Toll Stations) (Scott Dorsey) Doesn't AT&T Have an Interest in Howard Jonas's IDT? (Jack) Cavalier Cutting Back on Where it Serves? (Carl Moore) Re: Norcom 1A3 (Scott Dorsey) All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. WE DO NOT PERMIT NAME/EMAIL ADDRESS HARVESTING FROM THIS JOURNAL. 'SALTED' EMAIL ADDRESSES APPEAR HEREIN TO VERIFY THIS. YOU GET SUED IN SMALL CLAIMS COURT IF YOU GET CAUGHT SPAMMING OR SENDING VIRUSES. DON'T DO IT. See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Robert Dover Subject: The Emerson Switchboard Date: Tue, 9 Jul 2002 09:56:50 -0500 Organization: Nortel I've been watching ads for the above device on TV recently and am wondering if anyone here can tell me how it works. Supposedly, it allows your data call to be placed "on-hold" while you answer another incoming call. BD ------------------------------ From: gryb@adams.icl.net Subject: WorldCom Ebbers and Sullivan Expected to Refuse to Testify Date: Mon, 08 Jul 2002 15:03:43 -0400 WorldCom Ebbers and Sullivan expected to refuse to testify http://www.nj.com/newsflash/washington/index.ssf?/cgi-free/getstory_ssf.cgi?a0524_BC_BusinessScandals&&news&newsflash-washington http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/08/business/08CND-TELE.html?ex=1026792000&en=2f7321f9dfe0eca7&ei=5006&partner=ALTAVISTA1 http://www.twincities.com/mld/pioneerpress/3620377.htm Prayer for democracy : "God help the disenfranchised when Election Day arrives" [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: In fact, they did take the Fifth Amendment like a couple of crooks, and refused to testiy, Except on NPR News today they did not refer to them as a 'couple of crooks'. That is me speaking. I think NPR has Worldcom/MCI as sponsors so they could not say that. Get this however: the two later on tried to blame the whole mess on Arthur Andersen, saying the accountants got it wrong. What a joke! PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 08 Jul 2002 16:30:36 -0400 From: Marcus Didius Falco Subject: Telecom Sector May Find Past Is Its Future This is a very interesting article. It appears to argue that there are such economies of scale or scope (possibly financial economies) that local telephone service and possibly toll service are natural monopolies. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A36589-2002Jul7.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A36589-2002Jul7?language=printer washingtonpost.com Telecom Sector May Find Past Is Its Future Giant Phone Companies Offer Stable, Well-Funded Option By Peter S. Goodman Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, July 8, 2002; Page A01 About 500,000 people have lost their jobs. Dozens of companies have gone bankrupt. As much as half a trillion dollars in investments have evaporated. An accounting scandal threatens to bring down WorldCom Inc. and federal authorities are investigating the books of other former highfliers. There is another casualty of the implosion of the telecommunications industry: a grand vision of the future. The idea was that deregulation and new technology would spawn a golden age of competition, energizing the economy while bringing consumers and businesses a cornucopia of exciting services and products. Instead, many of those who just a few years ago bet big on this dream have reluctantly reached a new conclusion: The future of consumer choice in phone service may look an awful lot like the past. Above a landscape littered with bankrupt start-ups, the giants continue to rule -- Verizon Communications Inc., SBC Communications Inc. and BellSouth Corp., the local telephone monopolies carved out of the breakup of AT&T Corp. "The real nature of this business may be a monopoly business because it just requires so much capital," said William J. Rouhana Jr., former chief executive of WinStar Communications Inc., an upstart telephone and Internet company that landed in bankruptcy in April 2001. The economics of building networks, upgrading old wires for the high-speed Internet and improving mobile phone services "are just so overwhelming," Rouhana said. If investors will no longer bear the costs, then "to have more than one competitor who controls the physical network may just not be possible." Not long ago, the concept of too many competitors was unthinkable. The old telephone business was being transformed into the plumbing for the Internet. The sum of human knowledge was coursing at the speed of light through a global web of fiber-optic cable. Huge profits had to be in there somewhere. Investors poured large sums of money into telecommunications -- $880 billion from 1997 to date, according to Thomson Financial in New York. But there were not enough phone calls or e-mails to sustain the hundreds of new phone and Internet networks. As that reality emerged in the spring of 2000, the great unraveling began. No one knows how much of the investment -- $326 billion in stock and bonds, plus $554 billion in bank loans -- has been destroyed, but it is surely a huge sum. "Half is as good a number as any," said Richard J. Peterson, chief market strategist at Thomson Financial. At least 63 telecommunications companies have landed in bankruptcy since 2000, according to Bankruptcydata.com. As WorldCom, the nation's second-largest long distance company, struggles to survive, and as authorities probe the books at Qwest Communications International, which runs local telephone networks in 14 Western states, the most expensive failures may still be ahead. "There's no indication that the bloodletting is starting to slacken," said John Challenger, chief executive of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, a Chicago-based outplacement company that has been tracking layoffs in the sector. L. William Seidman, chairman of the FDIC in the 1980s, was one of the first to recognize the scope of the unfolding Savings & Loan crisis, which ultimately cost taxpayers at least $100 billion and investors six times more. He said that in the end, the collapse of the telecom industry will be worse. "It's probably the largest single meltdown in a defined industry I've ever seen," Seidman said. Spending Spree From the mid-1990s until early 2000, the financial markets handed capital to seemingly anyone with a telecommunications plan. The excitement bloomed from technological advances as well as the federal government's efforts to loosen regulation and invite new players into the markets. A dozen networks were built to carry long-distance telephone and Internet data from city to city. Cable companies began upgrading their wires to carry phone and high-speed Internet links. Six national mobile phone companies were launched and dozens more were set up to serve niche markets. This enormous construction project cycled huge amounts of money through the economy. Local and long-distance telephone companies spent $319 billion building their networks from 1997 to 2001, said RHK Inc., a San Francisco research firm. Mobile telephone companies spent more than $58 billion. The money landed in the coffers of chip-making, software, computer and network equipment companies. All that spending, however, put the industry in danger. Demand was skyrocketing, but capacity was growing even faster. Prices were dropping below the point where anyone could make money. All the while, debts mounted: The eight largest telecom companies collectively owed $191 billion at the end of last year, said Precursor Group, a Washington research firm. "Demand was poised to go up 30 [percent], 40 [percent], 50 percent per year and prices were going down and you were going to make up in volume what you lost on price," said Leo Hindery, a longtime telecom executive who, in mid-2000, was interim chief executive of now-bankrupt Global Crossing Ltd., a long-distance telephone and Internet firm. "If there was just a hiccup in that, you were going to crushed." Even so, Wall Street kept rewarding companies that played by the rules of the day: Get big now. A high stock price gave companies currency to buy other companies and also enriched executives. Gary Winnick, chief executive of Global Crossing, sold more than $730 million worth of shares before his company went down. Joseph P. Nacchio, Qwest's chief executive, sold $130 million worth of stock before he resigned last month. The relentless construction of networks would have been enough to fell much of the industry by itself. Then people in lab coats mastered new ways of getting even more calls and more Internet data to travel down one strand of fiber-optics cable. The engineering was breathtaking. From an investment standpoint, it was disastrous. There were already too many pipes. Now, the pipes were widening exponentially. Prices for service fell through the floor. From October 1998 to February of this year, the transmission capacity across the Atlantic expanded by a factor of 19. Meanwhile, the price of a leased transmission line dropped to $10,000 a year from $125,000, said Eli Noam, a professor of finance at Columbia University Business School. Some say much of the glut could have been absorbed had high-speed Internet services spread faster. Only about 12 million consumers now buy "broadband" Internet links, a fraction of the numbers widely forecast three years ago. The way it looked then, the advent of broadband would trigger the development of interactive, data-intensive services rich with video and music. All those fiber-optic lines were needed to carry the service into homes. Cell phones and hand-held computers would come alive with content beamed through the skies. It still could happen, but such services have mostly failed to impress. Who needs Internet video when HBO and Showtime seem to add more channels by the minute? The prospect of looking at Web pages on tiny telephone screens has generally not caught on. Regulatory arguments now rage about how best to spur broadband. Meanwhile, the pipes stay empty. From Boom to Bust -- Again While the telecommunications wave of the late 1990s stands as a particularly severe case of overinvestment and bust, it is hardly the first. In the middle of the 19th century, railroad tracks looked something like the fiber-optic cables of today. "The railroads opened up the Midwest and made it possible to get grain to the Eastern ports so it could be exported economically," said Richard S. Tedlow, a historian at the Harvard School of Business. Europe was in crisis and capital surged into America's burgeoning rail system. By the latter years of the century, there were too many tracks -- seven networks connecting Kansas City, Mo., and Chicago alone. By June 1894, 192 different companies were in bankruptcy. Together they controlled 40,000 miles of track, about a quarter of the nation's total stock. Some see in the railroads a consoling parallel. "The railroads all went broke, but the laying of those tracks was the basis for prosperity in the second-half of the 19th century," said Blair Levin, an analyst at Legg Mason and a former Federal Communications Commission chief of staff. "Today, the U.S. is benefiting from really cheap communications prices." Savvy entrepreneurs such as J.P. Morgan crafted profitable businesses out of choice railroad assets they bought out of bankruptcy. Some investors are now looking for bargains among the telecommunications wreckage. Bill Gross, who controls $260 billion of investment at Pacific Investment Management Co., has been buying the bonds of battered companies such as AT&T and Sprint Corp. IDT Corp., a discount long-distance telephone company, bought some of WinStar's assets and hopes to buy the MCI residential long distance business from WorldCom. But even as the shakeout intensifies, formidable obstacles have prevented consolidation and could continue to do so for years. The stocks used by companies to buy each other during the boom now trade for bare fractions of their former prices, so no one knows what anything is really worth. Add to that the complexities of bankruptcy plus Wall Street's general queasiness about bookkeeping. Then there is the issue of antitrust law. It is unclear if regulators will take a more lenient approach to mergers among distressed companies that once would have brought strict scrutiny. Even without those problems, consolidation may never happen among the failed upstart local and long-distance companies. Their networks are so abundant as to be effectively worthless. Which basically means that a huge amount of very expensive wiring and electronics is going to rust, waiting for new ideas that can harness it. Maybe waiting forever. "We had such a splurge" on these networks "that it could easily be into the 2010s and not the zeroes when we need more," said Reed Hundt, the former FCC chairman. The largest barrier to consolidation may be the most obvious: "We're nowhere near the bottom," said Scott Cleland, an analyst with Precursor Group. Assets have been whacked to smidgens of their former worth, but another round of bankruptcies could make them cheaper still. The next round of bad news could come in the mobile telephone industry, which is also saturated with competition and debt. Despite huge losses, carriers continue to wage an expensive battle for customers and market share. Most U.S. cities have six to seven carriers, while economists say only four or five can be sustained. This has dropped prices to some of the lowest levels in the world. Americans have taken advantage, using 500 to 600 minutes of wireless service a month per consumer, or 3 to 5 times the rate in Europe, said Frank Governali, an analyst with Goldman Sachs and Co. But the prices are also below profitability. "There are few places in the world where wireless is as destructively competitive," Governali said. Without consolidation, the industry is sure to see "another disruptive cycle, where you're destroying jobs, equipment vendors and creating all sorts of havoc for the economy." Phone Giants Stand Tall The local telephone giants are the only ones with money left, and they may have little need to buy out their failed competitors. They have their problems -- the recession cut revenue, the cable industry is winning the battle for broadband -- but they also own the one commodity in short supply: Direct billing relationships and wires to their customers. They already own the largest mobile telephone businesses -- Verizon Wireless and Cingular, a joint venture of SBC Communications and BellSouth. Among analysts and industry executives, the conventional view is that they will likely capture the bulk of customers as they move into the long-distance business state by state, and as their former competitors fail, and leverage their strength as they market the full range of communications services. Old distinctions between wireless and land line, between long distance and local, will disintegrate. Flat pricing will become common for the full bundle of services, and consumers will pay more. The Bell companies have said competition is safeguarded by the presence of cable companies that sell high-speed Internet service and, in some cases, local telephone service. "Going forward, we'll see consolidation and the emergence of oligopolies with higher prices," said Noam, the Columbia professor. "Government will either look the other way or permit stabilizing prices or whatever the euphemism would be." Even if conditions alter, a more fundamental issue may hold up competition: The rollicking ride of the past few years has left many customers weary of change. "Five years ago, when you tested the marketplace, people were very open to new companies serving them," said Alex Mandl, a former AT&T president who went on to lead Teligent Inc., a now bankrupt upstart local telephone and Internet company. "They were tired of the Bells and they were ready to try something new," he said. "Well, now they've all tried something new and it hasn't been a pretty experience." Staff researcher Richard Drezen contributed to this report. Copyright 2002 The Washington Post Company Direct replies are unlikely to be read. To reply use the address below: falco_marcus_didius yahoo.co.uk ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 08 Jul 2002 16:56:30 -0400 From: Marcus Didius Falco Subject: Re: MCI: The Rise and Fall of the Ebbers Empire Ed Ellers wrote: > Wes Leatherock wrote: >> Southwestern Bell, and I imagine other Bell companies, started >> buying quite a few Nortel ESS switches rather than WECo 5ESS." > I believe South Central Bell was the first BOC to buy a Nortel DMS > switch; AFAIK this was provoked by delays in delivering the first 5ESS > systems. Sometime prior to 1972 Southern Connecticut Telephone Company, minority-owned by AT&T and therefore sometimes a slight maverick bought NEC or Hitachi miniature crossbar switches. About a year later, NY Telephone bought a couple from Nippon Electric (NEC) for use in trailers in urban growth areas, such as Rockaway NY (Part of Queens NY). About the same time or a bit later, Mountain States bought a couple of the NECs. Eventually, about 1972-3, they were authorized for purchase through Western Electric (acting as wholesaler) for use in special situations. Note that this time frame antedates the commercial availability of electronic switches by at least five or six years. Direct replies are unlikely to be read. To reply use the address below: falco_marcus_didius yahoo.co.uk ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 08 Jul 2002 16:04:54 -0400 From: Malcolm Ferguson Subject: How Do I Splice an RJ-11 Onto An Old Phone Line? Hi, I have an old phone line that I wish to splice an RJ-11 on to. I want to connect up a touch tone phone, and perhaps a modem too occasionally. Details: This is in a cottage in Canada, and is probably 50 years old. We only have easy access to one end of the phone line (the rest goes through the wall, and we don't know where it comes in). We have an old phone mounted on the wall. The wiring *appears* to contain three black wires attached to the phone. Is it possible for me to splice a two wire line on here, with an RJ-11 at the other end? If so, how do I do it. I don't want to disable the existing phone. TIA, Malc ------------------------------ From: AES Subject: Re: TeleZapper? Date: Mon, 08 Jul 2002 17:31:31 -0700 In article , John David Galt wrote: > Just as distributed-denial-of-service attacks on the Internet can only > be stopped by having all ISPs verify that the source address of each > packet sent by their users is one of their addresses, so telemarketing > and crank calls can only be stopped by requiring each LEC to insist on > generating valid caller ID on every call from their networks, if the > caller's exchange or PBX fails to supply it. This ought to be > required by regulators. Exactly! And for telemarketing calls the requirement ought to be that the "area code" part of the caller ID be some mandatory standard prefix, like "300" or "444" or something nationwide, so it would be trivial for anyone who wanted to to filter all telemarketing calls. > Phone companies will always side with the telemarketers. They don't > care if you can even sleep, as long as they get paid for lots of calls. Again, exactly! (and that's why the sensible, workable solution outline above will never be implemented, because the telcos will fight it tooth and nail). ------------------------------ From: jim@in.net (Jim St. John) Subject: How to Prevent $$ Incoming Voicemail Charges From Harassers?? Date: 8 Jul 2002 22:42:19 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ I am posting this on behalf of a friend who is getting outrageous cell bills (Verizon Indianapolis). Apparently, in a few markets, including IN, OH, and MI, Verizon DOES charge airtime for incoming voicemail. In this case the customer has a "stalker" type of ex-boyfriend who apparently spends his idle time leaving her lengthy voicemail messages. Even though she doesn't listen to them, she still gets air time charged for the time that he takes to leave them, and this has generated multi-hundred dollars of charges. Verizon says that the only solution is to change the phone number, or shut off the phone, and for either of these options they want to charge about a $750 buyout fee for the contract. Is there any recourse for this type of situation? -jim- [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Tell your friend to have the voicemail disconnected for awhile -- a couple months or so. See if that helps. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 09 Jul 2002 03:01:08 -0400 From: Marcus Didius Falco Subject: Telecom Job Losses May Top Last Year's Record from USA Today -- http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/2002/07/08/telecom-job-losses.htm Telecom job losses may top last year's record CHICAGO (Reuters) Last year may have been bad for job losses in the U.S. telecommunications industry, but this year is shaping up as even worse, according to a new study. The 165,840 job cuts announced in the U.S. telecom sector through June of this year are 27% higher than the 130,422 announced in the first half of 2001. The final tally will likely match or exceed last year's record figure of 317,777, according to Chicago-based Challenger, Gray & Christmas. "Telecommunications continues to surprise us month after month with significant job-cut numbers," Challenger Chief Executive John Challenger said in a statement released Monday. "The fact that telecom downsizing is on track to beat last year's total really tells where this industry is headed. "Not only are the companies having trouble selling their goods and services, there is now the added element of questionable accounting, WorldCom being just the most recent example," he added. "This path of self-destruction will not help matters and we could eventually see the industry implode on itself." WorldCom, the No. 2 U.S. long-distance telephone and data services company, has been accused of violating securities laws by covering up $1.22 billion in losses by improperly booking $3.85 billion in expenses. Overall, technology-related industries, including the computer, electronics and e-commerce industries, have announced 243,200 job cuts through June of this year, or one third of the total for all U.S. industries, according to Challenger. However, the tech sector total this year is 23% lower than those announced in the first six months of last year. The tech industries announced a total of 695,581 job cuts in all of last year, or 36% of the total cuts announced by all U.S. industries, Challenger said. The telecom sector also represented nearly one of every four of the 735,527 job cuts announced in all U.S. industries through June, according to Challenger. That is the highest rate by any industry since the outplacement firm started tracking job cuts in 1993. While telecom job cuts are on the rise, other tech-related industries have declined from a year ago, Challenger said. The computer industry saw its announced cuts in the first six months finish almost 26% below last year, although it did see a dramatic increase in the second quarter as 42,186 cuts were announced, up from 13,212 in the first quarter. The biggest decline in the tech sector was the e-commerce category, where fewer than 2,000 job cuts were announced through the first half of 2002, compared with almost 50,000 in the same period last year, according to Challenger. Electronics saw its announced job cuts decline to slightly more than 20,000 in the first half from more than 59,000 last year. Challenger said the high-tech job cuts are likely to continue for the balance of the year, with no turnaround for telecom in sight. Copyright 2002 Reuters Limited Direct replies are unlikely to be read. To reply use the address below: falco_marcus_didius yahoo.co.uk ------------------------------ From: Steve Fleckenstein Subject: Satellite Celebrates Telstar 1 Fortieth Anniversary Date: Tue, 9 Jul 2002 08:20:58 -0400 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Reply-To: Steve Fleckenstein This week marks the 40th anniversary of the launch of Telstar 1, the world's first active communications satellite. Telstar 1 launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla., aboard a Boeing Thor Delta rocket on July 10, 1962. It linked a broadcast signal from Andover, Maine, to Goonhilly Downs, England, and Pleumeur-Bodou, France. The first transmission showed the American flag streaming over the Andover earth station to the sounds of the "Star Spangled Banner." Telstar 1 also carried the first long distance telephone call via satellite between AT&T's then chairman, Fred Kappel, and U.S. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson. During its seven months in orbit, Telstar 1 delivered live images of baseball games, plays, musical performances, news, scenes of the World's Fair in Seattle and a U.S. presidential news conference. Telstar was built by AT&T and Bell Laboratories. Today, Loral Skynet operates the Telstar fleet. Since 1962, Skynet has operated 14 satellites carrying the Telstar name. Skynet is currently constructing three new satellites - Telstar 8, Telstar 13 and Estrela do Sul 1 - that will carry on the Telstar heritage. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 Jul 2002 10:56:51 EDT From: Carl Moore Subject: 970 Prefix in 212,718,516,914 A piece of junk email which I have now COMPLETELY removed had a telephone number 970-xxxx which could be dialed from area codes 212,718,516,914, in case anyone is wondering about any other use of that prefix in those area codes. I remember seeing ads some years back for the 540 prefix in those area codes (program NOT being available in NJ, where 540 prefix is in use at Morristown!). But there have been the rather recent 516/631 and 914/845 splits, so how does it affect what's said in those ads? ------------------------------ From: kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) Subject: Re: Non-Dialable Toll Points (Toll Stations) Date: 8 Jul 2002 15:21:26 -0400 Organization: Former users of Netcom shell (1989-2000) In article , Diamond Dave wrote: > Does anyone know if there are any non-dialable toll points (aka "Toll > Stations") left in the US or Canada? > I have done some research in the TELECOM Digest archives and > read about the non-dialable toll points. I'm sure that most of these > are gone and are now dialable like most other phones on a 7 or 10 > digit basis. > If anyone knows of any, please let me know! I don't know if any still exist. Pick up the phone and ask the operator for 714+054+181 Deep Springs Number Two toll station and see what happens. If there are any out there, they are probably in Nevada. scott "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." ------------------------------ From: Adams, John (Jack) Subject: Doesn't AT&T Have an Interest in Howard Jonas's IDT? Date: Mon, 8 Jul 2002 15:52:01 -0400 I might be hallucinating, but I recall about 3 or so years ago when AT&T took an equity position (Can't recall the magnitude) in IDT. They were particularly interested in (what is now a spun off subsidiary) Net2Phone. I have personal knowledge of the latter as I was part of the Enhanced IP Services group in AT&T Labs that provided some technical assistance at the time. -----Original Message----- Subject: Re: How Exactly is *This* Going to Work? null@null.com (Null) wrote in : > IDT paying $5 Billion for Worldcom's data business? From what I read > they are going to start with a payment of $800 Million of IDT stock. > IDT's total market cap is $1.4 Billion. So IDT buys Worldcom and the > owners of Worldcom now own most of IDT? Then two annual payments of > $1.4 Billion. IDT's annual cash flow is about $500 Million in a good > year, which the previous was most definitely not. Anybody who can see > how this computes please feel free to post a response. Just to be picky, it's not the data business they're after. I think it's MCI (consumer/small business accounts) plus Brooks Fiber plus MFS (two fiber-rich CLEC/CAPs). MFS had owned UUNET before WCOM bought it, but I think UUNET is not on the table -- Sidgemore, WCOM's new chief, came with UUNET. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 8 Jul 2002 16:54:23 EDT From: Carl Moore Subject: Cavalier cutting back on where it serves? I have had to put an order in to Verizon to take back my Maryland residence telephone lines because I have learned that Cavalier, which just last November took over Conectiv and its extended calling from Elkton/North East (Maryland) into northern Delaware, is now ending its service in at least some parts of Maryland including North East, where I live. Also, there is an item in http://www/dslreports.com/cles regarding cutting of its New Jersey customers as of March 1 of this year. ------------------------------ From: kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) Subject: Re: Norcom 1A3 Date: 8 Jul 2002 15:17:12 -0400 Organization: Former users of Netcom shell (1989-2000) In article , agentx@preferred.com says: > Does anyone know the approximate value of a Norcom 1A3? I will take it if you pay me $25 disposal cost plus shipping. scott "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." ------------------------------ 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 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 775-306-8390 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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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 #308 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Jul 10 11:21:50 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id LAA00954; Wed, 10 Jul 2002 11:21:50 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 10 Jul 2002 11:21:50 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200207101521.LAA00954@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #309 TELECOM Digest Wed, 10 Jul 2002 11:20:00 EDT Volume 20 : Issue 309 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: TeleZapper? (Fritz Whittington) Re: TeleZapper? (Gordon S. Hlavenka) Re: How to Prevent $$ Incoming Voicemail Charges From Harassers?? (Dold) Re: How to Prevent $$ Incoming Voicemail Charges From Harassers?? (Galt) Re: Satellite Celebrates Telstar 1 Fortieth Anniversary (Paul Coxwell) Re: How Do I Splice an RJ-11 Onto An Old Phone Line? (Gary Tait) Re: How Do I Splice an RJ-11 Onto An Old Phone Line? (Joseph Singer) TD Search Question (Michelle Cotter) Re: Non-Dialable Toll Points (Toll Stations) (Joseph Singer) Re: Non-Dialable Toll Points (Toll Stations) (Scott D. Fybush) News Headlines of Interest 7/10/02 (Monty Solomon) Re: 970 Prefix in 212,718,516,914 (Joseph Singer) Re: Problems With Siemens Gigaset 2420 (Dave A.) Nortel Vantage Esprit Phones (Gary Tait) Re: Cheap Virtual Calling Cards (kumar) All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. WE DO NOT PERMIT NAME/EMAIL ADDRESS HARVESTING FROM THIS JOURNAL. 'SALTED' EMAIL ADDRESSES APPEAR HEREIN TO VERIFY THIS. YOU GET SUED IN SMALL CLAIMS COURT IF YOU GET CAUGHT SPAMMING OR SENDING VIRUSES. DON'T DO IT. See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Fritz Whittington Reply-To: f.whittington@att.net Organization: Only on odd Tuesdays Subject: Re: TeleZapper? Date: Wed, 10 Jul 2002 02:43:38 GMT AES wrote: > In article , John David Galt > wrote: >> Just as distributed-denial-of-service attacks on the Internet can only >> be stopped by having all ISPs verify that the source address of each >> packet sent by their users is one of their addresses, so telemarketing >> and crank calls can only be stopped by requiring each LEC to insist on >> generating valid caller ID on every call from their networks, if the >> caller's exchange or PBX fails to supply it. This ought to be >> required by regulators. > Exactly! And for telemarketing calls the requirement ought to be that > the "area code" part of the caller ID be some mandatory standard > prefix, like "300" or "444" or something nationwide, so it would be > trivial for anyone who wanted to to filter all telemarketing calls. Oddly enough, a few years ago things were much better. At that time, almost all telemarketers used line-default "Anonymous" to prevent their CID from being displayed. This was great! For 50 cents a month, without even paying for CID or a display box, you could set "Anonymous Call Rejection" and your phone would never even ring if the CID was supressed. Then, the FCC unfortunately made it illegal for telemarketers to use CID supression. At the same time, they failed to require that they use a phone system that produced CID. So most of them do one of two schemes now: (1) They move their phone business to a start-up CLEC, which is exempted from providing outbound CID (essentially SS-7 services) for a few years, as this is supposed to help low-capital startup CLECs ramp up. Now, calls are not "Anonymous" but "Unavailable", which is OK by the FCC. (2) They use a company which provides CID, but the number provided is one which you cannot effectively use to call them back on. It's either a billing number, a permanently-busy number, or one flagged as not acepting incoming calls. >> Phone companies will always side with the telemarketers. They don't >> care if you can even sleep, as long as they get paid for lots of calls. I'm not sure I buy this, as there are many places where local calls are flat-rate per month, and most telcos are not happy if you manage to take advantage of this by keeping lines busy almost solid by making hundreds of very short calls per hour. Even if the ILECs don't offer flat-rate, many of the CLECs do, and of course the ILECs have to provide the lines to handle it. Fritz Whittington TI Alum - http://www.tialumni.org ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 09 Jul 2002 15:20:35 -0500 From: Gordon S. Hlavenka Organization: Crash Electronics, Inc. Subject: Re: TeleZapper? AES wrote: > ... And for telemarketing calls the requirement ought to be that > the "area code" part of the caller ID be some mandatory standard "Oh, but we're not telemarketing! This is just a courtesy call to let you know about new features of our..." " ... just taking a survey on consumer local phone service rates ..." " ... updating our database ..." " ... wanted to make sure you knew we've recently reduced ..." However you define "telemarketing" the telemarketers will figure out a way to describe what they're doing as something else. Remember, Bill did NOT have sexual relations with that woman! He really didn't: he made the Other Side define "sexual relations" and then found a loophole. There's ALWAYS a loophole. What we need to do is to make telemarketing unprofitable -- then it dies a natural death. Just don't buy from companies that spam, whether by telephone or internet. Problem is, if only 1% of the population doesn't go along with this plan, it fails; spam is profitable even at that level. Gordon S. Hlavenka O- nospam@crashelex.com Burma! ------------------------------ From: dold@19.usenet.us.com Subject: Re: How to Prevent $$ Incoming Voicemail Charges From Harassers?? Date: 9 Jul 2002 19:09:46 GMT Organization: Wintercreek Data Jim St. John wrote: > Verizon says that the only solution is to change the phone number, or > shut off the phone, and for either of these options they want to > charge about a $750 buyout fee for the contract. Changing a phone number should not result in negating the remainder of the contract. I had a phone number change for the same reason ... not the air charges, which I don't think occurred, but for continual calls from the same person. That was cellone, but the thought is still the same. The contract continued. Clarence A Dold - dold@email.rahul.net - Hidden Valley (Lake County) CA. ------------------------------ From: John David Galt Subject: Re: How to Prevent $$ Incoming Voicemail Charges From Harassers?? Date: Tue, 09 Jul 2002 12:39:15 -0700 Organization: Diogenes the Cynic Hot-Tubbing Society Jim St. John wrote: > Is there any recourse for this type of situation? Complain to the police. She can probably get a restraining order. ------------------------------ From: PaulCoxwell@aol.com Date: Tue, 9 Jul 2002 17:04:42 EDT Subject: Re: Satellite Celebrates Telstar 1 Fortieth Anniversary > This week marks the 40th anniversary of the launch of Telstar 1, the > world's first active communications satellite. > Telstar 1 launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla., aboard a Boeing Thor > Delta rocket on July 10, 1962. It linked a broadcast signal from > Andover, Maine, to Goonhilly Downs, England, and Pleumeur-Bodou, > France. The first transmission showed the American flag streaming over > the Andover earth station to the sounds of the "Star Spangled Banner." In the early 1980s I worked at the Goonhilly Satellite Station. Aerial 1, the original one built for the Telstar project, was just being updated at that time, and much of the original equipment was removed after some 20 years pf service. I still have a copy of the Bell Labs Record Telstar Special issue, along with some GPO (General Post Office) reports. They make for interesting reading. In today's world where so many people take instant satellite communication at the touch of a button for granted, it is good to take a moment to reflect on what a great achievement Telstar was. ------------------------------ From: Gary Tait Subject: Re: How Do I Splice an RJ-11 Onto An Old Phone Line? Date: Wed, 10 Jul 2002 00:52:53 -0400 Organization: WorldCom Canada Ltd. News Reader Service Malcolm Ferguson wrote in message news:telecom20.308.5@telecom-digest.org: > Hi, > I have an old phone line that I wish to splice an RJ-11 on to. I want > to connect up a touch tone phone, and perhaps a modem too occasionally. > Details: This is in a cottage in Canada, and is probably 50 years old. > We only have easy access to one end of the phone line (the rest goes > through the wall, and we don't know where it comes in). We have an > old phone mounted on the wall. The wiring *appears* to contain three > black wires attached to the phone. Is it possible for me to splice a > two wire line on here, with an RJ-11 at the other end? If so, how do > I do it. I don't want to disable the existing phone. Two ways (using a new piece of telephone wire). Connect to the terminals in the phone, or to the box where the inside wires connect to the outside wires. As to the what wires are what, there are silk strings in the wire, colour coded red and green. ------------------------------ From: Joseph Singer Subject: Re: How Do I Splice an RJ-11 Onto An Old Phone Line? Date: Wed, 10 Jul 2002 00:26:53 -0700 Organization: Drizzle Reply-To: joeofseattle@yahoo.com On Mon, 08 Jul 2002 16:04:54 -0400, Malcolm Ferguson wrote: > Hi, > I have an old phone line that I wish to splice an RJ-11 on to. I want > to connect up a touch tone phone, and perhaps a modem too occasionally. > Details: This is in a cottage in Canada, and is probably 50 years old. > We only have easy access to one end of the phone line (the rest goes > through the wall, and we don't know where it comes in). We have an > old phone mounted on the wall. The wiring *appears* to contain three > black wires attached to the phone. Is it possible for me to splice a > two wire line on here, with an RJ-11 at the other end? If so, how do > I do it. I don't want to disable the existing phone. Someone no doubt has more experience than I do on this, but I'm guessing that the wiring that's going into the phone is three wires that are "braided." If you look at the connection to the phone you'll probably see that each wire has a little bit of colored "tracer" on each wire that connects to the phone. Most likely the colours will be green, red and yellow. If the line is a regular non-party line service it's likely that the green and yellow are tied together with the red on another terminal. You should be able to run wire from the terminals on the phone to a jack outside of the phone. You will be able to get a proper jack at most any hardware store I would think. On the jack the connection of the red and green terminals will be all you'll need to feed to the new jack. And BTW, it's not a RJ-11 jack. RJ-11 just refers to a standard single line on one jack. The same jack wired for two lines would be a RJ-14. Will not be read. Please reply in the newsgroup ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 Jul 2002 13:27:58 -0400 From: Michelle Cotter Subject: TD Search Question Mr. Townson -- I don't know if you recall, but we spoke a few months ago about the content of your Telecom Digest archives. During our conversation, you mentioned that you might be able to informally assist me if I had a specific search question. I now have a specific question and was wondering if you would be kind enough to help me answer it. My question is -- when was the first commercial or other deployment of DNIS (dialed number identification service)? Any information on the genesis and/or early uses of DNIS would be incredibly helpful. You also mentioned that it might be possible to post specific questions to newsgroups of TD readers. Would you mind posting my question or pointing me in the direction of those newsgroups? I really appreciate any help that you would be able to provide! Thanks in advance for your time, Michelle Cotter 703 243 4434 (home) ------------------------------ From: Joseph Singer Subject: Re: Non-Dialable Toll Points (Toll Stations) Date: Wed, 10 Jul 2002 00:18:29 -0700 Organization: Drizzle Reply-To: joeofseattle@yahoo.com On 8 Jul 2002 15:21:26 -0400, kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) wrote: > I don't know if any still exist. Pick up the phone and ask the > operator for 714+054+181 Deep Springs Number Two toll station and see > what happens. Better make sure that it's an AT&T operator as well. Personal replies most likely will not be read. Please reply in the newsgroup. ------------------------------ From: fybush@world.std.com (Scott D Fybush) Subject: Re: Non-Dialable Toll Points (Toll Stations) Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA Date: Tue, 9 Jul 2002 22:50:28 GMT Diamond Dave writes: > Does anyone know if there are any non-dialable toll points (aka "Toll > Stations") left in the US or Canada? I have posted here in the (deep, dark, distant) past about my year at Deep Springs College, in the remote high desert of California, near the Nevada line. Deep Springs had recently moved from toll station status to direct-dial (via a private microwave hookup over a mountain range) when I was there in 1988-89, but we were dropped off and picked up over the state line at a spot called Lida Junction, Nevada. At the time, there were two phones in Lida Junction: a pay phone ("Lida Junction Toll Station #2") and (ahem) a brothel called the Cottontail Ranch (LJ Toll Station #1). Alas, a Google search finds that the Cottontail now has an actual phone number: 775-572-3111. I wonder if 572-3222 rings the pay phone? -s [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Why not try it and see? If, after 30 or 40 rings, someone comes by and answers the phone, you can always inquire what place you reached, then announce 'Sorry, wrong number' and disconnect. Give us a report on it. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 Jul 2002 18:25:09 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: News Headlines of Interest 7/10/02 Cable companies cracking down on Wi-Fi By Ben Charny Staff Writer, CNET News.com July 9, 2002, 4:00 AM PT Broadband providers are cracking down on popular Wi-Fi networks, threatening to cut service to customers who set up the inexpensive wireless systems and allow others to freely tap into their Internet access. Time Warner Cable of New York City has given 10 customers less than a week to stop using their accounts to provide a wireless local area network available to anyone within 300 feet. The letters are just an initial volley; Time Warner expects to send additional letters, while AT&T Broadband also is preparing similar letters for some of its customers. http://news.com.com/2100-1033-942323.html Microsoft eyes Visa users with Passport By Wylie Wong Staff Writer, CNET News.com July 8, 2002, 9:00 PM PT Microsoft hopes to extend its Passport online identification system into authorizing credit card payments. The software giant will strike a partnership Tuesday with security-software maker Arcot Systems, which builds online payment systems for merchants and for banks that issue Visa and MasterCard credit cards. Arcot makes the systems behind Visa's own Verified by Visa program as well as a similar program in development at MasterCard. Under the deal, Microsoft and Arcot plan to offer, later this fall, a service that will let banks require computer users to type in their Passport username and password to authenticate Visa or MasterCard credit cards. Passport is an authentication service that stores users' personal information and passwords and lets them surf the Web without having to constantly re-enter data at different sites. According to research firm Gartner, the service has about 14 million registered users. The new security measure would let banks and e-commerce Web sites verify the identity of online buyers and ensure that they aren't using stolen credit cards, said Brian Arbogast, Microsoft's vice president in charge of Passport. http://news.com.com/2100-1001-942295.html ------------------------------ From: Joseph Singer Subject: Re: 970 Prefix in 212,718,516,914 Date: Wed, 10 Jul 2002 00:30:37 -0700 Organization: Drizzle Reply-To: joeofseattle@yahoo.com On Tue, 9 Jul 2002 10:56:51 EDT, Carl Moore wrote: > A piece of junk email which I have now COMPLETELY removed had a > telephone number 970-xxxx which could be dialed from area codes > 212,718,516,914, in case anyone is wondering about any other use of > that prefix in those area codes. I remember seeing ads some years > back for the 540 prefix in those area codes (program NOT being > available in NJ, where 540 prefix is in use at Morristown!). But > there have been the rather recent 516/631 and 914/845 splits, so how > does it affect what's said in those ads? Those are premium pay per call local numbers similar to 900 "dial it" numbers. In other parts of the country the prefix was 976. Most commonly used for porn lines before 900 came into existance. It fell out of favour along with 900 lines when it was possible for people to block the service so they went back to 800 service with credit cards instead. Personal replies most likely will not be read. Please reply in the newsgroup. ------------------------------ From: Dave A. Subject: Re: Problems With Siemens Gigaset 2420 Date: Tue, 09 Jul 2002 20:31:00 -0700 Organization: X Doug Rosenberg wrote: > I have an older-model Siemens Gigaset 2420 with three handsets. For > years, the system worked fine: I was happy with the range, sound > quality, etc. Over the past several months, however, the signal has > begun to break up at random times, and callers sound like they are > under water, then it returns to normal. I have a 2402 with two handsets, and I've noticed similar problems. I've found it's usually the batteries. I believe the battery indicator requires you to let the batteries drain down completely before you replace it in the charging base the first time you put batteries in so it knows how long the batteries are supposed to last to calibrate the indicator. I don't usually do that, though, and find even though the battery indicator will read "full" the batteries are really dead. I try to remove the battery door and put it back to "reset" it, often every day if the phone's been used a lot, or at least once a week. When the phone thinks the batteries are full, according to the indicator, it doesn't charge them. Even if in reality the batteries are dead. After making it think you've put new batteries in, it seems to reset the indicator according to the battery voltage, and the charger will charge them again. I wish the indicator would just read the voltage all the time instead of trying to get fancy. It could be the batteries are just wearing out, too. I think nimh batteries typically last 500-1000 charges, and nicads will last 2x-3x as long if they're properly cared for (drained before recharging). ------------------------------ From: Gary Tait Subject: Nortel Vantage Esprit Phones Date: Wed, 10 Jul 2002 00:54:18 -0400 Organization: WorldCom Canada Ltd. News Reader Service Where can I fine info on them, and how to connect to them? ------------------------------ From: raj1996@go2netmail.com (kumar) Subject: Re: Cheap Virtual Calling Cards Date: 10 Jul 2002 01:50:02 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ PeachCard has a no fee card too which I buy the most. The rate is a little higher than the connection fee card (which you're right is better for long calls), but still one of the best I've seen. Also, their service and line quality is top-notch. ------------------------------ 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. --------------------------------------------------------------- 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 #309 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Jul 11 22:54:54 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id WAA09468; Thu, 11 Jul 2002 22:54:54 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 11 Jul 2002 22:54:54 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200207120254.WAA09468@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #310 TELECOM Digest Thu, 11 Jul 2002 22:54:00 EDT Volume 20 : Issue 310 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Gnutella Developer Gene Kan, 25, Commits Suicide (TELECOM Digest Editor) Re: How Do I Splice an RJ-11 Onto An Old Phone Line? (Malcolm Ferguson) Re: How Do I Splice an RJ-11 Onto An Old Phone Line? (Wes Leatherock) Re: Satellite Celebrates Telstar 1 Fortieth Anniversary (Wes Leatherock) Re: Satellite Celebrates Telstar 1 Fortieth Anniversary (Walter Dnes) Re: Problems With Siemens Gigaset 2420 (Malcolm Ferguson) Four Line Phones (Herb Sutherland) Re: How to Prevent $$ Incoming Voicemail Charges From Harassers (St John) Merlin II GPA Question (Gary Morgan) Re: TeleZapper? (John Higdon) Re: TeleZapper? (J Kelly) Hoping You Can Help! (Bruce Diggs) New Addition for the Toll Free Spammers Business Directory (S. Lichter) Re: Why ICANN Can't (The Poster) Cellular - Caller Pays in Cincinnati (Diamond Dave) All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. WE DO NOT PERMIT NAME/EMAIL ADDRESS HARVESTING FROM THIS JOURNAL. 'SALTED' EMAIL ADDRESSES APPEAR HEREIN TO VERIFY THIS. YOU GET SUED IN SMALL CLAIMS COURT IF YOU GET CAUGHT SPAMMING OR SENDING VIRUSES. DON'T DO IT. See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 10 Jul 2002 09:06:25 PDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Gnutella Developer Gene Kan, 25, Commits Suicide Here is a *very sad* report from the news yesterday. Suicide is NEVER an answer, no matter how painful life has become. I have gone through a lot of hell in the past four or five years, and certainly have given this option a lot of thought in my own life. I guess if most of us were honest we'd have to say many of us have thought this way at one time or another. Still, reading about it, I only wish someone had been able to reach out to him, to get through to him, to do something to help alleviate or reduce the pain he must have been under. Read this very sad report and see if you don't feel the same way ... only 25 years old, for God's sake .... I can see it (in a way) with an old farte like myself. For these kids though, you really want to cry. Gnutella Developer Gene Kan, 25, Commits Suicide http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20020710/wr_nm/people_kan_dc_4 ------------------------------ From: Malcolm Ferguson Subject: Re: How Do I Splice an RJ-11 Onto An Old Phone Line? Date: Wed, 10 Jul 2002 20:52:52 -0400 Organization: Bell Sympatico Joseph Singer wrote: > On Mon, 08 Jul 2002 16:04:54 -0400, Malcolm Ferguson > wrote: >> I have an old phone line that I wish to splice an RJ-11 on to. I want >> to connect up a touch tone phone, and perhaps a modem too occasionally. > Someone no doubt has more experience than I do on this, but I'm > guessing that the wiring that's going into the phone is three wires > that are "braided." If you look at the connection to the phone you'll > probably see that each wire has a little bit of colored "tracer" on > each wire that connects to the phone. Most likely the colours will be > green, red and yellow. I'll check next time I'm there in a few weeks. > If the line is a regular non-party line > service it's likely that the green and yellow are tied together with > the red on another terminal. You should be able to run wire from the > terminals on the phone to a jack outside of the phone. Ahhh: it was a party line until this year, when we became the only cottage on it. Are there any implications from a wiring point of view? Thanks, Malc [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: He may still be paying telco at party line rates, with telco holding the right to assign one or more other users to it. In which case, be careful about changing anything. PAT] ------------------------------ From: wesrock@aol.com (Wes Leatherock) Date: 11 Jul 2002 01:45:26 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: How Do I Splice an RJ-11 Onto An Old Phone Line? On Wed, 10 Jul 2002 00:26:53 -0700 Joseph Singer joeofseattle@yahoo.com wrote, in reply to Malcolm Ferguson : > ... You will be able to get a proper jack at most any hardware > store I would think. Or most drug stores, most supermarkets, Radio Shack, Best Buy, Circuit City, office supply stores, and even many convenience stores. > On the jack the connection of the red and green terminals will be all > you'll need to feed to the new jack. And BTW, it's not a RJ-11 jack. > RJ-11 just refers to a standard single line on one jack. The same > jack wired for two lines would be a RJ-14. Where did two lines come into the discussion? Malcolm's post indicated he just wanted to add an extension on his existing line. Wes Leatherock wesrock@aol.com wleathus@yahoo.com ------------------------------ From: wesrock@aol.com (Wes Leatherock) Date: 11 Jul 2002 01:52:03 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: Satellite Celebrates Telstar 1 Fortieth Anniversary On Tue, 9 Jul 2002 17:04:42 EDT PaulCoxwell@aol.com wrote: > In today's world where so many people take instant satellite > communication at the touch of a button for granted, it is good to take > a moment to reflect on what a great achievement Telstar was. Indeed. It wasn't too long before that, for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II that some of the networks in the U.S.A. and Canada engaged military jet planes to carry color film of the event from London. It was considered remarkable to have it on the air within a few hours after it happened. As I recall, the CBC beat all the networks in the U.S.A. and some of them picked up the CBC feed at first. That, in itself, was remarkable, because it was only a few years before that that nationwide live network television had come to the U.S.A. (and probably Canada, too). Wes Leatherock wesrock@aol.com wleathus@yahoo.com ------------------------------ From: Walter Dnes Subject: Re: Satellite Celebrates Telstar 1 Fortieth Anniversary Date: 11 Jul 2002 04:54:29 GMT Reply-To: waltdnes@waltdnes.org On Tue, 9 Jul 2002 17:04:42 EDT, PaulCoxwell@aol.com, wrote: >> This week marks the 40th anniversary of the launch of Telstar 1, >> the world's first active communications satellite. > In today's world where so many people take instant satellite > communication at the touch of a button for granted, it is good to > take a moment to reflect on what a great achievement Telstar was. "Telstar" is also the "surprise" answer to a music trivia question: Q - What was the first record by a British *GROUP* to hit #1 on North American charts? A - Telstar, by the Tornados The Beatles came a few months later. Early next year will be the 40th anniversary of the Beatles big break. Augggh; I feel old. I remember watching them on Ed Sullivan. Walter Dnes I'm not repeating myself; I'm an X Window user, I'm an ex-Windows user Palladium ain't done till linux won't run ------------------------------ From: Malcolm Ferguson Subject: Re: Problems With Siemens Gigaset 2420 Date: Wed, 10 Jul 2002 12:48:39 -0400 Organization: Bell Sympatico Dave A. wrote: > Doug Rosenberg wrote: >> I have an older-model Siemens Gigaset 2420 with three handsets. For >> years, the system worked fine: I was happy with the range, sound >> quality, etc. Over the past several months, however, the signal has >> begun to break up at random times, and callers sound like they are >> under water, then it returns to normal. I've had problems like this since I moved into my new place. I haven't noticed it recently, but it was loud on one handset, and barely audible on the other. I thought at first that it was something to do with interference from neighbour's 802.11b devices. Opening and closing the battery compartment seemed to help. Incidentally, I also had a couple of issues with one of the handsets when I upgraded the batteries, which were also fixed in the same way. Odd. I know the same handset has been dropped a couple of times too :( > It could be the batteries are just wearing out, too. I think nimh > batteries typically last 500-1000 charges, and nicads will last 2x-3x > as long if they're properly cared for (drained before recharging). My original nicads didn't even last a year, by which point, a 10 minute phone call would disipate (sp?) them. This was right off the charger. No end of explaining to my housemates convinced them of how to handle nicads properly w.r.t. to putting them on the charger :( I replaced (upgraded) these batteries with pairs of 1600mAh Ni-HM from a camera shop. These have been going strong for almost 2 years now, with a lot of on and off the charger irrespective of the charge level. Simpler, and last much longer. Malc ------------------------------ From: herbsu@netscape.net (Herb Sutherland) Subject: Four Line Phones Date: 10 Jul 2002 12:45:36 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Does anyone have recommendations of good 4-line CWID speaker phones for home (POTS)? I have tried a Vtech (model 4121?) and Sony ITM804. So far they seem kinda OK but the Vtech has an annoying delay on the touch tones when you press the buttons and on the Sony it seems like all 4 ringers are either on or off - you cannot be selective about which line(s) you want to hear ringing which is one of my requirements. The Vtech is selectable by line but you have to go into progamming mode to change it. I have not tried out the AT&T yet (I think model 964). I really like my Nortel 2 line (model 9417CW) phones. I wish Nortel made a similar model with 4 lines but have not been able to find anything like that. If anyone has ideas or recommendations, please send them in. Thanks! ------------------------------ From: jim@in.net (Jim St. John) Subject: Re: How to Prevent $$ Incoming Voicemail Charges From Harassers?? Date: 10 Jul 2002 16:54:25 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ To me, the bigger issue here is that some Verizon users are subject to having unlimited airtime charges run up on their accounts without their control, and without their knowledge, at least until the first bill rolls in. I can think of no other system where airtime charges can be incurred by a 3rd party. To reiterate the basic complaint, Verizon, in a few markets, charges airtime for time used by callers in *leaving* voicemail messages. A malicious caller can therefore generate significant charges on the cell phone holder's bill. -jim- ------------------------------ Reply-To: Gary Morgan From: Gary Morgan Subject: Merlin II GPA Question Date: Wed, 10 Jul 2002 19:37:30 -0500 I'm trying to find out what type of cable is needed to connect a general purpose adapter box to my Merlin II phone's "other" port. The plug is different from a regular RJ45 (different shape). If anybody knows, I'd appreciate the help! Thanks. Gary Morgan gmorgan@wk.net ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Jul 2002 22:39:22 -0700 Subject: Re: TeleZapper? From: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows In article telecom20.308.6@telecom-digest.org, AES wrote: > Exactly! And for telemarketing calls the requirement ought to be that > the "area code" part of the caller ID be some mandatory standard > prefix, like "300" or "444" or something nationwide, so it would be > trivial for anyone who wanted to to filter all telemarketing calls. A completely effective way to stop all telemarketing calls from reaching someone directly would be to implement a PIN that is handed out with one's phone number. When you dial the number of someone using this technique, you are prompted for the PIN. Don't have a PIN? You are asked to push "0" or just wait on the line to leave a message. This could be implemented as a telco service or with a machine at the customer's phone. Yes, junk messages could be left on the machine or voicemail, but the phone will not ring at inconvenient times and it is very easy to delete a voicemail message the moment you realize that it is a sales pitch. John Higdon | Email Address Valid | SF: +1 415 428-COWS +1 408 264 4115 | AIM: plodder5 | FAX: +1 408 264 4407 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: There *is* (or at least, was) such a machine. It was manufactured by a company called 'International Mobile Machines; of Bala Cynwid, PA. Does anyone remember their famous machine which was manufactured and sold back in the 1970's? It was modular, and you plugged it into any jack. It sat on the line quietly listening for the first hint of any voltage change on the line, then went off hook immediatly and made its announcement. Most of the other phones never rang at all, or if they did it was only a feeble little half-ring or something. The IMM box took over immediatly with an announcement which demanded of the caller "enter your privecode number!" A three-digit code 001 --> 999 was expected of the caller. A few of the three digit codes however were reserved for special purposes. One of the codes rang direct to the answer machine jack on the back of the box. You gave that one out as your 'extension' number to people you did want to hear from (but really did not want to be bothered by). They would *always* get the answer machine. You could then also assign four other three-digit codes to ring a common-audible in various cadences (regular, short-short, short-long, long-short-long) for various purposes or parties at your residence. For any non-working privecode number, the box simply came back a second time and ask, or rather demanded, 'enter your privecode number!" . If necessary, it would then ask a third time, and wind up dropping the party into the answer machine 'extension' if the caller could not supply the correct number. If the party *does* supply the correct number, then after two or three ringing cadences, if the call is not answered, it also goes into the answering machine. You could extend the common-audible to ring in a distant location if desired. The advertisement for the Privecode showed a picture of a very perplexed telemarketer on the line scratching her head and trying to figure out what was going on. I dunno what ever happened to the Privecode system from the International Mobile Machines Company. I know we have talked about it here in the past. Maybe someone knows who now markets the machine or would like to take it over. But it would seem to do exactly what is needed. PAT] ------------------------------ From: J Kelly Subject: Re: TeleZapper? Date: Thu, 11 Jul 2002 13:17:47 -0500 Organization: Pile of Monkey Crap On Mon, 08 Jul 2002 06:39:14 -0700, John David Galt wrote: > Phone companies will always side with the telemarketers. They don't > care if you can even sleep, as long as they get paid for lots of calls. Is there any laws prohibiting telemarketers from calling a wireless phone? I'm thinking of dumping my landline phone for a wireless one and thought that a bonus might be the elimination of telemarketing calls. I assume though that if I give my number out to anyone that sooner or later a telemarketer will get it, unless there is some ban on them calling wireless prefixes. ------------------------------ From: Bruce Diggs Subject: Hoping You Can Help! Date: Thu, 11 Jul 2002 15:52:54 -0500 Sir, Some years ago, I saw an experiment in an electronics experiment book which detailed the plans to construct a communications device using a flashlight. I was wondering if you might be able to direct me to the plans for such a device again, as my 12 year old son and I have an interest in constructing them for one of his science projects. It occurred to me that MIT would be the place to go to ask! I thank you for any assistance you may have. B. Diggs [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, Mr. Diggs, this Digest is only in a very peripheral way connected with MIT. Mostly I am a hanger-on living off some goodwill accumulated over the years with MIT. But ... you call tell your son this much: If you take two telephones, a twelve-volt 'lantern' style battery, and a bunch of wire, you can fix it so people can talk to each other via the battery over the two phones. Attach the red wire from one phone to one side of the battery. Attach the green wire on the other phone to the other side of the battery. Then take the remaining green wire from the first phone and red wire from the other phone and tie them together. You will hear a 'crackle' in the two recievers and whoever talks in one phone will be heard in the other phone. The phones will not be able to signal each other (without some additional modifications), nor will they will able to switch the connections around to still other phones. Not automatically. If either party hangs up the receiver, the line will go dead on the other end of the line. No more 'battery' or 'side tone' or conversation passing between instruments. What's wrong with this idea? Well first of all, no one stays on the phone all the time listening for the other person to talk. You have to have a way to signal from the one end to the other. If your son, for example, took one of the telephones up to his room, and one of his buddies took the other phone to a different room, they *could* talk back and forth over a distance of several thousand feet. But to fix it so they can signal each other to answer the phone, they have to do something else: So let's take another pair of wires; for this example let's call them yellow and black. Attach the yellow wire and black wires to the battery where the red wire is connected to the battery. Run the other end of the yellow wire over to the one phone; lay it aside for now. Take the other end of the black wire over to the other phone and lay it aside. Now it would help if you had two *old* phones for this; not new modern electronic phones. I do not know how to work with those. Open the phones up and look at the network inside, and all the little screw terminals in there. Most of them work the same way as the handset; all normally open, but sometimes closed. There is one screw terminal in there however which is just the opposite; normally closed but sometimes open. Get two little buzzers in the Radio Shack store. Run the yellow wire into the phone and attach it to one side of the buzzer. Use a little piece of jumper wire from the other side of the buzzer to the screw terminal you find which works the *opposite* way of most of them. Use another little jumper wire to go to another screw terminal in that area doing the same thing, then from there back to the other phone (via the black wire). Now do the same thing in the other phone. Whenever either phone goes off hook, the little buzzer in the opposite phone will 'buzz' until it goes off hook also. Not like a regular phone ringing, but a continuous 'ring' until the phone at the end being called also goes off hook. Once the other phone goes off hook in response, then the buzzer will shut down, assuming it was wired through the proper contact. But you say you want something more fancy, like an intermittent buzzing sound similar to a ringing phone. Add a couple of Christmas tree light flashers in the circuit which will open and break as current is applied to them. Make sure you wire them in such a way that they *only* apply to the current which activates the buzzers, not the talking part of the battery. Alternatively, use two speaker phones so that either one getting turned on squawks out of the other one. Then no need to have a signal buzzer. Bear in mind however that with this idea -- speakerphones -- either boy could listen to or 'spy' on the other one by listening quietly. Well Mr. Diggs, see if the ideas given above are enough to start your son on his telephony career. By the way, I have seen instances where tiny little 1.5 volt batteries (double-A) could carry conversation over a distance of a few miles. But you will need to get clips to hold the wires in place in that case. And the batteries tend to run down very fast. That's why I suggested a 6 volt lantern battery; the clips on it are easy to use, etc, and it does have enough 'kick' in it to make it last awhile. Or use 12 volt batteries, or the large 1.5 volt 'long life' telephone-style batteries used in old Western Union clocks and similar. They used to use those in 'field telephones' during the Second War and also for magneto (turn crank) telephones. See if your boy can have some fun with these ideas; tell him to write back with the results of one of his projects; I'll print him here as I did with you. So long for now; your friends at TELECOM Digest. PAT] ------------------------------ From: stevenl11@aol.com (Steven Lichter) Subject: New Addition for the Toll Free Spammers Business Directory Date: 11 Jul 2002 04:58:53 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ ... to teach this individual about the cost of owning an Toll Free number ... -----Original Message----- This message was sent to you by OPM Network 5557 Oakland Park Blvd suite 117 Fort Lauderdale, FL, 33313 1.877.678.2536. Third-party offers contained in this email are the sole responsibility of the offer originator, offer # 119184604. This may be a reoccurring mailing. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 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 and Macintosh 24 hours 2400/14.4. OggNet Server. The only good spammer is a dead one! Have you hunted one down today? (c) I Kill Spammers, Inc. A Rot In Hell Company. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Oh, Steven, dear Steven ... do you *ever* get done with your lessons for these folks, and more important, does it ever accomplish anything or make a difference? Has the Burn in Hell Company ever converted a single sinner around to see the light? I sure am glad I don't publish my own 800 numbers in this Digest or elsewhere on the net considering your posture in this matter. PAT] ------------------------------ From: The Poster Subject: Re: Why ICANN Can't Date: Thu, 11 Jul 2002 15:38:39 -0500 Judith, the problem I see is not the lack of desire for change, but the failure to recognize that ICANN is a "rigged deal". Some folks still think that if they make a good argument for some policy and if that policy makes sense as far as the good of the internet goes, then ICANN will adopt it. People just can't seem to understand that those in power at ICANN are there to further their own agenda. That agenda is: 1) Maintaining their monopoly control over the most widely used root server network in the world so that 2) Their for-profit interests (VSGN, Affilias, Neu{Star, Level}) can continue to have a monopoly on TLD registries by continuing the artificial scarcity of domain names and 3) So that WIPO can continue to MISuse the DNS as a weapon to further its narrow interests. No brilliant idea will "change their minds". They are not just sitting up there ignoring us because we haven't had a bright idea yet or because they are skeptical, but because their agenda is not the same as ours. Once you come to the realization that they are up to no good by design, then you can only conclude that there is one solution: Push the rotten edifice off a cliff by demanding a re-bid and let's make sure we don't let them get away with it the next time. Their claim that elections would be too difficult is a farce. The real reason is that elections would allow the PEOPLE to remove the monopolists and other evil-doers from the board. They dont want this. I've been reading Mueller's book and its sad. The once-free internet has been captured by a small group of people for a narrow special interest. Their broader interests are to make it like nothing more than TV -- a place where only a few really have the right to be visible (ie: to speak). IP addresses and Domain Names are supposed to be managed for the benefit of all, but they are being managed to exclude as many people as possible to the benefit of a few monopolists and media giants. Its coming. Watch out. In the meantime, you can use the Inclusive Namespace. We've been here all along and aren't going anywhere. See www.open-rsc.org, www.adns.net or www.pacificroot.com for more details on the inclusive namespace. ICANN has no control if no one uses their servers. Its an uphill battle, I know, but you CAN make a statement by switching to Inclusive Namespace DNS resolvers Judith Oppenheimer wrote in message news:telecom20.302.1@telecom-digest.org: > In an editorial in today's IEEE Spectrum Online, Milton Mueller of > Syracuse University tells us "Why ICANN Can't: By regarding itself as > a technical priesthood, this Internet naming body has failed as an > international policymaking institution." > ICANN's contracts with the Department of Commerce give it regulatory > authority similar to that of the U.S. Federal Communications > Commission, which few people would argue is a purely technical > body. ICANN puts price caps on the cost of registering a domain name, > and controls the supply of those names by accepting or rejecting > applications for top-level domains (.com, .net, and the like). It > imposes technical standards on the domain-name registration industry, > for example, for methods of sharing access to registration > databases. It fosters and limits certain kinds of competition, by, for > example, determining which companies get certain kinds of business > such as those involving the registering of names. It also decides > which businesses must divest themselves of existing enterprises. It > strengthens or weakens the scope of intellectual property rights by > setting up the rules by which officials must resolve trademark > conflicts over domain names. It routinely affects consumers of domain > name registration services, by deciding which companies to accredit to > register names and interact with consumers. Finally, it can even > strengthen or undermine personal privacy rights: it determines what > information about domain-name holders is released for all to see on > the Internet. > Read the full article here: > http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/WEBONLY/resource/jul02/speak2.html. > Judith Oppenheimer > http://JudithOppenheimer.com > http://ICBTollFreeNews.com > 212 684-7210, 1 800 The Expert > Visit 1-800 AFTA, http://www.1800afta.org ------------------------------ From: Diamond Dave Subject: Cellular - Caller Pays in Cincinnati Organization: The BBS Corner / Diamond Mine On-Line Date: Thu, 11 Jul 2002 22:42:59 GMT I heard at one time that Cincinnati had "Cellular - Caller Pays" (landline user pays instead of the wireless phone user). Does this still exist? If so, is it by certain prefixes? And if so, does anyone know which ones? And which company or companies? Thanks! Dave Perussel Webmaster - Telephone World http://www.dmine.com/phworld ------------------------------ 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 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 775-306-8390 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: mirror.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. --------------------------------------------------------------- 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 #310 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Jul 12 20:11:09 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id UAA14655; Fri, 12 Jul 2002 20:11:09 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 12 Jul 2002 20:11:09 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200207130011.UAA14655@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #311 TELECOM Digest Fri, 12 Jul 2002 20:11:00 EDT Volume 20 : Issue 311 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Organization of Telephone Keypads (Steve Brack) Bernie Ebbers on How He Manages MCI/Worldcom (Steve Brack) Re: Four Line Phones (Steve Brack) Re: Four Line Phones (Joseph Singer) Re: TeleZapper? (John Higdon) Re: Cellular - Caller Pays in Cincinnati (Rob) Strange Long Distance Problem (Bill Levant) Re: Worldwide Dialing Rules (Rob) Re: How Do I Splice an RJ-11 Onto An Old Phone Line? (Joseph Singer) Re: Satellite Celebrates Telstar 1 Fortieth Anniversary (Paul Coxwell) Re: Satellite Celebrates Telstar 1 Fortieth Anniversary (Mark Brader) News Headlines of Interest 7/12/02 (Monty Solomon) Re: New Addition for the Toll Free Spammers Directory (Steven Lichter) All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. WE DO NOT PERMIT NAME/EMAIL ADDRESS HARVESTING FROM THIS JOURNAL. 'SALTED' EMAIL ADDRESSES APPEAR HEREIN TO VERIFY THIS. YOU GET SUED IN SMALL CLAIMS COURT IF YOU GET CAUGHT SPAMMING OR SENDING VIRUSES. DON'T DO IT. See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Steve Brack Subject: Organization of Telephone Keypads Organization: Society for the Preservation of Steve Brack Date: Fri, 12 Jul 2002 16:09:29 GMT I remember reading (I think here) a few years ago that touch-tone keypads were set up opposite of calculator keypads in order to slow down dialing. However, I just read this article, and I was wondering if I've just been wrong all this time: http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mphonedial.html Dear Straight Dope: I've wondered for a long time, why do the number keys on a telephone count from top to bottom, but calculators and computer keyboards count from the bottom up? -- Owen Hutchins, Philadelphia PA SDSTAFF Dex replies: We get this question a lot. The problem with answering is that people expect a logical, well-thought out reason -- like marketing surveys or cost savings or a fierce design battle between the telephone companies and the calculator companies. Alas, not so. The answer, in a word, is: tradition. You may ask, how did these traditions get started? I'll tell you: I don't know. Well, I don't know all. The story begins back in pre-calculator days, when there were cash registers. We're not talking cash registers that scan, but mechanical things where you actually had to push the keys hard to punch numbers. The cash registers were designed with 0 at the bottom, and the numbers going up. Why did cash registers choose this organization? I was unable to find any clear answer. These were the days before customer surveys and mass marketing opinion polls. The people who designed cash registers evidently just thought it was the obvious approach -- lowest numbers at the bottom, highest numbers at the top. In fact, the earliest cash registers had multiple keys -- you didn't enter 7 and 9 and 5 for $7.95, there was a separate column of keys for each decimal place. Think of a matrix, with the bottom row of 0's, next a row of 1's, then a row of 2's, going up. The right hand column would represent single units (cents), the next column for tens, then hundreds, etc. So, to enter $7.95, you'd actually enter 700, then 90, then 5. When calculators made their appearance, they copied the cash register format. In fact, some of the earliest mechanical calculators (ah, how my wife loved her Friden!) had multiple columns, like the cash register. The earliest calculators had keypads that were ten rows high and generally 8 or 9 columns across. When hand-held and electronic calculators made their appearance, they copied the keypad arrangement of the existing calculators -- 0 at the bottom, 1-2-3 in the next row, 4-5-6 in the next row, and 7-8-9 in the top row, from left to right. So, basically, they evolved from the cash register. The Touch-Tone phone emerged in the early 1960s. Before that, there were rotary dials, with 1 at the top right and then running counterclockwise around the dial to 8-9-0 across the bottom. Why would "0" be on the bottom? Probably to prevent accidentally dialing the operator if some tot was playing with the phone. There seem to be three reasons that the Touch-Tone phone keypad was designed as it was: (1) Tradition. People were used to dialing with 1-2-3 on top, and it seemed reasonable to keep it that way. (2) AT&T (the only phone company at the time) did some research that concluded there were fewer dialing errors with the 1-2-3 on top (possibly related to the traditional rotary dial layout.) (3) Phone numbers years ago used alphabetic prefixes for the exchange (BUtterfield 8, etc.). In the days of rotary dials, no doubt it seemed logical to put the letters in alphabetical order, and to associate them with numbers in numerical order. The number 1 was set aside for "flag" functions, so ABC went with 2, DEF with 3, and so on. When Touch-Tone phones came in, keeping the alphabet in alphabetical order meant putting 1-2-3 at the top. So there we have it. Basically, calculator keypad design evolved from cash registers, while telephone keypad design evolved from the rotary dial. Tradition has kept them that way ever since. --SDSTAFF Dex Straight Dope Science Advisory Board ------------------------------ From: Steve Brack Subject: Bernie Ebbers on how he manages MCI/Worldcom Organization: Society for the Preservation of Steve Brack Date: Fri, 12 Jul 2002 13:44:16 GMT "I look at every single line item on the budget. It's an arduous process, and I think the MCI people are pretty amazed about the level of detail I get into." Bernie Ebbers ------------------------------ From: Steve Brack Subject: Re: Four Line Phones Organization: Society for the Preservation of Steve Brack Date: Fri, 12 Jul 2002 14:04:41 GMT My favorite unusual stuff vendor, Radio Shack, has a couple of good options: There's a $199 phone from Sprint: http://www.radioshack.com/product.asp?catalog%5Fname=CTLG&category%5Fname=CT LG%5F001%5F001%5F005%5F000&product%5Fid=43%2D5709 And a $179 Radioshack-brand phone: http://www.radioshack.com/product.asp?catalog%5Fname=CTLG&category%5Fname=CT LG%5F001%5F001%5F005%5F000&product%5Fid=43%2D1752 One of the things I like about them is that they have a very liberal return policy, making it easy to try something out & see how it goes. Herb Sutherland wrote in message news:telecom20.310.7@telecom-digest.org: > Does anyone have recommendations of good 4-line CWID speaker phones > for home (POTS)? I have tried a Vtech (model 4121?) and Sony ITM804. > So far they seem kinda OK but the Vtech has an annoying delay on the > touch tones when you press the buttons and on the Sony it seems like > all 4 ringers are either on or off - you cannot be selective about > which line(s) you want to hear ringing which is one of my > requirements. The Vtech is selectable by line but you have to go into > progamming mode to change it. I have not tried out the AT&T yet (I > think model 964). I really like my Nortel 2 line (model 9417CW) > phones. I wish Nortel made a similar model with 4 lines but have not > been able to find anything like that. If anyone has ideas or > recommendations, please send them in. Thanks! ------------------------------ From: Joseph Singer Subject: Re: Four Line Phones Date: Fri, 12 Jul 2002 08:25:52 -0700 Organization: Drizzle Reply-To: joeofseattle@yahoo.com On 10 Jul 2002 12:45:36 -0700, herbsu@netscape.net (Herb Sutherland) wrote: > Does anyone have recommendations of good 4-line CWID speaker phones > for home (POTS)? I have tried a Vtech (model 4121?) and Sony ITM804. > So far they seem kinda OK but the Vtech has an annoying delay on the > touch tones when you press the buttons and on the Sony it seems like > all 4 ringers are either on or off - you cannot be selective about > which line(s) you want to hear ringing which is one of my > requirements. The Vtech is selectable by line but you have to go into > progamming mode to change it. I have not tried out the AT&T yet (I > think model 964). I really like my Nortel 2 line (model 9417CW) > phones. I wish Nortel made a similar model with 4 lines but have not > been able to find anything like that. If anyone has ideas or > recommendations, please send them in. Thanks! Try this link from Hello Direct. They may have what you need. http://tinyurl.com/n39 Also, look at their main page you may be able to find other things that you could use as well. http://www.hello-direct.com Or give them a call at 1-800-HI-HELLO Personal replies most likely will not be read. Please reply in the newsgroup ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 11 Jul 2002 22:59:44 -0700 Subject: Re: TeleZapper? From: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows In article telecom20.310.11@telecom-digest.org, J Kelly wrote: > Is there any laws prohibiting telemarketers from calling a wireless > phone? I'm thinking of dumping my landline phone for a wireless one > and thought that a bonus might be the elimination of telemarketing > calls. I assume though that if I give my number out to anyone that > sooner or later a telemarketer will get it, unless there is some ban > on them calling wireless prefixes. Telemarketers know and avoid the banks of numbers used for wireless. They know that wireless customers are keenly aware that they, themselves, pay for incoming calls and that the vast majority would be irritated enough to perhaps cause the telemarketers some real trouble. Telemarketers may be scum, but they are not totally stupid. By the way, telemarketers by and large do not "get" your number from anywhere. It is dialed at random. That is why there is no way you can avoid telemarketing calls with an unlisted number, even if you never give it out. Of course the sales pitches you get from credit card companies, etc., DO come from the number you give on whatever application you filled out in the first place. John Higdon | Email Address Valid | SF: +1 415 428-COWS +1 408 264 4115 | AIM: plodder5 | FAX: +1 408 264 4407 ------------------------------ From: rob51166@yahoo.com (Rob) Subject: Re: Cellular - Caller Pays in Cincinnati Date: 12 Jul 2002 15:48:18 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Diamond Dave wrote in message news:: > I heard at one time that Cincinnati had "Cellular - Caller Pays" > (landline user pays instead of the wireless phone user). > Does this still exist? If so, is it by certain prefixes? And if so, > does anyone know which ones? And which company or companies? That's always been the case here in the UK. Whoever makes the call to a mobile cellular phone pays for that call. The cell phone owner only pays for calls made FROM his/her phone. Then again, our phone system differs greatly from that used in the NANP area. Our geographical area codes begin with 01 or 02 (with code lengths varying from 3 to 5 digits, including the initial '0'), while personal numbers, calls to pagers and calls to cellular phones have 5-digit prefixes beginning with 07 (i.e. 5-digit prefixes for cellular phones begin with 076,077,078,079 while the 5-digit prefix for personal numbers begin 070) Rob ------------------------------ From: Wlevant@aol.com Date: Fri, 12 Jul 2002 19:02:35 EDT Subject: Strange Long Distance Problem We had a strange problem with long distance at my office yesterday. I think I know what caused it, but our IXC (which I won't name here, but it's not one of the big 3) was completely clueless. We were unable to send faxes outside the LATA (or whatever they're calling LATAs this week). The call would connect, and the fax machines would try to negotiate a connection. The speed would start out high, drop down several steps, and then the connection would drop entirely. The other end received NOTHING. We *were* able to fax using a dial-around code (1016868, to be precise). Thus, the problem was, without question, with the IXC. I know that IXC's use echo cancellation circuits on long distance calls, which are supposed to drop out when they "hear" the CNG tone. I'm betting they weren't dropping out, which is why voice calls sounded fine. The IXC blamed, in order, our fax machine (5 separate machines affected, no less), our local loops (which are split between at least two different cables going back to the CO) and the fax machines at the other end (a number of different places, in different area codes, all unrelated to each other). When I said that that was impossible, the customer service droid said "that's what my supervisor said to tell you." I asked for her supervisor's supervisor, got put on hold for ten minutes, and gave up. This morning it worked. And they'll NEVER admit it was their problem. Bill ------------------------------ From: rob51166@yahoo.com (Rob) Subject: Re: Worldwide Dialing Rules Date: 12 Jul 2002 16:19:33 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ > Even on what might appear to be the more simple topic of country codes > and international dialing, there are still many kludges between > neighboring countries, such as the 048 code to reach Northern Ireland > from the Republic of Ireland that I mentioned a short while ago. To dial from the Republic to Northern Ireland I thought all you had to do is dial 08 then the provincial area code for NI (028) then the local 8-digit number. I thought 048 was an area code within the republic. Rob ------------------------------ From: Joseph Singer Subject: Re: How Do I Splice an RJ-11 Onto An Old Phone Line? Date: Fri, 12 Jul 2002 08:32:51 -0700 Organization: Drizzle Reply-To: joeofseattle@yahoo.com On 11 Jul 2002 01:45:26 GMT, wesrock@aol.com (Wes Leatherock) wrote: >> you'll need to feed to the new jack. And BTW, it's not a RJ-11 jack. >> RJ-11 just refers to a standard single line on one jack. The same >> jack wired for two lines would be a RJ-14. > Where did two lines come into the discussion? Malcolm's post > indicated he just wanted to add an extension on his existing line. Because Malcolm referred to it as an RJ-11 jack. There is no "RJ-11" jack. There's a RJ-11 *wired* jack. The physical jack can be either RJ-11 wired or RJ-14 wired depending on whether it's meant for one or two lines. Personal replies most likely will not be read. Please reply in the newsgroup ------------------------------ From: PaulCoxwell@aol.com Date: Fri, 12 Jul 2002 15:41:55 EDT Subject: Re: Satellite Celebrates Telstar 1 Fortieth Anniversary > "Telstar" is also the "surprise" answer to a music trivia question: > Q - What was the first record by a British *GROUP* to hit #1 on North > American charts? > A - Telstar, by the Tornados I didn't realize that, although I knew it was #1 in the U.S. just as it was here in England. I have an original (U.K.) copy of the 45 on Decca and it's up in my favorites list. I love the simulated acquisition and loss of satellite sounds at the beginning and end -- Great way to have done it. ------------------------------ From: msb@vex.net (Mark Brader) Subject: Re: Satellite Celebrates Telstar 1 Fortieth Anniversary Date: Fri, 12 Jul 2002 20:00:08 EDT Wes Leatherock writes: > Indeed. It wasn't too long before [Telstar] that, for the coronation > of Queen Elizabeth II that some of the networks in the U.S.A. and > Canada engaged military jet planes to carry color film of the event > from London. > ... As I recall, the CBC beat all the networks in the U.S.A.... > That, in itself, was remarkable, because it was only a few years > before that that nationwide live network television had come to the > U.S.A. (and probably Canada, too). Canada didn't *have* nationwide television as of coronation day, which was June 2, 1953. The country's third TV station opened in Ottawa on that same day; the other two, which had been operating for less than a year, were in Montreal and Toronto. National TV did come to Canada soon afterwards, with 18 stations opening in 1954 alone. This was about 8 years behind the US, where the original four TV networks (DuMont went bankrupt in 1955) had gotten started in the mid to late 1940s. Of course, none of these networks was broadcasting in *color* at the time. To see the films in color, you'd have to catch a newsreel. The Canadian dates in this article would have been taken from , except that that page is not now accessible, so I went to Google's cached copy instead (NOTE, long URL; you may have to rejoin parts): Mark Brader, Toronto "Ever wonder why they call the screen msb@vex.net a vacuum tube?" -- Kent Paul Dolan My text in this article is in the public domain. ------------------------------ Reply-To: Monty Solomon From: Monty Solomon Subject: News Headlines of Interest 7/12/02 Date: Fri, 12 Jul 2002 11:00:35 -0400 Europe's New Air War Why are US allies building their own global positioning system? Call it a declaration of independence. By Oliver Morton In December 2001, a letter from Washington arrived at the 15 defense ministries of the European Union. The writer was Paul Wolfowitz, the forthright and hawkish US deputy secretary of defense; the subject was a European satellite system called Galileo; and the tone was far from happy. A planned fleet of 30 satellites dedicated to the broadcast of positioning data, Galileo promises to be an updated European equivalent to the familiar US Global Positioning System, whose signals allow everyone from muddled drivers to overnight hikers to pinpoint their location. Beginning in 2008, Galileo will supplement and improve on the accuracy of existing GPS satellites, serving consumers around the world. In short, Europeans will pay for a new network, while Americans, who use satellite positioning services more than most, will benefit. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.08/airwar.html FCC chief prods consumer electronics makers on DTV - Jul 11, 2002 03:37 PM (Reuters) By Jeremy Pelofsky WASHINGTON, July 11 (Reuters) - U.S. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Powell on Thursday chided consumer electronics manufacturers to get on the right channel and join the effort to speed the transition to digital television. Powell, who proposed in April a schedule for accelerating the move to crisper, higher quality television signals, said he has not received a final response from the industry on phasing in the necessary tuners into new sets. http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=27806213 ------------------------------ From: stevenl11@aol.com (Steven Lichter) Date: 12 Jul 2002 13:48:39 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: New Addition for the Toll Free Spammers Business Directory One company, the one selling cars over the Internet that was located in Beaverton, OR and Vancouver, WA. Contacted AOL about me publishing their number. It seems for a day or so their phones were ringing off the hook and they were not for people to buy cars who and bad credit. AOL took no action, but the company made threats about suing me. But the Oregon Attorney General gave them more to think about them me. So nothing ever happened. The rate of spam to the e-mail address is down to just one or 2 every day, from 20 or more. Don't know why. At least this posting address gets none. It is blocked unless the address is in the filter, suck as yours is. I would guess that it must me on thousands of spammers lists, but it just bounces. I remember when I made an error and posted with a GTE e-mail address, my box was destroyed until I had the name changes and then never used it to post. And that was years ago when you could track the spammers. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Oh, Steven, dear Steven ... do you > *ever* get done with your lessons for these folks, and more important, > does it ever accomplish anything or make a difference? Has the Burn > in Hell Company ever converted a single sinner around to see the > light? I sure am glad I don't publish my own 800 numbers in this > Digest or elsewhere on the net considering your posture in this > matter. 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. A Hope You Roast In Hell Company. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Steve what is not clear to me is why the automobile spammers called AOL to complain about you. Had you earlier (or did you at some time) also publish your message on AOL? Or did the fools for some reason just assume AOL was in charge of everything around here? Just call me curious. I feel neglected. I wonder why they (or their lawyer) did not also contact me. 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 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 775-306-8390 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: mirror.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. 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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 #311 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat Jul 13 21:23:06 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id VAA20301; Sat, 13 Jul 2002 21:23:06 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sat, 13 Jul 2002 21:23:06 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200207140123.VAA20301@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #312 TELECOM Digest Sat, 13 Jul 2002 21:23:00 EDT Volume 20 : Issue 312 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Organization of Telephone Keypads (Paul Coxwell) Re: Organization of Telephone Keypads (James Gifford) Re: Organization of Telephone Keypads (Mark Brader) Re: Organization of Telephone Keypads (Wes Leatherock) Re: Organization of Telephone Keypads (Al Gillis) Re: Organization of Telephone Keypads (Ed Ellers) Re: Satellite Celebrates Telstar 1 Fortieth Anniversary (Wes Leatherock) Re: Satellite Celebrates Telstar 1 Fortieth Anniversary (Ed Ellers) Re: TeleZapper? (wgd@telecom-digest.org) Re: Strange Long Distance Problem (Robert Winn) Re: Strange Long Distance Problem (Ken Becker) All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. WE DO NOT PERMIT NAME/EMAIL ADDRESS HARVESTING FROM THIS JOURNAL. 'SALTED' EMAIL ADDRESSES APPEAR HEREIN TO VERIFY THIS. YOU GET SUED IN SMALL CLAIMS COURT IF YOU GET CAUGHT SPAMMING OR SENDING VIRUSES. DON'T DO IT. See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: PaulCoxwell@aol.com Date: Sat, 13 Jul 2002 08:38:42 EDT Subject: Re: Organization of Telephone Keypads > The Touch-Tone phone emerged in the early 1960s. Before that, there > were rotary dials, with 1 at the top right and then running > counterclockwise around the dial to 8-9-0 across the bottom. Why would > "0" be on the bottom? Probably to prevent accidentally dialing the > operator if some tot was playing with the phone. > There seem to be three reasons that the Touch-Tone phone keypad was > designed as it was: > (1) Tradition. People were used to dialing with 1-2-3 on top, and it > seemed reasonable to keep it that way. > (2) AT&T (the only phone company at the time) did some research that > concluded there were fewer dialing errors with the 1-2-3 on top > (possibly related to the traditional rotary dial layout.) > (3) Phone numbers years ago used alphabetic prefixes for the exchange > (BUtterfield 8, etc.). In the days of rotary dials, no doubt it seemed > logical to put the letters in alphabetical order, and to associate > them with numbers in numerical order. The number 1 was set aside for > "flag" functions, so ABC went with 2, DEF with 3, and so on. When > Touch-Tone phones came in, keeping the alphabet in alphabetical order > meant putting 1-2-3 at the top. > So there we have it. Basically, calculator keypad design evolved from > cash registers, while telephone keypad design evolved from the rotary > dial. Tradition has kept them that way ever since. It's also worthy of note that rotary dials in some countries used a different layout, e.g. U.K./U.S. 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-0, Sweden adopted 0-1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9 and New Zealand dials run 9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1-0. These layouts can be seen reflected in some of the area and service codes adopted, e.g. area code 09 for Auckland, N.Z. Presumably, by the time keypads arrived the U.S. layout was already well-established so it made sense to adopt it. ------------------------------ From: James Gifford Subject: Re: Organization of Telephone Keypads Date: Fri, 12 Jul 2002 18:52:13 -0700 Organization: Nitrosyncretic Press Completely irrelevant, but I read your message subject line and was struck by the fear that they were organizing for better pay, the right to frequent cleaning and the inclusion of the A-B-C-D keys to provide equal work rights. :) ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Organization of Telephone Keypads Date: Fri, 12 Jul 2002 22:04:44 -0400 (EDT) From: msb@vex.net (Mark Brader) Jared writes: > The 0 is after the 9 because of pulse dialing. The 0 is actually 10 > pulses. So the rotary dial was arranged mechanically, to generate the > necessary number of pulses. This explanation reverses cause and effect. The 0 produces 10 pulses on the standard (1234567890) rotary dial because it's placed at the end of the dial, after 9. If it was placed at the start, as it was in Sweden (0123456789), it would produce 1 pulse; on this dial 1 produces 2 pulses, and so on up. There is also a third dial, 9876543210, used in New Zealand and the city of Oslo, where again 0 produces 10 pulses, but is after 1 (which produces 9). Mark Brader "The best you can write will be the best you are. Toronto Every sentence is the result of a long probation." msb@vex.net -- Henry David Thoreau, 1841 My text in this article is in the public domain. ------------------------------ From: wesrock@aol.com (Wes Leatherock) Date: 13 Jul 2002 02:41:34 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: Organization of Telephone Keypads On Fri, 12 Jul 2002 16:09:29 GMT Steve Brack wrote: > I remember reading (I think here) a few years ago that touch-tone > keypads were set up opposite of calculator keypads in order to slow > down dialing. However, I just read this article, and I was wondering > if I've just been wrong all this time: > http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mphonedial.html > Dear Straight Dope: [ ... ] > The Touch-Tone phone emerged in the early 1960s. Before that, there > were rotary dials, with 1 at the top right and then running > counterclockwise around the dial to 8-9-0 across the bottom. Why would > "0" be on the bottom? Probably to prevent accidentally dialing the > operator if some tot was playing with the phone. "Straight Dope" seems to be pretty clueless. The "0" of course actually pulsed 10 rather than zero, there being no way to pulse zero. So it had to be last. [ ... ] > (2) AT&T (the only phone company at the time) did some research that > concluded there were fewer dialing errors with the 1-2-3 on top > (possibly related to the traditional rotary dial layout.) Bell Labs did extensive research, which was reported in the BSTJ and the Bell Labs Record and various public news releases, and did indeed find fewer dialing errors with 1-2-3 on top. One of the advantages of Touch-Tone over dial pulsing was that the number could be "dialed" more quickly, saving time for both the user and the holding time for the originating register. There would not appear to be any reason to want "dialing" slowed down. Wes Leatherock wesrock@aol.com wleathus@yahoo.com ------------------------------ From: Al Gillis Subject: Re: Organization of Telephone Keypads Date: Fri, 12 Jul 2002 20:06:41 -0700 Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com Back in 1956 or so (probably give or take a few years) The Bell System Technical Journal published a longish article on the matter of how to lay out what was to become the Touch-Tone dial pad. (The Multnomah County Public Library in Portland, Oregon is where I saw this years ago when I was in high school. I'm sure a search at any reasonably competent metropolitan library will reveal the exact document). They had a lot of different styles under study, with the number keys in all sorts of arrangements, including one that had them arranged in a circle to emulate the rotary dial everyone was familiar with (everyone that didn't have manual service, that is!). Exactly why the present standard arrangement was selected I can't remember but Steve Brack's idea (see below) seems to stick in my mind as well. Al Steve Brack wrote in message news:telecom20.311.1@telecom-digest.org: > I remember reading (I think here) a few years ago that touch-tone > keypads were set up opposite of calculator keypads in order to slow > down dialing. However, I just read this article, and I was wondering > if I've just been wrong all this time: > http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mphonedial.html ------------------------------ From: Ed Ellers Subject: Re: Organization of Telephone Keypads Date: Sat, 13 Jul 2002 14:13:42 -0400 Steve Brack quoted from a Straight Dope column (http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mphonedial.html): > (2) AT&T (the only phone company at the time) did some research that > concluded there were fewer dialing errors with the 1-2-3 on top (possibly > related to the traditional rotary dial layout.) > (3) Phone numbers years ago used alphabetic prefixes for the exchange > (BUtterfield 8, etc.). In the days of rotary dials, no doubt it seemed > logical to put the letters in alphabetical order and to associate them with > numbers in numerical order. Number 1 was set aside for "flag" functions, > so ABC went with 2, DEF with 3, and so on. When Touch-Tone phones came in, > keeping the alphabet in alphabetical order meant putting 1-2-3 at the top." (2) is the correct answer, though (3) probably had an influence. Bell Labs did a *lot* of experimenting with different layouts to come up with the one that was finally announced in 1959, as well as experimenting to find the best size, shape, color combination, required pressure and downward travel distance for the keys. ------------------------------ From: Wesrock@aol.com Date: Fri, 12 Jul 2002 20:58:51 EDT Subject: Re: Satellite Celebrates Telstar 1 Fortieth Anniversary In a message dated 7/11/02 10:17:11 PM Central Daylight Time, wb8foz@panix.com writes: > There was no real transatlantic PHONE service until 1953.. > {excluding that exotic Churchhill/FDR link during WWII.} Indeed there was, by radiotelephone. Pretty busy, too, even though it was not up to the standards of domestic phone service. Big antenna farms and multiple transmitters to change frequency by the hour of the day for optimum transmission. Wes Leatherock wesrock@aol.com wleathus@yahoo.com ------------------------------ From: Ed Ellers Subject: Re: Satellite Celebrates Telstar 1 Fortieth Anniversary Date: Sat, 13 Jul 2002 02:49:16 -0400 Wes Leatherock wrote: > As I recall, the CBC beat all the networks in the U.S.A. and some of them > picked up the CBC feed at first. Well, sorta. The CBC committed early on to carry the full BBC telecast, but the U.S. networks only intended to start coverage after film of the main events arrived. ABC, whose news resources were limited in those days, made arrangements to pick up the CBC feed; NBC was planning to use its own film, but also arranged to take the CBC feed as a backup. What actually happened (according to a TV Guide story in, IIRC, 1978) was that ABC, with no significant network programming in the morning, gave in and started taking the CBC feed earlier than planned; once the wire services moved a bulletin a few minutes later saying that ABC had scooped its rivals, NBC felt forced to dump its daytime schedule (much more lucrative than ABC's) and took the CBC feed. Their first film (and CBS') started to arrive not long after that. NBC had something else up their sleeve that, in the end, didn't pan out. RCA Communications engineers at their receiving site at Riverhead, Long Island, were trying to pick up the BBC's telecast directly from London, something that had been done before as early as the late 1930s. If they had succeeded, they were ready to shoot the video off the screen of a British TV set (to convert from British to American standards) and feed it to NBC. But there was no joy in Riverhead; RCA struck out. ------------------------------ From: wgd@telecom-digest.org Subject: Re: TeleZapper? Date: Fri, 12 Jul 2002 20:29:56 -0500 Organization: You only wish you were this organized On Thu, 11 Jul 2002 22:59:44 -0700, in comp.dcom.telecom John Higdon wrote: [snip] > By the way, telemarketers by and large do not "get" your number from > anywhere. It is dialed at random. That is why there is no way you can > avoid telemarketing calls with an unlisted number, even if you never > give it out. Of course the sales pitches you get from credit card > companies, etc., DO come from the number you give on whatever > application you filled out in the first place. If that were true then I am at a complete loss to explain why either phone attached to the voice ports of my ISDN router have never once rung with a telemarketing call. One of them is even attached to a fax machine, yet even it has never once received any unsolicited fax calls in the 5 years I've had it. Go figure. The only thing unusual is that the line is backhauled out of a distant C.O., although still in the same (major) city. According to Southwestern Bell my ISDN line is technically a "business line" which they say "entitles" me to a complimentary Business White Pages listing for each of the two numbers. However, I've opted not to list either, which results in my now having two non-pub numbers without paying for non-pub service on either. Also the ISDN service, though fairly expensive at $67 monthly (total) is slightly less expensive than two analog POTS lines. We've never written either number down on any applications or accounts, which no doubt helps in keeping them off telemarketing lists. We do happen to have one regular POTS line that catches all the usual punishment. ------------------------------ From: Robert Winn Subject: Re: Strange Long Distance Problem Date: Fri, 12 Jul 2002 21:03:18 -0500 Bill: Your troubleshooting sounds right on the money. I used to work in the network operations center for an IXC and trouble tickets with the symptoms you described would always point to a problem with the echo cancellers. I'll bet your IXC had an outage and they rerouted traffic to a backup network who's echo cancellers weren't detecting the CNG tone. You might see if there's some way you can report the problem by finding someone within your carrier's organization to open a trouble ticket. Robert Wlevant@aol.com wrote on Fri, 12 Jul 2002 19:02:35 EDT about Strange Long Distance Problem > We had a strange problem with long distance at my office yesterday. > I think I know what caused it, but our IXC (which I won't name here, > but it's not one of the big 3) was completely clueless. > We were unable to send faxes outside the LATA (or whatever they're > calling LATAs this week). The call would connect, and the fax > machines would try to negotiate a connection. The speed would start > out high, drop down several steps, and then the connection would drop > entirely. The other end received NOTHING. > > We *were* able to fax using a dial-around code (1016868, to be > precise). Thus, the problem was, without question, with the IXC. I > know that IXC's use echo cancellation circuits on long distance calls, > which are supposed to drop out when they "hear" the CNG tone. I'm > betting they weren't dropping out, which is why voice calls sounded > fine. > The IXC blamed, in order, our fax machine (5 separate machines > affected, no less), our local loops (which are split between at least > two different cables going back to the CO) and the fax machines at the > other end (a number of different places, in different area codes, all > unrelated to each other). When I said that that was impossible, the > customer service droid said "that's what my supervisor said to tell > you." I asked for her supervisor's supervisor, got put on hold for > ten minutes, and gave up. > This morning it worked. > And they'll NEVER admit it was their problem. ------------------------------ From: Ken Becker Subject: Re: Strange Long Distance Problem Organization: Giganews.Com - Premium News Outsourcing Date: Sat, 13 Jul 2002 02:49:49 GMT Wlevant@aol.com wrote: > We had a strange problem with long distance at my office yesterday. > I think I know what caused it, but our IXC (which I won't name here, > but it's not one of the big 3) was completely clueless. > We were unable to send faxes outside the LATA (or whatever they're > calling LATAs this week). The call would connect, and the fax > machines would try to negotiate a connection. The speed would start > out high, drop down several steps, and then the connection would drop > entirely. The other end received NOTHING. > We *were* able to fax using a dial-around code (1016868, to be > precise). Thus, the problem was, without question, with the IXC. I > know that IXC's use echo cancellation circuits on long distance calls, > which are supposed to drop out when they "hear" the CNG tone. I'm > betting they weren't dropping out, which is why voice calls sounded > fine. > The IXC blamed, in order, our fax machine (5 separate machines > affected, no less), our local loops (which are split between at least > two different cables going back to the CO) and the fax machines at the > other end (a number of different places, in different area codes, all > unrelated to each other). When I said that that was impossible, the > customer service droid said "that's what my supervisor said to tell > you." I asked for her supervisor's supervisor, got put on hold for > ten minutes, and gave up. > This morning it worked. > And they'll NEVER admit it was their problem. Yep, and I can bet what the problem was: The local cross-connect or switch you were hooked up to lost synchronization with the rest of the network. Doesn't affect voice noticeably, but it plays hob with fax's and analog modems. The local idiot at the IXC didn't know and probably didn't call repair ... and it probably took a random knumbskull at the CO to notice. Oh, well. Ken Becker ------------------------------ 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 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 775-306-8390 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: mirror.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. --------------------------------------------------------------- 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 #312 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sun Jul 14 16:31:14 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id QAA24589; Sun, 14 Jul 2002 16:31:14 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sun, 14 Jul 2002 16:31:14 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200207142031.QAA24589@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #313 TELECOM Digest Sun, 14 Jul 2002 16:30:00 EDT Volume 20 : Issue 313 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson ILEC Confused or is it Just Me? (Justa Lurker) Re: How Do I Splice an RJ-11 Onto An Old Phone Line? (denis@pickaxe.net) Please Explain Chapter 11 (Hidde Beumer) Re: Worldwide Dialing Rules (Linc Madison) Re: New Addition For Toll Free Spammers Business Directory (S Lichter) Re: Worldwide Dialing Rules (Paul Coxwell) Want to Dial 0845 Number (in UK) From Canada (JT) Re: TD Search Question (Mike Blake-Knox) 5ESS NI2 NFAS Back-Up D-Channel Problem (Ricardo) Re: TeleZapper? (John Higdon) Telescum, was Re: TeleZapper? (Danny Burstein) Re: Organization of Telephone Keypads (Hudson Leighton) Re: Organization of Telephone Keypads (Paul Coxwell) Re: Organization of Telephone Keypads (Roy Smith) Re: How to Find Cellular Telephone Companies (John R. Levine) Re: Satellite Celebrates Telstar 1 Fortieth Anniversary (Wesrock@aol.com) FCC Chief Slams TV Makers on Digital TV Conversion (Monty Solomon) A Few More For the Business Directory (David B. Horvath, CCP) All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. WE DO NOT PERMIT NAME/EMAIL ADDRESS HARVESTING FROM THIS JOURNAL. 'SALTED' EMAIL ADDRESSES APPEAR HEREIN TO VERIFY THIS. YOU GET SUED IN SMALL CLAIMS COURT IF YOU GET CAUGHT SPAMMING OR SENDING VIRUSES. DON'T DO IT. See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: jlurker@bigfoot.com (Justa Lurker) Subject: ILEC Confused or is it Just Me? Organization: Anonymous People Date: Sat, 13 Jul 2002 01:09:47 GMT If it were not true it would be funny ... The local ILEC served 18 POTS lines to our company for 46 years. We like them and want to continue using their service. But last year *hidden* in the small print of a long distance company rebate was permission to become our CLEC. Arggh! We immediately called the ILEC and signed a "win back" contract. And a month later we were back on their service. Except for one little detail: When we call 411 it is billed by the CLEC and not the ILEC. OK, here is where it gets interesting. We call the ILEC and they say that they cannot fix the problem! They say that the service you get when you dial 411 is (and I quote) "completely random". They say that the FCC will not allow them to direct the 411 calls to them. What I cannot understand is that while we have 18 lines, 10 of them 'randomly' selected the CLEC 100% of the time and the rest 'randomly' selected the ILEC 100% of the time. The CS and his supervisor had no answer why 100% of the calls on each line selected the same 'random' carrier (and why none of the other CLECs were 'randomly' selected). We have been told by the ILEC that if their service is 'randomly' selected we will hear their carrier anouncement, and we won't hear that announcement if another 411 service is 'randomly' picked. However the calls we have been making for the past month (including on a bill we have been sent by the CLEC) have the ILEC's announcement. But the ILEC doesn't want to fix it. They can't. It is all random. The letter to the FCC is being drafted. It can't be random, and we don't like being lied to by them. JL ------------------------------ From: denis@pickaxe.net Subject: Re: How Do I Splice an RJ-11 Onto An Old Phone Line? Date: Sat, 13 Jul 2002 03:10:00 +0100 Reply-To: denisrt@pickaxe.net On Wed, 10 Jul 2002 20:52:52 -0400, Malcolm Ferguson wrote: > Ahhh: it was a party line until this year, when we became the only > cottage on it. Are there any implications from a wiring point of view? Yep -- Party line signalling may have used earth / a or earth / b to tell the exchange which party was making the call, so one of those lines may be earth, and the other two the a/b pair. Now at a guess you now only need the a/b pair if you are no longer on a party line. Rgds, Denis McMahon / +44 7802 468949 / denis@pickaxe.net 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: Hidde Beumer Subject: Please Explain Chapter 11 Date: Sat, 13 Jul 2002 10:47:53 +0200 Organization: XS4ALL Internet BV Reply-To: Hidde Beumer Can someone point me to a good explanation of chapter 11? What does it really mean to customers of a chapter 11 filed company? Etc. Thanx in advance! Regards, Hidde [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Since this forum is for telecommunications and not for bankruptcy lawyers, I cannot get into a very involved explanation. But I can tell you a few things about the bankruptcy laws in the USA since several years ago I was employed by a firm of attornies who specialized in administration of bankruptcy laws and the clients of same. There are about fifteen parts, or 'chapters' to the bankruptcy laws in the USA. Many of the chapters are very obscure and rarely -- if ever -- employed, such as the chapters which deal with municipal agencies and governments which go into bankruptcy. The tenth and eleventh chapters and the seventh chapter are the three parts most people know about and use. Chapter 7 is a 'straight bankruptcy' in which the person (or company's) assets and possessions are taken from them, put up for sale and the proceeds if any used to satisfy the creditors. Chapters 10/11 are individual and/ or corporate 'debtor in possession' situations. In these, the individual or the corporate debtor is allowed to continue doing business while making diligent efforts to pay the bills due, under the supervision of a court-appointed 'trustee'. It should have nothing at all to do with the customers of the debtor business, at least as long as the debtor continues to make payments against his debts. If the debtor somehow manages to screw up its payment arrangements, then the creditors can petition the court to convert the debtor to a straight chapter seven arrangment and put him out of business. Maybe one of our readers with legal/bankruptcy experience will write you personally to go into more details, and examine your particular interest. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Linc Madison Subject: Re: Worldwide Dialing Rules Date: Sat, 13 Jul 2002 02:43:01 -0700 Organization: LincMad.com Consulting Reply-To: Telecom@LincMad.com In article , Rob wrote: > To dial from the Republic to Northern Ireland I thought all you had to > do is dial 08 then the provincial area code for NI (028) then the > local 8-digit number. I thought 048 was an area code within the > republic. No, before the introduction of the 028 code for all of Northern Ireland, you dialed 08 plus the UK STD code and number (but only to Northern Ireland, not to the rest of the UK). For example, to dial Belfast (01232) 123456, you would dial 08 01232 123456. Now, dialing from the Republic to Northern Ireland, you simply substitute 048 for the new 028 code. For example, to dial Belfast (028) 90123456, you dial 048 90123456. There are other area codes in the Republic beginning with 04, but not 048. The old 08 code is no longer available; you cannot dial 08028 for Northern Ireland. You can also permissively dial 00 44 28 instead of 048 to dial from the Republic to Northern Ireland, and you will be charged the same "inland" (domestic) rates. www dot LincMad dot com / Telecom at LincMad dot com Linc Madison * San Francisco, California ------------------------------ From: stevenl11@aol.com (Steven Lichter) Subject: Re: New Addition For Toll Free Spammers Business Directory Date: 13 Jul 2002 05:14:53 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ If you notice, my posting address is AOL and that is in fact my e-mail address for excepting mail that I want. The e-mail from the automobile dealer went to another AOL account that I had_used to get other mail and to use when I needed to give an address to someone; came to that one. When I published their phone number it also came from my regular blocked posting address, also from AOL. I guess they were either told where it was posted or the did a search, either way their attorney, or so he said he was; his e-mail came from a hotmail account; made threats to me. My reply was sent to him along with copies to the UCE address at the FCC as well as both the Washington and Oregon Attorney Generals. I never heard from them again and when I logged on to their web site the 800 numbers were gone; being replaced with an area code for Portland. Now the web site is gone, so maybe they are also gone. I had to kill the other e-mail account and have yet to use it for anything, but I still get two or three spam e-mail a day, so they are just doing a dictionary type of mailing or they would never get me.__The e-mail's also say hello dear Mr. apple****II, part of address deleted. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Steve what is not clear to me is why > the automobile spammers called AOL to complain about you. Had you > earlier (or did you at some time) also publish your message on AOL? > Or did the fools for some reason just assume AOL was in charge of > everything around here? Just call me curious. I feel neglected. I > wonder why they (or their lawyer) did not also contact me. PAT] Apple Elite II 909-359-5338. Home of GBBS/LLUCE,support for the Apple II and Macintosh 24 hours 2400/14.4. OggNet Server. The only good spammer is a dead one! Have you hunted one down today? (c) I Kill Spammers, Inc. A Rot In Hell Company. ------------------------------ From: PaulCoxwell@aol.com Date: Sat, 13 Jul 2002 08:38:59 EDT Subject: Re: Worldwide Dialing Rules >> Even on what might appear to be the more simple topic of country codes >> and international dialing, there are still many kludges between >> neighboring countries, such as the 048 code to reach Northern Ireland >> from the Republic of Ireland that I mentioned a short while ago. > To dial from the Republic to Northern Ireland I thought all you had to > do is dial 08 then the provincial area code for NI (028) then the > local 8-digit number. I thought 048 was an area code within the > republic. It used to be the case that you dialed 08 plus the N.I. code (including initial zero), e.g. from the Republic you would dial 08 01232 for Belfast. In April 2000 when all N.I. numbers went to 8 digits under a single area code (028), the Republic introduced the new code and all calls from south to north of the border are now just 048 + 8-digits. Dialing any of the old 080-plus codes now goes to an intercept recording. If you attempt to dial 08028 you get a general intercept (from south of the border) telling you to insert a 1 after 080 -- This is a holdover from when all U.K. codes changed and, to cite Belfast as an example again, 0232 changed to 01232. The 048 code was previously unused, and presumably chosen because the 04x area codes serve the midland and north-east part of the Republic, e.g. 047 = Monaghan. ------------------------------ From: jt Subject: Want to Dial 0845 Number (in UK) From Canada Date: Sat, 13 Jul 2002 14:59:47 -0400 Organization: WorldCom Canada Ltd. News Reader Service I have an email acccount with a Brit ISP. They have recently sent me an email saying I have to call them via their 0845 number or they'll delete my account, and there'll be no way to re-instate it. I will not be in the UK before the time for this is up; and I _like_ this email address. They call this "new and improved". I've had some email exchanges and the droids say that they cannot change this. They also say I won't be able to dial the 0845 number myself from here. Any ideas? ------------------------------ From: Mike Blake-Knox Subject: Re: TD Search Question Date: Sat, 13 Jul 2002 15:38:44 EDT Organization: CompuServe Interactive Services Reply-To: mikebk@intrex.net In article , Michelle Cotter wrote: > My question is -- when was the first commercial or other deployment > of DNIS (dialed number identification service)? I remember trying > to find written documentation on DNIS in about 1988. The term showed up in some pre-divesture Bell System documentation so it must have been before 1984. I believe it was being used to consolidate trunk groups. Mike Blake-Knox (919) 929-5293 ------------------------------ From: ricardo_esponda@yahoo.com (Ricardo) Subject: 5ESS NI2 NFAS BACK-UP D-Channel Problem Date: 14 Jul 2002 11:46:23 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Does 5ESS Switch support NI-2 100% Bellcore spec's? or Is it a variant of NI-2 (NI-2 5ESS Version)?. I have a Nortel PBX Opt. 81 C connected to a 5ESS CO everything works fine but switchover from Primary D Channel to Back-Up D Channel. Let say I log in the PBX and disable Primary D-Channel, Primary D-Channel goes down and Back-Up too, I am seeing all this from the PBX. I turned on the signaling messaged on the PBX (some kind of debbuger) I can see when the 5ESS sends a message requesting the Nortel PBX to bring in-service (from stand-by) the back-up D-channel, I see this message coming into the PBX on the Back-Up D-Channel. Nortel's Tech claims that there is one octect of the message that contains only 0 (zeros) and that is the problem: the 5ESS. Any suggestion will be really appreciated. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 14 Jul 2002 12:06:53 -0700 Subject: Re: TeleZapper? From: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows In article telecom20.312.9@telecom-digest.org, wgd@telecom-digest.org wrote: > We've never written either number down on any applications or > accounts, which no doubt helps in keeping them off telemarketing > lists. We do happen to have one regular POTS line that catches all the > usual punishment. Telemarketers tend to avoid business lines because they have no way of knowing how or where the line appears on a business phone system. Fax is an exception; if a fax machine is found through scanning, it will receive junk faxes. Yes, telemarketers have access to the records that show the type of line for a given number assignment. John Higdon | Email Address Valid | SF: +1 415 428-COWS +1 408 264 4115 | AIM: plodder5 | FAX: +1 408 264 4407 ------------------------------ From: danny burstein Subject: Telescum, was Re: TeleZapper? Date: Sun, 14 Jul 2002 02:10:58 UTC Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC In wgd@telecom-digest.org writes: > If that were true then I am at a complete loss to explain why either > phone attached to the voice ports of my ISDN router have never once > rung with a telemarketing call. One of them is even attached to a fax > machine, yet even it has never once received any unsolicited fax calls > in the 5 years I've had it. Go figure. The only thing unusual is that > the line is backhauled out of a distant C.O., although still in the > same (major) city. That may actually be the key. When telescum blind dial (as opposed to using names and numbers obtained from various lists) they target certain neighborhoods based on census (and other general) info. So as I fortuitously discovered, having a phone prefix believed to be in a poor and sleazy part of town significantly reduced the number of telemarketing calls I get. Pretty much the only folk who call me are the local newspapers trying to get subscriptions, which I get maybe once every six months. Oh, and, around election day, the politicians trying to get me to vote for them. danny "funny how politicians exempted themselves from the Do Not Call registries" burstein Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key dannyb@panix.com [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded] ------------------------------ From: hudsonl@skypoint.com (Hudson Leighton) Subject: Re: Organization of Telephone Keypads Date: Sat, 13 Jul 2002 22:28:29 -0500 Organization: MRRP >> I remember reading (I think here) a few years ago that touch-tone >> keypads were set up opposite of calculator keypads in order to slow >> down dialing. However, I just read this article, and I was wondering >> if I've just been wrong all this time: But Touch-tone predates calculators by many many years, I was in high school in circa 1973 when I saw my 1st calculator. Hudson http://www.skypoint.com/~hudsonl ------------------------------ From: PaulCoxwell@aol.com Date: Sun, 14 Jul 2002 07:39:56 EDT Subject: Re: Organization of Telephone Keypads > (2) is the correct answer, though (3) probably had an influence. Bell > Labs did a *lot* of experimenting with different layouts to come up > with the one that was finally announced in 1959, as well as > experimenting to find the best size, shape, color combination, > required pressure and downward travel distance for the keys. What a pity that so many modern manufacturers ignore these factors and produce keypads which are awkward to use. So much for "progress." ------------------------------ From: Roy Smith Subject: Re: Organization of Telephone Keypads Date: Sat, 13 Jul 2002 21:57:40 -0400 Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC Ed Ellers wrote: > (2) is the correct answer, though (3) probably had an influence. Bell > Labs did a *lot* of experimenting with different layouts to come up > with the one that was finally announced in 1959, as well as > experimenting to find the best size, shape, color combination, > required pressure and downward travel distance for the keys. It's amazing, isn't it? 50 years ago they understood the importance of ergonomics and usability testing. Build a prototype, put it in front of a user, and watch them try to use it. Repeat until you get it right. It's not rocket science. Now we're putting out consumer devices with user interfaces designed by deranged idiots (or possibly marketing droids). The control pad on my central A/C system died recently and was replaced with a slightly different version that had exactly the same functions. I had to sit down with the instruction manual to figure out how to work it. I still don't know what all the buttons on my two year old answering machine do. Twice a year (daylight savings time start and stop) I have to dig out my car's owner's manual to learn how to reset the clock all over again. And let's not even talk about my VCR. Sometimes I think I'm living inside of an obfuscated programming contest. ------------------------------ Date: 13 Jul 2002 22:03:37 -0400 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: How to Find Cellular Telephone Companies Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA In article you write: > 1. What cellular telephone companies services coverage include > Western New York State, Erie County? ... The two cell carriers in Erie and Niagara counties are Cingular and Verizon. There are probably PCS carriers as well including Nextel and Sprint. In adjacent Wyoming, Cattaraugus, and Chatauqua counties, it's Dobson Cellular (probably calling itself Cellular One) and Verizon, along with PCS carriers. Across the river, it's Rogers AT&T and Bell Mobility along with PCS such as Telus and Fido. > 2. Generally, how can all the cellular telephone companies that offer > services and coverage for any particular location be looked up? I agree that the most practical approach is to look at the ads in a local paper. If you have a lot of free time, you can also look at http://wireless.fcc.gov which has the lists of what carriers are licensed for what areas. Keep in mind that particularly for PCS, not all licensed carriers are providing service yet. 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: Wesrock@aol.com Date: Sun, 14 Jul 2002 09:41:26 EDT Subject: Re: Satellite Celebrates Telstar 1 Fortieth Anniversary In a message dated 7/13/02 10:57:46 PM Central Daylight Time, wb8foz@nrk.com writes: > Do note I sent you private email. > You posted my email in a followup. > I'd appreciate an apology, or at least a mention that we disagree > as to what's mean by telephone service in this context. I looked in the header and it showed "Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom," and so posted my reply to Pat, too. I agree that when I read the the digest later I did not see your post there. If an apology is in order, I certainly offer one. Certainly there is no disagreement over the relative merits of HF radiotelephone vs. cable (and later satellite). But the establishment of overseas voice service by HF radiotelephone, accessible from any telephone, was heralded in its time, too, as a great breakthrough. Wes Leatherock wesrock@aol.com wleathus@yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 14 Jul 2002 11:43:48 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: FCC Chief Slams TV Makers on Digital TV Conversion FCC chief slams TV makers on digital TV conversion - Jul 12, 2002 06:58 PM (Reuters) By Jeremy Pelofsky WASHINGTON, July 12 (Reuters) - U.S. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Powell slammed consumer electronics makers on Friday for an inadequate commitment to accelerating the transition to higher quality digital television. The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) sent a letter to Powell earlier on Friday saying it would include equipment in new sets to receive digital signals within 18 months after a standard was established for connecting digital television sets to a cable system. http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=27819348 ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 14 Jul 2002 14:21:11 -0400 From: dhorvath@cobs.com (David B. Horvath, CCP) Subject: A Few More For the Business Directory. HGH Supplier: To receive more information call us now. TOLL FREE 1-888-621-7300 We must speak to you in person to qualify your usage. All of your questions will be addressed and answered in a friendly, no pressure manner. Our main purpose is to provide you with information so you can make an educated decision. ------------------- Paridise [sic] in the Rockies!-Durango! For Reservations and more information: Or Call 1.888.442.4222 Toll-Free! We are the only Complete Online Reservations for Southwest Colorado! 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 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 775-306-8390 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: mirror.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. --------------------------------------------------------------- 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 #313 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Jul 15 11:59:19 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id LAA29479; Mon, 15 Jul 2002 11:59:19 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2002 11:59:19 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200207151559.LAA29479@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #314 TELECOM Digest Mon, 15 Jul 2002 11:55:00 EDT Volume 20 : Issue 314 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Telecom Update (Canada) #340, July 15, 2002 (Angus TeleManagement) Re: Organization of Telephone Keypads (s falke) Re: Organization of Telephone Keypads (Al Gillis) Re: Organization of Telephone Keypads (Joseph Singer) Re: Organization of Telephone Keypads (James Gifford) Re: Organization of Telephone Keypads (Mark Brader) Re: Organization of Telephone Keypads (Wes Leatherock) Re: Organization of Telephone Keypads (Ed Ellers) Re: Organization of Telephone Keypads (Marcus Didius Falco) Re: FCC Chief Slams TV Makers on Digital TV Conversion (Garrett Wollman) Posting Misunderstanding (was: Satellite Celebrates Telstar) (M. Brader) All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. WE DO NOT PERMIT NAME/EMAIL ADDRESS HARVESTING FROM THIS JOURNAL. 'SALTED' EMAIL ADDRESSES APPEAR HEREIN TO VERIFY THIS. YOU GET SUED IN SMALL CLAIMS COURT IF YOU GET CAUGHT SPAMMING OR SENDING VIRUSES. DON'T DO IT. See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2002 10:46:29 -0400 From: Angus TeleManagement Subject: Telecom Update (Canada) #340, July 15, 2002 ************************************************************ TELECOM UPDATE ************************************************************ published weekly by Angus TeleManagement Group http://www.angustel.ca Number 340: July 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: ** Telus Cutting 6,000 Jobs ** Toronto Airport Unplugs Wireless Carriers ** BCE to Buy Out Lycos? ** Teleglobe Lenders Sue BCE ** CRTC Appointments Extended ** BCE, Rogers Wireless Downgraded by Moody's ** BCI Windup Approved ** Nortel Pension Plan Loses US$1 Billion ** Videotron Sues Union For Vandalism ** AT&T and City of Calgary in Dispute ** RIM Loss Less Than Expected ** Brewery Offers Sponsored Long Distance ** Rogers Increases Cable Rates ** Microcell Subscriber Levels Fall ** Bell Mobility Ends One-Second Billing ** Alcatel Cuts 480 Canadian Jobs ** Cogeco Earnings Down 23% ** Angus Announces Telecom Briefings ============================================================ TELUS CUTTING 6,000 JOBS: Telus announced on July 12 that it will cut 5,000 union positions and 1,000 management positions in its wireline business by the end of 2003 -- a 25% reduction from December 2001 levels. Telus will streamline administrative functions, consolidate 66 call centres to 28, and close all but seven retail stores in Alberta and BC. Layoffs may be required if voluntary retirements do not reach the target levels by October. ** On July 8 and 12, Telus bonds were downgraded by Dominion Bond Rating Service and by Standard & Poor, respectively. ** The Telecommunications Workers Union, which represents many Telus employees, called in early July for CEO Darren Entwistle's resignation. Telus's Board says it has full confidence in him and the current management's strategy. TORONTO AIRPORT UNPLUGS WIRELESS CARRIERS: Last week, following a breakdown in lease negotiations, the Greater Toronto Airports Authority cut power to equipment used by the four wireless carriers at Pearson International Airport. The GTAA is providing free local calling from 800 payphones at the airport; the wireless carriers continue to serve the area from nearby towers. ** The CRTC decided not to order a halt to the shutdown, saying that the carriers had not demonstrated that they would suffer irreparable harm. http://www.crtc.gc.ca/PartVII/eng/2002/8622/b38-01.htm ** In full-page newspaper ads, the carriers charge that GTAA's proposed lease terms are unreasonable, and that the shutdown is extreme and unnecessary. BCE TO BUY OUT LYCOS? A published report says that BCE is negotiating to buy back the 29% of Sympatico it sold to Lycos Inc. in 2000. Lycos, now owned by Terra Networks, was supposed to provide software and content for Sympatico users. TELEGLOBE LENDERS SUE BCE: On July 12, members of the Teleglobe Lending Syndicate filed suit against BCE in Ontario Superior Court, seeking US$1.19 billion in damages. BCE says the claims are without merit and promises to "vigorously defend its position to the fullest extent possible." CRTC APPOINTMENTS EXTENDED: Commissioners Stuart Langford and Andree Noel have been reappointed to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission for five-year terms, ending in November 2007. http://canada.gc.ca/howgoc/oic/pch_e.html BCE, ROGERS WIRELESS DOWNGRADED BY MOODY'S: Moody's Investors Services lowered its debt ratings for two major Canadian carriers on Friday. ** Moody's cited the cost of buying back shares from SBC, and the decision to maintain dividend payments, in cutting BCE's rating to Baa1. ** Rogers Wireless debt was downgraded to junk levels, and Rogers Communications debt was placed under review for a possible downgrade in future. BCI WINDUP APPROVED: Shareholders and noteholders of Bell Canada International have approved a plan to sell the company's remaining assets and distribute the proceeds. NORTEL PENSION PLAN LOSES US$1 BILLION: In 2001, the value of Nortel's employee pension plan fell by a third US$1 Billion -- as a result of the decrease in the price of Nortel stock held by the plan. VIDEOTRON SUES UNION FOR VANDALISM: Videotron has filed a $5 million suit against the union representing 2,200 technicians who have been on strike since May 8. The company claims it has been hit by 120 acts of vandalism during the strike, including cable cuts that stopped service to thousands of customers. AT&T AND CITY OF CALGARY IN DISPUTE: AT&T Canada has asked the CRTC to amend its current access agreement with the City of Calgary to bring its terms in line with the Commission's "Ledcor decision" rules. AT&T says it may seek similar changes to agreements with Halifax, Kitchener, and Vancouver. The issues in each case are similar to AT&T's dispute with Toronto, which is still before the Commission (see Telecom Update #287). http://www.crtc.gc.ca/PartVII/Eng/2002/8690/a4-04.htm RIM LOSS LESS THAN EXPECTED: Research In Motion reports a loss of US$10.8 million in the three months ended June 1, down from a profit of $3.8 million in the same period last year. Analysts had expected a much bigger loss. ** RIM has filed a second lawsuit against California-based Good Technology, alleging patent violations. (See Telecom Update #338) BREWERY OFFERS SPONSORED LONG DISTANCE: Labatt Brewing Company is offering free long distance calls between points in southern Ontario, using Onlinetel Corp. Callers must be over 19, and listen to an ad for Labatt's Blue before the call goes through. ROGERS INCREASES CABLE RATES: Rogers Cable Inc. is raising its minimum basic cable rate to $20/month, an increase for about one quarter of its Ontario customers. Rogers' cable rates were deregulated this year because more than 30% of its customers have access to competitive services, and over 5% have chosen an alternative provider. MICROCELL SUBSCRIBER LEVELS FALL: At the end of June, Microcell had 1.19 million retail subscribers, down from 1.21 million in December 2001. It added about 43,000 customers in Q2 2002 (72% of them prepaid), but removed 90,000 inactive prepaid customers. Churn during the quarter was at 3%. ** Microcell Class B shares have been delisted from Nasdaq. BELL MOBILITY ENDS ONE-SECOND BILLING: On August 19, Bell Mobility will begin rounding calls to the next minute, rather than the next second, for billing purposes. The change follows similar moves by Rogers AT&T Wireless and Telus Mobility. ALCATEL CUTS 480 CANADIAN JOBS: As part of its 10,000 layoffs worldwide (see Telecom Update #339) Alcatel last week gave immediate layoff notices to 480 employees in Canada. Other employees will be required to take five days off without pay by December 31. COGECO EARNINGS DOWN 23%: Cogeco Inc. reports a third quarter profit of $3.75 million, down from $4.85 million a year ago. The company gained 10,899 high-speed Internet customers, but lost 11,237 cable TV customers in the three months ended May 31. ANGUS ANNOUNCES TELECOM BRIEFINGS: Is IP Telephony the wave of the future? When and how will Canadian telecom recover from the slump? Find out at two exclusive briefings by Angus Dortmans Associates and Angus TeleManagement Group. ** "Reinventing Enterprise Communications: Setting Your Strategy for IP Telephony," and "Beyond the Meltdown: A Report Card and Forecast for Canadian Telecom" will be offered once only, in Toronto on October 16. ** See Preview Announcement for early registration discounts. http://www.angustel.ca/Angus-Seminars.pdf ============================================================ 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. We do not give Telecom Update subscribers' e-mail addresses to any third party. For more information, see http://www.angustel.ca/update/privacy.html. =========================================================== 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: s falke Subject: Re: Organization of Telephone Keypads Organization: Prodigy Internet http://www.prodigy.com Date: Sun, 14 Jul 2002 22:49:19 GMT It used to be amusing to watch user reaction to a 2500 set with 123 and 789 reversed to match calculator/adding machine. (Two jumpers in the keypad had to be flopped.) s falke >>> I remember reading (I think here) a few years ago that touch-tone >>> keypads were set up opposite of calculator keypads in order to slow >>> down dialing. However, I just read this article, and I was wondering >>> if I've just been wrong all this time: > But Touch-tone predates calculators by many many years, I was in > high school in circa 1973 when I saw my 1st calculator. ------------------------------ From: Al Gillis Subject: Re: Organization of Telephone Keypads Date: Sun, 14 Jul 2002 16:02:33 -0700 Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com Well, Hudson, the world wasn't invented just when you came along! :-) Adding machines, mechanical devices dating from the late 1800s, were around long before Touch Tone. Allen Wales Company in Ithaca, New York, was one, as was Burroughs (who remembers their "Sensamatic" keyboard?) The more advanced of these adding machines had a ten key keyboard laid out just like the section of keys to the right side of your computer keyboard. Going along with these machines was an army of ladies (and a few men) who could really make these things fly! Those ladies are likely the reason for the notion of slowing down the dialing. Hudson Leighton wrote in message news:telecom20.313.12@telecom-digest.org: >>> I remember reading (I think here) a few years ago that touch-tone >>> keypads were set up opposite of calculator keypads in order to slow >>> down dialing. However, I just read this article, and I was wondering >>> if I've just been wrong all this time: > But Touch-tone predates calculators by many many years, I was in high > school in circa 1973 when I saw my 1st calculator. ------------------------------ From: Joseph Singer Subject: Re: Organization of Telephone Keypads Date: Sun, 14 Jul 2002 16:03:39 -0700 Organization: Drizzle Reply-To: joeofseattle@yahoo.com On Sun, 14 Jul 2002 07:39:56 EDT, PaulCoxwell@aol.com wrote: >> (2) is the correct answer, though (3) probably had an influence. Bell >> Labs did a *lot* of experimenting with different layouts to come up >> with the one that was finally announced in 1959, as well as >> experimenting to find the best size, shape, color combination, >> required pressure and downward travel distance for the keys. > What a pity that so many modern manufacturers ignore these factors and > produce keypads which are awkward to use. So much for "progress." I'm sometimes taken aback by the new "improved" design of telephones. As an example I was working in an office that had a fairly new Siemans telephone system. The desk sets were very attractive, but the only problem was that whoever designed the sets only was concerned with form and not function. Why anyone would design 'dial' keypads with convex rather than concave buttons mystifies me. There's a good reason that Bell when they came out with touch tone made the keys concave rather than flat or convex. Personal replies most likely will not be read. Please reply in the newsgroup. ------------------------------ From: James Gifford Subject: Re: Organization of Telephone Keypads Date: Sun, 14 Jul 2002 13:59:43 -0700 Organization: Nitrosyncretic Press Hudson Leighton wrote: >>> I remember reading (I think here) a few years ago that touch-tone >>> keypads were set up opposite of calculator keypads in order to slow >>> down dialing. However, I just read this article, and I was wondering >>> if I've just been wrong all this time: > But Touch-tone predates calculators by many many years, I was in > high school in circa 1973 when I saw my 1st calculator. Uh ... mechanical calculators predate the last century. | James Gifford - Nitrosyncretic Press | | http://www.nitrosyncretic.com for the Heinlein FAQ & more | ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Organization of Telephone Keypads Date: Sun, 14 Jul 2002 17:10:07 -0400 (EDT) From: msb@vex.net (Mark Brader) Hudson Leighton writes: > But Touch-tone predates calculators by many many years, I was in > high school in circa 1973 when I saw my 1st calculator. That date is about right for *pocket-sized, electronic* calculators. Even discounting the abacus, which to some extent is just a memory aid, calculating machines are 350 years older than that. See my chronology at . What I don't have a date for is the first calculators to use a single numeric keypad, where you'd enter the number 666 by pressing the same 6-key 3 times, and that's what's relevant to the thread. (Key-driven calculators go back to the 19th century, but like the earliest pre- decessor of the dial phone, they had separate hardware for each digit position: on these calculators if you had to enter the number 666, you'd press 3 different 6-keys, meaning 600, 60, and 6 -- or it might be $6.66 with the different keys meaning $6, 60c, and 6c.) I do know from personal experience that electronic calculators using a keypad existed for desktop use before pocket ones appeared in the 1970s, but I don't know how long before, and I don't know offhand if there were mechanical or electromechnical ones before that that used a keypad. Mark Brader "A hundred billion is *not* infinite Toronto and it's getting less infinite all the time!" msb@vex.net -- Isaac Asimov, "The Last Question" My text in this article is in the public domain. ------------------------------ From: wesrock@aol.com (Wes Leatherock) Date: 14 Jul 2002 23:48:22 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: Organization of Telephone Keypads On Sat, 13 Jul 2002 22:28:29 -0500 hudsonl@skypoint.com (Hudson Leighton) wrote: > But Touch-tone predates calculators by many many years, I was in > high school in circa 1973 when I saw my 1st calculator. Certainly. But there were 10-key mechanical adding machines many, many years before that which had the key layout later used on calculators. When the question was first raised (by many members of the public and others) about why the Touch-Tone key layout was different, the comparison was with such 10-key mechanical adding machines. Wes Leatherock wesrock@aol.com wleathus@yahoo.com ------------------------------ From: Ed Ellers Subject: Re: Organization of Telephone Keypads Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2002 00:50:46 -0400 Hudson Leighton wrote: > But Touch-tone predates calculators by many many years, I was in high > school in circa 1973 when I saw my 1st calculator. There were mechanical calculators *long* before Touch-Tone was developed; the better ones were rather large and expensive and only found in offices that really needed the added capability, but adding machines were quite common in business (and some homes) and most of them had the 789/456/123/0 layout. (When 10-key channel selection was introduced on deluxe color TV sets in the 1970s, most manufacturers used the "123" Touch-Tone layout, but Zenith started with a two-column vertical layout -- a mistake later copied by RCA -- and then went to the "789" calculator layout. Around this time they introduced the Space Phone, which was a speakerphone built into the TV set. This was answer-only in the first year, but the following year they added dialing capability, and *then* changed to the "123" layout that was generally accepted in the TV business.) ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 14 Jul 2002 22:28:11 -0400 From: Marcus Didius Falco Subject: Re: Organization of Telephone Keypads hudsonl@skypoint.com (Hudson Leighton) wrote: >>> I remember reading (I think here) a few years ago that touch-tone >>> keypads were set up opposite of calculator keypads in order to slow >>> down dialing. However, I just read this article, and I was wondering >>> if I've just been wrong all this time: > But Touch-tone predates calculators by many many years, I was in > high school in circa 1973 when I saw my 1st calculator. There have been 10 key (actually a bit more) electro-mechanical calculators since the 50s. They were in fairly widespread use particularly by accountants, because they could be very fast and you could "touch type" on them. Direct replies are unlikely to be read. To reply use the address below: falco_marcus_didius yahoo.co.uk ------------------------------ From: wollman@khavrinen.lcs.mit.edu (Garrett Wollman) Subject: Re: FCC Chief Slams TV Makers on Digital TV Conversion Date: 14 Jul 2002 21:02:11 GMT Organization: MIT Laboratory for Computer Science In article , Monty Solomon wrote: > WASHINGTON, July 12 (Reuters) - U.S. Federal Communications Commission > Chairman Michael Powell slammed consumer electronics makers on Friday > for an inadequate commitment to accelerating the transition to higher > quality digital television. Of course, it was really the FCC which screwed this one up (and did it ever) by not providing for cable must-carry for digital signals. (The cable companies' 64QAM smokescreen having been successfully deployed time and time again.) Garrett A. Wollman | [G]enes make enzymes, and enzymes control the rates of wollman@lcs.mit.edu | chemical processes. Genes do not make ``novelty- Opinions not those of| seeking'' or any other complex and overt behavior. MIT, LCS, CRS, or NSA| - Stephen Jay Gould (1941-2002) ------------------------------ Subject: Posting Misunderstanding (was: Satellite Celebrates Telstar 1...) Organization: - Date: Sun, 14 Jul 2002 17:21:49 EDT From: msb@vex.net (Mark Brader) Wes Leatherock: > I looked in the header and it showed "Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom," > and so posted my reply to Pat, too. Depending on the software in use, the presence of a Newsgroups line in an email message header can mean either (1) that the same message is being simultaneously posted to a newsgroup, or (2) that the message is an emailed response to a newsgroup posting. It is therefore impossible to rely on it to know whether the message was also posted, unless you know what the sender's software does. Some people consider that when posting a response to a newsgroup it is courteous and normal to also email it simultaneously to the original poster, and therefore don't mention when they are doing that. Others consider that simultaneous mailing and posting is *discourteous* unless you say explicitly that you're doing it, and therefore that if they don't say that a message is also being posted to a newsgroup, you should assume that it isn't. Therefore if the sender doesn't say, you can't make any assumption based on that either, unless you know what the sender does. Thus, such misunderstandings occur. And in case the moderator is thinking of rejecting this message as being off-topic, I point out that it *is* about telecommunications. Mark Brader, Toronto | "You often seem quite gracious, in your way." msb@vex.net | --Steve Summit My text in this article is in the public domain. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well Mark, it is very rare that I exclude any messages on the basis they are 'off-topic', as long as they are reasonably close, as yours is. I *do* exclude about two hundred messages each day which are spam and/or viruses. I do not exclude any messages which are sensible and written in good faith by guys who want to make a point of some kind. I *acknowledge* ALL messages received (except I don't go out of my way to respond to the several spams and viruses each day) with an 'autoreply' type message which tells the sender his email has reached me. If someone does NOT get an autoreply, then it is very likely I did NOT get the original email message. If you got an autoreply, and your message was not just some foolish spam or virus thing, you will most likely see it in print here within a day or two. I would say about 75 percent of the mail which comes to the telecom-digest.org email address is spam/virii however. Because I am not the best moderator on the net, there are some occassions when, as a klutz, my clumsy fingers accidentally delete something before I get it into print. Usually I see that when it happens and can *sometimes* reconstruct the message from a backup copy, or else I tell the original sender and beg his pardon and ask for the message to be repeated. That all goes back to my brain damage you see. My brain aneurysm in November, 1999 *still* causes me a lot of grief. Anyway, Mark, as verocious as I may appear, I really try to accomodate all readers/writers here all the time. (except spammers). 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 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 775-306-8390 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. 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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 #314 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Jul 15 14:29:57 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id OAA00593; Mon, 15 Jul 2002 14:29:57 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2002 14:29:57 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200207151829.OAA00593@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #315 TELECOM Digest Mon, 15 Jul 2002 14:30:00 EDT Volume 20 : Issue 315 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson French Dialing (was Re: Worldwide Dialing Rules) (Seth Theriault) Re: Want to Dial 0845 Number (in UK) From Canada (John R. Levine) Re: Want to Dial 0845 Number (in UK) From Canada (Linc Madison) Re: Want to Dial 0845 Number (in UK) From Canada (Alan Burkitt-Gray) Re: Want to Dial 0845 Number (in UK) From Canada (Michael D. Sullivan) Re: Want to Dial 0845 Number (in UK) From Canada (Scott Dorsey) Re: Organization of Telephone Keypads (Robert Lee) Re: Organization of Telephone Keypads (Robert Bonomi) Re: ILEC Confused or is it Just Me? (Linc Madison) How to Connect an Old TT Phone to an RJ11 (Brinkmang@aol.com) Some Changes in My Life Recently (Patrick Townson) All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. WE DO NOT PERMIT NAME/EMAIL ADDRESS HARVESTING FROM THIS JOURNAL. 'SALTED' EMAIL ADDRESSES APPEAR HEREIN TO VERIFY THIS. YOU GET SUED IN SMALL CLAIMS COURT IF YOU GET CAUGHT SPAMMING OR SENDING VIRUSES. DON'T DO IT. See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: slt@mail.utexas.edu (Seth Theriault) Subject: French Dialing (was Re: Worldwide Dialing Rules) Date: 14 Jul 2002 18:39:18 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Hello all, Let me add my two cent-imes based on my experience living in France both before and after the 18 October 1996 shift to ten-digit dialing. At the time, customers were told that some of the changes, like the introduction of 0800, 00, and 112, were for European standardization. Alan Burkitt-Gray wrote: > And 08 is for all non-geographic fixed numbers, not just toll free -- > which is 0800. For example, SNCF, the rail company's information > number is 08 91 67 68 69, which is charged at EUR0.23 a minute. Looks like the SNCF has changed its numbers, again ;-) In the good (or bad) old days, most of the non-geographic numbers began were in the 36 XX form: 36 63 XX XX -- local rate 36 67, 36 68, 36 69, 36 70 (all followd by XX XX) -- pay-per-minute stuff Generally, you just put 08 in front to convert to 10 digits. Then FT and friends started offering many more prefixes: 0801/0810, 0802/0820, 0803/0825 to name a few. Here's a link to some current rate information a whole list of numbers: http://www.pagesjaunes.fr/pj.cgi?html=commun/tarif.html It comes from the online Yellow Pages maintained by France Telecom. As such it's in French, although pretty easy to decipher. The 1996 shift also allowed the DOM-TOMs to be incorporated progressively into the 10-digit system, but retain their international country codes for incoming calls from abroad. > Unfortunately it wasn't as simple as that. There might have been one > or two departments that matched the area code, but not in > general. They were all made up to eight digits in late 1984 -- in the > regions by adding the two-digit area code to the six-digit local > number, in urban Paris by adding 4 to the seven-digital local number > and in suburban Paris by adding 6 to the seven-digit local number. The change was made on 25 October 1985, a Friday. The old pre-1985 system was largerly based on departments and many contiguous departments had similar numbers. In many cases, your entire department is a local call. Let me offer a couple of corrections to the above: 1) Ile-de-France (Paris and surrounding) did have seven digit numbers. Its area codes were: 1 - Paris and the "petite couronne" (the old Seine department) 3 - Northwest/western suburbs (old Seine-et-Oise, now the Yvelines and the Val d'Oise) 6 - Southern/eastern suburbs (current Essonne, Seine-et-Marne) From within Ile-de-France, you could dial intra-region (e.g., Paris-Versailles) calls with 7 digits without an area code; when calling from the provinces, you dialed 1,3, or 6 as appropriate, then the local number. I am pretty sure that calls from Ile-de-France to numbers in the Oise (a department north of Paris) were also accessible via this system, but am not postive about them. I believe the Oise numbers had a "4" prepended (perhaps that was its area code) when they were moved into the provinces in 1985. An old payphone in a school I worked in had a list of all Ile-de-France exchanges and the rates to them. Now that was some serious kludging. Obviously, this limited the number of possible CO exchanges before the 1985 change. At that time, all of Ile-de-France was placed in the "1" region, while the rest of the country was consolidated as has been discussed. Paris/petite couronne numbers had a "4" put on the front, while the others just prepended the "3" or "6" as approriate. When I was living in France, some businesses has begun to be assigned local numbers that began with 5, an extremely common thing now. 2) Paris was not alone with 7-digit local numbers, pre-1985. I know for a fact that Alsace numbers had seven digits with an area code of "8". According to news reports around the time of the big change to ten digits,the 1996 change was one of the final steps in a plan that began with the 1985 changes. > There used to be a saying, around the mid 1970s, that half the > population of Paris was waiting for a phone line to be installed, > while the other half was waiting for a dial tone. No kidding. The mother of an ex-girlfriend tells a great story of how she got her local deputy (representative in the National Assembly) to intervene on her behalf to get a line installed in the mid-1970s. She was a schoolteacher alone with a newborn during the day -- a very good compelling story. Apparently, the installers showed up the very next day. As for waiting for dial tones, the 16 and 19 were remnants of the days when you called them and they were answered by operators. You would call the "16" and say "Give me the 878 07 84 in Paris" and the operator would call you back with the connection; 19 was the international operator. According to some sources, it was possible for you to have a telephone number of "2" if you lived in a small town. There is a rather funny skit about getting in touch with someone with a number like this, but it's name escapes me now. I have a feeling the PTT decided at some point to have standard numbers for things like the police (17), fire (18), and medical help (15). Information was always 12, while 10 was the local operator. There is a rather funny skit about this... As for the state of the phone system, I have also heard that the Minitel's killer app -- the phone directory -- was the direct result of France's massive quest to rebuild the languishing phone system in the 1970s and 80s. According to the story, the rapid addition of subscribers render the white pages quickly obsolete, sometimes even before it was printed or distributed. When I signed up for phone service in 1996, I was even offered the "Minitel option": give up printed directories for a "free" Minitel. Of course, the only model offered gratos is the Minitel 1, which is rarely available except in post offices where its days are numbered. Finally, a word on competition and dialing patterns. When long-distance calls first were opened to competition, you always had to use a selection code (think of it as universal dial-around). I was told by a Cegetel ("le 7") operator that eventually, I would be able to choose Cegetel as my preferred carrier, eliminating the need to start my dialing with "7" instead of "0". The "0" prefix was going to be for your default provider (as with 1+ dialing in the U.S.), which was France Telecom for all residential customers. FT was also assigned a prefix that was non-zero, "8", in anticipation of these changes. I am not sure how this all worked out because I just as last-mile competition was being order by the regulators at the ART. Seth ------------------------------ Date: 14 Jul 2002 22:35:55 -0400 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: Want to Dial 0845 Number (in UK) From Canada Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > I have an email acccount with a Brit ISP. They have recently sent > me an email saying I have to call them via their 0845 number or > they'll delete my account, and there'll be no way to re-instate it. > I will not be in the UK before the time for this is up; and I _like_ > this email address. So call it. I have no trouble calling 0845 numbers from the US as +44 845 nnn nnnn, so I would expect that it'd be equally easy to call from Canada. I see that Sprint now charges C$.07 /min to call the UK. If the ISP is BT Openworld and the 0845 number is 0845 756 0000, a little poking around their web site revealed that you can also call them at +44 121 478 9200. 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: Want to Dial 0845 Number (in UK) From Canada Date: Sun, 14 Jul 2002 23:37:12 -0700 Organization: LincMad.com Consulting Reply-To: Telecom@LincMad.com In article , jt wrote: [needs to call UK 0845 from Canada to keep e-mail provider happy.] > I've had some email exchanges and the droids say that they cannot > change this. They also say I won't be able to dial the 0845 number > myself from here. First and foremost, try dialing the 0845 number from Canada and see if it works. Just dial 011-44-845-xxx-xxxx. It may go through, charged as an ordinary call to the UK. If that doesn't work, try the "home country direct" service. They may be able to put you through to an 0845 number, charged as an ordinary calling-card call back to the UK. For example, for BT, call 1-800-782-4707 or 011-800-50607080. If you use a different UK carrier, check their web site for the applicable number from Canada. I don't know specifics, but you might also be able to use an Internet telephony service. Lastly, have someone in the UK call the 0845 number on your behalf. www dot LincMad dot com / Telecom at LincMad dot com Linc Madison * San Francisco, California ------------------------------ From: Alan Burkitt-Gray Subject: Re: Want to Dial 0845 Number (In UK) From Canada Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2002 10:08:58 +0100 jt wrote: > ... a Brit ISP ... have recently sent me an email saying I have to > call them via their 0845 number or they'll delete my account ... They > also say I won't be able to dial the 0845 number myself from here > [Canada?]. ... Any ideas?" Three ideas: 1 -- Some 0845 numbers are diallable -- you could try. 2 -- If you have a BT (or maybe other UK phone company) calling card, try using that. The +1 800 access number from North America that BT uses takes you into their system in the UK, from which you dial numbers as if you were in the UK. So 0845 numbers are available that way. 3 -- Get someone in the UK to dial the call for you and then get you in on a conference call; or you call the UK person and ask them to make the conference call (it's now an on-demand service from BT, though very poorly promoted). Alan Burkitt-Gray Editor, Global Telecoms Business Euromoney Institutional Investor plc, Nestor House, Playhouse Yard, London EC4V 5EX, UK tel +44 20 7779 8518 fax +44 20 7779 8492 e-mail aburkitt@euromoneyplc.com www.globaltelecomsbusiness.com ------------------------------ From: Michael D. Sullivan Subject: Re: Want to Dial 0845 Number (in UK) From Canada Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2002 03:45:48 GMT On Sat, 13 Jul 2002 14:59:47 -0400, jtaylor@spamkiller.hfx.andara.com wrote: > I have an email acccount with a Brit ISP. They have recently sent me > an email saying I have to call them via their 0845 number or they'll > delete my account, and there'll be no way to re-instate it. I will > not be in the UK before the time for this is up; and I _like_ this > email address. > They call this "new and improved". > I've had some email exchanges and the droids say that they cannot > change this. They also say I won't be able to dial the 0845 number > myself from here. Try dialing it, but leave off the leading "0". I.e., 110-44-845-xxxx, etc. Often, a leading 0 or 1 is used in dialing within a country but should be omitted when calling internationally. If 0845 numbers are something special, like 800 or 900 numbers in N. America, this won't work. It's worth trying, though. If that doesn't work, you may be able to reach this number through an international operator (that would probably be Stentor in Canada). Alternatively, see if BT or Mercury has a North American dialable number for routing calls to the UK. AT&T and MCI have such numbers in the UK and you can use them to reach a U.S. 800 number that is not ordinarily dialable internationally. Best of luck. Michael D. Sullivan Bethesda, MD, USA (delete NOSPAM from address to mail me) ------------------------------ From: kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) Subject: Re: Want to Dial 0845 Number (in UK) From Canada Date: 15 Jul 2002 13:20:18 -0400 Organization: Former users of Netcom shell (1989-2000) In article , jt wrote: > I have an email acccount with a Brit ISP. They have recently sent me > an email saying I have to call them via their 0845 number or they'll > delete my account, and there'll be no way to re-instate it. I will > not be in the UK before the time for this is up; and I _like_ this > email address. > They call this "new and improved". > I've had some email exchanges and the droids say that they cannot > change this. They also say I won't be able to dial the 0845 number > myself from here. Call a friend in the UK with call forwarding. Have them forward you. Scott "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." ------------------------------ From: Paul A Lee Subject: Re: Organization of Telephone Keypads Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2002 13:55:34 -0400 Steve Brack wrote (in part): > I remember reading (I think here) a few years ago that touch-tone > keypads were set up opposite of calculator keypads in order to slow > down dialing. I think Steve may be thinking of the layout of the QWERTY keyboard, which was developed by typewriter pioneer Christopher Shoales (a/k/a: Sholes). Shoales was embarrassed in front of potential investors by the tendency of his original Type Writer to jam as soon as its operator became familiar with using its alphabetically-ordered keyboard. He devised a keyboard layout that was specifically intended to prevent crossing of parts of the original mechanism. That layout also had the effect of slowing the typist, and that effect is still with us over 125 years later. Hudson Leighton wrote (in part): > But Touch-tone predates calculators by many many years, I was in > high school in circa 1973 when I saw my 1st calculator. I recalled that Marchant had a fairly successful 10-key adding machine by the 1920s, so I did a little research, and found http://www.vintagecalculators.com/. A chronology on that site indicates that the first 10-key adder appeared in 1902. A little more searching (on "+Marchant +'10-key'") found that the Marchant machine hit the market around 1911. The 10-key machine apparently didn't become widely successful until the 1950s, when the size of a printing/adding mechanism started to approach the size of the 10-key keyboard and the price became very affordable. I saw _my_ first electronic calculator around 1968. I think it was a Hewlett-Packard, being used for engineering calculations on bridges. It had an incandescent tube (Nixie) display and a keyboard on the "head" (desktop) portion of the rig. The head was connected to the "chassis" by a cable that was nearly two inches in diameter. The chassis sat on the floor and was about the size of a large microwave oven. It must have thrown about 2000 BTUs and probably consumed several hundred watts. I recall someone telling me that it cost $8000 (what's that -- about $75,000 today?). The position of the '0' on rotary dials and the basis of the touch tone pad layout have been covered by others. Paul A Lee Voice: +1 717 730-8355 Sr Telecom Engineer [Voice & Transmission] Fax: +1 717 975-3789 Rite Aid Corporation, Telecomm, 30 Hunter Lane, Camp Hill, PA 17011-2410 Subject: Re: Organization of Telephone Keypads From: robert@bonomi.invalid Organization: Not Much Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2002 10:07:21 GMT In article , Hudson Leighton wrote: >>> I remember reading (I think here) a few years ago that touch-tone >>> keypads were set up opposite of calculator keypads in order to slow >>> down dialing. However, I just read this article, and I was wondering >>> if I've just been wrong all this time: > But Touch-tone predates calculators by many many years, I was in > high school in circa 1973 when I saw my 1st calculator. You're thinging of "electronic" calculators. Electro-MECHANICAL ones, and "10 key adding machines" date to before WW-II. (Note: Pre early computers, 'calculator' was a _job_description_ -- the person who operated a 'calculating machine'. U.S. War Dept employed hundreds of calculators -- 'number crunching' for the tables used in aiming various big guns so that they hit the desired targed. _Lots_ of combinatons of distance to target, elevation, wind-speed, powder-load, projectile size/shape/weight to consider -- for a _stationary_ gun shooting at a _stationary_ target. Add in the fact that either, or both, may be moving, and at different speeds and/or in different directions, and the number of calculations required for *one* gun design gets *really* big. Adding-machine/calculator pads were designed for _repetitive_ use on a desk-top machine. A form of "touch typing", incuding using the thumb for 0 (and, on some machines, 'double-zero'. 'Early' such machines had 'implied decimals', often fixed at '2 places', sometimes variable (with a slide-switch that selected somewhere between 0 and 6 [typically] places). *NO* decimal key on the keyboard. A related consideration is that the 'smaller' digits occur more oftern than the larger ones, when considered across random values consisting of a random number of digits. Counter-intuitive, but true. Those considerations influenced the design of the '10-key' adding-machine keyboard layout. It was "faster" to use, by putting the "more frequently occuring" digits in 'closer' reach (i.e. towards the bottom of the keypad) when used on a desk-top machine. "Typical" use involves entering _series_ of numbers. Historically, adding machines were _rarely_ used for 'trivial' calculations -- like adding _2_ numbers. More likely to involve 20-30, or more, numbers being summed. 10-key adding machines/calcualtors were almost all electric-powered. They were -not- 'inexpensive', casual purchases. _Primary_ audience consisted of (what would be considered today) "power users". Telephone key-pads had a *different* set of ergonomic considerations -- numbers were 'fixed length', with near-equal probabilities of occurance for any digit; the 'repetitive use' factor was *orders*of*magnitude* lower -- a "calculator" (the human variety) might be entering one number every 1-2 seconds, for *hours* at a time, a 'telemarketer' might do one number every 60-90 seconds on average; Much higher proportion of 'casual' use -- entering a -single- number in one session; telephone 'keys' had *alpha* labelling on them (most of the keys, that is) -- in North America, the standard reading direction is "left-to-right, top-to-bottom". Things 'read' easier if laid out in that sequence; bigger porportion of 'casual' users, relative to 'power data entry' -- better *overall* usability by making things easier for the casual user, even if it is 'different' for the power entry user. Given the different 'demands' of the product, and the different 'target audience', it is *not*at*all*surprising* that different solutions were employed. In article , wrote: >> (2) is the correct answer, though (3) probably had an influence. Bell >> Labs did a *lot* of experimenting with different layouts to come up >> with the one that was finally announced in 1959, as well as >> experimenting to find the best size, shape, color combination, >> required pressure and downward travel distance for the keys. > What a pity that so many modern manufacturers ignore these factors and > produce keypads which are awkward to use. So much for "progress." _Some_ people still do design that way. And you can benefit from that research *if* you're willing to pay for it. That kind of research/experimentation, *DOES* cost money. _Surprisingly_ large amounts of it. There are trade-offs involved: In 'feel', 'reliability', and 'cost'. A 'sealed' "chicklet-style" keypad costs a lot less, and *is* more 'reliable' -- in a 'hostile' envionment (dirt,dust,liquids, etc.) -- than a quality (say "cherry micro-switch" based) full-travel keyboard of the same number of keys. ------------------------------ From: Paul A Lee Subject: Re: Organization of Telephone Keypads Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2002 13:55:34 -0400 Steve Brack wrote (in part): > I remember reading (I think here) a few years ago that touch-tone > keypads were set up opposite of calculator keypads in order to slow > down dialing. I think Steve may be thinking of the layout of the QWERTY keyboard, which was developed by typewriter pioneer Christopher Shoales (a/k/a: Sholes). Shoales was embarrassed in front of potential investors by the tendency of his original Type Writer to jam as soon as its operator became familiar with using its alphabetically-ordered keyboard. He devised a keyboard layout that was specifically intended to prevent crossing of parts of the original mechanism. That layout also had the effect of slowing the typist, and that effect is still with us over 125 years later. Hudson Leighton wrote (in part): > But Touch-tone predates calculators by many many years, I was in > high school in circa 1973 when I saw my 1st calculator. I recalled that Marchant had a fairly successful 10-key adding machine by the 1920s, so I did a little research, and found http://www.vintagecalculators.com/. A chronology on that site indicates that the first 10-key adder appeared in 1902. A little more searching (on "+Marchant +'10-key'") found that the Marchant machine hit the market around 1911. The 10-key machine apparently didn't become widely successful until the 1950s, when the size of a printing/adding mechanism started to approach the size of the 10-key keyboard and the price became very affordable. I saw _my_ first electronic calculator around 1968. I think it was a Hewlett-Packard, being used for engineering calculations on bridges. It had an incandescent tube (Nixie) display and a keyboard on the "head" (desktop) portion of the rig. The head was connected to the "chassis" by a cable that was nearly two inches in diameter. The chassis sat on the floor and was about the size of a large microwave oven. It must have thrown about 2000 BTUs and probably consumed several hundred watts. I recall someone telling me that it cost $8000 (what's that -- about $75,000 today?). The position of the '0' on rotary dials and the basis of the touch tone pad layout have been covered by others. Paul A Lee Voice: +1 717 730-8355 Sr Telecom Engineer [Voice & Transmission] Fax: +1 717 975-3789 Rite Aid Corporation, Telecomm, 30 Hunter Lane, Camp Hill, PA 17011-2410 ------------------------------ From: Linc Madison Subject: Re: ILEC Confused or is it Just Me? Date: Sun, 14 Jul 2002 23:15:29 -0700 Organization: LincMad.com Consulting Reply-To: Telecom@LincMad.com In article , Justa Lurker wrote: > If it were not true it would be funny ... > [switched to CLEC, switched back to ILEC, all is well...] Except for > one little detail: When we call 411 it is billed by the CLEC and not > the ILEC. > OK, here is where it gets interesting. We call the ILEC and they say > that they cannot fix the problem! They say that the service you get > when you dial 411 is (and I quote) "completely random". They say > that the FCC will not allow them to direct the 411 calls to them. Utter and complete nonsense. Simply put, they are lying to you to conceal the fact that they have no idea how to fix the problem. I was once in an appliance store buying a microwave/convection oven. The ever-so-helpful salesman pointed out that this oven would use less energy than the electric oven in my apartment, because it runs on 110V instead of the 220V used by the built-in oven. Since it's a lower voltage, well, obviously it must use less energy. I made a point of finding a different salesman to ring up my purchase, specifically so that the first one would not get credit for that sale. My guess is that the CLEC was acting as a reseller of the ILEC's service, and something just didn't get switched back. Try filing a repair ticket (since this is more than just a one-time billing snafu) and asking to speak directly to one of the technicians who handles programming the switch itself. I hope that you have the names of the customer "service" rep and the "supervisor" who gave you such bogus information. They need to be re-educated, either through additional training or through the school of unemployment. www dot LincMad dot com / Telecom at LincMad dot com Linc Madison * San Francisco, California ------------------------------ From: Brinkmang@aol.com Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2002 02:12:45 EDT Subject: How to Connect an Old TT Phone to an RJ11 Typically in the phone you will have 2 terminals, L1 and L2. This is tip/ring or battery and ground. In very old phones the TT pad is polarity sensitive and if it's reversed you can't break dial tone. Tip is green (+48) and ring is red (-48) on a loop start line. Connect the line side from the telco to these leads in the 42A jack or biscuit block (as it's sometimes called in the industry). The color code in IW or Jake as it's known, is green; red; yellow and black. Only green and red are used if you have a POTS subscriber line (not a party line -- these guys probably don't exist any more and that's another subject). The RJ11 has 6 leads and typically will use only the green and red. If the color code is different in the RJ11, match these up: green to white/blue; red to blue/white; yellow to white/orange, and black to orange/white.On the RJ11 the tip and ring are probably the 2 inside wires. Hope this helps. George Brinkman ------------------------------ From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Changes in My Life Lately Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2002 13:49:00 EDT Just a note to those of you have some personal aquaintence with me to bring you up to date: My mother, eighty years old, elected to move to the local "old people's home" over the past few days. 'Penn Manor' is just a few blocks down the street from me, so its easy to go and visit her from time to time. She started talking about it nearly two months ago, but made it official on the first of July, and actually got moved and her phone and cable turned on the tenth of the month. Old people's homes have not been warehouse-like structures for many years. This one is sort of nice, with her own apartment on the third floor. We got her moved out (of the family home) last Monday/Tuesday and into her new accomodations at that time. Of course, my father has been gone now for ten years and since my brother lives in Chicago and my sister lives in Orlando, Florida, that leaves me all alone here. But it was for the best since she was not going anywhere or doing much other than staying in her room most of the time. Now she gets care from and with other people her age at Penn Manor. I've been feeling very alone, and lonely this past week. Any of you who have had to put a parent in a home know just how I feel. Anyway, I thought I would mention it. I'll make do, I guess. Patrick Townson ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. 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End of TELECOM Digest V20 #315 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Jul 16 00:12:01 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id AAA03699; Tue, 16 Jul 2002 00:12:01 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2002 00:12:01 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200207160412.AAA03699@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #316 TELECOM Digest Tue, 16 Jul 2002 00:12:00 EDT Volume 20 : Issue 316 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Organization of Telephone Keypads (Justin Time) Re: Organization of Telephone Keypads (Robert Casey) Re: Organization of Telephone Keypads (Wes Leatherock) Re: Organization of Telephone Keypads (PaulCoxwell@aol.com) Re: Organization of Telephone Keypads (Geoffrey Welsh) Re: Want to Dial 0845 Number (in UK) From Canada (Kevin Buhr) Re: Want to Dial 0845 Number (in UK) From Canada (Geoffrey Welsh) Need Some Panasonic Help (John Oliver) AT&T Used Phones (Bruce Eggan) Re: Strange Long-Distance Problem [UPDATE] (William Levant) Wireless Network Link Between Buildings? Recommendations? (Danny Ocean) Pay Phone Question? (Cox Maj Calvin F) Re: Cellular - Caller Pays in Cincinnati (Diamond Dave) News Headlines of Interest 7/16/02 (Monty Solomon) All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. WE DO NOT PERMIT NAME/EMAIL ADDRESS HARVESTING FROM THIS JOURNAL. 'SALTED' EMAIL ADDRESSES APPEAR HEREIN TO VERIFY THIS. YOU GET SUED IN SMALL CLAIMS COURT IF YOU GET CAUGHT SPAMMING OR SENDING VIRUSES. DON'T DO IT. See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: a_user2000@yahoo.com (Justin Time) Subject: Re: Organization of Telephone Keypads Date: 15 Jul 2002 12:17:41 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ hudsonl@skypoint.com (Hudson Leighton) wrote in message news:: >>> I remember reading (I think here) a few years ago that touch-tone >>> keypads were set up opposite of calculator keypads in order to slow >>> down dialing. However, I just read this article, and I was wondering >>> if I've just been wrong all this time: > Touch-tone predates calculators by many many years, I was in high school > in circa 1973 when I saw my 1st calculator. And you were too young to remember the 10 key adding machines ... ------------------------------ From: Robert Casey Subject: Re: Organization of Telephone Keypads Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2002 16:51:27 -0400 Organization: wa2ise We had Ma Bell touch tone phones in our offices back in 1988. As a prank, I took an officemate's phone and took it apart one night. I rearranged the touchtone pad keys both physically and electronically to resemble the calculator pattern. The electronic conversion was to unsolder two wires and swap them on the top row and the 3rd from the top row. Ma Bell keypads are screwed together, so it's easy to do the key swaps. Then I put it back on his desk. The next day he was wondering if he was losing his mind or something when he dialed. Only hazard to this trick is that it could waste time if you needed to dial 911. ------------------------------ From: wesrock@aol.com (Wes Leatherock) Date: 16 Jul 2002 00:48:54 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: Organization of Telephone Keypads On Mon, 15 Jul 2002 13:55:34 -0400 Paul A Lee palee@riteaid.com wrote: > The 10-key machine apparently didn't become widely successful until the > 1950s, when the size of a printing/adding mechanism started to approach > the size of the 10-key keyboard and the price became very affordable. I have a 10-key mechanical adding machine that I bought in the 1950s at Montomgery Ward and I still use it, although the platen has gotten so hard or the printing mechanism so that if it has to print more than three or four characters in an entry (0000.00 vis-a-vis 0.00) the entire entry is very weakly printed. Interestingly enough, ribbons and paper adding machine rolls for the machine are still available. I get mine at Office Depot. On Sun, 14 Jul 2002 16:02:33 -0700 Al Gillis alg@aracnet.com wrote: [ ... ] > Going along with these machines was an army > of ladies (and a few men) who could really make these things fly! > Those ladies are likely the reason for the notion of slowing down the > dialing. I haven't seen any discussion of why the telco would want to slow down dialing. Touch-Tone was promoted both internally and to the public as a way to speed up dialing. Presumably customers liked this, and it had the advantage to the telco of keeping the inside and outside plant tied up for a shorter time. Wes Leatherock wesrock@aol.com wleathus@yahoo.com ------------------------------ From: PaulCoxwell@aol.com Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2002 14:35:50 EDT Subject: Re: Organization of Telephone Keypads > I'm sometimes taken aback by the new "improved" design of telephones. > As an example I was working in an office that had a fairly new Siemans > telephone system. The desk sets were very attractive, but the only > problem was that whoever designed the sets only was concerned with > form and not function. Why anyone would design 'dial' keypads with > convex rather than concave buttons mystifies me. There's a good > reason that Bell when they came out with touch tone made the keys > concave rather than flat or convex. I've seen a lot of phones appearing in the shops in England with convex buttons as well. Some of them also have "rows" and "columns" which go up/down/left/right at all sorts of funny angles. I have yet to see any telephone keypad design to equal that of the WE 2500 set. ------------------------------ From: Geoffrey Welsh Subject: Re: Organization of Telephone Keypads Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2002 23:29:48 -0400 Organization: Bell Sympatico Roy Smith wrote: > Now we're putting out consumer devices with user interfaces > designed by deranged idiots (or possibly marketing droids). Why the redundancy? Sorry, couldn't resist. ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Want to Dial 0845 Number (in UK) From Canada From: Kevin Buhr Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2002 21:31:29 GMT jt writes: > I have an email acccount with a Brit ISP. They have recently sent me > an email saying I have to call them via their 0845 number or they'll > delete my account, and there'll be no way to re-instate it. I will > not be in the UK before the time for this is up; and I _like_ this > email address. On this page: http://www.0870-0800-info.com/0845_telephone_numbers.asp they say: An 0845 number gives you both national and international coverage without the need to set up local branches. Today it is possible to access 0845 numbers from most overseas countries by having callers dial their international access code, followed by 44-845 xxx xxxx. In other words, 011 44 845 XXX XXXX should work. By the way, you're *sure* you're talking to your ISP, right? Some companies appear to offer 0845 numbers that pay the number owner per minute, like a 900 number here (but at a much lower rate). You aren't being scammed, are you? Kevin Buhr ------------------------------ From: Geoffrey Welsh Subject: Re: Want to Dial 0845 Number (in UK) From Canada Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2002 23:28:09 -0400 Organization: Bell Sympatico Michael D. Sullivan wrote: > (that would probably be Stentor in Canada). Just a little note: now that the two biggest ILECs in Canada (Bell Canada and Telus) have become competitors for at least some services in their counterparts' territories, the Stentor alliance is dead. ------------------------------ From: joliver@john-oliver.net (John Oliver) Subject: Need Some Panasonic Help Date: 15 Jul 2002 19:31:49 GMT I have a KX-T7050 handset connected to our D1232 KSU. Everyone else has a different handset, and nobody can tell me how to program my phone. Immediately, I want to set it so unanswered calls or calls while my extension is busy go to voicemail. I can't find a manual or anything. If anyone can answer that question, that would be fantastic, but I'd really like to find some info or a manual that will allow me to figure this stuff out for myself. Needless to say, this system was pieced together, so there's no dealer that I can call for support. John Oliver http://www.john-oliver.net/ joliver@john-oliver.net http://www.mrtg-monitoring.com/ ------------------------------ From: bruce eggan Subject: AT&T Used Phones Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2002 15:20:56 -0500 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com AT&T telephone systems are 5 to 15 years old. In good condition. They are Merlin, legend partner, sprit, and sys 75,85,35,25. 2,500 phones alone. The total value of everything was $250,000 on march 2, 2002. We want to sell the entire inventory to one party. "MAKE AN OFFER!" Ask for Bruce USA 1-952-935-5400 E-MAIL egganbj@skypoint.com ------------------------------ From: Wlevant@aol.com Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2002 20:13:24 EDT Subject: Re: Strange Long-Distance Problem [UPDATE] I think I'll have ketchup on my words. I spoke too soon. In last week's episode, I complained about a problem with our IXC at work that prevented faxes from syncing up with the remote end, but had no effect on voice calls. My parting words were "...and they'll NEVER admit it was their problem." WRONG-O. They called today. They said "you were absolutely right, we had a region-wide problem last Thursday. We're terribly sorry." They didn't say WHAT the problem was (and I didn't take the call, so I couldn't ask directly), but that munching sound you hear is me eating my words. They get all kinds of points from me just for 'fessing up; having them tell me what went wrong would be gravy. Bill ------------------------------ From: vipvideo@onebox.com (Danny Ocean) Subject: Wireless Network Link Between Buildings? Product Recommendations? Date: 15 Jul 2002 17:57:52 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ This question may not be appropriate for the telecom forum, but some of you may be "cross-platform" people (like me), so here goes: I am attempting to link two offices (neighboring buildings) where the client wishes to share his LAN with his son's office for basic file sharing and non-critical Internet access. Cabling is not an option. Distance is approximately 150', with no obstructions other than the glass office windows. Any suggestions or product recommendations are greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance, S. Kaye VIP VIDEO & COMMUNICATIONS, Inc. vipvideo@onebox.com ------------------------------ From: Cox Maj Calvin F Subject: Pay Phone Question? Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2002 21:23:03 -0400 Sir: I was wondering if you could help me. I have been receiving incoming calls from a number that I am told is a pay phone. I believe an individual has bought a pay phone for their home and because of the inability to associate a location with a pay phone, is able to make anonymous calls. Is there anything I can do to find out who owns/bought this pay phone? Thank you very much for your time. Calvin Cox [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You did not say if the phone calls you are receiving are annoying, harassing or if you would rather not receive them. If any of those conditions apply, then anonymous call block and/or privacy manager from telco should help. 'Anonymous call block' may not work if the party is merely 'number unavailable' or 'outside area' without any specific attempt by the caller to block it as in *67. Also, try the use of 'call trace' which is *57 in many areas (check with telco in your community). Call trace *WILL* produce a number for you, but sometimes on a delayed basis. With the number in hand, you can then backtrack through various cross reference directories to see what they have to say. Do you have any idea as to the party's address? PAT] ------------------------------ From: Diamond Dave Subject: Re: Cellular - Caller Pays in Cincinnati Organization: The BBS Corner / Diamond Mine On-Line Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2002 02:31:57 GMT Here in the US and I assume in Canada, the cell phone owner pays for the airtime. I know in Europe and the rest of the world it is the exact opposite. The Cincinnati, OH "experiment" was just that. I don't know if it really caught on there, as it never really caught on in the rest of the US or Canada (thank goodness!) Dave On 12 Jul 2002 15:48:18 -0700, rob51166@yahoo.com (Rob) wrote: > Diamond Dave wrote in message > news:: >> I heard at one time that Cincinnati had "Cellular - Caller Pays" >> (landline user pays instead of the wireless phone user). >> Does this still exist? If so, is it by certain prefixes? And if so, >> does anyone know which ones? And which company or companies? > That's always been the case here in the UK. Whoever makes the call to > a mobile cellular phone pays for that call. The cell phone owner only > pays for calls made FROM his/her phone. Then again, our phone system > differs greatly from that used in the NANP area. Our geographical > area codes begin with 01 or 02 (with code lengths varying from 3 to 5 > digits, including the initial '0'), while personal numbers, calls to > pagers and calls to cellular phones have 5-digit prefixes beginning > with 07 (i.e. 5-digit prefixes for cellular phones begin with > 076,077,078,079 while the 5-digit prefix for personal numbers begin > 070) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2002 22:18:17 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: News Headlines of Interest 7/16/02 Deadline Set in Digital TV Fight - Jul 15, 2002 08:25 PM (AP Online) By D. IAN HOPPER AP Technology Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - The chairman of the House Commerce Committee has set a September deadline for agreement between the technology and entertainment industries on how to deliver the crisper pictures and interactive features of digital television. Rep. Billy Tauzin, R-La., said Monday that congressional hearings and round-table discussions have brought some progress, but he worries that the process will drag on past Congress' 2006 deadline for digital television to reach all Americans. http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=27846376 CBS chief sees gradual rise in TV product placement - Jul 15, 2002 08:12 PM (Reuters) By Steve Gorman PASADENA, Calif., July 15 (Reuters) - CBS President Leslie Moonves said on Monday that product placement will inevitably grow more common on network television with the advent of digital video recorders that let viewers skip commercials. But he said some TV series, particularly dramas, would prove more resistant to in-show advertising than "reality" fare such as "Survivor" and "Big Brother," where brand names of soft drinks, beer, sneakers and cars already proliferate. http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=27846275 Cell phone number-portability likely on hold in US - Jul 15, 2002 01:41 PM (Reuters) By Jeremy Pelofsky WASHINGTON, July 15 (Reuters) - American consumers are likely to find out on Tuesday how much longer they will have to wait before they will be able to switch their mobile telephone service provider without losing their telephone number. On Tuesday, the Federal Communications Commission is poised to rule on a request by carriers like Verizon (NYSE:VZ)(ISEL:VOD) and Sprint PCS (NYSE:FON)(NYSE:PCS) to delay the FCC's previous decision to allow consumers, by Nov. 24, to switch providers without losing their phone numbers. Nearly a third of consumers are already changing carriers on a regular basis, indicating little concern over losing a number when they change services. Providers say they are fighting the "portability" rule because it will only cause the provider-switching phenomenon to grow and, in turn, lead to more loss of customers and more damage to bottom lines across the mobile telephone industry. The industry has argued that the costs for revamping their networks are high -- as much as $1 billion next year. But consumer groups argue that the FCC rule, when implemented, will enhance competition and keep prices lower. http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=27839961 ------------------------------ 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 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 775-306-8390 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: mirror.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. 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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 #316 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Jul 17 14:09:31 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id OAA13199; Wed, 17 Jul 2002 14:09:31 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 14:09:31 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200207171809.OAA13199@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #317 TELECOM Digest Wed, 17 Jul 2002 14:09:00 EDT Volume 20 : Issue 317 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson House OKs Life Sentences For Hackers (Monty Solomon) Re: Organization of Telephone Keypads (Robert Dover) Re: Organization of Telephone Keypads (joe@obilivan.net) Re: Organization of Telephone Keypads (Scott Dorsey) Re: Organization of Telephone Keypads (Julian Thomas) Re: Organization of Telephone Keypads (Hudson Leighton) Re: Telescum, was Re: TeleZapper? (Robert Dover) Re: Wireless Network Link Between Buildings? (John R. Levine) Re: Wireless Network Link Between Buildings? (Julian Thomas) Re: Wireless Network Link Between Buildings? (Jim Hopkins) Re: Wireless Network Link Between Buildings? (AES) Re: Wireless Network Link Between Buildings? (Colin Sutton) Re: Pay Phone Question? (Stanley Cline) Re: Pay Phone Question? (Gail M. Hall) All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. WE DO NOT PERMIT NAME/EMAIL ADDRESS HARVESTING FROM THIS JOURNAL. 'SALTED' EMAIL ADDRESSES APPEAR HEREIN TO VERIFY THIS. YOU GET SUED IN SMALL CLAIMS COURT IF YOU GET CAUGHT SPAMMING OR SENDING VIRUSES. DON'T DO IT. See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2002 01:54:34 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: House OKs Life Sentences For Hackers By Declan McCullagh Staff Writer, CNET News.com July 15, 2002, 6:00 PM PT WASHINGTON--The House of Representatives on Monday overwhelmingly approved a bill that would allow for life prison sentences for malicious computer hackers. By a 385-3 vote, the House approved a computer crime bill that also expands police ability to conduct Internet or telephone eavesdropping without first obtaining a court order. The Bush administration had asked Congress to approve the Cyber Security Enhancement Act (CSEA) as a way of responding to electronic intrusions, denial of service attacks and the threat of "cyber-terrorism." The CSEA had been written before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks last year, but the events spurred legislators toward Monday evening's near-unanimous vote. http://news.com.com/2100-1001-944057.html [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: My, my, my ...those Brave and Courageous legislators. Standing up for Truth, Justice, and what has sadly become the American Way. How long do you think it will be until most of the innovators/hackers on the net will have been put away for life based on their apparent inability to get along with the rest of the George Bush society-types? A search warrant? Bush says we don't need one. Exactly what does the phrase 'cyber-terrorism' mean, anyway? Oh I know. That's when some dimbulb sysadmin who can't help him/herself leaves so many security holes in their product/service and someone with a modicum of intelligence finds the holes, points it out to the dimbulb who then takes umbrage at it. Look at how many serious security problems there were with government web sites a couple years ago, and how humiliation by defacing their web sites was the *only* thing those federal employee types could understand. The Army, the White House (the .gov version, not the .com version), the FBI, many others could not get their acts together. I personally would have been ashamed and mortified to put some of their web sites on line without completely debugging them ... but not to worry, the Brave and Courageous federal congresscritters and their allies, the Brave and Courageous men and women of Law Enforcement are there to protect your stupidity, and the American Way. Okay fellow netizens: the line to prison for life forms behind me. Don't forget to take along a pair of clean underwear and socks. Oh, and remember they may do you like they do so many people, and come up with all sorts of different charges, assuming they can make those charges stick instead. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Robert Dover Subject: Re: Organization of Telephone Keypads Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2002 11:11:10 -0500 Organization: Nortel Al Gillis wrote: > Going along with these machines was an army > of ladies (and a few men) who could really make these things fly! > Those ladies are likely the reason for the notion of slowing down the > dialing. I remember reading that the typewriter key layout was selected for much the same reason: slow down the typist to avoid mechanical key lockup. -BD ------------------------------ From: joe@obilivan.net Subject: Re: Organization of Telephone Keypads Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2002 16:07:16 GMT Organization: Cox Communications The analysis is good, but it leaves out the fact that calculators (more correctly at the time: adding machines) lended themselves to touch keying without looking at the keys. Any accountant or bookkeeper worth their salt could operate an adding machine (especially an electric adding machine) without ever looking at the keypad, those being able to keep one's eyes on the ledger or worksheet. The DTMF pad came from an entire different universe, as discussed in the analysis below. Having the small numbers at the top makes sense there. Steve Brack wrote: > I remember reading (I think here) a few years ago that touch-tone > keypads were set up opposite of calculator keypads in order to slow > down dialing. However, I just read this article, and I was wondering > if I've just been wrong all this time: > http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mphonedial.html > Dear Straight Dope: > I've wondered for a long time, why do the number keys on a telephone > count from top to bottom, but calculators and computer keyboards count > from the bottom up? -- Owen Hutchins, Philadelphia PA > SDSTAFF Dex replies: > We get this question a lot. The problem with answering is that people > expect a logical, well-thought out reason -- like marketing surveys or > cost savings or a fierce design battle between the telephone companies > and the calculator companies. Alas, not so. The answer, in a word, is: > tradition. > You may ask, how did these traditions get started? > I'll tell you: I don't know. Well, I don't know all. ------------------------------ From: kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) Subject: Re: Organization of Telephone Keypads Date: 16 Jul 2002 15:36:40 -0400 Organization: Former users of Netcom shell (1989-2000) In article , Wes Leatherock wrote: > On Mon, 15 Jul 2002 13:55:34 -0400 Paul A Lee palee@riteaid.com wrote: >> The 10-key machine apparently didn't become widely successful until the >> 1950s, when the size of a printing/adding mechanism started to approach >> the size of the 10-key keyboard and the price became very affordable. > I have a 10-key mechanical adding machine that I bought in the > 1950s at Montomgery Ward and I still use it, although the platen has > gotten so hard or the printing mechanism so that if it has to print > more than three or four characters in an entry (0000.00 vis-a-vis > 0.00) the entire entry is very weakly printed. Try applying methyl acetate (Rawn Rubber Renewer or equivalent) to the platen and leaving it for a day or two. scott "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." ------------------------------ From: jata@jata-mj.net (Julian Thomas) Subject: Re: Organization of Telephone Keypads Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 11:07:26 -0400 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com In , on 07/13/02 at 10:28 PM, hudsonl@skypoint.com (Hudson Leighton) said: > But Touch-tone predates calculators by many many years, I was in high > school in circa 1973 when I saw my 1st calculator. Au contraire. 10 key adding machines and calculators (both with banks of keys and some - Friden - with an auxiliary 10 key keyboard for multiplier entry) were around in the 1950's if not earlier. Julian Thomas: jt . jt-mj @ net http://jt-mj.net remove letter a for email (or switch . and @) In the beautiful Finger Lakes Wine Country of New York State! Boardmember of POSSI.org - Phoenix OS/2 Society, Inc http://www.possi.org "God made the integers, the rest is the work of man" Kronecker ------------------------------ From: hudsonl@skypoint.com (Hudson Leighton) Subject: Re: Organization of Telephone Keypads Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2002 00:13:02 -0500 Organization: MRRP In article , James Gifford wrote: > Hudson Leighton wrote: >>>> I remember reading (I think here) a few years ago that touch-tone >>>> keypads were set up opposite of calculator keypads in order to slow >>>> down dialing. However, I just read this article, and I was wondering >>>> if I've just been wrong all this time: >> But Touch-tone predates calculators by many many years, I was in >> high school in circa 1973 when I saw my 1st calculator. > Uh ... mechanical calculators predate the last century. Ok now that everybody has got their shot in, when I hear the word calculator I usually think of small plastic handheld boxes with LCD/LED readouts. The big nosy electric thingies are adding machines. My brother and I were the terror of the accounting office when my dad would take us into the office, we loved those nosy machines with all the buttons and paper tape. And then we discovered accounting machines!!!! Of course we were 8 and 10 years old at the time. Hudson http://www.skypoint.com/~hudsonl ------------------------------ From: Robert Dover Subject: Re: Telescum, was Re: TeleZapper? Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2002 10:13:37 -0500 Organization: Nortel danny burstein wrote... > danny "funny how politicians exempted themselves from the Do Not Call > registries" burstein Which is one of the reasons I went with Southwestern Bell's Privacy Manager. Telejunk calls went to zero immediately. John Higdon wrote... > Telemarketers tend to avoid business lines... I got a real chuckle a few weeks ago when AT&T called my office number and asked if I wanted to change LD provider... Bob Dover Nortel Networks ------------------------------ Date: 17 Jul 2002 00:20:56 -0400 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: Wireless Network Link Between Buildings? Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > I am attempting to link two offices ... > Distance is approximately 150', with no obstructions other than the > glass office windows. This sounds like a straightforward application for Wi-Fi. Get a pair of Linksys WAP11 access points, configure them in bridge mode. They should work well over 150' with nothing but windows in the way. As an added bonus, you'll get Wi-Fi access for nearby computers at each end, 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: jata@jata-mj.net (Julian Thomas) Subject: Re: Wireless Network Link Between Buildings? Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 11:15:27 -0400 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com In , on 07/15/02 at 05:57 PM, vipvideo@onebox.com (Danny Ocean) said: > I am attempting to link two offices (neighboring buildings) where the > client wishes to share his LAN with his son's office for basic file > sharing and non-critical Internet access. Cabling is not an option. > Distance is approximately 150', with no obstructions other than the glass > office windows. There may be optical links, and wireless is an option. Start at www.blackbox.com or do a search on optical lan links. Julian Thomas: jt . jt-mj @ net http://jt-mj.net remove letter a for email (or switch . and @) In the beautiful Finger Lakes Wine Country of New York State! Boardmember of POSSI.org - Phoenix OS/2 Society, Inc http://www.possi.org 99 percent of lawyers give the rest a bad name. ------------------------------ From: Jim Hopkins Subject: Re: Wireless Network Link Between Buildings? Reply-To: bwanajim@swbell.net Organization: Prodigy Internet http://www.prodigy.com Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2002 22:28:36 GMT Danny Ocean wrote: > This question may not be appropriate for the telecom forum, but some > of you may be "cross-platform" people (like me), so here goes: > I am attempting to link two offices (neighboring buildings) where the > client wishes to share his LAN with his son's office for basic file > sharing and non-critical Internet access. Cabling is not an option. > Distance is approximately 150', with no obstructions other than the > glass office windows. Any suggestions or product recommendations are > greatly appreciated. > Thanks in advance, > S. Kaye > VIP VIDEO & COMMUNICATIONS, Inc. > vipvideo@onebox.com I just yesterday used two Proxim RangeLan2 wireless access points to link two buildings at the university where I work after heat and water damaged the fiber cable between them. It's not as fast as the fiber but it works reasonably well and was easy to set up - simply program a few options via serial port and then plug 10BaseT cables in on each end. I had the same situation - line of sight between two windows - but I'm shooting about 400 feet with no problem. Sorry, I don't have price information, this some equipment we had on hand from another project. Their web page is www.proxim.com. Jim Hopkins "A man's got to know his limitations." - Dirty Harry ------------------------------ From: AES Subject: Re: Wireless Network Link Between Buildings? Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2002 10:17:55 -0700 In article , vipvideo@onebox.com (Danny Ocean) wrote: > This question may not be appropriate for the telecom forum, but some > of you may be "cross-platform" people (like me), so here goes: > I am attempting to link two offices (neighboring buildings) where the > client wishes to share his LAN with his son's office for basic file > sharing and non-critical Internet access. Cabling is not an option. > Distance is approximately 150', with no obstructions other than the > glass office windows. Any suggestions or product recommendations are > greatly appreciated. > Thanks in advance, > S. Kaye > VIP VIDEO & COMMUNICATIONS, Inc. > vipvideo@onebox.com Trivial problem for free-space laser links, which are commercially available. However a cheaper alternative at that distance may be one of the rapidly emerging wireless networking products, e.g. Airport on the Mac. ------------------------------ From: Colin Sutton Subject: Re: Wireless Network Link Between Buildings? Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2002 13:56:11 GMT Organization: BigPond Internet Services (http://www.bigpond.net.au) Danny Ocean wrote in message news:telecom20.316.11@telecom-digest.org: > I am attempting to link two offices (neighboring buildings) where the > client wishes to share his LAN with his son's office for basic file > sharing and non-critical Internet access. Cabling is not an option. > Distance is approximately 150', with no obstructions other than the > glass office windows. Any suggestions or product recommendations are > greatly appreciated. See http://www.turnpoint.net/wireless/has.html Colin ------------------------------ From: Stanley Cline Subject: Re: Pay Phone Question? Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2002 01:22:39 -0400 Organization: Roamer1 Communications - Dunwoody, GA, USA Reply-To: sc1-news@roamer1.org On Mon, 15 Jul 2002 21:23:03 -0400, Cox Maj Calvin F wrote: > anonymous calls. Is there anything I can do to find out who > owns/bought this pay phone? Thank you very much for your time. If it's a real payphone it might be listed at a site such as www.payphone-directory.org etc. > as in *67. Also, try the use of 'call trace' which is *57 in many > areas (check with telco in your community). Call trace *WILL* produce > a number for you, but sometimes on a delayed basis. With the number in In all areas I know of, on a successful trace via *57, the info is made available ONLY to law enforcement. That said, *69 (call return) often will read back the number that called; it does here in BellSouth land. 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 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well Stan, you could always tell the Brave and Courageous men and women of Law Enforcement that the person who owns the pay phone is a 'cyber-terrorist'. Maybe he was hacking at your phone system, or otherwise calling and annoying you. They would not even bother to get a search warrant; Dubya told them they did not need to bother with those formalities. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Gail M. Hall Subject: Re: Pay Phone Question? Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2002 17:12:56 -0400 Reply-To: gmhall@apk.net Hello, Maj. Cox: On Mon, 15 Jul 2002 21:23:03 -0400, in comp.dcom.telecom, you (Cox Maj Calvin F ) wrote: You wrote to a group (mailing list and usenet newsgroup), but it sure looks nice to see "Sir" there. It means you are polite! :-) > Sir: > I was wondering if you could help me. I have been receiving incoming > calls from a number that I am told is a pay phone. I believe an > individual has bought a pay phone for their home and because of the > inability to associate a location with a pay phone, is able to make > anonymous calls. Is there anything I can do to find out who > owns/bought this pay phone? Thank you very much for your time. > Calvin Cox > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You did not say if the phone calls you > are receiving are annoying, harassing or if you would rather not > receive them. If any of those conditions apply, then anonymous call > block and/or privacy manager from telco should help. 'Anonymous call > block' may not work if the party is merely 'number unavailable' or > 'outside area' without any specific attempt by the caller to block it > as in *67. Also, try the use of 'call trace' which is *57 in many > areas (check with telco in your community). Call trace *WILL* produce > a number for you, but sometimes on a delayed basis. With the number in > hand, you can then backtrack through various cross reference > directories to see what they have to say. Do you have any idea as to > the party's address? PAT] In our area, the call trace feature is a pay-per-use feature. Here, though, they don't give the customer the information about who the caller is. It is expected that you will call the police to report the call(s), and the telco will give that information to the police. I've never opted to use the trace feature, so I don't know what information they do give the customer. Surely we would get some kind of incident code or something so we can tell the police what to ask for. If these are harassing calls or stalking calls, you might want to set up a tape recorder to record the calls if this is legal in your state. If the caller leaves messages on your answering machine, save the messages for the authorities. There is technology available to law-enforcement people to analyze the voice to help nab the perpetrator, even if he tries to disguise his voice. I hope the calls you are getting are NOT as sinister as my suspicions based on your message. Gail from Ohio USA [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well Gail, he is a *major* with the United States *Marine Corps* for gawds sakes! He did not say if these phone calls were even harassing or not, or if it is just a matter of personal curiousity. But if it is of harrassing intent, then maybe Dubya can see to it the cyber-terrorist gets a life sentence for having a phone like that on his premises, without having first gotten permission from the Brave and Courageous Congresscritters in charge of that sort of thing. 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 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 775-306-8390 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: mirror.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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End of TELECOM Digest V20 #317 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Jul 17 18:43:48 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id SAA15014; Wed, 17 Jul 2002 18:43:48 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 18:43:48 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200207172243.SAA15014@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #318 TELECOM Digest Wed, 17 Jul 2002 18:43:00 EDT Volume 20 : Issue 318 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Deregulation's Big Lie (Monty Solomon) Cable & Wireless (Scott Dance) Nortel Venture Call Detail Reporting Utilities (Phil Pucci) Re: Organization of Telephone Keypads (Michael Wares) Re: French Dialing (was Re: Worldwide Dialing Rules (J-Bernard Condat) Re: Cellular - Caller Pays in Cincinnati (Joseph Singer) Re: Need Some Panasonic Help (Dave Phelps) Re: Need Some Panasonic Help (James Gifford) What is Tier 1 ... (denis@pickaxe.net) Telecom in Turks and Caicos Islands (Robert A. Fink, M. D.) News Headlines of Interest 7/17/02 (Monty Solomon) Another Pioneering Company For Directory (David B. Horvath, CCP) Re: Organization of Telephone Keypads (Fritz Whittington) Re: House OKs Life Sentences For Hackers (Daniel J. McDonald) All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. WE DO NOT PERMIT NAME/EMAIL ADDRESS HARVESTING FROM THIS JOURNAL. 'SALTED' EMAIL ADDRESSES APPEAR HEREIN TO VERIFY THIS. YOU GET SUED IN SMALL CLAIMS COURT IF YOU GET CAUGHT SPAMMING OR SENDING VIRUSES. DON'T DO IT. See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2002 13:18:42 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Deregulation's Big Lie FCC chairman Michael Powell says the WorldCom debacle may result in more telecom mergers. So who ends up losing? We all do, explains one industry expert. By Katharine Mieszkowski July 16, 2002 | If the latest multibillion-dollar accounting scandal shuts down WorldCom, a worst-case scenario could see some 20 million customers losing their dial tone. To prevent this data-death fallout, Federal Communications Commission chairman Michael Powell suggested, in an interview in Monday's Wall Street Journal, that a Baby Bell might be allowed to buy the nation's second-largest long-distance carrier to keep the phone and data lines open. Wait. A large regional phone carrier eating up a major long-distance provider? "Hello, this is Ma Bell calling!" This isn't how things were supposed to happen. The breakup of the AT&T monopoly in 1984 was designed to end monopoly control of phone services. The further deregulation of the telecom industry after the Telecom Reform Act of 1996 also promised that increased competition would bring lower prices and better service to consumers. But Robert McChesney, a professor at the Institute of Communications Research at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, argues that it's precisely the deregulation of the telecommunications industry that has led to the current industry crisis. And according to McChesney, Powell is little more than a tool of free-market absolutists, accelerating the reconcentration of control in the industry -- only this time, without any government oversight to make sure that customers don't get taken to the cleaners. The author of "Telecommunications, Mass Media, and Democracy: The Battle for the Control of U.S. Broadcasting, 1928-1935" and "Rich Media, Poor Democracy: Communication Politics in Dubious Times," McChesney explained his views in a phone interview with Salon. http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2002/07/16/telecom_crisis/index.html [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: At the time of one of the decisions by the Supremes regarding the old 'Bell System' back in the 1950's, AT&T was forbidden by the court to ever acquire any more telephone operating companies. It seems the court at that period in time -- 1950's -- already felt AT&T/Bell was getting way too big for its britches, and in fact AT&T back then had just come through a period of buying up whatever it could in the post-depression era. All the old rural telecoms (once they had *finally* gotten their depression-era mortgages paid off; AT&T didn't want any of that grief) found that although they no longer had their REA-backed mortgages to deal with, they no longer could find farmer's wives and daughters to man the switchboards, or anyone to go out and repair the lines, etc, so when Mother Company came along and offered to take the telephone exchange off their hands for a bargain price, they quickly gave in and sold for a small loss in most cases. The government found all that most distasteful to say the least: AT&T cried 'poor boy' in the 1920-30's when it came to the business of installing telephone lines and instruments in rural America (so the Rural Electrification Administration had do it with taxpayer's money); AT&T likewise was in deepest grief when it came to building the telephone exchanges for said farmers or giving them a decent break on separations and settlements when it came time to hook the wires into the Bell System network, (so the REA had to guarentee the mortgages with everything else) but for some reason, when the farmers managed to pay off the mortgage or debt service on the telephone cooperative society and would have been in pretty good condition if they had been able to modernize and get employees/operators, etc suddenly luck turned better for Ma Bell also. In her greed, she looked at the hundreds of telephone cooperative societies all over America and was going to start her 1900's Ted Vail routine all over again: Sell to us or we will run you out of business anyway. So many of the telephone cooperatives considered that, and like the bachelor moving out of his life-long apartment into a new dwelling place realized it would be much easier to move with a check in his pocket for several hundred thousand dollars rather than taking all those stacks of boxes, dishes, books, etc to his new place. So they said "sold to the highest (only) bidder" and handed it over to Bell, which set about installing new dial systems, etc. The Supremes said to Bell, "You are greedy", and as part of a decision involving computers (which Bell wanted to get into) agreed to a trade off. Bell could 'have' the computer business, which is where the money was soon to be, but in turn they were forbidden to buy up any more telephone operating companies the way they had just gotten through raping all the rural telephone cooperative exchanges/societies. But the Supremes added one other twist to the thing: *if a telephone company is either grossly mismanaged or in imminent danger of bank- rupty or in fact has suspended operations, then AT&T *must* purchase the picked-over remains, turn over the proceeds of the sale to the government to pay back all the trouble the REA and President Roosevelt had with Mother Company during the depression, and proceed to run the newly acquired company with the proper dilgence, etc.* I dunno if that rule is still in effect or not. The Baby Bells are the the overgrown children of the late Ma Bell, and thus subject to any impositions still in effect on Ma. MCI is certainly a good candidate for 'grossly mismanaged and ready for bankrupty category. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Scott Dance Reply-To: sbdance@artwebsites.net Subject: Cable & Wireless Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 00:31:04 GMT Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net Has anyone heard anything about Cable & Wireless USA announcing that they will no longer be selling or servicing Voice (switched and dedicated) as well as some Data Services (Frame Relay)? Scott Dance ------------------------------ From: pdpucci@execpc.com (Phil Pucci) Subject: Nortel Venture Call Detail Reporting Utilities Date: 17 Jul 2002 10:37:35 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ I sure hope one of you experienced Nortel mavens can share some advice on how I should proceed to convert call log data captured from an older Nortel Venture telephone system's Enhanced Feature Adapter (EFA). One of its features is a serial port that provides both outbound and inbound call data (call detail recording or CDR) in a couple of formats. We have had ours set to the default format "CDR In English" (see below for sample) but "CDR as SL-1 data" is an option. If anyone has information on the field sizes I could cobble some code together to convert this data into a format that would allow me to import it into a spreadsheet like Excel or a database like Microsoft Access. Better yet, if a utility that converts this data into typical ASCII file formats (CSV, DIF, WKS, XLS, MDB, DBF, etc.) already exists please point me to it! Call Log sample: ---------- Record No: 114 Incoming call Phone ID: 02 Phone name: Office Line: 1 Number: 414-555-1212 Name: Jones, John Duration: 00:00:11 Time/Date: MAY 01 4:15:55pm ---------- Record No: 115 Outgoing call Phone ID: 04 Phone name: Basement Line: 2 Number: 414-555-1212 Name: Weather Report Duration: 00:01:06 Time/Date: MAY 01 7:51:32pm To complicate this slightly, the Venture line was sold to a company named Aastra. Basic information can be found at: www.aastra.com/products/phones/venture/us/ventadapt.html If you need more specific information, please respond here or send me an email message. Thanks in advance, pdp ------------------------------ From: wares@fordham.edu (Michael Wares) Subject: Re: Organization of Telephone Keypads Date: 17 Jul 2002 11:04:28 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ msb@vex.net (Mark Brader) wrote in message news:: > I do know from personal experience that electronic calculators using > a keypad existed for desktop use before pocket ones appeared in the > 1970s, but I don't know how long before, and I don't know offhand if > there were mechanical or electromechnical ones before that that used > a keypad. I remember using an electromechanical adding machine with a keypad around 1962 or 63. It wasn't a new machine then; it probably dated from the 1950s. Michael Wares ------------------------------ From: jbc Subject: Re: French Dialing (was Re: Worldwide Dialing Rules Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2002 11:30:28 +0200 Organization: Chrystol, B.P. 59, 93402 Saint-Ouen Cedex, France Bonjour, slt@mail.utexas.edu (Seth Theriault) writte 14 Jul 2002 18:39:18 -0700 > Let me add my two cent-imes based on my experience living in France > both before and after the 18 October 1996 shift to ten-digit dialing. > At the time, customers were told that some of the changes, like the > introduction of 0800, 00, and 112, were for European standardization. As a telecom specialist, I appreciate your opinion, but I mind that the reality will be not as easy. The lost of power of France Telecom again the new comers like Cegetel (7-beginning phone numbers), Tele2 (4-) and others explain the complexity of the dialing plan. Yeterday in the street, I look at a man that will be extremely ill at ease. I dial 112 on my Orange's portable phone ... and will have the daily voice: "all line of the emergency services are busy, call later". I was on the Champs-Elyses. The ART is an incredible good medium between the users, the telcos and the phone companies. I remember a stupid story 20 years ago. An American boss of the greatest worldwide computer company in the world visit Paris and try to contact his Macintosh in the prestigious Ritz's hotel room. I dial the letter I N T E R N E T on the phone ... and will have a poor little old lady extremely confuse to have all the time American tourists trying to contact analogical modems at this number! Regards, Jean-Bernard Condat CHRYSTOL B.P. 59, 93402 Saint-Ouen Cedex, France condat@chrystol.com tel:/fax: 0153013874 ------------------------------ From: Joseph Singer Subject: Re: Cellular - Caller Pays in Cincinnati Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2002 10:37:55 -0700 Organization: Drizzle Reply-To: joeofseattle@yahoo.com On Tue, 16 Jul 2002 02:31:57 GMT, Diamond Dave wrote: > Here in the US and I assume in Canada, the cell phone owner pays for > the airtime. I know in Europe and the rest of the world it is the > exact opposite. > The Cincinnati, OH "experiment" was just that. I don't know if it > really caught on there, as it never really caught on in the rest of > the US or Canada (thank goodness!) Caller pays cellular was tried about five years ago here in Seattle. It did not fly. Caller pays cellular will never work in North America as long as cellular is not differentiated by cellular only "area" codes. Personal replies most likely will not be read. Please reply in the newsgroup ------------------------------ From: Dave Phelps Subject: Re: Need Some Panasonic Help Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2002 07:37:56 -0500 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com I have the user guides posted on my website. Try www.tippenring.com/docs#panasonic Having a bit of internet trouble right now, but hopefully by the time you read this, I'll have it up. In article , joliver@john-oliver.net says... > I have a KX-T7050 handset connected to our D1232 KSU. Everyone else > has a different handset, and nobody can tell me how to program my > phone. Immediately, I want to set it so unanswered calls or calls > while my extension is busy go to voicemail. I can't find a manual or > anything. If anyone can answer that question, that would be > fantastic, but I'd really like to find some info or a manual that will > allow me to figure this stuff out for myself. Needless to say, this > system was pieced together, so there's no dealer that I can call for > support. Dave Phelps Phone Masters Ltd. deadspam=tippenring ------------------------------ From: James Gifford Subject: Re: Need Some Panasonic Help Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2002 08:52:54 -0700 Organization: Nitrosyncretic Press John Oliver wrote: > I have a KX-T7050 handset connected to our D1232 KSU. Everyone else > has a different handset, and nobody can tell me how to program my > phone. Immediately, I want to set it so unanswered calls or calls > while my extension is busy go to voicemail. I can't find a manual or > anything. If anyone can answer that question, that would be > fantastic, but I'd really like to find some info or a manual that will > allow me to figure this stuff out for myself. Needless to say, this > system was pieced together, so there's no dealer that I can call for > support. The KX-TD1232 can be programmed from a handset (sort of), but I think it requires a digital-series station, 72xx or 74xx, to do so. The best way to program it is with a PC, a serial cable and either Panasonic's software (good luck finding it or getting it to work with your specific version of the box) or VoiceMail Master. Email me if you have any specific questions - I have a TD1232 + TVM200 system here in my office. | James Gifford - Nitrosyncretic Press | | http://www.nitrosyncretic.com for the Heinlein FAQ & more | ------------------------------ From: denis@pickaxe.net Subject: What is Tier 1 ... Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2002 05:27:44 +0100 Reply-To: denisrt@pickaxe.net Hi, Discussion in a national telecomms group, what are the criteria for tier 1, tier 2 etc? I offered my own criteria based on the level of infrastructure ownership as follows: Tier 1 - Owns or jointly owns and operates trans-oceanic telecommunications infrastructure. (TATs, Geo-stat satellites) Tier 2 - Owns or jointly owns and operates international non trans oceanic telecommunications infrastructure. Tier 3 - Owns and operates national telecommunications infrastructure. Tier 4 - Owns and operates regional telecommunications infrastructure. Tier 5 - Owns and operates local telecommunications infrastructure. Tier 6 - Owns and operates C7 connected routing systems using other parties infrastructure. Tier 7 - Owns and operates ISDN connected routing systems using other parties infrastructure. Tier 8 - Owns and operates a billing system processing raw call records for calls routed on other parties infrastructure. Tier 9 - Owns and operates a billing system post processing another parties billing output. This seems to have upset some people who want to call two equipment in locations either side of the Atlantic linked by rented T3 capacity a T1 carrier, whereas I call it tier 6. :-) However, does anyone know if there's a standard industry definition for these terms, or are they redefined according to the sales rep that's trying to persuade you that "my company is a big boy in the telco world?". Rgds, Denis ------------------------------ From: Robert A. Fink, M. D. Subject: Telecom in Turks and Caicos Islands Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2002 17:35:22 -0700 Organization: Robert A. Fink, M. D., FACS, P. C. Reply-To: rafink@attglobal.net I am going to be visiting in the Turks and Caicos Islands (a British colony south of the Bahamas in the Caribbean) and staying at a condo resort. There are reportedly telephones with dataports in the rooms and the Area Code of the island is 649 (they have the same numerical system as in the U. S.). According to ATTGlobal, there is no local node in that area code. Does anyone have experience with these islands and does anyone know if a U. S. 800 number can be reached directly (I can call into ATTGlobal's 800 fee-based node if I can have access to the U. S. 800 number system). Finally, I suspect that the phone jack connections in the Caribbean are the same as in the U. S., but does anyone know for sure? Many thanks, 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" ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2002 18:34:34 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: News Headlines of Interest 7/16/02 FCC OK's delay for mobile phone number portability - Jul 16, 2002 12:37 PM (Reuters) WASHINGTON, July 16 (Reuters) - The Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday granted mobile telephone carriers an extra year before they must offer consumers the ability to switch carriers without giving up their telephone number. The agency refused a request by Verizon Wireless, the biggest U.S. mobile telephone carrier, to permanently exempt the companies from the obligation that they offer number portability -- set to take effect this November -- but instead granted them until Nov. 24, 2003. http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=27857166 US FCC OKs sharing of phone company customer data - Jul 16, 2002 02:21 PM (Reuters) By Jeremy Pelofsky WASHINGTON, July 16 (Reuters) - Telephone companies will be allowed to share, without consent, private customer data with affiliates that offer communications-related services, under rules adopted by the Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday. Consumers will have to opt out of having their information used for marketing purposes, including where, when and to whom they place calls, as well as the types of services subscribers use and how frequently they use them. The FCC left the door open for companies to use an opt-in approach if they so choose, but the agency refused to mandate that method. However, the agency said consumers must approve when a telephone company wants to share their private information with unrelated third parties or affiliated companies that do not provide communications-related services. http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=27858746 Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2002 15:15:31 -0400 From: Dave Emery Subject: Another restriction on technology - cell and cordless scanning now a felony The House just passed the Cyber Electronic Security Act last night (7/15/02) by an overwhelming margin of 385-3. Buried in an otherwise draconian bill that raises penalties for computer hacking that causes death or serious injury to life in prison and allows government monitoring of communications and email without warrants in even more circumstances is the following seeming obscure language: http://www.mail-archive.com/cypherpunks-moderated%40minder.net/msg01671.html Cable Modems: Less Boon Than Beast by Andy Oram Jul. 2, 2002 Like an infomercial on cable TV, the promise of cable modem service strikes one at first as a wonderful package at an impressively low price. But the limitations of cable modems would render them unattractive if alternatives were available at a reasonable cost. And wait--there's more. Cable modems keep us in the dark ages of Internet access, seriously distorting Internet usage, economics, and policy. Cable modems are a great advance over dial-up access, no one could deny that. People who experience the convenience of always-on connections and instantly downloaded Web pages declare, "I could never go back to 56K." But while we can each individually enjoy the pleasures of this service, we should not be blind to the social havoc it wreaks. http://www.oreillynet.com/cs/weblog/view/wlg/1651 Ethernet Moves Closer To Becoming The Universal Broadband Access Technology; IEEE 802.3ah EFM Task Force Adopts Baseline For Ethernet In The First Mile Standard - Jul 16, 2002 08:01 AM (BusinessWire) FREMONT, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 16, 2002--The Ethernet in the First Mile Alliance (EFMA) today announced that the IEEE 802.3ah EFM Task Force has reached consensus on a complete set of baseline technical proposals that will provide the foundation of the Ethernet in the First Mile (EFM) standard. Adoption of the baseline proposals is the third major milestone in the IEEE standardization process and provides the basis upon which the editors will now write the first draft of the EFM standard. http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=27851111 HDTV Battle Wages On By Brad King 2:00 a.m. July 15, 2002 PDT Digital television, which provides crystal clear imaging and a windfall of interactive capabilities, could be locked down long before it reaches a mass audience. On Monday, a consortium of broadcast, consumer electronics and technology companies gathered with House Commerce Committee chairman Bill Tauzin (D-Louisiana) to hash out the digital rights management that will be attached to digital television broadcasts to keep consumers from making unlawful reproductions of Hollywood movies and TV programs. http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,53835,00.html ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2002 22:25:10 -0400 From: dhorvath@cobs.com (David B. Horvath, CCP) Subject: Another Pioneering Company for the Directory I received email yesterday from a company that provides a service that could be *very* important to you if you have kids ... Even if you're not divorced now, you may want to contact these folks for information now in case you have a future need. > Let us help you collect what your children are due! > Please call ` 1 877 306 6599 ` 8am to 5pm MST Mon-Sat. David B. Horvath, CCP Consultant, Author, International Lecturer, Adjunct Professor Board Member: ICCP Educational Foundation, ICCP Test Council, and Philadelphia Association of Systems Administrators ------------------------------ From: Fritz Whittington Reply-To: f.whittington@att.net Organization: Only on odd Tuesdays Subject: Re: Organization of Telephone Keypads Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 18:27:55 GMT Justin Time wrote: > hudsonl@skypoint.com (Hudson Leighton) wrote in message > news:: . . . >> Touch-tone predates calculators by many many years, I was in high school >> in circa 1973 when I saw my 1st calculator. > And you were too young to remember the 10 key adding machines ... Telecom readers interested in this sort of phenomenon might enjoy reading the current and prior years of _The Mindset List_, which can be found at http://www.beloit.edu. Originally published for the faculty to orient them to the (relatively limited) experiences of the incoming freshman class. For instance, the one published 4 years ago for the class of 2002 notes that the phrase "You sound like a broken record" is quite confusing to persons who have never seen a vinyl record or turntable. Fritz Whittington TI Alum - http://www.tialumni.org ------------------------------ Subject: Re: House OKs Life Sentences For Hackers Organization: IOCOM Corporation From: djmcdona@io.com (Daniel J McDonald) Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 20:29:39 GMT In article , Monty Solomon wrote: > By Declan McCullagh > Staff Writer, CNET News.com > July 15, 2002, 6:00 PM PT > WASHINGTON--The House of Representatives on Monday overwhelmingly > approved a bill that would allow for life prison sentences for > malicious computer hackers. Now all we need to do is define spam as a malacious hack and life as we know it will become better ... Daniel J McDonald CCIE # 2495, CNX Visit my website: http://www.austinnetworkdesign.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Nice try; but it won't fly. The brave and courageous congresscritters will *never* allow anything to interfere with business as they perceive it. And the spammers will convince congress and/or Dubya to leave them alone. The new law will only be applied in cases where 'hackers' get involved. It will have to be something where regular people become easily frightened. Runaway computers for example. Government webmasters/sysadmins will easily propogate the *lie* that people who hack into their systems are very dangerous criminals who should never be free. 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 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 775-306-8390 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: mirror.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. --------------------------------------------------------------- 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 #318 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Jul 18 21:39:54 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id VAA22254; Thu, 18 Jul 2002 21:39:54 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 21:39:54 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200207190139.VAA22254@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #319 TELECOM Digest Thu, 18 Jul 2002 21:38:00 EDT Volume 20 : Issue 319 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Internet Society Board Member Maxwell Resigns (Anne Shroeder) VINA T1 Integrator; How to Blow the Password? (Laci Oros) Telecommunications Week (Barbara Ward) Re: Cellular - Caller Pays in Cincinnati (Marcus Didius Falco) Re: Cellular - Caller Pays in Cincinnati (John R. Levine) Re: Deregulation's Big Lie (Marcus Didius Falco) Re: Deregulation's Big Lie (Dave Mausner) Stopping a Recording Telemarketer (Lincoln J. King-Cliby) Re: Telecom in Turks and Caicos Islands (John R. Levine) Send SMS From PC to Phone (Mark) FTC Pitches For More Authority In Telecom (Marcus Didius Falco) Re: House OKs Life Sentences For Hackers (George Mitchell) Looking For Info on a Callbox ETP 400 KS (Attila Turay) AT&T Detariffed (Drew) Four Versions of AMPS in America? (J. Galt) Emerson Switchboard - Talk on Phone and Surf Online With 1 Phone (aaron) All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. WE DO NOT PERMIT NAME/EMAIL ADDRESS HARVESTING FROM THIS JOURNAL. 'SALTED' EMAIL ADDRESSES APPEAR HEREIN TO VERIFY THIS. YOU GET SUED IN SMALL CLAIMS COURT IF YOU GET CAUGHT SPAMMING OR SENDING VIRUSES. DON'T DO IT. See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 18:45:11 -0400 From: Internet Society - Anne Shroeder Subject: Internet Society Board Member Maxwell Resigns Reply-To: lance@isoc.org FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 18 July 2002 Contact: Julie Williams Tel: +1-703-326-9880x103 Cell: +1-703-402-6715 Email: jwilliams@isoc.org MEMBER OF INTERNET SOCIETY BOARD RESIGNS Washington, D.C. -- Internet Society Chairman Fred Baker today regretfully announced that longtime board member Christine Maxwell has tendered her resignation from her position on ISOC's Board of Trustees effective July 31, 2002. Maxwell, who has served on the board for 5 years, is stepping down so she can devote more time to her various Internet businesses. "Christine has been a tremendous asset to the board. She is strongly committed to ISOC and was tenacious about achieving what was best for the organization," said Baker. Maxwell will continue as a 'trustee emeritus' and as such it is hoped that she will be available to support various special projects. Internet Society President/CEO Lynn St.Amour commented, "She will be greatly missed and I hope she will continue to be involved in the activities of the Society. Her contributions to ISOC will not soon be forgotten." During her years on ISOC's board, Maxwell served as Vice Chairman of the Internet Society, Chairman of the Internet Societal Task Force, VP of Membership, VP of Communications, Chair of the Nominations Committee and was an active member of many other committees. She was involved with a number of strategic efforts, in particular acting as the liaison for ISOC's societal work as an official NGO of UNESCO. An article in ISOC's publication OnTheInternet http://www.isoc.org/oti/articles/0998/stokes.html describes her talent for consistently thinking outside of the box. Maxwell is a recognized Internet content pioneer. She was the publisher and creative visionary behind one of the first published Internet Yellow Pages. She created the information architecture for the first internationally acclaimed online directory and search engine, MAGELLAN which was hosted on the home page of Netscape in the early 1990’s, and was subsequently sold to Excite in 1996. Maxwell will now concentrate on driving the fortunes of her latest Internet content/security management start-up 'Chiliad Publishing' (http://www.chiliad.com). She will continue to research and speak internationally on the impact of the Internet on societal issues. About ISOC The Internet Society is a not-for-profit membership organization founded in 1991 to be the international focal point for global cooperation and coordination in the development of the Internet and has offices in Washington, DC and Geneva, Switzerland. Through its current initiatives in support of education and training, Internet standards and protocol, and public policy, ISOC has worked to ensure that the Internet has developed in a stable and open manner. For 10 years ISOC has run international network training programs for developing countries which have played a vital role in setting up the Internet connections and networks in virtually every country that has connected to the Internet. ------------------------------ From: never_spamat@yahoo.com (Laci OROS) Subject: VINA T1 Integrator; How to Blow the Password? Date: 17 Jul 2002 15:26:54 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Is there any way to blow the Carrier password on the VINA T1 integrator? ------------------------------ From: BARBARA WARD Subject: Telecommunications Week Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 17:41:25 -0500 Can you tell me when telecommunications week is? Or if there is one?. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 20:17:19 -0400 From: Marcus Didius Falco Subject: Re: Cellular - Caller Pays in Cincinnati Joseph Singer wrote about Re: Cellular - Caller Pays in Cincinnati > On Tue, 16 Jul 2002 02:31:57 GMT, Diamond Dave > wrote: >> Here in the US and I assume in Canada, the cell phone owner pays for >> the airtime. I know in Europe and the rest of the world it is the >> exact opposite. >> The Cincinnati, OH "experiment" was just that. I don't know if it >> really caught on there, as it never really caught on in the rest of >> the US or Canada (thank goodness!) > Caller pays cellular was tried about five years ago here in Seattle. > It did not fly. Caller pays cellular will never work in North America > as long as cellular is not differentiated by cellular only "area" > codes. And back in the 1980s the FCC specifically ruled that special services, such as cellular, fax lines, etc, could NOT be segregated with special area codes, as in many "caller pays" countries. This was done to "not disadvantage" new entrants, such as cellular companies. These are in the rules on area code "splits" and "overlays." Thus, blocking is possible only on a line-by-line basis. This is difficult, even now, and will require Signaling System 7 when full number portability (between mobile and land-line numbers) is in place. (Of course, the FCC just postponed number portability in mobile phones for another year.) Direct replies are unlikely to be read. To reply use the address below: falco_marcus_didius yahoo.co.uk ------------------------------ From: johnl@iecc.com (John R Levine) Subject: Re: Cellular - Caller Pays in Cincinnati Date: 17 Jul 2002 22:12:36 -0400 Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > It did not fly. Caller pays cellular will never work in North > America as long as cellular is not differentiated by cellular only > "area" codes. The long run plan is to erase the distinction between wireline and wireless and allow full portability between the two. Despite the latest setback, giving wireless telcos yet another year to implement portability among themselves, as far as I know that's still the long term plan, and caller pays would be a disaster in that environment, making it possible for any number you ever called to cost an unpredictable amount extra. Besides, we already have an area code for numbers that exact a modest but annoying per-minute surcharge: 500. I would have no objection at all to putting caller-pays in AC 500, but I need hardly point out what a resounding flop all other services in AC 500 have been. 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: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 20:09:06 -0400 From: Marcus Didius Falco Subject: Re: Deregulation's Big Lie On Tue, 16 Jul 2002 13:18:42 -0400, Monty Solomon wrote about Deregulation's Big Lie > FCC chairman Michael Powell says the WorldCom debacle may result in > more telecom mergers. So who ends up losing? We all do, explains one > industry expert. > By Katharine Mieszkowski >http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2002/07/16/telecom_crisis/index.html > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: At the time of one of the decisions by > the Supremes regarding the old 'Bell System' back in the 1950's, AT&T > was forbidden by the court to ever acquire any more telephone operating > companies. It seems the court at that period in time <> > The government found all that most distasteful to say the least: AT&T > cried 'poor boy' in the 1920-30's when it came to the business of > installing telephone lines and instruments in rural America <> > I dunno if that rule is still in effect or not. The Baby Bells are the > the overgrown children of the late Ma Bell, and thus subject to any > impositions still in effect on Ma. MCI is certainly a good candidate > for 'grossly mismanaged and ready for bankrupty category. PAT] You are thinking of the "Kingsbury Committment" (which see in any serious history of the telephone industry). This was a pre-WW I agreement (1913) between N.C. Kingsbury, vice-president of AT&T, and the Attorney General, in response to an antitrust suit, that, in exchange for being permitted to acquire Western Electric, AT&T would give up its part ownership of Western Union, permit independents to connect to its (then monopoly) long-distance network) and also would not acquire any more independent telephone companies unless there was financial distress and no other available buyer. The acquisition was provision was somewhat modified in 1917: AT&T could acquire independents but had to sell an equal number of lines to a competing independent. In 1921 the Willis-Graham Act permitted telephone companies to merge and this terminated the committment. AT&T plicy was then was codified in the Hall Memoranda of 1921 and 1922 (E.K. Hall being a VP of AT&T, particularly the 1922 memorandum addressed to USITA. Even so, AT&T did acquire a few more small telephone companies, usually, but not always when they were in distress, and often, but not always selling some lines elsewhere, in the slow build up to US v Western Electric, that gave us the 1982 Consent Decree. In recent years US West, in particular, has been disposing of rural exchanges in many western states, usually by selling them to independents. Direct replies are unlikely to be read. To reply use the address below: falco_marcus_didius yahoo.co.uk [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But Marcus, what legal thing happened to AT&T in 1955-56? There was a Supreme Court decision regards AT&T around then which involved the company's wish to get into computers. Maybe the court reviewed/renewed the Kingsbury commitment? PAT] ------------------------------ Reply-To: Dave Mausner From: Dave Mausner Subject: Re: Deregulation's Big Lie Organization: Prodigy Internet http://www.prodigy.com Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 01:20:50 GMT I value the opinions of esteemed netter Monty and esteemed moderator Pat, BUT I opine that dereg's big lie is that competitive telcos are better than one regulated monopoly. All the intrigues of old-ATT's gobbling notwithstanding, the chaotic situation today is that consumers are perpetually confused about tariffs, inundated by offers from garage operations, subjected to poor customer service, confounded by a plethora of mutually-inconsistent billing practices, and harassed by seemingly minor things, such as (just one example) the total lack of industry standards affecting hands-free microphone and power plugs on cell-phones. How's this an improvement? Here's how I see it: for all practical purposes, home-owners pay only one natural gas company and one electric company all their lives. so from this POV, what was wrong with having one telco? Compared to the crappy scene today? hmm? Dave Mausner / v.+1-708-848-2775 / f.+1-708-848-2569 / c.+1-312-wake-my-i c.d.t lurker since 1990. Monty Solomon wrote in message news:telecom20.318.1@telecom-digest.org: > FCC chairman Michael Powell says the WorldCom debacle may result in > more telecom mergers. So who ends up losing? We all do, explains one > industry expert. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Actually, the gas works people and the electric power people have taken a clue from telco and started that 'competion' business also. Even water is in on it. You no longer are stuck with water from the tap in your kitchen or bathroom, but you can now (for several years, actually) been able to by-pass tap water entirely for Culligan or Hinkley-Schmitt. Electric of course you can now use sunlight or wind and store it in batteries, or use some other kind of generator on your own. And if you can cause the meter to 'run backwards' as a result, the existing power supplier is required to purchase it from you, and send it to the grid for use elsewhere. In the case of gas however, its a bit different. There still is only one gas pipe coming to your house, through a meter, etc. But if you, the consumer are approached by a 'competitive supplier' of gas and you wish to use the competitor, then you notify them; they in turn notify the 'regular' supplier, and whatever you consume in a billing period is refreshed to the piping system by the 'competitor' who then handles the billing and customer service. So the competitor 'supplies' the gas (by refreshing the mains of the established company) and you pay the 'competitor' at his rates, which are often times discounted, like all those outfits. PAT] ------------------------------ From: chsvideo@hotmail.com (Lincoln J. King-Cliby) Subject: Stopping a Recording Telemarketer Date: 18 Jul 2002 01:09:16 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Ok ... I need some advice. There's a telemarketer that's been calling nearly every day for the past few weeks. It's annoying. What can I do about it. Details: Very long, annoying, recording beginning with "We have important information for homeowners only ..." and then continues to blabber for a good five minutes about a home loan or something. It culminates with something to the effect of "Lets begin by saying 'yes' after the tone." then "Please say your name." a little later "Please say your daytime telephone number" etc ... I've answered the "Yes" prompt with NO" and then every other prompt with "Put me on your do not call list ". The name of the company is never mentioned in the recording, and equally annoying, they hold the line for a decent amount of time after you hang up. The calls continued. I tried *69 and got: "The last call was marked private and cannot be announced. Press one to call this party" followed by "I'm sorry, but the line is busy. We will keep trying for the next thirty minutes, and when the party becomes available your phone will ring with a short-short-long pattern". A while later the phone rang and I got "We're sorry, the party you have called is now busy. Please hang up and try automatic call return again." I called the Verizon operator to ask if there was any way to get a hold of a human associated with these idiots. She asked for their name, I told her that I had no way of knowing since it wasn't in their recording. She then transfered me to the something like the "Annoying call division", where I sat through a recording about how calls between X and Y are legal, and then talked with a woman who said that they could do nothing about it, thank you for using Verizon and have a nice day. They, for some reason, are the only telemarketing calls we get anymore, but they are the *MOST ANNOYING* calls (At least 15 of 'em - 1/2 after I started making the "Do Not Call" announcement) I have ever encountered. 1) What can I do to make them stop (Or make Verizon make them stop)? 2) Aren't they required to honor a "Do Not Call" list request? Is answering every prompt with this acceptable, since they provide NO OTHER MEANS of contacting them or figuring out who they are? 3) Anyone know who these people are/have contact information for them? I am to the point where suing them may be less annoying than the calls that I am getting. Thanks, Lincoln (BTW - wouldn't the stupidest of the predictive dialers figure out that after they call the EXACT SAME PHONE NUMBER FIFTEEN TIMES with no "homeowner" taking their bait that either (a) It is a business (b) There is no homeowner or (c) The homeowner has absolutely no interest) Sorry, I had to vent. (Please reply to the group or lincoln _who is at_ pe _dot_ net.) ------------------------------ Date: 17 Jul 2002 22:28:24 -0400 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: Telecom in Turks and Caicos Islands Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > I am going to be visiting in the Turks and Caicos Islands ... ... where the local telephone monoply is still Cable and Wireless, cheerfully known as the worst phone company in the known universe. They have an Internet service intended for visitors, which you can learn about at http://www.cw.tc/Internet/VISITOR.htm. You dial 266-6328, log in as "easy", password "access", and you're in. The price is a ripoff 25 cents/minute, plus whatever surcharge your hotel adds. There are also kiosks where you can feed in a dollar bill every four minutes or use a credit card. If your main goal is to access your AT&T mail, before you go turn on web mail so you can check your mail from any web browser on your PC or a kiosk without having to set up anything special. Visit www.attglobal.net, click account center, log in, look for e-mail links. 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: mpattersen@hotmail.com (Mark) Subject: Send SMS From PC to Phone Date: 18 Jul 2002 06:55:51 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ MySkyBuddy is an instant text messaging program that lets you chat with your friends who have a text-messaging enabled cellular phone. (Text-messaging is also known as SMS, or Short Message Service.) MySkyBuddy is easy to use: (1) enter your friend's cellular phone number or the email address associated with their cellular phone, (2) type the subject and your message and (3) hit SEND. A short time later, your friend will receive your message and can reply directly to you; the response will be displayed in a pop-up window on your computer's screen. Your friends can also reply to a cellular number. To reach friends outside the United States and Canada, you need to enter the email address associated with their carrier/phone, e.g., phonenumber@wirelesss-carrier.co.uk in the "to:" field. This will be improved in a later release of the product. And, it's free. The details: Publisher: MySkyWeb File size: 1.6 MB Licence: Free Minimum requirements: Windows 98 Second Edition/2000/ME/NT4.0 SP6/XP Uninstaller Included: Yes Screen snapshot: http://www.myskyweb.com/buddy/images/screen-shot-1.gif Download page: http://www.myskyweb.com/buddy/download/index.html Enjoy! Mark ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 19:18:17 -0400 From: Marcus Didius Falco Subject: FTC Pitches For More Authority In Telecommunications CQ Daily Monitor Midday Update 7--17-02 FTC PITCHES FOR MORE AUTHORITY IN TELECOMMUNICATIONS The Federal Trade Commission could receive expanded authority to regulate the telecommunications industry under draft legislation that would reauthorize the agency. "The bottom line is ... consumers are being harmed," FTC Commissioner Sheila F. Anthony told the Commerce Committee's Consumer Affairs, Foreign Commerce and Tourism Subcommittee hearing today. The bipartisan, five-member panel appeared before the subcommittee to pitch a proposal that would allow the FTC to monitor consumer and competition issues in telecommunications. The 1934 Communications Act gave the FTC no role in telecommunications regulation. Subcommittee Chairman Byron L. Dorgan, D-N.D., is writing the FTC reauthorization bill. He was sympathetic to the panel's request for more authority to regulate telecommunications, although a final decision has not been made. The FTC has no authority under the 1934 Communications Act over telecommunications common carriers, such as local Bell companies or long-distance firms like WorldCom. Direct replies are unlikely to be read. To reply use the address below: falco_marcus_didius yahoo.co.uk ------------------------------ From: George Mitchell Subject: Re: House OKs Life Sentences For Hackers Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 10:41:30 -0700 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Monty Solomon wrote: > By Declan McCullagh > Staff Writer, CNET News.com > July 15, 2002, 6:00 PM PT > WASHINGTON--The House of Representatives on Monday overwhelmingly > approved a bill that would allow for life prison sentences for > malicious computer hackers. > By a 385-3 vote, the House approved a computer crime bill that also > expands police ability to conduct Internet or telephone eavesdropping > without first obtaining a court order. > The Bush administration had asked Congress to approve the Cyber > Security Enhancement Act (CSEA) as a way of responding to electronic > intrusions, denial of service attacks and the threat of > "cyber-terrorism." The CSEA had been written before the Sept. 11 > terrorist attacks last year, but the events spurred legislators toward > Monday evening's near-unanimous vote. > http://news.com.com/2100-1001-944057.html It'll never fly without a catchier name. I suggest "The Jean Valjean Act." ------------------------------ From: attila@rogers.com (Attila Turay) Subject: Looking For Info on a Callbox ETP 400 KS Date: 18 Jul 2002 04:53:48 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ I am having a problem with a location that gets a lot of lightning. When this happens the call box often blows. I am presently using a Viking E-30. I am looking for feedback on the Talk-A-Phone ETP 400 KS. If you have or know anyone that has experience with the performance of this model, please let me know. Thanks, Attila Turay ------------------------------ From: gimmiejc@yahoo.com (Drew) Subject: AT&T Detariffed Date: 18 Jul 2002 14:28:20 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Hello All, I work for a small R&D company and have been put in charge of wading through the phone bill. The AT&T $.85/minute charge caught my eye. Apparently, the company is on an old long distance plan which does not require AT&T to notify clients about rate changes because they have been 'detariffed.' They have been raising the long distance rate several cents every four or five months for several years and considering I'm surrounded by engineers, nobody picked up on this. With the monthly charges and minute usage spread out in front of me, it is very easy to see that the overall charge has gone up $800 in the last two years, but the changes were so slight that without actually sitting down and comparing two phone bills more than four months apart, it seems that the increased charge is from increased usage, not increased rate. Does 'detariffed' mean that they paid the FCC $XXXXXX.XX for exceptions to the rules? Is there any chance of credit or refund? This feels really illegal. Thanks, Drew ------------------------------ From: J.Galt Subject: Four Versions of AMPS in America? Organization: Prodigy Internet http://www.prodigy.com Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 22:40:27 GMT Is it correct to say that there are 4 versions of AMPS in America? Namely, 1) The original 1G AMPS -- let's call it FDMA-AMPS; 2) The pre-2G (?) IS-54 -- let's call it TDMA/AMPS; 3) The 2G IS-136 -- let's call it PCS-TDMA/AMPS; and 4) The 2G IS-95 -- let's call it CDMA/AMPS. It is my current understanding that 2, 3, and 4 have cellular network architectures and operating systems that are based on IS-41. How close is all this to fact? Galt ------------------------------ From: aaronlovespat@hotmail.com (aaronlovespat) Subject: Emerson Switchboard - Talk on Phone and Surf With Just 1 Phone Date: 18 Jul 2002 16:40:15 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Has anyone used the Emerson Switchboard? You can talk on the phone and receive faxes while you are still surfing online with just ONE phone line. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Aaron, just because you said you love me in this public forum did not butter me up to run your message *again*, even though the very same message was run here a few weeks ago also by a person who used the exact same words, etc. Tell ya what I will do, Aaron. Send me a detailed description of this device, the 'Emerson Switchboard', including pricing and computer/network specs, etc. and I will publish it here and we will have a discussion about it. It would also help to know who the vendor is. When you send me that detailed description, also include a detailed description of why you love me, and what you would do to worship me, etc. I will judiciously edit what gets into print. (smile). Hoping to hear from you soon about this "Emerson Switchboard" thing. 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 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 775-306-8390 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: mirror.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. --------------------------------------------------------------- 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 #319 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Jul 19 12:46:41 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id MAA26132; Fri, 19 Jul 2002 12:46:41 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 19 Jul 2002 12:46:41 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200207191646.MAA26132@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #320 TELECOM Digest Fri, 19 Jul 2002 12:46:00 EDT Volume 20 : Issue 320 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Deregulation's Big Lie (Marcus Didius Falco) Re: Deregulation's Big Lie (Michael D. Sullivan) Re: Deregulation's Big Lie (John Stahl) More MCI Complaints; What Else is New? (Patrick Townson) 5ESS High and Wet Problems (Jim H.) VR-MAD Broadband Multimedia Access Device (DJohn4077) Re: Organization of Telephone Keypads (joe@obilivan.net) Dave Barry Comments on Spam (Matt Simpson) Re: Cable & Wireless (John McHarry) Re: Cable & Wireless (jss) Re: AT&T Detariffed (LARB0) Re: Stopping a Recording Telemarketer (Vince Mulhollon) All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. WE DO NOT PERMIT NAME/EMAIL ADDRESS HARVESTING FROM THIS JOURNAL. 'SALTED' EMAIL ADDRESSES APPEAR HEREIN TO VERIFY THIS. YOU GET SUED IN SMALL CLAIMS COURT IF YOU GET CAUGHT SPAMMING OR SENDING VIRUSES. DON'T DO IT. See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 23:23:38 -0400 From: Marcus Didius Falco Subject: Re: Deregulation's Big Lie > On Tue, 16 Jul 2002 13:18:42 -0400, Monty Solomon > wrote about Deregulation's Big Lie >> FCC chairman Michael Powell says the WorldCom debacle may result in >> more telecom mergers. So who ends up losing? We all do, explains one >> industry expert. >> By Katharine Mieszkowski >> http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2002/07/16/telecom_crisis/index.html >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: At the time of one of the decisions by >> the Supremes regarding the old 'Bell System' back in the 1950's, AT&T >> was forbidden by the court to ever acquire any more telephone operating >> companies. It seems the court at that period in time > You are thinking of the "Kingsbury Committment" (which see in any > serious history of the telephone industry). This was a pre-WW I > agreement (1913) between N.C. Kingsbury, vice-president of AT&T, and > the Attorney General, > The acquisition was provision was somewhat modified in 1917: > 1921 the Willis-Graham Act permitted > telephone companies to merge and this terminated the committment. AT&T > policy was then was codified in the Hall Memoranda of 1921 and 1922 > (E.K. Hall being a VP of AT&T, particularly the 1922 memorandum > addressed to USITA. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But Marcus, what legal thing happened > to AT&T in 1955-56? There was a Supreme Court decision regards AT&T > around then which involved the company's wish to get into computers. > Maybe the court reviewed/renewed the Kingsbury commitment? PAT] That was the 1956 Consent Decree (and the reason that some call the 1982 Consent Decree "The Modification of Final Judgment"). This accused AT&T of misusing patents to keep other firms out of the telephone industry. The AT&T theory from the 20s through the 40s was that they would never be able to be kept out of anything in telecommunications because someone else had a basic patent. By the time the case, begun in 1948, was terminated, AT&T had modified its patent policy, and was using cross-licensing to ensure that it could not be kept out of any aspect of the telecommunications industry. Thus, AT&T agreed to license all its patents at a reasonable fee to all applicants, and for WECo not to sell anything other than telephone equipment actually sold to Bell telephone companies (plus the Artificial Larynx). (You may remember that in the 1930s Western Electric had some basic patents on motion picture sound, and gets a screen credit in most films of that era. In the 20s AT&T tried to use some patents to control the radio industry.) This effectively forced AT&T out of the computer business (and caused a big frou-fra about the teletypes that were used as input/output machines for many computers of that era -- And a bigger frou-fra about the Model 40 CRT "smart" terminal). Anyhow, that's why the 1956 Consent Decree had to be modified in 1982 -- for AT&T to get into the computer business it had to get restrictions of the 1956 decree revoked. Indeed, the FCC had just ruled in 1982 that station equipment be deregulated, so theoretically WECo would have been forced out of that market (including PBXs), because it would no longer be sold to Bell companies after 1983. If you need more information I probably have it. The above is off the top of my head. And I have to admit I haven't really worked on these matters in close to 20 years! :-) Direct replies are unlikely to be read. To reply use the address below: falco_marcus_didius yahoo.co.uk ------------------------------ From: Michael D. Sullivan Subject: Re: Deregulation's Big Lie Date: Fri, 19 Jul 2002 03:43:57 GMT On Wed, 17 Jul 2002 20:09:06 -0400, marcus_d_falco@yahoo.com wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But Marcus, what legal thing happened > to AT&T in 1955-56? There was a Supreme Court decision regards AT&T > around then which involved the company's wish to get into computers. > Maybe the court reviewed/renewed the Kingsbury commitment? PAT] There was a consent decree entered into in 1956 between AT&T (mainly Western Electric) and the Justice Department that settled pending antitrust litigation. No Supreme Court decision. The 1956 decree imposed line-of-business restrictions on AT&T: The only services it could provide were tariffed common carrier services and the only equipment it could manufacture was that used in providing such services. There was also mandatory patent licensing and a bunch of other stuff, as well as some relatively narrow exceptions, but the foregoing was the core of the agreement. This got AT&T out of the business of making motion picture sound equipment and police radios, among other things, and allowed companies such as RCA and Motorola to use AT&T's patents to step into the void. I don't think computers were directly involved -- AT&T wasn't in the computer or data processing biz at that point and hadn't planned to be. But wait -- there turned out to be a whole lot of relevance to computers. AT&T/WE made the terminal equipment ("coupling device") that was necessary to connect stuff such as radio broadcasting consoles and computers to phone lines. For computers, the coupling device was a "modulator-demodulators" (later shortened to "modems") that translated ones and zeroes into tones that were Bell-certified to be safe for the phone lines and also provided electrical isolation between the external device and the phone line. (Don't want 117 VAC leaking into the phone lines, no.) The modems were big clunky boxes made by WE that you would have the phone company install for a monthly fee pursuant to tariff. (They were part of the regulated common carrier service, so WE could make them and the BOC could charge the monthly fee.) You couldn't supply your own, because that would be a "foreign attachment" to the phone line, forbidden by tariff. The foreign attachment ban was incredibly broad -- it even barred putting plastic covers on phone books, supposedly. More to the point, it also barred putting a little black metal or plastic box with internal baffles over the transmitter (microphone) on your handset. A small company that made such boxes, which were supposed to make it possible to talk on the phone more privately (harder for other people in the room to overhear because of the baffles) ran afoul of this tariff restriction and the FCC barred its use. The resulting court case, Hush-a-Phone v. FCC, found that the application of the tariff to uses that were "privately beneficial while not publicly injurious" was unjust and unreasonable. The year was, I believe, 1959. That case was the springboard for further litigation involving foreign attachments. A gentleman named Stephen F. Carter created an acoustic coupler for use as a phone patch in radio dispatch systems. The dispatcher could use the "Carterfone" device to allow a policeman radio car to speak to someone over a telephone line by putting the handset of a phone in the coupler, which was in turn connected to the radio system. "Foreign attachment!" screamed the telcos. After Carter brought an antitrust case that was referred to the FCC, the FCC issued its 1968 Carterfone decision, which followed the Hush-a-Phone decision and found the foreign attachment ban unjust and unreasonable and ordered telephone companies to change their tariffs to get rid of such improper restrictions. Meanwhile, other companies were chafing under the restrictions on connecting non-Bell terminal equipment to phone lines. Bell made terminal equipment other than modems and phones -- teletypes, for example. Want a teletype that you could connect to a phone line? Rent it under tariff. Want to connect someone else's terminal equipment? Only if you rent a coupling device under tariff. Needless to say, this was a damper on the terminal equipment biz. The Carterfone and Hush-a-Phone cases called into question an increasingly important part of AT&T's business. This was especially true with respect to computer terminals. For example, there was a dispute involving AT&T's smart terminal (a teletype that had some minimal data processing capability, known as the Dataspeed 40/4), which was terminal equipment that you rented under tariff, and IBM's smart terminal, which connected via a modem that was rented from AT&T under tariff. AT&T claimed that since the IBM terminal was functionally identical to the Dataspeed 40/4, which was telephone terminal equipment subject to FCC tariffs, IBM's device should have to be classified likewise. IBM, on the other hand, argued that its device was a data processing device -- and that because the Dataspeed 40/4 was functionally identical, as AT&T claimed, the Dataspeed 40/4 should also be deemed a data processing device, not properly a part of a tariffed common carrier service. AT&T's position would have kicked IBM out of the terminal business; IBM's would have kicked AT&T out, because AT&T couldn't manufacture equipment other than that used as part of a tariffed common carrier service, due to the 1956 consent decree. The FCC started its first "Computer Inquiry" in 1966 to resolve such issues, as well as whether data processing services could be provided by common carriers (read: AT&T). It issued its decision in 1971. With respect to terminals, it split the baby. It found that devices with both communications and data processing functions could be offered by common carriers under tariff and by non- common-carriers without a tariff. With respect to data processing, it permitted common carriers to provide such services only through a separate subsidiary, but not under tariff. The combination of Carterfone and the opening of the Computer Inquiry stimulated the development of terminal equipment by companies other than AT&T -- including equipment designed to connect directly to phone lines, without an AT&T-supplied coupling device. Phones, for example. And modems. Meanwhile, AT&T did not remove its foreign attachment ban from its tariffs, forcing manufacturers to prove that their devices wouldn't harm the network over and over. The FCC asked AT&T to submit the network protection criteria that its own devices were designed to and then incorporated them into its rules as Part 68, in 1975. As a result, any equipment certified by the FCC as complying with the Part 68 rules could be directly connected to phone lines. The late 1970s saw a flood of independently manufactured phones and more advanced terminal devices, such as modems and PBXs. Meanwhile, the FCC had opened its Second Computer Inquiry (CI-II), because the lines it drew in the First Computer Inquiry were too blurry. In 1980, it issued its decision in CI-II, which divided services involving telecommunications into basic service, which was subject to FCC common carrier regulation, and enhanced service, which was exempted from common carrier regulation. It also ruled that virtually all terminal equipment, which had come to be known as customer premises equipment (CPE), was no longer to be considered part of a communications service and ordered it detariffed. If AT&T wanted to provide enhanced services (i.e., services going beyond mere communication, including those involving protocol processing or other data processing), it would have to do so through a separate subsidiary. AT&T's phones and other CPE had to be taken out of tariffs and either sold to the consumer, transferred to a separate subsidiary for rental, or removed. Meanwhile, the Justice Department had another big antitrust case against AT&T/WE under way. In 1982, it was settled by the consent decree ultimately known as the Modified Final Judgment (MFJ). This broke up AT&T, with the BOCs being spun off, subject to their own new line-of-business restrictions. AT&T kept the long-distance business and Western Electric. The big plus that AT&T bargained for was that the new decree replaced the 1956 decree. As a result, the line-of- business restrictions that kept it from manufacturing anything but tariffed equipment and providing services other than tariffed common carrier services went away. In the Carterfone/CI-II environment, AT&T was sorely hampered by restrictions that effectively kept it out of the now-competitive CPE and enhanced services business, as well as out of computers and data processing. Once the MFJ was implemented on 1/1/84, AT&T was free to try to dominate those fields. (heh, heh...) Michael D. Sullivan Bethesda, MD, USA (delete NOSPAM from address to mail me) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Jul 2002 07:53:56 -0400 From: John Stahl Subject: Re Deregulation's Big Lie I don't agree with Dave M. assessment of Monty and the others as I can remember not too many years ago, I was spending over $0.25/minute for long distance (LD) calls while today, due to competition, AT&T is selling a pre-paid LD service through one of the members-only chains (Sam's Club) for $0.0375/minute.Do you really think that AT&T would be selling per-minute LD for such a low price if there were no competition? As for the electric rates and the water rates Dave mentions: yes, the competition (what little there is) has not been able to drive the costs lower as much in those states with deregulation as was expected. There is no federal regulatory agency for those other utilities; the individual states control that aspect of our lives. Primarily in the supply of electric power, the consumer is limited to a very small fraction which can be potentially saved on their bill. The power companies (I believe) saw the fiasco which turned the telecom industry into a real competitive nightmare (especially in LD) and got the state's Public Service Commission's in each with electric deregulation as the law to believe that their costs of "transmission" were higher than reality. So the amount of each electric bill assigned to the actual cost of the electrical energy, for the most part, is quite a bit less than one-half of the total bill. Here in mid-state NY, for example, the local power transmission supplier is asking for another 11% raise for the transmission cost bring it up to over $0.10/ kilowatt (have never figured why their costs keep on increasing with my usage?) When you are told you can "save" maybe 10% of $0.04 or $0.05 per kilowatt, does this drive you to spend time to do so? We all must also accept the fact that the telecom deregulation allowing the formation of CLEC's, will probably never favor the lone consumer. There is no money to be made by a CLEC in breaking individual consumers away from the ILEC. The hassle alone to service a lone consumer is potentially very expensive. But the business telephone user's have saved much since deregulation. For example, where I do business and before the ILEC caused my local CLEC out of business (another story!), this CLEC was saving my business about $100./month on local exchange costs over the ILEC's fixed charges. The other factor which must not be overlooked in any discussion of competition in telecommunications is that the wireless supplier has become a great factor in the lowering of telecom bills. Believe the last study I read indicated that over 18% of the population has forsaken their wire line phone as their primary phone in favor of a (wireless) cell/PCS phone. I wonder how much potential LD wire line traffic is being replaced with the use of wireless devices (all those plans with free nights and weekends local and LD included)? Finally, remember that the FCC (and also agencies like Underwriters Lab (UL)) got involved when they saw that Judge Green (in the early 80's) was probably going to break-up Ma Bell. They were the ones making such things like the RJ series (RJ11, RJ45, etc. plugs/jacks) - the new industry "standards". These same agencies have brought us the hands-free standard, etc., not the wire line/wireless industry. This industry doesn't want to restrict us, it wants us to use our communication devices, every minute of the day, every day (except maybe weekends where we use them free) - the more use, they more they earn! John Stahl Aljon Enterprises Telecom/Data Consultant ------------------------------ From: Patrick Townson Subject: More MCI Complaints: What Else is Old? Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 18:47:02 -0500 Here is a message which was forwarded to the Digest about our good friends at MCI Worldcom: MCI WorldCom wireless - new service activated in wrong coverage area - charged roaming fees from home - ongoing problem with MCI. From: MSLOCK81@wmconnect.com I totally agree with the hundreds of customes complaining about Worldcom service to customers. I got a Nokia 5165 in Kanuary with the 39.99 plan which included no roaming 3500 nights and weekends (longdistance) and 400 daytime minutes every bill I have received is $100+. The sales rep put me in the wrong coverage area and my phone was roaming from my house. When I called customer service to talk to someone about the problem the said it not their fault. I continuosly called and finally talked to someone with sense. She preceded to change my coverage area assign me a new number so that the phone wouldn't roam and guess what -- my phone has been out of service for a week. I have seven different ticket confirmation numbers and still they haven't reassigned my new coverage area. I really think MCI wireless sucks as a wireless business. ------------------------------ From: jherrmann@opticalsolutions.com (Jim H.) Subject: 5ESS High and Wet Problems Date: 18 Jul 2002 12:28:40 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ We have been infrequently experiencing POTS lines not clearing from the 5ESS High and Wet list thus requiring manual clearing. In discussing with contacts in the telecom industry, others have seen this problem also with their 5ESS. If you have experienced this problem or have information, please respond. Jim ------------------------------ From: djohn4077@aol.com (DJohn4077) Date: 18 Jul 2002 13:37:07 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: VR-MAD Broadband Multimedia Access Device If you are a broadband product development manager who is responsible for cable modem or xDSL modem design, please visit our web site to learn about a new Java based multimedia access platform that we are developing. We have recently completed our patent submissions and are actively seeking OEM partnerships for our development effort. An executive summary describing our activities is available upon request. Thanks! Dan Johnson, danj@EpicenterTech.net Epicenter Technologies http://EpicenterTech.net/vrmad3d ------------------------------ From: joe@obilivan.net Subject: Re: Organization of Telephone Keypads Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 16:57:16 GMT Organization: Cox Communications Ed Ellers wrote: > (2) is the correct answer, though (3) probably had an influence. Bell > Labs did a *lot* of experimenting with different layouts to come up > with the one that was finally announced in 1959, as well as > experimenting to find the best size, shape, color combination, > required pressure and downward travel distance for the keys. As I recall, the original Bell spec for the DTMF pad had a fourth row of special characters for advanced services yet to be dreamed of at that time. Apparently, they weren't dreaming of voice prompted menus either. ;-) PaulCoxwell@aol.com wrote: > What a pity that so many modern manufacturers ignore these factors and > produce keypads which are awkward to use. So much for "progress." My experience has been that only accountants and bookkeepers who are addicted to "touch" use of the adding machine key pad feel that way. ------------------------------ From: Matt Simpson Subject: Dave Barry Ccomments on Spam Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 13:51:03 -0400 Organization: None Whatsoever http://www.miami.com/mld/miami/entertainment/3651015.htm Matt Simpson - Tatertown, KY http://jmatt.net/ ------------------------------ From: John McHarry Subject: Re: Cable & Wireless Organization: Giganews.Com - Premium News Outsourcing Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 23:45:23 GMT Scott Dance wrote: > Has anyone heard anything about Cable & Wireless USA announcing that > they will no longer be selling or servicing Voice (switched and > dedicated) as well as some Data Services (Frame Relay)? From what I have heard, which is a bit out of date, about 2-3 months ago they told the non-Internet people they would sell off those domestic businesses by about now. I haven't heard that they have accomplished that or shut anything down. ------------------------------ From: jss Subject: Re: Cable & Wireless Reply-To: onlyjunkmail@email.com Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 06:49:12 GMT Organization: Road Runner - NC I read that somewhere but I am unable to find it. They said that it would not effect too many customers. Jeff On Wed, 17 Jul 2002 00:31:04 GMT, Scott Dance wrote: > Has anyone heard anything about Cable & Wireless USA announcing that > they will no longer be selling or servicing Voice (switched and > dedicated) as well as some Data Services (Frame Relay)? > Scott Dance ------------------------------ From: larb0@aol.com (LARB0) Date: 19 Jul 2002 12:18:26 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: AT&T Detariffed "Detariffed" simply means that the FCC no longer requires AT&T (or other IXCs) to file tariffs for that service. Which essentially means they can change their rates at will. If you're paying 85 cents a minute, you'd best pick up a phone and call AT&T and get on another plan. Refunds may be an 'iffy' possibility. ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Stopping a Recording Telemarketer From: Vince Mulhollon Date: Fri, 19 Jul 2002 07:57:47 -0500 chsvideo@hotmail.com (Lincoln J. King-Cliby) wrote about Stopping a Recording Telemarketer >> There's a telemarketer that's been calling nearly every day for the >> past few weeks. It's annoying. What can I do about it. >> 1) What can I do to make them stop (Or make Verizon make them stop)? Play along until you get a name. We can assume they are merely sleaze, but they might be incompetently reporting a CPSC safety recall on your furnace or something important like that. Eventually you'll find out whom they are. Sue the pants off them at that point. I am not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV, but since you are being harassed by a computer as opposed to a human, it would appear to be OK to tape record their harassing calls. That would be of great assistance at the trial, after your lawyer reviews the legality of tape recording them, of course. Or cancel your landline phone and live off your cellphone, like several people I know. >> 3) Anyone know who these people are/have contact information for them? >> I am to the point where suing them may be less annoying than the calls >> that I am getting. Litigation would appear to be a necessary evil at this point. ------------------------------ 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 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 775-306-8390 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: mirror.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. --------------------------------------------------------------- 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 #320 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Jul 19 17:22:11 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id RAA27877; Fri, 19 Jul 2002 17:22:11 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 19 Jul 2002 17:22:11 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200207192122.RAA27877@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #321 TELECOM Digest Fri, 19 Jul 2002 17:22:00 EDT Volume 20 : Issue 321 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Deregulation - Love it or Leave it :-) (Joey Lindstrom) Re: Deregulation's Big Lie (Scott Dorsey) Re: Deregulation's Big Lie (Jim Haynes) Re: Deregulation's Big Lie (Dave Mausner) Re: Looking For Info on a Callbox ETP 400 KS (Scott Dorsey) Caller ID Based Blocking Device from SNI Innovation (R.E.) Re: AT&T Detariffed (Arthur Kamlet) Re: Stopping a Recording Telemarketer (Clarence Dold) Re: Send SMS From PC to Phone (Clarence Dold) Re: Want to Dial 0845 Number (in UK) From Canada (rob51166@yahoo.com) Last Laugh! Re: Dave Barry Comments on Spam (Robert Dover) All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. WE DO NOT PERMIT NAME/EMAIL ADDRESS HARVESTING FROM THIS JOURNAL. 'SALTED' EMAIL ADDRESSES APPEAR HEREIN TO VERIFY THIS. YOU GET SUED IN SMALL CLAIMS COURT IF YOU GET CAUGHT SPAMMING OR SENDING VIRUSES. DON'T DO IT. See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Joey Lindstrom Date: Fri, 19 Jul 2002 10:28:18 -0600 Reply-To: Joey Lindstrom Subject: Deregulation - Love it or Leave it :-) On Thu, 18 Jul 2002 21:39:54 -0400 (EDT), editor@telecom-digest.org wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Actually, the gas works people and the > electric power people have taken a clue from telco and started that > 'competion' business also. Even water is in on it. You no longer are > stuck with water from the tap in your kitchen or bathroom, but you can > now (for several years, actually) been able to by-pass tap water > entirely for Culligan or Hinkley-Schmitt. Electric of course you can > now use sunlight or wind and store it in batteries, or use some other > kind of generator on your own. And if you can cause the meter to 'run > backwards' as a result, the existing power supplier is required to > purchase it from you, and send it to the grid for use elsewhere. In > the case of gas however, its a bit different. There still is only one > gas pipe coming to your house, through a meter, etc. But if you, the > consumer are approached by a 'competitive supplier' of gas and you > wish to use the competitor, then you notify them; they in turn notify > the 'regular' supplier, and whatever you consume in a billing period > is refreshed to the piping system by the 'competitor' who then handles > the billing and customer service. So the competitor 'supplies' the gas > (by refreshing the mains of the established company) and you pay the >'competitor' at his rates, which are often times discounted, like all > those outfits. PAT] Pat, I'm sure you and many others feel that all of this is "A Bad Thing"[tm], but I personally quite prefer this type of scenario. I also put my money where my mouth is. My main phone line is provided by a CLEC, Sprint Canada, who also handle my long-distance. I get a better price on the base rate and a MUCH better price on additional calling features than the ILEC (Telus) offers. I understand from many people that Sprint in the US is known for horrible customer service, but up here I have received nothing less than outstanding customer service every time I've had to deal with them (for six years now, thereabouts) - they're not actually the same company. Here in Calgary, Telus still owns the local loop, but it is routed to a Sprint-owned switch, so they're not a "reseller" by any means. At the office where I work, we have four phone lines: three on a hunt-group for voice and the fourth carries both fax and a DSL circuit. The three-line hunt-group is also serviced by Sprint Canada, which offered us a monthly savings of about $20. The fax line remains with Telus: because the CRTC hasn't prohibited this, Telus insists that any line with DSL must have Telus dialtone on it (even if you don't have any need for dialtone). I therefore deal with both companies regularly: while I have a big hate on for Telus, I'll admit that their customer service is VERY good, only slightly behind what I get from Sprint Canada. Here in the province of Alberta, we are also now living with deregulated electricity and natural gas (and gas bills here are not insignificant: this is a place where leaving your window open in winter can be fatal). So far (deregulation has just started), for those living here in the city of Calgary, there are two major players for your electricity dollar: Enmax (the incumbent city-owned utility) and Epcor, which is owned by the city of Edmonton (about 300km north of here). Enmax still has the monopoly on water and sewer. Last January, I switched my electricity over from Enmax to Epcor, and so far I figure I've saved about $70 (Canadian) over what I'd have paid to Enmax during the same time. On the bills you get from Epcor, they break down exactly what you're paying and to whom: part of it goes to Epcor for the actual electricity, and the other goes to Enmax, which still owns the wires and transmission facilities. (Let me make that clear: you write Epcor one cheque, and they take care of paying Enmax their share). I still get an Enmax bill, but it only includes water and sewer. Similarly, there are three natural gas players: the incumbent former monopoly Atco, as well as both Enmax and Epcor. So far, I've decided to stick with Atco. Atco prices are based on the spot market and can go up or down, sometimes quite dramatically (as happened a couple of years ago - prices tripled in six months). Enmax and Epcor require you to sign a contract for a fixed term at a fixed price (which cannot go up or down), and right now, that's just not as attractive an option given how low gas prices are at the moment. As for customer service, I deal with all three of the companies on a semi-regular basis. While I wouldn't go quite as far as to rate them as "outstanding" as I do with Sprint Canada, I'll still rate all three as "very good". You're treated courteously at all times, and if you are calling because there is a problem with your service (rare), they take the time to get it RESOLVED - they don't rush you off the phone or deny that the problem is theirs. So the point of my posting is this: I am a very satisfied customer of the companies I've named (well, 'cept Telus, but don't get me started on that), which provide COMPETITIVE service to me and deliver it quite well. If/when one of them pisses me off, I can tell them to take a long walk off a short pier, and sign up with the competition. They therefore have a much greater reason to make sure I remain a happy customer. Contrast that with monopolies. Sure, you can deal with some pretty nice people in customer service when dealing with the monopoly ILEC. You can also deal with some real iceholes. And when they really piss you off, what can you do about it? Nothing, that's what. Personally, I'd much rather have the option of taking my custom elsewhere, and I've exercised that option a few times now. I just can't understand why so many people here think this is a bad thing. Yes, mistakes have been made in implementations, but it's a pretty damned big logical jump to go from that to "competition is bad, we must have our old monopolies back". No thank you. If you like the monopoly, then by all means, sign up with your ILEC for local service, and with AT&T for your (overpriced) long-distance. The old monopolies had one advantage: they were "safe". "The phone company" was always there. The gas company was always there. The electric company was always there. We bitched and complained about them, but they were an institution, something that always remained stable and constant in our lives. Well, I dunno about some people, but I left my security blanket behind when I was four. I EXPECT to have to make decisions in my life. Every time I go to the grocery store, I make decisions: should I buy this brand-name product, or maybe try the store's house-brand product which is definitely cheaper but is also probably inferior? And even THIS is seen as a "bad thing" by some. If you expect all of your decisions in life to be made for you, then it's really quite simple: go join the military, or go live in a cave. Me, I like having to stay on my toes, having to THINK for myself every day. Keeps me sharp, keeps me nimble. We live in a complex, ever-changing world, and the opposite of change is stagnation. Who shall make our decisions for us? A government-sanctioned monopoly, or we ourselves? The day I decide that I'm tired of making these decisions, that I want somebody else to make them all for me and not have to worry about them anymore, is the day I check into a cemetary. Joey Lindstrom - Laird's Flooring joey@lairdsflooring.com ------------------------------ From: kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) Subject: Re: Deregulation's Big Lie Date: 19 Jul 2002 15:03:38 -0400 Organization: Former users of Netcom shell (1989-2000) Michael D. Sullivan wrote: > AT&T/WE made the terminal equipment ("coupling device") that was > necessary to connect stuff such as radio broadcasting consoles and > computers to phone lines. For computers, the coupling device was a > "modulator-demodulators" (later shortened to "modems") that translated > ones and zeroes into tones that were Bell-certified to be safe for the > phone lines and also provided electrical isolation between the > external device and the phone line. (Don't want 117 VAC leaking into > the phone lines, no.) The modems were big clunky boxes made by WE > that you would have the phone company install for a monthly fee > pursuant to tariff. (They were part of the regulated common > carrier service, so WE could make them and the BOC could charge the > monthly fee.) You couldn't supply your own, because that would be a > "foreign attachment" to the phone line, forbidden by tariff. While you could rent a Bell modem, you could also rent a Data Access Arrangement from Bell which connected up to the line and gave you a four-wire interface to your own modem. IBM used their own proprietary dialup modem systems, which had to be connected via DAA to the telco. Likewise I think Vadic was selling some modems in the Bell 202 days which were faster than the Bell 202 but required a DAA at the phone. It was usually no cheaper to go the DAA route than to rent a comparable Bell modem, although the Bell autodialer was a pain. scott "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Deregulation's Big Lie Reply-To: jhaynes@alumni.uark.edu Organization: University of Arkansas Alumni From: haynes@alumni.uark.edu (Jim Haynes) Date: Fri, 19 Jul 2002 19:57:40 GMT Since I once spent an afternoon in a law library looking for the actual text of the 1956 consent decree, here is where you find it. United States v. Western Electric Co., Inc., and American Telephone and Telegraph Co. Cited 1956 Trade Cases, Commerce Clearing House, par. 68,246. The other big one that same year was: United States v. International Business Machines Corp. Cited 1956 Trade Cases, Commerce Clearing House, par. 68,245. ------------------------------ Reply-To: Dave Mausner From: Dave Mausner Subject: Re: Re Deregulation's Big Lie Organization: Prodigy Internet http://www.prodigy.com Date: Fri, 19 Jul 2002 19:59:57 GMT I appreciate John S.'s reply. Surely un-competitive ATT might not offer LD @ 0.0375 today, but not all costs are in the LD activity. My gripe is more about the poor off-line performance of the competitive telco's; the inability to schedule timely repairs; the poor line quality; the poor billing practices; the finger-pointing over integrated voice/ADSL circuit failures. Downtime has a cost! My point is that we are getting what we pay for, whether at home or biz. competition on commodity services demands a price-point response, which kills profits. the telcos over-built their nets and then deep-sixed customer service to stay alive. plus they cooked the books. We may not pay at cost for electricity or gas, but why should we? Do we buy new cars or gasoline at cost? Or anything else? How about hospital services -- when it's life or death? Do you worry about the cost of aspirin, or do you pay $6.40 per tablet, in order to survive? The margin always funds the human interface, with competitive prices so low, telcos have no room to indulge niceties like getting the order correct. Refer to the irate postings about MCI-Worldcom. If we had (approximately) one regulated telco, we would have the service we want and we would probably pay more for it. but we would use it more wisely and receive more competent service. Dave Mausner / v.+1-708-848-2775 / f.+1-708-848-2569 / c.+1-312-wake-my-i John Stahl wrote in message news:telecom20.320.3@telecom-digest.org: > I don't agree with Dave M. assessment of Monty and the others as I > can remember not too many years ago, I was spending over > $0.25/minute for long distance (LD) calls while today, due to > competition, AT&T is selling a pre-paid LD service through one of > the members-only chains (Sam's Club) for $0.0375/minute.Do you > really think that AT&T would be selling per-minute LD for such a low > price if there were no competition? ------------------------------ From: kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) Subject: Re: Looking For Info on a Callbox ETP 400 KS Date: 19 Jul 2002 14:58:49 -0400 Organization: Former users of Netcom shell (1989-2000) Attila Turay wrote: > I am having a problem with a location that gets a lot of lightning. > When this happens the call box often blows. I am presently using a > Viking E-30. I am looking for feedback on the Talk-A-Phone ETP 400 KS. > If you have or know anyone that has experience with the performance of > this model, please let me know. Well, what kind of lightning protection do you have at the interface and at the call box? scott "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." ------------------------------ From: electrogeek2k@hotmail.com (R.E.) Subject: Caller ID Based Blocking Device from SNI Innovation Date: 19 Jul 2002 10:07:15 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Not sure if this is the proper place to post, but I've run out of research options. I use several devices, from a company called SNI Innovation, in Waltham, MA. The unit in question is called the "Bouncer" and is a CallerID on steroids type device. It can be used to forward, block, or bounce incoming calls based on the caller ID. Two of mine got hit by lightning on July 18th and the company, which is still in business, no longer makes the product and has no clue if anybody has any left, nor where I can try to find any stock that might be left. I know that telcos offer some forms of caller ID blocking, but not to the extent of these devices. I've tried searching the net, I've tried eBay, and now I'm here. Any help with a source, would be appreciated. R.E. Control Concepts Eng. ------------------------------ From: kamlet@panix.com (Arthur Kamlet) Subject: Re: AT&T Detariffed Date: 19 Jul 2002 14:25:08 -0400 Organization: PANIX -- Public Access Networks Corp. Reply-To: ArtKamlet@aol.REMOVE.com > Detariffed simply means that the FCC no longer requires AT&T (or > other IXCs) to file tariffs for that service. Which essentially means > they can change their rates at will. Following the 1984 divestiture, which also brought about considerable competition in the toll traffic market, the FCC ruled that only "Dominant Carriers" would remain subject to most of the tariff restrictions or advance publication and possible approval requirements. (Non-Dominant carriers could merely publish the Tarrriff and instantly apply it to their rates & services, without any approvals.) The FCC then prepared the following list of Dominant Carriers: 1. AT&T That's it folks. For many years only AT&T was a Dominant Carrier and subject to all the advance tariff publication rules. Now the FCC has decided that AT&T, which might cease to exist in the near future, is no longer a dominant carrier. Art Kamlet ArtKamlet @ AOL.com Columbus OH K2PZH ------------------------------ From: dold@07.usenet.us.com Subject: Re: Stopping a Recording Telemarketer Date: 19 Jul 2002 18:33:52 GMT Organization: Wintercreek Data Lincoln J. King-Cliby wrote: > tone." then "Please say your name." a little later "Please say your > daytime telephone number" etc ... I've answered the "Yes" prompt with > NO" and then every other prompt with "Put me on your do not call list > ". The name of the company is never > mentioned in the recording, and equally annoying, they hold the line > for a decent amount of time after you hang up. I used to get this from a company offerring "septic tank service" about once a week. I tried leaving my name and number, and they didn't call. I tried leaving increasingly strong language as each of my responses. Abandoning the "cool unflustered" approach, I was yelling at the phone about what I would like to do with these nameless morons ... The calls stopped. I probably offended the sensibilites of whoever it was that was mindlessly transcribing my earlier responses. Clarence A Dold - dold@email.rahul.net - Hidden Valley (Lake County) CA. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Sometimes that *is* the only thing which works. As disgusting as it may seem, and as much as it tends to belittle yourself in the process, there are times the only thing which works is to scream, curse, act like a total moron and hopefully cause the other end to go home from work hating their job and seriously consider quitting. Hopefully they will take the hint. I had this experience with a bunch of idiots called 'Capitol One' which offer a credit card then refuse under any circumstances to ever close the account. Paid in full, no longer wanted seems logical, but it does not work. After nine months of attempting to get them to close out an unwanted credit card, and zero out the remaining finance charges which they kept adding on, I finally wrote them three or four absolutely nasty, rude letters, telling them they could not read, etc. After four of those letters (and as many months) they finally had someone actually read the mail and take the hint. PAT] ------------------------------ From: dold@04.usenet.us.com Subject: Re: Send SMS From PC to Phone Date: 19 Jul 2002 18:38:48 GMT Organization: Wintercreek Data Mark wrote: > MySkyBuddy is an instant text messaging program that lets you chat > with your friends who have a text-messaging enabled cellular phone. > (Text-messaging is also known as SMS, or Short Message Service.) > File size: 1.6 MB Several cellular carriers offer this as a service via their web sites, or it is as simple as sending email to the appropriate email address. I don't want 1.6MB of program that might do nothing more than figure out that my cell phone needs @mobile.att.net attached to the back end of the email. Or maybe it does some harvesting on the way. If I don't know what carrier my friend uses, maybe I shouldn't be sending him email. What I'd like is to be able to send a "business card" via email. I can send it phone to phone, and I can send from my PC to my phone via infrared, but I can't easily send, or batch, to my wife's phone. Mark wrote: > MySkyBuddy is an instant text messaging program that lets you chat > with your friends who have a text-messaging enabled cellular phone. > (Text-messaging is also known as SMS, or Short Message Service.) This appeared in another newsgroup today: > Well I have no personal use for instant messaging either, but on > the subject of spamming new delivery mechanisms, it is said that > 90% of all text messages on Japan's DoCoMo wireless phone network > are now spam. (they are in the process of passing a draconian law > against it) > Same thing seems to have infested Europe's SMS services - with the > popularity (much higher than it is here) came boatloads of spam. > Nothankyewverymuch, says me. I wonder where they might harvest those SMS-enabled phone numbers? Certainly not from free downloaded programs? Clarence A Dold - dold@email.rahul.net - Hidden Valley (Lake County) CA. ------------------------------ From: rob51166@yahoo.com (Rob) Subject: Re: Want to Dial 0845 Number (in UK) From Canada Date: 19 Jul 2002 14:00:31 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Kevin Buhr wrote in message news:: > jt writes: >> I have an email acccount with a Brit ISP. They have recently sent me >> an email saying I have to call them via their 0845 number or they'll >> delete my account, and there'll be no way to re-instate it. I will >> not be in the UK before the time for this is up; and I _like_ this >> email address. > On this page: > http://www.0870-0800-info.com/0845_telephone_numbers.asp > they say: > An 0845 number gives you both national and international coverage > without the need to set up local branches. Today it is possible to > access 0845 numbers from most overseas countries by having callers > dial their international access code, followed by 44-845 xxx xxxx. > In other words, 011 44 845 XXX XXXX should work. > By the way, you're *sure* you're talking to your ISP, right? Some > companies appear to offer 0845 numbers that pay the number owner per > minute, like a 900 number here (but at a much lower rate). You aren't > being scammed, are you? > Kevin Buhr That's right. 0845 means that I can call a number at the other end of the country and just pay for a local call, rather than a national call, while the company being called pays the difference between the local and national rate. The vast majority of UK non-geographical numbers ( i.e number with prefixes such as 0845, 0870, 0800, 07xxx, 090xx) can now be dialled from outside the UK, simply by using the international country code and eliminating the initial '0' from the prefix; therefore an 0845 # dialled from the US would be 011-44-845-xxx-xxxx. A far as owners of special rate numbers (0845 etc...) being paid to accept calls, this would be highly unlikely as far as ISPs are concerned, especially the more established and well-known ones, such as BTOpenworld, Freeserve, certain AOL numbers, Demon, Pipex etc... The vast majority of British ISPs now offer either 0845 or 0800/0808 (freefone/toll free) numbers. The best thing to do id to phone up the ISP concerned and have them verify that you will have to dial 011-44-845-xxx-xxxx instead of, say if they were in London 011-44-20-xxxx xxxx. I'm not saying that people who own an 0845 or an 0870 don't get paid per call, as some companies do offer this facility to engourage people to take up the numbers. However, the owner of the number is paid, on average 2 to 4p, that is between 3 and 7¢ per call. Rob ------------------------------ From: Robert Dover Subject: Last Laugh! Re: Dave Barry Ccomments on Spam Date: Fri, 19 Jul 2002 12:15:47 -0500 Organization: Nortel Matt Simpson wrote: > http://www.miami.com/mld/miami/entertainment/3651015.htm And, naturally, along with reading the article you get a spam window opened for you selling life insurance. BD ------------------------------ 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 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 775-306-8390 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. 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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 #321 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sun Jul 21 00:37:16 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id AAA04245; Sun, 21 Jul 2002 00:37:16 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sun, 21 Jul 2002 00:37:16 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200207210437.AAA04245@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #322 TELECOM Digest Sun, 21 Jul 2002 00:36:00 EDT Volume 20 : Issue 322 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Virtual Line? (imo353) Re: Organization of Telephone Keypads (Ed Ellers) Re: House OKs Life Sentences For Hackers (David Clayton) Re: Cable & Wireless (Rob) Re: TeleZapper? (Rob) Re: Cellular - Caller Pays in Cincinnati (Wes Leatherock) NYC Natl Weather Service Transmitter Links Keep Dropping (Fleckenstein) PenDrive: USB Flash Hard Drive (pendrive@buyerscorp.biz) Re: Deregulation - Love it or Leave it :-) (Ed Ellers) AT&T International Operator Center (Diamond Dave) Re: Last Laugh! Re: Dave Barry Comments on Spam (Steven Lichter) All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. WE DO NOT PERMIT NAME/EMAIL ADDRESS HARVESTING FROM THIS JOURNAL. 'SALTED' EMAIL ADDRESSES APPEAR HEREIN TO VERIFY THIS. YOU GET SUED IN SMALL CLAIMS COURT IF YOU GET CAUGHT SPAMMING OR SENDING VIRUSES. DON'T DO IT. See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: imo353 Subject: Re: Virtual Line? Date: Sun, 21 Jul 2002 04:00:43 GMT Gordon, When dealing with LEC, care should be exercised when requesting the call forwarding service you seek. In the former NYNEX areas of Verizon, remote call forwarding gets your calls forwarded to a predetermined telephone number of your choice. However unlike "Call Forwarding" available from a standard hard wire POTS line, a change to the forwarded telephone number requires a call to the local Telco for intervention. This may result in a service order, a possible appointment date/time for the change to take place, and of course a possible $ charge to perform the translation change in the switch. Additionally, Remote Call Forwarding is treated as commercial line, and unlike the residential POTS line counterpart, subject to a business line billing schedule. All based on existing state tariffs in your area (Ameritech) Unlike plain old Remote Call Forwarding, Remote Call Forwarding- Variable (RCF-V), is a feature that permits the user to dial into a voice response system, and make changes to the target (Called to) number from any touch tone telephone. The system pre-assigns the user a pass word for security. I use Remote Call Forwarding Variable on my work telephone line to re-direct calls from the office line to a work at home line, or cell phone. All changes are performed on an "on demand" basis. One possible hitch is that the local end office switch may not be equipped with appropriate hardware & generic software load to perform the mentioned feature. My office lost RCF-V capability when the serving 5E was retired, and our service rolled into a newer 5E switch. Then, and if by magic, RCF-V capability returned? Ah those switch magicians!!! Your local Telco may not call it the same as the one in my area, but I am certain it should be distinguishable from plain old Remote Call Forwarding, Circa 1975. Bill Gordon S. Hlavenka wrote in message news:telecom20.278.5@telecom-digest.org: > This has got to be easy... > I used to work out of my house. I had a business line installed > there, 630-832-xxxx (Elmhurst, IL CO). Several years later, I bought > an existing storefront, changed the name, and merged the businesses. > The new business is in a different CO: 630-691-xxxx (Lombard, IL -- > the territories are adjacent). My business has existing customers, > and so does the store, so I wanted to keep both numbers and have them > ring at the store. > When I found out how much it would cost to actually have the 630-832 > number terminate in (630-691) I was amazed, I can tell you... > Fortunately, the solution was simple: "Alternate Answering" and "Busy > Line Transfer" on the 832 number, with the destination set to the > second line in the store's hunt group. The phone rings once at home > and bounces to the store. Works great; been using it for 2.5 years. > Costs about $1.50/mo plus usage for the forwarded calls. I'd already > been using this for 3 years or so to bounce calls to my cell, so all I > had to do was change the ring count and forwarding number. > Soon my lease here will run out. I've reestablished the retail biz > under the new name and can change locations now without losing too > many customers. Within the next six months or so, I'll likely be moving > to cheaper digs which just happen to be served out of the Elmhurst CO. > > When I do, it's straightforward to move the 832 number to the new > location; just DC it at home, cancel the forwarding, and hook it up at > the new digs. But what do I do with 691? I won't have a physical > presence in that CO's territory any more. Can I just deadhead the 691 > number in the CO? What do I call that service when I put in the > change order? Then I'd set up the same forwarding scheme I'm > currently using in the other direction. > Otherwise, I suppose I could find someone trustworthy with a Lombard > presence, have the 691 line moved there and just never hook anything up > to the demarc. Or even leave it where it is and pay the landlord a > couple bucks a month for the privilege. > Gordon S. Hlavenka O- nospam@crashelex.com ------------------------------ From: Ed Ellers Subject: Re: Organization of Telephone Keypads Date: Fri, 19 Jul 2002 20:57:51 -0400 wrote: > As I recall, the original Bell spec for the DTMF pad had a fourth row of > special characters for advanced services yet to be dreamed of at that time. > Apparently, they weren't dreaming of voice prompted menus either. ;-) Maybe they were dreaming of defense contracts? The AUTOVON system used 16-key pads. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Specifically, to the right of 3-6-9-# were A-B-C-D, respectively. I don't remember the meaning of all four, but two of them were 'flash' and 'flash override' as I recall. All four had to do with the ability of certain military bigwigs to cut in on the phone line of persons of lesser stature than themselves. I've had an 'autovon' (which meant 'automated voice network') phone instrument on my phone line in the past and all that happened was when one of those four keys was pressed, the call processed over to re-order at that time. Going back into the early 1960's, when I lived in Chicago and there were the 922 (WABash) and 924 (WAGner) phone exchanges there was no published 920 exchange, however dialing 920 and nothing else got you a woman who identified herself as 'Kankakee Emergency Defense'. I used the Autovon phone once to call 920 then I pressed the ABCD keys against that connection and still got nothing. Many years after 920 was disconnected and 312-353-4400 became the federal telephone operator in Chicago, I tried it again, waiting until after she had dialed an extension for me and left the line. The ABCD keys still did nothing. PAT] ------------------------------ From: David Clayton Subject: Re: House OKs Life Sentences For Hackers Date: Sat, 20 Jul 2002 16:40:35 +1000 Organization: Customer of Connect.com.au Pty. Ltd. Reply-To: dcstar@acslink.net.au Monty Solomon contributed the following: > By Declan McCullagh > Staff Writer, CNET News.com > July 15, 2002, 6:00 PM PT > WASHINGTON--The House of Representatives on Monday overwhelmingly > approved a bill that would allow for life prison sentences for > malicious computer hackers. ...... What's the penalty going to be for writing crap software that allows people to "hack" in? Regards, David Clayton, e-mail: dcstar@acslink.net.au Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Dilbert's words of wisdom #18: Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level then beat you with experience. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: There is no penalty for being that stupid. In fact, they are considered folk heroes by many of the other idiots. Punishment only comes to those who cause humiliation for the crappy software writers. If you get too involved in things that do not concern you (in the crap-writers opinion) then because you may have nearly caused them to lose their jobs, you are the one who is to get the punishment. We will start by taking away your freedom and your entire livelyhood for the rest of your life. See if that doesn't discourage you and get you to behave yourself (which was the real onjective all along). PAT] ------------------------------ From: rob51166@yahoo.com (Rob) Subject: Re: Cable & Wireless Date: 20 Jul 2002 06:00:40 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Scott Dance wrote in message news:: > Has anyone heard anything about Cable & Wireless USA announcing that > they will no longer be selling or servicing Voice (switched and > dedicated) as well as some Data Services (Frame Relay)? Going back some months ago C&W announced in the British press that they will be pulling out/selling their operations in many of the Caribbean nations, where they had long been the main telecom provider, so really it comes as no surprise to hear that they will no longer be selling Voice and Data services in the US. I believe that they've also pulled out of several nations in the Far East, such as Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia -- i.e. former British colonies. They actually sold their cable TV and telephone network a couple of years ago here in the UK to NTL (or NT Hell, as it's often called!), so it looks as if they're cutting back to the bare minimum. Rob ------------------------------ From: rob51166@yahoo.com (Rob) Subject: Re: TeleZapper? Date: 20 Jul 2002 06:21:13 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ dold@95.usenet.us.com wrote in message news:: > AgentX wrote: >> Is it possible for such a device to work and if so how? >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: What happens is some telemarketers are >> mike@sandman.com ... *eventually* the telemarketers will get wise to >> this and spend another two or three seconds on the line to listen for >> a human voice, which will mark the end of the telezapper device. Ask >> Mike for more details. PAT] > The dialer that one of my customers uses will likely not be > reprogrammed to listen for tones more correctly. It is already pretty > poor in that respect. I think it is more likely that the small > companies will continue to be fooled, and the big companies will go > with hardware supervision on a T1. The T1 Hardware supervision will > not be fooled by my Telezapper. > I suspect this is already true, as some autodialers do get through, > but many hang up immediately. My wife insists that the total volume > has dropped dramatically. It's a pity you don't have the same facility as us here in the UK called Telephone Preferential Service (there's also a Fax Preferential Service to avoid junk faxes and a Mail Preferential Service to avoid junk mail). If you register with them, they pass your name and number onto all companies who are then made aware that if they do phone, fax or mail you they're liable for a fine of GBP5000 or just over UD$7500. I can't remember if you said that the companies reveal their numbers or not. If not, why don't you get Annonymous Caller Rejection or Choose to Refuse put on your line. Just my two cents worth! Rob ------------------------------ From: wesrock@aol.com (Wes Leatherock) Date: 20 Jul 2002 13:35:13 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: Cellular - Caller Pays in Cincinnati On 17 Jul 2002 22:12:36 -0400 johnl@iecc.com (John R Levine) wrote: > The long run plan is to erase the distinction between wireline and > wireless and allow full portability between the two. Despite the > latest setback, giving wireless telcos yet another year to implement > portability among themselves, as far as I know that's still the long > term plan, and caller pays would be a disaster in that environment, > making it possible for any number you ever called to cost an > unpredictable amount extra. > Besides, we already have an area code for numbers that exact a modest > but annoying per-minute surcharge: 500. I would have no objection at > all to putting caller-pays in AC 500, but I need hardly point out what > a resounding flop all other services in AC 500 have been. This message was one of the various messages included in the SBC POTS bill I received earlier this week: Customer Alert: Due to billing arrange- ments made by some wireless phone service providers, you may have previously been able to call certain wireless phone numbers without charge. As of November 1, 2001, such billing arrangements began to phase out. As a result, when you place a call to a wireless telephone number, you may be charged local toll or long distance usage, just as you would with any other call. In some cases you may also be required to dial one plus the area code, and the telephone number. Wes Leatherock wesrock@aol.com wleathus@yahoo.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I got that very same notice in my SBC bill earlier this month. But mine said that the billing would commence in October. I am in Kansas if that matters. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Steve Fleckenstein Subject: NYC National Weather Service Phoneline Links Keep Dropping Date: Sat, 20 Jul 2002 10:26:32 -0400 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Reply-To: Steve Fleckenstein Anyone know why Verizon can't keep the lines up for this one. Seem to go out every couple of weeks and take days to correct the situation. At one point Verizon would not send out a repair crew on a weekend and the transmitter was out for days. I think NWS rained fire and brimstone down upon Verizon for that one. We are talking about impacting a key major metro area and costal marine source of emergency weather information. Not some East PoDunk Clear Channel prerecorded computerized satellite repeated all over the country excuse for wasting public broadcasting bandwidth. Steve N2UBP ARES/RACES/Skywarn NOUS41 KOKX 182130 PNSOKX NJZ002>006-011-NYZ067>081-CTZ005>012-190030- PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NEW YORK NY 530 PM EDT THU JUL 18 2002 THE NEW YORK CITY NOAA WEATHER RADIO TRANSMITTER KWO-35 BROADCASTING ON A FREQUENCY OF 162.550 MEGAHERTZ IS OFF THE AIR. THERE IS A TELEPHONE LINE PROBLEM. LOCAL TELEPHONE TECHNICIANS ARE WORKING ON THE PROBLEM. AT THIS TIME ... WE HAVE NO ESTIMATED TIME FOR REPAIRING THIS LINE. WE APOLOGIZE FOR THIS INTERRUPTION OF SERVICE AND ANY INCONVENIENCES THAT IT CAUSES. $$ GC ------------------------------ From: pendrive@buyerscorp.biz Reply-To: Subject: PenDrive: USB Flash Hard Drive Date: Sat, 20 Jul 2002 18:56:32 -0000 BuyersCorp is proud introduce the Pen Drive, the world's first USB Hard Drive that is about the size of your thumb. Requiring no cables, power supplies, or batteries, you will be able to transfer data to and from any computer at high speeds via the USB port. The Pen Drive is an innovation that finally does take care of today's data transferring and storing needs. Pen Drive uses durable solid state storage with no moving parts thus making it shock resistant able to withstand the bumps and grinds of everyday use. This useful tool will allow people working in the computer field, corporate executives and students to carry vital data, and move data seamlessly from computer to computer thus increasing productivity. As we were able to go direct to the manufacturer, we are able to bring you these drives at the lowest prices (with a special introductory pricing starting at $20). Capacities shipping currently are 16Mb, 32MB, 64MB, 128MB and 256MB modules. To find out more, please goto: http://www.buyerscorp.biz [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I ran this one before about a month ago hoping that someone would either write a detailed review of same or else get it and send to to me and I would write the review. So far that has not happened. So when this arrived again in the mail today I thought I would run it again and suggest it again. :) PAT] ------------------------------ From: Ed Ellers Subject: Re: Deregulation - Love it or Leave it :-) Date: Sat, 20 Jul 2002 15:32:01 -0400 PAT, thr TELECOM Digest Editor, noted: > Electric of course you can now use sunlight or wind and store it in > batteries, or use some other kind of generator on your own. And if > you can cause the meter to 'run backwards' as a result, the existing > power supplier is required to purchase it from you, and send it to > the grid for use elsewhere." Doesn't quite work that way. AIUI, if you are doing one of several favored types of on-site generation, the utility installs a second meter to measure the power you're feeding into their system, and pays you a regulated, wholesale rate for that power. (This also requires that your co-generation system be synchronized with the utility's system.) ------------------------------ From: Diamond Dave Subject: AT&T International Operator Center Organization: The BBS Corner / Diamond Mine On-Line Date: Sat, 20 Jul 2002 20:49:33 GMT Does AT&T still operate the International Operator Center in Pittsburgh? I'm sure its either been eliminated or sharply reduced, considering most countries are direct dialable, or the "local" (regular) AT&T operator can handle most situations where the IOC was at one time used. Dave Perussel Webmaster - Telephone World http://www.dmine.com/phworld [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Do you remember when the Pittsburgh IOC was mostly handled out of White Plains, New York, except for calls to Hawaii and the Pacific area which were handled out of Oakland, CA by the IOC there? There was an IOC in Miami, Florida for points in South America, and one in Montreal, Quebec for some far-north inter- national points. PAT] ------------------------------ From: stevenl11@aol.com (Steven Lichter) Subject: Re: Last Laugh! Re: Dave Barry Ccomments on Spam Date: 20 Jul 2002 10:15:48 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Robert Dover wrote in message news:: > Matt Simpson wrote: >> http://www.miami.com/mld/miami/entertainment/3651015.htm > And, naturally, along with reading the article you get a spam window opened > for you selling life insurance. That is what you have to deal with in order to see such articles free. If it were not for the paid ads on these web sites you would have to pay to read them. As to Spam, there is no incentive for this people; and I use that term very loosely; to stop them from spamming, if they get a 1/2 % responce then they have more then paid for the cost, and they go to another site and start spamming again. The only way to stop them is to take them off of the net and make it very costly to do business, like that, say a one million dollar fine and loss of all profits and equipment for a first offense. Large companies wink at this type of advertising; AT&T and T-Mobile are just two that have marketers selling their services this way, they say we don't support spamming, yet they continue to allow these companies to spam. When these spammers are caught the companies dropped them from selling the services they would not do it. Long jail sentances would also help, say 20 years for the first offense and life for any other. Apple Elite II 909-359-5338. Home of GBBS/LLUCE,support for the Apple II and Macintosh 24 hours 2400/14.4. OggNet Server. The only good spammer is a dead one! Have you hunted one down today? (c) I Kill Spammers, Inc. A Rot In Hell Company. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I am not sure I agree with your assess- ment that the only way you get to see free news material on the net is by tolerating all the pop-up window ads selling things. After all, I run plenty of specialized news items; how many pop ups do you see in TELECOM Digest? Well, you respond, we have to read your 'pop up' message asking for money now and then in the Digest. Yes you do, once per month, not several times in each message. And I do not just pass it in front of you without any advance warning. Most of the news services on the net could try it like I do; make it a voluntary type thing with contribtutions requested. After all, the net was originally intended as a FREE exchange of information. The net was never intended as just another money-making scheme for the television/radio stations or a commercial medium. It was only when Al (the bore) Gore came along in the middle nineties and tried to re-invent the whole thing for the media and large companies that this became an issue to start with. Almost all the problems we as netizens have seen in the past decade came about because of companies and corporations deciding this was going to be their thing, and to hell with the rest of us who had been around for years before, perfectly happy to share and share alike. Was 1993 the last year of the net as we had intended it? Was it about that year that the rest of us were told by Vint Cerf and his cronies we could go straight to hell and quit bothering them? Oh, they of course were perfectly happy to FTP into and rip off our stuff, and they would even grudgingly acknowledge us when they had to but if I had not placed a copyright on this Digest and the writings therein, do you, Steve, expect I would still have it today? No Steve, I do not agree with you that the only way to get news to read on the net for free is by tolerating pop-up ads. That's just a damn lie the news media and Vint Cerf and others of his ilk want you to believe. Look at how totally useless Usenet News has become in the past few years. Does *anyone* bother reading it any longer with all the spam messages in it? And I also disagree with you on the idea of life in prison for spammers. After all, before long the prisons will be getting all filled up with hackers. There won't be roon there for hackers as well as spammers and virus writers/circulators, and which are more dangerous enemies? Well the hackers of course, just ask Cerf, or our resident president now in power, or any number of other idiots who like to pretend they in are in charge here now, and for the most part have the guns to enforce their positions. Well, that's my Sunday Sermon for this week. Have a nice Sabbath Day, one and all. 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 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 775-306-8390 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: mirror.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. --------------------------------------------------------------- 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 #322 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sun Jul 21 17:30:50 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id RAA09092; Sun, 21 Jul 2002 17:30:50 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sun, 21 Jul 2002 17:30:50 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200207212130.RAA09092@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #323 TELECOM Digest Sun, 21 Jul 2002 17:30:00 EDT Volume 20 : Issue 323 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: NYC National Weather Service Phoneline Links Dropping (Roy Smith) Re: NYC National Weather Service Phoneline Links Dropping (R. T. Wurth) Re: Deregulation's Big Lie (Paul Erickson) Re: Deregulation's Big Lie (Jack) Re: Deregulation - Love it or Leave it :-) (Roy Smith) Re: Cellular - Caller Pays in Cincinnati (Stanley Cline) Re: Cellular - Caller Pays in Cincinnati (Wes Leatherock) Re: What is Tier 1 ... (Geoffrey Welsh) All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. WE DO NOT PERMIT NAME/EMAIL ADDRESS HARVESTING FROM THIS JOURNAL. 'SALTED' EMAIL ADDRESSES APPEAR HEREIN TO VERIFY THIS. YOU GET SUED IN SMALL CLAIMS COURT IF YOU GET CAUGHT SPAMMING OR SENDING VIRUSES. DON'T DO IT. See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 21 Jul 2002 00:57:36 -0400 From: Roy Smith Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC Subject: NYC National Weather Serviced Phoneline Links Dropping Steve Fleckenstein wrote: > Anyone know why Verizon can't keep the lines up for this one. Because they're Verizon. What more reason could you want? ------------------------------ From: rwurth@att.net (R. T. Wurth) Subject: Re: NYC National Weather Service Phoneline Links Keep Dropping Date: Sun, 21 Jul 2002 14:41:57 GMT Organization: AT&T Worldnet In article , Steve Fleckenstein wrote: > Anyone know why Verizon can't keep the lines up for this one. Seem to > go out every couple of weeks and take days to correct the situation. [...] > We are talking about impacting a key major metro area and costal marine > source of emergency weather information. > Not some East PoDunk Clear Channel prerecorded computerized satellite > repeated all over the country excuse for wasting public broadcasting > bandwidth. > Steve > N2UBP > ARES/RACES/Skywarn > NOUS41 KOKX 182130 > PNSOKX > NJZ002>006-011-NYZ067>081-CTZ005>012-190030- > PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT > NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NEW YORK NY > 530 PM EDT THU JUL 18 2002 > THE NEW YORK CITY NOAA WEATHER RADIO TRANSMITTER KWO-35 > BROADCASTING ON A FREQUENCY OF 162.550 MEGAHERTZ IS OFF THE AIR. > THERE IS A TELEPHONE LINE PROBLEM. LOCAL TELEPHONE TECHNICIANS ARE > WORKING ON THE PROBLEM. AT THIS TIME ... WE HAVE NO ESTIMATED TIME FOR > REPAIRING THIS LINE. [...] Upon seeing this, I tried to take advantage of the situation to try to receive the more regionally-appropriate (for my area) broadcast from the new station at Southard (Howell), which I've been unable to receive, a situation I've been attributing to the NYC broadcast capturing my fairly unselective receiver with a stronger signal. It was not to be, KWO35 was back up. But I did get to hear their new female "announcer" mixed in with the traditional male "announcer." I thought "she" was much clearer and more understandable. Anyone know if/when "she" will replace "him?" Will the new "announcer" be going national? R. T. Wurth / rwurth@att.net / Rumson, NJ USA ------------------------------ From: Paul Erickson Subject: Re: Deregulation's Big Lie Date: Sun, 21 Jul 2002 13:54:55 -0400 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Yes, the electrical "competition" is kind of a joke here in Ohio. First Energy is the incumbent local supplier. Evidently they now have a subsidiary, First Energy Solutions that is their "competition". They offer about a 5% commercial discount. Went I looked at our electric bill to analyze the potential savings, I discovered roughly that out of an average $450 monthly bill: $150 is the "generation" charge - the actual electricity $150 is the "delivery" charge $150 is the "transition" charge, whatever that is. So the most I could expect is 5% off that first $150 generation charge. Hardly worth it, not to mention they want a one year contract, IIRC. Paul John Stahl wrote in message news:telecom20.320.3@telecom-digest.org: > I don't agree with Dave M. assessment of Monty and the others as I > can remember not too many years ago, I was spending over > $0.25/minute for long distance (LD) calls while today, due to > competition, AT&T is selling a pre-paid LD service through one of > the members-only chains (Sam's Club) for $0.0375/minute.Do you > really think that AT&T would be selling per-minute LD for such a low > price if there were no competition? > As for the electric rates and the water rates Dave mentions: yes, > the competition (what little there is) has not been able to drive > the costs lower as much in those states with deregulation as was > expected. There is no federal regulatory agency for those other > utilities; the individual states control that aspect of our lives. > Primarily in the supply of electric power, the consumer is limited > to a very small fraction which can be potentially saved on their > bill. The power companies (I believe) saw the fiasco which turned > the telecom industry into a real competitive nightmare (especially > in LD) and got the state's Public Service Commission's in each with > electric deregulation as the law to believe that their costs of > "transmission" were higher than reality. So the amount of each > electric bill assigned to the actual cost of the electrical energy, > for the most part, is quite a bit less than one-half of the total > bill. Here in mid-state NY, for example, the local power > transmission supplier is asking for another 11% raise for the > transmission cost bring it up to over $0.10/ kilowatt (have never > figured why their costs keep on increasing with my usage?) When you > are told you can "save" maybe 10% of $0.04 or $0.05 per kilowatt, > does this drive you to spend time to do so? ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 21 Jul 2002 03:09:40 -0400 From: Jack Subject: Re: Deregulation's Big Lie On Fri, 19 Jul 2002 19:59:57 GMT, Dave Mausner wrote: > I appreciate John S.'s reply. Surely un-competitive ATT might not > offer LD @ 0.0375 today, but not all costs are in the LD activity. My > gripe is more about the poor off-line performance of the competitive > telco's; the inability to schedule timely repairs; the poor line > quality; the poor billing practices; the finger-pointing over > integrated voice/ADSL circuit failures. Downtime has a cost! I'm guessing you're going to get several replies to this, but in most cases these problems are not the fault of the competitive telephone companies (and they are as upset about these things as you are). They have to depend on the incumbent telephone companies to make repairs, fix line quality problems, etc. And if they are a reseller of the incumbent's service, they also must depend on the incumbent for accurate billing information. Naturally, certain incumbents act as though it's not in their best interest to offer excellent service to competitors. Unfortunately, this problem will likely continue as long as the same company is allowed to own and operate both the central office facilities and the "outside plant" (the wires and cables that connect to your home). One reason that wireless services are becoming an attractive alternative for many is precisely because this is one situation where the competitor owns and controls all the facilities, and therefore can directly control their own level of service (also, people have lower expectations of quality for wireless service, apparently). I grant that in an ideal world, all the competitors would be able to string their own wires and cables to reach their customers. But there are a couple of practical problems there. Even if the cost of wire were not an issue, would you really want five or ten different phone cables hung on the poles out in front of your home? Or five or ten competitors all burying their wire, and chopping up other competitors' wires and cable (not to mention cable TV, water and gas lines) whenever they made a mistake in digging? Now I know some folks think that the incumbent phone companies strung the wires and therefore ought to have the exclusive right to use them. They point at the Constitution and cry "no taking of private property!" but they forget a couple of things. First of all, in most cases their wires and cables aren't on the incumbent telco's property, but rather are along public rights-of-way. If they'd had to buy ever square inch of land that their cables run over or beneath, nobody would have phone service, so they in effect got a giant concession from "we the people" by being able to use public property for all these years at little or no cost. Therefore, if the government (acting as the representatives of "we the people") decides that competition for landline telephone service is desirable, they ought to be able to say to the incumbents, "your cables are on OUR property, therefore we have some say in what you do with them!" But the other thing is that up until now, customers have had virtually no choice of telephone companies. Those wires and cables were strung, not using money earned as a result of customers making a free will choice of who would provide their phone service, but because all customers in a given service are were forced to subsidize the construction of those cables or do without phone service (it's also worth noting that in many "high cost" areas, the companies ran those cables using funds received from the government, or perhaps as a subsidy from those living in other, lower cost areas). My point is that both captive customers of the monopoly telephone company, and in some cases the government, have been the ones who bought and paid for those wires and cables, and I personally think it a bit arrogant of those companies to now assert that those wires are all theirs and that they shouldn't have to share with anyone (the same argument could be made for most cable TV company lines, by the way). Now, again, this IS different from taking the property of any other company or individual for three reasons: First, the property in question is located on public rights-of way. Second, it was paid for by customer of a monopoly company, the monopoly status having been conferred by the government (and as the government giveth, the government taketh away). And third, it's still not really a taking, since the incumbent company (or a separate company if we go the structural separation route) would still be getting paid for the use of their lines -- they simply would not be able to restrict who can use them. And while I'm on the point, many people don't seem to realize that even structural separation would not be a "taking" in the strictest sense. With very few exceptions (very small telcos in rural areas that would likely be exempted anyway), we are talking about publicly owned companies here. So if these companies are split into two, the real owners -- the stockholders -- can be given one-half share in the company that provides dial tone, and one-half share in the company that owns the wires and cables, for each share they now own in the combined company. So they would still own everything they now own. The only real losers might be the corporate bigwigs who would not control the same empire they once controlled, but we should not forget that they never owned the company in the first place (except to the extent that they were also stockholders). > My point is that we are getting what we pay for, whether at home or > biz. competition on commodity services demands a price-point > response, which kills profits. the telcos over-built their nets and > then deep-sixed customer service to stay alive; plus they cooked the > books. Well, I'm sure the same thing happens in other lines of business, but we don't have the same expectations there. We've been conditioned by nearly a century of monopoly service to think that phone companies should somehow be immune to the normal forces of competition that drive every other business. Yet as Benjamin Franklin is reported to have said, 'Those who seek security over liberty deserve neither.' Perhaps you prefer the security of always dealing with the same company, but many of your fellow consumers would prefer the liberty to shop around and look for the best deal, as we do with almost other products and services we buy. > We may not pay at cost for electricity or gas, but why should we? Do > we buy new cars or gasoline at cost? Or anything else? Who said anything about selling at cost? But some companies have built huge, successful business by selling at very close to cost (Wal-Mart comes to mind, and while you may or may not have reasons for not liking Wal-Mart, the fact remains that a large number of people freely choose to shop there, and few would seriously assert that people should not have that choice -- and the ones who don't want customers to be able to shop at Wal-Mart are often trying to protect their own financial interests). > How about >hospital services -- when it's life or death? Do you > worry about the cost of aspirin, or do you pay $6.40 per tablet, in > order to survive? That's whole other issue (and don't get me started on that) but let me point out that in this situation the hospital is a defacto monopoly provider -- once they have you in their doors (and remember, in many emergency situations you don't really have a choice as to which hospital you're taken to, especially in smaller towns or if you're unconscious), they can charge pretty much whatever they please. However, the reason they do things like this is because it helps cover their costs in treating people who can't pay at all, and most of the people who pay those rates have insurance of one form or another. The folks who really get taken on that deal are those who can't afford health insurance, but aren't poor enough to qualify for government assistance (or who don't know that, in some cases, a hospital is required to write off a bill if a patient is unable to pay). It's always been my opinion that medical care is the one area where we should emulate the rest of the industrialized world, and provide some level of basic health care to all citizens, but ever time that is suggested the con$ervative$ in Congress start screaming about "socialized medicine" and quoting dire statistics from countries that have had a bad experience with it. Anyway, this is probably off topic here, and after a while the topic of health care almost turns into a religious debate. > The margin always funds the human interface, with competitive prices > so low, telcos have no room to indulge niceties like getting the order > correct. Refer to the irate postings about MCI-Worldcom. And here you point to what some would argue is the worst example of competition. For every MCI, there is probably another company with mostly extremely happy customers. For example, I've yet to hear any complaints about TDS Metrocom, which operates as a facilities-based CLEC in Wisconsin and Michigan. Well, I take that back, I have heard complaints about TDS -- that they aren't yet available in a location where a potential customer wants service! > If we had (approximately) one regulated telco, we would have the > service we want and we would probably pay more for it. but we would > use it more wisely and receive more competent service. What do you mean by, "use it more wisely?" That we would schedule our calls on Sundays and talk for no more than three minutes, so that we still have money left to buy food and shelter? That we tell our kids that they can't call Grandma except for ten minutes at Christmas? Those things really used to happen, back when AT&T had a monopoly on everything telephonic. Thanks, but no thanks -- even with the hassles involved in making a choice, I still think that having a choice is a lot better for almost everyone concerned. And if we really want competent service, structural separation would likely accomplish that (not to say it's the perfect solution, but it's a better option than letting the incumbent phone companies play games with their competitors' service, IMHO). So would strict enforcement of laws that forbid anticompetitive actions, but only if coupled with really HUGE fines -- amounts that cannot be written off as simply another cost of doing business, in other words. Unfortunately, I don't see either of these happening in the near future. What I do see is customers "voting with their feet" and turning to wireless as their primary phone service, and in the end that may be the only thing that scares the incumbent wireline companies enough to change their ways, but unfortunately that does not give them any incentive to treat the competitive companies more fairly. Jack Resources for Michigan Telephone Users page: http://michigantelephone.workbench.net/ [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Jack, a couple things you said in your message were very familiar for me. Here in Independence we have a Walmart store. At the Walmart store there is an Alltel 'kiosk' or a little shop inside a bigger store where George, the Alltel agent sells prepaid cellular and regular Alltel service as well. I do not personally use Alltel; I instead have Cingular Wireless. Where the kiosk at Walmart is a 'corporate' shop for Alltel, the Radio Shack store in Independence is an 'agency location' for Alltel. Forget for a minute the fact that the Walmart store -- which opened in the summer of 2000 -- nearly put the business places downtown in bankruptcy. We will talk about that in a minute. I see George at the Alltel kiosk to pay on some prepaid cellular phones for people, including my mother's cell phone. Their prepaid service is HORRIBLE. There is tremendous congestion in the cellular switch, which is located near here in Liberty, Kansas. I tell George my problems with it; he whines and says 'well the trouble is really Southwestern Bell. We cannot get them to install enough lines as fast as we need. I tell him, 'George, I am not paying SBC for service; I am paying you, and you are not providing very good service.' Then he repeats the argument about how they are so dependent on Southwestern Bell to keep them going, etc. "We cannot get them to go any faster; how should we do that?" I tell him I always get my way with SBC; I just appeal to the Chairman's Office on a regular basis. George gives me sort of a funny look. SBC employees are afraid of the Chairman, apparently, and don't want to cross him; they also are frightened of customers who *know about appeals to the chairman's office* I've found. I use that method to get what I want out of them as needed. I really think many of the independent carriers who get into trouble over switching and wiring, etc should get *a lot* more agressive about their complaints and see if that improves thing any. Maybe appeals to a regulatory agency would help them also. Regards whether or not people like Walmart, the business people in town do not care for them much. At the start of 2000, when Walmart had announced plans to open a new 'mega-center store' west of town, the local business places were fit to be tied. They knew in a short time Walmart would drive them out of business. Sure enough, now in the summer of 2002, when I walk around downtown I see the stores are all mostly empty of customers, and the clerks are happy to see anyone at all. Walmart in the meantime has dumped tons of money as favors on the schools, all the churches, the hospital, etc. They say, 'well, as members of the community we want to be responsible, etc.' In this rural community of 8000 people, I would not expect the stores to be all that busy, but it has gotten ridiculously slow. Then the grocery stores all started going out of business one by one. Safeway, Dillons Foodtown, and Country Mart all closed up. Our town did not have a single grocery store any longer -- except of course, the Walmart mega- center. Now it was more crowded out there than ever. Walmart kept on dumping money around town 'we want to be responsible citizens, etc' and *finally* after six months of no other grocery stores in town, an Oklahoma chain of stores called 'Marvins' opened in the old Country Mart location about two weeks ago. Some of the Walmart-haters started going to Marvin's but most people still go out to Walmart for groceries along with everything else. That was the idea, I guess. I have very mixed feelings about Walmart. The Sears and J.C. Penny stores downtown are still there, but doing very poorly in the past year and a half. Marvins ran ads in the {Independence Reporter} for several days prior to their 'grand opening' saying that "in all prob- ability, we will not be able to provide the prices you have come to expect from one of our competitors, but we hope you will try us out and see if we are more convenient for many of you". Some of the Walmart-haters came back from the grocery store on opening day and were angry: 'It turns out Marvins IGA is no more expensive than Walmart in groceries at least, and cheaper in some aspects'. Big grin. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Roy Smith Subject: Re: Deregulation - Love it or Leave it :-) Date: Sun, 21 Jul 2002 00:56:00 -0400 Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC Ed Ellers wrote: > (This also requires that your co-generation system be > synchronized with the utility's system.) That's one of those requirements which pretty much takes care of itself. When you're hooked up to the power grid, either you're in sync with the grid, or your generator shaft becomes a projectile. ------------------------------ From: Stanley Cline Subject: Re: Cellular - Caller Pays in Cincinnati Date: Sun, 21 Jul 2002 03:10:20 -0400 Organization: Roamer1 Communications - Dunwoody, GA, USA Reply-To: sc1-news@roamer1.org On 20 Jul 2002 13:35:13 GMT, wesrock@aol.com (Wes Leatherock) wrote: > Customer Alert: Due to billing arrange- > ments made by some wireless phone > service providers, you may have > previously been able to call certain > wireless phone numbers without > charge. As of November 1, 2001, > such billing arrangements began to > phase out. As a result, when you This isn't caller-pays, but a decision on the part of SBC to eliminate certain "LATA-wide" calling services offered to wireless carriers. (Basically, a wireless carrier could get "reverse billing" on calls to numbers that would otherwise be toll for the caller.) SBC/PacBell (IIRC, the CPUC made them do it) dumped this sort of thing in CA awhile back; we've never had such in BellSouth territory (GA and TN anyway) as it just isn't needed around these parts. 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: 21 Jul 2002 13:44:57 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: Cellular - Caller Pays in Cincinnati > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I got that very same notice in my SBC > bill earlier this month. But mine said that the billing would commence > in October. I am in Kansas if that matters. PAT] I'm in Oklahoma. (Makes me wonder if customers in South Coffeyville [Oklahoma, but served out of the Coffeyville C.O.] got the Oklahoma notice or the Kansas notice?) Wes Leatherock wesrock@aol.com wleathus@yahoo.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: South Coffeyville is still in 918, regardless of being served out of 620 (formerly 316) for their dialtone. I think they are treated as Oklahoma customers. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Geoffrey Welsh Subject: Re: What is Tier 1 ... Date: Sun, 21 Jul 2002 11:11:50 -0400 Organization: Bell Sympatico > Discussion in a national telecomms group, what are the criteria for > tier 1, tier 2 etc? Based on past experience here in Canada, seeing the term "tier 1" in a company's promotional material is a real turn-off. Companies who claimed to be "tier 1" have done so as marketing bafflegab at best or to hide or to dismiss the shortcomings of their network at worst. For instance, companies in Canada which claimed to be "tier 1" have: - exaggerated the robustness of their network (e.g. ignored the need for redundancy and failover) - had only one transit provider (usually their U.S. parent company) and sometimes only one transit path from any major center (see previous item) - had very poor peering here within Canada resulting in international delivery paths for cross-street traffic ------------------------------ 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 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 775-306-8390 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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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 #323 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sun Jul 21 23:08:18 2002 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id XAA11051; Sun, 21 Jul 2002 23:08:18 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sun, 21 Jul 2002 23:08:18 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200207220308.XAA11051@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V20 #324 TELECOM Digest Sun, 21 Jul 2002 23:08:00 EDT Volume 20 : Issue 324 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson SPECIAL ISSUE ON MCI/WORLDCOM BANKRUPTCY Worldcom Bankrupt (John R. Levine) WorldCom Goes Chapter 11 - AP Story (Ed Ellers) WorldCom Files for Chapter 11 (Patrick Townson via Yahoo! News) More on WorldCom (Ed Ellers) Remarks by FCC Chairman About MCI/Worlcom Bankruptcy (Marcus D. Falco) Commentators: What is the End Result of Bankruptcy (Marcus Didius Falco) All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. WE DO NOT PERMIT NAME/EMAIL ADDRESS HARVESTING FROM THIS JOURNAL. 'SALTED' EMAIL ADDRESSES APPEAR HEREIN TO VERIFY THIS. YOU GET SUED IN SMALL CLAIMS COURT IF YOU GET CAUGHT SPAMMING OR SENDING VIRUSES. DON'T DO IT. See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 21 Jul 2002 20:47:29 -0400 From: John R Levine Subject: Worldcom Bankrupt The Associated Press reports that John Sidgemore told them that Worldcom is planning to file for chapter 11 bankruptcy today, Sunday. They'll be laying off 17,000 workers and will look at selling off some operations. "Certainly not UUNet or MCI or any of the core assets." Regards, John Levine johnl@iecc.com Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies", Information Superhighwayman wanna-be http://iecc.com/johnl Sewer Commissioner "Just how much hay did we buy?" asked Tom, balefully. ------------------------------ From: Ed Ellers Subject: WorldCom Goes Chapter 11 - AP Story Date: Sun, 21 Jul 2002 21:44:06 -0400 7/21/2002 9:34:00 PM NEW YORK, Jul 21, 2002 (AP Online via COMTEX) -- WorldCom Inc. filed for bankruptcy protection Sunday, almost four weeks after the telecommunications giant disclosed nearly $4 billion in deceptive accounting. The filing, which had been expected, is the latest in a stunning series of corporate collapses and the biggest bankruptcy in U.S. history. WorldCom chief executive John Sidgmore told The Associated Press Sunday that his company had negotiated approximately $2 billion in financing while it reorganizes. The company, which is hiring a restructuring team to ease the process, hopes to emerge from bankruptcy in 12 months. http://cbs.marketwatch.com/tools/quotes/newsarticle.asp?siteid=mktw&sid=1759 03&guid=%7BC007F260%2D1CE2%2D4EB1%2DBD82%2DA1F1B7A67C94%7D ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 21 Jul 2002 19:12:31 PDT From: Patrick Townson