From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Oct 28 22:36:16 2002 Received: from localhost (localhost [[UNIX: localhost]]) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.3nb1/8.11.3) id g9T3aGn15157; Mon, 28 Oct 2002 22:36:16 -0500 (EST) Date: Mon, 28 Oct 2002 22:36:16 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200210290336.g9T3aGn15157@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #101 TELECOM Digest Mon, 28 Oct 2002 22:35:00 EST Volume 22 : Issue 101 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: FTP Synchronization Software for Windows? (Clarence Dold) Re: Digital TV Will Soon be Mandatory (Mark Crispin) Wi-FI in Apartments; Airwave Saturation? (Jeff Smith) Re: Is there a Telephone Industry Magazine? (Rich Campbell) Re: Looking for Inexpensive Small Business PBX Solution (Charles P.) Re: Connecting a FAX Machine to an Existing Answering Machine (AES) Re: Connecting a FAX Machine to an Existing Answering Machine (S. Ewing) Silent Observer (Radek) More News Headlines of Interest 10/28/02 (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: dold@16.usenet.us.com Subject: Re: FTP Synchronization Software for Windows? Date: Mon, 28 Oct 2002 21:50:22 UTC Organization: a2i network Joey Lindstrom wrote: > Can anyone recommend some good FTP synchronization software for > Windows (98 currently, soon to be 2000)? This is for the Telecom > Digest Archives CD-ROM project -- I'd like the CD's that I burn on > behalf of Pat to be COMPLETELY up to date, but the archives are > absolutely humungous. :-) I'm looking for something that will, either > on demand or on a schedule, login to the massis machine (a *nix box), > burrow its way into each and every directory, get a listing of all the > files available, and then download anything either missing, new, or > changed since the last run (to my local hard drive). Not the question that you asked, but, I can't help myself ... What software are you using to burn the CD? Is it something that is RockRidge compatible, to maintain the long filenames that might be in the original Unix box, or is it windows-centric? CDs burned with Windows long file names are not recognizable on Unix boxes. Unix long file names often get munged beyond use by transporting them to Windows CD writers. You can save yourself from that with mkisofs, part of the free cdreader collection. I use mkisofs to create a proper CD image, and then burn that .iso to CD using EasyCDCreator, or RecordNow. ftp://ftp.fokus.gmd.de/pub/unix/cdrecord/alpha/win32/README.win32 ------------------------------ From: Mark Crispin Subject: Re: Digital TV Will Soon be Mandatory. For Chip Makers It's Prime Date: Mon, 28 Oct 2002 14:12:05 -0800 Organization: Networks and Distributed Computing On Mon, 28 Oct 2002, John Higdon wrote: > It may START to happen. They may WISH it would happen. But, ultimately, > it will not happen. How can I say this? Look at history. Every time > there is common ownership of content and the means of transmission, the > public turns its back. I'm trying to understand how this affects satellite TV subscribers. Our signal is already digital, and we're already getting it converted to analog for our TVs (and a much better picture than anything from the cable companies). Will satellite subscribers end up being the last stand for analog? I'm also trying (without success) to understand the point of copy-protecting TV signals. The miserable content and high prices of the premium movie channels (HBO, Showtime, Starz, etc.) long ago made DVDs a more cost-effective means of building a movie collection. I cancelled my subscriptions to HBO, etc. years ago when I still had cable. When I got my satellite service, they gave me Starz free for a few months, and I cancelled it as soon as the free trial ran out. > Latest example: satellite radio. It is failing > miserably. It has technical problems and lackluster programming. The > only people willing to shell out hundreds of dollars for specialized > receivers and $120 a year just to make it work are dedicated gadget > freaks. This won't sustain the business and it will ultimately fail. Satellite radio is attractive for RVers who travel in remote areas. There are still places in North America where there is either no radio at all. Elsewhere, you have two stations: the First Church of the Sacred Bleedin' Anus of Jeezus and National Public Radio ... come to think of it, that's "no radio at all" as well. However, the RVers aren't going to put up with crap programming. -- Mark -- http://staff.washington.edu/mrc Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate. ------------------------------ From: jeff.smith2@caramail.com (Jeff Smith) Subject: Wi-FI in Apartments; Airwave Saturation? Date: 28 Oct 2002 14:54:59 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ But considering that a lot of people live in apartment buildings, I was wondering at what point Wi-Fi would become a problem, and not be able to function. Imagine there are three apartments in a row, and every apartment has its own Wi-Fi network. And imagine it's the same deal on the floor just above these three apartments, and also the three apartments just below. For a total of nine Wi-Fi networks within a 300 foot radius. Would that work? Thanks for any info. Not because I have any plans, but just because I was wondering about this. ------------------------------ From: Rich Campbell Subject: Re: Is There a Telephone Industry Magazine? Organization: AT&T Broadband Date: Mon, 28 Oct 2002 22:58:25 GMT This looks like a data site to me that references VOIP and QoS. Rich wrote in message news:telecom22.98.10@telecom-digest.org: > Another good technical magazine is "Telecommunications." > at www.telecommagazine.com ------------------------------ From: Charles P. Subject: Re: Looking for Inexpensive Small Business PBX Solution Date: Mon, 28 Oct 2002 23:44:21 GMT Panasonic would be the way to go if you wanted to grow at all. Otherwise I would be interested to try one of the Voice Logic systems that sell on ebay for $100 to $150. They seem to do exactly what you want but I've never used one myself. Charles Carl Navarro wrote in message news:telecom22.100.9@telecom-digest.org: > On 25 Oct 2002 10:30:36 -0700, phrankster@hotmail.com (Frank Harris) > wrote: >> I'm looking for a very inexpensive PBX or other type of solution that >> can accomodate a small home business. I know next to nothing about >> PBX's, so I will need some well explained details. I would be willing >> to sacrifice some features to keep the cost down. I need something >> that can perform the following: >> We have one business line with an 800 number. We want to maintain only >> one phone line for incoming and outgoing calls. Minimally we need 2 >> phones, with the ability to expand. Would like to be able to just use >> any analog phone, or at least a fairly inexpensive digital phone. >> When the phone rings, I'd like the caller to be presented with a >> custom greeting. Tbey can have the option to either dial an extension >> or wait for the next available representative. If the extension is >> busy, give them the option to hold or leave a voice message. I'd like >> to be able to leave an alternative greeting for calls coming in before >> or afterhours (or whenever I deem the business closed for the day). >> While on hold or waiting for a rep, I'd like to have hold music >> playing with input from any external audio source (like a CD). >> I'd like to have a distinctive ring for calls coming in on the 800 >> line and the ability to do caller ID. >> I would appreciate any information that can be provided. > What is inexpensive to you? > Panasonic KXTD-308 will do what you want, but you're not exactly > "inexpensive" if you're talking a $300 budget. > If you really mean SINGLE line and 2 phones, there are some SOHO items > that will bridge to a single line and function with voice mail and > distinctive ring. Check eBay or the closeout houses for voice mail > products. A 9516 works nicely for the VM because it has different > mailboxes for distinctive ring. > You can also take your chances on an old Voice Logic product. It > might cost you about $150 to try one out. ------------------------------ From: AES Subject: Re: Connecting a FAX Machine to an Existing Answering Machine Date: Mon, 28 Oct 2002 15:53:59 -0800 In article , David Vinograd wrote: > I have just purchased a multi function Fax, Scanner, Copier and > Printer. The answering system is in one room and the PC along with its > new printer is in an other. I do not wish to move either system nor > can I easily run cable between the two rooms. Can anyone suggest how I > can have the Fax system in automatic receive mode without interfering > with the answering machine. Perhaps what you want is the same as what's called "Answering Machine Mode" on my older Canon fax machine (fax + copier, but not printer) -- the phone line runs from the wall to the fax, then from a second jack on the fax to the combination phone/answering machine. (If you already know all the following, apologies.) In this mode when a call comes in -- voice or fax -- the fax machine itself never answers. Rather the call is answered either by a human picking up the phone or by the answering machine doing the same, while the fax machine, which is connected "across the line," only listens to what's coming in on the call once it's answered. If the fax machine then hears a fax tone coming from the other end it disconnects the phone + answering machine and picks up the call itself. Otherwise it just continues to eavesdrop passively on the human voices or the answering machine message until somebody hangs up. Virtue of this is that if you answer an incoming voice call the fax machine remains inert and doesn't start putting its own whistles back on the line, on top of your voice call. On the other hand if its an incoming fax call, both you and the fax machine hear the incoming fax whistle; the fax machine rather quickly takes over; and you hang up (you're also automatically disconnected in any case. One way or the other faxes always get received. Bottom line, however, is that the phone line must go from the wall *through* the fax machine to the phone/answering machine; they can't be plugged into the wall in different rooms. There may be more complex multi-ring schemes and gadgets that can accomplish the latter; and other messages will describe them. But are you sure you can't run the necessary phone cord from the fax/printer to the answering machine? Phone wires (just long lengths of ordinary phone cords) are cheap, small, rugged, safe, and can be of arbitrary length -- I've run long lengths of them under rugs, tacked into grooves in ceiling boards, draped across roofs, tacked to outside walls, etc, and never encountered any problems. ------------------------------ From: Shaun Ewing Subject: Re: Connecting a FAX Machine to an Existing Answering Machine Date: Tue, 29 Oct 2002 13:18:02 +1100 David Vinograd wrote in message news:telecom22.100.1@telecom-digest.org... > People, > I have just purchased a multi function Fax, Scanner, Copier and > Printer. The answering system is in one room and the PC along with its > new printer is in an other. I do not wish to move either system nor > can I easily run cable between the two rooms. Can anyone suggest how I > can have the Fax system in automatic receive mode without interfering > with the answering machine. Check in your manual; my fax machine (Sharp) has a mode that allows it to listen in on a message being left on the AM and cut in if a fax tone is heard. There is a five page section of the manual dedicated to this feature -- an excerpt is as follows: "While you are out, all of your incoming calls will be answered by your answering machine and its outgoing message will play. During this time, your fax will quietly monitor the line. If your fax detects a fax transmission, it will take over the line and begin reception". The fax machine also allows you to begin receiving a fax by dialing a 3 digit code from any phone in the house (5**) - this saves having to receive a fax without having to be at the fax machine. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Is distinctive ringing available in the > UK? If it is, then your answer might be found there, assuming either > the fax or anwering machine can be trained to respond to different > style rings. PAT] Distinctive ring is a lifesaver. I've got it (called "Faxstream Duet" here in Australia) on my voice line. Before I'd have to have people ring me beforehand so I could turn on the fax, but now I just pay US$3.00 per month for another number; the fax machine detects calls on this number and answers with the fax tone whereas other calls ring through as normal. Shaun ------------------------------ From: web@zemodesign.com (Radek) Subject: Silent Observer Date: 28 Oct 2002 18:36:33 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ I'm looking for a silent observing unit SO-24 (for resonable price). Please e-mail walter@revtechonline or call Walter at 630-521-9000. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 28 Oct 2002 01:36:56 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: More News Headlines of Interest 10/28/02 A TV House Divided By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK The future of television has finally arrived -- really. Now begins the haggling over who gets control, and negotiations with the highest stakes are taking place inside AOL Time Warner. Under fierce competition from satellite services, the Time Warner cable division is racing to sell new features that give viewers more control over what and when they watch. Its new digital services can let subscribers order any of an array of films and network programs whenever they want and even turn set-top boxes into personal digital video recorders that make it easy for viewers to fast-forward through commercials. Time Warner had begun offering the services in a number of cities the last several months, and this fall it is making movies and some network programs available on demand in New York, its biggest market. But as Time Warner Cable promotes the services -- especially the one that can skip commercials -- its plans are colliding with the interests of networks and studios, which own the rights to the most popular shows. Both live off programming schedules and advertising sales. At many, including AOL Time Warner's own Turner Broadcasting and Warner Brothers divisions, executives consider the idea of skipping the commercials to be a threat. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/28/technology/28HOUS.html EchoStar Agrees to Yield Frequencies to Save a Deal By SETH SCHIESEL In a last-ditch attempt to rescue its proposed acquisition of DirecTV, EchoStar Communications has tentatively agreed to transfer dozens of communications frequencies and three satellites to Cablevision, the cable-television company that is making a push into the satellite business, people close to the companies said yesterday. EchoStar and Cablevision have presented the plan to antitrust officials at the Justice Department as a way to potentially salvage EchoStar's proposed $25.8 billion acquisition of the Hughes Electronics division of General Motors, which includes DirecTV. Financial terms were unclear yesterday, but it appeared that Cablevision could receive the frequencies free. The Justice Department has been leaning against the Hughes deal because of concerns that it would combine the nation's two largest providers of satellite TV service. DirecTV is the No. 1 satellite television provider, with about 11 million customers. EchoStar's Dish Network is No. 2 with about 7.8 million subscribers. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/28/technology/28DISH.html Name That Tune, From Your Cellphone By DAVID F. GALLAGHER LONDON - European phone companies have bet billions on new wireless networks in the hope that consumers will pay for video and other fancy multimedia services. But a start-up company here, Shazam Entertainment, is attracting attention and customers with a music-searching service that runs on the most basic of cellphones. The service, available only in Britain for now, works like this: A person dials a four-digit number on a cellphone and points it at a source of recorded music, be it the sound system in a nightclub or a commercial on television. Shazam's computers filter out the background noise and compare the audio sample with a database of 1.6 million songs, a process that takes less than a second. The service then fires off a text message to the phone, identifying the song and the artist. Each call costs 50 pence, or about 75 cents. So far the name-that-tune service is simply that. There is no way to directly obtain the song in question, which company executives acknowledge is a drawback. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/28/technology/28SHAZ.html ------------------------------ 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 Fax 3: 775-642-0603 Fax 4: 530-309-7234 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 V22 #101 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Oct 29 13:24:37 2002 Received: from localhost (localhost [[UNIX: localhost]]) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.3nb1/8.11.3) id g9TIObG01485; Tue, 29 Oct 2002 13:24:37 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 29 Oct 2002 13:24:37 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200210291824.g9TIObG01485@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #102 TELECOM Digest Tue, 29 Oct 2002 13:25:00 EST Volume 22 : Issue 102 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson FCC Toll-Free Proceeding (Judith Oppenheimer) Re: Digital TV Will Soon be Mandatory (John Higdon) Re: Digital TV Will Soon be Mandatory (Ron Chapman) Re: FTP Synchronization Software for Windows? (Joey Lindstrom) Re: FTP Synchronization Software for Windows? (Richard Gallagher) Looking For Silent Observing Unit (Radek) DMS Switch Line Card Questions (Kelly Daniels) Re: Notification (Anti-Spam) I DID NOTHING to You!!!! (Henry E Schaffer) New Telecom Classifieds Website (Steve Christie) 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply-To: From: Judith Oppenheimer Subject: FCC Toll-Free Proceeding Date: Tue, 29 Oct 2002 00:07:36 -0500 Organization: JudithOppenheimer.com Jeff, sorry I missed your posting last month; 800 industry activity comes in hurry-up-and-wait spurts followed by silence, but hopefully the info below will bring you somewhat up to date. Judith DA 02-167 Released: January 18, 2002 COMMON CARRIER BUREAU INVITES INTERESTED PARTIES TO PARTICIPATE IN A FORUM TO DISCUSS TOLL-FREE NUMBER ADMINISTRATION CC Docket No. 95-155 NSD File No. L-02-00 Comments Due: January 31, 2002 In a public notice released November 15, 2001, the Common Carrier Bureau (Bureau) further extended the deadline for compliance with the DSMI Letter until the Bureau addressed the issues outstanding in the June 2001 Public Notice. In particular, the Bureau agreed that Database Service Management, Inc. (DSMI) and the industry needed additional direction from the Commission before proceeding to implement the changes contemplated in the DSMI Letter. In the November 15, 2001 public notice, the Bureau indicated its willingness to continue to discuss whether implementation of the directives in the DSMI Letter should occur. In a meeting with several industry members, the Bureau also committed to continuing discussions, and suggested that an industry forum to discuss the directives and other toll-free issues would be appropriate. Further, the Bureau believes that, although the current toll-free number administration system is an efficient means of providing access to toll-free numbers, the system has drawbacks, many of which are identified below. A forum discussing toll-free number administration will enable the Bureau to focus on the problems identified with the current toll-free system and how to resolve them. The following issues are proposed for discussion at the forum: . The current toll-free number administration system: . Warehousing of unactivated numbers by Responsible Organizations (RespOrgs), including disconnected numbers that should be returned to the database. . Transfer of toll-free numbers from one subscriber to another after the numbers are disconnected, rather than returning such numbers to the database. . Unauthorized disconnection of toll-free numbers, often followed by immediate reconnection to a different subscriber. . Brokering of toll-free numbers, which may result in direct transfers of toll-free numbers by RespOrgs. . Lack of adequate data collection procedures to track RespOrg activity. . The DSMI Letter: . Whether to implement the directives in the DSMI Letter. . Whether to implement, in the alternative, solutions proposed by industry members. . Whether to modify the Commission's toll-free administration rules to allow for transfer of toll-free numbers between subscribers in certain instances. . Whether the toll-free number administration system should be restructured. In the Fifth Report and Order, the Bureau indicated that it would determine whether restructuring the ownership and operation of the current system would be in the public interest. . Whether a fee-based system of toll-free administration should be established. We invite interested parties to file comment on the proposed agenda. We also invite parties interested in participating in the forum to contact Jennifer Gorny (202) 418-2320 or jgorny@fcc.gov by January 31, 2002. Forum participants may be requested to prepare written materials for discussion, and the final agenda and schedule for the forum will be released in the near future. All filings must reference NSD File No. L-02-00 and CC Docket No. 95-155. If filing paper copies, send an original and four copies to the Commission Secretary, Magalie Roman Salas, Portals II, 445 12th Street, SW, Suite TW-A325, Washington, D.C. 20554 and two copies to Carmell Weathers, Network Services Division, Portals II, 445 12th Street, S.W., Room 6-B153, Washington, D.C. 20554. Comments may be filed using the ECFS. Comments filed through the ECFS can be sent as an electronic file via the Internet to . If using this method, please reference the docket number, 95-155 in the Proceeding block. Generally, only one copy of an electronic submission must be filed. In completing the transmittal screen, commenters should include their full name, postal service mailing address, and the applicable docket or rulemaking number(s). Parties may also submit electronic comments by Internet e-mail. To get filing instructions for e-mail comments, commenters should send an e-mail to ecfs@fcc.gov, including "get form " in the body of the message. A sample form and directions will be sent in reply. After filing your comments electronically, please send an e-mail to Carmell Weathers, cweather@fcc.gov, indicating that comments have been filed. Interested parties who wish to file comments via messenger-delivery or hand-delivery are also notified that effective December 18, 2001, the Commission will only receive such deliveries weekdays from 8:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., via its contractor, Vistronix, Inc., located at 236 Massachusetts Avenue, NE, Suite 110, Washington, DC 20002. The Commission no longer accepts these filings at 9300 East Hampton Drive, Capitol Heights, MD 20743. Please note that all hand deliveries must be bound with rubber bands or fasteners, and envelopes must be disposed of before entering the building. In addition, this is a reminder that as of October 18, 2001, the Commission no longer accepts hand-delivered or messenger-delivered filings at its headquarters at 445 12th Street, SW, Washington, DC 20554. Other messenger-delivered documents, including documents sent by overnight mail (other than United States Postal Service (USPS) Express and Priority Mail), must be addressed to 9300 East Hampton Drive, Capitol Heights, MD 20743. This location is open weekdays from 8:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. USPS First-Class, Express, and Priority Mail should be addressed to the Commission's headquarters at 445 12th Street, SW, Washington, DC 20554. The following chart summarizes this information: TYPE OF DELIVERY PROPER DELIVERY ADDRESS Hand-delivered or messenger-delivered paper filings 236 Massachusetts Avenue, NE, Suite 110, Washington, DC 20002 (Weekdays - 8:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.) Other messenger-delivered documents, including documents sent by overnight mail (this type excludes USPS Express and Priority Mail) 9300 East Hampton Drive, Capitol Heights, MD 20743 (Weekdays - 8:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.) USPS First-Class, Express, and Priority Mail 445 12th Street, SW Washington, DC 20554 This is a "permit but disclose" proceeding for purposes of the Commission's ex parte rules. As a "permit but disclose" proceeding, ex parte presentations will be governed by the procedures set forth in Section 1.1206 of the Commission's rules applicable to non-restricted proceedings. Parties making oral ex parte presentations are reminded that memoranda summarizing the presentation must contain a summary of the substance of the presentation and not merely a listing of the subjects discussed. More than a one or two sentence description of the views and arguments presented is generally required. Other rules pertaining to oral and written presentations are set forth in Section 1.1206(b) as well. For further information, contact Jennifer Gorny of the Common Carrier Bureau, Network Services Division, at (202) 418-2320 or jgorny@fcc.gov. The TTY number is (202) 418-0484. -FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION- **************************************************************** The roundtable took place, and now we're waiting for an NPRM to be issued. Documents leading up and into this activity: http://icbtollfree.com/txt/ATTrequest.pdf http://icbtollfree.com/txt/FCCseekscommentsonATTrequest.pdf http://icbtollfree.com/txt/6512662729.pdf http://icbtollfree.com/txt/6512662625.pdf http://icbtollfree.com/txt/6512662722.pdf http://icbtollfree.com/txt/6512662905.pdf http://icbtollfree.com/txt/6512663553.pdf http://www.fcc.gov/wcb/tapd/toll_free/AFTA.doc http://www.fcc.gov/wcb/tapd/toll_free/Sprint.doc http://www.fcc.gov/wcb/tapd/toll_free/WorldCom.doc http://www.fcc.gov/wcb/tapd/toll_free/Atis.pdf http://www.fcc.gov/wcb/tapd/toll_free/LS_comments.ppt http://www.fcc.gov/wcb/tapd/toll_free/NeustarComments.doc * *beware wolf in sheeps clothing; from Forbes article earlier this month: "Jeffrey Ganek sits on a digital Fort Knox, but he doesn't own the key." Jeffrey Ganek has a black book big enough to make Russell Crowe jealous. Ganek's privately held firm, a Lockheed castoff called Neustar, holds the exclusive government contract to keep electronic records of 160 million phone numbers in North America. Its database gets updated every time someone switches phone numbers and tracks the best routes when networks are clogged. Its computers continually broadcast these changes to some 4,000 local and long-distance carriers. After the World Trade Center collapse destroyed an AT&T switch, Neustar rerouted calls in less than 20 hours -- a task that would have taken 45 days to do by hand. The Sterling, Va.-based firm generated $100 million in revenue last year for such work. Ganek's little-known database could be a treasure trove of data as Microsoft and big rivals race to gain control of consumers' digital identities for Web commerce and services. Neustar could mine the information, repackage it and sell it to businesses that want easier ways to reach consumers. But Ganek is in an excruciating fix. He doesn't originate the data -- the phone companies do -- so he can't make a move without their blessing. "We have to maintain people's trust," he says. Neustar failed to show a profit last year and likely won't until 2003, but Ganek thinks he can easily double revenue if he can persuade telcos to let him mine their data and run a digital identity database. AT&T used to handle Neustar's duties, but new competition created by the Telecom Act of 1996 prompted a sudden need for an independent. Defense contractor Lockheed Martin beat out a spate of contenders, including Perot Systems, Nortel and IBM, for the right to manage the database through May 2006. In 1999 Ganek and other Lockheed executives bought the group for less than $100 million, with financing from Warburg Pincus, and renamed it Neustar. Warburg, Deutsche Bank and other investors own 77%; Neustar's 325 employees own the rest. Ganek raised another $54 million in 2001. The search was on for moneymaking ideas. One obvious one was helping long-distance carriers recoup lost revenue. Each year, WorldCom, AT&T and other providers can't bill for an estimated $1 billion worth of phone calls because they can't identify which local network the phone calls originated from -- a simple task made difficult by deregulation of phone service. Last February, with permission from carriers, Ganek began dipping into Neustar's registry to retrieve the originating phone numbers and pass that information along to carriers. Ganek collects a fee of nearly $1 per query; he thinks he can generate an extra $20 million in revenue by 2004. Neustar also snagged two contracts last year to dole out and manage Internet domain names under the new headings of dot-biz and dot-us, collecting $6 per address. Neustar has tallied a million new addresses so far. The biggest opportunity for Ganek: making phone numbers interchangeable with Internet Protocol addresses, the ten-digit numbers used to route e-mails, wireless data and streaming audio or video. The glue for this would be an emerging technology standard called electronic numbering, or Enum. With Neustar as gatekeeper, telcos could sell a service that would let businesses reach their customers via e-mail, cell phone, pager or PDA, even if they only had a home phone number to begin with. Consumers would have to grant permission on a Web site to allow this single point of contact. But Sears could use e-mail to remind customers who last bought stereos five years ago that their model is outdated. Or, in the event of an air bag recall, Fordwould be able to dial an Explorer owner's phone number and reach his up-to-date pager and e-mail as well. Running an Enum database would easily double Neustar's revenue. Trouble is, that pesky federal contract forbids Neustar from cranking the cash register without the blessing of the telcos and Internet service providers. Decisions on how to offer and how to price any of Neustar's digital identity services lie mostly with the carriers -- and the privacy advocates who will resist every step of the way. Judith Oppenheimer http://JudithOppenheimer.com http://ICBTollFreeNews.com http://WhoSells800.com 212 684-7210, 1 800 The Expert > -----Original Message----- > James Bryan Carpenter > Sent: Monday, October 28, 2002 9:36 PM > The FCC has announced some inquiry into toll free service. I asked > on the telecom digest if anyone knew what it was all about and did > not get any response (even from Judith). ------------------------------ From: John Higdon Subject: Re: Digital TV Will Soon be Mandatory. For Chip Makers It's Prime Organization: Green Hills and Cows Date: Mon, 28 Oct 2002 21:41:24 -0800 In article , Mark Crispin wrote: > I'm trying to understand how this affects satellite TV subscribers. > Our signal is already digital, and we're already getting it converted > to analog for our TVs (and a much better picture than anything from > the cable companies). Will satellite subscribers end up being the > last stand for analog? As a DirecTV subscriber, I've wondered this very same thing. The NTSC signal at the rear of the receivers has nothing to do with the transport to the house ... which as you point out is already digital. Actually, it is "closed circuit" in essence, as opposed to broadcasting. Until and unless Echostar and Hughes are prepared to swap out everyone's boxes, NTSC is where satellite is at. > I'm also trying (without success) to understand the point of > copy-protecting TV signals. The miserable content and high prices of > the premium movie channels (HBO, Showtime, Starz, etc.) long ago made > DVDs a more cost-effective means of building a movie collection. I > cancelled my subscriptions to HBO, etc. years ago when I still had > cable. When I got my satellite service, they gave me Starz free for a > few months, and I cancelled it as soon as the free trial ran out. The copyright industry has no feeling for this at all. Near as I can figure, they are contending that should movies be broadcast in HDTV, thieving consumers will record them on professional digital tape, or on a video server and then immediately post them on a website for all the world to view. Why this is technically absurd I'll leave as an exercise to the reader. > Satellite radio is attractive for RVers who travel in remote areas. > There are still places in North America where there is either no radio at > all. Elsewhere, you have two stations: the First Church of the Sacred > Bleedin' Anus of Jeezus and National Public Radio ... come to think of it, > that's "no radio at all" as well. > However, the RVers aren't going to put up with crap programming. Then they should have had a company set up the satellite delivery system and had programming companies contract for channel space. As it is, the buzz on it is generally negative. Granted, those who have shelled out don't want to admit, even to themselves, that it isn't what they thought it might be, but ultimately interest in the services will die off. John Higdon | Email Address Valid | SF: +1 415 428-COWS +1 408 264 4115 | Anytown, USA | FAX: +1 408 264 4407 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Oct 2002 05:33:23 -0500 From: Ron Chapman Subject: Re: Digital TV Will Soon be Mandatory. For Chip Makers It's Prime In article , Mark Crispin wrote: > On Mon, 28 Oct 2002, John Higdon wrote: >> It may START to happen. They may WISH it would happen. But, ultimately, >> it will not happen. How can I say this? Look at history. Every time >> there is common ownership of content and the means of transmission, the >> public turns its back. > I'm trying to understand how this affects satellite TV subscribers. > Our signal is already digital, and we're already getting it converted > to analog for our TVs (and a much better picture than anything from > the cable companies). Will satellite subscribers end up being the > last stand for analog? I don't believe so. I honestly believe that cable TV companies, in a similar vein, will NOT miss the opportunity to serve old codgers and Luddites like myself, who have multiple TV sets and VCRs and have absolutely no interest in changing them out just because. Time Warner will be happy to continue to provide me the same analog service they're doing now -- and may in fact try to charge me extra for the privilege. ------------------------------ From: Joey Lindstrom Date: Tue, 29 Oct 2002 09:03:36 -0700 Subject: Re: FTP Synchronization Software for Windows? Reply-To: joey@lairdsflooring.com On Mon, 28 Oct 2002 22:34:46 -0500 (EST), dold@16.usenet.us.com wrote: >> Can anyone recommend some good FTP synchronization software for >> Windows (98 currently, soon to be 2000)? This is for the Telecom >> Digest Archives CD-ROM project -- I'd like the CD's that I burn on >> behalf of Pat to be COMPLETELY up to date, but the archives are >> absolutely humungous. :-) I'm looking for something that will, either >> on demand or on a schedule, login to the massis machine (a *nix box), >> burrow its way into each and every directory, get a listing of all the >> files available, and then download anything either missing, new, or >> changed since the last run (to my local hard drive). > Not the question that you asked, but, I can't help myself ... What > software are you using to burn the CD? Is it something that is > RockRidge compatible, to maintain the long filenames that might be in > the original Unix box, or is it windows-centric? CDs burned with > Windows long file names are not recognizable on Unix boxes. Unix long > file names often get munged beyond use by transporting them to Windows > CD writers. You can save yourself from that with mkisofs, part of the > free cdreader collection. I use mkisofs to create a proper CD image, > and then burn that .iso to CD using EasyCDCreator, or RecordNow. Well this is interesting. I do realize that the Joliet filesystem, used on Windows platforms to allow long filenames up to 64 characters, was designed specifically and only for Windows platforms, and that this was a problem when making discs for other platforms. However, I'd also read that Joliet add-ons had become common for other platforms, including Linux and Mac. Was this incorrect? My burner software is Roxio Easy CD Creator 5, running on a Win98 box (soon to be Win2K). It does Joliet but it will also do ISO-9660, which means 30-character filenames, all upper case and more restrictions on what's allowable. The burner software automatically renames files that don't conform to something that does conform. By default, the discs I create are in Joliet format (unless the "Enhanced" version is requested - this is incompatible with Joliet) but ISO-9660 is definitely an available option. Prior to burning, I run a batchfile that creates a "00files.txt" file in each directory, listing the contents of that directory as originally named. If a particular filename becomes unrecognizable during the filename conversion, one can always consult the "00files.txt" file. The problem with this approach (as you point out) is this: what if somebody who uses Unix gets a disc created for Windows? When the Joliet filesystem is written to the disc, a second filesystem (ISO-9660 compatible) is also written, but this will use filenames in the old DOS "8 dot 3" format, and those names ARE badly munged. So, Pat: when you write up anything in regards to these discs, please ask that people SPECIFY which platform they'll be running it on. If they're using non-Windows, I need to know this so that I can create the discs properly for them. Joey Lindstrom - Laird's Flooring joey@lairdsflooring.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Alright, Joey, consider it asked. Dear Readers: Starting tomorrow (end of the month) I will *again* make my monthly pitch for financial assistance with the Digest, and I will be offering a CD Rom of the Telecom Archives going back from the beginning in 1981 through the present time. For a donation of $20-25 or more, as you find appropriate, and if you ask for it, as my gift to you, you will receive a copy of the 'new' CD. (The previous CD was issued back in 1995 or so.) Those of you who put in advance orders this past month should now be recieving your CDs on the mail. As Joey has requested, be sure to specify Windows, *nix, whatever. For FASTEST receipt (I can sure use fast turn around on the money this month!) and subsequent delivery, use PayPal via the clicker button at the very bottom of the 'home' page, http://telecom-digest.org or the identical clicker button on the 'donations' page, http://telecom-digest.org/donations/ .You can also send checks/money order as you wish at TELECOM, Post Office Box 50, Independence, KS 67301. You send what you think is appropriate; if it is $20-25 or more and you ask for the CD Rom, be certain to specify system type and include your address for shipping the CD. Ditto, on PayPal, fill in the advice box with those details. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Richard Gallagher Subject: Re: FTP Synchronization Software for Windows? Date: Tue, 29 Oct 2002 16:53:47 +0000 On Sun, 27 Oct 2002 13:40:03 -0600, Joey Lindstrom wrote: > Can anyone recommend some good FTP synchronization software for > Windows (98 currently, soon to be 2000)? This is for the Telecom > Digest Archives CD-ROM project -- I'd like the CD's that I burn on > behalf of Pat to be COMPLETELY up to date, but the archives are > absolutely humungous. :-) I'm looking for something that will, either > on demand or on a schedule, login to the massis machine (a *nix box), > burrow its way into each and every directory, get a listing of all the > files available, and then download anything either missing, new, or > changed since the last run (to my local hard drive). > "Free" would be preferred but a small shareware donation wouldn't > cause too much concern. GNU Wget should be able to do what you want. It was orginally for UNIX but a native Windows port has been made. It is a command line application that can be used to mirror sites via FTP or HTTP. See http://www.gnu.org/software/wget/wget.html for more information. Richard Gallagher ------------------------------ From: web@zemodesign.com (Radek) Subject: Looking For Silent Observing Unit Date: 29 Oct 2002 06:11:54 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ I am looking for resonable priced silent observing unit SO-24 or Melco 330B. Please e-mail or call walter@revtechonline.com Tel: 630-521-9000. ------------------------------ From: Kelly Daniels Reply-To: telco@teleport.com Organization: Kelly Daniels Subject: DMS Switch Line Card Questions Date: Tue, 29 Oct 2002 14:55:57 GMT Can anyone recall if the T214 and T216 Line Card used for Switching in the Analog Shelf of DMS 100, 200, 250 and 10 has Line Build-out Options, either by dip switches or software. Specifically I look to match impedance and then Transmission Level Points in the +4 to -22 range. Thank-you in advance. Kelly ------------------------------ From: hes@hes01.unity.ncsu.edu (Henry E Schaffer) Subject: Re: Notification (Anti-Spam) I DID NOTHING to you!!!!!!!!! Date: Tue, 29 Oct 2002 16:14:55 UTC Organization: North Carolina State University In article , That Larry wrote: > Ok, time to feed the spammers to the spambots...(c; > Current email spammers here are: > abuse@aol.com (Might as well feed directly) Last time I tried this it didn't work and apparently tosemail1@aol.com is the correct abuse address (stands for Terms of Service ...) henry schaffer hes@ncsu.edu ------------------------------ From: steven.christie1@ntlworld.com (Steve Christie) Subject: New Telecom Classifieds Website Date: 28 Oct 2002 21:51:32 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ I need your support promoting this new telecom classifieds website. It only takes a couple of minutes to place an ad. www.telecomclassifieds.net Thanks in advance. ------------------------------ 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 Fax 3: 775-642-0603 Fax 4: 530-309-7234 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 V22 #102 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Oct 30 01:54:51 2002 Received: from localhost (localhost [[UNIX: localhost]]) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.3nb1/8.11.3) id g9U6spF22932; Wed, 30 Oct 2002 01:54:51 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 30 Oct 2002 01:54:51 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200210300654.g9U6spF22932@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #103 TELECOM Digest Wed, 30 Oct 2002 01:54:00 EST Volume 22 :Issue 103 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Want Bills by Snail Mail? It Might Cost You Money (Monty Solomon) Meridian 6x16 Installation Question (bingham) "News Headlines of Interest" Don't Have Table of Contents (Eric De Mund) Re: Digital TV Will Soon be Mandatory (Mark Crispin) AT&T 1411 (Art at ABE Computer Consultants) Lucent TMS or RCOS Software For 5ess (jdeyo@bellsouth.net) 51400 Telephone Test System (Paul Cook) Local Prefix List -- Need a Favor (Rick Wilson) Re: DMS Switch Line Card Questions (Boo Phatty) Re: Adding SMS to Web Site USA (Chris Kantarjiev) AOL Removes Wall Between AIM, ICQ Messaging Users (Monty Solomon) Samsung Says Winning U.S. Market For Pricey Phones (Monty Solomon) Internet Home Alliance Continues to Gain Momentum (Monty Solomon) EarthLink Reports Record Results for Third Quarter 2002 (Monty Solomon) How to Post Resume? (Richard J.Sprouse) 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, 29 Oct 2002 13:29:10 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Want Bills by Snail Mail? It Might Cost You Money October 29, 2002 Want Bills by Snail Mail? It Might Cost You Money By JENNIFER BAYOT You may dread monthly bills in the mailbox, but consider them a perk. Some companies are charging for them. For years, businesses have cajoled customers to view their bills online, mostly by offering cash, gift certificates, sweepstakes prizes and other incentives in return. A tough economy, though, has led to an even more aggressive stance. In a move to cut administrative costs and save on paper and postage, some have started billing customers a few extra dollars a month for paper statements. Leading the charge are telecommunications companies like Primus and MetroPCS. Some lenders and insurance providers, like State Farm Insurance and USAA, are charging a few customers for monthly paper statements. Credit card issuers like American Express are adding paper fees to merchant accounts, and online services that initially mailed statements, like NetBank and Ameritrade, the online brokerage firm, have begun charging for them, setting a standard for some new businesses that want to do the same. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/29/technology/29BILL.html ------------------------------ From: bingham Subject: Meridian 6x16 Installation Question Date: Tue, 29 Oct 2002 13:49:01 -0500 Patrick, would you please post this for me? TIA. Respected Forum members, Need some help with the installation of a 6x16 that I have purchased for my home office. I have 3 analogue lines ready with RJ11 cords from the demarc to the KSU. DR5 is the installed software and there is a 25 Pair Amphenol Cable to a BIX block for the inside wire (using pins 1 to 16 for the sets). I've punched down the ISW and have a few compatiable sets at the jacks. Before I power this KSU up, what steps are involved from here? What pin would the music on hold be? Is there default settings on tone or pulse and the number of lines/sets? Your assistance is greatly appreciated. Bing bingham001 AT hotmail DOT com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Oct 2002 11:42:49 PST From: Eric De Mund Subject: "News Headlines of Interest" Don't Have Table of Contents Organization: Ixian Systems, Inc. Monty, Please consider breaking out the subject lines from your "News Headlines of Interest" and either putting them at the beginning of your posts, or, better yet, getting Pat to put them in his table of contents at the top of each Digest. (Or both, as I now realize that perhaps not everyone reads TELECOM Digest in digest form.) I do read your posts and find them informative. However, I read them a bit less than I skip over them, because I sometimes don't read past Pat's table of contents, and, when I do, I sometimes don't get past the first article in your posts as I prefer to not hunt for article subjects embedded in postings. You might have an arguable point if you were to call me lazy, but the concept of not having a table of contents doesn't scale well. For instance, I've considered collecting the telephony related articles I've come across during the week and feeding them to Pat for T.D. inclusion, and I'm sure other folks have, too. However, if each of us did that, yet failed to include our own table of contents, Pat's table of contents would have a growing number of items that read: News Headlines of Interest (Monty Solomon) More News Headlines of Interest (Monty Solomon) Telecom-Related Articles, NYT, Week Ending 2 Nov 2002 (Eric De Mund) Misc. Telecom-Related Articles, Week Ending 2 Nov 2002 (Eric De Mund) and so on. Ideally, in my view, readers would be greeted with: TELECOM Digest Mon, 28 Oct 2002 22:35:00 EST Volume 22 : Issue 101 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson . . . Re: Connecting a FAX Machine to an Existing Answering Machine (S. Ewing) Silent Observer (Radek) More News Headlines of Interest (Monty Solomon) A TV House Divited (David D. Kirkpatrick, NYT) EchoStar Agrees to Yield Frequencies to Save a Deal (Seth Schiesel, NYT) Name That Tune, From Your Cellphone (David F. Gallagher, NYT) Returning to the idea of the importance of scaling well, even if no one else among the T.D. subscribers were to pick up this actually pretty community friendly behavior that you have, folks in other fora might. And for people that receive hundreds of emails per day, they'd find themselves greeted with several digests per day in which the table of contents at the tops of the digests contained a few subjects that were opaque. Just my 2c. Again, thanks for including these articles, Eric "We all know your idea is crazy. The question is, whether it is crazy enough." Niels Bohr, to a colleague Eric De Mund | Ixian Systems, Inc. | cell: (650) 303-4336 email: | 650 Castro St, #120-210 | fax: (240) 282-4443 http://www.ixian.com/ead/ | Mountain View, CA 94041 | .................... [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: How Monty's articles turn out here is NOT a thing that Monty is responsible for. Let me give you some back- ground. Monty's articles arrive here one by one with subject headers. I get between five and ten items per day from Monty and his news sources. I formerly had been listing them all and using them 'straight' as recieved. I would scatter them throughout an issue in various places. But a couple readers do not like Monty, to put it bluntly. They feel he is like a 'gofer' for big business interests. I do not agree with that assessment. The guys who complained about the way Monty's articles 'dominate the Digest' also tended to be the guys who complain about Judith Oppenheimer's occassional news items dealing with toll free numbers. She was too 'commercial'; Monty was too much into 'press releases'. She was too 'commercial' because people have to be subscribers (i.e. pay her) to read some of her items. They do not like Monty because 'so many of his items' are press releases for large companies, and you have to register with nytimes (for example) to read the full press release. Oh, and they do not like the guy who sends in the Canadian news I run every Monday; he prints stuff *his sponsors* give him to use, other than the news he digs up on his own. I have a problem also with this old, very obsolete Digest format I use here. It was invented by Jon Solomon or some of his wizard buddies back around 1980 and has worked very well ever since. We all know the net has not changed one iota since 1980. The basic rule is the top side (above the 78 dashes near the top) has to 'balance' with the number of 'From ' lines and subjects and dates below the 78 dashes. If that does not occur (and with all the manual editing I do, often times it does not without some research as to where I screwed up). Therefore Be It Resolved that if I run ten items (in one issue) from Monty either I will have ten subject/index lines at the top to go with ten 'From ' lines and sets of thirty dashes between his articles in the main part. OR, if I run all his items in one big 'article' and scrap all the 'From ' lines/dashes in the body then in the index at the start of each issue I have to likewise scrap all the index lines and create a new dummy index line for the whole thing, which I call 'News Headlines of Interest (date)'. But I still take a few of his things that I personally consider worth reading and isolate them and force them to the top of each issue as news items in their own right. I run Monty every day except Monday (Canadian news day) and when Judith sends in a copy of her newsletter, stuff anywhere between six and ten of his items in one of the large 'News Headlines of Interest (date)' articles. Judith does hers 'properly' as does the Canada guy; I do not need to fudge her stuff or his. With Monty on the other hand, the mail just keeps rolling in, every day a dozen or so short items. I hold his stuff back on Monday (Canada day) or when I get a newsletter from Judith. Other days of the week my choices are go 'one for one' with subject/index versus 'From '/posting/ thirty dashes. When I get such a flood of stuff from Monty that I have to run him twice in the same day in different issues (not that common) then when I diddle up the second batch (like one day in the past week), I diddle the second batch to be 'More News Headlines of Interest (date) in order to avoid having two identical subject headers which would give the search engines fits. As long as (date) changes, no such problems. And, to post to Usenet and the guys with 'exploder' addresses who depend on the above format staying the way it is due to their software, this very fragile (but old, obsolete) formula has to be maintained. So now, you guys tell me; instruct your old, obsolete moderator with his old, obsolete scripts; pick one of these choices: (1) Continue batching Monty, one general subject header, no index of items; (2) Individual itemization of Monty stuff; by default then six or ten items in each issue, indexing, some days it will appear that he has taken over an entire issue; Thus far the total is three votes for choice (1) -- mostly anonymous hate letters saying quit publishing Monty's 'news items' (I refuse to do that) or at the very least, batch it all as one big article. And one vote (Eric DeMund) for (2) who wants to go back to the previous system where I toss in a few of his items in every issue, and as a result get an index of them. Of course there is a third and fourth choice also: (3) Someone *please* write a new Digest script which allows 'out of balance conditions' between top and bottom parts; something that will be compatible with Usenet and the 'exploder' mailing lists downstream of me. Don't count on me to do it; my brains all leaked out during the aneurysm, I am too stupid to handle any of that stuff now. (4) Locate jsol (moderator emeritus, wherever he is hiding) and Tim B-L and after giving them both an Editor's Note bashing for only thinking 1980's when they created their inventions, then the old obsolete moderator and his old obsolete scripts along with jsol and Tim B-L can all go out in a blaze of glory. So Eric, don't criticize Monty, he has no control over it. I have to be the whipping boy. Can you program in C++ ? If so, write me a Digest script that will do the job these days. New occassions teach new duties and all that rot. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Mark Crispin Subject: Re: Digital TV Will Soon be Mandatory. For Chip Makers It's Prime Date: Tue, 29 Oct 2002 12:35:28 -0800 Organization: Networks and Distributed Computing On Mon, 28 Oct 2002, John Higdon wrote: > As a DirecTV subscriber Me too. > Actually, it is "closed circuit" in essence, as opposed to > broadcasting. Until and unless Echostar and Hughes are prepared to > swap out everyone's boxes, NTSC is where satellite is at. That's my point. The only reason to swap out a satellite box would be to deny NTSC access. It's one thing to stop offering NTSC to broadcast and cable users in order to make way for other uses of bandwidth (not that I approve; I just understand). It's quite another to break a consumer's closed circuit because Hollywood doesn't approve. > > Satellite radio is attractive for RVers who travel in remote areas. > Then they should have had a company set up the satellite delivery > system and had programming companies contract for channel space. As it > is, the buzz on it is generally negative. Which is one reason that most RVers remain skeptical. -- Mark -- http://staff.washington.edu/mrc Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate. ------------------------------ From: artgetridofspam@abeconsultants.com (Art at ABE Computer Consultants) Subject: AT&T 1411 Date: 29 Oct 2002 13:15:08 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ We have an older answering machine, an AT&T model 1411. Lost the instruction book. Question: How do you get messages remotely? Is the code a factory preset with no option to change? If it CAN be changed (maybe it has), how do you reset it to factory specs? Thanks, Art if replying e-mail, remove the obvious from the return address ------------------------------ From: jdeyo@bellsouth.net Subject: Lucent TMS or RCOS Software For 5ess Date: Tue, 29 Oct 2002 16:25:59 -0600 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Reply-To: Big.Daddy@supernews.net Anyone have a surplus or used edition of this software package that they would consider selling or trading for? mailto:jdeyo@bellsouth.net ------------------------------ Reply-To: Paul Cook From: Paul Cook Subject: 51400 Telephone Test System Date: Tue, 29 Oct 2002 14:44:10 -0800 Organization: Proctor & Associates, Inc. Sorry for the obvious commercial announcement, but time is short and I thought there may be someone on the list who could benefit from this. Proctor and Associates began manufacturing the 51400 Telephone Test System for GTE around 20 years ago. For many years, GTE specified this test set (which tests standard single line and coin phones) for their suppliers and refurbishers. We've seen a drop in demand over the past few years, and Proctor has recently ceased manufacturing this unit. The system has plug-in cards which can be removed for repair and calibration, and we have a bunch of those cards left over, in addition to manuals and spare parts. Until the end of our fiscal year (Oct 31) we are offering transmission test fixtures, hipot-ringer cards, and many other components for 70% off the regular price. Around November 1 the remaining stock will be destroyed. These are brand new products, not refurbished or used. We also have some miscellaneous parts and manuals. Contact me for a list of what is still available if you are interested. Proctor will still offer repair and calibration of this test set. This does not affect any other test system, such as the central office dialup test sets which are still in demand. Paul Cook - Applications Engineer pcook@proctorinc.com 425-881-7000, ext 566 fax: 425-885-3282 Proctor & Associates 15305 NE 95 St Redmond WA 98052-2517 www.proctorinc.com ------------------------------ From: Rick Wilson Subject: Local Prefix List -- Need a Favor Date: Tue, 29 Oct 2002 18:12:07 GMT Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net SBC-Pacbell has stopped publishing local prefix information in their phone books. Could someone with a 1999 or 2000 phonebook for Los Altos/Mountain View/Sunnyvale CA please copy or scan the local prefix list and upload it here or elsewhere? It'll save a trip to the library. Thanks, RickW ------------------------------ From: Boo Phatty Subject: Re: DMS Switch Line Card Questions Date: Tue, 29 Oct 2002 18:26:56 -0500 Organization: Darth Vader Enterprises, LLC Today, Tue, 29 Oct 2002 14:55:57 GMT, Two Buddha read a post from Kelly Daniels , and determined his interest in BURP. Where's my beer? Oh and: > Can anyone recall if the T214 and T216 Line Card used for Switching in > the Analog Shelf of DMS 100, 200, 250 and 10 has Line Build-out > Options, either by dip switches or software. Specifically I look to > match impedance and then Transmission Level Points in the +4 to -22 > range. > Thank-you in advance. > Kelly Why do you need to tweak LBO at the switch? Are you running cables a long long way from your equipment? If so, shouldn't you do that on the transmission side? ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Oct 2002 15:35:53 PST From: Chris Kantarjiev Subject: Re: Adding SMS to Web Site USA >> Who in the USA, UK, and Canada sells SMS messaging in bulk for >> small/medium sized web sites? We want to interface with their site, >> and allow our users to shoot off SMS messages. > I was under the impression that all of the SMS providers in the U.S. > had e-mail gateways, so with a modest sized map telling you which > prefix belongs to which carrier, you can just send mail to the > phone number at the appropriate domain. "all" ... not really. Several of the first tier carriers do, but they reserve the right to deploy broken smtp servers or impose long delays on the smtp path or drop your messages entirely -- especially if they don't have your source IP address on file. Failure is typically silent. And then you have to figure out which prefix goes to which carrier. This is tedious at best, if not just hard -- you can buy the appropriate CDs from Telcordia, but the data there is inconsistent at best, and only covers the NANP. Most of the carriers have gotten their act together to offer some sort of direct SMPP (typically) connection to a *few* vendors. They don't like doing this, because it's a lot over administrative overhead for them for what seems to be not much benefit to them. Unless you have the proven ability to generate a lot of traffic for their network, you will be ignored or, worse, strung along until you give up. >> Also, is the USA SMS integrated enough that a message can be sent to >> any mobile US phone with no problem? > US cell carriers charge for incoming SMS, either a monthly rate like > $3 for 100 messages, or a la carte at 10 cents/msg. That's why a lot > of us who have SMS capable phones on SMS capable networks don't have > SMS enabled. An implied "all" - which is not accurate. AT&T Wireless, for example, doesn't charge for incoming SMS. That's where I have my service; I can't speak for the details of other calling plans (they keep changing). There are a few companies that are aggregators for SMS delivery. I used to work for www.unimobile.com; they can provide you with an HTTP- or XMLRPC-based API across the web, with delivery to 98% of the text devices in the world, with delivery confirmation and other nifty features. They're also starting to be able to offer reasonable two-way features (very carrier dependent, unfortunately). (They also offer platform software for building wireless notification and query applications from scratch, though it doesn't sound as if the original poster was interested in that.) chris ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Oct 2002 22:57:36 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: AOL Removes Wall Between AIM, ICQ Messaging Users 29 Oct 2002, 5:40pm ET NEW YORK, Oct 29 (Reuters) - AOL Time Warner Inc. said it is testing ways for users of its popular AIM instant messaging service to chat with those using its ICQ service, largely due to the growth of ICQ in AOL Europe. The move marks the company's first step in letting the two largest messaging services communicate with each other. http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=29351653 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Oct 2002 23:00:34 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Samsung Says Winning U.S. Market For Pricey Phones 29 Oct 2002, 4:53pm ET By Eric Auchard NEW YORK, Oct 29 (Reuters) - Samsung Electronics Co., the world's No. 3 maker of mobile telephones, is capturing the bulk of the U.S. market for pricier phones and is poised to gain further share, officials said on Thursday. http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=29349894 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Oct 2002 23:11:03 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Internet Home Alliance Continues to Gain Momentum; Eight New Internet Home Alliance Continues to Gain Momentum; Eight New Members Join - Oct 29, 2002 08:21 AM (BusinessWire) New Members include IBM, Motive Communications, SimpleDay, Symbol Technologies, Lutron, Premise Systems, Samsung and Sunbeam Internet Home Alliance, a cross-industry network of leading companies advancing the home technology market, continues to gain momentum as it announced today the addition of eight new members. New members include IBM (NYSE:IBM), which has joined as a Principal and board member; Motive Communications, SimpleDay Technologies and Symbol Technologies (NYSE:SBL), which have joined as Contributors; and Lutron Electronics, Premise Systems, a Lantronix, Inc. company, (NASDAQ:LTRX), Samsung (OTC:SSNNF.PK) and Sunbeam Products, Inc., which have joined as Associates. In addition, CompUSA and ADT Security Services have both increased their membership levels from Associate to Contributor status. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=29336096 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Oct 2002 23:12:15 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: EarthLink Reports Record Results for Third Quarter 2002 EarthLink Reports Record Results for Third Quarter 2002 - Oct 29, 2002 07:29 AM (PR Newswire) - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=29334500 ------------------------------ From: Sprouse Richard J. GS-12 609 ACOMS/SCOE" Subject: How to Post Resume? Date: Tue, 29 Oct 2002 14:43:01 -0500 J. Richard Sprouse 6502 Mill House Rd rsprouse@sc.rr.com Sumter, SC 29154 (803) 499-6944 TRAINING * GCCS System Administration (Unix), Unix/Solaris System Administration, Tactical Unix Administration * Designing Win2000 Networks, Microsoft MS1560 Network development, MS Exchange Server 5.5 Administration, MS MS689 WinNT 4, MS MS578 Networking , MS688 Internetworking; MS Exchange Servers; Internetworking Configurations; MS Network Design Concepts, Designing IP Networks * Advanced Cisco Router Config, Intro to Cisco Router Configuration, Cisco Internetworking, Configuration and Management of Cisco Routers, Principles of TCP/IP * Sidewinder Firewall System Administration * Acquisition Manager, Financial Management and planning, Civilian Supervisor * Airborne Command and Control Computer Communications * Conversational German language EXPERIENCE Air Force Engineering and Technical Services (Civil Service) 2001 to present (Tactical Networks) Shaw AFB, SC * UNIX System Administrator, Theater Battlefield Management Core System (TBMCS) (SUN servers & SunSparc's, Oracle, SQL and WindowsNT 4. I) * Select and load battle plans, graphics, maps, and databases on up to 27 servers comprising the closed TBMCS network. * Load and manage multiple databases * Assemble/repair/troubleshoot PC's * Provide network design/implementation/troubleshooting for MS systems and UNIX systems * Provide Operating Systems and Hardware Training Air Force Engineering and Technical Services (Civil Service) 1996 to 2001 Regional Enterprise Networks HQ USAFE, Ramstein Air Base, Germany * Did on-site technical network site-surveys and technical solutions * Did analysis of net systems, desktop to networks * Analysis, troubleshoot office(s), building(s), installation(s) for Local or Wide Are Networks (LANS or WANS) for applicability, functionality, security, and technical currency * Worked Test and Implementation of new hardware and/or software * Designed and assisted in installation of computers, routers, and servers * Created test and implementation plans, created and/or maintained documentation * Worked network accreditation, documented physical layouts * Conduct feasibility studies on off-the-shelf (COTS) software and/or equipment with cost analysis for purchase/rejection of contractor equipment and/or software * Conduct post-implementation reviews of equipment, software, and installation * Provided on-site instruction in electronic/software/application and/or system specific hardware/software * Assemble/repair/troubleshoot PC's and laptops. Air Force Engineering and Technical Services (Civil Service) 1991 to 1996 Worldwide Systems Program Manager HQ Air Combat Command, Langley AFB, Va. * Developed 3-5 year planning for worldwide logistical support of Program * Developed strategic program plans/implementation supporting 4 separate weapons systems worldwide * Wrote and established civilian position descriptions and funding (172 individuals) * Complied and produced Uniform Manning Document(s) for civilian and military contractor use for funding or elimination * Established policy/directives, activated plans/programs to provide instruction to mission requirements * Authorized civilian position hire or fire actions and review source selection documents for appropriate personnel hire. Authorized Civilian Personnel Office hiring action * Identified and funded support and training for in-field personnel * Provided liaison to State Department and office functions coordinating paperwork, passport, and overseas pay (100+ individuals) * Calculated and authorized overseas program pay * Provided second level supervision/management review (170+ individuals) * Worked with field Commanders to created briefings and presentations to HQ general staff to advise, review, and "sell" mission issues, goals, and funding USCINCLANT (Navy/Air Force (Civil Service) 1984 to 1991 Telecommunications Specialist Langley AFB, Va * Subject matter expert airborne computer telecommunications (including satellite * Evaluated and documented systems concepts, proposals, architectures, designs, developments, products, trends, standards, process improvements, and concepts for applicability to Airborne Command Post mission requirements * Provided overall and specific technical guidance, continuity, and direction impacting Command Post communications' policy, guidance, procedures, and systems * Evaluated program documentation and plans for systems operational test and evaluation * Developed, maintained, and reviewed procedural actions, requirements, planning and policy * Wrote Statements of Work (SOW) for contractor bids * Did source selection for system installation/modification * Wrote technical/operational/maintenance instructions for Official Technical Orders, program Concepts and Proof of Performance * Assisted in technical writing, text proof analysis, and validation of Technical Orders, Operational and/or Maintenance manuals * Project officer in communications systems architecture, integration, and interoperability * Participated in exercises and interoperability demonstrations to analyze performance and limitations of systems * Worked transition strategies migrating systems to State of the Art industry standards and emerging technologies * Used assessments and risk mitigation methods to recommend modifications/replacement/new capabilities * Did program reviews, management reviews, and analyzes new capabilities to determine applicability OTHER EXPERIENCE * Public Speaker * Commercial Radio Broadcasting On-Air Personality * Chief Engineer (50Kw AM/100Kw FM; up to 5 tower directional) * Design, build, install, troubleshoot commercial radio plants/studio * Owner/technician Radio-TV and 2-Way Radio commercial repair shop * Missile Guidance Systems Technician * Electronic Warfare technician * Solid State Instrument Landing Systems technician * High-Power HF Communication (Tactical) ------------------------------ 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 V22 #103 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Oct 30 18:08:54 2002 Received: from localhost (localhost [[UNIX: localhost]]) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.3nb1/8.11.3) id g9UN8sB09272; Wed, 30 Oct 2002 18:08:54 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 30 Oct 2002 18:08:54 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200210302308.g9UN8sB09272@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #104 TELECOM Digest Wed, 30 Oct 2002 18:08:00 EST Volume 22 : Issue 104 Inside This SPECIAL Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson How Three Unlikely Sleuths Exposed Fraud at WorldCom (caryl chessman) SPECIAL ISSUE DEVOTED TO MCI/WORLDCOM FRAUD 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: caryl.chessman@eudoramail.com Subject: How Three Unlikely Sleuths Exposed Fraud at WorldCom Date: 30 Oct 2002 00:00:58 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ PAGE ONE Wednesday, October 30, 2002 How Three Unlikely Sleuths Exposed Fraud at WorldCom Firm's Own Employees Sniffed Out Cryptic Clues and Followed Hunches By SUSAN PULLIAM and DEBORAH SOLOMON Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL CLINTON, Miss. -- Sitting in his cubicle at WorldCom Inc. headquarters one afternoon in May, Gene Morse stared at an accounting entry for $500 million in computer expenses. He couldn't find any invoices or documentation to back up the stunning number. "Oh my God," he muttered to himself. The auditor immediately took his discovery to his boss, Cynthia Cooper, the company's vice president of internal audit. "Keep going," Mr. Morse says she told him. A series of obscure tips last spring had led Ms. Cooper and Mr. Morse to suspect that their employer was cooking its books. Armed with accounting skills and determination, Ms. Cooper and her team set off on their own to figure out whether their hunch was correct. Often working late at night to avoid detection by their bosses, they combed through hundreds of thousands of accounting entries, crashing the company's computers in the process. By June 23, they had unearthed $3.8 billion in misallocated expenses and phony accounting entries. It all added up to an accounting fraud, acknowledged by the company, that turned out to be the largest in corporate history. Their discoveries sent WorldCom into bankruptcy, left thousands of their colleagues without jobs and roiled the stock market. At a time when dishonesty at the top of U.S. companies is dominating public attention, Ms. Cooper and her team are a case of middle managers who took their commitment to financial reporting to extraordinary lengths. As she pursued the trail of fraud, Ms. Cooper time and again was obstructed by fellow employees, some of whom disapproved of WorldCom's accounting methods but were unwilling to contradict their bosses or thwart the company's goals. WorldCom is under investigation by the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission. Scott Sullivan, WorldCom's former chief financial officer and Ms. Cooper's boss, has been indicted. He has denied any wrongdoing. Four other officers have pleaded guilty and are cooperating with prosecutors. Federal investigators are still probing whether Bernard J. Ebbers, the company's former chief executive, knew about the accounting improprieties. Since the initial discoveries, WorldCom's accounting misdeeds have grown to $7 billion. Behind the tale of accounting chicanery lies the untold detective story of three young internal auditors, who temperamentally didn't fit into WorldCom's well-known cowboy culture. Ms. Cooper, 38 years old, headed a department of 24 auditors and support staffers, many of whom viewed her as quiet but strongwilled. She grew up in a modest neighborhood near WorldCom's headquarters and had spent nearly a decade working at the company, rising through its ranks. She declined to be interviewed for this story. Mr. Morse, 41, was known for his ability to use technology to ferret out information. The third member of the team was Glyn Smith, 34, a senior manager under Ms. Cooper. In his spare time he taught Sunday school, took photographs and bicycled. His mom had taught him and Ms. Cooper accounting at Clinton High School. Frightened that they would be fired if their superiors found out what they were up to, the gumshoes worked in secret. Even so, their initial discrete inquiries were stonewalled. Arthur Andersen, WorldCom's outside auditor, refused to respond to some of Ms. Cooper's questions and told her that the firm had approved some of the accounting methods she questioned. At another critical juncture in the trio's investigation, Mr. Sullivan, then the company's CFO, asked Ms. Cooper to delay her investigation until the following quarter. She refused. Ms. Cooper's first inkling that something big was amiss at WorldCom came in March 2002. John Stupka, the head of WorldCom's wireless business, paid her a visit. He was angry because he was about to lose $400 million he had specifically set aside in the third quarter of 2001, according to two people familiar with the meeting. His plan had been to use the money to make up for shortfalls if customers didn't pay their bills, a common occurrence in the wireless business. It was a well-accepted accounting device. But Mr. Sullivan decided instead to take the $400 million away from Mr. Stupka's division and use it to boost WorldCom's income. Mr. Stupka was unhappy because without the money, his unit would likely have to report a large loss in the next quarter. Mr. Stupka's group already had complained to two Arthur Andersen auditors, Melvin Dick and Kenny Avery. They had sided with Mr. Sullivan, according to federal investigators. But Mr. Stupka and Ms. Cooper thought the decision smelled funny, although not obviously improper. Under accounting rules, if a company knows it is not going to collect on a debt, it has to set up a reserve to cover it in order to avoid reflecting on its books too high a value for that business. That was exactly what Mr. Stupka had done. Mr. Stupka declined to comment. Ms. Cooper decided to raise the issue again with Andersen. But when she called the firm, Mr. Avery brushed her off and made it clear that he took orders only from Mr. Sullivan, according to the investigators. Mr. Avery and Mr. Dick declined to comment. Patrick Dorton, a spokesman for Andersen, said his firm thought that the $400 million wireless reserve was not necessary. "That was like putting a red flag in front of a bull," says Mr. Morse. "She came back to me and said, 'Go dig.'" Some internal auditors would have left it at that and moved on. After all, both the company's chief financial officer and its outside accountants had signed off on the decision. But that was not Ms. Cooper's style. One favorite pastime among the auditors who reported to her was applying the labels of the Myers-Briggs & Keirsey personality test to their fellow staffers. Ms. Cooper was categorized as an INTJ -- introspective, intuitive, a thinker and judgmental. "INTJs," according to the test criteria, are "natural leaders" and "strong-willed," representing less than 1% of the population. And so Ms. Cooper decided to appeal the decision. As head of auditing, it was her responsibility to bring sensitive issues to the audit committee of WorldCom's board. She brought the reserves question to the attention of the committee's head, Max Bobbitt. At a committee meeting at the company's Washington offices on March 6, she and Mr. Sullivan presented their cases, according to minutes from the meeting. Mr. Sullivan backed down, according to people familiar with his decision. The next day he tracked down Ms. Cooper. Unable to reach her immediately, Mr. Sullivan called her husband, a stay-at-home dad to their two daughters, to get her cellphone number. He finally caught up with her at the hair salon. In the future, she was not to interfere in Mr. Stupka's business, Mr. Sullivan warned, according to people familiar with the reserves question. The confrontations put Ms. Cooper in a sticky position. Mr. Sullivan was her immediate supervisor. Plus, her vague discomfort with the way WorldCom was handling its accounting led her into areas that were not normally her bailiwick. Although her department did a small amount of financial auditing, it primarily performed operational audits, consisting of measuring the performance of WorldCom's units and making sure the proper spending controls were in place. The bulk of the company's financial auditing was left to Arthur Andersen. But neither of those things dissuaded Ms. Cooper from following her nose to the root of the ill-defined problem. A Surprise Request On March 7, a day after Ms. Cooper had visited with the audit committee, the SEC surprised the company with a "Request for Information." While WorldCom's closest competitors, including AT&T Corp., were suffering from a telecom rout and losing money throughout 2001, WorldCom continued to report a profit. That had attracted the attention of regulators at the SEC, who thought WorldCom's numbers looked suspicious. But investigators had grown frustrated as they combed through public filings looking for evidence of wrongdoing, according to people familiar with the inquiry. So they asked to see data on everything from sales commissions to communications with analysts. Concerned about why the SEC was sniffing around, Ms. Cooper directed her group to start collecting information in order to comply with the request. She also was growing concerned about another looming problem. Andersen was under fire for its role in the Enron case, which soon would lead to the accounting firm's indictment. It was clear that WorldCom would have to retain new outside auditors. Ms. Cooper set off on an unusual course. Her own department would simply take on a role that no one at WorldCom had assigned it. The troubles at Enron and Andersen were enough to warrant a second look at the company's financials, she explained to Mr. Morse one evening as they walked out to WorldCom's parking lot. Her plan: her department would start doing financial audits, looking at the reliability and integrity of the financial information the company was reporting publicly. It was a major decision, which would necessitate a lot more work for Ms. Cooper and her staffers. Still, Ms. Cooper took on financial auditing without asking permission from Mr. Sullivan, her boss, according to investigators and a person familiar with Ms. Cooper's decision. "We could see a strain in her face,'' recalls her mother, Patsy Ferrell, about that time period. "She didn't look happy. We knew she was working late and some of the other people were working late. We would call and say, 'Can we bring some sandwiches?' and her father would bring them sandwiches." A Curious E-Mail from Afar Several weeks later, Mr. Smith, a manager under Ms. Cooper, received a curious e-mail from Mark Abide, based in Richardson, Texas, who was in charge of keeping the books for the company's property, plants and equipment. Mr. Abide had attached to his May 21 e-mail a local newspaper article about a former employee in WorldCom's Texas office who had been fired after he raised questions about a minor accounting matter involving capital expenditures. "This is worth looking into from an audit perspective," Mr. Abide wrote. Mr. Smith, who declined to be interviewed, forwarded the e-mail to Ms. Cooper, according to investigators and a lawyer involved in the case. The e-mail piqued Ms. Cooper's interest. As part of their initial foray into financial auditing, Ms. Cooper and her team had already stumbled on to the issue of capital expenditures, a subject that would prove to be crucial to their quest. The team had run into an inexplicable $2 billion that the company said in public disclosures had been spent on capital expenditures during the first three quarters of 2001. But they found that the money had never been authorized for capital spending. Capital costs, such as equipment, property and other major purchases, can be depreciated over long periods of time. In many cases, companies spread those costs over years. Operating costs such as salaries, benefits and rent are subtracted from income on a quarterly basis, and so they have an immediate impact on profits. Ms. Cooper and her team were beginning to suspect what was up with the mysterious $2 billion entry: It might actually represent operating costs shifted to capital expenditure accounts -- a stealthy maneuver that would make the company look vastly more profitable. When Ms. Cooper and Mr. Smith asked Sanjeev Sethi, a director of financial planning, about the curious adjustment, he told them it was "prepaid capacity," a term they had never heard before. Further inquires led them to understand that prepaid capacity was a capital expenditure. But when they asked what it meant, Mr. Sethi told them to ask David Myers, the company's controller, according to Mr. Morse and a person familiar with Ms. Cooper's situation. Mr. Sethi did not return phone calls. Ms. Cooper and Mr. Smith opted instead to call Mr. Abide, who had pointed out a capital expenditures problem in his e-mail. When they asked him about "prepaid capacity,'' he too answered very cryptically, explaining that those entries had come from Buford Yates, WorldCom's director of general accounting. While perusing records looking for accounting irregularities later that same day, May 28, Mr. Morse made the big discovery of the $500 million in undocumented computer expenses. They also were logged as a capital expenditure. "This stinks," Mr. Morse recalls thinking to himself. He immediately went to Ms. Cooper to tell her what he'd found. She called a meeting of her department. "I knew it was a horrific thing and she did too, right off the bat," says Mr. Morse. Several days later, Ms. Cooper and Mr. Smith met to try to make sense of their growing list of clues. Particularly puzzling were the cryptic comments made by Mr. Sethi and Mr. Abide. Finally the two auditors came up with a plan of action to test their sense that when it came to the booking of capital expenditures, something was very wrong at WorldCom. Ms. Cooper would send Mr. Smith an e-mail saying she wanted to know more about prepaid capacity as soon as possible, and asking how much harder they should press Mr. Sethi. They would copy Mr. Myers on the e-mail. Mr. Myers shot back an e-mail. Mr. Sethi should be working for him and did not have time to devote to Ms. Cooper's inquiries, he wrote. Ms. Cooper had been stonewalled yet again. A Secret Plan Ms. Cooper and Mr. Smith didn't know it, but they had stumbled onto evidence that some executives were keeping two sets of numbers for the then-$36 billion company, one of them fraudulent. By 2000, WorldCom had started to rely on aggressive accounting to blur the true picture of its badly sagging business. A vicious price war in the long-distance market had ravaged profit margins in the consumer and business divisions. Mr. Sullivan had tried to respond by moving around reserves, according to his indictment. But by 2001 it wasn't enough to keep the company afloat. And so Mr. Sullivan began instructing Mr. Myers to take line costs, fees paid to lease portions of other companies' telephone networks, out of operating-expense accounts where they belonged and tuck them into capital accounts, according to Mr. Sullivan's indictment. It was a definite accounting no-no, but it meant that the costs did not hit the company's bottom line -- at least in the version of the books that were publicly scrutinized. Although some staffers objected, the scheme progressed for the next five quarters. Ms. Cooper, Mr. Smith and Mr. Morse didn't know this. They only knew that accounting entries had been hopscotching inexplicably around WorldCom's balance sheets and that nobody wanted to talk about it. To put all the pieces together, they would need to plumb the depths of WorldCom's computerized accounting systems. Full access to the computer system was a privilege that normally had to be granted by Mr. Sullivan. But Mr. Morse, a bit of a techie, had recently figured out a way around that problem. Without explaining what he was up to, Mr. Morse had asked Jerry Lilly, a senior manager in WorldCom's information technology department, for better access to the company's accounting journal entries. Mr. Lilly was testing a new software program and gave Mr. Morse permission to road test the system, too. The beauty of the new system, from Mr. Morse's perspective, was that it enabled him to scrutinize the debit and credit sides of transactions. By clicking on a number for an expense on a spreadsheet, he could follow it back to the original journal entry -- such as an invoice for a purchase or expense report submitted by an employee, to see how it had been justified. Sifting through the data for answers to still-vague questions about capital expenditures amounted to a frustrating task, Mr. Morse says. He combed through an account labeled "intercompany accounts receivables," which contained 350,000 transactions per month. But when he downloaded the giant set of data, he slowed down the servers that held the company's accounting data. That prompted the IT staff to begin deleting his requests because they were clogging and crashing the system. Mr. Morse began working at night, when there was less demand on the servers, to avoid having his work shut down by the IT department. During the day, he retreated to the audit library -- a windowless, 12-by-12 room piled with files from previous projects and tucked away in the audit department -- to avoid arousing suspicion. By the first week of June, Mr. Morse had turned up a total of $2 billion in questionable accounting entries, he says. The Sleuths Get Nervous Having found the evidence they were looking for, the sleuths were suddenly faced with how serious the implications of their endeavor really were. Mr. Morse grew increasingly concerned that others in the company would discover what he had learned and try to destroy the evidence, he says. With his own money, he went out and bought a CD burner and copied all the incriminating data onto a CD-Rom. He told no one outside of internal audit what he had found. Mr. Morse even kept his wife, Lynda, in the dark. Each night, he'd bring home documents he was studying. He instructed his wife not to touch his briefcase. His wife thought the usually gregarious father of three looked drained. Ms. Cooper had begun confiding in her parents, with whom she was especially close. Without going into detail, she told her mother that she was worried about what her team was finding, and that it was definitely a very big deal, according to a person close to Ms. Cooper. Meanwhile, Mr. Sullivan began to ask questions about what Ms. Cooper's team was up to. One day the finance chief approached Mr. Morse in the company cafeteria. When Mr. Morse saw him coming, he froze. The auditor had only spoken to Mr. Sullivan twice during his five-year tenure at WorldCom. "What are you working on?" Mr. Morse later recalled Mr. Sullivan demanding. Mr. Morse looked at his shoes. "International capital expenditures," he says he replied, referring to a separate, and less-threatening auditing project. He quickly walked away. Days later, on June 11, Ms. Cooper got an unexpected phone call from Mr. Sullivan. He told her that he would have some time later in the day, and invited her to come by and tell him what her department was up to, according to a person familiar with Ms. Cooper's situation. That afternoon, Ms. Cooper, Mr. Smith and another auditor arrived at Mr. Sullivan's office. They talked about pending promotions and other administrative matters, according to lawyers involved in the case. As the meeting was breaking up, Ms. Cooper turned to Mr. Smith and suggested that he tell Mr. Sullivan what he was working on. It was meant to seem like a casual comment. In fact, the two auditors had planned it out beforehand, so that they could gauge Mr. Sullivan's reaction, according to a person familiar with Ms. Cooper's situation. Mr. Smith briefly described the audit, without going into the explosive material they already had found. Mr. Sullivan urged them to delay the audit until after the third quarter, saying there were problems he planned to take care of with a write-down, according to several people familiar with the meeting. Ms. Cooper replied that no, the audit would continue. Mr. Sullivan didn't respond, and the meeting ended in a stalemate. Concerned now that Mr. Sullivan might try to cover up the accounting improprieties, Ms. Cooper and Mr. Smith appealed to Mr. Bobbitt, the head of WorldCom's audit committee. Mr. Bobbitt had to travel to Mississippi from his home in Florida for a board meeting scheduled for June 14, so the day before he met with Ms. Cooper and Mr. Smith at a Hampton Inn in Clinton. The two auditors told Mr. Bobbitt what they had found. He asked Ms. Cooper to contact KPMG, the company's new outside auditors, and brief them on what was happening. Mr. Bobbitt did not raise Ms. Cooper's suspicions at the board meeting the next day, according to a document WorldCom later submitted to the SEC. James Sharpe, Mr. Bobbitt's lawyer, declined to comment. Farrell Malone, the KPMG partner in charge of the WorldCom account, urged Ms. Cooper to make sure she was right. On June 17, Ms. Cooper's team began a series of informal confrontations meant to convince themselves that there was no legal explanation for the accounting entries. That morning, Ms. Cooper and Mr. Smith went to the office of Betty Vinson, director of management reporting, and asked her for documentation to support the capital-expense-accounting entries. Ms. Vinson told the two that she had made many of the entries but did not have any support for them, according to an internal memo prepared by Ms. Cooper and Mr. Smith. Ms. Vinson's lawyer did not return phone calls. Next they walked a few feet to Mr. Yates's office. He said he was not familiar with the entries and referred Ms. Cooper and Mr. Smith to Mr. Myers. The duo then paid a call on Mr. Myers. When confronted, he admitted that he knew the accounting treatment was wrong, according to the memo. Mr. Myers said that he could go back and construct support for the entries but that he wasn't going to do that. Ms. Cooper then asked if there were any accounting standards to support the way the expenses were treated, according to the memo, which was later made public by a Congressional committee. Mr. Myers answered that there were none. He said that the entries should not have been made, but that once it had started, it was hard to stop. Mr. Smith asked how Mr. Myers planned to explain it all to the SEC. Mr. Myers replied that he hoped it wouldn't come to that, according to the memo. An hour or so later, Ms. Cooper returned to her department to brief Mr. Morse and her other auditors. "They have no support," she told them, according to Mr. Morse. It was clear to Ms. Cooper's team that their findings would be devastating for the company, and the prospect of going before the board with their evidence was sobering. They worried about whether their revelations would result in layoffs and obsessed about whether they were jumping to unwarranted conclusions that their colleagues at WorldCom were committing fraud. Plus, they feared that they would somehow end up being blamed for the mess. Ms. Cooper's staffers began to notice that she was losing weight. Mr. Morse's wife noticed he was preoccupied and short tempered. During the third week in June, Mr. Smith called his mother, who was vacationing in Albuquerque, according to a person familiar with the conversation. Without providing specifics, he told her that he was about to take actions at WorldCom that were not going to make people happy. He asked his mother, Ms. Cooper's former high school accounting teacher, to remember him in her prayers and to pray for him to be strong. Ms. Cooper prepared for several meetings with the audit committee. At one, on June 20, Mr. Sullivan was scheduled to defend himself. One evening, as Ms. Cooper worked late with accountants from KPMG, she suddenly dropped her head into her arms on the conference-room table. Mr. Malone of KPMG led her onto a balcony, put his arm around her and showed her the sunset, according to a person familiar with the meeting. Ms. Cooper, Mr. Smith and Mr. Malone headed to Washington to brief the board's audit committee. At the meeting on Thursday, June 20, Mr. Malone described the transfer of line costs to capital accounts and told the audit committee that, in his view, the transfers didn't comply with generally accepted accounting principles, according to a document WorldCom later submitted to the SEC. Mr. Sullivan tried to give an explanation for the accounting adjustments but asked for more time to support the line-cost transfers. The committee gave Mr. Sullivan the weekend to explain himself. He got to work constructing what he called a white paper that argued that the accounting treatments he used were proper, according to the document. It didn't work. On June 24, the audit committee told Mr. Sullivan and Mr. Myers they would be terminated if they didn't resign before the board meeting the next day. Mr. Sullivan refused and was fired. Mr. Myers resigned. The next evening, WorldCom stunned Wall Street with an announcement that it had inflated profits by $3.8 billion over the previous five quarters. Afterward, Ms. Cooper drove to her parents' house, which was near WorldCom's headquarters. She sat down at the dining-room table without saying anything, says Ms. Ferrell, her mother. "She was deeply, deeply pained. She was grief stricken that it was true and that all these people would feel the consequences of having gone astray,'' Ms. Ferrell says. "We were all so proud of WorldCom and it's just been the saddest, most tragic thing.'' Mr. Morse worked late that night, and his wife phoned after she watched the news. The anchors were calling the company World-Con, she reported. Did he know anything about it? The SEC on June 26 slapped the company with a civil fraud suit, and trading of WorldCom's stock was halted. Ultimately the company was delisted by the Nasdaq Stock Market. Mr. Sullivan is preparing to go to trial. "We will demonstrate at the appropriate time that a number of the negative points that WorldCom's internal auditors have recently suggested about Mr. Sullivan are not accurate,'' says Irvin Nathan, a lawyer for Mr. Sullivan. "The fact is that he was always supportive of internal audit and was instrumental in the promotion of Cynthia Cooper and securing resources for her staff.'' Mr. Myers, Mr. Yates, Ms. Vinson and Troy Normand, the director of legal entity accounting, have all pleaded guilty to securities fraud and a variety of other charges. David Schertler, an attorney for Mr. Yates, says that while his client pleaded guilty, "all the evidence would suggest he was acting under the orders of supervisors.'' Ms. Cooper and her team have continued to work at WorldCom's Clinton headquarters and are responding to requests related to the various investigations of the company. Ms. Cooper, Mr. Smith and Mr. Morse have been interviewed by FBI agents in connection with the Justice Department's investigation. Some WorldCom employees have told the auditors that they wish they had left the accounting issues alone. HUNTING DOWN FRAUD March: A WorldCom executive complains to Cynthia Cooper, vice president of internal audit, that CFO Scott Sullivan has decided to use his unit's reserves to reduce expenses. March 6: Ms. Cooper raises issue with audit committee. Mr. Sullivan backs down. March 7: SEC issues request for documents. Ms. Cooper launches financial audit. May 28: An auditor uncovers $500 million in fraudulent computer expenses. June 11: Mr. Sullivan, the CFO, asks Ms. Cooper to delay her audit. She refuses. June 17: Ms. Cooper confronts other WorldCom officials about the increasing number of accounting problems her staff is discovering. June 20: She presents her findings to WorldCom's board. Four days later Mr. Sullivan is fired. June 25: WorldCom announces it has inflated its profits by $3.8 billion over the previous five quarters. http://online.wsj.com/article_email/0,,SB1035929943494003751,00.html ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. 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Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. End of TELECOM Digest V22 #104 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Oct 30 18:43:06 2002 Received: from localhost (localhost [[UNIX: localhost]]) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.3nb1/8.11.3) id g9UNh6I10894; Wed, 30 Oct 2002 18:43:06 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 30 Oct 2002 18:43:06 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200210302343.g9UNh6I10894@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #105 TELECOM Digest Wed, 30 Oct 2002 18:43:00 EST Volume 22 : Issue 105 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Monty's Posts was Re: "News Headlines of Interest" (Joey Lindstrom) Re: "News Headlines of Interest" Don't Have Table of Contents (Gail Hall) Re: "News Headlines of Interest" Don't Have Table of Contents (No Name) Re: Local Prefix List -- Need a Favor (John David Galt) A Lack of Money Forces Computer Initiative to Close (Monty Solomon) Will Wi-Fi Take Over the Airwaves? (Monty Solomon) Wireless WarDrive: Wee Bit of Fun (Monty Solomon) Why Telemarketing Is Evil (Monty Solomon) Cell Phones Were Rebels' Downfall (Monty Solomon) Re: Want Bills by Snail Mail? It Might Cost You Money (Shaun Ewing) Re: DMS Switch Line Card Questions (Telco) 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: Wed, 30 Oct 2002 10:18:33 -0700 Subject: Monty's Posts was Re: "News Headlines of Interest" Reply-To: joey@lairdsflooring.com On Wed, 30 Oct 2002 01:54:51 -0500 (EST), editor@telecom-digest.org wrote: > Thus far the total is three votes for choice (1) -- mostly anonymous hate > letters saying quit publishing Monty's 'news items' (I refuse to do > that) or at the very least, batch it all as one big article. > And one vote (Eric DeMund) for (2) who wants to go back to the > previous system where I toss in a few of his items in every issue, and > as a result get an index of them. Well, if this relative newcomer gets a vote, I vote for choice #2, though #1 (batching together) is also quite acceptable. I really don't understand why you're getting hate mail about Monty's posts. Indeed, I find them (or specifically the articles he's referring us to) to be among the most interesting things that I get from the TELECOM Digest (no slur intended against anyone here). The only complaint I'd make is that I have to launch a browser to see the balance of the articles that I want to read (a long, slow process on this creaky old laptop). This is offset by the fact that I can quickly skip over articles that do NOT interest me, as Monty has only quoted the first paragraph or two (plus by the fact that I understand why Monty does it that way: to avoid copyright problems). Y'know, there are frequently articles in the TELECOM Digest (and other mailing lists I subscribe to) that I'm not interested in, and skip over. I don't expect to be enthralled by every post I see, but it sure seems like a small minority of people here (based on your characterization of their feedback as hate mail) DO have such an expectation. And they should listen carefully to the wise, sage words of Denis Leary, whom I quoth thusly: "Life sucks. Get a helmet." If that doesn't do it for ya, then let's harken back to the 1980's and the age of FidoNet, an organization that had two simple rules: 1) Thou shalt not be excessively annoying. 2) Thou shalt not be too easily annoyed. I think the vast majority of people here would say that Monty doesn't come close to violating rule #1. Your hate-mail writers, on the other hand, most definitely violate rule #2. Pat, you're the moderator. I do appreciate that you ask us for input on issues like this and are prepared to act in a manner inconsistent with your initial feelings if that's what the majority wants -- how could we ask for a better moderator? But please don't let this VERY small minority boil your blood. Some people bitch just for the sake of bitching, and if you capitulate to them on this, they'll just find something new to bitch about - ad nauseum. So unless a good majority of folks here ask you to change how you deal with Monty's posts, I'd suggest you just shrug off the hatemail and leave things as they are. (This is not to characterize Eric de Mund's post as hatemail - it was reasonable and well-intentioned, and I do agree with his stated preference). Oh, and a shout out to Monty: keep 'em comin', homey. :-) (Sorry, I slipped into Jim Rome mode for a second there...) Joey Lindstrom - Laird's Flooring joey@lairdsflooring.com ------------------------------ From: Gail M. Hall Subject: Re: "News Headlines of Interest" Don't Have Table of Contents Date: Wed, 30 Oct 2002 17:11:56 -0500 Reply-To: gmhall@apk.net On Tue, 29 Oct 2002 11:42:49 PST, in comp.dcom.telecom, Pat, our moderator wrote: > So now, you guys tell me; instruct your old, obsolete moderator with > his old, obsolete scripts; pick one of these choices: > (1) Continue batching Monty, one general subject header, no index of items; > (2) Individual itemization of Monty stuff; by default then six or ten > items in each issue, indexing, some days it will appear that he > has taken over an entire issue; My first choice would be #2 so I can pick and choose based on the subject line. (I see you have already individualized his messages in this latest batch of articles in this newsgroup.) Second choice would be to continue the batching *IF* you can label each heading with some kind of standard string that I can search on, such as "Subject:" or "Headline:" at the beginning of the line for the title or headline for each item. That way I could use my Find feature in my reader to search for "Subject:" to jump from one article to the next. Or separate the news items with a very easily identifiable divider such as a row of characters, such as *** or ==== or ----, that is, a sort of "graphical" way of identifying the separations between items. I don't know about your editor, but I have used Agent's "signature" feature to include other strings I might want to insert into messages easily. Back when I used Procomm Plus to access a unix-based service, I had scripts to insert common phrases or addresses when I wanted to. > Thus far the total is three votes for choice (1) -- mostly anonymous hate > letters saying quit publishing Monty's 'news items' (I refuse to do > that) or at the very least, batch it all as one big article. I don't want to see you hated, but I did like it better when Monty's stuff came in separate messages. I read Telecom Digest via usenet, so it's kind of like broken digests. The Telecom Digest gets to usenet already separated, unlike Risks, which stays in digest form even in usenet. > And one vote (Eric DeMund) for (2) who wants to go back to the > previous system where I toss in a few of his items in every issue, and > as a result get an index of them. I wouldn't really need an index if I could figure out what search string would get me to the subject of each item within the message. Your other options are out of my league and would depend on someone else to perform the magic. Those of us who are retired and living on fixed incomes have to be a little more picky about spending gobs of money on the latest computers and software. So I'm not going to be the one to bug you to do everything with the latest technology. Thanks for asking for our input! Gail in Ohio USA ------------------------------ From: Name Withheld Subject: Re: "News Headlines of Interest" Don't Have Table of Contents Date: Wed, 30 Oct 2002 09:26:20 -0800 Not for publication under my name: Eric De Mund wrote: > So now, you guys tell me; instruct your old, obsolete moderator with > his old, obsolete scripts; pick one of these choices: > (1) Continue batching Monty, one general subject header, no index of items; > (2) Individual itemization of Monty stuff; by default then six or ten > items in each issue, indexing, some days it will appear that he > has taken over an entire issue; I'd prefer (2). Anyone who wants things batched can always subscribe by e-mail instead of reading the newsgroup anyway. ------------------------------ From: John David Galt Subject: Re: Local Prefix List -- Need a Favor Date: Wed, 30 Oct 2002 09:37:41 -0800 Organization: Diogenes the Cynic Hot-Tubbing Society Rick Wilson wrote: > SBC-Pacbell has stopped publishing local prefix information in their > phone books. Could someone with a 1999 or 2000 phonebook for Los > Altos/Mountain View/Sunnyvale CA please copy or scan the local prefix > list and upload it here or elsewhere? It'll save a trip to the > library. http://www.nanpa.com/nanp1/wsutlzd.zip lists the prefixes in each rate center. (There are similar files for other parts of North America, see http://www.nanpa.com/number_resource_info/co_code_assignments1.html ) Use your old PacBell book to determine which rate centers (zones) are local to your own. Then search the file for all prefixes in those rate centers, and you have your list. Note that the list will be much larger than the one in the phone book, because PacBell has always had a policy of not telling you if cellular prefixes, or prefixes of competing local carriers, are local to you. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Oct 2002 23:29:18 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: A Lack of Money Forces Computer Initiative to Close October 30, 2002 A Lack of Money Forces Computer Initiative to Close By JOHN SCHWARTZ When Stephen M. Case, then the chairman of America Online, and many other high-technology executives announced an initiative called PowerUP less than three years ago, they said that their donated millions would help bridge the "digital divide" between rich and poor. "We must take steps now so that in the Internet century, no children are left behind," Mr. Case said. But tomorrow , with nearly 1,000 community-based technology centers financed across the country, the national offices of PowerUp will close and the centers will be left to fend for -- and finance -- themselves. ... http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/30/technology/30POWE.html ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Oct 2002 00:15:46 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Will Wi-Fi take over the airwaves? Will Wi-Fi take over the airwaves? By Richard Shim Staff Writer, CNET News.com October 28, 2002, 12:28 PM PT As wireless home networking catches on, the climate is right for growth in the Wi-Fi market, according to a new study. Wi-Fi is a technology that allows devices located within a 300-foot radius to communicate without wires. Wi-Fi includes two different standards, 802.11b and 802.11a. Products using the 802.11b standard are already being accepted, and products using the emerging 802.11a standard are finding their way into the homes of early adopters, according to a study released Monday from In-Stat/MDR. The 802.11b standard allows data to be transferred at rates up to 11mbps and uses the 2.4GHz radio band. The 802.11a standard transmits data at up to 54mbps in the higher 5GHz frequency and is not compatible with 802.11b. The report projected annual worldwide shipments of Wi-Fi equipment to reach 33 million units in 2006, up from 6 million expected to ship this year. http://news.com.com/2100-1033-963574.html ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Oct 2002 01:21:04 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Wireless WarDrive: Wee Bit of Fun Wireless WarDrive: Wee Bit of Fun By Michelle Delio 02:00 AM Oct. 29, 2002 PST NEW YORK -- Finding a public restroom in Manhattan was the biggest challenge on Day 1 of the WorldWide WarDrive. Within a 40-block radius, the WarDrivers identified dozens of wide-open wireless networks. Among the spotted "private" business and home networks were those appearing to belong to a bank, a police station, several law firms and department stores, and a financial services firm. All of these networks appeared to be unprotected by even rudimentary security systems. Anyone with no ethics and just a bit of technical savvy could have logged in and accessed, at the very least, any of the information being transmitted across the network. http://www.wired.com/news/wireless/0,1382,56062,00.html ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Oct 2002 01:23:49 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Why Telemarketing Is Evil Issue 10.11 - Nov 2002 CHEAT SHEET Why Telemarketing Is Evil Telemarketers may be relentless, exasperating, even unethical. But you have to give them this: They're good. With the help of technology -- everything from autodialing software to cheap overseas labor connected by fiber optics -- they've turned phone solicitation into a $270 billion industry. The key to the telephonic onslaught is predictive dialing, a breakthrough of the mid-'90s. These systems churn through huge databases of phone numbers, weeding out busy signals and out-of-service numbers, and routing answered calls to agents. They are mercilessly efficient: Out of an 8-hour day, agents can work the phones a staggering 7.2 hours. One loan company calling deadbeat borrowers boosted "promises to pay" by 129 percent. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.11/start.html ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Oct 2002 01:49:08 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Cell phones Were Rebels 'Downfall Cell phones were rebels' downfall Russians gather key information through hostages By Preston Mendenhall MSNBC MOSCOW, Oct. 26 - During their three-day siege of a Moscow theater, Chechen terrorists allowed hundreds of hostages to use personal cell phones to reassure their family members and relay new demands. What they didn't know, officials here say, was that Russia's security services were on the other end listening and gathering information crucial to ending the hostage crisis. SECURITY OFFICIALS HERE who helped plan the special operation that freed over 700 hostages but killed dozens in the process said Saturday that the relative freedom the rebels gave their hostages proved to be their downfall. One senior security source, who declined to be identified, said the FSB, a successor to the Soviet-era KGB, identified the dozens of phone calls made by hostages immediately after the attack as an important link to the inside of the theater. The FSB encouraged families of hostages to make themselves available around the clock at a special coordination center near the theater, where 24-hour support and information for the relatives were also provided. http://www.msnbc.com/news/826347.asp ------------------------------ From: Shaun Ewing Subject: Re: Want Bills by Snail Mail? It Might Cost You Money Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2002 01:56:41 +1100 Monty Solomon wrote in message news:telecom22.103.1@telecom-digest.org: > October 29, 2002 > Want Bills by Snail Mail? It Might Cost You Money > By JENNIFER BAYOT > You may dread monthly bills in the mailbox, but consider them a perk. > Some companies are charging for them. That's already happening here in Australia with a lot of companies. For example: * My cell phone provider charges AUD$2.50 per month if I want a paper bill. From memory they charge another $1 if you don't pay by automatic direct debit (credit card, etc). I currently receive my bill notification by email and view the bills online. * My previous Internet provider charged $2.50 per month if you wanted a paper bill instead of an email with a PDF attachment. When I changed to electronic billing they sent me a "thankyou pack" containing a hat, pens, stickers and two movie tickets. * My current Internet provider doesn't offer a paper billing option; the only option is an email invoice. * I also believe that Telstra (our biggest Telco) was starting to offer discounts and incentives if you received your bill electronically; however, since I'm not with them for my calls I'm not sure what came of this. I currently receive my landline phone bills (business & personal) in the mail and mailed statements for Visa card and bank accounts. Every other bill is handled electronically. The way the banks here are going with Internet banking; it probably won't be long before additional charges are incurred to receive a paper statement. --Shaun ------------------------------ From: Telco Subject: Re: DMS Switch Line Card Questions Date: Wed, 30 Oct 2002 15:46:11 GMT Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net Hope you can help; the cable length is near it's distance, intra-office. On the 216, our measured return loss is within spec but marginal. On the 214 card, the return loss is well within spec. We are working with carrier to determine flaky response to equipment they bought, installed. The equipment they are working with works well in other offices. We are trying to determine impedance or dBm or bonding problem. If you recall good advice, I might just send a bigger straw for the beer. Thank-you, Kelly Boo Phatty wrote: > Today, Tue, 29 Oct 2002 14:55:57 GMT, Two Buddha read a post from > Kelly Daniels , and determined his interest in > BURP. Where's my beer? Oh and: >> Can anyone recall if the T214 and T216 Line Card used for Switching in >> the Analog Shelf of DMS 100, 200, 250 and 10 has Line Build-out >> Options, either by dip switches or software. Specifically I look to >> match impedance and then Transmission Level Points in the +4 to -22 >> range. >> Thank-you in advance. >> Kelly > Why do you need to tweak LBO at the switch? Are you running cables a > long long way from your equipment? If so, shouldn't you do that on the > transmission side? ------------------------------ 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 Fax 3: 775-642-0603 Fax 4: 530-309-7234 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 V22 #105 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Oct 31 16:05:47 2002 Received: from localhost (localhost [[UNIX: localhost]]) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.3nb1/8.11.3) id g9VL5l803886; Thu, 31 Oct 2002 16:05:47 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2002 16:05:47 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200210312105.g9VL5l803886@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #106 TELECOM Digest Thu, 31 Oct 2002 16:06:00 EST Volume 22 : Issue 106 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Airport Lounges, Unplugged (Monty Solomon) Qwest Communications Reports Third Quarter 2002 Results (Monty Solomon) AT&T PrePaid Internet Service Now Available At Walgreens (Monty Solomon) Leading Broadband Providers Are Ready for Microsoft's Xbox (M. Solomon) Echostar Moves Fail to Revive Hughes Deal; Source (Monty Solomon) Fight Shaping up for U.S. Walkie Talkie Service (Monty Solomon) Microsoft's Media Monopoly (Monty Solomon) Rooting Around Site With Intent? (Monty Solomon) FCC Ponders Flexible Use of Airwaves (Monty Solomon) The Latest Annoying Version Of Spam (Patrick Townson) Verizon Settles Spam Suit (Patrick Townson) Re: Wi-FI in Apartments; Airwave Saturation? (David Clayton) Re: Local Prefix List - Need a Favor (Greg Monti) Re: Tragedy of the Commons (fist) Re: Connecting FAX Machine to Existing Answering Machine (David Vinograd) Request For Assistance (MetroOrion@aol.com) Time to Ask For Help Once Again; Free CD Offer (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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 30 Oct 2002 20:15:17 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Airport Lounges, Unplugged T-Mobile debuts new wireless options By Jesse Drucker THE WALL STREET JOURNAL Oct. 30 - Cutting loose on the road is taking on new meaning. T-Mobile USA Inc., formerly VoiceStream Wireless, is partnering with American Airlines, United Airlines and Delta Air Lines to let people get high-speed wireless Internet connections in nearly all of the airlines' domestic clubs over the coming year. OTHER CARRIERS, TOO, are expanding their wireless networks, using a technology known as Wi-Fi that can be 40 times faster than even the most current high-speed cellular networks. AT&T Wireless Services Inc. has rigged up virtually the entire Denver airport. Sprint Corp., meanwhile, is planning to roll out the service in several Wyndham Hotels around the country. For most people, this represents a big change in the way they get onto the Internet on the road. Typically, that involves finding a pay phone, tethering the laptop to the phone with a phone cord, and then enduring snail-like connection speeds. (Some cellular carriers now offer laptop cards that provide wireless Internet connections, but at comparatively slow speeds.) http://www.msnbc.com/news/828105.asp ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Oct 2002 20:23:38 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Qwest Communications Reports Third Quarter 2002 Results - Second Consecutive Quarter of Positive Free Cash Flow - Liquidity Concerns Addressed With Amended/New Credit Facilities and Pending Sale of QwestDex - Expects 2002 Revenue of Approximately $17.1 Billion and Adjusted EBITDA of Approximately $5.4 Billion - Net Loss of ($214) Million or ($0.13) Per Share, Compared to a Loss of ($142) Million or ($0.09) Per Share in the Third Quarter of 2001 Investors: Please see 'Note to Investors' below for definitions and explanations of certain matters. DENVER, Oct. 30 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Qwest Communications International Inc. (NYSE:Q) today announced its financial results for the third quarter of 2002. On a reported basis, the company reported a net loss of ($214) million or ($0.13) per share, compared to a net loss of ($142) million or ($0.09) per share in the third quarter of 2001. The loss reflects after-tax non-operating items of $44 million, or $0.02 per share, due to adjustments of restructuring reserves, losses associated with the sale of certain assets and an adjustment to the company's deferred tax provision. http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=29359542 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Oct 2002 21:19:55 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: AT&T PrePaid Internet Service Now Available At Walgreens MORRISTOWN, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 30, 2002--AT&T and Walgreens today announced that AT&T PrePaid Internet Service is now available in more than 3,900 of the drugstore chain's stores across the United States. AT&T PrePaid Internet Service is a flexible, pay-as-you-go Internet service powered by the company's award-winning AT&T Worldnet(R) Service. It comes with one e-mail account and is perfect for consumers who want to access the Web without a monthly fee, need a travel Internet service to complement their home or office connection or want a back-up service. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=29364009 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Oct 2002 21:22:45 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Leading Broadband Providers Are Ready for Microsoft's Xbox Live 10 U.S. and Three Canadian Providers to Help Usher in New Era for Online Video Games Starting Nov. 15 REDMOND, Wash., Oct. 30 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT) today announced that 10 U.S. and three Canadian broadband service providers will be the first to support the Microsoft(R) "Xbox(TM) Compatible" program, making it easy for consumers to identify high-speed service plans that deliver great experiences for Xbox Live. Xbox Live, which launches in the United States and Canada on Nov. 15, is the ultimate online game arena that allows gamers to play games with each other, talk while they play using the Xbox Communicator headset, and download new content to keep games fresh. (Photo: NewsCom: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20000822/MSFTLOGO ) Representing nearly 80 percent of the combined U.S. and Canadian broadband markets by the end of the year, the current list of "Xbox Compatible" broadband service providers includes Bell Canada, BellSouth Corp., Charter Communications Inc., Comcast Corp., Cox Communications Inc., EarthLink Inc., MSN(R), Qwest Communications, Rogers Cable Inc., SBC Communications Inc., TELUS Corp., Time Warner Cable's Road Runner service and Verizon Communications. According to J Allard, general manager of the Xbox platform at Microsoft, while Xbox Live is designed to work well with most high-speed Internet services, the "Xbox Compatible" service providers are working with Microsoft to help ensure a great user experience on Xbox Live for customers. http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=29366316 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Oct 2002 21:28:44 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Echostar Moves Fail to Revive Hughes Deal; Source - Oct 30, 2002 11:01 AM (Reuters) - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=29366788 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Oct 2002 21:32:25 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Fight Shaping up for U.S. Walkie Talkie Service Fight shaping up for U.S. walkie talkie service - Oct 30, 2002 11:56 AM (Reuters) - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=29368035 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2002 00:48:20 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Microsoft's Media Monopoly Bill Gates wants to control the delivery of digital entertainment into your home. And according to a lawsuit brought by a pioneering software company, he's prepared to crush anything that gets in his way. First of two parts. By Farhad Manjoo Oct. 29, 2002 | Richard Lang looks out of his lawyer's office at the bright orange Coast Guard cutters clipping the San Francisco Bay. It's a chilly morning in the middle of October, and Lang, the CEO of a video software company called Burst.com, has spent the last hour talking about unfair competition in the software industry and about how he became a victim of Microsoft's vicious effort to dominate digital entertainment. But he's been distracted the whole time, pointing out the choppers and the sailboats. You get the sense that Lang is vaguely embarrassed to be here, that he would rather be out there on the bay, or somewhere else far away, working on ways to improve digital technology rather than explaining why he's suing the biggest company in the industry. Richard Lang is suing Microsoft because, he says, the company violated Burst.com's patents covering video delivery on the Internet and engaged in "unfair competition" to prevent Burst from gaining a foothold in the market. Lang says that in the late 1990s, as software companies battled each other for dominance in the emerging world of digital media on the Internet, Microsoft colluded with its main competitor, RealNetworks, in an effort to prevent Burst and other firms from entering the market. And then, after it had sufficiently weakened Burst, Microsoft "stole" its intellectual property, says Lang, incorporating in its latest Windows Media Player the video-streaming technology that Burst had developed -- and had shared with Microsoft under nondisclosure agreements -- during more than a decade of research. http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2002/10/29/microsoft_media_one/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2002 01:01:56 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Rooting Around Site With Intent? By Michelle Delio 02:00 AM Oct. 30, 2002 PST The theory of security by obscurity may soon come under legal review. Intentia, a prominent, mid-sized enterprise software vendor, says it filed a complaint on Monday with Sweden's National Criminal Investigation Department. The company claims a reporter from Reuters news service "broke into Intentia's computer systems" to obtain Intentia's third quarter 2002 financial results. Reuters then published a news story revealing Intentia's quarterly results several hours before the company was scheduled to publicly announce the information. Both Intentia and Reuters agree the Reuters reporter obtained Intentia's financial statement directly from Intentia's website. But since Intentia did not provide an explicit link to the report, Intentia's lawyers consider Reuters' retrieval and early publication of the information a violation of intellectual property and computer system protection laws. Reuters believes that once Intentia placed its quarterly report on its website, the information could no longer be considered confidential or private. http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,56079,00.html [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: And I agree with Reuters. You cannot set something out on the sidewalk in front of your house and then sue people for looking at it and commenting on it. That's NOT how the World Wide Web was set up. That's NOT the way it works, and actions such as Intentia's lawsuit are a direct slap in the face at netizens everywhere. Someone should sit down with Intentia and teach them the basics of computer networking and web page design before turning them loose with computers and web pages. That's why I deep-link wherever I feel like it. I don't *claim* that its my work; I simply make fair use of the spectacles on display around the net. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2002 08:40:41 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: FCC Ponders Flexible Use of Airwaves By Reuters October 30, 2002, 9:37 PM PT The Federal Communications Commission is working to provide more flexibility for using the nation's existing commercial wireless airwaves as numerous new services proliferate, the agency's chief said Wednesday. FCC Chairman Michael Powell said the agency is exploring ways to overhaul government regulations of wireless licenses, including allowing license holders to offer a variety of services as well as expand the use of existing spectrum that may be underutilized. http://news.com.com/2100-1033-964017.html ------------------------------ From: Patrick Townson Subject: CBS News: The Latest Annoying Version Of Spam Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2002 12:01:46 -0600 Now, in the middle of a chat session using 'Messenger' software, pop up windows with spam. You may have seen them lately. Originally intended as a way for 'Messenger' systems technical administrators to advise users when the network had to be shut down for repairs (if they had at least a few seconds or longer to give a warning prior to a system crash), this technique is now being taken over by spammers as a way to get around your mail filters; your various screening mechanisms. Apparently it doesn't matter what the actual contents of the pop up window says: It could be a legitimate message, 'Messenger is going down now for technical work, back soon' or it could be sexual innuendo, or a misleadingly named http link to a virus (such as sexual innuendo in the form of a link [click here to see my naked pics, etc]) or a hacker trying to trick young guys and inexperienced users into 'changing their password' with 'official looking' announcements, etc. Here is a link to the entire report: http://cbsnews.cbs.com/stories/2002/10/18/tech/main526198.shtmlhttp://cbs news.cbs.com/stories/2002/10/18/tech/main526198.shtml ------------------------------ From: Patrick Townson Subject: CBS News: Verizon Settles Spam Suit Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2002 12:03:20 -0600 Now, a major spammer gets ordered off of Verizon and handed a huge fine to pay. A fellow up in the Detroit area, long considered a major spammer on the net gets caught in the act. Here is that story to read in full: http://cbsnews.cbs.com/stories/2002/10/29/tech/main527365.shtmlhttp://cbs news.cbs.com/stories/2002/10/29/tech/main527365.shtml ------------------------------ From: David Clayton Subject: Re: Wi-FI in Apartments; Airwave Saturation? Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2002 17:06:49 +1100 Organization: Customer of Connect.com.au Pty. Ltd. Reply-To: dcstar@acslink.net.au jeff.smith2@caramail.com (Jeff Smith) contributed the following: > But considering that a lot of people live in apartment buildings, I > was wondering at what point Wi-Fi would become a problem, and not be > able to function. > Imagine there are three apartments in a row, and every apartment has > its own Wi-Fi network. And imagine it's the same deal on the floor > just above these three apartments, and also the three apartments just > below. > For a total of nine Wi-Fi networks within a 300 foot radius. Would > that work? > Thanks for any info. Not because I have any plans, but just because I > was wondering about this. I have set up "Wi-Fi" in commercial buildings and found that the signal will quite happily travel through one or two modern plasterboard walls but not the concrete floors, so I assume if you have substantial walls and floors in the apartments you won't have too much trouble. We found we could get reasonable "horizontal" connectivity but nothing much vertically in a new building. When we installed one in an old "heritage" building with wooden floors and bluestone walls we had the opposite, the signal could travel up and down but not through the thick walls. 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. ------------------------------ From: Greg Monti Subject: Re: Local Prefix List -- Need a Favor Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2002 01:29:19 -0500 On 29 Oct 2002, Rick Wilson wrote: > SBC-Pacbell has stopped publishing local prefix information in their > phone books. Could someone with a 1999 or 2000 phonebook for Los > Altos/Mountain View/Sunnyvale CA please copy or scan the local prefix > list and upload it here or elsewhere? This info now appears to be publicly available on the internet. Go to www.areacode-info.com , click on the green tab for Plans, then on Local Calling Areas. You can input virtually any area code-prefix pair, or any Rate Center name, in the US or Canada. It will return a page listing every rate center that is a local call from the one you input. Most displayed items are clickable links, so you can see the full prefix lists of all local rate centers, the CLLI codes of the switches, the serving company names and the LATA numbers. It's incredibly detailed, and is addictive for those with a mind for tidbits of data. Did you know that calls from Derby Line, Vermont (802-873), to Rock Island, Quebec (819-876) are local calls? Did you know that there are 4,633 prefixes in the New York metropolitan LATA? That the small suburban rate center of Brewster, NY, has 9 active prefixes served by 6 telephone companies? That the switch called LARLMDLRDS0 in Laurel, Maryland, serves 35 prefixes in four diffferent area codes in four different rate areas? That the local calling area from Barrow, AK, consists only of Barrow. Everything else is toll. From Los Altos, CA, the local calling areas includes, besides Los Altos, in Zone 1: Palo Alto, Mountain View, San Jose West DA, Saratoga, Sunnyvale, Woodside, and in Zone 2: Campbell, La Honda, Redwood City, San Carlos-Belmont and San Jose North DA. Whatever DA stands for. Greg Monti, New York, New York, USA gmonti@mindspring.com greg.monti@verizon.net [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: In this context, DA refers to Directory Assistance. Many eons ago, DA was operator lingo for 'Does Not Answer'. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2002 19:59:39 +1100 From: fist Reply-To: fist@ozemail.com.au Organization: xx Subject: Re: Tragedy of the Commons Thor Iverson's explanation for the Tragedy of the Commons is quite incorrect (although I tend to agree with the thrust of his article). He explains the Tragedy concept by stating: > There's a concept in the physical world known as the "tragedy of the > commons." Build a useful public space, and people will come. But the > more people use it, the more the value of the space is degraded, > until it ultimately fails to fulfill the purpose for which it was > created. Thus, success leads inevitably to failure. It is not the overload of common facilities that the Tragedy refers to, but the way in which individuals can unfairly expoit the shared value of the commons to benefit themselves, and to the detriment of the others who play fair and share equally. This is a different problem entirely. The idea that (axiomatically) the more people who use a public space, the more its value is degraded might apply to some forms of common, but not to all. For instance, Metcalf's Law says the opposite -- that the value of networks rises with the number of users. And it seems to me that the value of the Internet has risen as the range of material it contains has expanded. Unfortunately, the junk level has also risen. But that is not the same as the Tragedy concept -- just a natural consequence of many people being dumb and stupid. Stewart Fist - writer and columnist See http://australianit.news.com.au (click on COLUMNS) http://www.abc.net.au/http/sfist/ (some archives) http://www.electric-words.com (main archives) 70 Middle Harbour Road, Lindfield, 2070, N.S.W, Australia Phone +61 2 9416 7458 Fax +61 2 9416 4582 ------------------------------ Reply-To: From: David Vinograd Subject: Re: Connecting a FAX Machine to an Existing Answering Machine Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2002 11:25:15 -0000 People, Thank you for all the good advice. I have checked with BT and distinctive ring is available at 1.50/month and my system does support it. So I will order it today. David Vinograd mailto:Vinograd@multics.org Consultants in Networking & Security http://vinograd.multics.org/ Peaks Island Partnership Ltd 128 Richmond Hill 8 Garden Lane Richmond, TW10 6RN UK Peaks Island, ME 04108 US +44-(0)20-8-940-5723 207-766-5840 ------------------------------ From: MetroOrion@aol.com Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2002 06:55:28 EST Subject: Request For Assistance Good morning, I am quite new to computers. I believe I have all the facilities necessary to play FM radio stations. However, when I located your website through "FM radio stations" each time I entered a callsign, frequency or site I received the message that the information wasn't available. I am trying to tune in a Montreal music station (I believe it is 99.5) but the Montreal and the 99.5 didn't give results. I tried entering the closest city to where I live (Burlington VT) and again didn't get to an informative screen. Could you advise the step by step procedure to accessing the radio stations as it appears I am missing something here. Thanks. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: A couple of points here: when that page at airwaves.com was working it was only intended to be a lookup of details. Bill Pfieffer designed it to be a convenient 'hook' into the FCC's database of AM/FM radio stations searchable by frequency, call sign and geographic location. It was NOT intended to be a link to the various stations themselves. You still had to order up the audio files via the various web sites of the stations which offer the service. But ... (did you ever notice how 'but' always negates whatever the previous paragraphs or statements said?) the airwaves.com site has been out of order for quite awhile. Someone more experienced than I has to go in to the cgi-bin at iecc.com (which houses airwaves.com) and repair the link. If, in fact the FCC has not shut down access to the database entirely. It was a great service when it worked, while Bill Pfieffer was alive. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Patrick Townson Subject: Time to Ask For Help Once Again Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2002 13:00:00 CST We have come to the end of October and the start of November, so it is my turn to ask once again for financial assistance in the upkeep of this Digest. If you have not made any financial assistance lately, I hope you will consider this monthly appeal as a chance to participate financially as a partner in this reader-written net published e-journal. Whatever you feel is appropriate will be appreciated. Starting with this month, (November, 2002), I will be offering a CD of the entire Telecom Archives *and* your choice of various 'old time radio' shows with a telephone theme at no charge when you send a gift of at least $20-25 to the Digest. In addition to twenty plus years of telecom-related messages from the Digest and comp.dcom.telecom and the other special files and reports in the archives you will receive these 'oldtimeradiovault.com' items: 'Sorry, Wrong Number' (three different adaptations including Agnes Morehead) from Suspense, Lux Radio Theatre, etc. 'Halls of Ivy' the 'Phone Problems' episode 'Family Theatre' the 'Man Who Bought the Phone Company' episode. 'Bell Telephone Hour' the guest on that show was Lily Pons. 'Life of Riley' the 'Telephone is Rationed' episode. In addition, if you put the CD in a regular CD player such as your radio, etc instead of the CD drive on your computer, you wil be able to listen to 'Sorry, Wrong Number' as it aired on the radio. This is the second, and updated CD of the Telecom Archives, produced by Joey Lindstrom, with a cast of thousands -- all of you -- in the Archives files. I think you will like it. With your gift to the Digest of $20-25 (or more, as you find appropriate) you get it free. If you choose to remit on line via PayPal, you may use your credit card. Go to http://telecom-digest.org/donations and click where appropriate. Be sure to include your mailing address for the CD, and Joey also needs to know if you want the *nix format or the Windows 9x/2000/XP version. Mention all that in the advice box. If you prefer to use snailmail, then send your check to TELECOM, Post Office Box 50, Independence, KS 67301-0050. You should get the CD in two or three weeks, but you will get an email acknowledgement long before that. Thanks VERY MUCH for your help, as usual. The Telecom Archives remains a free open resource on the net via ftp massis.lcs.mit.edu/telecom- archives/archives. Patrick Townson ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. 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 Fax 3: 775-642-0603 Fax 4: 530-309-7234 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 V22 #106 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Nov 1 00:07:15 2002 Received: from localhost (localhost [[UNIX: localhost]]) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.3nb1/8.11.3) id gA157FT14768; Fri, 1 Nov 2002 00:07:15 -0500 (EST) Date: Fri, 1 Nov 2002 00:07:15 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200211010507.gA157FT14768@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #107 TELECOM Digest Fri, 1 Nov 2002 00:06:00 EST Volume 22 : Issue 107 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Feds Sue to Block Satellite Merger (Monty Solomon) Statement of EchoStar Communications Corporation CEO (Monty Solomon) Birth of the Digital New Deal: An Inventory of High-Tech (Monty Solomon) Telecom and Broadband Policy After the Market Meltdown (Monty Solomon) Report: Gov't Shares Personal Data (Monty Solomon) GAO: Government Agencies Adhering To Privacy Laws (Monty Solomon) Judge to Issue Microsoft Rulings (Monty Solomon) Re: Monty's Posts was Re: "News Headlines of Interest" (Boo Phatty) Canadian/US Local Calling Area Website (Mark J Cuccia) Re: CBS News: The Latest Annoying Version Of Spam (Jason) Re: Local Prefix List -- Need a Favor (Stanley Cline) Re: Request For Assistance (John R. Levine) Telemarketer Integrated Credit Solutions Declares War (Crispin) That 'DA' Acronym used in California Ratecenter Names (Mark J Cuccia) "Advertising Corrupts?" (AES) FA: HP Broadband/Protocol Analyzer (Harlan Labs) Time to Ask For Help Once Again (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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2002 17:16:28 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Feds Sue to Block Satellite Merger Feds Sue to Block Satellite Merger - Oct 31, 2002 11:58 AM (AP Online) By ROBERT GEHRKE Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - The Justice Department will file a lawsuit Thursday to block a merger between EchoStar Communications Corp. and Hughes Electronics Corp. that would have created the nation's largest pay-television service, according to a law enforcement official. The department's opposition comes despite concessions EchoStar offered last week to bolster a rival company and avoid concerns about a potential monopoly. The lawsuit is expected to be filed Thursday afternoon on behalf of the Justice Department, 23 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, arguing the deal would reduce competition and hurt subscribers, according to Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=29394474 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2002 17:18:20 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Statement of EchoStar Communications Corporation CEO Statement of EchoStar Communications Corporation CEO - Oct 31, 2002 01:27 PM (BusinessWire) LITTLETON, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 31, 2002--In response to the announcement by U.S. Department of Justice and State Attorneys General, EchoStar Chairman and CEO, Charles Ergen, issued the following statement: "I would like to personally thank all those, including our customers, consumers, legislators, employees and numerous others, who during the past year have supported this historic merger proposal. We also thank the regulatory officials at the Department of Justice, FCC and the states who worked diligently to analyze this complex merger and gave us the opportunity to express our views. We continue to believe passionately that the merger of EchoStar and Hughes is the best chance to stop rising cable prices and to bring enhanced services to all Americans, especially those consumers living in rural America. We are obviously disappointed that at this time we have not been able to convince regulatory officials to share our vision. EchoStar will continue to explore all possible means to be allowed to compete against the cable giants and for more choice for all consumers." - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=29396585 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2002 17:37:37 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Birth of the Digital New Deal: An Inventory of High-Tech Cato Policy Analysis No. 457 October 28, 2002 Birth of the Digital New Deal An Inventory of High-Tech Pork-Barrel Spending by Adam Thierer, Clyde Wayne Crews Jr and Thomas Pearson Executive Summary Congressional spending sprees are nothing new in Washington. But now, new spending initiatives are cropping up that cover telecommunications services, the Internet, and the high technology sector in general. Although federal legislative activity on this front is not a formally unified effort, the combined effect is tantamount to the creation of what might be called a "Digital New Deal." Just as policymakers proposed a litany of New Deal programs and spending initiatives during the Great Depression era, lawmakers today are devising many new federal programs aimed at solving the supposed emergencies or disasters that will befall the telecommunications industry without government assistance. The recent troubles of the dot-com and telecommunications sectors have only added fuel to the fire of interventionism. http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-457es.html ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2002 17:44:20 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Telecom and Broadband Policy After the Market Meltdown Telecom and Broadband Policy After the Market Meltdown The Cato Institute's Sixth Annual Technology & Society Conference Thursday, November 14, 2002 8:00 a.m.-2:30 p.m. This conference will explore recent developments in the telecommunications sector and feature a set of balanced debates over the future of both wireline and wireless public policy. http://www.cato.org/events/techconf02/index.html ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2002 18:08:22 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Report: Gov't Shares Personal Data Report: Gov't Shares Personal Data Wednesday, October 30, 2002 5:58 p.m. EST By D. IAN HOPPER AP Technology Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - Student aid applicants, check the fine print. That information you put on your application to the U.S. Department of Education is being shared with the Pentagon, Justice Department and other agencies -- even private companies like debt collectors. A report released Wednesday by congressional investigators found government agencies frequently share information gleaned from various federal applications -- sometimes without the applicant's knowledge of where it might go. And it's legal. The information sharing ranges from passport application data - which can be shared with foreign governments -- to details on farm loan applications. The law requires that agencies that receive the applicant's form must disclose how they use the information. Even though the agencies must tell applicants how their information will be used, they are usually left with a Hobson's choice: Either provide the information and watch it shared throughout the government and elsewhere, or don't apply and forego the student aid, passport or other service. http://news.lycos.com/news/story.asp?section=Politics&storyId=555964 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2002 18:12:50 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: GAO: Government Agencies Adhering To Privacy Laws GAO: Government Agencies Adhering To Privacy Laws by Eric Chabrow, InformationWeek Wednesday, October 30, 2002 6:33 p.m. EST A General Accounting Office study of four agencies issued Wednesday found that they generally adhere to government privacy laws. The General Accounting Office report, Information Management: Selected Agencies' Handling Of Personal Information, addresses the flow of management information at four federal departments: Agriculture, Education, Labor, and State. The information examined includes names, phone numbers, addresses, Social Security numbers, financial and legal data, and demographic information. The GAO says the information is provided to the government by the public for a specific purpose -- to receive benefits, obtain services or loans, or participate in a specific federal program. The report found that agencies' handling of information varies and that a wide range of government personnel have access to the information, but by and large, the agencies follow current privacy laws. http://news.lycos.com/news/story.asp?section=Politics&storyId=556059 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2002 18:28:52 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Judge to Issue Microsoft Rulings Judge to Issue Microsoft Rulings - Oct 31, 2002 05:43 PM (AP Online) By TED BRIDIS Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - The federal judge overseeing the Microsoft Corp. antitrust trial will deliver her long-awaited rulings in the case on Friday after financial markets close, deciding whether to approve a controversial settlement between the software maker and the Justice Department. In a brief e-mail sent to reporters covering the trial, the court indicated U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly will announce her ``opinions,'' suggesting she also will announce whether she endorses harsher penalties against Microsoft sought by nine state attorneys general dissatisfied with the Justice Department's settlement. The e-mail notice did not indicate what the rulings would say. Many trial observers - even Microsoft supporters - have said the length of time Kollar-Kotelly took to reach her decision might suggest she was leaning toward rejecting the settlement. Antitrust experts had predicted the judge would simultaneously announce her decisions on both the U.S. settlement and the effort by the nine states seeking additional remedies against Microsoft. The company was found to have violated U.S. antitrust laws for illegally maintaining its monopoly over computer software operating systems. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=29401899 ------------------------------ From: Boo Phatty Subject: Re: Monty's Posts was Re: "News Headlines of Interest" Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2002 18:17:01 -0500 Organization: Darth Vader Enterprises, LLC Today, Wed, 30 Oct 2002 10:18:33 -0700, Two Buddha read a post from Joey Lindstrom , and determined his interest in BURP. Where's my beer? Oh and: > On Wed, 30 Oct 2002 01:54:51 -0500 (EST), editor@telecom-digest.org > wrote: >> Thus far the total is three votes for choice (1) -- mostly anonymous hate >> letters saying quit publishing Monty's 'news items' (I refuse to do >> that) or at the very least, batch it all as one big article. >> And one vote (Eric DeMund) for (2) who wants to go back to the >> previous system where I toss in a few of his items in every issue, and >> as a result get an index of them. > Well, if this relative newcomer gets a vote, I vote for choice #2, > though #1 (batching together) is also quite acceptable. > I really don't understand why you're getting hate mail about Monty's > posts. Indeed, I find them (or specifically the articles he's > referring us to) to be among the most interesting things that I get > from the TELECOM Digest (no slur intended against anyone here). The > only complaint I'd make is that I have to launch a browser to see the > balance of the articles that I want to read (a long, slow process on > this creaky old laptop). This is offset by the fact that I can > quickly skip over articles that do NOT interest me, as Monty has only > quoted the first paragraph or two (plus by the fact that I understand > why Monty does it that way: to avoid copyright problems). Well I've known Monty since he did some work for a company I worked at on a Mac TCP stack and all I can say is I read EVERY post Monty makes. Can't say the same about the others. Sorry! :D ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2002 17:23:20 CST From: Mark J Cuccia Subject: Canadian/US Local Calling Area Website Greg Monti wrote (regarding Local/EAS calling area information): > This info now appears to be publicly available on the internet. Go to > www.areacode-info.com , click on the green tab for Plans, then on > Local Calling Areas. You can input virtually any area code-prefix pair, > or any Rate Center name, in the US or Canada. It will return a page > listing every rate center that is a local call from the one you input. > Most displayed items are clickable links, so you can see the full prefix > lists of all local rate centers, the CLLI codes of the switches, the > serving company names and the LATA numbers. > It's incredibly detailed, and is addictive for those with a mind for > tidbits of data. > Did you know that calls from Derby Line, Vermont (802-873), to Rock > Island, Quebec (819-876) are local calls? Did you know that there are > 4,633 prefixes in the New York metropolitan LATA? That the small > suburban rate center of Brewster, NY, has 9 active prefixes served by > 6 telephone companies? That the switch called LARLMDLRDS0 in Laurel MD > serves 35 prefixes in four diffferent area codes in four different rate > areas? That the local calling area from Barrow AK consists only of > Barrow. Everything else is toll. The "deep-linked" URL for the Local (EAS) Calling Area Search, at John and Eric's AreaCode-Info.Com website is: http://www.areacode-info.com/!plans/lca-chow.htm This is actually a "mirror" to Ray Chow (of Hamilton ON Canada) and his Canadian Exchanges and Local Calling Areas website. The AreaCode-Info.Com site *DOES* credit Ray, with the following text from Ray's US/Canada Local Calling Area/Guide search page: "Local Calling Guide courtesy Ray Chow" "This site is an extension to the original local calling guide, which covered Canada and some nearby US states (Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont). You may search the database by NPA/NXX, rate center (exchange) name, or province/state. You may also check for local calling changes within a specified time period. This site contains local calling and NPA/NXX information for Canada plus most parts of the USA (with more being added). Check back regularly for updates." The URL for the search page at Ray's site: http://members.dandy.net/~czg/search.html The URLs for Ray Chow's Original Canada (and US) Exchanges and Local Calling Areas website pages: http://www.hwcn.org/Information/NEST/technol/communic/lca/ This is the main page for his site... http://www.hwcn.org/Information/NEST/technol/communic/lca/other.html is a page of links to various telcos/carriers/etc. http://www.hwcn.org/Information/NEST/technol/communic/lca/saq.html is a page of "Seldom Asked Questions", which includes details on US/Canada border town pairs which have local/EAS (free) calling between them, or local/EAS (free) calling between border towns along province/territorial boundaries within Canada, etc. The pages at www.hwcn.org are also "mirrored" at: www.freenet.hamilton.on.ca the remaining parts of the URL, beginning with "/Information/NESTG/ ..." are the same. Ray gets most of the information for his site from (online) telco tariffs filed with the CRTC, FCC, State Regulatory agencies, etc. and other public sources. Mark J. Cuccia New Orleans LA ------------------------------ From: Jason Subject: Re: CBS News: The Latest Annoying Version Of Spam Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2002 17:56:04 -0800 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Reply-To: JRednkFrnd@yahoo.com You want to try that HTML link again? On Thu, 31 Oct 2002 12:01:46 -0600, Patrick Townson wrote: > Now, in the middle of a chat session using 'Messenger' software, pop up > windows with spam. You may have seen them lately. Originally intended > as a way for 'Messenger' systems technical administrators to advise > users when the network had to be shut down for repairs (if they had at > least a few seconds or longer to give a warning prior to a system > crash), this technique is now being taken over by spammers as a way > to get around your mail filters; your various screening mechanisms. > Apparently it doesn't matter what the actual contents of the pop up > window says: It could be a legitimate message, 'Messenger is going > down now for technical work, back soon' or it could be sexual > innuendo, or a misleadingly named http link to a virus (such as sexual > innuendo in the form of a link [click here to see my naked pics, etc]) > or a hacker trying to trick young guys and inexperienced users into > 'changing their password' with 'official looking' announcements, etc. > Here is a link to the entire report: > http://cbsnews.cbs.com/stories/2002/10/18/tech/main526198.shtml It appears to me to have gotten repeated in there twice for some reason. http://cbsnews.cbs.com/stories/2002/10/18/tech/main526198.shtml should be correct. If that also fails, then try going to cbsnews.cbs.com home page and searching from there. Sorry about that. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Stanley Cline Subject: Re: Local Prefix List -- Need a Favor Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2002 22:38:35 -0500 Organization: Roamer1 Communications Reply-To: sc1-news@roamer1.org On Thu, 31 Oct 2002 01:29:19 -0500, Greg Monti wrote: > This info now appears to be publicly available on the internet. Go to It always has been (for the most part), via a combination of LEC tariffs (all the RBOCs and most larger independents, and many smaller ones too, have tariffs online) and the NANPA assignment files. Of course, those two aren't easy to use as the areacode-info site ... ;) > Redwood City, San Carlos-Belmont and San Jose North DA. Whatever DA > stands for. In California telco parlance, "DA" = "District Area", more or less a way of splitting larger (and sometimes smaller) communities into multiple rate centers without using community names, similar to the "zones" in other large cities such as NYC and Chicago. Some cities have numbered DA's (e.g., Los Angeles DA 10) while others, such as Pasadena, have named DA's (Pasadena La Cañada DA, which is basically the northwestern part of the city limits. Then there are a few cities split between PacBell and Verizon where the Verizon part is in a nearby city's rate center, including a a very small piece of the city of Pasadena (basically north of the 210 and east of Sierra Madre Villa Ave) that's part of Verizon's Sierra Madre rate center, and a rather part of the city of Torrance (including the Del Amo Mall area) that's in Verizon's Redondo (Beach) rate center. I don't know of very many instances of incorporated municipalities split between ILECs like this outside of California! Stanley Cline -- sc1 at roamer1 dot org -- http://www.roamer1.org/ "Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today. There might be a law against it by that time." -/usr/games/fortune ------------------------------ Date: 31 Oct 2002 21:19:03 -0500 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: Request For Assistance Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > However, when I located your website through "FM radio stations" > each time I entered a callsign, frequency or site I received the > message that the information wasn't available. The FM station lookup hasn't worked for several years, because the FCC stopped making the underlying file available. The last time I checked, the FCC had replaced the file with a similar lookup service somewhere on www.fcc.gov. John R. Levine, IECC, POB 727, Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 387 6869 johnl@iecc.com Village Trustee and Sewer Commissioner http://iecc.com/johnl Member, Provisional board, Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: John, do you know off hand if this is a 'simple' change of address, where the 'hooks' from Bill Pfieffer's airwaves script will work as before, if only they know the new address for the right place to look, or is the operation at the new location entirely different, forcing Pfieffer's script to have to be rewitten? I would like to get it restarted. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Mark Crispin Subject: Telemarketer Integrated Credit Solutions Declares War on Consumer Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2002 13:18:52 -0800 Organization: Networks and Distributed Computing Florida based telemarketer Integrated Credit Solutions called me four times today at 12:27, 12:33, 12:48, and 12:50; or at least the CNID was their 727-532-9155 number. The first call was some woman complaining about being called repeatedly and asking if my name was Michael. The remaining three were some sort of prerecorded system; I only listened to it briefly but it babbled about weather report and "you have selected blackjack". The last three calls were recorded by Call Trace, and I'm looking to press misdemeanor harassment charges. As near as I can tell, this is retaliation for my complaining about them. -- Mark -- http://staff.washington.edu/mrc Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2002 15:36:12 CST From: Mark J Cuccia Subject: That 'DA' Acronym used in California Ratecenter Names Greg Monti wrote, regarding local/EAS calling arrangements: > From Los Altos, CA, the local calling areas includes, besides Los > Altos, in Zone 1: Palo Alto, Mountain View, San Jose West DA, > Saratoga, Sunnyvale, Woodside, and in Zone 2: Campbell, La Honda, > Redwood City, San Carlos-Belmont and San Jose North DA. Whatever DA > stands for. and Pat responds: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: In this context, DA refers to Directory > Assistance. Many eons ago, DA was operator lingo for 'Does Not Answer'. NO ... in this context, when used as part of a Ratecenter *NAME*, 'DA' does NOT means Directory Assistance, but rather Directory *AREA*, i.e., the geographic region covered by a particular telephone directory published by Pacific (Bell) Telephone or General Telephone of California; Actually, now referred to as SBC-Pacific Bell, or VeriZon (formerly GTE). Note how "San Jose" is "split" ... as "San Jose West D(irectory) A(rea)" and "San Jose North North D(irectory) A(rea)". Mark J. Cuccia New Orleans LA ------------------------------ From: AES Subject: Advertising Corrupts? Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2002 13:52:50 -0800 "Power corrupts. Absolutely power corrupts absolutely." --Lord Acton (1834-1902) (Actual original quote slightly more verbose) "Advertising support corrupts. Total dependence on advertising support corrupts totally." -- Modern equivalent. Applies (unfortunately) to magazines, newspapers, radio, TV, all other forms of journalism, organizations, web sites, and the Internet ------------------------------ From: Harlan Labs Subject: FA: HP Broadband/Protocol Analyzer Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2002 22:39:17 GMT Organization: Allegiance Internet - Greenbelt, MD For auction on eBay: HP E4200A Broadband Tester/Protocol Analyzer Item # 1783492213 http://www.harlanlabs.com/ebayred.html Harlan Labs in San Diego since 1966 eBay rating: +203 Our Test Equipment website: http://www.harlanlabs.com ------------------------------ From: Patrick Townson Subject: Time to Ask For Help Once Again Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2002 13:00:00 CST We have come to the end of October and the start of November, so it is my turn to ask once again for financial assistance in the upkeep of this Digest. If you have not made any financial assistance lately, I hope you will consider this monthly appeal as a chance to participate financially as a partner in this reader-written net published e-journal. Whatever you feel is appropriate will be appreciated. Starting with this month, (November, 2002), I will be offering a CD of the entire Telecom Archives *and* your choice of various 'old time radio' shows with a telephone theme at no charge when you send a gift of at least $20-25 to the Digest. In addition to twenty plus years of telecom-related messages from the Digest and comp.dcom.telecom and the other special files and reports in the archives you will receive these 'oldtimeradiovault.com' items: 'Sorry, Wrong Number' (three different adaptations including Agnes Morehead) from Suspense, Lux Radio Theatre, etc. 'Halls of Ivy' the 'Phone Problems' episode 'Family Theatre' the 'Man Who Bought the Phone Company' episode. 'Bell Telephone Hour' the guest on that show was Lily Pons. 'Life of Riley' the 'Telephone is Rationed' episode. In addition, if you put the CD in a regular CD player such as your radio, etc instead of the CD drive on your computer, you wil be able to listen to 'Sorry, Wrong Number' as it aired on the radio. This is the second, and updated CD of the Telecom Archives, produced by Joey Lindstrom, with a cast of thousands -- all of you -- in the Archives files. I think you will like it. With your gift to the Digest of $20-25 (or more, as you find appropriate) you get it free. If you choose to remit on line via PayPal, you may use your credit card. Go to http://telecom-digest.org/donations and click where appropriate. Be sure to include your mailing address for the CD, and Joey also needs to know if you want the *nix format or the Windows 9x/2000/XP version. Mention all that in the advice box. If you prefer to use snailmail, then send your check to TELECOM, Post Office Box 50, Independence, KS 67301-0050. You should get the CD in two or three weeks, but you will get an email acknowledgement long before that. Thanks VERY MUCH for your help, as usual. The Telecom Archives remains a free open resource on the net via ftp massis.lcs.mit.edu/telecom- archives/archives. Patrick Townson ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. 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 Fax 3: 775-642-0603 Fax 4: 530-309-7234 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 V22 #107 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Nov 1 23:19:26 2002 Received: from localhost (localhost [[UNIX: localhost]]) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.3nb1/8.11.3) id gA24JQ423713; Fri, 1 Nov 2002 23:19:26 -0500 (EST) Date: Fri, 1 Nov 2002 23:19:26 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200211020419.gA24JQ423713@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #108 TELECOM Digest Fri, 1 Nov 2002 23:20:00 EST Volume 22 : Issue 108 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson ICB HeadsUp Headlines (Judith Oppenheimer) Verizon Policy Regards Prisons (James Keeton) VR-MAD Broadband Multimedia Access Platform (DJohn4077) Re: GAO: Government Agencies Adhering To Privacy Laws (Paul Wallich) Help - Forwarding SMS from BSC to MSC (YW Chin) New 400 amp @-48VDC Ferroresonant Rectifier FOR SALE (Richard Whitney) Re: That 'DA' Acronym Used in California Ratecenter Names (REC Networks) Re: Tragedy of the Commons (jbl) Time to Ask For Your Assistance Once Again (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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply-To: From: Judith Oppenheimer Subject: ICB HeadsUp Headlines Date: Fri, 1 Nov 2002 19:34:28 -0500 Organization: JudithOppenheimer.com ICB HeadsUp Headlines for the period ending November 1, 2002 from http://ICBTollFreeNews.com - Covering the Political, Legal and Marketing Arenas of 800, ENUM and Dot Com. Business 1-800 Needs are served at http://WhoSells800.com, where user policy advocacy meets sales agency, to protect and promote your interests. All that, and low rates too. We've revised and revitalized our website! While updating the website News regularly, we've taken time off from emailing headlines in order to redesign the site to serve you more effectively. ICB is now more intuitive, and more accessible. You'll find it easier to access ICB news and archives (5800 articles and growing!) encompassing 800, DNS and ENUM: -- Politics, Regulatory and Legal Issues -- Industry Standards and Practices -- Insider Insights and Tips -- Editorial Commentary -- Trade and Marketer News -- Market Applications and Market Research NO REGISTRATION REQUIRED Visit http://ICBTollFreeNews.com - and enjoy! Current and Newsworthy Headlines SHANGHAI'ED In an effort to increase awareness about ICANN, the Markle and Ford foundations sponsored a group of Key Public Participants (KPP) from around the world to attend the ICANN meeting in Shanghai. These participants blogged regularly from the various meetings; their reports represent the voices both of insiders and outsiders. Continued here: http://www.icbtollfree.com/article_free.cfm?articleId=5795 PATENT AWARDED FOR TOLL FREE CALL INFO CAPTURE AND REPORTING In addition to capturing and reporting on call information and advertising effectiveness from toll free numbers, the patent covers other features, such as the ability to send alert notifications to clients in response to a "triggering event." Continued here: http://icbtollfree.com/article_free.cfm?articleId=5794 STANFORD CYBERLAW CLINIC TO DEFEND DOMAIN NAME OWNERS The clinic docket currently includes cases regarding fan fiction, anonymous speech, the right to publish information about computer vulnerabilities, open access to broadband Internet services, Internet radio, and digital libraries. CIS Director and attorney Jennifer S. Franck teaches the clinic. Continued here: http://icbtollfree.com/article_free.cfm?articleId=5793 NEUSTAR NABS BIG FISH NeuStar, Inc. and the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) plan to accept .CN domain name registrations through registrars located outside of China beginning in December. Continued here: http://icbtollfree.com/article_free.cfm?articleId=5792 DOMAIN NAME THEFT, FRAUD AND REGULATIONS There is abundant evidence that there are inadequate procedures in place to ward off domain name theft. Having retrieved a few stolen domain names myself, I can attest to the truths in Prof. Rod Dixon's CircleID article discussing Domain Name Theft, Fraud And Regulations. Continued here: http://icbtollfree.com/article_free.cfm?articleId=5791 ITU CONFIRMS ITS STAKE IN DNS MANAGEMENT No matter the presence of Chairman Cerf at the Plenipotentiary Conference, RESOLUTION 102 ignores ICANN entirely. Continued here: http://icbtollfree.com/article_free.cfm?articleId=5790 WILL THE REAL INTERNET PLEASE STAND UP ... A Quest to Define the Internet, by Robert Cannon Continued here: http://icbtollfree.com/article_free.cfm?articleId=5786 ENUM PAPER: REVIEW OF MAPPING AND POLITICS Paper: ENUM-Mapping the E.164 Number Space into the DNS by Geoff Huston, Telstra, IPJ. Not bad, as these things go. Continued here: http://icbtollfree.com/article_free.cfm?articleId=5785 NEUSTAR WANTS TO BE IN THE DATABASE COMMODITY BUSINESS (LIKE YOU KNOW WHO) Neustar could mine the database information, repackage it and sell it to businesses that want easier ways to reach consumers. But Ganek is in an excruciating fix. He doesn't originate the data -- the phone companies do -- so he can't make a move without their blessing. "We have to maintain people's trust," he says. But apparently he doesn't want to: he thinks he can easily double revenue if he can persuade telcos to let him mine their data and run a digital identity database. Continued here: http://icbtollfree.com/article_free.cfm?articleId=5780 FCC SEEKS COMMENT ON PAYPHONE DIAL-AROUND COMPENSATION RATE APCC asserts that substantial changes to market conditions since the Commission adopted the Third Report and Order justifies an increase to the $0.24 rate. The RBOC Coalition also requests that the Commission establish a new per-call payphone compensation rate, increasing the rate to $0.49. Continued here: http://icbtollfree.com/article_free.cfm?articleId=5781 855 NUMBER RESERVATIONS TO BE QUIETLY RELEASED Unofficially, FCC staff indicated it would be appropriate for RespOrgs to release 855 reservations, since the Commission is planning to open a proceeding that will address, among other issues, the first-come, first-serve aspect of the toll-free system. Continued here: http://icbtollfree.com/article_free.cfm?articleId=5782 ITU STILL KNOCKING, BUT ICANN SAYS GO AWAY Some people, especially those at ICANN and the US government, think that the ITU is about as cuddly as a boa constrictor or maybe viper. And ICANN's fear and suspicion of the ITU is so great that ICANN decided to pay GAC insiders money to run meetings rather than take the risk that the ITU would provide those services for free. Continued here: http://icbtollfree.com/article_free.cfm?articleId=5779 THE END OF AN ERA: RIP AFTERNIC.COM Should one need further evidence that the bottom has dropped out of the domain speculator market, and that much of the domain name market is looking more than a little ragged, one need look no further than the recent steep decline and now imminent death of domain reseller auction site Afternic.com. Continued here: http://icbtollfree.com/article_free.cfm?articleId=5778 VICTORY FOR ICANN, RENEWS MOU Announcing the renewed MOU, Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications & Information Nancy J. Victory said: "The Department is frankly disappointed that ICANN's progress on the MOU tasks thus far has moved so slowly ... ICANN should be a technical coordination body whose policy-making role is limited ... ICANN should not be the government of the Internet." Continued here: http://icbtollfree.com/article_free.cfm?articleId=5775 HOW TO CHANGE YOUR DOMAIN REGISTRAR We get asked often enough, so hopefully this exchange will answer some of your questions. Continued here: http://icbtollfree.com/article_free.cfm?articleId=5769 USING WHOIS POLICY TO SNAG GOOD DOMAIN NAMES ...or "How to Get Any Domain Name You Want in Fifteen Days" Continued here: http://icbtollfree.com/article_free.cfm?articleId=5767 ABSURD, AND MORE IMPORTANT, DESTABILIZING. ICANN's recent saber-rattling at VeriSign over seventeen instances of inaccurate whois data is absurd in the face of ICANN's own refusal -- in some cases for years -- to update ccTLD managers' contact and nameserver information (threatening impact to millions of domain names) unless the ccTLDs submit to a one-sided contract with ICANN. Continued here: http://icbtollfree.com/article_free.cfm?articleId=5766 HOW TO MAKE YOURSELF REACHABLE IN FIVE PLACES AT ONCE The New York Times gives advice on websites (including ICB-sponsored WhoSells800.com) that can help you stay in touch with the rest of the world. Continued here: http://icbtollfree.com/article_free.cfm?articleId=5765 ICANN GAMES IN A LABOR RELATIONS CONTEXT ICANN's attempts to create artificial substitutes for actual at-large bodies are very much akin to the egregious "company union" practices that were banned ... Such "company unions" replaced the actuality of participation with company-run (analogous to ICANN-"coordinated") bodies. It was no surprise that such company unions turned into toadies that slavishly followed the corporate diktat. ICANN's sequence of AL*Cs is no different. Continued here: http://icbtollfree.com/article_free.cfm?articleId=5756 TRADE GROUP FORMED TO PROTECT AND PROMOTE TOLL FREE INDUSTRY INTERESTS A new trade association, the 1-800 American Free Trade Association (1-800 AFTA) has been formed to represent the interests of the toll-free number services industry. The founding members envision that the organization will speak with a collective voice before the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) as well as working to define industry standards and practices. Continued here: http://icbtollfree.com/article_free.cfm?articleId=5754 EVERY 3.6 SECONDS SOMEONE DIES FROM HUNGER http://www.hungersite.com/ There is No Registration Required to read http://ICBTollFreeNews.com online. However, if you are new to ICB, please join our mail list at http://ICBTollFreeNews.com if you wish to receive email news and information. Click here: http://icbtollfree.com/Login.cfm?NextURL=account.cfm If you wish to unsubscribe from this email newsletter. Copyright C 2002 ICB, Inc. All rights reserved. ------------------------------ From: Keeton, James Subject: Verizon Policy Regards Prisons Date: Fri, 1 Nov 2002 10:58:20 -0600 I have a unique situation and will try to be brief - We provide inmate healthcare for jails and prison. We have a frame circuit through Cable and Wireless that was installed about 2 years ago. In a few cases, the demarc had to be extended. Verizon was used to extend the demarc. We now have frame through Sprint and placed the order for the demarc to be extended. It was not done. Now Sprint has tried to get Verizon to go back and complete the demarc extension. Verizon will not do it unless the correctional facility is locked down. This is a new condition that we have never had to meet. Furthermore, since we are a separate company, we must abide by the rules and regulations of the correctional facility. Verizon is adamant about the lockdown procedure and has said it has been in place for many years. Yet we never have that stipulation placed on any other correctional facilities we have in Verizon territory. We are adamant that we have no control over lockdown. An escort must be provided for any visitor to the facility. We have attempted to cross connect the extension from Cable and Wireless to Sprint, but have not been successful. Has anyone else ever run into either of these situations? Any thoughts on a remedy for either? James Keeton ------------------------------ From: djohn4077@aol.com (DJohn4077) Date: 01 Nov 2002 15:47:54 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: VR-MAD Broadband Multimedia Access Platform My partners and I are developing a new type of multimedia device targeted at broadband users. This past March I left a management position at ADTRAN (www.adtran.com) to pursue this project full time. Since that time we have completed the business plan and our first patent submissions. We are currently looking for seed funding to launch the product development effort. I would be interested in networking with anyone who might have an interest in any of the following areas: - Developing partnerships (product development, marketing, etc) - Establishing OEM relationships (DSL, cable modem, computer peripheral markets, media content providers, etc.) - Providing components & PCB design resources (802.11,Bluetooth,Firewire, 3D chip-sets, embedded Java, etc.) - Funding & capital equipment resources - Potential employees - Intellectual property resources for key technologies - 3rd party ASIC development resources - Semiconductor foundry services - Java applications and APIs that might be integrated into our product Additional information can be found on our web site at: http://EpicenterTech.net/vrmad3d (product description & general info) http://EpicenterTech.net/resume (my technical background) An executive summary is available by request. A complete business plan and presentation foils are available to qualified investors or potential partners. If you have any feedback regarding the product or any of the areas mentioned above, please contact me directly using, e-mail, phone, or video conference (www.ivisit.com). If you know of competing technologies I'd like to hear about them too ... Thanks for your time! Dan Johnson - Epicenter Technologies Cell Phone: (256) 679-5691 E-mail: danj@EpicenterTech.net, djohn4077@aol.com http://EpicenterTech.net/vrmad3d AOL Instant Messenger: djohn4077 Ivisit Conferencing: business/conferencing/Epicenter (www.ivisit.com) ------------------------------ From: Paul Wallich Subject: Re: GAO: Government Agencies Adhering To Privacy Laws Date: Fri, 01 Nov 2002 09:32:16 -0500 Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC In article , Monty Solomon wrote: > GAO: Government Agencies Adhering To Privacy Laws > by Eric Chabrow, InformationWeek > Wednesday, October 30, 2002 6:33 p.m. EST > A General Accounting Office study of four agencies issued Wednesday > found that they generally adhere to government privacy laws. > The General Accounting Office report, Information Management: > Selected Agencies' Handling Of Personal Information, addresses the > flow of management information at four federal departments: > Agriculture, Education, Labor, and State. The information examined > includes names, phone numbers, addresses, Social Security numbers, > financial and legal data, and demographic information. The GAO says > the information is provided to the government by the public for a > specific purpose -- to receive benefits, obtain services or loans, or > participate in a specific federal program. > The report found that agencies' handling of information varies and > that a wide range of government personnel have access to the > information, but by and large, the agencies follow current privacy > laws. > http://news.lycos.com/news/story.asp?section=Politics&storyId=556059 That's an interesting spin on the story, which was reported in most other media that I saw as "Government agencies commit widespread privacy breaches." Many of the breaches (including wholesale delivery of information to private contractors) are probably legal, but the notion that following the law "by and large" is OK seems odd. Your typical serial killer obeys the law in the vast majority of interactions with other people ... paul ------------------------------ From: yeewee64@hotmail.com (YW Chin) Subject: Help - Forwarding SMS from BSC to MSC Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:53:39 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Does anyone know how an SMS is being forwarded from BSC to MSC? What's the protocol being used at SS7 Application Layer? I understand that communication between MSC,HLR,VLR etc uses GSM-MAP (GSM 09.02), but I have no idea how an SMS is being relayed from BSC to MSC. I'm exploring the possibility of triggering an MSC to forward an SMS to SMSC. Thanks in advance! yw ------------------------------ From: tmusser@whitney-richardson.com (RICHARDWHITNEY) Subject: New 400 Amp @-48VDC Ferroresonant Rectifier FOR SALE Date: 1 Nov 2002 13:29:46 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ I run a commercial collection agency in the New Orleans area. We collect for a company that manufactured this item. We repossessed for our client the equipment listed above and have been charged with selling it. It has not been installed and is in it's original crate. It was supposed to go to a company in Mexico, but they never took possession in Texas and we had to get it from a border warehouse. The price is $3k, buyer pays freight from New Orleans, LA. The original invoice was $11k. Spec docs and photos are available. Contact me at: Richard D. Whitney, Jr. Whitney & Richardson, Inc. 150 Pintail Street Saint Rose, LA 70087 504-443-4000 Fax 504-443-3000 ------------------------------ From: REC Networks Subject: Re: That 'DA' Acronym used in California Ratecenter Names Date: Fri, 1 Nov 2002 18:50:22 -0700 In California, the acronym DA in reference to rate centers means [D]istrict [A]rea. Los Angeles has 14 of them DA 1 through DA 14. Other exchanges use names: Burbank has Burbank and Sun Valley Comption has Compton and Gardena District Areas are used for rating toll calls within (I think) 40 miles. If you look at the tariffs, you will notice that exchanges with DAs have V&H coordinates for toll rating, one for under 40 miles and one for over 40 miles. > NO ... in this context, when used as part of a Ratecenter *NAME*, > 'DA' does NOT means Directory Assistance, but rather Directory *AREA*, > i.e., the geographic region covered by a particular telephone directory > published by Pacific (Bell) Telephone or General Telephone of California; > Actually, now referred to as SBC-Pacific Bell, or VeriZon (formerly GTE). > Note how "San Jose" is "split" ... as "San Jose West D(irectory) > A(rea)" and "San Jose North North D(irectory) A(rea)". REC Networks www.recnet.com ------------------------------ From: jbl Subject: Re: Tragedy of the Commons Date: Fri, 01 Nov 2002 09:52:46 -0700 Organization: On the desert Reply-To: jbl@spamblocked.com In , fist wrote: > Unfortunately, the junk level has also risen. But that is not the > same as the Tragedy concept -- just a natural consequence of many > people being dumb and stupid. This reminds me next of Sturgeon's Law. It came up in reference to the written word, nevertheless ... The story is something like this: Science fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon was asked on some talk show to comment on the remark someone had made that "90% of science fiction is crap." He replied, "90% of everything is crap." Nets: levin/at/bbn.com | "Earn more sessions by sleeving." or jbl/at/levin.mv.com| or levinjb/at/gte.net | ARS: KD1ON | -- Roxanne Kowalski ------------------------------ From: Patrick Townson Subject: Time to Ask For Help Once Again Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2002 13:00:00 CST We have come to the end of October and the start of November, so it is my turn to ask once again for financial assistance in the upkeep of this Digest. If you have not made any financial assistance lately, I hope you will consider this monthly appeal as a chance to participate financially as a partner in this reader-written net published e-journal. Whatever you feel is appropriate will be appreciated. Starting with this month, (November, 2002), I will be offering a CD of the entire Telecom Archives *and* your choice of various 'old time radio' shows with a telephone theme at no charge when you send a gift of at least $20-25 to the Digest. In addition to twenty plus years of telecom-related messages from the Digest and comp.dcom.telecom and the other special files and reports in the archives you will receive these 'oldtimeradiovault.com' items: 'Sorry, Wrong Number' (three different adaptations including Agnes Morehead) from Suspense, Lux Radio Theatre, etc. 'Halls of Ivy' the 'Phone Problems' episode 'Family Theatre' the 'Man Who Bought the Phone Company' episode. 'Bell Telephone Hour' the guest on that show was Lily Pons. 'Life of Riley' the 'Telephone is Rationed' episode. In addition, if you put the CD in a regular CD player such as your radio, etc instead of the CD drive on your computer, you wil be able to listen to 'Sorry, Wrong Number' as it aired on the radio. This is the second, and updated CD of the Telecom Archives, produced by Joey Lindstrom, with a cast of thousands -- all of you -- in the Archives files. I think you will like it. With your gift to the Digest of $20-25 (or more, as you find appropriate) you get it free. If you choose to remit on line via PayPal, you may use your credit card. Go to http://telecom-digest.org/donations and click where appropriate. Be sure to include your mailing address for the CD, and Joey also needs to know if you want the *nix format or the Windows 9x/2000/XP version. Mention all that in the advice box. If you prefer to use snailmail, then send your check to TELECOM, Post Office Box 50, Independence, KS 67301-0050. You should get the CD in two or three weeks, but you will get an email acknowledgement long before that. Thanks VERY MUCH for your help, as usual. The Telecom Archives remains a free open resource on the net via ftp massis.lcs.mit.edu/telecom- archives/archives. Patrick Townson ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. 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 Fax 3: 775-642-0603 Fax 4: 530-309-7234 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 V22 #108 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat Nov 2 20:47:18 2002 Received: from localhost (localhost [[UNIX: localhost]]) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.3nb1/8.11.3) id gA31lIB07776; Sat, 2 Nov 2002 20:47:18 -0500 (EST) Date: Sat, 2 Nov 2002 20:47:18 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200211030147.gA31lIB07776@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #109 TELECOM Digest Sat, 2 Nov 2002 20:47:00 EST Volume 22 : Issue 109 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson What's the Frequency, Camden? The Same as a Boston TV Station (Solomon) 000-000-0000 Caller ID (Monty Solomon) To the Liberal Arts, He Adds Computer Science (Monty Solomon) Making the Web Child-Safe (Monty Solomon) Wireless ISPs Burning For "Hot Spots" (Monty Solomon) Judge OKs Most Microsoft Provisions (Monty Solomon) Re: Local Prefix List -- Need a Favor (John R. Levine) Re: CBS News: Verizon Settles Spam Suit (Scott Dorsey) Re: Request For Assistance (Scott Dorsey) Re: Request For Assistance (John R. Levine) Re: Verizon Policy Regards Prisons (Dave Phelps) Re: Advertising Corrupts? (Mark Brader) Obtaining FEMA Essential Personell ID (Utility Employee) (Boo Phatty) My Vote on Monty-Batching (Name Withheld) Call These Folks if You Want to Send Commercial Email (David B. Horvath) Last Laugh! Look What SpamAssassin Calls ***SPAM*** (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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 2 Nov 2002 04:03:41 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: What's the Frequency, Camden? The Same as a Boston-Area TV Station November 1, 2002, 5:49 PM EST LINDENWOLD, N.J. -- A digital culprit traveling unlikely distances by atmospheric phenomena, confounding law enforcement. Sounds like science fiction, but it's not. It's a phenomenon called "tropospheric ducting," and what it is is a problem for Camden County's police dispatch network, which handles emergency response in all but six county towns. In scientific terms, the phenomenon occurs when layers of vast temperature variation form in the troposphere _ the atmosphere's lowest segment _ creating a "duct," which can trap radio waves and carry them hundreds of miles beyond their normal reach. Communications officials said the dispatch center uses the same digital frequency as a Boston-area television station, WCVB. Camden officials blame the Federal Communications Commission for poorly planning signal frequency use. http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/ny-bc-nj--crossedsignals1101nov01,0,227876.story?coll=ny-ap-regional-wire [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Tell me what police and/or television station use the same range of frequencies? Police, operating in VHF are usually around 150-155 megs. On UHF the police are usually around 450-470 megs. What TV stations are around there? None. How could this be an FCC problem? PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 2 Nov 2002 10:39:16 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: 000-000-0000 Caller ID We are in the midst of a close election for governor in Massachusetts and we have received several automated endorsement calls where the Caller ID/Name was 000-000-0000/Unknown. I assume this was done to get around ACR (anonymous call rejection). Has anyone else here seen this? Is that legal? Does it comply with FCC regulations? Thanks, Monty [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: *Anything* politicians do is legal. Didn't you ever notice how the Senate and the House of Reps always exempt themselves from laws that others have to obey? Many/most/all FCC regs pertaining to telemarketing specifically do not apply to political campaigns. I am sure it must be legal. Politiciansn ever break the law, do they? (Unless, of course the fellow politico they are complaining about belongs to the opposite party. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 1 Nov 2002 20:51:11 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: To the Liberal Arts, He Adds Computer Science To the Liberal Arts, He Adds Computer Science By STEVE LOHR PRINCETON, N.J. -- TALL and slender with a flowing beard, dressed in a gray sweater and jeans, Brian Kernighan works his audience with a fast patter and a ready smile. The challenge he has set for himself is to demystify computing for a classroom full of liberal arts undergraduates at Princeton. It so happens that Mr. Kernighan, 60, is a renowned computer scientist, a member of the Bell Labs team of the late 1960's and 70's that developed and nurtured the Unix operating system and the C programming language, innovations with a far-reaching impact on computing. He is also a best-selling author of technical books on programming that have sold millions of copies and been translated into more than 20 languages. None of that really matters in this course, "Computers in Our World." The students are headed toward degrees in politics, history, English, art history, psychology and economics. Unlike many college students in the dot-com boom years of the late 90's, they have no plans to make a killing, or even a living, in the technology business. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/31/technology/circuits/31prof.html ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 1 Nov 2002 21:02:04 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Making the Web Child-Safe Making the Web Child-Safe By KATIE HAFNER SEO needs help with her geometry homework. Zara wonders aloud whether a pair of khakis are appropriate garb for a visit to Western Michigan University. Dig asks if anyone has ever heard of "Fydor something Russian." Globe asks if anyone saw "Trigger Happy" on Comedy Central. Zimmy laments her glitchy copy of a Sims game. It's just another happy-go-lucky day at KidFu, a Web site for children 8 to 14 that could easily qualify as the Pleasantville of cyberspace. Within KidFu, as tight a virtual community as you are likely to find these days, there are no suggestive instant messages, no suspicious requests for e-mail addresses. In fact, one of the many rules adopted with safety in mind is a prohibition against sharing e-mail addresses in general. KidFu is one of the most recent attempts to address a concern raised since the Web first took off as a popular medium almost a decade ago: the need for an online environment where children feel completely out of harm's way. As the Web has become an electronic playhouse, potentially exposing youngsters to vulgarity and even danger, such efforts have given rise to new sites, new software and even new laws. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/31/technology/circuits/31safe.html ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 1 Nov 2002 21:08:38 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Wireless ISPs Burning For "Hot Spots" By Ben Charny Staff Writer, CNET News.com October 30, 2002, 3:02 PM PT The nation's oldest "hot spot" network plans to give away Wi-Fi equipment starting Friday, in an aggressive push to increase the number of urban areas that offer wireless Web access. National hot spot network Surf And Sip will offer the equipment free to anyone buying DirecTV DSL (digital subscriber line) service, said Rick Ehrlinspiel, chief executive of Surf And Sip. DirecTV has been supplying Surf And Sip hot spots with broadband access for about 18 months. The coffee shops, restaurants or bookstores most likely to sign up will become part of Surf And Sip's hot spot network, where time online is sold in hourly, weekly or monthly chunks, he said. The business owner must pay for DSL service but will get half of the revenue from any wireless Web wandering. http://news.com.com/2100-1033-963965.html ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 1 Nov 2002 18:06:48 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Judge OKs Most Microsoft Provisions By D. IAN HOPPER AP Technology WASHINGTON (AP) - A federal judge on Friday approved most of the provisions of an antitrust settlement between Microsoft Corp. and the Justice Department, largely setting aside concerns by some states that the sanctions were too light on the software giant. The sanctions are to last for at least five years unless extended by the court, the judge said. The approved settlement requires Microsoft to disclose some sensitive technology to its rivals months earlier than the company and the Justice Department had proposed. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=29420716 ------------------------------ Date: 1 Nov 2002 08:44:54 -0500 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: Local Prefix List -- Need a Favor Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > I don't know of very many instances of incorporated municipalities > split between ILECs like this outside of California! It happens all the time here in New York. There are at least five split towns within 20 miles of here, since exchange boundaries bear little relation to municipal boundaries. They tend to match up better with school district boundaries (which have nothing to do with city, town, village, or county boundaries.) 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: kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) Subject: Re: CBS News: Verizon Settles Spam Suit Date: 1 Nov 2002 11:06:45 -0500 Organization: Former users of Netcom shell (1989-2000) In article , Patrick Townson wrote: > Now, a major spammer gets ordered off of Verizon and handed a huge fine > to pay. A fellow up in the Detroit area, long considered a major spammer > on the net gets caught in the act. > Here is that story to read in full: > http://cbsnews.cbs.com/stories/2002/10/29/tech/main527365.shtml Ralsky has always admitted spamming, he is proud of spamming, and he supports spam. You have to give him credit for some degree of honesty about his own activity. All that this action does is forbid him from sending to Verizon customers, which strikes me a pretty mild slap on the wrist for someone who is undoubtedly the most notorious largescale spammer in the country. --scott -- "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." ------------------------------ From: kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) Subject: Re: Request For Assistance Date: 1 Nov 2002 11:12:11 -0500 Organization: Former users of Netcom shell (1989-2000) In article , wrote: > I am quite new to computers. I believe I have all the facilities > necessary to play FM radio stations. However, when I located your > website through "FM radio stations" each time I entered a callsign, > frequency or site I received the message that the information wasn't > available. I am trying to tune in a Montreal music station (I believe > it is 99.5) but the Montreal and the 99.5 didn't give results. I > tried entering the closest city to where I live (Burlington VT) and > again didn't get to an informative screen. I am not sure what you are trying to do, but I can tell you that 99.5 FM in Montreal is CJPX-FM Radio-classique, which is basically all the information you will get from Bill's Database. I do not think that they have an AM outlet so they are probably not audible in the US. CFRB-AM comes in very nicely on a summer's night here in Virginia, though. --scott "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." ------------------------------ Date: 1 Nov 2002 08:41:45 -0500 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: Request For Assistance Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: John, do you know off hand if this is a > 'simple' change of address, where the 'hooks' from Bill Pfieffer's > airwaves script will work as before, No, if it were I'd have changed it. The file that the FCC used to provide is gone. John R. Levine, IECC, POB 727, Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 387 6869 johnl@iecc.com Village Trustee and Sewer Commissioner http://iecc.com/johnl Member, Provisional board, Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail ------------------------------ From: Dave Phelps Subject: Re: Verizon Policy Regards Prisons Date: Fri, 1 Nov 2002 23:03:37 -0600 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com In article , James.Keeton@asgr.com says: > I have a unique situation and will try to be brief - > We provide inmate healthcare for jails and prison. We have a frame > circuit through Cable and Wireless that was installed about 2 years > ago. In a few cases, the demarc had to be extended. Verizon was used > to extend the demarc. > We now have frame through Sprint and placed the order for the demarc > to be extended. It was not done. Now Sprint has tried to get Verizon > to go back and complete the demarc extension. Verizon will not do it > unless the correctional facility is locked down. This is a new > condition that we have never had to meet. Furthermore, since we are a > separate company, we must abide by the rules and regulations of the > correctional facility. > Verizon is adamant about the lockdown procedure and has said it has > been in place for many years. Yet we never have that stipulation > placed on any other correctional facilities we have in Verizon > territory. > We are adamant that we have no control over lockdown. An escort must > be provided for any visitor to the facility. > We have attempted to cross connect the extension from Cable and > Wireless to Sprint, but have not been successful. > Has anyone else ever run into either of these situations? Any > thoughts on a remedy for either? Why do you want Verizon to do it? Why not have any vendor do it? Like the prison's vendor? Or do you want the smartjack at the equipment? Dave Phelps Phone Masters Ltd. deadspam=tippenring ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Advertising Corrupts? Date: Fri, 1 Nov 2002 01:03:57 EST From: msb@vex.net (Mark Brader) A.E. Siegman misquotes: > "Power corrupts. Absolutely power corrupts absolutely." > --Lord Acton (1834-1902) > (Actual original quote slightly more verbose) Not just "slightly more verbose", but significantly different. Acton's actual words were: "Power tends to corrupt, and absolutely power corrupts absolutely." Mark Brader "They have computers, and they may have Toronto other weapons of mass destruction." msb@vex.net -- Janet Reno, 1998 ------------------------------ From: Boo Phatty Subject: Obtaining FEMA Essential Personell ID (Utility Employee/Telecom) Date: Sat, 02 Nov 2002 14:16:27 -0500 Organization: Darth Vader Enterprises, LLC Hello folks. Does anyone know where to apply for FEMA essential personell access cards i.e. ID that allows you to be on the street and in a disaster area? For instance, VZ E-911 personnel carry old CD cards that allow them access to/from the E911 center during blizzards or declared emergencies, etc. I'm probably not calling it the right thing, but I would appreciate a pointer. FEMA's website is very light on information of this kind. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 02 Nov 2002 13:18:29 -0600 From: Name Withheld Subject: My Vote on Monty Batching Dear Mr. Townson, I tried to post the following message to comp.dcom.telecom, but the first time I tried to post, I forgot to add the request to withhold my name and email address. I then tried to re-post, but the post didn't go through. If you do include my post in your digest, please withhold my name and email address, or else please do not publish my post. I don't want to get any spam. Thank you very much. Not for publication under my name: >> So now, you guys tell me; instruct your old, obsolete moderator with >> his old, obsolete scripts; pick one of these choices: >> (1) Continue batching Monty, one general subject header no index of items; >> (2) Individual itemization of Monty stuff; by default then six or ten >> items in each issue, indexing, some days it will appear that he >> has taken over an entire issue; > I'd prefer (2). Anyone who wants things batched can always subscribe by > e-mail instead of reading the newsgroup anyway. My vote goes to (1), which for me makes reading the newsgroup a nicer experience. I can explore any of Mr. Solomon's articles from one page, or simply click to the next post. Thanks for asking. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 01 Nov 2002 19:21:21 EST From: dhorvath@cobs.com (David B. Horvath, CCP) Subject: Call These Folks if You Want to Send Commercial Email > Reach 10 million propects [sic] before close of business. We will email > your ad to them! ... > Call us today at 800-270-5212 and ask for sales. - David ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 1 Nov 2002 22:42:44 -0500 (EST) From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Last Laugh! Look What SpamAssasin Calls ***SPAM*** SPAM: -------------------- Start SpamAssassin results ---------------------- SPAM: This mail is probably spam. The original message has been altered SPAM: so you can recognise or block similar unwanted mail in future. SPAM: See http://spamassassin.org/tag/ for more details. SPAM: SPAM: Content analysis details: (7.30 hits, 5 required) SPAM: TO_MALFORMED (-0.8 points) To: has a malformed address SPAM: FROM_MALFORMED (2.2 points) From: has a malformed address SPAM: SUBJ_MISSING (0.4 points) Subject: is empty or missing SPAM: NO_COST (2.7 points) BODY: No such thing as a free lunch (3) SPAM: CLICK_BELOW (0.3 points) BODY: Asks you to click below SPAM: SPAM_PHRASE_05_08 (0.7 points) BODY: Spam phrases score is 05 to 08 (medium) SPAM: [score: 6] SPAM: FROM_AND_TO_SAME_5 (1.8 points) From and To are same (5) SPAM: SPAM: -------------------- End of SpamAssassin results --------------------- From: Patrick Townson Subject: Time to Ask For Help Once Again Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2002 13:00:00 CST We have come to the end of October and the start of November, so it is my turn to ask once again for financial assistance in the upkeep of this Digest. If you have not made any financial assistance lately, I hope you will consider this monthly appeal as a chance to participate financially as a partner in this reader-written net published e-journal. Whatever you feel is appropriate will be appreciated. Starting with this month, (November, 2002), I will be offering a CD of the entire Telecom Archives *and* your choice of various 'old time radio' shows with a telephone theme at no charge when you send a gift of at least $20-25 to the Digest. In addition to twenty plus years of telecom-related messages from the Digest and comp.dcom.telecom and the other special files and reports in the archives you will receive these 'oldtimeradiovault.com' items: 'Sorry, Wrong Number' (three different adaptations including Agnes Morehead) from Suspense, Lux Radio Theatre, etc. 'Halls of Ivy' the 'Phone Problems' episode 'Family Theatre' the 'Man Who Bought the Phone Company' episode. 'Bell Telephone Hour' the guest on that show was Lily Pons. 'Life of Riley' the 'Telephone is Rationed' episode. In addition, if you put the CD in a regular CD player such as your radio, etc instead of the CD drive on your computer, you wil be able to listen to 'Sorry, Wrong Number' as it aired on the radio. This is the second, and updated CD of the Telecom Archives, produced by Joey Lindstrom, with a cast of thousands -- all of you -- in the Archives files. I think you will like it. With your gift to the Digest of $20-25 (or more, as you find appropriate) you get it free. If you choose to remit on line via PayPal, you may use your credit card. Go to http://telecom-digest.org/donations and click where appropriate. Be sure to include your mailing address for the CD, and Joey also needs to know if you want the *nix format or the Windows 9x/2000/XP version. Mention all that in the advice box. If you prefer to use snailmail, then send your check to TELECOM, Post Office Box 50, Independence, KS 67301-0050. You should get the CD in two or three weeks, but you will get an email acknowledgement long before that. Thanks VERY MUCH for your help, as usual. The Telecom Archives remains a free open resource on the net via ftp massis.lcs.mit.edu/telecom- archives/archives. Patrick Townson ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. 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 Fax 3: 775-642-0603 Fax 4: 530-309-7234 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 V22 #109 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sun Nov 3 14:43:45 2002 Received: from localhost (localhost [[UNIX: localhost]]) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.3nb1/8.11.3) id gA3JhjK16743; Sun, 3 Nov 2002 14:43:45 -0500 (EST) Date: Sun, 3 Nov 2002 14:43:45 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200211031943.gA3JhjK16743@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #110 TELECOM Digest Sun, 3 Nov 2002 14:44:00 EST Volume 22 : Issue 110 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Ameritech Problem Question (Gil Knops) Re: What's the Frequency, Camden? The Same as Boston-Area TV (Maniac) Re: What's the Frequency, Camden? The Same as Boston-Area TV (REC Nets) Re: What's the Frequency, Camden? The Same as Boston-Area TV (Ed Ellers) Re: What's the Frequency, Camden? The Same as Boston-Area TV (Goldstein) Re: What's the Frequency, Camden? The Same as Boston-Area TV (Albino) Re: What's the Frequency, Camden? The Same as Boston-Area TV (R. Weller) Re: What's the Frequency, Camden? The Same as Boston-Area TV (M. Jervis) Re: 000-000-0000 Caller ID (Boo Phatty) Re: 000-000-0000 Caller ID (joe@obilivan.net) New Telecom Classifieds (Steve Christie) 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: miamijunge@yahoo.com (Gil Knops) Subject: Ameritech Problem Question Date: 2 Nov 2002 20:00:35 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ A few years ago, I lived in Chicago at the time I was using Modem/phone ISP, because I was not settled. I lived on Irving Park West and upon getting my phone connection I was made aware of extra charges that could apply, if one called outside a certain radius of ones area. Therefore, I asked and relied on Ameritech to confirm that the numbers for my ISP would be within that radius, so I would not incur any extra charges on my phone bill. My internet is today (with DSL) and was back then with phone always online 24/7. I then moved to the Rosemont area and notified the phone company of my change of address. I was assigned a new phone number and I also told them that I needed the corresponding ISP number that would be in my area. The way it worked was that I would ask them if out of a set of phone numbers that I had, which one of those would be within my area. I recall that the person who I spoke with, was very unfriendly and very short. It almost seemed like she had no desire to do anything for me. I didn't think any of it until a month later I received my new phone bill. As it turn out, the number which I had dialed into, which I asked to be verified and the nice operator at Ameritech okayed, turned out to be outside the area and Ameritech slapped me with a 4000 dollar phone bill. I disputed this but Ameritech was unhelpful. They apologized for the error in part of the agent but told me that in the end effect the call was made and that I needed to pay the phone bill. I was utterly upset because no matter who I spoke with, Ameritech didn't withdraw from its position. I still, to this day cannot understand, that if I did the right thing in calling, changing my ISP dialup number and relying on information from Ameritech that I could get screwed over like this. Today this is reflected on my credit history. I have a bad debt of almost 5000 dollars. Is there anything that I can do? Can I take them to court for this? What am I to do with a messed up company like that? ------------------------------ From: xkmfdmx@aol.compactdisk (Maniac) Date: 03 Nov 2002 10:51:01 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: What's the Frequency, Camden? The Same as Boston-Area TV > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Tell me what police and/or television > station use the same range of frequencies? Police, operating in VHF > are usually around 150-155 megs. On UHF the police are usually around > 450-470 megs. What TV stations are around there? None. How could this > be an FCC problem? PAT] Here's how: WCVB TV near Boston is on Channel 5. If you inspect the frequency allocations carefully, you'll notice that not all of the TV band is in the UHF part of the spectrum. It's actually divided into 4 bands, 3 of them in the VHF and one in the UHF. Channel 5 is from 76 to 82 Mhz (6Mhz bandwidth per television channel is standard) They could be using a lower frequency radio system, but note that the second harmonic of 76Mhz is 152Mhz. I think they're getting trophospheric ducting of the second harmonic. Which makes it not really the FCC's fault. ------------------------------ From: REC Networks Subject: Re: What's the Frequency, Camden? The Same as Boston-Area TV Date: Sun, 3 Nov 2002 08:39:59 -0700 > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Tell me what police and/or television > station use the same range of frequencies? Police, operating in VHF > are usually around 150-155 megs. On UHF the police are usually around > 450-470 megs. What TV stations are around there? None. How could this > be an FCC problem? PAT] In major US cities, some television channels (470-512MHz, Ch. 14 to 20) are used for land mobile. In Los Angeles, 470-476 (Ch. 14), 482-488 (Ch. 16) and 506-512 (Ch. 20) are used by land mobile. That's why scanners tune up to 512 MHz. This is sometimes referred to the UHF-T Band. It's not an FCC problem, it's a way of handling land mobile spectrum congestion in the major metros. REC Networks www.recnet.com ------------------------------ From: Ed Ellers Subject: Re: What's the Frequency, Camden? The Same as Boston-Area TV Date: Sun, 3 Nov 2002 00:14:42 -0500 PAT, the TELECOM Digest Editor, noted: > Tell me what police and/or television station use the same range of > frequencies? Police, operating in VHF are usually around 150-155 > megs. On UHF the police are usually around 450-470 megs. What TV > stations are around there? None. How could this be an FCC problem? What's happening is that, because the VHF and UHF (450-470 MHz) bands were so crowded, the FCC started allowing public safety radio systems to use the 470-512 MHz band -- TV channels 14-20 -- in some major cities in the 1970s. (This was before the 806-890 MHz band, which used to be used for TV channels 70-83 albeit rarely, became widely used for land mobile radio and cellular phone systems.) The rule is that only one TV channel can be diverted to this use in each city, and it has to be a channel that *would* otherwise be suitable for TV broadcasting in that city -- one which would not significantly interfere with TV stations in other cities. (For example, channel 14 is used in Chicago.) Scanning receivers have had this so-called "T band" since the late 1970s. The problem is that this was done before the FCC squeezed digital TV broadcasting into the same UHF band used for analog TV (and, to a lesser extent, into the VHF TV bands). A lot of DTV stations are much closer to existing analog stations on the same channel than is allowed between two analog transmitters; this was believed to be acceptable because DTV stations use relatively low power (and because their RF waveform is "stealthy" -- it appears as random noise, not a discernible pattern, when superimposed on an analog TV signal). However, it's now becoming clear that propagation conditions exist in some places that cause DTV signals to arrive on top of analog stations to a far greater extent than had been predicted. This is the first incident I've heard of involving land mobile, but after what's been happening with DTV-to-NTSC interference it's not much of a surprise. A similar situation occurred when TV stations started going on the air in great numbers in the late 1940s, and that situation was so bad that the FCC stopped granting new TV construction permits in 1948 (they allowed existing permitees to build and operate their stations), until a new allocation plan could be developed (which took until 1952). ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 02 Nov 2002 23:19:28 -0500 From: Fred Goldstein Subject: Re: What's the Frequency, Camden? The Same as Boston-Area TV At 08:47 PM 11/2/2002 -0500, Moderator Pat wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Tell me what police and/or television > station use the same range of frequencies? Police, operating in VHF > are usually around 150-155 megs. On UHF the police are usually around > 450-470 megs. What TV stations are around there? None. How could this > be an FCC problem? PAT] Au contraire ... Police do operate on UHF TV frequencies. When the UHF public safety band was becoming crowded in the 1970s, the FCC adopted a plan to permit those services to share the TV spectrum. Each major market typically has two low-UHF channels (14-20, I think), that are not used for TV anywhere nearby, set aside for public safety use. Thus Channel 20 is available to the police in the Philadelphia market. These rules are the same ones, btw, that the FCC has proposed for its 700 MHz auctions. The way they're phasing out analog TV is to auction off Channels 60-69 first, 52-59 later. (The 60-69 auction was scheduled for over two years ago but repeatedly postponed.) Auction winners are allowed to use their frequencies on the same basis (TV protection criteria) as public service sharing of the low channels. The idea is that once analog TV is turned off (planned for 2007 to 2010), all TV stations will be in the "core" allocations which end at Channel 51, so those restrictions are temporary. Public safety gets some of the 52-69 space too so maybe they'll phase out sharing. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 02 Nov 2002 23:49:14 -0500 From: Name Withheld Subject: Re: What's the Frequency, Camden? The Same as Boston-Area TV Feel free to put this in the Digest -- I do ask my email be stripped. Anyway ... > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Tell me what police and/or television > station use the same range of frequencies? Police, operating in VHF > are usually around 150-155 megs. On UHF the police are usually around > 450-470 megs. What TV stations are around there? None. How could this > be an FCC problem? PAT] Actually, in this case, there *is* a legitimate beef. The two channels assigned, at least according to the FCC Databases, are at channel 5 (76-82 MHz) and channel 20 for digital (506-512 MHz). Now, according to what I was able to pull up on the FCC's General Menu Reports (http://svartifoss2.fcc.gov/reports/index.cfm) Lindenwold actually has quite a number of frequencies smack dab in the middle of channel 20: KUZ646CAMDEN, COUNTY OFPWLINDENWOLD500.3125 KUZ647CAMDEN, COUNTY OFPWLINDENWOLD500.3625 WII555CAMDEN, COUNTY OFPWLINDENWOLD507.2125 WIK280CAMDEN, COUNTY OFPWLINDENWOLD511.7625 WIK697CAMDEN, COUNTY OFPWLINDENWOLD510.9125 WQT36CAMDEN, COUNTY OFPWLINDENWOLD503.3125 Actually, there seem to be quite a number of frequencies in Camden County that lie right in channels 14-21: WPMV796ATLANTIC COAST COMMUNICATIONS INCYGWATERFORD TWP471.6625 KUZ646CAMDEN, COUNTY OFPWLINDENWOLD500.3125 KUZ647CAMDEN, COUNTY OFPWLINDENWOLD500.3625 WIF361CAMDEN, COUNTY OFPWCAMDEN500.5625 WIK575HOMAN COMMUNICATIONS INCYKWATERFORD WORKS500.7625 KXG831PORT AUTHORITY TRANSIT CORPPWCAMDEN500.8125 WPMG470GLOUCESTER, TOWNSHIP OFPWLAUREL SPRINGS501 WIE946CAMDEN, COUNTY OFPWPINE HILL501.1375 WPRG746NEW JERSEY, STATE OFPWCAMDEN501.425 WPUG936KEES II, ROBERT EIGVOORHEES501.4625 WIL833GIBBSBORO, BOROUGH OFPWGIBBSBORO501.7875 WIL232HOMAN COMMUNICATIONS INCYGWATERFORD WORKSWORKS501.8875 WIL713HOMAN COMMUNICATIONS INCYGWATERFORD WORKS501.9625 KXC300HOMAN COMMUNICATIONS INCYGWATERFORD WORKS502.0375 WIG412WILLIAM BOWMAN ASSOCIATES INCORPORATEDIGVOORHEES502.2625 KNQ490HOMAN COMMUNICATIONS INCYGWATERFORD WORKS502.4125 KNKE600Metrocall USA, Inc.CDCAMDEN503.0375 WQT36CAMDEN, COUNTY OFPWLINDENWOLD503.3125 KQ7799CAMDEN, COUNTY OFPWMB503.3125 WPPH421NEW JERSEY, STATE OFPWMB503.95 WPIP981FIDELCOMM SERVICE CO INCIGPENNSAUKEN505.0125 WIL505GLOUCESTER, TOWNSHIP OFPWLAUREL SPRINGS506.8875 WIK941GLOUCESTER, TOWNSHIP OFPWLAUREL SPRINGS506.9375 WIK700CAMDEN, COUNTY OFPWAUDUBON507.1125 WIK699CAMDEN, COUNTY OFPWLAUREL SPRINGS507.1625 WII555CAMDEN, COUNTY OFPWLINDENWOLD507.2125 KTR803MERCHANTVILLE, BOROUGH OFPWMERCHANTVILLE507.4125 WIL465Barrington Boro Police DepartmentPWBARRINGTON507.4625 WIK701CAMDEN, COUNTY OFPWBARRINGTON507.5125 WIK857CAMDEN, COUNTY OFPWBERLIN507.5625 WIK698CAMDEN, COUNTY OFPWCAMDEN507.9375 KNBB284CAMDEN, COUNTY OFPWVOORHEES508.7125 WIK314WINSLOW, TOWNSHIP OFPWBRADDOCK508.9125 WIK697CAMDEN, COUNTY OFPWLINDENWOLD510.9125 WIK280CAMDEN, COUNTY OFPWLINDENWOLD511.7625 (To translate the codes here, PW means public works/safety frequencies like police/fire/ambulance services, YG is business trunked, YK is another business trunked designation, CD is cellular-related frequencies, and IG is conventional business pool.) As far as I can tell, at least for the police frequencies none of them seem to be trunked or digital, rather, they're using (relatively standard) 20K0F3E, read: 20 kilohertz bandwidth FM mono audio (don't you just love ITU designations?). http://www.maxpages.com/frequencies/Camden_County also notes on the relative frequency of 500MHz frequencies (pun intended) due to the sheer amount of frequencies used (they've had to get one of the special FCC exemptions that lets police frequencies be used on non-used TV channels; there is a similar expansion going on now in the 700MHz band in areas that are out of 800MHz frequencies for use in trunked radio systems, such as the NYC/NJ area). (And to think that my armchair hobby of scanner listening would come in handy on a telecoms list... :) -wtf (nyar!) ------------------------------ From: Robert Weller Subject: What's the Frequency, Camden? The Same as Boston-Area TV Date: Sat, 02 Nov 2002 19:31:56 -0800 On Sat, 2 Nov 2002 20:47:18 EST Monty Solomon reported that: > LINDENWOLD, N.J. -- A digital culprit traveling unlikely distances > by atmospheric phenomena, confounding law enforcement. Sounds like > science fiction, but it's not. > It's a phenomenon called "tropospheric ducting," and what it is is a > problem for Camden County's police dispatch network, which handles > emergency response in all but six county towns. > In scientific terms, the phenomenon occurs when layers of vast > temperature variation form in the troposphere _ the atmosphere's > lowest segment _ creating a "duct," which can trap radio waves and > carry them hundreds of miles beyond their normal reach. > Communications officials said the dispatch center uses the same > digital frequency as a Boston-area television station, WCVB. Camden > officials blame the Federal Communications Commission for poorly > planning signal frequency use. > > > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Tell me what police and/or > television station use the same range of frequencies? Police, > operating in VHF are usually around 150-155 megs. On UHF the > police are usually around 450-470 megs. What TV stations are > around there? None. How could this be an FCC problem? PAT] Actually, the frequencies ARE identical. According to the FCC's website: WCVB-DT (Digital Television) operates on channel 20 (506-512 MHz). Camden County's WNBB284 operates on 508.7125, 508.7375, 511.7125, and 511.7375 MHz. All of Camdens WNBB284 operations lie within DTV Channel 20. It is not unusual for public safety organizations to operated on UHF television frequencies. LA County fought for years to get Channel 16 alloted to their sheriff's department instead of television broadcasting. Use by non-broadcasters of one or more of the lower UHF channels is routinely authorized by the FCC so long as certain mileage separation criteria are met. In this case, it seems that those criteria were insufficient to prevent interference. Bob Weller ------------------------------ From: Marcus Jervis Subject: Re: What's the Frequency, Camden? The Same as a Boston TV Station Date: Sun, 03 Nov 2002 02:42:06 +0000 > LINDENWOLD, N.J. -- A digital culprit traveling unlikely distances by > atmospheric phenomena, confounding law enforcement. Sounds like > science fiction, but it's not. (snip) > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Tell me what police and/or television > station use the same range of frequencies? Police, operating in VHF > are usually around 150-155 megs. On UHF the police are usually around > 450-470 megs. What TV stations are around there? None. How could this > be an FCC problem? PAT] Public safety services have outgrown their allocations in that spectrum. And a lot of it is now up around 800 or 900 Mhz in trunked radio systems. Land Mobile services have shared UHF TV channels 14-20 for many years. This is because there were lots of unused UHF TV channels, and one TV channel can hold many narrow-band FM 2-way radio channels. Since the coverage areas are local, it made sense to assign a channel to a TV station in one area and a public safety agency in another since TV stations (prior to the new digital service) weren't using all the available channels in every area. In this case, some narrow 2-way radio channels within TV channel 20 (506-512 MHz) were assigned to public safety in Camden. Since it was 270 miles from the nearest TV station on channel 20, it was thought to be safe. But now they are dealing with an unusual propagagion mode (tropospheric ducting, which they probably won't experience in the winter) and the digital TV signal from one area is interfering with public safety communications in another. ------------------------------ From: Boo Phatty Subject: Re: 000-000-0000 Caller ID Date: Sun, 03 Nov 2002 01:15:07 -0500 Organization: Darth Vader Enterprises, LLC Today, Sat, 2 Nov 2002 10:39:16 -0500, Two Buddha read a post from Monty Solomon , and determined his interest in BURP. Where's my beer? Oh and: > We are in the midst of a close election for governor in Massachusetts > and we have received several automated endorsement calls where the > Caller ID/Name was 000-000-0000/Unknown. I assume this was done to > get around ACR (anonymous call rejection). > Has anyone else here seen this? > Is that legal? Does it comply with FCC regulations? I believe that some providers plug in 000's in the CNAM database instead of blank which generates "Caller ID Unavailable", ACR won't block either. Marketing companies deliberatly request this and it *should* be illegal. It's not. I checked into this this morning. It's legal. Perhaps a letter writing campaign to the FCC or the DTE/MA may help. I think it's a poor circumvention of ACR. I don't remember, but I believe in MA we PAY for ACR setup so this is "stealing" in my mind. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yes, it is stealing. Southwestern Bell charges for ACR also, then makes absolutely no effort to force callers to identify themselves or their company (or in many cases political organizations.) To SWB Telco, apparently 'Name Withheld', 'Notyur Biz' and 'Ben Dover' (when that last one is not verified as an actual person's name) are all legitmate ways to bypass caller-ID and the stupid sub- scribers who feel they are too busy to have to listen to political spiels or telemarketers. Yeah, it amounts to stealing what we paid for. PAT] ------------------------------ From: joe@obilivan.net Subject: Re: 000-000-0000 Caller ID Date: Sun, 03 Nov 2002 14:21:07 GMT Organization: Cox Communications Since the FCC never bothered to rule on PBXes and Caller ID (which they reserved in their 1995 decision) spoofing of calling party number on the PBX DOD trunks is likely a non-issue with the FCC, so long as it is not being done for criminal purposes. Your solution is easy: ignore a call from such a ridiculous number. Monty Solomon wrote: > We are in the midst of a close election for governor in Massachusetts > and we have received several automated endorsement calls where the > Caller ID/Name was 000-000-0000/Unknown. I assume this was done to > get around ACR (anonymous call rejection). > Has anyone else here seen this? > Is that legal? Does it comply with FCC regulations? > Thanks, > Monty > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: *Anything* politicians do is > legal. Didn't you ever notice how the Senate and the House of Reps > always exempt themselves from laws that others have to obey? > Many/most/all FCC regs pertaining to telemarketing specifically do not > apply to political campaigns. I am sure it must be legal. Politicians > never break the law, do they? (Unless, of course the fellow politico > they are complaining about belongs to the opposite party. PAT] [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: All crooks, every last one of them. Of course people who like being humored, condescended and pandered to will be sure to go out and vote this Tuesday. Don't you hate the old saying, 'if you fail to vote then you have no right to complain', as if voting had any real connection to the way the bureaucrats in this country run things. PAT] ------------------------------ From: steven.christie1@ntlworld.com (Steve Christie) Subject: New Telecom Classifieds Date: 3 Nov 2002 09:25:17 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ This is a new website which I hope will become a useful resource to the global telecom industry. I would appreciate it if you would take the time to visit the website and place free ads. Thanks for your precious time. http://www.telecomclassifieds.net ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. 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Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. End of TELECOM Digest V22 #110 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Nov 4 12:45:23 2002 Received: from localhost (localhost [[UNIX: localhost]]) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.3nb1/8.11.3) id gA4HjNq04314; Mon, 4 Nov 2002 12:45:23 -0500 (EST) Date: Mon, 4 Nov 2002 12:45:23 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200211041745.gA4HjNq04314@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #111 TELECOM Digest Mon, 4 Nov 2002 12:45:00 EST Volume 22 : Issue 111 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Telecom Update (Canada) #356, November 4, 2002 (Angus TeleManagement) The Need For Internet Access Standards in Hotels (Darryl Smith) Re: My Vote on Monty Batching (jbl) Re: CBS News: Verizon Settles Spam Suit (John Higdon) Re: Obtaining FEMA Essential Personell ID (Utility Employee) (D Farmer) Re: Obtaining FEMA Essential Personell ID (Utility Employee) (JustinTime) Re: 000-000-0000 Caller ID (tonypo1@cox.net) Re: 000-000-0000 Caller ID (John Higdon) Re: No Reverse DNS? Then Get a New ISP (Dr. Joel M. Hoffman) Re: Advertising Corrupts? (Geoffrey Welsh) Re: Advertising Corrupts? (jbl) 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, 04 Nov 2002 10:54:51 -0500 From: Angus TeleManagement Group Subject: Telecom Update (Canada) #356, November 4, 2002 ************************************************************ TELECOM UPDATE ************************************************************ published weekly by Angus TeleManagement Group http://www.angustel.ca Number 356: November 4, 2002 Publication of Telecom Update is made possible by generous financial support from: ** BELL CANADA: http://www.bell.ca ** CISCO SYSTEMS CANADA: http://www.cisco.com/ca/letstalk ** CYGCOM INTEGRATED TECHNOLOGIES: http://www.cygcom.com ** ERICSSON CANADA: http://www.ericsson.ca ** JUNIPER NETWORKS: http://www.juniper.net ** PRIMUS CANADA: http://www.primustel.ca ** Q9 NETWORKS: http://www.Q9.com ** TELUS: http://www.telus.com ************************************************************ IN THIS ISSUE: ** TELUS Reports $107 Million Loss ** Nortel Upgrades IP PBX ** 100 Mbps for $1,000 ** Antenna Tower Policy Review Planned ** CRTC Cuts Competitor Rates Again ** CRTC Orders Competitor Access to Telco OSS ** Telemarketers and Internet Registry Charged ** Manitoba Asks for Law on 9-1-1 Abuse ** Bell Seeks Delay in Montreal Overlay ** OECD Praises Canadian Telecom Regulation ** Study Hails Internet's Benefits to Small Business ** Northern, Telebec Provide Digital Wireless ** SkyWave Plans U.S. Expansion ** Mitec Laying Off 150 ** Profits Increase at MTS ** Alcatel Sales Down 37% ** Telecom Audits Find Savings, Boost Service ============================================================ TELUS REPORTS $107 MILLION LOSS: Telus Corporation lost $107.4 million in the three months ended September 30, compared to last year's gain of $28.9 million before extraordinary items. Total revenues were $1.76 Billion, down 3.1%. Capital spending in the quarter was $230 million, down from $403 million. ** By the end of October, Telus had eliminated 4,000 jobs, closed 33 retail stores and 11 call centres. The original goal of 6,000 employee reductions has been raised to 6,500. ** Wireline revenues in Bell Canada territory were $136 Million, up 30%, with EBITDA loss of $23 million. ** Telus Mobility had net revenue of $493.9 million, up 12.4%. At the end of the quarter it had 2.9 million subscribers, up 18.5% from last year. NORTEL UPGRADES IP PBX: Release 2 of Nortel Networks' Succession CSE 1000, announced October 29, adds support for Meridian digital phones and increases the maximum number of IP devices from 640 to over 10,000. ** Nortel also announced a new release of CallPilot unified messaging, and a Baystack Ethernet switch that provides in-line power. 100 MBPS FOR $1,000: Cogent Communications, the Washington- based ISP that bought Shared Technologies of Canada in February (see Telecom Update #321), says it will offer 100 Mbps dedicated Internet access in Toronto's central business district for $1,000 a month. ANTENNA TOWER POLICY REVIEW PLANNED: Industry Canada will conduct a "national consultation review" of its antenna tower policy in 2003. Issues to be examined include tower siting rules, procedures for local consultation, and tower sharing. Procedures for public participation have not yet been announced. http://www.ic.gc.ca/cmb/Welcomeic.nsf/261ce500dfcd7259852564820068dc6d/85256a220056c2a485256c63004e3fb9!OpenDocument CRTC CUTS COMPETITOR RATES AGAIN: For the second time in five weeks, the CRTC has ordered Aliant, Bell Canada, MTS, and SaskTel to cut the interim Access Tandem rates they charge competitors. The new cuts, ranging from 3% (Bell) to 75% (Aliant New Brunswick), result from costing errors the four companies reported on October 4. http://www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/ENG/Orders/2002/o2002-412.htm CRTC ORDERS COMPETITOR ACCESS TO TELCO OSS: CRTC Telecom Decision 2002-68, clarifies the delivery intervals telcos must meet when providing unbundled loops to competitors, and directs the CRTC Interconnection Steering Committee (CISC) to report in six months on how competitors can get access to telco Operational Support Systems. http://www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/ENG/Decisions/2002/dt2002-68.htm TELEMARKETERS AND INTERNET REGISTRY CHARGED: Last week the Competition Bureau laid charges in two telecom-related cases: ** Four directors of First Capital Consumers Group, a Toronto-area telemarketing company, are charged with defrauding "close to 100,000 American consumers." The Bureau says the operation grossed US$20 million by collecting processing fees for credit cards that were never delivered. ** The Internet Registry of Canada and its principals are charged with deceptive marketing for mailing domain registration solicitations that appeared to be invoices from the federal government. One of the people charged, James Tetaka, was also recently charged in the Yellowbusiness.ca case. (see Telecom Update #284 and #335) MANITOBA ASKS FOR LAW ON 9-1-1 ABUSE: Manitoba's Minister of Justice says he has written the federal Justice Minister calling for a new law against abuse of 9-1-1 emergency systems. BELL SEEKS DELAY IN MONTREAL OVERLAY: Bell Canada wants to delay introduction of the new 438 Area Code overlay in the 514 area from February 2004 to September 2005. Citing reductions in the forecast demand for new prefixes, the telco has formally asked the NPA 514 Relief Committee to recommend the change to the CRTC. OECD PRAISES CANADIAN TELECOM REGULATION: The Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development says Canada's telecom sector is more competitive than most OECD countries, largely due to Canada's regulatory environment which is "innovative and forward-looking". http://www.crtc.gc.ca/ENG/NEWS/RELEASES/2002/r021029.htm STUDY HAILS INTERNET'S BENEFITS TO SMALL BUSINESS: "Net Impact Study Canada," a study sponsored by the Canadian e-Business Initiative, states that Small and Medium Enterprises in Canada are achieving profit increases "of as much as 150%" by using the Internet to enhance business processes. http://www.cebi.ca/410/net_impact.pdf NORTHERN, TELEBEC PROVIDE DIGITAL WIRELESS: NorTel Mobility, a unit of Northern Telephone, is extending digital cellular service to Kapuskasing and Engelhart, Ontario, as part of a $6-million program to provide digital service in Northern and Telebec territory. SKYWAVE PLANS U.S. EXPANSION: Ottawa-based SkyWave, which provides satellite-based vehicle tracking, has secured $19 million in financing, which it will use to improve network infrastructure and expand its sales effort outside Canada. MITEC LAYING OFF 150: Montreal-based Mitec Telecom, which makes wireless network products, will eliminate 150 jobs worldwide as part of its moves to "survive the current telecommunications turmoil." (See Telecom Update #351) ** Rajiv Pancholy, former President of Microcell Connexions, has been named President and CEO, replacing Myer Bentob, who resigned September 12. PROFITS INCREASE AT MTS: Manitoba Telecom reports third-quarter net income of $22.6 million, 55% higher than the same period last year. MTS attributes a 16% decline in total revenue to accounting changes related to Bell West. ** Bell West had revenue of $85.3 million, double the level of a year ago, and an EBITDA loss of $19.1 million. ALCATEL SALES DOWN 37%: Alcatel had worldwide third quarter revenue of 3.51 billion euros, down 17% from the previous quarter and 38% from the same period a year ago. Net loss: 1.35 billion euros. TELECOM AUDITS FIND SAVINGS, BOOST SERVICE: Do you have the right telecom services and equipment for your business needs? How do your telecom costs compare to other organizations? Are you getting the service quality and support you should expect? ** To discuss how an Angus Dortmans telecom audit can help you improve service and cut costs, call Henry Dortmans at 905-686-5050 ext 300, or e-mail dortmans@angustel.ca ============================================================ HOW TO SUBMIT ITEMS FOR TELECOM UPDATE E-MAIL: editors@angustel.ca FAX: 905-686-2655 MAIL: TELECOM UPDATE Angus TeleManagement Group 8 Old Kingston Road Ajax, Ontario Canada L1T 2Z7 =========================================================== HOW TO SUBSCRIBE (OR UNSUBSCRIBE) TELECOM UPDATE is provided in electronic form only. There are two formats available: 1. The fully-formatted edition is posted on the World Wide Web on the first business day of the week at http://www.angustel.ca 2. The e-mail edition is distributed free of charge. To subscribe, send an e-mail message to: 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: Darryl Smith Subject: The Need For Internet Access Standards in Hotels Date: Sun, 3 Nov 2002 13:48:56 +1100 G'Day ... I live in Australia ... At the moment my mother is in California attempting to telecommute on a holiday ... Attempting is the correct word. Hotel #1 - Quality Inn - Palo Alto: Her laptop power cable was broken - Radio Shack sold her a new one for $3 instead of a new power adapter for $80. Good Work Radio Shack In the meantime the lobby has FREE internet access!!! www.web2mail.com helps out. Plugs her laptop into the ethernet in the room. Can get email. Can't send. No web access. Work out that DNS is not working. Get her from Australia to set up to use fixed DNS rather than get the DNS from the network. [Windows 98 BTW]. This fixes most of the problem. Outgoing email still does not work. Finds that she is really on Pac Bell DSL from the hotel. Set the SMTP address to whatever I found was their mail address (found from Google, not the hotel), and all works. Internet is fantastic. Phone has bad 60 Hz mains buzz on it. Hotel #2 - Days Inn Park South - Anaheim: Plus in laptop and has lots of trouble connecting to the net dialup - using budgetdialup.com. Finds two problems over international calls. She forgot to set the SMTP host on the email back. The main problem is that the line is so bad that she cannot stay connected for more than 3 minutes. No web access in the hotel. Dialing using area code did not work. So I had already told her to not use area code. This is stupid. Oh, no socket on the phone for a data connection either. Hotel #3 - Marriot South East - Denver: Ethernet, USB and Dialup available in the room (at 9.95/day). Speed is 128k maximum. No instructions on outgoing mail server. Turns out anything. They steal outgoing connections to the mail server and make them go though their server. Not bad, except if you log in to your home server to send mail -- like a friend. Hotel #4 - Holliday Inn - Hollywood: No dialin numbers in the same area code -- and outside the area code are TOLL. Put a USB wireless card high in the window and get a low strength connection. Have to find the SMTP address myself to use ... [This was my trip, not my mother's]. It should not be this hard to get internet access from hotels ... There needs to be standards ... Or at least INSTRUCTIONS. Darryl Smith, VK2TDS POBox 169 Ingleburn NSW 2565 Australia Mobile Number 0412 929 634 [+61 4 12 929 634 International] Darryl@radio-active.net.au | www.radio-active.net.au ------------------------------ From: jbl Subject: Re: My Vote on Monty Batching Date: Sat, 02 Nov 2002 19:23:23 -0700 Organization: On the desert Reply-To: jbl@spamblocked.com In , Name Withheld wrote: >> So now, you guys tell me; instruct your old, obsolete moderator with >> his old, obsolete scripts; pick one of these choices: >> (1) Continue batching Monty, one general subject header no index of items; >> (2) Individual itemization of Monty stuff; by default then six or ten >> items in each issue, indexing, some days it will appear that he >> has taken over an entire issue; > I'd prefer (2). Anyone who wants things batched can always subscribe by > e-mail instead of reading the newsgroup anyway. > My vote goes to (1), which for me makes reading the newsgroup a nicer > experience. And sign up my vote for (2); I read this on Usenet, and it's easier to pick out the individual articles by subject lines and only download the "interesting" ones. JBL ------------------------------ From: John Higdon Subject: Re: CBS News: Verizon Settles Spam Suit Organization: Green Hills and Cows Date: Sat, 02 Nov 2002 18:27:51 -0800 In article , kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) wrote: > Ralsky has always admitted spamming, he is proud of spamming, and he > supports spam. You have to give him credit for some degree of honesty > about his own activity. Spammers, especially "big-time" ones who cash in on spamming, should be very nervous right now. Due to the sheer volume, which has grown much faster than the net itself, spammers will begin to see significant reductions in response to email advertising. Why? People are fed up. They toss anything and everything that looks like an advertisement ... regardless of what it might be for. Recently, the DMA even expressed concern about the proliferation of spam. In essence, the spammers are doing themselves in. John Higdon | Email Address Valid | SF: +1 415 428-COWS +1 408 264 4115 | Anytown, USA | FAX: +1 408 264 4407 ------------------------------ From: Dale Farmer Subject: Re: Obtaining FEMA Essential Personell ID (Utility Employee/Telecom) Date: Sun, 03 Nov 2002 00:16:36 -0500 Organization: Furry green fuzz in the back of the refrigerator Boo Phatty wrote: > Hello folks. Does anyone know where to apply for FEMA essential > personell access cards i.e. ID that allows you to be on the street and > in a disaster area? > For instance, VZ E-911 personnel carry old CD cards that allow them > access to/from the E911 center during blizzards or declared > emergencies, etc. > I'm probably not calling it the right thing, but I would appreciate a > pointer. FEMA's website is very light on information of this kind. You apply to your state emergency management agency. They are the ones that actually issue them. They do have agreements with hospitals, the phone company, cities and so on to have the appropriate logos and authorizations placed on the employees regular ID badges. This allows them to save a lot of money not issuing separate badges to all those folks. You had better have a good reason to have that badge. Saving your company a pile of money because you have to shut a process down or something like that will not cut it. You have to be part of something that will restore damaged public utilities, medical aid, or other emergency type services. --Dale ------------------------------ From: a_user2000@yahoo.com (Justin Time) Subject: Re: Obtaining FEMA Essential Personell ID (Utility Employee/Telecom) Date: 4 Nov 2002 07:42:09 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Boo Phatty wrote in message news:: > Hello folks. Does anyone know where to apply for FEMA essential > personell access cards i.e. ID that allows you to be on the street and > in a disaster area? > For instance, VZ E-911 personnel carry old CD cards that allow them > access to/from the E911 center during blizzards or declared > emergencies, etc. > I'm probably not calling it the right thing, but I would appreciate a > pointer. FEMA's website is very light on information of this kind. Try applying through your local Emergency Management Agency. They would probably have the approval rights to any request. Your local agency is the senior agency in any disaster unless it has been declared a federal site, and then the local cards are usually accepted unless there are some real exceptions. ------------------------------ From: tonypo1@cox.net Subject: Re: 000-000-0000 Caller ID Organization: The Ace Tomatoe and Cement Company Date: Mon, 04 Nov 2002 00:35:30 GMT In article , TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response to boo@phatty.nl: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yes, it is stealing. Southwestern Bell > charges for ACR also, then makes absolutely no effort to force callers > to identify themselves or their company (or in many cases political > organizations.) To SWB Telco, apparently 'Name Withheld', 'Notyur Biz' > and 'Ben Dover' (when that last one is not verified as an actual person's > name) are all legitmate ways to bypass caller-ID and the stupid sub- > scribers who feel they are too busy to have to listen to political > spiels or telemarketers. Yeah, it amounts to stealing what we paid > for. PAT] I find it interesting that in MA and KS you pay for ACR. Here in RI we don't pay a dime for it. Just pick up the phone, punch *77 to enable, *87 to disable and it works. It's a major pain calling home from my office. Seems our G3i doesn't like the * codes and so we have to punch 9+1182+phone number. Except it doesn't always work. I've already defined a different ARS trunk group with lines that are un-blocked but admin hasn't issued the request to have those specific lines unblocked. When it is complete I can dial 9+ for blocked, 8+ for unblocked. I also get the 000-000-0000 calls. It's time to start leaning on our legislators to give more enforcement options to utilities commissions. As for stealing, anyone who calls me is stealing from me - it's taking up my time. If it's a telemarketer I have a legitimate beef as the time could otherwise be used for something more productive. Tony ------------------------------ From: John Higdon Subject: Re: 000-000-0000 Caller ID Organization: Green Hills and Cows Date: Sun, 03 Nov 2002 17:10:09 -0800 In article , Boo Phatty wrote: > I believe that some providers plug in 000's in the CNAM database > instead of blank which generates "Caller ID Unavailable", ACR won't > block either. One has to wonder why anyone would take a call with this in the display. I sure wouldn't. > Marketing companies deliberatly request this and it *should* be > illegal. It's not. Actually, they can program their switches to send whatever number they like. > I checked into this this morning. It's legal. Perhaps a letter writing > campaign to the FCC or the DTE/MA may help. I think it's a poor > circumvention of ACR. I don't remember, but I believe in MA we PAY for > ACR setup so this is "stealing" in my mind. Anonymous Call Rejection is for anonymous calls. This is not; it is a "misconfigured" call. Nothing forces you to answer it. If someone transmits a fake CID that looks legitimate, then you might have a case. In article , joe@obilivan.net wrote: > Since the FCC never bothered to rule on PBXes and Caller ID (which they > reserved in their 1995 decision) spoofing of calling party number on the > PBX DOD trunks is likely a non-issue with the FCC, so long as it is not > being done for criminal purposes. That is indeed the case. There are so many exceptions and circumstances regarding PBX programming that it would require an entire section of rulemaking ... and for what? It is a non-problem. John Higdon | Email Address Valid | SF: +1 415 428-COWS +1 408 264 4115 | Anytown, USA | FAX: +1 408 264 4407 ------------------------------ Subject: Re: No Reverse DNS? Then Get a New ISP Organization: Excelsior Computer Services From: joel@exc.com (Dr. Joel M. Hoffman) Date: Sun, 03 Nov 2002 18:06:07 GMT > If your ISP won't let you set up real reverse DNS names, then get > a new ISP. I can't even get *BUSINESS* DSL (fixed IP) with reverse DNS. ------------------------------ From: Geoffrey Welsh Subject: Re: Advertising Corrupts? Date: Sun, 3 Nov 2002 14:24:50 -0500 Power corrupts. Absolute power is kind of neat. ------------------------------ From: jbl Subject: Re: Advertising Corrupts? Date: Sat, 02 Nov 2002 19:21:05 -0700 Organization: On the desert Reply-To: jbl@spamblocked.com In , msb@vex.net (Mark Brader) wrote: > A.E. Siegman misquotes: >> "Power corrupts. Absolutely power corrupts absolutely." >> --Lord Acton (1834-1902) >> (Actual original quote slightly more verbose) > Not just "slightly more verbose", but significantly different. > Acton's actual words were: > "Power tends to corrupt, and absolutely power corrupts absolutely." You both seem to have a minor error, according to sources I've found (which is in fact what I expected): It is: "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely." You're welcome. ------------------------------ 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 V22 #111 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Nov 4 21:34:38 2002 Received: from localhost (localhost [[UNIX: localhost]]) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.3nb1/8.11.3) id gA52YcL24800; Mon, 4 Nov 2002 21:34:38 -0500 (EST) Date: Mon, 4 Nov 2002 21:34:38 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200211050234.gA52YcL24800@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #112 TELECOM Digest Mon, 4 Nov 2002 21:35:00 EST Volume 22 : Issue 112 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Connecting FAX Machine to Existing Answering Machine (Jay Hennigan) Re: Ameritech Problem Question (Ed Ellers) Re: What's the Frequency, Camden? The Same as a Boston-Area (John Stahl) Re: What's the Frequency, Camden? The Same as Boston-Area TV (Maniac) Call Flow Extract (McLellan) Bell South PP Locations (JJG/CMG & Associates) VoIP Test Equipment (Andrew) Re: Obtaining FEMA Essential Personell ID (Utility Employee) (Boo Phatty) More U.S. Homes Have Outhouses Than Tivos (Monty Solomon) TV Tower To Be Built In Times Square To Replace Antenna (Monty Solomon) Distributed TiVo Code Cracking (Monty Solomon) The Big Picture (Monty Solomon) Hollywood Squares (Monty Solomon) Bottleneck Breakers (Monty Solomon) Antenna System Is Said to Expand Wireless Internet Use (Monty Solomon) Marketers Try to Turn Web Pirates Into Customers (Monty Solomon) Re: 000-000-0000 Caller ID (Boo Phatty) Re: 000-000-0000 Caller ID (John Higdon) Last Laugh! SpamAssassin Strikes Again (Joey Lindstrom) 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: Jay Hennigan Subject: Re: Connecting a FAX Machine to an Existing Answering Machine Organization: Disgruntled Postal Workers Against Gun Control Date: Mon, 04 Nov 2002 08:05:40 GMT On Mon, 28 Oct 2002 15:53:59 -0800, AES wrote: > Perhaps what you want is the same as what's called "Answering Machine > Mode" on my older Canon fax machine (fax + copier, but not printer) -- > the phone line runs from the wall to the fax, then from a second jack > on the fax to the combination phone/answering machine. (If you > already know all the following, apologies.) > In this mode when a call comes in -- voice or fax -- the fax machine > itself never answers. Rather the call is answered either by a human > picking up the phone or by the answering machine doing the same, while > the fax machine, which is connected "across the line," only listens to > what's coming in on the call once it's answered. > If the fax machine then hears a fax tone coming from the other end it > disconnects the phone + answering machine and picks up the call > itself. Otherwise it just continues to eavesdrop passively on the > human voices or the answering machine message until somebody hangs up. > Virtue of this is that if you answer an incoming voice call the fax > machine remains inert and doesn't start putting its own whistles back > on the line, on top of your voice call. > On the other hand if its an incoming fax call, both you and the fax > machine hear the incoming fax whistle; the fax machine rather quickly > takes over; and you hang up (you're also automatically disconnected in > any case. One way or the other faxes always get received. > Bottom line, however, is that the phone line must go from the wall > *through* the fax machine to the phone/answering machine; they can't > be plugged into the wall in different rooms. There may be more > complex multi-ring schemes and gadgets that can accomplish the latter; > and other messages will describe them. I don't see why this is necessary if it works as you describe. If the fax in this mode and the answering machine are both just bridged on the line and a fax call comes in, the answering machine will pick up. The fax is there silently listening for fax tone, bridged. If it hears fax tone, it goes off-hook. The answering machine senses the drop in voltage and disconnects, just as it would if an extension were lifted off-hook. If a human answers, the same thing happens, and the human hangs up when he hears the sound of modems mating. If the fax has such a mode, try it just in parallel and see if it works. 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: Ed Ellers Subject: Re: Ameritech Problem Question Date: Mon, 4 Nov 2002 08:19:06 -0500 Gil Knops wrote: > I still, to this day cannot understand, that if I did the right > thing in calling, changing my ISP dialup number and relying on > information from Ameritech that I could get screwed over like this. > Today this is reflected on my credit history. I have a bad debt of > almost 5000 dollars. Is there anything that I can do? Can I take > them to court for this? What am I to do with a messed up company > like that?" Only thing I can suggest is complaining to your state's regulatory commission; even that may not do much good (much less going to court) without some evidence that an Ameritech employee advised you that that was a local number for you. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Why do you suppose it is that most telco service reps (the only employees you can ever speak to, after all) *never* give their full names, and often times only use phone names? Do you think the company finds it easier to do that, then hide the person after they do a major screw-up like this rather than attempt to train the rep to give intelligent/accurate answers? PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 04 Nov 2002 08:53:32 -0500 From: John Stahl Subject: Re: What's the Frequency, Camden? The Same as a Boston-Area In the HAM (Licensed Radio Amateur) "world" we have learned about strange weather influenced conditions called "inversion" which has great effect the propagation of higher frequency radio waves. HAM's have long used repeaters to extend the distances we can communicate, especially on the144 MHz to148 MHz band and the 440 MHz to MHz band. These weather conditions sometimes bring in signals from very far away than would normally be possible. Perhaps this type of weather inversion caused the reported interference between the long-distance separated TV and police radios, as reported by others, evidentially on the same frequency. John Stahl Telecom/Data Consultant Aljon Enterprises ------------------------------ From: xkmfdmx@aol.compactdisk (Maniac) Date: 03 Nov 2002 21:41:15 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: What's the Frequency, Camden? The Same as Boston-Area TV > Here's how: WCVB TV near Boston is on Channel 5. If you inspect the > frequency allocations carefully, you'll notice t disregard ... I didn't do my homework carefully enough. The other guys are right, they are on the same frequency. ------------------------------ From: barry_mclellan@yahoo.com (McLellan) Subject: Call Flow Extract Date: 4 Nov 2002 05:58:08 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Have any of you tried the Call Flow Extract from www.utilcall.com? This program will download all of your switch call flows into an html document linking all of your vdns, vectors, announcemets etc. It also prints out a text file that you can use for revision tracking. If you have downloaded it, let me know how you made out. I have a couple of questions I would like to ask someone who has ran this. Thanks, Barry ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 04 Nov 2002 11:21:12 -0500 Subject: Bellsouth PP Locations From: "JJG/CMG & Associates Tel: 716-754-2096" Hello Patrick! I have a question regarding how to find out where all the Bellsouth PP locations are. Is there a list available to the public ? Any input is greatly appreciated! John Guncsaga ------------------------------ From: ablack@taqua.com (Andrew) Subject: VoIP Test Equipment Date: 4 Nov 2002 13:05:19 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Does anyone know of some good "end-to-end" VoIP testing equipment vendors that I can get in touch with? (SIP protocol analysis, packet extraction and bulk generator, round trip delay and voice quality measurements.) ------------------------------ From: Boo Phatty Subject: Re: Obtaining FEMA Essential Personell ID (Utility Employee/Telecom) Date: Mon, 04 Nov 2002 20:19:00 -0500 Organization: Darth Vader Enterprises, LLC Today, Sun, 03 Nov 2002 00:16:36 -0500, Two Buddha read a post from Dale Farmer , and determined his interest in BURP. Where's my beer? Oh and: > Boo Phatty wrote: >> Hello folks. Does anyone know where to apply for FEMA essential >> personell access cards i.e. ID that allows you to be on the street and >> in a disaster area? >> For instance, VZ E-911 personnel carry old CD cards that allow them >> access to/from the E911 center during blizzards or declared >> emergencies, etc. >> I'm probably not calling it the right thing, but I would appreciate a >> pointer. FEMA's website is very light on information of this kind. > You apply to your state emergency management agency. They are the > ones that actually issue them. They do have agreements with > hospitals, the phone company, cities and so on to have the appropriate > logos and authorizations placed on the employees regular ID badges. > This allows them to save a lot of money not issuing separate badges to > all those folks. You had better have a good reason to have that > badge. Saving your company a pile of money because you have to shut a > process down or something like that will not cut it. You have to be > part of something that will restore damaged public utilities, medical > aid, or other emergency type services. > --Dale Thanks, that helps. I do have a reason, other than money, and it is utilities related. Do you know what they would call the program? Thanks in advance. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 4 Nov 2002 15:48:52 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: More U.S. Homes have Outhouses than Tivos / Analysts Mull Future MORE U.S. HOMES HAVE OUTHOUSES THAN TIVOS Analysts Mull Future Potential of PVR Ad-Zapping Technology November 04, 2002 QwikFIND ID: AAO17C By Bradley Johnson NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Who will win the battle of TiVo vs. ReplayTV? The answer could be: None of the above. While TiVo and Replay users enthuse about their personal video recorders, sales figures are not encouraging. PVR is a technology in search of a business model. Tom Edwards, senior analyst at researcher NPDTechworld, questions the future of standalone PVRs. Yet as an embedded technology, the PVR could be on its way to mainstream adoption, with broad implications for TV and advertising. Mr. Edwards sees good potential building the technology into other devices, such as cable set-top boxes, TVs, DVDs and satellite receivers. http://www.adage.com/news.cms?newsId=36471 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 4 Nov 2002 15:39:05 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: TV Tower To Be Built In Times Square To Replace Antenna TV Tower To Be Built In Times Square To Replace Antenna Lost On 9/11 NOVEMBER 01, 2002 A new television tower could soon be going up in Times Square as a backup for stations that lost their antenna in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 3 Nov 2002 22:49:58 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Distributed TiVo Code Cracking Distributed TiVo Code Cracking Posted by michael on Saturday November 02, @04:48AM from the wait-for-the-video dept. Twostep writes "With the newest version of the TiVo software (Version 3.2), TiVo has once again changed the secret password to enter "backdoor" mode, which lets advanced users enable hidden features. Unlike last time, people were not able to quickly find the new code, so a distributed computing project was started to find the backdoor codes. You can read about it Here, grab the Linux or Windows clients and pitch in some CPU time for a good cause." http://slashdot.org/articles/02/11/01/2329254.shtml?tid=129 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 4 Nov 2002 00:37:05 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: The Big Picture The Big Picture Everything you need to know in HDTV. http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2002/1111/141.html What's On Pros and cons for channel surfers. http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2002/1111/144.html What's Coming More glorious displays, beefier DVDs. http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2002/1111/146.html What's Tricky Wires, remotes and how to tweak the set. http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2002/1111/148.html ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 4 Nov 2002 00:34:43 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Hollywood Squares Hollywood Squares Dorothy Pomerantz, 11.11.02 Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner got rich off the Internet bubble and survived the crash. Now comes something really scary: They're gambling their loot in Hollywood. For internet billionaire Mark Cuban and his longtime partner, Todd Wagner, their September deal with CBS for a nine-episode remake of the cheesy old show Star Search seemed like yet another masterstroke of fortuitous timing. "CBS and billionaire Mark Cuban are on a talent hunt," the Hollywood Reporter swooned, noting how the deal was struck at the height of popularity of Fox's latter-day hit American Idol. It was just the latest addition to a Hollywood portfolio the two Internet tycoons have quietly been assembling for the past year. They own the rights to Star Search through the Rysher Entertainment film library, which they acquired from Cox Broadcasting for an undisclosed sum believed to be less than $300 million. Their new company, 2929 Productions, will produce the show, and they have taken a stake in a management company that will launch a Star Search road show nationwide. http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2002/1111/050a.html ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 4 Nov 2002 00:45:28 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Bottleneck Breakers Bottleneck Breakers Scott Woolley, 11.11.02 Efforts to wire U.S. homes with high-speed Internet access are foundering. New technology could help -- if only carriers could afford to buy it. The much-hyped broadband revolution is sputtering. Five years after cable companies and local phone giants first teased consumers with dreams of fat pipes beaming the Internet, on-demand video and hundreds of other services into the home, just 15% of U.S. households have signed up. In Canada, with lower prices and higher data speeds, usage is almost twice as high. A big reason for the disappointment: price. The U.S. has among the highest broadband prices in the industrialized world. Even in notoriously expensive Japan, monthly bills are about $28 compared with $40 to $50 in the U.S. Two years ago Americans were using broadband at 20 times the rate of the Japanese; now Japan has pulled virtually even and soon will eclipse us. http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2002/1111/106.html ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 4 Nov 2002 01:41:26 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Antenna System Is Said to Expand Wireless Internet Use Antenna System Is Said to Expand Wireless Internet Use By JOHN MARKOFF SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 3 - A start-up company plans to announce new antenna technology on Monday that it says can expand the limits of a popular wireless Internet format, providing access to hundreds or even thousands of portable computer users at distances of more than 2,000 feet within buildings and about four miles outdoors. The antenna uses the 802.11 technical standard, also known as Wi-Fi, which is currently limited to providing wireless Internet access to several dozen users within a few hundred feet of the transmitter. Wi-Fi is increasingly common in offices, airports, places like Starbucks shops and even in a growing number of households. Executives for the start-up company, Vivato, based here, said they expected their technology to be especially suited to office buildings because it would enable so many more people to use a single Wi-Fi Internet connection simultaneously. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/04/technology/04WIRE.html ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 4 Nov 2002 01:43:43 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Marketers Try to Turn Web Pirates Into Customers Marketers Try to Turn Web Pirates Into Customers By AMY HARMON A growing group of online marketers have a new name for the millions of people who use Internet file-trading software to steal music: "customers." The ranks of these marketers include independent bands with little to lose and established companies like Microsoft. What they have in common is that they are starting to view the masses of Internet pirates as a possible source of revenue. They have begun to experiment with promoting their wares on file-trading services, which are typically used to obtain unauthorized copies of music, movies or software. Some entertainment industry officials condemn those marketing efforts as giving support to services that encourage the theft of other people's intellectual property. But the organizations promoting file-traders see it as a way to lure people away from piracy by providing them with authorized material to download - and, in some cases, asking them to pay for it. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/04/technology/04TUNE.html ------------------------------ From: Boo Phatty Subject: Re: 000-000-0000 Caller ID Date: Mon, 04 Nov 2002 20:17:46 -0500 Organization: Darth Vader Enterprises, LLC Today, Sun, 03 Nov 2002 17:10:09 -0800, Two Buddha read a post from John Higdon , and determined his interest in BURP. Where's my beer? Oh and: > In article , Boo Phatty > wrote: >> I believe that some providers plug in 000's in the CNAM database >> instead of blank which generates "Caller ID Unavailable", ACR won't >> block either. > One has to wonder why anyone would take a call with this in the display. > I sure wouldn't. >> Marketing companies deliberatly request this and it *should* be >> illegal. It's not. > Actually, they can program their switches to send whatever number they > like. Correct. It *could* be the BTN on the switch side sending it, but in my experience, it's the carrier populating the CNAM ID with Zeros or not at all >> I checked into this this morning. It's legal. Perhaps a letter writing >> campaign to the FCC or the DTE/MA may help. I think it's a poor >> circumvention of ACR. I don't remember, but I believe in MA we PAY for >> ACR setup so this is "stealing" in my mind. > Anonymous Call Rejection is for anonymous calls. This is not; it is a > "misconfigured" call. Nothing forces you to answer it. If someone > transmits a fake CID that looks legitimate, then you might have a > case. > In article , joe@obilivan.net > wrote: >> Since the FCC never bothered to rule on PBXes and Caller ID (which they >> reserved in their 1995 decision) spoofing of calling party number on the >> PBX DOD trunks is likely a non-issue with the FCC, so long as it is not >> being done for criminal purposes. > That is indeed the case. There are so many exceptions and circumstances > regarding PBX programming that it would require an entire section of > rulemaking ... and for what? It is a non-problem. > John Higdon | Email Address Valid | SF: +1 415 428-COWS > +1 408 264 4115 | Anytown, USA | FAX: +1 408 264 4407 Today, Mon, 04 Nov 2002 00:35:30 GMT, Two Buddha read a post from tonypo1@cox.net, and determined his interest in BURP. Where's my beer? Oh, and: > In article , TELECOM Digest Editor > noted in response to boo@phatty.nl: >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yes, it is stealing. Southwestern Bell >> charges for ACR also, then makes absolutely no effort to force callers >> to identify themselves or their company (or in many cases political >> organizations.) To SWB Telco, apparently 'Name Withheld', 'Notyur Biz' >> and 'Ben Dover' (when that last one is not verified as an actual person's >> name) are all legitmate ways to bypass caller-ID and the stupid sub- >> scribers who feel they are too busy to have to listen to political >> spiels or telemarketers. Yeah, it amounts to stealing what we paid >> for. PAT] > I find it interesting that in MA and KS you pay for ACR. Here in RI we > don't pay a dime for it. Just pick up the phone, punch *77 to enable, > *87 to disable and it works. It's a keymap problem i.e. you're not passing the codes to the line. Some PBX's can have their keymaps reprogrammed, some can't and force you to buy adjunct equipment to do such a thing. Like Siemens. :( > It's a major pain calling home from my office. Seems our G3i doesn't > like the * codes and so we have to punch 9+1182+phone number. Except it > doesn't always work. I've already defined a different ARS trunk group > with lines that are un-blocked but admin hasn't issued the request to > have those specific lines unblocked. When it is complete I can dial 9+ > for blocked, 8+ for unblocked. > I also get the 000-000-0000 calls. It's time to start leaning on our > legislators to give more enforcement options to utilities commissions. > As for stealing, anyone who calls me is stealing from me - it's taking > up my time. If it's a telemarketer I have a legitimate beef as the time > could otherwise be used for something more productive. ------------------------------ From: John Higdon Subject: Re: 000-000-0000 Caller ID Organization: Green Hills and Cows Date: Mon, 04 Nov 2002 10:04:31 -0800 In article , tonypo1@cox.net wrote: > I also get the 000-000-0000 calls. It's time to start leaning on our > legislators to give more enforcement options to utilities commissions. Would you make it a crime to misconfigure a PBX? Isn't that a little draconian? John Higdon | Email Address Valid | SF: +1 415 428-COWS +1 408 264 4115 | Anytown, USA | FAX: +1 408 264 4407 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: For a **DELIBERATE** misconfiguration, yes. Just as it is not a serious crime at all to overdraw your bank account and have a check or two bounce now and then, but it is a crime to continually and repeatedly write checks on an account where there is no money. That crosses the line from an accident to willful fraud. I would say 'accidental misconfigurations' of PBX could be treated as civil violations, let's say a $500 fine for each complaint against you until you get it resolved. This is equivilent to stores which accept your check as payment then have it bounce 'accidentally' because of your error. In Kansas and many other states, the store is allowed to collect a civil penalty up to three times the value of the check. That's the law's way of saying do your math a little better in the future. They're not interested in putting you in jail; just in getting it cleared. Deliberate or willful miscongurations of a PBX would be treated like any sort of willful behavior. If you wrote dozens of checks from a check book you 'happened to find' laying around somewhere, or opened an account with no money and started writing checks, that is deliberate and willful behavior. That's a crime. So should be the willful or deliberate misconfiguration of a PBX. What is deliberate behavior versus accidental behavior? That's for a judge to figure out if it goes that far. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Joey Lindstrom Date: Mon, 04 Nov 2002 12:14:43 -0700 Subject: Last Laugh! SpamAssassin Strikes Again Reply-To: joey@lairdsflooring.com On Sat, 2 Nov 2002 20:47:18 -0500 (EST), editor@telecom-digest.org wrote: > Date: Fri, 1 Nov 2002 22:42:44 -0500 (EST) > From: TELECOM Digest Editor > Subject: Last Laugh! Look What SpamAssasin Calls ***SPAM*** > SPAM: ----------------- Start SpamAssassin results ---------------------- > SPAM: This mail is probably spam. The original message has been altered > SPAM: so you can recognise or block similar unwanted mail in future. > SPAM: See http://spamassassin.org/tag/ for more details. > SPAM: Content analysis details: (7.30 hits, 5 required) > SPAM: TO_MALFORMED (-0.8 points) To: has a malformed address > SPAM: FROM_MALFORMED (2.2 points) From: has a malformed address > SPAM: SUBJ_MISSING (0.4 points) Subject: is empty or missing > SPAM: NO_COST (2.7 points) BODY: No such thing as a free lunch (3) > SPAM: CLICK_BELOW (0.3 points) BODY: Asks you to click below > SPAM: SPAM_PHRASE_05_08 (0.7 points) BODY: Spam phrases score is 05 to 08 (medium) > SPAM: [score: 6] > SPAM: FROM_AND_TO_SAME_5 (1.8 points) From and To are same (5) > SPAM: > SPAM: -------------------- End of SpamAssassin results -------------------- > From: Patrick Townson > Subject: Time to Ask For Help Once Again > Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2002 13:00:00 CST Well, after my rant about .info addresses not being automatically spam itself being flagged as spam, I feel MUCH MUCH better that you too got nailed. :-) Joey Lindstrom - Laird's Flooring joey@lairdsflooring.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yeah, but you see, the Computer has been taught what to do about mail from .info addresses ... into the bit bucket with you, as a Spammer! Not so from the traditional address blocks i.e. .edu, .com, .org,..net, .'various-countries'. It really should not have picked on me; I am one of the good guys. 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. 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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 V22 #112 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Nov 5 13:47:08 2002 Received: from localhost (localhost [[UNIX: localhost]]) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.3nb1/8.11.3) id gA5Il8X04198; Tue, 5 Nov 2002 13:47:08 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 5 Nov 2002 13:47:08 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200211051847.gA5Il8X04198@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #113 TELECOM Digest Tue, 5 Nov 2002 13:47:00 EST Volume 22 : Issue 113 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson AT&T Wireless Launches Voice-Activated Dialing Service (Monty Solomon) AOL Loses Court Ruling on Internet Privacy Issue (Monty Solomon) Bravo Sale Seen Fueling More Cable Network Deals (Monty Solomon) AOL Latin America Reports Reduced Losses For 3rd Qtr 2002 (Monty Solomon) Nokia iGMLC Privacy Manager (Monty Solomon) SBC Internet Assurance and Security Center (IASC) (Monty Solomon) SpamCop (Monty Solomon) Online Job Listing an ID Theft Scam (Monty Solomon) The Two-Network Universe (Monty Solomon) Wi-Fi That Follows You Around (Monty Solomon) Re: 000-000-0000 Caller ID (joe@obilivan.net) Re: 000-000-0000 Caller ID (tonypo1@cox.net) Re: 000-000-0000 Caller ID (Mark Crispin) Re: VoIP Test Equipment (Chip G) Re: Ameritech Problem Question (Steven J. Sobol) Re: Antenna System Is Said to Expand Wireless Internet (Marcus Jervis) Re: Connecting a FAX Machine to an Existing Answering Machine (AES) 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, 5 Nov 2002 10:35:05 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: AT&T Wireless Launches Voice-Activated Dialing Service AT&T Wireless Launches Voice-Activated Dialing Service; #121 VoiceDial Service Now Available to Millions of Customers Across the Country - Nov 5, 2002 09:06 AM (BusinessWire) REDMOND, Wash.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 5, 2002--Beginning today, millions of AT&T Wireless (NYSE:AWE) customers can enjoy the convenience of using their voices to dial the phone numbers of family, friends, and business associates. The new #121 VoiceDial service is the latest enhancement to the voice-activated services available from AT&T Wireless. #121 VoiceDial allows customers to store multiple numbers for as many as five hundred contacts enabling them to reach people whether at work, at home or on the go. After signing-up for the service, customers simply go to www.attwireless.com/voicedial to enter their contacts into a personalized address book, or they can dial "#121" on their wireless phones to add contact information right through their phones. In the coming months, the service will allow customers to import contact lists from popular desktop applications like Microsoft Outlook(R) and Lotus Notes(R). The new service also allows customers to call a number simply by saying the number, such as "Call 999-555-1212." - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=29463459 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 4 Nov 2002 23:23:51 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: AOL Loses Court Ruling on Internet Privacy Issue By Reshma Kapadia NEW YORK, Nov 4 (Reuters) - A Virginia Supreme Court ruled against America Online in its efforts to protect the identity of one of its 35 million subscribers by asking the court to quash a subpoena calling for the member's name in an issue that goes to the heart of the anonymity of the Internet. The ruling against the world's largest Internet service provider, based in Dulles, Virginia, was the latest in the evolution of privacy laws as they pertain to the Internet and identities of Web surfers, privacy experts said. "The law is very unsettled and still being written. Any decision by the highest court of any state -- particularly the one where AOL resides -- is significant," said David Sobel, general counsel at Electronic Privacy Information Center. The Virginia Supreme Court sided with a lower California court's ruling that supported Nam Tai Electronics Inc.'s (NASDAQ:NTAI) request to subpoena the identity of an AOL user as part of a complaint that alleged libel, trade libel and violations of California's unfair business practice statutes. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=29455330 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 4 Nov 2002 23:30:54 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Bravo Sale Seen Fueling More Cable Network Deals By Jeffrey Goldfarb NEW YORK, Nov 4 (Reuters) - As viewers flip around the ever-expanding line-up of stations to watch, cable executives are also likely to keep changing channels -- by selling them. NBC's $1.25 billion acquisition of the arts channel Bravo from Cablevision Systems Corp. (NYSE:CVC) on Monday could prompt further sales as cable providers ponder an attractive market in which to sell their valuable networks to pay off the whopping debt they have incurred to improve their systems. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=29452765 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 4 Nov 2002 23:33:02 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: AOL Latin America Reports Reduced Losses For Third Quarter 2002 FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 4, 2002-- Targeted Marketing to Higher Value Members and Operating Efficiencies Contribute to Reduced Losses; AOL Puerto Rico Posts Second Consecutive Quarter of Profitability America Online Latin America, Inc. (NASDAQ-SCM: AOLA) today reported narrowed per-share losses for the third quarter ended September 30, 2002, and reaffirmed that the Company expects current funding to allow it to finance operations into the fourth quarter of 2003. These results mark AOL Latin America's ninth straight quarter of narrowed per-share losses. The Company's third quarter net loss applicable to common stockholders narrowed by more than 45% to $39.9 million, or $0.59 per class A common share, basic and diluted, compared with a loss of $73.7 million, or $1.10 per share, for the quarter ended September 30, 2001, and nearly 11% from a loss of $44.6 million, or $0.66 per share, in the second quarter ended June 30, 2002. The Company's third quarter net loss before dividends on preferred stock was $35.2 million, or $0.10 per share, on a pro forma fully diluted basis, improving from a loss of $69.1 million, or $0.21 per share, on the same basis a year ago, and a loss of $39.9 million, or $0.12 per share last quarter. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=29450039 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 4 Nov 2002 23:45:30 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Nokia iGMLC Privacy Manager Nokia Introduces New Solutions for Operators and Enterprises; Focus on Privacy, Presence, Mobile Web Services and Security Tools - Nov 4, 2002 12:08 PM (BusinessWire) HELSINKI, Finland--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 4, 2002--Nokia today introduced tools for managing subscriber privacy, mobile Web service interfaces and presence management enabling operators to enhance the service offering for their subscribers with new mobile applications and content. In addition, Nokia launched three new mobile enhancements and two mobile security tools for enterprises. For more information please see the related press releases at: http://press.nokia.com/pressreleases.html New Nokia solutions for operator markets The Nokia iGMLC Privacy Manager, as part of the Nokia mPosition solution for mobile location services, gives mobile subscribers full control over their privacy settings by providing location information about a subscriber only if the subscriber has agreed. Subscribers can feel assured that they retain the "ownership" of their location information as it is used by the operator only with permission. Furthermore the subscriber will be able to create his or her own privacy manager settings by defining by whom, when and where the subscriber can be located. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=29444541 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 4 Nov 2002 23:48:37 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: SBC Internet Assurance and Security Center (IASC) SBC Launches Research And Development Test Bed To Develop New Layers Of Internet Security - Nov 4, 2002 09:03 AM (BusinessWire) AUSTIN, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 4, 2002-- Vice-Chairman of President's Critical Infrastructure Protection Board Endorses Effort To Protect Internet Users, Networks From Rising Tide of Security Violations SBC Communications Inc. (NYSE:SBC) today announced the formation of an Internet security test bed designed to uncover new and innovative ways to expand the scope and effectiveness of cyber-security technology. The project, known as the Internet Assurance and Security Center (IASC), will be designed and managed by SBC Technology Resources Inc., SBC's research and development center based in Austin. SBC is launching the IASC program in response to the rising tide of Internet security violations, such as viruses, worms and denial-of- service attacks. The CERT Coordination Center, an organization that documents security vulnerabilities, says Internet security violations more than double each year. According to cyber-security experts, the recent Bugbear virus is the most severe widespread attack to occur in 2002. Less than one week after it first appeared, the virus had grown exponentially, affecting millions of users around the world. Howard Schmidt, Vice Chairman of President Bush's Critical Infrastructure Protection Board, met with SBC officials last month to review plans for the IASC and other security efforts being implemented by the company. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=29439955 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Nov 2002 00:59:34 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: SpamCop Politech incorrectly blocked by SpamCop -- for the third time Mon, 4 Nov 2002 10:20:56 -0500 (EST) http://www.politechbot.com/p-04121.html Ray Everett-Church on systemic problems with SpamCop Mon, 4 Nov 2002 15:53:51 -0500 (EST) http://www.politechbot.com/p-04126.html Paul Levy on why SpamCop is liable for its overbroad "spam" lists Mon, 4 Nov 2002 22:55:57 -0500 (EST) http://www.politechbot.com/p-04128.html Why not to use SpamCop -- some first-hand accounts Mon, 4 Nov 2002 23:20:27 -0500 (EST) http://www.politechbot.com/p-04129.html ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Nov 2002 01:29:52 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Online job listing an ID theft scam 'Background check' used to steal full slate of personal info By Bob Sullivan MSNBC Nov. 4 - It was just the job lead Jim needed: a marketing manager position with Arthur Gallagher, a leading international insurance broker. And only days after Jim responded to the job posting on Monster.com, a human resources director sent along a promising e-mail. We're interested in you, the note said. The salary is negotiable, the clients big. In fact, the clients are so valuable and sensitive that you'll have to submit to a background check as part of the interview process. Eager for work, Jim complied - and sent off just about every key to his digital identity, including his age, height, weight, Social Security number, bank account numbers, even his mother's maiden name. IT WAS ALL JUST an elaborate identity theft scam designed to prey on the most vulnerable potential victims -- the increasing ranks of the unemployed. http://www.msnbc.com/news/830411.asp ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Nov 2002 01:44:17 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: The Two-Network Universe TELEVISION The Two-Network Universe; NBC and CBS have 19 of the top 20 rated TV shows. FORTUNE Monday, November 11, 2002 By Marc Gunther Remember when people forecast a 500-channel universe? They guessed low: Nielsen currently tracks 561 national, regional, and local networks that compete for the attention of America's TV viewers. But just two of them -- NBC and CBS -- tower over the rest as never before. Three weeks into the 2002-03 TV season, NBC and CBS are the only networks averaging more than ten million viewers in prime time. (CBS has 13.2 million; NBC, 12.3 million.) In a business driven by hits, they have nine of the top ten rated shows, and 19 of the top 20. They command premium prices from advertisers. And they are the only two broadcast networks making money. http://www.fortune.com/indexw.jhtml?channel=artcol.jhtml&doc_id=210090 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Nov 2002 02:08:38 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Wi-Fi That Follows You Around By Paul Boutin 02:00 AM Nov. 04, 2002 PT San Francisco -- Vivato, a startup company packed with industry veterans including Wi-Fi Forum founder Phil Belanger, will announce new base station technology that can provide wide area coverage for existing Wi-Fi laptops and other computers. Using a computer-controlled antenna array, Vivato's prototype bases can reach large groups of users on existing laptops and other computers, with an operating range up to 7 kilometers outdoors, the company claims. In a recent demo, Vivato employees demonstrated working wireless coverage inside a five-story building in San Francisco from a single base station across the street. The base transmits around 30 milliwatts of radiation, less than many consumer base stations. The key element is the antenna -- more specifically, an electronically steered, planar-phased array of hundreds of antennas connected to a high-speed processor running Linux. http://www.wired.com/news/wireless/0,1382,56166,00.html ------------------------------ From: joe@obilivan.net Subject: Re: 000-000-0000 Caller ID Date: Tue, 05 Nov 2002 01:55:00 GMT Organization: Cox Communications Well put, John. John Higdon wrote: > In article , Boo Phatty > wrote: >> I believe that some providers plug in 000's in the CNAM database >> instead of blank which generates "Caller ID Unavailable", ACR won't >> block either. > One has to wonder why anyone would take a call with this in the display. > I sure wouldn't. >> Marketing companies deliberatly request this and it *should* be >> illegal. It's not. > Actually, they can program their switches to send whatever number they > like. >> I checked into this this morning. It's legal. Perhaps a letter writing >> campaign to the FCC or the DTE/MA may help. I think it's a poor >> circumvention of ACR. I don't remember, but I believe in MA we PAY for >> ACR setup so this is "stealing" in my mind. > Anonymous Call Rejection is for anonymous calls. This is not; it is a > "misconfigured" call. Nothing forces you to answer it. If someone > transmits a fake CID that looks legitimate, then you might have a > case. > In article , joe@obilivan.net > wrote: >> Since the FCC never bothered to rule on PBXes and Caller ID (which they >> reserved in their 1995 decision) spoofing of calling party number on the >> PBX DOD trunks is likely a non-issue with the FCC, so long as it is not >> being done for criminal purposes. > That is indeed the case. There are so many exceptions and circumstances > regarding PBX programming that it would require an entire section of > rulemaking ... and for what? It is a non-problem. > John Higdon | Email Address Valid | SF: +1 415 428-COWS > +1 408 264 4115 | Anytown, USA | FAX: +1 408 264 4407 ------------------------------ From: tonypo1@cox.net Subject: Re: 000-000-0000 Caller ID Organization: The Ace Tomatoe and Cement Company Date: Tue, 05 Nov 2002 03:22:05 GMT In article , no- spam@amadeus.kome.com says: > In article , tonypo1@cox.net wrote: >> I also get the 000-000-0000 calls. It's time to start leaning on our >> legislators to give more enforcement options to utilities commissions. > Would you make it a crime to misconfigure a PBX? Isn't that a little > draconian? No, the way I'd set it up is you get one warning. If you repeatedly send false CLID information then the penalties kick in per occurence. Make it something on the order of $25 per reported incident. Not enough to bankrupt but enough of an accounting problem to be a real pain in the butt for telemarketers who think they can get around things like ACR. Tony ------------------------------ From: Mark Crispin Subject: Re: 000-000-0000 Caller ID Date: Mon, 4 Nov 2002 20:28:46 -0800 Organization: Networks and Distributed Computing On Mon, 4 Nov 2002, John Higdon wrote: > Would you make it a crime to misconfigure a PBX? Yes, I would. > Isn't that a little draconian? No, not at all. If PBX owners want the luxury of running their own little telco, they should expect to be accountable. If they can not or will not, then they should buy individual phone lines from the telco. If PBX owners can not (or will not) clean up their act, there are quite a few more steps that can (and should) be taken. -- Mark -- http://staff.washington.edu/mrc Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Exactly ... and I might go one step further. Telcos like SWB are infamous for selling services they cannot or do not back up; like Privacy Manager. I would require the telcos to put manual entries in their database of those 'special' names a lot of telemarketers/others like to use; names such as 'Name Unavailable', 'Name Withheld', etc. Not all of us have a caller ID box right in front of our faces all the time when a phone rings, so we cannot always go looking for an ID box before deciding whether we should ignore the 'obviously bogus' call. PAT ------------------------------ From: Chip G Subject: Re: VoIP Test Equipment Organization: AT&T Broadband Date: Tue, 05 Nov 2002 15:02:04 GMT Avaya has several network analysis capabilities to ensure that networks are "VoIP ready". The last time I talked with them they called them CIRS and NANO. I believe these were all service based (as opposed to equipment that they would sell to you). Perhaps if you talk to them about the service you can get them to tell you what equipment/software they use. Hope this helps, Chip Andrew wrote in message news:telecom22.112.7@telecom-digest.org: > Does anyone know of some good "end-to-end" VoIP testing equipment > vendors that I can get in touch with? (SIP protocol analysis, packet > extraction and bulk generator, round trip delay and voice quality > measurements.) ------------------------------ From: sjsobol@JustThe.net (Steven J. Sobol) Subject: Re: Ameritech Problem Question Date: Tue, 05 Nov 2002 02:54:12 -0000 Organization: JustThe.net LLC Ed Ellers wrote: > Gil Knops wrote: >> I still, to this day cannot understand, that if I did the right >> thing in calling, changing my ISP dialup number and relying on >> information from Ameritech that I could get screwed over like this. >> Today this is reflected on my credit history. I have a bad debt of >> almost 5000 dollars. Is there anything that I can do? Can I take >> them to court for this? What am I to do with a messed up company >> like that?" > Only thing I can suggest is complaining to your state's regulatory > commission; even that may not do much good (much less going to court) > without some evidence that an Ameritech employee advised you that that > was a local number for you. I don't know which state the OP is in, since I somehow missed the original post, but Ohio's PUC is really good about following through on Ameritech cases. I believe they have a couple people specifically assigned to handle SouthWorstern Beast AmeriBlech complaints (and that should surprise no one). > the person after they do a major screw-up like this rather than > attempt to train the rep to give intelligent/accurate answers? PAT] That assumes intelligent/accurate management! Steve Sobol, CTO JustThe.net LLC, Mentor On The Lake, OH http://JustTheNetLLC.com/ (check out the new site!) 888.480.4NET (4638) Just another deer caught in the headlights on the Information Superhighway [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: If you recall, years ago when you had a really serious complaint you could make a 'management complaint' or an appeal to the Chairman's Office. You would nearly always get your way as a result. No longer ... :( where before they had one or two highly placed flunkies who sat outside the chairman's office with instructions to 'do what it takes to get rid of those complainers'. They were author- orized to write off anything and everything. As the general public became aware of this technique, and saw how easily telco management could be bullied and intimidated the public began using it a lot. Now I think they have wised up, and not caring as much about their pristine reputation as the old Bell System did, they have started getting tougher and meaner. There are almost as many reps assigned now to management complaints and commission complaints as there are to general business office matters. And whoever said (quote) "most state commissions are only flunkies in telco's employ themselves, but with a wee bit more authority to resolve the most egregarious matters" was quite correct. To our original correspondent: Yeah, tell the commission. They'll say how sorry they are to hear of your complaint; they'll actually phone the service rep (they deal with as a commission) and relay it to her again. After that service rep tells the commission she will look into the 'problem' the commission employee will call you back and hasten to assure you that telco 'has assured us they are going to resolve it' then she will wash her hands and be done with the matter (and you). And that is the last you will hear of it until a collection agency somewhere comes demanding their money. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Marcus Jervis Subject: Re: Antenna System Is Said to Expand Wireless Internet Use Date: Tue, 05 Nov 2002 03:15:58 +0000 > SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 3 - A start-up company plans to announce new > antenna technology on Monday that it says can expand the limits of a > popular wireless Internet format, providing access to hundreds or > even thousands of portable computer users at distances of more than > 2,000 feet within buildings and about four miles outdoors. > The antenna uses the 802.11 technical standard, also known as Wi-Fi, > which is currently limited to providing wireless Internet access to > several dozen users within a few hundred feet of the transmitter. > Wi-Fi is increasingly common in offices, airports, places like > Starbucks shops and even in a growing number of households. How do Wi-Fi networks expand to 2,000 feet, or even four miles, and still use Part 15 devices? Don't Part 15 regulations for license-free devices limit you to using the radiator that is part of the registered device? If you attach an outside antenna with gain to a Part 15 device, then it isn't really a legally license-free device anymore, is it? Will folks who put up big outside networks with lots of range from each node really be able to continue to do this legally? And doesn't the whole concept of a Part 15 license-free service demand that the devices be low power and radiate over a small area, or else everyone starts interfering with everyone else? ------------------------------ From: AES Newspost Subject: Re: Connecting a FAX Machine to an Existing Answering Machine Date: Mon, 04 Nov 2002 20:06:32 -0800 In article , Jay Hennigan wrote: >> Bottom line, however, is that the phone line must go from the wall >> *through* the fax machine to the phone/answering machine; they can't >> be plugged into the wall in different rooms. > I don't see why this is necessary if it works as you describe. If the > fax in this mode and the answering machine are both just bridged on > the line and a fax call comes in, the answering machine will pick up. > The fax is there silently listening for fax tone, bridged. If it > hears fax tone, it goes off-hook. > The answering machine senses the drop in voltage and disconnects, just > as it would if an extension were lifted off-hook. If a human answers, > the same thing happens, and the human hangs up when he hears the sound > of modems mating. > If the fax has such a mode, try it just in parallel and see if it works. The reason I wrote such a lengthy description is that I have tried it in parallel, and it doesn't work. You must go _thru_ the fax, then to the answering machine, for it work properly. Your reply makes me realize, however, that while I think I have properly described what the fax machine does (functionally), I may not in fact fully understand how it does it (internally). In the bridged situation, however, is it not the case that when the answering machine "picks up", the drop in voltage has already occurred as a result of the answering machine's having answered? So, although the fax, hearing the fax tone, can start taking in electrons and trying to process them, it has no way to tell the answering machine to stop playing it's annoying message (which may screw up the fax transmission?). "Power tends to corrupt. Absolute power corrupts absolutely." Lord Acton (1834-1902) (slightly modified) "Dependence on advertising tends to corrupt. Total dependence on advertising corrupts totally." -- Modern equivalent. ------------------------------ 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 Fax 3: 775-642-0603 Fax 4: 530-309-7234 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 V22 #113 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Nov 6 18:28:56 2002 Received: from localhost (localhost [[UNIX: localhost]]) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.3nb1/8.11.3) id gA6NSuE22385; Wed, 6 Nov 2002 18:28:56 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2002 18:28:56 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200211062328.gA6NSuE22385@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #114 TELECOM Digest Wed, 6 Nov 2002 18:29:00 EST Volume 22 : Issue 114 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Towns & Townships - Summary (Neal McLain) Wasting Bandwidth (Joey Lindstrom) Looking For Problem Stories Dealing With Altigen Phones (AltigenSucks) Philips and Cingular Wireless Demonstrate Single Antenna (Monty Solomon) Re: AT&T Wireless Launches Voice-Activated Dialing Service (Joseph) Re: VoIP Test Equipment (Phil McKerracher) Doing Error Correction (Matt) Re: Connecting a FAX Machine to Existing Answering Machine (Gail M. Hall) Meridian M2616 Work as Home Phone? (Dao) 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, 05 Nov 2002 11:05:31 -0600 From: Neal McLain Reply-To: nmclain@annsgarden.com Organization: Ann's Garden Subject: Towns & Townships - Summary Thanks to everybody who commented on the Towns and Townships series, and a special thanks to PAT for his kind words. Following is a summary of the comments I received: Garrett Wollman wrote: > In article you write: >> state. Many heavily-urbanized townships provide a full >> range of municipal services, and are virtually >> indistinguishable from incorporated cities (e.g. Town >> of Stoughton, MA; Hamilton Township, NJ; Upper Darby >> Township, PA). > Actually, in Vermont, they are not just 'virtually' > indistinguishable: incorporated towns are *legally* > indistinguishable from cities. The only difference > between the two forms is that a town operates under > a legal instrument (a charter enacted by the state > legislature) calling it a 'town', whereas a city's > charter calls it a 'city'. > It is similar in Massachusetts, except that the Massachusetts > constitution restricts the forms of government permissible in > towns and cities: a town must have a 'town meeting' or > 'representative town meeting' form of government, whereas a > city must have a council government (with or without an > elected mayor). State law sets out a few 'model plans' for > city government which most cities have. City and > 'representative town meeting' forms of government are > relatively new in Massachusetts; originally 'town meeting' > was the only form of local government. In the early nineteenth > century, as many towns attained populations too large to support > direct democracy, the other forms were introduced as reforms > which could be voluntary adopted by communities at need. My point is that 'heavily urbanized' townships are 'virtually indistinguishable' from cities precisely because they *are* heavily urbanized. Compare, for example, Town of Stoughton with City of Brockton: the average person driving from one to the other probably wouldn't notice much difference (I didn't the first time I drove through there several years ago). By contrast, towns that are primarily rural are definitely distinguishable from cities even if their governmental structures are the same. Compare, for example, Town of Windsor (Berkshire County) with either Stoughton or Brockton. > In some cases, the communities were so attached to the 'town' > moniker that they kept it even after re-chartering as cities; > hence, special legislation calls those towns out as 'the City > called 'The Town of Watertown'' etc. Thanks for the clarification. I wasn't aware of the "City called The Town of Watertown" terminology for cities calling themselves towns, so I expected that Watertown would just be called "Town of Watertown." According to the Commonwealth's official county/township map at , Watertown is described as one of a group of Massachusetts cities that "although they have city forms of government, these communities officially refer to themselves as towns." Hence, "Town of Watertown." Mark Brader wrote: > That was quite the essay by Neal McLain. Much appreciated. > I would love to see a similar description of Canada's provinces; > I think there would be some similarities. I agree: I'd love to see a similar description for Canada. I suspect that we could trace Canada's county subdivision system back to England too. I'd also like to see an explanation of the subdivisions within England itself. I understand that England's counties grew out of the original shires, but the system of subdivisions within counties is a maze I've never been able to figure out. And how do the subdivision systems of England compare with Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, and, for that matter, the rest of Ireland? The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition (on-line version) offers some information, but it's certainly not comprehensive. . > Two comments: >> There are "governmental townships" (properly called "civil >> townships," but often called "towns") in just about every >> state in the northeast, the Midwest, and the Great Plains. ... >> The combination of civil townships and incorporated >> municipalities forms a continuous web covering the entire >> state and every county within it ... > The above applies to Ontario, except for the terminology. Here, > a "town" is a type of incorporated municipality (intermediate > between a city and a village); a "township" is a civil township. >> BOROUGH: >> - In New York, one of five former counties that have been >> incorporated into the City of New York: >> Bronx County (Bronx Borough) >> Kings County (Brooklyn Borough) >> New York County (Manhattan Borough) >> Queens County (Queens Borough)s >> Richmond County (Richmond Borough) >> Richmond County is coextensive with, and commonly >> known as, Staten Island. > They are still officially counties as well as boroughs (just as > San Francisco is officially a "city and county"). Richmond > County is still the correct name, but the corresponding borough > was renamed Staten Island in 1975. I won't > get into "Bronx" vs. "the Bronx" here. Thanks for pointing this out. I guess this is the bane of writers everywhere: check, double-check, triple-check, but stupid errors still creep in. I also omitted Philadelphia. The City of Philadelphia and the County of Philadelphia were consolidated in 1854, but whether that makes Philadelphia an "independent city" or a "consolidated city-county" still isn't clear to me. David W. Tamkin wrote: > Thank you very much for your articles on townships and local > government structures. You wrote in what became > in comp.dcom.telecom: >> VILLAGE. An incorporated municipality identified as a >> "village" under state law. In popular culture, villages are >> usually thought of as small communities (certainly smaller >> than cities), but this distinction is largely cultural rather >> than legal. In Illinois, many large Chicago suburbs are >> incorporated as villages: Village of Skokie; Village of >> Hinsdale; Village of Oak Park. In terms of population, the >> Village of Niles, Illinois is larger than the City of Niles, >> Michigan. [19] > While some of our larger suburbs are villages, some of the > smaller ones are cities. Rolling Meadows, Berwyn, and Prospect > Heights are three cities each outpopulated by two or more > bordering villages. > My understanding as a lifelong Illinoisan is that, under our > state law, a village is an incorporated municipality whose > legislative body (commonly called the village board) is elected > at-large, while a city is divided geo-graphically into wards, > each of which elects an alderman to the city council. > Converting from village to city requires reincorporating under > a new charter (for example, Chicago was incorporated as a > village in 1833 and reincorporated as a city in 1837). > Other than reincorporating a village as a city, Illinois has > no provision for dissolving a municipal government. Some > municipalities have dwindled in population to the point where > there is nothing to govern and it's an annoyance to keep up the > form (there are examples where a village is down to two > residents). Thank you for this explanation. Gregory Edwards wrote: > This was an interesting series of articles. > I think California "The Bear Republic" should also be > listed as a country before joining the US. I have been > to several of the battle sites for the Califorina War > of Independence. My research indicates that "The Bear Republic" (or "The California Republic") was not an official national government. In a subsequent message, Greg added: > I'm not sure what an official national goverment was then > (now it is being on the ARRL DX list, right?). I'd say it means being listed in the current edition of the CIA's "World Factbook": . > As I remember Califorina was independent for a little while > before joining the US (the people wanted to, even the head of > the Mexican goverment in Califorina, a General Vallejo), but > they had to do something until Congress acted. As I understand it, six significant events led to the admission of California as a state: - May 13, 1846: After continuing disputes with Mexico over the location of the boundary between Texas and Mexico, the U.S. Congress declared war on Mexico. [1,2] - June 14, 1846: A group of "thirty rough-hewn American settlers" captured Colonel Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo at his "casa grande" in Sonoma, hoisted the "Bear Flag" over the casa, and proclaimed California to be the "California Republic." [3] - July 9, 1846: U.S. Naval forces took over Sonoma and replaced the Bear Flag with the U.S. flag, thus establishing the United States Government's dominion over California. [3] - February 2, 1848: The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo formally ended U.S.-Mexican War. Mexico ceded to the United States the lands that would become parts of Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming. [2,3] - September 1849: "Forty-eight prominent Californians" (including Vallejo, presumably no longer a colonel) met in Monterey to draft a state (or territorial) constitution for California. [3] - September 9, 1850: California was admitted to the U.S. as a state, bypassing over the territorial stage. [3] If we accept the proposition that "thirty rough-hewn American settlers" constitutes an official national government, then Greg is correct in stating that "Califorina (sic) was independent for a little while before joining the US": it was the independent "California Republic" for about three weeks in 1846. But from 1846 to 1850, California was under the control of the United States government, even though it was neither a state nor a territory. So I don't think we can say that it was "independent" during this period. An upcoming video history of the U.S.-Mexican War: "Shaping of America: U.S. History to 1877 - Moving Westward" PBSYOU (DirecTV 377; Dish Network 9402) Saturday, November 9, 11:30 am EDT/8:30 am PDT. References: [1] "The U.S.-Mexican War (1846-1848)." Web Site produced for PBS Online by KERA, Dallas/Fort Worth. . [2] "Shaping of America: U.S. History to 1877 - Moving Westward," Program #118. Dallas County Community College District. [3] James J. Rawls: "California History Online." (c)2000 California Historical Society. All rights reserved. . Two particularly relevant pages are: Al Gillis wrote: > I, too, enjoyed "Towns and Townships". > Thanks to Neal for the excellent effort and to Pat for > pushing it to the top! > Al :) :) :) :) :) Neal McLain nmclain@annsgarden.com ------------------------------ From: Joey Lindstrom Date: Tue, 05 Nov 2002 13:25:03 -0700 Subject: Wasting Bandwidth Reply-To: joey@lairdsflooring.com On Tue, 5 Nov 2002 13:47:08 EST, joe@obilivan.net wrote: > Well put, John. > John Higdon wrote: This reminds me of an early Dilbert strip. He receives an email from the sysadmin of the company network. It's a broadcast email to all users of the system. It says "Please refrain from frivolous email, it bogs down the network". Dilbert agrees with this sentiment, so he writes an email: "I agree!" and sends it to the sysadmin ... with a CC: to every user on the network. Recently we've had a bit of a debate on how exactly to position Monty Solomon's (sp?) posts -- either all together as a single post, or as one separate post for each one. The debate revolved around what method made it easiest to read what one wants and skip what one does not want, the idea being people wanted a quick and easy way to NOT DOWNLOAD (and thus not waste bandwidth) on articles they neither want nor need. We never got around to debating how to not download messages which simply say "Well put!" and then follow up with four pages of unnecessary quotes. I guess it's time for a new debate. I for one am glad that Pat does not censor this forum, but I'm starting to wonder if we need to ask him to set up a garbage filter. An increasing number of people seem to be doing this these days, and each time it happens, it makes the sender look like a backward grade-six student. C'mon folks ... a bit more care, please? If you're going to take the time and trouble to post something here (and thus take OUR time and trouble to read it), at least try to add something to the conversation. We don't have to agree with what you say, but as long as you actually say something, and don't simply regurgitate everything the last twelve people have said, we'll be happy. :-) Joey Lindstrom - Laird's Flooring joey@lairdsflooring.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Actually Joey, I *do* run a garbage dump here. You might be amazed (or maybe you would not be) at how many lines beginning '>' I whack out of the posts here. An old rule in the days of Usenet was never submit a message where you have more lines of original text than you have of reply text. In other words, 50/50 ratio at best, preferably much less original text than reply. I do cut out huge amounts of repitious text. Probably not as much as I should ... (: PAT] ------------------------------ From: altigensucks@yahoo.com (AltigenSucks) Subject: Looking for Problem Stories Dealing With Altigen Phone Systems Date: 5 Nov 2002 09:37:54 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Please send your negative stories to altigensucks@yahoo.com. I have had nothing but problems with this marginal phone system since I installed it and I am looking at starting a web page concerning this company. Any thing you supply me will be kept confidential if you request it. This system looks so good on the outside but is such a POS on the inside. Buyer beware. A.S. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Nov 2002 15:08:28 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Philips and Cingular Wireless Demonstrate Single Antenna Philips and Cingular Wireless Demonstrate Single Antenna Interference Cancellation Technology to Increase GSM Voice Capacity, Improve Voice Quality, and Speed Data Downloads - Nov 5, 2002 01:00 PM (BusinessWire) SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 5, 2002-- Cingular Wireless Completes Successful Trial Of Philips' New Interference Cancellation Chips for GSM/GPRS Mobile Handsets Royal Philips Electronics (NYSE:PHG)(AEX:PHI) and Cingular Wireless today reached an industry first with a successful commercial network field trial of single antenna interference cancellation (SAIC) chips for next generation GSM/GPRS mobile phones. This new semiconductor technology improves voice quality, decreases download times for data and increases the number of calls supported on the network for greater all-around efficiency. The technology will be part of Philips' cellular semiconductor baseband and system solutions offered to cellular handset manufacturers globally. The Cingular trials were conducted on cellular prototypes from Philips. Philips' technology enables mobile handsets to remove interference from undesired signals while efficiently focussing on the signals from the most appropriate base station. It provides network operators with shorter download times over GPRS data channels and offers more robust GSM communications, including Adaptive Multi-Rate (AMR) speech channels which translate into higher spectral efficiency allowing operators to carry more calls per base station. As a result, network capacity can be increased and service quality improved for cellular subscribers. The first trial of this technology was performed in Georgia, in North America by Cingular Wireless, a leader in mobile voice and data communications. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=29468661 ------------------------------ From: Joseph Subject: Re: AT&T Wireless Launches Voice-Activated Dialing Service Date: Tue, 05 Nov 2002 13:36:05 -0800 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Reply-To: joeofseattle@yahoo.com On Tue, 5 Nov 2002 10:35:05 -0500, Monty Solomon wrote: > AT&T Wireless Launches Voice-Activated Dialing Service; #121 > VoiceDial Service Now Available to Millions of Customers Across > the Country > - Nov 5, 2002 09:06 AM (BusinessWire) Why is this news? Sprint PCS has had this service for quite some time already. Replies are seldom read. Please reply in the group ------------------------------ From: Phil McKerracher Subject: Re: VoIP Test Equipment Date: Tue, 05 Nov 2002 22:49:26 GMT Organization: blueyonder (post doesn't reflect views of blueyonder) Andrew wrote in message news:telecom22.112.7@telecom-digest.org: > Does anyone know of some good "end-to-end" VoIP testing equipment > vendors that I can get in touch with? (SIP protocol analysis, packet > extraction and bulk generator, round trip delay and voice quality > measurements.) No, but I know a man who does. E-mail me for details (return address is valid). Phil McKerracher www.mckerracher.org ------------------------------ From: cheetah@cs.ucsb.edu (Matt) Subject: Doing Error Correction Date: 5 Nov 2002 14:52:49 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ I am transmitting a small group of data in a highly noisy environment. I have about 10 bits I need tranmitted reliably, and can send up to 32 bits of data to get it done. I have looked into using Reed-Solomon forward-error correcting, but due to the block-coding nature it doesn't work well with bit data. Does anyone have any tips on a good way to transmit a small amount of bit data reliably through possibly very heavy noise? Thanks. ------------------------------ From: Gail M. Hall Subject: Re: Connecting a FAX Machine to an Existing Answering Machine Date: Tue, 05 Nov 2002 19:13:35 -0500 Reply-To: gmhall@apk.net On Mon, 04 Nov 2002 20:06:32 -0800, in comp.dcom.telecom, you (AES Newspost ) wrote: > In article , Jay Hennigan > wrote: >>> Bottom line, however, is that the phone line must go from the wall >>> *through* the fax machine to the phone/answering machine; they can't >>> be plugged into the wall in different rooms. >> I don't see why this is necessary if it works as you describe. If the >> fax in this mode and the answering machine are both just bridged on >> the line and a fax call comes in, the answering machine will pick up. >> The fax is there silently listening for fax tone, bridged. If it >> hears fax tone, it goes off-hook. >> The answering machine senses the drop in voltage and disconnects, just >> as it would if an extension were lifted off-hook. If a human answers, >> the same thing happens, and the human hangs up when he hears the sound >> of modems mating. >> If the fax has such a mode, try it just in parallel and see if it works. > The reason I wrote such a lengthy description is that I have tried it > in parallel, and it doesn't work. You must go _thru_ the fax, then to > the answering machine, for it work properly. I think it depends on the fax machine. I have an old Sharp fax machine that has three modes. One is called "manual" where it is up to me to pick up and press a button to receive the fax. You use this when you plan to use the fax for both voice and fax but have no answering machine. Another mode is automatic pickup which answers the phone on the first ring and immediately gives out its fax sounds to let the other fax machine know it can send. The third mode is for when you have an answering machine attached to the fax machine. You set the answering machine to pick up right away and the fax machine "listens" for a fax tone from the other end. You set up your answering machine to answer immediately and play a message telling the person, "If you want to send a fax, press SEND now. If you want to leave a voice message, wait for the beep." If the fax machine does not hear the fax tone from the other end, it just sits there and does not interrupt anything. If the fax machine hears a fax tone, it acts like someone has picked up, which tells the answering machine to stop playing the message. I thought the user's manual explained the setup very well. > Your reply makes me realize, however, that while I think I have > properly described what the fax machine does (functionally), I may not > in fact fully understand how it does it (internally). I, too, don't know the technicalities, but if other fax machines work like mine does, this is a pretty good guide. The real case may depend on the make and model of the individual fax machine, so the best course is to look up in the manual how to set things up. If a fax machine does not have the "answering machine" feature, you need another gadget that can detect the difference between a fax tone and a voice call. I think most of those gadgets require you to have subscribed to "distinctive ring," which costs extra where I live. I think there are some fax machines that contain an answering machine within them so you don't have to have a stand-alone answering machine. I haven't shopped for fax machines lately, so don't know if they still make those. > In the bridged situation, however, is it not the case that when the > answering machine "picks up", the drop in voltage has already occurred > as a result of the answering machine's having answered? > So, although the fax, hearing the fax tone, can start taking in > electrons and trying to process them, it has no way to tell the > answering machine to stop playing it's annoying message (which may > screw up the fax transmission?). Somehow, the fax machine in its innards has a way of telling the answering machine that "someone" has picked up the phone or not, and stops giving out the message if it doesn't "hear" that "someone" picked up the phone. As long as there is no fax tone, the fax machine doesn't do anything but listen. Any answering machine that doesn't detect when someone picks up the phone and stops the message should be returned so you can get one that works the way it should. I think you might have a problem if you have an extension somewhere else in the house. I have an answering machine now that sometimes doesn't detect that someone answered the other extension, and I have to click the off-hook/on-hook button a couple times to stop the message from playing. I also discovered that my fax machine would not work on my phone line that has extensions. I don't know why, but it just wouldn't. Gail in Ohio USA ------------------------------ From: navarram@bellsouth.net (Dao) Subject: Meridian M2616 Work as Home Phone? Date: 5 Nov 2002 16:16:54 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ I have a Meridian M2616 that my company gave to me as a parting gift. I tried plugging it in to my phone line at home, but it doesn't work. Do these phones require a special line/adapter? Is there a way to make it work at home? Thanks in advancE! [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: If the Meridian M2616 is a digital phone then it will not work at all on a home phone line. It would work on a 'special line', i.e. a digital line, but I do not think there is such a thing as a 'special adapter' to use with it. Someone who might know better can correct me on this. 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 Fax 3: 775-642-0603 Fax 4: 530-309-7234 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 V22 #114 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Nov 7 02:12:50 2002 Received: from localhost (localhost [[UNIX: localhost]]) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.3nb1/8.11.3) id gA77Cou09738; Thu, 7 Nov 2002 02:12:50 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2002 02:12:50 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200211070712.gA77Cou09738@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #115 TELECOM Digest Thu, 7 Nov 2002 02:13:00 EST Volume 22 : Issue 115 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: SpamCop (vs. Politech) (Danny Burstein) Re: 000-000-0000 Caller ID (John Higdon) Re: 000-000-0000 Caller ID (John David Galt) Re: 000-000-0000 Caller ID (Dave Phelps) Re: What's the Frequency, Camden? The Same as Boston-Area TV (Ed Ellers) Re: What's the Frequency, Camden? The Same as Boston-Area TV (Zed**3) Re: Obtaining FEMA Essential Personell ID (Utility Employee) (D Farmer) Court to Clarify Definition of Fraud in Charitable Fund-Raising (Solomon) You Have Triggered a Spam Filter (tippenring@deadspam.com) Wholesale Air-Time (Kamal) 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: danny burstein Subject: Re: SpamCop (vs. politech) Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2002 00:30:49 UTC Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC In Monty Solomon writes: > Politech incorrectly blocked by SpamCop -- for the third time > Mon, 4 Nov 2002 10:20:56 -0500 (EST) > http://www.politechbot.com/p-04121.html (similar urls clipped for space ) While I count myself among Declan's fans, I have to side with SpamCop in this case. To quote from the cited url (http://www.politechbot.com/p-04121.html): Now SpamCop lists Politech on its spammer-list because some other servers also hosted at Rackspace.com are alleged spammers. While SpamCop could have done a better job of explaining this process, it's a pretty clear and very strong, and effective, method of dealing with spam friendly companies. I personally have received plenty of spam that utilizes Rackspace.com's services. As have many other people. Since their business model seems to be to take money from these parasites, many filtering groups have simply cut them off completely. Bit by bit, they'll find themselves in an ever shrinking intranet. Spammers, and spam facilitaters, have NO intrinsic right to my mailbox. And their trick of hosting "legitimate" services has long since lost any credibilty. To once again use my favorite analogy, they're equivalent to a supermarket that leaves rotting meat strewn across the aisles. As word gets out, fewer and fewer shoppers go there. The store may also have some of the best melt-in-your-mouth chocolate, in sealed containers (hence safe), but the store traffic just isn't there. Accordingly, the distributer ships and sells less product. The real complaint shouldn't be with the newspaper reporting the rotten meat, nor with the Department of Health. The chocolate distributer has the choice of: a) trucking their product to other stores b) leaning on the supermarket to clean up their act. Similarly, Declan's complaint shouldn't be with the spam filter groups, but should be with the spam friendly internet provider. Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key dannyb@panix.com [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded] ------------------------------ From: John Higdon Subject: Re: 000-000-0000 Caller ID Organization: Green Hills and Cows Date: Tue, 05 Nov 2002 13:42:13 -0800 In article , Mark Crispin wrote: > No, not at all. If PBX owners want the luxury of running their own > little telco, they should expect to be accountable. If they can not > or will not, then they should buy individual phone lines from the > telco. > If PBX owners can not (or will not) clean up their act, there are quite a > few more steps that can (and should) be taken. I don't want to rain on everyone's parade, but the matter is moot. The new wave of telemarketers do this: They order a bank of residential lines in someone's home. They connect a PC to the lines and to a VPN. The thing sits in a closet making thousands of automated junk calls a day in the metro area in which it lives. It gets residential rates (and in CA that means free local calling). The lines have CID unblocked, so the name of the person who ordered the lines and the number of the line making the call are visible. No ACR or even Privacy Manager will stop those calls. I just got a "refinance your mortgage" call from a telemarketing machine that identified as "Jack Mortenson" at 408 226-0706. So I (and now you) know the guy's name and number. So what? What the hell can we do about it? Oh, yeah ... call the phone company. "I work out of my home." End of investigation. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Exactly ... and I might go one step > further. Telcos like SWB are infamous for selling services they cannot > or do not back up; like Privacy Manager. I would require the telcos > to put manual entries in their database of those 'special' names a lot > of telemarketers/others like to use; names such as 'Name Unavailable', > 'Name Withheld', etc. Not all of us have a caller ID box right in front > of our faces all the time when a phone rings, so we cannot always go > looking for an ID box before deciding whether we should ignore the > 'obviously bogus' call. PAT Sorry. Useless. How about "Jack Mortenson"? Go ahead; call his number. You'll find it busy; his machine is busily bothering people all around the southern part of the SFBA. For all I know, the machine is actually owned and operated by someone in New York ... and controlled from there. And there isn't a damn thing we can do about it. In article , tonypo1@cox.net wrote: > No, the way I'd set it up is you get one warning. If you repeatedly send > false CLID information then the penalties kick in per occurence. What is "false"? What number must be displayed? The billing number of the PRI? Some number derived from a DID bank served on the switch? What if the switch is part of a national network and reachable by numbers all over the country? Some CIDs are set dynamically based upon auth and employee codes. What restrictions would you impose and how would you define them? Enterprize telephony is not some little simplistic one-to-one relationship designed for the convenience of the terminally stupid. If a call shows up as some impossible or un-recognizable number, let it go to VM and be done with it. We don't need more (and simplistically stupid) laws hamstringing telecommunications. > Make it > something on the order of $25 per reported incident. Not enough to > bankrupt but enough of an accounting problem to be a real pain in the > butt for telemarketers who think they can get around things like ACR. What about the telemarketers that call with correct CID showing? How are you going to stop them? Any idiot that will answer "000-000-0000" will certainly answer a call from "Jack Mortenson" at 408 226-0706. John Higdon | Email Address Valid | SF: +1 415 428-COWS +1 408 264 4115 | Anytown, USA | FAX: +1 408 264 4407 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I want to review just one of John's points above, i.e.'there is nothing anyone can do about it.' Oh yes there is. You can make life hell for Mr. Mortenson. Does Jack have any other listed directory (published) numbers at his premises? He must have one or two, unless he goes in the closet to make calls. I need not explain to readers here what could happen in those cases. And you say he is in business for himself, working from home? Then I would assume he has the required licenses for his business from the city and state government. And he is in the mortgage financing business? Then he would have the required permits from the commissioner of banking for California, right? Now let's say enough people file complaints that Jack has called them after that have told 'him' not to continue calling. Maybe one or two of them sue him for harassment, etc. Oh, listen now to Jack as he squeals: not me! I just rented out my closet to that company in New York to install/operate their computer. Or maybe the telemarketer goes out of business leaving a large bill due to the local telco, who retaliates by cutting off all Jack's phones (even his personal non-pub line; the one he actually uses) until he (*Jack*) pays the entire bill. A very problematic situation, John. I dunno about you, but I for one would be most reluctant to allow *anyone* (telemarketer or otherwise) to have a telephone on my premises which they controlled remotely and had listed in *my name*. Maybe they could get you to do it; I'd be afraid of the reputation the company had which then in turn got rubbed off on me by virtue of my name on someone's caller-ID. I am afraid even now, assuming that you gave the correct number for Jack Mortenson 408-226-0706, that some readers here in the SF Bay area might get abusive toward Jack and his privacy. As to the second part of your message 'what makes up a real number', I would say a REAL honest-to-God number is one that can be dialed into and an answer received (not just all zeros or one that is forever busied-out or one that rings open from now until the Kingdom Comes.) You might have to call at all sorts of odd hours, but that's part of the fun ... in other words John, a 'real' number for caller-id purposes is a number which allows someone some recourse to the person who called them. PAT] ------------------------------ From: John David Galt Subject: Re: 000-000-0000 Caller ID Date: Tue, 05 Nov 2002 16:37:57 -0800 Organization: Diogenes the Cynic Hot-Tubbing Society Patrick Townson wrote: > I would say 'accidental misconfigurations' of PBX could be treated as > civil violations, let's say a $500 fine for each complaint against you > until you get it resolved. This is equivilent to stores which accept > your check as payment then have it bounce 'accidentally' because of your > error. In Kansas and many other states, the store is allowed to collect > a civil penalty up to three times the value of the check. That's the > law's way of saying do your math a little better in the future. They're > not interested in putting you in jail; just in getting it cleared. > Deliberate or willful miscongurations of a PBX would be treated like > any sort of willful behavior. If you wrote dozens of checks from a > check book you 'happened to find' laying around somewhere, or opened > an account with no money and started writing checks, that is deliberate > and willful behavior. That's a crime. So should be the willful or > deliberate misconfiguration of a PBX. > What is deliberate behavior versus accidental behavior? That's for a > judge to figure out if it goes that far. PAT] I'm all for it. (How does one go about formally requesting the FCC to make a rule like this, anyway? Does it require an attorney?) But there's a small problem -- how do we catch violators? Unless they happen to call someone who gets ANI on their line, ISTM that the only people in a position to discover the caller's identity is his own LEC, which is unlikely to want to cooperate. "Who will bell the cat?" > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Exactly ... and I might go one step > further. Telcos like SWB are infamous for selling services they cannot > or do not back up; like Privacy Manager. I would require the telcos > to put manual entries in their database of those 'special' names a lot > of telemarketers/others like to use; names such as 'Name Unavailable', > 'Name Withheld', etc. Not all of us have a caller ID box right in front > of our faces all the time when a phone rings, so we cannot always go > looking for an ID box before deciding whether we should ignore the > 'obviously bogus' call. PAT While we're at it, telcos should not be allowed to let callers evade PM simply by calling you via the operator. Their willingness to do this is advertised in the phone book as part of the instructions for using PM. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I am tempted to say if they want to pay the outrageous surcharge given for operator-assisted calls these days, I would probably listen to them for a couple minutes before saying 'no' and hanging up. But you are correct; calls attempting to avoid privacy manager should be handled the same way calls to the operator to avoid 900 blocks on lines are handled. Did you ever call a 900 number from a line you knew was blocked just to see how it was handled? The intercept recording says 'calls to that number are not allowed from the phone you are using, **and the operator will not be able to complete your call for you either.**' . If in fact some dumb operator actually tries it, she can bubble all she likes on her keyboard terminal, the equipment simply will not release the call. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Dave Phelps Subject: Re: 000-000-0000 Caller ID Date: Tue, 5 Nov 2002 23:43:07 -0600 Pat said... > I would require the telcos > to put manual entries in their database of those 'special' names a lot > of telemarketers/others like to use; names such as 'Name Unavailable', > 'Name Withheld', etc. CID name is not provided by the PBX making the call, even with PRI. CID name lookups are performed by the CO serving the subscriber receiving the call. The only information a PBX can send is a phone number, and only with ISDN-PRI. Dave Phelps Phone Masters Ltd. deadspam=tippenring [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: That is true, however telcos which offer 'privacy manager' service (or like Southwestern Bell try to defraud people into signing up for it) maintain a database **on their end** which they have to dip when deciding whether or not a call is to be treated before being passed on to the subscriber. So, do all the reverse lookups you like matching names and numbers. If the recipient telco does a reverse lookup and gets back something like 'name unavailable', or 'private name' or etc, then recipient telco can jolly well manually edit their database to include those ficticious entries. ------------------------------ From: Ed Ellers Subject: Re: What's the Frequency, Camden? The Same as Boston-Area TV Date: Tue, 5 Nov 2002 19:45:33 -0500 John Stahl wrote: > In the HAM (Licensed Radio Amateur) "world" we have learned about strange > weather influenced conditions called "inversion" which has great > effect "in the propagation of higher frequency radio waves." > These weather conditions sometimes bring in signals from very far away > than would normally be possible. Perhaps this type of weather inversion > caused the reported interference between the long-distance separated TV > and police radios, as reported by others, evidentially on the same > frequency. TV engineer Doug Lung has a good column on this subject at http://www.tvtechnology.com/features/On-RF/f-DL-signals.shtml, with links to some other useful information including a fact sheet on VHF and UHF propagation prepared by the BBC (http://www.bbc.co.uk/reception/factsheets/docs/reception_weather.pdf if you just want to skip to the good stuff). ------------------------------ From: gc@radix.net (Zed**3) Subject: Re: What's the Frequency, Camden? The Same as Boston-Area TV Date: 6 Nov 2002 16:46:36 GMT Organization: Spontaneous > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Tell me what police and/or television > station use the same range of frequencies? Police, operating in VHF > are usually around 150-155 megs. On UHF the police are usually around > 450-470 megs. What TV stations are around there? None. How could this > be an FCC problem? PAT] There are several possibilities. In several large metropolitan areas some of the lower UHF TV channels in the range 470-512MHz have been assigned to private land mobile services, including police and fire. WCVB is on channel 5, so that is not likely the problem. Another possibility is that it is not the TV broadcast station itself that is causing the problem, but a studio to transmitter link (STL) that could be in the 450-470MHz range. There is a lack of technical details in the online article. ------------------------------ From: Dale Farmer Subject: Re: Obtaining FEMA Essential Personell ID (Utility Employee/Telecom) Date: Tue, 05 Nov 2002 21:46:38 -0500 Organization: Furry green fuzz in the back of the refrigerator Boo Phatty wrote: > Today, Sun, 03 Nov 2002 00:16:36 -0500, Two Buddha read a post from > Dale Farmer , and determined his interest in > BURP. Where's my beer? Oh and: >> Boo Phatty wrote: >>> Hello folks. Does anyone know where to apply for FEMA essential >>> personell access cards i.e. ID that allows you to be on the street and >>> in a disaster area? >>> For instance, VZ E-911 personnel carry old CD cards that allow them >>> access to/from the E911 center during blizzards or declared >>> emergencies, etc. >>> I'm probably not calling it the right thing, but I would appreciate a >>> pointer. FEMA's website is very light on information of this kind. >> You apply to your state emergency management agency. They are the >> ones that actually issue them. They do have agreements with >> hospitals, the phone company, cities and so on to have the appropriate >> logos and authorizations placed on the employees regular ID badges. >> This allows them to save a lot of money not issuing separate badges to >> all those folks. You had better have a good reason to have that >> badge. Saving your company a pile of money because you have to shut a >> process down or something like that will not cut it. You have to be >> part of something that will restore damaged public utilities, medical >> aid, or other emergency type services. >> --Dale > Thanks, that helps. I do have a reason, other than money, and it is > utilities related. > Do you know what they would call the program? Thanks in advance. Well, here in the People's Commonwealth of Taxachusetts, it is called the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency. ( MEMA) Their office is about thirty feet underground in a bunker in Framingham. That about runs out my direct knowledge on the subject. --Dale ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Nov 2002 22:57:54 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Court to Clarify Definition of Fraud in Charitable Fund-Raising Court to Clarify Definition of Fraud in Charitable Fund-Raising By LINDA GREENHOUSE WASHINGTON, Nov. 4 - Urged by a group of states to remove a constitutional obstacle to prosecuting fraud by professional fund-raisers, the Supreme Court agreed today to clarify the boundary that separates charitable solicitation from consumer fraud. The case was brought to the court by the Illinois attorney general's office, which for 10 years has tried to pursue a consumer fraud action against a telemarketing company that keeps 85 percent of the money it raises on behalf of a Vietnam War veterans' charity. The state's complaint against Telemarketing Associates Inc. was dismissed last year by the Illinois Supreme Court on the ground that charitable solicitation is a form of speech that is protected by the First Amendment. A trio of decisions by the United States Supreme Court in the 1980's established that principle and held that state regulators were constitutionally barred from designating a particular percentage of receipts that had to reach a charity in order for the fund-raising to be considered legitimate. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/05/national/05SCOT.html ------------------------------ From: tippenring@deadspam.com Subject: You Have Triggered a Spam Filter Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2002 05:43:31 GMT This is an automatic response: the recipient has not received your message. If you were trying to make a personal contact with the intended recipient, you have probably replied to a Usenet posting which has a spam-protected reply email address. Somewhere in that posting (probably in the .signature at the end) there will be instructions on how to mail the real address of its poster. Sorry for the inconvenience! Blame the spammers for causing people to go to these lengths. On the other hand, if you were trying to send spam (unsolicited bulk email) to this address, understand that it is utterly unwelcome, and has been utterly ignored, too. The recipient of your spam wishes your business all the success it deserves, given its current marketing strategy. Which is to say, none at all. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, tell me something tippingring; did the above come to you as a result of my mail to you, or something you attempted to send to me? All I got was the above, under your name. Spammers certainly have made a mess of the net and email; no doubt about it. PAT] ------------------------------ From: ecofriend@yahoo.com (Kamal) Subject: Wholesale Air-Time Date: 6 Nov 2002 08:30:26 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ If you live in the Marin County area and are thinking about switching from Verizon to Wholesale Air-Time, don't. I was told that I would be getting a substantial savings if I switched but it is actually costing me more than Verizon did. Ask all your questions before verifying your social security number with the account verification person. Anything discussed and promised to you after that is worthless. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: It sounds a lot like the early days of MCI. In the 1970's, MCI reps would arrogantly contact telco customers of AT&T (the only game in town in those days) and as soon as the customer answered the phone would begin chattering about how much you would save on your monthly bill by going with them. If you said no, thank you, I am not interested, their response was to look incredulous and say, 'you are not interested in reducing your long distance bill by 25 percent' (or whatever amount the rep made up.) They always aimed for the president of the company or the highest person they could reach. The idea was to reach the highest possible employee so the person *would* be interested in saving money for the company but very likely know little or nothing about the mechanics of the company phone system. They knew if they could get him to sign off on it, then they could use the highly placed executive to do their dirty work for them shoving it down the throats of all the underlings who *actually worked* with the phone system day by day. And if they could not shake you off your 'not interested' posture with their incredulous looks and insinuations that 'you must be crazy not to want to save big money using our network then they would write you off and demand to 'let me speak to your supervisor or someone who knows what he is talking about.' Those were crazy times in the industry. 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 Fax 3: 775-642-0603 Fax 4: 530-309-7234 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 V22 #115 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Nov 7 22:03:38 2002 Received: from localhost (localhost [[UNIX: localhost]]) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.3nb1/8.11.3) id gA833c925825; Thu, 7 Nov 2002 22:03:38 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2002 22:03:38 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200211080303.gA833c925825@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #116 TELECOM Digest Thu, 7 Nov 2002 22:04:00 EST Volume 22 : Issue 116 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: AT&T Wireless Launches Voice-Activated Dialing Service (J on Phone) Types of Broadband Jobs? (TI) Where is a Flat Rate For WAP Over GPRS? (freDZiK) Re: Wasting Bandwidth (Joseph) Re: 000-000-0000 Caller ID (Linc Madison) Re: 000-000-0000 Caller ID (John Higdon) Re: Townships, etc (Bill Levant) Re: Obtaining FEMA Essential Personell ID (Utility Employee) (Boo Phatty) New Motorola C332 and Motorola V70 Offer Customization (Monty Solomon) Motorola and Cingular Wireless Collaborate to Offer Product (M. Solomon) FCC Won't Review AOL, Comcast, AT&T Internet Deal (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: 617@volcanomail.com (J on the phone) Subject: Re: AT&T Wireless Launches Voice-Activated Dialing Service Date: 6 Nov 2002 20:48:52 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Joseph wrote (quoting Monty): >> AT&T Wireless Launches Voice-Activated Dialing Service; #121 >> VoiceDial Service Now Available to Millions of Customers Across >> the Country >> - Nov 5, 2002 09:06 AM (BusinessWire) > Why is this news? Sprint PCS has had this service for quite some time > already. It's news because it is a new feature to AT&T, much as SprintPCS would put out a press release if they added a full national plan or maybe even a customer service department. ------------------------------ From: anglomont@yahoo.com (TI) Subject: Types of Broadband Jobs? Date: 6 Nov 2002 20:57:11 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Can somebody please list the jobs for engineers in Cable TV/internet company, and which are the most attractive (lucrative) ones, I suppose dealing with billing? Thanks ------------------------------ From: freDZiK Subject: Where is a Flat Rate For WAP Over GPRS? Date: Thu, 07 Nov 2002 09:22:40 +0100 Organization: news.onet.pl Where is a flat rate for WAP over GPRS? I'm looking for countries where there is a monthly flat rate for WAP instead rate per kilobyte. ------------------------------ From: Joseph Subject: Re: Wasting Bandwidth Date: Wed, 06 Nov 2002 17:49:35 -0800 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Reply-To: joeofseattle@yahoo.com On Tue, 05 Nov 2002 13:25:03 -0700, Joey Lindstrom wrote: And Pat [commented]: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Actually Joey, I *do* run a garbage > dump here. You might be amazed (or maybe you would not be) at how > many lines beginning '>' I whack out of the posts here. An old rule > in the days of Usenet was never submit a message where you have more > lines of original text than you have of reply text. In other words, > 50/50 ratio at best, preferably much less original text than reply. > I do cut out huge amounts of repitious text. Probably not as much as > I should ... (: PAT] I lay much of the blame on this behaviour squarely at the feet of the man from Redmond Mr. Gates. Many people use the Outlook Express email program that has come bundled with Internet Explorer. As many know Internet Explorer is somewhat cemented to the Windows 98 operating system (as well as others?) People use OE because it's there and it's standard. Microsoft has like many times before made their own standard which doesn't go along with the standards that have been in use for years. I've in the past used OE for a while, but ultimately cannot use it as it seems like it won't let me do a line by line reply. It's either dump the original article after your reply or nothing at all. Many people will reply to a message and simply dump the entire original article back at you. I've learned by my mistake of asking people to snip their quote back, but for the most part it does no good or those who do the offence don't think I'm referring to them and they get all testy if you bring it to their attention. ------------------------------ From: Linc Madison Subject: Re: 000-000-0000 Caller ID Date: Thu, 07 Nov 2002 01:08:58 -0800 Organization: LincMad.com Consulting Reply-To: Telecom@LincMad.com In article , John Higdon wrote: > I don't want to rain on everyone's parade, but the matter [of > telemarketers presenting 000-000-0000 as caller ID] is moot. The new > wave of telemarketers do this: > They order a bank of residential lines in someone's home. They > connect a PC to the lines and to a VPN. The thing sits in a closet > making thousands of automated junk calls a day in the metro area in > which it lives. It gets residential rates (and in CA that means free > local calling). The lines have CID unblocked, so the name of the > person who ordered the lines and the number of the line making the > call are visible. No ACR or even Privacy Manager will stop those > calls. This practice is already illegal on several counts. First of all, these calls are all in direct violation of 47 USC 227. It is illegal for a telemarketing machine to cold-call you, period. (Unfortunately, political campaigns are exempt, as I'm sure most of us know from the last few days.) In any case, John, I simply don't believe that this is "the new wave" of telemarketing. The economics just don't fit, to put a telemarketing box in a closet everywhere they want to pester people, compared to having a single operation with dirt-cheap bulk long-distance rates. > I just got a "refinance your mortgage" call from a telemarketing > machine that identified as "Jack Mortenson" at 408 226-0706. So I > (and now you) know the guy's name and number. So what? What the hell > can we do about it? > Oh, yeah ... call the phone company. "I work out of my home." End of > investigation. It is improper to use a residential line in the way you describe. The telco is losing major revenue (higher monthly charges plus per-minute charges for local calls) from having the line incorrectly tariffed. The telco has much more incentive to investigate than to brush off the complaint. > How about "Jack Mortenson"? Go ahead; call his number. You'll find it > busy; his machine is busily bothering people all around the southern > part of the SFBA. For all I know, the machine is actually owned and > operated by someone in New York ... and controlled from there. > And there isn't a damn thing we can do about it. Jack Mortenson is local to you. File in small claims court under 47 USC 227. You'll win an easy $1,500 for your trouble (well, easy to win the judgment; collecting is another matter, but at least you can also compel the phone company to put him out of that particular business). Alternately, make it a class action suit and subpoena the call records. Even if you only file for $500 per call, you could quickly scare "Jack Mortenson" into rolling over on his "business partners." www dot LincMad dot com / Telecom at LincMad dot com Linc Madison * San Francisco, California ------------------------------ From: John Higdon Subject: Re: 000-000-0000 Caller ID Organization: Green Hills and Cows Date: Thu, 07 Nov 2002 00:08:52 -0800 In article , > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: > I want to review just one of John's points above, i.e.'there is > nothing anyone can do about it.' Oh yes there is. You can make life > hell for Mr. Mortenson. Does Jack have any other listed directory > (published) numbers at his premises? The San Jose directory lists eight Mortensons. Only one (initials "E.S." with no address) bears a phone number served from the same wire center as the telemarketing number. Obviously, I cannot just assume that there is any connection. Dead end. > He must have one or two, unless he goes in the closet to make > calls. I need not explain to readers here what could happen in those > cases. And you say he is in business for himself, working from home? > Then I would assume he has the required licenses for his business > from the city and state government. And he is in the mortgage > financing business? Then he would have the required permits from the > commissioner of banking for California, right? The problem is, we have no idea whether he is in the mortgage business, the telemarketing business, or the "rent out his closet" business. A good PI might be able to uncover all this, but the returns are too low to pursue any of this. My point in bringing all this up was simply to point out that it is an un-winable war. We, the terminally irritated, get ACR and Privacy Manager and the slime start using legitimate caller-ID. All the mechanisms in place that protect our privacy protect the privacy of slimeballs. > I dunno about you, but I for one would be most reluctant to allow > *anyone* (telemarketer or otherwise) to have a telephone on my > premises which they controlled remotely and had listed in *my name*. I dare say! > Maybe they could get you to do it; I'd be afraid of the reputation > the company had which then in turn got rubbed off on me by virtue of > my name on someone's caller-ID. I don't think so. > I am afraid even now, assuming that you gave the correct number for > Jack Mortenson 408-226-0706, that some readers here in the SF Bay > area might get abusive toward Jack and his privacy. One can only hope, but all they will get is a busy signal, as the war dialer pursues its mission. We have no assurance that Jack even used his real name when he took out phone service with SBC. When I see this stuff, I just think we are losing the war. Sorry to be such a defeatist. > As to the second part of your message 'what makes up a real number', I > would say a REAL honest-to-God number is one that can be dialed into > and an answer received (not just all zeros or one that is forever > busied-out or one that rings open from now until the Kingdom Comes.) > You might have to call at all sorts of odd hours, but that's part of > the fun ... in other words John, a 'real' number for caller-id purposes > is a number which allows someone some recourse to the person who > called them. I'm pretty sure I have "Jack's" real number. But if his war dialer is on it constantly, it is useless to have. John Higdon | Email Address Valid | SF: +1 415 428-COWS +1 408 264 4115 | Anytown, USA | FAX: +1 408 264 4407 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: What about at 4 AM Pacific, or 7 AM Eastern? And as to the 'nature of his business', what did 'his' representative disucss with you? That's the nature of his business, for the purpose of having business, banking licenses, etc. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Wlevant@aol.com Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2002 19:58:34 EST Subject: Re: Townships, etc Philadelphia is considered a "consolidated city-county". Legally, there is still actually a Philadelphia County, and some of the city "row officers" are technically county officers, such as the Sheriff of Philadelphia County (that's his correct title). Baltimore, MD, on the other hand, is considered an independent city. Functionally, there appears to be is little difference...in an independent city, SOMEONE has to do what county officers would otherwise do. Bill [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: And, Independence, Kansas (population 8842) is the county seat of Montgomery County, Kansas (population 31,000 in the county.) PAT] ------------------------------ From: Boo Phatty Subject: Re: Obtaining FEMA Essential Personell ID (Utility Employee/Telecom) Date: Thu, 07 Nov 2002 07:55:18 -0500 Organization: Darth Vader Enterprises, LLC Today, Tue, 05 Nov 2002 21:46:38 -0500, Two Buddha read a post from Dale Farmer , and determined his interest in BURP. Where's my beer? Oh and: > Boo Phatty wrote: >> Today, Sun, 03 Nov 2002 00:16:36 -0500, Two Buddha read a post from >> Dale Farmer , and determined his interest in >> BURP. Where's my beer? Oh and: >>> Boo Phatty wrote: >>>> Hello folks. Does anyone know where to apply for FEMA essential >>>> personell access cards i.e. ID that allows you to be on the street and >>>> in a disaster area? >>>> For instance, VZ E-911 personnel carry old CD cards that allow them >>>> access to/from the E911 center during blizzards or declared >>>> emergencies, etc. >>>> I'm probably not calling it the right thing, but I would appreciate a >>>> pointer. FEMA's website is very light on information of this kind. >>> You apply to your state emergency management agency. They are the >>> ones that actually issue them. They do have agreements with >>> hospitals, the phone company, cities and so on to have the appropriate >>> logos and authorizations placed on the employees regular ID badges. >>> This allows them to save a lot of money not issuing separate badges to >>> all those folks. You had better have a good reason to have that >>> badge. Saving your company a pile of money because you have to shut a >>> process down or something like that will not cut it. You have to be >>> part of something that will restore damaged public utilities, medical >>> aid, or other emergency type services. >>> --Dale >> Thanks, that helps. I do have a reason, other than money, and it is >> utilities related. >> Do you know what they would call the program? Thanks in advance. > Well, here in the People's Commonwealth of Taxachusetts, it is called > the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency. ( MEMA) Their > office is about thirty feet underground in a bunker in Framingham. > That about runs out my direct knowledge on the subject. Thanks Dale. I'm aware of MEMA, I'm in MA. I'm going to call today. I'll post my results. -BP ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2002 21:24:31 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: New Motorola C332 and Motorola V70 Offer Customization New Motorola C332 and Motorola V70 Offer Customization and High-Style to T-Mobile Customers New Motorola C332 Available From T-Mobile Packs Innovative Customization Features Into a Compact, Affordable Package LIBERTYVILLE, Ill., Nov. 6 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Motorola, Inc. (NYSE:MOT) today announced the nationwide availability of two Motorola mobile phones, the Motorola C332 and the Motorola V70, through T-Mobile USA, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom (NYSE:DT). Motorola design teams worked to create a unique look and form factor for the model C332 -- white housing with brightly colored side bands -- that exudes spontaneous fun. With the ability to change front and back covers, download screensavers and wallpaper, download MegaTones(TM) -- ring tone alerts that sound like actual musical chords, the Motorola C332 provides consumers the ability to Get More(SM) mobile personalization with their T-Mobile service. Equipped with an 'always on' connection to T-Mobile's nationwide all digital GPRS high-speed data network -- the largest in the country, covering more than 210 million people in 8,000 cities -- consumers now have the opportunity to quickly and easily create new "themes" for their Motorola C332 phone by downloading custom features anytime the mood hits them. Wish you were braving the winter on a tropical island? Snap on a festive-color cover, download a lounge chair and palm tree beach scene as your screensaver, and compose the sound of the waves - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=29484826 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2002 21:25:31 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Motorola and Cingular Wireless Collaborate to Offer Products Motorola and Cingular Wireless Collaborate to Offer Innovative New Handsets Cingular Exclusive Provider of the Customized Motorola C331, and the Tri-Band PDA Motorola A388 LIBERTYVILLE, Ill. and ATLANTA, Nov. 6 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Motorola, Inc. (NYSE:MOT) and Cingular Wireless today announced the arrival of two new handsets, demonstrating the companies' commitment to providing consumers with innovative devices designed to enable self-expression. The new handsets are the Motorola C331, co-designed by the companies and offered exclusively to consumers in all Cingular markets nationwide; and the Motorola A388, available in select Cingular GSM markets. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=29485062 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2002 23:44:10 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: FCC Won't Review AOL, Comcast, AT&T Internet Deal FCC won't review AOL, Comcast, AT&T Internet deal - Nov 6, 2002 06:20 PM (Reuters) By Jeremy Pelofsky WASHINGTON, Oct 31 (Reuters) - Comcast Corp. (NASDAQ:CMCSK) on Wednesday came closer to winning approval for its acquisition of rival cable operator AT&T Broadband after regulators declined to review a private deal for them to offer subscribers a selection of high-speed Internet service providers. The Federal Communications Commission refused to force the two companies to turn over a copy of their deal with AOL Time Warner Inc. (NYSE:AOL), a request made by consumer groups and EarthLink Inc. (NASDAQ:ELNK) who fear the agreement would harm competition and may include unfair financial terms. The issues raised by EarthLink and consumer groups "relate to business relationships between all unaffiliated ISPs and all cable operators, not only the applicants and AOL," the FCC said in denying the request. Democrat Commissioner Michael Copps dissented from the decision. The FCC does not directly oversee the Internet but since it uses the cable platform, some have argued that such transmission gives the agency jurisdiction. The FCC has other proceedings open to determine its purview over the service. The FCC staff has recommended that Comcast, the No. 3 U.S. cable operator, be allowed to buy AT&T Broadband, the No. 1 operator and a unit of AT&T Corp. (NYSE:T), for $33.6 billion, which would create a pay-television giant with almost 22 million subscribers. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=29502026 ------------------------------ 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 Fax 3: 775-642-0603 Fax 4: 530-309-7234 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 V22 #116 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Nov 8 21:56:02 2002 Received: from localhost (localhost [[UNIX: localhost]]) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.3nb1/8.11.3) id gA92u2816974; Fri, 8 Nov 2002 21:56:02 -0500 (EST) Date: Fri, 8 Nov 2002 21:56:02 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200211090256.gA92u2816974@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #117 TELECOM Digest Fri, 8 Nov 2002 21:56:00 EST Volume 22 : Issue 117 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Help Hooking Up Pay Phone (Slideman) QUALCOMM Announces Fourth Quarter and Fiscal 2002 Results (Monty Solomon) Viacom Keeps Watchful Eye on UK Broadcasters (Monty Solomon) US Says it Won't Oversee Added Microsoft Sanctions (Monty Solomon) Court to Set Rule on Rulings Release (Monty Solomon) Accesspoints Disclose Wep Keys, Password and Mac Filter (Monty Solomon) Qualcomm Monoculture is 'Killing American Wireless' (Monty Solomon) Why Does my Typing Appear on my Neighbour's PC? (Monty Solomon) Consumers, Digital Technology, and Copyrights (Monty Solomon) Outlook Express (Joey Lindstrom) Cross Connect Bay solution in Telcos? (PStreicher) Re: 000-000-0000 Caller ID (J. Debert) Re: 000-000-0000 Caller ID (John Higdon) SPCS, was Re: AT&T Wireless Launches Voice-Activated Dialing (S. Sobol) Re: Meridian M2616 Work as Home Phone? (Chuck Till) Re: SpamCop (Tom Betz) 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: Slideman Subject: Help Hooking up Pay Phone Date: Fri, 8 Nov 2002 13:37:01 -0500 Pat, I have a Western Electric pay phone that I wish to use in my game room at home. I can't seem to get to work. Can you help with some info on how to hook it up. Could it be not working because I have DSL line in the house? I am thanking you in advance for help that you can be. Slideman [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: A payphone (older, Western Electric at least) *should* work like a regular phone line. That is, the red and green wires should be attached to the line like any other phone. If you have a DSL line, then you will need a filter where the phone attaches to the incoming wires, just as you do on the other phones in your house. That filter keeps the 'hash' out of the line. On your DSL line, you do make voice calls as well don't you? I know I do on mine. That filter is needed at each termination on the line. You won't be able to collect money on that phone unless you get an incoming line from telco set up as a coin service line. Depending on *how old* the 'old payphone' from Western Electric is, you may need to wire the ground open all the time. Very, very old coin phones had cloth straight wires in the handset. Go up a generation or so, the handset wire was curly-twisted, but made with rubber/plastic coating on the wires. Move ahead a little and the handset cord became 'armored' or made with a thick wire cord in the handset. Then in the late sixties came trapdoors for the coin returns and a spring loaded button you had to push to get bent coins (and slugs) returned. The reason for the trapdoors on coin returns was because so many bratty children would use a bent coat hanger up the return slot to get their coins back after the <'dong'> had been registered audibly with the operator. And the cloth cord metamorphesed into rubber cord then armored cable to keep the same bratty children from sticking bent safety pins in them and short circuiting the ground; another technique for free dialtone. Then, as part of their overall 'making the system over from the ground up' philosophy in the 1970's, telco started giving dialtone first on payphones. Bratty children with bent coat hangers in those days sort of reminds me of how women used to give themselves abortions, when abortion doctors were all, under the law, illegal. Stick the coat hanger in the hole, and hopefully something would come out. We kids used to hope it would be the nickles and dimes we had just fed to the operator who had not yet gotten around to 'collecting' them, i.e. reversing the polarity in such a way that the collection table dropped to the right (coin return chute) rather than the left (bottomless pit where money stayed when it was collected.) Now you did not say how old was 'old', but if the phone is very old, you may need to 'trip' the ground onto the line momentarily to get a dial tone. (Help me out people; are there any longer 'ground-start' style lines instead the more usual 'loop-start' lines?) With the latter, which is almost everyone, when a phone goes off hook and the 'loop' is completed back to the central office, you get your dial tone. With the former, 'ground-start' style lines, ground has to be temporarily (like, for one second) applied to one side of the line. With your DSL, you have loop-start. But if the 'finger' at the side of the place where the coins fell in is set to spring out of the way for a second or two to let the coins fall in to the collection table below (and at the same apply ground for one second), you might want to snip the wires at that point and 'jump' them around the finger that slides up and down, to assure continuous audio since ground is no longer an issue. Or, did you plan to charge a nickle or dime for each call? Do you have the keys (the one for the coin collector at least) in the event you want to get the coin box open? See if these steps help you at all, and write back with more questions as needed. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2002 21:43:35 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: QUALCOMM Announces Fourth Quarter and Fiscal 2002 Results Q4 GAAP Revenues $874 Million, EPS $0.23 - FY2002 $3.0 Billion, EPS $0.44 Q4 Pro Forma Revenues $840 Million, EPS $0.31 - FY2002 $2.9 Billion, EPS $0.98 QUALCOMM's fourth quarter fiscal 2002 earnings conference call will be broadcast live on November 7, 2002 beginning at 2:30 p.m. Pacific Standard Time on the Company's web site at: www.qualcomm.com . This conference call may contain forward-looking financial information. The taped audio replay will be available for five business days. To listen to the replay, U.S. callers may dial (800) 633-8284 and international callers may dial (402) 977-9140. Both U.S. and international callers should use reservation number 20898587. SAN DIEGO, Nov. 7 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- QUALCOMM Incorporated (NASDAQ:QCOM) today announced its fourth quarter and fiscal 2002 results ended September 29, 2002. GAAP reported revenues were $874 million (34 percent increase) in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2002 compared to $651 million in the year ago quarter. GAAP reported earnings were $190 million or $0.23 per share in the fourth quarter compared to a loss of $75 million or $0.10 loss per share in the year ago quarter. GAAP reported revenues were $3.0 billion (13 percent increase) in fiscal 2002 compared to $2.7 billion in fiscal 2001. GAAP reported earnings were $360 million or $0.44 per share in fiscal 2002 compared to a loss of $578 million or $0.76 loss per share in fiscal 2001. Pro forma revenues were $840 million (29 percent increase) in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2002 compared to $651 million in the year ago quarter. Pro forma earnings were $250 million or $0.31 per share (63 percent increase) in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2002 compared to $155 million or $0.19 per share in the year ago quarter.(1) Pro forma revenues were $2.9 billion (9 percent increase) in fiscal 2002 compared to $2.7 billion in fiscal 2001. Pro forma earnings were $794 million or $0.98 per share (11 percent increase) in fiscal 2002 compared to $710 million or $0.88 per share in fiscal 2001 (see PRO FORMA CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF OPERATIONS table). The increase in revenues in the fourth quarter and fiscal 2002 compared to the year ago quarter and fiscal 2001 was primarily related to increasing demand for CDMA products across all major regions of CDMA deployment. http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=29523463 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2002 21:49:13 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Viacom Keeps Watchful Eye on UK Broadcasters By Merissa Marr, European media correspondent LONDON, Nov 7 (Reuters) - Viacom Inc. could be a speculator for ailing British broadcasters as the stranglehold of market regulation eases, but the entertainment giant is not plotting an imminent swoop, Chief Executive Sumner Redstone said on Thursday. In light of upcoming changes to Britain's media ownership laws that will finally allow U.S. media companies to swallow up UK broadcasters, Redstone said Viacom (NYSE:VIA) (NYSE:VIA.B) wanted to expand internationally and was "intrigued" by the UK deregulation. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=29522232 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2002 21:51:22 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: US Says it Won't Oversee Added Microsoft Sanctions By Peter Kaplan WASHINGTON, Nov 7 (Reuters) - It will be up to state prosecutors to enforce antitrust sanctions against Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT) that go beyond the company's settlement with the Justice Department, the department's chief antitrust enforcer said on Thursday. The department's antitrust division won't be responsible for overseeing a handful of additional restrictions that a federal judge added to her landmark antitrust ruling at the behest of some state attorneys general, U.S. antitrust chief Charles James said after a speech on Thursday. The ruling handed down last week by U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly endorsed Microsoft's antitrust settlement with the U.S. government and nine states. In it, Kollar-Kotelly rejected nearly all the demands for stronger sanctions by a group of nine other states seeking tougher sanctions against the company. At issue are a handful of additions the judge made at the behest of the dissenting states. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=29523825 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2002 21:53:06 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Court to Set Rule on Rulings Release By TED BRIDIS Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - The court that approved the Microsoft Corp. antitrust settlement last week will set new procedures for publishing sensitive rulings on its Internet site, after mistakenly disclosing the Microsoft decision nearly 90 minutes before financial markets closed. An internal investigation this week confirmed that court employees posted the Microsoft rulings to a location on the court's Web site they believed was inaccessible to the public, said Scheldon Snook, the administrative assistant to Thomas F. Hogan, the chief U.S. District Judge for the District of Columbia. But anyone with a Web browser could read the documents without a password. Technicians could have made that location effectively invisible to visitors with a simple change to their computer software. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=29526242 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2002 22:15:56 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Accesspoints Disclose Wep Keys, Password and Mac Filter Date: Sun, 3 Nov 2002 14:43:25 +0100 (CET) From: Tom Knienieder Subject: Accesspoints disclose wep keys, password and mac filter (fwd) KHAMSIN Security News KSN Reference: 2002-11-01 0001 ULO Title ----- Accesspoints disclose wep keys, password and mac filter Date ---- 2002-11-01 Description: ------------ GlobalSunTech develops Wireless Access Points for OEM customers like Linksys, D-Link and others. Capturing the traffic of a WISECOM GL2422AP-0T during the setup phase showed a security problem. Sending a broadcast packet to UDP port 27155 containing the string "gstsearch" causes the accesspoint to return wep keys, mac filter and admin password. This happens on the WLAN Side and on the LAN Side. Systems Affected Vulnerable, tested, OEM Version from GlobalSunTech: WISECOM GL2422AP-0T Possibly vulnerable, not tested, OEM Version from GlobalSunTech: D-Link DWL-900AP+ B1 version 2.1 and 2.2 ALLOY GL-2422AP-S EUSSO GL2422-AP LINKSYS WAP11-V2.2 http://online.securityfocus.com/archive/1/298432 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2002 22:32:56 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Qualcomm Monoculture is 'Killing American Wireless' By Andrew Orlowski in San Francisco Posted: 06/11/2002 at 23:42 GMT There's a huge reality gap if you follow wireless on this continent. Proponents of the CDMA phone system used by the large American networks (and rejected by most of the rest of the world) spend much time boasting about the system's "technical superiority". At the same time, the handsets and services here lag far behind those on offer even in developing countries. Yesterday's technology abounds: awful, antiquated phones are the norm. You just can't get the coolest toys here unless you opt for one of the GSM networks and when you do, as in California, you're effectively locking yourself into a local monopoly. Now, apart from a lunatic fringe of right-wing publications and enthusiasts, everybody knows this awful truth. Amps and hertz don't matter as much to the ordinary consumer as much as better handsets and better services, and more choice. A case in point: Bluetooth is a standard feature on many new GSM/GPRS phones but the first CDMA 1X phone has yet to be launched. We were astonished to learn, after speaking to representatives from Samsung and Kyocera which are launching interesting PalmOS-based smartphones that the industry is waiting on Bluetooth-capable chipsets from Qualcomm. What, just the one supplier? The following explanation comes from an experienced wireless professional who prefers to remain anonymous. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/39/27975.html ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2002 22:35:15 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Why Does my Typing Appear on my Neighbour's PC? By Drew Cullen Posted: 06/11/2002 at 16:18 GMT HP's wireless keyboards can transmit data to other computers in faraway buildings. No this is not a feature but an astonishing security flaw, discovered by two neighbours in Stavanger, southern Norway. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/54/27971.html ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Nov 2002 08:32:04 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Consumers, Digital Technology, and Copyrights Consumers' Research Magazine Consumer Alert Column September 2002 by James Plummer As computer-processing power and the bandwidths of Internet connections continue to expand exponentially, Hollywood has become increasingly nervous. DVD recorders are falling in price, and consumers on peer-to-peer (P2P) file-trading networks have taken the next step and started downloading copyrighted video as well as audio. The big media conglomerates are turning to Congress to codify a complicated Digital Rights Management (DRM) scheme that would allow the studies to hack into the computers of illicit file-trading consumers, and are leaning on the Justice Department to prosecute traders of unauthorized copies of copyrighted material on P2P networks. http://www.consumeralert.org/pubs/research/CRSep02.htm ------------------------------ From: Joey Lindstrom Date: Fri, 08 Nov 2002 08:40:15 -0700 Subject: Outlook Express Reply-To: joey@lairdsflooring.com On Thu, 7 Nov 2002 22:03:38 EST, Joseph wrote: > I lay much of the blame on this behaviour squarely at the feet of the > man from Redmond Mr. Gates. Many people use the Outlook Express email > program that has come bundled with Internet Explorer. As many know > Internet Explorer is somewhat cemented to the Windows 98 operating > system (as well as others?) People use OE because it's there and it's > standard. Microsoft has like many times before made their own > standard which doesn't go along with the standards that have been in > use for years. I've in the past used OE for a while, but ultimately > cannot use it as it seems like it won't let me do a line by line > reply. It's either dump the original article after your reply or > nothing at all. Many people will reply to a message and simply dump > the entire original article back at you. I've learned by my mistake > of asking people to snip their quote back, but for the most part it > does no good or those who do the offence don't think I'm referring to > them and they get all testy if you bring it to their attention. Your points about Outlook Express are well taken (and I think you'd be hard pressed to find any OE fans here). Similarly, the full version of Outlook has this nasty habit of defaulting to HTML or Rich Text on all outgoing messages and most people don't have a clue how to fix it. I run a mailing list which is not moderated -- a Digest goes out every day at 6pm without my intervention. Some of the people posting to it wind up sending these "double-posts" from Outlook -- it sends two copies of the message, one in plain text and the other in HTML. Looks like a dog's breakfast when it lands in my mailbox. So far I've not found a decent plug-in to my mail server that will let me filter this stuff out in a reliable way. But I think there's a difference here. The mailing list I operate is a "fan" thing, for fans of a particular musician (Gary Numan). So it's at least understandable that some person who happens to be a Numan fan gets his/her first computer, finds my mailing list, subscribes, and then pisses us all off with his/her first post to it -- they had no idea. THIS forum, though, is not one that would attract new-to-computers and/or new-to-the-net people -- at least, very few. The folks here have been around the block more than a few times -- you need only read a few editions of the Digest to have this confirmed quite forcefully. So I tend to expect a higher standard from the folks here (myself included), in terms of knowledge of what their computer systems and email applications are doing. Am I wrong for doing so? Joey Lindstrom - Laird's Flooring joey@lairdsflooring.com ------------------------------ From: pstreicher@aol.com (PStreicher) Date: 08 Nov 2002 07:04:21 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Cross Connect Bay Solution in Telcos? Help! Has anyone in the industry came up with a solution to the mess that has taken over the ccb bays in the central offices? I work for Verizon and have a terrible time trying to trace jumpers for troubleshooting problems these last few years. The problems all started when they began installing DSX cross connect panels into new bays that cross connected into the older cross connect bays. These newer DSX bays use four wires with a larger gauge wire that has now overtaken the space and is falling out of the older ccb bays. Wires are so tightly bundled now that when someone takes out an order of hi-cap they cut the wires instead of pulling them out. You can imagine what this could look like in a few years. These ccb bays are the spinal column of the telcom industry. Any failure in them would me disaster to the central offices in areas affected by them. Any info would be appreciated. ------------------------------ From: j debert Subject: Re: 000-000-0000 Caller ID Date: Thu, 07 Nov 2002 20:06:27 -0800 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com [SNIPPP!!!] Sometimes we get such numbers, which have _always_ turned out to be telespammers. We have also received calls from San Jose, 408-278, sequentially from a block of 18 numbers with different nonexistent personal and business names attached. Of course, Pa Bell says no one can change or falsify CID info. jd These people indicated that they love to spam. Let's return the love: mailto:info@jeyassociates.com | mailto:jeyassoc@pathcom.com mailto:admin@hrpromo.com | mailto:info@mbcfoods.com mailto:sales@friedredchicken.com | mailto:William@Kubicek.net ------------------------------ From: John Higdon Subject: Re: 000-000-0000 Caller ID Organization: Green Hills and Cows Date: Thu, 07 Nov 2002 21:21:57 -0800 In article , Linc Madison wrote: > This practice is already illegal on several counts. First of all, > these calls are all in direct violation of 47 USC 227. It is illegal > for a telemarketing machine to cold-call you, period. (Unfortunately, > political campaigns are exempt, as I'm sure most of us know from the > last few days.) No one appears to be enforcing this. The last time I tried, everyone said it was in someone else's jurisdiction. > It is improper to use a residential line in the way you describe. The > telco is losing major revenue (higher monthly charges plus per-minute > charges for local calls) from having the line incorrectly > tariffed. The telco has much more incentive to investigate than to > brush off the complaint. But unfortunately, for the past couple of years, telco appears to no longer care. The last two times I tried turning someone in with this, I got "they are simply working at home". > Jack Mortenson is local to you. File in small claims court under 47 USC > 227. You'll win an easy $1,500 for your trouble (well, easy to win the > judgment; collecting is another matter, but at least you can also > compel the phone company to put him out of that particular business). > Alternately, make it a class action suit and subpoena the call records. > Even if you only file for $500 per call, you could quickly scare "Jack > Mortenson" into rolling over on his "business partners." At this point, SBC is completely uncooperative and refuses to give me any information on "Jack". In order to do anything to or about "Jack", I need his real name and address, and I'm not quite sure where to get that. Telco is much better at keeping records private than they used to be. John Higdon | Email Address Valid | SF: +1 415 428-COWS +1 408 264 4115 | Anytown, USA | FAX: +1 408 264 4407 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Don't worry about telco record keeping. Just start suing and let them figure it out. Don't worry, they will, when it is time to come to court. Start with using *57 on his calls. That instigates a trace, with information on the trace forwarded to the police. Keep your own diary on the calls, as well, listing times, content of the discussions, etc. If telco does not produce records to the police so that you can follow up with a police complaint, then your next step would be to talk to the FCC or California commission regards telco's apparent lack of concern. Warning: police will not serve as your private detective agency or collection agency. *If* telco hands a printout to police then YOU be prepared to move forward with it criminally. All you need to do in your diary or journal of the whole thing is note the phone number which was identified by telco as 408-xxx-xxxx and a person who uses the alias name 'Jack Mortenson'. HE is the one who called you unsolicited at various hours, HE is the one who refused to quit calling even though you requested it. HE is the one you are suing for his willful behavior. Just play the straight man role through the whole thing. I know this last part may be hard for you John, but do not talk smart to the police or the phone company. They are the experts; their system works for them, right? Just play the straight man and wounded victim throughout. Let us know how you make out and how much you can collect from 'Jack' or his associates. PAT] ------------------------------ From: sjsobol@JustThe.net (Steven J. Sobol) Subject: SPCS, was Re: AT&T Wireless Launches Voice-Activated Dialing Date: Fri, 08 Nov 2002 03:38:02 -0000 Organization: JustThe.net LLC From 'J on the phone' <617@volcanomail.com>: > It's news because it is a new feature to AT&T, much as SprintPCS would > put out a press release if they added a full national plan or maybe > even a customer service department. Offtopic for this thread, but there was a recent article in the Kansas City Star about how the new SPCS CEO is trying to turn around the abysmal reputation they have for customer lack-of-service. I'm on VZW here, wife's on SPCS; SPCS's northeast Ohio network is solid and call quality is great -- my number one issue with SPCS is lack of customer service, diametrically opposite to VZW, whose sales reps and Ohio call center staff* are just absolutely fantastic. I am hoping that SPCS will do an about-face. Eliminating the 15-25 minute hold times will do a lot to make me happy. SPCS needs to visit Columbus and talk to the people at VZW's call center to find out what real customer service reps do for a living. **SJS *Customer service for the Cleveland-Akron-Canton-Ashtabula-Dover-New Philly network is handled by the VZW call center in Dublin, Ohio, just outside Columbus. Aside from the (very) occasional clueless goober, I've had lots of good experiences with the people I've talked to down there. The retail store I generally visit is in Mentor, Ohio, across from Great Lakes Mall. The people there are very helpful. Steve Sobol, CTO JustThe.net LLC, Mentor On The Lake, OH http://JustTheNetLLC.com/ (check out the new site!) 888.480.4NET (4638) A practicing member of the Geek Orthodox religion! ------------------------------ From: ctill@nc.rr.com (Chuck Till) Subject: Re: Meridian M2616 Work as Home Phone? Date: Fri, 08 Nov 2002 04:59:44 GMT Organization: Road Runner - NC > I have a Meridian M2616 that my company gave to me as a parting > gift. I tried plugging it in to my phone line at home, but it doesn't > work. Is there a way to make it work at home? No. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I used to work, years ago, for a department store in downtown Chicago part time, looking after their phone system. One day, someone simply liberated (stole) a digital phone from a desk; more than likely to *try* and use at home. Some of you may remember also when I was the bus agent in Skokie, Illinois. We had six-button, five-line *analogue* phones. Greyhound got mad one day at us for having those 'old fashioned phones' and sent us three brand new digital phones, and put in an order for Illinois Bell to come and install them. The phone guy came out and saw them, and made a terrible stink, assuring all of us 'that type' of phone will not work on these lines. He (phone man) took them away with him and came back with the same style/brand of phones, that were analogue, and put those in. So my answer to your question above is a three letter word: N-O-E. Will not work. End of discussion. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Tom Betz Subject: Re: SpamCop Date: Fri, 8 Nov 2002 06:21:53 UTC Organization: XOme Quoth Monty Solomon in news:telecom22.113.7@telecom- digest.org: > Politech incorrectly blocked by SpamCop -- for the third time > Mon, 4 Nov 2002 10:20:56 -0500 (EST) > http://www.politechbot.com/p-04121.html > Ray Everett-Church on systemic problems with SpamCop > Mon, 4 Nov 2002 15:53:51 -0500 (EST) > http://www.politechbot.com/p-04126.html > Paul Levy on why SpamCop is liable for its overbroad "spam" lists > Mon, 4 Nov 2002 22:55:57 -0500 (EST) > http://www.politechbot.com/p-04128.html > Why not to use SpamCop -- some first-hand accounts > Mon, 4 Nov 2002 23:20:27 -0500 (EST) > http://www.politechbot.com/p-04129.html Note that poor Declan refused to publish any e-mail he received explaining why people SHOULD use Spamcop. Like this one, for example: On 4 Nov 2002 at 9:37, Declan McCulloch wrote: > SpamCop lists Politech on its spammer-list because some other servers also > hosted at Rackspace.com are alleged spammers. "alleged" my left foot. Rackspace is notorious for hosting spammers long-term and with impunity until their checks start to bounce. Recently, the volume of spam emanating from Rackspace has increased by leaps and bounds, making Spamcop list the space whence the spam originates for longer periods of time. The problem is not with Spamcop, the problem is with Rackspace. Spamcop's automated system is working just fine. I use bl.spamcop.net to great effect, but I've whitelisted cluebot.com so that I get what I want from it. However, as long as cluebot.com is living in a spammer-infested neighborhood, I don't WANT cluebot de-listed. If you don't like the results of Rackspace's lax management, it seems to me that you have you have four realistic choices: 1) Leave Rackspace. 2) As you become aware of them, petition the owners of all the servers bouncing your e-mail because of the Spamcop listing (you ARE paying attention to your bounce messages, aren't you?) to whitelist cluebot.com. 3) Arrange for some non-spammy provider to act as a smarthost for cluebot.com (and maybe bill Rackspace for what it costs you, as they aren't providing you with the connectivity you contracted for). 4) Lump it. After all, bl.spamcop.net is only used by Spamcop customers and people who (like me) have decided to use it despite Julian's warning that it is experimental and will catch non-spam. All who use it have the option to whitelist and to use it to divert e-mail into holding folders instead of deleting it. Well, I guess there is a fifth choice: 5) Whine to everyone who will listen about how unfair Spamcop is. But of course, we all know you're above that, aren't you Declan? [ end my friendly note to him ] While he didn't pass it along to other Politech subscribers, he did reply with "Sod off." ------------------------------ 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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End of TELECOM Digest V22 #117 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat Nov 9 19:42:47 2002 Received: from localhost (localhost [[UNIX: localhost]]) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.3nb1/8.11.3) id gAA0gl111484; Sat, 9 Nov 2002 19:42:47 -0500 (EST) Date: Sat, 9 Nov 2002 19:42:47 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200211100042.gAA0gl111484@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #118 TELECOM Digest Sat, 9 Nov 2002 19:43:00 EST Volume 22 : Issue 118 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson FCC Rules Against Consumer Groups (Monty Solomon) FCC Eases the Way for 3G Wireless (Monty Solomon) PCS Vision(SM) From Sprint Recognized as One of the World's (M. Solomon) Delay Sought on Comcast-AT&T Merger (Monty Solomon) SONICblue and TiVo Drop Patent Infringement Suits (Monty Solomon) More on SpamCop (Monty Solomon) Re: 000-000-0000 Caller ID (John Higdon) Re: 000-000-0000 Caller ID (Boo Phatty) Re: Help Hooking up Pay Phone (Boo Phatty) Known Origin of Predictive Dialer (Mark Smigel) Panasonic KX-TD816 Fax Hookup (Jeremy Marks) Re: Cross Connect Bay Solution in Telcos? (Boo Phatty) Panasonic KX-TD816 (Jeremy Marks) Read This For Me: UNIVERSIDAD DE SALAMANCA (General / Cursos de ) Business Directory: Harvesting Auction Email Adresses (David B. Horvath) Qualcomm Finally Mixes Network Cocktail (Monty Solomon) Cybersecurity Bill Nears House Vote (Monty Solomon) The FBI's Cybercrime Crackdown (Monty Solomon) Cable Company Pleads Guilty to Trying To Defraud Pentagon (Monty Solomon) Ma Bell Redux (Monty Solomon) Pentagon Plans a Computer System That Would Spy on You (Monty Solomon) Europeans Outlaw Net Hate Speech (Monty Solomon) Third Former Drexel U Student Being Investigated (Monty Solomon) Feds Enter Breeders' Cup Wage Probe (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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 8 Nov 2002 20:35:15 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: FCC Rules Against Consumer Groups By Roy Mark The Federal Communications Commission will not require Comcast to publicly reveal details of its Internet service provider deal with AOL Time Warner as part of the FCC review of the proposed Comcast-AT&T Broadband merger. ISPs and consumer groups wanted the AOL TW agreement to be opened to public comment as part of the FCC's review of the merger. They claimed the contract is material to the merger process and may "reflect new concerns about competition and the free flow of information" on Comcast's broadband network, as well as creating a "dangerous precedent against openness and nondiscrimination" on the Internet as a whole. http://dc.internet.com/news/article.php/1496521 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Nov 2002 20:59:43 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: FCC Eases the Way for 3G Wireless By Michael Grebb 02:00 AM Nov. 08, 2002 PT WASHINGTON -- This may go down as the week the federal government took a hard look at its spectrum policy and decided to get medieval on its you-know-what. On Thursday, the Federal Communications Commission created a new stomping ground for so-called "advanced wireless services," including next-generation (3G) services such as broadband wireless Internet access. Advanced wireless services sound specific enough, but trying to pinpoint what those services entail is a murky affair. Specifically, the FCC ordered that about 90 MHz of spectrum (in two 45-MHz swaths) now used by government and commercial players, be designated for everything from boring old voice calls to futuristic Dick Tracy-style wireless wristwatches. http://www.wired.com/news/wireless/0,1382,56268,00.html ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Nov 2002 22:23:47 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: PCS Vision(SM) From Sprint Recognized as One of the World's Most PCS Vision(SM) From Sprint Recognized as One of the World's Most Innovative Technologies by Popular Science New Service Recognized in 'Best of What's New' Issue OVERLAND PARK, Kan. and NEW YORK, Nov. 8 /PRNewswire/ -- Less than six months after its nationwide launch, PCS Vision(SM) from Sprint has been touted as one of the most outstanding technologies by Popular Science Magazine. The issue will be on newsstands November 12. Sprint (NYSE:FON, PCS) operates the largest all-digital, all-PCS nationwide network, and launched its enhanced wireless service earlier this year. (Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20001013/SPRINTLOGO ) PCS Vision includes services that allow customers to browse the Internet wirelessly at speeds comparable to a home computer's dial-up connection; check personal and corporate e-mail; download polyphonic ringers and full-color, graphically-rich games and screen savers; and take and receive pictures with the PCS Vision Camera(SM) on select Vision-enabled PCS Phones. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=29534401 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Nov 2002 22:30:28 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Delay Sought on Comcast-AT&T Merger By BILL BERGSTROM AP Business Writer PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Consumer groups urged federal regulators Friday to delay final approval of the merger between Comcast and AT&T Broadband, which the organizations say would limit customers' TV viewing and Internet access choices. Comcast said in a response to the Federal Communications Commission that the opponents' ``empty assertions plainly afford no basis for further delaying the merger review process.'' FCC approval is one of the final hurdles for the deal, which could close as early as next week after an exchange of $11.8 billion in AT&T bonds for AT&T Comcast notes is completed. The bond exchange is part of the transfer of $20 billion worth of debt from AT&T to the new company. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=29545856 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Nov 2002 22:32:36 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: SONICblue and TiVo Drop Patent Infringement Suits SONICblue and TiVo Drop Patent Infringement Suits - Nov 8, 2002 06:05 PM (BusinessWire) - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=29546666 Sonicblue, TiVo settle patent spat By Richard Shim Staff Writer, CNET News.com November 8, 2002, 4:24 PM PT http://news.com.com/2100-1040-965166.html ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Nov 2002 23:10:56 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: More on SpamCop SpamCop's Julian Haight replies to Politech, and other defenses Tue, 5 Nov 2002 04:01:47 -0500 (EST) http://www.politechbot.com/p-04132.html SpamCop reportedly backs down, removes Politech from blacklist? Thu, 7 Nov 2002 03:37:18 -0500 (EST) http://www.politechbot.com/p-04136.html UK.COM, the slightly silly but popular para-TLD, disappeared briefly from the Net this week. The reason, as ever in DNSland, was a combination of overearnestness and mild incompetence that slowly escalated until it hit Verisign, home of *fantastic* incompetence. It started with spamcop and rfc-ignorant.org deciding they'd seen spam from a *.uk.com domain - and therefore, uk.com were responsible. http://www.ntk.net/2002/11/08/#HARD_NEWS ------------------------------ From: John Higdon Subject: Re: 000-000-0000 Caller ID Organization: Green Hills and Cows Date: Fri, 08 Nov 2002 19:16:41 -0800 In article , j debert wrote: > We have also received calls from San Jose, 408-278, sequentially from > a block of 18 numbers with different nonexistent personal and business > names attached. 408-278 is out of the downtown office and is generally reserved for DID blocks. It would be easy to find an entire swath of out-of-service numbers in that prefix to be used for phony CID. > Of course, Pa Bell says no one can change or falsify CID info. That is exactly the line I got when I had to beat them over the head to fix major security holes in their VM system. I had to literally demonstrate to them how easy it was to penetrate the VM boxes of customers. Then ... I got treated like a criminal. Actually, it was quite an amusing adventure that even got written up in Wired Magazine. John Higdon | Email Address Valid | SF: +1 415 428-COWS +1 408 264 4115 | Anytown, USA | FAX: +1 408 264 4407 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: John, would you care to write this story up for TELECOM Digest also; or perhaps get an okay from Wired to use their account? I don't think most readers here know the details as well as some people. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Boo Phatty Subject: Re: 000-000-0000 Caller ID Date: Sat, 09 Nov 2002 01:45:16 -0500 Organization: Darth Vader Enterprises, LLC Today, Thu, 07 Nov 2002 20:06:27 -0800, Two Buddha read a post from j debert , and determined his interest in BURP. Where's my beer? Oh and: > [SNIPPP!!!] > Sometimes we get such numbers, which have _always_ turned out to be > telespammers. > We have also received calls from San Jose, 408-278, sequentially from > a block of 18 numbers with different nonexistent personal and business > names attached. > Of course, Pa Bell says no one can change or falsify CID info. Really? Then how come fraudsters can pulse false numbers from the phones on some cell networks after reprogramming the phones? How come 000's come up? They aren't falsifying, it's the telcos that are not completing the CNAM entries and they are plugging in 000's instead of leaving it blank. But leaving them blank, at the request of the TM'ers is bad too. It's the telcos. <--- They settle call center bills weekly so they don't get screwed. Cash wires. Some daily even. Call centers are a big source of revenue, and fraud. ------------------------------ From: Boo Phatty Subject: Re: Help Hooking up Pay Phone Date: Sat, 09 Nov 2002 13:18:09 -0500 Organization: Darth Vader Enterprises, LLC Today, Fri, 8 Nov 2002 13:37:01 -0500, Two Buddha read a post from Slideman , and determined his interest in BURP. Where's my beer? Oh and: > Pat, > I have a Western Electric pay phone that I wish to use in my game > room at home. I can't seem to get to work. Can you help with some info > on how to hook it up. Could it be not working because I have DSL line > in the house? I am thanking you in advance for help that you can be. You need a filter on the line connected to the DSL service. It acts like an A/D converter. All analog devices will need this filter i.e. phone, fax, etc. ------------------------------ From: mjsmigel@hotmail.com (Mark Smigel) Subject: Known Origin of Predictive Dialer Date: 9 Nov 2002 13:30:54 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ At our business location we've been getting many calls (6x daily) from a predictive dialer. What's unusual is it has an actual number on the CID: 631-673-2300, but no CID name. Having dealt with predictive dialers before, this is almost certainly what it is. The line hangs up immediately at the end of our greeting (almost exactly as we speak the last word). We've gotten telemarketing calls before, so I am positive this is what it is. Calling the number back, the line seems to reset itself (hangs up). Is there any way of finding out who this is, contacting their telco, or putting a block on them? We would use SWBT's block, but it doesn't allow you to enter anything outside the local calling area. We're in area code 405, Oklahoma City area. Thanks, MJ [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Do the same thing I suggested to John H. yesterday: do *57 following the call, and keep a diary of the calls as they come in. Just put them down as 'ring my phone but then don't speak.' That is against the law also, if it happens repeatedly as it seems to be in your case. Nearly everywhere has a law against using a telephone to harass people; i.e. causing it to ring repeatedly, etc. When/if you get back a report from SWBT via the police, file the requested complaint. Let's put those predictive dialers out of business once and for all. Remember, always be the straight man, the injured party. PAT] ------------------------------ From: jmarks@futurenetaz.com (Jeremy Marks) Subject: Panasonic KX-TD816 Fax Hookup Date: 8 Nov 2002 20:22:13 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ I have a Panasonic KX-TD816 phone system and just added an HP Officejet D135 fax/printer/scanner all-in-one unit. I have all the programming software and cables, but I do not know how to change the settings -- or what setting -- so that my fax will send via the system. Theoretically ... we have two phone lines into the system. I want to have line number two as the fax line. All calls to line number 2 automatically get answered by the fax. Line number 1 and 2 can both be accessed via the phone system (phones). Where do I connect the fax to (the back of the phone)? Any and all help is greatly appreciated. Thanks, Jeremy ------------------------------ From: Boo Phatty Subject: Re: Cross Connect Bay Solution in Telcos? Date: Sat, 09 Nov 2002 01:46:39 -0500 Organization: Darth Vader Enterprises, LLC Today, 08 Nov 2002 07:04:21 GMT, Two Buddha read a post from pstreicher@aol.com (PStreicher), and determined his interest in BURP. Where's my beer? Oh and: > Help! Has anyone in the industry came up with a solution to the mess > that has taken over the ccb bays in the central offices? I work for > Verizon and have a terrible time trying to trace jumpers for > troubleshooting problems these last few years. The problems all > started when they began installing DSX cross connect panels into new > bays that cross connected into the older cross connect bays. These > newer DSX bays use four wires with a larger gauge wire that has now > overtaken the space and is falling out of the older ccb bays. Wires > are so tightly bundled now that when someone takes out an order of > hi-cap they cut the wires instead of pulling them out. You can imagine > what this could look like in a few years. These ccb bays are the > spinal column of the telcom industry. Any failure in them would me > disaster to the central offices in areas affected by them. Any info > would be appreciated. Yeah, it's called using the factory bays with the 10" cable managers and the .01 amp tracer lights. ------------------------------ From: jmarks@futurenet-consulting.com (Jeremy Marks) Subject: Panasonic KX-TD816 Organization: Futurenet Reply-To: jmarks@futurenet-consulting.com Date: Sat, 09 Nov 2002 15:22:37 GMT I have installed my first Panasonic KX-TD 816 phone system for my in-laws and all is working perfectly ... except they added a fax machine into the fold last night. Their system is configured with two telephone lines going into the system. Line #2 is their fax line, but should be in the system so they can make outgoing calls on it if line#1 is busy. All calls to line #2 should go directly to the fax machine. Here are my questions: Do I plug the fax machine into the back of their display phone to get dial-tone? What programming areas and changes do I need to address to route the calls on line #2 directly to the fax? Are there any other items that need to be changed? Thanks for your help. Jeremy ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 09 Nov 2002 17:23:41 +0100 From: General / Cursos de Subject: UNIVERSIDAD DE SALAMANCA [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: So tell me guys ... did the Digest get spammed once again with this message that follows? Read it to me, please. PAT] Estimado/a Sr./a.: Entre los dias 7 y 24 de enero de 2003, celebraremos en nuestra Universidad la XII Edicion de los CURSOS DE POSTGRADO EN DERECHO. En esta edicion hemos programado 19 especialidades que seran impartidas por mas de 170 profesores y conferenciantes, seleccionados entre los expertos mas relevantes del panorama juridico. Mas de 1000 horas de clase, conferencias, actividades culturales... todo ello en el incomparable marco que ofrece el Centro Europeo de ensenanza superior mas prestigioso y antiguo de habla hispana: la UNIVERSIDAD DE SALAMANCA. Podra consultar todos los detalles de esta convocatoria (programas academicos, inscripcion, alojamiento, desplazamiento.....) en nuestra pagina de internet: http://www.postgrado.org/ Si desea que le ampliemos la informacion no dude en ponerse en contacto con nosotros. Agradeciendo su atencion e interes, reciba un cordial saludo. JUAN CARLOS FERRE OLIVE Director-Gerente --------------------------------------------- Si no desea volver a recibir informacion de esta institucion envienos un mensaje con la palabra "BORRAR" --------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------- Las tildes y otros signos de puntuacion han sido suprimidos deliberadamente para evitar errores de transmision --------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------- Roberto Pelazas Manso UNIVERSIDAD DE SALAMANCA FUNDACION GENERAL Direccion de Altos Estudios C/ Cardenal Pla y Deniel, 22 37008 - SALAMANCA (ESPAÑA) Tel: +34 923 294 679 Fax: +34 923 294 702 E-Mail: postgrado@usal.es Internet: http://www.postgrado.org --------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 08 Nov 2002 20:44:57 -0500 (EST) From: dhorvath@cobs.com (David B. Horvath, CCP) Subject: For the Business Directory: Harvest Auction Email Addresses TELECOM-L REMOVE DISCLAIMER Call if you're interested in email harvesting software or any other applications these folks might have for sale. > I am selling some great auction software. This > software will actually pick up email addresses > from the most popular auction site on the > internet. Depending on the speed of your computer , > you can pick up from 2,000 - 40,000 email > addresses for auction users in less than 6 hours > evertime you start it and you can even run > multiple instances of this software. I am selling > this software very cheap . Please email me your > contact info if you are genuinely interested or > call me toll-free 877-359-2698 . I also have many > other aplications that I am selling. And another place is offering a great deal on Cell phones. I had to go to their web page for their contact information: WELCOME TO GOZING - CALL US AT 800- 240- 4209 - David ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Nov 2002 23:24:39 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Qualcomm Finally Mixes Network Cocktail By Ben Charny Staff Writer, CNET News.com November 8, 2002, 3:31 PM PT Equipment that lets wireless carriers using GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) networks convert to Qualcomm's rival technology is set for its first trial, a company executive said Friday. Sanjay Jha, a Qualcomm senior vice president, said the trial will test the operation of the technology, known as GSM1x, and not whether there is a market for it. The tests will involve a few hundred customers and begins early next year. GSM1x was created as a way for GSM carriers to add Qualcomm's 1x cell phone technology to their networks. Short for CDMA20001xrtt, 1x is built on the CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) standard and promises to double voice calling capacity and create a wireless Web with download speeds of 40kbps to 60kbps (kilobits per second). http://news.com.com/2100-1033-965147.html ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Nov 2002 23:29:55 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Cybersecurity Bill Nears House Vote By Declan McCullagh Staff Writer, CNET News.com November 8, 2002, 4:31 PM PT American universities may receive a nearly $1 billion windfall next week, when Congress is expected to approve a massive new spending program for computer security. On Tuesday, the House is scheduled to vote on a bill that would spend approximately $900 million over the next five years to recruit graduate students and faculty members in computer security and create research centers at colleges and universities. The measure, which already has been approved by the Senate, also requires the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to create checklists for government agencies to help them with common computer security woes. Agencies are not required to abide by the checklist, but they must report whether it was followed. http://news.com.com/2100-1023-965164.html ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Nov 2002 23:34:53 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: The FBI's Cybercrime Crackdown By Simson Garfinkel November 7, 2002 In contrast to the teenage hackers of yore, today's perpetrators -- virtually all of them adults -- mount extremely sophisticated attacks. They don't brag, and they don't leave obvious tracks. To protect the classified information stored on her desktop computer, Special Agent Nenette Day uses one of the most powerful tools on the planet -- an air gap. Day points to an IBM ThinkPad resting on the table behind her desk. "That computer is hooked up to the Internet," she says. "But if you break into it, have a good time: there's no secret work on it." Two meters away on her desk sits Day's other computer -- a gray-and-chrome minitower emblazoned with a red sticker proclaiming that its hard drive is classified SECRET. "This," she says protectively, "holds my e-mail." Day readily talks about the ThinkPad, describing how she got it as part of a big purchase by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) a few years ago and explaining that it's now somewhat out-of-date. And she happily shows off a collectible action figure -- still in its display box -- a colleague brought back from Belgium. It's a "cyberagent" with a gun in one hand and a laptop computer in the other. But if you let your eyes drift back to that red sticker and try to copy the bold, black words printed on it, Day will throw you out of her office. Day belongs to the FBI's Boston Computer Crime Squad, one of 16 such units located throughout the United States. Each is composed of about 15 agents who investigate all manner of assaults on computers and networks -- everything from lone-hacker to cyberterrorist attacks -- with a dose of international espionage thrown in for good measure. Crimes range from Web site defacements and break-ins to so-called denial-of-service attacks, which prevent legitimate users from accessing targeted networks. http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/19909.html ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 9 Nov 2002 00:29:49 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Cable Company Pleads Guilty to Trying to Defraud Pentagon By Catherine Wilson, Associated Press, 11/7/2002 21:46 MIAMI (AP) A cable company pleaded guilty Thursday and agreed to pay $22 million in penalties for trying to defraud the Pentagon during military base closings and plotting to launder illegal profits from another fraud. Americable International Inc., a family-owned company based in Miami, and two subsidiaries admitted conspiring to overcharge the military for cable equipment as bases were shut down in the 1990s. Americable prepared $8 million in fake invoices as part of a process set up by the Pentagon to lessen the financial impact of closings on the company, but no payments were ever made. In a separate scam, the company acknowledged undercounting its customer base by at least 23 percent when paying cable networks for programming. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 9 Nov 2002 00:59:42 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Ma Bell Redux Christopher O'Leary (christopher.oleary@thomsonmedia.com) Oct 28, 2002 Former telecom analyst Jack Grubman's 1990s' prediction that AT&T Corp. would soon be overtaken by rivals like WorldCom Group Inc. and Qwest Communications International Inc. hasn't turned out quite the way he expected. But what has? The notorious Grubman, whose former employer Citigroup/Salomon Smith Barney is being investigated for forcing the analyst to change his tune to win AT&T's investment banking busines, is no longer the telecom kingmaker. Instead, Grubman is fending off dozens of lawsuits from disgruntled investors, WorldCom is bankrupt and fraud-ridden, and other long-distance market competitors, particularly Qwest, are on shaky financial footing. Meanwhile, AT&T is looking better-placed to regain the Ma Bell crown it wore for nearly a century. And those bankers who win its business are likely to be the telecom investment banking gurus of the future, much as Salomon was in recent years through its association with WorldCom and others. To be sure, the type of absolute power and market share once held by the former phone monopoly is no longer attainable. AT&T will have to grapple with its equally ambitious local-service rivals-known in the industry as "arbocks," vernacular for RBOCs or regional Bell operating companies-in order to win local-service market share while maintaining its stronghold in long distance. But if bets are placed on a national champion with a major market in both local and long-distance service, few are underrating AT&T this time around. "AT&T is in a terrific position," says Davis Terry, head of telecom investment banking for UBS Warburg. Meanwhile, AT&T is cleaning up from its own binges, greatly reducing its debt load by selling an ill-considered venture into cable television to Comcast Corp. http://www.iddmagazine.com/idd/NYTSStories/1031550763770.html ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 9 Nov 2002 12:03:59 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Pentagon Plans a Computer System That Would Peek at Personal Data By JOHN MARKOFF The Pentagon is constructing a computer system that could create a vast electronic dragnet, searching for personal information as part of the hunt for terrorists around the globe - including the United States. As the director of the effort, Vice Adm. John M. Poindexter, has described the system in Pentagon documents and in speeches, it will provide intelligence analysts and law enforcement officials with instant access to information from Internet mail and calling records to credit card and banking transactions and travel documents, without a search warrant. Historically, military and intelligence agencies have not been permitted to spy on Americans without extraordinary legal authorization. But Admiral Poindexter, the former national security adviser in the Reagan administration, has argued that the government needs broad new powers to process, store and mine billions of minute details of electronic life in the United States. Admiral Poindexter, who has described the plan in public documents and speeches but declined to be interviewed, has said that the government needs to "break down the stovepipes" that separate commercial and government databases, allowing teams of intelligence agency analysts to hunt for hidden patterns of activity with powerful computers. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/09/politics/09COMP.html ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 9 Nov 2002 12:40:22 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Europeans Outlaw Net Hate Speech By Julia Scheeres 02:00 AM Nov. 09, 2002 PT The Council of Europe has adopted a measure that would criminalize Internet hate speech, including hyperlinks to pages that contain offensive content. The provision, which was passed by the council's decision-making body (the Committee of Ministers), updates the European Convention on Cybercrime. Specifically, the amendment bans "any written material, any image or any other representation of ideas or theories, which advocates, promotes or incites hatred, discrimination or violence, against any individual or group of individuals, based on race, colour, descent or national or ethnic origin, as well as religion if used as pretext for any of these factors." It also obliquely refers to the Holocaust, outlawing sites that deny, minimize, approve or justify crimes against humanity, particularly those that occurred during World War II. http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,56294,00.html ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 9 Nov 2002 13:11:11 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Third Former Drexel U Student Being Investigated in Pick Six Wager By Richard Rosenblatt, Associated Press, 11/6/2002 19:17 NEW YORK (AP) The probe into a suspicious Breeders' Cup bet worth $3 million includes a third former student at Drexel University. The latest person under investigation by the New York State Racing and Wagering Board is Glen DaSilva of New York, several racing industry officials speaking on the condition of anonymity confirmed Wednesday. Two others under investigation have already been identified Derrick Davis of Baltimore, the man who made the winning Pick Six bets, and Chris Harn, an employee of Autotote, a company involved in the wagers under suspicion. Harn was fired by Autotote last week. All the men are 29 and went to Drexel in Philadelphia in the 1990s. None has been charged with wrongdoing, but the payout is being held up pending the investigation. Racing officials said DaSilva, like Davis, had a telephone betting account at the Catskill Off-Track Betting facility. http://www.boston.com/dailynews/310/sports/Third_former_Drexel_U_student_:.shtml ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 9 Nov 2002 14:17:43 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Feds Enter Breeders' Cup Wage Probe Saturday, November 09, 2002 5:44 a.m. EST NEW YORK (AP) _ The FBI and federal prosecutors are helping investigate the suspicious $3 million Breeders' Cup bet that has alarmed the horse racing industry. James Comey, the U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York, and the FBI are working with the New York State Racing and Wagering Board and state police, Comey said Friday. The agencies are looking into whether a computer system that handled a Pick Six bet for the Oct. 26 Breeders' Cup at Illinois' Arlington Park was manipulated to ensure winning tickets. The investigation expanded this week to include three former frat brothers at Drexel University in Philadelphia and two other winning wagers at race tracks in Illinois and New York. Two of the men _ Derrick Davis of Baltimore and Glen DaSilva of New York _ had phone accounts at Catskill Off-Track Betting, where racing officials have said the questionable bets were made through its touch-tone telephone system. To win a Pick Six, a bettor must select the winner in six races. A third man, Chris Harn of Newark, Del., was an employee at Autotote, a company that handles 65 percent of race bets in North America and was involved in the suspicious wagers. Officials said Harn had the necessary access to change betting tickets. He was fired last week. The touch-tone system was suspended Oct. 30. Don Groth, president of the Catskill facility, said Friday that investigators were going over the system. ------------------------------ 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 Fax 3: 775-642-0603 Fax 4: 530-309-7234 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 V22 #118 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sun Nov 10 22:11:29 2002 Received: from localhost (localhost [[UNIX: localhost]]) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.3nb1/8.11.3) id gAB3BTC17160; Sun, 10 Nov 2002 22:11:29 -0500 (EST) Date: Sun, 10 Nov 2002 22:11:29 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200211110311.gAB3BTC17160@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #119 TELECOM Digest Sun, 10 Nov 2002 22:12:00 EST Volume 22 : Issue 119 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson New 511 Transport Info Phone Number Coming Soon (Yeoh Yiu) Re: Feds Enter Breeders' Cup Wage Probe (Ed Ellers) Ultra-High Resolution DVDs are Unprotected (Monty Solomon) Calif. Changes Cell Phone Crash Data (Monty Solomon) Mother Plans to Testify on Cell Dangers (Monty Solomon) Big Payoff Poses Tough Questions for Racing (Monty Solomon) Reprogramming European Cable (Monty Solomon) Talk About a Bad Dream! (Monty Solomon) Cable & Wireless to Post One Billion stg Charge-Reports (Monty Solomon) States Building Cell-Phone Use, Accident Database (Monty Solomon) Re: UNIVERSIDAD DE SALAMANCA (Jim Hopkins) 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: Yeoh Yiu Subject: New 511 Transport Info Phone Number Coming Soon Date: 09 Nov 2002 19:50:02 -0500 Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC "11/6 SF Chronicle" writes: Published Wednesday, November 6, 2002, in the San Francisco Chronicle At your fingertips New 3-digit information numbers By Todd Wallack Scoot over, 411 and 911. Soon some California residents will be able to dial 211 and 511, too, for help. Starting in the next few weeks, they'll be able to call 511 in the Bay Area for answers to local transportation questions, whether it's up-to-the-minute traffic reports or advice on which bus to take. And beginning next year, residents may be able to call 211 in six Bay Area counties to reach a social service hot line that will connect them to a food bank, drug treatment center or battered women's shelter. Proponents say the new three-digit codes will soon be as ubiquitous as 411 and 911, which have been used for decades to provide directory assistance and emergency calls. Two years ago, the Federal Communications Commission officially set aside 211 for social service hot lines and 511 for transportation information. Already, 511 works in parts of seven states, while 211 is used in 18 states. Now the concept is attracting strong interest in California. [...] Currently, the MTC's hot line (817-1717 in most Bay Area area codes) receives about 65,000 calls a month. However, Randy Rentschler, an MTC spokesman, said the commission expects the volume to surge once it starts using 511. (MTC still plans to keep its seven-digit number as well.) VOICE RECOGNITION To coincide with the 511 launch, MTC is planning a major upgrade. It will start using voice recognition and a computer to handle common questions and forward more specific queries to live operators at other transit agencies, such as BART and Muni. The MTC will also have to pay local telephone companies $138,000 to program their switches to forward 511 calls in nine counties to its toll-free telephone number. But Rentschler notes that's less than one-fifth the amount it is spending on the voice-recognition technology. "The 511 itself is cheap," he said. [...] PHONE COMPANIES NOT EAGER But the three-digit codes have drawbacks. For one, some mobile phone companies are reluctant to spend the money to support them, rendering them useless for cell phone users. "What is the incentive?" asked Michael Bagley, Verizon Wireless' director of public policy. "We don't have endless buckets of resources." And unlike 911, the FCC didn't order mobile phone companies to support the codes. Still, a San Francisco consumer advocate blasted Verizon and other wireless companies for refusing to support all the new three-digit numbers. "The cellular industry is its own worst enemy," said Regina Costa, a telecommunications specialist with the San Francisco watchdog TURN, The Utility Reform Network. "They stalled on providing E-911 service (allowing emergency operators to locate mobile phone users), and here they are stalling in the provision of services that are very useful to the public." Experts said some pay phone providers may also charge callers to dial the three-digit codes, even when they automatically route calls to toll-free hot lines. So, instead of dialing 211 to reach Helplink in San Francisco, for instance, callers may have to dial (800) 273-6222 to avoid paying 50 cents. Three-digit numbers at a glance The three-digit codes (also known as N11 numbers) used around the country; the codes in use vary from city to city. 211: Community social services 311: Nonemergency police call and city services 411: Directory assistance 511: Traffic and transit information 611: Repair service 711: Telecom Relay Services (hearing/speech impaired) 811: Phone company customer service 911: Emergencies 211 First launched in the Atlanta metro area in 1997. The Federal Communications Commission reserved the number for other social service hot lines in 2000. Now used in portions of 18 states. The California Public Utilities Commission is expected to approve an application process to use the number in the Golden State as early as January. Source: Alliance of Information and Referral Systems, Seattle 311 First used in Baltimore in 1996. San Jose became one of the first to follow in 1997. The FCC reserved the number for nonemergency calls to police and other government services. Cities and counties that run 911 systems can decide to use 311 on their own. 511 The FCC set aside the number for traffic information in 2000. First used in the Cincinnati area in June 2001. Now offered in at least seven states. Agencies must apply to the U.S. Transportation Department for approval to use the number. Source: Dispatch Monthly Magazine Web site Source: U.S. Transportation Department E-mail Todd Wallack at twallack@sfchronicle.com Email article texts/URLs for posting to . See http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BATN for web access & archives. ------------------------------ From: Ed Ellers Subject: Re: Feds Enter Breeders' Cup Wage Probe Date: Sun, 10 Nov 2002 00:11:04 -0500 Monty Solomon quoted from an AP story: > NEW YORK (AP) _ The FBI and federal prosecutors are helping investigate > the suspicious $3 million Breeders' Cup bet that has alarmed the horse > racing industry. > James Comey, the U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York, > and the FBI are working with the New York State Racing and Wagering > Board and state police, Comey said Friday. > The agencies are looking into whether a computer system that handled > a Pick Six bet for the Oct. 26 Breeders' Cup at Illinois' Arlington > Park was manipulated to ensure winning tickets. Churchill Downs Inc. -- which also owns Arlington, Calder Race Course in Florida, Kentucky Downs and Ellis Park in Kentucky, Hollywood Park in California, Hoosier Park in Indiana, and several large OTB facilities -- has implemented some new security measures, in the wake of this scandal, most notably ending betting at post time rather than waiting until the race actually starts as has traditionally been the case. Their release is at http://www.churchilldownsincorporated.com/about/news/2002/11082002b.html. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Persons interested in following this story will see a followup report later in this issue by Monty Solomon in his headline news report for today. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 Nov 2002 17:23:28 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Ultra-High Resolution DVDs Are Unprotected 15:32 08 November 02 Barry Fox New ultra-high resolution DVD movies have been released in Europe without a key form of copy protection technology, New Scientist has learned. The disks could be seen as the perfect master disk by pirates wishing to make copies of the films. And the discovery comes just as a new report reveals that six out of ten people in the UK illegally copy music and movies. Sony's Columbia Tristar has put on sale sixteen DVDs that utilise the new Superbit process, including Men in Black and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Columbia says the process offers "the highest resolution (and) the highest standard for audio and video available on DVD". Like other DVDs, the disks do have tough digital copy protection, meaning only hackers can duplicate them with a PC. But Macrovision, a technology that prevents people copying by simply connecting the analogue output of a DVD player to the analogue input of a recorder, has not been used. New Scientist was able to make a copy in this way. And Columbia Tristar confirmed: "The Superbit titles do not feature Macrovision copy-protection. We are reviewing our arrangements with Macrovision." http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993034 ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 Nov 2002 18:43:34 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Calif. Changes Cell Phone Crash Data Sunday, November 10, 2002 10:26 a.m. EST LOS ANGELES (AP) _ Release has been delayed of a report that blames cell phone use in 913 highway accidents in 2001. Officials believe the figure should be about seven times higher. The report, given to Gov. Gray Davis last week, has been returned to the California Highway Patrol after the agency learned the numbers may have been too low, Commissioner Dwight O. Helmick told the Los Angeles Times for Sunday editions. The new report will include data showing drivers using cell phones had been blamed for at least 4,699 accidents. http://news.lycos.com/news/story.asp?section=Technology&storyId=563310 Mother plans to testify on cell dangers By KRISTIN GORDON, kgordon@nncogannett.com The Eagle-Gazette Staff If you were involved in or just missed being in a vehicle crash where a driver was talking on a cellular phone, a local mother wants to know your story. Amy Seager, coordinator of the local chapter of Advocates for Cell Phone Safety, will testify Tuesday afternoon in Columbus at the Statehouse, supporting the second reading of Ohio House Bills 280 and 281. Her twin daughters, 17-year-old Kathy and Kimberly Seager, were killed as a result of a July 25 crash on state Route 37 that may have been caused by a driver who was reaching for his cellular phone when the collision happened. Rep. Catherine Barrett, D-Cincinnati, is the primary sponsor of HB 280 and 281, which propose restrictions on drivers using cellular phones while operating motor vehicles. They were introduced in May 2001. http://www.lancastereaglegazette.com/news/stories/20021109/localnews/337683.html ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 Nov 2002 18:51:08 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Mother Plans to Testify on Cell Dangers By KRISTIN GORDON, kgordon@nncogannett.com The Eagle-Gazette Staff If you were involved in or just missed being in a vehicle crash where a driver was talking on a cellular phone, a local mother wants to know your story. Amy Seager, coordinator of the local chapter of Advocates for Cell Phone Safety, will testify Tuesday afternoon in Columbus at the Statehouse, supporting the second reading of Ohio House Bills 280 and 281. Her twin daughters, 17-year-old Kathy and Kimberly Seager, were killed as a result of a July 25 crash on state Route 37 that may have been caused by a driver who was reaching for his cellular phone when the collision happened. Rep. Catherine Barrett, D-Cincinnati, is the primary sponsor of HB 280 and 281, which propose restrictions on drivers using cellular phones while operating motor vehicles. They were introduced in May 2001. http://www.lancastereaglegazette.com/news/stories/20021109/localnews/337683.html ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 Nov 2002 14:49:32 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Big Payoff Poses Tough Questions for Racing By JOE DRAPE and JOHN SCHWARTZ If Medaglia d'Oro had captured the Breeders' Cup Classic 15 days ago as the 5-2 favorite, Derrick Davis might have walked away with a lot of money and not drawn much scrutiny. The $4 million Classic is North America's richest horse race, and any number of bettors would have pocketed a modest amount if Medaglia d'Oro had finished first on that cold, gray afternoon at Arlington Park outside Chicago. A much smaller group - the holders of 18 winning pick-six tickets each worth $141,666 - would have made a fortune. No one would have made more than Mr. Davis, 29, of Baltimore, the owner of a computer service business. He would have had 6 of the 18 winning pick-six tickets, a startling achievement in itself, but one that might still have allowed him to get lost in the small crowd that had managed to pick the winners of six straight Breeders' Cup races. But Medaglia d'Oro did not win that Oct. 26 race. Instead, the 44-1 long shot Volponi did, the steam from his nostrils cutting into the air as he stormed across the finish line in the last of the day's championship races. And because of Volponi, there were only six winning pick-six tickets, all of them held by Mr. Davis, worth $428,392 each. Instead of receiving accolades for his handicapping prowess, Mr. Davis found himself under suspicion for a score too good to be true, one that now has him and two other former Drexel University students in the cross hairs of a widening investigation that includes the Federal Bureau of Investigation in New York and Baltimore and the United States attorney's office for the Southern District of New York. At the heart of the investigation is whether one of the three men, Chris Harn, a computer specialist, manipulated Mr. Davis's bets after they were made so that he was guaranteed to win. At stake is the credibility of the racing industry and the integrity of the computer systems that now process more than $14.5 billion a year in wagers in this country. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/10/sports/othersports/10RACI.html [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: See another article on this same horse- racing scandal by Ed Ellers elsewhere in this same issue of the Digest. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 9 Nov 2002 23:06:46 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Reprogramming European cable From the McKinsey Quarterly Special to CNET News.com November 9, 2002, 4:00 AM PT Europe's cable operators are undoubtedly suffering. After borrowing heavily in the mid-1990s to roll up small players and upgrade digital systems intended to help them sell bundled services, they now find themselves counting losses rather than the profits they expected. The industry's "triple-play" bet -- that customers would jump at the convenience of buying television, Internet and telephony services from a single provider -- hasn't yet paid off, for consumers have failed to summon enough interest to make it succeed. Not surprisingly, attention has focused on the operators' enormous debts. NTL, a U.S. company that is Europe's fourth-largest operator, declared bankruptcy in May 2002, exchanging $10.6 billion of debt for equity and wiping out its equity holders. United Pan-Europe Communications, Europe's third-largest operator, defaulted on its bond payments and was delisted from Euronext (the combined stock exchange of Belgium, France and the Netherlands) when its debt exceeded its shareholder equity. Ish, a German cable operator, has filed for Chapter 11. These are just a few of the many companies across Europe that are struggling. But merely restructuring this debt won't get them out of their predicament. The problem is strategy. To survive, companies must create new business models for themselves quickly. Under current conditions, many of them should consider dropping the monopoly-operator system (common in Europe and the United States), which excludes other service providers from their networks, and follow the lead of mobile-telecom operators and ISPs by sharing networks. Sharing, mobile-telecom companies have found, increases the size of the total market, lowers the costs of the operators, improves their use of capital and spreads risk. It could do the same for cable operators. http://news.com.com/2009-12-964570.html ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 9 Nov 2002 18:58:07 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Talk About a Bad Dream! By Lloyd Grove Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, November 5, 2002; Page C03 WAMU-FM's " Kojo Nnamdi Show" shocked listeners yesterday when Nnamdi's interview on dreams and nightmares with neurologist Richard Cytowik was interrupted by a "breaking news" report of fatal shootings in Montgomery County. Around 34 minutes into his noon broadcast, Nnamdi was heard urgently introducing WAMU reporters Lisa Nurnberger and James Jones with the latest on the most recent sniper victims and an announcement of a live news conference by law enforcement authorities. The report -- part of a rebroadcast of Nnamdi's Oct. 3 show -- continued for about three minutes until station managers, alerted by scores of disturbed listeners, realized their mistake and pulled it off the air. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A4805-2002Nov4.html ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 Nov 2002 18:47:13 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Cable & Wireless to Post One Billion stg Charge-Reports LONDON, Nov 10 (Reuters) - UK corporate telecoms group Cable & Wireless Plc (ISEL:CW) is set to post a one-billion-pound ($1.59 billion) charge connected to restructuring at its C&W Global international business, the Sunday Telegraph and Observer newspapers reported on Sunday. The company -- which will post the result of a major operational review on Wednesday -- will also announce about 3,000 job cuts when it posts results on that day, the newspapers reported. Only part of the one-billion-pound charge will be related to the jobs, while another large chunk will likely come from the termination of leasing deals with other telecoms companies, the Telegraph said. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=29553974 ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 Nov 2002 18:42:22 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: States Building Cell-Phone Use, Accident Database WASHINGTON-The Governors Highway Safety Association said states next year will have new guidelines for collecting vehicular crash data that take account of driver use of cell phones, pagers and other electronic devices in traffic accidents. The new guidelines, which will help build a database that states and others can look to in making driver-distraction policy, were crafted by the GHSA, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the Federal Highway Administration and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. Drivers distracted by cell-phone conversations have been tied to deaths and injuries. http://www.rcrnews.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?newsId=5821 ------------------------------ From: Jim Hopkins Subject: Re: UNIVERSIDAD DE SALAMANCA Reply-To: bwanajim@swbell.net Organization: Prodigy Internet http://www.prodigy.com Date: Sun, 10 Nov 2002 14:02:16 GMT General / Cursos de wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: So tell me guys ... did the Digest get > spammed once again with this message that follows? Read it to me, > please. PAT] Yes, it's more or less spam. It's an announcement for a human rights conference at The University of Salmanca in Salmanca, Spain. > Estimado/a Sr./a.: Dear Sir or Madam, > Entre los dias 7 y 24 de enero de 2003, celebraremos en nuestra > Universidad la XII Edicion de los CURSOS DE POSTGRADO EN > DERECHO. Every day, 24 x 7 in 2003, we are celebrating in our University the 12th Edition of the Postgraduate Course in Rights. > En esta edicion hemos programado 19 especialidades que seran > impartidas por mas de 170 profesores y conferenciantes, > seleccionados entre los expertos mas relevantes del panorama juridico. > Mas de 1000 horas de clase, conferencias, actividades culturales... > todo ello en el incomparable marco que ofrece el Centro Europeo > de ensenanza superior mas prestigioso y antiguo de habla hispana: > la UNIVERSIDAD DE SALAMANCA. In this edition we've programmed 19 specialties to be given by more than 170 professors and conferees, selected by all the most relevant experts of the judicial field. More than 1000 hours of classes, conferences, cultural activities ... all in the incomprable style that Central Europe offers the best training, most prestigious and oldest Spanish Speaking - The University of Salmanica. > Podra consultar todos los detalles de esta convocatoria (programas > academicos, inscripcion, alojamiento, desplazamiento.....) en nuestra > pagina de internet: You can get all the details of the meeting (academic programs, registration, lodging, travel) on our web page at: > http://www.postgrado.org/ > Si desea que le ampliemos la informacion no dude en ponerse en > contacto con nosotros. If you want more information don't hesitate to contact us. > Agradeciendo su atencion e interes, reciba un cordial saludo. > Thanks for your attention and interest, yours truly, > JUAN CARLOS FERRE OLIVE > Director-Gerente > --------------------------------------------- > Si no desea volver a recibir informacion > de esta institucion envienos un mensaje > con la palabra "BORRAR" > --------------------------------------------- If you don't want to keep getting information on this institution reply to this message with the word "BORRAR" (borrar is erase or delete). > --------------------------------------------- > Las tildes y otros signos de puntuacion > han sido suprimidos deliberadamente para > evitar errores de transmision > --------------------------------------------- > --------------------------------------------- The tildes and other punctuation marks have been deliberately suppressed to avoid transmission errors. > Roberto Pelazas Manso > UNIVERSIDAD DE SALAMANCA > FUNDACION GENERAL > Direccion de Altos Estudios > C/ Cardenal Pla y Deniel, 22 > 37008 - SALAMANCA (ESPAÑA) > Tel: +34 923 294 679 > Fax: +34 923 294 702 > E-Mail: postgrado@usal.es > Internet: http://www.postgrado.org Jim Hopkins "A man's got to know his limitations." - Dirty Harry [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Thank you for your explanation of the message in Spanish I recieved two days ago. 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. 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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 V22 #119 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sun Nov 10 23:18:40 2002 Received: from localhost (localhost [[UNIX: localhost]]) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.3nb1/8.11.3) id gAB4Ief19460; Sun, 10 Nov 2002 23:18:40 -0500 (EST) Date: Sun, 10 Nov 2002 23:18:40 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200211110418.gAB4Ief19460@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #120 TELECOM Digest Sun, 10 Nov 2002 23:18:00 EST Volume 22 : Issue 120 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson EFFector 15.35: ALERT UPDATE: Urge Your Representative (Monty Solomon) Re: Known Origin of Predictive Dialer (Mark Crispin) Re: Known Origin of Predictive Dialer (CCIE 8122) Re: Europeans Outlaw Net Hate Speech (Gail M. Hall) Re: XBOX LIVE or SONY Online? (drtghdfh) Re: Outlook Express (Ed Ellers) Re: Townships, etc (Wes Leatherock) Last Laugh! (or Not?) Commercial Scale Space Tourism (VR) 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: Sat, 9 Nov 2002 18:51:38 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: EFFector 15.35: ALERT UPDATE: Urge Your Representative http://www.eff.org/effector/HTML/effect15.35.html EFFector Vol. 15, No. 35 November 8, 2002 ren@eff.org A Publication of the Electronic Frontier Foundation ISSN 1062-9424 In the 234th Issue of EFFector: * ALERT UPDATE: Urge Your Representative to Co-Sponsor the DMCRA! * ALERT: Bait and Switch: Anticounterfeiting Bill Hurts Your Rights! * Canadian Trademark Law Overreaching * Give Twice as Many Gifts this Holiday Season! * Deep Links (4):Security Technologies Could Backfire Against Consumers * Administrivia For more information on EFF activities & alerts: http://www.eff.org/ To join EFF or make an additional donation: http://www.eff.org/support/ EFF is a member-supported nonprofit. Please sign up as a member today! ----------------------------------------------------------------- * ALERT UPDATE: Urge Your Representative to Co-Sponsor the DMCRA! As the legislative season ends, it is vitally important to gather support for legislation that will be center-stage in the next session. This is an opportunity to ask your representative to take a stand for your rights. Ask her/him to co-sponsor the DMCRA today! Representatives Rick Boucher and John Doolittle recently introduced the Digital Media Consumers' Rights Act (DMCRA, H.R. 5544), which would require labelling on usage-impaired "copy-protected" compact discs and would make several several amendments to 1998's infamous Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Take action here: http://action.eff.org/action/index.asp?step=2&item=2224 Join EFF! For membership information see: http://www.eff.org/support/ -=end=----------------------------------------------------------- * ALERT: Bait and Switch; Anticounterfeiting Bill Hurts Your Rights! Don't be fooled by Senator Biden's "Anticounterfeiting Amendments of 2002" (S. 2395, also known as "the Biden Bill"). It started as an attempt to stop organized crime from forging holograms and counterfeiting money, but its scope has been greatly expanded to include digital watermarks on copyrighted material. This is a sneaky power-grab that would greatly diminish the rights of the public in copyrighted works while expanding the power of copyright owners. It goes well beyond the scope of current copyright law and could: ~ Prevent universities, libraries, and consumers from enjoying the exceptions to the Copyright Act adopted by Congress. S. 2935 could prohibit the use of interface information essential for software interoperability and competition ~ Impose new responsibilities on Internet service providers and could also require consumer electronics and computer manufacturers to reconfigure their products. ~ Impose more severe criminal and civil penalties than permitted by the Copyright Act for identical behavior This "anticounterfeiting" bill is a decoy; stand up for your rights today! Subscribe to the EFF Action Center and send your member of Congress an email, letter or fax. You can take action by going to: http://action.eff.org/action/index.asp?step=2&item=2274 Join EFF! For membership information see: http://www.eff.org/support/ -=end=----------------------------------------------------------- * Canadian Trademark Law Overreaching EFF has been involved in several cases involving overreaching trademark claims on the Internet. Recently we have learned about a Canadian lawsuit over the website www.lawsnet.com, a nonprofit legal information website focusing on the laws of Canada and China that seem especially egregious. Lawsnet.com is a free legal information website that has been published since 1998. Last year, Lawsnet.com's owner Ling Xia was sued by Quicklaw, a subsidiary of global publishing giant LexisNexus Group. Quicklaw claims that Lawsnet.com violates its rights in the name LAW/NET. However, LAW/NET does not have a public Internet website under that domain name. The name appears on a subsidiary webpage of the Quicklaw.com website that offers public "teasers" in the form of summaries of recent Canadian cases, with the full text only available through the private, proprietary paid Quicklaw service for Canadian lawyers. It seems clear that the two names are substantially different, are used in different places (one as a teaser for a closed computer service and the other for information freely available on the public internet) and are not causing any consumer confusion. Even more problematic, Quicklaw does not even have a Canadian trademark in the term LAW/NET -- it applied for one in 1997 but has repeatedly filed requests for extensions of time with the Canadian trademark authorities. In contrast, Ms. Xia is in the final stages of having a Canadian trademark issued for "lawsnet." Regardless of its weak case, Quicklaw has managed to drag Ms. Xia through over a year of litigation and recently succeeded in securing a court order requiring her to undergo an extensive "discovery" process that threatens to drive her under. Although she has had some free legal assistance in the past, this next phase will require significantly more legal resources than her volunteer attorneys can muster. Quicklaw is represented by a large Toronto firm, Borden Ladner and Gervais, LLP. Abuse of trademark law (even here, when no official trademark has even been granted) is a growing problem on the Internet, and it is unfortunately becoming an international problem. EFF urges Quicklaw, and its US-based parent company, to stop beating up on this free and useful website. While trademark law is important when misuse of a mark is causing consumer confusion, it does not -- and should not -- grant ownership in words, especially descriptive words like "laws" and "net" when describing an online legal information service. Trademark law should also not be a license for large corporations who sell legal information (or any other nonproprietary information) to stop individuals who want to use the power of the Internet to provide free legal information to the public. For those who wish to help Ms. Xia directly, local Toronto lawyer and part-time law professor Gil Lan has agreed to act as trustee for a legal defence fund to be established for Ms. Xia. If you wish to help, please contact: Mr. Gil Lan Barrister & Solicitor 393 University Avenue Suite 2000 Toronto, Ontario, M5G 1E6 or by email at: glan@globalbusinesslaw.com or Ling Xia at: editor@lawsnet.com -=end=----------------------------------------------------------- * Give Twice as Many Gifts this Holiday Season! EFF has signed up with ShopsThatGive.com, a portal site for dozens of online shops that donates a portion of their referral fees to a charity of your choice. If you shop online at any of the websites available through ShopsThatGive, including Alibris, buy.com, Disney Store, eBay, eToys, Half.com, Lens Express, McAfee, Office Depot, Palm, Petsmart, REI, Rail Europe, and Verizon Wireless, part of your purchase can be donated back to EFF. From the main ShopsThatGive page, simply select EFF as your designated cause, select a merchant or category, and you're all set. It won't cost you anything extra and it would help us out a lot. Please keep this giving opportunity in mind, especially throughout the upcoming holiday season. Links: ShopsThatGive: http://www.shopsthatgive.com/ Complete List of Participating Merchants: http://www.shopsthatgive.com/category.aspx Buy EFF-related books through Amazon or Barnes&Noble: http://www.eff.org/promo/books.html -=end=----------------------------------------------------------- * Deep Links Deep Links features noteworthy news items, victories, and threats from around the Internet. ~ Security Technologies Could Backfire Against Consumers Robert Lemos at news.com with a balanced piece on trusted computing. http://news.com.com/2009-1001-964628.html?tag=fd_lede1_hed ~ Barbie's Kinky Rival Wins First Court Battle Mattel loses first round in intellectual property battle over S&M doll with Barbie head. http://www.thescotsman.co.uk/international.cfm?id=1242812002 ~ Unspooled In the digital age, the quaint cassette is sent reeling into history's dustbin. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32476-2002Oct28.html ~ The Meaning and Importance of the TEACH Act The American Library Association on the latest amendment to US copyright law. http://www.ala.org/washoff/teach.html -=end=----------------------------------------------------------- * Administrivia EFFector is published by: The Electronic Frontier Foundation 454 Shotwell Street San Francisco CA 94110-1914 USA +1 415 436 9333 (voice) +1 415 436 9993 (fax) http://www.eff.org/ Editor: Ren Bucholz, Activist ren@eff.org To Join EFF online, or make an additional donation, go to: http://www.eff.org/support/ Membership & donation queries: membership@eff.org General EFF, legal, policy or online resources queries: ask@eff.org Reproduction of this publication in electronic media is encouraged. Signed articles do not necessarily represent the views of EFF. To reproduce signed articles individually, please contact the authors for their express permission. Press releases and EFF announcements & articles may be reproduced individually at will. To change your address, please visit http://action.eff.org/subscribe/. From there, you can update all your information. If you have already subscribed to the EFF Action Center, please visit http://action.eff.org/action/login.asp. To unsubscribe from the EFFector mailing list, send an email to alerts@action.eff.org with the word "Remove" in the subject. (Please ask ren@eff.org to manually remove you from the list if this does not work for you for some reason.) Back issues are available at: http://www.eff.org/effector ------------------------------ From: Mark Crispin Subject: Re: Known Origin of Predictive Dialer Date: Sun, 10 Nov 2002 11:02:20 -0800 Organization: Networks and Distributed Computing I agree with Pat's advice below. After getting three *57 on the predictive dialer calls I got from notorious Florida telemarketer Integrated Credit Solutions (their number in the CID, but "blocked" for the name), I filed a complaint with the telco and with the local police. The cops called ICS and told them to cool it. ICS told the police that they weren't doing it, but that "someone had hacked into their system." If you believe that I have some Florida swampland^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hprime vacation property to sell you. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Do the same thing I suggested to John > H. yesterday: do *57 following the call, and keep a diary of the > calls as they come in. Just put them down as 'ring my phone but then > don't speak.' That is against the law also, if it happens repeatedly > as it seems to be in your case. Nearly everywhere has a law against > using a telephone to harass people; i.e. causing it to ring > repeatedly, etc. When/if you get back a report from SWBT via the > police, file the requested complaint. Let's put those predictive > dialers out of business once and for all. Remember, always be the > straight man, the injured party. PAT] -- Mark -- http://staff.washington.edu/mrc Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But Mark, did they in fact cool it as the police suggested, or go back to business as usual when the police were no longer watching? There are still further remedies under the law as required. Which police department made the inquiry in your behalf? I would have asked one more question at that point of the predictive dialer's proprietor: have *you* filed a police complaint about the 'hacker' who broke into your system? If so, fine but if not then I don't accept that answer. Tell me the details and I will file in your behalf. Watch them stall for time on that one. Now with YOUR police complaint on file, you have very good ammunition to collect on any civil judgment you choose to file. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 09 Nov 2002 18:46:46 -0700 From: CCIE 8122 Subject: Re: Known Origin of Predictive Dialer Mark Smigel wrote: > At our business location we've been getting many calls (6x daily) from > a predictive dialer. What's unusual is it has an actual number on > the CID: 631-673-2300, but no CID name. > Having dealt with predictive dialers before, this is almost certainly > what it is. The line hangs up immediately at the end of our greeting > (almost exactly as we speak the last word). We've gotten > telemarketing calls before, so I am positive this is what it is. > Calling the number back, the line seems to reset itself (hangs up). > Is there any way of finding out who this is, contacting their telco, > or putting a block on them? We would use SWBT's block, but it > doesn't allow you to enter anything outside the local calling area. > We're in area code 405, Oklahoma City area. MJ 631/673 is an extension out of Huntington, NY. The CLLI code for the serving CO is HNSTNYHUDS0. The telco is listed as New York Tel Co., a subsidiary of NYNEX, which was acquired by Bell Atlantic, which merged with GTE to become Verizon. So unless Verizon has sold the Huntington CO, they are the carrier. If not, give them the NPA/NXX, and they can tell you to whom they sold the CO. HTH kr ------------------------------ From: Gail M. Hall Subject: Re: Europeans Outlaw Net Hate Speech Date: Sat, 09 Nov 2002 23:56:05 -0500 Reply-To: gmhall@apk.net On Sat, 9 Nov 2002 12:40:22 -0500, in comp.dcom.telecom, you (Monty Solomon ) wrote: > The Council of Europe has adopted a measure that would criminalize > Internet hate speech, including hyperlinks to pages that contain > offensive content. > The provision, which was passed by the council's decision-making body > (the Committee of Ministers), updates the European Convention on > Cybercrime. > Specifically, the amendment bans "any written material, any image or > any other representation of ideas or theories, which advocates, > promotes or incites hatred, discrimination or violence, against any > individual or group of individuals, based on race, colour, descent or > national or ethnic origin, as well as religion if used as pretext for > any of these factors." What a bummer! That would make it illegal to post cartoons about killing Osama bin Laden or other al-Quaida members! We could say only nice things about the Iraqi leaders! We can't say we hate Nazis any more! I'm glad I live in the USA where we still supposedly have freedom of speech! Gail in Ohio USA [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Gail, who told you we still have freedom of speech in the USA? The government here is getting rid of it as fast as they can; as fast as that damn troublesome First Amend- ment will allow them. If you don't believe me, I dare you to speak out against Dubya's imminent plans to send Iraq to hell, any day now. Or write a letter to Dubya criticizing his homeland security procedures or the way his Attorney General is holding in custody several hundred people as 'possible terrorists' or 'material witnesses' because of their religious beliefs (Muslins, etc). Or ask him why he keeps on pandering to 'Christians' like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. Then wave bye-bye to the rest of us as you head for the slammer as a 'threat' to the president. Oh, and when you write him that 'fan letter' don't forget to ask how come his Attorney General has such hot pants to get a seventeen year old boy (Malvo, the alleged DC sniper) onto death row without the benefit of any attorney. Yes, by all means exercise your freedom of speech that you are so blessed with in the United States, Gail. PAT] ------------------------------ From: drtghdfh Subject: Re: XBOX LIVE or SONY Online? Date: Sun, 10 Nov 2002 13:35:37 GMT Thats a good point. You can just get on Xbox Live to talk to your friends and family. Super cool way to save on long distance bills ... Anita John wrote in message news:aqlkve$8ig$1@slb3.atl.mindspring.net: > 56k gaming sucks with no voice communication on all games=PS2. > Broadband with voice communication on all games and downloadable content, > the ability to lessen long distance bills over XBOX, no lag = XBOX. > I chose #2. > AntiHero ------------------------------ From: Ed Ellers Subject: Re: Outlook Express Date: Sat, 9 Nov 2002 18:35:56 -0500 Joey Lindstrom wrote: > Your points about Outlook Express are well taken (and I think you'd > be hard pressed to find any OE fans here). Well, I'm one. I switched to Outlook Express (from Outlook 98, and before that Eudora) because it had some nice features (such as being able to combine multipart newsgroup posts, making it easier to download binaries from those groups). Another goodie is that it will "borrow" the spelling checker from a recent version of Microsoft Word, if that is installed, which also lets you use any custom word lists you may have in Word. I don't have any trouble replying to messages without just dumping the whole message to which I'm replying, because I can cut the parts to which I'm *not* replying and insert my replies as needed. The people Joseph is complaining about just don't know how to use the editor. > So I tend to expect a higher standard from the folks here (myself > included), in terms of knowledge of what their computer systems and email > applications are doing. Am I wrong for doing so? Not at all. I didn't choose Outlook Express blindly; it does pretty much what I want an email/netnews client to do, *because* I learned how to make it do so. ------------------------------ From: wesrock@aol.com (Wes Leatherock) Date: 10 Nov 2002 15:23:31 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: Townships, etc On Wed, 6 Nov 2002 19:58:34 EST Wlevant@aol.com wrote: > Baltimore, MD, on the other hand, is considered an independent city. > Functionally, there appears to be is little difference...in an > independent city, SOMEONE has to do what county officers would > otherwise do. I found it interesting when I lived in St. Louis County, Mo., to find that the courts in St. Louis (an independent city not in St. Louis County) were "in and for the city of St. Louis." These are the usual state courts, and the styling in other places is "in and for the county of St. Louis", or whatever county. Clayton is the county seat of St. Louis County, and functions much like most counties. In St. Louis City, as you noted, there are officials who perform all the usual acts of county officials. It seems to me St. Louis City had a sheriff, but my recollection may be wrong. Wes Leatherock wesrock@aol.com wleathus@yahoo.com ------------------------------ From: VR <1@1.com> Subject: Last Laugh! (or Not?) Commercial Scale Space Tourism Date: Sun, 10 Nov 2002 18:23:06 -0800 Organization: KFKI Research Institute for Particle and Nuclear Physics Hello everyone, My name is Victor Rozsnyay, CEO of Gravity Control Technologies. For the last five years my company has been developing aerospace technology capable of controlling gravity for flight. Such technology would be instrumental in introducing commercial scale space tourism flights within the next decade. Everyone would have the opportunity of visiting space. Thus far we have raised over one million dollars from a private investor for proof of concept verification. The research conducted was successful. We believe we know how gravity control can be achieved. We are now seeking ten million dollars to build technology demonstrator prototypes within the next two years. Unfortunately no traditional Venture Capitalist will take the risk of financing our work. Not to mention their perceived loss of credibility. According to traditional science gravity control does not exist. Even though companies like NASA, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems and Raytheon frequently visit our site, no one will finance our work. As our last ray of hope we turn to the general public. We have initiated a program where everyday people can become part of history. By visiting our website you can purchase advanced space tourism tickets for a future eight hour flight. We will use the money obtained from your ticket purchase to finish research and build a prototype capable of gravity controlled flight. We believe that with a prototype in hand our large scale financing options will be thrown wide open. The price of the ticket is only a dollar. We felt that everyone would have a dollar they would be willing to risk and contribute toward our cause. The price is symbolic, and does not reflect the actual price of what tickets will cost. A dollar is only the price of a cup of coffee. When we are successful in our development, all those who purchased tickets will experience the thrill of space flight. This is our way of saying thanks for the financial support Please visit our website and help us finish what we have started. Make sure you browse the 'GET INVOLVED' section. There are several ways you can be involved in our work other than making a purchase or donating money. And please tell all your friends. Let us build an international network of people all working toward commercial scale space tourism and space exploration. Http://www.gctspace.com Sincerely, Victor Rozsnyay CEO Gravity Control Technologies [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well readers, again I ask your advice. Is this last message a 'last laugh', a spam, or is it genuine? The idea of asking every reader to send in a dollar sort of turns me off, but I just don't know what to think. Remember how back in the 1950's Ralph Kramden (Jackie Gleason) would double up his fist and tell his wife Alice (Jayne Meadows) she was going to go to the moon? 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 Fax 3: 775-642-0603 Fax 4: 530-309-7234 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! 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Access to Premium (P) links requires upgrade to a paid subscription. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Only subscribers or registered users of ICB Toll Free News web site will be able to access all or some of the full text of URLs provided. LEGAL STUFF: TELECOM Digest (sm) is owned by Patrick Townson. Copyright 2000 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. --------------------------------------------------------------- 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 V22 #120 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Nov 11 19:55:14 2002 Received: from localhost (localhost [[UNIX: localhost]]) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.3nb1/8.11.3) id gAC0tE526425; Mon, 11 Nov 2002 19:55:14 -0500 (EST) Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2002 19:55:14 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200211120055.gAC0tE526425@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #121 TELECOM Digest Mon, 11 Nov 2002 19:55:00 EST Volume 22 : Issue 121 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Telecom Update (Canada) #357, November 11, 2002 (Angus TeleManagement) Re: Townships, etc (Carl W. Timmons) Re: Townships, etc (Herb Stein) Re: 000-000-0000 Caller ID (Dave Phelps) Re: 000-000-0000 Caller ID (Gordon S. Hlavenka) Re: What's the Frequency, Camden? The Same as Boston-Area TV (J. Mayson) 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, 11 Nov 2002 10:35:15 -0500 From: Angus TeleManagement Subject: Telecom Update (Canada) #357, November 11, 2002 ************************************************************ TELECOM UPDATE ************************************************************ published weekly by Angus TeleManagement Group http://www.angustel.ca Number 357: November 11, 2002 Publication of Telecom Update is made possible by generous financial support from: ** BELL CANADA: http://www.bell.ca ** CISCO SYSTEMS CANADA: http://www.cisco.com/ca/letstalk ** CYGCOM INTEGRATED TECHNOLOGIES: http://www.cygcom.com ** ERICSSON CANADA: http://www.ericsson.ca ** JUNIPER NETWORKS: http://www.juniper.net ** PRIMUS CANADA: http://www.primustel.ca ** Q9 NETWORKS: http://www.Q9.com ** TELUS: http://www.telus.com ************************************************************ IN THIS ISSUE: ** AT&T Corp. to Exit AT&T Canada ** GT in Takeover Negotiations ** 360 to Take Big Loss on Atlantic Cable ** RIM Licenses Software to Nokia ** BCE to Complete Bell Buyback ** Microcell Loses $152 Million ** Microcell Wins Injunction Against Rogers ** CRTC Releases 2001 Telecom Stats ** Bell Buys Fibre for SuperNet ** Bell, Sprint PCS Ally for CDMA Development ** Sympatico DSL Rate to Rise ** Distributel Supports AT&T Cabinet Appeal ** iMagic Lays Off 25% of Staff ** Thirty Years of Satellite Communication ** Cisco Reports Steady Sales ** Financial Results CGI Glentel Wi-LAN ** Keys to Call Centre Success ============================================================ AT&T CORP. TO EXIT AT&T CANADA: AT&T Canada says that after its current reorganization, U.S. telecom giant AT&T Corp. will not hold any equity in the Canadian carrier. This reverses a previous announcement that AT&T Corp. might own up to 10% of AT&T Canada's shares. (See Telecom Update #353) ** The Canadian company will lose the right to use the AT&T name and brand -- it will adopt a new identity over the next 18 months. ** In a recent SEC filing, AT&T Canada said that "AT&T Corp. currently generates and/or influences up to $300 million of the Company's revenues on an annual basis." ** AT&T Canada's total third quarter revenue was $359.9 million, down 7% from last year. Local revenue was up 12%; data was down 8%, and long distance was down 15%. GT IN TAKEOVER NEGOTIATIONS: GT Group Telecom has received court approval to enter exclusive negotiations with an unnamed "leading bidder." The negotiation period will expire November 15, and GT's bankruptcy protection has been extended to December 11. ** GT says none of the bids it received would produce an "economic return" to shareholders or unsecured creditors. 360 TO TAKE BIG LOSS ON ATLANTIC CABLE: 360networks says that the highest bid it received for its trans-Atlantic cable is US$14 million. The company spent $800 million to build the facility two years ago. RIM LICENSES SOFTWARE TO NOKIA: Research In Motion has licensed BlackBerry software to Nokia for global use in Nokia products. ** RIM is also licensing keyboard patents to Palm for its new Tungsten devices, and to Handspring for its Treo communicator. RIM will drop its patent-infringement suit against Handspring. BCE TO COMPLETE BELL BUYBACK: BCE Inc. says it will complete the purchase of the 16% share of Bell Canada that it does not currently own, from SBC, for C$4.99 billion, early in December. MICROCELL LOSES $152 MILLION: Microcell reports a net loss of $152 million in the third quarter, and says it may not be in compliance with debt covenants this quarter. Total revenue was $155 million, 6% higher than a year ago. ** At the end of September, Microcell had 1.19 million retail subscribers. It gained 48,000 prepaid customers and lost 42,000 postpaid in the quarter. MICROCELL WINS INJUNCTION AGAINST ROGERS: The Quebec Superior Court has issued a temporary injunction ordering Rogers Wireless to cease making false statements about Microcell and cease targeting Microcell customers with sequential dialers and SMS text messages. Rogers says the problem concerned a single dealer and has been dealt with. CRTC RELEASES 2001 TELECOM STATS: On November 5, the CRTC released preliminary data on the Canadian telecom industry for 2001. It will provide more information and a comprehensive industry analysis in its second annual report to Cabinet, which it plans to issue before year-end. http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/publications/reports/telecom_summary.htm BELL BUYS FIBRE FOR SUPERNET: 360networks is selling dark fibre linking seven Alberta centres to Bell West, for the Government of Alberta's SuperNet project. 360networks, currently operating under bankruptcy protection, has agreed to maintain the fibre for 20 years. BELL, SPRINT PCS ALLY FOR CDMA DEVELOPMENT: Bell Mobility and Sprint, operator of a major U.S. CDMA network, have agreed to work together to develop applications, services, and handsets for advanced CDMA networks, such as 1XRTT. SYMPATICO DSL RATE TO RISE: Bell Sympatico says the price of its DSL Basic Internet service will be raised in January to $29.95, the price at which it was initially marketed last May. (See Telecom Update #330) ** Starting in December, Bell will combine upload and download allowances in calculating DSL usage charges. DISTRIBUTEL SUPPORTS AT&T CABINET APPEAL: Long distance reseller Distributel says the CRTC's emphasis on facilities-based competition in its May Price Caps decision belittles the contribution made by resellers. Distributel says that cost-based pricing should extend to all services used primarily by telecommunications service providers. IMAGIC LAYS OFF 25% OF STAFF: Saint John-based iMagicTV is laying off 31 employees, a quarter of its work force. It has asked CIBC World Markets to "seek strategic alternatives" for the company, whose software delivers TV signals over phone lines. THIRTY YEARS OF SATELLITE COMMUNICATION: Saturday marked the thirtieth anniversary of the launch of Anik A1, which made Canada the first country in the world with a commercial geostationary communications satellite. CISCO REPORTS STEADY SALES: Cisco Systems revenues for the three months ended October 26 were US$4.8 billion, about the same as the previous quarter and 9% higher than a year ago. Cisco expects this quarter's sales to be flat or down 3%-4%. Net income: $618 million. FINANCIAL RESULTS: ** CGI Group, a computer services company 41% owned by BCE, had third quarter revenue of $2.17 billion, 39% more than last year. Net earnings more than doubled to $136 million. ** Glentel's third quarter sales were $15.5 million, 17% more than a year ago. The Vancouver-based wireless equipment maker made a profit of $525,000, compared to a $236,000 loss. ** Wi-LAN's August-September revenue was $6.2 million, 7% higher than the previous quarter and 15% higher than a year ago. Wi-LAN's financial statement is due in January. KEYS TO CALL CENTRE SUCCESS: In the current issue of Telemanagement, Ian Angus explains the seven characteristics shared by successful incoming call centres. "Mediocre call centres are disappearing," he says, "but that isn't good news!" Also in this issue: ** New Options Boost Audio Teleconferencing ** Bell and AT&T Debate Price Caps ** Are Voice over Wireless LANs Ready for Prime Time? Single copies of Telemanagement #198 are $75 each -- call 905-686-5050 ext 500 and charge to Visa, American Express, or Mastercard. Save 49% with a 10-issue subscription -- go to http://www.angustel.ca/teleman/tm-sub.html. ============================================================ HOW TO SUBMIT ITEMS FOR TELECOM UPDATE E-MAIL: editors@angustel.ca FAX: 905-686-2655 MAIL: TELECOM UPDATE Angus TeleManagement Group 8 Old Kingston Road Ajax, Ontario Canada L1T 2Z7 =========================================================== HOW TO SUBSCRIBE (OR UNSUBSCRIBE) TELECOM UPDATE is provided in electronic form only. There are two formats available: 1. The fully-formatted edition is posted on the World Wide Web on the first business day of the week at http://www.angustel.ca 2. The e-mail edition is distributed free of charge. To subscribe, send an e-mail message to: TelecomUpdate@add.postmastergeneral.com To stop receiving the e-mail edition, send an e-mail message to: TelecomUpdate@remove.postmastergeneral.com Sending e-mail to these addresses will automatically add or remove the sender's e-mail address from the list. Leave subject line and message area blank. 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. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2002 10:02:41 -0600 From: Carl W. Timmons Subject: Re: Townships, Etc. > On Wed, 6 Nov 2002 19:58:34 EST Wlevant@aol.com wrote: >> Baltimore, MD, on the other hand, is considered an independent city. >> Functionally, there appears to be is little difference...in an >> independent city, SOMEONE has to do what county officers would >> otherwise do. > I found it interesting when I lived in St. Louis County, Mo., to > find that the courts in St. Louis (an independent city not in > St. Louis County) were "in and for the city of St. Louis." These are > the usual state courts, and the styling in other places is "in and for > the county of St. Louis", or whatever county. I live in the St. Louis area, and can comment on this one. The City of St. Louis is a county. It happened in the 1800's when specific boundaries were set for the city. The way it is listed in our county guides is: St. Louis City county St. Louis County. The St. Louis City county has all the responsibilities of a county seat. Sherriff etc. It can be extremely confusing for newcomers, but long time residents are used to it. Carl W. Timmons ctimmons@directvinternet.com ------------------------------ From: Herb Stein Subject: Re: Townships, etc Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2002 03:39:53 -0600 Wes Leatherock wrote in message news:telecom22.120.7@telecom-digest.org: > On Wed, 6 Nov 2002 19:58:34 EST Wlevant@aol.com wrote: >> Baltimore, MD, on the other hand, is considered an independent city. >> Functionally, there appears to be is little difference...in an >> independent city, SOMEONE has to do what county officers would >> otherwise do. > I found it interesting when I lived in St. Louis County, Mo., to > find that the courts in St. Louis (an independent city not in > St. Louis County) were "in and for the city of St. Louis." These are > the usual state courts, and the styling in other places is "in and for > the county of St. Louis", or whatever county. > Clayton is the county seat of St. Louis County, and functions > much like most counties. > In St. Louis City, as you noted, there are officials who perform > all the usual acts of county officials. It seems to me St. Louis City > had a sheriff, but my recollection may be wrong. You're right. But we just passed the "home rule" amendment to the State Constitution on the 5th so the city can do what it wants. Apparently I missed the start of this thread. This relates to telcom how? > Wes Leatherock > wesrock@aol.com > wleathus@yahoo.com Herb Stein The Herb Stein Group www.herbstein.com herb@herbstein.com 314 952-4601 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: It only relates in a very peripheral way, and I do not remember how. Two months ago or so, an article appeared here which made reference to 'counties and townships'. That spurned a special issue of the Digest about a month ago giving very detailed descriptions and the history of townships. Everyone who read it seemed to feel it was quite good. These occassional messages in the past couple weeks have followed up on the original special issue. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Dave Phelps Subject: Re: 000-000-0000 Caller ID Date: Sun, 10 Nov 2002 23:34:47 -0600 In article , no- spam@amadeus.kome.com says: > I just got a "refinance your mortgage" call from a telemarketing machine > that identified as "Jack Mortenson" at 408 226-0706. So I (and now you) > know the guy's name and number. So what? What the hell can we do about > it? > Oh, yeah ... call the phone company. "I work out of my home." End of > investigation. I don't think you received a call from Jack's closet. I think a telesleaze company picked his phone number to send outbound on their PRI, and it happened to resolve to poor Jack. His phone was probably busy because of all the irritated people calling him to complain. In article , no- spam@amadeus.kome.com says: >> Of course, Pa Bell says no one can change or falsify CID info. > That is exactly the line I got when I had to beat them over the head > to fix major security holes in their VM system. I had to literally > demonstrate to them how easy it was to penetrate the VM boxes of > customers. Now that is a good idea! I'm going to try that here in SBC land and see what I get. I have no doubt it'll work since no password is required when calling from 'your own' line. Dave Phelps Phone Masters Ltd. deadspam=tippenring [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But if you do decide to test it without having SBC on the line listening, etc, then *the very instant you hear it start to play out any messages* terminate the call immediatly. Otherwise, the true owners of the voicemail boxes do have a legitimate beef with you. After all, *they* did not authorize you to do security testing for them on their boxes. Nor, were you at that instant, employed by SWBT as a consultant. Take care. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 Nov 2002 21:35:00 -0600 From: Gordon S. Hlavenka Organization: Crash Electronics, Inc. Subject: Re: 000-000-0000 Caller ID John Higdon wrote: > Actually, it was quite an amusing adventure that even got written up in > Wired Magazine. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: John, would you care to write this > story up for TELECOM Digest also; or perhaps get an okay from Wired > to use their account? I don't think most readers here know the > details as well as some people. PAT] Pat -- just surf to and search for "higdon" -- the story comes right up. Gordon S. Hlavenka O- nospam@crashelex.com Burma! [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: When your message arrived yesterday I tried what you said, and did read the article. It was quite informative and illustrated, to me at least, the lengths a major corporation will go to to cover their asses. It was very informative, was it not, how the company's first response was to get their lawyer after him; twist it all around and make *him* to be the bad guy. That's how unaccustomed they are to dealing with the occassional members of the public who know as much or more as they do about their business. And most people are frightened to death about talking to an attorney anyway, are they not? When an attorney calls, most guys will wither up and be quiet in the future, will they not? That's the idea ... just ask any telco. I am sure Dave Phelps (message next to this one) will be talking to telco's attorney sometime soon as well. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2002 15:36:36 -0600 From: John Mayson Reply-To: John Mayson Subject: Re: What's the Frequency, Camden? The Same as Boston-Area TV Organization: Ye 'Ol Disorganized NNTPCache groupie > In several large metropolitan areas some of the lower UHF TV channels > in the range 470-512MHz have been assigned to private land mobile > services, including police and fire. > WCVB is on channel 5, so that is not likely the problem. The problem wasn't with WCVB, but with WCVB-DT, their digital transmitter which operates on channel 20. http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/tvq?call=WCVB-TV John Mayson Austin, Texas, USA ------------------------------ 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 Fax 3: 775-642-0603 Fax 4: 530-309-7234 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 V22 #121 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Nov 11 21:41:09 2002 Received: from localhost (localhost [[UNIX: localhost]]) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.3nb1/8.11.3) id gAC2f9o00556; Mon, 11 Nov 2002 21:41:09 -0500 (EST) Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2002 21:41:09 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200211120241.gAC2f9o00556@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #122 TELECOM Digest Mon, 11 Nov 2002 21:39:00 EST Volume 22 : Issue 122 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: New 511 Transport Info Phone Number Coming Soon (Stanley Cline) Re: Known Origin of Predictive Dialer (John Higdon) Re: Calif. Changes Cell Phone Crash Data (John Higdon) Why Does Cancelled Cell Service Still Work? (Kim) Re: States Building Cell-Phone Use, Accident Database (Justin Time) DSLAM - Freq Conversion? (C H Hum) ECLongdistance and Calling 1-800 Numbers (Ian) Re: The Need For Internet Access Standards in Hotels (John Mayson) Spam Avenger Fights E-Junk With Satire (David Leibold) Re: Outlook Express (John Higdon) MIT Getting Millions For Digital TV Deal (Monty Solomon) Hollywood Studios Unveil Web Movie Site (Monty Solomon) CNN's Parent May Postpone News Merger With ABC (Monty Solomon) Re: You Have Triggered a Spam Filter (Dave Phelps) You Have Triggered a Spam Filter (tippenring@deadspam.com) Re: Last Laugh! (or Not) Commercial Scale Space Tourism (John David Galt) Re: Last Laugh! (or Not) Commercial Scale Space Tourism (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: Stanley Cline Subject: Re: New 511 Transport Info Phone Number Coming Soon Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2002 01:47:03 -0500 Organization: Roamer1 Communications Reply-To: sc1-news@roamer1.org On 09 Nov 2002 19:50:02 -0500, Yeoh Yiu quoted from a SF Chronicle article: > For one, some mobile phone companies are reluctant to spend the money > to support them, rendering them useless for cell phone users. > "What is the incentive?" asked Michael Bagley, Verizon Wireless' > director of public policy. "We don't have endless buckets of > resources." It's more like ONE mobile phone company, the one whose employee was quoted -- out of all the carriers in the Miami area and Kentucky (two areas where 511 is already up and working and has been for some time), VZW is the *ONLY* carrier to refuse to route calls to 511 without the agencies providing 511 service paying unreasonable amounts of money for VZW to do so. AT&T, Cingular, Dobson, Nextel, Sprint, T-Mobile, etc. all have no problem with routing calls to 511; why does VZW and only VZW? > Experts said some pay phone providers may also charge callers to dial > the three-digit codes, even when they automatically route calls to ... or they misroute them (for example, 211 going to payphone repair instead of the United Way's hotline here in Atlanta; most COCOTs have enough flexibility to use something else, such as a * code, for repair and refund calls), or they refuse to complete calls altogether. :( 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: John Higdon Reply-To: John Higdon Subject: Re: Known Origin of Predictive Dialer Date: 10 Nov 2002 22:47:20 -0800 Mark Crispin wrote: > The cops called ICS and told them to cool it. ICS told the police that > they weren't doing it, but that "someone had hacked into their system." > If you believe that I have some Florida swampland^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hprime > vacation property to sell you. That's good. Now ... what do you do when the telemarketer is calling from off-shore? Oh, yes ... there are plenty doing that now. And *57 won't come up with a thing. Even if it did, what would the local LE (or even the Feds) do about it? No pun intended, but it's a global world now. John Higdon | Email Address Valid | SF: +1 415 428-COWS +1 408 264 4115 | Anytown, USA | FAX: +1 408 264 4407 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: John, you seem damned and detirmined that nothing can be done about those vermin, so let's just throw up our hands and consider it a 'non-issue' and give up on it and move along to something else. I, Mr. Crispin and many other readers here are equally damned and detirmined to do what little we can to continue mitigating the effects of the vermin. You seem to take the posture that unless the entire thing, like spam, can be cured in one swoop, therefore we should write off any efforts to do anything. Of course its a global world; of course there will always be teleslime out there breaking the rules. And when Dubya eggs on Sodomy Insane to the point that Mr. Insane sprays poisonous gas at all of us or nukes us or whatever, there will only be three categories of vermin left in the world; IRS tax collectors, cockroaches, and mutant telemarketers. They manage to survive anything/everything. For the past *two weeks* I have been recieving not one, not two, but sometimes six or seven calls *daily* on my distinctive ringing line looking for a person named 'Robert Dye'. The caller ID says it is 'Name Unavailable' at 843-308-7402. The imbeciles at SWB Telco claim that since they provided the phone number, that's good enough. It has gotten so bad that if my distinctive ring-ring line summons me, I have started answering it 'wrong number'. Calling that number reaches an intercept telling me to call AT&T and buy long distance service. I do *57 on them each time; am told each time I do that my trace has been completed satisfactorily and given another number to dial if I wish to file a complaint, which I have done. I've done *57 on the same bunch of idiots (AT&T) twice today, and I will keep doing it each time they continue ringing me. I spoke to a supervisor at AT&T a few days ago, who seemed very casual about it all, as though she could not care either way. I spoke to a highly placed flunky a few days ago who said she responds for the chairman at SWBT and they did not care if privacy manager worked correctly or not. We will see about that. She said if the caller puts in 'some number' we do our job and provide you with 'some number' on your caller-ID. So John, some of us will continue doing battle with the imbeciles and other rodents the best we can, although I admit it is an uphill fight and things are looking pretty grim. Maybe with a little luck, Dubya will torment and bully Mr. Insane to the point Mr. Insane will gas us all some night soon, and we can all become mutant telemarketers in order to survive. PAT] ------------------------------ From: John Higdon Subject: Re: Calif. Changes Cell Phone Crash Data Organization: Green Hills and Cows Date: Sun, 10 Nov 2002 23:23:10 -0800 In article , Monty Solomon wrote: > Rep. Catherine Barrett, D-Cincinnati, is the primary sponsor of HB > 280 and 281, which propose restrictions on drivers using cellular > phones while operating motor vehicles. They were introduced in May > 2001. I'm highly amused with all this concern over cellphones and driving. I had to make a trip up to my office in SF this morning. I got gas for the car and little bag of peanuts for myself. I was appalled at the swerving and other manifestations of really bad driving I was committing by just trying to open the bag and get the peanuts into my mouth. When I answered a call on my cellphone, it was not nearly so bad and did not affect my driving nearly so much as eating those peanuts. So ... by all means lets crack down on cellphone use in cars, but let's outlaw every other common and even more detrimental activity while driving as well. Anything less would be highly hypocritical. John Higdon | Email Address Valid | SF: +1 415 428-COWS +1 408 264 4115 | Anytown, USA | FAX: +1 408 264 4407 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Hypocrisy is the name of the game where cell phones and motorists are concerned. What else is new? PAT] ------------------------------ From: kimDealey@msn.com (Kim) Subject: Why Does Cancelled Cell Service Still Work? Date: 11 Nov 2002 00:30:48 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Hi, Several months ago I shut off my cell service because I couldn't afford it. I kept the phone in the car because I knew it would still work to call 911. One day, a couple of months later, while I was bored in traffic, I dialed a number just to find out what the 'You have no service' recording sounded like. To my suprise the call completed. A little more testing revealed I could make calls from within my home town -- but nowhere else -- not even from other towns served by the same cell company. I also could not receive any calls at all. I know the service was terminated because I have not been receivng any more bills. Also, the cell company sent me a notice that since I had terminated the service mid-month (after the mandatory one year contract period had ended) they were exercising their right to keep the amount under $20 ($18.25) that was a credit on the bill (the contract says they only have to return credits over $20). Can anyone explain why the phone still works? I don't use the phone because I figure that way there's more of a chance the cell company won't notice it's on and I'll have the phone to use in case of some kind of unspecified (non 911) emergency. ------------------------------ From: a_user2000@yahoo.com (Justin Time) Subject: Re: States Building Cell-Phone Use, Accident Database Date: 11 Nov 2002 05:44:43 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Monty Solomon wrote in message news:: > WASHINGTON-The Governors Highway Safety Association said states next > year will have new guidelines for collecting vehicular crash data > that take account of driver use of cell phones, pagers and other > electronic devices in traffic accidents. > The new guidelines, which will help build a database that states and > others can look to in making driver-distraction policy, were crafted > by the GHSA, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the > Federal Highway Administration and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety > Administration. Drivers distracted by cell-phone conversations have > been tied to deaths and injuries. > http://www.rcrnews.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?newsId=5821 Perhaps the scope of the study needs to be expanded significantly. Cell phones and pagers, DVD players, PDAs and their ilk are not the only causes of driver distraction. Perhaps they should include the use of the built-in radio/CD/Tape player in each car as well. Then, how about the flashing signs, animated displays, billboards and other distractions? With all the emphasis on eliminating driver distraction, we seem to be moving closer to a society in which all forms of personal transportation - other than shoe leather - will be outlawed. We will travel from place to place in public transportation vehicles that are controlled by computer. The assumption being the computer will never be distracted by talking to someone on a cell phone, looking at its appointment schedule or even noticing the billboard outside. Careful - Big Brother is wanting you out of your car. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: And remember also, the computer is never wrong. They program those things pretty carefully. PAT] ------------------------------ From: C H Hum Subject: DSLAM - Freq Conversion? Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2002 19:20:45 -0000 Does anyone know how a DSLAM works in detail? A webpage or book reference will help. I understand that the upstream and down stream of ADSL band width are different. So how is the translating done? Say when A wants to send data to B? Will there be any problem when lower bandwidth size (upstream) is put into a larger bandwitdh size (downstream) of the other user? Is it that the smaller bandwidth will just spread out to occupy the larger bandwidth? I dont quite understand. Many thanks, C ------------------------------ From: ian@jardine.net (Ian) Subject: ECLong Distance and Calling 1-800 Numbers Date: 11 Nov 2002 11:34:18 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ This is from their Frequently Asked Questions: Quote # Is there any additional charge for an 800 or toll-free number? No. 800 numbers will be billed at the same rates as your outgoing calls. Back to top # Does it cost me to call an 800 number? Yes, the cost is 49 cents per month per toll free number. Unquote This seems to read that ECG will charge me for any and all calls I make to any 1-800 number? Can this be true and why do they charge? ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2002 15:13:26 -0600 From: John Mayson Reply-To: John Mayson Subject: Re: The Need For Internet Access Standards in Hotels Organization: Ye 'Ol Disorganized NNTPCache groupie > I live in Australia ... At the moment my mother is in California > attempting to telecommute on a holiday ... Attempting is the correct > word. I have a good one for you! I stayed at the Hilton Guadalajara in Mexico a couple of weeks ago. A small sign on my desk advertised free broadband access via the network port "on or near" the desk. I found an RJ-45 port built into the desk. I plugged my laptop in and nothing happened. I felt under the desk and discovered a network cable about 20 centimeters long connected on one end to the RJ-45 port in the desk and an unconnected "male" RJ-45 connector at the end. I felt around for the second RJ-45 port for the cable, found it, and got shocked. After a couple of minutes of fishing cables through I discovered the second port was connected to a cable that went to the 120 VAC power outlet. It didn't actually plug in, but the cable ran under the wallplate and the power was the only thing in the area. Had they not done such a poor job with the wiring, I would not have gotten shocked and would have plugged my laptop into that. Sadly that wasn't the only complaint I had about the room or the only time I got shocked, but Hilton bashing would be slightly off-topic. ;-) John Mayson Austin, Texas, USA ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2002 01:31:36 EST From: David Leibold Subject: Spam Avenger Fights E-Junk With Satire Telephone tomfoolery has been recorded and compiled for decades e.g. Steve Allen's "Funny Fone Calls" from the 1960's, up to the recent and considerably more cheeky efforts of the Jerky Boys. Now the Spam Avenger has appeared, whose function is to dial up spammer numbers and give them royal run-arounds. These counter-attacks are recorded, and some of these have made it onto the Avenger's debut CD release. Spam Avenger's website: http://thespamavenger.com Recent media report: http://www.canoe.ca/JamMusic/nov8_spam-sun.html Disclaimer: The Spam Avenger has a street team. I'm not on it. Yet. ------------------------------ From: John Higdon Reply-To: John Higdon Subject: Re: Outlook Express Date: 10 Nov 2002 22:40:46 -0800 Ed Ellers wrote: > Not at all. I didn't choose Outlook Express blindly; it does pretty > much what I want an email/netnews client to do, *because* I learned > how to make it do so. I used Outlook Express for several years on the Mac. Unfortunately, two things led to its demise as my email/netnews client: 1. I upgraded to Mac OS X. Bill in his infinite wisdom elected to not support the Macintosh with his free email and news client. For email, I could use Entourage (as part of the pricy Office suite), but as far as I can tell, he has no netnews for the OS X at all. 2. When I did finally upgrade to Mac OS X, I discovered how really slow and clunky OE was on OS 9. Apparently as a result of its "store everything in one huge file" technique, its dealing with heavily posted newsgroups can best be described as "wait, wait, and wait some more". MT Newswatcher on OS X is lightning fast by comparison. I didn't realize until I switched that you don't really have to wait a full minute to get the unread articles in a newsgroup! Bill needs to learn some hashing techniques. John Higdon | Email Address Valid | SF: +1 415 428-COWS +1 408 264 4115 | Anytown, USA | FAX: +1 408 264 4407 ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 Nov 2002 23:56:34 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: MIT Getting Millions For Digital TV Deal By Keith J. Winstein NEWS EDITOR MIT will receive $30 million from Dolby Laboratories, the result of Dolby's selection as the national standard for digital television audio in the U.S. and a subsequent lawsuit settlement. A crucial vote cast in favor of Dolby by Jae S. Lim '74, an MIT professor of electrical engineering, helped select Dolby as the standard for digital television audio in the United States. Lim cast MIT's 1993 vote in favor of Dolby's technology in the television industry "Grand Alliance" to draft a unified recommendation to the Federal Communications Commission. He is expected to receive more than $8 million from Dolby's payments to MIT, said Jack Turner, the associate director of the Technology Licensing Office. http://www-tech.mit.edu/V122/N54/54hdtv.54n.html ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2002 00:32:34 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Hollywood Studios Unveil Web Movie Site By Bob Tourtellotte LOS ANGELES, Nov 11 (Reuters) - Five top Hollywood studios opened online box office Movielink on Monday in their first, tentative step to sell blockbuster films like "Ocean's Eleven" on the Web after years of fretting over the copyright piracy now threatening the music business. At its launch, Movielink is offering 170 titles from Oscar winners like 2001's "A Beautiful Mind" to the classic "Breakfast at Tiffany's." In between, are action films such as "Air Force One," kids flicks like "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" and comedies such as "Men In Black." Prices will range from around $1.99 for older titles to about $4.95 for recent releases, and the service comes with VCR-like functions such as pause, rewind and fast-forward. The movies are downloaded onto a computer hard drive, where they reside for 30 days, without being played, before being deleted. Movielink users must have high-speed Web connections, otherwise the time to download is prohibitive, Ramo said. Once a film is started, viewers have 24 hours to watch the full movie before it is deleted, which is among the built-in protections to keep users from posting films on file-sharing Web sites where they can be swapped for free. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=29559500 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2002 00:43:48 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: CNN's Parent May Postpone News Merger With ABC By BILL CARTER and JIM RUTENBERG Negotiators of the proposed merger between CNN and ABC News reported extensive progress late last week and predicted that an agreement in principle could be in place as early as January. But as the negotiators pushed ahead, new questions arose over whether the leadership of CNN's parent, AOL Time Warner, would delay any deal as it coped with other issues roiling the company. AOL Time Warner has been buffeted by a series of crises in the past year, including management changes, and it is now facing a federal investigation into its accounting. Some executives at the two companies said AOL Time Warner could put off finalizing the merger, possibly for many months, to deal with what the board considers more pressing priorities. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/11/business/media/11TUBE.html ------------------------------ From: Dave Phelps Subject: Re: You Have Triggered a Spam Filter Date: Sun, 10 Nov 2002 23:50:32 -0600 In article , tippenring@deadspam.com says: [snip antispam autoresponse] > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, tell me something tippingring; > did the above come to you as a result of my mail to you, or something > you attempted to send to me? All I got was the above, under your > name. Spammers certainly have made a mess of the net and email; no > doubt about it. PAT] I did not receive an email from you. If you sent me a message at 'tippenring@deadspam.com', then that is the automatic antispam reply. No mail is forwarded thru that address. A guy has the domain deadspam.com, and will, on request, host an email address for you that automatically responds with the above message (or any other message you choose). Note in my sig the 'deadspam=tippenring'. That's what that means. I guess I could make it a bit more clear. Dave Phelps Phone Masters Ltd. deadspam=tippenring ------------------------------ From: tippenring@deadspam.com Subject: You Have Triggered a Spam Filter Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2002 05:51:58 GMT [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: For those of you who missed this the first time around, it is repeated here. I thought tippenring had sent me email; he apparently feels it was something I mailed him. This notice which follows is coming through here many times today. I've killed it repeatedly. I wonder if it is my autoreply which is causing it to get generated? PAT] This is an automatic response: the recipient has not received your message. If you were trying to make a personal contact with the intended recipient, you have probably replied to a Usenet posting which has a spam-protected reply email address. Somewhere in that posting (probably in the .signature at the end) there will be instructions on how to mail the real address of its poster. Sorry for the inconvenience! Blame the spammers for causing people to go to these lengths. On the other hand, if you were trying to send spam (unsolicited bulk email) to this address, understand that it is utterly unwelcome, and has been utterly ignored, too. The recipient of your spam wishes your business all the success it deserves, given its current marketing strategy. Which is to say, none at all. ------------------------------ From: John David Galt Subject: Re: Last Laugh! (or Not?) Commercial Scale Space Tourism Date: Sun, 10 Nov 2002 22:05:09 -0800 Organization: Diogenes the Cynic Hot-Tubbing Society I saw this spam in 20 unrelated newsgroups. Nuke it. ------------------------------ From: Robert Dover Subject: Re: Last Laugh! (or Not?) Commercial Scale Space Tourism Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2002 10:31:52 -0600 Organization: Nortel > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well readers, again I ask your advice. > Is this last message a 'last laugh', a spam, or is it genuine? Its spam. Also appeared on comp.lang.perl.misc. ------------------------------ 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 Fax 3: 775-642-0603 Fax 4: 530-309-7234 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. 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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 V22 #122 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Nov 12 19:27:26 2002 Received: from localhost (localhost [[UNIX: localhost]]) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.3nb1/8.11.3) id gAD0RQk16093; Tue, 12 Nov 2002 19:27:26 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2002 19:27:26 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200211130027.gAD0RQk16093@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #123 TELECOM Digest Tue, 12 Nov 2002 19:27:00 EST Volume 22 : Issue 123 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson N11/Payphones/Wireless/PBXes/PAY-per-Call/etc (Mark J. Cuccia) Re: New 511 Transport Info Phone Number Coming Soon (Paul Coxwell) Followup on Jack Mortenson (John Higdon) Re: Last Laugh! (or Not?) Commercial Scale Space Tourism (Gail M. Hall) Re: ECLong Distance and Calling 1-800 Numbers (John R. Levine) Re: Known Origin of Predictive Dialer (CCIE 8122) Re: Known Origin of Predictive Dialer (John Higdon) Re: 000-000-0000 Caller ID (Dave Phelps) "This Call May be Monitored or Recorded." (Dave Phelps) Re: ECLong Distance and Calling 1-800 Numbers (Michael D. Sullivan) Re: Calif. Changes Cell Phone Crash Data (jt) Panasonic KX-TD816 (Jeremy Marks) SS7 over E1 (Guillaume Maigre) NuPoint Voicemail Mailbox Owner Recognition (Benm) Re: Calif. Changes Cell Phone Crash Data (Clarence Dold) Opinions on ExpressPin? (OneNetNut) Unfazed by Hollywood, Small Company Offers Copy Software (Monty Solomon) Computer Break-Ins: Your Right to Know (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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2002 21:14:51 CST From: Mark J. Cuccia Subject: N11/Payphones/Wireless/PBXes/PAY-per-Call/etc Re, the 511 code for "Travel/Traffic Info", Stan Cline wrote: > [quoted from a SF newspaper article] >> Experts said some pay phone providers may also charge callers to dial >> the three-digit codes, even when they automatically route calls to >> toll-free lines. > ... or they misroute them (for example, 211 going to payphone repair > instead of the United Way's hotline here in Atlanta; most COCOTs have > enough flexibility to use something else, such as a * code, for repair > and refund calls), or they refuse to complete calls altogether. :( I know that it is "easier" for the COCOT vendors to quote (display) a simple N11 code for payphone repair / coin-refund. It's less space, etc. on instruction cards. And it could be JUST as "easy" for them to use a (NON-standard) '#' or '*' codes for their ANSWERING SERVICE/MACHINE for "repair" or refunds... although the COCOTs' NON-standard N11s, or */# codes as well "translate" (internally in the chips) to 7/10 digit "POTS" numbers (whether local or toll), or 'free' 8yy-NXX-xxxx numbers, supposedly at NO coin charge to the calling party. HOWEVER ... I do _NOT_ like the idea of such (NON-standard) N11 or */# "short" codes. Suppose I am trying to use the (damn) COCOT, and have lost my coins. And I am having trouble with the keypad or mouthpiece/receiveer. Remember, this COCOT is exposed to the elements, both "natural" as well as (in)human, and this is also a DAMN COCOT which is subject to its OWN quirkiness, erroneous or deliberate on the part of the COCOT vendor. I want my refund! What good is that NON-standard N11 or */# code to me from my home or office phone!??? Or from some OTHER COCOT or telco payphone? These COCOT vendors, IMO, should be REQUIRED to have AND post a _FREE_ 8yy-NXX-xxxx number! And one that is available nationwide. Actually, these days, 800/888/etc. numbers can easily be accessible nationwide and usually are automatically nationwide in scope. As for the (legit/standard/ FCC/NANPA/CNAC/telco/etc-recommended) N11 codes, I wonder how many PROPERLY work from all PBX and wireless systems, not to mention independent telcos, CLECs, etc. And charging ... the FCC and state reg agencies should REQUIRE ALL to be coin-free, local message-unit free, and air/roaming free, EXCEPT possibly for 411 ... STAND-BY, why can't 411 be FREE again as well! But if 411 is still to be charged, then every other standard/recommended use should be required free and accessible from EVERY type of phone on the network wherever that code has been activated ... 211 for local community referral/support 311 non-emergency government 411 (Directory/Information, potentially charge-able) 511 travel/traffic info 611 telco repair (where traditionally used) 711 Telecom Relay for the Deaf/Speech Impaired 811 telco Business Office 911 Emergencies And if 611 and 811 are not necessarily going to be used for the traditional "Bell System" uses in any particular community ... and likewise, if 211 or 311 or 511 haven't yet been activated for the recommended service in a community, then IMO, the code should be treated as VACANT, or at very least ONLY used by telco for "test" functions (ANAC, Ringback, Testboard, 1.004 Kc Milliwatt, reverse-battery, etc). This "temporary" use of "unused" N11 codes for SLIME/PORN/SEX/etc. PAY-PAY-PAY-per-call (or ANY form of PAY-per-use function, even if not porn/sex-related) should be ELIMINATED wherever it has been allowed to sleaze-itself-in. If the state regulators, the FCC, and the telcos ten years ago (mostly in BellSouth territory) did what was right, they would have all stood FIRM, REFUSING to (temporarily) allow such SCUM to habitate previously unused N11 codes. Even though the Sleaze/porn entities have to agree in advance to "vacate" the N11 code if telco or government deems a more legit use for that code, you KNOW that the LAWyers for these pay-and-dial-a-porn entities are going to fight tooth-and-nail from being "evicted" from the N11 codes that (IMO) they NEVER should have been allowed in the first place! :( mjc ------------------------------ From: PaulCoxwell@aol.com Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2002 17:25:40 EST Subject: Re: New 511 Transport Info Phone Number Coming Soon > 211 > First launched in the Atlanta metro area in 1997. The Federal > Communications Commission reserved the number for other social service > hot lines in 2000. Now used in portions of 18 states. The California > Public Utilities Commission is expected to approve an application > process to use the number in the Golden State as early as January. Let's not forget that this is not the first application for 211. Some 50 years ago 211 was used in some areas for the long-distance operator. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: 50 years ago, most all of them were used in different ways. In addition to 211 for long distance in many communities, (prior to automated dialing, manual subscribers asked the operator for 'Long Distance' to get that operator), and 411 for information, (manual subscribers asked the operator for Information or Enquiries), 611 was repair service, and during the Second World War when telephone circuits and instruments were greatly rationed, 811 was used for 'priority long distance', which meant military personnel with the authority to obtain a line at any time could call 811 and identify themselves to the operator. She in turn (if no other circuits were available as frequently was the case) was authorized under the law, to 'go in on' an existing call, announce her presence and state, 'line is needed in the war effort; I will give you ten seconds to vacate.' The parties were expected to make quick goodbyes and vacate. If they did not vacate at that time (or sooner if they cursed the operator which happened frequently) she was authorized to pull down the connection. After the war ended, 811 was given over to the Business Office in many places (mostly GTE territories) and used in many Bell System areas for specialized long distance service by hotels, universities, etc which required 'time and charges' by their switchboards so charges could be made against the responsible extension user. Depending on the size of the PBX and its volume of traffic the PBX either had direct 'tie lines' on the board to long distance (in which case LD knew who was calling because the tie line terminated on her board also according to the name of the hotel, university, etc; the PBX did not have to say 'I want to make a long distance call to xxxx'; she merely had to hold on the line until LD responded then announce, 'extension xxxx on the line', and vacate. LD took the call and details from there, and the 'time and charges' were automatically quoted back to the organization for billing purposes, usually on a teletype machine close to the PBX operator. Smaller PBXs, small motels, etc however were to dial 811 and announce her phone number to the operator, who again, already knew the purpose of the call, and would 'quote time and charges' on the conclusion. Then, let's see .. 3ll, 511 and 911 were used by dialing customers to reach still manual customers in 'local toll' points, at least around the Chicago area. For instance, dialing 911 from a Chicago dial phone would reach the operator in Whiting/Hammond, Indiana (local toll from Chicago). To call Western Union and place a telegraph from either dial or manual 'private' (in your home or business) phones, you dialed or asked for WABash 7111. From payphones (automated) you dialed 711 which allowed the WUTCO operator to take your message. From manual pay phones you were to ask the operator for 'Western Union'. In either case when you finished dictating your message, WUTCO would tell you 'now flash and get the operator back on the line'. The object was that BellCo coin operator had to collect the money for Western Union as their agent. WUTCO would tell the operator 'I want 75 cents for the telegram just being sent', and you would have to put the money in the phone's coin box. The business office was usually 311, sometimes 511 or manual subscribers were to ask the operator for 'Business Office'. In any event any X11 number was *always* telecom-related; they were *never* used for frivilous purposes, such as sex, general questions, transit, etc. PAT] ------------------------------ From: John Higdon Subject: Followup on Jack Mortenson Organization: Green Hills and Cows Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2002 15:16:02 -0800 Taking the cue from Pat and others, I contacted SBC to report the telemarketing activities of "Jack Mortenson", whose name and phone number appeared on caller-id when I was assaulted by a mechanized home re-financing pitch. No satisfaction at SBC, believe me. No one at SBC knew whether or not a mechanized pitch that was not introduced by a human violated any laws or tariffs. "If that is a violation, you need to take it up with the proper authorities." As to the matter of using residential service for business activities: "Well, that's a gray area. People do work at home using their residential phones. Furthermore, it might have been a business line." When I tried to give anyone at SBC pertinent information (phone number, date, time, etc.) relating to the activity, the admonishment to contact "the proper authorities" was repeated. I was given the number of the CPUC. It became rather obvious that SBC has trained its personnel to avoid any dealings with complaints about telemarketing or any other offensive use of the telephone. I know the local police certainly couldn't care less about the crime of telemarketing. I have already experienced their blase attitude with regard to major theft and bodily threats. I'm not going to waste my time being laughed off the phone. As I suspected, it is a spammers' and junk callers' world out there. Call Jack (408 226-0706) and congratulate him for being in the right place at the right time. You'll probably find his line busy (as it makes money for him pitching home re-financing to the Silicon Valley), but keep trying! John Higdon | Email Address Valid | SF: +1 415 428-COWS +1 408 264 4115 | Anytown, USA | FAX: +1 408 264 4407 ------------------------------ From: Gail M. Hall Subject: Re: Last Laugh! (or Not?) Commercial Scale Space Tourism Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2002 18:28:01 -0500 Reply-To: gmhall@apk.net On Sun, 10 Nov 2002 18:23:06 -0800, in comp.dcom.telecom, you TELECOM Digest Editor wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well readers, again I ask your advice. > Is this last message a 'last laugh', a spam, or is it genuine? The > idea of asking every reader to send in a dollar sort of turns me off, > but I just don't know what to think. Remember how back in the 1950's > Ralph Kramden (Jackie Gleason) would double up his fist and tell his > wife Alice (Jayne Meadows) she was going to go to the moon? PAT] Your digest software deleted some of the clues I would have used for this kind of message -- the headers. We can tell by the tracking what the headers show whether or not the address looks fake. Also, why are we hearing about this "opportunity" through e-mail sent to thousands of people and have not heard about this venture through normal news channels. Personally, I put this message in the same category as the ones offering us a fortune by getting in on the "ground floor" for many "new" kinds of business. There were plenty of these schemes offering us "opportunities" to make it rich in cellular phone technology, wireless technology, the long-distance telephone business, and many more. I've been hearing about the wonderful "new idea" of creating diamonds out of the carbon released when dead people are cremated. I wonder how carefully the "news" people researched the truth of this story. How many grieving people are going to be suckered into this scheme before it comes out that the "diamonds" they get are really fake or not the real cremains of their loved ones? Well, I'll let someone else do the resarch on this gravity control company and Victor Rozsnyay. One thing I can say is, he's got one good technique going. Make the amount of money he asks for small enough so that people will be less likely to report their losses. People are more likely to get steamed if they lose what they feel is a substantial amount of money. At a dollar per "ticket," it will be more like putting dollars in the "one-armed bandit" in "Lost Wages." I still haven't fallen for the telephone company's desire to "protect" me from telemarketers by privacy control. They sell caller ID, but don't make sure it works right. On top of that they sell the privacy protection but let people use residential phone lines for 24 x 7 calling robots and allow companies to call more phones than their equipment can handle -- so we get those "no one says anything" type calls over and over again. BTW, if we punch that number to get the caller ID for the police (but not for us), WE pay a substantial amount for each time we use that service. Are they going to raise the price to us for 911 service, too? Gail getting old and grumpy in Ohio USA [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: There was a time when telco actually had concern for the welfare and privacy of their subscribers. They were called 'Bell System' in those days. Now they could care less. The highest bidder gets their attention now; spammers and telemarketers run the show as John Higdon points out. Back in 1981-85 more or less, I published many comments here in the Digest about that old fool, Judge Harold Greene, who managed to break up the Bell System. The dotty old man lost ten cents in a payphone one day, a payphone booth that looked and smelled like a urinal or filthy toilet in Washington, DC, and he would not be content until he got his friends in the Justice Department to bust up the telephone company. In those days I would bash Judge Greene regularly here, and these same guys on the Arpanet mailing list would always shush me up, and tell me to quit bashing the judge, a good, kindly, wise fellow who knew what was best for the whole USA and the rest of the world as well. Well, it has taken me almost twenty years to prove my point, that Judge Greene, in his dottieness, was making a mess of the phone company. To the credit of the old Bell System, it held together pretty well for many years after divestiture. I hope the Judge Greene lovers on this mailing list are finally happy. The Bell System (which some of them called the 'Hell System') finally got wrecked. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: 11 Nov 2002 22:14:52 -0500 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: ECLong Distance and Calling 1-800 Numbers Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > This seems to read that ECG will charge me for any and all calls I > make to any 1-800 number? Can this be true and why do they charge? You have it backwards. If you have an 800* number on your ECG account, ECG will charge you whenever anyone calls your 800 number. That's how toll-free numbers work. If you don't have a toll free number, you can ignore their 800 rates. In ECG's case, the rate for incoming 800 calls is the same as the rate for a corresponding dial-one call, 4.9 cpm interstate, varying amounts in-state. They also charge 49 cents per month for each 800 number on your account, and a surcharge of about 30 cents for each call to an 800 number from a payphone. These rates are in the low range of what carriers charge for 800 service that terminates on a POTS line and has a low monthly minimum. If you call an 800 number, it's automatically routed to and charged to the 800 number's owner, and nothing shows up on your bill. Your dial-1 carrier has no idea what 800 numbers you call, since they don't handle those calls. Regards, John Levine, johnl@iecc.com Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies" Information Superhighwayman wanna-be http://iecc.com/johnl Sewer Commissioner "More Wiener schnitzel, please", said Tom, revealingly. * - or 888, 877, or 866, of course. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Gee whiz, I can remember when 800 calls were handled like other calls via Separations and Settlements, an archaic back office function at AT&T. Judge Greene didn't like that process either; better just to make subscribers ante-up a few cents extra for each of their calls, and force COCOT users to put money in the coin box for the supposedly free (to them) call. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2002 20:41:29 -0700 From: CCIE 8122 Subject: Re: Known Origin of Predictive Dialer MJ 631/673 is an extension out of Huntington, NY. The CLLI code for the serving CO is HNSTNYHUDS0. The telco is listed as New York Tel Co., a subsidiary of NYNEX, which was acquired by Bell Atlantic, which merged with GTE to become Verizon. So unless Verizon has sold the Huntington CO, they are the carrier. If not, give them the NPA/NXX, and they can tell you to whom they sold the CO. HTH kr ------------------------------ From: John Higdon Subject: Re: Known Origin of Predictive Dialer Organization: Green Hills and Cows Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2002 19:46:48 -0800 In article , TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: > John, you seem damned and detirmined > that nothing can be done about those vermin, so let's just throw up > our hands and consider it a 'non-issue' and give up on it and move > along to something else. Maybe I'm looking at it a bit like chess, and in playing it several moves ahead I see that checkmate is inevitable. Take a look at the fax situation. There is a Federal law that prohibits junk faxing. But it does us no good in California because in its infinite wisdom, the California legislature passed its own very stupid junk fax bill that trumps the Federal law ... and gives a gigantic loophole to the junk faxers. As a result, those of us in California still have a printer full of crap when we come into the office every morning. > I, Mr. Crispin and many other readers here > are equally damned and detirmined to do what little we can to continue > mitigating the effects of the vermin. You seem to take the posture > that unless the entire thing, like spam, can be cured in one swoop, > therefore we should write off any efforts to do anything. No, it is more a matter of diminishing returns. In another post, I outlined the response I got from SBC with regard to my "Jack Mortenson" incident. What I didn't mention was the sales pitch I got from one of the SBC people to whom I spoke. She was pushing "call block". That's right: her suggestion was to block "Jack's" number! I pointed out how futile that was, and then realized that just about any effort that I, one person, might bring to bear was, indeed, futile. > So John, some of us will continue doing battle with the imbeciles and > other rodents the best we can, although I admit it is an uphill fight > and things are looking pretty grim. Maybe with a little luck, Dubya > will torment and bully Mr. Insane to the point Mr. Insane will gas us > all some night soon, and we can all become mutant telemarketers in > order to survive. PAT] I hate to think that such is the endpoint in the war with marketing slime, but in my current state of mind, I'm inclined to agree with you. John Higdon | Email Address Valid | SF: +1 415 428-COWS +1 408 264 4115 | Anytown, USA | FAX: +1 408 264 4407 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: If Dubya goes through with his threat on the radio today, that only the USA is allowed to have weapons of mass destruction and everyone else (mainly Mr. Sodomy Insane) has to give his up (we don't, because we are good and pure, Christian, and as we sing, 'For Our Cause, it is Just' [fourth stanza, Star Spangled Banner]) this may well be quite a moot point in the next few days. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Dave Phelps Subject: Re: 000-000-0000 Caller ID Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2002 22:44:59 -0600 > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But if you do decide to test it > without having SBC on the line listening, etc, then *the very instant > you hear it start to play out any messages* terminate the call > immediatly. Otherwise, the true owners of the voicemail boxes do have > a legitimate beef with you. After all, *they* did not authorize you to > do security testing for them on their boxes. Nor, were you at that > instant, employed by SWBT as a consultant. Take care. PAT] I agree. I don't intend to listen to any messages. When you initially log into a mailbox, it tells you how many messages you have. If I hear that rather than a password prompt, then the test is successful (or fails, depending on POV). Of course, it may not work. If the authentication is based on ANI rather than CLID, then it won't work. I would hope that by now (four years after John Higdon's battle with Pac Bell), that the news has propogated enough to fix this. I'll let everyone know when I get a chance to try it. Dave Phelps Phone Masters Ltd. deadspam=tippenring ------------------------------ From: Dave Phelps Subject: "This Call May be Monitored or Recorded." Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2002 23:01:29 -0600 I think that gives me permission to record a call, doesn't it? If I intend to record a call, and I hear that message, does that mean that they have agreed to have me record the conversation, and I don't explicitly have to ask the person when they answer? That's how I take it. Dave Phelps Phone Masters Ltd. deadspam=tippenring [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I think you misunderstood their use of the word 'may'. Its not 'may' (as in 'you have our permission to do this') but 'may' (as in 'this is something we might decide to do'). However you may wish to interpret the 'may', please be sure to include that opening statement in the audio taping at the beginning of the tape in case there later is any question about whether or not permission was granted to do the taping. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Michael D. Sullivan Subject: Re: ECLong Distance and Calling 1-800 Numbers Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2002 08:13:36 GMT On 11 Nov 2002 11:34:18 -0800, Ian posted the following to comp.dcom.telecom: > This is from their Frequently Asked Questions: > Quote > # Is there any additional charge for an 800 or toll-free number? > No. 800 numbers will be billed at the same rates as your outgoing > calls. This means that if you get a toll-free number from ECLongDistance, your incoming calls on the toll-free number will be at the same per- minute rates as your outgoing long-distance calls. > # Does it cost me to call an 800 number? > Yes, the cost is 49 cents per month per toll free number. > This seems to read that ECG will charge me for any and all calls I > make to any 1-800 number? Can this be true and why do they charge? This is badly worded. I would guess that what the company is trying to convey is that if you have them assign you a toll-free number that terminates on your phone, they will charge you 49 cents per month. Unfortunately, they stated this in response to the wrong question. No, they should not be charging you per-call, per-minute, or per-month for calling an 800 or other toll-free number. In fact, assuming they are a long-distance carrier, they don't even get involved when you call a toll-free number. When you do, your LEC looks up the appropriate carrier to hand the call off to in a database and connects you via that carrier. This is true whether your primary interexchange carrier is AT&T, MCI, Capsule, ECG, or None of the Above. You get billed $0.00 by the local exchange carrier and the toll-free number owner gets billed for the call by the interexchange carrier from whom it subscribed to the toll-free incoming service. Michael D. Sullivan Bethesda, MD, USA (delete NOSPAM from address to mail me) ------------------------------ From: jt Subject: Re: Calif. Changes Cell Phone Crash Data Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2002 08:35:11 -0500 Organization: WorldCom Canada Ltd. News Reader Service John Higdon wrote in message news:telecom22.122.3@telecom-digest.org... > .... I was appalled at the swerving > and other manifestations of really bad driving I was committing by just > trying to open the bag and get the peanuts into my mouth. When I > answered a call on my cellphone, it was not nearly so bad and did not > affect my driving nearly so much as eating those peanuts. In the UK recently (well, two or three years ago) there was a woman prosecuted for careless-driving/failure-to-pay-attention/whatever. The UK equivalent is because she was eating a chocolate bar. Much hullabaloo in the press but as I recall the judge said the police constable had it right as she was not driving very well. Whch brings up the point that there are more than likely laws on the books already, sufficient to control bad driving due to cell-phone use (or peanut eating, etcetera) without banning it specifically. If we could only control the law-makers as well. ------------------------------ From: jmarks@futurenet-consulting.com (Jeremy Marks) Subject: Panasonic KX-TD816 Organization: Futurenet Reply-To: jmarks@futurenet-consulting.com Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2002 14:25:34 GMT I have installed my first Panasonic kx-td816 phone system for my in-laws and all is working perfectly ... except they added a fax machine into the fold last night. Their system is configured with two telephone lines going into the system. Line #2 is their fax line, but should be in the system so they can make outgoing calls on it if line#1 is busy. All calls to line #2 should go directly to the fax machine. Here are my questions: Do I plug the fax machine into the back of their display phone to get dial-tone? What programming areas and changes do I need to address to route the calls on line #2 directly to the fax? Are there any other items that need to be changed? Thanks for your help. Jeremy ------------------------------ From: guillaume.maigre@transatel.com (Guillaume Maigre) Subject: SS7 Over E1 Date: 12 Nov 2002 07:28:28 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ I'm looking for information about E1 and SS7 configuration and in particulary I would like to know: The number of SS7 channel supported on one E1 (up to 32???) How many USSD messages one SS7 channel can carrier per second, per hour? If an SS7 channel is bidirectionnal? Thanks for your help. ------------------------------ From: ben77m2000@yahoo.com (Benm) Subject: NuPoint Voicemail Mailbox Owner Recognition Date: 12 Nov 2002 08:24:02 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ I have a NuPoint Messenger Model 70 integrated with a Mitel SX2000. I am trying to get the NuPoint Messenger to automatically recognize the owner of a mailbox when he dials in to retrieve his messages. Currently a mailbox owner has to identify his mailbox number and this creates unnecessary keystrokes. If the NuPoint Messenger can identify which mailbox to leave a message in when an extension is forwarded to it, why doesn't it know which extension is dialing in to retrieve messages? ------------------------------ From: dold@77.usenet.us.com Subject: Re: Calif. Changes Cell Phone Crash Data Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2002 17:12:53 UTC Organization: a2i network Monty Solomon wrote: > LOS ANGELES (AP) _ Release has been delayed of a report that blames > cell phone use in 913 highway accidents in 2001. Officials believe > the figure should be about seven times higher. It occurs to me that drivers that crash while talking on cell phones are likely the same ones who crash while not on cell phones. There should be a separate count of those who crash with cell phones that have also crashed without. As John points out, there are other reasons for poor driving. It's just that cell phones, now that they are in the hands of every teenager at the malls, are a distraction that can't be overcome by those who shouldn't be driving anyway. The attention to cell phones seems very similar to any other prejudicially obvious difference. The ethnic slurs are being replaced by "Volvo", "SUV", and "cell phone". ------------------------------ From: OneNetNut Subject: Opinions on ExpressPin? Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2002 00:08:40 -0600 Any opinions on ExpressPin? Spotted their web site tonight while I was doing a search. Looks like they are a broker/agent. Liked the rates on the conference calling services. http://pointme.to Thanks, not sure how long they have been around. Cheers! ------------------------------ Reply-To: monty solomon From: monty solomon Subject: Unfazed by Hollywood, Small Company Offers Copying Software Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2002 16:26:55 -0500 By Jim Suhr, The Associated Press Nov 10 2002 10:15AM That put Moore _ an ex-Marine and college dropout _ on the front lines of one of the digital age's most volatile legal battles: the dispute between consumer rights and copyright protection. Moore's adversary: Hollywood, which apparently believes products such as 321's flout a 1998 federal law that the movie industry contends bars the picking of electronic locks on copyright works. Since mid-2001, the company has sold more than 100,000 copies of DVD Copy Plus, which allows people to copy DVD movies onto CDs. It includes code that cracks the copy-protection scheme used for most commercial DVD movies. New software released over the weekend by 321 Studios, called DVD X Copy, also unlocks the so-called Content Scramble System. The company says the $100 product, which requires a DVD burner, will make perfect DVD copies in 60 to 90 minutes _ a far cry from the hours that DVD Copy Plus, which burns movies onto CDs, requires. http://online.securityfocus.com/news/1608 ------------------------------ Reply-To: monty solomon From: monty solomon Subject: Computer Break-Ins: Your Right to Know Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2002 16:29:21 -0500 California law now demands that the public be informed when government or corporate databases are breached. It's about time. By Alex Salkever, Business Week Nov 11 2002 10:03AM In April, 2002, hackers broke into the payroll database for the state of California. For more than a month, cybercriminals rooted around in the personal information of 265,000 Golden State employees, ranging from Governor Gray Davis to maintenance workers and clerks. Worse, the California Controller's Office, which ran the database, failed to notify state employees for more than two weeks after the breach was discovered. Although officials with the Controller's office insisted the break-in probably hadn't resulted in any significant harm, the incident enraged Golden State pols and employees, whose Social Security numbers, bank account information, and home addresses were fair game for the hackers. This lapse sparked what may mark a dramatic shift in legal policy toward cybersecurity. Over strenuous objections from the business lobby, on Sept. 26 California enacted a sweeping measure that mandates public disclosure of computer-security breaches in which confidential information may have been compromised. The law covers not just state agencies but private enterprises doing business in California. Come July 1, 2003, those who fail to disclose that a breach has occurred could be liable for civil damages or face class actions. http://online.securityfocus.com/news/1618 ------------------------------ 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 Fax 3: 775-642-0603 Fax 4: 530-309-7234 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 V22 #123 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Nov 12 23:52:51 2002 Received: from localhost (localhost [[UNIX: localhost]]) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.3nb1/8.11.3) id gAD4qpe01318; Tue, 12 Nov 2002 23:52:51 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2002 23:52:51 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200211130452.gAD4qpe01318@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #124 TELECOM Digest Tue, 12 Nov 2002 23:53:00 EST Volume 22 : Issue 124 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson What's New in Independence (TELECOM Digest Editor) Re: "This Call May be Monitored or Recorded." (Jedi Warrior) Re: "This Call May be Monitored or Recorded." (s falke) Anyone Have ITU-T E.164 Database? (FN) Re: ECLong Distance and Calling 1-800 Numbers (tonypo1@cox.net) Re: 000-000-0000 Caller ID (Babbsela) IM Users: Your Boss Is Watching (Monty Solomon) How al Qaeda Put Internet to Use (Monty Solomon) Guess Who Yahoos? Saddam's Son (Monty Solomon) Anti Telemarketer Phone (hfs2) 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, 12 Nov 2002 21:36:39 EST From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: What's New in Independence I have a couple items of news about our town I wanted to share with readers here. For one: Our cable company (Time Warner) has officially completed the trade proposed with Cable One. The trade was officially approved by the City Council in their meeting November 1, and was announced in the *Daily Reporter* the next day. Cable One gets Independence, Coffeyville, Neodesha, Cherryvale, Caney and the rest of Montgomery County in trade for Time Warner taking over some town in Ohio. There have been no channel re-assignments thus far, and the lady at their office here (she used to work for Time Warner; now she works for Cable One in the same office) says she does not expect to see any changes. Someone asked here recently what our 'basic cable' looks like. Channels 2 through 23 in this list are 'basic' at $18 per month. Channel 24 through 62 are 'expanded basic' for $16 additional per month. If you purchase the basic you can also purchase extended basic if desired. 2 - KJRH (NBC) Tulsa 30- Headline News 3 - KOKI (Fox) Tulsa 31- A & E 5 - QVC Shopping 32- Discovery Channel 6 - KOTV (CBS) Tulsa 33- ESPN 7 - KOAM (CBS) Pittsburg, KS 34- TNN 8 - KTUL (ABC) Tulsa 35- Weather Channel 9 - KMBC (ABC) Kansas City 36- CNN 10- Community Programming 37- USA 11- KOED (PBS) Tulsa 38- ABC Family 12- KODE (ABC) Joplin, MO 39- TBS 13- WIBW (CBS) Topeka 40- CNBC 14- Independence High School 41- Fox Sports Midwest 15- C-SPAN 42- ESPN-2 16- KSNF (NBC) Joplin, MO 43- MSNBC 17- TV Guide 44- Home & Garden TV 18- KTWU (PBS) Topeka 45- Travel Channel 19- BET (Black Entertainment TV) 46- The Learning Channel 20- C-SPAN II 47- Country Music Television 21- KDOR (TBN) Bartlesville, OK 48- Animal Planet 22- City of Independence & Comm.College 49- Cartoon Network 23- Comedy Central 50- Turner Classic Movies ****ABOVE is BASIC/BELOW is EXPANDED*** 51- Sci-Fi 24- EWTN Catholic Television 52- History Channel 25- MTV 53- Outdoor Channel 26- Nickelodeon 54- Oxygen 27- TNT 55- FX 28- American Movie Classics 56- TV Land 29- Lifetime 57- Bravo 58- Women's Entertainment 59- Shop NBC 60- Disney TV 61- TV Food Network 62- Fox News Channel There is no channel 1 or channel 4. 60 channels total on basic/extended basic. There then follows 32 channels called 'Digital Tier'; these include several Discovery Channels, several ESPN channels, more MTV and others. Numbered in the 1xx series of 'channel numbers'. Then there are 37 digital music channels, 44 digital premium channels which include several channels each of HBO, Encore, Showtime, Starz!, Cinemax, and Digital Pay Per View has 16 channels including several for sports events, three for sex offerings, and six channels for movies other than sex stuff. Numbered 401 through 417, and 501 through 547, and 801 through 885. All the above from a little card which was stuffed under my door earlier today by the guy from the cable company. Considering how little I watch any television at all, this seems (to me) to be a reasonable line up. I guess they are getting a little desparate with satellite dishes springing up all over town. He apparently saw my dish on the roof once again, and since he could not find me at home today decided to stuff some literature under my door. His latest offer was he would give me all the sex movies I wanted at no charge for three months if I authorized him or his son to climb up on my roof and take away the DISH dish antenna. I have to sign some papers authorizing him to take it away and act as my rep with the satellite guy over on 9th and Poplar Streets and not go behind his back and sign up with DISH in the future (for a year or something like that). He apparently still did not notice the satellite antenna was pointed southeast at 61.5 degrees for Sky Angel. I took his note and the Cable One lineup card over to the DISH guy on 9th and Poplar and asked him what he could do. He said, "ooh, Mr. Townson, I did not know you liked sex movies! I am authorized to give you all the sex movies you want *for a year at no charge* if you will authorize *me* to be your representative and tell cableco to cut off all your service from *them*. I can fix you up with everything they are offering and more besides for the same price. Remember, no charge for a year for the porn stuff!" My goodness ... I guess I will wait a few months and then play them off again each other once again for a better deal from each. The other news item today: We now have an internet cafe downtown which opened as of November 1. It is called the 'Tecno-Java Internet Cafe' and is located at 325 North Penn Street, in the downtown business district, phone 331-7987. It is open from 7 am to 7 pm four nights per week (Monday through Thursday) and until 11 pm on Friday and Saturday. They serve a breakfast and lunch menu with several different flavors and styles of gourmet coffee. You are invited to 'surf the net' or check your email, play games and download music. I went in today for a cup of coffee and to work on this Digest. They charge a dollar per hour for net access (children and seniors) and two dollars per hour (I think) for other adults. I think they are going to open their own mail server as well, and offer anonymous email accounts via their server. Several 'flat-screen' terminals around at the tables, etc are available, each equipped with a time meter on the screen. When you check out, the cashier can read the meter from your screen at her position. I was the only customer in the place this afternoon, but that is not unusual, since the place is sort of new, and *nothing* downtown is very busy these days since the Walmart Supercenter opened up a year or so ago. They also sell computers fairly inexpensively, and offer technical advice on request. I wish them well in their venture, and will go in from time to time instead of the doughnut shop where I have been going most days. If you are ever passing through Independence, stop in to see them at 325 North Penn (on the corner of Penn and Chestnut) downtown. Its really a very classy place; I was there for about two hours and spent five dollars in the internet cafe, and I intend to recommend it to my friends here in town. PAT ------------------------------ From: Jedi Warrior Subject: Re: "This Call May be Monitored or Recorded." Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2002 20:26:40 -0500 Organization: Jedi Warrior Boot Camp - Vail, CO. Today, Mon, 11 Nov 2002 23:01:29 -0600, Two Buddha read a post from Dave Phelps , and determined his interest in BURP. Where's my beer? Oh and: > I think that gives me permission to record a call, doesn't it? If I > intend to record a call, and I hear that message, does that mean that > they have agreed to have me record the conversation, and I don't > explicitly have to ask the person when they answer? That's how I take > it. > Dave Phelps > Phone Masters Ltd. > deadspam=tippenring > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I think you misunderstood their use of > the word 'may'. Its not 'may' (as in 'you have our permission to do > this') but 'may' (as in 'this is something we might decide to do'). > However you may wish to interpret the 'may', please be sure to include > that opening statement in the audio taping at the beginning of the > tape in case there later is any question about whether or not permission > was granted to do the taping. PAT] Beeps at intervals of 15 seconds are also supposed to be indicative of taping? Or do you have to notify them verbally? ------------------------------ From: s falke Subject: Re: "This Call May be Monitored or Recorded." Organization: Prodigy Internet http://www.prodigy.com Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2002 01:46:02 GMT I have asked the other-end person if the call was indeed "shared," and in a recent couple of calls their response was, "They don't tell us" or, "It is random." s falke Dave Phelps wrote in message news:telecom22.123.9@telecom-digest.org: > I think that gives me permission to record a call, doesn't it? If I > intend to record a call, and I hear that message, does that mean that > they have agreed to have me record the conversation, and I don't > explicitly have to ask the person when they answer? That's how I take > it. > Dave Phelps > Phone Masters Ltd. > deadspam=tippenring > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I think you misunderstood their use of > the word 'may'. Its not 'may' (as in 'you have our permission to do > this') but 'may' (as in 'this is something we might decide to do'). > However you may wish to interpret the 'may', please be sure to include > that opening statement in the audio taping at the beginning of the > tape in case there later is any question about whether or not permission > was granted to do the taping. PAT] ------------------------------ From: FN Subject: Anyone Have ITU-T E.164 Database? Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2002 01:50:29 GMT Organization: RoadRunner - West Where can I download it? Thank you. ------------------------------ From: tonypo1@cox.net Subject: Re: ECLong Distance and Calling 1-800 Numbers Organization: The Ace Tomatoe and Cement Company Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2002 01:51:27 GMT In article , johnl@iecc.com says: > In ECG's case, the rate for incoming 800 calls is the same as the rate > for a corresponding dial-one call, 4.9 cpm interstate, varying amounts > in-state. They also charge 49 cents per month for each 800 number on > your account, and a surcharge of about 30 cents for each call to an > 800 number from a payphone. These rates are in the low range of what > carriers charge for 800 service that terminates on a POTS line and has > a low monthly minimum. Yuck -- those rates rot. I have my 800 service through USADatanet. It's .10 a minute to a maximum of $3.99 - so for $3.99 my friends an relatives from out of state can yack for hours on end. I recall someone here mentioning USADatanet and I was so happy when they started serving Providence. My average monthly LD bill went from about $100 a month to < $20 a month, including the 800 service. Tony ------------------------------ From: Babbsela Subject: Re: 000-000-0000 Caller ID Organization: AT&T Broadband Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2002 23:30:39 GMT To find the identity of "Jack," you can A: Wait for the police to file a criminal case against the scum, at which time his identity is public record. In fact, you can help the process along by calling the police regularly to express your interest in proceeding criminally. B: File a Motion and get a court order requiring SBC to divulge the CNA. John Higdon wrote in message news:telecom22.117.13@telecom-digest.org: > In article , Linc Madison > wrote: >> This practice is already illegal on several counts. First of all, >> these calls are all in direct violation of 47 USC 227. It is illegal >> for a telemarketing machine to cold-call you, period. (Unfortunately, >> political campaigns are exempt, as I'm sure most of us know from the >> last few days.) > No one appears to be enforcing this. The last time I tried, everyone > said it was in someone else's jurisdiction. >> It is improper to use a residential line in the way you describe. The >> telco is losing major revenue (higher monthly charges plus per-minute >> charges for local calls) from having the line incorrectly >> tariffed. The telco has much more incentive to investigate than to >> brush off the complaint. > But unfortunately, for the past couple of years, telco appears to no > longer care. The last two times I tried turning someone in with this, I > got "they are simply working at home". >> Jack Mortenson is local to you. File in small claims court under 47 USC >> 227. You'll win an easy $1,500 for your trouble (well, easy to win the >> judgment; collecting is another matter, but at least you can also >> compel the phone company to put him out of that particular business). >> Alternately, make it a class action suit and subpoena the call records. >> Even if you only file for $500 per call, you could quickly scare "Jack >> Mortenson" into rolling over on his "business partners." > At this point, SBC is completely uncooperative and refuses to give me > any information on "Jack". In order to do anything to or about "Jack", I > need his real name and address, and I'm not quite sure where to get > that. Telco is much better at keeping records private than they used to > be. > John Higdon | Email Address Valid | SF: +1 415 428-COWS > +1 408 264 4115 | Anytown, USA | FAX: +1 408 264 4407 > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Don't worry about telco record > keeping. Just start suing and let them figure it out. Don't worry, > they will, when it is time to come to court. Start with using *57 on > his calls. That instigates a trace, with information on the trace > forwarded to the police. Keep your own diary on the calls, as well, > listing times, content of the discussions, etc. If telco does not > produce records to the police so that you can follow up with a > police complaint, then your next step would be to talk to the FCC > or California commission regards telco's apparent lack of concern. > Warning: police will not serve as your private detective agency or > collection agency. *If* telco hands a printout to police then YOU be > prepared to move forward with it criminally. All you need to do in > your diary or journal of the whole thing is note the phone number > which was identified by telco as 408-xxx-xxxx and a person who uses > the alias name 'Jack Mortenson'. HE is the one who called you > unsolicited at various hours, HE is the one who refused to quit > calling even though you requested it. HE is the one you are suing for > his willful behavior. Just play the straight man role through the > whole thing. I know this last part may be hard for you John, but > do not talk smart to the police or the phone company. They are the > experts; their system works for them, right? Just play the straight > man and wounded victim throughout. Let us know how you make out and > how much you can collect from 'Jack' or his associates. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2002 18:42:58 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: IM Users: Your Boss Is Watching By Joanna Glasner 02:00 AM Nov. 11, 2002 PT Instant messaging -- a tool many perceive as off-limits to the prying eyes of employers -- may soon be going the way of e-mail. In the interests of record-keeping and tighter security, industry analysts say a growing number of companies that allow instant messaging in the office are also monitoring its usage. At the same time, the free instant-messaging platforms that have propagated in workplaces are getting retrofitted for a new world order. This week, the vision of widespread instant-messaging monitoring came closer to reality when AOL -- whose AIM service reigns as the unofficial 300-pound gorilla among instant-messaging providers -- announced the launch of a service for businesses. The offering, AIM Enterprise Gateway, is based on the free instant-messaging service, but gives companies significantly more control over how employees use it. For a monthly fee, customers can track instant-messaging usage, control who gets access and keep archives of message strings. Bruce Stewart, AOL senior vice president, said the company decided to begin developing a business service more than a year ago, after many users requested a more secure version of the free platform. http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,56290,00.html ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2002 18:52:17 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: How al Qaeda Put Internet to Use From Britain, Webmaster kept 'the brothers' abreast on terror By Andrew Higgins, Karby Leggett and Alan Cullison THE WALL STREET JOURNAL Nov. 11 - In February 2000, an Egyptian merchant here in Guangzhou, the commercial hub of southern China, asked a local Internet firm for help in setting up a Web site. After lengthy haggling over the fee, he paid $362 to register a domain name and rent space on a server. CHEN RONGBIN, a technician at Guangzhou Tianhe Siwei Information Co., and an aide went to the Egyptian's apartment. They couldn't fathom what the client, Sami Ali, was up to. His software and keyboard were all in Arabic. "It just looked like earthworms to us," Mr. Chen says. All he could make out was the site's address: "maalemaljihad.com." Mr. Chen had no idea that meant "Milestones of Holy War." Nor that China, one of the world's most heavily policed societies, had just become a launchpad for the dot-com dreams -- and disappointments -- of Osama bin Laden's terror network. In the months that followed, Arab militants in Afghanistan, a radical cleric living on welfare in London, a textile worker in Karachi, Pakistan, and others pitched in, laboring to marry modern technology with the theology of a seventh-century prophet. Their home page, featuring two swords merging to form a winged missile, welcomed visitors to the "special Web site" of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, a violent group at the core of al Qaeda. A few clicks led to a 45-page justification of "martyrdom operations," jihad jargon for kamikaze terrorism. It explained that killing "infidels" inevitably caused innocent casualties because "it is impossible to kill them separately." http://www.msnbc.com/news/833533.asp ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2002 19:24:43 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Guess Who Yahoos? Saddam's Son By Brian McWilliams 02:00 AM Nov. 11, 2002 PT The U.S. State Department says Saddam Hussein's oldest son is a murderer, rapist, torturer and smuggler. He has also been known to send death threats by e-mail. So why is Yahoo apparently providing Uday Saddam Hussein with a free e-mail account, and why has Microsoft granted him a .NET Passport? The website of Iraq's Babil newspaper, which is controlled by 38-year-old Uday, informs visitors that they can contact the publisher by e-mail at udaysaddamhussein@yahoo.com. In providing e-mail service to Saddam's son, Yahoo is likely in violation of U.S. trade sanctions against Iraq, according to Rob Nichols, a spokesman for the U.S. Treasury Department, which enforces trade sanctions against Iraq through its Office of Foreign Assets Control. http://www.wired.com/news/conflict/0,2100,56292,00.html ------------------------------ From: hfs2@yahoo.com (hfs2) Subject: Anti Telemarketer Phone Date: 12 Nov 2002 16:23:37 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Is there a phone that will not ring until the caller passes one or more of these programmable tests? Recognized caller id; Enters a code; Answers a question; Call is received during a certain period of the day. Lord, but I have just got to stop these telemarketing calls! Thanks. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The last test, about 'certain times of day' is easy, but involves some wiring expertise. Take any phone, but disable the ringer in it. Establish a 'side-ringer' elsewhere, and wire it in series through either an electronic timer or a manual off/on toggle switch. At the desired times, let the electronic timer click the bell off and on. Back over by the now muted phone, install a beehive lamp so you can at least see what calls you are missing. When the audible is cut off, you will at least see -- if you choose to look -- an incoming call. Its like radio stations used to do (still do) on phones in the studio. As soon as the announcer keys the microphone, a relay silences the phone at the same time. The studio person can still see the beehive lamp flashing. The other test which would work is to use a device similar to the old 'Privecode' machine. Privecode, which was manufactured back in the 1970's by International Mobile Machines Company of Bala Cynwyd, PA sat quietly on your phone line and very promptly seized the line at the first sign of any incoming call. It would grab the line even before the phone instruments could give a single ring, by detecting a change in voltage. When it got that change in voltage, it immediatly went off hook and stated (to whoever was listening) 'enter your privecode number now.' Privecodes were four digit numbers between 0000 and 9999 (with some exceptions) which, if the correct ones were chosen, would then allow sound an audible tone in various cadences to tell you which code number had been entered. One privecode could be for you (straight tone), another one for your wife (buzz-buzz), a third for children (long short buzz), etc. One privecode (I think 1111) automatically went to an answering machine, another (2222) would always inform the caller 'no one here to take your call now' then it would hang up the line, etc. The way you told your friends or business associates about it was to give out your number as a/c-number, then enter extension code 'xxxx' on request. If you did not answer after a few of the 'special rings', then the call would go to the answering machine also, the same as code 1111 would always go there and not bother you at all. I had a Privecode back in 1978-80 more or less. I have no idea now, 22 years later what happened to it. I sure wish I had it now. I think the Privecode people went out of business because users thought it would be simpler and easier to use things like 'privacy manager' from the telephone company. Does anyone know for sure what happened to the Privecode machine from IMM in Bala Cynwyd, PA??? 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 Fax 3: 775-642-0603 Fax 4: 530-309-7234 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 V22 #124 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Nov 13 04:53:32 2002 Received: from localhost (localhost [[UNIX: localhost]]) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.3nb1/8.11.3) id gA77Cou09738; Thu, 7 Nov 2002 02:12:50 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2002 02:12:50 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200211070712.gA77Cou09738@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #115 TELECOM Digest Thu, 7 Nov 2002 02:13:00 EST Volume 22 : Issue 115 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: SpamCop (vs. Politech) (Danny Burstein) Re: 000-000-0000 Caller ID (John Higdon) Re: 000-000-0000 Caller ID (John David Galt) Re: 000-000-0000 Caller ID (Dave Phelps) Re: What's the Frequency, Camden? The Same as Boston-Area TV (Ed Ellers) Re: What's the Frequency, Camden? The Same as Boston-Area TV (Zed**3) Re: Obtaining FEMA Essential Personell ID (Utility Employee) (D Farmer) Court to Clarify Definition of Fraud in Charitable Fund-Raising (Solomon) You Have Triggered a Spam Filter (tippenring@deadspam.com) Wholesale Air-Time (Kamal) 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: danny burstein Subject: Re: SpamCop (vs. politech) Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2002 00:30:49 UTC Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC In Monty Solomon writes: > Politech incorrectly blocked by SpamCop -- for the third time > Mon, 4 Nov 2002 10:20:56 -0500 (EST) > http://www.politechbot.com/p-04121.html (similar urls clipped for space ) While I count myself among Declan's fans, I have to side with SpamCop in this case. To quote from the cited url (http://www.politechbot.com/p-04121.html): Now SpamCop lists Politech on its spammer-list because some other servers also hosted at Rackspace.com are alleged spammers. While SpamCop could have done a better job of explaining this process, it's a pretty clear and very strong, and effective, method of dealing with spam friendly companies. I personally have received plenty of spam that utilizes Rackspace.com's services. As have many other people. Since their business model seems to be to take money from these parasites, many filtering groups have simply cut them off completely. Bit by bit, they'll find themselves in an ever shrinking intranet. Spammers, and spam facilitaters, have NO intrinsic right to my mailbox. And their trick of hosting "legitimate" services has long since lost any credibilty. To once again use my favorite analogy, they're equivalent to a supermarket that leaves rotting meat strewn across the aisles. As word gets out, fewer and fewer shoppers go there. The store may also have some of the best melt-in-your-mouth chocolate, in sealed containers (hence safe), but the store traffic just isn't there. Accordingly, the distributer ships and sells less product. The real complaint shouldn't be with the newspaper reporting the rotten meat, nor with the Department of Health. The chocolate distributer has the choice of: a) trucking their product to other stores b) leaning on the supermarket to clean up their act. Similarly, Declan's complaint shouldn't be with the spam filter groups, but should be with the spam friendly internet provider. Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key dannyb@panix.com [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded] ------------------------------ From: John Higdon Subject: Re: 000-000-0000 Caller ID Organization: Green Hills and Cows Date: Tue, 05 Nov 2002 13:42:13 -0800 In article , Mark Crispin wrote: > No, not at all. If PBX owners want the luxury of running their own > little telco, they should expect to be accountable. If they can not > or will not, then they should buy individual phone lines from the > telco. > If PBX owners can not (or will not) clean up their act, there are quite a > few more steps that can (and should) be taken. I don't want to rain on everyone's parade, but the matter is moot. The new wave of telemarketers do this: They order a bank of residential lines in someone's home. They connect a PC to the lines and to a VPN. The thing sits in a closet making thousands of automated junk calls a day in the metro area in which it lives. It gets residential rates (and in CA that means free local calling). The lines have CID unblocked, so the name of the person who ordered the lines and the number of the line making the call are visible. No ACR or even Privacy Manager will stop those calls. I just got a "refinance your mortgage" call from a telemarketing machine that identified as "Jack Mortenson" at 408 226-0706. So I (and now you) know the guy's name and number. So what? What the hell can we do about it? Oh, yeah ... call the phone company. "I work out of my home." End of investigation. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Exactly ... and I might go one step > further. Telcos like SWB are infamous for selling services they cannot > or do not back up; like Privacy Manager. I would require the telcos > to put manual entries in their database of those 'special' names a lot > of telemarketers/others like to use; names such as 'Name Unavailable', > 'Name Withheld', etc. Not all of us have a caller ID box right in front > of our faces all the time when a phone rings, so we cannot always go > looking for an ID box before deciding whether we should ignore the > 'obviously bogus' call. PAT Sorry. Useless. How about "Jack Mortenson"? Go ahead; call his number. You'll find it busy; his machine is busily bothering people all around the southern part of the SFBA. For all I know, the machine is actually owned and operated by someone in New York ... and controlled from there. And there isn't a damn thing we can do about it. In article , tonypo1@cox.net wrote: > No, the way I'd set it up is you get one warning. If you repeatedly send > false CLID information then the penalties kick in per occurence. What is "false"? What number must be displayed? The billing number of the PRI? Some number derived from a DID bank served on the switch? What if the switch is part of a national network and reachable by numbers all over the country? Some CIDs are set dynamically based upon auth and employee codes. What restrictions would you impose and how would you define them? Enterprize telephony is not some little simplistic one-to-one relationship designed for the convenience of the terminally stupid. If a call shows up as some impossible or un-recognizable number, let it go to VM and be done with it. We don't need more (and simplistically stupid) laws hamstringing telecommunications. > Make it > something on the order of $25 per reported incident. Not enough to > bankrupt but enough of an accounting problem to be a real pain in the > butt for telemarketers who think they can get around things like ACR. What about the telemarketers that call with correct CID showing? How are you going to stop them? Any idiot that will answer "000-000-0000" will certainly answer a call from "Jack Mortenson" at 408 226-0706. John Higdon | Email Address Valid | SF: +1 415 428-COWS +1 408 264 4115 | Anytown, USA | FAX: +1 408 264 4407 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I want to review just one of John's points above, i.e.'there is nothing anyone can do about it.' Oh yes there is. You can make life hell for Mr. Mortenson. Does Jack have any other listed directory (published) numbers at his premises? He must have one or two, unless he goes in the closet to make calls. I need not explain to readers here what could happen in those cases. And you say he is in business for himself, working from home? Then I would assume he has the required licenses for his business from the city and state government. And he is in the mortgage financing business? Then he would have the required permits from the commissioner of banking for California, right? Now let's say enough people file complaints that Jack has called them after that have told 'him' not to continue calling. Maybe one or two of them sue him for harassment, etc. Oh, listen now to Jack as he squeals: not me! I just rented out my closet to that company in New York to install/operate their computer. Or maybe the telemarketer goes out of business leaving a large bill due to the local telco, who retaliates by cutting off all Jack's phones (even his personal non-pub line; the one he actually uses) until he (*Jack*) pays the entire bill. A very problematic situation, John. I dunno about you, but I for one would be most reluctant to allow *anyone* (telemarketer or otherwise) to have a telephone on my premises which they controlled remotely and had listed in *my name*. Maybe they could get you to do it; I'd be afraid of the reputation the company had which then in turn got rubbed off on me by virtue of my name on someone's caller-ID. I am afraid even now, assuming that you gave the correct number for Jack Mortenson 408-226-0706, that some readers here in the SF Bay area might get abusive toward Jack and his privacy. As to the second part of your message 'what makes up a real number', I would say a REAL honest-to-God number is one that can be dialed into and an answer received (not just all zeros or one that is forever busied-out or one that rings open from now until the Kingdom Comes.) You might have to call at all sorts of odd hours, but that's part of the fun ... in other words John, a 'real' number for caller-id purposes is a number which allows someone some recourse to the person who called them. PAT] ------------------------------ From: John David Galt Subject: Re: 000-000-0000 Caller ID Date: Tue, 05 Nov 2002 16:37:57 -0800 Organization: Diogenes the Cynic Hot-Tubbing Society Patrick Townson wrote: > I would say 'accidental misconfigurations' of PBX could be treated as > civil violations, let's say a $500 fine for each complaint against you > until you get it resolved. This is equivilent to stores which accept > your check as payment then have it bounce 'accidentally' because of your > error. In Kansas and many other states, the store is allowed to collect > a civil penalty up to three times the value of the check. That's the > law's way of saying do your math a little better in the future. They're > not interested in putting you in jail; just in getting it cleared. > Deliberate or willful miscongurations of a PBX would be treated like > any sort of willful behavior. If you wrote dozens of checks from a > check book you 'happened to find' laying around somewhere, or opened > an account with no money and started writing checks, that is deliberate > and willful behavior. That's a crime. So should be the willful or > deliberate misconfiguration of a PBX. > What is deliberate behavior versus accidental behavior? That's for a > judge to figure out if it goes that far. PAT] I'm all for it. (How does one go about formally requesting the FCC to make a rule like this, anyway? Does it require an attorney?) But there's a small problem -- how do we catch violators? Unless they happen to call someone who gets ANI on their line, ISTM that the only people in a position to discover the caller's identity is his own LEC, which is unlikely to want to cooperate. "Who will bell the cat?" > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Exactly ... and I might go one step > further. Telcos like SWB are infamous for selling services they cannot > or do not back up; like Privacy Manager. I would require the telcos > to put manual entries in their database of those 'special' names a lot > of telemarketers/others like to use; names such as 'Name Unavailable', > 'Name Withheld', etc. Not all of us have a caller ID box right in front > of our faces all the time when a phone rings, so we cannot always go > looking for an ID box before deciding whether we should ignore the > 'obviously bogus' call. PAT While we're at it, telcos should not be allowed to let callers evade PM simply by calling you via the operator. Their willingness to do this is advertised in the phone book as part of the instructions for using PM. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I am tempted to say if they want to pay the outrageous surcharge given for operator-assisted calls these days, I would probably listen to them for a couple minutes before saying 'no' and hanging up. But you are correct; calls attempting to avoid privacy manager should be handled the same way calls to the operator to avoid 900 blocks on lines are handled. Did you ever call a 900 number from a line you knew was blocked just to see how it was handled? The intercept recording says 'calls to that number are not allowed from the phone you are using, **and the operator will not be able to complete your call for you either.**' . If in fact some dumb operator actually tries it, she can bubble all she likes on her keyboard terminal, the equipment simply will not release the call. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Dave Phelps Subject: Re: 000-000-0000 Caller ID Date: Tue, 5 Nov 2002 23:43:07 -0600 Pat said... > I would require the telcos > to put manual entries in their database of those 'special' names a lot > of telemarketers/others like to use; names such as 'Name Unavailable', > 'Name Withheld', etc. CID name is not provided by the PBX making the call, even with PRI. CID name lookups are performed by the CO serving the subscriber receiving the call. The only information a PBX can send is a phone number, and only with ISDN-PRI. Dave Phelps Phone Masters Ltd. deadspam=tippenring [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: That is true, however telcos which offer 'privacy manager' service (or like Southwestern Bell try to defraud people into signing up for it) maintain a database **on their end** which they have to dip when deciding whether or not a call is to be treated before being passed on to the subscriber. So, do all the reverse lookups you like matching names and numbers. If the recipient telco does a reverse lookup and gets back something like 'name unavailable', or 'private name' or etc, then recipient telco can jolly well manually edit their database to include those ficticious entries. ------------------------------ From: Ed Ellers Subject: Re: What's the Frequency, Camden? The Same as Boston-Area TV Date: Tue, 5 Nov 2002 19:45:33 -0500 John Stahl wrote: > In the HAM (Licensed Radio Amateur) "world" we have learned about strange > weather influenced conditions called "inversion" which has great > effect "in the propagation of higher frequency radio waves." > These weather conditions sometimes bring in signals from very far away > than would normally be possible. Perhaps this type of weather inversion > caused the reported interference between the long-distance separated TV > and police radios, as reported by others, evidentially on the same > frequency. TV engineer Doug Lung has a good column on this subject at http://www.tvtechnology.com/features/On-RF/f-DL-signals.shtml, with links to some other useful information including a fact sheet on VHF and UHF propagation prepared by the BBC (http://www.bbc.co.uk/reception/factsheets/docs/reception_weather.pdf if you just want to skip to the good stuff). ------------------------------ From: gc@radix.net (Zed**3) Subject: Re: What's the Frequency, Camden? The Same as Boston-Area TV Date: 6 Nov 2002 16:46:36 GMT Organization: Spontaneous > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Tell me what police and/or television > station use the same range of frequencies? Police, operating in VHF > are usually around 150-155 megs. On UHF the police are usually around > 450-470 megs. What TV stations are around there? None. How could this > be an FCC problem? PAT] There are several possibilities. In several large metropolitan areas some of the lower UHF TV channels in the range 470-512MHz have been assigned to private land mobile services, including police and fire. WCVB is on channel 5, so that is not likely the problem. Another possibility is that it is not the TV broadcast station itself that is causing the problem, but a studio to transmitter link (STL) that could be in the 450-470MHz range. There is a lack of technical details in the online article. ------------------------------ From: Dale Farmer Subject: Re: Obtaining FEMA Essential Personell ID (Utility Employee/Telecom) Date: Tue, 05 Nov 2002 21:46:38 -0500 Organization: Furry green fuzz in the back of the refrigerator Boo Phatty wrote: > Today, Sun, 03 Nov 2002 00:16:36 -0500, Two Buddha read a post from > Dale Farmer , and determined his interest in > BURP. Where's my beer? Oh and: >> Boo Phatty wrote: >>> Hello folks. Does anyone know where to apply for FEMA essential >>> personell access cards i.e. ID that allows you to be on the street and >>> in a disaster area? >>> For instance, VZ E-911 personnel carry old CD cards that allow them >>> access to/from the E911 center during blizzards or declared >>> emergencies, etc. >>> I'm probably not calling it the right thing, but I would appreciate a >>> pointer. FEMA's website is very light on information of this kind. >> You apply to your state emergency management agency. They are the >> ones that actually issue them. They do have agreements with >> hospitals, the phone company, cities and so on to have the appropriate >> logos and authorizations placed on the employees regular ID badges. >> This allows them to save a lot of money not issuing separate badges to >> all those folks. You had better have a good reason to have that >> badge. Saving your company a pile of money because you have to shut a >> process down or something like that will not cut it. You have to be >> part of something that will restore damaged public utilities, medical >> aid, or other emergency type services. >> --Dale > Thanks, that helps. I do have a reason, other than money, and it is > utilities related. > Do you know what they would call the program? Thanks in advance. Well, here in the People's Commonwealth of Taxachusetts, it is called the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency. ( MEMA) Their office is about thirty feet underground in a bunker in Framingham. That about runs out my direct knowledge on the subject. --Dale ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Nov 2002 22:57:54 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Court to Clarify Definition of Fraud in Charitable Fund-Raising Court to Clarify Definition of Fraud in Charitable Fund-Raising By LINDA GREENHOUSE WASHINGTON, Nov. 4 - Urged by a group of states to remove a constitutional obstacle to prosecuting fraud by professional fund-raisers, the Supreme Court agreed today to clarify the boundary that separates charitable solicitation from consumer fraud. The case was brought to the court by the Illinois attorney general's office, which for 10 years has tried to pursue a consumer fraud action against a telemarketing company that keeps 85 percent of the money it raises on behalf of a Vietnam War veterans' charity. The state's complaint against Telemarketing Associates Inc. was dismissed last year by the Illinois Supreme Court on the ground that charitable solicitation is a form of speech that is protected by the First Amendment. A trio of decisions by the United States Supreme Court in the 1980's established that principle and held that state regulators were constitutionally barred from designating a particular percentage of receipts that had to reach a charity in order for the fund-raising to be considered legitimate. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/05/national/05SCOT.html ------------------------------ From: tippenring@deadspam.com Subject: You Have Triggered a Spam Filter Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2002 05:43:31 GMT This is an automatic response: the recipient has not received your message. If you were trying to make a personal contact with the intended recipient, you have probably replied to a Usenet posting which has a spam-protected reply email address. Somewhere in that posting (probably in the .signature at the end) there will be instructions on how to mail the real address of its poster. Sorry for the inconvenience! Blame the spammers for causing people to go to these lengths. On the other hand, if you were trying to send spam (unsolicited bulk email) to this address, understand that it is utterly unwelcome, and has been utterly ignored, too. The recipient of your spam wishes your business all the success it deserves, given its current marketing strategy. Which is to say, none at all. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, tell me something tippingring; did the above come to you as a result of my mail to you, or something you attempted to send to me? All I got was the above, under your name. Spammers certainly have made a mess of the net and email; no doubt about it. PAT] ------------------------------ From: ecofriend@yahoo.com (Kamal) Subject: Wholesale Air-Time Date: 6 Nov 2002 08:30:26 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ If you live in the Marin County area and are thinking about switching from Verizon to Wholesale Air-Time, don't. I was told that I would be getting a substantial savings if I switched but it is actually costing me more than Verizon did. Ask all your questions before verifying your social security number with the account verification person. Anything discussed and promised to you after that is worthless. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: It sounds a lot like the early days of MCI. In the 1970's, MCI reps would arrogantly contact telco customers of AT&T (the only game in town in those days) and as soon as the customer answered the phone would begin chattering about how much you would save on your monthly bill by going with them. If you said no, thank you, I am not interested, their response was to look incredulous and say, 'you are not interested in reducing your long distance bill by 25 percent' (or whatever amount the rep made up.) They always aimed for the president of the company or the highest person they could reach. The idea was to reach the highest possible employee so the person *would* be interested in saving money for the company but very likely know little or nothing about the mechanics of the company phone system. They knew if they could get him to sign off on it, then they could use the highly placed executive to do their dirty work for them shoving it down the throats of all the underlings who *actually worked* with the phone system day by day. And if they could not shake you off your 'not interested' posture with their incredulous looks and insinuations that 'you must be crazy not to want to save big money using our network then they would write you off and demand to 'let me speak to your supervisor or someone who knows what he is talking about.' Those were crazy times in the industry. 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 Fax 3: 775-642-0603 Fax 4: 530-309-7234 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 V22 #115 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Nov 13 22:25:16 2002 Received: from localhost (localhost [[UNIX: localhost]]) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.3nb1/8.11.3) id gAE3PF510725; Wed, 13 Nov 2002 22:25:16 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2002 22:25:16 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200211140325.gAE3PF510725@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #125 TELECOM Digest Wed, 13 Nov 2002 21:25:00 EST Volume 22 : Issue 125 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson "Worldwide Length" of Telephone Numbers (Mark J. Cuccia) Book Review: Cost Proxy Models; Telecommunications Policy (Weininger) Re: New 511 Transport Info Phone Number Coming Soon (S. Falke) Re: New 511 Transport Info Phone Number Coming Soon (Paul Coxwell) Re: N11/Payphones/Wireless/PBXes/PAY-per-Call/etc (Gordon S. Hlavenka) Re: Followup on Jack Mortenson (John Higdon) Re: Followup on Jack Mortenson (John R. Levine) Re: Known Origin of Predictive Dialer (Robert Bonomi) Re: "This Call May be Monitored or Recorded." (Robert Bonomi) Re: "This Call may be Monitored or Recorded." (Bill Levant) Re: "This Call May be Monitored or Recorded." (Dave Phelps) Should I Switch From IDSL to ADSL? (Ross Oliver) 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, 13 Nov 2002 10:31:19 CST From: Mark J Cuccia Subject: "Worldwide Length" of Telephone Numbers When the ITU/CCITT established the standards for international/worldwide automated telephony, especially with the Country Code + National Number format, circa 1963/64 (at the Rome meeting), it was decided that the full worldwide telephone number, CC+nn, but NOT including any domestically used exit/access code digits (i.e., 00+, 010+, 01(1)+, 0011+, etc), that there would be a MINIMUM length of of seven-digits, and a MAX length of twelve-digits. More recent ITU/CCITT standards have allowed a maximum length to increase to fifteen-digits, which took effect circa 1995 or 1996, known as "Time-T". When IDDD (Customer-originated International/Overseas dialing) began to take effect / become more widespread from here in the US (and Canada) during the 1970's, I remember the little brochures/pamphlets sent out by AT&T (branded as 'Bell System' though). They SOMETIMES indicated the range for the length of the national number (after the country-code) or maybe even length range the local number (after the city-code). There were locations listed that "could" be up to twelve-digits (if you include the country code). But does anyone know of any countries/cities/ locations *DURING THE 1970s*, which had "worldwide" numbers of twelve digits? The NANP has had ELEVEN digit "worldwide" numbers for DECADES, when the single-digit country-code +1 is added to the ten-digit NANP number ... 1 NXX NXX xxxx But I can't seem to be able to identify any country/city/location with anything of twelve digits in the 1970's, even though the ITU/CCITT standards allowed up to twelve worldwide digits since 1963/64. London UK at that time was ten-digits worldwide as: 44 1 NXX xxxx Other major cities in the UK were eleven worldwide digits as: 44 N1 NXX xxxx Paris FRANCE was ten worldwide digits as: 33 1 XXX xxxx Other points in France were also ten worldwide digits but parsed as: 33 XX XX xxxx I have also gone thru some of the British Post Office (British Telecom) IDD/ISD pamphlets of the 1970's, which sometimes were more detailed than AT&T (Bell System) customer IDDD brochures, and haven't been able to come up with any countries/cities/locations of twelve digits back in the 1970's. HOWEVER, during the 1980's, it seems like there were some countries that began to have twelve digits, during numbering-plan expansions. SOME countries (particularly Austria and Germany) had direct in-dialing to PBX extensions which had variable length numbers, where the TOTAL number of worldwide digits would have been MORE than twelve! Locally and domestically, this wouldn't have been a problem. Maybe even from nearby countries in Europe, it wouldn't have been a problem, because the ITU required that countries' switches accept/translate/route on a worldwide standard of (at least) twelve digits max. But that still didn't prohibit two or more countries to work out their own bi/multi lateral standards to accept/translate/route amongst themselves on more-than-twelve worldwide digits. Those PBXes were usually able to be reached from outside of the country, by customers by simply using a single '0' instead of a three/four digit "extension", and still be within the twelve-digit max. This would reach the PBX operator. I know that local c.o.switches in the US wouldn't begin to process as a valid dial-string if you dialed less than seven-digits after 01(1)+. You had to have a valid country code, and at least seven-digits. And if you had a valid country code and continued entering valid digits, by the time you dialed the twelth digit (now fifteenth) after the 01(1)+, your call would begin to be processed even if you intended to dial more digits. In the 1970's (and possibly 1980's), there were all kinds of other "messy" translations aspects of how 1(A)ESS offices handled 01(1)+ calling as to minimum/maximum and fixed-vs-variable number of digits, depending on the country code dialed. And when countries did significant modifications to their numbering/dialing plans, it was a grand-mess for all BOCs and independent telcos which had customer-IDDD to have to re-program translations for such modifications. AT&T -- LongLines--Overseas (and Teleglobe, at the time known as the Canadian Overseas Telecommunications Corporation; as well as the TCTS/Telecom-Canada) *DID* try to inform the their respective areas of NANP community of such changes, but to get every local switch translations group to make the proper changes was never complete/ consistant. Today, I think that most local switch translations groups are simply entering "valid" country codes, with a universal max of worldwide digits at fifteen with the minimum at seven. Customers simply must key the '#' to avoid the post-dial-delay-to-timeout, since not all countries or country + city-codes will result in a total of fifteen worldwide digits. With divestiture having happened in the US, the local telcos have no real incentive of their own to "know" all of the specifics of numbering/dialing plans outside of their regions, other than the bare minimum of what codes are considered to be VALID codes, and maximum length of worldwide numbers (after the 011+/01+ code). BUT ... my PRIMARY question here ... were there ANY parts of the world with twelve-digit "worldwide" telephone numbers back in the 1970's ... and if not, when in the 1980's would have been the first instance ... and which country (and city) [would have been the first to have] had such twelve-digit "worldwide" numbers ???? THANKS! mjc ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2002 10:42:06 -0500 From: David Weininger Subject: Book Review: Cost Proxy Models and Telecommunications Policy I thought readers of the Telecom Digest (comp.dcom.telecom) might be interested in this book. For more information please visit http://mitpress.mit.edu/0262072378 Cost Proxy Models and Telecommunications Policy A New Empirical Approach to Regulation Farid Gasmi, D. Mark Kennet, Jean-Jacques Laffont, and William W. Sharkey The telecommunications industry defies easy characterization. The long-distance sector is highly competitive and the local exchange sector much less so, while digital transmission and switching have blurred the distinction between traditional voice communication and the transmission of video and data messages. Regulation of this industry has generally been considered necessary because it has aspects of a natural monopoly. This book takes an empirical approach to natural monopoly and the need for regulation of telecommunications. The centerpiece of the analysis is a sophisticated engineering cost proxy model, the local exchange cost optimization model (LECOM). The book, which is largely methodological, shows that a combination of LECOM, econometrics, and simulations can aid policy discussion of such contentious issues as incentive regulation, natural monopolies, estimating the cost of interconnection among networks, and the obligation of universal service. The book presents a theoretical framework to explain the incentives of firms and the power of regulation and then uses LECOM to test the theoretical implications. The work is unusual in that it applies the foundations of regulation theory to a model of an industry rather than applying econometric theory to historical cost data. The book includes a CD-ROM containing the data set the authors used to analyze their model. Farid Gasmi is Professor of Economics at the Université de Toulouse. D. Mark Kennet is Associate Professor of Telecommunications at George Washington University. Jean-Jacques Laffont is Director of the Institut d'Économie Industrielle and Professor of Economics at the Université de Toulouse and the coauthor of Competition in Telecommunications (MIT Press, 2000). William W. Sharkey is a Senior Economist at the Federal Communications Commission. "This book is an important tool for regulators and policy analysts interested in implementing sound policies for the regulation of imperfect competition in local monopoly services and for instituting universal service programs. The theoretical rationales expose many of the problems with historic regulatory and subsidy programs and set a framework for implementing efficient forward-looking solutions. In addition, the book provides a promising new avenue for ways to do empirical economic research." --Gregory L. Rosston, Deputy Director, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, Stanford University 6 x 9, 272 pp., 29 illus., cloth and CD-ROM, ISBN 0-262-07237-8 David Weininger Associate Publicist MIT Press 5 Cambridge Center, 4th Floor Cambridge, MA 02142 617.253.2079 617.253.1709 fax dgw@mit.edu ------------------------------ From: s falke Subject: Re: New 511 Transport Info Phone Number Coming Soon Organization: Prodigy Internet http://www.prodigy.com Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2002 02:43:36 GMT FWIW in NorCal, 209-811-8xxx is/was "PacBell ISDN Priority Repair." OTOH, 311 yields an ISDN-display prompt of "BRI Line Test: B1 Enter Command" Haven't found anyone at PB who knows exactly what 311 does. --s falke ------------------------------ From: PaulCoxwell@aol.com Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2002 09:01:49 EST Subject: Re: New 511 Transport Info Phone Number Com > when telephone circuits and instruments were greatly rationed, 811 was > used for 'priority long distance', which meant military personnel > with ... > After the war ended, 811 was given over to the Business Office in many > places (mostly GTE territories) and used in many Bell System areas for > specialized long distance service by hotels, universities, etc which > required 'time and charges' by their switchboards so charges could be > made against the responsible extension user. Depending on the size of Thanks for all the information Pat. I've read about the development of 411, 911 and the use of 611 in many areas, but I'd not heard of this use of 811. I seem to recall reading somewhere that 211 was also used in New York City (and possibly elsewhere?) to reach the coin-refund operator for many years. > In any event any X11 number was *always* telecom-related; they were > *never* used for frivilous purposes, such as sex, general questions, > transit, etc. PAT] Oh boy ... Don't tell me the 900 number sleaze has encroached on x11 codes. When did this start happening? I haven't been in the States since I left in 1996, and I don't recall hearing about any such use then (that was in central Nebraska). [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: 900 service was originally intended for 'mass calling' purposes, and began during the late 1970's when President Carter used it as a way for Americans to call him in the White House to discuss issues of importance. It was intended just to be a one night thing on a television special. Then it was expanded to include a few national services such as weather, news and sports news. Those calls would range in price from 25 cents up to the 'more expensive' calls of 75 cents to a dollar. 900 worked like a 'choke exchange, much as xxx-591xxxx did in Chicago for radio stations using call in lines. Local A/C-591 and national 900-A/C-xxxx were about the same thing. In the case of 900, the 'exchange' following indicated the cost of the call. I do not think the cost was ever more than a dollar. The main intent of both services was to prevent a flood of calls from reaching some particular central office. 900 numbers (and 591 in Chicago) simply were translated into a regular seven digit number before being sent out. For example, 900-410-TIME connects to the master clock at NAVOBS in Washington DC on 202-762-1401. You can either call the 900 version or the 202 version, your choice. Sometime in the middle/late 1980's 900's began being used for a variety of less auspicious uses, including sex-chat lines, etc. They started using them as a way to guarentee collection/payment of charges on sex services. After all, if your phone was going to be cut off for non-payment, you'd find some way to pay the bill. Customer relations between phone customers and the sex services got to be so bad in a short time that the whole 900 industry got a very bad name. That is probably where you come in, when the whole industry had gotten so rotten. Now people just 'automatically associate' 900 numbers with sex, and extremely expensive calls. Not so twenty years ago. Regards 211 and coin refunds, I've heard about that in New York, but in Chicago if you lost money in a coin phone (either because a coin was bent and got stuck in the slot, or more commonly because the operator hit the 'collect' button on her switchboard by accident instead of the 'return' button causing your money to fall in the box by accident) the customer was simply told 'if you are going to make the call again in a few minutes, just tell the next operator you have ten cents (or however much) credit coming from operator (number) and she will place the call for you at no charge.' If you insisted, the operator would arrange for a nickel or a dime to be sent back to you in the US Mail. The one exception to the local operator handling it was a peculiarity in the downtown area where coin returns were handled by a place called 'Franklin Coin board'. It was part of the Illinois Bell-Franklin CO, a very old exchange downtown. If you used a payphone in the CENtral, WABash, DEArborn, WEbster-9, HARrison, or FRAnklin exhanges downtown, then if your toll or other coin-paid call completed satisfactorily, when you hung up the phone, the battery reversal would collect the coins. To avoid that collection from happening if your call did not complete, you had to flash for the operator to come back on the line and tell her to return the money. She in turn would plug in somewhere, and after anywhere from three to ten seconds, another operator who identified herself as 'Franklin trunk operator' came on the line and *your* operator would speak and say to her counterpart, 'return on trunk xxxx' where xxxx was the pair you were on. If you held the phone to your ear, you would hear this god-awful pop noise as the battery reversal was being done and then your coins would rattle and call down the return chute at you. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2002 23:12:07 -0600 From: Gordon S. Hlavenka Organization: Crash Electronics, Inc. Subject: Re: N11/Payphones/Wireless/PBXes/PAY-per-Call/etc Mark J. Cuccia wrote: > And if 611 and 811 are not necessarily going to be used for the > traditional "Bell System" uses in any particular community ... > then IMO, the code should be treated as VACANT... In the 630 AC (SBC/Ameritech) dialing 611 reaches a recorded message telling you the number for repairs has been changed to a toll-free (888) number. Since 611 does nothing but play this recording, it's obviously not being used for something else. If they want the 888 number, that's fine; they can have that as well. But what's the deal with 611? Are they just "training" the general public to forget 611 is Repairs, so that (20 years hence) they CAN use it for something else? Was there some bizarre court decision preventing them from using an X11 number for repairs? Why can't 611 just connect me to repairs??? Gordon S. Hlavenka O- nospam@crashelex.com Burma! [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: As a matter of fact, there was a bizarre court decision. The court, in its wisdom (I am saying that with a straight face now) said that it was unfair to the competing phone companies that Bell customers were able to dial only three digits (611) but customers of the competitors had to dial seven or ten digits to reach repair. So, the Bell Companies were ordered to get rid of 611 and use a ten digit number for themselves as well. Most of them took 800-611-0611 or something similar. You would *think* they might have put a voice mail thing on 611 saying 'for Ameritech repairs press 1' for MCI repairs, press 2, etc. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2002 21:05:38 -0800 From: John Higdon Subject: Re: Followup on Jack Mortenson At 11:53 PM -0500 11/12/02, John R. Levine wrote: > Prerecords to residential lines are 100% illegal under 47 USC 227. > Since the caller is local to you, you can sue in small claims court. Assuming, of course, that the CID wasn't forged and the call didn't in reality come from some outfit in Nebraska. > It's not a crime, it's a tort. You don't ask the cops to arrest > them, you sue them. I'm wondering how much leg work I am going to have to do to find out who actually owns 408 226-0706 and then further be able to demonstrate in court that the individual responsible for the line made the calls. Having a pointer to the federal law is useful; thanks for that. John Higdon | P.O. Box 7648 | +1 408 264 4115 | FAX: | San Jose, CA 95150 | +1 415 428 2697 | +1 408 264 4407 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Make it easy on yourself John. You know where the phone company is located, I assume. Sue them, let them bring 'Mortensen' in as a co-defendent. Get a lawyer to advise more completely on this but I would suggest naming the phone company under the premise that they are effectively denying you the right to peaceful enjoyment and use of your phone service. After all, you are a subscriber to the service also, and have the right to expect certain things such as the right to peace and quiet. Get a telecom-savvy, pro-consumer type lawyer to advise on this. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: 13 Nov 2002 00:15:11 -0500 From: John R Levine Subject: Re: Followup on Jack Mortenson >>It's not a crime, it's a tort. You don't ask the cops to arrest >>them, you sue them. > I'm wondering how much leg work I am going to have to do to find out > who actually owns 408 226-0706 and then further be able to > demonstrate in court that the individual responsible for the line > made the calls. I think there's a presumption that the CLID is valid. Getting the subscriber's name is easy, you drop a subpoena on Pac Bell and they'll tell you. Any lawyer can do that. Beyond that, you can probably also get local calling records to see if he's been making lots and lots of phone calls from that line, if he claism that he hasn't. > Taking the cue from Pat and others, I contacted SBC ... ... which was, predictably, a waste of time. Prerecords to residential lines are 100% illegal under 47 USC 227. Since the caller is local to you, you can sue in small claims court. > I know the local police certainly couldn't care less about the crime > of telemarketing. It's not a crime, it's a tort. You don't ask the cops to arrest them, you sue them. John R. Levine, IECC, POB 727, Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 387 6869 johnl@iecc.com Village Trustee and Sewer Commissioner http://iecc.com/johnl Member, Provisional board, Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Known Origin of Predictive Dialer Organization: Not Much From: bonomi@c-ns (Robert Bonomi) Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2002 13:07:43 GMT In article , John Higdon wrote: > In article , TELECOM Digest > Editor's Note: >> John, you seem damned and detirmined >> that nothing can be done about those vermin, so let's just throw up >> our hands and consider it a 'non-issue' and give up on it and move >> along to something else. > Maybe I'm looking at it a bit like chess, and in playing it several > moves ahead I see that checkmate is inevitable. > Take a look at the fax situation. There is a Federal law that prohibits > junk faxing. But it does us no good in California because in its > infinite wisdom, the California legislature passed its own very stupid > junk fax bill that trumps the Federal law ... and gives a gigantic > loophole to the junk faxers. As a result, those of us in California > still have a printer full of crap when we come into the office every > morning. According to the Federal statute in question, it does not pre-empt state law *ONLY*IF* the state law is _more_restrictive_ than the federal one. Several of the big junk faxers, particularly a couple located in the L.A. area who continue to insist otherwise, are in *deep* doo-doo with the feds, and at least one is facing criminal prosecution from the Ca. Atty. Gen. ------------------------------ Subject: Re: "This Call May be Monitored or Recorded." Organization: Not Much From: bonomi@c-ns (Robert Bonomi) Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2002 13:22:59 GMT In article , Dave Phelps wrote: > I think that gives me permission to record a call, doesn't it? If I > intend to record a call, and I hear that message, does that mean that > they have agreed to have me record the conversation, and I don't > explicitly have to ask the person when they answer? That's how I take > it. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I think you misunderstood their use of > the word 'may'. Its not 'may' (as in 'you have our permission to do > this') but 'may' (as in 'this is something we might decide to do'). > However you may wish to interpret the 'may', please be sure to include > that opening statement in the audio taping at the beginning of the > tape in case there later is any question about whether or not permission > was granted to do the taping. PAT] I'm not a lawyer, but that announcement _would_ seem to imply that *everyone* at the called number =knows= that their conversation *IS* subject to being recorded. And that, therefore, they have *no* reasonable 'expectation of privacy'. And thus, the _calling_ party should be able to record *without* having to give any additional notice. ------------------------------ From: Wlevant@aol.com Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2002 22:11:13 EST Subject: Re: "This Call may be Monitored or Recorded." Does saying it give you the right to record a call? Maybe, maybe not. Under Pennsylvania law, BOTH parties to a telephone call must consent to the recording. Elsewhere (NJ comes to mind) that isn't so. Also, 18 Pa Con. Stat. s 5704(15) (a criminal code section) says: "The personnel of a business engaged in telephone marketing or telephone customer service by means of wire, oral or electronic communication [may] intercept such marketing or customer service communications where such interception is made for the sole purpose of training, quality control or monitoring by the business, provided that one party involved in the communications has consented to such intercept. Any communications recorded pursuant to this paragraph may only be used by the business for the purpose of training or quality control. Unless otherwise required by Federal or State law, communications recorded pursuant to this paragraph shall be destroyed within one year from the date of recording." Thus, unless you're in the marketing or customer service business, the consent of one party is NOT enough, at least not in Pennsylvania. Bill ------------------------------ From: Dave Phelps Subject: Re: "This Call May be Monitored or Recorded." Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2002 23:08:49 -0600 > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I think you misunderstood their use of > the word 'may'. Its not 'may' (as in 'you have our permission to do > this') but 'may' (as in 'this is something we might decide to do'). > However you may wish to interpret the 'may', please be sure to include > that opening statement in the audio taping at the beginning of the > tape in case there later is any question about whether or not permission > was granted to do the taping. PAT] I'm not misunderstanding their use of the word 'may', I'm just interpreting it the way I want. IMHO, the way it is worded definitely says 'you have our permission to record this call'. To finish the sentence, I hear "This call may be monitored or recorded, if you wish to do so, because we might." It certainly doesn't deny me permission to record the call, rather, it seems to give me the blanket authorization of the business to record it. IOW, each party (depending on state law) must either give consent, or not, for either party of the call to record it. IMHO, the business, by announcing this phrase, is giving its consent, regardless of which party actually does the recording. As far as the second party (you), obviously you would give yourself consent to record your own call. Dave Phelps Phone Masters Ltd. deadspam=tippenring ------------------------------ From: reo@roscoe.airaffair.com (Ross Oliver) Subject: Should I Switch From IDSL to ADSL? Date: 13 Nov 2002 03:32:18 GMT Organization: Concentric Internet Services I currently have 144kbit IDSL service from XO Communications. At the time it was installed (over three years ago), it was the only type of DSL service that could serve my location. Now, other vendors (notably Covad and Pacific Be ... I mean SBC) are offering ADSL service for substantially less (my current service is $124/month; both Covad and SBC offer ADSL with five static IP addresses for $80/month) The description on the Covad web site implies that IDSL service is somehow "better" and therefore is more expensive. But I don't see the "better" part. IDSL provides less bandwidth, requires a dedicated line, and neither IDSL or ADSL service are guaranteed by any SLAs. Am I missing something, or should I switch and save myself $45 per month? Thanks, Ross Oliver reo@airaffair.com ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 620-870-9697 Fax 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 775-306-8390 Fax 3: 775-642-0603 Fax 4: 530-309-7234 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 V22 #125 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Nov 14 00:56:16 2002 Received: from localhost (localhost [[UNIX: localhost]]) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.3nb1/8.11.3) id gAE5uGi16011; Thu, 14 Nov 2002 00:56:16 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2002 00:56:16 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200211140556.gAE5uGi16011@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #126 TELECOM Digest Thu, 14 Nov 2002 00:56:00 EST Volume 22 : Issue 126 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Towns & Townships, Again ... (Neal McLain) Re: ECLong Distance and Calling 1-800 Numbers (Robert Bonomi) Re: ECLong Distance and Calling 1-800 Numbers (Linc Madison) Re: ECLong Distance and Calling 1-800 Numbers (John R. Levine) Looking for Used GR-303 DLC Equipment (Patrick J. Chicas) Comdial DSU II Configuration (Mike Pilat) Re: Anti Telemarketer Phone (John Beaman) Help: 1962 Western Electric Interphone (Eric Spear) Don't Forget About the Rest of Us ! (Wlevant@aol.com) Re: Anti Telemarketer Phone (Name Withheld) E-Marketers Rue Address Turnover (Monty Solomon) Horse Racing Bet Breeds Suspicion (Monty Solomon) Should Libraries Censor Net Porn? (Monty Solomon) Net Sales Tax Plan Clears First Hurdle; States to Vote (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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2002 14:41:31 -0600 From: Neal McLain Reply-To: nmclain@annsgarden.com Organization: Ann's Garden Subject: Towns & Townships, Again ... Wes Leatherock wrote: > In St. Louis City, as you noted, there are officials who > perform all the usual acts of county officials ... Whereupon Herb Stein wrote: > Apparently I missed the start of this thread. This relates to > telcom how? At which point PAT wrote: > It only relates in a very peripheral way, and I do not > remember how. Two months ago or so, an article appeared > here which made reference to 'counties and townships'. That > spurned (sic) a special issue of the Digest about a month > ago giving very detailed descriptions and the history of > townships... Actually, it started even earlier. It all began with a posting headed "One Area Code to Unify Divided Town." This posting described the situation in Town of Erving, Franklin County, Massachusetts, a town that had successfully petitioned for an area-code boundary realignment so that the entire town would be within a single area code. In subsequent postings in this thread, a discussion ensued about the definition of the words "town" and "township," and how the meanings of these words differ from state to state. As it happens, this issue is a particular interest of mine. In my years in the cable television industry, I have dealt with franchise issues in several states, and I've always been fascinated (and sometimes confused) by the variety of terms that various states use for county and sub-county civil subdivisions. Picking up on this thread, I wrote a four-part essay titled "Towns and Townships" which PAT posted in two special issues of the digest. These issues are available in the archives at: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives/back.issues/recent.single.issues/V22_%2388 http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives/back.issues/recent.single.issues/V22_%2389 In my essay, I noted that most cities are located inside of counties, although there are exceptions: - Some are "independent cities," lying outside of any county. - Some are "consolidated city-county" (or city-borough) governments. I also noted that: > "The distinction between "independent city" and > "consolidated city-county" seems to be rather fuzzy. This issue has evolved into a separate thread. Various readers have noted that: - Richmond County and Staten Island Borough, though coextensive, are separate governmental entities within the City of New York. - Philadelphia is a "consolidated city-county," but the City of Philadelphia and the County of Philadelphia are separate governmental entities. - Baltimore is an independent city. - St. Louis is "an independent city not in St. Louis County." - "The City of St. Louis is a county." So what *is* the difference between a "consolidated city-county" and an "independent city"? Even though I started this thread, I can't answer that; in fact, I'm more confused now than I was before I wrote the essay. Perhaps there's a municipal attorney out there who can provide us with a legal definition. Returning to Herb's original question "This relates to telcom how?," I respectfully disagree with PAT's statement that "it only relates in a very peripheral way." I think land information relates to telecom in many significant ways, particularly if the term "telecom" is construed to include such things as IXCs, terrestrial broadcasting, cable television, satellite television, communications towers, and RF transmitters. Civil boundaries relate to telecom in several ways: - Telephone outside plant occupies land, and in most cases, that land is owned by other parties. The same thing is true of any other utility's OSP: electric power, cable television, IXC fiber, natural gas, petroleum, potable water, irrigation water, or sewers. Public streets are usually owned by governments (municipal, county, state, or federal). Most other land is owned by private parties; much land of interest to utilities (particularly IXCs) is owned by railroads. Before any utility company can construct any facility on (or above) land it doesn't own, it must obtain permission (either a permit or an easement) from the landowner. - As the situation in Town of Erving demonstrates, decisions about NPA boundaries might well include consideration of civil boundaries. This doesn't necessarily mean that NPA boundaries have to follow civil boundaries, but it does mean that addressing the issue up front may head off political problems later. - Cable television franchises are issued and regulated by "local franchising authorities" (LFAs); consequently, civil boundaries define franchise-area boundaries. Under state law in most states, incorporated municipalities have LFA powers. In many northern states, town[ship] governments also have LFA powers; in other states, county governments have LFA powers in county areas outside incorporated municipalities. And in every state, independent cities and consolidated city-county entities -- however they're defined -- have LFAs powers within their boundaries. - Cable television franchises often require dedicated public-, government-, and/or educational-access channels. Special channel requirements like this mean that the cable company has to build separate distribution networks within each franchise area. I've seen many situations where a pole line along a civil- boundary street supported two CATV feeder cables, one for each side of the street. - Under federal law, every commercial television broadcast station enjoys an exclusive monopoly within its "designated market area" (DMA), an area defined by Nielsen Media Research. In most cases, DMA boundaries follow county lines, although some large counties (e.g. San Bernardino County, CA) are split between two or more DMAs. For the purpose of this law, the term "county" includes: District of Columbia. Consolidated city-county. Independent city. Borough (in Alaska). Unified Municipality (in Alaska). Parish (in Louisiana). - The FCC's cable television "must-carry" rules, as they apply to commercial television broadcast stations, are based on DMA boundaries. Every commercial television broadcast station is entitled to mandatory carriage on every cable television system lying "in whole or in part" within its DMA, provided, however, that the station must provide an acceptable signal at the cable system's headend. The meaning of an "acceptable signal" is defined by FCC rule. - The FCC's satellite-television "carry-one-carry-all" rules, as they apply to commercial television broadcast stations, are based on DMA boundaries. Under this rule, if a satellite carrier (DirecTV or Dish Network) elects to carry one station within a DMA, it must carry them all. In the 30 Public-Land States, the USPLS grid also relates to telecom in several ways. FCC transmitter-license and tower-registration applications must specify the location of the facility in two ways: by latitude/longitude, and by address. The "address" is usually the street address, but in rural locations, other designations are acceptable, including USPLS parcel descriptions (I've seen USPLS-based "addresses" that specify only the 40-acre parcel in which the facility is located). Descriptions such as "2.3 miles south of ______ city" or "northwest of the intersection of roads ____ and ______" are also acceptable. Many utility OSP mapping systems are based on the USPLS grid. A 320-acre half-section fits nicely on an ANSI size D sheet (22"x34") at 1"=200' scale, a scale that's adequate for most single-family residential and small commercial neighborhoods. For areas requiring more detail (apartment complexes, downtown commercial areas), an 80-acre 1/2-1/4-section, at 1"=100", fits easily on the same sheet size. For field use (carried around in service trucks) these maps can be printed at 11"x17" without loss of detail. In my experience, USPLS-based maps are easiest to use in the field because on-ground evidence of the underlying grid is often visible. Such things as property lines, fence lines, treelines, and the centerlines of streets often indicate the location of USPLS section lines. Many cable television OSP mapping systems are based on existing power- or telephone-company maps (in fact, they're often literally copied from the existing maps, using the same map- and pole-numbering systems). This arrangement simplifies coordination of installation and maintenance activities. It also saves money: it's a lot cheaper to copy the power company's maps than it is to develop a separate mapping system (a fact that hasn't been overlooked by power-company accounting departments). In recent years, the rise of computerized Geographic Information Systems has followed a similar pattern. Many such systems are sponsored by local governments, with all utility companies participating in a single master database. But in Public-Land States, these systems are still (usually) based on the USPLS grid. Neal McLain nmclain@annsgarden.com ------------------------------ Subject: Re: ECLong Distance and Calling 1-800 Numbers Organization: Not Much From: bonomi@c-ns (Robert Bonomi) Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2002 13:13:52 GMT In article , John R. Levine wrote: >> This seems to read that ECG will charge me for any and all calls I >> make to any 1-800 number? Can this be true and why do they charge? > You have it backwards. If you have an 800* number on your ECG > account, ECG will charge you whenever anyone calls your 800 number. > That's how toll-free numbers work. If you don't have a toll free > number, you can ignore their 800 rates. The original poster was questioning what ECG *SAID*, which would seem to be different than what they meant. Q. "Will I be charged to *MAKE* 800 calls?" (emphasis added) A. "Yes"... and details of a 49 cent charge. Review what ECG's quoted literature _actually_ said, as distinct from what you 'know' it _meant_, and you'll have a better understanding of his confusion. ------------------------------ From: Linc Madison Subject: Re: ECLong Distance and Calling 1-800 Numbers Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2002 16:27:49 -0800 Organization: LincMad.com Consulting Reply-To: Telecom@LincMad.com In article , wrote: > In article , johnl@iecc.com says: >> [ECG incoming 8YY calls are 4.9 cpm interstate] These rates are in >> the low range of what carriers charge for 800 service that >> terminates on a POTS line and has a low monthly minimum. > Yuck -- those rates rot. I have my 800 service through USADatanet. > It's .10 a minute to a maximum of $3.99 - so for $3.99 my friends an > relatives from out of state can yack for hours on end. Thus, on any call of less than 81 minutes, you pay MORE than 4.9cpm. What proportion of your calls are over 81 minutes? Let's say your out-of-state friends or family yak for only 40 minutes. You have just hit your $3.99 cap, but you would've paid less than half that on the service you describe as "those rates rot." On the carrier I use, you would have to talk for 114 minutes just to reach the break-even point. This is very much like the overpriced rip-off known as 10-10-220. I save on every single call of any duration, compared with their exorbitant rates. Alf may think it's a great deal, but I don't. Likewise, I'm not much impressed with the deal you're talking about. > I recall someone here mentioning USADatanet and I was so happy when > they started serving Providence. My average monthly LD bill went from > about $100 a month to < $20 a month, including the 800 service. My recommendation [free plug] is the web site , which provides detailed information about different long-distance plans, including 1+, 101-XXXX dialaround, inbound toll-free, and calling cards. www dot LincMad dot com / Telecom at LincMad dot com Linc Madison * San Francisco, California ------------------------------ Date: 12 Nov 2002 23:58:36 -0500 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: ECLong Distance and Calling 1-800 Numbers Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA >> In ECG's case, the rate for incoming 800 calls is the same as the rate >> for a corresponding dial-one call, 4.9 cpm interstate, varying amounts >> in-state. ... > I recall someone here mentioning USADatanet Hi. It was me. > Yuck -- those rates rot. I have my 800 service through USADatanet. > It's .10 a minute to a maximum of $3.99 I don't think I've ever had a call on my 800 bill that was 40 minutes long. At the 5 CPM rate I get from ECG, an individual call would have to be 80 minutes long for USADN's rate to be better. If you have friends who call you and talk for two hours and rarely make shorter calls, great, but that's a rather unusual calling pattern for 800 numbers. 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: pjc@off-road.com (Patrick J. Chicas) Subject: Looking for Used GR-303 DLC Equipment Date: 12 Nov 2002 21:19:09 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Greetings, I am looking for vendors that resell used and new GR-303 DLC equipment and IAD's such as the Lucent AnyMedia Shelf. Please, email me directly with replies. Thanks. ------------------------------ From: Mike Pilat Subject: Comdial DSU II Configuration Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2002 00:57:05 -0600 I'm trying to login to a Comdial DSU II via a serial cable, but I don't get the result that's expected (at least what Comdial's free training online says). Supposedly I should get a password prompt, but it just repeatedly prints the line: "02 DSU II03" to the terminal I don't actually have the system manual, and don't have any money to find one, so if anyone knows offhand how I can fix this. Thanks. [mp] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2002 08:57:14 -0600 From: John Beaman Subject: Re: Anti Telemarketer Phone Patrick, This is my first time posting to your newsgroup, so I hope I am doing this correctly. Right after reading your digest in which someone is looking for an Anti-Telemarketer Phone, I come across an email from Hello Direct which lists exactly that item. And at $89, it seems like a reasonable price for the peace of mind. http://www.hellodirect.com/catalog/Product.jhtml?CATID=3D2027&PRODID=3D10051 John Beaman Telecom Specialist Voice Telecommunications Services Department. Good Samaritan National Campus 605-362-3331 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Welcome aboard, John. Your first posting looks okay to me except for one error: The word 'digest' should always be capitalized in the context of this newsgroup/digest. Its sort of like scripture; Holy Writ. Bear that in mind when you write again, which I hope will be soon. PAT] LOL ...:) ------------------------------ From: Eric Spear Subject: Help: 1962 Western Electric Interphone Organization: AT&T Broadband Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2002 21:39:52 GMT I just bought a house with a built-in 1962 Western Electric Home Interphone system. It looks like the following: http://www.telephonetribute.com/tribute/images/1960_home_interphone_system.j pg Anyway, it still works! But there is only one phone (in my basement, left here by the previous owner) that has the little knob to activate the intercom (see picture, lower right of phone). My other modern phones do not have this. Is there a way to get that switch so I can use the intercom in all my rooms? The switch box that handles the intercom traffic doesn't have any writing on it that would indicate a model number or something. It just reads "Western Electric." ------------------------------ From: Wlevant@aol.com Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2002 22:11:12 EST Subject: Don't Forget About the Rest of Us ! > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: If Dubya goes through with his threat > on the radio today, that only the USA is allowed to have weapons of > mass destruction and everyone else (mainly Mr. Sodomy Insane) has to > give his up (we don't, because we are good and pure, Christian, and as > we sing, 'For Our Cause, it is Just' [fourth stanza, Star Spangled > Banner]) this may well be quite a moot point in the next few days. PAT] HEY!!!!! How about us Jews? And the Zoroastrians, the Buddhists and all of the other non-Christians who make this country great? If Saddam drops the big one, we stand to get fried just like them Christian folks. Bill [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, what about you Jews? Mr. Sodomy Insane, as egged on and encouraged by Dubya, is an equal opportunity exterminator. You'll get exterminated also, along with the rest of us. Wait your turn please. Ditto the Zoroastrians, the Buddhists, the Unitarians, the Women's Missionary Society here in Independence, and heathens like myself. As Pat Robertson and TBN once said, 'Kill all, let God sort it out.' Many of the Christians, you know, are waiting for Israel to get nuked; in their warped sense of the timetable for world affairs, when Israel goes the Apocolypse is underway. Just take a number and wait your turn please. PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Re: From: name withheld on request Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2002 09:59:16 -0600 (please do not post my e-mail address, thanks) In response to: hfs2@yahoo.com (hfs2) who wrote about Anti Telemarketer Phone: > Is there a phone that will not ring until the caller passes one or > more of these programmable tests? > Recognized caller id; > Enters a code; > Answers a question; > Call is received during a certain period of the day. > Lord, but I have just got to stop these telemarketing calls! Many local phone companies offer a service whereby callers who block their caller ID, as telemarketers do, must enter a code so that their number appears on the caller ID of the person they are calling before the call is connected. Additionally, any such completed call gives a stuttered ring, vs. the regular ringing pattern, no matter what type phone you have. This way you can decide whether or not you want to answer the phone without even getting up to view your caller ID. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Oh, you mean like Southwestern Bell Telco? No matter *what number* you try to block, the system always responds that it cannot block numbers that are out of area, or unidentified. Since you cannot indicate you want to block ten zeros, those calls still come though. The Privecode or some other external (on your premises) is the only way to go. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2002 00:35:47 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: E-Marketers Rue Address Turnover By Andy Patrizio 02:00 AM Nov. 12, 2002 PT Thirty-one percent of Americans change e-mail addresses each year, in part to evade spammers, according to a new study -- and it's costing legitimate businesses millions in potential sales. A survey on e-mail churn found that merchants lose half of their online relationships with customers when those customers change e-mail addresses when they change jobs, switch ISPs or when their inboxes become too stuffed with spam. Commissioned by dot-name domain owner Global Name Registry and e-mail change-of-address service Return Path, and conducted by research firm NFO WorldGroup, the survey got responses from 1,015 people. Recently, 87 percent of the total respondents have changed a personal e-mail address and 35 percent have changed a work address. At least 16 percent said they switched specifically to shake spammers, who have become much more aggressive in their tactics -- not to mention more offensive in subject matter. But while spammers cause headaches for e-mail users, the high turnover of addresses stands to hurt legitimate businesses, especially in cases where consumers have volunteered their addresses to merchants. NFO WorldGroup found that 22 percent of people who change their address don't bother to notify websites of the change. http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,56049,00.html ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2002 23:54:59 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Horse Racing Bet Breeds Suspicion By Associated Press 08:57 AM Nov. 12, 2002 PT WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. -- Three former fraternity brothers surrendered to the FBI on Tuesday morning in connection with a complicated horse racing bet on the Breeders' Cup that paid $3 million and quickly raised suspicions that computers had been rigged. Derrick Davis of Baltimore, Glen DaSilva of New York and Chris Harn of Newark, Delaware, surrendered at the FBI's office in White Plains and were expected to go before a judge later Tuesday, said Herb Hadad, spokesman for U.S. Attorney James Comey. Comey, who announced Friday that he had joined the investigation, called a news conference for Tuesday afternoon. Davis placed the bet in question, on six Breeders' Cup races Oct. 26. DaSilva placed an earlier wager along the same elaborate lines, and Harn worked for the company that handles most computerized horse betting. The New York Daily News reported Monday that the men would be charged with wire fraud conspiracy. Wire fraud statutes apparently would apply because the elaborate Pick Six bet was made by telephone on Davis' account with Catskill Off-Track Betting, a Pomona-based division of the state OTB system. http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,56328,00.html ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2002 00:08:43 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Should Libraries Censor Net Porn? By Associated Press 11:04 AM Nov. 12, 2002 PT WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court said Tuesday it will decide if public libraries can be forced to install software blocking sexually explicit Web sites. Congress has struggled to find ways to protect children from Internet pornography without infringing on free speech rights for Web site operators. Lawmakers have passed three laws since 1996, but the Supreme Court struck down the first and blocked the second from taking effect. The latest measure, signed by President Clinton in 2000, requires public libraries receiving federal technology funds to install filters on their computers or risk losing aid. A three-judge federal panel ruled the Children's Internet Protection Act violates the First Amendment because the filtering programs also block sites on politics, health, science and other non-pornographic topics. http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,56330,00.html ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2002 01:04:47 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Net Sales Tax Plan Clears First Hurdle; States to Vote By Reuters November 12, 2002, 5:35 PM PT More than 30 U.S. states approved a pact Tuesday that represents a major step toward creating a system to tax items sold on the Internet. http://news.com.com/2100-1017-965554.html States to vote on Internet taxes By Declan McCullagh Staff Writer, CNET News.com November 12, 2002, 9:00 AM PT A plan to tax Internet shopping could take a big step forward Wednesday. Officials from more than half of the 50 states are meeting in Chicago to vote on a plan to simplify tax rates, a move that state governments hope will prompt Congress to permit levying sales taxes on online purchases. http://news.com.com/2100-1023-965418.html ------------------------------ 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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End of TELECOM Digest V22 #126 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Nov 14 18:25:36 2002 Received: from localhost (localhost [[UNIX: localhost]]) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.3nb1/8.11.3) id gAENPa027747; Thu, 14 Nov 2002 18:25:36 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2002 18:25:36 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200211142325.gAENPa027747@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #127 TELECOM Digest Thu, 14 Nov 2002 18:25:00 EST Volume 22 : Issue 127 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Last Laugh! (or Not?) Commercial Scale Space Tourism (D. Richens) Re: Panasonic KX-TD816 (Paul A Lee) Phone Phreakers Rack Up $11,000 Bill in Ohio (Mike Kuras) In the Mail (Joey Lindstrom) Telemarketing (Arthur Shapiro) Re: AT&T 1411 (Babbsela) Re: Last Laugh! (or Not?) Commercial Scale Space Tourism (J. David Galt) Re: "This Call May be Monitored or Recorded." (FN) Re: Calif. Changes Cell Phone Crash Data (Larry & Wanda Finch) Re: Known Origin of Predictive Dialer (Babbsela) Retailers' Suit Says Two Issuers of Credit Cards Illegal (Monty Solomon) A Networked World's Final Frontier: The Airplane (Monty Solomon) Japan Sept. Cellphone Shipments Fall for 16th Month (Monty Solomon) QUALCOMM's WCDMA/GSM/GPRS Multimode Features Integration (Monty Solomon) Motorola Phone Software / Other Motorola News (Monty Solomon) Qualcomm MSM6500/Qualcomm Says Sprint May Have Built Up (Monty Solomon) T-Mobile and Sony Pics Digital Announce Global Content (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: Dominic Richens Subject: Re: Last Laugh! (or Not?) Commercial Scale Space Tourism Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2002 08:28:50 -0500 Organization: Nortel John David Galt wrote: > I saw this spam in 20 unrelated newsgroups. Nuke it. Yeah, but didya checkout the web site! http://www.gctspace.com It's a hoot! Gotta love that CGI rendering of two salad bowls stuck together - I think they refer to it as a "spacecraft" :-) ------------------------------ From: Paul A Lee Subject: Re: Panasonic KX-TD816 Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2002 11:17:25 -0500 jmarks@futurenet-consulting.com (Jeremy Marks) wrote (in part): > I have installed my first Panasonic kx-td816 phone system > Their system is configured with two telephone lines going into the > system. Line #2 is their fax line, but should be in the system so > they can make outgoing calls on it if line#1 is busy. All calls to > line #2 should go directly to the fax machine. > Do I plug the fax machine into the back of their display phone to get > dial-tone? What programming areas and changes do I need to address to > route the calls on line #2 directly to the fax? I have not worked with the KX-TD systems, but here's how I would do it on the KX-T61610 I _am_ familiar with: CO line #1 from telco goes to CO line #1 on the KX. CO line #2 from telco goes to the telco side of a fax switch that answers on the first ring and sends secondary ringback while it listens for CNG (Command Communications, Versa-Link, etc.). This device sends ringing and the call out on its "fax" port if senses CNG, or sends it out on its "voice" port if it doesn't sense CNG. Connect the "voice" port of the fax switch to CO line #2 on the KX. Connect the "fax" port of the fax switch to CO line #3 on the KX. Program the station sets to ring for CO lines #1 and #2. Program an extension as a 2500 set for the fax machine to ring for CO line #3. Program outgoing calls to hunt CO lines #1 and #2. An outgoing call through CO line #2 on the KX will look like a regular "voice" call to the fax switch. Consequently, if there is already an incoming fax call using telco line #2, an outgoing call attempt that hunts to CO line #2 on the KX will not get dial tone. That should be the only unusual behavior of this setup. I have not wired this setup as described, but I have used fax/modem switches in a variety of configurations. I can't think of any reason this setup wouldn't work, unless the KX-TD's programming is vastly different from the KX-T61610 (and other small hybrids). 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: mike kuras Subject: Phone Phreakers Rack Up $11,000 Bill in Ohio Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2002 12:01:16 -0500 Hackers guessed an Ohio woman's voice mail password, and recorded a message that would sound to operators as if someone were accepting charges for a collect call so that they could use her line to make lengthy international calls. Her one-month phone bill was nearly $11,000, that she did not have to pay. Full story here: http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/news/local/4446396.htm ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2002 10:07:25 -0700 From: Joey Lindstrom Subject: In the Mail Reply-To: joey@garynuman.info A friend forwarded this. It's made the rounds on the 'net so my apologies if you've already seen it. :-) >> Subject: Hate Telemarketing? This is one of the most valuable peices of mail I have ever received. Read on and ENJOY! I suppose some degree of commerce would grind to a halt if telephone solicitors weren't able to call people at home during dinner hour. But that doesn't make it any more pleasant. Now Steve Rubenstein, a writer for the San Francisco Chronicle, has proposed "Three Little Words" based on his brief experience in a telemarketing operation that would stop the nuisance for all time. The three little words are "Hold On, Please." Saying this while putting down your phone and walking off instead of hanging up immediately would make each telemarketing call so time-consuming that boiler rooms would grind to a halt. When you eventually hear the phone company's beep-beep- beep tone, you know it's time to go back and hang up your handset, which has efficiently completed its task. This might be one of those articles you'll want to e-mail to your friends. Three little words that eliminate telephone soliciting. Good Ideas: when you get ads in your phone or utility bill, include them with the payment, let the companies throw them away. When you get those pre-approved letters in the mail for everything from credit cards to 2nd mortgages and junk like that, most of them come with postage paid return envelopes, right? Well, why not get rid of some of your other junk mail and put it in these cool little envelopes. Send an ad for your local chimney cleaner to American Express. Send the pizza coupon to Citibank. If you didn't get anything else that day then just send them their application back! If you want to remain anonymous, just make sure your name isn't on anything you send them. You can send it back empty if you want to just to keep them guessing! Eventually, the banks and credit card companies will begin getting their junk back in the mail. Let's let them know what it's like to get junk mail, and the best of it is that they're paying for it. Twice. Let's help keep our postal service busy since they say e-mail is cutting into their business, and that's why they need to increase postage again. ------------------------------ From: art.shapiro@unisys.com (Arthur Shapiro) Subject: Telemarketing Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2002 17:52:44 GMT Organization: Unisys Corporation Pat, I've been using one of the various anti-telemarketing devices for a few months, and believe it has enough plusses to relate here. It's called the CallScreener, and I believe the website is www.callmenot.com. This gismo has two modes, active and passive might be the best terminology. In active mode, it siezes the line immediately upon a call coming in, although all phones give a brief fraction of a second of ringing. It plays the usual SIT tones, for what that's worth, whereupon a female voice announces (unchangeable message) something to the effect of "this number doesn't take telemarketing and solicitation calls." It instructs the party to press the "1" key to ring through, and I'd guess hangs up the line if there's no such response in a few seconds. Thus those god-awful mechanized calls don't go through, at least until someone starts recording the 1 key as part of the message. I'm waiting for that sad day. Upon pressing the 1, the device itself rings, not the telephones in the house. This is a bit of a disadvantage, as the single unit is tough to hear throughout the house. When I pick up a phone, I press 2 to shut the device off, or it will continue ringing. The big disadvantage is that if nobody is home, the answering machine won't take the call because the line has been seized by CallScreener. That's my only real beef with the unit. In passive mode, the phones behave normally -- phones ring and if not answered, the answering machine takes the call. (Probably an automated sales call, damnit). If one picks up the phone and hears a friendly telemarketer at the other end, one merely presses the asterisk key and hangs up. At this point, the behavior to the caller is the same as the active mode -- he/she/it gets the message, with instructions to press the 1 to ring through. So far, I've never zapped anyone in passive mode and had them ballsy enough to ring back through with the 1. The only disadvantage to me for passive mode is that the asterisk key is also the "stop message" signal for my particular answering machine. So anyone who calls me and wants to skip my answering machine message and knows to press the asterisk key instantly is connected to the CallScreener! A shame to have the coincidental use of the same key, but my message is quite short anyway. It feels SOOOOO good to nuke these vermin in passive mode. ------------------------------ From: Babbsela Subject: Re: AT&T 1411 Organization: AT&T Broadband Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2002 18:44:56 GMT A list of downloadable AT&T product manuals is here: http://telephones.att.com/attui/support/manuals/manualList.cfm I didn't find your model, but perhaps there's something close that you could reference. This site: http://www.instruction-manuals.co.uk/wanted.htm has a board where you can post a free ad to look for your missing manual. Good Luck, Art at ABE Computer Consultants wrote in message news:telecom22.103.5@telecom-digest.org: > We have an older answering machine, an AT&T model 1411. Lost the > instruction book. > Question: How do you get messages remotely? Is the code a factory > preset with no option to change? If it CAN be changed (maybe it has), > how do you reset it to factory specs? > Thanks, > Art > if replying e-mail, remove the obvious from the return address ------------------------------ From: John David Galt Subject: Re: Last Laugh! (or Not?) Commercial Scale Space Tourism Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2002 21:41:34 -0800 Organization: Diogenes the Cynic Hot-Tubbing Society TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response to Gail M. Hall: > Back in 1981-85 more or less, I published many comments here in the > Digest about that old fool, Judge Harold Greene, who managed to break > up the Bell System. The dotty old man lost ten cents in a payphone one > day, a payphone booth that looked and smelled like a urinal or filthy > toilet in Washington, DC, and he would not be content until he got his > friends in the Justice Department to bust up the telephone company. In > those days I would bash Judge Greene regularly here, and these same > guys on the Arpanet mailing list would always shush me up, and tell me > to quit bashing the judge, a good, kindly, wise fellow who knew what > was best for the whole USA and the rest of the world as well. Well, it > has taken me almost twenty years to prove my point, that Judge Greene, > in his dottieness, was making a mess of the phone company. To the > credit of the old Bell System, it held together pretty well for many > years after divestiture. I hope the Judge Greene lovers on this > mailing list are finally happy. The Bell System (which some of them > called the 'Hell System') finally got wrecked. PAT] IMO this proves the point of the Greene-lovers such as myself. Congress replaced Greene's MFJ with a new law in '96, freeing the biggest telcos to buy and pay for the FCC and state PUCs, re-merge into giants, wipe out competitors and go back to their old monopoly attitudes. We need another Judge Greene. Or for him to come out of retirement. ------------------------------ From: FN Subject: Re: "This Call May be Monitored or Recorded." Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2002 22:39:29 GMT Organization: RoadRunner - West You're not quite clear which side you're on. If you're calling a company that has this message playing, I'm not sure. But as for the legality of you doing a recording when people call YOU, ... I'm not giving you legal advice but my sole opinion which could be wrong is... 1) Yes that message gives you, the receiver, permission assuming it is reasonable that people heard/understood the message. 2) Make sure that message doesn't get interrupted by touch tones so you can later indicate (if ever needed) that no one could bypass hearing the message 3) Instruct all people on your end of the same (i.e. recording/monitoring) if your state is a 2 party monitor state 4) Instruct all people on your end that the caller could revoke their authorization and how to proceed if so (you could tell them to immediately end the call or perhaps they control the tape and could stop it). 5) Address foreign languages appropriately. Dave Phelps wrote in message news:telecom22.123.9@telecom-digest.org: > I think that gives me permission to record a call, doesn't it? If I > intend to record a call, and I hear that message, does that mean that > they have agreed to have me record the conversation, and I don't > explicitly have to ask the person when they answer? That's how I take > it. > Dave Phelps > Phone Masters Ltd. > deadspam=tippenring > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I think you misunderstood their use of > the word 'may'. Its not 'may' (as in 'you have our permission to do > this') but 'may' (as in 'this is something we might decide to do'). > However you may wish to interpret the 'may', please be sure to include > that opening statement in the audio taping at the beginning of the > tape in case there later is any question about whether or not permission > was granted to do the taping. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Larry & Wanda Finch Subject: Re: Calif. Changes Cell Phone Crash Data Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2002 00:22:29 GMT Monty Solomon wrote: > Sunday, November 10, 2002 10:26 a.m. EST > LOS ANGELES (AP) _ Release has been delayed of a report that blames > cell phone use in 913 highway accidents in 2001. Officials believe > the figure should be about seven times higher. > The report, given to Gov. Gray Davis last week, has been returned to > the California Highway Patrol after the agency learned the numbers > may have been too low, Commissioner Dwight O. Helmick told the Los > Angeles Times for Sunday editions. > The new report will include data showing drivers using cell phones > had been blamed for at least 4,699 accidents. So, if cell phones cause accidents, as there are 130 million cell phones in the US, the overall accident rate should have gone through the roof. As far as I can tell from my almanac, the accident rate has been going down for the past several years. Larry Finch N 40 53' 47" W 74 03' 56" ------------------------------ From: Babbsela Subject: Re: Known Origin of Predictive Dialer Organization: AT&T Broadband Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2002 02:29:38 GMT John Higdon wrote in message news:telecom22.123.7@telecom-digest.org: > Take a look at the fax situation. There is a Federal law that prohibits > junk faxing. But it does us no good in California because in its > infinite wisdom, the California legislature passed its own very stupid > junk fax bill that trumps the Federal law ... and gives a gigantic > loophole to the junk faxers. As a result, those of us in California > still have a printer full of crap when we come into the office every > morning. The Federal law is just as valid and enforceable in California as it is in every other state. State law can not "trump" federal law. The California Superior Court erred in its decision that the TCPA does not apply in California, both by the wording of the TCPA and the United States Constitution. For more info, check out the Amicus Briefs at http://www.eskimo.com/~jblake/spam/junk_fax/index.html ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2002 16:41:06 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Retailers' Suit Says 2 Issuers of Credit Cards Acted Illegally November 14, 2002 By JENNIFER BAYOT Retailers released documents yesterday that they say show that Visa and MasterCard colluded to monopolize the market for debit cards. The documents were filed in a class-action lawsuit, representing five million retailers led by Wal-Mart Stores, Sears Roebuck & Company and Safeway, that accuses Visa and MasterCard of trying to confuse merchants by designing their debit cards to be almost indistinguishable from their credit cards. Executives at the card companies, the retailers assert, hoped that creating similar-looking cards would steer merchants to unintentionally process the debit cards as though they were credit cards, leading to higher transaction fees. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/14/business/14CARD.html [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I know that for myself, I use my Visa Debit Card the same way I use a credit card. The only real difference is the credit limit. On a credit card, the credit limit is whatever it is. On a debit card, the limit is the amount of money you have in your bank account at the moment. Both types of cards use the same transport mechanism, both types of cards require 'sales authorization' or 'credit authorization' for sales in the same way. Neither debit nor credit cards require any additional indentification (in theory, although some merchants try to require identification inviolation of their merchant agreements. With debit cards you are required usually to produce a PIN number as part of the sale. I use my debit card all the time when making purchases on the computer. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2002 01:13:05 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: A Networked World's Final Frontier: The Airplane By SUSAN STELLIN On a recent flight from New York to Oakland, Calif., Madeline Duva worked her BlackBerry pager with the intensity of a pinball player, right up until the second of four announcements from the flight crew reminding passengers that all electronic devices must be turned off. Ms. Duva, a vice president with a San Francisco financial-data company, Sector Data, complied with the request, but said the communications blackout during the six-hour flight left her worrying about a last-minute directive to a colleague. "Now I'm sitting here and I'm thinking, `I hope that order went in,' " she said. Despite her anxiety over the status of the deal - and whether a friend had gotten World Series tickets - she resisted the urge to download e-mail messages to her BlackBerry for the duration of the flight. "You want to play by the rules, because you don't know if it could cause a problem," she said. Like many gadget-toting business travelers, Ms. Duva regularly inhabits what might be described as the eye of the information hurricane: in an era of information overload, air travel remains a unique exception to an increasingly networked world. Not only can passengers not get information about whether a deal went through or who is ahead in the bottom of the seventh inning, they cannot seem to get a satisfying explanation for why they cannot use their cellphones, BlackBerries or a host of other electronic devices in the air. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/12/business/12WIRE.html ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2002 02:10:14 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Japan Sept Cellphone Shipments Fall For 16th Month - Nov 11, 2002 10:14 PM (Reuters) TOKYO, Nov 12 (Reuters) - Japan's domestic shipments of mobile phones slid for a 16th straight month in September, an industry body said on Tuesday, in the latest sign of rapid saturation in the once-robust market. Handset shipments in September fell 38.8 percent from the same month last year to 2.86 million units, marking the largest percentage decline in six months, the Japan Electronics and Information Technology Industries Association (JEITA) said. The data comes on the heels of another set of industry figures late last week that showed Japan's mobile phone market grew at its slowest ever pace in October. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=29577275 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2002 02:11:23 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: QUALCOMM's WCDMA/GSM/GPRS Multimode Solution Features Integration - Single-Chip MSM6250 Solution Supports Video, Audio and Still-Image Encode/Decode; 2D/3D Graphics and JAVA Acceleration; Megapixel Camera Interface; Complete Bluetooth Baseband; and Assisted or Stand-Alone GPS - SAN DIEGO, Nov. 12 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- QUALCOMM Incorporated (NASDAQ:QCOM), pioneer and world leader of Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) digital wireless technology, today announced the MSM6250(TM) Mobile Station Modem (MSM(TM)) chipset and system software, a highly integrated solution that supports GSM, GPRS and the Frequency Division Duplex (FDD) mode of WCDMA -- also known as UMTS. Offering support for numerous multimedia functions and position location capabilities, the MSM6250 solution will enable handsets that support rich multimedia data applications and operate on all GSM, GPRS and UMTS networks worldwide. The MSM6250 solution incorporates the advanced feature set of QUALCOMM's Launchpad(TM) suite of technologies, including MPEG-4 video encoding/decoding, fast JPEG encoding/decoding, MP3 audio decoding, a 2D/3D graphics accelerator for advanced gaming applications, a MIDI synthesizer and a megapixel digital camera interface. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=29579632 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2002 02:37:58 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Motorola Phone Software / Other Motorola News Motorola signs pacts for mobile phone software - Nov 12, 2002 07:01 AM (Reuters) - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=29580946 Wide Variety of Wireless Games, Ring Tones and Themes Currently Available For Motorola's Data-Capable Mobile Phone Line - Nov 12, 2002 07:03 AM (PR Newswire) - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=29581066 Motorola Implements to Open Standards -- Delivering the Most Complete Mobile Java Experience to Operators and End Users Worldwide - Nov 12, 2002 07:30 AM (PR Newswire) - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=29581413 Motorola Begins Offering Online Training for Wireless Developers - Nov 12, 2002 09:46 AM (PR Newswire) - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=29586119 Motorola Launches Industry's First Platform Supporting New PICMG 2.20 Backplane Specification - Nov 12, 2002 12:10 PM (PR Newswire) - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=29590643 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2002 02:39:18 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Qualcomm MSM6500 / Qualcomm Says Sprint May Have Built Up QUALCOMM's MSM6500 Multimedia Single-Chip Solution Enables High-Performance Multimode Handsets Supporting CDMA2000 1X, 1xEV-DO and GSM/GPRS - Nov 12, 2002 07:31 AM (PR Newswire) - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=29581483 Qualcomm says Sprint may have built up inventory - Nov 12, 2002 12:41 PM (Reuters) - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=29591732 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2002 02:41:22 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: T-Mobile and Sony Pictures Digital Announce Global Content Deal * T-Mobile and Sony Pictures Digital take the lead in driving mobile entertainment * First global content deal for T-Mobile * Roll out in Europe and US before year end CULVER CITY, Calif., Nov. 12 /PRNewswire/ -- T-Mobile and Sony Pictures Digital today announced an agreement for Sony Pictures Digital to deliver mobile entertainment and games services over t-zones, T-Mobile's consumer portal. The deal with T-Mobile, is Sony Pictures Digital's first global content partnership with a mobile operator and, covering Europe and the United States, is the largest mobile content deal undertaken by T-Mobile. The deal will enable users to download movie-related content including movie clips, screensavers, MMS pictures, theme tune polyphonic ring-tones, movie trailers and specially created Java games. http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=29596122 ------------------------------ 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 Fax 3: 775-642-0603 Fax 4: 530-309-7234 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 V22 #127 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Nov 15 21:40:26 2002 Received: from localhost (localhost [[UNIX: localhost]]) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.3nb1/8.11.3) id gAG2eQZ00313; Fri, 15 Nov 2002 21:40:26 -0500 (EST) Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2002 21:40:26 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200211160240.gAG2eQZ00313@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #128 TELECOM Digest Fri, 15 Nov 2002 21:41:00 EST Volume 22 : Issue 128 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson "Miss Cleo" Settles With the Feds, AGs (Danny Burstein) MSNBC News Link: Bill Could Jail Hackers For Life (ptownson@lcs.mit.edu) Re: Comdial DSU II Configuration (Mike Pilat) Re: Recording Calls (Joey Lindstrom) Re: Followup on Jack Mortenson (joe@obilivan.net) Re: "Worldwide Length" of Telephone Numbers (J. Debert) Re: N11/Payphones/Wireless/PBXes/PAY-per-Call/etc (Gordon S. Hlavenka) Re: Don't Forget About the Rest of Us ! (Randolph J. Herber) Spam Profitability (Bill Feidt) You Are a Suspect (Monty Solomon) Computer Seller Admits Bilking 300 (Monty Solomon) The Pitch: Dreamland Goes Digital (Monty Solomon) Visa, Mastercard Seen Foiling Rivals (Monty Solomon) ACLU Calls on President: Disavow New Cyber-Spying Scheme (Monty Solomon) House Considers Jailing Hackers For Life (Monty Solomon) Lawyers Pony Up to Bettors' Side (Monty Solomon) Last Laugh! Re: In the Mail (Anthony E. Siegman) 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: danny burstein Subject: "Miss Cleo" Settles With the Feds, AGs Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2002 15:26:13 -0500 Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC In a landmark settlement, Access Resource Services, Inc. (ARS) and Psychic Readers Network, Inc. (PRN) have agreed to a stipulated court order stopping all collection efforts on accounts or claims from consumers who purchased or purportedly purchased their pay-per-call or audiotext services and forgiving an estimated $500 million in outstanding consumer charges as part of a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission. The Florida-based companies and their officers operated a massive 900 number scheme known to the public as the "Miss Cleo" psychic lines. The FTC alleged that the defendants engaged in deceptive advertising, billing, and collection practices. The settlement also requires the defendants to pay $5 million to the FTC. "The lesson in this case is that companies that make a promise in an ad need to deliver on it - whether it's about availability, performance, or cost," said J. Howard Beales III, Director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection. "I'm no psychic, but I can foresee this: If you make deceptive claims, there is an FTC action in your future." Read the whole story at: http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2002/11/ars.htm danny " wondering what the FTC would do if a valid psychic were really out there" 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: Subject: MSNBC News Link: Bill Could Jail Hackers For Life Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2002 11:49:05 -0800 Hackers now will go to prison for life. Read all the details in this link, and also see Monty Solomon's report elsewhere in this issue. President Clinton (the guy so many computer wizards were so happy to see get in office ten years ago) thought this one up, but it failed to go through the first time. I guess tacking it on to something like Homeland Security will assure its success this time around. PAT ** Bill could jail hackers for life ** A last-minute addition to a proposal for a Department of Homeland Security bill would punish malicious computer hackers with life in prison. http://www.msnbc.com/modules/exports/ct_email.asp?/news/834875.asp ------------------------------ From: Mike Pilat Subject: Re: Comdial DSU II Configuration Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2002 15:47:49 -0600 Mike Pilat wrote in message news:telecom22.126.6@telecom-digest.org: > I'm trying to login to a Comdial DSU II via a serial cable, but I > don't get the result that's expected (at least what Comdial's free > training online says). > Supposedly I should get a password prompt, but it just repeatedly > prints the line: > "02 DSU II03" to the terminal > I don't actually have the system manual, and don't have any money to find > one, so if anyone knows offhand how I can fix this. Figured it out, if anyone was interested; it turns out all the COM ports on the PC I was trying to use (the voicemail pc, actually) were in use by the voicemail hardware. My bad. I hooked it up to a different PC and it worked like a charm. Except that three open stations are mysteriously dead, and nothing in the software would make them work. [mp] ------------------------------ From: Joey Lindstrom Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2002 12:12:19 -0700 Subject: Re: Recording Calls Reply-To: joey@lairdsflooring.com On Tue, 12 Nov 2002 19:27:26 -0500 (EST), Dave Phelps wrote: > I think that gives me permission to record a call, doesn't it? If I > intend to record a call, and I hear that message, does that mean that > they have agreed to have me record the conversation, and I don't > explicitly have to ask the person when they answer? That's how I take > it. I think it's reasonable that you take it that way -- whether a judge agrees remains to be seen. :-) > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I think you misunderstood their use of > the word 'may'. Its not 'may' (as in 'you have our permission to do > this') but 'may' (as in 'this is something we might decide to do'). > However you may wish to interpret the 'may', please be sure to include > that opening statement in the audio taping at the beginning of the > tape in case there later is any question about whether or not permission > was granted to do the taping. PAT] Precisely so. :-) Then again, depending on the jurisdiction you live in, it could be a moot point. Here in the province of Alberta, we used to have tougher laws in that respect. For example, if you called, say, the police department, and they were recording the call (this is routine), the recording equipment was required by law to "whistle" every ten seconds or so to alert you that the recording was taking place. If you objected, you could demand that the recording be stopped. At that point they HAD to stop recording no matter what. If it was a private business you were talking to, well, they also had the option to simply hang up on you instead (which also stops the recording, conveniently enough). But that changed back in the early 1990's I think. Under the new legislation, you no longer had to notify anybody that you were recording a phone call - if you are a party of that call (so you can't record a call between two other people without informing at least one of them). So if you call me up and I record the call without telling you, tough. I can use it for my own use, but I cannot broadcast it (or, I think, publish the contents of it verbatim) without your permission. I can, however, paraphrase it. So ... when calling Albertans, do so with caution. ;-) Joey Lindstrom - Laird's Flooring joey@lairdsflooring.com ------------------------------ From: joe@obilivan.net Subject: Re: Followup on Jack Mortenson Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2002 09:23:07 GMT Organization: Cox Communications Prerecords to residential lines are also a violation of the California Public Utilities Code (intrastate origination and termination). Nonetheless they happen all the time, and have gotten so brazen some even come with name identification attached, such as Acme Carpet Co. The reason for this is that the PUC in a bankrupt state (both morally and financially) cannot enforce the rules it is sworn to uphold. And, if you take it into small claims court, they will throw it out based on lack of jurisdiction claiming they are trumped by the state utilitiy code. An interesting aside is that some lady wrote and complained to the local paper's "motorist assistance" column about being denied free air and water at gas stations where she buys gasoline. California has a law requiring free air and water for customers. But, the state agency that enforces this code has no money to enforce, because the state is broke. The writer of the column contacted the state assemblycritter who wrote the law, and she (the so-called lawmaker ;-) advised that the state agency that is supposed to enforce this code is broke, so concerned consumers should call their local cops if they can't get free air or water at the gas station. Maybe we should call 911 if we get prerecorded sales calls? ;-) John Higdon wrote: > At 11:53 PM -0500 11/12/02, John R. Levine wrote: >> Prerecords to residential lines are 100% illegal under 47 USC 227. >> Since the caller is local to you, you can sue in small claims court. > Assuming, of course, that the CID wasn't forged and the call didn't > in reality come from some outfit in Nebraska. >> It's not a crime, it's a tort. You don't ask the cops to arrest >> them, you sue them. > I'm wondering how much leg work I am going to have to do to find out > who actually owns 408 226-0706 and then further be able to demonstrate > in court that the individual responsible for the line made the calls. > Having a pointer to the federal law is useful; thanks for that. > John Higdon | P.O. Box 7648 | +1 408 264 4115 | FAX: > | San Jose, CA 95150 | +1 415 428 2697 | +1 408 264 4407 > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Make it easy on yourself John. You know > where the phone company is located, I assume. Sue them, let them bring > 'Mortensen' in as a co-defendent. Get a lawyer to advise more completely > on this but I would suggest naming the phone company under the premise > that they are effectively denying you the right to peaceful enjoyment > and use of your phone service. After all, you are a subscriber to the > service also, and have the right to expect certain things such as the > right to peace and quiet. Get a telecom-savvy, pro-consumer type lawyer > to advise on this. PAT] ------------------------------ From: j debert Subject: Re: "Worldwide Length" of Telephone Numbers Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2002 09:02:24 -0800 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Mark J Cuccia wrote: > BUT ... my PRIMARY question here ... were there ANY parts of the world > with twelve-digit "worldwide" telephone numbers back in the 1970's ... > and if not, when in the 1980's would have been the first instance ... > and which country (and city) [would have been the first to have] had > such twelve-digit "worldwide" numbers ???? If I recall right, Japan or Hong Kong may have had 12-digit numbers. And may still. Japan had variable-length numbers and as I recall Tokyo had the longest numbers. That includes the city code. jd j d e b e r t < a t > g a r l i c < d o t > c o m ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2002 13:21:45 -0600 From: Gordon S. Hlavenka Organization: Crash Electronics, Inc. Subject: Re: N11/Payphones/Wireless/PBXes/PAY-per-Call/etc > In the 630 AC (SBC/Ameritech) dialing 611 reaches a recorded message > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: > ... The court, in its wisdom (I am saying that > with a straight face now) said that it was unfair to the competing > phone companies that Bell customers were able to dial only three > digits (611) but customers of the competitors had to dial seven or > ten digits to reach repair. But if I connect through, say, "Townson Local Telco LLP" then doesn't your equipment process my dialing? So couldn't you just as easily capture "611" and connect me to your own service department? Or didn't the infinitely-wise court "get" that? Gordon S. Hlavenka O- nospam@crashelex.com Burma! [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: That is correct. It could be done that way. I guess the wise old judge didn't understand. But, it is still a regulation that Bell is not allowed to have shorter (in length) numbers than their competitors. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2002 19:20:19 +0000 (GMT) From: herber@dcdrjh.fnal.gov (Randolph J. Herber) Subject: Re: Don't Forget About the Rest of Us ! Organization: Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: .... > As Pat Robertson and TBN once said, 'Kill all, let God sort it out.' > .... PAT] I believe that that expression goes back much further. Here is one reference to a version of it: Amalric, 13th century, French theologian, philosopher "Kill them all. God will easily recognize His own.", To Simon de Montfort, at the massacre at Be'ziers, 1209 Randolph J. Herber, herber@dcdrjh.fnal.gov, +1 630 840 2966, CD/CDFTF PK-149F Mail Stop 318, Fermilab, Kirk & Pine Rds., PO Box 500, Batavia, IL 60510-0500 USA. (Speaking for myself and not for US, US DOE, FNAL nor URA.) (Product, trade, or service marks herein belong to their respective owners.) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: What really pains me when listening to 'Christian' leaders (such as Falwell and Robertson) talking about how they have studied history and the early years of Islam were so violent and therefore, it is a religion of violence, and none of those people can be trusted. They should also study the history of their own religion in the middle ages and dark ages. You wanna talk about inquistions; the Christians had some incredible ones. Then out of the dark/middle ages and into more 'modern' times in the 16th and 17th centuries as people who protested the church establishment of the times (now they are known as Protestants) began to do things their own way, the Catholic Church had a major bloodbath; not be to outdone, John Calvin and his 'reformed' followers started one of their own also. PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Spam Profitability From: Bill Feidt Date: 14 Nov 2002 05:15:57 -0500 Organization: Heller Information Services From the Wall Street Journal, a depressing look at how a Florida woman nets $200,000 per annum from spamming: http://online.wsj.com/article_email/0,,SB1037138679220447148,00.html ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2002 20:15:48 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: You Are a Suspect You Are a Suspect By WILLIAM SAFIRE WASHINGTON - If the Homeland Security Act is not amended before passage, here is what will happen to you: Every purchase you make with a credit card, every magazine subscription you buy and medical prescription you fill, every Web site you visit and e-mail you send or receive, every academic grade you receive, every bank deposit you make, every trip you book and every event you attend - all these transactions and communications will go into what the Defense Department describes as "a virtual, centralized grand database." To this computerized dossier on your private life from commercial sources, add every piece of information that government has about you - passport application, driver's license and bridge toll records, judicial and divorce records, complaints from nosy neighbors to the F.B.I., your lifetime paper trail plus the latest hidden camera surveillance - and you have the supersnoop's dream: a "Total Information Awareness" about every U.S. citizen. This is not some far-out Orwellian scenario. It is what will happen to your personal freedom in the next few weeks if John Poindexter gets the unprecedented power he seeks. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/14/opinion/14SAFI.html ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2002 08:32:45 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Computer Seller Admits Bilking 300 Prosecutors seek prison sentence By Thanassis Cambanis, Globe Staff, 11/13/2002 For more than a year, Teresa Smith did a brisk business peddling computers on eBay, pulling in $800,000 from eager buyers. Her attractive offers seemed too good to be true, because they were. The 25-year-old, working out of an office in West Boylston, had few computers to sell. Smith filed a plea agreement yesterday in US District Court in Boston, admitting to bilking 300 customers out of money she poured into a failed effort to start an advertising business. Law enforcement sources are calling it the largest case of fraud ever at an Internet auction site. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2002 08:35:23 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: The Pitch: Dreamland Goes Digital The Pitch: Dreamland Goes Digital By MICHEL MARRIOTT LOS ANGELES -- IT'S early in the morning when a set that looks like a head-on collision of a computer repair shop with a retro-funky college dorm room flickers to life on a bank of control room monitors. Two hours later Cory Rouse, a standup comedian and the host of a half-hour review show, leaps before cameras and a potential audience of six million households that receive G4, a new cable network. Like every offering on the network, round the clock, his program has a single theme: video games. A short drive away, in a suite of offices as austere as a factory floor, Damon Lee begins another day's work as a top executive for Urban Entertainment, which produces short animated films for the Internet with the goal of spinning the most commercially promising into movies and television series. One of his latest projects is "The Shonuffs," a kind of African-American "Beverly Hillbillies," a catfish-out-of-water comedy. And in their headquarters beneath a spacious Mediterranean-style home in the Hollywood Hills, Evette Vargas and Carlos Arriaga, transplanted New Yorkers and founders of a Web development studio called Digital-Reign, talk about their growing roster of clients like the Recording Academy and Madonna and polish a digital pitch for a new television series. All three companies, formed in the late 1990's, have merged computer know-how and ingenuity with entertainment, the biggest business in town. And so, even in the aftermath of the dot-com implosion, they are contributing to a long-standing dream of planners, politicians and business leaders here to make Los Angeles a multimedia crossroads. The commingling of geeks and moguls is producing results far beyond the marriage of computers with traditional television and film production, economists and executives here say. It is creating fresh types of entertainment and novel approaches to developing, distributing and promoting it. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/14/technology/circuits/14holl.html ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2002 08:41:25 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Visa, Mastercard Seen Foiling Rivals Disclosures revealed in massive federal antitrust suit By John R. Wilke THE WALL STREET JOURNAL NEW YORK, Nov. 14 - Visa and MasterCard undertook a decade-long effort to discourage the use of rival debit cards in favor of their own more-expensive versions, driving up costs for retailers and consumers, newly unsealed court documents show. DEPOSITIONS AND INTERNAL company memos depict the companies as paying banks millions of dollars to curtail rival debit-card transactions, demanding that merchants take their debit cards or lose access to credit-card sales, and even trying to disguise their debit cards so merchants couldn't tell them from credit cards. Thousands of pages were unsealed in a massive federal antitrust suit seeking damages from Visa USA Inc. and MasterCard International Inc. - the world's biggest credit-card issuers - by the nation's retailers, led by the world's largest merchant, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. The suit alleges the two companies responded to the growing threat from debit cards by creating their own more-costly, less-efficient versions and illegally leveraging their power in the credit-card market to force merchants to use them. http://www.msnbc.com/news/834956.asp ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2002 08:50:16 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: ACLU Calls on President Bush to Disavow New Cyber-Spying Scheme ACLU Calls on President Bush to Disavow New Cyber-Spying Scheme That Seeks to Put Every American Under Scrutiny November 14, 2002 WASHINGTON - The American Civil Liberties Union today called on President Bush to disavow a new system being developed at the Pentagon that would be able to track every American's activities. http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=11309&c=206 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2002 09:16:49 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: House Considers Jailing Hackers For Life By Declan McCullagh Staff Writer, CNET News.com November 13, 2002, 5:57 PM PT WASHINGTON--A last-minute addition to a proposal for a Department of Homeland Security would punish malicious computer hackers with life in prison. The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday evening voted 299 to 121 to approve the bill, which would reshape large portions of the federal bureaucracy into a new department combining parts of 22 existing federal agencies, including the Secret Service, the Coast Guard, and the FBI's National Infrastructure Protection Center. During closed-door negotiations before the debate began, the House Republican leadership inserted the 16-page Cyber Security Enhancement Act (CSEA) into the Homeland Security bill. CSEA expands the ability of police to conduct Internet or telephone eavesdropping without first obtaining a court order, and offers Internet providers more latitude to disclose information to police. In July, the full House approved CSEA by a 385-to-3 vote, but it died in the Senate. By inserting CSEA into the Homeland Security bill, the measure's backers are hoping for a second chance before Congress adjourns for the holidays. http://news.com.com/2100-1001-965750.html ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2002 01:20:25 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Lawyers Pony Up to Bettors' Side By Michelle Delio 02:00 AM Nov. 13, 2002 PT Lawyers defending three men accused of collaborating to alter horse race bets -- in what is now being called a $3 million crime -- want to see evidence that a crime was actually committed. But that evidence, assuming bets made on six Breeders' Cup races in Illinois on Oct. 26 were altered, may be very hard to come by. The computer system that processed the bets was first coded 23 years ago, long before malicious hackers were a major concern for most companies. Sources familiar with the Autotote betting system claim that it lacks the sort of surveillance, tracking and incident-alert features that are now standard in applications built for high-profile financial transactions. Insiders say there appears to be no audit trail that could definitely prove the bets were altered. And since the bets in question were placed by phone, not at the race track, there is also no paper record of which horses were originally picked by the defendants. The only record of the bets was sitting unencrypted on Autotote's servers. http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,56352,00.html ------------------------------ From: AES Newspost Subject: Last Laugh! Re: In the Mail Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2002 17:19:14 -0800 In article , Joey Lindstrom wrote: > The three little words are "Hold On, Please." Saying this while > putting down your phone and walking off instead of hanging up > immediately would make each telemarketing call so time-consuming that > boiler rooms would grind to a halt. Been doing this for some time -- though I usually say something possibly more likely to keep the caller on line, like, "Hey, wait a minute, I've got to turn off the stove." Don't believe it actually works with the hard-core telemarketing b-st-rds, however -- I suspect they're on to this tactic. "Power tends to corrupt. Absolute power corrupts absolutely." Lord Acton (1834-1902) (slightly modified) "Dependence on advertising tends to corrupt. Total dependence on advertising corrupts totally." -- Modern equivalent. ------------------------------ 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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End of TELECOM Digest V22 #128 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Nov 15 23:02:15 2002 Received: from localhost (localhost [[UNIX: localhost]]) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.3nb1/8.11.3) id gAG42FI05321; Fri, 15 Nov 2002 23:02:15 -0500 (EST) Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2002 23:02:15 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200211160402.gAG42FI05321@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #129 TELECOM Digest Fri, 15 Nov 2002 23:02:00 EST Volume 22 : Issue 129 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Debit vs. Credit Cards, was: Re: Retailers' Suit (Danny Burstein) Re: "This Call may be Monitored or Recorded." (Dave Phelps) Re: ECLong Distance and Calling 1-800 Numbers (Ian) Re: Net Sales Tax Plan Clears First Hurdle; States to Vote (j debert) Re: Towns & Townships ... ad infinitum ... (Wlevant@aol.com) Re: Towns & Townships ... ad infinitum ... (Neal McLain) Qualcomm Announces USB connection (Justin Time) Re: Comdial DSU II Configuration (Paul Erickson) Repairs on 611 (Joey Lindstrom) Re: Should I Switch From IDSL to ADSL? (Paul Erickson) Telephone Answering Machines (Rick Charnes) Casio Phonemaate TA-120 Digital Answering Machine Operation (John Gilman) Re: Anti Telemarketer Phone (hfs2) Wi-Fi Encryption Fix Not Perfect (Monty Solomon) Re: House Considers Jailing Hackers For Life (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: danny burstein Subject: Debit vs. Credit Cards, was: Re: Retailers' Suit Says 2 Issuers Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2002 23:57:05 UTC Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet In Monty Solomon writes: > By JENNIFER BAYOT [ snip ] > Executives at the card companies, the retailers assert, hoped that > creating similar-looking cards would steer merchants to > unintentionally process the debit cards as though they were credit > cards, leading to higher transaction fees. > http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/14/business/14CARD.html > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I know that for myself, I use my Visa > Debit Card the same way I use a credit card. The only real difference > is the credit limit. On a credit card, the credit limit is whatever it > is. On a debit card, the limit is the amount of money you have in your > bank account at the moment. Not quite. In many cases, banks put a daily limit on the debit card functions. They've never given me a good reason why, but it's there. For example, I recently went to purchase some computer equipment at a local store using my bank account debit card (pure debit, with no credit account associated). Despite my having quite a bit more than needed in the bank, the maximum they would approve each day was $1,000. So it took a few days to get it fully processed. Your bank, of course, may vary. (and, just for the record, everyone does know the dangers associated with improper use of your debit card versus the credit accounts, right? In the former, even if you get all your money back, your bank account is down to zero until the investigation is completed, so your rent checks, etc. bounce. In a credit card account you may face some discomfort as your credit limit is maxed, but it doesn't touch your own money). Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key dannyb@panix.com [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded] [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: One of the reasons for the daily limit on debit cards is for the very reason you mention: The daily limit is typically half of your balance at any given time. Most people (in my case at least) can get to their bank within a matter of hours or a day at most following some 'incident' and get the card frozen, or locked out. Since most of my income these days comes from Uncle Sugar for my disability (I get Title 2 disability money, X dollars per month) and it goes by direct deposit into my account at the local bank, I do not feel afraid using a debit card. The bank manager has said to me a couple times that if I *ever* have anything happen, to get in touch with her immediatly or whoever is working there that day. They will immediatly freeze my debit card. That is assuming of course the person finds my PIN number. I'll grant you if the theives went out to Walmart on Saturday night, AND figured out my PIN and tried to clean me out, they'd only be able to get a few hundred dollars most of the time. So daily limits effectively act like protection in cases like you mention above. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Dave Phelps Subject: Re: "This Call may be Monitored or Recorded." Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2002 18:51:31 -0600 In article , Wlevant@aol.com says... > Under Pennsylvania law, BOTH parties to a telephone call must consent > to the recording. Elsewhere (NJ comes to mind) that isn't so. Isn't consent implied simply by remaining on the line after hearing the warning? Dave Phelps Phone Masters Ltd. deadspam=tippenring ------------------------------ From: ian@jardine.net (Ian) Subject: Re: ECLong Distance and Calling 1-800 Numbers Date: 14 Nov 2002 16:52:19 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Thanks for the good info. Let me ask another question somewhat off topic, but here goes. A friend from Overseas has two children studying at a private High School in NJ (and then on to College in the USA). They have no credit rating in the USA and no SS#s. They want to give the two kids cellphones for use in NA and they want to provide a means of the children calling their parents (in Singapore) at decent rates. I can only think of a prepaid cellphone service which is pretty darn expensive allied to some form of prepaid international telephone card which can be charged to an International Credit Card number. Anyone got a better solution? I think that with the numbers of International students in the USA this could be a large market. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yes, but YOU have a SS number and I presume, a satisfactory credit rating. *IF* you trust these kids sufficiently, and their parents, why don't you get the phones for them, and keep track of the monthly bills? At the first hint of trouble, cut them off. Have the parents give you a few hundred dollars in advance as security. PAT] ------------------------------ From: j debert Subject: Re: Net Sales Tax Plan Clears First Hurdle; States to Vote Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2002 18:21:42 -0800 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Monty Solomon wrote: > By Reuters > November 12, 2002, 5:35 PM PT > More than 30 U.S. states approved a pact Tuesday that represents a > major step toward creating a system to tax items sold on the Internet. > http://news.com.com/2100-1017-965554.html > States to vote on Internet taxes > By Declan McCullagh > Staff Writer, CNET News.com > November 12, 2002, 9:00 AM PT [snip] With all the ignoring of laws going on I really do expect the Consitutional prohibition of taxes on interstate commerce to be ignored as well. California gets around this prohibition by calling it a "use tax" which applies only to otherwise taxable items purchased out of state. jd j d e b e r t < a t > g a r l i c < d o t > c o m ------------------------------ From: Wlevant@aol.com Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2002 23:28:46 EST Subject: Re: Towns & Townships ... ad infinitum ... - Philadelphia is a "consolidated city-county," but the City of Philadelphia and the County of Philadelphia are separate governmental entities. Incorrect. There is no "county of Philadelphia" government at all. Though some elected officials are known as county officials (the Sheriff, the Register of Wills, and a few others) there is only one legislature (Philadelphia City Council), only one court system (generally known as the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County) and only one executive branch (headed by the Mayor of the City of Philadelphia). The City-County Consolidation Act (of 1952, I think) did a fairly sloppy job of consolidation, and -- because the state legislature never got around to amending any state statutes -- Philadelphia still needs to be a county (the only "First Class" county in the state) as well as a city because many state statutes make distinctions based upon class of *county* and never mention "cities" at all. Bill ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2002 22:04:57 -0600 From: Neal McLain Reply-To: nmclain@annsgarden.com Organization: Ann's Garden Subject: Re: Towns & Townships ... ad infinitum ... I wrote: > - Philadelphia is a "consolidated city-county," but the City of > Philadelphia and the County of Philadelphia are separate > governmental entities. Bill Levant then wrote: > Incorrect. There is no "county of Philadelphia" government at all. Though > some elected officials are known as county officials (the Sheriff, the > Register of Wills, and a few others) there is only one legislature > (Philadelphia City Council), only one court system (generally known as the > Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County) and only one executive branch > (headed by the Mayor of the City of Philadelphia). > The City-County Consolidation Act (of 1952, I think) did a fairly > sloppy job of consolidation, and -- because the state legislature > never got around to amending any state statutes -- Philadelphia > still needs to be a county (the only "First Class" county in the > state) as well as a city because many state statutes make > distinctions based upon class of *county* and never mention "cities" > at all. Thanks to Bill for this clarification, and my aplogies for misquoting his previous message on this subject. Neal McLain ------------------------------ From: a_user2000@yahoo.com (Justin Time) Subject: Qualcomm Announces USB Connection Date: 15 Nov 2002 06:26:39 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ By Ephraim Schwartz QUALCOMM ANNOUNCED THIS week that it will license the IP (intellectual property) for USB-on-the-Go (OTG) from TransDimension. OTG is a portable supplement to the USB 2.0 specification that allows a peer-to-peer or direct connection among USB devices without a PC as intermediary. When integrated into a handset, users would be able to connect their phones to USB printers, portable keyboards, CD-ROM drives, MP3 players, and digital cameras among the hundreds of other USB devices now available. In addition, a USB connection will give users the ability to synchronize cell phone data with handhelds as well as use the cell phone as a modem when attached to a handheld that does not have integrated wireless. Although most hardware devices require unique hardware specific drivers, USB divides peripherals into four classes: human input, audio, mass storage, and communications. Any device that includes one of these class drivers can talk directly to any device in that category using OTG, according to David Murray, vice president of marketing at TransDimension, in Irvine, Calif. The licensing deal will see Qualcomm include OTG technology as part of its standard 3G chipsets. The MSM6500 and MSM6250 Mobile Station Modem chipsets are for use in GSM, GPRS, WCDMA, and CDMA 2000 handsets. http://staging.infoworld.com/articles/hn/xml/02/11/14/021114hnusb.xml?Template=/storypages/printfriendly.html ------------------------------ From: Paul Erickson Subject: Re: Comdial DSU II Configuration Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2002 11:13:34 -0500 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Mike, While the date and time message prints to the terminal, just tap the Enter key two or three or five times, and you'll get a login prompt. The default password is: I*746* eye-star-746-star, all caps HTH, Paul P.S.: I use 9600/N/8/1 for the serial config, but it sounds like you're ok if you see the date/time message. Mike Pilat wrote in message news:telecom22.126.6@telecom-digest.org: > I'm trying to login to a Comdial DSU II via a serial cable, but I > don't get the result that's expected (at least what Comdial's free > training online says). > Supposedly I should get a password prompt, but it just repeatedly > prints the line: > "02 DSU II03" to the terminal > I don't actually have the system manual, and don't have any money to find > one, so if anyone knows offhand how I can fix this. ------------------------------ From: Joey Lindstrom Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2002 09:21:25 -0700 Subject: Repairs on 611 Reply-To: joey@lairdsflooring.com On Wed, 13 Nov 2002 22:25:16 -0500 (EST), editor@telecom-digest.org wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: As a matter of fact, there was a > bizarre court decision. The court, in its wisdom (I am saying that > with a straight face now) said that it was unfair to the competing > phone companies that Bell customers were able to dial only three > digits (611) but customers of the competitors had to dial seven or > ten digits to reach repair. So, the Bell Companies were ordered to > get rid of 611 and use a ten digit number for themselves as well. Most > of them took 800-611-0611 or something similar. You would *think* they > might have put a voice mail thing on 611 saying 'for Ameritech repairs > press 1' for MCI repairs, press 2, etc. PAT] Can you elaborate a bit more on this logic (and I know you didn't craft this stupid ruling but at least you're "on the ground" and have some idea of what's going on). I don't get it. Here in the backwoods of Alberta, Canada, if I dial 611 on a telephone (any telephone), I get the repair operations of the company that is the local exchange carrier for that line. On a Telus line, I get Telus repair. On my Sprint Canada lines, 611 reaches Sprint repair. On my client's AT&T Canada lines, 611 reaches AT&T Canada repair. I just don't understand how this arrangement could be considered unfair to anybody, unless the use of 611 by CLEC's was being denied. In which case, the CORRECT action would have been to order the ILEC (or whoever was doing the denying) to stop denying the use of 611 for this purpose, not to force EVERYBODY to switch to a harder-to-remember 10-digit number. Joey Lindstrom - Laird's Flooring joey@lairdsflooring.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: See the previous issue of the Digest. What 'they' apparently wanted to do was insure that the competitors got an even break with Bell. So they ordered Bell to give up 611 since as far as they knew (and this was in the early days of COCOTS before those private phones had any real 'brains' about them) the private phones could only output what they took in. Now days of course, we know that is not the case. This has been the rule now for about 8-10 years I think. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Paul Erickson Subject: Re: Should I Switch From IDSL to ADSL? Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2002 11:56:07 -0500 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Whether you can switch to ADSL depends on your distance from the CO. IIRC, we are about 15000 ft from the CO, just beyond the reach of SDSL/ADSL, so we were forced for a time to use IDSL (which is really an always on ISDN circuit). By all means switch if you can and save the money, but be aware that a lot of ADSL services cap the upload at around 128K. If you're hosting web servers at your location SDSL might be a better bet, but also cost more. Check comp.dcom.xdsl and dslreports.com for a lot of rants/raves on DSL. -- Paul Ross Oliver wrote in message news:telecom22.125.12@telecom-digest.org: > I currently have 144kbit IDSL service from XO Communications. At the > time it was installed (over three years ago), it was the only type of > DSL service that could serve my location. Now, other vendors (notably > Covad and Pacific Be ... I mean SBC) are offering ADSL service for > substantially less (my current service is $124/month; both Covad and > SBC offer ADSL with five static IP addresses for $80/month) The > description on the Covad web site implies that IDSL service is somehow > "better" and therefore is more expensive. But I don't see the > "better" part. IDSL provides less bandwidth, requires a dedicated > line, and neither IDSL or ADSL service are guaranteed by any SLAs. Am > I missing something, or should I switch and save myself $45 per month? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: On this very topic, I was over at the Tecno Internet Cafe this afternoon (the little place opened here in Independence about two weeks ago, which is starting to get attention in the community and use. They have very high speed service on the terminals there and I asked him about that. He said they have something called 'enhanced DSL from TerraWorld' which is our local ISP here in Indy ... I questioned him what is *enhanced* DSL and how do I get it on my home line. He said they pay a couple hundred per month for it, and get it from TerraWorld rather than SWB. I know his computers there really go at lightning speed. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Rick Charnes Subject: Telephone Answering Machines Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2002 12:11:57 -0500 Can anyone recommend a telephone answering machine that allows a caller to leave an individual message of more than five minutes in length? Virtually all the machines on the market cut off an individual message after a few minutes. Some of the older tape machines allowed a message of unlimited length, which I prefer. Thanks. ------------------------------ From: gilmanjr@juno.com (John Gilman) Subject: Casio Phonemaate TA-120 Digital Answering Machine Operation Date: 15 Nov 2002 09:43:00 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ I bought a Casio Phonemate TA-120 digital answering machine with speakerphone at a VFW thrift store last year and it works perfect. Problem is it didn't come with documentation and I don't know how to select individual messages to erase. Can anyone help me? Casio is apparently defunct. Also, are there any instructions published on the Internet for the use of the seven or so menu items you get when you call from a remote phone and enter the remote access code? Please respond to gilmanjr@juno.com. ------------------------------ From: hfs2@yahoo.com (hfs2) Subject: Re: Anti Telemarketer Phone Date: 15 Nov 2002 14:35:45 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ I get a blank page. I've posted on various boards and news groups and while everyone seems to have a way to do it, there doesn't seem to be a phone you can go out and purchase. Seems like an op for some bright eng. I'm going to try one of these speciality phone stores at the Mall of America. Thanks all. John Beaman wrote in message 787news:: > Patrick, > This is my first time posting to your newsgroup, so I hope I am > doing this correctly. Right after reading your digest in which > someone is looking for an Anti-Telemarketer Phone, I come across an > email from Hello Direct which lists exactly that item. And at $89, it > seems like a reasonable price for the peace of mind. > http://www.hellodirect.com/catalog/Product.jhtml?CATID=3D2027&PRODID=3D10051 > John Beaman > Telecom Specialist > Voice Telecommunications Services Department. > Good Samaritan National Campus > 605-362-3331 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2002 18:48:17 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Wi-Fi Encryption Fix Not Perfect By Elisa Batista 02:00 AM Nov. 15, 2002 PT The biggest security risks for "Wi-Fi" wireless Internet networks are that users sometimes fail to turn on their encryption software. But even the responsible ones who use the encryption program -- Wired Equivalent Privacy -- aren't immune to malicious attacks. A growing trend on the streets of Manhattan are WarDrivers who break into wireless networks for fun. A professional hacker or anyone with significant programming knowledge can hack through WEP and even steal data off the network. http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,56350,00.html ------------------------------ From: stevenl11@aol.com (Steven Lichter) Date: 16 Nov 2002 02:41:16 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: House Considers Jailing Hackers For Life > WASHINGTON--A last-minute addition to a proposal for a Department of > Homeland Security would punish malicious computer hackers with life > in prison. Just think if they did that to spammers. !!! 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 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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End of TELECOM Digest V22 #129 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat Nov 16 22:52:36 2002 Received: from localhost (localhost [[UNIX: localhost]]) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.3nb1/8.11.3) id gAH3qaN14604; Sat, 16 Nov 2002 22:52:36 -0500 (EST) Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2002 22:52:36 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200211170352.gAH3qaN14604@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #130 TELECOM Digest Sat, 16 Nov 2002 22:53:00 EST Volume 22 : Issue 130 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Telefonica Third Quarter Net Income Increased by 21.6 (Monty Solomon) Privacy Groups Turn Screws on DOJ (Monty Solomon) T-Mobile USA Posts Large Loss, But Sales Jump (Monty Solomon) GoAmerica Announces Third Quarter 2002 Results (Monty Solomon) Genuity Posts $1.2 Billion Loss in Third Quarter (Monty Solomon) AT&T to Lose 300,000 Shareholders in Reverse Split (Monty Solomon) U.S. Congress Approves Web Radio Royalty Deal (Monty Solomon) FCC to Let Wireless Carriers Out of Auction (Monty Solomon) AT&T Board Sets Broadband Spin Off Date; 1 for 5 Reverse (Monty Solomon) Re: Should I Switch From IDSL to ADSL? (John Dearing) Re: "Worldwide Length" of Telephone Numbers (John R. Levine) Re: "Worldwide Length" of Telephone Numbers (Richard D G Cox) Re: N11/Payphones/Wireless/PBXes/PAY-per-Call/etc (John David Galt) Re: Visa, Mastercard Seen Foiling Rivals (Thomas A. Horsley) Re: Debit vs. Credit Cards, was: Re: Retailers' Suit (John Meissen) Looking for Cheat Sheets (Roy Forgy) Last Laugh! Re: You Are a Suspect (John Higdon) 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: Fri, 15 Nov 2002 23:36:49 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Telefonica Third Quarter Net Income Increased by 21.6 In Spite of the Higher Negative Exchange Rate Impact, Which Subtracts 12.5 p.p. and 12.4 p.p. to the Revenues and EBITDA's Growth, Respectively * Consolidated results to September 2002 (-5,036.1 million euros) show an improvement of almost 10% compared to the first-half figures (-5,574.2 million euros). * Cash flow generation was up 44.3% to 6,425.2 million euros and EBITDA margin reached 41,6%, the highest level of this period, thanks to operating efficiency improvement and strict control on capex. * The Group's level of net debt stands at 24,575 million euros, down by 1.213,8 million euros in the last three months and down by 4,366.6 million euros from the debt level at the end of 2001. * Consolidated revenues and EBITDA decreased by 7% and 7,4%, respectively, and would have increased by 4.4% and 4.1%, respectively, excluding the effect of the exchange rate and the change in the accounting consolidation perimeter. * Telefonica Group managed customer base totaled 77.2 million at the end of September, nearly 6 million more than in the same period of 2001. The cellular business continues to be the greatest contributor to the Group's growth, showing significant progress at the operating level (customer base +20%) and strong financial performance (revenue +10.3%, EBITDA +12.2%). EBITDA margin increased to 41.2%. http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=29684424 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2002 00:29:22 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Privacy Groups Turn Screws on DOJ By Ryan Singel 01:55 PM Nov. 15, 2002 PT Privacy advocates want to know the how and why behind U.S. government surveillance done in the name of the USA Patriot Act. On Wednesday, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Privacy Information Center asked a federal court judge to force the Justice Department to respond to their Aug. 21 Freedom of Information Act request for documents related to the Patriot Act's surveillance provisions. The request seeks aggregate statistics and policy directives from both the FBI and the Department of Justice, with specific emphasis on details about surveillance that targets American citizens or foreign nationals "on the basis of activities protected by the First Amendment." The ACLU wants to find out whether surveillance is being justified by "what websites people visited or letters to the editor that the government didn't like," said Jameel Jaffer, the ACLU's lead attorney on the case. http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,56423,00.html ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2002 01:14:38 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: T-Mobile USA Posts Large Loss, But Sales Jump (Adds closing stock price, edits) By Yukari Iwatani CHICAGO, Nov 14 (Reuters) - T-Mobile USA, the sixth-largest U.S. wireless telephone company, on Thursday said a huge charge caused it to report a much wider quarterly net loss, but its revenue jumped 53 percent as it added the most customers it has ever added in a quarter. T-Mobile International AG, the mobile communications unit of Germany's Deutsche Telekom AG , said net loss for its U.S. operation's third quarter exploded to $12.4 billion from $633.4 million a year before, thanks to a $12.0 billion after-tax impairment charge for goodwill and spectrum licenses. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=29695743 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2002 01:17:57 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: GoAmerica Announces Third Quarter 2002 Results GoAmerica Announces Third Quarter 2002 Results; Company Reports Fifth Consecutive Quarter of Improved Gross Margins and EBITDA - Nov 14, 2002 04:34 PM (BusinessWire) HACKENSACK, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 14, 2002--GoAmerica, Inc. (NASDAQ:GOAM), a leading wireless data solutions provider, today announced results for the third quarter ended September 30, 2002. -- Gross profit on subscriber revenue grew to a record 34.5%, or $2.5 million. -- Cash burn declined for fifth consecutive quarter to $5.7 million. -- Company enters into comprehensive strategic alliance with EarthLink. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=29694553 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2002 01:20:11 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Genuity Posts $1.2 Billion Loss in Third Quarter WOBURN, Mass., Nov 14 (Reuters) - High-speed communications services company Genuity Inc. (NASDAQ:GENU), which has said it may be unable to remain in business if it cannot reorganize its debt, on Thursday posted a $1.2 billion loss in the third quarter due to charges, and revenues fell 26 percent. Genuity's quarterly loss totaled $1.2 billion, or $107.80 a share, compared with a loss of $300.4 million, or $30.81 a share, a year ago. The 2002 quarter included a $986.2 million charge to write-down the value of assets, costs related to job cuts, and other items. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=29698204 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Isn't this our friend and occasional corresponent Barry Margolis, who contributes here now and then? Barry, if you are in a position to do so, perhaps you could tell us how the company got in this predicament. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2002 01:28:34 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: AT&T to Lose 300,000 Shareholders in Reverse Split NEW YORK, Nov 14 (Reuters) - AT&T Corp. (NYSE:T), once viewed as the stable investment of widows and orphans, will lose about 300,000 of its smallest investors as it reduces the number of common shares through its reverse stock split. When AT&T completes the sale of its AT&T Broadband cable television unit to Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSK) it will conduct a one-for-five reverse split of its common stock. That will boost AT&T's stock price by cutting the number of common shares outstanding. AT&T currently has about 3.85 billion shares outstanding. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=29705788 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2002 01:39:01 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: U.S. Congress Approves Web Radio Royalty Deal By Andy Sullivan WASHINGTON, Nov 15 (Reuters) - The U.S. Congress approved a deal early Friday morning that would allow small Internet-based radio stations to pay lower royalty rates to the musicians and record labels whose songs they use. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=29738934 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2002 01:24:35 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: FCC to Let Wireless Carriers Out of Auction By Jeremy Pelofsky WASHINGTON, Nov 14 (Reuters) - The Federal Communications Commission said on Thursday it will let Verizon Wireless and other mobile telephone carriers off the hook for $15.9 billion they bid for contested wireless licenses, eliminating a massive financial burden that had been hanging over the companies. At the behest of the carriers who want to use the cash instead for paying debt or improving services, the agency agreed to allow them to walk away from their bids made in January 2001 without penalty for licenses that have been caught up in a legal tussle involving bankrupt NextWave Telecom Inc. Bidders in the auction who have never received the licenses, including the No. 1 mobile telephone carrier Verizon Wireless, were quick to say they would likely withdraw from the sale which could brighten their financial outlook. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=29701928 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2002 01:26:34 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: AT&T Board Sets Broadband Spin Off Date, Declares 1 for 5 Reverse AT&T Board Sets Broadband Spin Off Date, Declares 1 for 5 Reverse Stock Split And Names Five Members to Comcast Board Merger of AT&T Broadband and Comcast To Be Called Comcast Corporation BEDMINSTER, N.J., Nov. 14 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Achieving another significant milestone in the strategic restructuring of the company, AT&T (NYSE:T) today announced its board of directors declared a special stock dividend to AT&T shareowners of record on November 15, 2002. The special dividend, scheduled for November 18, 2002, is the distribution of AT&T's stake in AT&T Broadband, which would in effect become the spin off of AT&T Broadband to AT&T shareowners. Immediately following the spin off, AT&T Broadband will combine with Comcast Corporation and the shareholders of both AT&T Broadband and Comcast will become shareholders of the new Comcast Corporation. Separately, AT&T and Comcast said today that the company formed by the merger of AT&T Broadband and Comcast Corporation will be named Comcast Corporation, not AT&T Comcast, as previously announced. While AT&T shareowners will still own approximately 56 percent of the combined company, the name change was made to eliminate potential customer and market confusion. http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=29702631 ------------------------------ From: John Dearing Subject: Re: Should I Switch From IDSL to ADSL? Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2002 03:21:17 GMT More likely than not, the area you are in is served by some kind of Digital Loop Carrier (DLC) system (SLC-96 or Litespan or whatever). IDSL is the only kind of DSL service that is compatible with DLC. All of the other xDSL technologies require all copper facilities back to the DSLAM. Since IDSL uses ISDN compatible technology to operate it is compatible with DLCs which deliver regular ISDN every day. It's just that instead of getting two 64K "B" channels and a 16K "D" channel, they take the 144K and use it as a "pipe" for data. Some Telcos are retrofitting the DLC systems to support "remote" DSLAMs. Litespan 2000 has new POTS cards that have DSLAMs built into them. It's a big job to retrofit a remote terminal to support DSL but the Telcos are starting to do it to meet the challenge of Cable Modems and to tap into a big revenue stream. One reason the CLECs charge more for IDSL is that it costs them more to lease a Digital Loop that a plain old copper pair. You may want to check with your current provider (XO Comm) and see if they have something less expensive currently available AT YOUR LOCATION. You may find that after they check, IDSL is all that is available. Cheers! John Dearing Ross Oliver wrote: > I currently have 144kbit IDSL service from XO Communications. At the > time it was installed (over three years ago), it was the only type of > DSL service that could serve my location. Now, other vendors (notably > Covad and Pacific Be ... I mean SBC) are offering ADSL service for > substantially less (my current service is $124/month; both Covad and > SBC offer ADSL with five static IP addresses for $80/month) The > description on the Covad web site implies that IDSL service is somehow > "better" and therefore is more expensive. But I don't see the > "better" part. IDSL provides less bandwidth, requires a dedicated > line, and neither IDSL or ADSL service are guaranteed by any SLAs. Am > I missing something, or should I switch and save myself $45 per month? ------------------------------ From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: "Worldwide Length" of Telephone Numbers Date: 15 Nov 2002 23:22:47 -0500 Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA >> BUT ... my PRIMARY question here ... were there ANY parts of the world >> with twelve-digit "worldwide" telephone numbers back in the 1970's ... Germany, if anywhere. German numbers are variable length, so the main number of a PBX in Bonn might have been +49 2221 234 0, while an extension would have been +49 2221 234 567. Germany did (and does) have city codes of up to four digits so you're already at nine digits with a four-digit city code and a three-digit number for the PBX. I know Bonn is a small city, but there must have been government departments with PBXes with more than 100 users needing three-digit extension numbers, and that's 12 digits. As I recall, there were 13 digit numbers in Germany even before the ITU expanded the limit past 12. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2002 21:31:50 +0000 (GMT) From: Richard D G Cox Subject: Re: "Worldwide Length" of Telephone Numbers Mark J Cuccia wrote: > when in the 1980's would have been the first instance ... and which > country (and city) [would have been the first to have] had such > twelve-digit "worldwide" numbers ???? It is most likely that the country would have been Germany or Austria, because they provided Direct-Dialling-In (which I think the Americans still call Direct-Inward Dialling) by concatenating extension numbers onto the "root" number - and so having variable-length numbers, rather than just allocating a suitable block of standard numbers in a standard length range. I recall that well before what was called "Time T" (the day the digit-length limit was raised) British Telecom had needed to modify their systems to allow calling to THIRTEEN digit numbers in Germany. Such numbers were of course outwith the requirements of E.164 but the German response was that all their primary, or published, numbers were compliant with E.164 and Direct-Dial-In was a convenience but not essential: as callers could always have their calls routed to the required extension by asking the switchboard attendant at the site they were calling. That worked fine until fax became generally available and fax machines were most commonly connected on PBX extensions rather than on direct lines ... hence with 13 digit numbers! On 14 Nov 2002 at 17:02 UT j debert replied: > If I recall right, Japan or Hong Kong may have had 12-digit numbers. > And may still. > Japan had variable-length numbers and as I recall Tokyo had the longest > numbers. That includes the city code. "Ordinary" Hong Kong numbers in the seventies were mostly 10 digits and these are now 11 digits (+852, then eight digits with no city code) However there were proposals for some longer numbers in the +852 range for Audiotex services (which may not have even been based in Hong Kong!) Richard Cox ------------------------------ From: John David Galt Subject: Re: N11/Payphones/Wireless/PBXes/PAY-per-Call/etc Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2002 17:29:46 -0800 Organization: Diogenes the Cynic Hot-Tubbing Society Gordon S. Hlavenka wrote: >> In the 630 AC (SBC/Ameritech) dialing 611 reaches a recorded message >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: >> ... The court, in its wisdom (I am saying that >> with a straight face now) said that it was unfair to the competing >> phone companies that Bell customers were able to dial only three >> digits (611) but customers of the competitors had to dial seven or >> ten digits to reach repair. > But if I connect through, say, "Townson Local Telco LLP" then doesn't > your equipment process my dialing? So couldn't you just as easily > capture "611" and connect me to your own service department? Or didn't > the infinitely-wise court "get" that? > Gordon S. Hlavenka O- nospam@crashelex.com > Burma! > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: That is correct. It could be done that > way. I guess the wise old judge didn't understand. But, it is still a > regulation that Bell is not allowed to have shorter (in length) > numbers than their competitors. PAT] That's weird. There's no such rule in California; 611 still goes to the local telco (usually SBC). On cellular, 611 goes to the cellular carrier. This means that when I actually need the home phone line fixed, I wind up asking the cellular carrier's 0 operator to connect me with SBC's 611. It would be nice if they published a regular number so I could dial it from there. It would also be nice if I could reach SBC's repair service, or customer service for that matter, without having to wade through their voicemail menu system and/or wait an unacceptable length of time on hold. I sure wish there were a CLEC in this area so that I could avoid that "feature". [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But cellular 611 does not go directly to repair does it? With Cingular, who provides my service here, 611 goes to a voicemail which gives repair as one of the choices, along with customer service and sales as two additional options. The other three carriers here in town, Cellular One (Dobson), Alltel, and US Cellular do the same thing. I also have a prepaid AT&T cell phone (a thing AT&T offers called 'Free to Go' which uses 611 in the same way, but here in Independence, AT&T is on 'Extended Area' out of Wichita, KS (316) or Tulsa, OK (918), but it uses Dobson Cellular Towers locally so 611 reaches Cell One locally, and as soon as you mention AT&T the nice ladies punch a button and off you go to AT&T's offices. I wonder why regular, landline telcos don't use 611 in the same way? PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Visa, Mastercard Seen Foiling Rivals From: tom.horsley@att.net (Thomas A. Horsley) Organization: AT&T Worldnet Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2002 16:23:16 GMT > ...and even trying to disguise their debit cards so merchants > couldn't tell them from credit cards Just for curiosity, why should merchants be able to tell the difference? As long as they get their money, why do they care if the buyer uses a debit or a credit card? >>==>> The *Best* political site >>==+ email: Tom.Horsley@worldnet.att.net icbm: Delray Beach, FL | Free Software and Politics <<==+ [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Anyway, who says they 'disguise' the cards? My card says rather plainly on it, 'Commerce Bank Check Card' although it does have a VISA logo on it, and the number sequence is a usual VISA type number: twelve digits beginning with '4'. I'll grant you Commerce Bank is having a promotion all the time called 'skip the PIN' where they suggest in stores with terminals where the customer swipes the card (like Walmart) to punch in 'credit' rather than 'debit' and not be asked for a PIN. The daily floor limit of half your available balance or $1000, whichever is more, still applies. Of course if you use the card at the ATM in front of the bank to get cash you still can't skip the PIN. PAT] ------------------------------ From: jmeissen@shell1.aracnet.com (John Meissen) Subject: Re: Debit vs. Credit Cards, was: Re: Retailers' Suit Date: 16 Nov 2002 07:11:12 GMT Organization: Aracnet Internet In article , Pat said: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: One of the reasons for the daily limit > on debit cards is for the very reason you mention: The daily limit > is typically half of your balance at any given time. Most people (in > my case at least) can get to their bank within a matter of hours or > a day at most following some 'incident' and get the card frozen, or > locked out. Since most of my income these days comes from Uncle Sugar > for my disability (I get Title 2 disability money, X dollars per month) > and it goes by direct deposit into my account at the local bank, I do > not feel afraid using a debit card. The bank manager has said to me a > couple times that if I *ever* have anything happen, to get in touch > with her immediatly or whoever is working there that day. They will > immediatly freeze my debit card. That is assuming of course the person > finds my PIN number. I'll grant you if the theives went out to Walmart > on Saturday night, AND figured out my PIN and tried to clean me out, > they'd only be able to get a few hundred dollars most of the time. So > daily limits effectively act like protection in cases like you mention > above. PAT] That's all assuming you're aware someone has access to the numbers. Unless you check your balance every day you probably wouldn't know until the account was drained and you started bouncing checks. And if they got the account numbers on the card they wouldn't need a PIN. They could use it as a Visa card for things like phone sales. The money comes straight out of your checking account and doesn't go back until AFTER the bank has finished their investigation. And if you have overdraft protection tied to a line of credit or a savings account they could clean out those, too. I gave a bank customer service rep an earful the other day because they can't restrict the debit card so it can't be used without a PIN. I can get an ATM card, but it can't be used for purchases. John- [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But, purely IMO, wouldn't you or most people protect your financial information better than to allow that number to get out? I'll grant you, when using your card over a computer, there could be a 'sniffer' out there somewhere gathering up card numbers, etc. But that seems a bit esoteric to me, and many or most browsers will encrypt those numbers anyway before transmitting them. Anyway, I also look at my various bank accounts on the computer each day or so, and would immediatly recognize something I had not ordered. And I do *not* have the accounts daisy-chained to each other (where when one runs out of money, it taps into the next one, etc.) My personal account, my business account, my mother's account (on which I am a co-signer) and my money market accounts are all separate and distinct from each other. I lookl at them all on the computer each day or so anyway, which the bank manager encouraged me to do. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Roy Forgy Subject: Looking For Cheat Sheets, etc. Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2002 14:10:22 GMT Organization: Cox Communications How to, scripts, cheat sheets for doing Adds, Moves, Changes on a Nortel Meridian Option 81. ------------------------------ From: John Higdon Subject: Last Laugh! Re: You Are a Suspect Organization: Green Hills and Cows Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2002 20:33:54 -0800 In article , Monty Solomon wrote: > This is not some far-out Orwellian scenario. It is what will happen > to your personal freedom in the next few weeks if John Poindexter > gets the unprecedented power he seeks. > http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/14/opinion/14SAFI.html Would love to have read that. Unfortunately, one must contribute to the nytimes.com spam list to do so. John Higdon | Email Address Valid | SF: +1 415 428-COWS +1 408 264 4115 | Anytown, USA | FAX: +1 408 264 4407 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: No you don't. Just pick some name out of the blue, let's say 'Jack Mortensen' and enroll him to read the Times each day. For an email address, use some cell phone with email capability, such as umm, let's say, 408-xxx-xxxx@mobile.att.net .They don't bother to verify those things. You'll be reading in no time at 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. 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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 V22 #130 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Nov 18 14:16:12 2002 Received: from localhost (localhost [[UNIX: localhost]]) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.3nb1/8.11.3) id gAIJGBE14255; Mon, 18 Nov 2002 14:16:12 -0500 (EST) Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 14:16:12 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200211181916.gAIJGBE14255@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #131 TELECOM Digest Mon, 18 Nov 2002 14:15:00 EST Volume 22 : Issue 131 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson By Choice or by Chance: How the Internet Is Used (Monty Solomon) The Lives and Death of Moore's Law (Monty Solomon) Corporate Cyberstalking: An Invitation to Build Theory (Monty Solomon) Qwest Erases $358M More From Profits (Monty Solomon) The 'Digital Divide' Among Financially Disadvantaged (Monty Solomon) Examining the Determinants of Who is Hyperlinked to Whom: (Monty Solomon) Exploring the Future of Digital Divide Through Ethnographic (M. Solomon) Reality Bytes: Cyberterrorism and Terrorist 'Use' of the Net (M. Solomon) Re: Visa, Mastercard Seen Foiling Rivals (my_name@is.invalid) Re: Visa, Mastercard Seen Foiling Rivals (Paul Wallich) Re: Visa, Mastercard Seen Foiling Rivals (Ed Ellers) Re: Visa, Mastercard Seen Foiling Rivals (Gary Novosielski) Re: Debit vs. Credit Cards, was: Re: Retailers' Suit (John R. Levine) Free World Dialup 3.0 has Launched! (Jeff Pulver) Have Fax on ACS R3.1 System Ring Only For Calls on Line 4 (Mike Sweeden) Re: Anti Telemarketer Phone (Thomas A. Horsley) Re: Telephone Answering Machines (Thomas A. Horsley) Re: ECLong Distance and Calling 1-800 Numbers (Joseph) Definity (CatFinder) Charter Cable Leak: Reporting It (j debert) 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, 17 Nov 2002 13:21:58 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: By Choice or by Chance: How the Internet Is Used By Choice or by Chance: How the Internet Is Used to Prepare for, Manage, and Share Information about Emergencies by Laurie Putnam Abstract Access to reliable information is essential for emergency managers, whether they're facing tornados or terrorist attacks. How well information is managed before, during, and after a disaster can have a direct influence on how well the crisis is managed. Today the Internet plays a recurring role in all phases of emergency information management. As a communication system and an information repository, a strategic tool and a populist medium, the Internet can be a powerful element in crisis situations. It has been readily used in recent crises and it will, no doubt, be used in the next emergency, by choice or by chance. The choice must be made to use it well. This article explores the implications of the Internet for agencies that work to mitigate, prepare for, and respond to natural and human-made disasters. It also looks at implications of the Internet for members of the general public who are directly or indirectly affected by disasters. Contents Managing emergency information Internet applications Internet complications What next? http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue7_11/putnam/index.html ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 17 Nov 2002 13:33:54 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: The Lives and Death of Moore's Law by Ilkka Tuomi Abstract Moore's Law has been an important benchmark for developments in microelectronics and information processing for over three decades. During this time, its applications and interpretations have proliferated and expanded, often far beyond the validity of the original assumptions made by Moore. Technical considerations of optimal chip manufacturing costs have been expanded to processor performance, economics of computing, and social development. It is therefore useful to review the various interpretations of Moore's Law and empirical evidence that could support them. Such an analysis reveals that semiconductor technology has evolved during the last four decades under very special economic conditions. In particular, the rapid development of microelectronics implies that economic and social demand has played a limited role in this industry. Contrary to popular claims, it appears that the common versions of Moore's Law have not been valid during the last decades. As semiconductors are becoming important in economy and society, Moore's Law is now becoming an increasingly misleading predictor of future developments. Contents 1. Introduction 2. Moore's original formulation 3. Reformulations of Moore's Law 4. Losing the memory 5. Empirical evidence on Moore's Law 6. Computers and development http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue7_11/tuomi/index.html ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 17 Nov 2002 13:45:59 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Corporate Cyberstalking: An Invitation to Build Theory by Paul Bocij Abstract Cyberstalking describes a relatively new form of stalking behaviour where technology is used as the medium of harassment. The term corporate cyberstalking is often used to describe incidents that involve organisations, such as companies and government departments. This paper uses a number of case studies in order to propose a typology of corporate cyberstalking. It is suggested that incidents involving corporate cyberstalking can be divided into two broad groups, depending on whether or not the organisation acts as a stalker or as a victim. Examining the motivations behind corporate cyberstalking allows these groups to be subdidvided further. The motives behind corporate cyberstalking can range from a desire for revenge against an employer to cyberterrorism. The paper also briefly discusses definitions of stalking and cyberstalking, concluding with a revised definition of cyberstalking that is more in keeping with the material discussed. Contents Introduction What Is Corporate Cyberstalking? Categories of Corporate Cyberstalking Conclusion http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue7_11/bocij/index.html ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 17 Nov 2002 13:53:28 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Qwest Erases $358M More From Profits DENVER (AP) - Qwest Communications International Inc. said it has found more accounting mistakes that will force it to erase $358 million more in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization for 2000 and 2001. Qwest previously disclosed that it overstated revenue by $1.86 billion in 2000 and 2001, affecting $1.2 billion in earnings. The new disclosures in a regulatory filing Thursday bring the total affected earnings to $1.56 billion. Qwest also said it could have trouble meeting debt service obligations in 2004, even if it sells the rest of its QwestDex phone directory arm, if economic conditions do not improve. The first half of the $7.05 billion deal closed last week. Shares were up 5 cents to $3.76 in midday trading Friday on the New York Stock Exchange. The phone company said it misclassified some costs associated with designing, deploying and testing facilities, erasing $200 million in adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization for 2000 and 2001, and it improperly deferred commissions, erasing another $158 million for 2001. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=29741815 ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 17 Nov 2002 13:57:02 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: The 'Digital Divide' Among Financially Disadvantaged Families The 'Digital Divide' Among Financially Disadvantaged Families in Australia by Jennifer McLaren and Gianni Zappalà Despite figures suggesting that Australia is a high consumer of information and communication technologies (ICT), it is well documented that the pattern of this consumption is not spread evenly across the population; a 'digital divide' exists. In general, research suggests that people from higher socioeconomic backgrounds have greater access to ICT compared to those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. A less well-researched area is the factors that may influence ICT access and usage within certain demographic and socioeconomic groups. This paper presents new data on the access and usage of ICT (computers and the Internet) by 3,404 households and 6,874 children from financially disadvantaged backgrounds. Fifty-nine per cent of the sample had a home computer and just under one-third had the Internet connected at home. The most common location for accessing the Internet was at school. A striking finding was the strong association between the level of parental education and ICT access and use. Schools are important in closing or levelling the access gap, as most students use computers and the Internet at school. However, considering the importance of having home Internet access for children's educational performance, the fact that almost three-quarters of students in this study did not use the Internet at home is of concern, particularly given that almost half of a comparable Australian population have home Internet access. Finding ways to increase the home access of low-income families to the Internet should therefore remain a policy priority for all sectors aiming to bridge the digital divide. Policies aimed at bridging the digital divide should also ensure that programs provide appropriate parenting support and emphasise the educational importance of having home access to computers and the Internet. Contents Introduction The 'digital divide' revisited ICT Access and Usage in Australia Background to the data Profile of the Sample Key Findings Discussion and Conclusions http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue7_11/mclaren/index.html ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 17 Nov 2002 14:01:48 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Examining the Determinants of Who is Hyperlinked to Whom: Examining the Determinants of Who is Hyperlinked to Whom: A Survey of Webmasters in Korea by Han Woo Park This paper assesses the determinants of who is hyperlinked to whom on the Web. It details the results of a conducted survey with 64 Korean Webmasters to examine the reasons Web sites form hyperlink networks with other sites. The results indicated that Webmasters consider the credibility of hyperlinked Web sites to be above average when deciding to hyperlink. Particularly, the item "usefulness" had the highest score, indicating that Web sites are more likely to hyperlink to Web sites possessing practical content, information, or services. Additionally, the qualitative analysis reveals that hyperlinking motivations and advantages are largely grouped into two dimensions: navigational functionality and for business purposes. Contents Hyperlink Research: Overview and Methodological Aspects Determinants of Hyperlinking: Web Site Credibility Research Question Methods Results Discussion http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue7_11/park/index.html ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 17 Nov 2002 14:04:05 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Exploring the Future of the Digital Divide Through Ethnographic Exploring the Future of the Digital Divide through Ethnographic Futures Research by Matthew M. Mitchell Abstract This study examines leaders who work for social change in an information society. Grounded in the notion that leadership and social change are necessarily future oriented, this study attempts to learn how those who lead the effort to ameliorate the digital divide in Washington State perceive the optimistic, pessimistic, and most probable futures. In this study, the digital divide is framed as a social problem that is caused, in part, by inequities in the ability to access and to use information communication technologies. Further- more, this study is concerned that the digital divide impacts the opportunities for participation in social and economic arrangements, which may be a threat to social and economic justice. Although the scope of the digital divide is global, this study narrows its focus in three ways. First, the digital divide is explored only within the context of Washington's sociocultural system. Second, only the perspectives of those who lead efforts to bridge the digital divide were sought. Third, only perceptions and cognitions of possible future sociocultural systems were explored. The method used in this study is called Ethnographic Futures Research (EFR). EFR is a type of ethnography adapted for use in studying perceptions of a culture's future. Thirteen individuals who lead various efforts to bridge the digital divide in Washington State were interviewed using the EFR method. In each interview, three possible scenarios (optimistic, pessimistic, and most probable) of Washington State's sociocultural system set in the year 2016 were elicited. The interviewees then provided recommendations of what action is required to render the optimistic scenario more probable by the year 2016. The digital divide was discussed within the context of the future sociocultural systems described in the three scenarios and the recommendations. The findings of this study include a) multiple definitions of the digital divide; b) descriptions of the forces perceived to be driving the digital divide; and, c) suggestions for future efforts to ameliorate the digital divide. A general discovery made by this study is that significant optimism exists that Washington State will build and maintain a more just and equitable sociocultural system in the future. http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue7_11/mitchell/index.html ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 17 Nov 2002 13:17:16 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Reality Bytes: Cyberterrorism and Terrorist 'Use' of the Internet Abstract This paper examines the concept of cyberterrorism. Fringe activity on the Internet ranges from non-violent 'Use' at one end to 'Cyberterrorism' at the other. Rejecting the idea that cyberterrorism is widespread, the focus here is on terrorist groups' 'use' of the Internet, in particular the content of their Web sites, and their 'misuse' of the medium, as in hacking wars, for example. Terrorist groups' use of the Internet for the purpose of inter-group communication is also surveyed, partly because of its importance for the inter-networked forms of organisation apparently being adopted by these groups, but also due to the part played by the Internet in the events of September 11 and their aftermath. Contents Introduction What is Cyberterrorism? 'Use' and 'Misuse': Some Empirical Observations (Inter)Networking and 9-11 The Internet and 9-11: The Aftermath Conclusion http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue7_11/conway/index.html ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Visa, Mastercard Seen Foiling Rivals From: my_name@is.invalid Organization: Not Much Date: Sun, 17 Nov 2002 16:08:00 GMT In article , Thomas A. Horsley wrote: >> ...and even trying to disguise their debit cards so merchants >> couldn't tell them from credit cards > Just for curiosity, why should merchants be able to tell the > difference? As long as they get their money, why do they care if the > buyer uses a debit or a credit card? Because they *DON'T* 'get their money', not all of it, that is. Card issuers _charge_ those who accept cards for that 'convenience'. I speak as a merchant who _accepts_ credit-cards for payment, and there is a *significant* difference. The 'service charges' I have to pay on a transaction against a debit card are nearly *DOUBLE* those I pay for processing a real 'credit' card. VISA also has another 'wrinkle', the 'corporate' charge-card. This is a credit card that provides a number of 'enhanced' services to the card-holder -- 'classification' of expenses, mgmt summaries, etc. Unfortunately, the merchant who _accepts_ that card as payment for his services, *pays* for those services for the customer. I pay more than 30% _more_ for accepting a 'corporate' card than I do for accepting a regular card. And there is *ABSOLUTELY*NO*WAY* to determine in advance _which_ kind of a card it is. I don't know, and _can't_find_out_ what this transaction is going to cost, until *after* I've been charged for it. My clearinghouse has told me this, and VISA _itself_ has confirmed it. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Anyway, who says they 'disguise' the > cards? My card says rather plainly on it, 'Commerce Bank Check Card' > although it does have a VISA logo on it, and the number sequence is > a usual VISA type number: twelve digits beginning with '4'. If the card is not present, as in telephone or mail-order sales, or over the internet, for that matter, there is *NO*WAY* to determine which kind of a card it is. I take telephone orders -- I found out about this the "hard way". Note: for "card not present" transactions, VISA _could_ claim that =any= arbitrary transaction was a 'debit', or 'corporate' card, and the *merchant* CANNOT verify whether they're telling the truth or not. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But as a merchant, I am sure you know quite well the costs involved in carrying your own paper ... in fact very few stores attempt to maintain their own credit departments any longer, much preferring to pass off the paperwork and risks to large creditors like Visa. And regards debit cards, would you rather have to collect on NSF checks all the time or have a guarentee from Visa for some fee per item? PAT] ------------------------------ From: Paul Wallich Subject: Re: Visa, Mastercard Seen Foiling Rivals Date: Sun, 17 Nov 2002 11:18:00 -0500 Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC In article , tom.horsley@att.net (Thomas A. Horsley) wrote: >> ...and even trying to disguise their debit cards so merchants >> couldn't tell them from credit cards > Just for curiosity, why should merchants be able to tell the > difference? As long as they get their money, why do they care if the > buyer uses a debit or a credit card? Because, according to the articles, the debit version, if authenticated with a PIN, carries a fee of about 9-20 cents, while the credit version carries a fee of about 25 cents to $1.50. So for a store with a lot of small and mid-ticket sales, debit vs credit means the difference between making or losing money on a particular sale. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Anyway, who says they 'disguise' the > cards? My card says rather plainly on it, 'Commerce Bank Check Card' > although it does have a VISA logo on it, and the number sequence is > a usual VISA type number: twelve digits beginning with '4'. I'll > grant you Commerce Bank is having a promotion all the time called > 'skip the PIN' where they suggest in stores with terminals where the > customer swipes the card (like Walmart) to punch in 'credit' rather > than 'debit' and not be asked for a PIN. The daily floor limit of > half your available balance or $1000, whichever is more, still > applies. Of course if you use the card at the ATM in front of the > bank to get cash you still can't skip the PIN. PAT] "Skip the PIN and let us charge your merchant an extra buck." Nice campaign. Let;s just say that a disguise doesn't have to be completely effective to still make a big difference. If you have to train each checkout clerk to read the card for any of the various code words that might indicate it's a debit card, and to double-check with the customer which way to ring the transaction, that's an extra cost to doing business. It's kinda ironic that online verification should be deprecated because it interferes with profits, considering that the pervasive US telecom infrastructure is one of the reasons that we have credit and debit instead of smartcards in the first place ... paul [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Whatever extra the bank charges the merchants goes for the prizes Visa/Commerce Bank gives to the winners of their monthly drawings on 'skip the PIN'. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Ed Ellers Subject: Re: Visa, Mastercard Seen Foiling Rivals Date: Sun, 17 Nov 2002 00:20:33 -0500 Thomas A. Horsley wrote: > Just for curiosity, why should merchants be able to tell the > difference? As long as they get their money, why do they care if > the buyer uses a debit or a credit card? That's just it -- they don't get all the money you pay; the credit card company and issuing bank hold back some of it. Merchants tend to prefer debit card networks other than Visa or MasterCard because that holdback is often much lower; Visa and MC want merchants to accept all their branded cards in order to keep the advantage of universal acceptability that makes their debit cards more attractive than others. The merchants in this case apparently want to be able to refuse Visa and MC debit cards, to steer their customers toward other debit card networks that offer a better deal to the merchant, while still accepting Visa and MC credit cards. ------------------------------ From: Gary Novosielski Subject: Re: Visa, Mastercard Seen Foiling Rivals Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 02:27:16 GMT Thomas A. Horsley wrote in message news:telecom22.130.14@telecom-digest.org: > Just for curiosity, why should merchants be able to tell the > difference? As long as they get their money, why do they care if the > buyer uses a debit or a credit card? > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: ... I'll grant you Commerce Bank is > having a promotion all the time called 'skip the PIN' where they > suggest in stores with terminals where the customer swipes the card > (like Walmart) to punch in 'credit' rather than 'debit' and not be > asked for a PIN....] And that should tell you something. Merchants have to pay far more (often MANY TIMES as much) in processing fees to process a "credit" payment rather than a "debit" payment. That is why merchants would much prefer you to use your debit card as a debit card, and also why your bank probably makes your debit card look as much like a credit card as possible (often making it impossible to tell) and tries to convince you that punching in a PIN is soooooo inconvenient, and that you should tell the merchant it is really a credit card.. If you ask me, punching in a PIN is more convenient than trying to sign the usually malfunctioning touch screen, or even signing the register tape, but I have a long name. If you like your banker and hate your merchant, always tell them "Credit" and if you like your merchant and hate your banker, always tell them "Debit". If you either like them both or hate them both, use cash, or write a check. Gary [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But if I write a check, then Walmart is the *only* store in town which makes me show a driver's license or in my case, the state ID card (since I do not know how to drive a car). The other stores (in the downtown area) just accept my check since they have seen me before. But almost all the 'regular' stores downtown have a sign on the door which refers to the 'Kansas Bad Check law' and the store's right to charge three times the value of the check if it gets returned to them even once. That's why I cut my deals with the bank manager, in the event my money runs out before my next social security check comes in; she covers my checks and notifies me, but does charge me $10 (ten dollars) when it happens. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: 16 Nov 2002 23:16:27 -0500 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: Debit vs. Credit Cards, was: Re: Retailers' Suit Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > I can get an ATM card, but it can't be used for purchases. Indeed. That's what that humongous class action against MC and Visa is about. On the other hand, my friendly local bank offers a variety of pieces of plastic. They have a Visa branded debit card which costs $12/yr, money comes directly out of my account immediately, in case of dispute I'm out the money until and unless I get the charge unwound. They also have a Visa branded gold credit card which costs $0/yr if I set it up for auto-pay so the money comes out of my account on the day the monthly grace period is over so I get to hold on to the money for an extra month, in case of dispute I can tell them not to pay the fraudulent item so the money's still in my bank account, and it has a bunch of other minor freebies such as rental car insurance. The only advantage that the debit card has is that if I'm away from home and have time to kill, I can walk into other banks and get an over the counter "cash advance" from the debit card, thereby saving the $2.50 it would cost to use it at an ATM, but I'd have to do that five times a year to save the annual fee, which I don't. (Yes, this works and really doesn't cost anything. I did it a few times when I had a debit card.) I have three Visa credit cards, all of which have an auto-pay option so I never pay any interest. Unless their credit rating is so bad that they can't get a credit card at all, why would anyone use a debit card? Regards, John Levine johnl@iecc.com Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies", Information Superhighwayman wanna-be http://iecc.com/johnl Sewer Commissioner "I dropped the toothpaste", said Tom, crestfallenly. ObTelecom: both debit and credit cards work at Bell Canada payphones, and cost less than using an AT&T or LEC calling card, but it's even cheaper to use a prepaid smart card with embedded chip. ------------------------------ From: jeff@pulver.com (Jeff Pulver) Subject: Free World Dialup 3.0 Has Launched! Date: 16 Nov 2002 08:53:17 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Hi All, The Free World Dialup Network ( http://pulver.com/fwd ) has lauched! Details with the latest FWD news is available at: http://pulver.com/fwd/fwd30news.html . The Free World Dialup (FWD) Network is the free peer-to-peer worldwide community telephone service for people with broadband Internet access. It provides a great free way for people to keep in touch with their friends and family members who also have broadband internet access. Two devices (endpoints) that we have tested and are known to work with FWD are the Cisco 7960 (with the SIP image) and the Cisco ATA-186. We are currently working on making enhancements to support additional devices. You need to own a supported device to use FWD. Please contact your local Cisco office to find a local reseller where you can purchase these devices. You can subscribe to the FWD Mailing list by visiting: http://listserv.pulver.com/cgi-bin/wa.exe?SUBED1=fwd&A=1 . Kind regards, Jeff ------------------------------ From: Michael Sweeden Subject: Fax on Partner ACS R3.1 System Ring Only For Calls on Line 4? Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2002 10:18:39 -0500 I have a Partner ACS R3.1 system with multiple phone lines. On one extension I have both a fax machine and a system phone. The phone and the fax machine both ring on incoming calls. I am told that the system used to be configured so that the fax machine only rang when a call came in on line 4 while the system phone on that extension rang on all incoming calls. I do not know how to do this. I know I can turn off ringing for the first 3 lines, but that would turn of ringing on the system phone as well. Line 4 is the last line in the rollover, and has a different ring when it is dialed directly than when it rings as a result of rollover. Can the system be configured so that the fax machine only rings for calls on line 4 while the system phone on the same extension rings on all incoming lines, and, if so, then how? Thanks! ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Anti Telemarketer Phone From: tom.horsley@att.net (Thomas A. Horsley) Organization: AT&T Worldnet Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2002 16:15:23 GMT I just got my Avinta VN100 which was designed as a small home or business PBX, but (since you have to dial an extension number), also works as a box that can require a code to be punch in before your phone will ring. Unfortunately, it doesn't really work as well as advertised, but I did manage to get it working somewhat. The docs for it say to plug your answering machine into the phone line (so the recording message can tell folks about the code to punch in), then the VN100 into the answering machine. In that configuration, the VN100 never recognizes the extension number. Maybe there is something about the answering machine. Can't say for sure what is wrong. However, I did find that if I plug the answering machine and the VN100 in parallel (on a splitter), it does work (but you have to dial a number before the extension -- that's the way you use it as an intercom locally). The other problem is that you are supposed to be able to plug an answering machine into the VN100 instead of just a phone, so if you really aren't there, the 2nd answering machine can be used to leave a message. I've never gotten this to work at all. The phone does ring when plugged in to the VN100, but the answering machine plugged into it never picks up. There must be something not quite right about the ring signal it generates. Conclusion: Seems to be useable, but not nearly as spiffy as advertised. I too would rather have a all in one box (and I'd really rather have one that would accept lots of different codes so I could give out individual ones). At least my phone doesn't ring off the hook all the time anymore. Peace at last! :-). >>==>> The *Best* political site >==+ email: Tom.Horsley@worldnet.att.net icbm: Delray Beach, FL Free Software and Politics<<==+ ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Telephone Answering Machines From: tom.horsley@att.net (Thomas A. Horsley) Organization: AT&T Worldnet Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2002 16:20:56 GMT The GE Digital answering machine (model # 29869GE2) I have seems to work pretty well (it is highly recommended on amazon.com which is where I got it). One of the options you can configure is how long an individual message can be (it can do a total of 40 minutes recording). >>==>> The *Best* political site >>==+ email: Tom.Horsley@worldnet.att.net icbm: Delray Beach, FL | Free Software and Politics <<==+ ------------------------------ From: Joseph Subject: Re: ECLong Distance and Calling 1-800 Numbers Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2002 12:31:01 -0800 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Reply-To: joeofseattle@yahoo.com On 14 Nov 2002 16:52:19 -0800, ian@jardine.net (Ian) wrote: > Let me ask another question somewhat off topic, but here goes. > A friend from Overseas has two children studying at a private High > School in NJ (and then on to College in the USA). They have no credit > rating in the USA and no SS#s. > They want to give the two kids cellphones for use in NA and they want > to provide a means of the children calling their parents (in > Singapore) at decent rates. > I can only think of a prepaid cellphone service which is pretty darn > expensive allied to some form of prepaid international telephone card > which can be charged to an International Credit Card number. > Anyone got a better solution? I think that with the numbers of > International students in the USA this could be a large market. Pre-paid is not the cheapest solution, but if your kids do not "gab" it is workable. Using T-Mobile's pre-paid "Easy Speak" plan it's $25 with a month's expiry on the time. Very often you can find a deal in a store (often pharmacies and the like) where you can get a handset with a SIM card which includes $30 of talk time. I've seen these packages go for $69 to $79. Amazon often has good prices on the T-Mobile pre-paid if you wish to go that route. There are other pre-paids that you may want to look at from AT&T or Verizon. Larger denomination cards give you more talk time at a cheaper per minute rate. If you have a pre-paid service that includes long distance in the air time (such as T-Mobile's) you simply call a number in New York City, NY get a dial tone and dial the international number. If you do not have long distance included you can call a toll-free "866" number though there is a 15 cent surcharge on calls made through the 866 number. Calls to Singapore are 9 cents per minute. To use the service you have to register a credit card (Visa/Master Card/Amex) and they will debit cost of calling from your credit card. http://gorillamobile.com/ Replies are seldom read. Please reply in the group ------------------------------ From: fgwing@adimexico.com.mx (CatFinder) Subject: Definity Date: 16 Nov 2002 13:16:56 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Hi, I have recently started work at a company that uses a definity PBX and we want to implement authorization codes but our servicce providor tells us that we need to make an upgrade on our system. I kow nothing about the Definity system so I;m not sure if this is correct or not, Can someone help?? Thanks. John W. ------------------------------ From: j debert Subject: Charter Cable Leak: Reporting it Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2002 14:53:33 -0800 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com I just got off the phone with Charter re a possible leak on their system in Hollister CA. Told them it was heard on air and Public Safety bands. The call-taker did not want to hear about it unless it was a "customer with a problem" and almost got away without being told the location. How long should one wait before follow-up? A week? On next follow up, if nothing seems to be done, I may mention filing complaints with FCC and CPUC: the signal interferes with local police and fire freqs and probably even with LifeFlight and other operations at the local hospital, which is right next to the apparent leak. This leak appears to have started just within the past 6 weeks, and sounds like intermod on some freqs, but tuning makes the signal sound better, as does switching from narrow to wide FM. j d e b e r t < a t > g a r l i c < d o t > c o m ------------------------------ 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 Fax 3: 775-642-0603 Fax 4: 530-309-7234 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 V22 #131 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Nov 18 15:04:27 2002 Received: from localhost (localhost [[UNIX: localhost]]) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.3nb1/8.11.3) id gAIK4R315010; Mon, 18 Nov 2002 15:04:27 -0500 (EST) Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 15:04:27 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200211182004.gAIK4R315010@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #132 TELECOM Digest Mon, 18 Nov 2002 15:05:00 EST Volume 22 : Issue 132 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson ICB HeadsUp Headlines Period Ending 11/17/2002 (Judith Oppenheimer) Re: Doing Error Correction (PM) Re: Help Hooking up Pay Phone (Gene S. Berkowitz) Re: N11/Payphones/Wireless/PBXes/PAY-per-Call/etc (Les Weatherock) Re: N11/Payphones/Wireless/PBXes/PAY-per-Call/etc (Ed Ellers) ATT GSM Network Questions (biovert) Re: ECLong Distance and Calling 1-800 Numbers (Michael D. Sullivan) Re: Anti Telemarketer Phone (Fritz Whittington) Success Hurts Cellphone Service (Monty Solomon) Training For Foreign Student (fazi) What Does it Mean For the Telco to Provide Timing? (R Siffredi) Re: Last Laugh! You Are a Suspect (A. Reader) 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply-To: From: Judith Oppenheimer Subject: ICB HeadsUp Headlines Period Ending 11/17/2002 Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 01:14:10 -0500 Organization: ICB Inc. ICB HeadsUp Headlines for the period ending November 17, 2002 from http://ICBTollFreeNews.com - Covering the Political, Legal and Marketing Arenas of 800, ENUM and Dot Com. ICB has a new format, is more intuitive, and more accessible! You'll find it easier to access ICB news and archives (5800 articles and growing), and NO registration is required. (But we do have a new Mail List - tell your friends to sign up!) From the Editor's Desk: If there are any SNAC members on this list who have not been participating in meetings, please contact me ASAP at joppenheimer@icbtollfree.com. Stand Alone Toll Free Service 4.9¢ per minute, 6 second billing, no fees, no minimums, no contracts; online or paper billing, fast activation, vanities, long distance available same terms. http://WhoSells800.com Headlines INDUSTRY NUMBERING COMMITTEE ISSUE ADDRESSES VOIP In order to support PSTN and IP network convergence, it is necessary that numbering issues be thoroughly examined. Thus, as new implementations of VoIP are introduced, issues involving numbering in VoIP environments need to be identified and highlighted to determine their impact on the administration of The North American Numbering Plan (NANP). Continued here: http://www.icbtollfree.com/article_free.cfm?articleId=5808 CANADA TO HOST MEETING OF WORLD INTERNET GOVERNING BODY "We welcome the opportunity to host this meeting. It will attract Internet governance professionals representing government, business, and public interests from around the globe. This meeting will put the dot-ca domain in the spotlight. It will also demonstrate Canada's commitment to the stability of the Internet," said Maureen Cubberley, Chair of the CIRA Board of Directors. Continued here: http://www.icbtollfree.com/article_free.cfm?articleId=5807 NANC TO ADDRESS VOIP IMPACT ON NANP ISSUES "Its recommended that the NANC assist the FCC in addressing these numbering issues ..." There is also an SGA contribution on Global ENUM TLD Evaluation heading to Geneva that specifically negates the global integrity of E.164 numbering resources in ENUM. Whatever the conflicts over billing issues, isn't there even the slightest risk of the service applications babies being thrown out with the legacy billing bath water? Continued here: http://www.icbtollfree.com/article_free.cfm?articleId=5806 INTER800.COM ENRICHES LISTINGS OF YELLOW.COM Visitors to Yellow.com can now search for the 800 numbers of businesses in the United States. Continued here: http://www.icbtollfree.com/article_free.cfm?articleId=5805 US ENUM QUANDRY OVER TOLL FREE NANP ISSUES Recommends "that the agency with plenary jurisdiction over the NANP convene a group of representatives from interested countries in the NANP to evaluate and develop the necessary ENUM implementation specifications." There is more here than meets the eye. Continued here: http://www.icbtollfree.com/article_free.cfm?articleId=5804 BEHIND THE SCENES: UNIVERSAL FREEPHONE INTEGRITY VERSUS ENUM Assignees have paid for the processing of their applications and the assignment of these numbers. There have been service descriptions written to describe the particular services supported by these numbers, and effort has and will be taken for the public to identify these specific services with these specific numbers. If these numbers are mapped into an ENUM DNS zone, will the specific services assigned to them be maintained or will other internet applications be associated with these international non-geographic numbers? If the latter situation is permissible what will be the impact on existing number assignees and their customers? Continued here: http://www.icbtollfree.com/article_free.cfm?articleId=5802 800 STATUS - OR LACK THEREOF - IN US ENUM IMPLEMENTATION It occurs to this writer that when US ENUM implementation is finalized, it will have been engineered with no thought whatsoever to accommodating the characteristics -- the integrity -- of toll free. How then, will 800 work with the system, after the fact? Continued here: http://www.icbtollfree.com/article_free.cfm?articleId=5803 MINUTES FROM REGISTRAR CONSTITUENCY MEETING IN SHANGHAI Interesting dialogue on ICANN Reform, Whois, Transfers, Deletes. Relatively candid. Continued here: http://www.icbtollfree.com/article_free.cfm?articleId=5801 VERISIGN CONTINUING ITS PUSH INTO TELECOM It has signed two new carrier contracts for expanded telecommunications services. Commentary inside. Continued here: http://www.icbtollfree.com/article_free.cfm?articleId=5799 ______________________________________________ ______________________________________________ EVERY 3.6 SECONDS SOMEONE DIES FROM HUNGER http://www.hungersite.com/ ______________________________________________ ______________________________________________ There is No Registration Required to read http://ICBTollFreeNews.com online. However, if you are new to ICB, please join our mail list at http://ICBTollFreeNews.com if you wish to receive email news and information. Click here: http://icbtollfree.com/Login.cfm?NextURL=account.cfm If you wish to unsubscribe from this email newsletter. Copyright 2002 ICB, Inc. All rights reserved. ______________________________________________ ______________________________________________ ------------------------------ From: prasanth@gmx.net (PM) Subject: Re: Doing Error Correction Date: 17 Nov 2002 18:49:18 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ cheetah@cs.ucsb.edu (Matt) wrote in message news:: > I am transmitting a small group of data in a highly noisy environment. > I have about 10 bits I need tranmitted reliably, and can send up to > 32 bits of data to get it done. I have looked into using > Reed-Solomon forward-error correcting, but due to the block-coding > nature it doesn't work well with bit data. Does anyone have any tips > on a good way to transmit a small amount of bit data reliably through > possibly very heavy noise? Thanks. For a simple transmission system, if a feedback channel exists, ARQ could be used instead of FEC for achieving very high reliability. FEC system always uses block or convolutional codes. ------------------------------ From: Gene S. Berkowitz Subject: Re: Help Hooking up Pay Phone Date: Sun, 17 Nov 2002 02:51:05 -0500 Organization: Applied Entropy In article , boo@phatty.nl says: > Today, Fri, 8 Nov 2002 13:37:01 -0500, Two Buddha read a post from > Slideman , and determined his interest in > BURP. Where's my beer? Oh and: >> Pat, >> I have a Western Electric pay phone that I wish to use in my game >> room at home. I can't seem to get to work. Can you help with some info >> on how to hook it up. Could it be not working because I have DSL line >> in the house? I am thanking you in advance for help that you can be. > You need a filter on the line connected to the DSL service. It acts > like an A/D converter. All analog devices will need this filter > i.e. phone, fax, etc. Sorry, this is incorrect. The filter on a DSL-enabled line is just that, a filter. It allows low (voice) frequencies to pass through, while blocking the higher but audible "hissing" of a DSL connection. An analog phone will operate on a DSL line without the filter, it's just a bit noisy. An A/D converter is necessary to use an analog phone over an ISDN line, but I'm guessing there aren't too many of those in homes today. Filters aren't needed on most cordless phones, as they already have filters to block noise and interference from the RF connection. As to the payphone, did you put in your nickel? Gene ------------------------------ From: Wesrock@aol.com Date: Sun, 17 Nov 2002 10:34:17 EST Subject: Re: N11/Payphones/Wireless/PBXes/PAY-per-Call/etc On Sat, 16 Nov 2002 17:29:46 -0800 John David Galt wrote: > That's weird. There's no such rule in California; 611 still goes to the > local telco (usually SBC). On cellular, 611 goes to the cellular carrier. > This means that when I actually need the home phone line fixed, I wind > up asking the cellular carrier's 0 operator to connect me with SBC's > 611. It would be nice if they published a regular number so I could > dial it from there. > It would also be nice if I could reach SBC's repair service, or customer > service for that matter, without having to wade through their voicemail > menu system and/or wait an unacceptable length of time on hold. I sure > wish there were a CLEC in this area so that I could avoid that "feature". > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But cellular 611 does not go directly > to repair does it? With Cingular, who provides my service here, 611 > goes to a voicemail which gives repair as one of the choices, along > with customer service and sales as two additional options. The other > three carriers here in town, Cellular One (Dobson), Alltel, and US > Cellular do the same thing. I also have a prepaid AT&T cell phone (a > thing AT&T offers called 'Free to Go' which uses 611 in the same way, > but here in Independence, AT&T is on 'Extended Area' out of Wichita, > KS (316) or Tulsa, OK (918), but it uses Dobson Cellular Towers > locally so 611 reaches Cell One locally, and as soon as you mention > AT&T the nice ladies punch a button and off you go to AT&T's offices. > I wonder why regular, landline telcos don't use 611 in the same way? > PAT] Curiously, in SBC's original territory, Southwestern Bell, the repair number is an 800 number. 11 digits, if you count the 1+ needed in Southwestern Bell territory. And, yes, you get a menu. Wes Leatherock wesrock@aol.com wleathus@yahoo.com ------------------------------ From: Ed Ellers Subject: Re: N11/Payphones/Wireless/PBXes/PAY-per-Call/etc Date: Sun, 17 Nov 2002 16:51:05 -0500 John David Galt wrote: > This means that when I actually need the home phone line fixed, I > wind up asking the cellular carrier's 0 operator to connect me with > SBC's 611. It would be nice if they published a regular number so I > could dial it from there. BellSouth uses special numbers with a 557 prefix for the business office and repair service, but they do have toll-free numbers that can be reached from wireless phones (or from facilities-based CLECs). ------------------------------ From: karl@ilato.org (biovert) Subject: ATT GSM Network Questions Date: 17 Nov 2002 14:02:30 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ I'm sure I'm not the only one out here wondering if anyone is using this system. They are marketing the hell out of m-mode and I've gotten mixed reviews from users in California and in New York - some saying the network works real well when you're on it; others claiming it's been spotty. I'm a heavy phone user and am tempted by this $99/month unlimited minutes plan. Any opinions? ------------------------------ From: Michael D. Sullivan Subject: Re: ECLong Distance and Calling 1-800 Numbers Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 03:49:47 GMT On 14 Nov 2002 16:52:19 -0800, Ian posted the following to comp.dcom.telecom: > A friend from Overseas has two children studying at a private High > School in NJ (and then on to College in the USA). They have no credit > rating in the USA and no SS#s. They can get SS numbers through any SS office. If their visa does not permit employment (and a student visa won't permit it), they can get SS cards with numbers that are not valid for employment, but otherwise valid (open bank accounts, etc.). > They want to give the two kids cellphones for use in NA and they want > to provide a means of the children calling their parents (in > Singapore) at decent rates. The best way to call Singapore at a decent rate is probably with a prepaid calling card targeted to Singapore and other countries in that region. The cellphone company's long-distance rate for international calls is probably not very good. > I can only think of a prepaid cellphone service which is pretty darn > expensive allied to some form of prepaid international telephone card > which can be charged to an International Credit Card number. Some cellphone companies have programs for credit-challenged customers that are not prepaid, but do involve a deposit and a monthly spending limit. Sprint has such a program, if its service covers their location. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yes, but YOU have a SS number and I > presume, a satisfactory credit rating. *IF* you trust these kids > sufficiently, and their parents, why don't you get the phones for > them, and keep track of the monthly bills? At the first hint of > trouble, cut them off. Have the parents give you a few hundred > dollars in advance as security. PAT] Good suggestion. Michael D. Sullivan Bethesda, MD, USA (delete NOSPAM from address to mail me) ------------------------------ From: Fritz Whittington Subject: Re: Anti Telemarketer Phone Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 05:29:17 GMT Organization: AT&T Worldnet hfs2 wrote: > I get a blank page. I've posted on various boards and news groups and > while everyone seems to have a way to do it, there doesn't seem to be > a phone you can go out and purchase. Seems like an op for some bright > eng. I'm going to try one of these speciality phone stores at the > Mall of America. Thanks all. http://www.hellodirect.com/catalog/Product.jhtml?CATID=2027&PRODID=10051 is the link that works. (Not: http://www.hellodirect.com/catalog/Product.jhtml?CATID=3D2027&PRODID=3D10051) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 08:02:32 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Success Hurts Cellphone Service November 18, 2002 By SIMON ROMERO Americans' use of cellphones has increased so quickly that wireless networks are becoming overloaded, causing a growing number of customers to complain about calls that are inaudible or are cut off or are never connected in the first place. And things could get worse before they get better, industry experts say, because even as cellphone companies are rolling out fancy features like digital photography and Internet-based games, they are hard-pressed to spend the money needed to improve basic service. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/18/technology/18CELL.html ------------------------------ From: fazi Subject: Training For Foreign Exchange Student Date: Sun, 17 Nov 2002 17:30:38 +0100 Organization: Politechnika Wroclawska Hi, my name is Daniel Kolodziejek and I'm a student from Poland. I study on the Technical University of Wroclaw, my specialization is Telecommunications. I will graduate my school June 2003, so I'm interested to take up the training after that time. I wanna take up a training in US. Could you help me what should I do to take up the training? Thank you for your help in advance. Sincerely, Daniel Kolodziejek ------------------------------ From: R Siffredi Subject: What Does it Mean For the Telco to Provide Timing? Date: Sun, 17 Nov 2002 04:09:53 GMT Organization: Cox Communications I am wondering what actually happens when the telco provides timing versus not providing timing? ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2002 23:25:59 -0800 From: Anonymous Subject: Re: Last Laugh! Re: You Are a Suspect Mr. Higdon, >> http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/14/opinion/14SAFI.html > Would love to have read that. Unfortunately, one must contribute to > the nytimes.com spam list to do so. > TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: No you don't. Just pick some name out > of the blue ... Alternatively, you can either use this tool: Random NYTimes.com Registration Generator http://www.majcher.com/nytview.html or you can use the account: member ID: telecomdigest password: telecomdigest Anonymous [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The above is *not* my account. Someone thought it up and it worked fine. Last week we got John started on his reading, but anyone is free to use the telecomdigest account if they want. I do not know what happens to all the spam which goes there. I do not get it here, or maybe I do. There is so much spam it is hard to decipher who sends what out these days. And that random registration generator link above could *possibly* be used not only for my competitor the NY Times but maybe anytime some web page is after you to fill in names and passwords, etc. Try it and see. Good luck. Please do not use that telecomdigest with p/w telecomdigest thing to run up any e-bills in my name. 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 Fax 3: 775-642-0603 Fax 4: 530-309-7234 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 V22 #132 ****************************** From mojo@listserv.pacebutler.com Tue Nov 19 12:31:57 2002 Received: from mintaka.lcs.mit.edu (mintaka.lcs.mit.edu [18.26.0.36]) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.3nb1/8.11.3) with ESMTP id gAJHVvL22018 for ; Tue, 19 Nov 2002 12:31:57 -0500 (EST) Received: from listserv.pacebutler.com (postfix@listserv.pacebutler.com [208.254.102.14]) by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu (8.12.6/8.12.6) with ESMTP id gAJHVtm3086390 for ; Tue, 19 Nov 2002 12:31:56 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from mojo@listserv.pacebutler.com) Received: by listserv.pacebutler.com (Postfix, from userid 1003) id D43CB874E3; Tue, 19 Nov 2002 11:14:41 -0600 (CST) From: "Mike Haeger" To: telecom-recent@lcs.mit.edu Errors-To: Organization: Telecom Contractors MIME-Version: 1.0 List: TelBus List-Archive: http://listserv.pacebutler.com/~mojo/mojo.cgi?f=archive&l=TelBus List-ID: 20021119111016 List-Owner: List-Subscribe: http://listserv.pacebutler.com/~mojo/mojo.cgi?f=s&l=TelBus List-Unsubscribe: http://listserv.pacebutler.com/~mojo/mojo.cgi?f=u&l=TelBus List-URL: http://listserv.pacebutler.com/~mojo/mojo.cgi?l=TelBus List-Software: Mojo Mail 2.6.6 Precedence: list X-Priority: 3 Subject: Telecom Contractors message Content-Type: text/html Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <20021119171441.D43CB874E3@listserv.pacebutler.com> Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2002 11:14:41 -0600 (CST)

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-- To unsubscribe from: Telecom Contractors, just follow this link: http://listserv.pacebutler.com/~mojo/mojo.cgi?f=u&l=TelBus&e=telecom-recent@lcs.mit.edu&p=7671 Click the link, or copy and paste the address into your browser. From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Nov 19 17:10:45 2002 Received: from localhost (localhost [[UNIX: localhost]]) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.3nb1/8.11.3) id gAJMAjb24474; Tue, 19 Nov 2002 17:10:45 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2002 17:10:45 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200211192210.gAJMAjb24474@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #133 TELECOM Digest Tue, 19 Nov 2002 17:10:00 EST Volume 22 : Issue 133 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: ATT GSM Network Questions (John Doe) Re: ATT GSM Network Questions (Reed Blake) what Do Auth Centers Do? was Re: Debit vs. Credit cards (Danny Burstein) Re: Debit vs. Credit Cards, was Re: Retailers' Suit (Steven J. Sobol) Credit and Debit Cards (Paul Gloger) Credit Cards Seek New Fees on Web's Demimonde (Monty Solomon) Secret U.S. Court OKs Electronic Spying (Monty Solomon) Tech Companies Ask For Unfiltered Net (Monty Solomon) Court OKs Faxed Warrants (Monty Solomon) Nextel Juices up BlackBerry Device (Monty Solomon) Linksys Router Vulnerability (Monty Solomon) Re: Charter Cable Leak: Reporting it (Dave Phelps) Re: Charter Cable Leak: Reporting it (j debert) Re: SS7 Over E1 (Albo) Re: Problems With Siemens Gigaset 2420 (SELLCOM Tech support) Re: Genuity Posts $1.2 Billion Loss in Third Quarter (Dave Phelps) 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: John Doe Subject: Re: ATT GSM Network Questions Organization: Prodigy Internet http://www.prodigy.com Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2002 00:02:07 GMT I have the $99/unlimited plan and love it. However I knew that switching to their GSM network the coverage would be less than their TDMA. So yes, its not quite as good as their old network, but how can you beat the plan? I'm quite a heavy users too in the Bay area, and its worked quite well for me so far. biovert wrote in message news:telecom22.132.6@telecom-digest.org: > I'm sure I'm not the only one out here wondering if anyone is using > this system. They are marketing the hell out of m-mode and I've gotten > mixed reviews from users in California and in New York - some saying > the network works real well when you're on it; others claiming it's > been spotty. I'm a heavy phone user and am tempted by this $99/month > unlimited minutes plan. Any opinions? ------------------------------ From: Reed Blake Subject: Re: ATT GSM Network Questions Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 19:47:59 -0600 Organization: Global Network Services - Remote Access Mail & News Services biovert wrote in message ... > I'm sure I'm not the only one out here wondering if anyone is using > this system. They are marketing the hell out of m-mode and I've gotten > mixed reviews from users in California and in New York - some saying > the network works real well when you're on it; others claiming it's > been spotty. I'm a heavy phone user and am tempted by this $99/month > unlimited minutes plan. Any opinions? I'm sure you'll get some opinions at alt.cellular.attws. Reed Blake Beta Technology Industrial and Scientific Computing ------------------------------ From: danny burstein Subject: What Do Auth Centers Do? was Re: Debit vs. Credit Cards Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2002 02:24:50 UTC Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC [ earlier discussion about credit cards vs. debit cards, and particularly the holdback charged the merchants, snipped ] This whole topic reminded me of an article I saw a few weeks ago in the NY Times of Oct 21, 2002, in the technology section. to quote: Internet Merchants Fight Fraud By BOB TEDESCHI INTERNET merchants, weary of a near constant barrage of credit card fraud that costs them more than $1 billion each year, are joining forces in hopes of helping one another identify users of stolen credit cards, catch criminals and perhaps soothe the fears of millions of potential online shoppers. What I found fascinating was the claim by such major merchants as Hewlett-Packard that, even after cards are reported stolen, the authorization centers often still approve purchases. And then chargeback the merchants a few months later. "We reported that to the predominant bank involved and asked them to stop it because we kept seeing these cards coming back," said Mr. Redenbaugh, who would not identify the bank. Based on its own procedures for screening fraud, Hewlett-Packard rejected those cards, "but the bank kept approving them for authorizations," he said. "It took them over a month and a half to cut off the cards. Those cards may have been used on dozens of merchants' sites who didn't figure this out." Rest of story, which was still available for free today (subscription required) but will probably time out soon, at: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/21/technology/21ECOM.html Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key dannyb@panix.com [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded] [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Remember, for those of you who wish to read NT Times articles who do not have an account of your own, you can always use 'telecomdigest' as the user name and password. For next in this thread, my own experience with authorization centers goes back to the late 1960's / early 1970's when I worked for the Amoco/Diner's Club credit card office in Chicago, in what was called the Sales Authorization area. When I started working there, the office was entirely manual. No computers at all. About 75 of us worked in a single large room together, which did not include the ledger posting clerks and the bookkeepers who were around almost constantly. Those of us who did authorization work wore headsets with very long cords so that we could walk around the room seeking entries in large spiral notebooks which were checked by us, posted in by the ledger posting clerks throughout the day and night hours, and the notebooks were carried away by the bookkeepers from time to time elsewhere, then eventually brought back to us with fresh pages in them. The people working in the area all crawled around over and next to each other looking for the proper book and entries out of several million such items and a couple hundred large spiral notebooks. Good personal hygiene was a must, believe me! The idea was to prevent fraud and to as nearly as possible hold customers to the credit limits established for them. When Amoco dealers called in with sales (or Diners merchants called in sales) we would look for the account number in these books and if enough credit remained unused, pencil in the amount of the new sale, add the date and initial our entries. Dealers did not have to call in sales under some amount, I think it was ten dollars; above that they had to get approval for the sale. When we were converted to computers (I think it was 1968-69) for about a year, at least half the time the computers were down and we had to rely on the old manual books. When eventually the computers were more or less fool-proofed, then we relied more on them and less on the books. The company then got rid of about 500 bookkeepers and thousands of ledger posting clerks. The bookkeepers and clerks worked the entire office including customer service and accounting, not just our section. As long as the merchants/dealers had authorization codes on every *imprinted* sales ticket they were guarenteed their money. Without a *plainly visible* imprint of name and account number on the ticket, the company would still bill the customer, but the collectors used that 'lack of imprint' or 'illegible imprint' or 'handwritten ticket' as excuses for charging the sale back to the merchant. And when it got time to write off the customer due to lack of payment, those collectors (or rather, the microfilm clerks who looked up and pulled the charges for the collectors [who were looking for ammunition to charge back sales]) would pull every bit of film they could with no imprint, no authorization code, something -- anything -- amiss on the charge tickets. Zero out the books on this deadbeat, let the merchant pay for it if necessary. Trouble was, when the computers were down, in order to keep the traffic moving and keep delays due to 'time waiting on hold' to a minimum, the authorization supervisor would arbitarily raise the floor limit, *without bothering to tell the merchant/dealer*. The word to the authorizors was 'if amount of charge is less than X dollars, just go ahead and approve it without waiting for the computer to come back to life or otherwise checking in the books. We would still give a 'manual approval code' so others (like collectors and customer service people) could later see that it had been called in. That routine was almost totally gone by the late seventies as the computer system got more reliable and crash-proof, but the fraud got more and more sophis- ticated. There was one Amoco dealer in Chicago (downtown on Congress Parkway [now an interstate highway] who had such a horrible rate of fraud on the credit cards his floor limit was set to zero. He had to call in *every single sale*. The company installed a red, non-dial direct tie-line in his station; everytime someone used plastic there the company made him call it in. Not just for big purchases, but for cans of soda or bags of potato chips. You wanted to use your Amoco or Diners Card to pay for it, he had to call it in. His fraud was that bad. In those early computer days (1960's - early 1970's) the president of Diner's Club was a man named Alfred Bloomingdale (same as the New York Department Store which started Diners Club). Mr. Bloomingdale had a bad habit of picking up prostitutes; one of them one day snatched his wallet and his *personal* Diners Club card. Whoever it was literally lived on that card -- at Diner's expense for about two years. People in the office were afraid to say 'NO!' on sales made to that card. They could see from the ledger card how it was plainly marked as a stolen card. They would start to say no, and decline the sale, but the merchant (or the person posing as Bloomingdale) would call back and curse them and scare them: "Do you know who I am? You will lose your job when I get done with you." I was working late one Sunday night when a dealer called it in. Some high school kid in New York wanted to get authorization on some car repairs. I asked the kid where the car was at. He said it was up on the rack. I said to him 'hey kid, how would you like to earn fifty dollars?' Eagerly the kid says yeah, 'me and my buddies wanna make some money.' I told him, all you have to do is cut that card in a few pieces and mail all the pieces back to Diners at PO Box whatever in Chicago. He asked who was going to pay for the work on the car being repaired. I told him I could care less, but to be sure he kept the car on the rack until he got paid by the man, that he had a workman's lein on the vehicle until the repair work was paid, but that Diners was not gonna pay for it. Sure enough, within a couple minutes my phone rang again, and it was 'Mister Bloomingdale' cursing at me and asking if I knew who he was and how I was going to get fired. I told him I didn't give a damn either way, that if he was really in fact Al Bloomingdale he would be glad for what I did. I asked for the kid to come back on the phone again, and told him whatever you do, don't give him that card back. 'Send it here to me so I can get your reward for you.' I guess the kids in the station called the local police when 'Mr. Bloomingdale' had no money otherwise to pay for their work. And sure enough, about three days later here was the cut up card. Accounts Payable cut a check for fifty dollars to the kid, who was thrilled when he saw it of course, but Amoco/Diners credit card gave *me* five hundred dollars and later Al Bloomingdale called me from his office in New York to say thank you. This is just a memory I had of those days long ago. PAT] ------------------------------ From: sjsobol@JustThe.net (Steven J. Sobol) Subject: Re: Debit vs. Credit Cards, was: Re: Retailers' Suit Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2002 00:12:18 -0000 Organization: JustThe.net LLC 'John R. Levine' wrote: > The only advantage that the debit card has is that if I'm away from > home and have time to kill, I can walk into other banks and get an > over the counter "cash advance" from the debit card, thereby saving > the $2.50 it would cost to use it at an ATM, but I'd have to do that > five times a year to save the annual fee, which I don't. (Yes, this > works and really doesn't cost anything. I did it a few times when I > had a debit card.) I thought most banks had a surcharge on cash advances made on Mastercards and Visas at the teller? > I have three Visa credit cards, all of which have an auto-pay option > so I never pay any interest. Unless their credit rating is so bad > that they can't get a credit card at all, why would anyone use a debit > card? In my case, because I'm still trying to pay the one remaining credit card I have down to where I can use it (it's slightly overlimit now) - and sometimes I don't want to borrow money. My credit isn't good enough that I can get a credit card with no grace period right now. I have a Mastercard aimed at people with bad credit* - and the customer service is outstanding even though they know their customers can't typically go elsewhere for credit, and the APR, while high, isn't outrageously so - but they do *not* have any type of grace period on purchases, IIRC. I pay interest the day after the purchase is charged on my card. *http://www.OrchardBank.com/ - they're a division of Household Financial, and I know Household has had, ummm, issues, lately... but the OB people are great. In particular, when cash flow got really tight last year, they were extremely helpful in getting my payments back on track. More so, in fact, than most banks from whom I've had *traditional* credit cards. 'Gary Novosielski' wrote: > debit card look as much like a credit card as possible (often making > it impossible to tell) and tries to convince you that punching in a > PIN is soooooo inconvenient, and that you should tell the merchant > it is really a credit card. ?? *I* don't typically use my Check Card as a debit card because I get dinged with ATM charges if I do. I don't get dinged if I use it as a credit card. Steve Sobol, CTO JustThe.net LLC, Mentor On The Lake, OH http://JustTheNetLLC.com/ (check out the new site!) 888.480.4NET (4638) A practicing member of the Geek Orthodox religion! ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 15:38:38 -0800 From: Paul Gloger Subject: Credit and Debit Cards In TELECOM Digest V22 #127, PAT wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I know that for myself, I use my Visa > Debit Card the same way I use a credit card. The only real difference > is the credit limit. On a credit card, the credit limit is whatever it > is. On a debit card, the limit is the amount of money you have in your > bank account at the moment. Both types of cards use the same transport > mechanism, both types of cards require 'sales authorization' or > 'credit authorization' for sales in the same way. Neither debit nor > credit cards require any additional indentification (in theory, > although some merchants try to require identification inviolation of > their merchant agreements. .... PAT] With respect, PAT, some of what you say here used to be true, but, I regret, it's largely incorrect now. Debit-card transactions that the merchant can recognize as such may be submitted/routed to a *debit*-authorization system that costs the merchant on average around 0.5% of the sale price. In contrast, credit-card transactions must go -- and, for reasons that will momentarily become all too apparent, debit transactions also may go -- to a distinct, nominally *credit*-authorization system that costs the merchant typically 2-3% of the sale price. The debit system requires a customer PIN along with the transaction, while the "credit" system requires a signature (for either a credit or debit card/transaction). Presumably the higher fee for the "credit" system transaction is due to the much greater risk on collecting from the customer that is undertaken by the bank/card issuer. Anyway, therefore the merchant is highly incented to correctly, efficiently identify debit transactions as such and submit them to the debit system, while the bank is highly incented to confuse the merchant and even explicitly to incent the customer to treat debit cards as credit cards and so snare much higher merchant fees for the bank. Visa/MasterCard-issuing banks, issuing both credit and now debit cards, are in a particularly strong position to require merchants to play this game at a disadvantage. This is the basis for the merchants' lawsuit against the banks that Monty reported that started this thread. Regarding merchants' requiring customer identification, it is true that the agreements between banks/card issuers and merchants specify authorization procedures to be used; and true that, up until a few years ago, those agreements/procedures mostly *prohibited* the merchant from asking for identification from the customer (unless specifically otherwise directed by the bank for an individual transaction). However, in the last couple years almost all of those agreements/procedures have been changed to remove the prohibition on the merchant requiring i.d., and now at least implicitly permit and even encourage the merchant generally to require i.d. Like I said, very sorry about all of that! /Paul Gloger [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well my experiences the past year or so have all been based here in Independence, and because this is a small town where everyone knows almost everyone else at least by sight if not by name, I've not had some of those experiences you describe. I do like the fact that because I used to live in Chicago for many years, I know how some things *used to be done* there. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2002 00:55:54 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Credit Cards Seek New Fees on Web's Demimonde November 18, 2002 By MATT RICHTEL and JOHN SCHWARTZ New financial industry rules could threaten the growth of one of the most vibrant drivers of the Internet's early success: naughtiness. In the wake of rules from credit card companies and banks that have strangled many online gambling sites, Visa and MasterCard are now looping the noose for adult sites that may have spotty credit-card records. Many of the online companies say that the new rules, which the card companies call antifraud measures, will clean up an industry rife with unethical billing practices. But some operators say that, in fact, the credit card companies have taken it upon themselves to step in as de facto regulators of their industries. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/18/technology/18PORN.html ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2002 08:27:20 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Secret U.S. Court OKs Electronic Spying By Declan McCullagh Staff Writer, CNET News.com November 18, 2002, 10:03 PM PT WASHINGTON--A secretive federal court on Monday granted police broad authority to monitor Internet use, record keystrokes and employ other surveillance methods against terror and espionage suspects. In an unexpected and near-complete victory for law enforcement, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review overturned a lower court's decision and said that Attorney General John Ashcroft's request for new powers was reasonable. The 56-page ruling removes procedural barriers for federal agents conducting surveillance under the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). The law, enacted as part of post-Watergate reforms, permits sweeping electronic surveillance, telephone eavesdropping and surreptitious searches of residences and offices. http://news.com.com/2100-1023-966311.html http://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/common/newsroom/02-001.pdf http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/50/ch36.html ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2002 09:01:26 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Tech Companies Ask for Unfiltered Net By Declan McCullagh Staff Writer, CNET News.com November 18, 2002, 4:45 PM PT WASHINGTON--A coalition of technology companies warned on Monday that cable companies might try to interpose themselves as gatekeepers between customers and Internet content. In a three-page letter to the Federal Communications Commission, the group, which includes Amazon.com, Apple Computer, Microsoft and others, called on the agency to preserve Internet users' "unfettered ability to reach lawful content and services and to communicate and interact with each other." http://news.com.com/2100-1023-966307.html ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2002 09:02:46 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Court OKs Faxed Warrants By Lisa M. Bowman Staff Writer, CNET News.com November 18, 2002, 3:56 PM PT A federal appeals panel has ruled that police did not need to be present when executing a search warrant at an Internet company and instead could fax the request. In the ruling Monday, a panel of the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals said police acted legally when they faxed a search warrant to Yahoo during an investigation into alleged child-porn activity. The ruling is believed to be the first case involving the question of whether police can fax a search warrant, a practice that increasingly has become a common crime-fighting tactic. The case has been closely watched by both privacy experts and Internet service providers, which are grappling with law enforcement's increasing reliance on technology during investigations and the potential for such searches to be overly broad. Defense attorneys had tried to get evidence from Yahoo servers suppressed on the grounds that police needed to be physically present during the execution of a warrant to oversee the process. However, the appeals court sided with prosecutors, who argued that the requirement could hinder an investigation. http://news.com.com/2100-1023-966267.html ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2002 09:16:07 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Nextel Juices up BlackBerry Device By Ben Charny Staff Writer, CNET News.com November 18, 2002, 2:45 PM PT Nextel Communications said Monday that it will start selling a BlackBerry pager and a subscription with unlimited wireless Web access Dec. 2. The $500 BlackBerry 6510 is the first pager of its kind that can use cellular telephone networks powered by the Integrated Dispatch Enhanced Network (IDEN) standard, which Nextel uses in its cell phone network. BlackBerry already makes pagers that use the world's most popular cell phone standard, Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) as well as a proprietary network run by Cingular Wireless. The 6510 is the first BlackBerry pager to feature "Direct Connect," which turns phones into walkie-talkies that can communicate instantly over long distances. The pager will be available in select areas starting Dec. 2 and nationally beginning January, according to Greg Santoro, a Nextel Communications vice president. Also on Dec. 2, Nextel will begin selling a subscription with a $50 monthly fee for unlimited access to Nextel's wireless Web network, he said. http://news.com.com/2100-1033-966245.html ------------------------------ Reply-To: monty solomon From: monty solomon Subject: Linksys Router Vulnerability Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2002 13:01:09 -0500 From: Seth Bromberger SUMMARY: Linksys products running affected firmware versions are susceptible to a bug that allows unauthenticated access to the management interface. This bug affects both local and remote management (if enabled). AFFECTED PRODUCTS (per Linksys support): BEFSR41, BEFSR11, BEFSRU31: firmware versions from 1.41 through 1.43 BEFW11S4: firmware versions from 1.42.7 through 1.43. http://online.securityfocus.com/archive/1/300402 ------------------------------ From: Dave Phelps Subject: Re: Charter Cable Leak: Reporting it Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2002 00:14:38 -0600 In article , jdebert@garlic.com says: > I just got off the phone with Charter re a possible leak on their > system in Hollister CA. Told them it was heard on air and Public > Safety bands. The call-taker did not want to hear about it unless it > was a "customer with a problem" and almost got away without being told > the location. > How long should one wait before follow-up? A week? > On next follow up, if nothing seems to be done, I may mention filing > complaints with FCC and CPUC: the signal interferes with local police > and fire freqs and probably even with LifeFlight and other operations > at the local hospital, which is right next to the apparent leak. > This leak appears to have started just within the past 6 weeks, and > sounds like intermod on some freqs, but tuning makes the signal sound > better, as does switching from narrow to wide FM. > j d e b e r t < a t > g a r l i c < d o t > c o m Why do you think they are the source of the noise? That must be a heck of a signal to interfere with so many frequencies. How do you know your scanner isn't broke? Do you actually see the electrons falling out of the cable? Dave Phelps Phone Masters Ltd. deadspam=tippenring ------------------------------ From: j debert Subject: Re: Charter Cable Leak: Reporting it Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2002 09:46:38 -0800 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com j debert wrote: > I just got off the phone with Charter re a possible leak on their > system in Hollister CA. Told them it was heard on air and Public > Safety bands. The call-taker did not want to hear about it unless it > was a "customer with a problem" and almost got away without being told > the location. I went to get more info and record the leak and it was gone. Charter is playing dumb ... Perhaps it was another customer experimenting with "wireless cable"? j d e b e r t < a t > g a r l i c < d o t > c o m ------------------------------ From: Albo Subject: Re: SS7 Over E1 Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2002 04:06:27 +0100 Organization: Planet Internet What do you mean by Channel? Voice channel or signalling channel Only on the data channel the signalling is done, if it is used only for USSD you can calculate with the speed (in eur 64Kbps) the amounth of data that can be transported over one channel depending of the length of the messages (64000/amounth of bits), this is the only limitation. You can have (depending on the manufactor) up to 31 signalling channels over one E1 (1 channle is for the syncronisation), but this is very risky as you put all signalling over one E1 (better is to take more E1's) And it is bidirectional for signalling, for voice channels it all depends of configurations, but mostly it is bidirectional. Alain Guillaume Maigre wrote in message news:telecom22.123.13@telecom-digest.org: > I'm looking for information about E1 and SS7 configuration and in > particulary I would like to know: > The number of SS7 channel supported on one E1 (up to 32???) > How many USSD messages one SS7 channel can carrier per second, per > hour? > If an SS7 channel is bidirectionnal? ------------------------------ From: SELLCOM Tech support Subject: Re: Problems With Siemens Gigaset 2420 Organization: www.sellcom.com Reply-To: support@sellcom.com Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2002 03:34:20 GMT I have heard from some customers that Siemens is treating some people very well who have had problems with their phones and have their documentation in order. Steve at SELLCOM http://www.sellcom.com Discount multihandset cordless phones by Siemens, Vtech 5.8Ghz EnGenius NEW EP436 4line (the longest range), Panasonic, Twinhead notebooks, WatchGuard firewall, Okidata, Polycom! If you sit at a desk www.ergochair.biz you owe it to yourself. ------------------------------ From: Dave Phelps Subject: Re: Genuity Posts $1.2 Billion Loss in Third Quarter Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2002 00:03:04 -0600 In article , monty@roscom.com says: > WOBURN, Mass., Nov 14 (Reuters) - High-speed communications services > company Genuity Inc. (NASDAQ:GENU), which has said it may be unable to > remain in business if it cannot reorganize its debt, on Thursday > posted a $1.2 billion loss in the third quarter due to charges, and > revenues fell 26 percent. > Genuity's quarterly loss totaled $1.2 billion, or $107.80 a share, > compared with a loss of $300.4 million, or $30.81 a share, a year > ago. The 2002 quarter included a $986.2 million charge to write-down > the value of assets, costs related to job cuts, and other items. > - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=29698204 > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Isn't this our friend and occasional > corresponent Barry Margolis, who contributes here now and then? > Barry, if you are in a position to do so, perhaps you could tell us > how the company got in this predicament. PAT] Pat, Barry Margolin (not Margolis). He's very active in comp.dcom.sys.cisco, where I usually see him. Dave Phelps Phone Masters Ltd. deadspam=tippenring [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Thanks for that correction on his name. I also see him here in comp.dcom.telecom frequently. 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. 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End of TELECOM Digest V22 #133 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Nov 20 02:06:29 2002 Received: from localhost (localhost [[UNIX: localhost]]) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.3nb1/8.11.3) id gAK76TU29343; Wed, 20 Nov 2002 02:06:29 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 02:06:29 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200211200706.gAK76TU29343@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #134 TELECOM Digest Wed, 20 Nov 2002 02:07:00 EST Volume 22 : Issue 134 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Charter Cable Leak: Reporting it (John Higdon) Re: Charter Cable Leak: Reporting it (J Debert) Re: Debit vs. Credit Cards, was Re: Retailers' Suit (Clarence Dold) Re: Definity (Paul A Lee) Re: Cell and LD For Non-Residents (John R. Levine) Avaya Conversant V6/7 to Microsoft SQL Database (Kevck) Re: Calif. Changes Cell Phone Crash Data (J Debert) Re: N11/Payphones/Wireless/PBXes/PAY-per-Call/etc (J Debert) Question About Call Blocking (Laurie Cestnick) Re: What Does it Mean For the Telco to Provide Timing? (FN) Re: Fax on Partner ACS R3.1 System Ring Only For Calls on Line 4? (FN) Hospital Computer Crash a Lesson to the Industry (Monty Solomon) This is Why I Read The Digest - was Re: What Do Auth Centers Do? (jt) Spam Lists (Joey Lindstrom) Last Laugh! Another Business Directory Entry (David B. Horvath) 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: John Higdon Subject: Re: Charter Cable Leak: Reporting it Organization: Green Hills and Cows Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 11:48:26 -0800 In article , j debert wrote: > I just got off the phone with Charter re a possible leak on their > system in Hollister CA. Told them it was heard on air and Public > Safety bands. The call-taker did not want to hear about it unless it > was a "customer with a problem" and almost got away without being told > the location. > How long should one wait before follow-up? A week? Cable leakage is a very serious matter and the FCC very actively enforces the rules in this regard. > On next follow up, if nothing seems to be done, I may mention filing > complaints with FCC and CPUC: the signal interferes with local police > and fire freqs and probably even with LifeFlight and other operations > at the local hospital, which is right next to the apparent leak. Tell them if they don't attend to it TODAY (not tomorrow, not next week), that you will file a complaint with the FCC with full particulars. If there is interference with public service communications, the FCC will come out and shut them down ... no ifs ands or buts. > This leak appears to have started just within the past 6 weeks, and > sounds like intermod on some freqs, but tuning makes the signal sound > better, as does switching from narrow to wide FM. That is unbelievably unacceptable. Even AT&T Broadband, a company which I loathe, will deal with cable leakage within hours. They understand how serious this is. John Higdon | Email Address Valid | SF: +1 415 428-COWS +1 408 264 4115 | Anytown, USA | FAX: +1 408 264 4407 ------------------------------ From: j debert Subject: Re: Charter Cable Leak: Reporting it Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2002 17:24:51 -0800 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Dave Phelps wrote: > Why do you think they are the source of the noise? That must be a heck > of a signal to interfere with so many frequencies. How do you know > your scanner isn't broke? Do you actually see the electrons falling > out of the cable? Two scanners, two receivers, two transceivers, one portable TV, one spectrum anaylser, knowledge of the channel assignments and cable channel frequencies, etc. j d e b e r t < a t > g a r l i c < d o t > c o m ------------------------------ From: dold@23.usenet.us.com Subject: Re: Debit vs. Credit Cards, was: Re: Retailers' Suit Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 01:39:35 UTC Organization: a2i network Steven J. Sobol wrote: > *I* don't typically use my Check Card as a debit card because I get > dinged with ATM charges if I do. > I don't get dinged if I use it as a credit card. And isn't that silly? There are gas stations that will accept ATM or VISA cards, and have a note on the pump that says they charge $.35 for debit cards ... Why would I use my ATM/Visa as an ATM card in that case? Clarence A Dold - dold@email.rahul.net - Hidden Valley (Lake County) CA. ------------------------------ From: Paul A Lee Subject: Re: Definity Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 15:24:32 -0500 fgwing@adimexico.com.mx (CatFinder) wrote (in part): > I have recently started work at a company that uses a Definity PBX > and we want to implement authorization codes but our service > provider tells us that we need to make an upgrade on our system. You will need to have the "Authorization Codes" customer option turned on. Depending on the software release currently on the Definity, turning on that option may be billable, and may require upgrading to a currently supported release. If you feel that your service provider is not accommodating your needs, you might want to try contacting Avaya directly. They may work with you or might refer you to a different dealer or distributor in your region. 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 ------------------------------ Date: 18 Nov 2002 17:12:12 -0500 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: Cell and LD For Non-Residents Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > They want to give the two kids cellphones for use in NA and they want > to provide a means of the children calling their parents (in > Singapore) at decent rates. You don't need an SSN to get a cell phone. I've had service from what was then NYNEX in Boston, Atlantic Cellular in Vermont, and Cingular in upstate NY, and I've never given them an SSN. (They didn't look it up, either -- on my current account whenever I call customer service they say "for identification, can I have the last four digits of your social sec, hey it's not there, how about your mailing address"?) They may ask for a deposit, but cell co's pay above market interest on the deposit for the year until they return it (I got 10% a few years ago), so unless you're really short of cash, it's a great deal. > allied to some form of prepaid international telephone card > which can be charged to an International Credit Card number. Naah, they need only stop into any ethnic grocery store to buy prepaid cards with wonderful international rates, available for cash. Calling home with a Singapore Tel card costs S$0.39/min, or 22 cents/min which isn't awful, but with a prepaid card the rate should be more like six cents. 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: Kevck Subject: Avaya Conversant V6/7 to Microsoft SQL Database Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2002 22:30:03 +0800 Organization: Singapore Telecommunications Ltd Wondering if anyone could help me: How do I set up Avaya conversant V6 / V7 to connect to a remote Microsoft SQL server? Much thanks, K. ------------------------------ From: j debert Subject: Re: Calif. Changes Cell Phone Crash Data Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2002 09:19:58 -0800 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com One aside to this: It is really annoying when mobile 911 operators in CA _DEMAND_ your full attention when on the phone while you're driving and trying to avoid whatever you're calling about and all the other traffic as well. Most operators insist that you do nothing but answer their questions instantly. And some do indeed give lectures on "proper use of 911". I would not be surprised at all to find that such calls contribute significantly to crashes. I recall one newbie call-taker at Golden Gate Center who decided to lecture me on how I should be talking to her while reporting a crash while in heavy rain and traffic, and how I almost got flattened by a semi changing lanes because of her distraction. I heard later that she flunked out because she had a habit of doing that to callers. (I also recall hearing of someone crashing while on the phone to mobile 911. No injuries. Unknown whether the call contributed or was incidental.) But of all that I have talked to, the people at the CHP Monterey Comm Center have rarely been so demanding as others. And if they ever are it is usually due to the amount of incoming calls or because only one operator is handling the entire region's radio and phones. j d e b e r t < a t > g a r l i c < d o t > c o m | just remove extra space... ------------------------------ From: j debert Subject: Re: N11/Payphones/Wireless/PBXes/PAY-per-Call/etc Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2002 09:41:54 -0800 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Wesrock@aol.com wrote: > On Sat, 16 Nov 2002 17:29:46 -0800 John David Galt wrote: >> That's weird. There's no such rule in California; 611 still goes to the >> local telco (usually SBC). On cellular, 611 goes to the cellular carrier. >> This means that when I actually need the home phone line fixed, I wind >> up asking the cellular carrier's 0 operator to connect me with SBC's >> 611. It would be nice if they published a regular number so I could >> dial it from there. Ma Bell, or Pa Bell (I forget which -- it's been too long) had direct numbers in the past, which did not last too long. Had 811-nnnn, a WATS number and a "free" "local" number, which was something like 415-210-nnnn or something like that. These numbers were used for less than a year before reverting to standard 611. Why did Ma Bell switch from 11n numbers to n11 numbers for services? Seems 11n makes more sense and would have allowed n11 to be used for NPA's, etc. j d e b e r t < a t > g a r l i c < d o t > c o m [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I always thought 11x numbers were pretty much a GTE thing; the Bells always tended to go with x11. At least that's the way I remember it. And of course, 011 is the prefix to use on international calls being special billed such as collect or person to person, etc. PAT] ------------------------------ From: laurie cestnick Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2002 15:29:03 -0800 Reply-To: laur@canoemail.com Subject: Question About Blocked Calls Hi there, I found your site online ... searching for information on how to unscramble blocked calls. Is there a way to unscramble blocked calls without the caller having to press some digits to release the number? Where can I find out about this? Cheers, laurie cestnick postdoctoral research fellow, radiology mgh-nmr center, harvard med school building 149, 13th St. charlestown, ma 02129 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: What's the matter, Laurie? Does the Harvard centrex or PBX either send out false ID or no ID at all? *If* the calling telephone supplies a valid ID as its calling number to the place being called, then the call should proceed through in a normal way. If there is no valid ID, and the called party has 'privacy manager service' (or whatever the various telcos call it) then the call will be blocked. That's the intent of the service, to protect the privacy of the called party. You have to enter an agreed upon (with the called party) passcode, or state your name to the automated operator who in turn reads it to the called receiver, or wait for transfer to the called party's voicemail. The way you get around it is by asking the telecom administrator at Harvard to make certain the local PBX/centrex you are using is correctly configured to send out a valid phone number on outgoing calls. The above information also applies if you deliberatly block your ID by doing *67 at the start of your calls. You have to quit doing that, in that case, or offset it with the digits requested at the end. PAT] ------------------------------ From: FN Subject: Re: What Does it Mean For the Telco to Provide Timing? Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2002 22:05:03 GMT Organization: RoadRunner - West You're probably talking about digital T1? Both sides must track X bits per second. You can imagine that if both had separate clocks, one side would eventually be a fraction of a second off from the other and the bits would appear different at send versus receive. So typically a customer sets their equipment into slave clocking where it lets the telco be in charge. This way both sides have identical clock timing and the bits are sent/received properly. R Siffredi wrote in message news:telecom22.132.11@telecom-digest.org: > I am wondering what actually happens when the telco provides > timing versus not providing timing? ------------------------------ From: FN Subject: Re: Fax on Partner ACS R3.1 System Ring Only For Calls on Line 4? Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2002 22:13:39 GMT Organization: RoadRunner - West Well think it through in basic terms. The Partner system only has one "wire" (yes I know it is 1-2 pair) reaching your single extension used by both fax and the system phone. so there is no way to tell the partner to do anything but send a ring to that extension for a given line or not. Now that doesn't mean that the fax couldn't be set to respond differently than your system phone. You can control how each handles the ring separately, but even then I can't think how you would do this for your purpose. Any analog set (in this case, your fax machine) sees any ring as a ring without knowing the line number. I'm a bit skeptical this ever worked but I won't say "never". You could set the system to not ring except for line 4. Your system phone will still see other rings and be able to answer them by directly hitting the button, but your fax won't know anything. That is my best suggestion and try to locate a "ringing" phone nearby so this person could hear when calls are coming in even though their phone only rings when on line 4. Extensions are so cheap that you really should buy another 2x6 module to get more. ebay is a good bet for this. Your setup is rather unusual and really should be fixed properly. Michael Sweeden wrote in message news:telecom22.131.15@telecom-digest.org: > I have a Partner ACS R3.1 system with multiple phone lines. On one > extension I have both a fax machine and a system phone. The phone and > the fax machine both ring on incoming calls. I am told that the system > used to be configured so that the fax machine only rang when a call > came in on line 4 while the system phone on that extension rang on all > incoming calls. I do not know how to do this. I know I can turn off > ringing for the first 3 lines, but that would turn of ringing on the > system phone as well. Line 4 is the last line in the rollover, and has > a different ring when it is dialed directly than when it rings as a > result of rollover. > Can the system be configured so that the fax machine only rings for > calls on line 4 while the system phone on the same extension rings on > all incoming lines, and, if so, then how? Thanks! ------------------------------ Reply-To: monty solomon From: monty solomon Subject: Hospital Computer Crash a Lesson to the Industry Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2002 17:21:12 -0500 By Anne Barnard, Globe Staff, 11/19/2002 Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center's computer system crashed repeatedly over 3 1/2 days last week, periodically blocking access to patient records, prescriptions, laboratory reports, and other information, and forcing the hospital to revert to the paper-based systems of what one executive called "the hospital of the 1970s." Hospital executives said yesterday that patient safety was never jeopardized. But scores of employees worked overtime printing records, double-checking doses, physically running messages from the labs to the wards and back -- even rushing to Staples to buy copier paper on the credit card of Dr. Michael Epstein, the chief operating officer. The crisis, which lasted from Wednesday afternoon into Sunday, took the hospital by surprise. Its electronic network was named the nation's best in health care last year by the magazine Information Week, and its chief information officer, Dr. John Halamka, is an authority on medical computing. As hospitals are urged to convert their record keeping to computers as part of the fight against errors, hospital and public health officials are calling the incident a wake-up call for hospitals across the country, whose computer systems may not be able to keep up with their growing workload. At Beth Israel, the systems handle 40 terabytes of information daily -- or 40 times the information in the Library of Congress. http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/323/metro/Hospital_computer_crash_a_lesson_to_the_industry+.shtml ------------------------------ From: jt Subject: This is Why I Read the Digest - was Re: What Do Auth Centers Do? Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2002 18:23:13 -0500 Organization: WorldCom Canada Ltd. News Reader Service Pat - you are a guy with GREAT stories. Keep 'em coming ... I love that "ee, when I were a lad" stuff > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Remember, for those of you who wish to > read NY Times articles who do not have an account of your own, you can > always use 'telecomdigest' as the user name and password. For next in > this thread, my own experience with authorization centers goes back to > the late 1960's / early 1970's when I worked for the Amoco/Diner's > Club credit card office in Chicago, in what was called the Sales > Authorization area. When I started working there, the office was > entirely manual. No computers at all. [snip] > ... And sure enough, about > three days later here was the cut up card. Accounts Payable cut a > check for fifty dollars to the kid, who was thrilled when he saw it > of course, but Amoco/Diners credit card gave *me* five hundred dollars > and later Al Bloomingdale called me from his office in New York to > say thank you. This is just a memory I had of those days long ago. PAT] [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Thank you for your kind message. What happens it seems is that as you progress in life to the point of being an Olde Farte like myself, you get an accumulation of stories from your younger years. I think since I grew up in the (generally) pre-computer era and then in middle-age passed into the computer era and now in my old age am seeing computers becoming sort of passe, my pre-computer era stories are of interest to some readers, especially the younger ones who haven't the foggiest idea of how we managed to do business, etc without computers, but in the 1950-60's time frame we managed to do without. When I was in high school (1956-60) there was no such things as computers, or hand held calculators. My high school math teacher, Paul Wilkinson taught us the 'hard way' (i.e. using brain power) how to do things like square roots and algebra and geometry. Seventeen years later when I first 'got into' home computers with an OSI-C1P (Ohio Scientific model C-1-P) and learned BASIC I began teaching it and one of my 'pupils' was my old high school math teacher. Since he lived only a couple blocks from my home at the time, I was more than happy to walk over there every day or two and teach him BASIC. (By the way, BASIC = Beginner's All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code.) Does anyone here remember what COBOL and FORTRAN stood for? Anyway, Paul watched the speed with which the OSI would 'crunch numbers' and produce in a half-second what took *him* fifteen minutes to do at a blackboard with chalk and an eraser, and he marveled at how it happened. I remember asking him, "Paul, don't you wish we would have had these machines when I was in class with you? We would have had such a wild time." After 40 years as a high school algebra/geometry teacher, you see, he had retired just a couple years before. If he were alive today (he was *very old* in the late 1970's) I think he would be totally freaked out by more 'modern' computers. He had purchased a Tandy/Radio Shack Model 1 computer after suggestions by younger friends of his. Does anyone remember those, long, long before even Windows version 3? PAT] ------------------------------ From: Joey Lindstrom Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 14:03:14 -0700 Subject: Spam Lists Reply-To: joey@lairdsflooring.com On Mon, 18 Nov 2002 15:04:27 -0500 (EST), editor@telecom-digest.org wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The above is *not* my account. Someone > thought it up and it worked fine. Last week we got John started on his > reading, but anyone is free to use the telecomdigest account if they > want. I do not know what happens to all the spam which goes there. I > do not get it here, or maybe I do. There is so much spam it is hard to > decipher who sends what out these days. And that random registration > generator link above could *possibly* be used not only for my > competitor the NY Times but maybe anytime some web page is after you > to fill in names and passwords, etc. Try it and see. Good luck. Please > do not use that telecomdigest with p/w telecomdigest thing to run > up any e-bills in my name. PAT] If anyone needs a throwaway email address for registering with websites like NYTimes, if it's just to avoid being placed on a spam list, they're free to use this one: spam@garynuman.info I have my spamblocker divert suspected spam there, and I use it when I "register" stuff like RealAudio players and the like. I simply flush the inbox every few days. So, if anyone wants to use it for this purpose, go wild. :-) Joey Lindstrom - Laird's Flooring joey@lairdsflooring.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Why, thank you for this kindness, Joey! Yeah, those Real Audio people go wild with spam mailings don't they? PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 20:57:05 EST From: dhorvath@cobs.com (David B. Horvath, CCP) Subject: Last Laugh! Another Business Directory Entry PAT: feel free to edit this entry. The phone number is a voice mail system: > D O N ¹ T H E S I T A T E on this one or you will miss out on > the most effective way to market anywhere...PERIOD! > O R D E R N O W . . . SAME DAY SERVICE (M-F) if your order > is received before 6pm Eastern. If you have any further questions or to > place an order, you can call us toll free and direct at: > 1-888-800--6339 ext. -1010- > To order, via credit card simply cut/paste and print out the > EZ ORDER FORM below and fax to our office today. > ***** MILLIONS CD - VOLUME 20***** > ***** NOW ONLY $247! ***** > This "Special Price" is in effect for the next seven days, > after that we go back to our regular price of $299.00 ... > Don't delay ... you can be in business tomorrow! - David [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I saw no reason to edit your entry. Let my soldiers here pollute still another voice mail system. Uh guys, don't let your fingers slip when entering that extension 1010 part. I mean if you get any * or # in the dialing string there you never know what will happen. He did say we could be in business tomorrow ... but I am sure he was not referring to monkey business which is the only kind some guys know about. 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 Fax 3: 775-642-0603 Fax 4: 530-309-7234 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 V22 #134 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Nov 20 19:26:49 2002 Received: from localhost (localhost [[UNIX: localhost]]) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.3nb1/8.11.3) id gAL0Qnf11029; Wed, 20 Nov 2002 19:26:49 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 19:26:49 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200211210026.gAL0Qnf11029@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #135 TELECOM Digest Wed, 20 Nov 2002 19:27:00 EST Volume 22 : Issue 135 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: This is Why I Read Digest - was Re: What Auth Centers Do? (R Dover) Re: This is Why I Read Digest - was Re: What Auth Centers Do? (Greenberg) Re: This is Why I Read Digest - was Re: What Auth Centers Do? (H Stein) Re: This is Why I Read Digest - was Re: What Auth Centers Do? (J Adams) Re: This is Why I Read Digest - was Re: What Auth Centers (j debert) Re: This is Why I Read Digest - was Re: What Auth Centers (F Whittington) Re: [telecom] TELECOM Digest V22 #134 (Paul Coxwell) Credit Cards (Charles G Gray) Re: What Do Auth Centers Do? was Re: Debit vs. Credit Cards (L Madison) BASIC/FORTRAN/COBOL (Joey Lindstrom) Programming Languages (John Beaman) 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: Re: This is Why I Read the Digest - was Re: What Do Auth Centers Do? Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 10:14:25 -0600 Organization: Nortel TELECOM Digest Editor asked: > Does anyone here remember what COBOL and FORTRAN stood for Common Business-Oriented Language and FORmula TRANslator. -BD, another Olde Farte ------------------------------ From: richgr@panix.com (Rich Greenberg) Subject: Re: This is Why I Read the Digest - was Re: What Do Auth Centers Do? Date: 20 Nov 2002 11:14:43 -0500 Organization: Organized? Me? > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: > here remember what COBOL and FORTRAN stood for? Anyway, Paul watched COBOL = COmmon Business Oriented Language FORTRAN = FORmula TRANslation Rich Greenberg Work: Rich.Greenberg atsign worldspan.com +1 770-563-6656 N6LRT Marietta, GA, USA Play: richgr atsign panix.com +1 770-321-6507 Eastern time zone. I speak for myself & my dogs only. VM'er since CP-67 Canines:Val(Chinook,CGC,TT), Red & Shasta(Husky,(RIP)) Owner:Chinook-L Atlanta Siberian Husky Rescue. www.panix.com/~richgr/ Asst Owner:Sibernet-L ------------------------------ From: Herb Stein Subject: Re: This is Why I Read the Digest - was Re: What Do Auth Centers Do? Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 09:29:30 -0600 jt wrote in message news:telecom22.134.13@telecom-digest.org: > Pat - you are a guy with GREAT stories. Keep 'em coming ... I love that > "ee, when I were a lad" stuff >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Remember, for those of you who wish to >> read NY Times articles who do not have an account of your own, you can >> always use 'telecomdigest' as the user name and password. For next in >> this thread, my own experience with authorization centers goes back to >> the late 1960's / early 1970's when I worked for the Amoco/Diner's >> Club credit card office in Chicago, in what was called the Sales >> Authorization area. When I started working there, the office was >> entirely manual. No computers at all. > [snip] >> ... And sure enough, about >> three days later here was the cut up card. Accounts Payable cut a >> check for fifty dollars to the kid, who was thrilled when he saw it >> of course, but Amoco/Diners credit card gave *me* five hundred dollars >> and later Al Bloomingdale called me from his office in New York to >> say thank you. This is just a memory I had of those days long ago. PAT] > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Thank you for your kind message. What > happens it seems is that as you progress in life to the point of being > an Olde Farte like myself, you get an accumulation of stories from > your younger years. I think since I grew up in the (generally) > pre-computer era and then in middle-age passed into the computer era > and now in my old age am seeing computers becoming sort of passe, my > pre-computer era stories are of interest to some readers, especially > the younger ones who haven't the foggiest idea of how we managed to do > business, etc without computers, but in the 1950-60's time frame we > managed to do without. > When I was in high school (1956-60) there was no such things as > computers, or hand held calculators. My high school math teacher, Paul > Wilkinson taught us the 'hard way' (i.e. using brain power) how to do > things like square roots and algebra and geometry. Seventeen years > later when I first 'got into' home computers with an OSI-C1P (Ohio > Scientific model C-1-P) and learned BASIC I began teaching it and one > of my 'pupils' was my old high school math teacher. Since he lived > only a couple blocks from my home at the time, I was more than happy > to walk over there every day or two and teach him BASIC. (By the way, > BASIC = Beginner's All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code.) Does anyone > here remember what COBOL and FORTRAN stood for? Anyway, Paul watched COmmon Business Oriented Language and FORmula TRANslation respectively, if memory serves. > the speed with which the OSI would 'crunch numbers' and produce in a > half-second what took *him* fifteen minutes to do at a blackboard with > chalk and an eraser, and he marveled at how it happened. I remember > asking him, "Paul, don't you wish we would have had these machines > when I was in class with you? We would have had such a wild time." > After 40 years as a high school algebra/geometry teacher, you see, he > had retired just a couple years before. If he were alive today (he was > *very old* in the late 1970's) I think he would be totally freaked out > by more 'modern' computers. He had purchased a Tandy/Radio Shack Model > 1 computer after suggestions by younger friends of his. Does anyone > remember those, long, long before even Windows version 3? PAT] Herb Stein The Herb Stein Group www.herbstein.com herb@herbstein.com 314 952-4601 ------------------------------ From: Jack Adams Subject: Re: This is Why I Read the Digest - was Re: What Do Auth Centers Do? Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 11:21:04 -0500 Organization: Lucent Technologies, Indian Hill Being an "Olde Farte" myself having graduated high school in the same year as Pat, allow me to offer what I recall of the COBOL and FORTRAN acronyms: COmmon Business Oriented Language (COBOL) and FORmula TRANslation (FORTRAN). Did I get it right? I'm sure Al Varney, assuming he's lurking about here will also offer some clever bits of historical trivia! ------------------------------ From: j debert Subject: Re: This is Why I Read the Digest - was Re: What Do Auth Centers Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 09:40:10 -0800 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: ... Does anyone > remember those, long, long before even Windows version 3? PAT] O ya! HP65 programmable calculator, CompuCorp 7400 series programmable desktop calculator with the lunar lander program, HP-1000 C/F w/ option 205 and cryptanalysis, HP2000, PDP-8 and "Life", BTI-1000 and login trojans, Control Data 3400(?) and rude noises, TRS-80 model 1, TRS-80 pocket PC model 2, IBM keypunch, Teletype KSR-23, ASR-23, KSR-33, ASR-33, huge stacks of cards and 12-inch rolls of punched tape, dumping tape chaff on unsuspecting people in school, TI Silent-700 terminals, Hazeltine 1500's, Imsai's, Apples, CBM PET & VIC, ZX-80's... Those were fun! And then Windows came along. Made masochists of everyone. j d e b e r t < a t > g a r l i c < d o t > c o m ------------------------------ From: Fritz Whittington Subject: Re: This is Why I Read the Digest - was Re: What Do Auth Centers Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 19:47:17 GMT Organization: AT&T Worldnet jt wrote: > Pat - you are a guy with GREAT stories. Keep 'em coming ... I love > that "ee, when I were a lad" stuff [snip] BASIC = Beginner's > All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code.) Does anyone here remember > what COBOL and FORTRAN stood for? [snip] COmmon Business-Oriented Language FORmula TRANslation ------------------------------ From: PaulCoxwell@aol.com Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 13:43:44 EST Subject: Re: Why I Read Digest > (By the way, BASIC = Beginner's All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code.) > Does anyone here remember what COBOL and FORTRAN stood for? Pat, COBOL = COmmon Business Oriented Language FORTRAN = FORmula TRANslation Many other languages were around back in the 1960s too, such as SNOBOL (StriNg Oriented symBOlic Language) and ALGOL (ALGOrithmic Language). The latter evolved into the now-popular Pascal programming language. ------------------------------ Subject: Credit Cards From: Charles G Gray Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 08:09:10 -0600 Pat, thanks for your ruminations on history - keep it up, lest some of the "younger pups" lose out on your experiences. I was a student at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, OK in 1964-66 when First National Bank of Tulsa started issuing the Bankamericard (later Visa). Since I was in the Army and had a regular income, they sent me one -- I had trouble (not enough income) getting a Texaco card, but the credit card came without any problem. Interestingly, the year I graduated I got six gas company cards in the mail. There were so few merchants that accepted the Bankamericard at first that they used to send a mimeographed (remember those??) list every month with the statement telling us which new merchants in Tulsa had been added. I don't think anybody in Stillwater accepted the cards for several years. Service stations (remember them?) didn't accept the card, since they were making too much money using their own branded cards. When they went international I think (personal opinion) they wanted to get away from the idea that the "Bank of America" was in control of the world, so they probably spent a barrel of money with some image consultant to come up with "Visa". About the same time, Mastercharge (original name) decided that the "charge" part of the name bore negative connotations, so they came up with what we now know and love as Mastercard. However, some things take a long time to die. I was in Venice, Italy last year and saw a lot of the little door/window signs that merchants use that still say "Bankamericard". Best regards. Charles G. Gray Senior Lecturer, Telecommunications Oklahoma State University - Tulsa (918)594-8433 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yes, I remember mimeograph machines! I also remember 'mimeograhed' announcements from the credit card offices to the field. I also remember 'mimeographed' hot lists of stolen or over limit credit cards to be declined. All those things were pre- computers or just in the early days of mainstream computers in offices. People have asked me 'how in the world did you have credit cards before there were computers to process them?' Well, it wasn't easy to be sure and as the sixties came into being, it was becoming painfully obvious to everyone that there had to be some sort of automation lest everything get so confusing. Do you remember how in the early sixties people would brag as they said 'our office is now computerized, and *everything* has to be done perfectly or the computer will kick it out at us?' But they were talking about large mainframe computers; the smaller desktop units would yet be a few years in showing up. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Linc Madison Subject: Re: What Do Auth Centers Do? was Re: Debit vs. Credit Cards Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 03:56:31 -0800 Organization: LincMad.com Consulting Reply-To: Telecom@LincMad.com In article , PAT wrote: [story about getting a young mechanic to return a stolen credit card that was presented for car repairs] I had an experience of a very different sort, about six months ago. My car was broken into, while sitting inside the garage of my apartment building, and one of the items stolen was my checkbook. I filed a police report, even though the police have an EXPLICIT policy of doing absolutely no investigation on small property-only crimes. Then, about 11 a.m. two days later, my phone rang. It was a clerk at a check- cashing service downtown, asking if I had written a check for $183.77 to "Paul J. Hernandez." I told the clerk very clearly, "No, I did not write that check. My checkbook was stolen. Please call 911 immediately." The clerk said she would have to hand me off to her supervisor. I told the supervisor, "The check is stolen. Please call 911 immediately." The supervisor explained that, since welfare checks had just come out that morning (it was the 15th), it might be a while before they could get around to calling 911 to report a crime in progress on their premises, but I was free to call 911 myself if I wanted to. I did indeed call 911 (thankfully having had the presence of mind to ask the name and address of the check-cashing service). The 911 operator was incredulous that the clerk and supervisor had both refused to report the matter, but she had me remain on the line while a police officer walked over from the police station (three blocks away) and apprehended the suspect. (Ironically enough, the police station, the court, and the scene of the crime are all within a mile of one another.) He was prosecuted, convicted, and sent to jail for his trouble. He may already be out again, but at least he got to have a few months of free room and board in lieu of my $183.77 in cash. So anyway, if you ever want to pass a stolen, forged check, I would have to recommend Money Mart at 1101 Market Street in San Francisco. They may verify the check and not give you the money, but they won't lift a finger to throw you in jail. They have three other locations in the immediate vicinity, but the other shops may have different policies. Of course, be sure to go on the 1st or 15th of the month. Just in case you need a little more cash, they also offer loans -- you can probably use the bicycle that Paul Hernandez claims to have sold me as your collateral. www dot LincMad dot com / Telecom at LincMad dot com Linc Madison * San Francisco, California [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: There is/was (I don't remember any longer having not been around there in years) a very large currency exchange called 'Howard Clark' on the corner of the streets by that name in Chicago. Even with *five* cashiers on duty all the time, there was still a long line (out the door and around the corner) on welfare check payday. And on the occassion every two or three months when they had 'doubles' on the same day (for example, welfare payday was once per month on the third day of each month; but if the third happened to also be the first Friday of the month then they also had food stamp card day, thus a 'double' and the lines went out the door and down the street. The gas company and telco also used Howard Clark as their collection agent, and on the three or four times per month that telco or gas cut off service to non-payers that qualified as a triple, if it also happened to be the third of the month and a food stamp day. Then the lines were longer than ever. The cashiers were very bored with their work, but efficient. If you approached a window and sat your money on the window, you got to see the old adage about the hand being quicker than the eye. The clerk would reach over and grab that money faster than you could blink your eyes. Maybe you were still looking for your ID or the slip you had to fill out. All the cashiers wore telephone headsets and since much or most of their job was reporting payments on service that had been cut off as soon as you muttered the word 'gas' or 'phone' as soon as you got the payment coupon out and laid it on the counter, the clerk/ cashier had already pressed a button on their five line headset phone thing, and sat there with a bored look on their face until the line was answered: "Howard Rogers cashier twelve reporting a payment on (phone number). Paid fifty dollars in cash on account. Thanks." Click, and they were off the line. Cashier/clerk would write down the transaction number the other end recited, then use a large rubber stamp to mark the number on your copy of the payment coupon, hand it back to you with out even looking up, saying, "Your phone will be turned back on later today." By the time you picked up your copy of the receipt and started to walk away, the next person was pushing up at the window with her money in hand to do the same thing. Her money disappeared into the cash drawer as fast as yours had. A sign on the wall told about the services offered there, and concluded with a rather ominous message in italics: "If you want to discuss any of our employees with us, call 800-xxx-xxxx. Your call will be anonymous." I guess not all the cashiers were as honest as they would have liked at the main office. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Joey Lindstrom Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 10:34:45 -0700 Subject: BASIC/FORTRAN/COBOL Reply-To: joey@lairdsflooring.com On Wed, 20 Nov 2002 02:06:29 -0500 (EST), editor@telecom-digest.org wrote: > By the way, > BASIC = Beginner's All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code.) Does anyone > here remember what COBOL and FORTRAN stood for? COBOL = Common Business-Oriented Language (or Compiles Only By Odd Luck, or Completely Obsolete Burdensome Old Language) FORTRAN = Formula Translation (or Translator) Joey Lindstrom - Laird's Flooring joey@lairdsflooring.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 09:00:35 -0600 From: "John Beaman" Subject: Programming languages Pat, Interesting story. Coming from a younger generation, I had programming in high school. We used BASIC on Commodore Pets. They were all "networked " together so we could all print to one shared printer, and load/save our files from/to one big honking dual 5 1/4" floppy drive. In addtion to the programming assignments, we had to learn about the different languages available for programming. So: COBOL COmmon Business Oriented Language (We still use it here at work). FORTRAN FORmula TRANslator Pascal Named after the mathematician, Blaise Pascal (I had a hard time giving up line numbers when I switched to Pascal from BASIC. I read somewhere not too long ago that BASIC was still the most widely used language for programming. John Beaman Telecom Specialist Voice Telecommunications Services Department. Good Samaritan National Campus 605-362-3331 ------------------------------ 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 Fax 3: 775-642-0603 Fax 4: 530-309-7234 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 V22 #135 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Nov 20 23:44:37 2002 Received: from localhost (localhost [[UNIX: localhost]]) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.3nb1/8.11.3) id gAL4ibd15180; Wed, 20 Nov 2002 23:44:37 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 23:44:37 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200211210444.gAL4ibd15180@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #136 TELECOM Digest Wed, 20 Nov 2002 23:45:00 EST Volume 22 : Issue 136 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson NetTrends: Movie Studios Look to Online Rentals (Monty Solomon) EchoStar Communications Investor Relations (Monty Solomon) Brits Mull Chipping Sex Offenders (Monty Solomon) Television's Tiniest Stars (Monty Solomon) Verizon Wireless to License HeyAnita Voice Technology (Monty Solomon) SBC Proposes Transition Plan to a Viable Wholesale Model (Monty Solomon) OT: Cell Phone Newsgroup (Gail M. Hall) Link to ICB Toll Free Commentary (Judith Oppenheimer) Re: Definity (Tyler Younger) Re: Spam Lists (Gordon S. Hlavenka) Re: Spam Lists (Steven J. Sobol) Re: Spam Lists (Richard D G Cox) Few Insiders Likely on WorldCom Board (Jack Adams) Re: Cell and LD For Non-Residents (Joseph) Re: N11/Payphones/Wireless/PBXes/PAY-per-Call/etc (Linc Madison) Re: Debit vs. Credit Cards, was Re: Retailers' Suit (Steven J. Sobol) Does a Dog You Know Have Trouble Walking? (Koufax Costell) Re: This is Why I Read the Digest was Re: Auth Centers (Richard D G Cox) 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, 20 Nov 2002 16:56:09 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: NetTrends: Movie Studios Look to Online Rentals By Ben Berkowitz LOS ANGELES, Nov 20 (Reuters) - It's the weekend, there's nothing exciting on television, and you don't feel like making the trip to the video store. What to do? If you have a high-speed Internet connection, a decent computer with a big hard drive and a nice monitor, the answer might be to rent a movie through the PC. The market for mainstream feature films downloaded over the Internet is finally seeing some competition, with the launch of studio-backed Movielink this month as a challenger to three-year-old CinemaNow. But while video rental remains a big business, the comparably priced market for movies-on-demand to PCs is still something of a novelty, analysts said. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=29955011 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 17:00:02 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: EchoStar Communications Investor Relations LITTLETON, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 20, 2002--EchoStar Communications Corporation (NASDAQ: DISH) and National Broadcasting Company, Inc., (NBC) announced today they have settled their dispute over the Satellite Home Viewer Improvement Act and distant network channel transmission. That litigation, pending in Federal court in Florida, will be dismissed between EchoStar and NBC. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 17:35:37 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Brits Mull Chipping Sex Offenders By Julia Scheeres 02:00 AM Nov. 19, 2002 PT The British government acknowledged Monday that it would consider using implanted ID chips to track sex offenders, raising the specter of forced chipping. The news was first reported on Sunday by the The Observer. The paper reprinted portions of a letter from Hilary Benn, the minister responsible for supervising sex offender programs, to Labour MP Andrew Mackinlay. Benn's letter said the British government was interested in the future potential of implants to track offenders' movements by satellite and measure their heart rate and blood pressure "to predict criminal activity." Home Office spokesman Matt Brook on Monday confirmed both the existence of the letter as well as its content. http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,56464,00.html ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 18:05:34 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Television's Tiniest Stars By MICHAEL CIEPLY SAN DIEGO - Questioning Mitchell Wagenberg can be unnerving, not least because he is apt to videotape the encounter through his eyeglasses or through a rivet on his belt. "I might as well just give the ballgame away right now," he said here recently after an hour's conversation, fumbling to reveal a minuscule camera in his shirt button. "Of course, I am completely wired, talking to you. Everything's being recorded." Mr. Wagenberg, known as the "king of the hidden camera" to a tiny elite of news media and law enforcement representatives who regularly employ him, may be a privacy advocate's worst nightmare. He has made a business of turning private moments into very public affairs. Over the last 15 years, his Manhattan company, StreeTVision, has provided equipment and services for undercover investigations by CBS's "60 Minutes" and "48 Hours," NBC's "Dateline," ABC's "20/20," and public television's "Frontline" shows, among others. His handiwork can also be seen on HBO's "Taxicab Confessions" (but not on the network's forthcoming reality series, "Cathouse") and NBC's "Crime & Punishment," a documentary show and "Law & Order" spinoff. Mr. Wagenberg is deliberately a stranger to the millions who have gaped at his work. But his hidden-camera film clips, he said, have helped win Emmy Awards for several programs that relied on his devices, which include an infrared camera, a motion detector and a time-lapse VCR buried inside a water purifier for a "20/20" segment on criminal behavior in nursing homes. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/20/arts/television/20HIDD.html ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 16:51:58 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Verizon Wireless to License HeyAnita Voice Technology for Voice HeyAnita Provides Verizon Wireless with Consumer and Enterprise-Based Software Solutions BEDMINSTER, N.J. and LOS ANGELES, Nov. 20 /PRNewswire/ -- Verizon Wireless has licensed technology from HeyAnita to support Voice Gear, Verizon Wireless' suite of voice-enabled services that include voice-activated dialing, voice browsing and corporate e-mail browsing. The companies have signed a multi-year technology licensing agreement under which HeyAnita will provide Verizon Wireless with software and services to deploy a range of enhanced solutions. http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=29944495 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 16:53:51 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: SBC Proposes Transition Plan to a Viable Wholesale Model WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 20, 2002--To better serve consumers' interests and restore the health of the telecommunications industry, SBC Communications Inc. (NYSE:SBC) has proposed a policy framework to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that helps transition the industry to a sustainable wholesale model for local telephone service. In its proposal to the FCC, SBC outlined its solutions-oriented approach. Highlights of SBC's proposal include: -- Establishing a two-year transitional wholesale offering for serving residential customers that is functionally equivalent to the unbundled network element platform (UNE-P) at a nationwide rate of $26 per month, which does not include profit and certain other relevant costs; -- Offering competitors 12-months in which to transition existing residential UNE-P customers to the new rate; and -- Eliminating the UNE-P requirements for business customers, effective upon the FCC's Triennial Review order date. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=29950601 ------------------------------ From: Gail M. Hall Subject: OT: Cell Phone Newsgroup Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 00:23:13 -0500 Reply-To: gmhall@apk.net On Tue, 19 Nov 2002 17:26:12 -0800, Polar posted to alt.usenet.offline-reader.forte-agent with subject "Re: OT: Cell phone NG": > I spent a long time in Circuit City today with a kind clerk, looking > at cell phones & plans. More confused than ever. > Another local store had said that Verizon has the best reception, > followed by AT&T, then T-Mobile. > I realize this differs widely area to area. For example, Circuit City > clerk said that Sprint does best where I live (WLA & beach area). > Whom to believe??? > T-Mobile does (as of today; things change) offer some 100% rebate > deals on small, new, folding phones that "list" for $200 or so. > So how much credence should I put in the claim for Verizon as best > circuitry, etc. (is that what gives best reception?) > Also: Clerk said that in 2 years or so, all cell phones will be GSM. > ??? > Also said that a phone offering digital and analog is better, because > if signal is poor, phone will switch to analog. T/F? Important? > Sigh. You might want to post your questions to the TELECOM Digest at . It is a moderated mailing list that is gatewayed over to Usenet. So you actually post your questions by sending e-mail to the moderator at instead of the normal way of posting to Usenet. To see the replies, you would subscribe to the newsgroup. If you do a lot of traveling, you will want to get a plan that does not charge for roaming when you are out of your home territory. Good luck finding a good plan for your needs! Gail in Ohio USA [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Actually, the person could read the replies in the newsgroup also. No need to subscribe here unless they wish to do so. In fact, your relaying of the basic question here may start a discussion on the topic 'Which cell carrier is best overall when considered on national basis?' Also there was a comment by the store clerk about all cell phones going to GSM and when the digital signal is bad, the phone switching to analog. Let's see if we can get some answers together for this potential new subscriber. PAT] ------------------------------ Reply-To: From: Judith Oppenheimer Subject: Link to ICB Toll Free Commentary Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 00:48:40 -0500 Organization: ICB Inc. WIRELINE COMPETITION BUREAU SEEKS COMMENT ON AT&T'S PETITION FOR DECLARATORY RULING THAT AT&T'S PHONE-TO-PHONE IP TELEPHONY SERVICES ARE EXEMPT FROM ACCESS CHARGES Comments Due: December 18, 2002 Reply Comments Due: January 7, 2003 This isn't the official release - you've already received that. This is time-sensitive commentary, of particular importance to the toll free industry. http://www.icbtollfree.com/article_free.cfm?articleId=5810 Judith Oppenheimer http://JudithOppenheimer.com http://ICBTollFreeNews.com http://WhoSells800.com 212 684-7210, 1 800 The Expert ------------------------------ From: fark@comcast.net (Tyler Younger) Subject: Re: Definity Date: 19 Nov 2002 22:22:47 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ fgwing@adimexico.com.mx (CatFinder) wrote in message news:: > Hi, > I have recently started work at a company that uses a definity PBX and > we want to implement authorization codes but our servicce providor > tells us that we need to make an upgrade on our system. I kow nothing > about the Definity system so I;m not sure if this is correct or not, > Can someone help?? > Thanks. > John W. You might have more luck at www.tek-tips.com they have a Definity forum. Peace, Tyler ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 03:02:36 -0600 From: Gordon S. Hlavenka Organization: Crash Electronics, Inc. Subject: Re: Spam Lists Joey Lindstrom wrote: > If anyone needs a throwaway email address ... they're free to use > this one: spam@garynuman.info > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Why, thank you for this kindness, > Joey! Yeah, those Real Audio people go wild with spam mailings > don't they? PAT] Other data-gatherers may differ, but I've always entered "x@x.x" for Real Player and it always accepts it. Feel free to send spam to that address :-) For places with more rigorous error-checking, I created the screen name "ignoreallemail@aol.com". It's a real account, but I never read any of the mail in that inbox. AOL probably flushes it for me periodically when it passes some threshold. I wouldn't know. Gordon S. Hlavenka O- nospam@crashelex.com Burma! ------------------------------ From: sjsobol@JustThe.net (Steven J. Sobol) Subject: Re: Spam Lists Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 13:23:04 -0000 Organization: JustThe.net LLC 'Joey Lindstrom' wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Why, thank you for this kindness, Joey! > Yeah, those Real Audio people go wild with spam mailings don't they? > PAT] Google News.admin.net-abuse.email for stuff from me from mid-1998 about Real. Steve Sobol, CTO JustThe.net LLC, Mentor On The Lake, OH http://JustTheNetLLC.com/ (check out the new site!) 888.480.4NET (4638) A practicing member of the Geek Orthodox religion! ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2002 00:35:53 GMT From: Richard D G Cox Subject: Re: Spam Lists Reply-To: nospam@numbering.com Organization: Mandarin Technology Limited On Wed, Mon, 18 Nov 2002 07:06 (UT), Joey Lindstrom wrote: > If anyone needs a throwaway email address for registering with websites > like NYTimes, if it's just to avoid being placed on a spam list, they're > free to use this one: spam@garynuman.info By using addresses like , (etc) not only can you avoid being put on a spam list, but any mail that is sent to those addresses invokes an automatic response about users' rights to privacy. Neat! Richard [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: And thank you for that contribution to the list of addresses someone like John can use to protect his own privacy when reading the NY Times. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Jack Adams Subject: Few Insiders Likely on WorldCom Board Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 10:38:22 -0500 Organization: Lucent Technologies, Indian Hill Good luck Michael (Capellas) trying to straighten out WorldCom. Christopher Stern (Washington Post) has an article worth the read. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12361-2002Nov19.html ------------------------------ From: Joseph Subject: Re: Cell and LD For Non-Residents Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 07:50:50 -0800 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Reply-To: joeofseattle@yahoo.com On 18 Nov 2002 17:12:12 -0500, johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) wrote: > Calling home with a Singapore Tel card costs S$0.39/min, or 22 > cents/min which isn't awful, but with a prepaid card the rate should > be more like six cents. You have to be cautious though with those pre-paid calling cards that you see advertised in convenience stores and the like. Many have minuscule fine print "gotchas" such as per call connection fee, monthly "maintenance" fees, time constraints, etc. Be sure to read the fine print and find out why the rate seems to be so good. Often there are extra charges thrown in and ultimately they'll affect what you paid for the card and the service. Replies are seldom read. Please reply in the group ------------------------------ From: Linc Madison Subject: Re: N11/Payphones/Wireless/PBXes/PAY-per-Call/etc Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 02:41:58 -0800 Organization: LincMad.com Consulting Reply-To: Telecom@LincMad.com In article , John David Galt wrote: > It would be nice if [SBC Pacific Bell] published a regular number so > I could dial [611 repair service] from [a cellphone]. You mean, something like 1-800-310-2355 (during business hours) or 1-800-241-3000 (after hours)? Gee, it would be so nice if it were right there in the phone book, on the page that says "How to Reach Us." (Well, yes, you do have to ignore the fact that it says "Repair Service: 611" and understand that you can get there from "Customer Service." Likewise, from a Pacific Bell line, you can reach customer service by dialing 611. You just get a slightly different first menu.) You can also go on the web to (apparently the "02" *is* required), which you can also get to by clicking on the "repair" button on the main page , but in any case that only allows you to check on the status of a problem you've already reported. They also list specific 800 numbers if you prefer to do your business with them in Spanish, Tagalog, Korean, Vietnamese, Chinese, or Japanese. > It would also be nice if I could reach SBC's repair service, or > customer service for that matter, without having to wade through > their voicemail menu system and/or wait an unacceptable length of > time on hold. I sure wish there were a CLEC in this area so that I > could avoid that "feature". Well, that's another matter entirely ... Of course, I wouldn't necessarily count on the CLEC's being quicker to respond. Maybe, maybe not. Still, I keep watching the RCN trucks roll by, wondering when my block will be wired for cable TV, internet, and telephone service, all in one spiffy bundle, without Pacific Bell, without AT&T Broadband (soon to be Comcast) ... www dot LincMad dot com / Telecom at LincMad dot com Linc Madison * San Francisco, California [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I dunno if I told you this one or not, but about six years ago or so, when I was still living semi-happily in Chicago, IL, I used 611 from my home phone one day to call in some problem, long since forgotten about. Anyway, maybe 30-35 minutes later, I got a call back from some female repair clerk in the local office. I was not at home at the minute, but did see it on my caller-ID box when I came back. Just the number, no names or anything, because they had not yet started four line ID including names, etc. It was a regular seven-digit number, so I called it back; what a surprise I got when the lady answered 'Ameritech Repair, may I help you?' I told her my story again; she did something then and corrected the problem (whatever it was). We disconnected and in about five minutes a call came in from a supervisor in the repair bureau, another lady, and she really reamed me out good, telling me to never again call repair service on the seven digit number I had used. 'That number is at a certain repair clerk's position; the ONLY number you as a customer are to use is 611.' I let her rant and rave on and on, then finally when I had heard enough I told her all I had done was return a call that was on my caller-ID! 'Oh ...' she said, obviously sort of embarassed, but never any apology for telling me off earlier. If you ever want to meet a bunch of people in a profession who have no idea at all what they are doing or talking about, look no further than most employees in the telephone company. Its like SWB and their bogus 'privacy manager' service. They have no idea what they are telling people when they explain how it works and its limitations, etc. PAT] ------------------------------ From: sjsobol@JustThe.net (Steven J. Sobol) Subject: Re: Debit vs. Credit Cards, was: Re: Retailers' Suit Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 13:21:19 -0000 Organization: JustThe.net LLC dold@23.usenet.us.com wrote: > Steven J. Sobol wrote: >> *I* don't typically use my Check Card as a debit card because I get >> dinged with ATM charges if I do. >> I don't get dinged if I use it as a credit card. > And isn't that silly? There are gas stations that will accept ATM or VISA > cards, and have a note on the pump that says they charge $.35 for debit > cards ... Following the banks' lead, of course. "Oh, you're not a customer of First National Megacorp? Fork over $2." > Why would I use my ATM/Visa as an ATM card in that case? EXACTLY my point! :) Steve Sobol, CTO JustThe.net LLC, Mentor On The Lake, OH http://JustTheNetLLC.com/ (check out the new site!) 888.480.4NET (4638) A practicing member of the Geek Orthodox religion! ------------------------------ From: Koufax Costell Subject: Does a Dog You Know Have Trouble Walking? Date: 18 Nov 2002 16:33:44 -0800 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This is NOT a telecom-related message at all. I am using my editor's privilege to print it, because I do have much concern about the quality of life that our little buddies have in their lives. I am also mindful of the fact that this may be spam, but its not the first time I wound up taking it in the keister here in the telecom newsgroup with spam slipping past. If this is spam, then god bless the writer. PAT] Hello: I recently ran across your email address when I was doing a search for "dog-walkers" and "dog-related" businesses on the Internet. Our company, Bottom's Up Leash, manufactures a fantastic new dog leash which was designed for dogs with rear-end problems such as arthritis, hip dysplasia, or broken bones. This leash can improve the quality of life for dogs or cats with these sort of problems. Since you are a pet lover like we are, I thought you might know of a dog that could benefit from using this leash. We sell our leashes for $24.95 (plus shipping & handling). My dog "Watson" lived to be 17 years old with arthritis and was still able to walk with the help of the leash. Good luck and best of health to you and to your pet. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me, or you can visit our website at http://www.BottomsUpleash.com. Sincerely, For more information please contact us at: Contact: Koufax Costell Email: koufax@BottomsUpLeash.com Website: http://www.BottomsUpLeash.com "A new "leash on life" for your dog or cat." ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2002 00:32:19 GMT From: Richard D G Cox Subject: Re: This is Why I Read the Digest - was Re: What Do Auth Centers Do? Reply-To: nospam@numbering.com Organization: Mandarin Technology Limited On Wed, 20 Nov 2002 02:06:29 -0500 (EST), editor@telecom-digest.org wrote: > (By the way, BASIC = Beginner's All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code.) > Does anyone here remember what COBOL and FORTRAN stood for? COmmon Business Oriented Language and FORmula TRANslator > Does anyone remember those, long, long before even Windows version 3? Not only do I remember them, I also remember how low the hourly rate was that I got for programming them! Richard [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Salaries in those days were actually pretty good compared to now. My very first employment, as a sixteen year old, junior in high school was working for the Univrsity of Chicago as a phone operator, as many of you know. My salary was the grand total of $1.25 (yes, a dollar twenty five cents) per hour, and that was considered very good for a teenager. It was a few cents above federal minimum wage, which I think was $1.10 per hour in those days. Of course, a ride on the hicago ransit rocity was five cents and you got a free transfer to another bus or train at a transfer point. A ride on the South Shore Electric Train to my grandparent's home in Whiting, IN cost 85 cents each way. Grandmother told me 'how lucky' grandfather was to have employment for Mr. Rockefeller (grandpa was an assistant superintendent at the Whiting Refinery) since JDR paid him (when he started working there in the 1940's) $35 per week, and she brought home all the bags of groceries she could carry from the Loblaw's store (predecessor to Jewel/Safeway) for five dollars per week. 'And I always thought you were lucky to get a job at his University there in Chicago also'. In 1961, a year out of high school I left UC under unhappy circumstances and spent 3-4 months cooling my heels trying my luck at being a writer without much success. I did sell some crossword puzzles and stories to the Christian Science Monitor and what they paid me kept me in beer and cigarette money but not much else. By the way, in those days, cigarettes cost 50 cents per package in a machine, around 45 cents a pack in a drug store. Finally I decided to try and get back on my family's pork barrel, JD Rockefeller, and got a job at his Standard Oil Company also in Chicago in the accounting department at the credit card office. They paid me four hundred dollars per month to start as a 'junior accounting clerk'. That eventually got up to about seven hundred per month, and I thought I was quite wealthy. I even took weekend shopping trips to New York City a few times. When Standard Oil changed over to Amoco (they bought the American Oil Company then changed its name to Standard Oil Division of Amoco and changed their name to Amoco) they put me in the sales authorization unit but at no increase in pay.) It wasn't that the pay was so rotten in those days, it is that the cost of living *now* is totally out of control. 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 Fax 3: 775-642-0603 Fax 4: 530-309-7234 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 V22 #136 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Nov 21 00:30:25 2002 Received: from localhost (localhost [[UNIX: localhost]]) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.3nb1/8.11.3) id gAL5UPw16427; Thu, 21 Nov 2002 00:30:25 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2002 00:30:25 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200211210530.gAL5UPw16427@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #137 TELECOM Digest Thu, 21 Nov 2002 00:31:00 EST Volume 22 : Issue 137 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson N11 vs. 11X for Service Codes (Mark J Cuccia) 011+ vs. 01+ (Mark J Cuccia) Re: N11/Payphones/Wireless/PBXes/PAY-per-Call/etc (Richard D G Cox) Millions Vulnerable to Microsoft Web Flaw (Monty Solomon) Jumping From Satellite to Cellular and Back (Monty Solomon) Copyright Law Gets a Second Look (Monty Solomon) Bettor Pleads Guilty to Scam (Monty Solomon) Microsoft Spills Customer Data (Monty Solomon) Big Retailers Squeeze FatWallet (Monty Solomon) Mobile Alliance Sets Rules For Key Applications (Monty Solomon) FCC Seen Tweaking Universal Service Contributions (Monty Solomon) Re: Charter Leaks (Neal McLain) Re: Spring Forward, Fall Back (Carl Moore) Re: ECLong Distance and Calling 1-800 Numbers (Ian) Old Farts (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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 10:05:53 CST From: Mark J Cuccia Subject: N11 vs. 11X for Service Codes jdebert@garlic.com wrote: > Why did Ma Bell switch from 11n numbers to n11 numbers for services? > Seems 11n makes more sense and would have allowed n11 to be used for > NPA's, etc. with Pat adding: > I always thought 11x numbers were pretty much a GTE thing; the Bells > always tended to go with x11. At least that's the way I remember it. > And of course, 011 is the prefix to use on international calls being > special billed such as collect or person to person, etc. When dial service started becoming more commonplace during the 1920's (actually, Step-by-Step Dial service was started by the (at the time) COMPETITIVE independent NON-connected-with-Bell telcos in the late 1890s and early 1900s) ... it was the Panel (and later #1XB) cities that used the N11 format for Service Codes. Step (SXS) cities tended to use 11X service codes. Panel/#1XB equipment was only used in the US and by _BELL_ ... although some "rotary" equipment by what became ITT (which tookover some of AT&T's non-US non-Canadian ventures in the early 1920s) was similar in many ways to WECO Panel switching. "Rotary" was eventually used in some non-Bell (independent) cities/ towns in the US. The 11X codes used in most all SXS areas were used whether it was Bell or non-Bell. Since GTE (and most independent telco) historically were Step, that's why many would associate 11X codes with GTE. In the early 1960's, it was decided to migrate from 11X to N11 codes (or even seven/ten-digit numbers) for special customer services wherever 11X codes were used. However, I do agree that 11X codes would have been better ... Bell/Telco (IMO) SHOULD have migrated in the opposite direction as JDebert suggests! BUT ... apparently AT&T-HQ in New York City and Bell Labs HQ in northern Jersey (all using Panel/#1XB) felt that the "big-city" use of N11 was somehow "superior" to small-town (SXS) use of 11X codes ... Panel/#1XB (and later #5XB) areas _DID_ use some '11' format codes for certain applications in the 1950's era. In New York City and northeastern Jersey, it was possible to dial back-and-forth, by dialing '11' followed by the 2L-5N seven "digit" telephone number. It was NOT possible to dial "just" seven-digits (2L-5N) between the two BECAUSE THERE WERE NNX c.o.code (name/letters+digit) DUPLICATIONS between 212 and 201 (CONTRARY to what SOME claim). Since both northeastern NJ and NY City were Panel/#1XB, there wouldn't have been any "need" for an "access code" to route to a tandem switch ... the registers/etc. in the "common control" could have handled translations for adjacent NPAs on a "straight" seven-d (2L-5N) basis _IF_ the NNX c.o.codes (names/letters/digits) HAD been "protected", but code-protection was NOT fully possible throughout the entire NY City Metro area! (Remember this is NEW YORK CITY METRO, which includes Westchester, Nassau/Long Island, as well as northeastern NJ, in addition to the five boroughs!) Some #5XB areas (during the 1960's/70's) wouldn't "break" dialtone on an initial dialing of '1' (or switch-hook tap or dialpulse). But there were some Panel/#1XB/#5XB areas did make use of '11+' or '11X' codes, as late as the 1960's or even 70's. As I mentioned, I think it WOULD have been better to migrate from N11 to 11X. Thus N11 codes could be used as NPA (Area) codes for special purposes as well as c.o.codes on the seven-digit portion of a number. And 11X could have been "expanded" to 11XX or 11XXX. Today, 11-XX is an "alternative" way of using '*XX' (star-x-x) Vertical Service Codes in the NANP, especially when used from pulse-dial phones! IMO, it WOULD have been better to have _ALL_ forms for customer-dialable special service codes for telco or government functions as 11-XXX, including Information/Directory, Repair, Emergencies, Travel/Traffic Info (landline and cellular), Ring-Back, ANAC, Test tones, Call-Forwarding, Call-Block List Set-up, Supress number on Caller-ID, Programming Speed-Dial, _USE_ of Speed-Dial calling, etc! A standardized 11-XXX format for _ALL_ formats would have allowed ONE THOUSAND POSSIBLE combinations/uses! ... with N11 being used for "special area codes" on a ten-digit basis, as well as regular (or special) c.o.codes on a seven-digit basis. But hindsight is better than foresight. BTW, the proper (current) abbreviations for such codes are 11X and N11. 11X would include 112 thru 119 as well as 110 but NOT 111, as 111 in a SXS and Crossbar environment years ago would be "undefined, with the 'additional' one-s repeatedly being 'absorbed' or 'ignored'). N11 codes are _ONLY_ the codes 211, 311, 411, 511, 611, 711, 811, 911. The 011+ code is NOT considered part of the N11 format (and 'X11' is NOT proper terminology in most NANP/telco numbering applications), despite the fact that it is a three-digit code ending in 'one-one'. Rather, 011+ is an ACCESS PREFIX, along the lines of 01+, 1+, 0+, as well as 0- and 00 for the (live?) operator, 101+xxxx+ for per-call carrier selection, 11-XX as an alternate way to dial vertical service application codes, etc. Mark J. Cuccia [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: That was an *excellent* article, and the way I wish all articles here in the Digest could be presented. Thank you very much, Mark! PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 10:20:18 CST From: Mark J Cuccia Subject: 011+ vs. 01+ Pat replied: > 011 is the prefix to use on international calls being special billed > such as collect or person to person, etc. No, 011+ is the IDDD prefix from the NANP for _sent-paid_ calling. 01+ is the IDDD prefix from the NANP for special billed calling. There are no country codes beginning with '0', so (presently) 010 is "undefined" in the NANP. And since 01(1)+ dialing can _NOT_ alternatively be used for inTRA-NANP calling, there is (supposedly) no conflict. One "attempting" to make a special billed call within the NANP as 01+ cc-1+ nxx-nxx-xxxx would actually be dialing some (non-NANP) COUNTRY code N(X(X)) as a SENT-PAID 011+ call! I don't know of _ANY_ telco or IXC in the NANP that allows sent-paid intra-NANP calling as 011+ cc-1+ ten-digits. _BUT_ as has been discussed here numerous times previously, _IF_ AT&T had decided on 010+ as the special-billing IDDD access prefix, then there would be _NO_ conflicts or ambiguities! In-TRA-NANP calling _COULD_ alternatively be dialed as 011+1+ten-digits for sent-paid, and 010+1+ten-digits for special-billing. Again, hindsight is better than foresight. At the time (1960s/70s), Bell thought that MAYBE 010 (by itself) would be used to reach an international gateway operator, or MAYBE a (local) TSPS operator and flagging the calling party as requesting "international assistance". From SOME central offices in the 1970s/80s, 010 _DID_ route to the (local) TSPS/TOPS/OSPS Bell/AT&T Operator as a '0-' type of call requesting "international assistance". However, some of the top "movers and shakers" at AT&T in the 1970's didn't even want to consider 010+ for IDDD special billing, yet their desired 010 for assistance could easily be dialed as 010(pound) or 010-delay-to-timeout in the same manner that the single '0' and then 'pound' or do NOTHING eventually routes to the local telco operator instead of 0+ calling. Mark J. Cuccia ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2002 00:45:47 GMT From: Richard D G Cox Subject: Re: N11/Payphones/Wireless/PBXes/PAY-per-Call/etc Reply-To: nospam@numbering.com Organization: Mandarin Technology Limited On Wed, 20 Nov 2002 07:06 (UT), editor@telecom-digest.org wrote: > And of course, 011 is the prefix to use on international calls being > special billed such as collect or person to person, etc. PAT] That's not correct -- 01 is the prefix to use for those calls (in the USA). 011 is for direct-dial bill-to-calling-line calls. I know it sounds more logical to have done it the other way, but for some reason they didn't! Richard ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 20:19:34 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Millions Vulnerable to Microsoft Web Flaw By Robert Lemos Staff Writer, CNET News.com November 20, 2002, 11:26 AM PT A software bug in a common component of Microsoft Web servers and Internet Explorer could leave millions of servers and home PCs open to attack, security researchers said Wednesday. The vulnerability, found by security company Foundstone and confirmed by Microsoft, could allow an Internet attacker to take over a Web server, spread an e-mail virus or create a fast-spreading network worm. http://news.com.com/2100-1001-966575.html ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 20:25:36 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Jumping From Satellite to Cellular and Back By Ben Charny Staff Writer, CNET News.com November 20, 2002, 1:41 PM PT A quick new wireless data service combines the worldwide reach of satellite networks with a cellular setup's ability to steer signals through the architectural canyons of big cities. London-based Inmarsat's Regional BGAN service, announced Tuesday, is the second to merge satellite and cellular phone networks. Globalstar Telecommunications has been selling hybrid cellular-satellite phones and services for some time. But Inmarsat's service can deliver data at 176kbps, about twice as fast as Globalstar's, according to both companies. Unlike Globalstar's service, however, Inmarsat's modem-based Regional BGAN is limited to data-specific tasks such as Web surfing and getting behind a corporate firewall; it does not handle voice calls. The Inmarsat offering consists of a satellite modem that can be used with laptops or PCs. When subscribers want to jump from the satellite network to a cellular setup, they simply remove the subscriber identity module card from their cell phone and plug it into the modem. Thumbnail-size SIM cards are inside all cell phones based on the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) standard. The cards carry the account information needed to log onto a GSM carrier's network. Cellular and satellite phone companies are mixing networks to strengthen each other's coverage areas. Satellite phones work virtually anywhere in the world, but the concrete and steel caverns of cities tend to muddle the satellite phone signal. Cellular telephone networks are at their strongest in urban areas. http://news.com.com/2100-1033-966615.html ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 20:27:07 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Copyright Law Gets a Second Look By Declan McCullagh Staff Writer, CNET News.com November 20, 2002, 6:13 AM PT Foes of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act have a second chance to tweak a section of the controversial law. On Tuesday, the U.S. Copyright Office began accepting comments from the public on the law's "anticircumvention" section, which limits people's ability to bypass copy-protection mechanisms. Comments are due by Dec. 18. When enacting the DMCA in 1998, Congress ordered the Copyright Office to conduct regular reviews of one portion of the law. The Librarian of Congress, who oversees the Copyright Office, may exempt specific groups from being covered by part of the DMCA. In October 2000, two exemptions were set: Filtering researchers could study blacklisting techniques, and obsolete copy-protection schemes could be legally bypassed. Those exemptions expire in October 2003. http://news.com.com/2100-1023-966525.html ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 20:31:12 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Bettor Pleads Guilty to Scam By Associated Press 08:52 AM Nov. 20, 2002 PT WHITE PLAINS, New York -- One of three men charged with manipulating computerized bets worth $3 million in last month's Breeders' Cup pleaded guilty Wednesday to wire fraud conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy. Chris Harn of Newark, Delaware, implicated two co-defendant college buddies in saying he had "placed a bet and later modified it so it would win." By manipulating the wager so that a friend picked the winners of six straight races, the 29-year-old computer programmer admitted assuring the huge payoff. Harn was fired Oct. 30 from Autotote, the company that processed the computerized bets on the Breeders' Cup and other races. As part of the plea, Harn also acknowledged manipulating bets that won more than $100,000 on earlier races that served as a "dry run" for the Breeders' Cup bet, and admitted working another scam where he created duplicates of uncashed winning tickets and collected the cash. http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,56498,00.html ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 20:33:09 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Microsoft Spills Customer Data By Brian McWilliams 02:00 AM Nov. 20, 2002 PT Microsoft took a public file server offline Tuesday after Internet users discovered that the system contained scores of internal Microsoft documents, including a huge customer database with millions of entries. The file transfer protocol server ordinarily enables Microsoft customers to download drivers, software patches and other files, as well as to upload files to the company's PSS Security Response Team. But an apparent configuration error, along with what experts say was an ineffective internal security policy, enabled the public to have full access to folders containing confidential company presentations, spreadsheets, internal reports and other company information. Among the files accessible to any Internet user was a 1 GB database containing millions of names and mailing addresses. The data was kept in a compressed archive named dmail_11_04_02.zip. The file, which was protected with the password "dbms," was easily opened with freely available password-cracking software. Although the FTP server was intended for use by Microsoft's product support organization, marketing staff appeared to be using the server, unaware that it was accessible from the Internet, said Russ Cooper, "surgeon general" at security services provider TruSecure. http://www.wired.com/news/infostructure/0,1377,56481,00.html ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 20:36:25 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Big Retailers Squeeze FatWallet By Brian McWilliams 01:00 PM Nov. 20, 2002 PT Can the unpublished discount price of a DVD player for next week's big sale at Wal-Mart be copyrighted? That's the question at the heart of a legal dispute involving several big retailers and FatWallet, a popular website that caters to bargain shoppers. After receiving legal threats from Best Buy, Staples, Target and Wal-Mart, FatWallet removed several user postings in its Hot Deals section. Scooping sales circulars by several days, the postings, apparently from site users who had access to proprietary sales information, included lists of products, along with reduced prices, that will go on sale Nov. 29 -- the day known as "Black Friday" for U.S. retailers because it kicks off the holiday buying season. According to FatWallet owner Tim Storm, the retailers all cited the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act as the legal basis for serving FatWallet with "takedown" notices. http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,56504,00.html ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 00:50:52 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Mobile Alliance Sets Rules For Key Applications AMSTERDAM, Nov 20 (Reuters) - The Open Mobile Alliance, a standards group for the mobile phone and wireless computing industry, said on Wednesday it had set rules for key applications that should boost sales of wireless data services. The alliance, OMA for short, was created in June when nearly 200 telecoms operators and hardware and software companies joined forces to create a global organisation to agree on common, open standards for the wireless world. The alliance nailed down standards for applications such as Internet browsing, picture messaging, video downloads and email alerts. Mobile devices that support these standards should be able to access services or communicate with devices that support the same standards. The member companies will no longer compete with the basic technology, but instead with design and unique services and content. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=29922535 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 00:52:06 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: FCC Seen Tweaking Universal Service Contributions - Nov 19, 2002 07:01 PM (Reuters) WASHINGTON, Nov 19 (Reuters) - The Federal Communications Commission will soon move to rebalance the amount of money telephone companies pay to provide Internet access to schools and libraries, as well as subsidizing phone service for rural areas and low-income families, a commissioner said on Tuesday. Telephone carriers like AT&T Corp. (NYSE:T) have complained their contributions into the $5.5 billion Universal Service Fund were based on a percentage of their long-distance revenues from the previous six month period, which have been dwindling, and have pushed for a per-connection or per-phone number fee. Another complaint was that others were underpaying, like wireless carriers who are winning long-distance customers with promises of buckets of minutes for any-distance calls but pay into the fund up to 15 percent of revenue, which the industry admits is below the actual revenue from long-distance calls. And local telephone companies are quickly entering the long-distance market, but their past long-distance sales have been slim so their contributions to the fund have been small. The FCC was poised last month to approve shifting to a line connection assessment, but last minute concerns about what connections counted -- including for high-speed Internet access -- stymied the effort. In the meantime, the FCC will likely opt for changing the formula of who pays what into the fund and look further into whether a fee for each connection or phone number would work, said FCC Commissioner Kevin Martin. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=29920800 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 11:27:32 -0600 From: Neal McLain Reply-To: nmclain@annsgarden.com Organization: Ann's Garden Subject: Re: Charter Leaks j debert wrote: > I just got off the phone with Charter re a possible leak on their > system in Hollister CA. Told them it was heard on air and Public > Safety bands. The call-taker did not want to hear about it unless it > was a "customer with a problem" and almost got away without being > told the location ... Whereupon John Higdon wrote: > Cable leakage is a very serious matter and the FCC very actively > enforces the rules in this regard. True. > Tell them if they don't attend to it TODAY (not tomorrow, not next > week), that you will file a complaint with the FCC with full > particulars. If there is interference with public service > communications, the FCC will come out and shut them down ... no ifs > ands or buts. The FCC won't "come out and shut them down," but it will definitely take action. The FCC requires that each cable system submit an annual report called Form 320 "Basic Signal Leakage Performance Report." This report specifies the system's leakage performance, reduced to a single number, based on tests conducted either by an airspace flyover or by ground-based measurements. This report also requires the names and telephone numbers of three persons: - Cable System Owner (the legal corporate name; in Charter's case, it would be the corporate office). - Person(s) responsible for report (the person who actually filled out Form 320). - Person(s) responsible for test (the person who actually conducted the measurements on which that "single number" was based). If the FCC gets a signal-leakage report, their first action is to call one or more of those three telephone numbers. They will advise the system of the complaint, and request that the system submit a written report of the situation after the leak has been fixed. If it's the system's first offense, and if the written report is filed on a timely basis, that's usually the end of it. Repeated offenses by the same system will, of course, result in more serious actions up to and including cease-and-desist orders and/or fines. A cease-and-desist order would apply only to the offending signals, rather than to the entire system. Form 320 can be seen at http://www.fcc.gov/mb/engineering/320e.pdf Neal McLain nmclain@annsgarden.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 14:15:43 EST From: Carl Moore Subject: Re: Spring Forward, Fall Back In late September, Wlevant@aol.com wrote: > You're showing your age. Daylight time now runs from the FIRST > weekend in April to the LAST weekend in October. > It used to run from the LAST weekend of April to the FIRST weekend of > October, but changed to the present scheme in 1986. When did DST end the FIRST weekend of October? Other than the extended use of DST in 1974, I remember it running from LAST Sunday of April to LAST Sunday of October, then having LAST replaced by FIRST w/r to April. ------------------------------ From: ian@jardine.net (Ian) Subject: Re: ECLong Distance and Calling 1-800 Numbers Date: 20 Nov 2002 19:07:42 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Some great suggestions and gorillamobile looks such an elegant solution rather than trying to save another 1 cent on a prepaid calling card ... Pat: Yes I trust these people. And yes, I could open up yet another set of mobile phones under my name (got around four in the family already) and that would be another alternative. However the idea is that the kids go on to college, etc and it would be easier to set themselves up separately from the beginning. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 22:33:58 -0500 (EST) From: dhorvath@cobs.com (David B. Horvath, CCP) Subject: Old Farts PAT wrote: > Does anyone here remember what COBOL and FORTRAN stood for? FORTRAN= FORmulat TRANslation (designed for engineers) COBOL=COmmon Business Oriented Language (designed for use in business with the intention that even non-technical managers could read the programs) I graduated from high school in 1980. Ours was a technologically advanced school -- we had a 1972 vintage IBM 1130 (the first desk *sized* computer). I took my first programming the summer after 8th grade that included FORTRAN, BASIC, and Assembler language programming. David B. Horvath, CCP Consultant, Author, International Lecturer, Adjunct Professor Board Member: ICCP Educational Foundation, ICCP Test Council, and Philadelphia Association of Systems Administrators ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. 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End of TELECOM Digest V22 #137 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Nov 22 00:39:26 2002 Received: from localhost (localhost [[UNIX: localhost]]) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.3nb1/8.11.3) id gAM5dQi11390; Fri, 22 Nov 2002 00:39:26 -0500 (EST) Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 00:39:26 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200211220539.gAM5dQi11390@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #138 TELECOM Digest Fri, 22 Nov 2002 00:40:00 EST Volume 22 : Issue 138 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Bell Canada Phone Bills Reveal Government Bugging (Frog) Homeland Security's Tech Effects (Monty Solomon) Auto-ID: Tracking Everything, Everywhere (Monty Solomon) Control Freaks are Winning on Financial Privacy (Monty Solomon) IRS and Terrorist-Related Information Sharing (Monty Solomon) SBC Filing: MCI WorldCom Continues Slamming Consumers (Monty Solomon) TiVo Quarterly Loss Narrows, Tops 500,000 Subs (Monty Solomon) Verizon to Install WiFi Technology (Monty Solomon) Re: Charter Cable Leak: Reporting it (Scott Dorsey) Re: Charter Cable Leak: Reporting it (Roy) www.pbxinfo.com : Pbx Information Resource (Rick) Has Anyone Heard of Cogent? (Henry Cabot Henhouse III) 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: Frog Subject: Bell Canada Phone Bills Reveal Government Bugging Date: 20 Nov 2002 18:42:24 +0100 Organization: Happy Lobster & Partners / LE Mail2News Below is a story about government eavesdropping in Ontario. It will be published next week. I ask anyone who has Bell Canada phone service to check the GST & PST as explained in the article to see if you are under surveillance. Post your observations here. I am posting this on behalf of the reporter who is working on the story. If I get a newer draft or more information I will post it here. I am one of those people being bugged. I can't explain why I was targetted. Naturally I am very upset and disturbed by this. A similar thing happened in Germany earlier this month. See links to the that story at the bottom. +++++++++ Bell Canada Phone Bills Reveal Government Bugging Bell Canada has a subtle billing flaw that alerts subscribers to government eavesdropping, it was discovered this week. In an uncannily similar incident, 20,000 Germans found out that their telephones were being tapped by the security services when a software glitch caused them to be billed for the wiretapping. A small percentage of Bell statements exhibit the anomalous billing, perhaps 1 in 20, but the frightening implication is that tens of thousands of Ontario citizens may be subject to some degree of government spying. Bell Canada provides telephone service in Ontario and Quebec, although it is not known if the billing anomaly appears on Quebec statements. An IT employee at Bell Canada has privately confirmed that the billing snafu affecting thousands of Ontario subscribers goes back at least 18 months, but that they became aware of it only last month. The Bell tech says that he does not know the root cause of the bug and concedes that he has been asked not to speak about the problem to outsiders. The bug manifests itself as a small overcharge for GST and PST, which is the Canada-wide 7% Good and Services Tax and Ontario's 8% Provincial Sales Tax. Imagine that the monthly services and chargeable messages on a Bell bill total $100.00. The combined GST and PST should be exactly 15%, or $15.00. A wiretapped subscriber would be taxed slightly more than $15.00 on his $100.00 worth of service. It may be as little as $15.07 or as much as $15.93 based on rates seen on different subscriber statements. Telecom providers in Canada are reimbursed for costs related to government wiretaps. Bell Canada apparently keeps track of these costs with a hidden line item in their list of services. This Law Enforcement Assistance (LEA) fee, as one telephony engineer calls it, is billed to the government, not to the individual subscriber. The fee is tracked in the list of monthly services on each Bell account -- along with residence line fee, touch-tone service, or call waiting -- but it is not printed on the monthly statement, and nor is it visible to ordinary customer service agents at Bell. The government wiretapping is revealed when Bell's billing system mistakenly computes taxes on the LEA fee and passes the taxes onto the subscriber. Customers hit with the hidden fee have examined their old statements and note that the extra tax varies from month to month. No explanation has emerged for this but speculation is that the LEA fee varies according to the number of phone calls placed or received and "storage" costs. Storing a digital recording of the phone conversation presumably incurs higher LEA fees than storing the telephone number dialed but not the actual conversation. Bell customers have found the fee going back 18 months, but most report that the strange billing on their statements began late last year, in the months after the 9/11 attacks, indicating higher levels of government surveillance. Placing or receiving an innocent call to a monitored person or business can place your own phone under surveillance because of automated software procedures, suggests a telecom engineer. Bell's customer service has given at least three explanations for the excess billing. They have claimed that the extra tax is imposed on the discounted portion of services such as long distance plans. The analogy given is a free flight, obtained with frequent flyer miles, on which taxes are still charged. Bell subscribers who have identical service plans, yet one pays correct taxes but the other pays slightly more, contradict this explanation. Rounding is offered as another explanation. Indeed rounding can explain a 1 or 2 cent difference in the total, if the GST and PST are rounded up, but it cannot explain a 7 cent or 25 cent difference. Even if every service item and long distance call has tax calculated separately, half would round up and half would round down on average. There would be no significant discrepancy. The third explanation is said to be a software bug that the company is working to fix, but without explaining its cause. This comes closest to the truth. In this case, wiretapped customers should be entitled to a small refund, but the Bell service rep did not know if any tax would be repaid once the billing issue is resolved. +++++++++ http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/5/27917.html German secret service taps phones, bills buggees By Tim Richardson A software error is being blamed for an incident in which mobile phone users discovered they were being bugged by German secret squirrels. According to reports last week, some customers of mobile phone operator O2 noticed an unusual phone number on their bills they didn't recognise and a call charge associated with the number. When they tried to call the number they heard a recorded message telling them they couldn't use the number. After further investigation, though, it was revealed that the number belonged to the German secret service. The number was showing up on people's bills because they were being bugged -- and paying for it. Understandably, German police and the secret service were not too chuffed with this. A spokesman for mmO2 blamed the incident on a "software error" and said it had now been fixed. Only a "very small number of individual users" were affected, he said. +++++++++ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/2387269.stm German police have been forced to admit that dozens of criminal suspects had learned their phones were being tapped when the evidence showed up on their monthly phone bill. Telecommunications authorities said that nearly 20,000 lines were currently being tapped. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well that happens here in the USA a lot also. The government wants to bug someone and telco does it quite willingly. To them, its just another extension (albiet off-premises) for the customer. The government is *supposed* to pay the costs which are associated with the tap, including the tax. But here in the USA for many years, this same bug existed where the tax on phone service showed up as a single item (bug and remainder of service) billed to the subscriber. In other words, although the government did pay for the cost of the OPX (off premise extension) used for the tap, they were letting you, the tappee, pay the tax on same. I don't know who it was (maybe Sherman Skolnick on one of his telephone news reports; listen to them every few days on 773-732-1100) found out about it and finally Illinois Bell found the error and corrected it. All telcos use the same billing software it seems, going back to the AT&T days. I am surprised it was never corrected in Ontario until just now. Never ask the service reps to explain anything about it; most cannot and those who do know something about it were taught to lie on the topic. Its a lot like trying to make a calling card call from a payphone in a mostly minority neighborhood (let's say Chicago, IL for example) to a third-world country. It cannot be done by AT&T's own rules; and every operator or customer service rep you ask for an explanation has a different story why not, but never the truth which is that minorities are not considered good credit risks in the estimation of AT&T. Of course they don't dare say that; sweet dear old Ma Bell would get her panties sued off of her. Ditto with the tax due on your phone bill. Never expect to get a straight answer on that one either. But now it is starting to get more and more obvious to a lot of people that a phone bill which is constant should have a tax which is constant also. Heck, the US telcos fixed that bug several years ago (I think during VietNam when they were tapping everyone who even acted like a trouble maker [like me, for example]). I have several items in this issue of the Digest dealing with government control on citizens and how repulsive things are getting to be. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 20:24:18 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Homeland Security's Tech Effects By Declan McCullagh Staff Writer, CNET News.com November 20, 2002, 9:58 AM PT The overwhelming vote by the Senate late Tuesday approving a Homeland Security Department clears the way for massive reorganization of the federal government that will have a dramatic impact on computer and network security. The bill, which sets the stage for the largest federal reorganization since the Defense Department was formed in 1947, does more than reshuffle government agencies. It gives the government a major role in securing operating systems, hardware and the Internet, including allowing for more police surveillance of the Net; punishing malicious computer hackers with up to life in prison; establishing a national clearinghouse for computer and network security work; and spending at least half a billion dollars a year for homeland security research. President Bush is expected to sign the bill by the end of the month. "The United States Congress has taken a historic and bold step forward to protect the American people by passing legislation to create the Department of Homeland Security," Bush said after the vote. "This landmark legislation, the most extensive reorganization of the federal government since the 1940s, will help our nation meet the emerging threats of terrorism in the 21st century." http://news.com.com/2100-1023-966552.html [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: So ... child pornography did not kill us off, hate speech didn't do it, copyrights and illegal copying of files and works of art did not whip us into line, now Dubya will try terrorist activities as a reason to bring the net around to his liking. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 20:09:43 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Auto-ID: Tracking Everything, Everywhere Katherine Albrecht, CASPIAN [The following is an excerpt from the article, "Supermarket Cards: Tip of the Retail Surveillance Iceberg," accepted for Publication in the Denver University Law Review, June 2002] "In 5-10 years, whole new ways of doing things will emerge and gradually become commonplace. Expect big changes." - MIT's Auto-ID Center. Supermarket cards and other retail surveillance devices are merely the opening volley of the marketers' war against consumers. If consumers fail to oppose these practices now, our long term prospects may look like something from a dystopian science fiction novel. A new consumer goods tracking system called Auto-ID is poised to enter all of our lives, with profound implications for consumer privacy. Auto-ID couples radio frequency (RF) identification technology with highly miniaturized computers that enable products to be identified and tracked at any point along the supply chain. The system could be applied to almost any physical item, from ballpoint pens to toothpaste, which would carry their own unique information in the form of an embedded chip. The chip sends out an identification signal allowing it to communicate with reader devices and other products embedded with similar chips. Analysts envision a time when the system will be used to identify and track every item produced on the planet. http://www.nocards.org/AutoID/overview.shtml ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 22:33:10 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Dan Gillmor: Control Freaks are Winning Financial-Privacy Battle By Dan Gillmor Mercury News Technology Columnist News and views, culled and edited from my online eJournal (www.dangillmor.com): PRIVACY WRONGS The drive to kill all privacy in financial dealings and communications is nearing a conclusion. The control freaks are winning, and your privacy is just about gone. The imminent signing of the Homeland Security bill, a governmental reorganization with many anti-privacy provisions, is just one more blow. It follows last year's ill-named USA Patriot Act, which shredded civil liberties in its zeal to give law enforcement and security people every tool they needed to investigate terrorism threats. As usual, key provisions have had no debate or scrutiny. Meanwhile, a secretive court has sided with the Bush administration -- easily the most hostile to liberty in our lifetime -- in greatly expanding law enforcement's surveillance capabilities. The decision blows new holes in what was left of the Fourth Amendment, even as it pretends to support constitutional rights. More alarming yet, and also with the full support of the administration, former National Security Adviser John Poindexter is pushing ahead with a plan to scoop all of our electronic communications, financial transactions and more into a huge, linked collection of databases. This is police-state stuff. (Poindexter, you'll recall, was convicted of several felonies in the Iran-Contra scandal. He got off on what conservative critics of the legal system like to call a technicality and what civil libertarians like to call basic constitutional rights that protect us all.) There will be gross abuse of these new powers. There is no recorded case in history where governments got more powers and didn't abuse them. But it seems there's too little organized constituency for privacy or liberty these days. http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/4559828.htm ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 22:43:05 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: IRS and Terrorist-Related Information Sharing IRS and Terrorist-Related Information Sharing. GAO-03-50R, October 21. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-03-50R http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d0350r.pdf ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2002 21:55:56 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: SBC Filing: MCI WorldCom Continues Slamming Consumers SBC Filing: MCI WorldCom Continues Slamming Consumers, Even in Bankruptcy; Company Also Continues Deceptive Practices, SBC Records Show - Nov 21, 2002 05:49 PM (BusinessWire) CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 21, 2002--To protect customers from ongoing slamming and deceptive marketing schemes by MCI WorldCom, SBC Ameritech Illinois (NYSE:SBC) asked state regulators today to enforce their July Emergency Order forbidding MCI WorldCom from engaging in these practices. In addition, SBC is asking the regulators at the Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) to audit MCI WorldCom's sales and marketing practices and to levy fines because of MCI's behavior. Nilda I. Santiago of Oak Lawn was contacted a month after the Order was issued when she received a phone call from MCI WorldCom and was told that MCI WorldCom was merging with SBC. According to her signed statement, Santiago was told her taxes would be less. Mary L. Smith of Waukegan was contacted in September by a representative of MCI WorldCom who told her that MCI WorldCom was "taking over all of the 847 area code." Although Smith told MCI WorldCom she did not want to change, the representative told her she "didn't have a choice." Another customer complained that MCI WorldCom called and quoted him a package rate if he switched companies. When he asked about additional charges, the rep said she "was not at liberty" to say. Although he did not agree to switch to MCI, he discovered he had been slammed when his voice mailbox changed. (a) - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=30019723 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2002 21:57:28 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: TiVo Quarterly Loss Narrows, Tops 500,000 Subs SAN JOSE, Calif., Nov 21 (Reuters) - Digital video recorder maker TiVo Inc.(NASDAQ:TIVO) on Thursday posted a narrower fiscal third quarter loss as revenue more than doubled on strong subscriber growth, and said it expect total users to double over the next year. San Jose, California-based TiVo, whose video recording service allows custom television viewing by recording shows on a computer hard drive for playback later, said its net loss was $11.5 million, or 23 cents a share, compared with a loss of $34.5 million, or 81 cents, a year ago. The Wall Street consensus loss estimate for the period, which ended Oct. 31, was 31 cents a share, with a range of 29 cents to 34 cents, according to Thomson First Call. TiVo's revenues from service and technology rose to $12.7 million, from $5.3 million a year earlier. During the quarter, TiVo marked a net increase in subscribers of 46,000, bringing its total to about 510,000. In the same period one year ago, TiVo activated 51,000 subscribers and its total was 280,000. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=30016599 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2002 22:03:07 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Verizon to Install WiFi Technology NEW YORK (AP) _ In a sure sign that the upstart wireless Internet technology called WiFi is proving too powerful to ignore, Verizon Communications Inc. said Thursday that it will install such networks for small and medium-sized businesses. Because it allows people to share Internet access inexpensively and relatively easily, WiFi is becoming increasingly popular in cafes, airports and hotels. Some stores offer it free for their customers as an incentive to sit there for hours sipping lattes while surfing the Web. WiFi has been seen as a threat to big phone companies like Verizon because the technology allows homegrown networks to spread outside their control. Some cable companies have asked customers to stop using WiFi to share fast Internet access, calling it theft of service. Verizon's new WiFi initiative appears to be something of a toe in the water. The company, which already sells WiFi equipment that lets households share a broadband Internet connection, is offering to set up wireless networks for small and medium-sized businesses in Boston as part of its plan to be an all-purpose "solutions provider." Service in other cities will follow. http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=30014209 ------------------------------ From: kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) Subject: Re: Charter Cable Leak: Reporting it Date: 21 Nov 2002 12:19:20 -0500 Organization: Former users of Netcom shell (1989-2000) j debert wrote: > I just got off the phone with Charter re a possible leak on their > system in Hollister CA. Told them it was heard on air and Public > Safety bands. The call-taker did not want to hear about it unless it > was a "customer with a problem" and almost got away without being told > the location. > How long should one wait before follow-up? A week? Don't bother with it. If they ignored the first time, they will ignore the second one. > On next follow up, if nothing seems to be done, I may mention filing > complaints with FCC and CPUC: the signal interferes with local police > and fire freqs and probably even with LifeFlight and other operations > at the local hospital, which is right next to the apparent leak. Just file an FCC complaint immediately. The FCC is generally ineffective at dealing with most complaints, but one of the things they do take very seriously is air band interference issues. Mention of course that you reported the problem. Send them a physical letter, not a phone call, and they will usually get on it very quickly. scott "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." ------------------------------ From: Roy Subject: Re: Charter Cable Leak: Reporting it Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2002 10:07:25 -0800 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com From the FCC viewpoint, it should be the licensee who complains and not just a member of the public. If the leakage is on the police frequency and the police don't think it bothers them then the FCC won't take any action. ------------------------------ From: rixride@hotmail.com (Rick) Subject: www.pbxinfo.com: Pbx Information Resource Date: 21 Nov 2002 12:05:35 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Hey, just wanted to let you guys know that http://www.pbxinfo.com has redesigned their site. Check it out, They are looking for Avaya, Mitel, NEC, 3-Com and Ericsson Information. If you have been wanting to get connected in a community to ask question and get answers, here is the place. They need people to help moderate the Message Boards and submit articles to the community. Check it out, www.pbxinfo.com ------------------------------ From: Henry Cabot Henhouse III Subject: Has Anyone Heard of Cogent? Organization: AT&T Broadband Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2002 22:32:12 GMT Cogent Communications http://www.cogentco.com/home.html is advertising a 100 meg connection to the net for a grand a month. Anyone have their service? This is actually kind of hard to believe ... there has to be a catch. Dave ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 620-870-9697 Fax 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 775-306-8390 Fax 3: 775-642-0603 Fax 4: 530-309-7234 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 V22 #138 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Nov 22 03:03:44 2002 Received: from localhost (localhost [[UNIX: localhost]]) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.3nb1/8.11.3) id gAM83ik14792; Fri, 22 Nov 2002 03:03:44 -0500 (EST) Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 03:03:44 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200211220803.gAM83ik14792@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #139 TELECOM Digest Fri, 22 Nov 2002 03:04:00 EST Volume 22 : Issue 139 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: This is Why I Read the Digest - was Re: Auth Centers (jt) Re: Debit vs. Credit Cards, was: Re: Retailers' Suit (Mike Castle) Re: Debit vs. Credit Cards, was: Re: Retailers' Suit (John Meissen) PBX Erlang Statistics (Adlane Fellah) Re: OT: Cell Phone Newsgroup (J Kelly) Re: OT: Cell Phone Newsgroup (Joseph) Re: 011+ vs. 01+ (Mark J Cuccia) Re: 011+ vs. 01+ (Colum Mylod) Olde Farte Week (Joey Lindstrom) Re: Old Farts (John Higdon) Re: Programming Languages (George Mitchell) Re: language Names, was This is Why I Read the Digest (John R. Levine) Re: Cell and LD For Non-Residents (John R. Levine) Re: Spring Forward, Fall Back (Randolph J. Herber) 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: jt Subject: Re: This is Why I Read the Digest - was Re: What Do Auth Centers Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2002 14:03:42 -0500 Organization: WorldCom Canada Ltd. News Reader Service j debert wrote in message news:telecom22.135.5@telecom-digest.org: >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: ... Does anyone >> remember those, long, long before even Windows version 3? PAT] > O ya! HP65 programmable calculator, CompuCorp 7400 series programmable > desktop calculator with the lunar lander program, HP-1000 C/F w/ option > 205 and cryptanalysis, HP2000, PDP-8 and "Life", BTI-1000 and login yada yada yada Hey my first computer was a Digicomp1 - I still remember the taste of the little white plastic tubes you programmed it with. ------------------------------ From: dalgoda@ix.netcom.com (Mike Castle) Subject: Re: Debit vs. Credit Cards, was: Re: Retailers' Suit Organization: House of Linux Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2002 21:13:09 GMT In article , wrote: > And isn't that silly? There are gas stations that will accept ATM or VISA > cards, and have a note on the pump that says they charge $.35 for debit > cards ... I have never seen this. I've seen ATM only with a $.35 charge, but never an ATM + $.35 or some credit sort of credit card. There is a certain chain popular here in Silicon Valley that does just that (actually they take ATM+fee or CASH at the pump, but NO credit cards). Mike Castle dalgoda@ix.netcom.com www.netcom.com/~dalgoda/ We are all of us living in the shadow of Manhattan. -- Watchmen fatal ("You are in a maze of twisty compiler features, all different");--gcc ------------------------------ From: jmeissen@shell1.aracnet.com (John Meissen) Subject: Re: Debit vs. Credit Cards, was Re: Retailers' Suit Date: 21 Nov 2002 22:10:21 GMT Organization: Aracnet Internet In article , Steven J. Sobol wrote: > dold@23.usenet.us.com wrote: >> And isn't that silly? There are gas stations that will accept ATM or VISA >> cards, and have a note on the pump that says they charge $.35 for debit >> cards ... > Following the banks' lead, of course. "Oh, you're not a customer of > First National Megacorp? Fork over $2." Not exactly a fair comparison. The latter is not much different from a check cashing service. While there's a lot less risk of encountering insufficient funds, the bank still has to pay someone to service the ATM's, has to acquire and manage the paper money, and has to deal with securely transporting large sums of money, all so you can take it from them with a swipe of your ATM card. Personally, I don't have a problem with a bank that I don't have an account with charging me for convenience services. I WOULD have a problem if my own bank also charged a fee for making my personal funds available, whether from their own ATM or through another bank's. A gas station, on the other hand, is selling a product. Aside from the costs directly associated with processing the transaction their cost basis is already figured into the retail price of their product. Perhaps they use a transaction processing service that charges them a premium for debit card usage. In any event, that will hopefully change as people vote with their wallet. john- ------------------------------ From: Adlane Fellah Subject: PBX Erlang Statistics Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2002 01:04:23 -0500 Hi Dear editor, I am looking for real data & statistics of erlangs in enterprises using PBXs anywhere in the world for a study. Can you help me? Thanks! Adlane Fellah Senior Consultant Maravedis Inc Mobile: (514) 823-4096 Landline: (514) 938-2314 Fax: (514) 938-2304 www.maravedis-bwa.com ------------------------------ From: J Kelly Subject: Re: OT: Cell Phone Newsgroup Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2002 19:31:05 -0600 Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Actually, the person could read the > replies in the newsgroup also. No need to subscribe here unless they > wish to do so. In fact, your relaying of the basic question here > may start a discussion on the topic 'Which cell carrier is best > overall when considered on national basis?' Also there was a comment > by the store clerk about all cell phones going to GSM and when the > digital signal is bad, the phone switching to analog. Let's see if we > can get some answers together for this potential new subscriber. PAT] I don't know of a GSM/800 AMPS phone available in the US, or of any carrier (in the US) using 800 GSM for that matter. T-Mobile is 1900 GSM. My carrier, Iowa Wireless, is a T-Mobile affiliate, and they do offer an analog sleeve for the Nokia 5190 to allow roaming on 800 AMPS, but not a phone with integrated GSM and AMPS. I don't think all carriers are going GSM, AT&T is, but a lot of others are going CDMA, which is supposed to be the "best" technology according to many, but that may be like debating whether Windows or Linux is better. ------------------------------ From: Joseph Subject: Re: OT: Cell Phone Newsgroup Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2002 08:46:06 -0800 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Reply-To: joeofseattle@yahoo.com On Wed, 20 Nov 2002 00:23:13 -0500, Gail M. Hall wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Actually, the person could read the > replies in the newsgroup also. No need to subscribe here unless they > wish to do so. In fact, your relaying of the basic question here > may start a discussion on the topic 'Which cell carrier is best > overall when considered on national basis?' Also there was a comment > by the store clerk about all cell phones going to GSM and when the > digital signal is bad, the phone switching to analog. Let's see if we > can get some answers together for this potential new subscriber. PAT] No disrespect intended, but I think you will find better discussions and better information if you go to the right sources and that would be cellular/mobile related news groups rather than in telecom digest/comp.dcom.telecom. While it is sort of telecom related it is my feeling that this group is predominantly about land line telephone service. There's lots of information and opinions to be had on what is best for a particular person or situation. Often even advice from others won't work for your own situation with wireless as so much of wireless is really radio and the problems you associate with radio are also problems that you have with wireless telephony. I really don't want to comment on particular technology or phone models, but you'll need to find out what works best for you in your particular area and what features you want and what features are really not that important to you. Some people just want a phone for a phone's job. Others want something that can do high speed internet data. Some people want both. Talk to others and get their recommendations, but ultimately you're going to have to find what works for you in the spaces that you commonly find yourself i.e. if you're on the road a lot or you are mostly between work and home. Also, going to different wireless forums may give you a better idea as well. A forum that I highly recommend is Howard's Forums in Canada: Also, don't be swayed by talk of one technology is better than another if you're just concerned with a basic phone. What's important for you in that case is that it works where you need it to and you get a handset that suits you and your needs. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2002 11:52:15 -0600 (CST) From: Mark J Cuccia Subject: Re: 011+ vs. 01+ In "Re: N11/Payphones/Wireless/PBXes/PAY-per-Call/etc", Pat wrote: > And of course, 011 is the prefix to use on international calls being > special billed such as collect or person to person, etc. And Richard D G Cox replied: > That's not correct -- > 01 is the prefix to use for those calls (in [from] the USA [NANP]). > 011 is for direct-dial bill-to-calling-line calls. > I know it sounds more logical to have done it the other way, but for > some reason they didn't! ACTUALLY, there _IS_ logic as to _WHY_ AT&T (with Bell Labs/etc) have it the way it is, 011+ for sent-paid, 01+ for "special billing". In the January 1979 issue of _Bell_Labs_Record_ magazine, there is the article, "International Dialing: No Longer a Novelty", authored by (the late) Robert J. Keevers. [Mr. Keevers was with Bell Laboratories from 1957 until 1983. With the divestiture of AT&T, the breakup of the Bell System, he chose to migrate into the new/spun-off "Bellcore". He retired from Bellcore in 1991, and passed away from a major heart attack in June 1999. I was a senior in High School in 1978/79, and read this Bell Labs Record article in the school library at that time. I had a few correspondences with Mr. Keevers at that time. But in more recent years, beginning in 1996, Mr. Keevers and I had numerous telephone conversations and mail correspondences regarding the historical and current developments of the telephone network and technology in general. He was one of a handful of experts in the area of switching, routing, numbering, etc., and if he were still with the telephone industry today, I doubt that we'd have the code and numbering confusion that we've been in for the past five-plus years! He was very helpful in explaining to me various aspects of the telephone network as it existed back in the 1960s, much of which I knew already, but there are always miscellaneous pieces of trivia that one is always unaware of! He never had upgraded his home computer to email or internet access, even though I tried explaining to him the vast amount of information available with just a mouse-click. But I would print-out webpages of telco code lists, or issues of TELECOM Digest, etc. and send them to him in postal mail. He may have been retired from the industry, but was always interested in current/future developments as well!] Anyhow, in this Bell Labs Record magazine article, he mentions: ------------------- "In the Bell System two modes of domestic dialing using prefixes had been offered since 1960: DDD service using the prefix '1' for toll calls, and operator-assisted customer dialing using the prefix '0'. Thus it seemed reasonable to offer two similar choices for international dialing. The customer would begin by listening for a dial tone, and then would supply the appropriate IDDD prefix, the country code, and the national number assigned in the destination country. Since these international numbers may vary in length from seven to twelve digits, timing to allow for receipt of a subsequent digit sometimes is required. Customers with a [twelve/sixteen button] TOUCH-TONE (R) set have the option of using the '#' button to indicate the end-of-dialing, thereby avoiding several seconds of delay. "Two prefixes, '01' for operator-assisted calls and '011' for station-to-station calls, were chosen. The choice of these two codes was not arbitrary. The initial digit '0' was necessary for local offices equipped with Step-by-Step equipment to accommodate IDDD. The '0' steers international calls to Traffic Service Position System (TSPS) equipment. For the second digit, '1' was the clear technical choice. Domestic dialing number formats already had used all sequences except '00' and '01', and '00' had already been reserved for another function under study (but later cancelled). [When TSP(S)-served areas introduced 0+ dialing, when one needed to simply reach a live local operator, dialing '0' and then doing nothing caused a three-to-five second delay until the local central office switch registers "timed-out" and seized a trunk to the TSP/TSPS, but flagged to indicate a "zero-minus" call. Customers with 12/16 button DTMF phones can always hit the '#' button after the single '0', and are supposed to "cut-thru" to the TSP/TSPS/TOPS/OSPS/whatever, for a "zero-minus" operator call, but back in the 1960's, with so many rotary-dial customers still around, it was proposed that '00' would indicate a "zero-minus" call RIGHT AWAY, without having to wait the extra few seconds delay until the switch registers timed-out. This was to be called "Operator-on-the-double", and intended if there were an emergency need for reaching the operator. However, 911 later came about, and more customers had (12 button) DTMF phones, so to simply reach the live local operator, 0+'#' was possible] "Thus the second international dialing prefix would need three digits. Since prefixes of unequal length appeared preferable to a third digit on all IDDD calls, '01' and '011' became the choices. "The decision of which prefix to employ for [station-sent-paid] direct dialing and which to use for operator-assisted dialing was based on minimizing mis-dialing. From the earliest days of direct dialing, the concept of the accidental call to an exotic foreign country had been the subject of cartoons and comedy routines. With IDDD a simple string of dialed digits could actually cause a phone to ring in some distant land. Among the common mistakes in dialing is failure to wait for a dial tone. Digits dialed before the tone are not registered by signalling and switching equipment. The loss of leading digits in area codes ending in '01' (for example, 201 in New Jersey) could produce the prefix '01' followed by seven domestic digits--sufficient to reach a working telephone in some countries. Thus the '01' prefix was assigned to operator-assisted international dialing, where the operator would intervene to correct any irregularity. [In 1979, there were still some areas of the US which didn't yet dial '1+' before ten-digit numbers. A sent-paid call from those historically Panel/#1XB/#5XB metro areas of the US to northern New Jersey NPA 201, if called from outside of 201, would be dialed as JUST the ten-digit number 201+seven-d, without any leading 1+.] "COLORADO, NOT GREECE" "Another form of dialing error stems from the confusion of prefixes with telephone numbers. In most of the Bell System '1' is used as a prefix to all [station-sent-paid] toll calls. The '1' routes calls through Step-by-Step offices and into the DDD network. However, some customers regard the full eleven-digit dialing sequences as the 'number'. Thus a call to Colorado could be transformed into 01-303-555-2368. In this case a TSPS operator would intervene on what appeared to be a call to Greece, country code '30'. [In a way, the complete "eleven-digit" number of a NANP number _IS_ the number! The FULL WORLDWIDE number, since the 1+ access or indication prefix is _ALSO_ the +1 country-code aka World-Zone digit for the NANP!] "Since Bell System [customer-dialable] central-office codes [and customer-dialable NPA codes as well] never begin with a digit '1', a loss of leading digits could not generate the '011' pattern. Therefore '011' was assigned as the prefix for un-assisted [station-sent-paid] dialing." [for international calls] ------------------- Today, mistakenly leaving off the first digit of an area code on local (mandatory) ten-digit calls where the area code to be dialed might be N01 should route to the 'bong' tone or card/operator menu of the primary Long-Distance carrier, rather than to a live (Bell System/AT&T) Operator. In the "olden days", the Telco operator would actually ASK you, "Sir/Ma'm, are you calling overseas?", if your call routed to her TSPS/TOPS/OSPS position from a 01+nxxxxxx(etc) "dialstring". And if someone actually intended to place a card or collect call within the NANP, but dialed 01+ "thinking" that the NANP number "itself" is 1+ten-digits, where the leading 0+ is dialed before the 1+, one again is going to route to a 'bong' tone or menu, rather than a live operator asking "Are you calling overseas?". Unfortunately, that customer might simply start keying-in their card number, which might not be restricted against calling to non-NANP locations! If the call is "collect", at least the called party would hopefully refuse such charges. While earlier in the quote from the article, it is mentioned that there was a prevailing thought that three-digit IDDD prefix codes for both types of service (station-sent-paid as well as "special-billing") were undesirable, it really would have been BETTER for 010+ to be the special-billing prefix for IDDD from the NANP! Mr. Keevers and I discussed this on several occasions. He seemed to be in agreement, and mentioned that on several occasions in the 1960's and early 1970's, he had suggested this to the "powers that be" at AT&T/WECO/Labs, but couldn't change their opinions. At the time (as I mentioned a few Digest issues ago), AT&T wanted 010 (by itself, with no 'delay' after the three digits) for customers to dial to route directly to one of the IOC (International Operator Center) "gateway" operators (White Plains, New York, Pittsburgh, Miami-later-Jacksonville, Oakland-later-Sacramento, Denver, Montreal... probably the one closest to the customer), or else route to the TSPS/TOPS "local" operator but flagging the OVS key-lamp to indicate that the customer probably desired special international/overseas assistance (such as directory/information in a distant country). Mr. Keevers and I both discussed that 010+cc+nn+('#') could be used for "special billing", and 010 could _STILL_ be used for reaching an operator for special international/overseas assistance as 010+'#' (pound) or by dialing 010 and then "delaying to time-out". In my post the other day (and in the past), I've mentioned that this _DID_ actually happen, '010' being routed to TSPS/TOPS/OSPS with the OVS key-lamp lit, when dialing from some central offices if programmed that way, back in the 1970's. However, there was no "delay" after dialing those three digits-- it routed immediately to TSPS/TOPS/OSPS. BUT... 010+etc. COULD have been used, IMO a BETTER choice, and if AT&T wanted 010 (by itself) for customers to be able to reach operators for special intl/ovs assistance it still COULD have also been set-up as '010' by itself BUT with the post-dial-delay-to- time-out cancellable to cut-thru right away with that optional trailing '#' (pound). Hindsight is better than foresight. I have only quoted a portion of Mr. Keevers' 1979 Bell Labs Record article. Most main public libraries in "big cities" as well as most university libraries should have this backissue in their stacks, if you wanted to see the full text of the article. During the 1960s and 70s, there were several good articles on IDDD/overseas dialing in the Bell Labs Record as well as the Bell System Technical Journal. Here is a brief summary-LIST of those articles/authors/etc. from the Bell Laboratories Record magazine: July 1961 "Overseas Dialing: a Step Toward Worldwide Telephony" (O. Myers and C.A. Dahlbom) July/Aug. 1964 "Switching International Calls via Submarine Cable" (J. Becker and R.D. Deming) Jan. 1970 "Signaling Systems: an International Concern" (G.H. Johannessen) May 1970 "Overseas Dialing: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow" (L.J. Scott) Jan. 1979 "International Dialing: No Longer a Novelty" (Robert J. Keevers) And then in November 1960, in the Bell System Technical Journal, (v.39 n.6), "Signaling Systems for Control of Telephone Switching", by C. Breen and O.A. Dahlbom (starting on p.1381 of v.39/1960), goes into detail on tones and signaling used on domestic and international trunks. - Mark J. Cuccia ------------------------------ From: Colum Mylod Subject: Re: 011+ vs. 01+ Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2002 11:40:10 +0000 Organization: Me own Reply-To: cmylod-deleteme@bigfoot.com On Wed, 20 Nov 2002 10:20:18 CST, Mark J Cuccia wrote: [..] > There are no country codes beginning with '0', so (presently) 010 is > "undefined" in the NANP. However the ITU-T did decide to rope in any uses which could conflict with country code(s) beginning 0. British Telecom, for one, was using 00 as normal IDD and 000 for full 64K ISDN IDD but had to stop the latter to fit the ITU's new vision. This did give rise on uk.telecom to speculation on use for 0xx country codes - the moon? The secret bases on Mars? Oops, forget I mentioned the last bit ... ------------------------------ From: Joey Lindstrom Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2002 08:57:08 -0700 Subject: Olde Farte Week Reply-To: joey@lairdsflooring.com On Wed, 20 Nov 2002 19:26:49 -0500 (EST), John Beaman wrote: > Interesting story. Coming from a younger generation, I had > programming in high school. We used BASIC on Commodore Pets. They > were all "networked " together so we could all print to one shared > printer, and load/save our files from/to one big honking dual 5 1/4" > floppy drive. In addtion to the programming assignments, we had to > learn about the different languages available for programming. So: Geez, now you've got *ME* feeling like an Olde Farte and I'm only 35. :-) I too took "Computers 30" in high school. That was the grade 12 (senior) level course: I got to skip "Computers 20" by writing the final exam and getting 100% on it - my experience with my VIC-20 and Commodore 64 computers was all I needed to ace it. We had a similar setup - a few Pets, SuperPets, and 8032's, all connected together into a common printer and a (standalone) dual 4040 floppy disk drive. Actually, we had three separate "LANs" of 8 machines, two of which had the 4040 dual floppy and one of which had the 8050 dual floppy, and of course the two floppy formats are NOT compatible, so you had to make sure you always got a seat at the right "LAN" each day. Nerds that we were, we decided to have a little fun with the situation (we were VERY bored - even this "advanced" course was teaching us precious little over and above what we'd already learned on our own with our home machines, built by the same company and which operated pretty much identically). One fella, Dale, discovered or was told about something that later became known as the "Poke Of Death". The BASIC language (as implemented on CBM machines at any rate) had a command called "POKE". It would accept two arguments: a (decimal) memory address, and an integeter value between 0 and 255. The command would "poke" the integer value into the memory address that you'd specified. Well, apparently the video hardware on these CBM machines was directly addressable, and there was one setting that you could "poke" into video memory that would, quite literally, destroy the monitor. Well, "destroy" is overstating it, but you did get this cute little "pop" sound followed by a puff of white smoke, after which the monitor didn't work anymore. Dale blew out 4 monitors before we prevailed upon him to stop. :-) My favourite trick had to do with how CBM machines assigned "device numbers" to various peripherals. Floppy disks could be any number from 8 through 15 (decimal), and always defaulted to 8. Thus, BASIC commands such as DLOAD (load from disk), DSAVE (save to disk), DIR (show directory), and the like, would always default to device 8. This normally wasn't a problem, as these shared floppy drives were set up as device 8. (The commands "LOAD" and "SAVE" differed from "DLOAD" and "DSAVE": they defaulted to device 1, which was a cassette tape recorder). Then I discovered that it was relatively easy to send a command to the floppy drive (which had its own CPU and operating system), "renumbering" it to another number (I usually picked 13). The DSAVE, DLOAD, DIR, and other commands would all still work with a floppy drive as device 13, so long as you appended "ONU 13" (On-Unit 13) after the command (by default, these commands assumed "ONU 8" and you didn't have to type it, although you could if you felt like wasting time). Well, I'd do this about 5 minutes before the bell rang. Everybody would be working right up to the time the bell rang, then everybody'd scramble to save their work. I, of course, would type DSAVE "myfilename" ONU 13 and go merrily on my way. Everybody else would be typing DSAVE "myfilename" and get a "?DEVICE NOT PRESENT" error and be completely baffled, especially since after they got the same error, one of my friends (er, co-conspirators) would say "here, let me try saving from my computer" and would use the ONU 13 trick, thus "proving" nothing was wrong with the floppy. I don't think the instructor ever did clue in on what we were doing. He'd just tinker with it a bit, then finally reset the power on the floppy drive (which reset the device number back to 8). But of course, we'd made everybody late for their next class. ;-) Ah, those were the days. I think I should set up my old C-128 and see if any of those old floppy disks still work. Maybe have a game of Impossible Mission, or Starleague Baseball, or Kennedy Approach, or... :-) obtelecom: once we discovered modems and bulletin boards, a few of us turned our C-64's into BBS machines. I "rolled my own" system and it worked well, though I had to get a friend of mine to craft a machine-language routine to replace Commodore's string "garbage collection" routines, which would tie up the machine for several seconds (usually at inopportune times), during which all incoming keystrokes would be dropped. At one point I had this thing running with 4 1541 single floppy disk drives (170K each). These things tended to run hot, so we would screw an external fan onto the top, then wrap the whole unit in pantyhose to filter out dust from the fan. Believe me, one question a mother doesn't want to hear from her teenaged son is "do you have any old pantyhose I can have?" Every month or so you had to copy and then replace the data disks, as they'd wear out from so much use. Most of us used a nifty 300 baud modem called a "Master Modem". This, as well as the VicModem, could be tweaked through software to run reliably at speeds higher than 300 baud. The VicModem was more robust, cranking up to 450 baud with hardly any appreciable error rate increase, but wasn't capable of auto-answer (you had to throw a switch, manually). The Master Modem wasn't as good, but could still crank up to 390 baud. There was no such thing, at that time, as V.42 (or any other) error correction at the connection level. If you had a noisy line, you'd get a few garbage characters creeping in to the messages you were reading, menus you were navigating, etc. In fact it was BBS'ing that eventually dragged me into the "IBM Compatible" world. I had reached the limits of the Commodore hardware but there simply wasn't a hard drive solution available that didn't cost WAY more than an entire IBM-compatible machine, with monitor and hard drive, would cost. Plus, I'd started hanging around "FidoNet" bulletin boards and fell in love with the idea that you could write a "netmail" message to someone on the other side of the world and they'd get it - GASP! - within 24 hours! I hadn't even HEARD of the internet at this point. But that's a story for another time. Suffice it to say I bought an XT, set myself up with the QuickBBS system, and then ran a succession of BBS's (starting with "Farpoint Station", then later "Telekon", and then "Telekon/2" when I moved to the OS/2 operating system) up until about 1993. Then I found the internet, and started hassling you folk. :-) Joey Lindstrom - Laird's Flooring joey@lairdsflooring.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: In BASIC, the command PEEK and POKE were opposites. You could PEEK (or look at) whatever value happened to be in a given location at the moment. If you POKEd or placed a value in some memory location you could write little sub routines direct to the computer's memory. The end result was the program would run a little faster in most cases since you did not need the BASIC interp- reter in there trying to figure out what to do next. And we were told in the beginning of our computer studies that 'there is nothing you do with software which will hurt the computer ...' and that *generally* is true. But yes, if you POKEd a certain memory location used by the computer monitor you would get the result Joey mentioned above. PAT] ------------------------------ From: John Higdon Subject: Re: Old Farts Organization: Green Hills and Cows Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 22:20:11 -0800 In article , dhorvath@cobs.com (David B. Horvath, CCP) wrote: > I graduated from high school in 1980. Ours was a technologically > advanced school -- we had a 1972 vintage IBM 1130 (the first desk > *sized* computer). I took my first programming the summer after 8th > grade that included FORTRAN, BASIC, and Assembler language > programming. I graduated from HS in 1962. My school had nothing resembling a computer, anywhere on campus. We didn't even have electronic calculators. By the time programming classes were available for any language, I was long out of school. Of course, that didn't stop me from finding out a little on my own, or from writing lots and lots of software in many languages over the years. John Higdon | Email Address Valid | SF: +1 415 428-COWS +1 408 264 4115 | Anytown, USA | FAX: +1 408 264 4407 ------------------------------ From: George Mitchell Subject: Re: Programming Languages Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 22:49:11 -0800 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com John Beaman wrote: > I read somewhere not too long ago that BASIC was still the most widely > used language for programming. For many, many years, COBOL held this distinction, and it was commonly said as late as 1980 that 90% of all software out there was written in COBOL. Then Pascal enjoyed a brief spurt of popularity, largely due to Borland Turbo Pascal (and many Windows APIs still show their Pascal ancestry), but C became the dominant force in the late '80s. C++ built on the success of C. BASIC never went away completely, however, and in its incarnation as Visual BASIC is now more popular than ever--though not more popular than Visual C++ among heavy-duty programmers. -- George Mitchell (obfuscated return address) ------------------------------ From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: Language Names, was Re: This is Why I Read the Digest Date: 21 Nov 2002 10:43:01 -0500 Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA >> Does anyone here remember what COBOL and FORTRAN stood for According to Jean Sammet's 1969 classic "Programming Languages: History and Fundamentals" which I happened to be leafing through the other day, th earliest reference to FORTRAN is an IBM document dated November 10, 1954 was called "PRELIMINARY REPORT, Specifications for th IBM Mathematical FORmula TRANSlating System, FORTRAN". She also says that the name COBOL was adopted during some meetings of the CODASYL Short Range Committee between September 18 and October 21, 1959. It does suggest COmmon Business Oriented Language, but the name is COBOL. BASIC was developed at Dartmouth in 1965. Based on conversations with friends who worked at the Dartmouth computer center in the early 1970s, it's clear to me that they said it was Beginner's All purpose Symbolic Instruction Code, but they came up with the name first and then concocted a back-acronym for it. 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: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: Cell and LD For Non-Residents Date: 21 Nov 2002 11:22:24 -0500 Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA >> Calling home with a Singapore Tel card costs S$0.39/min, or 22 >> cents/min which isn't awful, but with a prepaid card the rate should >> be more like six cents. > You have to be cautious though with those pre-paid calling cards that > you see advertised in convenience stores and the like. Good point. People here have said reasonably good things about the prepaid service offered at www.onesuite.com, which charges 6.9 cpm to Singapore via their 800 number or 5 cpm via any of their local access numbers. I sometimes use Cognigen's calling card from http://cognigen.net/cognicall which is billed to your credit card at the end of the month, not prepaid, and charges 6.5 cpm via 800 access, no monthly fee or minimum. 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: Thu, 21 Nov 2002 21:58:44 GMT From: herber@dcdrjh.fnal.gov (Randolph J. Herber) Subject: Re: Spring Forward, Fall Back Organization: Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory In article , Carl Moore wrote: > In late September, Wlevant@aol.com wrote: >> You're showing your age. Daylight time now runs from the FIRST >> weekend in April to the LAST weekend in October. >> It used to run from the LAST weekend of April to the FIRST weekend of >> October, but changed to the present scheme in 1986. > When did DST end the FIRST weekend of October? Other than the > extended use of DST in 1974, I remember it running from LAST Sunday of > April to LAST Sunday of October, then having LAST replaced by FIRST > w/r to April. http://webexhibits.org/daylightsaving In Australia, DST _starts_ on the first Sunday in October and _ends_ on the last Sunday in March. Remember, Christmas is a mid-summer holiday. In Chile, it is 2nd Saturday in October to 2nd Saturday in March. In Paraguay, it is 1st Sunday in September to 1st Sunday in April. And so forth, etc., u.s.w., i t.d., .... The Uniform Time Act By 1966, some 100 million Americans were observing Daylight Saving Time based on their own local laws and customs. Congress decided to step in to end the confusion and establish one pattern across the country. The Uniform Time Act of 1966 (15 U.S. Code Section 260a) [see law] which was signed into Public Law 89-387 on 12 April 1966, by President Lyndon Johnson, created Daylight Saving Time to begin on the last Sunday of April and to end on the last Sunday of October. Any State that wanted to be exempt from Daylight Saving Time could do so by passing a State law. The Uniform Time Act of 1966 established a system of uniform (within each time zone) Daylight Saving Time throughout the U.S. and its possessions, exempting only those states in which the legislatures voted to keep the entire state on standard time. In 1972, Congress revised the law to provide that, if a State was in two or more time zones, the State could exempt the part of the State that was in one time zone while providing that the part of the State in a different time zone would observe Daylight Saving Time. The Federal law was amended in 1986 to begin Daylight Saving Time on the first Sunday in April. Randolph J. Herber, herber@dcdrjh.fnal.gov, +1 630 840 2966 CD/CDFTF PK-149F, Mail Stop 318, Fermilab, Kirk & Pine Rds., PO Box 500, Batavia IL 60510-0500, USA. (Speaking for myself and not for US, US DOE, FNAL nor URA.) (Product, trade, or service marks herein belong to their respective owners.) ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. 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Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. End of TELECOM Digest V22 #139 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Nov 22 14:34:39 2002 Received: from localhost (localhost [[UNIX: localhost]]) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.3nb1/8.11.3) id gAMJYdn01743; Fri, 22 Nov 2002 14:34:39 -0500 (EST) Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 14:34:39 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200211221934.gAMJYdn01743@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #140 TELECOM Digest Fri, 22 Nov 2002 14:35:00 EST Volume 22 : Issue 140 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Country Code Exhaust? [was 011+ vs 01+] (Mark J Cuccia) Re: 011+ vs. 01+ (Burkitt-Gray Alan) Agency Weighed, but Discarded, Plan Reconfiguring the Net (Monty Solomon) Re: This is Why I Read Digest - was Re: What Auth Centers Do? (Lou Jahn) Re: This is Why I Read Digest - was Re: What Auth Centers Do? (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: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 09:30:53 CST From: Mark J Cuccia Subject: Country Code Exhaust? [was 011+ vs 01+] Colum Mylod wrote: > Mark J Cuccia wrote: >> There are no country codes beginning with '0', so (presently) 010 is >> "undefined" in the NANP. > However the ITU-T did decide to rope in any uses which could conflict > with country code(s) beginning 0. British Telecom, for one, was using > 00 as normal IDD and 000 for full 64K ISDN IDD but had to stop the > latter to fit the ITU's new vision. This did give rise on uk.telecom > to speculation on use for 0xx country codes - the moon? The secret > bases on Mars? Oops, forget I mentioned the last bit ... Naw ... one of those secret 0XX country codes route to a location in southeastern Nevada, just outside of Las Vegas! The first one assigned is 051! (Area 51) :-) But seriously, I know that the ITU has "future plans" for country codes beginning with '0'. Also, the ITU would like to restructure ALL country codes to a uniform 3-digit length. And there is a document (which I have NOT yet seen) about supposedly details plans for "expanding" the potential pool of country codes -- I don't know if this is for future FOUR-digit codes or maybe details on "standardizing" codes to a "uniform" 3-digit length? I really don't think that this is ever going to happen, at least not in the forsee-able future. I really don't even think this is even NECESSARY! Some claim that we might "run out of" country codes. Again, I really think this is just a "red-herring"! For the most part, country codes are assigned to "consolidated" geo-political telephonic networks. In the case of the NANP, the United States and Canada developed their "unified" telephone network standards simultaneously, mostly under a single group of (US-based) corporate entities. (AT&T / Bell Canada ; GTE / Telus). There had been some political turmoil in the late 1980's / early 1990's, mostly in eastern Europe and central Asia, where there were political splits of several countries. But there are more country code possibilities today than there were twenty years ago! Old +42 (former) Czechoslovakia has been broken into TEN possible country codes, +42x. Only three of those are actually assigned at present: +420 Czech Republic +421 Slovakia +423 Liechtenstein (now separate, previously sharing off +41 Switzerland) Old +38 (former) Yugoslavia has broken into TEN possible country codes, +38x, with most being assigned to the countries which split off from the former Yugoslavia: +380 Ukraine (a former USSR 'republic') +381 Serbia/Montenegro (still sometimes called Yugoslavia) +385 Croatia +386 Slovenia +387 Bosnia/Herzegovina +388 "Groups of Countries" (presumably for future "Pan European" services) +389 Macedonia (note that +382, +383, +384 are all unassigned) Old +37 (former) East Germany (DDR) has been broken into TEN possible country codes, since East Germany has politically (and telephonically) been "merged" into +49 (West) Germany. All ten have been assigned, some to former USSR (European) 'republics', some to European micro-states which previously "shared" off a larger neighbering country's country code. (The Vatican still is reached via Italy's +39, and then Rome's city code, etc. +379 has been _assigned_ to Vatican City, but it isn't in actual use, unless it might be an 'internal routing code' ... but customer-dialed calls to the Vatican are still dialed using Italy's +39 and then Rome). Yes, the Asian former USSR 'Republics' have just about all been assigned their own +99X Country Codes. +990 and +999 are presently unassigned; +991 is reserved for some special ITU recommended service; +997 is also unassigned, but I am GUESSING that it will be eventually assigned to Kazakstan (former Soviet 'republic') -- Kazakstan is still "sharing" from Russia (former USSR) country code +7. At one time, it was "planned" to have the North African countries to either be merged into a multi-national country-code (+21), or for each country to have several codes. That never seems to have come about. The +21X range presently is as follows: +210 SPARE (once planned for future expanded use by Morocco) +211 SPARE (once planned for future expanded use by Morocco) +212 Morocco +213 Algeria +214 SPARE (once planned for future expanded use by Algeria) +215 SPARE (once planned for future expanded use by Algeria) +216 Tunisia +217 SPARE (once planned for future expanded use by Tunisia) +218 Libya +219 SPARE (once planned for future expanded use by Libya) Other spare/unassigned codes include +259 which had once been intended for Zanzibar, even though Zanzibar has been part of +255 Tanzania. The town of Zanzibar in the country of Tanzania has always been dialed with +255 for the country of Tanzania! (I don't know what the original intent was for a separate code of +259 for the town of Zanzibar!?) +292, +293, +294 are all spare/unassigned. +295 was once planned for San Marino (which used to share from +39 Italy), but when +37 for East Germany wasn't needed, and +37X was formed (see above), +378 actually became the code for San Marino. +295 is spare. +296 was once planned for Trinidad/Tobago, even though it is part of +1, the NANP. +296 is presently listed as spare. Since Guam is now part of the NANP +1, as +1-671-, country code +671 is now SPARE. (Mariana Islands was +670, and became +1-670- as part of the NANP +1 in 1997; but +670 has been re-assigned to East Timor, now independent from +62 Indonesia; YEARS ago, +672 was East Timor when it was the colony of Portugese Timor, but then Indonesia took over Portugest Timor and conolidated it into +62. Later +672 was reassigned to "Australian External Territories", which ironically was temporarily used a few years ago for calling to East Timor when there was the turmoil for their independence from Indonesia.) +693 thru +699 are Spare. Most codes in the +80X range are spare (+808 is reserved for "shared cost" services) +851, +854, +857, +858, +859 are spare. (I wonder if +86 mainland China will eventually absorb +852 Hong Kong and +853 Macao?) Most +88x codes are spare. +969 is now spare since +967 Yemen took over the old +969 "Aden" Yemen, politically and telephonically. At one time, United Arab Emirates (+971) also had two additional country codes, +978 for the UAE town of Dubai and +979 for the UAE town of Abu Dhabi. In the early 1980's, these two were consolidated into +971 which was used by the rest of the UAE. +978 has been spare, +979 was reserved a few years ago for international "premium" (PAY-per-call) "services". Here is a summary of ITU country codes: Blocks-of-ten-consecutive-three-digit ITU Country Codes (26 blocks, 260 possible codes) --- 21X 22X 23X 24X 25X 26X --- (28X) 29X --- --- --- --- --- 35X --- 37X 38X --- --- --- 42X --- --- --- --- --- --- --- 50X --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- 59X --- --- --- --- --- --- --- 67X 68X 69X 80X --- --- (83X) --- 85X --- 87X 88X (89X) --- --- --- --- --- --- 96X 97X --- 99X Those ranges in parenthesis are completely spare, for all ten codes in the block/range ... There are TWO one-digit ITU Country Codes (1 NANP; 7 Russia), There are Forty-four two-digit ITU Country Codes (all assigned), And there are three-hundred-and-sixty possible three-digit ITU Country Codes (most assigned, some not). This makes a total of THREE-HUNDRED-AND-SIX _POTENTIAL_ ITU Country Codes. This is more possible country codes than ever in past history. And while there was the large "wave" of political (and subsequent) "turmoil" in the late 1980's and early 1990's, it actually caused a "gain" in the amount of possible country codes. For further info, see the History of Country Code assignments at Dave Leibold's World Telephone Numbering Guide: http://www.wtng.info/wtng-hst.html And as for country codes beginning with '0', and possible conflicts ... I know of one, Mexico ... Starting in the later 1990's, Mexico reformatted its dialing and numbering procedures (actually Mexico is _ALWAYS_ modifying its numbering/dialing!). Via the "primary" chosen LD-carrier, International and Overseas calls from Mexico are dialed as: 00+cc+nn, station-sent-paid 09+cc+nn, special-billed (collect, card, etc) 090 is the Interantional Operator for the primary LD-carrier But if one wants to "casually" dial via a different carrier (similar to the NANP so-called "ten-ten dialarounds"), the procedures are as follows for International and Overseas from Mexico: 000+ 'AXX'+ the above dialing procedures for station vs. special vs. "live operator". The 'AXX' code is the "carrier" code, 'A' = 1 thru 9, 'X' = 0 thru 9. Note that the procedure for per-call (casual) routing via an alternate carrier (for Intl/Ovs from Mexico) is to start off dialialing '000'. This would potentially conflict with primary carrier dialing a station sent-paid call to a (future) country-code beginning with '0'! I don't know of any plans for Mexico to change this dialing procedure. And as I mentioned earlier, I really do NOT expect there to be any country codes starting off as 0XX for YEARS, if ever... I also do NOT expect there to be 4-digit country codes, nor any requirement to expand the two one-digit country codes in use (+1 NANP, +7 Russia and also still including Kazakstan) or the forty-four two-digit codes (all in use) to 3-digit country codes. The World is _NOT_ running out of Country Codes, unless there will happen to be some MAJOR shift in world politics. Country codes assignments are not really based on individual domestic telephone network growth. Such domestic telephone network / population growth affects domestic/national numbering/dialing plans including domestic/national "area codes", NOT country codes. And, it also seems as if most parts of the world which have been going thru domestic/national numbering/dialing/code "turmoil" since the mid-1990s (and earlier) is FINALLY slowing down, even coming to a "screeching halt"! In the NANP (actually JUST the US) alone, there are only EIGHT new NPA codes for 2002. Recent years have had twenty or thirty or even in 1997 FORTY THREE new area codes in the NANP. So far, for next year 2003, there are only supposed to be three new NPA codes in the US. Canada has planned on ONE new code for 2004 (438 to overlay 514 Montreal PQ) and ONE new code for 2005 (226 = CAN to overlay 519 in southern ON). Both of these MIGHT be postponed to a future TBD date. Other parts of the world which have had numbering plan expansions have now "settled down" into their expanded plans of more national/domestic digits. There will ALWAYS be "growth" of numbering/dialing/etc., but the major turmoils have finally seemed to settle down. Due to numerous (recent) factors, economic, regulatory, political, etc., the NANP will most likely NOT exhaust for DECADES... and I also seriously doubt that the world will "run out" of available country codes. Well before any 0XX format might need to be used for country codes, there are still other 'NXX' format country codes still assignable! I don't think that there will ever be a real need for such 0XX country codes, or any change from the present basic structure of +1, +7, forty-four two-digit country-codes, and the remainder being three-digit country-codes. Mark J. Cuccia ------------------------------ From: Burkitt-Gray Alan Subject: Re: 011+ vs. 01+ Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 10:23:27 -0000 Mark J Cuccia wrote "'00' had already been reserved for another function under study (but later cancelled)" Given that that use was cancelled, is there any reason why North America shouldn't now adopt 00 -- alongside 011 -- as the international dialling prefix, bringing the area into line with Europe and much of the rest of the world? Alan B-G 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: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 08:46:27 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Agency Weighed, but Discarded, Plan Reconfiguring the Internet By JOHN MARKOFF The Pentagon research agency that is exploring how to create a vast database of electronic transactions and analyze them for potential terrorist activity considered but rejected another surveillance idea: tagging Internet data with unique personal markers to make anonymous use of some parts of the Internet impossible. The idea, which was explored at a two-day workshop in California in August, touched off an angry private dispute among computer scientists and policy experts who had been brought together to assess the implications of the technology. The plan, known as eDNA, called for developing a new version of the Internet that would include enclaves where it would be impossible to be anonymous while using the network. The technology would have divided the Internet into secure "public network highways," where a computer user would have needed to be identified, and "private network alleyways," which would not have required identification. Several people familiar with the eDNA discussions said such secure areas might have first involved government employees or law enforcement agencies, then been extended to security-conscious organizations like financial institutions, and after that been broadened even further. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/22/politics/22TRAC.html ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2002 00:08:50 (EST) From: Lou Jahn Subject: Re: This is Why I Read Digest - was Re: What Auth Centers Do? Pat another great history sequence! In 1968 while working at IBM I did programming for the Sunoco Credit Card center. This was back when everything was done in batch mode and gas stations returned the 52 column piece of computer card. They all wanted to drop doing so, but were afraid that consumers would not accept paying with out a receipt, and would switch to a competitor who would still provide the receipt. I always marked my mileage whenever I signed the card knowing I'd have the gas mileage record when the card was returned. This disappeared when Oil Companies could sell every drop they had in 1973's oil crisis. They average float in batch systems from use of a card to getting your bill was well over 90 days. Sunoco was one of the earliest firms to use online processing installed in 1968. What really caught their attention was an unexpected benefit. We found we could detect fraudulent cards earlier. Employees could steal unissued blank credit cards, and simply make up unissued, but legal credit card numbers. The Sunoco system was written in COBOL under IBM's DOS operating system running on a System 360 model 40 so we could have 256KB of real memory. We thought that much space was huge. It always impressed me that Amoco had installed a 1.2KB memory 1620 (I think that was the number) computer in a bulk oil terminal to automatically accept employee ID cards, dispense oil products and give the information to billing. Programmers did magic back then with very little computing resource. Also, every so often IBM sent me into the customer education center to teach a part of a communication course on "protocol selection". Of course, no mater what the problem, the answer came out the only thing to use was IBM's EBCDIC 1050 terminal protocol, never ASCII. After all IBM's 1050 terminal ( a version of the selectric typewriter) transmitted at 14.5 characters a second and had a parity check bit. ASCII terminals (mostly teletypewriters) communicated at a slow 10 characters per second with no parity check bits. Who would ever relie on such an unsafe ASCII communications protocol. The strangest thing, we in IBM believed that back then. Thanks to all for a chance to jog my memory bank. Lou Jahn Info Partners Corp ------------------------------ Subject: Re: This is Why I Read the Digest - was Re: What Do Auth Centers Do? Organization: io.com From: djmcdona@io.com (Daniel J McDonald) Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2002 07:45:50 -0600 In article , TELECOM Digest Editor noted: > things like square roots and algebra and geometry. Seventeen years > later when I first 'got into' home computers with an OSI-C1P (Ohio > Scientific model C-1-P) and learned BASIC I began teaching it and one > of my 'pupils' was my old high school math teacher. I had one of those. I got it used, did the piggyback trick (you soldered most of the pins on a new RAM chip to an existing one, except one that you wired in to a flipflop on the board) to add more memory (I had 8k - a screaming box at the time), spent two weeks trying to find out why I couldn't get serial connections to work, and when I finally found the problem, I soldered a paper clip across the broken trace! I also had a C8P and a C3. The C3 was great because it had three processors on board you could select from at boot time. > asking him, "Paul, don't you wish we would have had these machines > when I was in class with you? We would have had such a wild time." > After 40 years as a high school algebra/geometry teacher, you see, he > had retired just a couple years before. If he were alive today (he was > *very old* in the late 1970's) I think he would be totally freaked out > by more 'modern' computers. He had purchased a Tandy/Radio Shack Model > 1 computer after suggestions by younger friends of his. Does anyone > remember those, long, long before even Windows version 3? PAT] Oh yes. By the time Windows came out, I was getting away from computers and into Networking. Much more fun (routers never display a blue screen of death). Daniel J McDonald CCIE # 2495, CNX Visit my website: http://www.austinnetworkdesign.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: My C-1-P was like that. I swapped out a chip inside that changed it from 4K (all of 4096 bytes of memory) to 8 K (8192 bytes). It was really thrilling to have that much memory! And I wrote some incredibly complicated programs in BASIC including a BBS (bulletin board system) program -- admittedly tiny -- with that 8K of memory. I was invited to give a program one night at the Lawson YMCA demonstrating how it worked. That was around 1978 or so. People asked me how could you get that much code in there. I told them the answer was first to throw out all your books on writing BASIC and forget all the indents and REM statements. You start packing it all on each line of code. The only thing you had to remember was never to put an absolute instruction on the same line as an if/then/else instruction earlier than it on the same line. As soon as the computer saw that if/then instruction it quit reading the rest of the line if the 'then' told it to go elsewhere. And you had to literally pack that code in everywhere. I did all the bookkeeing for a small motel on a C-1-P that way. Do you remember when you had to boot using tape cassettes and a tape player which plugged in the back side of the computer? 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. 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End of TELECOM Digest V22 #140 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Nov 22 16:17:37 2002 Received: from localhost (localhost [[UNIX: localhost]]) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.3nb1/8.11.3) id gAMLHbW03254; Fri, 22 Nov 2002 16:17:37 -0500 (EST) Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 16:17:37 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200211222117.gAMLHbW03254@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #141 TELECOM Digest Fri, 22 Nov 2002 16:17:00 EST Volume 22 : Issue 141 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Book Review: "VPNs: A Beginner's Guide", John Mairs (Rob Slade) Digital Duplexing (C H Hum) Building an Acoustic Couple (JoshB) Re: Which Cell Carrier is Best Overall on a National Basis? (Bill Levant) Re: OT: Cell Phone Newsgroup (Joseph) Re: OT: Cell Phone Newsgroup (Stanley Cline) Re: Has Anyone Heard of Cogent? (Jules Dubois) Re: Has Anyone Heard of Cogent? (Andy Finkenstadt) Re: Has Anyone Heard of Cogent? (John Higdon) Re: Has Anyone Heard of Cogent? (John R. Levine) Re: Charter Cable Leak: Reporting it (Dave Phelps) Re: Debit vs. Credit Cards, was Re: Retailers' Suit (Darryl Smith) Re: Few Insiders Likely on WorldCom Board (Jack Adams) Re: Programming Languages (John Hines) 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: Rob Slade Organization: Vancouver Institute for Research into User Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 07:42:10 -0800 Subject: Book Review: "VPNs: A Beginner's Guide", John Mairs BKVPNABG.RVW 20020928 "VPNs: A Beginner's Guide", John Mairs, 2002, 0-07-219181-3, U$39.99 %A John Mairs %C 300 Water Street, Whitby, Ontario L1N 9B6 %D 2002 %G 0-07-219181-3 %I McGraw-Hill Ryerson/Osborne %O U$39.99 +1-800-565-5758 +1-905-430-5134 fax: 905-430-5020 %P 584 p. %T "VPNs: A Beginner's Guide" Part one deals with networks and security. The material is not bad; in fact, it is very good; but it is, possibly, too much information on topics which are not, really, relevant to virtual private networks (VPNs). On the other hand, anyone who is a rank beginner to networking as well will certainly have a thorough introduction. Chapter one covers layering architecture and the OSI (Open Systems Interconnection) model, and the text on encapsulation is definitely relevant to VPNs. Network architecture, in chapter two, concentrates on topology and the physical layer. There is a detailed reference to the lower layers of the TCP/IP protocol stack in chapter three. Chapter four's explanation of the basics of security is good, absent some material on threats and parts of risk analysis, but the use of non-standard language may be confusing. Threats and attack methods, in chapter five, is weak: the text lists a variety of network protocol exploits, concentrating on spoofing, and doesn't really bring out the concepts. The explanations of intrusion detection systems and firewalls, in chapters six and seven respectively, are good overviews. Part two is supposed to provide the fundamentals of VPNs themselves, but, rather oddly, does a much poorer job on this central idea than on the previous and following content. Chapter eight is on VPN basics, and nine is on VPN architecture. Part three covers VPN protocols. Chapter ten introduces the tunneling protocols of GRE (Generic Routing Encapsulation) and PPTP (Point-to- Point Tunneling Protocol). L2F (Layer 2 Forwarding) and L2TP (Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol), plus a little bit of IPSec, are reviewed in chapter eleven, although it is not always clear what functions are supported. Part four looks at secure communications. The material on cryptography, in chapter twelve, is not very good: polyalphabetic ciphers are *not* examples of transposition, there is some use of non- standard terminology, the text is simplistic in many areas, and the discussion of key management with asymmetric systems is quite weak. There are similarly feeble explanations and minor errors with respect to cryptographic algorithms in chapter thirteen. The discussion of certificates, in chapter fourteen, is more reasonable, although the section on PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) is a bit terse. Chapter fifteen, on authentication, reprises earlier content on identification and authentication (chapter four), PAP (Password Authentication Protocol, chapter ten), CHAP (Challenge Handshake Authentication Protocol, chapter eleven), but adds discussion of RADIUS, TACACS, and Kerberos, at varying levels of detail. Part five delves into the details of IPSec. Chapter sixteen outlines the components of IPSec, although it is somewhat disjointed with repeated returns to the topics of security associations and the different operating modes. Key management, in chapter seventeen, introduces ISAKMP (Internet Security Association and Key Management Protocol) and IKE (Internet Key Exchange), but does not do so in the detail with which other protocols have been discussed, and does not address the weaknesses of the systems. For some reason the details, and some other key management and exchange protocols, are in chapter eighteen (but still limited analysis). Chapter nineteen does have good deliberations on IPSec architecture and implementation. Part six deals with MPLS (Multi-Protocol Label Switching). Chapter twenty talks about quality of service, and related technologies. A few topics associated with traffic engineering are discussed in chapter twenty one. MPLS is proposed as the answer to quality of service and traffic engineering issues in chapter twenty two. Chapter twenty three outlines some of the components of MPLS and finally explains what MPLS has to do with VPNs, although not in much detail. With some caveats about certain sections of the book, I can recommend this both as a reference to a number of VPN technologies, and to some security related issues with TCP/IP. copyright Robert M. Slade, 2002 BKVPNABG.RVW 20020928 rslade@vcn.bc.ca rslade@sprint.ca slade@victoria.tc.ca p1@canada.com Find book info victoria.tc.ca/techrev/ or sun.soci.niu.edu/~rslade/ Upcoming (ISC) CISSP CBK review seminars (+1-888-333-4458): November 25, 2002 November 29,2002 Toronto, ON, Canada December 16, 2002 December 20,2002 San Francisco, CA February 10, 2003 February 14, 2003 St. Louis, MO ------------------------------ From: C H Hum Subject: Digital Duplexing Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 06:49:08 -0000 I was searching on the internet for digital duplexing and saw a message In VDSL-dmt frame there is function that adds: > Cyclic Prefix or Suffix to the symbol itself to allow the movement > the downstream waveform wrt upstream waveform. During the timing > recovery and training mode symbol boundary is obtained using > x-correlation methods. Based on these information then upstream and > downstream waveform are synchronized to each other. Cyclic prefix > and suffix are used to adjust the waveforms in time domain. I would like to ask you if you can show me a diagram or a book to refer on digital duplexing in DMT. 1) I cannot understand why adding Suffix will allow upstream to move wrt downstream? 2) Why do we need to have this sychronise movement? (isn't up and down stream of different frequencies?) 3) I also have some basic not clear. Will there be a problem if I want to tranmits from a lower bandwidth (upstream) to a higher bandwidth(downstream), will the upstraem data sort of spread across to cover up the big bandwidth? Sincerely hope you could help. Many thanks. Chak ------------------------------ From: metrix007@yahoo.com (JoshB) Subject: Building an Acoustic Coupler Date: 22 Nov 2002 01:12:22 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Hi people, I was wanting to build an acoustic coupler. I m not worried about speeds or such, as I will not be building it for practical use, but rather for personal interest. Unfortunatly, I am having a hard time finding any references. I don't have a good idea where to start, materials needed, etc. If anyone could point me to some useful info, most appreciated. Cheers. ------------------------------ From: Wlevant@aol.com Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 08:14:56 EST Subject: Which Cell Carrier is Best Overall on National Basis? For my money (or at least my firm's money) it's Verizon. Works EVERYWHERE around here (few if any dead spots). Works almost everywhere else I've been, and with a true national flat rate plan (NOT America's Choice, which has a number of arbitrary areas where the flat rate doesn't apply) I never get nicked for roaming. Though it's obviously not a function of Verizon's service, I was in fact able, from a hilltop in the BVI's, to hit a tower about ten miles across the water in the USVI's (or possibly Puerto Rico; I never saw the bill) with my StarTac (on analog service with a whopping 600 mW of power) and make calls throughout the USA. Interestingly, on Tortola proper, my phone picked up no signal, though at least one source claims that the BVI's cellular system is 800 mHz AMPS, which should have been compatible with my StarTac in fall-back analog mode. There was SOMETHING active, because the locals' cell phones worked ... just not mine. Then again, on vacation, who cares? Bill [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I have Cingular Wireless and use their service here in Independence. I have the national plan, with no roaming charges. What I think I like best is their use of a special prefix (620-870) for all of southeastern Kansas and no need to dial ten/eleven digits for most of my calls. Independence is mostly all 620-331 (a few exceptions: 620-330 for county government and 620-332 for city government with a scattering of cell phones in 330 and 332), and Coffeyville is on 620-251. Southwestern Bell treats 870 as local (for now, only seven digit dialing and no toll charges); otherwise we get only 620-331 as our local calling area (with the occassional exceptions in 330 and 332 allowed). Everything else is toll and requires 1-620 on the front of it, even calls to Coffeyville (620-251), rural areas (620-289), etc. But now Cingular says they are going to quit paying for the wide-area calling ability on 620-870. Maybe I should switch my cell phone to Cellular One or Alltel or US Cellular and be located on 620-330 which is considered local. But it usually is good quality service otherwise. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Joseph Subject: Re: OT: Cell Phone Newsgroup Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 09:05:16 -0800 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Reply-To: joeofseattle@yahoo.com On Thu, 21 Nov 2002 19:31:05 -0600, J Kelly wrote: > I don't know of a GSM/800 AMPS phone available in the US, or of any > carrier (in the US) using 800 GSM for that matter. Cingular soon will offer GSM 800/850 in areas where they don't have 1900 Mhz spectrum. Some new handsets from Nokia and Siemens now support GSM 800/850. I don't believe it's in service yet, but should be shortly. There was also some talk that AT&T may also initiate GSM 800/850 GSM. I've written GSM 800/850 as the actual frequency is not exactly 800 or 850, but rather encompasses these frequencies. 800 is commonly known as cellular and 1900 is by government definition PCS. They use the same cellular technology just are called something different for the different part of the spectrum that they use. Replies are seldom read. Please reply in the group [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The Cingular agent here in Independence tells me the same thing: they are going to begin offering GSM. No word yet on the pricing or how it works. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Stanley Cline Subject: Re: OT: Cell Phone Newsgroup Date: 22 Nov 2002 18:19:06 GMT Organization: Roamer1 Communications - Dunwoody, GA, USA Reply-To: sc1-news@roamer1.org In article , J Kelly wrote: > I don't know of a GSM/800 AMPS phone available in the US, or of any > carrier (in the US) using 800 GSM for that matter. T-Mobile is 1900 Cingular and AT&T, as well as some smaller carriers that have significant roaming from Cingular and/or AT&T customers such as Corr Wireless in Alabama, are moving to GSM850 in areas where they don't have 1900 MHz licenses. There are reports that Cingular already has GSM850 running in parts of Kentucky and Indiana. 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: Jules Dubois Subject: Re: Has Anyone Heard of Cogent? Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 13:38:00 -0500 In article , sooper_chicken@hotmail.com says... > Cogent Communications http://www.cogentco.com/home.html is advertising > a 100 meg connection to the net for a grand a month. Anyone have > their service? > This is actually kind of hard to believe ... there has to be a catch. They have (or had) a very bad reputation for harboring spammers: http://groups.google.com/groups?as_q=cogentco&as_ugroup=news.admin.net- abuse.sightings Many of their IP addresses were listed on various DNSBLs, so there is (or was) a good potential for having your email refused. Currently, it looks like they're serious about trying to clean house. ------------------------------ From: Andy Finkenstadt Subject: Re: Has Anyone Heard of Cogent? Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 06:36:29 UTC Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC Reply-To: kahuna@panix.com In Henry Cabot Henhouse III writes: > Cogent Communications http://www.cogentco.com/home.html is advertising > a 100 meg connection to the net for a grand a month. > This is actually kind of hard to believe ... there has to be a catch. There is. The 100 megabits or 1 gigabit offerings are within the MAN (metropolitan area network) only. Any transit between the cities offered and any transit to the internet as a whole is not going to be guaranteed usage of all 100 megabits. And costs more. Andrew Finkenstadt (http://www.finkenstadt.com/andy/) ------------------------------ From: John Higdon Subject: Re: Has Anyone Heard of Cogent? Organization: Green Hills and Cows Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2002 22:46:12 -0800 In article , Henry Cabot Henhouse III wrote: > Cogent Communications http://www.cogentco.com/home.html is advertising > a 100 meg connection to the net for a grand a month. Anyone have > their service? > This is actually kind of hard to believe ... there has to be a catch. My first question is: how does it get to your location? If it doesn't include the fiber drop (do you even have fiber available at your location?), that could be a problem. John Higdon | Email Address Valid | SF: +1 415 428-COWS +1 408 264 4115 | Anytown, USA | FAX: +1 408 264 4407 ------------------------------ From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: Has Anyone Heard of Cogent? Date: 22 Nov 2002 00:59:54 -0500 Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > Cogent Communications http://www.cogentco.com/home.html is advertising > a 100 meg connection to the net for a grand a month. Anyone have > their service? > This is actually kind of hard to believe ... there has to be a catch. Cogentco bought the US part of PSI's dead body. They're real, but a little poking around on their site shows that for $1000 you get a point to point connection, not transit to the net. If you want the latter, that's $3000, still pretty cheap. It also appears that you have to be in one of the cities where they already have a fiber ring. John R. Levine, IECC, POB 727, Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 387 6869 johnl@iecc.com Village Trustee and Sewer Commissioner http://iecc.com/johnl Member, Provisional board, Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail ------------------------------ From: Dave Phelps Subject: Re: Charter Cable Leak: Reporting it Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 00:12:40 -0600 In article , jdebert@garlic.com says: > Dave Phelps wrote: >> Why do you think they are the source of the noise? That must be a heck >> of a signal to interfere with so many frequencies. How do you know >> your scanner isn't broke? Do you actually see the electrons falling >> out of the cable? > Two scanners, two receivers, two transceivers, one portable TV, one > spectrum anaylser, knowledge of the channel assignments and cable > channel frequencies, etc. > j d e b e r t < a t > g a r l i c < d o t > c o m Wow. You're certainly not just a scanner junkie making guesses. Did you actually trace down the source of the leak? It seems most of the big service providers, whether it's phone, cable, whatever, seem to really like to play dumb when discussing any service issues. It doesn't surprise me at all that they don't acknowledge your complaint, mostly because the answer centers don't have a clue of what's going on. It is almost impossible to make contact with a group that knows what's going on -- I don't think they even give those people phones. Dave Phelps Phone Masters Ltd. deadspam=tippenring ------------------------------ From: Darryl Smith Subject: Re: Debit vs. Credit Cards, was: Re: Retailers' Suit Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 19:55:08 +1100 Things might be clearer in Australia. We have DEBIT and CREDIT cards. But they are almost identical. We have this thing called EFTPOS -- Electronic Funds Transfer Point Of Sale, which is a way to transfer money between your account and that of the shop you are purchasing from. The thing is that any fee as far as I can tell is paid by YOUR bank, and the fee is quite small with no comission. Basically it is an automated bank transfer. To do this I walk into a store with my card, place it in their machine and say "SAVINGS" or "CHEQUE", and type in a PIN number. The money is transferred and you have paid your bill. If your card is a CREDIT CARD this is treated like a CASH ADVANCE and interest is always calculted from then rather than any interest free period. If I walk in and press "CREDIT" the store looses a percentage from the top, and I need to sign for the purchase. I can enter a PIN if I want to but any number works [Stupid user interface here]. I can use my VISA card as either CREDIT or DEBIT modes, it is a CREDIT CARD. The only thing is that my limit is identical to the ammount of money I have in the bank ... Making it sort of a debit card too. My bank charges more fees for DEBIT CARD transactions since they are not getting as much off the top. And some retailers prefer the DEBIT CARD transactions since they get more of the money. As for a TELECOM reference, the EFTPOS machines ring up a toll free number. It used to be that this was since there was no connection fee on toll free that the dialup transaction would only cost 2-3 cents rather than 25c for a local call. Now toll free have a flagfall so this is not quite so cheap. Darryl P.S. I have come to the conclusion that ATM machines in the USA that say that they charge fees except to that bank and international card holders are lying. I often find an extra something withdrawn from my account when I use these machines. Darryl Smith, VK2TDS POBox 169 Ingleburn NSW 2565 Australia Mobile Number 0412 929 634 [+61 4 12 929 634 International] Darryl@radio-active.net.au | www.radio-active.net.au ------------------------------ From: Jack Adams Subject: Re: Few Insiders Likely on WorldCom Board Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 10:00:37 -0500 Organization: Lucent Technologies Well, here's a start on how Michael (not Mike!) is going about "fixing" WorldCom as reported in the following AP story: JACKSON, Miss. (AP) -- MCI Group, the nation's second-largest long-distance company, will raise rates sharply on some calling plans starting next month as a way to steer customers to its more lucrative calling packages. A spokeswoman for MCI parent WorldCom, Claire Hassett, said the price increase, which raises some per-minute rates to 9 cents from 5 cents, affects only a small percentage of MCI's 20 million customers and is designed to remain level with the rest of the industry. She declined to say what portion of customers would see the increases. Also starting Dec. 1, MCI said it will impose a new late charge on bills more than 21 days overdue. The rate hike defies predictions by MCI's competitors that WorldCom, which filed for bankruptcy protection in July amid an accounting scandal, would slash prices in an already depressed telecommunications market if it's allowed to emerge from bankruptcy. The hikes are not related to WorldCom's troubles, the company said. A spokesman for rival AT&T Corp. linked the increases to WorldCom's financial woes. "There certainly is room for rational pricing to find its way back into long distance, but these price hikes are extreme to say the least," AT&T spokesman Gary Morgenstern said. "I have to believe these hikes are a desperate move by a hurting company." Officials at Sprint, the nation's third-largest long-distance carrier, did not return calls seeking comment. Morgenstern said AT&T has no immediate plans to raise prices. But telecom analyst F. Drake Johnstone said AT&T actually was likely to do so. "The trend has been to raise the basic rate plan while maintaining some discount plans," Johnstone said. MCI and other phone companies are increasingly focused on offering more lucrative "bundled" plans to make up for declines in business caused by competition from smaller competitors, wireless phones and the Internet. Analysts said customers who want just one basic service, rather than a bundle of offerings, frequently cost more to service than they're worth. "They're not going to ignore a smaller customer, but they're no longer actively going after all segments of the business," said Jeff Kagan, an independent telecommunications analyst. "They're focusing on a higher-profit, higher margin customer." Analysts said that MCI hopes the rate increase will push more customers into MCI's Neighborhood Complete plan -- which offers local and long-distance service for base rates of $49.99 to $59.99 a month, depending on location. The plan debuted in April and has attracted more than 1 million subscribers in the 40 states where it is available. That plan competes with local-and-long-distance packages available in many states from AT&T and regional phone providers such as SBC Communications Inc., BellSouth Corp. and Verizon Communications Inc. MCI's rate increase also drew criticism from the Telecommunications Research and Action Center, a consumer-focused organization that tracks the industry. TRAC released a statement saying the rate increases meant that "MCI consumers now are being asked to foot the bill for the accounting fraud and other legal woes of WorldCom." Jack Adams wrote in message news:telecom22.136.13@telecom-digest.org: > Good luck Michael (Capellas) trying to straighten out WorldCom. > Christopher Stern (Washington Post) has an article worth the read. > http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12361-2002Nov19.html ------------------------------ From: John Hines Subject: Re: Programming Languages Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 10:17:23 -0600 Organization: www.jhines.org Reply-To: john@jhines.org George Mitchell wrote: > BASIC never went away completely, however, and in its incarnation as > Visual BASIC is now more popular than ever--though not more popular than > Visual C++ among heavy-duty programmers. BASIC also had a fair showing in business applications, that ran on smaller computers like the PDP11, and the PICK os and other mini computers, which were not terribly well suited to running COBOL apps. ------------------------------ 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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End of TELECOM Digest V22 #141 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Nov 22 23:24:31 2002 Received: from localhost (localhost [[UNIX: localhost]]) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.3nb1/8.11.3) id gAN4OVZ13090; Fri, 22 Nov 2002 23:24:31 -0500 (EST) Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 23:24:31 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200211230424.gAN4OVZ13090@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #142 TELECOM Digest Fri, 22 Nov 2002 23:24:00 EST Volume 22 : Issue 142 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson 011+ From NANP vs. 00+ From Most of World (Mark J Cuccia) Re: Country Code Exhaust? [was 011+ vs 01+] (BobGoudreau) Re: 011+ vs. 01+ (Joseph) Re: 011+ vs. 01+ (John R. Levine) Re: 011+ vs. 01+ (George Mitchell) Re: This is Why I Read Digest - was Re: What Auth Centers Do? (Rob Dover) Re: Cross Connect Bay Solution in Telcos? (imo353) Re: SBC Filing: MCI WorldCom Continues Slamming Consumers (John Mayson) Re: Few Insiders Likely on WorldCom Board (John Higdon) Re: Building an Acoustic Coupler (H.E. Taylor) 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: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 15:22:23 CST From: Mark J Cuccia Subject: 011+ From NANP vs. 00+ From Most of World Alan Burkitt-Gray Alan replied in my post "011+ vs. 01+": > Mark J Cuccia wrote: > [quoting from Bob Keevers' Bell Labs Record magazine article on IDDD in > Jan.1979, that] >> "'00' had already been reserved for another function under study (but >> later cancelled)" > Given that that use was cancelled, is there any reason why North > America shouldn't now adopt 00 -- alongside 011 -- as the > international dialling prefix, bringing the area into line with Europe > and much of the rest of the world? With the recent thread of IDDD access prefixes, I _KNEW_ that someone would bring this up. Should the US/Canada (NANP) adopt 00+ for (sent-paid) IDDD (alongside 011+) _JUST_ to "conform" to Europe (and most rest of the world) ????? Absolutely _NOT_, and here's why ... In most of Europe (and other parts of the World), 0+ (followed by digits NOT beginning with '0') usually indicates a "sent-paid" (bill-to-calling line) toll call within that country code. If the initial 0+ is followed by yet a second '0' (00+), this indicates that the remaining digits are a country-code followed by a national number, again "sent-paid" (bill-to-calling line). I don't know how often there are mis-dials from Europe and other parts of the World, but if you read what was quoted from Bob Keevers' Jan.1979 Bell Labs Record article, he says that the codes were also chosen so as to minimize potential mis-dials ... Again from that article: "The decision of which prefix to employ for [station-sent-paid] direct dialing and which to use for operator-assisted dialing was based on minimizing mis-dialing. From the earliest days of direct dialing, the concept of the accidental call to an exotic foreign country had been the subject of cartoons and comedy routines. With IDDD a simple string of dialed digits could actually cause a phone to ring in some distant land." Here in the NANP, dialing 0+ followed by digits starting with anything a '2' thru a '9' (i.e., 'N'), and _NOT_ a '0' or '1', indicates a request for a "special billed" type call within the NANP ... 0+ NXX-nxx-xxxx, the first 'NXX' being the NPA (Numbering Plan) Area Code, the first digit 'N' being any possible digit '2' thru '9' (but not '0' or '1'). One will route to a 'bong' tone to key in a calling card (or Visa/MC/AMEX/ etc. type credit card) number, or '0' to cut thru to a live operator, or some other special billing code '1X'; OR will route to a live operator, or will route to a voice/touchtone MENU. One will NOT route to a number "automatically" and simply bill to the calling line. Suppose someone accidently taps the '0' twice -- i.e., their finger bounces on the key, or the touchtone key ITSELF "bounces". That would generate 00+ nxx-etc. In the NANP, only the digits '00' would be recognized/translated/routed by the local central office switch. It would route to the (live) OPERATOR platform (or an voice/touchtone menu) of the customer's chosen primary Long Distance or inTER-LATA carrier. But if 00+ were an alternate form of IDDD from the NANP, let's suppose that the customer INTENDED was a 0+ intra-NANP call, which might be billed collect, third-party-billed, or to a card, i.e., NOT billed "sent-paid" to the calling number/line. I might be placing an intra- NANP toll call from a friend's house, from work, from a hotel/motel, etc. and do NOT want to bill that call to that number. (I would NEVER bill a toll call to a hotel/ motel room bill!!! WAY TOO DAMN EXPENSIVE!). But my finger 'bounced' on the leading '0+' where it actually (unknown at the time to me) generated 00+. Thus a sent-paid call to some overseas location!!! True, I COULD get credit for a wrong number, but these days, getting credit is NOT as simple as years ago (sit on hold for hours on end, etc). And suppose it is not my own (home) phone number I was calling from! Okay, suppose 00+ were allowed for "special billing" of IDDD calls from the NANP? i.e., one would route to a "bong" tone for card-number entry, or a menu. Suppose AGAIN, I intended intra-NANP as+NXX-nxx-xxxx, but my finger "bounced" on the '0' and generated 00+nxx-etc. Unless the LD carriers all agreed on SPECIAL voice-menu INSTRUCTIONS that I had actually keyed something OVERSEAS, I'd most likely get the same bong/menu as on the intra-NANP 0+ 'bong' or menu. Then I start keying in my card number, and lo-and-behold, the WRONG NUMBER is something halfway around the world! Now I have to try to get credit for that (overseas) wrong number! :( IN THE OLDEN DAYS, 1970's era, where "special billed" IDDD had come about, 01+ IDDD (just as 0+ intra-NANP) would route to a live OPERATOR. The 'bong' tone of ACCS (Automated Calling Card Service) had not yet been introduced in the Bell System. The live operator was instructed to ask the customer "Are you calling overseas?", if it came up on her TSPS/TOPS board as a 01+ (IDDD) special billed call. Even in the 1980's and into the 1990's, when AT&T had introduced ACCS 'bong' for the card number, if one were making a person-to-person call, you would key '0' at the bong for the operator, flash-the-switch-hook for the operator, or simply WAIT for the operator to come on the line. I can remember making calls to a friend from New Orleans who was now living in Australia as late as the early 1990's. At the time, AT&T's rates for IDDD, _ESPECIALLY_ billed to calling card, were rather expensive, including to Australia. Such card calls (at Operator STATION rates) were SIGNIFICANTLY higher than the "station sent-paid" customer-dialed 011+ rate billed automatically to the calling line. But the Person-to-Person rates, while still EXPENSIVE, were not all that much higher than Card/Operator "Station" rates. Most of the time when I needed to call, I was NOT at home, and had to call with my AT&T Calling Card. Suppose my party were not available, but someone else at the phone picked up and answered? With the Operator/Card station rate, I would be charged the full rate once the phone was picked up ... but with the Person rate, I would not be charged a penny if my party were not available. If they were eventually called to the phone, I would be charged once they identified themself, and as I said, Person rate was not all that much higher than Operator/Card station rate. SO, I'd dial (10-288+ if necessary), then 01+ 61-etc. At the BONG tone, I'd either tap '0', or flash, or wait ... and when the operator came on "AT&T, how may I help you?", I'd try to beat-her-to-the-punch saying "YES, I _AM_ calling overseas". Because AT&T's TSPS-later-OSPS Operators were still asking if one were indeed calling Overseas! ANYHOW ... back to why I do NOT want to see 00+ from the NANP ... WHY SHOULD _WE_ change? I'm not asking Europe or other parts of the World to change to NANP procedures, but WHY MAKE US change or modify anything? Europeans (and other 00+ contries) visiting the NANP are not going to be calling back home with 011+ anyhow, UNLESS their host (in a private home, or business friend) ALLOWS them to call back "home" on the host's nickel (well, DOLLARS, since the call ain't going to be one min or less!) ... Travelers SHOULD be using the dialing instructions of their HOME COUNTRY DIRECT service ... If I were travelling outside of the NANP, calls BACK to the US (and Canada) are going to be dialed with the AT&T-USA-Direct number FROM that "host" country. I _MIGHT_ consider even "country-to-country" via AT&T's USA-Direct ... but then I might also purchase a pre-paid tele-card in that country I'm visiting for domestic (toll) calls and other international calls. And follow the instructions for making local, domestic, and international calls with that pre-paid tele-card. I'd expect that Europeans/World travelers visiting the NANP would be doing the SAME THING. And ANYONE who would try to bill toll calls to their hotel/motel room bill DESERVES what they get!!! Yeah, go ahead and dial 8 or 9 and then 011+ or if you really want 00+, go ahead and dial 8 or 9 and then 00+ from your hotel room. Well, maybe you're so wealthy enuff, or your company doesn't mind paying ... but that's your OWN business! Another thing ... Cellular/wireless phones ... I've heard that many GSM type phones now have a key labelled '+' (plus), which the cellular MTSO switch would translate to the customer International Access Prefix, regardless of what country the caller (and switch) are in. Simply key in the '+' (plus) button and then the worldwide number. You don't even have to know that IDDD from the US/Canada is 011+, that 00+ is from most other countries, that 0011+ is used from Australia, etc. And it's your OWN cellular/wireless phone and roaming-plus-toll (overseas/ international toll at that) account as well. Nothing to have to worry about re-imbursing a host or paying your hotel/motel bill for. I'm not trying to tell Europeans/non-NANP countries how to handle their own numbering/dialing plans. But I don't like others telling us here in the NANP that we need to adopt European/Intl. access prefix formats. Also, let's look at the telephone culture of the NANP vs. "other parts of the world". In Europe, one is more likely to be making Intl/Overseas calls. Europe is a much smaller continent, with several geographically small countries and country codes. One is more likely to be making a call to a different country code, more so than from here in the NANP. True, businesses (and telephone 'geeks') in the NANP do make calls to non-NANP locations, but MOST of the public really does NOT make calls outside of the NANP. Unless a relative is travelling overseas, or studying abroad, or really has personal or financial business outside of the NANP, most of the US telephone public has no need or desire to call outside of the NANP. MAYBE calls to Canada, and MAYBE Mexican-American Hispanics in the southwest making calls to Mexico, Latin/Caribbean-Americans in Florida and other parts of the US making calls to those "home" countries ... Canadians might be slightly more likely to make calls to Australia/NZ or the UK/Ireland, than those of us in the U.S. would ... (with various immigrant ethnic groups likely to place calls back "home" as in the US the same is quite likely) but even MOST of their toll calls tend to be intra-Canada and to the US. There are also other geographic/regional things to consider here as well: Canada and the US (and Mexico) are all more-or-less in the same batch of time-zones. Calling patterns are more likely to be within the same waking hours. Calls within and between Canada and the US are all simply "DDD" calls within the same country code. And much of Europe is all in the same time-zone blocks. But Europe is fragmented into several geographically small countries and country codes. Again, Europeans are more likely to place calls between countries and country codes (within Europe) in the same manner that US and Canadian citizens place toll calls amongst themselves, such as between states and provinces. YES, it WOULD be nice to have universal worldwide standards in numbering and dialing. But different countries or regions in the world have developed differently, whether politically, telephonically, or just socially/culturally. The US/Canada is a LARGE enough single block, more-or-less "uniform", while the continent of Europe, although a contiguous block, is somewhat fragmented. And I really DOUBT that visitors to the NANP from outside of the NANP are "suffering", unable to make calls "back home" or even to other countries ... they SHOULD know how to use their "home country direct / Country-to-Country" access service, or use their cellular phones, and most likely already ARE doing so. Finally, _IF_ it were to ever be thrust upon us (00+ for IDDD from the NANP, whether for sent-paid or for special-billing), it would most likely take YEARS of hashing and rehashing and such, within the industry forums. The US and Canada are now quite competitive within the telephone industry, possibly MORE so than other countries of the world. No longer does AT&T, as parent company of the Bell System set the standards mostly accepted throughout the Bell and Independent telcos of the US and Canada. Even Bellcore (now Telcordia) isn't what it "used" to be for standards. Today, EVEN MORE-SO than years ago, there are committees, meetings, discussions, etc. amongst companies and people with varied business interests. Take a look at some of the issues brought before the ATIS/T1 organizations (www.atis.org), such as the ATIS-INC, the ATIS-OBF, the ATIS-NIIF industry forums. It can take FOREVER to get something adopted. And hopefully PROPERLY and seamlessly adopted. There is also REGULATORY to consider, and within the NANP, there is the FCC for the US on the FEDERAL level, state regulatory agencies within individual states, as well as the CRTC for Canada. Then, ALL LD carriers or telcos, PBXes, cellulars, etc. for "non-restricted-against-Intl" customers, would have to load their switches with 00+ as an IDDD access alternative. All of this is JUST _NOT_ a priority here in the NANP telephone industry! - Mark J. Cuccia ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 11:52:21 EST From: BobGoudreau Reply-To: BobGoudreau@nc.rr.com Subject: Re: Country Code Exhaust? [was 011+ vs 01+] Mark J Cuccia wrote: > Other spare/unassigned codes include 259 which had once been > intended for Zanzibar, even though Zanzibar has been part of 255 > Tanzania. The town of Zanzibar in the country of Tanzania has always > been dialed with 255 for the country of Tanzania! (I don't know what > the original intent was for a separate code of 259 for the town of > Zanzibar!?) Zanzibar is an island off the East coast of Africa, not just a town. It was a colony in its own right, and became an independent country in 1963. A year later it merged with another newly-independent former British colony, Tanganyika, to form the new nation of Tanzania. They remain joined today, though Zanzibar does have a distinct culture of its own and retains special political rights within Tanzania. There's an interesting parallel off the coast of East Asia. At almost the same time that Tanzania was formed, another pair of ex-British colonies consisting of a small island nation (Singapore) and its much larger mainland neighbor (Malaya) merged (along with two other ex-British possessions on the island of Borneo) to form the new country of Malaysia. However, that partnership dissolved after less than two years when Singapore left the new federation. Bob Goudreau Cary, NC ------------------------------ From: Joseph Subject: Re: 011+ vs. 01+ Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 18:03:03 -0800 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Reply-To: joeofseattle@yahoo.com On Fri, 22 Nov 2002 10:23:27 -0000, Burkitt-Gray Alan wrote: > Mark J Cuccia wrote "'00' had already been > reserved for another function under study (but later cancelled)" > Given that that use was cancelled, is there any reason why North > America shouldn't now adopt 00 -- alongside 011 -- as the > international dialling prefix, bringing the area into line with Europe > and much of the rest of the world? Wouldn't it be nice if we had the same emergency number i.e. 112 as they do in Europe also. Actually, with my GSM mobile I do have 112 as an emergency number which my guess gets silently translated to 911 for the emergency services. 911 evolved I'd gather because in most of the US we were used to having three digit codes such as 411 for directory (formerly information), 611 for faults (repair), 211 for the long distance operator, 811 for the business office, etc. Of course we didn't consult the ITU (formerly CCITT) what we were about or what we were doing. Neither did Great Britain consult anyone when they decided to use 999 originally either :) Replies are seldom read. Please reply in the group ------------------------------ Date: 22 Nov 2002 21:48:56 -0500 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: 011+ vs. 01+ Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > Given that that use [of 00] was cancelled, is there any reason why > North America shouldn't now adopt 00 -- alongside 011 -- as the > international dialling prefix, bringing the area into line with > Europe and much of the rest of the world? North American telephone practice is different from the rest of the world (or more accurately, the rest of the world is different from North America, since we standardized first and European countries declined AT&T's offer to join the numbering plan.) The numbering is different, the dialing plan is different, and the signalling is different. We're not going to change, our system works just fine. The only change in the forseeable future is that some time in the 21st century, we'll run out of ten-digit numbers and will somehow switch to longer numbers, probably 12 digits. But the numbers will still be fixed length, and we'll still dial calls the way we do now. Besides, the last time I checked, 00 called an operator at your long distance carrier. It's not unused. 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: George Mitchell Subject: Re: 011+ vs. 01+ Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 12:38:53 -0800 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Burkitt-Gray Alan wrote: > Given that that use was cancelled, is there any reason why North > America shouldn't now adopt 00 -- alongside 011 -- as the > international dialling prefix, bringing the area into line with Europe > and much of the rest of the world? Sure -- NIH*. -- George Mitchell (obfuscated email address) *NIH: not invented here. ------------------------------ From: Robert Dover Subject: Re: This is Why I Read Digest - was Re: What Auth Centers Do? Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 14:35:00 -0600 Organization: Nortel Lou Jahn wrote: > It always impressed me that Amoco had installed a 1.2KB memory 1620 > (I think that was the number) computer in a bulk oil terminal... Ah, the 1620 - The CADET machine: Can't Add, Doesn't Even Try! It had no arithmetic logic and did decimal arithmetic via a matrix. It was the first computer I ever programmed, back in 1966 as a high school junior. The year after I graduated, they "upgraded" by adding drum memory and a line printer. Our earlier print device was like a selectric typewriter. ------------------------------ From: imo353 Subject: Re: Cross Connect Bay Solution in Telcos? Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 21:14:34 GMT Yes there is a solution: "Titan 5500" PStreicher wrote in message news:telecom22.117.11@telecom-digest.org: > Help! Has anyone in the industry came up with a solution to the mess > that has taken over the ccb bays in the central offices? I work for > Verizon and have a terrible time trying to trace jumpers for > troubleshooting problems these last few years. The problems all > started when they began installing DSX cross connect panels into new > bays that cross connected into the older cross connect bays. These > newer DSX bays use four wires with a larger gauge wire that has now > overtaken the space and is falling out of the older ccb bays. Wires > are so tightly bundled now that when someone takes out an order of > hi-cap they cut the wires instead of pulling them out. You can imagine > what this could look like in a few years. These ccb bays are the > spinal column of the telcom industry. Any failure in them would me > disaster to the central offices in areas affected by them. Any info > would be appreciated. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 15:25:07 -0600 From: John Mayson Reply-To: John Mayson Subject: Re: SBC Filing: MCI WorldCom Continues Slamming Consumers Organization: Ye 'Ol Disorganized NNTPCache groupie > SBC Filing: MCI WorldCom Continues Slamming Consumers, Even in > Bankruptcy; Company Also Continues Deceptive Practices, SBC > Records Show > - Nov 21, 2002 05:49 PM (BusinessWire) This is EXACTLY what happened to me. It took four months to get MCI and their collection agencies off my back, then they had the gall to claim I authorized the switch, but offered no proof. John Mayson Austin, Texas, USA ------------------------------ From: John Higdon Subject: Re: Few Insiders Likely on WorldCom Board Organization: Green Hills and Cows Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 14:38:03 -0800 In article , Jack Adams wrote: > TRAC released a statement saying the rate > increases meant that "MCI consumers now are being asked to foot the > bill for the accounting fraud and other legal woes of WorldCom." The beauty of it is that in a healthy, competitive market, those customers can pack up and leave. There are plenty of choices out there. John Higdon | Email Address Valid | SF: +1 415 428-COWS +1 408 264 4115 | Anytown, USA | FAX: +1 408 264 4407 ------------------------------ From: H.E. Taylor Subject: Re: Building an Acoustic Coupler Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 23:32:20 GMT Organization: MTS Internet In article , JoshB wrote: > Hi people, > I was wanting to build an acoustic coupler. > I m not worried about speeds or such, as I will not be building it > for practical use, but rather for personal interest. > Unfortunatly, I am having a hard time finding any references. I don't > have a good idea where to start, materials needed, etc. If anyone > could point me to some useful info, most appreciated. I don't have a pointer for you, unless you take a look at some old Byte or RE mags. The last time I built one (early 80's), I got some radiator hose the right size and cut it so the mouth & ear pieces would fit just right. As I recall the mechanic was greatly amused. -het "progress in software has not followed Moore's law." -John Holland Computer Links: http://www.autobahn.mb.ca/~het/clinks.html H.E. Taylor http://www.autobahn.mb.ca/~het/ ------------------------------ 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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End of TELECOM Digest V22 #142 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sun Nov 24 00:37:57 2002 Received: from localhost (localhost [[UNIX: localhost]]) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.3nb1/8.11.3) id gAO5bvZ01668; Sun, 24 Nov 2002 00:37:57 -0500 (EST) Date: Sun, 24 Nov 2002 00:37:57 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200211240537.gAO5bvZ01668@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #143 TELECOM Digest Sun, 24 Nov 2002 00:38:00 EST Volume 22 : Issue 143 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Need Help Finding Certain Phone (Mike) A New Helpful Tool For Cellular Phones (TELECOM Digest Editor) Re: 011+ vs. 01+ (John David Galt) Re: 011+ vs. 01+ (Gary Novosielski) Re: 011+ vs. 01+ (Ed Ellers) Political Spam: Get Used to It (Monty Solomon) Massachusetts "Do Not Call" Registry Coming Soon (Monty Solomon) Anything-Goes TV Takes Viewers Into the 'Cathouse' (Monty Solomon) Microsoft Wants Your Cellphone (Monty Solomon) "An Irresponsible Exercise in Political Chicanery" (Monty Solomon) Jesse Helms: Web Radio's Hero (Monty Solomon) U.S., European Cellphone Makers Lose Ground-Survey (Monty Solomon) Verizon Sues to Halt Privacy Rules in Wash. State (Monty Solomon) Sprint PCS to Sell Nokia Phone After Two-Year Hiatus (Monty Solomon) Consumers Caught in Debit-Credit Duel: Banks,Stores Feuding (M. Solomon) AT&T's Cable Rates Rising 7.8% on Average (Monty Solomon) MCI Hiking Many Rates up to 80% (Monty Solomon) Palm Pilots Grounded at Federal Courthouse (Monty Solomon) AOL Tests Standalone E-Mail Product (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: littleboyblu87@yahoo.com (Mike) Subject: Need Help Finding Certain Phone Date: 22 Nov 2002 21:09:53 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ I want to buy an cordless phone with an answering machine and a caller ID. I want one that allows me to listen to answering machine messages from the phone itself. For example, if I'm outside and someone calls but I don't want to answer and they leave a message, I can hear that message as it is being left just by pushing a button on the phone. I saw one of these before but I'm having trouble finding them now. I've been to bestbuy.com, circuitcity.com, and att.com but they don't seem to have them. Or maybe that feature isn't listed on the sites. I don't even know what that feature is called exactly. Does anyone know? Does anyone know where I can find one of these phones? Thanks. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I have a phone just like that. Cordless in the 900 megs range; answering machine in the base unit which is totally digital, with two outgoing messages for different circumstances, (messages have to be manually switched on or off; cannot change them based on ringing cadence for example); CallerID in the handset along with some speed dial and review of caller numbers; AND its handsfree with a headset that plugs in the side of the wireless handset. Go out in your backyard, wear the headset, sit down and take/receive calls. What it WON'T do is allow playback of messages from the cordless handset, but there is a way around that, sort of. Just as the answering machine is starting to pick up, tap the button you use to turn on the phone. Just don't speak. Sit there quietly, and you can listen as the person speaks to the recorder. A friend of mine bought it for me at Costco, in a town in Oregon where he goes now and then. The cost was less than fifty dollars for the entire unit (digital answering machine, caller-ID, cordless phone with headset. It will also announce the time and date of messages. It is made by Uniden and is one of their top of the line cordless phone units. A VERY good unit for less than fifty dollars. I have it pick up on my distinctive ring line only. Both the main number and distinctive ring-ring line sound the bell of course, but the main number gets withdrawn and pulled away after three rings and sent to my cell phone. The distinctive ring-ring line gives a fourth ring to give me time to answer, then the Uniden answering machine gets it. Naturally there are about 65,535 code sequences so passers by can't 'cruise for dial tone' on my line. In fact, I have a *second* Uniden cordless phone on the same line in another room here, and they do not 'bump into each other' at all. Neither of the Uniden cordless phones (either the fancy one from Costco in Oregon) or the plain vanilla one I had before that has the kind of range I would like. If out of my house, I can walk a half block down the alley or to either corner (I am in the middle of the block) and it stops working. I'd like to be able to walk entirely around the block and still be able to use it. You get about a week on one battery charge for standby time, less the more you talk of course. If you set the phone down, you can use the base to locate where you left the handset/headset part. Except for that one glaring deficiency (being able to listen to messages after the fact on the handset), it seems to do what you want to do. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Telecom Digest Editor Subject: A New Helpful Tool for Cellular Phone Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2002 23:35:00 EST Mike Sandman sent me a new tool to use with my Nokia 5165 cell phone which is quite handy. It is called a 'Cell Socket' and together with an external antenna (which Mike also sells) it allows you to use your cell phone as a 'regular' phone. You plug the Nokia 5100 series cell phone into the Cell Socket. It is basically a 'hands free' unit like you have in a car. The cell phone thinks thats what it is and the screen message says 'handsfree' when you plug it into the Cell Socket. On the back side of the unit is the charger cord so the phone stays charged all the time. Also on the back of the unit you plug in a regular modular cord and any telephone you want to use. I plugged in my plain vanilla Uniden cordless phone there. You can also plug in an external antenna -- it looks like a tiny 5/8 wave antenna with three radials on the side to improve your transmission. The Cell Socket provides 'dial tone' to the phone you plugged in the back. To make calls, just dial them on whatever phone you plugged in on the modular cord on the back. The external phone also rings if you get an incoming call. What you have to remember to do is end the dialing string with a # which releases what you dialed out to the Nokia phone. Dial your number on the landline phone, press the # symbol, then watch and see the number you dialed go zipping across the display on the cell phone as the call progresses. If the cell phone recieves a call, the external phone will ring, just answer it. Obvious advantages are big savings on long distance calls. Make all your long distance calls from your cell phone on the phone of your choice. Very few people even begin to use all the minutes they have available at night on their cell phones, so make landline calls from the cellphone also on the same external phone. I sat the antenna in one corner next to a window, the Cell Socket box on a bedside table and the Uniden cordless phone next to it (but you can use whatever extra phone you want to plug in there instead). The volume and transmission sounds great using that external antenna. In fact when I chatted later with Mike he said he could not tell that I was on a cell phone. A nice compact box, no antenna cords dangling around, etc. You can also use a multi-line phone as desired, or a PBX with one extension devoted to the Cell Socket device. Ask for the instructions on wiring these if you do this. Mike might have put it in his online catalog by now (www.sandman.com) or you could just inquire of him if you want to get one. My best estimate of the TOTAL cost (for CellSocket device and external antenna) is around two hundred dollars. Mike can tell you for sure. It works with any Nokia 5100 series phone. Contact Mike at mike@sandman.com for details on this interesting new gizmo for cell phones. He might have them for Motorola phones also. PAT ------------------------------ From: John David Galt Subject: Re: 011+ vs. 01+ Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2002 11:19:24 -0800 Organization: Diogenes the Cynic Hot-Tubbing Society > Mark J. Cuccia wrote: >> Given that that use [of 00] was cancelled, is there any reason why >> North America shouldn't now adopt 00 -- alongside 011 -- as the >> international dialling prefix, bringing the area into line with >> Europe and much of the rest of the world? John R. Levine wrote: > The only change in the forseeable future is that some time in the 21st > century, we'll run out of ten-digit numbers and will somehow switch to > longer numbers, probably 12 digits. But the numbers will still be > fixed length, and we'll still dial calls the way we do now. Have you seen the industry proposals for changing to 11- or 12-digit "national" numbers? In both versions I've seen, step one will be to require dialing of the full number on every call, thus eliminating the leading '1'. I hate this idea, but they didn't ask me. > Besides, the last time I checked, 00 called an operator at your long > distance carrier. It's not unused. One could equally argue that '011' could not be created because '0' by itself was not unused. In fact, '00 + more' IS unused. The NANP could start using 00 as the international prefix right now if they wanted to. The only change to current practice would be that when you dial 00 by itself to reach a long distance operator, there would be a pause after dialing (which you can skip by pressing #) just as there is now when you dial 0 by itself. I support Mark Cuccia's idea, not only because it would bring us into line with world practice, but because it would open up the possibility of creating other country codes beginning with '1' (either by splitting the NANP or by issuing the now-wasted sequences of 10x and 11x as new country codes). ------------------------------ From: Gary Novosielski Subject: Re: 011+ vs. 01+ Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2002 21:29:33 GMT In Mark J Cuccia 's message news:telecom22.139.7@telecom-digest.org: > [When TSP(S)-served areas introduced 0+ dialing, when one needed to simply > reach a live local operator, dialing '0' and then doing nothing caused a > three-to-five second delay until the local central office switch registers > "timed-out" and seized a trunk to the TSP/TSPS, but flagged to indicate a > "zero-minus" call. Customers with 12/16 button DTMF phones can always hit > the '#' button after the single '0', and are supposed to "cut-thru" to the > TSP/TSPS/TOPS/OSPS/whatever, for a "zero-minus" operator call, but back in > the 1960's, with so many rotary-dial customers still around, it was > proposed that '00' would indicate a "zero-minus" call RIGHT AWAY, without > having to wait the extra few seconds delay until the switch registers > timed-out. This was to be called "Operator-on-the-double", and intended if > there were an emergency need for reaching the operator. However, 911 later > came about, and more customers had (12 button) DTMF phones, so to simply > reach the live local operator, 0+'#' was possible] Actually, that 00 *did* work for reaching the Operator "on the double" for a good long while here in 201-land. 0+ dialing was introduced well before the Bell System breakup, so there was a period of time when dialing 0- would get you a long dead pause. When dialing the Operator, I developed the habit of dialing 00 to avoid the wait, and it worked perfectly. It never occurred to me to dial 0# instead but, back then, I think most of the phones I used were still rotary anyway. I do remember that those of my friends who were early-adopters of Touch-Tone service ended up with 10-button phones (leased from and installed by NJ Bell), so it's likely that none of us could dial a # even if we had thought of it. Now that everybody has two (or more) phone companies, the 00 code reaches the LD operator, but even today the use of the # key is one of the least-publicized "features" of the entire phone system. Burkitt-Gray Alan wrote in message news:telecom22.140.2@telecom-digest.org: > Given that that [proposed] use was cancelled, is there any reason > why North America shouldn't now adopt 00 -- alongside 011 -- as the > international dialing prefix, bringing the area into line with > Europe and much of the rest of the world? Because although that first proposal was *not* adopted, another use of 00 later *was* adopted -- its present-day function of connecting you to the operator for your chosen long distance carrier. Gary ------------------------------ From: Ed Ellers Subject: Re: 011+ vs. 01+ Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2002 17:54:50 -0500 Joseph wrote: > Wouldn't it be nice if we had the same emergency number i.e. 112 as > they do in Europe also. Actually, with my GSM mobile I do have 112 > as an emergency number which my guess gets silently translated to > 911 for the emergency services. AIUI, in the UK calls to 112 (wireless or wireline) are routed to 999 as well. Supposedly some people are not satisfied with this -- they want to force the use of only 112, allegedly because Brits traveling to the Continent might not remember to dial 112 rather than 999 if they have an emergency. > 911 evolved I'd gather because in most of the US we were used to > having three digit codes such as 411 for directory (formerly > information), 611 for faults (repair), 211 for the long distance > operator, 811 for the business office, etc. Publicity at the time (late 1960s) claimed, IIRC, that x11 codes worked better with some switches, leading to that range being reserved for special services. There was also a concern that with 999 panicky callers might forget how many times they had dialed the same digit, and -- if they dialed one too many on a rotary phone -- would be disconnected. (Which reminds me of the scene in "Get Shorty" where someone's head is grazed by a bullet, and he runs through the barbershop yelling, "Call 9-f---ing-1-1-1! Call 9-f---ing-1-1-1!" A call to "9111" would still go through, but a call to "9999" wouldn't, at least not from a rotary phone.) > Of course we didn't consult the ITU (formerly CCITT) what we were > about or what we were doing. The United States is a sovereign nation, and does not need the permission of the ITU to do anything, fortunately. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, yes and no. Although we are a sovereign nation, we are signatories to various agreements between nations, for example the Geneva convention on copyrights, etc. I think where telecommunications are concerned we also have certain agreements in place. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2002 18:56:21 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Political Spam: Get Used to It An outraged constituent is suing Elizabeth Dole's campaign for sending junk e-mail. Is spam from politicians a crime -- or a vital First Amendment right? By Katharine Mieszkowski Nov. 20, 2002 | When Ken Pugh, a computer consultant, returned to his home office in Durham, N.C., this summer after spending three weeks hiking the Appalachian Trail in Connecticut and New Hampshire, he discovered a new breed of junk e-mail fighting for his attention among the usual crowd of penis enlargement and Viagra advertisements. He was the disgruntled recipient of political spam from then wannabe-senator Elizabeth Dole. Pugh, who gets about 25 spam messages a day, had received eight unsolicited e-mails from candidate Dole, outlining her positions on everything from estate taxes (she's against them) to drought relief for North Carolina farmers (she's for it). The computer consultant couldn't figure out how he'd gotten on the list, since he hadn't signed up for any bulletins from Dole's campaign Web site. One possibility: Dole's site includes a "refer a friend" feature that encourages supporters to offer up their chums' e-mail addresses on her candidacy's behalf. Pugh didn't know what so-called friend might have opted him in, but he was happy to finally have caught a spammer who'd put her name on the messages: Elizabeth Dole. "All of a sudden, I'd gotten spam from someone who I could identify," says Pugh, a registered Independent. North Carolina is one of 26 states with anti-spam laws. So Pugh wrote to the Dole campaign demanding $80 in reparations -- $10 for each unsolicited message, as the state statute specifies. On Aug. 26, the Dole campaign responded, assuring Pugh that he'd been removed from its mailing list, but refusing the payout, pointing out that North Carolina's anti-spam law applies specifically to "commercial" e-mail messages. http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2002/11/20/political_spam/ ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2002 16:26:03 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Massachusetts "Do Not Call" Registry Coming Soon MASSACHUSETTS "DO NOT CALL" REGISTRY COMING SOON! Recently enacted legislation creates a "Do Not Call" registry within the Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation. The law becomes effective on January 1, 2003. Consumers will have the option of calling a toll-free number or providing information to the "do not call" registry to avoid telemarketer calls. Please see links on the left for more information and stay tuned to this website for information about the "Do Not Call" registry. http://www.Mass.gov/donotcall ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2002 18:09:38 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Anything-Goes TV Takes Viewers Into the 'Cathouse' By Steve Gorman LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Call it Big Brother meets "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas." Just when it strains credulity to see how far ordinary people will go for 15 minutes of fame, and what the public will watch, HBO airs a documentary next month in which patrons of a Nevada brothel happily appear on camera negotiating and consorting with prostitutes. And hardly an eyebrow is being raised as the major U.S. networks fall over themselves to bring ever more outlandish concepts to the airwaves. TV courtship, matrimony and libido abound in such shows as The Bachelor ," "elimiDATE" and Temptation Island ." Contestants eat bugs and cover themselves in spiders in high-concept game shows like "Survivor" and "Fear Factor." There are even new series in the works to choose a "people's" candidate for president and to let family members fight for the inheritance of a rich relative in prime time. http://news.lycos.com/news/story.asp?section=Entertainment&storyId=577614 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2002 18:22:57 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Microsoft Wants Your Cellphone The software king has big plans for making the world of mobile phones safe for Windows. Can phone makers, and a little Norwegian company called Opera, stop the onslaught? By Farhad Manjoo Nov. 21, 2002 | When Jon von Tetzchner travels from his home in Norway to the United States, he often carries with him a small black bag stuffed with about a half dozen cellular phones. The phones are of various models, sizes and colors, and they're all brand-new and as stylish as they come -- sleek, tiny brushed-steel and translucent-plastic devices that are probably at the center of many cell-addled Euro teens' most lurid tech fantasies. Von Tetzchner -- the CEO and co-founder of Opera software, which makes a commercial Web browser with a reputation among chic geeks of being one of the best alternatives to Microsoft's Internet Explorer -- doesn't bring the phones with him just to burnish his image. The gadgets serve a business purpose. Opera has just released a new Web browser for tiny devices, and von Tetzchner needs all those phones to prove that his software will work on just about anything. Microsoft's browser will work only on phones powered by Microsoft's cellphone operating system -- and von Tetzchner considers that a significant limitation for Microsoft as well as a significant opportunity for Opera. http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2002/11/21/microsoft_cellphone/ ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2002 18:49:42 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: "An Irresponsible Exercise in Political Chicanery" In a fiery speech on the Senate floor, Sen. Robert Byrd calls the Department of Homeland Security a butt-coverer for Bush, a corporate boondoggle and a license for Uncle Sam to spy on Americans. Nov. 21, 2002 | On Tuesday, the Senate voted 90-9 to approve the landmark Homeland Security bill. Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., was one of the few senators voting against it, and in an address on the Senate floor, he raised fundamental questions about the need for the new agency and whether it will have the desired impact. What follows is the full transcript of his remarks during the conclusion of the Homeland Security debate. http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2002/11/21/byrdremarks/ ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2002 18:58:20 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Jesse Helms: Web Radio's Hero Small Internet radio broadcasters on the brink of financial disaster have won some breathing room, thanks to the senator from North Carolina. By F. Timothy Martin Nov. 19, 2002 | For the noncommercial Web broadcasting community, mostly composed of politically left-leaning independent and college radio stations, an unlikely ally has emerged to help in their fight against potentially crippling royalty payments. He is Jesse Helms, the Republican senator from North Carolina, and while his actions may very well be motivated by the interests of small conservative Christian Internet broadcasters, his support for the Small Webcasters Settlement Act (SWSA) has compelled some noncommercial station backers to feel for him what they never imagined they could -- gratitude. Helms first involved himself in late October, when a version of the bill reached the Senate after unanimously passing a vote in the House of Representatives. Several senators, including Helms, voiced concerns that the bill lacked provisions to protect small and noncommercial webcasters. As a result, Helms moved to block the legislation, the only senator to do so. http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2002/11/19/helms_web_radio/ ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2002 19:01:18 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: U.S., European Cellphone Makers Lose Ground - Survey AMSTERDAM, Nov 22 (Reuters) - South Korea's Samsung Electronics continued as the world's fastest-growing cellphone maker in the third quarter, while all the main European and U.S. manufacturers lost ground, according to new market research. Samsung (KOREA:05930), which also makes televisions, fridges and semiconductors, is still three times smaller than market leader Nokia (HELS:NOK1V) of Finland, but rapidly closing a gap with the number two, Motorola (NYSE:MOT), U.S.-based Strategy Analytics said. Nokia's market share in the quarter ended at 35.9 percent, compared with 37.1 percent in the second quarter. Nokia has pledged to regain market share in the fourth quarter. U.S.-based Motorola's share was 16.7 percent, down from 17.2 percent in the second quarter, but Samsung's share rose to 11.5 percent from 9.7 percent. Germany's Siemens fell to 7.7 percent from 8.4 percent and number five Sony Ericsson egded down to 4.9 percent in the third quarter from 5.2 percent in the second. The mobile phone industry manufactures about 400 million handsets a year. Samsung unit sales grew by 63 percent from the third quarter last year, far outpacing everyone in the top five, thanks to strong demand for its premium-priced phones featuring dual and colour screens. Strategy Analytics said that Samsung put sharp and bright colour displays even on models which lacked multimedia services and hardly used this expensive feature. It is in sharp contrast with Nokia, which only puts colour screens on phones which have multimedia capabilities. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=30053586 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2002 19:06:46 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Verizon Sues to Halt Privacy Rules in Wash. State NEW YORK, Nov 22 (Reuters) - Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ), the largest U.S. telephone carrier, on Friday filed a lawsuit against Washington state regulators charging that their rules to safeguard customer privacy would inhibit the company's ability to serve customers and develop new products. Verizon said the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission (WUTC) adopted rules that put restrictions on its ability to speak to its customers regarding other products and services it provides. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=30066753 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2002 19:08:06 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Sprint PCS to Sell Nokia Phone After Two-Year Hiatus CHICAGO, Nov 22 (Reuters) - Sprint PCS Group (NYSE:PCS), which stopped selling Nokia cell phones about two years ago because of technical problems with the handsets, said on Friday it will start selling a Nokia (HELS:NOK1V) (NYSE:NOK) model again by the end of the year. Sprint PCS, the fourth-largest U.S. wireless telephone company, will carry the Nokia 3585 voice-only cell phone on a limited basis at Sprint PCS and Radio Shack (NYSE:RSH) stores, spokesman Dan Wilinsky told Reuters. The Overland Park, Kansas-based operator had stopped selling phones made by Finland's Nokia, the world's largest cell phone maker, due to technical problems with its cell phones. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=30066589 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2002 19:28:40 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Consumers Caught in Debit-Credit Duel / Banks, Stores Feuding Banks, stores feuding over $3b a year in fees By Scott Bernard Nelson, Globe Staff, 11/23/2002 Consumers are increasingly using debit cards to pay for everything from groceries to golf clubs to garden furniture. But a behind-the-scenes fight between banks and retail stores this holiday season threatens to confuse millions of consumers and send them scurrying back to the relative simplicity of paper checks, cash, and credit cards. With as much as $3 billion in annual fees at stake, banks and retailers have decided to take their long-simmering debit card fight to consumers. It all boils down to a question more vexing than ''paper or plastic'': Should you press the ''debit'' or the ''credit'' button when you use your check card? Make the wrong choice, and it could cost you as much as 75 cents extra for each transaction. Make the right one and you might be eligible for frequent flier airline miles, store credit, or cash-back bonuses. http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/327/business/Consumers_caught_in_debit_credit_duel+.shtml ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2002 20:11:23 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: AT&T's Cable Rates Rising 7.8% on Average Comcast Merger Not a Factor, Company Says By Peter J. Howe, Globe Staff, 11/23/2002 AT&T Broadband, the dominant cable-television provider in Massachusetts, will raise cable TV rates by an average 7.8 percent for ''standard cable'' subscribers, starting Jan. 1. Yesterday's announcement came just four days after Comcast Corp. completed its $50 billion takeover of AT&T Broadband - a move the companies said could lead to major cost savings by merging the two companies, including reductions in the cost of buying programming, a key driver of soaring cable rates nationally. But company officials said the rate increases were decided weeks before the merger was consummated on Monday and that the new Comcast management had no role in the decision. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2002 20:15:24 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: MCI Hiking Many Rates up to 80% 100 international and 11 domestic plan increases set for Dec. 1 By Bruce Mohl, Globe Staff, 11/22/2002 MCI, the long-distance arm of struggling WorldCom, is dramatically increasing many of its domestic and international rates, in some instances by as much as 80 percent. A spokeswoman for MCI said the rate increases take effect Dec. 1 and largely affect calling plans that the company hasn't actively promoted for close to three years. The spokeswoman, Lauren Kallens, declined to say how many subscribers would be affected. Consumer groups urged MCI customers affected by the increases to change plans or carriers and one group said the rate changes are a direct fallout of WorldCom's financial problems. WorldCom has been operating under bankruptcy protection since July 21 and the company has said it will have to restate about $9 billion because of accounting irregularities. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2002 20:17:42 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Palm Pilots Grounded at Federal Courthouse By 0, 11/23/2002 When local lawyers got their once-a-year chance to quiz federal judges in person last week, they eschewed the esoteric for the mundane: Why can't we bring our Palm Pilots into the courtroom? ''In terms of what irritates people, this is probably number one,'' said Howard Friedman, who asked the lead-off question. ''Palm Pilots are now one of the tools of our trade, like yellow legal pads.'' Electronic devices were banned from the Moakley Federal Courthouse after Sept. 11. Since then, lawyers have found themselves mediating million-dollar settlements without calculators, calling their offices from pay phones, and scheduling court dates on scraps of paper - their trusty electronic calendars maddeningly out of reach. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2002 20:45:09 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: AOL Tests Standalone E-Mail Product By Jim Hu Staff Writer, CNET News.com November 22, 2002, 3:57 PM PT America Online is testing a standalone e-mail client that could set the stage for a features battle with Microsoft in the market for Internet-based communications software. Called "AOL Communicator," the new software bundles a beefed-up version of AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) and an address book with an e-mail client that mirrors Microsoft's popular Outlook application in appearance and features, according to a version of the software seen by CNET News.com. The software comes with an identity manager that lets a person digitally sign and encrypt e-mails and instant messages, a function that would likely appeal to business users. The e-mail client also lets a person send and manage e-mail using different accounts, by forwarding messages from POP or IMAP (Internet message access protocol) e-mail servers. AOL spokeswoman Catherine Corre confirmed the company is developing AOL Communicator but declined to comment on specifics, as the product is at an early testing stage. Corre said AOL Communicator will target "heavy users of AIM and advanced users of e-mail," but would not say whether the company plans to charge for the software or whether it would be sold to companies or to AOL subscribers. http://news.com.com/2100-1023-971064.html ------------------------------ 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 Fax 3: 775-642-0603 Fax 4: 530-309-7234 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 V22 #143 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sun Nov 24 17:14:01 2002 Received: from localhost (localhost [[UNIX: localhost]]) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.3nb1/8.11.3) id gAOME1Q11340; Sun, 24 Nov 2002 17:14:01 -0500 (EST) Date: Sun, 24 Nov 2002 17:14:01 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200211242214.gAOME1Q11340@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #144 TELECOM Digest Sun, 24 Nov 2002 17:14:00 EST Volume 22 : Issue 144 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Spam King Lives Large Off Others' E-Mail Troubles (Monty Solomon) Patch Slipup Raises Security Questions (Monty Solomon) Theater Chains, Fox in Ticket Dispute (Monty Solomon) The Would-Be King of the DVD (Monty Solomon) Re: Debit vs. Credit Cards, was Re: Retailers' Suit (Gail M. Hall) Re: Building an Acoustic Coupler (Jim Hopkins) Radio Signals (Stanley McPherson) Re: Help Hooking up Pay Phone (Gary Novosielski) Re: 011+ vs. 01+ (Paul Coxwell) Re: Book Review: "VPNs: A Beginner's Guide", John Mairs (JoshB) Globalinx/Com Tech 21 Long Distance (Niel) Re: 011+ vs. 01+ (Ed Ellers) 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: Sat, 23 Nov 2002 23:05:00 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Spam King Lives Large Off Others' E-Mail Troubles West Bloomfield computer empire helped by foreign Internet servers November 22, 2002 BY MIKE WENDLAND FREE PRESS COLUMNIST You might call it the house that spam built. Alan Ralsky's brand new 8,000-square-foot luxury home near Halsted and Maple in West Bloomfield has been a busy place this month. Outside, landscapers worked against the November cold to get a sprinkler system installed before the ground freezes. Inside, painters prepared to hang wallpaper. Meanwhile, delivery trucks pulled into the bricked circular driveway with computers, routers, servers and other high-tech gear that will hook up to the high-speed T1 line installed a few weeks ago. In the lower level of the home, tucked away in a still-unfinished room, will soon be an array of 20 different computers -- the control center of what many believe is the largest single bulk e-mailing operation in the world. It's an operation still very much in business, despite last month's much-hyped settlement of a lawsuit against Ralsky by Verizon Internet Services. The suit used Virginia's tough anti-spam laws to get Ralsky to promise to stop using Verizon servers and pay an undisclosed fee for sending out millions of unsolicited e-mails to its customers. Anti-spam groups and Verizon hailed the settlement as a major victory in the war against spam. But that war still feels far away, down on the lower level of Ralsky's home, where racks of computers instruct scores of other computers halfway around the world to fire off millions of e-mails every day. Ralsky said the legal fuss and settlement costs were a big hit and that things slowed down for a while. But now, after moving a few weeks ago into his new $740,000 house, he claims he's back in business. http://www.freep.com/money/tech/mwend22_20021122.htm [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I wonder if any individual netters or possibly ISPs have considered filing suit against Ralsky. He certainly is not judgment proof (he *is* able to pay judgments entered against him and his whereabouts are known), and he would appear to be a rather attractive target. So many guys are essentially judgment-proof, which is another way of saying you don't know where to serve them legally and if you found out where, they wouldn't have the money to pay anyway. Ralsky CAN be sued, and obviously CAN pay. I wonder if/when suits by individual netters and/or ISP's against him will commence. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2002 23:11:32 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Patch Slipup Raises Security Questions By Robert Lemos Staff Writer, CNET News.com November 21, 2002, 4:00 AM PT The questionable handling of a fix for a recent widespread software vulnerability has some administrators worried that developers can't be trusted to make security a top priority. Last week, the Internet Software Consortium withheld the patch for a critical flaw in the domain name system (DNS) software from a large number of researchers, asking instead that each person send the organization an e-mail request in order to get the fix. The software, known as the Berkeley Internet Name Domain (BIND) program, performs a critical function as the address book for the Net. The delay, coupled with messages sent to several administrators urging them to pay to become part of an early-warning group run by the ISC, has some security experts worried that security is taking a backseat to secrecy and money. http://news.com.com/2100-1001-966666.html ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 24 Nov 2002 14:32:33 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Theater Chains, Fox in Ticket Dispute By Bruce Mohl, 11/24/2002 Tickets for Wednesday's opening of ''Solaris,'' the sci-fi love story directed by Steven Soderbergh and starring George Clooney, won't be available online or by phone at many local movie theater chains. AMC and National Amusements are two of several local chains that are refusing to sell the tickets online or by phone because of an ongoing dispute with the film's distributor, 20th Century Fox, over the definition of ticket revenue. Fox insists the service charges that most theaters tack on to online and phone purchases should be considered part of a film's ticket revenue and split with the studio. http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/328/business/Theater_chains_Fox_in_ticket_dispute+.shtml ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 24 Nov 2002 15:39:20 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: The Would-Be King of the DVD By JAMES GREENBERG BURBANK Calif. -- ANYONE who has wandered into the neighborhood Blockbuster lately may have been surprised to see rows of DVD's displayed like best sellers near the entrance. Blockbuster, the largest video rental chain, now wants customers to buy -- not just rent -- "Spider-Man," "The Scorpion King" or any of Hollywood's biggest hits. Warren Lieberfarb, the president of Warner Home Video, is not surprised by the strategy change at Blockbuster, which a few weeks ago began transforming its 4,412 American stores to promote more DVD sales. Mr. Lieberfarb, whose fast-growing division of AOL Time Warner will gross $4 billion this year, has long predicted that DVD's would sell like cut-rate books. Many in the industry credit Mr. Lieberfarb, 59, with dreaming, cajoling and bullying the DVD into existence. "Warren didn't create DVD technically, but he presented it to people like myself and the film industry," said Francis Ford Coppola. "I view him as kind of a hero." Since its introduction in 1997, the DVD, or digital versatile disc, so named for its multiple uses, has become the fastest-selling consumer electronics product ever. By year-end, DVD players will be in 40 million homes, a 60 percent increase from 2001. Revenue from DVD sales and rentals is projected at $10.6 billion for this year, up 69 percent from 2001, and it now exceeds revenue from domestic theatrical film releases or VHS video. But the industry is most ecstatic about DVD because its low manufacturing costs - $1 versus $2.50 for a VHS tape - make it extremely profitable. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/24/business/yourmoney/24PROF.html ------------------------------ From: Gail M. Hall Subject: Re: Debit vs. Credit Cards, was Re: Retailers' Suit Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2002 04:35:16 -0500 Reply-To: gmhall@apk.net On Fri, 22 Nov 2002 19:55:08 +1100, Darryl Smith posted to comp.dcom.telecom: > Things might be clearer in Australia. We have DEBIT and CREDIT cards. Interesting stuff you wrote about credit/debit cards in Australia! But I snipped of lot of that part for now. > As for a TELECOM reference, the EFTPOS machines ring up a toll free > number. It used to be that this was since there was no connection fee > on toll free that the dialup transaction would only cost 2-3 cents > rather than 25c for a local call. Now toll free have a flagfall so > this is not quite so cheap. I have a relative who runs a business in which they do a lot of traveling. They have tables at shows around the country. They also visit retail shops in various towns. For quite a while they had a big AT&T cellular phone with a gadget that attached to it by a wire connection to read the card info for calling it in. Sometimes it was hard to get a good enough signal to use that, though, so they often had to resort to the "trust-em" method of swiping the card through the manual swiper and send in the paper copy. But a few months ago they found a wireless gadget that interfaces with a wireless phone via some kind of infra-red light (I guess). The wireless phone has to be one of the newer kind that can go on the Internet, etc. It has a sensor to "see" the signal from the card reader gadget. The phone has a screen on it that looks like it could be a mini palmtop! It comes with a "pen" to point at icons on the screen. It also has the normal "dial" number buttons for using as a phone. When they process a credit card, they put the card in the gadget, point its light to the phone's light sensor, and they point to a special icon on the phone's screen to call in the transaction. I was told that if they use this cardreader to call in the card info, it costs just a few cents to process the card. But if they don't have that card reader handy (like accidentally leaving it at home), they can still call the number and manually punch in the numbers from the card. BUT, the card processing company charges more to process the cards called in that way. Maybe they have fewer problems when the card is read by the magnetic strip reader. I asked what kind of phone they have, and I didn't recognize the name. I think it starts with a T and has three or four syllables and a kind of foreign sound to the name. They told me their wireless service provider is Verizon Wireless and they find good signals just about anywhere they do business. I was amazed to hear that they had such a service. I don't know how well encrypted the information is over the phone, but it seems to me that by using infra-red light instead of radio to send the signal from the cardreader device to the phone, it is safer than a radio signal. BTW, the cardreader device has a little printer built in so they can give their customers a printout of the transaction and have one for their paper records. There have been quite a few vendors at the shows I went to, and most of the vendors are equipped to process credit cards from these temporary locations (hotels, motels, fairgrounds, convention halls, etc.). Gail in Ohio USA ------------------------------ From: Jim Hopkins Subject: Re: Building an Acoustic Coupler Reply-To: bwanajim@swbell.net Organization: Prodigy Internet http://www.prodigy.com Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2002 15:30:55 GMT H.E. Taylor wrote: > In article , > JoshB wrote: >> I was wanting to build an acoustic coupler. >> Unfortunatly, I am having a hard time finding any references. I don't >> have a good idea where to start, materials needed, etc. If anyone >> could point me to some useful info, most appreciated. > ...The last time I built one (early 80's), I got some > radiator hose the right size and cut it so the mouth & ear pieces > would fit just right. As I recall the mechanic was greatly amused. I built one about the same time using two of those foam beer can holders, a small speaker, and an electret microphone. Jim Hopkins "A man's got to know his limitations." - Dirty Harry ------------------------------ From: Stanley McPherson Subject: Radio Signals Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2002 15:28:16 -0200 Is it possible in Pittsburgh to hear AM broadcasts from the West coast of the U.S. with a standard radio? Thank You. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yes, rarely, on occassion it is possible. It is quite common to hear radio stations several hundred miles away. It depends on the strength of the radio signal and atmospheric conditions. Under very good conditions a very powerful west coast station (let's say 50 K output on a clear channel) could be heard in Pittsburgh. Although I have no interest in listening to them, station WLS in Chicago can be heard late on a summer night here in Independence, KS, over 700 miles away. But WLS meets the 50 K/clear channel requirements. We also can hear a station in Des Moines, Iowa the same way. Radio propogation is kind of a mystery to say the least. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Gary Novosielski Subject: Re: Help Hooking up Pay Phone Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2002 22:38:50 GMT Gene S. Berkowitz wrote: (In a message dealing with the need for putting low-pass filters on voice phones sharing the same line). > Sorry, this is incorrect. The filter on a DSL-enabled line is just > that, a filter. It allows low (voice) frequencies to pass through, > while blocking the higher but audible "hissing" of a DSL connection. > An analog phone will operate on a DSL line without the filter, it's > just a bit noisy. It's correct that the filter isn't really needed for the *phone* to work, BUT that's only half of the issue. If you put an an unfiltered phone on a Voice/DSL line you will either cripple or completely disable the DSL connection whenever that phone is taken off-hook or, with some phone models, just by having it plugged in. So, Pat is quite correct when saying that good practice requires ALL non-DSL devices on the line to be filtered. They do not, however, require a one filter each. It would be a simple enough matter to put a filter upstream near the service entrance and filter all the phones in the house through one filter. Of course, an unfiltered pair must then be run to the DSL bridge in order for the DSL to work. That unfiltered connection could be a cross-connect to the yellow/black pair (if unused in your house) which is then connected to the DSL bridge using an L2 tap plugged into the RJ-14 jack near the computer. Still, the filters are so cheap that unless you have a *lot* of phones it's quicker and easier to just pop one on each phone and be done with it. For trouble-free DSL, dont' forget that answering machines, automatic meter-reading devices, and other gadgets will also need to be filtered. Gary [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: When my mother was living here at the family home in Independence, and my grandmother was alive, grandmother's phone came in on 'pair two' of a two-pair drop from the pole in the alley. Mother and Dad were on pair one (the box on the side of our house.) Grandma passed in 1978, my dad in 1990, that left only my mother, who retained grandma's phone number and line. As a result, pair two went around the house; pair one (the green/red wires) were not in use any longer. I moved in and about a year ago had DSL from Southwestern Bell. DSL and phone line with filter in my room on pair one. Mother moved out several months ago, and went to the Penn Manor old-people's home on Penn Street here in Independence. She 'took' her phone number along and left me with my number (DSL and filters) on pair one which still terminated in my room ONLY. I went to the 'network box' on the side of the house, and jumped the house wiring so that my pair one connected to the house pairs all over the place. As to be expected, there was hash and noise on all the 'new' jacks everywhere once the wires were connected, because of the DSL. I tried to put a single filter at the head of the line (the outside network box) so that all phones would be covered. Trouble was, the 'network interface box' was a bit too small, (or the filter was too large) to get it to fit in there properly. So I wound up going around to each phone (mother's bedroom [now my bedroom], kitchen and living area and my computer room [my old bedroom]), and put a filter on each phone. If I could find a filter small enough to get it to squeeze into the outside box I would have done it that way instead. PAT] ------------------------------ From: PaulCoxwell@aol.com Date: Sun, 24 Nov 2002 06:56:16 EST Subject: Re: 011+ vs. 01+ > AIUI, in the UK calls to 112 (wireless or wireline) are routed to 999 > as well. Supposedly some people are not satisfied with this -- they > want to force the use of only 112, allegedly because Brits traveling > to the Continent might not remember to dial 112 rather than 999 if > they have an emergency. Yes, 112 has been operating in parallel with 999 for some time now. It's listed in the phone books, but otherwise has not been widely publicized. I understand that it has also resulted in a greatly increased number of false emergency calls. Authorities here have stated that 999 will remain in service for "the forseeable future." That's just as well, as the majority of people in the U.K. are unaware of the new 112 number. I find the argument that Brits traveling abroad might forget and try to dial 999 rather silly. There are a thousand things that somebody visiting another country might or might not forget to do. Many Brits visit the U.S.A. each year, but that's hardly a reason for the U.S. to change 911 to 999, 112, or anything else. The common 112 emergency number might also be easy to implement in countries such as the U.K. where it can just be re-routed to 999, but it has created problems in countries which traditionally used separate emergency codes for different services (e.g. France, with 15, 17, and 18 for ambulance, police and fire respectively). > Given that that [proposed] use was cancelled, is there any reason > why North America shouldn't now adopt 00 -- alongside 011 -- as the > international dialing prefix, bringing the area into line with > Europe and much of the rest of the world? The possibility of misdialing by a doubling-up of the initial 0 is an interesting point. It is certainly more likely to happen in the U.K. since we adopted the 00 international code. Since the change of our area codes a few years ago, national codes for many large cities are 02x followed by an 8-digit number. Given the right combination of digits, accidentally dialing 002x... could result in a call being completed into a small African country. This wouldn't happen with our old 010 prefix for IDDD. 00 has been used as an IDDD prefix in some places for many years, but it is comparatively recently that its use has spread right across Europe. It's only a few short years ago that those same vacationing Brits who "might forget" to dial 112 instead of 999 managed to dial 19 44.. or 07 44... to call home from France or Spain without too much difficulty. ------------------------------ From: metrix007@yahoo.com (JoshB) Subject: Re: Book Review: "VPNs: A Beginner's Guide", John Mairs Date: 24 Nov 2002 03:59:05 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Rob Slade wrote in message news:: > BKVPNABG.RVW 20020928 > "VPNs: A Beginner's Guide", John Mairs, 2002, 0-07-219181-3, U$39.99 > %A John Mairs > %C 300 Water Street, Whitby, Ontario L1N 9B6 > %D 2002 > %G 0-07-219181-3 > %I McGraw-Hill Ryerson/Osborne > %O U$39.99 +1-800-565-5758 +1-905-430-5134 fax: 905-430-5020 > %P 584 p. > %T "VPNs: A Beginner's Guide" > With some caveats about certain sections of the book, I can recommend > this both as a reference to a number of VPN technologies, and to some > security related issues with TCP/IP. > copyright Robert M. Slade, 2002 BKVPNABG.RVW 20020928 I found it to be quite useless, its covering obselte protocols in the second part, only the thir part is actually vpn specific and covers ipsec in depth (which is the predominant vpn solution). ------------------------------ From: nielloeb@hotmail.com (Niel) Subject: Globalinx/Com Tech 21 Long Distance Date: 24 Nov 2002 11:07:40 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Globalinx sent an e-mail saying our next automated credit card debit for our bill would be under the name Com Tech 21. That happened. They also said future bills would not automatically charge, and we would have to make payment arrangements with Com Tech 21. They gave no contact information for Com Tech 21. Anyone know what's going on? ------------------------------ From: Ed Ellers Subject: Re: 011+ vs. 01+ Date: Sun, 24 Nov 2002 15:29:58 -0500 Gary Novosielski wrote: > Because although that first proposal was *not* adopted, another use of 00 > later *was* adopted -- its present-day function of connecting you to the > operator for your chosen long distance carrier." Given that 211 used to be used, at least in some areas, to reach a long distance operator -- back before DDD, and in areas where the local operator would have had to pass a long distance call on -- I wonder why 00 was used instead of 211 for the IXC operator. ------------------------------ 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 Fax 3: 775-642-0603 Fax 4: 530-309-7234 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 V22 #144 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sun Nov 24 23:11:26 2002 Received: from localhost (localhost [[UNIX: localhost]]) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.3nb1/8.11.3) id gAP4BQU26557; Sun, 24 Nov 2002 23:11:26 -0500 (EST) Date: Sun, 24 Nov 2002 23:11:26 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200211250411.gAP4BQU26557@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #145 TELECOM Digest Sun, 24 Nov 2002 23:11:00 EST Volume 22 : Issue 145 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Need Cordless Phone With "Flash" to Memory and Chain Dialing (susan) Yellow Pages Marketing (Mark Brader) Police, Fire, or Ambulance? (was: 011+ vs. 01+) (Mark Brader) Ralsky Just Across Town (Kim Culhan) Revenooers, was Re: Theater Chains, Fox Ticket Dispute (Danny Burstein) Blocking Ring Voltage (Lincoln J. King-Cliby) Re: Help Hooking up Pay Phone (Herb Stein) Re: Calif. Changes Cell Phone Crash Data (William H. Bowen) New Gizmos May Spark Deregulation (Monty Solomon) Court to decide Kazaa's U.S. liability (Monty Solomon) Re: Country Code Exhaust? [was 011+ vs 01+] (Shalom Septimus) Panasonic KX-TD816 and 66 Block (Philip) Last Laugh! The Ultimate Phone Spam?! (Paul G) 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: srfkcarlton@yahoo.com (susan) Subject: Need Cordless Phone With "Flash" to Memory and Chain Dialing Date: 24 Nov 2002 14:07:54 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ I own a Talkswitch PBX and am looking for a cordless phone that will allow the cordless handset to activate certain commands from its memory while offhook. Specifically, the cordless phone needs the ability to (1) store the "flash" command in its directory, memory or speed dial as part of the stored number and (2) chain dial, i.e. retrieve and activate a certain stored sequence from memory, directory or speed dial while the handset is engaged in a call (offhook). Certain ATT corded phones do both. Many cordless do one or the other. I have yet to find any cordless model that does both. I appreciate any suggestions. ------------------------------ Subject: Yellow Pages Marketing Date: Sun, 24 Nov 2002 17:20:27 EST From: msb@vex.net (Mark Brader) Our local operating company, Bell Canada, produces 5 volumes of Yellow Pages to cover the amalgamated City of Toronto: Etobicoke, North York, Scarborough, Central East, and Central West. I happen to live near the boundary of the last two, so I usually pick up a copy of the one that isn't delivered to me; in their June 2002 editions, the main listing sections of these two volumes ran to 1,386 and 1,371 pages respectively. Since last year there has also been a competing volume of yellow pages, called the Superpages and produced by Telus. Their advertisements made it a feature that there was only one volume for the whole city; in fact the inaugural December 2001 edition has just 761 pages in its main listing section. I don't think I've used it once since my copy was delivered. But that was a year ago, so now it's time for the new edition. So the other day there arrived in the mail a large, brightly colored object boldly marked "$10,000 to be won". This opens up to several panels. On one of them is a picture of a book whose edge shows yellow and other colored pages just like the Superpages, whose cover is a photo of Toronto with yellow bars above and below and only the words "Toronto" and "pages" on them -- and which is wearing a pair of "disguise glasses" with a false nose and eyebrows attached. Above this it says "beware of imitations". Other panels advertise Bell's Yellow Pages directory and explain in small print the part about winning money. The $10,000 is not the top prize, but the total amount to be given away, half of it in Toronto and half in Montreal. Part of the mailing is a sign to hang on my doorknob; if I hang it up on the two dates indicated, and if my street happens to be one of the ones they check, then I might be entered in a draw to win the $2,500 top prize or one of 25 prizes of $100. And what does it say on the hanger itself? Right. "Do not disturb. I prefer Bell's Yellow Pages directory." Good grief. Mark Brader "I can see the time when every city will have one." Toronto -- An American mayor's reaction to the msb@vex.net news of the invention of the telephone My text in this article is in the public domain. ------------------------------ Subject: Police, Fire, or Ambulance? (was: 011+ vs. 01+) Date: Sun, 24 Nov 2002 17:41:36 EST From: msb@vex.net (Mark Brader) Paul Coxwell writes: > The common 112 emergency number might also be easy to implement in > countries such as the U.K. where it can just be re-routed to 999, but > it has created problems in countries which traditionally used separate > emergency codes for different services (e.g. France, with 15, 17, and > 18 for ambulance, police and fire respectively). I understand that Britain's 999 has traditionally been answered with the question "Police, Fire, or Ambulance?"; presumably countries such as France would find this a natural way to implement 112. But, you know, I don't like it. While some emergencies are clearly in the domain of only one of the three services, many others require two or all three. And if I'm reporting something like that, the last thing I want on my mind is to have to decide which people I want to speak to first! I would much prefer to have a single emergency number for all services, and let the nice calm person at the *other* end of the line figure out which ones to dispatch. (In addition, there's the matter of callers who don't speak the local language -- probably more of an issue in Europe than here. If they have to speak to more than one operator, the likelihood of confusion is surely increased.) In Toronto, for most of the time 911 has been in use, it was answered by an operator who worked for the police but also dispatched ambulances or the fire department as needed. There may have been a tendency in some cases for more than one service to be dispatched unnecessarily to the same emergency, but to my mind that is a minor point; I thought the system worked just fine. So I was quite disappointed that when I had occasion to call 911 a few months ago and the response was "Police, Fire, or Ambulance?" They weren't just asking what type of emergency, either; when I said "fire", I was put through to a different operator. On the other hand, Clive Feather posted to a UK newsgroup last year a copy of his report to the police following a minor accident. Here's part of it: > I pulled out my phone ... and rang 112. I told the operator I wanted > Ambulance and Police. She asked which first and I said I guessed > Ambulance. I got dropped into a "all lines are full" queueing system. > After a minute or so (I couldn't guess exactly) the operator came > back on. I asked for the police and got dumped in another queueing > system. However, this time an operator answered quickly. > I told her that someone had fallen off the bus, was lying in the > road, and I could see a crowd round him with at least one high- > visibility jacket. I gave her my location, the index mark of the > bus and the badge number of the conductor, and then started walking > towards the scene. I also gave my name. I said that no ambulance > had been called as far as I could tell and she said she would arrange > for one as well as a police unit; she then disconnected. So in this case, there was enough cooperation between the different operators to make things work smoothly. But it still seems to me that the single-dispatcher system would have worked more smoothly yet. Mark Brader | "Nitwit ideas are for emergencies. The rest of the Toronto | time you go by the Book, which is mostly a collection msb@vex.net | of nitwit ideas that worked. -- Niven & Pournelle My text in this article is in the public domain. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 24 Nov 2002 17:56:28 EST From: Kim Culhan Subject: Ralsky Just Across Town Hi Pat- Ralsky lives right across the Township from me, about 6 miles away. If you think of a way to get a judgment out of him just let me know -- I'll be more than happy to help. Thanks, kim kimc@w8hd.org [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well Kim, I will remember that offer, and thank you for making it. Off hand, I cannot think of anything. I wish he would slip up just once, so I could. Maybe others on this list have better defined greivances with him at present. PAT] ------------------------------ From: danny burstein Subject: revenooers, was: Re: Theater Chains, Fox in Ticket Dispute Date: Sun, 24 Nov 2002 23:15:59 UTC Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC In Monty Solomon writes: > By Bruce Mohl, 11/24/2002 > Tickets for Wednesday's opening of ''Solaris,'' the sci-fi love story > directed by Steven Soderbergh and starring George Clooney, won't be > available online or by phone at many local movie theater chains. > AMC and National Amusements are two of several local chains that are > refusing to sell the tickets online or by phone because of an ongoing > dispute with the film's distributor, 20th Century Fox, over the > definition of ticket revenue. > Fox insists the service charges that most theaters tack on to online > and phone purchases should be considered part of a film's ticket > revenue and split with the studio. As an FYI, this is a frequent battle between the Government Revenue Folk (the taxmen) and the stadium or theater. The last one I recall was in New Jersey, where the State claimed that the surcharges on the so-called "New York Giants" (they play in Jersey) tickets were, indeed, part of the regular charge and, as such, were taxable. I suspect this has played out similarly in many other jurisdictions. Hmm, I wonder if AMC, et al, are putting aside sales tax (and in many areas gross receipts taxes, and quite possibly a kickback to the owner of the mall charge) for these extras ... Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key dannyb@panix.com [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded] ------------------------------ From: chsvideo@hotmail.com (Lincoln J. King-Cliby) Subject: Blocking Ring Voltage Date: 24 Nov 2002 15:51:49 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Hello -- At my house I have a Compaq Proliant 3000 server with a Compaq RemoteInsight (management) board. The main appeal of the RIB for me is that it can send pager alerts when things that aren't suposed to happen happen, and since it is hardware-based with its own built in battery backup it can catch almost any problems. Unfortunately, the modem that it uses can also be used to remotely manage the system -- which would be nice, but I want to connect it to my (single) residental telephone line and it automatically answers on the first ring (There isn't a way to disable this 'feature') Thus my question -- can anyone provide any ideas for how to build a device that I can put between the server and the telephone jack that will allow it to call out, but will keep any ringing voltages from reaching the modem -- and won't affect the other phones in the house. I have several *adio*hac*s near by, and a coupple Frys within striking distance. Thanks, Lincoln King-Cliby ------------------------------ From: Herb Stein Subject: Re: Help Hooking up Pay Phone Date: Sun, 24 Nov 2002 19:25:00 -0600 Gary Novosielski wrote in message news:telecom22.141.8@telecom-digest.org: > Gene S. Berkowitz wrote: > (In a message dealing with the need for putting low-pass filters on > voice phones sharing the same line). >> Sorry, this is incorrect. The filter on a DSL-enabled line is just >> that, a filter. It allows low (voice) frequencies to pass through, >> while blocking the higher but audible "hissing" of a DSL connection. >> An analog phone will operate on a DSL line without the filter, it's >> just a bit noisy. > It's correct that the filter isn't really needed for the *phone* to > work, BUT that's only half of the issue. If you put an an unfiltered > phone on a Voice/DSL line you will either cripple or completely > disable the DSL connection whenever that phone is taken off-hook or, > with some phone models, just by having it plugged in. > So, Pat is quite correct when saying that good practice requires ALL > non-DSL devices on the line to be filtered. > They do not, however, require a one filter each. It would be a simple > enough matter to put a filter upstream near the service entrance and > filter all the phones in the house through one filter. Of course, an > unfiltered pair must then be run to the DSL bridge in order for the > DSL to work. That unfiltered connection could be a cross-connect to > the yellow/black pair (if unused in your house) which is then > connected to the DSL bridge using an L2 tap plugged into the RJ-14 > jack near the computer. > Still, the filters are so cheap that unless you have a *lot* of phones > it's quicker and easier to just pop one on each phone and be done with > it. For trouble-free DSL, dont' forget that answering machines, > automatic meter-reading devices, and other gadgets will also need to > be filtered. > Gary > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: When my mother was living here at the > family home in Independence, and my grandmother was alive, > grandmother's phone came in on 'pair two' of a two-pair drop from the > pole in the alley. Mother and Dad were on pair one (the box on the > side of our house.) Grandma passed in 1978, my dad in 1990, that left > only my mother, who retained grandma's phone number and line. As a > result, pair two went around the house; pair one (the green/red wires) > were not in use any longer. I moved in and about a year ago had DSL > from Southwestern Bell. DSL and phone line with filter in my room on > pair one. Mother moved out several months ago, and went to the Penn > Manor old-people's home on Penn Street here in Independence. She > 'took' her phone number along and left me with my number (DSL and > filters) on pair one which still terminated in my room ONLY. I went to > the 'network box' on the side of the house, and jumped the house > wiring so that my pair one connected to the house pairs all over the > place. As to be expected, there was hash and noise on all the 'new' > jacks everywhere once the wires were connected, because of the DSL. > I tried to put a single filter at the head of the line (the outside > network box) so that all phones would be covered. Trouble was, the > 'network interface box' was a bit too small, (or the filter was too > large) to get it to fit in there properly. So I wound up going around > to each phone (mother's bedroom [now my bedroom], kitchen and > living area and my computer room [my old bedroom]), and put a filter > on each phone. If I could find a filter small enough to get it to > squeeze into the outside box I would have done it that way instead. > PAT] I disassemble a filter (the wall units seen to come apart easy) and remove the "guts." Pay attention to which wires go where. It ought to fit in the outside box as the filter itself is only about 1" x1". I put mine in the basement joists near a 66-type block and filter what I need. The old inside protector used to be there years ago so there was a big cluster-f**k there anyway. I could have also just put a jack there and a filter with seperate "PHONE" and "DSL" ports and gone from there but at the time of my installation, the filters I got with the self-install kit didn't have seperate "DSL" ports. I did have the presence of mind to take Cat5 to my computer room so if DS1 ever drops below the cost of a left lung I'm ready. Herb Stein The Herb Stein Group www.herbstein.com herb@herbstein.com 314 952-4601 ------------------------------ From: William H. Bowen Subject: Re: Calif. Changes Cell Phone Crash Data Date: Sun, 24 Nov 2002 18:01:19 -0800 Reply-To: bill_bowen@attbi.com There is even a bigger irony to what you are saying: it is the California Highway Patrol dispatch centers that answer 9-1-1 calls. They demand your undivided attention while another part of the CHP demands that you pay attention to your driving AND will give you all kinds of grief if you pull off the side of the road to the shoulder to complete a phone call to them (I've had the "Road Nazis" do that to me on five different occasions over the years. Someone at the CHP needs to rectify their "rectal/cranial inversion" and decide on a consistant stance on this issue and get all their divisions on the same page!! Regards, Bill Bowen bill_bowen@attbi.com Sacramento, CA j debert wrote: > One aside to this: > It is really annoying when mobile 911 operators in CA _DEMAND_ your > full attention when on the phone while you're driving and trying to > avoid whatever you're calling about and all the other traffic as well. > Most operators insist that you do nothing but answer their questions > instantly. And some do indeed give lectures on "proper use of 911". > I would not be surprised at all to find that such calls contribute > significantly to crashes. > I recall one newbie call-taker at Golden Gate Center who decided to > lecture me on how I should be talking to her while reporting a crash > while in heavy rain and traffic, and how I almost got flattened by a > semi changing lanes because of her distraction. I heard later that she > flunked out because she had a habit of doing that to callers. > (I also recall hearing of someone crashing while on the phone to > mobile 911. No injuries. Unknown whether the call contributed or was > incidental.) > But of all that I have talked to, the people at the CHP Monterey Comm > Center have rarely been so demanding as others. And if they ever are > it is usually due to the amount of incoming calls or because only one > operator is handling the entire region's radio and phones. > j d e b e r t < a t > g a r l i c < d o t > c o m | just remove extra > space... ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 24 Nov 2002 21:16:12 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: New Gizmos May Spark Deregulation By Associated Press 12:52 PM Nov. 24, 2002 PT NEW YORK -- It almost sounds too "Star Trek" to be possible: A multipurpose cell phone that also serves as an FM radio, walkie-talkie, garage door opener and TV remote control. And what if every time you made a call with that handset it increased the performance of other phones already in use instead of competing for airwaves with them? While such wireless wizardry remains a few years off, those days could be coming faster now, thanks to a rare confluence of technology breakthroughs and a rethinking of airwave regulation by the federal government. http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,56558,00.html ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 24 Nov 2002 21:17:40 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Court to Decide Kazaa's U.S. liability By John Borland Staff Writer, CNET News.com November 24, 2002, 6:00 AM PT A Los Angeles federal judge will hear arguments Monday as to whether record companies and movie studios can sue the parent company of Kazaa, the most popular online file-swapping service, in the United States. Much of Kazaa's future, from a business and legal perspective, hangs on the judge's decision. The parent company, Sharman Networks, is headquartered in Australia and incorporated in the Pacific Island nation of Vanuatu, and has tried to keep business contact with the United States to a minimum in order to decrease its legal risk. If a judge says Sharman can be sued in the United States, Kazaa will get sucked into the same legal maelstrom that has grabbed Napster, Aimster, Audio Galaxy, Grokster and Morpheus, closing some of the popular services and threatening the existence of the others. The Kazaa case is the biggest yet in the recent copyright wars that have been testing the international reach of U.S. courts. http://news.com.com/2100-1023-971086.html ------------------------------ From: Shalom Septimus Subject: Re: Country Code Exhaust? [was 011+ vs 01+] Date: Sun, 24 Nov 2002 21:41:42 -0500 Reply-To: druggist@pobox.com On Fri, 22 Nov 2002 09:30:53 CST, Mark J Cuccia wrote: > Other spare/unassigned codes include +259 which had once been intended > for Zanzibar, even though Zanzibar has been part of +255 Tanzania. The > town of Zanzibar in the country of Tanzania has always been dialed > with +255 for the country of Tanzania! (I don't know what the original > intent was for a separate code of +259 for the town of Zanzibar!?) Per the CIA World Factbook, Tanzania is a country formed from the union of two previously-existing countries, Tanganyika and Zanzibar. My guess is that Tanganyika was assigned +255 and Zanzibar +259 on their becoming independent (in 12/1961 and 12/1963 respectively), but as their union occurred almost immediately thereafter in 04/1964, Zanzibar wasn't an independent nation long enough for that country code to have been implemented. Shalom use Reply-To:, From: is a spamtrap ------------------------------ From: Philip Subject: Panasonic KX-TD816 and 66 Block Organization: MediaCom High Speed Internet Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2002 02:51:41 GMT I need help with the wiring sequence of the 66 block. I have the KX-TD816 with a KX-TD170 extension expansion card. I have connected the first 8 extensions to the modular jacks in the KSU. My extension jacks are wired with Cat5E cable with position one through six wired respectively white/green, white/orange, blue/white, white/blue, orange/white, and green/white. I have a standard 50 pair 66 block with a amphenol on the left side and a cord with two male amphenols attached to the block and the KX-TD170. I assume I will start with the top right pin and punch down six wires, but I am not sure of the order. If some one could please help answer this question, it would be appreciated. My next question, if I may, how do you parallel three extensions on the block. I have one room with three extensions that I will only use one phone in. Thanks so much for your time! ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 24 Nov 2002 16:53:24 -0800 From: Paul G Subject: Last Laugh! The Ultimate Phone Spam?! I got this message left on my home answering machine a few days ago that must be about the ultimate telephone spam. The lady's voice opens by saying, "Are you tired of telemarketing calls?" She goes on to say that she is from the "California Consumer Center," and they can add your name and number to a new California state do-not-call list. The fee for inclusion on the list is $12. Call and give them your information at 1-800-377-0779. I would encourage everybody to call them and tell them that you are indeed "tired of telemarketing calls!" Paul G. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The State of Kansas a month ago started a 'do not call' list for telemarketers. Starting January 1, 2003, all telemarketers must check the list before calling a residence in Kansas. Kansans who wish not to be bothered any more after that date must call an 800 number in Topeka where a recorded message asks you to tap in the phone number which does not want any more calls, then you are to speak and spell your first and last name (as phone is billed) and the street address associated. You are then asked if there are any additional phone numbers under your control to be added to the list, and if you press 1, yes, more numbers, the message starts from the beginning and repeats all its prompts again as often as you add numbers. It seems like a good system to me. I wonder how well it will be enforced when complaints start coming in. By the way, it is free to use, no enrollment fees; just a toll free call to Topeka from a Kansas areacode/number. 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 Fax 3: 775-642-0603 Fax 4: 530-309-7234 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 V22 #145 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Nov 25 16:24:59 2002 Received: from localhost (localhost [[UNIX: localhost]]) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.3nb1/8.11.3) id gAPLOxq14523; Mon, 25 Nov 2002 16:24:59 -0500 (EST) Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2002 16:24:59 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200211252124.gAPLOxq14523@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #146 TELECOM Digest Mon, 25 Nov 2002 16:25:00 EST Volume 22 : Issue 146 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Telecom Update (Canada) #359, November 25, 2002 (Angus TeleManagement) Heartfelt Appologies!!! (Hope and Love) Telecom Digest CD-ROM - an Update (Joey Lindstrom) ISP Access, was: Re: Ralsky Just Across Town (Danny Burstein) Re: Debit vs. Credit Cards, was Re: Retailers' Suit (Graeme Thomas) Re: Debit vs. Credit Cards, was Re: Retailers' Suit (Darryl Smith) 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, 25 Nov 2002 10:06:43 -0500 From: Angus TeleManagement Subject: Telecom Update (Canada) #359, November 25, 2002 ************************************************************ TELECOM UPDATE ************************************************************ published weekly by Angus TeleManagement Group http://www.angustel.ca Number 359: November 25, 2002 Publication of Telecom Update is made possible by generous financial support from: ** BELL CANADA: http://www.bell.ca ** CISCO SYSTEMS CANADA: http://www.cisco.com/ca/letstalk ** CYGCOM INTEGRATED TECHNOLOGIES: http://www.cygcom.com ** ERICSSON CANADA: http://www.ericsson.ca ** JUNIPER NETWORKS: http://www.juniper.net ** PRIMUS CANADA: http://www.primustel.ca ** Q9 NETWORKS: http://www.Q9.com ** TELUS: http://www.telus.com ************************************************************ IN THIS ISSUE: ** Ottawa to Review Foreign Ownership ** RIM Loses a Patent Lawsuit ** UBS-Look Alliance Falls Through ** GT Sale Price Revealed? ** CRTC Sets 2003 Contribution Rate ** Bell, Telus Begin 1XRTT Roaming ** ISPs Want High-Speed Internet Re-Regulated ** Bell Intros Prepaid Internet ** Delphi to Sell Nortel Equipment ** Overseas Calling Growth Slows ** MTS to Eliminate 250 Jobs ** Cogeco Launches Video on Demand ** Big Payouts for Shaw Execs ** Cisco Stock Options Equal 60% of Profit ** Aliant Tests PC Backup Service ** Cablecos Challenge ExpressVu on Piracy ** SR Telecom Reduces Work Force ** Revenue Slips at Cygnal ** Telemanagement Celebrates 20 Years ============================================================ OTTAWA TO REVIEW FOREIGN OWNERSHIP: On November 19, Industry Minister Alan Rock called for a review of the foreign investment restrictions in the telecom industry. Industry Canada has released a review paper outlining the issues and identifying 13 questions the Minister wants answered. ** The House of Commons Standing Committee on Industry, Science, and Technology will conduct the review. Rock asked for a report by the end of February, but the chair of the committee says that won't be possible. http://www.innovationstrategy.gc.ca/cmb/innovation.nsf/MenuE/Invest00 RIM LOSES A PATENT LAWSUIT: Research In Motion says it will appeal a Virginia jury decision awarding a U.S. company US$23.1 million in damages for patent infringement. A February 13 hearing will review the award and also consider the plaintiff's request for an injunction barring BlackBerry sales in the U.S. UBS-LOOK ALLIANCE FALLS THROUGH: Unique Broadband Systems and Look Communications say they have "mutually decided" not to proceed with the deal, announced August 8, under which UBS would buy 9% of Look, and Look would buy $2.4 million of products and services from UBS. (See Telecom Update #344) No reason was given for the deal's failure. GT SALE PRICE REVEALED? A November 20 news release says that 360networks will pay $260.5 million to buy Group Telecom. But it appears that $175 million of that will come from GT's own cash reserves, so 360networks' actual outlay will be about $85 million, and possibly less, once various accounting adjustments are made. ** The Ontario Superior Court has approved the sale agreement. CRTC SETS 2003 CONTRIBUTION RATE: Telecom Decision 2002-71 sets the interim contribution rate for 2003 at 1.3% of revenue. This charge is paid by telecommunications service providers with telecom service revenues over $10 million a year, to subsidize residential local service in high-cost serving areas. ** The Commission has also adjusted the 2002 rate from 1.4% to 1.3%, retroactive to January 1. http://www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/ENG/Decisions/2002/dt2002-71.htm BELL, TELUS BEGIN 1XRTT ROAMING: Bell Mobility and Telus Mobility have extended reciprocal roaming to include their higher-speed 1XRTT wireless networks. Bell and Telus 1X services now cover about 70% of Canada's population. ISPs WANT HIGH-SPEED INTERNET RE-REGULATED: A Part VII application from the Independent Members of the Canadian Association of Internet Providers asks the CRTC to re-regulate high-speed Internet services, and to order the major telcos and cablecos to provide the services for resale at "just and reasonable rates." ** Before responding, the Bell Alliance, Telus, and the Canadian Cable Television Association want the CRTC to order disclosure of documents that IMCAIP filed in confidence. http://www.crtc.gc.ca/PartVII/eng/2002/8622/c51-03.htm BELL INTROS PREPAID INTERNET: Bell Canada's new WebMinutes service offers prepaid dial-up Internet access at $9.95 for 300 minutes. Connection is available through local numbers in major Canadian cities. Toll-free access from the rest of North America is 10 cents/minute. http://www.webminutes.ca DELPHI TO SELL NORTEL EQUIPMENT: Delphi Solutions has been named a Nortel Networks Premium Direct Partner and will sell Nortel enterprise products across Canada. OVERSEAS CALLING GROWTH SLOWS: Telegeography reports that the volume of international calls made from North America grew only 0.8% in 2001. Overall, international calling increased 10%, the slowest growth in 20 years, and revenue fell by $10 billion. http://www.telegeography.com MTS TO ELIMINATE 250 JOBS: Manitoba Telecom plans to cut its workforce by 6%, eliminating 250 positions by next September. MTS says the move was forced by slow growth and adverse CRTC decisions. COGECO LAUNCHES VIDEO ON DEMAND: Cogeco's digital customers in six Ontario and Quebec centres can now obtain movies on demand for about $5.50 each. No extra equipment is needed and there is no monthly fee. BIG PAYOUTS FOR SHAW EXECS: According to a proxy circular, in fiscal 2002 Shaw Communications paid Executive Chairman J.R. Shaw a $6.3 million bonus and gave CEO Jim Shaw a $5.3 million interest-free loan. Shaw's share price fell more than 50% during the year. CISCO STOCK OPTIONS EQUAL 60% OF PROFIT: Cisco Systems says that if it had counted the value of employee stock options as a cost, its US$618 million profit for the three months ending October 26 would have been $250 million. ALIANT TESTS PC BACKUP SERVICE: One hundred Aliant Telecom customers have begun a trial of Aliant's PC Backup service. CABLECOS CHALLENGE EXPRESSVU ON PIRACY: The Canadian Cable Television Association has asked the CRTC to hold a public hearing on the theft of Bell ExpressVu satellite signals. The CCTA says ExpressVu's failure to halt breaches of signal encryption has made piracy a significant problem, particularly in Quebec. SR TELECOM REDUCES WORK FORCE: Montreal-based SR Telecom, which makes fixed wireless equipment, plans to lay off 100 employees, 10% of its work force, in anticipation of reduced sales in 2003. REVENUE SLIPS AT CYGNAL: Cygnal Technologies had third quarter sales of $39.3 million, down 7% from the previous quarter and 12% from the same period last year. Net income was $1.1 million, compared to $1.6 million a year ago. TELEMANAGEMENT CELEBRATES 20 YEARS: Angus TeleManagement Group's printed journal has been published 10 times a year since 1983. The 200th issue of Telemanagement features a special 20th anniversary supplement in which industry leaders discuss its role as "Canada's journal of record on business telecom and networking." ** Also in this issue: Ian and Lis Angus analyze the Great Telecom Depression: what caused it, how long it will last, and how business telecom customers should adjust their plans to deal with the downturn. ** A limited number of single copies of this special issue are available now for $75 each -- call 905-686-5050 ext 500 and charge to Visa, American Express, or Mastercard. A 10-issue subscription saves you 49% off the single-issue price -- call 800-263-4415 ext 500 or go to http://www.angustel.ca/teleman/tm-sub.html. ============================================================ HOW TO SUBMIT ITEMS FOR TELECOM UPDATE E-MAIL: editors@angustel.ca FAX: 905-686-2655 MAIL: TELECOM UPDATE Angus TeleManagement Group 8 Old Kingston Road Ajax, Ontario Canada L1T 2Z7 =========================================================== HOW TO SUBSCRIBE (OR UNSUBSCRIBE) TELECOM UPDATE is provided in electronic form only. There are two formats available: 1. The fully-formatted edition is posted on the World Wide Web on the first business day of the week at http://www.angustel.ca 2. The e-mail edition is distributed free of charge. To subscribe, send an e-mail message to: TelecomUpdate@add.postmastergeneral.com To stop receiving the e-mail edition, send an e-mail message to: TelecomUpdate@remove.postmastergeneral.com Sending e-mail to these addresses will automatically add or remove the sender's e-mail address from the list. Leave subject line and message area blank. 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. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2002 04:19:01 GMT From: Hope and Love Subject: Heartfelt Appologies!!! Organization: Shaw Residential Internet I would like to appologize to all the readers and anybody else affected by my indescretions. I felt that I was advertising a product that I know works and signed up as an affiliate to promote this product so I listed it in the individual newsgroups with the URL I did not realize I was spamming, as I am an idividual and putting it in groups one at a time ... well I thought wrong and ticked off a lot of people!! For this I am sorry. The company that I'm an affiliate for in fact did not have any knowledge of what I did, and as soon as they found out ordered me to stop immediatly, which I did and it will not happen again. I do hope that you will accept my appologies and not hold this against myself or the company whose product I was promoting. Mike [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Mike, I say this with a big Yahoo-like smiley face. YOU are the first person ever to send an apology to this newsgroup (and by extension, all the readers here) for sending out spam. I accept your apology; I am sure many of the readers here also accept it. If you are new, or sort of new to Usenet you couldn't have known how offensive spam can be. I am sure you were eager to make some sales to other netters. Let's forget it; just don't do it again please. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Joey Lindstrom Date: Sun, 24 Nov 2002 22:39:42 -0700 Subject: Telecom Digest CD-ROM - an Update Reply-To: joey@garynuman.info I'd like to bring y'all up to speed on what's happening with the Telecom Digest CD-ROM. As you may or may not be aware, if you make a $20-$25 (or higher!) donation to the Telecom Digest, you'll get a complimentary CD-ROM containing everything in the Telecom Digest Archives. Pat and I have made an arrangement whereby the discs are created and shipped out from my home. When arranging this, I told Pat that I could normally turn disc orders around in about 48 hours - sometimes less, sometimes more - you know how it is. :-) Indeed, several orders were turned around just that quickly. But some were NOT - some folks here have been waiting for their discs for three or four weeks. The reasons are several and I'm not trying to make any excuses. I simply underestimated what had to be done to get this set up. I already have an "operation" whereby I create custom CD-ROM's filled with old time radio shows for folks, and felt I could quickly and easily integrate this into my existing operation. It turned out to be not nearly so easy, but the good news is that I've FINALLY got things straightened out, and can now live up to my promise of 48 hour turnaround. Here's the scoop: I felt it would be nice if we could offer people a choice of CD-ROM. You could have a "standard" disc with just the files, in either Joliet or ISO-9660 format. Or, you could have an "Enhanced" disc in ISO-9660 format but that would contain an old-time radio show (from a short list, all "telephone" related) that could be played on a standard CD player. Then I discovered (thanks to much feedback here) that I was missing something in my list of options: the "Rock Ridge" format, necessary for most *nix systems. And while I was discovering that, all sorts of other shit hit the fan simultaneously. 1) I got extremely busy at work (culminating this weekend with an office move, now complete) 2) My Windows 98 installation finally gave up the ghost, necessitating a reinstall (and an upgrade to Windows 2000), which set me back about a week. 3) A family member's x-rays came back indicating a "shadow" on the lung. We don't know yet what it is - the suspicion is cancer, but it COULD be just a bruise. We won't know until all the tests are completed - in the meantime, I've been rather preoccupied with this and spending a lot of my available time with my family. These are presented not as excuses. If I'd had my shit together at the beginning of all of this, none of these factors would have presented much of an obstacle to getting discs sent out in a timely fashion (except #2, and even there I could have used another machine for CD creation). But I didn't, and I sincerely apologize to all of you who waited quite a while for your discs, and especially to those whose discs are just being mailed out tomorrow (Monday November 25th). This is not Pat's fault, it's mine alone, so please don't yell at him. :-) Anyways, after all was said and done, I managed to get mkisofs working on my Win2000 machine (and thanks bunches to Andrew R. Tefft for putting me onto this!) after a lot of fartin' about. That lets me create a CD-ROM "image" file that simultaneously contains Joliet, Rock Ridge, and ISO-9660, and voila!, I was able to clear out a backlog of disc requests that had been waiting to be filled. And now my "assembly line" system *IS* ready to turn discs around in 48 hours again. :-) If you have made a donation in the last month and a half to two months, of $20-$25 or higher, and have NOT received your complimentary CD-ROM yet, please do feel free to drop me a line. I'll let you know when your disc was shipped and when you might expect it by. Pat will be making his monthly request for donations in a week or so. I'm going to jump the gun here and ask each of you to consider making such a donation, if you have not done so in the past year. The Telecom Digest (and associated newsgroup) are a TREMENDOUS resource to all of us. Pat puts in a lot of hard work to make sure things remain interesting, spam-free, and above all, USEFUL. He really needs our support, which is why I've put myself through all of the above. :-) Christmas is coming and no doubt most of us have some money set aside for gifts. Please: consider putting the name "Patrick Townson" on your Christmas list. And I promise to get your CD-ROM to you quick as a bunny. ;-) / From the desk of Joey Lindstrom / A man committed suicide by overdosing on decongestant tablets. All they / found was a pile of dust. / --Steven Wright [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Thank you for this status report. There are two or three of you who did not say what kind of CD you wanted and as Joey fills the orders it will help move things along fast if you let him know (Windows, Unix) Enhanced or not. Also, there were some of you, who in the month or so *prior to* the announcment on CD-ROMS sent in donations (for which I gratefully thank you) and if *you* want a CD also, by all means just ask for it in email to Joey or me. The CDs are shipping out every day now and I do not want anyone to be left out who has made a 'recent' (like September or October or November) contribution who wants a copy. If I understood Joey correctly, he feels I should make this an ongoing thing for gifts of $25 or more, and modify the Digest boilerplate message accordingly. I think I shall do that. PAT] ------------------------------ From: danny burstein Subject: ISP Access, was Re: Ralsky Just Across Town Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2002 04:23:08 UTC Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC In Kim Culhan writes: > Hi Pat- > Ralsky lives right across the Township from me, about 6 miles away. > If you think of a way to get a judgment out of him just let me know > -- I'll be more than happy to help. to which our esteemed moderator responded: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well Kim, I will remember that offer, > and thank you for making it. Off hand, I cannot think of anything. I > wish he would slip up just once, so I could. Maybe others on this > list have better defined greivances with him at present. PAT] I'd suggest a far more proactive approach would be to find out what companies are providing the spammer with (presumably) high speed internet access. These organizations have *no* intrinsic (let alone "unalienable") right to disturb me, my ISP, or my e-mailbox. Hence if these service providers could be identified, isolating them into their own intranet would be a good step. And yes, this may very well mean some innocent subscribers of theirs will initially be discomforted. And if just one person complains to the ISP that they're being isolated they may think he's sick and ignore him. And if two people do it ... in harmony ... they may think they're both wierdos and they won't listen to either of them. And if THREE people do it! Can you imagine three people walking in, complaining of their isolation and demanding their money back? They might think it's an organization! And can you imagine fifty people a day? I said FIFTY people a day.....walking in complaining that their ISP is a spam havenÓ and walking out? Friends, they may think it's a MOVEMENT, and that's what it is: THE ANTI-SPAM Movement! ... I don't know enough about the local systems in the Detroit area to find out who lit up Ralsky's neighborhood. Perhaps the earlier poster could ask around? _____________________________________________________ Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key dannyb@panix.com [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded] [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: What they will think is, 'has the whole world changed into cranks and weirdos? Here we have allowed these folks to subscribe to our Wonderful Service and all they want to do is complain about being able to use it privately and without getting tormented with a lot of unwanted email. What a bunch of nuts!' What they *may* understand is when some of you guys invade *their* private spaces, bust up their toy computers, then get in their pants pockets and take away their money. No guarentees on that either. Don't expect to find many like our new friend Mike (in a different message in this issue of Digest) who apologizes for what he did in his ignorance and asks us to befriend him. That sort of thing is not likely at all. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 24 Nov 2002 23:45:55 +0000 From: Graeme Thomas Subject: Re: Debit vs. Credit Cards, was Re: Retailers' Suit In article , "Gail M. Hall" writes > I was told that if they use this cardreader to call in the card info, > it costs just a few cents to process the card. But if they don't have > that card reader handy (like accidentally leaving it at home), they > can still call the number and manually punch in the numbers from the > card. BUT, the card processing company charges more to process the > cards called in that way. Maybe they have fewer problems when the > card is read by the magnetic strip reader. If the card is read by the magnetic stripe reader, the card must physically be present, and so the probability of fraud is lower. If the number is just punched in, the probability of fraud is higher. The banks will charge more when there's a greater likelihood of problems. On the modern "smart cards" there are three levels of charges: chip read, mag stripe read, and manual. Graeme Thomas ------------------------------ From: Darryl Smith Subject: Re: Debit vs. Credit Cards, was Re: Retailers' Suit Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2002 22:41:55 +1100 I am not sure if this has made it to the USA yet, but KeyCorp have released a MOBILE card machine that is all in one. Basically you take a normal GSM cellphone, and clip it in, and you have an integrated mobile card machine - and it even prints a reciept. I believe that this version will even save the transactions if there is no signal. From what I read it uses CDPD to transfer data which can be cheap. More information can be found at http://www.keycorp.net/terminals/k78.htm Darryl Smith, VK2TDS POBox 169 Ingleburn NSW 2565 Australia Mobile Number 0412 929 634 [+61 4 12 929 634 International] Darryl@radio-active.net.au | www.radio-active.net.au ------------------------------ 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 Fax 3: 775-642-0603 Fax 4: 530-309-7234 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 V22 #146 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Nov 25 17:28:07 2002 Received: from localhost (localhost [[UNIX: localhost]]) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.3nb1/8.11.3) id gAPMS7E18207; Mon, 25 Nov 2002 17:28:07 -0500 (EST) Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2002 17:28:07 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200211252228.gAPMS7E18207@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #147 TELECOM Digest Mon, 25 Nov 2002 17:28:00 EST Volume 22 : Issue 147 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Yahoo Ordered to Pull 'Offensive' TV Advert in UK (Monty Solomon) Walker in the Wireless City (Monty Solomon) Breakdown in Communications (Monty Solomon) BlackBerry's Maker Infringed on Patent (Monty Solomon) Massive Database Dragnet Explored (Monty Solomon) Consumer Fraud Alert; Voicemail Users Beware (Monty Solomon) Piqua's Library Has to Flesh Out Its Own Web Site (Monty Solomon) JPMorgan Announces Uralsvyazinform ADR Program (Monty Solomon) RIAA Orders US Navy to Surrender (Monty Solomon) Mourning Becomes Electronic: A Final Webcast Place (Monty Solomon) Guide to DMCA "Exemption" Process -- Three Weeks Left (Monty Solomon) Re: Revenooers, was Re: Theater Chains, Fox in Ticket Dispute (Ed Ellers) Re: Blocking Ring Voltage (Bob K) Re: Blocking Ring Voltage (Kyler Laird) Re: Police, Fire, or Ambulance? (was: 011+ vs. 01+) (Alan Burkitt-Gray) Last Laugh! My Name is Steven Dulak and I'm a Genius (ftbu3s@hotmail.com) 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, 25 Nov 2002 12:45:52 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Yahoo Ordered to Pull 'Offensive' TV Advert in UK LONDON, Nov 25 (Reuters) - A British media watchdog ordered U.S. Internet media company Yahoo (NASDAQ:YHOO) to pull a UK TV advertisement off the air after it triggered complaints that it was offensive to homosexuals, the organisation said on Monday. The TV spot promoting Yahoo UK's personal finance site featured a naked man tethered to a tree after a stag night prank. In the ad's closing scene, a second man approached the naked man wearing a suggestive expression on his face. The Independent Television Commission (ITC) made the uncommon decision to suspend broadcast of the ad after receiving 15 complaints from viewers who deemed it offensive to homosexuals, ITC spokesman Bradley Brady said. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=30196462 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2002 01:23:13 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Walker in the Wireless City Walker in the Wireless City By TOM VANDERBILT IT is a late autumn day in Bryant Park. Red and yellow leaves swirl around clusters of green folding chairs. People sit in the thin afternoon light, talking on cellphones, to others, to themselves. The scent of a piquant cigar mixes with the crisp tang of fall. As I sit in this verdantly genteel place, a whole other flurry of movement and social interaction is going on around me, one invisible to the eye. I watch it on my laptop, the modern equivalent of Jimmy Stewart in a wheelchair, binoculars in hand, in "Rear Window." In the small browser window of my iBook's Airport card, an antenna of sorts, I find myself at the nexus of any number of the wireless networks that have come to blanket the city. There is one called "theorywireless1," another that says "Wlan," another labeled "www.nycwireless.net" and one called simply "X." I select the penultimate choice and within seconds have a free broadband connection to the Internet, something, it is estimated, found in less than 10 percent of American homes. While most people were not watching, New York has become host to yet another layer of infrastructure, a random, interlinking constellation of what are called "wireless access points." A survey last summer found more than 12,000 access points bristling throughout Manhattan alone, many open to anyone with a wireless card, many others closed and private, and still others available for a fee. None of these were laid down by city workers. No streets were torn up. No laws were passed. Rather, this network has been made possible by the proliferation of ever more affordable wireless routers and networking devices, which in turn transmit the low-range, unlicensed spectrum (a wild frontier, home also to baby monitors and cordless phones) known as 802.11b, or, more genially, Wi-Fi. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/24/nyregion/24FEAT.html ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2002 01:16:34 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Breakdown in Communications Breakdown in Communications By SUSAN WARNER LAURA and Ken Jewell have entered the Lucent afterlife. After more than 20 years in the telecommunications industry, the Fair Haven residents are now out on their own. Ms. Jewell, who was laid off just three months before she would have been eligible for early retirement, is running her own marketing business, promoting the Red Bank Jazz and Blues Festival and helping startup businesses. Her husband, who retired before he was even 50, is now selling his hand-carved wooden ducks and teaching banjo. The Jewells are small players in the great New Jersey telecom crash that has ravaged one of the state's leading industries, leaving thousands of highly skilled workers jobless or underemployed. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/24/nyregion/24COV.html ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 24 Nov 2002 23:23:24 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: BlackBerry's Maker Infringed on Patent By Michael Barbaro Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, November 22, 2002; Page E02 A federal jury found yesterday that Research in Motion Ltd., the Canadian maker of BlackBerry pagers, infringed on the original patents underpinning its popular wireless e-mail devices and ordered the company to pay $23.1 million in damages. The verdict, handed down in U.S. District Court in Richmond, was a blow to RIM, which last year sold more than 400,000 of the tiny gadgets used primarily to fire off e-mails on a mini-keyboard. Company executives said that they would probably appeal the verdict and that the award should not harm the business. It was a major victory for Thomas J. Campana Jr., the Chicago area engineer who helped create the radio-wave technology the jury said was used to power the BlackBerry franchise. Campana's company is seeking an injunction barring Research in Motion from selling the devices in the United States, said James Wallace, Campana's D.C.-based attorney. Sales of the device, which start at $399 and require $40-a-month service contracts, generate about 80 percent of Research in Motion's revenue. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23914-2002Nov21.html ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 24 Nov 2002 23:11:49 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Massive Database Dragnet Explored ANTI-TERRORISM PROJECT ALARMS PRIVACY ADVOCATES By Jim Puzzanghera Mercury News Washington Bureau WASHINGTON - Its name is Orwellian, its head has a notorious past, and its goal has civil libertarians and computer-privacy advocates in a frenzy: Let the government troll vast databases of credit-card transactions, medical records and other personal information for signs of terrorist activity. As more is becoming known about the Total Information Awareness System, a Pentagon research project headed by former Iran-Contra figure John Poindexter, more people are becoming alarmed about the implications. The Pentagon tried to allay those concerns Wednesday, stressing that it is only 'an experimental prototype' and that Poindexter's involvement is limited to the research. But Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said she plans to introduce legislation to ensure that the project does not infringe on the privacy rights of Americans. http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/local/4569587.htm ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2002 12:47:44 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Consumer Fraud Alert; Voicemail Users Beware MORRISTOWN, N.J., Nov. 25 /PRNewswire/ -- Consumers are beginning to see the effects of a new form of fraud on their telephone bills. This new fraud, in which hackers compromise voicemail systems in order to make fraudulent collect, third-party or direct-dial calls, has surfaced industry-wide. It isn't until consumers receive notification from their telephone company's security group, notices something different about their voicemail greeting, or receives a large bill that they realize they've become a victim. To avoid falling prey to this hacking scam, AT&T recommends voicemail users do the following: * Always change the default password provided by the voicemail vendor; * Choose a complex voicemail password, of at least six digits, so it would be difficult for a hacker to guess; * Don't use obvious passwords such as an address, birth date or phone number; * Change your voicemail password often; * Check your announcement regularly to ensure the greeting is indeed yours; * A business should consider disabling the auto-attendant, call-forwarding and out-paging capabilities of voicemail if these features are not used. http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=30190994 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2002 15:54:00 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Piqua's Library Has to Flesh Out its Own Web Site Flesh director gets the skinny directly from Net Nanny By Kelly Isaacs Baker Miami County Bureau PIQUA | For a while, there was no Flesh in the Flesh Public Library. Library Director James Oda earlier this month attempted to access the library's new Web site - www.fleshpublic.lib.oh.us - to show it off for the library staff. After three months of work by the staff, Oda was justifiably proud of the site. Unfortunately, the library computer denied him access. "There must be a glitch in the system," Oda said as he tried again. Again, he was denied access. It was then that Oda realized what had happened. "We banned ourselves," he said Thursday. Oda said he never gave much thought to the library's name - named 70 years ago for businessman Leo Flesh, who donated the money for the library's current location. But Net Nanny, a filter the library uses on all the children's department computers, did not care much for "flesh" linked to "public." http://www.activedayton.com/ddn/local/daily/1122flesh.html ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2002 13:01:10 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: JPMorgan Announces Uralsvyazinform ADR Program NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 25, 2002--JPMorgan announced that it has launched an American Depositary Receipt (ADR) program for the preferred shares of OJSC Uralsvyazinform (OTC: UVYPY). The company, a unit of the Svyazinvest Group, is Russia's 2nd largest regional telecommunications provider. Uralsvyazinform, Russia's 2nd largest regional telecom, serves the country's Ural region. A near-monopoly provider of public telephone services in its region, it operates the local wireline network and switching international and domestic long distance calls to and from Rostelecom's trunk network. The company operates 3.0 million access lines; penetration is 19.3 telephones per 100 inhabitants. It also provides paging, Internet and data services, and transmission of radio and TV signals, and telex and telegraph services. Uralsvyazinform is the major cellular provider in Ural region, controlling up to 50% of the market. The company holds GSM-900, GSM-1800, NMT-450 licenses, and owns stakes in numerous ventures, including the Mobile services, Internet and data services. In 3Q02, sales were $333.8 million, and net profits were $21.1 million. Each Uralsvyazinform ADR (CUSIP 916887201) represents 200 preferred shares traded on the Russian Trading System. Additional information on the company is available at www.uralsviazinform.com. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=30195069 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2002 11:53:29 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: RIAA Orders US Navy to Surrender By Andrew Orlowski in San Francisco In a timely reminder of who's really in charge here, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has mounted a daring raid on the US Navy. Acting unilaterally at the behest of the RIAA, Navy officials confiscated 100 computers on suspicion of harboring illegally downloaded MP3s, The Capital, an Annapolis, MD daily reports. A Naval official quoted confirms the raid, adding that punishment ranges from "court martial to loss of leave and other restrictions". For the RIAA, there are no half measures: you're either with them, or against them. So even if you're risking having your ass blown off for your country, there's no mercy. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/28263.html [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: That is really disgraceful that the RIAA has made trouble for those guys like that. As the leading part by Monty states, RIAA is unwilling to make exceptions even for the brave guys in our Navy. So I wonder what makes YOU think they won't raid you and steal your computer? PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2002 12:09:45 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Mourning Becomes Electronic: A Final Webcast Place Mourning Becomes Electronic: A Final Webcast Place By MATTHEW MIRAPAUL Toward the end of "This Is Our Youth," Kenneth Lonergan's play about disaffected New Yorkers set in 1982, the characters learn of an acquaintance's death. The news spooks the motor-mouthed Dennis into pondering the benefits of religion when confronting the afterlife. "How much better would it be," he asks, "to think you're gonna be somewhere, you know? Instead of absolutely nowhere. Like gone, forever." Fast forward to 2001, when the Internet has given the youths in "Necrocam," a 50-minute film made for Dutch television, a less conventional way to cope with death's mysteries. Christine, a teenager with cancer, tells her friends that upon her death she wants a digital camera with an Internet connection installed in her coffin. Images of her decaying remains will then be transmitted to a Web page for all to see, making her virtually immortal. The friends pledge to install a Webcam in the coffin of the first one to die, and they seal their pact with an oath to the computing world's highest power: "This we swear on Bill Gates's grave." http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/25/arts/television/25ARTS.html [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: One chain of funeral homes has made Internet memorials available for mourners. Look at http://www.mem.com as an example. 'mem' stands for 'making everlasting memories' and it is a very tasteful presentation by mourners discussing their deceased family members and friends. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2002 12:35:32 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Guide to DMCA "Exemption" Process -- Three Weeks Left Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2002 08:07:11 -0800 From: Lee Tien EFF is pleased to present a guide to the DMCA "exemption" process. http://www.eff.org/IP/DMCA/finkelstein_on_dmca.html Under this process, the Copyright Office of the Library of Congress must make a triennial inquiry regarding adverse effects of the DMCA's prohibition on circumvention on "certain classes of works." If adverse effects are shown, the office can "exempt certain classes of works from the prohibition against circumvention of technological measures that control access to copyrighted works." The exemptions only last three years. The author, Seth Finkelstein, is one of the very few people who succeeded in arguing for an exemption (for the act of circumventing access/copy controls on censorware blacklists) in the last round (2000). [The Copyright Office received many comments and rejected the overwhelming majority of them; I think in the end only two or three exemptions were created.] The upcoming round is the next one, for 2003. "Written comments are due by December 18, 2002." This is about the only part of the DMCA that can mitigate its fell sway, so if you have any interest in the topic at all, it's well worth reading. Lee Tien Senior Staff Attorney Electronic Frontier Foundation 454 Shotwell Street San Francisco, CA 94110 (415) 436-9333 x 102 (tel) (415) 436-9993 (fax) ------------------------------ From: Ed Ellers Subject: Re: Revenooers, was Re: Theater Chains, Fox in Ticket Dispute Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2002 00:10:26 -0500 Danny Burstein wrote: > As an FYI, this is a frequent battle between the Government Revenue > Folk the taxmen) and the stadium or theater. > The last one I recall was in New Jersey, where the State claimed > that the surcharges on the so-called "New York Giants" (they play in > Jersey) tickets were, indeed, part of the regular charge and, as > such, were taxable. > I suspect this has played out similarly in many other jurisdictions. I recall a similar flap over cable TV franchise fees several years ago, though I've long since forgotten where or what company was involved. Basically, the company decided to add the franchise fee as a line item rather than eating the cost themselves, so if a given package cost $35/month and the franchise fee was 4%, they would put a $1.40 line item on the bill. The city came along some time later and demanded 4% of the $36.40 total, or $1.46, retroactive to the start of the change; the company then replied that it would have to raise the rate even more, *and* surcharge customers to recover the difference, so that the company would still get its $35, and IIRC the courts ruled in the cable company's favor. ------------------------------ From: Bob K Subject: Re: Blocking Ring Voltage Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2002 01:22:31 -0500 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Maybe, just maybe, you might try putting a diode in series with the telephone line. One way, the modem won't see any dial tone. If that happens, turn it around, and see how that works. Many moons ago, when the kids were teenagers, they would spend hours on the phone, and had no concept of toll charges. Our telephone exchange reversed battery when a toll call was dialed. The first attempt was to put a diode in series with the telephone. When a toll call was dialed, the line reversed, and a disconnect took place. Problem was, that also killed the ringer. Next attempt involved opening the phones up and installing the diode inside. (The kids got the message.) Probably the way the modem detects the ringing voltage will be different, so this method might, or might not work. But, it's easy and cheap to try. ... Bob Lincoln J. King-Cliby wrote: > At my house I have a Compaq Proliant 3000 server with a Compaq > RemoteInsight (management) board. The main appeal of the RIB for me is > that it can send pager alerts when things that aren't suposed to > happen happen, and since it is hardware-based with its own built in > battery backup it can catch almost any problems. Unfortunately, the > modem that it uses can also be used to remotely manage the system -- > which would be nice, but I want to connect it to my (single) > residental telephone line and it automatically answers on the first > ring (There isn't a way to disable this 'feature') > Thus my question -- can anyone provide any ideas for how to build a > device that I can put between the server and the telephone jack that > will allow it to call out, but will keep any ringing voltages from > reaching the modem -- and won't affect the other phones in the house. > I have several *adio*hac*s near by, and a coupple Frys within striking > distance. ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Blocking Ring Voltage From: Kyler Laird Organization: Insight Broadband Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2002 08:23:24 GMT chsvideo@hotmail.com (Lincoln J. King-Cliby) writes: > Thus my question -- can anyone provide any ideas for how to build a > device that I can put between the server and the telephone jack that > will allow it to call out, but will keep any ringing voltages from > reaching the modem -- and won't affect the other phones in the house. > I have several *adio*hac*s near by, and a coupple Frys within striking > distance. Radio Shack carried such a device long ago. I don't know if they still do but as I recall, it was just a couple of diodes. I would not expect a usable ring signal to pass through a rectifier. --kyler ------------------------------ From: Alan Burkitt-Gray Subject: Re: Police, Fire, or Ambulance? (was: 011+ vs. 01+) Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2002 10:28:32 -0000 Mark Brader wrote: > I understand that Britain's 999 has traditionally been answered with > the question "Police, Fire, or Ambulance?"; presumably countries > such as France would find this a natural way to implement 112. But, > you know, I don't like it. While some emergencies are clearly in > the domain of only one of the three services, many others require > two or all three. And if I'm reporting something like that, the > last thing I want on my mind is to have to decide which people I > want to speak to first! I would much prefer to have a single > emergency number for all services, and let the nice calm person at > the *other* end of the line figure out which ones to dispatch. The nice calm person who answers 999 or 112 calls in Britain is an intermediary who works in a phone company call centre, perhaps hundreds of miles away. As far as I recall, the normal response is "Emergency. What service do you require?" (In coastal areas the coastguard service is also one of the options.) But each service has its own control room, area by area -- you're connected to the appropriate district according to where you're calling from: London callers wanting the police, for example, get through to someone who announces themself as "Scotland Yard" -- and the phone company person reads out your phone number (as received from the CLI info) after connecting you. I've only ever needed one at a time. But I presume, if anyone needed more than one, the services would have enough intercommunication to arrange that themselves, once they knew the nature of the incident. 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: ftbu3s@hotmail.com Subject: Last Laugh! My Name is Steven Dulak and I'm a Genius Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2002 04:43:30 GMT Organization: Bell Sympatico Hi I just figured that since I'm a member of a net-abuse newsgroup that I am God. I know everything and I'm the smartest thing to walk this world since Einstein. So if you would like to get a clue like me please visit: http://www.aracnet.com/~hisgaz/atom/bires/easy.htm to see a pic of my brain. If you have any questions please feel free to email me @ ftbu3s@hotmail.com. Thanks. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Thank you, God. That was a very inspiring message; I sure am glad you decided to stop in and say hello to us mere mortals today. And this being Thanksgiving week here in the USA I wanted to say how thankful I am that you and your assistant Gods help to keep our net so clean and fresh and spam and smut free, making it safe for the rest of us and our families -- all mere mortals -- to use. And thank you, God, for condemming poor Mike to Hell a few days ago, and scaring him so badly he made apologies to us all earlier today. Your abuse newsgroup must be a wonderful place to visit; you and all the other assistant Gods there, etc. Although of course, none of the others are as smart as you. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V22 #147 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Nov 26 01:44:40 2002 Received: from localhost (localhost [[UNIX: localhost]]) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.3nb1/8.11.3) id gAQ6ie209355; Tue, 26 Nov 2002 01:44:40 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 01:44:40 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200211260644.gAQ6ie209355@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #148 TELECOM Digest Tue, 26 Nov 2002 01:45:00 EST Volume 22 : Issue 148 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Wireless Carriers Unite With Message: Don't Single Out (Monty Solomon) Re: Yellow Pages Marketing (Steven J. Sobol) Re: Spam King Lives Large Off Others' E-Mail Troubles (Geoffrey Welsh) Re: RIAA Orders US Navy to Surrender (Barry Margolin) Re: RIAA Orders US Navy to Surrender (tonypo1@cox.net) Re: OT: Cell Phone Newsgroup (J Kelly) Re: Olde Farte Week (J Kelly) Re: Book Review: "VPNs: A Beginner's Guide", John Mairs (Thomas Horsley) Re: Police, Fire, or Ambulance? (was: 011+ vs. 01+) (Paul Coxwell) Last Laugh! My Name is George Heller and I Screw My Parakeet!! (G Heller) 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, 25 Nov 2002 23:37:21 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Wireless Carriers Unite With Message: Don't Single Out Wireless Carriers Unite With Message: Don't Single Out Our Customers In California for Phone Number Changes! Immediate Action Needed to Address Number Shortage in 310 and 909 Area Codes -- But California PUC's Plan to Make These Landline- Only Area Codes is Unfair to L.A.-Area Wireless Customers and Unnecessary EL SEGUNDO, Calif., Nov. 25 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- The debate over how to introduce new area codes in 310 and 909 communities has raged since 1998. Now the North American Numbering Plan Administrator (NANPA), an organization charged by the Federal government with overseeing telecommunications numbering, has warned that phone numbers in the 310 and 909 area codes will be exhausted by mid-2003. California's wireless carriers plead for action and fairness. Wireless carriers oppose an untested proposal by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) for the introduction of two new area codes in parts of Los Angeles and Riverside counties. The CPUC's plan would force nearly three million existing wireless customers in the 310 and 909 area codes to surrender their phone numbers so those numbers can be reassigned to new landline customers in the future. Wireless customers would then be assigned a new number, requiring their phones to be reprogrammed and personal and business stationery to be reprinted. Wireless customers would also have to notify friends, family, and business associates of the number change. Under the CPUC's plan, practically every wireless customer in the 310 and 909 area codes would be inconvenienced. The wireless carriers stress that new area codes can be -- and commonly are -- introduced throughout the country without the need for any customers to change their phone numbers. This method, called an "all services area code overlay," has been used to introduce more than 40 area codes nationwide. The other accepted method for introducing an area code, called a "geographic split," assigns a new code to both landline and wireless customers in a specific geographic area, thus treating customers of both technologies in an even-handed way. The CPUC already has the authority to use either of these tested methods for introducing new area codes. However the CPUC does not have authority to use its proposed method, called a "technology specific overlay." This method, which is discriminatory against wireless customers, requires approval from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The CPUC has filed a petition with the FCC, and wireless carriers today are filing comments in opposition to this anti-consumer proposal. http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=30211781 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: There is some precedent for this way of doing things however. In New York City there is one area code which is overlaid and used exclusively for pagers/cell phones. Is it 907? And about ten years ago, there was a proposal to put all 'modem lines' in the nation into a special area code (I think then '300' was suggested at the time) which gained some currency for awhile. Nothing ever came of that idea. I do not see where the proposal is necessarily 'anti- consumer'; cell phones can dial ten digits as easily as any one else, and easier in some cases since we do not have to dial eleven digits with the leading one being eliminated with most carriers, since we are *supposed to be* dialing ten digits all the time, even on local calls. I have found however that 331-xxxx works fine on calls around Independence on my cell phone, like seven digits does for anywhere in the 620 area code. What I do not like, however, is that Cingular Wireless is allegedly going to quit paying for 620-870 which is a 'wide area local exchange' for their customers in southeast Kansas. Normally, any person calling 870-my number in s.e.Kansas can reach me by dialing just those seven digits at no additional charge than a local call. But according to Southwestern Bell, Cingular is going to quit paying *them* for this service. It will not affect my outgoing rates (as I am on one rate national plan) but if Cingular does quit doing it (paying for wide area local service from SWBT) it will affect my incoming local calls and how much people pay for those. I do have a toll free 888 number on my cell phone as well, and people calling me from payphones can use that rather than the 870 version if they don't have a quarter for the phone, but I also use it to forward calls from my home line on busy/no answer to my cell phone. If what they say is true, and Cingular quits paying the bill for wide area local service on 620-870, I may tell telco to begin forwarding my own calls to the 888 number (camped on to 620-870) as well. PAT] ------------------------------ From: sjsobol@JustThe.net (Steven J. Sobol) Subject: Re: Yellow Pages Marketing Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2002 04:48:25 -0000 Organization: JustThe.net LLC Mark Brader wrote: > Other panels advertise Bell's Yellow Pages directory and explain in > small print the part about winning money. The $10,000 is not the top > prize, but the total amount to be given away, half of it in Toronto > and half in Montreal. Part of the mailing is a sign to hang on my > doorknob; if I hang it up on the two dates indicated, and if my street > happens to be one of the ones they check, then I might be entered in a > draw to win the $2,500 top prize or one of 25 prizes of $100. > And what does it say on the hanger itself? Right. "Do not disturb. > I prefer Bell's Yellow Pages directory." SBC is doing the same thing here. SUperPages in the US is a Verizon product; then you have SmartPages. Then you have the little neighborhood books produced by the crooks who love to send out things that are designed to look like bills to get you to send them money. (And I do believe they are all crooks. One of these days I'll get annoyed enough to nail them for mail fraud.) As much as I think SBC stinks, however, it seems to me that they DO have a valid point that they are the leaders with regards to the breadth and number of ads they have in their book, just by virtue of the fact that they've been around since the beginning. So, if I pick up a Yellow Pages book, it's more likely to be the SBC Ameritech book instead of the SmartPages book we also have. (In my case, it doesn't hurt that SBC Ameritech has a Lake/Geauga County White/Yellow page book, and SmartPages only covers Cleveland. Cleveland's a long distance call for me, so I'm going to generally use the SBC book if I'm at home.) Steve Sobol, CTO JustThe.net LLC, Mentor On The Lake, OH http://JustTheNetLLC.com/ (check out the new site!) 888.480.4NET (4638) A practicing member of the Geek Orthodox religion! ------------------------------ From: Geoffrey Welsh Subject: Re: Spam King Lives Large Off Others' E-Mail Troubles Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2002 07:42:24 -0500 Organization: Bell Sympatico PAT wrote: > He certainly is not judgment proof (he *is* able to pay judgments entered > against him and his whereabouts are known) Ah, but knowing his whereabouts and being certain he is responsible for spam is a far cry from proving that he hijacked insecure servers to distribute any particular spam (proxy servers and some mail relays don't report where the connection originally came from.) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yes, but as the 12th century philosopher/theologian said in a message here recently, sue them all; let God and his news-abuse newsgroup sort them out. And God was here to visit us Monday afternoon and tell us about his wonders and good- ness. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Barry Margolin Subject: Re: RIAA Orders US Navy to Surrender Organization: Genuity, Woburn, MA Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2002 22:39:22 GMT In article , Monty Solomon wrote: > By Andrew Orlowski in San Francisco > In a timely reminder of who's really in charge here, the Recording > Industry Association of America (RIAA) has mounted a daring raid on > the US Navy. > Acting unilaterally at the behest of the RIAA, Navy officials > confiscated 100 computers on suspicion of harboring illegally > downloaded MP3s, The Capital, an Annapolis, MD daily reports. A Naval > official quoted confirms the raid, adding that punishment ranges from > "court martial to loss of leave and other restrictions". So apparently the Navy agrees with the RIAA that what these officers have allegedly done is wrong. > For the RIAA, there are no half measures: you're either with them, or > against them. So even if you're risking having your ass blown off for > your country, there's no mercy. Since when does being in the military exempt you from obeying the law? Maybe it's a bad law, but until it's repealed military officers should obey it. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: That is really disgraceful that the > RIAA has made trouble for those guys like that. As the leading part The military has very strict codes of conduct, and their officers are supposed to set examples for the rest of us. Flaunting copyright laws hardly seems consistent with Navy expectations. > by Monty states, RIAA is unwilling to make exceptions even for the > brave guys in our Navy. So I wonder what makes YOU think they won't > raid you and steal your computer? PAT] I don't have any of this kind of material on my computer AFAIK, but if I did ... I'm not using a computer owned by an organization with the resources to do so. The RIAA would have to convince the police to raid individual homes looking for this stuff. The resources needed to track down and raid individual culprits is too great. It's only worth it when they can get a whole bunch of perpetrators in one fell swoop, as they did with the Navy. Barry Margolin, barmar@genuity.net Genuity, Woburn, MA *** DON'T SEND TECHNICAL QUESTIONS DIRECTLY TO ME, post them to newsgroups. Please DON'T copy followups to me -- I'll assume it wasn't posted to the group. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: As I understand it, these 'culprits' were NOT 'naval officers'; they were mostly a bunch of young recruits who are the guys most likely to (as the writer put it) 'get their asses blown off in a war' in Iran/Iraq/wherever. Usually the young recruits are the guys who get that misfortune. Their music that they get to play/listen to is one of the few pleasures they get in life while in the military overseas. I still say the RIAA should leave them alone and quit harassing them for having some fun when/while they can. PAT] ------------------------------ From: tonypo1@cox.net Subject: Re: RIAA Orders US Navy to Surrender Organization: The Ace Tomatoe and Cement Company Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2002 23:58:41 GMT In article , monty@roscom.com says: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: That is really disgraceful that the > RIAA has made trouble for those guys like that. As the leading part > by Monty states, RIAA is unwilling to make exceptions even for the > brave guys in our Navy. So I wonder what makes YOU think they won't > raid you and steal your computer? PAT] That's the beauty of: a) An network interface card whose MAC address can be configured at will and b) good encryption The RIAA is really carrying things too far - and I'm hoping that the backlash will be enough to make them re-think such draconian enforcement of their rules. Tony ------------------------------ From: J Kelly Subject: Re: OT: Cell Phone Newsgroup Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2002 18:21:25 -0600 Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com On Fri, 22 Nov 2002 09:05:16 -0800, Joseph wrote: > Cingular soon will offer GSM 800/850 in areas where they don't have > 1900 Mhz spectrum. Some new handsets from Nokia and Siemens now > support GSM 800/850. Cool, thanks for the info on that. Will that phone work on other modes as well, TDMA, CDMA, AMPS? I would love to roam on 800 analog or digital without having to add the extra 800 analog sleeve to my Nokia 5190, which makes it look pregnant. ------------------------------ From: J Kelly Subject: Re: Olde Farte Week Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2002 18:33:14 -0600 Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com On Thu, 21 Nov 2002 08:57:08 -0700, Joey Lindstrom wrote: > the "Poke Of Death". The > Well, apparently the video hardware on these CBM machines > was directly addressable, and there was one setting that you could > "poke" into video memory that would, quite literally, destroy the > monitor. Well, "destroy" is overstating it, but you did get this cute > little "pop" sound followed by a puff of white smoke, after which the > monitor didn't work anymore. Dale blew out 4 monitors before we > prevailed upon him to stop. :-) I loved the old C-64 and VIC-20. I always thought that poke of death was an urban legend among Commodore users. And boy, do I ever remember how hot the old 1541's would run. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The video hardware was also directly addressable on Ohio Scientific Instruments (OSI) as well. If you POKED a screen location with the value 89 for example, you would get the letter 'y' at that memory location on the screen, since 89 is the ASCII value for a letter 'y' according to the ASCII values they used. Normally it was up to the BASIC program you were running to poke certain values into the video hardware (i.e. create the screen display desired). There was no reason the human operator/program writer could not do direct pokes to the screen memory however. Try it on your Windows-based machine, if it has BASIC installed as a DOS program on it. Try PEEKing at the memory locations for the screen to see the ASCII values of the characters printed there, then try POKEing what you PEEKed plus thirteen for example, and write them back out; do your own ROT-13 style messages. PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Book Review: "VPNs: A Beginner's Guide", John Mairs From: tom.horsley@att.net (Thomas A. Horsley) Organization: AT&T Worldnet Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 00:43:08 GMT > I found it to be quite useless, its covering obselte protocols in the > second part, only the thir part is actually vpn specific and covers > ipsec in depth (which is the predominant vpn solution). ipsec may be the predominant solution, but more and more butt-headed cable and DSL providers every day decide that when they said "always connected", they only meant that in some theoretical marketing sense, and they classify ipsec users as bandwidth hogs and block ipsec packets. If you want to work from home, a tunnel through an SSH connection is far more reliable since the butt-heads are highly unlikely to start blocking ssh :-). >>==>> The *Best* political site >>==+ email: Tom.Horsley@worldnet.att.net icbm: Delray Beach, FL | Free Software and Politics <<==+ ------------------------------ From: PaulCoxwell@aol.com Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2002 14:27:21 EST Subject: Re: Police, Fire, or Ambulance? (was: 011+ vs. 01+) > I understand that Britain's 999 has traditionally been answered with > the question "Police, Fire, or Ambulance?"; presumably countries such > as France would find this a natural way to implement 112. It's been a long time since I've had cause to use our emergency number here so I'm not sure what opening line is taught these days, but for many, many years the traditional way for operators to answer a 999 call was with "Emergency -- Which service do you require?" Although most everybody associates a 999 call with police, fire, or ambulance, a little known fact is that it can also be used to call the Coastguard. > But, you know, I don't like it. While some emergencies are clearly in > the domain of only one of the three services, many others require two > or all three. I'm inclined to agree. All that happens here is that the operator logs the call and connects to whatever service has been requested. It's then up to the operator of the appropriate service to call for additional help from the other services if needed. > (In addition, there's the matter of callers who don't speak the local > language -- probably more of an issue in Europe than here. If they > have to speak to more than one operator, the likelihood of confusion > is surely increased.) Agreed. Having a common emergency number throughout Europe is of little use if the caller and operator cannot then communicate due to the language barrier. ------------------------------ From: george.heller@verizon.net Subject: Last Laugh! My Name is George Heller and I Screw my Parakeet!! Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2002 04:27:29 GMT Organization: Bell Sympatico Hi I just thought I would let everybody know that I love my parakeet so much that I decided to make love to it. I tell you that thing gave me the best I've ever had in my life. Too bad I'm not good enough to pleasure even a parakeet. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: What's with all these nutty messages today from Bell Sympatico and Hotmail? On Monday I had the message from the one true God who assured us that being a member of a news-abuse newsgroup he was smarter than Einstein and everyone else. Now along tonight comes this George Heller Thing who confesses to doing 'it' with his little baby parakeet. George, you ought to be ashamed of yourself for torturing little creatures in that way. I think I am going to add Bell Sympatico and Hotmail to my kill file if this keeps up. 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. 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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 V22 #148 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Nov 26 15:10:02 2002 Received: from localhost (localhost [[UNIX: localhost]]) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.3nb1/8.11.3) id gAQKA2417894; Tue, 26 Nov 2002 15:10:02 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 15:10:02 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200211262010.gAQKA2417894@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #149 TELECOM Digest Tue, 26 Nov 2002 15:10:00 EST Volume 22 : Issue 149 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: RIAA Orders US Navy to Surrender (Ed Ellers) Re: RIAA Orders US Navy to Surrender (Bob Goudreau) Re: RIAA Orders US Navy to Surrender (John Higdon) Re: RIAA Orders US Navy to Surrender (John R. Levine) Re: RIAA Orders US Navy to Surrender (Gordon S. Hlavenka) Re: RIAA Orders US Navy to Surrender (Alan Burkitt-Gray) Re: Wireless Carriers Unite With Message: Don't Single Out (John D. Galt) Re: Wireless Carriers Unite With Message: Don't Single Out (Joseph) Re: Wireless Carriers Unite With Message: Don't Single Out (John Levine) Re: Wireless Carriers Unite With Message: Don't Single Out (Paul Wallich) 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: Ed Ellers Subject: Re: RIAA Orders US Navy to Surrender Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 10:11:40 -0500 PAT, the TELECOM Digest Editor, noted: > So I wonder what makes YOU think they won't raid you and steal your > computer? Nobody's computer was stolen here -- the laptops in question are Navy property. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: My point is still valid. If they will pillage and take away Navy laptop computers in their desparate bid to get their precious files, what makes YOU think they won't resort to the same tactics with your property? PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 07:34:20 PST From: Bob Goudreau Reply-To: BobGoudreau@nc.rr.com Subject: Re: RIAA Orders US Navy to Surrender > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: As I understand it, these 'culprits' > were NOT 'naval officers'; they were mostly a bunch of young recruits > who are the guys most likely to (as the writer put it) 'get their > asses blown off in a war' in Iran/Iraq/wherever. Usually the young > recruits are the guys who get that misfortune. Their music that they > get to play/listen to is one of the few pleasures they get in life > while in the military overseas. I still say the RIAA should leave them > alone and quit harassing them for having some fun when/while they can. The culprits in question were neither naval officers (yet), nor "recruits" in the way the term is commonly used to refer to enlisted men who could ship off to war at any moment. Rather, they are midshipmen, i.e., cadets at the United States Naval Academy, the college that the Navy runs in order to train (some of) its future officers. They will only become actual Naval officers if they graduate from the Academy and receive a commission. Military life can be rigorous, and military academy life even more so. I am not surprised at all that the Navy would act to punish any middies who violate not just the country's laws, but the Academy's honor code. Bob Goudreau Cary, NC [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Maybe it would be a good idea for the RIAA to poll its members on whether or not military guys should be deprived of their entertainment. If they studied their history rather than their bottom line so much they might discover that many artists, musicians, entertainers, others routinely and freely give of themselves to help soldiers, etc. Consider how during the VietNam era, World War II and many other conflicts the musicians and artists and show people would go and give free shows on bases, etc. Probably RIAA would not approve of that either. PAT] ------------------------------ From: John Higdon Subject: Re: RIAA Orders US Navy to Surrender Organization: Green Hills and Cows Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 07:41:16 -0800 In article , Barry Margolin wrote: > So apparently the Navy agrees with the RIAA that what these officers > have allegedly done is wrong. We are so flush with resources in the military right now that we can run search and destroy missions on personal computers for MP3s? That is very comforting. The Iraq war should be over in a day. > Since when does being in the military exempt you from obeying the law? Since when is the RIAA's version of "copyright law" part of the UCMJ? > The military has very strict codes of conduct, and their officers are > supposed to set examples for the rest of us. Flaunting copyright laws > hardly seems consistent with Navy expectations. Again ...where is this in the UCMJ? > I don't have any of this kind of material on my computer AFAIK, but if I > did ... Oh, you think simply not having contraband on your computer is some sort of protection if the RIAA decides to target YOU? What are you going to do for the several months (if not forever) that your computer is in the hands of The Specialists? Remember, in the eyes of the RIAA EVERYONE is guilty until proven innocent. > I'm not using a computer owned by an organization with the resources > to do so. The RIAA would have to convince the police to raid > individual homes looking for this stuff. The resources needed to > track down and raid individual culprits is too great. It's only worth > it when they can get a whole bunch of perpetrators in one fell swoop, > as they did with the Navy. Worth what? What do think is going to happen to these people? As far as the RIAA "convincing the police to raid" is concerned, this very operation indicates that they aren't too hard to convince. And how to you (or for that matter, the RIAA) know that they are "perpetrators"? The Copyright Industry will perhaps someday discover that it is easier (and more profitable) to ride the horse in the direction it is going. Until then, we will apparently be having to put up with the midnight jack-booted raids. Somehow, I think it would be much more advantageous to simply sell the public what it wants at a fair price. In article , tonypo1@cox.net wrote: > The RIAA is really carrying things too far - and I'm hoping that the > backlash will be enough to make them re-think such draconian > enforcement of their rules. If the recording industry would sell downloadable files at a fair price and without draconian technical hamstringing restrictions (like EMI is starting to do) we wouldn't be having this discussion and the record companies would have a whole new source of revenue. John Higdon | Email Address Valid | SF: +1 415 428-COWS +1 408 264 4115 | Anytown, USA | FAX: +1 408 264 4407 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Did you notice that Hollywood is starting to sell movies direct on DVD? For only a few dollars each; a very fair price. The RIAA should take the hint also. And John, the Uniform Code of Military Justice does incorporate the US laws, by reference thereto. All the rotten laws we all have to follow by force, since we all know the guns are out there just waiting to do their jobs as well. Maybe you saw the cute litle speech by Dubya on your television today. Now he wants Iran to 'prove they don't have weapons of mass destruction.' I mean, how do you PROVE you don't have something. How do you PROVE you are innocent? I think it will just break his heart to find out they don't have any, and his planned and hoped for Armaggeon will have to be his own doing. He is just like FDR was in 1940; just itching to get in a war, that hopefully he will be able to blame on others. But I digress ... I really think RIAA should back down a little. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: 26 Nov 2002 10:59:27 -0500 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: RIAA Orders US Navy to Surrender Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: As I understand it, these 'culprits' > were NOT 'naval officers'; they were mostly a bunch of young recruits They were cadets at the Naval Academy, which I believe makes them both naval officers and young recruits. I do agree that if this is the best use the RIAA has to make of their time and resources, they're even worse than I thought. 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: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 10:53:11 -0600 From: Gordon S. Hlavenka Organization: Crash Electronics, Inc. Subject: Re: RIAA Orders US Navy to Surrender Barry Margolin wrote: >> Acting unilaterally at the behest of the RIAA, Navy officials >> confiscated 100 computers on suspicion of harboring illegally >> downloaded MP3s... > So apparently the Navy agrees with the RIAA that what these officers > have allegedly done is wrong. > Since when does being in the military exempt you from obeying the law? > The military has very strict codes of conduct, and their officers are > supposed to set examples for the rest of us. Flaunting copyright laws > hardly seems consistent with Navy expectations. When I served in the US Navy (1977-1983) the Navy Exchange rented duplication booths at overseas locations. Out "in town" you could buy bootleg albums from street vendors for next to nothing. An album was only playable a couple of times (the discs were made of soft vinyl and the tape in the cassettes would stretch), but you'd take a bunch of them to the Exchange, buy a stack of name-brand blank cassettes, and dub everything. Booth rental was couple bucks an hour, and the equipment could do high-speed dubbing. Nowadays (if these booths still exist) I would guess they'd have equipment to rip and burn CDs instead. The original (fake) albums were "contraband" and couldn't be brought back into the States so we used them for skeet off the fantail. Nobody cared about the dubbed cassettes. It's possible many of my contemporaries still have quite a collection. Not me, of course -- it would be Wrong. Gordon S. Hlavenka O- nospam@crashelex.com Burma! ------------------------------ From: Burkitt-Gray Alan Subject: Re: RIAA Orders US Navy to Surrender Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 10:20:36 -0000 Moderator stated: > Iran/Iraq/wherever???!!!!! Iran and Iraq are separate countries. I didn't realize there was currently any threat by the US against Iran. This is a potential war you're talking about, in which many thousands of innocent people might get killed on all sides. It doesn't help anyone to be quite so glib as to refer to the likely opponent as "Iran/Iraq/wherever" as though somehow it doesn't really matter, so long as someone's ass gets kicked. 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 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: *Of course* they are separate and soverign nations, Alan. It just depends on the year and rationale at the moment regards who will threaten who. A very short time ago, the USA was at war with Iran. Now the USA is threatening war with Iraq. I have to wonder why either country wants anything to do with the USA, especially with someone like Dubya in office; and no, he does not care who he is at war with as long as someone's ass gets blown off. PAT] ------------------------------ From: John David Galt Subject: Re: Wireless Carriers Unite With Message: Don't Single Out Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 01:10:56 -0800 Organization: Diogenes the Cynic Hot-Tubbing Society Monty Solomon wrote: > EL SEGUNDO, Calif., Nov. 25 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- The debate > over how to introduce new area codes in 310 and 909 communities has > raged since 1998. Now the North American Numbering Plan Administrator > (NANPA), an organization charged by the Federal government with > overseeing telecommunications numbering, has warned that phone numbers > in the 310 and 909 area codes will be exhausted by mid-2003. > California's wireless carriers plead for action and fairness. What goes around comes around. As I recall, cellular carriers nationwide (and certainly in California) have unfairly and confusingly gotten their numbers entirely exempted from past area code splits. When they cooperate in undoing that mess, then I'll be more sympathetic to their pleas against proposals like the above. For example, although 831 split from 408 quite some time ago, there are still, today, cellular prefixes in area code 408 in the Salinas rate center (a good 50 miles to the 831 side of the split boundary). It seems to me that the continued existence of these prefixes is nothing but a fraud against anybody dialing to or from them. When the split was made, the FCC should have given all subscribers in these prefixes two choices: either you move to a number in 831 to keep your phone in the Salinas rate center, or you move to a rate center within the new 408 area (Gilroy?) to keep the 408 area code. (Let the cellular carrier decide whether to move the prefix into 831, thus letting those who choose the first option keep their 7-digit numbers, or move the prefix to Gilroy, thus letting those who choose the second option keep their 10-digit numbers.) Having fouled up by not forcing this choice at the time, it's high time for the FCC to correct the fraud by doing so now. For every split. ------------------------------ From: Joseph Subject: Re: Wireless Carriers Unite With Message: Don't Single Out Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 07:16:01 -0800 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Reply-To: joeofseattle@yahoo.com On Mon, 25 Nov 2002 23:37:21 -0500, Monty Solomon wrote: > Wireless carriers oppose an untested proposal by the California > Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) for the introduction of two new > area codes in parts of Los Angeles and Riverside counties. The CPUC's > plan would force nearly three million existing wireless customers in > the 310 and 909 area codes to surrender their phone numbers so those > numbers can be reassigned to new landline customers in the > future. Wireless customers would then be assigned a new number, > requiring their phones to be reprogrammed and personal and business > stationery to be reprinted. Wireless customers would also have to > notify friends, family, and business associates of the number change. > Under the CPUC's plan, practically every wireless customer in the 310 > and 909 area codes would be inconvenienced. I really don't understand this retecence to do what most every other state and area in the US has done and do the overlay. Splits and especially "service" specific area codes were determined to be unfair to other services many years ago. Why is it so difficult for California to get with the program and just do the overlay. In the article it was written: > The California PUC is trying to extend the life of two area codes in > Southern California for a few short years and prevent landline > consumers from having to dial extra digits to call other landline > phones in the area. So, to make it convenient for a few people they're going to inconvenience a whole lot of people to stave off for a couple of years the *inevitable* that will indeed require them to dial 11 digits on every call. With the number of area codes in the area odds are that for many calls now they must dial 11 digits. This thing about saving someone from dialing three or four extra digits is totally bogus. They may save dialing the extra digits "for a few short years", but eventually they're going to have to bite the bullet and have 11 digit dialing whether they like the idea or not. I'm really surprised things haven't reached crisis level yet with numbering in California. People learn to deal with the extra digits and while they might not like dialing the extra digits they get used to it. Replies are seldom read. Please reply in the group [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, that's what they did in Chicago, IL you know. A handful of big, big businesses in downtown made such a stink about the 312/773 split a few years ago, Ameritech decided to let them (the handful of big businesses downtown) keep 312 and forced the majority of the city to go with 773. Now you have to dial eleven digits to get a call from one side of North Avenue to the other side. But we mustn't be unfair and 'anti-consumer' to the First National Bank and or big corporations downtown by asking them to change their area code and reprint their stationary and reprogram their PBXs. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: 26 Nov 2002 11:15:37 -0500 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: Wireless Carriers Unite With Message: Don't Single Out Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > However the CPUC does not have authority to use its proposed method, > called a "technology specific overlay." > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: There is some precedent for this way > of doing things however. In New York City there is one area code which > is overlaid and used exclusively for pagers/cell phones. Is it 907? It's 917, the first and last service specific overlay, originally for cell phones and pagers. Now it's got a mixture of ILEC, CLEC, wireless, and pagers, just like 212, 646, 718, and 347. 907 is Alaska where they probably won't need any overlays for a while. I don't understand why the CPUC is doing these backflips to try to avoid regular overlays like other urban states have. The FCC has made it pretty clear that 917 was a failed experiment, and they're not going to permit any more service specific overlays. I also get the impression that they are sympathetic to cell carrier arguments that it's harder to renumber cellular than wireline because all the cell phones have to be reprogrammed. How is California coming with LNP and thousands allocation? They're the real way that you avoid new area codes, by not allocating zillions of numbers to CLECs that won't use them. 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: Paul Wallich Subject: Re: Wireless Carriers Unite With Message: Don't Single Out Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 09:44:06 -0500 Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC In article , Monty Solomon wrote: > Wireless Carriers Unite With Message: Don't Single Out Our Customers > In California for Phone Number Changes! > Immediate Action Needed to Address Number Shortage in 310 and > 909 Area Codes -- But California PUC's Plan to Make These Landline- > Only Area Codes is Unfair to L.A.-Area Wireless Customers and Unnecessary > EL SEGUNDO, Calif., Nov. 25 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- The debate > over how to introduce new area codes in 310 and 909 communities has > raged since 1998. Now the North American Numbering Plan Administrator > (NANPA), an organization charged by the Federal government with > overseeing telecommunications numbering, has warned that phone numbers > in the 310 and 909 area codes will be exhausted by mid-2003. > California's wireless carriers plead for action and fairness. > Wireless carriers oppose an untested proposal by the California > Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) for the introduction of two new > area codes in parts of Los Angeles and Riverside counties. The CPUC's > plan would force nearly three million existing wireless customers in > the 310 and 909 area codes to surrender their phone numbers so those > numbers can be reassigned to new landline customers in the > future. Wireless customers would then be assigned a new number, > requiring their phones to be reprogrammed and personal and business > stationery to be reprinted. Wireless customers would also have to > notify friends, family, and business associates of the number change. > Under the CPUC's plan, practically every wireless customer in the 310 > and 909 area codes would be inconvenienced. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: There is some precedent for this way > of doing things however. In New York City there is one area code which > is overlaid and used exclusively for pagers/cell phones. Is it 907? > And about ten years ago, there was a proposal to put all 'modem lines' > in the nation into a special area code (I think then '300' was suggested > at the time) which gained some currency for awhile. Nothing ever came > of that idea. I do not see where the proposal is necessarily 'anti- > consumer'; cell phones can dial ten digits as easily as any one else A wireless-only overlay is fine if it's implemented as such from the start, and if wireless devices in the existing codes are grandfathered to keep their lines. What sounds like the screwy part here is telling millions of existing customers that their numbers will have to be changed (and that they can't be guaranted any of their digits will remain the same -- in geographic splits generally all that changes is the first three digits). Although many people are getting used to 10 digits for everything, there are still plenty of folks for whom the additional dialing (and the uncertainty of not being sure just where the called number might be located) is an obstacle. And for businesses, that obstacle could tip the balance. (For wireless vs landline, I'm sure it doesn't help the equation to think that many of the people who get inconvenienced will be those who went to wireless service because their local POTS was inadequate, but businesses with POTS lines will be marginally easier to reach.) paul ------------------------------ 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 Fax 3: 775-642-0603 Fax 4: 530-309-7234 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 V22 #149 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Nov 27 00:09:50 2002 Received: from localhost (localhost [[UNIX: localhost]]) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.3nb1/8.11.3) id gAR59of07193; Wed, 27 Nov 2002 00:09:50 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2002 00:09:50 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200211270509.gAR59of07193@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #150 TELECOM Digest Wed, 27 Nov 2002 00:10:00 EST Volume 22 : Issue 150 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Employment Opportunity: Two Way Mobile Radio Repair Tech (Herbert Hess) Re: Revenooers, was Re: Theater Chains (Neal McLain) Video on Demand Is Finally Taking Hold (Monty Solomon) Re: Panasonic KX-TD816 and 66 Block (DyRichards) Re: OT: Cell Phone Newsgroup (Joseph) Re: Charter Cable Leak: Reporting it (j debert) Re: Police, Fire, or Ambulance? (was: 011+ vs. 01+) (Owain) Re: RIAA Orders US Navy to Surrender (Barry Margolin) Re: RIAA Orders US Navy to Surrender (AES/newspost) Re: RIAA Orders US Navy to Surrender (Ray Depew) My Error on CellSocket Devices (TELECOM Digest Editor) AIRWAVES FCC Database Search is Not Working? (Y.H.) Re: Last Laugh! Parakeets (Joey Lindstrom) 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: hr@hessjobs.com (Herbert Hess) Subject: Employment Opportunity: Two Way Mobile Radio Repair Technician Date: 26 Nov 2002 09:02:02 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Position # 978 Successful Toronto company is in need of a Senior Radio Repair Technician. REQUIREMENTS: Min 7 years' experience working with 2 way radio. Background: mobile, portable radios (not cell phones!). Kenwood, Motorola experience. Permanent position. Please contact: Herbert Hess Hess Associates Executive Search 416-447-3355 hr@hessjobs.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 00:12:29 -0600 From: Neal McLain Reply-To: nmclain@annsgarden.com Organization: Ann's Garden Subject: Re: Revenooers, was Re: Theater Chains Danny Burstein wrote: > As an FYI, this is a frequent battle between the Government > Revenue Folk the taxmen) and the stadium or theater... Whereupon Ed Ellers wrote: > I recall a similar flap over cable TV franchise fees several > years ago, though I've long since forgotten where or what > company was involved. Basically, the company decided to add > the franchise fee as a line item rather than eating the cost > themselves, so if a given package cost $35/month and the > franchise fee was 4%, they would put a $1.40 line item on the > bill. The city came along some time later and demanded 4% of > the $36.40 total, or $1.46, retroactive to the start of > the change; the company then replied that it would have to > raise the rate even more, *and* surcharge customers to recover > the difference, so that the company would still get its $35, > and IIRC the courts ruled in the cable company's favor. The FCC ruled in the cable company's favor, but the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed. An article I wrote on this subject several years ago is posted at: . Neal McLain nmclain@annsgarden.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 08:37:29 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Video on Demand Is Finally Taking Hold By SETH SCHIESEL Video on demand may be the most significant development for the Couch Potato Nation since the remote control, and the cable television industry hopes that it may soon become almost as popular. After years of failed promises, unripe business plans and half-baked technology, the cable industry is finally beginning to deliver reliable and economical video-on-demand services. Want to watch an episode of "Sex and the City" from last month? Punch a few buttons and sit back as the program begins when you want it to. Phone ringing? Hit pause on the remote, and the program will freeze. Miss a line? Press rewind. Bored? Choose from hundreds of other films, series and specials - none of which requires you to record it ahead of time. Video on demand reached a significant milestone recently, when Time Warner Cable announced that by the end of the year the service would be available throughout the company's biggest market, New York City, where it has 1.2 million subscribers. Besides Time Warner Cable, owned by AOL Time Warner, other big companies now offering video on demand around the nation include Comcast and Cablevision. The Yankee Group, a technology research firm, estimates that by the end of this year about seven million homes around the nation will have access to video on demand, up from only about three million at the end of 2001. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/25/business/25VIDE.html ------------------------------ From: DyRichards Subject: Re: Panasonic KX-TD816 and 66 Block Reply-To: nospam_dyrichards@hotmail.com Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 14:16:12 GMT On Mon, 25 Nov 2002 02:51:41 GMT, Philip wrote: > I need help with the wiring sequence of the 66 block. I have the > KX-TD816 with a KX-TD170 extension expansion card. I have connected > the first 8 extensions to the modular jacks in the KSU. My extension > jacks are wired with Cat5E cable with position one through six wired > respectively white/green, white/orange, blue/white, white/blue, > orange/white, and green/white. I have a standard 50 pair 66 block > with a amphenol on the left side and a cord with two male amphenols > attached to the block and the KX-TD170. I assume I will start with > the top right pin and punch down six wires, but I am not sure of the > order. > If some one could please help answer this question, it would be > appreciated. My next question, if I may, how do you parallel three > extensions on the block. I have one room with three extensions that I > will only use one phone in. Thanks so much for your time! The cabling is easy. Here's the order. White/Blue - Green Blue/White - Red White/Orange - Black Orange/White - Yellow Skip the next pair on the 66 block then repeat the sequence. ------------------------------ From: Joseph Subject: Re: OT: Cell Phone Newsgroup Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 07:02:54 -0800 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Reply-To: joeofseattle@yahoo.com On Mon, 25 Nov 2002 18:21:25 -0600, J Kelly wrote: > On Fri, 22 Nov 2002 09:05:16 -0800, Joseph > wrote: >> Cingular soon will offer GSM 800/850 in areas where they don't have >> 1900 Mhz spectrum. Some new handsets from Nokia and Siemens now >> support GSM 800/850. > Cool, thanks for the info on that. Will that phone work on other > modes as well, TDMA, CDMA, AMPS? I would love to roam on 800 analog > or digital without having to add the extra 800 analog sleeve to my > Nokia 5190, which makes it look pregnant. The handset manufacturers such as Siemens and Nokia have handsets that will do GSM @ 800/1900 Mhz, TDMA 800/1900 Mhz and AMPS such as the Nokia 6340i. Siemens has a model that will do GSM 800/1900 and TDMA (model S46 IIRC.) I don't know of any model current or planned that will do GSM, TDMA, CDMA and AMPS. The combination technology phones are at present marketed by cingular (in their TDMA areas) and AT&T. They are not available in all cingular or AT&T areas. Replies are seldom read. Please reply in the group. ------------------------------ From: J Debert Subject: Re: Charter Cable Leak: Reporting it Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 10:56:44 -0800 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Dave Phelps wrote: > It seems most of the big service providers, whether it's phone, cable, > whatever, seem to really like to play dumb when discussing any service > issues. It doesn't surprise me at all that they don't acknowledge your > complaint, mostly because the answer centers don't have a clue of > what's going on. It is almost impossible to make contact with a group > that knows what's going on -- I don't think they even give those > people phones. From what I understand, they've stopped hiring intelligent people years ago as a matter of policy. They have the perception that intelligent people would command too much money. And everyone knows that intelligent people always cause trouble too. If you're at least a high-school grad you have a much better chance of getting a job assembling burgers than you do becoming a telephone "customer service" person. As far as I can tell Charter did not come out to check it: never saw their vehicles in the area until well after the signal went away. No one ever contacted me. This contrasts with Gill Cable (was originally Gill in 1970's, now ATTCable) and PG&E in San Jose: The people responsible for tracking down RFI contacted me within hours of the complaint to them and the problems resolved very quickly. When a cracked 12KV insulator was wiping out everything below 200MHz PG&E replaced not only the one bad insulator but several others as well plus some splices and switches. Soon after Gill pulled their overhead cable in the area, one segment was left unterminated and radiated a strong signal. They were out the same day to fix it. They were also out the same day to replace a leaking coupler. When Gill ran the cable show in San Jose, there was a per-outlet charge for cable and people would run their own cable to their various TV's and radios to avoid paying the extra charges. One neighbour got even more creative and hooked up a dipole the the cable outlet to avoid running cable and paying the per-outlet charge. It met with very limited success, with interference from the 10+ area broadcast stations, and provided a weak, barely usable signal to adjacent rooms. It also could be picked up by neighbours and not just by TV's. The neighbour removed the antenna the next day, deciding it did not work well. The Charter problem reminds me of this enterprising neighbour in San Jose. More so since it apparently disappeared without intervention. j d e b e r t < a t > g a r l i c < d o t > c o m ------------------------------ From: spuorgelgoog@gowanhill.com (Owain) Subject: Re: Police, Fire, or Ambulance? (was: 011+ vs. 01+) Date: 26 Nov 2002 11:32:07 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Mark Brader wrote > So in this case, there was enough cooperation between the different > operators to make things work smoothly. But it still seems to me that > the single-dispatcher system would have worked more smoothly yet. Currently, UK fire calls are answered by police command centres and passed to the military fire services as many UK firefighters and control room staff are on strike. Mountain Rescue and Cave Rescue services are contacted via the Police. However, UK emergency services appear well able to handle emergencies wherever they occur. (following story is today's news on www.bbc.co.uk/news ) Two yachtsmen have been saved from treacherous waters off the coast of Malaysia after sending a mayday call to the Falmouth coastguard. Thomas Jordan, from Southampton, and David Rauch, from Vallonte, France, were sailing from Lumut to Lankawi, along the western Malaysian coast, when they got into trouble. The pair initially tried to contact the Malaysian authorities after their 38-foot sloop, Blue, sank 10 miles off the coast on a routine sailing trip. After getting no response they called Falmouth Coastguard using a pre- programmed number in their satellite telephone. They were eventually rescued from a life raft by a local fishing vessel which had been alerted to their plight. Falmouth Coastguard officer Ken Bazeley said: "They struck an object in the water and sank within 10 minutes, just enough time to get in the life raft. "They were unable to get any attention locally. "Knowing we were here they called us and we were able to contact the search and rescue operation out there." The Malaysian authorities arranged for a fishing vessel to pick up the stranded men and transfer them to a police launch. See also http://www.oftel.gov.uk/publications/ind_guidelines/emer1002.htm Owain ------------------------------ From: Barry Margolin Subject: Re: RIAA Orders US Navy to Surrender Organization: Genuity, Woburn, MA Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 20:19:24 GMT In article , Bob Goudreau wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Maybe it would be a good idea for the > RIAA to poll its members on whether or not military guys should be > deprived of their entertainment. No one is being "deprived of their entertainment". They're just expected to buy CD's, just like anyone else. Others have posted that the military officers involved are cadets at a naval academy. It's my understanding (and I could be wrong, as most of what I know about the military comes from TV and movies) that these academies have a strict honor code that cadets are required to obey, which is beyond that expected of regular military folk. I can't imagine that copyright violation would be allowed by the honor code. Barry Margolin, barmar@genuity.net Genuity, Woburn, MA *** DON'T SEND TECHNICAL QUESTIONS DIRECTLY TO ME, post them to newsgroups. Please DON'T copy followups to me -- I'll assume it wasn't posted to the group. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The United States Naval Academy is located at Annapolis, Maryland. That place does have some very stringent rules and regulations for cadets. But not all commissioned officers come out of Annapolis. The Navy also has a program where if you commit to a certain number of years with them, you can go to the college or university of your choice and the Navy will pay for the whole thing. My cousin was in that sort of program and went to Purdue University for four years compliments of the Navy. PAT] ------------------------------ From: AES/newspost Subject: Re: RIAA Orders US Navy to Surrender Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 12:35:09 -0800 In article , tonypo1@cox.net wrote: > The RIAA is really carrying things too far - and I'm hoping that the > backlash will be enough to make them re-think such draconian > enforcement of their rules. AMEN!!! "Power tends to corrupt. Absolute power corrupts absolutely." Lord Acton (1834-1902) "Dependence on advertising tends to corrupt. Total dependence on advertising corrupts totally." (today's equivalent) ------------------------------ From: rrd@ftc.agilent.com (Ray Depew) Subject: Re: RIAA Orders US Navy to Surrender Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 21:11:56 UTC Organization: Agilent Technologies Ed Ellers (ed_ellers@msn.com) wrote: > Nobody's computer was stolen here -- the laptops in question are > Navy property. Nope. The midshipmen (cadets, college students, future officers, whatever) bought and paid for them. They're not Navy property. The midshipmen may be Navy property, but their computers aren't. Regards, Ray Depew "Hey, capacity THIS, scone boy." - Chris Clarke does his part for international relations on AFU [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I wondered at the time of that message if Ed was possibly mistaken in the ownership of the computers. I know a few things about military bases; I was employed as a civilian at Fort Riley in Junction City, Kansas for about a year during 1999 before I had my brain desease take over. There *were* a truckload of laptops around the place which belonged to the Army and I am sure the Navy is similarly situated. But many of the soldiers who lived in the barracks had personal computers in their rooms. Many of the guys I talked to/taught were on the internet with their own computers and many had cameras so that on Yahoo, for example, when their chatting friend asked 'let me check out your cam' they were able and willing to do it. The guys had lots of MP-3s also as I recall, and listened to them all the time. As my father once harrumped in 1990 before he died, 'well the Army is not the same place it was when I was in it. (1941-45)' And that was in 1990, as the internet was catching on just a little ... no, it isn't. Nor is the Navy/Marines/Air Force. But whenever a young guy is in a position where he can 'get his ass blown off anytime' on the whim of some fat cat in Washington, DC making decisions for him, then my belief is he can do no wrong ... if he likes collecting music, that's fine with me. One of the saddest times for me there was on 'departure day' when a platoon was told they were going to be shipping out to Bosnia a few days later. And the guys would joke and kid around, but you could easily tell it was a lot of bravado, and that some of them would never be seen again, and they would trade off their MP-3's and comp- uters with cams etc to their buddies and say goodbye to their Yahoo chat friends. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 16:12:53 EST From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: My Error on CellSocket Devices A week ago or so I told you here that Mike Sandman had CellSockets for sale. These are the devices you set your cellphone in to, then use a regular wired phone to converse over. They really are clever devices and when used with an external antenna (mine is in a corner of my bedroom near a window) they really work great. You can have them serve as one line on a two line phone, etc. Obviously you never pay for any long distance calls, and you get to use up all those extra nighttime minutes that otherwise go to waste. Well the problem is, Mike decided against selling the CellSockets because he could not reach good terms with the manufacturer of same. Mike had intended to be a distributor for the company, but the terms they offered were not to his liking. So forget that I told you to look in his catalog ( www.sandman.com ) for them or otherwise write him at mike@sandman.com to ask about the technical stuff, etc. He still is the telecom distributor of record for the Digest, he just does not have CellSockets or anything similar right now. :( PAT ------------------------------ From: Kuo, Yao (Y.H.) Subject: AIRWAVES FCC Database Search is Not Working? Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 11:14:31 -0500 Anything happening at AIRWAVES FCC Database Search ? It's not working for past few days? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Not just the past few days ... it has been out of order for almost a year now. :( I don't know what I am going to do with it. I cannot locate where the FCC put the database and it would appear the format is quite different also. Maybe I will be able to get to it sometime soon. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Joey Lindstrom Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 10:14:08 -0700 Subject: Re: Last Laugh! Parakeets Reply-To: joey@lairdsflooring.com On Tue, 26 Nov 2002 01:44:40 -0500 (EST), George Heller (allegedly) wrote: > Hi I just thought I would let everybody know that I love my parakeet > so much that I decided to make love to it. I tell you that thing gave > me the best I've ever had in my life. Too bad I'm not good enough to > pleasure even a parakeet. You have to wrap it in duct tape first, otherwise it'll explode. :-) Q: What do duct tape and The Force have in common? A: Both have a light side and a dark side, and they bind the universe together. And if you haven't seen it, rent "Red Green's Duct Tape Forever" soon. :-) Joey Lindstrom - Laird's Flooring joey@lairdsflooring.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Joey, you are very sick. I would expect that sort of sickness from someone at Bell Sympatico or Hotmail but hearing it from you absolutely shocks me. Tsk Tsk Tsk .... 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 Fax 3: 775-642-0603 Fax 4: 530-309-7234 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 V22 #150 ******************************